Chapter 5

Argument

"Do you need me to help you with anything?" Baralai inquired once we were back inside the studio.

"What do you mean?" I asked, taking a seat.

"Do you need any help getting next week's show ready?" he clarified, sitting down next to me.

My eyebrows, once again, came dangerously close to flying off my face. Having a little help would make my job a little easier. "Actually," I began, pulling open a drawer next to me and procuring a sheet of paper from it. "I do." I passed him the piece of paper. "That's the song line up for Friday's show. All you need to do is make a playlist then burn it to a CD. Make sure you follow my notes exactly."

"Alright," he replied, a smile on his face as he looked over the list.

"Let me know if you need help understanding my notes. I'm known for making them rather cryptic, according to Rikku." I reopened the drawer that I had been in a second earlier and pulled out a small notebook that contained all the numbers for our backstage crew. We had a total of eight people on our crew: five to help manage costumes and three for hair and make-up.

"What are you going to do?" he asked as I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket.

"I have to call our backstage crew. We rarely use them because we usually don't have costume changes in the middle of a show. I hate them, but Rikku insisted that we include some this time around since we haven't for a while." I rolled my eyes while I spoke.

Baralai chuckled. "It seems to me like she has a flair for the dramatic."

"You pretty much hit the nail on the head with that one."

With that, we both got to work on our tasks. My phone calls didn't take long at all. I spoke directly to five of them and left the other three a message, advising them to call me back. I was expecting Baralai to be poking me on the shoulder every couple of minutes wanting to know the meaning of one of my notations, but he never did. I even went as far as asking him if he needed any help, but he shook his head with a smile plastered on his face.

Hmm…I guess him tagging along with me isn't so bad after all. Maybe I'll let him come with me more often. Maybe…

"Hey, Paine," Baralai said after a few more minutes of silence.

I immediately scooted closer to him, thinking he needed help understanding one of my notes. "Yes?"

"Can you sing another one of your songs for me? I get to choose this time."

"Nope," I replied, immediately scooting away since he didn't need my help.

Baralai paused for a second, probably surprised by how fast I answered. "Oh…why?"

I leaned back in my chair and put my hands behind my head. "I don't do private screenings. I was in a rare mood yesterday so you got lucky. If you want to hear me sing, you'll just have to wait until Friday."

He nodded and looked back at the computer screen for a few seconds. "How about a request then?"

My right eyebrow arched dangerously as I considered his inquiry. I knew that if I agreed I would once again be leaving myself open and vulnerable to him. Like I haven't already… I couldn't help the bad feeling that crawled up my spine that Baralai was going to end up hurting me. I crossed my arms over my chest and could literally feel the walls that had just recently begun to crumble start building themselves back up around me.

"I'll have to think about it," I replied, my voice like ice.

I didn't want to shut him out like this, but I couldn't stop my survival instincts from kicking in. I averted my eyes away from him and grabbed the sheet music for his song, needing something to occupy myself with. Truthfully, I was scared to look at him because I didn't want him to figure out the reason behind my attitude change. He's so intuitive it should be against the law.

To my surprise, and immense relief, he didn't say anything. I kind of wished that Yuna and Rikku would pop up to rescue me from this awkward situation. You're the one that made it awkward, my mind argued, making a wave of guilt wash over me.

No, I'm just letting him get under my skin. I can't –

"I'm not like him, you know." Baralai's voice interrupted my thoughts and I would have laughed if I thought the situation funny, but it wasn't in the least.

How in the world does he do that? Is he psychic or something?

I looked up at him, my eyes wide with shock, and couldn't help my thoughts from spilling out of my mouth. "Alright, how do you do that?"

Baralai frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You pick up on exactly what I'm thinking. How do you do that?" I repeated.

"I don't know," he replied, shrugging. "It's hard for me to explain, but you're easy for me to read."

His answer didn't satisfy me in the least, but I attempted to push those bad feelings away and try to act normal towards him. I didn't feel like sitting through another few hours of awkward silences. "Well stop it. You remind me of Yuna." That was partially true. Yuna was rather intuitive herself, but Baralai had her beat. Yuna has never been able to tell me what I'm thinking.

Baralai chuckled. "I don't know if I'll be able to do that. Whenever it happens it's like I don't have control over my mouth."

I was silent for a few seconds as I sat staring at Baralai. "Okay, now that's weird." Just like I sometimes can't control what I say around him.

"Yeah, just a little," he replied. He wasted no time changing the subject, something I was extremely grateful for. "Anyways, I've finished building the playlist. Wanna check it and make sure I got it right?"

I was glad the conversation was taken off me for the time being. I knew it may not stay that way, but a moment's reprieve was welcomed. I stared down at the computer after Baralai had moved away, checking the list of songs. After close inspection, I was pleased to discover that Baralai had followed my notes exactly. Needless to say, I was impressed.

