(Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy or its characters. This is just for fun.)
Squall hated Mondays.
Monday was the worst day of the week according to him. Actually if you asked anybody on the street they would agree. Mondays were the worst. It was a simple fact of life for anybody who worked a 9-5 job. Weekends. Good. Weekdays. Bad.
The only other time of the week that was nearly as bad was Sunday night, and that was only because of the mere anticipation of Monday was enough to cause dread. As the Sunday sun set, you knew your weekend time was numbered. It would only be a matter of hours before you were stuck at your ugly desk in your stupid and pointless job, having to make small talk with co-workers who tolerated your presence only because they were being paid.
It was an awful but inevitable part of life, Monday's dawn could not be stopped.
So this particular Monday morning, Squall sat at his desk and threw himself into his work, like always. It was his routine. He tried to block out the fact that he was far away from the safety and solitude of the weekend. The glorious weekend when he didn't have to interact with people, at least not if he didn't want to. And he never wanted to. That's why Mondays were the hardest for him. At least that's what he would have thought a few weeks ago, but something was different now.
This Monday was different.
Maybe weekends weren't as glorious as he'd previously thought. Most weekends were a wonderful time to recharge his batteries. He spent his time as he pleased. He watched what he wanted and ate what he wanted, all in the blissful silence of solitude. But this weekend he'd tossed and turned and wallowed in his thoughts. He didn't know exactly why he felt worse. He'd spent his weekend like he always had before.
It was terrible.
Watching TV by himself didn't seem so fun. Eating by himself was boring and bland. Exercising felt pointless and repetitive. Scrubbing countertops and ironing shirts didn't fill him with a feeling of accomplishment. Every time he tried to read, his mind wandered and his eyes kept looking over the same sentence without his mind comprehending it.
Squall Leonhart was lost and broken. His whole sense of self had been thrown off. What used to work, didn't anymore. It was disorienting to him.
Had Squall's weekends always been bad, and he just didn't notice? Were his tastes changing? What used to please him now felt like a self-imposed cage. He wanted to break out of it, but he didn't know how.
If Squall didn't have this boring job, he'd have next to no human contact at all. He suddenly came to the realization that his self-imposed isolation wasn't a good thing. He was introverted, but he didn't have to completely separate himself from humanity. He didn't have to confine himself by his limited view of himself and always be solitary.
Solitary confinement.
Wasn't that the worst punishment possible? Reserved only for the worst offenders who got themselves thrown into a Galbadian desert prison? Why would he impose that on himself? He wondered. Family strain, past hurts, and his general natural disposition had contributed to it, he supposed. Maybe he'd dug himself into this hole, but it wasn't impossible to climb out of it.
He wasn't sure how to do that, but the idea was there, tickling at the back of his brain. What seemed impossible a few weeks ago didn't seem that way anymore.
It was Monday, the dawn of a new day, a new week. He could be a new Squall Leonhart. He already was changing enough that he felt relieved to be at work and be out amongst people.
Strange.
From an outside perspective he didn't look any different. He was still a reliable employee who showed up on time and did his job, but his attitude was different. He was becoming interested in others, and he no longer viewed his coworkers as annoyances to be avoided. Instead of tuning everybody out, he was trying to listen in on what was happening in the office around him.
Although maybe he was more interested in one particular coworker than the others. A certain fresh faced new receptionist with dark eyes and a sometimes crooked smile. That smile could be described as playful or mischievous, and it had certainly gotten his attention.
It was kinda hard to ignore a person who'd dumped hot coffee on his crotch in the past week.
He didn't hold it against her. It wasn't her fault. Or maybe it was. It didn't matter. His crotch was okay now, not that anybody asked.
He glanced briefly at the ceiling tiles and wondered what she'd do to him this week.
Were her earlier eccentricities a one-time thing due to first week jitters? He hoped not. He didn't want to go back to being bored. Maybe she was an exciting person all the time and people who hung out with her were able to avoid dull and dreary lives that were full of mundane boredom. Maybe she was a catalyst. A livewire. A spark.
He wanted to capture that spark and keep it with him.
Or maybe he was just imagining the whole thing. She was just an ordinary girl with an ordinary job. Maybe Squall was just overreacting to having a somewhat exciting week. Maybe it had only seemed exciting because his normal life was so impossibly boring.
Maybe it wasn't her, it was him.
