After science, the rest of the day passed quickly for Yuna. Mostly, she took Rikku's advice and stayed away from Tidus. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for Seymour. When she wasn't around him, her problems with him didn't seem so bad. However, whenever he showed up, they seemed worse than before.

As soon as she exited Auron's classroom, she bumped into him.

His cold eyes surveyed her with critically. She was suddenly shy; she was wearing a skirt and could feel his disapproval. He liked her to dress more conservatively.

"Yuna," he had said, "how are you? Somehow you look upset. How was your science test? You should have done well, since I helped you study for it."

Walking home, Yuna decided not to think about what had gone on with Seymour earlier that day. Instead, she braced herself against the chilly rain outside. Having left both raincoat and umbrella at home that morning, she was soaked by the time she reached her doorstep. Fumbling with her key, she opened the door to her house. Her mother, Utada, was cooking in the kitchen when Yuna arrived. The smell of chocolate cake wafted up to Yuna's nose and she inhales deeply. Utada then noticed her dripping-wet presence with surprise.

"Oh, Yuna! You're drenched! Go to the bathroom, dry off, and change into nice clothes. We're going to Jecht and Tidus's house for dinner tonight."

Yuna groaned inwardly. All her work of avoiding Tidus would now be negated. Silently and sullenly, she walked to the bathroom where she blow-dried her dripping wet chestnut brown hair and put cover-up over a nasty looking bruise that was beginning to form on her arm. Then she jogged into her room across the hall.

Yuna's room basic. Rikku had helped her decorate it about a year ago. Though her cousin had tried to get Yuna to choose a pink-and-green color scheme, Yuna had gone with a simpler black and white with red accents that Lulu approved of. She had explained to the disappointed Al Bed girl that she couldn't relax in a loud pink-and-green room. Rikku had finally obliged, then did her best to find acceptable black, white, and red room decorations.

When Yuna first entered the room after Rikku had completed her decoration, Yuna felt at peace. One her bed was a plush white comforter with about ten pillows, mostly black, but one or two red ones. She had hung drapes around the doors to a small balcony that jutted out on the outside of the house; they were simple, white, and gauzy, and Yuna liked her balcony even more than she had before. Rikku had also placed a wrought iron café table in the room where Yuna could have tea or coffee in the morning. Her cousin had also insisted on placing a small vanity inside Yuna's gigantic walk-in closet. Yuna was now happy she had consented, even if it did cost her quite a bit of extra of money.

The vanity was all-marble, except for the legs of the chair, which were wrought iron, and it was crowned with an antique mirror, also wrought iron, matching her tea-table. Yuna now entered her closet, saw the vanity and smiled as she selected a deep wine colored dress from her closet to wear for the dinner tonight. She quickly dressed and then picked a pair of tan pumps.

Most of the time, red didn't work well on Yuna and made her look washed out. However, this dress was special. She had gone shopping with her mom and dad for the perfect birthday present a few years ago. Her parents decided early on that when it came to presents, they'd let Yuna pick them out herself. Her father had usually tagged along, too. He'd bought the dress for her two years ago, when it had been a little too big for her to wear, but he had seen how much she loved it and wanted it. That was the last thing he bought Yuna before he died. When she wore it, she remembered their last shopping trip together; the wine color had been his favorite.

Yuna sat down at her vanity and carefully applied a little lipstick to her lips. After spraying herself with vanilla almond perfume and brushing her hair, she left the room.

Utada was icing the cake. "Mmm," Yuna murmured. "German chocolate, my favorite. What's the occasion?"

"No occasion really," her mother replied, finishing up with the icing and licking it from her fingers. "Jecht and I just thought it would be nice to have dinner together. By the way, that dress looks radiant on you."

"Mom, don't change the subject! Why did you tell me to wear 'nice clothing'?"

"Well, first of all, don't snap at me like that, Yuna; I don't know what's come over you lately. Second, the dinner would just seem more special if we're all dressed up. Let me get my shoes and take this apron off and we'll be on our way. Maybe you could bring some homework along and work on it with Tidus while Jecht and I talk before dinner?"

"Alright," Yuna groaned. The last thing she wanted to think about was homework, but she had a ton to do before tomorrow and Utada and Jecht usually talked after dinner, too, which meant they might not leave before 10 o'clock. Besides, doing homework with Tidus was better than sitting in an awkward silence with him. She just had to get through tonight, then she could avoid him for the rest of the week.

Jecht was banging pots and pans, trying to figure out how the hell he was supposed to cook a whole chicken with Tidus complaining in the background.

"Why did you have to invite Yuna too? I see enough of her every weekend and at school! Why do they have to come over at all?"

