As she peeled her eyes away from the room service menu brochure, Squall could see Rinoa's nose wrinkle ever so subtly. He was sitting on the center inner edge of the mattress as she sat on his left, an arm's reach from the nightstand in between the beds. The blondes assumed mirror-image positions on the other bed with Quistis closer to the nightstand.

"…I'm sorry Quistis, looks like wine is off the menu." she apologized. "Says here that they need to see ID when they deliver to the rooms. And even if Selphie hadn't stolen them, the legal drinking age is only 19 for residents of Esthar. The drinking age for non-residents is 22 for some reason."

She let out a long sigh. "It's alright, I'm not terribly surprised by that. Esthar may have eased up on their collective xenophobia a little bit but culture isn't always as quick to change. At least Selphie didn't say all four of us had to be present at a checkpoint. I could hide out here until it's my turn."

"That's true." Rinoa said with a nod. "So long as we're mindful of the time with whatever clocks are nearby, we can switch in and out. I could even escort you guys to make it seem like you're a part of a magical act even-"

She paused for a moment, then her eyes lit up brighter than a Holy spell.

"…Come to think of it, she just said you had to be at the checkpoint with only your stuff. She didn't say we couldn't like, hide it until we got there. So if we do a buddy system, a person who doesn't have a checkpoint to pass by could put everything in a bag, find a bathroom and change. Then that reduces the amount of time you're in those ridiculous get ups."

"Selphie would have already factored that in when she picked her checkpoint locations to make that strategy ineffective." he pointed out. "The attached complex has three levels on a property that spans a city block. Any of the public bathrooms are built away from any meeting spaces and attractions to avoid congestion. You're still crossing one end of a floor to another at minimum. If my case is any indication, she likely picked public places where our case contents would stand out the most."

Rinoa blinked.

"…Remind me never to get on Selphie's bad side. Not like any of know what we did to her to earn her wrath this time, but still…" She left the sentence hanging as she peered down at the menu once more. "At least we can exact a tiny fraction of revenge because these prices are ridiculous. Not gonna lie though, though part of me is legitimately curious about crunchy Deling toast."

"I know I told you I wanted the meat eater's plate but could you see if they can add a side order of that for me too?" Zell asked, "I was curious about that too."

"There is only the option to do full orders. Do you think you can eat all of that?"

"Psh. Rin, what kind of question is that? Of course I can pack it away. And even if I couldn't, it doesn't matter if it goes to waste - we're not paying for any of this, remember?"

"You know what…you're absolutely right. Money is no object. Remind me to order us some lobsters encrusted with caviar and diamonds at lunch." Rinoa joked. "A whole pot of coffee good for everyone? Or should we splurge and order two? It doesn't say how big the pots are."

"One should be fine-"

"-I want orange juice, actually."

"Ok. I'll just add a glass for you and I'll just do the one pot. Quistis, you wanted the spinach omelette?"

"Yes."

Rinoa took a piece of hotel stationery and started writing down all their orders. She paused for a moment to look up at him.

"Alright. Squall?"

"I'll have the same as Quistis."

"Ok." Rinoa jot down an 'x 2' beside the spinach omelette before spending the next minute placing the order on the phone. Once she set down the receiver she announced, "It'll be about a half hour so did you guys want to go over my slip of paper?"

"Might as well." Quistis said, prompting Rinoa to slink back on the bed and crawl around him to access her open case.

Once she re-sat herself with the paper in hand, she started reading it.

"Clover - get lucky. Roll the die, and see what you get. Fours only, please." She paused for a moment to tuck some errant hairs behind her ear. "Spade - pick flowers. A girl can't make a fancy crown without some flora. Real flowers only, please."

He wasn't likely to ditch the pink shorts, Squall mentally remarked. Esthar prided itself on boasting a practically hypo-allergenic environment for the vast majority of public spaces.

"Diamond – find ice. I need a drink, stat. Cool it down, please." she read before adding, "I'm pretty sure we're the ones who need the drink, but ok."

When a peal of giggles escaped Rinoa's mouth in lieu of more reciting, Squall wanted to pre-emptively groan. He couldn't read the piece of paper from his vantage point without risking a crick in his neck. As she gave him a brief sympathetic look after the laughter subsided, she didn't need to say anything else to know Selphie was out to screw with him in particular with the last requirement.