That phrase was usually reserved for somebody trying to end a relationship, not start one, but Squall wasn't an expert on these things.
There was only one way to find out about his feeling though. He could get to know her better and see if there was anything more to her. He wanted to know.
Squall kept typing while all these thoughts swirled in his head, unknown to anyone around him.
Men were often stereotyped as not being able to multitask, but maybe they just weren't motivated enough to split their attention. He would have loved to just focus completely on Rinoa, but he was being paid to work. So that was what he was doing. Working. He continued to type on his computer, but he strained his ears to hear anything coming from Rinoa's section of the office.
He would be ashamed to admit that he was spying on her, but he wanted to know more about her, and he wasn't going to go up and talk to her himself. That would be out of character and would get a curious response from Quistis at best and a crude response from Seifer at worst. He wanted to avoid that sort of attention. He couldn't just do that.
Maybe if he'd cultivated a different persona, he could just walk up there to say 'hello,' but that wasn't his reality. So right now his only other option was eavesdropping. It allowed him to learn more about her, but also allowed him to hide. His cubicle gave him adequate privacy and unlimited eavesdropping potential. His ears were always trained on picking up any information about her.
Too bad it had been a relatively quiet Monday morning. Most of the time everyone would recount the activities or obligations of the weekend, and Squall would usually ignore it as much as he could. Irvine would talk about some hot women he met, although Squall felt that these 'hot women' were most likely imaginary. Then Seifer would talk about how he'd almost struck it rich, and Squall would heavily emphasize the 'almost' part in his mind. Zell would talk about doing errands for his mom or his workout routine. Selphie would chatter to everyone within earshot about nothing. And then Quistis would smile and laugh at everybody else, apparently finding people watching to be amusing, for some reason that didn't make sense to Squall.
None of that was happening this morning, and that was odd. Squall had barely even heard a peep out of Seifer. Was everybody recovering from a wild weekend, or was everybody just as boring and bored as himself? He didn't know because he didn't know any of these people that well.
He side-eyed Seifer's cubicle and actually saw him sitting upright in his office chair. He was looking straight at his computer with his eyebrows furrowed while typing. Even Seifer was all business this morning. Maybe he should just take inspiration from his usually antagonistic cubicle neighbor and focus on his work as well. He wasn't being paid to wish that somebody would start a decently loud and intrusive conversation with Rinoa this morning.
He took a deep breath and started sorting through the stack of papers in his inbox tray. Now this is what he got paid to do. Mindless, repetitive work that required double checking and tallying numbers. Making sure all the accounts were correct. Not exactly mentally stimulating or social, but it paid his bills.
His fingers flipped through the stack of papers, while sorting and arranging them. Over the rustling of papers he heard the soft tread of boots on the thin office carpet. The footsteps sounded small, but rapid. Could it be Selphie tiptoeing up to the receptionist desk? His hands held steady, focusing his attention.
Squall bit his lip. He had been waiting for this. When the office got this quiet, the silence would inevitably be broken by somebody. The office had been experiencing a lull in customer service calls, so it seemed that Selphie was looking for some social interaction to enliven her day.
Good. Good job Selphie.
Squall was lucky that he wasn't the only person in the office with an interest in Rinoa. He could tell that Selphie had been genuinely enthused to have another receptionist in their midst. It seemed that she was always looking for a new best friend. Squall didn't know if she was just naturally social or just attention starved for girlish companionship, but he'd take what he'd get. Right now, all he had to do was listen whenever Selphie was eager to chat.
She finished tiptoeing up to the desk and jumped with a loud clomp in front of Rinoa's desk.
"Hiya," Selphie said loudly enough for everybody to hear. "Did you have a nice weekend? How's Balamb been treating you?" He could hear the cheerful energy radiating from her voice. She wouldn't be deterred until she knew Rinoa better. Nobody could stop Selphie. She'd bulldoze right through a person.
He never thought he'd be thankful for Selphie's incessant need for socializing.
Squall held his breath, waiting to hear about what Rinoa did over the weekend. What were her hobbies? What did she like to do? Where did she like to hang out? How did she spend her time? Who did she spend her time with? He wanted to know every last specific detail.
His eyes stared blankly at the blinking cursor on his screen awaiting her response, and his mind got ready to record her responses.
"Balamb's been great," Rinoa said. "The weather here is so much more temperate than Deling City."