"God dammit, Tidus! Shut the hell up and find the teriyaki sauce for me! Try the shelf in the refrigerator where we keep the beer."

"Why do you need the teriyaki sauce?"

"Well, it helps if I'm supposed to occasionally baste the chicken with the sauce while cooking the bird."

"Oh," Tidus answered as he tossed Jecht the teriyaki. Jecht opened the oven and poured half of the bottle of sauce all over the chicken.

"Uh, Dad," Tidus said, interrupting Jecht as he smoothed the teriyaki sauce over the chicken and shut the oven door.

"What?"

"If the cookbook says to baste the chicken, then you squirt the sauce on once in a while. Mom did teach me a few things about cooking before she died. How high is the oven's temperature, anyway?"

"Oh, about 700 degrees Fahrenheit."

"700 degrees? Is that what the recipe said?"

"No, the recipe said 350 degrees, but this way it'll cook twice as fast," Jecht replied, proud that he was smart enough to have thought of that.

"Yeah, but... hey, what's that smell?"

"Smoke, my boy. Haven't you ever smelt the fine scent of..."

Tidus broke into his father's sentence. " That's coming from the oven, Dad."

"What?" Jecht opened the oven door; the chicken was on fire.

"Oh, shit! Quick, get me a glass of water or something!" he roared as he turned off the oven. Tidus threw him the fire extinguisher. Jecht put out the fire in a flash, but the chicken was transformed into a smoky pile of ash that smelled faintly like teriyaki sauce.

"I'll go pick up one of those pre-baked chickens at the grocery store," Tidus said, staring blankly at the mound of ashes.

"Okay," Jecht replied, sniffing the air. "And while you're at it, pick up some air freshener."

Utada was pulling in to Jecht's long, elegant driveway with her car as Tidus placed the main dish on the table and ran upstairs to quickly get dressed.

"Okay now, I know you and Yuna don't get along too well, but try to be civil with the girl," Jecht told Tidus as they shared the huge bathroom mirror. The older of the two men straightened his tie.

"But Dad, she hates me!" Tidus was clean jeans and a sweater with a polo. His dad had picked it out and forced him to wear it. Jecht himself had put on a pair of dress pants and a button-down shirt.

"Nonsense, she can't hate you. You're the spitting image of me when I was a senior."

"Dad, I'm a junior."

"Whatever. There's the doorbell! Run to get it while I put on my cologne."

Tidus did as his dad told him to and jogged to get the door. While doing do, he ran his hand through his hair and made up his mind to be as nice as possible to Yuna. Then he pulled open the door.

"Utada, Yuna, how great to see you!" he said, he'd seen the two of them at the beach house less than twenty-four hours ago and Yuna during chemistry today. Tidus hugged Utada. No matter how much he didn't get along with her daughter, Tidus genuinely liked Utada. He thought of her as a second mom, since his had died of a rare medical condition when he was still in grade school. "You look great, Yuna," he said smiling, attempting to start off well. She smiled at him, but it wasn't a very warm one.

Just then, Jecht came in, looking handsome, for an older man, Tidus thought. "Why don't you kids go off and watch a movie before dinner?" he suggested.

"Oh, Yuna brought her homework if you want to work on that together. I know you two are lab partners," Utada said brightly.

Tidus inwardly sighed. He hated homework and Utada's comment had reminded him about his science grade. Instead of stating this, he asked, "How do you know that we're science partners?"

"Oh, Auron told Jecht, who mentioned it to me. Now off you go!"

Yuna's faced reddened a little. Does my mother know how ridiculous she sounds? However, she and Tidus's dad were already sauntering off into the living room, deep in conversation. Jecht seemed to sense the two teens still standing there in the foyer and called back, "You two can study in Tidus's room." When they were gone, there was a silence between the two teens.

Then, Tidus simply said, "This way," and jogged up the stairs. Yuna had been in Jecht and Tidus's household many times before, but she had never been in Tidus's room. There had never been a need to go in there. When their parents had become friends three years ago at a support group for people dealing with the death of a spouse, they had started having dinner occasionally. Things hadn't really developed into an every weekend, every weekday sort of thing until a few months ago. When they had first met, Utada and Jecht weren't best friends and didn't have to be with the other person every moment they had, but both Tidus and Yuna had been glad that their parents were each talking to someone about their gried.