"Good job," I said, inserting a blank CD into the disc drive and burning the mix onto it. As we were sitting there I suddenly remembered a question that I had been itching to ask him. "So who called you the other day when you walked into the foyer?"

He heaved a large sigh and laced his fingers behind his head. "That was my ex-girlfriend. She's coming to Luca next weekend and wants to get together with me."

I felt a little pang of…something as my suspicions were confirmed. I knew that if it had been a member of his family he wouldn't have left the room. "What are you going to do?" I asked, trying to keep my voice indifferent.

Baralai sat there for a few moments shaking his head and staring at the computer screen. "I don't know," he said finally, turning his head to meet my gaze. "I don't know."

"What exactly ended your relationship?" I knew I was taking a risk asking him straight out, but I just had to know.

"She never gave me a straight answer actually. To me, it seemed like she got tired of me or something. Like all of a sudden she just fell out of love with me." He paused and took a deep breath, acting like he wanted to say something else but deciding against it. He shook his head and stared down at the computer screen, his hands on his face.

I took the momentary silence to sink into my chair and gingerly rub my sore eyes. I was kind of hoping that Baralai was regretting his question game. "Hey, Baralai?" I began, still rubbing my eyes. I heard his clothing shift so I knew he was looking at me. "How about we stop talking about personal stuff, yes?"

"Yes," he agreed. "I think I've had enough for one day."

We spent the next couple hours, while I put the finishing touches on the music for his lyrics, talking about anything except the topic of our earlier conversation. I found out that he was very smart; he had never earned lower than a B+ his entire life. And he had been on his high school's blitzball team when he lived in Bevelle.

"Have you thought about playing Blitzball here?" I inquired.

"I have," he answered. "I'm not sure if I'm going to though."

"Why not?"

He shrugged, a nonchalant expression on his face. "I don't know. I think I might just concentrate on my grades this year." He paused and a wide grin spread across his face. "I know only nerds say that, but if I don't get good grades my parents will kill me."

I grinned back at him. "Just don't let Tidus know that you play Blitzball. He's always looking for new people to recruit for the team. And tell Gippal to keep his mouth shut too."

Baralai chuckled. "I'll be sure to do that."

Silence fell over us for literally five seconds before my cell phone went off, almost making me jump clear out of my seat. I pulled it from my pocket and laughed when I saw that it was Rikku. This time her interruption wasn't a bad thing. "Yeah?" I answered.

"Emergency YRP meeting at my house! Whatever you're doing drop it and get over here!" She sounded exasperated.

I looked at Baralai out of the corner of my eye. It would take much too long to bring him home then go over to Rikku's. It would actually be kind of pointless. Baralai lived in a totally different direction than Rikku. "Do you mind if I bring Baralai along?"

Rikku was unnaturally silent on the other end of the line and I could almost hear the cogs and wheels turning in her head. "What are you doing with Baralai?"

I leaned back into my chair and rubbed my forehead. "I brought him to the studio with me because I'm working on his lyrics, remember?" On second thought, I wish she hadn't called. Now that she's figured out I'm spending time with Baralai she's going to take every chance she can to tease me about it.

"Oh yeah," she replied, like she had forgotten. "Alright, bring him with you. See you soon!"

She hung up before I even had a chance to say anything else. I snapped my phone shut and returned it to my pocket. "Feel like tagging along to Rikku's house?" I asked, rising from my chair.

Baralai shrugged as he got up as well. "Sure, I think we've been here for long enough anyways."

"Yes, we have indeed," I agreed as we left the studio.

I was assaulted by Rikku before I even had a chance to take off my helmet. She ran up to me and jumped into my lap, almost knocking me off my motorcycle. "Painey, I'm so glad you're here! Come on, Yuna's in my room already!" Then she jumped off me and ran back towards her house just as fast as she had come.

I growled in irritation as I yanked my helmet off my head and followed her inside with Baralai trailing close behind. I waved hello to her father and brother before ascending the stairs leading to Rikku's room. Yuna was sitting in Rikku's oversized bean bag chair and Rikku was sitting on her bed with about a dozen unfinished costumes surrounding her. I crossed to the far side of the room and settled into her desk chair. Baralai was still standing by the door, looking around forlornly.

"Sorry that I don't have another chair, Baralai," Rikku apologized. "Pick a spot on the floor. I got shag carpeting for a reason."

Baralai smiled sheepishly and decided to sit next to me. He looking up at me with a calm smile and I couldn't help but smile back. "So what's this emergency meeting about, Rikku?" I inquired as I grabbed a rubber ball off of her desk and began playing catch with myself.

Rikku was once again unnaturally silent, which I took as a very bad sign. When my eyes met hers the look on her face said it all. I sent her a glare that could curdle milk and waited for her explanation. She huffed indignantly and crossed her arms over her chest. "Fine, I used it as an excuse so you guys would come over and keep me company."

Yuna giggled from where she sat in the bean bag. "Rikku, we would have come over anyways. You didn't have to trick us into coming over here."

