...leave it up to you...
Chapter 1 : Those damned scars again
Seifer
"Shit!" I curse loudly as I sit up in bed, hunched over forward and panting. If I didn't know any better I'd think I was in another gutter or alley. But no, here I am in a nice apartment, with a nice girl who takes care of me.
But why? All I know is that she's a friend of Rinoa's. Someone that I met a long time ago but just don't remember. She said she recognized me by the red cross on my sleeve, but that coat's so ratty and faded that I knew she really meant the gunblade that I carry. Yeah, my baby. She's all I got left.
The door opens and Tamiel walks in, dressed in her pajamas of a loose, gray sweatshirt and matching drawstring pants. She gives me a surprised look, then walks over and sits down at the edge of the bed.
It's been three months since I moved in here. Not that I had a lot to bring, anyway. Still, there's something that I can't put my finger on about this girl. It's almost like she wants something.
"Are you losing your mind?" she asks. I shake my head. Of course not, you little girl. I'm completely sane - at least, as sane as a soap dish. And considering they don't have brains, that's not too good. Damned plastic torture devices.
Sighing, she ruffles my hair and smiles. "You know, running from the past won't ever make things better. Inside you're just going to get eaten away by your pain, anger, and hatred."
My heart almost stops. How is it that when she says things like that, I really listen? I mean, she's just a girl. A teenage girl, at that. No way she's older than me. She looks like she's sixteen, but I know she's nineteen. Reminds me a bit of Rinoa, too. She's got spunk, I'll give her that. But there's also a matureness to her - something Rinoa didn't have.
"... You know, I haven't talked to Rinoa for over a year and a half now. She's been so busy running around, getting over Squall... you know what it's like. When we talked, just after Ultimecia was defeated, she said that no one knew where you were. She said it was like you just disappeared. They all thought you had died.
"I figured you probably had, too. I mean, it's not like we were ever mutual friends, anyway. I had just met you a few times as Rinoa's boy. But I remembered your face. Not the scars, though. Not all those long, puckered scars..." Tamiel touches my wrist lightly and I resist the urge to flinch, this time. So many attempts, so many failed attempts. I don't know how I find the courage to do this to myself. But maybe it's not the courage that pushes me. It's probably just the thought that I won't have to be here anymore, to feel the way that I d--
"--Seifer?"
My attention snaps back to the light frame sitting on the end of my bed. "Uh, yeah?"
"... I want... to show you s-somethi--never mind," she cuts herself off at the end, standing up and shaking her head. "You know, those scars will never go away. You'll have them forever. The key is to find a way to make that pain go away."
She leaves and I stare at the door that she just closed. Damn, how I wish that these marks would either vanish or take me away. But they don't mean a thing - except that I'm weak. I'm arrogant, ignorant, completely self-involved and am wallowing in such self-pity it makes even me sick.
And the thing is, I don't even remember when it all started.