Someone New

By PetiteCookie

A/N: I'm so sorry about the wait! Exams came up and it was just too much! But here we are, back again, and raring to go! Oh and how many re-vamped brand names can you spot?

For those who've forgotten, the end of the previous chapter:

"Trouble with the boyfriend?" Auron's eyebrow twitched.

"Oh not you poppet!" Rikku waved him away dismissively, "We were talking about Shuyin, and now we're not. Yuna, I love you to bits, and you can crash here as long as you want, but my cousin's coming to stay here later on today. He's looking for a property around here because he's been accepted onto the local Blitz team and wants to hang out until he can find the right place."

Rikku picked up her friend's plate and dropped it into the sink to soak.

"I don't believe you've met him yet, you know Tidus?

-x-

"Tidus?" Yuna looked interested. Picking up on this, Rikku continued, thinking that this could well be the thing to get Yuna back on her feet.

"Yeah, he's the star Blitz player of the Zanarkand Abes. He'll be staying round for the next week or so! He's really nice; I reckon you'll get along just fine!" She said brightly as she bounced around the kitchen, throwing plates and cutlery around, barely missing Auron as he maneuvered around her.

Yuna looked up from her plate of waffles as a plate smashed on the kitchen floor.

"Whoops!" giggled Rikku as Auron narrowed his eyes at her.

Yuna stood up and washed up her plate (using Bevelle's Handy-Dandy washing up liquid, guaranteed to make utensils shine!), performed her usual bow, muttered something about going to unpack in the spare bedroom and quickly vanished.

Auron looked at Rikku, who shrugged, "She always does that, no worries."

Auron turned to her. "Are you seriously considering setting up Yuna and Tidus, Rikku? It would be disastrous."

His lover gave him her signature cheeky smile, as if to say 'Of course it wouldn't be, if their relationship would be a disaster, what's ours then?' She giggled again as he picked her up for a quick kiss. Getting herself together, she pulled away, winked and bounded off to the living room.

-x-

Yuna flopped down onto the bed and sighed. She knew that Rikku would try and set her up with her cousin, and to be realistic, she couldn't face another relationship right now. It would be too much, not to mention what Shuyin would do if he found- no. She couldn't think about that. Shuyin is now officially the past.

She sat up and turned her attention to the luggage cluttered around her feet. If people were coming round who were not used to her mess (a Rikku influence right there), then she would have to clean up at least a little.

She sifted through the clothes, separating the dirty and the clean, socks in one pile, underwear in the other, folded tops into the drawers, dresses hanging up in the wardrobe, jeans in the chest.

She threw her bag onto the back of the nearest chair, and started on her personals. She caught a flash of something in her peripheral vision, and turned.

A photo frame. An unbroken one at that. She looked at the smiling faces of herself, Rikku, Auron, and her father before he died. But there were two people that she didn't recognise: a man, smiling, with one arm around her father's shoulders, and his other resting on the head of a blonde, about her and Rikku's age when the photo was taken. She held the photo closer for a better look, and vaguely, she could just about remember older man; his name was Jecht, and he used to be best friends with her father and Auron, though he was slightly younger than Auron and older than herself and Rikku by a good few years. It didn't seem to bother them though. But from what she'd heard, out of she father, Jecht, Auron trio, only Auron was alive. She knew her father died from the SIN virus, and assumed that Jecht met the same fate.

She turned her attention to his little boy. She knew him; she was sure of it. Yuna prided herself in that she never forgot a single face, not even when she was travelling the country. That spiky blonde hair, his piercing blue eyes, and a voice calling her name faintly...

But no name. The voice was barely audible anyway, so there was no wonder a name didn't come. But what bugged Yuna was that she could tell, from the picture, that she had once had some sort of closeness with the boy from the way they stood, heads tilted towards each other, and the way their hands were gently brushing each other. Yuna knew him, but she didn't know him, and this was frustrating her, and yet, something inside told her not to worry. As it felt that she would see him soon. Of course, she didn't understand what her heart was trying to tell her about the boy, but she just felt the need not to worry, as fate always knows where it's heading.

She continued to absent mindedly pack until Rikku bounded in demanding to know why she was packing away invisible puzzle pieces and throwing the scarves-that-don't-exist over the wardrobe door. After bringing Yuna back to the present, she moved over to the window, ripping back the partially-closed curtains so fast the railings crashed and rattled. From behind Yuna cringed slightly, but continued to look on as Rikku threw open the large windows, inhaling deeply, trying to take in as much fresh morning air as she possible could.

"Do ya smell it, Yunie? Can you feel the morning?" Yuna smiled serenely and nodded.

"Yes Rikku I do. I can feel the aura of the world."

"That's why I've decided that we can't stay inside today, we're going shopping. Besides it's just what you need to forget Shuyin - a nice pair of shoes. We can stop off a Bevellebucks if you want." Rikku gave her a pleading look, seeing as she loved Bevellebucks and their Spricannos coffees. Chuckling she agreed "But on one condition, we stop off at LUCA Island."

"Fair enough, I can handle that."

-x-

The sun was shinning high up in the sky by the time the girls set off. The streets of Bevelle were packed more than usual ("It's the grand opening of the Bevelle branch of 'Guado Look'," informed Rikku) and the clouds of balloons decorating the sky cast giant shadows on the ground ("It's terrible pollution, don't you think?" Rikku stated thoughtfully). But the blonde wasn't immune to the nervous body language of the brunette. Yuna was continuously looking over her shoulder for any sign of a dirty blonde head.

"Chill Yuna, he won't come near you in a crowed place like this"

But Yuna wasn't so sure. Shuyin was more deranged than she'd thought, and who knew what he could do?

They reached Bevellebucks and ordered from the pretty mage behind the counter.

"You doing alright, Lulu?" Rikku asked as Yuna took deep calming breaths. The mage was giving orders to the other workers, "I can see you're now branch manager."

Lulu passed them their drinks (Two Spiricannos with extra chocolate (and marshmallows in Rikku's case)) and took their money.

"Yes. Its okay, pay is good, and I have flexible hours so I can look after baby, but Wakka isn't happy. He wanted me at home."

The girls snorted at the on-going 'war' between Lulu and Wakka. Lulu wanted to work and was good at it, but Wakka's male pride took too much of a beating when she did better than him salary-wise, and demanded she stay at home, which she adamantly had refused.

They thanked her and moved to walk out of the coffee shop when Yuna stopped dead in her tracks. Feeling as if lightning had just struck, she slowly turned her head to the corner, looking at her over the top of a newspaper was a pair of angry blue eyes under blonde hair.

Everything seemed to slow down; her coffee seemed to take an eternity to hit the floor, but time speed up as her reactions made her jump back from the spillage. Picking up her skirt, she ran, ignoring both Lulu and Rikku's cries.

Throwing open the apartment door, she rushed past Auron to upstairs, before throwing herself onto the bed and sobbing.

-x-

A/N: Review?