Seifer's POV:

Stupid Squall – Making me worry about you. Stupid Girls – Stalking me like I'm an animal. Stupid me – For exploding like that and making an ass of myself. Stupid… Everything!

I was pissed off, that's for sure. I'd stormed out of school before lunch had finished. I walked to a place I knew I'd be left alone. A park that Squall had shown me after we started… well we were never officially "dating" more like a mutual agreement that we needed to be together (mutual agreement?! Since when did I start talking like that…? Probably Cloud's influence) but Squall had shown me here all the same.

I sat there for what seemed like eight hours though in reality I was there for probably two hours and forty minutes tops. After that, the memories of being here with Squall got to be too much so I left here and ended up wandering around neighbourhood. Before I knew it, I was in the shopping district. Bad move. If this were a game of chess, I'd have been checkmate. Who else had to walk out of one of those stupid boutique shops than the "Queen of tarts" Rinoa.

I stopped short when I saw her like a deer caught in headlights. She obviously saw me because the bitch stopped mid-sentence and somehow managed to plaster the falsest "sweet" smile I've ever seen on her face. "Seifer Sweetie. How are you?" the tone of her voice was venomously sweet. "What does it look like?" I asked bluntly. I so didn't need this shit. Not now, not ever. "Aww, what's got itty bitty baby Seifie in a bad mood" the mock baby voice she used made me really want to slap her but she wasn't worth the effort. Still, she had to push me further "Relationship problems?" a smirk now present on her face.

"Yeah if you must know, I have a stupid whore trying to hit on me when I'm already taken. Know anybody who fits that description?" I asked before storming off. She dashed after me. "No you don't!" she said, grabbing onto my arm "I always get what I want. Squall may be an emo fag that couldn't keep you but I WILL have you" she said in a venomous whisper. "Keep dreaming. Skanks like you were the reason I had to move to this hole anyway, I'd never sleep with trash like you, besides, who knows what the hell I'd catch" I stated curtly before I shook her off.

"THAT HURT!" she screamed loudly. "CUT IT OUT!" I yelled equally loudly. Great, we were causing a scene. "SOMEBODY HELP! He hit me!" she sobbed, her friends catching up with us, leant over to whisper something. "You creep! How DARE you hit a girl" came the voice of one of Rinoa's cheerleader friends. I took a step back glaring at the lot of them. "I didn't hit the wench. She's a lying little whore" I shouted in her face before I tore off.

I ran through the door with a security guard calling after me as Rinoa remained on the floor, I turned back to look and I swear to the gods that she had a smile on her face. "BITCH" I thought as I ran. My feet carried me to Cloud's place. It was late by the time I got there. I'd still not asked where Roxas and Axel were living since they seemed to want to avoid the topic. I pounded on Cloud's door and after a few seconds I heard footsteps and the porch light flickered on.

"This is unexpected, come in!" Cloud said, making room for me to get through the door. Despite my best efforts, tears stung my eyes, threatening to spill. Walking through to the lounge, I saw Selphie there, looking at me sadly. Something was up and I didn't want to ask. I figured that I'd find out sooner or later.

Cloud's POV:

Seifer had walked through to my lounge room and sat down next to Selphie, who instantly scuttled up to him and gave him a comforting hug. I sat down next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He started to tell us everything that had happened that day. I didn't want to tell Seifer but at that point I had to.

"Seifer… Squall is… really angry. It's not your fault, it's just how Squall is but he's jealous that Axel and Roxas are here. He thinks 'you'll leave to resume the life you had in Galbadia' or something along those lines…" I couldn't carry on with my sentence and my voice faded. The look on Seifer's face was upsetting and pained to say the least. "He… thinks that I'd do that?!" his voice faltered as well. Selphie had a tear trickle down her face as she threw an arm around Seifer.

Soon after she released him, he rested his head on my shoulder and wept. Nothing was said for a while; at least until Seifer lifted his head and half whispered, half sobbed "He's dumped me hasn't he?" I nodded in vague acknowledgement. "I think a more fitting way to put it is that he's dumped all of us." I said slowly.

"All of us? What do you mean?" he looked confused more so than anything else right then. "I mean, after today, I don't think he wants to see any of us too soon. He'll be too ashamed to face me after his actions today, he'll avoid Selphie since he knows that in his present condition that he'll only upset her, He'll avoid you since he thinks that you're going to choose Roxas and Axel over him and he'll avoid Quissy since she's your sister…" I couldn't possibly say any more.