"I'm sorry but I need to do a dramatic reading of this one because it's so ridiculous I can't not." she sorta-apologized before jumping into theatrics, complete with flailing hand gestures for good measure. "Heart! Kiss cam! Make your own pecks tape! Don't have a camera?! Selphie Tilmitt can loan you one for the low, low, price of a minute of footage! Tongue, please."

Squall immediately rescinded any mental note he previously had about signing their breakfast bill to his room.

"…Is it too late to add a pitcher of ice cubes to our order?"

"That hot and bothered by that last one, eh Squall?" Zell ribbed.

"Not a fan of gross invasions of privacy, so no." he retorted. "I said that because it's literally the only avenue we have to find ice since none of us are junctioned. They don't have ice machines here."

Zell's grin flattened. "…Seriously?!"

"Seriously."

"Rinoa, can you do the thing?"

Rinoa let out a snicker. "Sure Zell. I can do the thing and get us some ice."

The sorceress made a point to comically drag out the act of reaching out to grab the phone and dialing the single digit needed to reach the room service department, much to his chagrin and Squall's delight. Once the ice was successfully appended to their already-bloated order, she got back to the task at hand.

"Jokes aside Squall, as much as I don't like encouraging Selphie's voyeuristic tendencies, I think we're gonna need to take one for the team for Quistis's sake. Unless you want to go for broke and troll our dear friend by kissing Zell. I won't take offense if that's what your heart tells you to do."

Squall tossed her an incredulous look as Zell's eyes bugged out of his skull.

"The voyeuristic tendencies are bad enough, I'm not about to feed her already over-active imagination." he curtly responded before shifting his gaze towards Quistis. "Before we have to deal with melting ice, we should narrow down trade options between Rinoa or Zell's cases. I doubt we could find real flowers easily to consider anything from mine."

"That's a fair point." Quistis agreed. "I was thinking of trading necklace for the tentacle."

"Q, I respect you as a person and a friend but I respectfully have to tell you hell no." he said. "It's bad enough when my morph suit looks like a censored naked body like what happens whenever your characters shower in that family simulator computer game I can't remember the name of. I don't need to look like walking nightmare fuel."

"I think that's moot point when no one can see your face."

"I think it's not moot point when Selphie can take a pic for blackmail to lord over my head forever." Zell countered. "I think you'll have to trade with Rinoa. The only options that won't leave one of us pantsless is either trading the glasses for the necklace or the morph suit for your pants. And I'm guessing those items are the least of your worries."

"You wouldn't be wrong." she conceded before turning towards Rinoa. "Could you part with your cape if I gave you my heart glasses?"

"I can definitely do that."

"Perfect." she said, now looking visibly relieved. "Does your note say where to meet her?"

"It does. We have to go to the lobby lounge, wherever that is. I'm guessing she picked there because it's probably closed for business until later." the sorceress theorized before tilting her head to the right. "We should probably go there now since we don't need to wait up for the ice."

"Might as well." Squall shrugged before twisting backwards to fish through his case to find the larger set of flip flops.

He nearly did a double take when he pulled out both pairs at the same time and noticed they were both pure white instead of some godawful neon colour. Rinoa followed suit by walking back to her own case and plucking out a pair of her flip flops before stuffing the die into her right pocket. Instead of retaking her place, she promptly waved her flip flops in front of his head as he was slipping his own on.

"If you need a little more kitsch to go with the rest of your case, you can trade me these sparkly red flip flops."

"I'll pass, thanks." he politely brushed off as he stood up. "You have a key card?"

"Sure do." she confirmed as she dropped her sandals to put them on.

After he had visual confirmation of this when she fished the card out of her left pocket, he started walking towards the door. To his surprise, she didn't linger for a moment like she usually did to say goodbyes on both their behalf, opting to briskly zip by him to be the one opening the door. Squall supposed he was overthinking this – it was a given that they were coming back because of the situation. There really wasn't much need to make the usual production of things.

Nevertheless, he still couldn't shake the feeling that something was off when she took the lead once they were out of the room, especially considering that she admitted she didn't know where the bar was a moment ago.

Then once they were a good length of the hallway from the room, she stopped walking and pivoted on the spot to face him.