"Really?" Selphie asked. "That's neat." There was a long and uncomfortable pause. Squall could just imagine Selphie hanging over Rinoa's receptionist desk trying to come up with something else to say. Something that would get Rinoa to come out of her shell so she'd be Selphie's new best friend.
Squall turned all of his attention to his hearing and willed for Selphie to succeed. The office was so quiet he could hear his own breathing. Why wasn't anybody talking?
"I like your shirt," Selphie said finally. "Is blue one of your favorite colors?"
He heard Rinoa's beaten up office chair creak noisily as she shifted her weight.
"Yeah," Rinoa said blandly.
Favorite colors? Squall lamented inwardly. Wasn't Selphie a better conversationalist than that? At least he thought she was. He usually tuned office chatter out. She seemed like she'd be able to get a good girls' conversation going. She obviously wanted to make a new girlfriend. Squall had never considered she might not be good in that department.
He sighed and stopped focusing on their conversation. He wasn't going to learn anything about Rinoa if all they talked about was the weather, and hearing them give compliments on each other's outfits wasn't exactly informative either. Squall didn't feel that he was learning much of anything during this interaction, other than Rinoa was polite enough to put up with it. He started losing hope that he'd get to know Rinoa better during this particular instance. Maybe eavesdropping wasn't the best idea he had after all.
As they chatted about clothes and colors he felt embarrassed and decided to stop listening in on their mundane conversation altogether. He opened up a file and began checking to see if the accounts received tallied up correctly.
Unbeknownst to Squall, across the office, Rinoa pulled out a photo to show Selphie while they chatted about nothing in particular.
"That photo is super adorable of you two!" Selphie exclaimed. "I'm so jealous." She sounded much more animated than she had a few minutes before.
At the term 'jealous,' Squall's ears perked up and he stopped working. Those accounts could wait to be tallied. He wanted to know what they were talking about. His hands hovered over his keyboard, not even wanting to make sound with his typing.
"Yea, we've been inseparable for years," Rinoa explained with a big smile.
Were they talking about a boyfriend? His heart jumped in his chest.
He felt crushed. He should have figured a nice person like Rinoa would already have a boyfriend. She was sweet and attractive. Who wouldn't like her? But hearing it confirmed hurt nonetheless. He didn't know he'd been holding out hope that she was single. And it sounded like a long term relationship too. They were probably committed to each other.
"How sweet!" Selphie said, her voice dripping with a syrupy tone that was usually reserved for cute animals and babies.
Squall cringed. Even Selphie thought this guy was a great catch. He didn't know what Selphie was into, but if both Rinoa and Selphie thought this guy was attractive, he probably was. Lucky jerk. Lucky jerk who wasn't destined to die alone, unlike Squall.
Squall pushed back from his desk and tried to straighten out his slumped spine. He had work to do. He had a pointless one-sided office crush for a week, and now it was time to give it up. Maybe it was for the best. It had only been one week of emotional ups and downs. Late bloomer that he was, he could now say he'd had a crush. That was interesting. The end. He could concentrate on his work now. Work was important.
He sighed.
This was behind him now.
Yea.
It was a small anomaly in his straight-laced and boring life. Time to commandeer his life, and get it back on track starting now.
He tapped his fingers on his desk while taking a deep breath. He ran his hands through his hair and roughed up the shorter strands at the back.
Time to start thinking about work again. He grabbed a pen off his desk and rolled it between his fingertips.
He should be thinking about work.
But seriously, somebody like Rinoa deserved to be in a loving relationship with a kind and caring person. And that was okay. She probably was treated like a princess. That would be good. He tried to put a selfless spin on this bad news. He pretended that he just wanted her to be happy, instead of him just wanting her.
Rinoa's boyfriend was probably a good guy. Rinoa deserved a good guy. Yea.
He started typing again, slightly breathless, but otherwise okay. His heart rate steadied, albeit at a faster pace than normal.
"I can't imagine what my life would have been like without Angelo," Rinoa said to Selphie.
Squall sat up straight and stopped typing. He felt like he'd been gut punched.
Angelo? Squall thought. What kind of name is Angelo?
Something about that name grated on his nerves. Why couldn't her boyfriend have a normal, non-sexy name like Wimbly or Nida?
