Please read this: hey there. I tried to keep this chapter as T-rated as possible, but it is still quite obvious. I have little to no notion of boundaries at all, I don't know when it becomes too much, so I'm counting on you (the readers) to give me your most sincere opinion about it. Maybe I'm not making sense now, so just read the chapter through. It will make sense then, I hope.
Thanks Lollita and Amatheriz (check her DA account asap.) for the lovely reviews. Thank you, those who alert and favourite my story, and thank you all for reading it. On with it~
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy. I do not own The Cure [I so f-wished!]. I just own my cat.
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So this is how it went.
Dex from Mideel told Lora from the coffee shop, who told her cousin in Junon. Her name was Martha. Martha then called Seto, who knew Teioh from school, and both set out to tell the girls. One of the girls knew Biggs from the Marshes, who told Barret. Barret told no one. But another girl knew Yuffie, sister to Tifa, who then told Cid, the current boyfriend. And because Cid never liked me much he told Zack. And because Zack liked me a lot he told me.
"I don't wanna go with 'em. Do you?" I asked, lifting the kaleidoscope towards the ceiling.
The colours made me dizzy but I still loved it.
"I dunno, it could be fun?" he said vaguely, as he lit a cigarette "We never leave this goddamn place."
"Actually…" I pointed the cylinder towards him, "I don't come to your place that often anymore."
He laughed, tossing me the cigarette pack. "I meant the fucking town!"
"Oh yeah, that." I chuckled, playing the dummy.
It had become so much easier for me to be around him if I just acted plainly idiotic. He didn't seem to be able to tell the right from wrong.
But Zack too was different – I felt him different ever since the week had started. I asked him twice if there was anything he would like to tell me, to confine in me, but he would always shrug it off. I was never the kind of person to let those matters sink in, so I let him be. His secrets… if he didn't want to talk about them, I for sure wouldn't bring them up.
It didn't take long for me to find what was happening, anyway…
We ended up seeing The Cure after all. Cid drove us there, reluctantly.
The band was playing at Stigmas, an underground club in Midgar. Apparently, Dex from Mideel knew a guy who knew a guy who could get kids in for free. It was a scheme of course – the guy was trying to sell us meth or get a quick fuck – but Zack still managed to get us in.
You know, since we were there and all…
It was crazy. James Smith was a mere dark shade on the far-off stage, encircled in this weird, feverish green light. The sound was terrible, deafening, completely infected from the low-quality sound system, but it still sounded like them. The whole place vibrated. The stoned, the messy, the virgins, the poor, the ugly, the potheads, the free. And the illegal too. I was an illegal, most people around me were. Some didn't have the money for the extra fee, others didn't have the age. But it was still our music.
I was completely engrossed in it after a while, and I didn't even notice Zack's hand leaving mine.
Man, I had been so excited I didn't even realise he had been holding my hand the whole evening…
I turned around in time to see him rubbing his eyes with his wrists, and pushed through every faceless body behind me to finally join him in the back. He looked funny with his black hood on and dizzy watery eyes smiling at me. I asked again what was going on but he just wrinkled his nose.
"Got tired. The sound is awful," he said. I could hardly hear it.
"Where were you, then? I could've come with."
He sniffed to his open palm, smiled. "Needed a cigarette." he said.
I nodded, didn't believe him. His face was different, his eyes too red, too open. I knew what he had been doing – it was written all over – but I didn't find the strength to confront him. I didn't have the right to.
"We can go home if you want…" I said, trying to hear my own voice above the music.
They were playing Let's Go to Bed, an old hit. His favourite. He smiled, wrinkling his nose one last time.
"I don't feel it if you don't…" he said. Or was it Smith?
I shook my head, squinted. "What?"
He reached for my naked arm almost in slow motion – or was the smoke making me dizzy? He was shaking. Like the song. Like milk. But he still smiled that faint strange smile of his, his eyes still very open, watery and pissing me off.
He dragged his feet closer. "I won't play it if you don't play it first…" he muttered.
This time I could hear it perfectly clear against my skin. It was his voice.
"What, Zack…?" I whispered back, not quite sure why, not quite sure how.