"-I'm sorry that the Zell joke was super-awkward. I was trying to make a joke back at Zell for the earlier thing and I regretted it from the moment it left my mouth."

"It's fine. Just know that you'll have to live with the fact you made Zell hot and bothered at the thought of him kissing me in front of Selphie."

"Thanks, Squall. Now I'll have to live with the fact you actually made that joke and it's now seared into my brain, regardless if that was accurate or not." she dryly replied.

"You're welcome."

"Ugh, you're such a jerk. But I deserved it this time and only this time." she said before changing gears altogether. "Anyway, I've been thinking it over and I do have a plan for the kiss cam part when we cross that bridge. It'll make Selphie deeply dissatisfied. You'll have to follow my lead without any prep to make it look convincing though."

"That's fine."

"Perfect." There was a slight pause before she reached for his left hand, which he gently accepted. "…In case we don't get any more alone time later, it's really nice to see you again…even under these super-zany circumstances. It's felt like…forever since we've been in the same place."

Her cheeks went rosy as she spoke that last sentence and he was compelled to deepen the blush as he stole a small kiss on her lips.

"…It really has."

The mood in the lobby lounge was a stark contrast to their stolen moments along the way to their arrival here.

Once he and Rinoa had made it all the way to the ground floor and made a beeline past the front desk to the right and around the corner where the lounge was in this semi-secluded alcove. The room was blindingly illuminated by the floor to wall windows letting in the beams of light. Squall was not hungover by any stretch of the imagination, having not consumed so much as a drop of alcohol in quite some time for obvious reasons, but he sure as hell felt every bit of the headache. The sunlight even felt loud somehow and he couldn't wrap his brain around that as he and Rinoa traversed the cold, pearlescent white tile of the empty space between the rows of circular brush metallic high top tables sans chairs.

The bar's wares were displayed behind ultra-polished glass display cases with a gradient of frosted decal lines on the bottom half of them, located behind the black bar counter on the right. On the window-side there was a razor-thin white counter running all along the wall, dotted with full-back, translucent barstools in front of them.

On the far wall were three half-circle, charcoal grey booths nestled in there on a small, raised platform separating them from the rest of the bar area. And in the center booth at its apex was Selphie Tilmitt with her camcorder on one side, a near-full glass of some kind of blue drink on the other and a patchy flower crown on her head. No sooner than they'd locked eyes than she started to drum her fingers rhythmically against the table with a gleeful smile.

"Sooo, you're taking me up on my offer, huh?" she remarked, "Most awesome! Which cases are you going for?"

"Selphie, we came to reason with you." Rinoa said as she approached the booth. "Why are you doing this? What did we ever do to you? Friends don't make friends wear smelly tentacles - even replica ones that aren't the real deal."

The drumming stopped as she reached for her cup and took a small sip of her blue drink.

"It's nothing personal. You'll understand when it's over." she diplomatically answered in a very formal tone, eyes trained on the both of them as she wiped her mouth and swirled her glass a little. It was a nearly-soundless motion with the lack of ice in the cup, but the effect was still there – it was plan to see that this was mob princess Selphie they were dealing with. "Now, which cases are you going for? Or did you guys just come down here just to beg for mercy?"

Rinoa shot him a perplexed look before answering the question.

"Heart and clover." she answered in a similar business-like tone, pulling the die out of her pocket. She took two steps forward and rolled it on the table without hesitation. A six.

"Oh, guess you'll have to find another case since that's not a four." the brunette declared, pushing back the die away from her.

The sorceress took it in hand but did not pocket it; instead she re-rolled.

"Your info card didn't say it was a one-time roll." she countered. "I can re-roll as many times as I want until I get a four. And would you look at that? Second time's…not the charm?"

"-Stop. Just stop. I'll give you that one." Selphie conceded. "Shoulda made that job description airtight. Fortunately for me, the heart case's description is vacuum-sealed. Since I don't see anything in your hands or weird bulges in either of your pockets, is it safe to assume you need this video camera to burn some film for one hot minute?"

When she picked it up and clicked a large button, a dull drone, light blink and chime indicated it came to life. Rinoa gave her a curt nod. She took two steps backwards to be at his side once more.

"You stole everyone's phones so yes, yes we do." she confirmed. "Just say when."