Strangely, Seifer seemed calm… I recognised the emotion he was displaying as defeat. The look on his face clearly told me that he felt like he had nothing left. I had seen that look often enough with Squall. "Cloud… Thanks for being honest" and he wrapped his arms around me in a hug. The hand that was resting on his shoulder slid round his neck in a more natural embrace and Selphie wrapped her arms around both of us. "Actually, scratch that: Thankyou to both of you for everything"

After a while, we separated ourselves and sat in companionable silence for a little while. Eventually, Seifer had to leave and Selphie offered to drive him home, leaving me to my thoughts. "Squall… Why do you make us worry so much…?" I thought sadly as I headed to bed, hoping in vain that tomorrow would prove to be better than today.

My hopes that tomorrow would be better ended up being in vain. Squall didn't come to school for the rest of the week and despite my efforts, I didn't hear from him at 's POV:

Why do I always blow up at the ones who want to help me? Selphie and Cloud had both been the victims of my "emotional outbursts" for years, though there had never been one that hit this close to home. How the hell could I look him in the eye after that? As such, I spent an hour in total silence, facing away from him, practically ignoring him, when he'd skipped school for my sake.

I couldn't look at him. He didn't deserve to be putting up with me. He deserved better than that. I decided that after today, I wouldn't inflict myself upon either of my two closest friends any more because they deserved better than trash (i.e. ME!). Eventually Cloud left, and I sighed in relief. Once he left, I took more medication and spent the rest of the day in a complete stupor.

I didn't end up going to school for the rest of the week. I much preferred to stay home where my mother fawned over me as much as she could, though considering her work hours, that wasn't much. At least I was alone. I continued to take the medication, purposely drugging myself so that I didn't have to deal with the pain of reality. Denial was one tool I was going to utilize to its fullest and the drugs made it easier to convince myself I didn't care and that Seifer had left me.

Monday morning dawned bright and early. I woke earlier than normal and instead of walking the usual path, I deliberately took the long route past the house of the only person who would look at me without pain in his eyes. Sephiroth Gast, a guy in my grade. He was openly gay though absolutely nobody in our school had enough guts to try anything with him since the only emotion most people ever saw of his was anger and by the whole, most people thought he would kill them if they commented.

He had also been madly in love with me for as long as I could remember. Coincidentally, as I neared his drive, he came down to the sidewalk. He saw me, nodded his head once and stopped, obviously waiting for me to catch up. I stepped up to him with my head hung low. "Never expected to see you here" a typically blunt answer but at that stage I didn't care. "Let's go" he said. Nothing more was said as we made our way to school.

"At least he won't ask me questions and I can be left alone" I thought. He and I were similar in that way. None of his close friends spoke much, not even to each other as all of them preferred the silence. Walking through the school gates, I saw Cloud and Selphie though I avoided their gaze and continued my purposeful stride beside Sephiroth. What I was doing may have been wrong but I didn't care.

Classes were as dull as expected. I turned up to P.E. and saw Seifer trying to catch my eye. I was refusing to let him and when he had his back turned, I grabbed my stuff and ran. I had no where else to go so I headed to the Library until I was caught and thrown out, then I spent the rest of the lesson in the bathroom, sitting there, reading the messages that morons had scrawled on the walls over the last few months. When the bell rang I headed straight to where Sephiroth and the others would be…

When I arrived, Sephiroth pulled me over and asked the question I knew he must have been longing to ask. "Why are you with me?" his voice was emotionless, most people would have been too terrified to answer. I on the other hand wanted to kill my emotions just like he had. "I am here because I want to be" I said in an equally expressionless voice. "Very well then, stay". That was all the approval I received and it was all I needed.

I stayed with them for the rest of the lunch break, ignoring the people who ran past us, shouting "FIGHT! FIGHT!" This truly was a school full of morons…

Selphie's POV:

Cloud was right. When Squall arrived at school a week later, we did see him walking beside Sephiroth. As he walked through the gates he didn't look at us which made me feel… sad? No, I felt more lonely than sad. Squall was more than a friend and neighbour to me… Just as he was to Cloud, he was like the sibling I never had…

He avoided our gaze as he strode through the school. I looked at Cloud to gauge his reaction and I wasn't surprised to see his face mirroring my own, obviously, he felt the same sense of loss. We stood there for a while in silence, waiting for the others to arrive. Quistis and Seifer arrived shortly after Squall and Sephiroth did, both of them looking forlorn.