He really was different. I just couldn't bear the thought of staying behind. Behind him, you see.
The moment he grasped his cold fingers around my wrist I knew everything would change. But I had to follow him and I did; otherwise I would lose him.
I saw it happening the way a voyeur would have seen it. Zack tried to keep the broken door shut with his feet, but he said afterwards it got tiresome after a while. Outside the stall, dirty mirrors of any shape and colour hung onto the walls, full of nasty writings and drawings.
The first thing I noticed was my face. It was unbelievingly red and the blue in my eyes nearly melting.
My shoulders were shaking uncontrollably, my fingers tangled in the mess of his dark hair…
And Zack was on his knees.
The cure was right above us. The whole world was right above us, and the only noises that I could hear were mine, trying not to make a total fool out of myself. We hadn't properly kissed yet; I thought we ought to have done it before things like that could happen.
I didn't try to stop him though. At first I was afraid it would chase him away if I did, but as his hands began to touch me, I wasn't sure if I wanted him to stop.
But it was so quick.
Fifteen minutes later I would be silently regaining my composure in the backseat of Cid's red LeCar, listening to some obnoxious commercial hit and an overexcited Tifa discussing her menstrual circle, or something just as interesting. I wasn't paying attention.
Beside me, with his eyes turned to the window, Zack wouldn't talk, wouldn't listen…
It was like he wasn't even there.
"How do you know you're in love with someone?" she asked, casually enough not to scare me.
I put down my notes and scratched my forehead. "I think it has something to do with… feelings?"
She hit me with her papers. "I'm not asking what it is! Just how do you know it is it…"
"Well." I sighed "If you feel like kissing someone, it probably means you love them. Right?"
Aerith tilted her head, pondering on my empty reasoning, while I returned to my reading.
The public library was probably the one place we frequented together anymore. It was a good place to study since hardly anyone used it, and neither Aerith nor I had the perfect atmosphere back at home to do it. We never talked much about it, mostly because we understood each other without much effort, but I sometimes wondered how she managed to keep her flawless grades, to be always so put together.
And I didn't know how I couldn't.
"I will follow thee and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well." she muttered.
"Shakespeare." I completed.
"Yes. So you see, it is not quite about kissing. It's more about suffering…" she smiled.
"To be in love?"
"Hum-hum." she nodded, returning her eyes to her papers. "We should be more careful, I suppose."
"Why we? I'm not in love with you!" I clearly stated.
Her eyebrows narrowed closer. "And I'm not in love with you either! It was just an expression…!"
"Oh…" I felt a little embarrassed there, "That's right then."
Aerith was always right. I never told her what had happened that night, at the concert, because I feared her boldness, her sincerity. I feared that skilful way she had to break into my thoughts. I couldn't let her know how angry I was, how humiliated I felt after being completely rejected.
Afterwards, I didn't hear of Zack for at least a couple of weeks. That is, until he stopped by my doorstep unannounced. He was pretty much the same then, and we were pretty much the same together.
Except for one or other thing…
"Never thought of selling those?" he asked me once, nodding towards my open sketchbook.
"Huh? These are hardly likable, let alone buyable!" I cringed, closing it.
He shrugged. "Don't be so hard on yourself… you're pretty talented." he said.
We were on the open goods wagon again, the sun was setting behind the smoke. It was our daily routine restored, though it felt kind of lifeless sometimes…
"It's just portraits of people…" I muttered. "Edea and Grace's. I can't do yours yet. Sometime, maybe…"
I won't say it if you don't say it first.
"Come here." he said, staring down at his open palms.
"What?" I asked, as I dragged my butt on the dusty metal.
It was no surprise what he wanted. We had begun to do it quite often now. It was one of those things… one of those things that changed.
With no uttered word, no hands involved, he tilted his head and reached for my lips, slithering his tongue to part them open. It was always wet. Silent too. We would kiss without touching in any other part of our bodies, until he grew frustrated enough not to be able to handle it, and broke the kiss. I would then return to my drawings and he would resume conversation the normal way he always did.
One year later I was selling my drawings on Little Traverse monthly street fair.
Too short? I'm sorry, I didn't want to bore you all.
So, review please? :)