Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy X

Well hi everyone! Thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, followed and favourited during the hiatus! I really, really appreciate it!

Now, back in with a little light-hearted one.

Enjoy!

068. Free

Hazel burst into the kitchen, alarming her father but barely disturbing her mother.

"Mom!" She declared loudly.

"Yeah?" Her mother replied, putting down the trashy romance novel she was reading. Her father noted the book with a raised eyebrow that her mother responded to with a rude hand gesture.

"I need... advice."

Rikku shrugged. "Sure. Clothes?"

Hazel shook her head. "Boys."

Rikku's eyebrows shot up for a moment before she began to chuckle evilly.

"Don't ask your mother then, Hazel. She's useless."

"Don't be such a meanie! I married you!"

Auron put down the newspaper he had been reading. "Yes, you did. But only because I was beaten down by you, and I owed you a debt since you brought me back."

"And since you knocked me up so quickly."

"Exactly. You prove my point."

Both parents turned to Hazel and in unison echoed, "Don't do that."

Hazel frowned at her parents. "Noted... I'm going to go and ask uncle Tidus."

Rikku laughed even harder. "No don't, he's the worst!"

Auron watched Rikku laugh for a while before he met Hazel's eyes and shrugged. "He seemed fine in my eyes - if a little slow."

"That's because you used to be a monk."

"I still got proposed to more times than you did."

Rikku stopped laughing and held her jaw open in shock. "Excuse me!"

"Excused." He went back to holding the newspaper before his face.

"Well, now your helpful father has gone back to being his most helpful,"

"Rikku."

"Yes dear! Anyway, now I can tell you why Tidus was so terrible."

Hazel sat down in the chairs under the counter, facing her mother. "Why?"

"Because I gave him all the advice. And I gave Yuna all of her advice. Basically, I got those two together - don't even start Auron!" She interrupted herself when she saw the newspaper begin to lower. With a rustle, he pulled it back before his face.

"So, I'll give you my advice, and I'll give it to you for free."

Hazel nodded, leaning forward in anticipation.

"Never date someone you've just met. Always get to know their friends. And always, always take it slow."

Hazel checked through the list in her head, mumbling the words. "Got it!"

"Don't do stupid things to get them to notice you - they'll just think you're stupid,

"That's true."

Rikku scowled. "And the best thing to do is to trick yourself into not liking them, that way you can get to know them as a person better. Nine times out of ten, you won't like them as much as you think you do."

"Trick yourself out of liking them?" Hazel narrowed her eyes, in the same way her father did. But she tilted her head just like her mother always had done. "How do you do that?"

"Yes - do you also have the cure to world hunger there, too?"

"Hey! I did it to myself with you, you know! And I could do it again!" Rikku insisted.

Auron laughed darkly. "Clearly, it never worked."

"How do you know that?"

Auron lowered his newspaper and stared at his wife across the room. She smiled sweetly back him, and he smiled, almost widely enough to call it a grin.

Hazel raised an eyebrow.

Her mother shook her head. "Sorry."

"Tricking yourself out of liking people?"

"Yeah... oh, right. Well, pick a celebrity you like instead and in your mind, transfer the feelings to them. That way, you'll be fixed on an ideal you'll never get. If you still like the person in comparison, then I guess you just really like them."

Hazel let out a long sigh. "That... makes a lot of sense."

"Thank you." Rikku grinned, looking briefly like her twenty-year-old self again, Auron thought as he watched her and his daughter.

"She's right, Hazel."

Hazel turned to look at her father. "Be kind, and honest and open. It's the best to present yourself to the world as you are, no hiding."

Hazel nodded, and Rikku looked at Auron with a sad smile. She recognised what he was saying from the hard lesson he'd learnt.

She sighed, happily. They'd both come a long way, over the years.

Fun fact: I do this. It has always been extremely helpful. Do not go out with guys you're only infatuated with, girls~! Speaking as an elder, hahaha.

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