The students filing through the gates at irregular intervals spared no thought for any of us except Rinoa, who gave Seifer a gloating smile as she passed by us. For a moment I thought she was going to say something but she was pushed from behind by one of her friends who glared at Seifer, ignoring Quistis, Cloud and myself as if we were part of the wall.

"What's that about?" Quissy asked in confusion, though Cloud and I knew since Seifer had told us what Rin had done in the mall last week. "I'll explain later Sis" Seifer said…his voice still sounded flat. "HEY!" we heard someone yelling. Looking down the road we saw Axel, his red hair standing out like a sore thumb, waving at us. Beside him Roxas looked like he dearly wanted to be sucked into oblivion, his head hung in shame.

To see the two of them so happy seemed kind of odd. Odd that people could still be happy under the present circumstances, though I guess it was only natural that they weren't bothered by a situation they knew nothing about…

Seifer's POV:

From the moment that bitch Rinoa looked at me and smiled, I knew something was going down. It took till lunch time to realise exactly what that meant. Being a Monday, the lesson before lunch was double P.E. and I had already been regretting it. Squall didn't look at me as I entered the locker room, choosing instead to stare intently at a wall. I thought of talking to him but thought back to what Cloud said about Squall needing time. Instead I turned and focused instead on changing.

While I was changing, Wakka and his fellow idiots walked in. From that point on I had to put up with snide comments from Wakka's cronies as well as threats from Wakka for "hurting his woman last week". As I left the locker room, I turned to him saying "Don't get jealous Wakka. I wouldn't dream of touching your whore in any way". The look he gave me clearly told me that he wanted to hurt me. I didn't care much and thought "well it's certainly gonna be a fun period" as I made my way out of the locker.

Sure enough I wasn't disappointed. We were doing laps for "warm up" I took off at a steady pace and despite being one of the last to arrive he caught up to me without difficulty and continued to threaten me. "Like I said" I hissed at him, "I wouldn't dream of touching her. Gods know you can't be that good since she's given it to just about anyone and everyone in this school" and as I finished, I added a little more acceleration and didn't hear what he was shouting to me.

I guess Mr Loire must have because he began to blow his whistle and abused Wakka continuously for 10 minutes. In this time, I finally noticed that Squall was no where to be seen. I turned around in time to see Selphie coming up behind me her face fraught with worry. "What happened?" She asked, her head nodding in the direction of Wakka's shouting match with the Teacher.

"He was being a dick, so I was being one back… Good thing I didn't get caught though" I said quickly, feeling uneasy by the glares I was getting by many of the students around us. By now of course, everyone had noticed Wakka getting abused by Mr Loire who looked almost apoplectic with rage. Wakka was certainly yelling back and in no time at all, the whistle shrilled twice more before Mr Loire barked out that everyone should get changed and "assemble outside the classroom".

Luckily for me, I was in and out of the locker before Wakka and his goons were done with Mr Loire. The lesson had certainly taken a turn for the worse. We were to sit in a classroom for the remaining hour of the lesson in complete silence. Anyone who said a word or disturbed the silence in any way was in serious shit.

When the bell rang, Wakka was first out which was rather impressive since he was sitting at the seat furthest from the door. Mr Loire nodded curtly as all of the students filed out past him. Selphie and I were the last in the room and I turned to her and whispered quickly, "Selphie, I think something's going down. Can you go and find Cloud, Roxas and Axel straight away without any questions?"

I guess I looked kind of scared (I certainly felt it… I could certainly handle Wakka and a couple of others if it came to it, but remembering what I was like in Galbadia I knew I'd be facing the whole team) because she nodded and ran for it, barging through Rinoa and her friends who seemed to be waiting. They weren't the only ones waiting either. Mr Loire followed me out and walked off to the faculty lounge leaving by myself with a rather irate moron and his even stupider friends.

"Payback's gonna be fun Brudda!" I heard Wakka say as he strode confidently forward. Knowing it wasn't going to help the situation, I shot a rather nasty comeback before I felt the first blow. "YOU FAG!" Wakka shouted as he punched me hard in the ribs, winding me completely. As I gasped for air, I saw Nooj and Gippal charge forward, pinning my arms to the wall as Wakka pounded my face and chest.

I kicked out, hearing a crunch of bone, knowing that I had kicked at the back of Wakka's knee-cap but within moments he was replaced by Auron, Kimahri and Tidus who were all pounding me in unison. I felt my lip burst as Kimahri dealt a blow to my jaw. I vaguely heard people shouting "Fight!" in the background though whether they were egging the football team on or calling for more people to watch I don't know. I only registered one voice. Cloud had come.