Squall immediately started imagining what type of person would be named Angelo. His mind conjured up an image of a large and very muscular man with longish dark hair and brown eyes. He probably hung out at the gym all the time working on his muscle tone. Not only that, but he would be really annoying about it too. Even more annoying than Seifer bragging about how he ran marathons. A real macho type muscle head. And a guy like that wouldn't shave every day either. Some stubble, maybe some facial hair, but not too much. Tattoos? He was probably covered in them. Men's jewelry? Yea. He bet he was the type to walk around shirtless for no reason at all too.
Squall hated him with a passion already. His nostrils flared and his made a fist.
Squall couldn't believe THAT was the sort of person Rinoa was in an inseparable long term relationship with. Rinoa was a precious and delicate flower! That rough jerk didn't deserve her!
Angelo, he growled internally.
Now he wanted to win her over more than ever.
"Did you have lotsa fun with Angelo this weekend?" Selphie asked, Squall could hear the smile in Selphie's voice. Her question was full of playful mirth. It sounded like she was affected by what she saw. He could hear her affections were gushing by the way she spoke.
Squall's ears strained to hear Rinoa's answer.
"I know it sounds silly," Rinoa started to say, "but I kinda just danced around with Angelo this weekend and settled in to my new apartment. Nothing too exciting."
Settling into an apartment together?
The idea of Rinoa and Angelo settling into her apartment together utterly crushed him. His heart beat faster as if a large predator was nearby. He imagined a sweet domestic scene between them. They would be comfortable enough with each other that they could just relax together all weekend. Rinoa would be in form fitting yet comfortable loungewear, Angelo would be shirtless because he always had to show off his stupid physique. They probably were picking out curtains online and making life plans while dancing around and listening to music.
Squall felt hopeless. He shuffled his feet under his office desk.
But suddenly Squall realized she'd said one single word that revived hope in his heart. She'd said 'my' apartment. She didn't describe the apartment as 'theirs.' That was a big difference. Maybe the relationship wasn't as serious as he'd feared. Maybe Angelo wasn't her live-in boyfriend who'd moved out from Galbadia to be with her. Maybe he was just helping her settle in. It would be a long distance relationship from now on.
Long distance relationships were doomed. Squall wasn't a relationship expert, but he'd heard that countless times before. Out of sight, out of mind.
Squall smiled to himself and gripped the edge of his desk, while having mixed emotions He knew it wasn't good to be happy at somebody else's potential misfortune, but he was human after all. And was breaking up with a big muscular tattooed jerk like Angelo really a misfortune?
"Well, if you didn't do much this weekend, how about we all go out for lunch today? Like a big office lunch party to make up for your quiet weekend?" Selphie suggested. She became quiet as she pondered her sudden idea.
Irvine got up from his desk and walked slowly up to where Selphie and Rinoa were talking. "That sounds like a good idea to me. I'm getting mighty tired of brown baggin' it all the time."
Selphie turned to look at Irvine, her shoulders hunched up in surprise at him. She was pleased that he sounded positive towards her idea, but she was somewhat conflicted. For one thing, she wasn't sure if "brown baggin' it" was some sort of innuendo that she, in her naivety, had never heard of. She knew people packed lunches in brown paper bags, so that made sense, but it just sounded kinda dirty when Irvine said it. He just had that way about him.
She decided to ignore any misgivings about Irvine's intentions or his possible innuendos. She just wanted to go out to lunch.
Selphie forced out a tiny smile at him. Irvine raised an eyebrow at her and looked down into her smiling face. She let herself get excited again, and she started to bounce lightly on her heels.
"How about we go to..." Irvine started to suggest.
"Hey, I want to pick the lunch place this time," Selphie said while interrupting Irvine with her hands up in the air. "There's this really super fun place called 'Chew Chew Train Cafe.' They have things like hamburgers, hot dogs, and grilled cheese sandwiches in little red plastic baskets and..."
"Uh..." Irvine said while frowning. He didn't know what he had in mind, but it wasn't that.
"Basic. Too basic for me," Seifer said loudly. He left his cubicle to talk with Irvine and Selphie face to face. "I have a much more developed palate than you. I need something better than that. Gonna have to do better. Another option. Another," he demanded impatiently while jabbing his index finger in her direction.
"You didn't let me finish!" Selphie said, clearly annoyed, but loving the attention nonetheless. She would have been frightened to have Seifer looming over her, but Irvine was next to her, so she felt marginally safer. She continued to try to skew opinion in favor of her choice, and her voice went up a notch. "Your meal comes out to you on a little toy train set." She started mimicking with her hands the way a toy train could putter around a track. "There are tracks all over the restaurant and..."