Rikku's cheeks flared bright red and she clamped her teeth down on her bottom lip in embarrassment. "Yeah," she said, continuing to work on the costumes. "You're right, Yunie. Sorry guys." She looked at me then and I nodded my head once, my way of telling her that she was forgiven.

After that had been settled, Yuna told us about the fan feedback she had been receiving about our upcoming show from our website. That little aspect had been all Tidus' idea and he had managed to get Yuna to help him with it. Apparently, our fans were going nuts over the fact that we were going to be incorporating costume changes. There were even a few that said we should do them more often.

"I called Tidus while I was on my way here and told him to embed a pole into his next blog post," she said, grabbing a magazine from Rikku's bedside table. "Depending on the feedback we get from that could determine whether or not we make costume changes a permanent thing."

When Yuna said that I had just thrown the rubber ball into the air and when 'costume changes' and 'permanent' registered in my brain it took my attention away from the ball for just long enough to cause it to come sailing back down, ricochet off my arm and hit Baralai in the side of the head. I failed to notice. "Permanent? Are you serious?"

"Paine, if it gets more of our fans to show up week to week then we should do it. The more fans that show up means more tickets get sold, which means we'll get paid more," Rikku argued.

I scoffed and ripped the ball Baralai offered me out of his hand. "You guys know I don't give two shits about the money. Yeah, so we'll get better publicity, but it's going to make things harder on us. If we're going to keep doing weekly shows then we're going to have to give ourselves some wiggle room. Rikku, this week you have to complete almost a dozen costumes in the next four days. How would you feel if you had to do this every week?" I paused and looked back and forth between my two best friends, gauging their reactions. "I'm not trying to ruin your fun here, but someone has to be the voice of reason. I mean we're still in high school for Shiva's sake! Once we've graduated then we can devote all of our time and energy to this, but until then we have school work to concentrate on. Please tell me that what I've said makes sense."

By the time my tirade was over I was pacing around in front of Rikku's bed and almost out of breath. Baralai was staring at me with wide eyes and a gaping mouth like I had suddenly sprouted a second head. Yuna and Rikku were sitting there staring at me with conflicted looks on their faces. I knew that what I had said made sense to them, but whether or not they would admit that to me was another thing entirely.

Yuna got up and wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug. I sighed inwardly and was relieved that I had at least gotten though to her. "Thank you, Paine," she whispered, backing away from me. "You're right. We both know you are. We won't make any decisions right now." She hugged me again and returned to the bean bag.

The situation instantly diffused, just like that. What in the world would I do without Yuna? I asked myself, smiling as I went back to my own chair. I saw Rikku's laptop charging on her desktop and, knowing about her immense music library, started it up to give us some background noise. At the log-in screen I easily typed in her password and waited for it to finish loading.

"It's kind of ridiculous that I know your passwords by heart, Rikku," I said, grinning at her over my shoulder.

"I know," she replied, diligently working on the costumes. "I guess that's what I get for having a computer hacker as a best friend."

Baralai frowned, shooting me a confused look. "Rikku, how many times do I have to tell you? I am not a hacker," I stressed.

Rikku grinned at me smugly. "Don't lie just to hide it from Baralai," she said, bobbing her eyebrows up and down. If I could have, I would have strangled that look right off her face.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Baralai had a smile on his face, but his eyes held suspicion.

Alright, scratch the strangling. When I get my hands on her, I'll kill her.

"Yeah, Paine," Rikku said, backing up Baralai's question. "Go ahead and tell him what you mean."

My eyes shifted to Baralai and he was staring at me with one of his eyebrows arched. I groaned in aggravation. "I'm good at cracking passwords. And I hacked into the police mainframe once – once – to find out what they charged the bastard that slaughtered my parents." I heard Yuna gasp. "I haven't done it since. Happy?" I questioned, glaring at both Baralai and Rikku. "I'm out of here," I growled, getting up and slamming the chair into Rikku's desk, making the piece of furniture shudder. "Baralai, if you want me to bring you home you better come with me." I was halfway down the hall when I was finished speaking.

I waited out next to my motorcycle for him. If he's not out here in the next thirty seconds I'm leaving without him, I thought as I slammed my helmet onto my head and climbed onto my motorcycle. I was about to start the engine when he came tearing out of the front door towards me.

"Don't leave me," he said, hopping up behind me. "Sorry."

I didn't answer as I backed out of Rikku's driveway and sped off down the street. The twenty minute drive back to Baralai's house seemed like it took forever. As I pulled into his driveway, I had the mind to drive off without saying anything to him, but his voice stopped me.

"I'm sorry…about what happened to your parents," he said, his voice low.

"Yeah," I mumbled, keeping my visor down. "So am I."

He pursed his lips and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I know you don't want to, but you don't have to be afraid to open yourself up to me."

"Baralai, when I first met you I thought of you as the guy that went after the prettiest, most popular girl in school. That's the kind of girl you deserve. You don't deserve someone that's damaged."

I drove away before he had the chance to answer.