Tidus had reached the door of his room with Yuna right behind him. "Uh, can you hold on for a minute?" Yuna's eyes narrowed. "I guess," she replied coolly. Tidus opened his bedroom door a crack and slipped in, shutting the door quickly behind him. If he wanted Yuna to understand about the whole science grade thing, he would have to suck up a bit. He picked up his clean chocobo boxers off the ground and shoved them in a drawer. Was his room always this messy? He kicked some CDs and video games under his bed and threw his DVDs in his closet and shut the door. That just about does it, Tidus thought. As he was about to open the door, he noticed one more thing. He ripped his Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition magazine poster off the closet door and stuffed it in his underwear drawer, then opened the door to his room.

"Come on in," Tidus beckoned, doing his best to be cheerful. Yuna entered quietly and looked around. She saw a typical male teenager's room, minus the mess. That's what he must've been doing when he came in before me, Yuna thought, cleaning. "It's a nice room," she said politely.

Tidus sighed. It was now or never. "Look Yuna, I know you're probably sick of me from spending the past three weekends together, but can we just try to get along?"

"Oh, good, I hoped we could be civil with each other again," Yuna replied, smiling genuinely at Tidus for what seemed like the first time in a month. "I'm really sorry if I've been snappy with you lately, but I just think we're around each other too much and I've been stressing out about a lot of stuff recently."

Surprised that Yuna had agreed so readily to his peace-offering and pleased at her apology, Tidus readily accepted it and agreed with her. "Yeah, I'm sorry, too. It's been a rough couple of weeks for me school-wise." Why not get some sympathy before I tell her the truth about chemistry, he thought.

"Me, too," Yuna said enthusiastically and smiled again.

This seemed to be going well. The two of them sat on his floor and began pulling out books, making small talk.

"Do you think Squall and Rikku will ever get together?" Yuna asked shyly, trying to do some covert spying for her cousin.

"Squall certainly hopes so," Tidus laughed, as he pulled out his chemistry book. "What about Lulu and Wakka?"

"Lulu's pretty private about those sorts of things. My guess is that she likes him, though."

The two continued chatting as they started on their science homework, Tidus becoming more and more at ease about eventually having to reveal his grade to her.

"So how are things with you and Seymour? You're still dating, right? I saw you guys after Chem today."

"They're fine. Actually, we should talk about the test."

"Sure," Tidus said warily."I, uh, got a C. Sorry, I know you probably aced it, being on the honor roll and all, but I'll do better next time, okay?" Tidus braced himself, in case she was going to yell at him or lecture him. Instead, she just looked sad.

"Tidus, I did worse than you did." Tidus's eyes widened. "I got a D."

"A D? Are you serious? But you studied all weekend!"

"I tried to study alone, but Seymour insisted on helping me out. He doesn't explain things very well and confused me."

"Why didn't you tell him that he wasn't helping you at all?"

Yuna sighed lightly. "Seymour's very sensitive and defensive. He tends to take things the wrong way. Are you mad at me?"

"No, just disappointed." Tidus replied, doing his best to be honest. "Next time, just ask me for help. I'm you're lab partner, after all. Just because Seymour's your boyfriend, doesn't mean you let him push you around. I mean…" He stopped talking when he saw the look on Yuna's face. The words died on his tongue. She was angry. Things had been going so well. What had he done to upset her?

"Don't lecture me, Tidus! I didn't ask for your opinion, and I don't want it. You didn't do much better than I did on that exam. Seymour offered me his help, not because I asked, but because he wanted to offer it!" Why am I sticking up for Seymour? wondered a corner of Yuna's mind as words continued to fly out of her mouth. "If you think of me as a responsibility that you have to lug around and help out, think again! Once you start doing better on the exams, maybe I'll ask for your help! Seymour aced Auron's class last year!"

"Oh yeah?" Tidus shot back. Yuna's sudden outburst had pissed him off. "Well I don't need someone to keep my life straight for me like you do. All you do anymore is study with Seymour. You don't go out on the weekends, and you don't have much to show for all your hours of work, do you? You're a drag to be around now. It's like you don't even have a personality, and I hate spending every weekend with you. Jesus, Yuna, stop letting Seymour control your life!"

Yuna looked stricken for a moment, but then quickly regained her composure. She grabbed her bag of books and stormed out of Tidus's room, giving him a venomous look. As she was leaving, she whipped around and stared hard at him for a moment. "Fuck you," she whispered. She would have yelled it, but she didn't want her mom and Jecht to hear her. Yuna sat outside in the hall doing her homework until Utada called both her and Tidus to come and eat dinner.

Thankfully, Jecht and Utada were dominating most of the table conversation. Tidus could throw in an occasional side comment and it looked like he was actually paying attention. Instead, he was thinking about his fight with Yuna. What had gotten her so angry? Was it something he had said? Right before she blew up, he had said that he wasn't mad at her and to ask him for help next time. What was wrong with that?