Selphie raised the camera so she could look through a view finder and hit a different button, eliciting a different-sounding beep. Out of the corner of his eye, he waited for a signal from Rinoa to do something, anything, but she was just staring at Selphie…and staring…and…

"Blepping doesn't count as tongue, Rinoa!" Selphie said in an exasperated tone. "You need to actually kiss!"

While he didn't notice whatever the 'blep' she was doing, her current grin was another story, even from a side profile view. She then grabbed his right hand without warning and without much to go on, he found himself looking at her hand on his. She raised it to her mouth and kissed the back of his hand with her tongue lightly grazing the skin, reminding him of all the times he witnessed Irvine's deliberate attempts to fail at wooing random girls in a bid to get Selphie's attention. As he looked into her eyes, it took him everything he had to look confused instead of in reverence at the sheer calculated nature of the move as he locked eyes with his girlfriend.

After a small wink on her part, she shifted her attention towards their paparazzo once more.

"You never specified it had to be on the mouth."

Selphie lowered the camera, revealing a visibly-sour expression on her face.

"It doesn't matter because Irvine didn't let my camera charge on the way here and the battery ran out AGAIN." she groaned. "I don't even have the proof you were such a jerk- hahah!"

"…'Haha,' what?"

The brunette jabbed a finger in their general direction. "Say what you want for the wording, my stipulation was that you had to be recorded. My camera cut out before you even reached for Squall's hand! You'll have to find another case quest unless if you can get someone to record you smooching with tongue and have it shown to me. And let's face it, doing that's more trouble than its worth."

In that moment when Squall could have sworn he watched Rinoa visibly deflate at this turn of events, he knew he had to step up to the plate and be the one to take one for the team.

For Quistis.

For the last few shreds of Zell's dignity.

And most of all, for the revenge of Rinoa's brilliant plan, dashed by bad luck.

"…If we were to cut the bullshit and give you what you obviously wanted to see," he began, "would you overlook the fact that it's not recorded?"

The proposal reset Selphie's expression back to its default glee setting.

"On two conditions," she prefaced with the utmost zeal, "One – to put it on record, what I want to see is a kiss on the lips between you two where at least one tongue slips inside someone's mouth that doesn't last like 2 seconds. And two – you, Mr. Squall Leonhart have to finally confirm that you two are a thing. And by thing, I mean, you have to tell me, right in front of my face with at least a definite yes or no if you two are dating with zero sarcasm or jokes. Mostly because while I feel like I'm super confident that you are a thing, I think it's super weird that neither of you have actually said it aloud to anyone. If you are not, I want an equally non-sarcastic and joke-free detailed explanation of what you are because I need to know for science."

Do it for the team…do it for the team…do it…

"We are."

"We are what, Mr. Squall?" Selphie pressed as she leaned over the table with her hands clasped together, nearly knocking over her glass of blue drink in the process.

Do it…do it…

"We are…dating."

The grin on Selphie's face threated to break her face so she opened up her clasped hand and slapped her open palms on her cheeks.

"Eeeee—yes!" she squee'd, moving one of her hands to punch up into the air over this…victory? Squall couldn't understand what the big deal was, really. "I now pronounce you girlfriend and boyfriend. You may now kiss each other silly."

In that moment, Squall looked at Rinoa and she gave him a reassuring smile and yet another wink.

She coiled her hands around his nape and nearly brought him down at her level with one deft downward pulling motion but she did not bridge the gap fully for their lips to instantly meet. Instead, she took a small step forward into the small sliver of personal space he had while making a point to look him in the eyes as she did it. Squall swore he heard Selphie slide the full length of the table to get a closer vantage point.

Then Rinoa did it again with enough gusto to force him to instinctively back up until he collided with the back of a high top chair. Once he was pinned, she raised herself on her tip-toes and leaned in, forcing him to grab onto the edge of the chair for purchase as she zeroed in on him with a fiery kiss. He couldn't reciprocate much because of the awkward angle but it didn't matter that it was all flash and no substance – judging by the squeaks and near-inaudible gasps, Selphie was either taken in by the smoke and mirrors or she took delight in the concept of him being seduced against his will.

Fortunately, Rinoa decided that now was the time to slip him the requisite tongue and effectively cut short any rational —read: irrational— thought before he could ponder any more about which it was.

Things were already weird enough as is.