Seifer let out a laugh, interrupting Selphie yet again. "Customer Service Girl, this place sounds like it's for children," Seifer said with heavy emphasis on the word, children. "You understand that don't you?" He sighed. "I want to go someplace with fine dining options served by a well dressed and beautiful woman."
Hooters isn't classified as 'fine dining' Almasy, Squall thought to himself while staying quietly in his cubicle.
Selphie stomped her foot down. She didn't like being mocked by Seifer, again. "You might see some mega-babes at the Chew Chew Train Cafe," Selphie defended. She thought that probably wasn't true, but maybe it wasn't entirely untrue.
"I think you misspoke," Seifer said while running his hand over his slicked back blond hair. He adjusted his tie. "Not babes, but babies. Actual babies in dirty diapers. Dirty diapers Selphie!"
"Hey man, the place isn't that bad," Zell piped up, walking up to Rinoa's receptionist desk. He leaned his elbows heavily on the desk, crowding around the poor girl.
Squall was listening in to everybody's conversation. This is what he'd been wanting, what he'd been waiting for this boring Monday morning. He wanted people to be social so he could learn more about Rinoa, and now it was practically an office party right up by her desk.
Squall was starting to feel left out. Everybody in the office was hanging out with Rinoa, except him. And that's where he wanted to be. Was there a way he could include himself without seeming out of character? He leaned around the edge of his cubicle and peeked towards the front of the office to see what was happening.
Seifer's head swung around to look at Zell in disbelief. He slapped his hand on her desk hard and the sound thundered through the office. "You've been to this children's restaurant too?"
They were all arguing, and during the commotion Squall figured he could just slip up there. Maybe nobody would notice and he wouldn't seem out of place.
"Hey, good food is good food," Zell said. "The hot dogs are really good and..."
Although maybe they would notice Squall trying to be social and they'd comment about it. Maybe he shouldn't go up there.
Seifer threw his hands up into the air. He couldn't believe his co-workers. They were such children. Were there no adults here? Nobody here was his equal, except maybe Quistis, the office manager. And he would grudgingly accept that Squall was capable of having his moments. At least he would if he had any personality. But the guy was an adult at least.
But now was a pretty good time for Squall to slip up there. He couldn't think of a better time. Maybe he could even go to lunch with everybody. He kept mulling his thoughts over in his head.
"Uh yeah, maybe I don't want to go out to lunch with you guys," Seifer said. "Maybe I'll start eating a brown bag lunch in my car like Squall. Maybe he has the right idea. Just keep the windows rolled up and shut everybody out."
Squall heard his name, but didn't respond.
"Selphie and Zell's tastes are garbage, obviously. I mean, look at both of their hairstyles. I don't think I'd take any recommendations from them, style or food-wise," Seifer said.
Rinoa had been quiet through Selphie's lunch planning, content to let the local Balamb inhabitants steer her towards an acceptable restaurant choice. She was starting to feel trapped as everybody congregated around where she was seated. It was alright before people started arguing, but now it was too much. And she was becoming angry at how incredibly rude Seifer was being to his coworkers. For such a handsome man, she thought he could afford to be more gracious to others. She'd had just about enough.
"You know what?" Rinoa asked while pushing back from her receptionist desk and standing suddenly. A pen went flying from her sudden movement. "I think that train place sounds pretty great. I think I'd like to go there with Selphie and Zell!"
She just hated it when somebody was bullying other people! It made her crazy.
Rinoa walked up to Selphie and Zell and grabbed them by the arms. She turned and started marching out the front door without another word in Seifer's direction.
"Bye!" she yelled with an impassioned slam of the office door.
And that was that.
Actually it wasn't. After her dramatic exit, she had to run back inside to grab her coat. It was still fairly cold outside, but she ignored Seifer's stares and then quickly left again. She didn't always think her plans through.
And then once Selphie, Zell, and Rinoa had their warm coats, they were off to an early lunch.
Author's notes: Okay, I based Squall's idea of Angelo on Gladio from FFXV. Haha, it's like when Squall imagined Griever the ultimate GF, except now it's Angelo, the ultimate imaginary boyfriend. Squall wants to defeat him!