"Son? Tidus!" Tidus jumped and saw that his dad was talking to him.

"Sorry, Dad. What's up?"

"Could you please bring in the dessert plates and cake? We're done with our meal."

"Oh, right. Yeah, sure I will."

Utada objected. "Yuna, dear, why don't you help him? It's a lot to carry, even for such a strong young man like Tidus. An extra pair of hands would make the job much easier."

"Of course, Mother," Yuna replied and smiled prettily. Then she gave Tidus an icy look. Once they had eaten dessert and the dishes were cleared away, Tidus and Yuna were about to go back upstairs when Jecht cleared his throat.

"Yuna, Tidus, I have an announcement to make. Utada and I have been friends for a long, long time. We've become very close, recently, as I'm sure you've noticed, and, well, I don't quite know how to say this…" He looked at Utada and smiled. "Well, to tie the knot. We're going to get married."

There was a silence almost as long as Utada and Jecht's friendship. Tidus was horrified. They couldn't be serious. Then he started to laugh. He was still laughing when he realized that no one else was. His eyes grew wide and he had stopped chuckling. "You mean… you're not joking?" Jecht's solemn look said it all. "But you haven't even dated!" he protested.

"On the contrary, we've been dating for five months," Utada said evenly.

"But you're best friends!" Yuna said, her eyes pleading for them to burst out laughing and say that they were just kidding, as Tidus had originally suspected.

"Husband and wife are supposed to be best friends," Jecht answered.

"Squall and I are best friends," Tidus challenged. "Does that mean he and I should get married?"

"Don't be smart with me, boy!" Jecht roared.

"Sorry," Tidus mumbled.

"It's just that this is all so sudden," Yuna explained, trying to be diplomatic. "Why not think it over a little longer first before you do something you regret?"

A sudden thought occurred to Tidus and he blurted it out. "It's not just for the sex, is it?" Jecht and Utada looked shocked, and when he realized what he said, he tried to fix it. "What I meant was, you're not doing this just in a sudden, uh, burst of passion, are you?" he stuttered.

"Shut up while you're ahead, son," his father said mildly. Obediently, Tidus stopped talking.

"Yuna hit the nail on the head," Jecht continued. "We're going to think it over while you think it over, too. Do you guys remember the beach house we stay at every weekend?"

"How could we not? I mean, like you said-," Tidus said sarcastically, forgetting his father's command.

"SHUT UP, TIDUS! JUST SHUT UP!"

"Jeez, sor-"

"SHUT UP!" Tidus shut up. Jecht was breathing heavily as he sat back down. When Tidus was talking, he had stood up and grabbed his son's shirt and given him several good hard shakes. Utada patted her fiancé hand in a calming fashion.

Now, while we think this over a little longer, the two of you," Jecht shot Tidus a dirty glare, "will be living alone in that beach house, alone, for three weeks." Tidus was still keeping his mouth closed, so Yuna asked, "Why?"

Utada answered in an obvious voice, "To form a better brother/sister relationship, of course! Jecht and I have noticed that you two don't get along too well, and if we are to live under the same roof, you'll need to be able to stand each other."

Yuna and Tidus were silent. Brother and sister relationship? It was bad enough that their parents were getting married, but to be siblings? Finally, Tidus said, "What if we don't do what you say and don't live in the beach house? What if we refuse to go?"

"Then you'll lose blitzball privileges and get kicked off the varsity squad." Jecht said, his mouth firmly set.

"And Yuna will not be allowed to date or go out with friends. She'll also lose phone privileges," Utada finished.

"You guys have really thought this over," Tidus murmured thoughtfully.

"How are we supposed to survive there? Will we go to school still?" Yuna asked desperately.

"Jecht and I will give you $1000 dollars in cash. You will decide how to use this money wisely as it's all you'll get for the entire period of time you spend there. You must buy household items, food, and such. You will go to school, but are forbidden to go to social events, which include dances, going out with friends, and the like. However, you may each have two friends over once a week." Utada answered in a no nonsense tone of voice.

"What are we supposed to do for fun? Watch TV?" Tidus asked in disbelief.

"Oh no, the TVs have been disconnected and taken out of the house. What you do for fun is up to you," Jecht cackled, almost evilly.

Tidus and Yuna were again forced into speechlessness as they learned how manipulative their parents could be.

Yuna swallowed and dared to ask, "When do we move in?" She wasn't sure if she wanted to know the answer.

"Friday," was Jecht and Utada's simultaneous answer.

Four days. Yuna had four days to prepare herself for three weeks with Tidus.