A/N: This takes place a couple of weeks after the previous chapter, so Terra's still 22 years old, Aqua's 21, Leon's 24 and Ven is 18. Also, not sure if I've already said this, but I totally blame Alacquiene for Aqua having a white violin. She wrote a one-shot about it and now I can't unsee it anymore. :P And finally, after what seems to be ages, Ven is back! That's reason enough to be happy, right? :P

Thanks: xxPLUR, Amulet Misty, Walker of Nothing, TopazDragon98, HawkRider, Jizzle Pop, Yue Asuka, and M. L. Ayala, my lovely beta reader. :)

~ "He's willingly spending his free time with you. We both know that you either have to be bonkers or madly in love if you go that far." ~

15) Community

There was something so delightfully mysterious about Leon… She couldn't really explain it, but it attracted her to him even though she didn't want that to happen. The weird thing was that suddenly, everybody seemed to know him, and Aqua heard girls talk about him all the time. Or maybe they had been doing it before, but she'd never noticed anything. In fact, whenever the brunet man would pass them in the corridors, barely sparing them a glance, he seemed to leave a trail of whispering, fainting fan girls behind him, making Aqua wonder how it was possible to have that many female students at the same place. It was as though they all knew when he would appear and they were all gathering there, waiting to catch a glimpse of him.

Of course, she knew that she must be imagining that. After all, this was a big faculty and she doubted that any man could make that many women swoon, no matter how talented he was or how high he scored in the looks department (and let's face it, Leon scored a twelve on a scale of one to ten). Honestly, did he even know what he was doing to people only by looking at them?

What bothered the bluenette slightly was that everyone around her was a little surprised that Leon was willingly wasting his precious free time for Aqua, a mere student, so that she could get her Master's degree (how some people had found that out in the first place, she didn't know). In a way, he reminded her of Terra, except for the fact that Leon was much more charismatic, solemn and withdrawn and…

"…And then, you should've seen both their faces, Nami accidentally hugged this moody guy who looked exactly like me! Can you believe that? Seriously, we could've been twins for all I kn- Aqua?"

She blinked when she heard her name, realizing that she'd been spacing out once again. It was becoming a nasty habit of hers, one that she couldn't get rid of.

"Huh?"

"Hey, if I'm too much of a bother with my boring stories, or something, I can go, you know," Ventus commented, a little too sharply.

She could hear from his voice that he was rather offended by her lack of attention at…whatever he was trying to tell her. Frankly, she couldn't blame him; it was Aqua who had invited him, after all (more like begging him to spend this day with her, because she hadn't seen him for so long. Aqua had even gone far enough to call him 'Vennie', which he only allowed her when no one else was around. It had worked, though).

This made her flinch, because it made him look like a kicked puppy. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Ven," Aqua muttered truthfully, smiling apologetically at him. "It won't happen again, I promise."

Almost at once, the hurt expression on his face disappeared and he seemed worried that he might have hurt her feelings. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't act so grumpy and childish all the time. It's probably because the lack of sleep," he explained.

"Aww, you're not childish. You're sweet!"

Aqua ruffled his spiky hair affectionately. He didn't even bother to swat her hand away, which only proved to her that he was really tired. The first year of college was kind of hectic for him, she could tell that much. The sudden change of atmosphere, all the expectations, new experiences and freedom that came with this independency were taking their toll on him now. It was all extra hard for him, because he had moved so far away from them. Poor thing.

It was times like these that she just wanted to drop everything she was holding and rush over to him to give him a big hug.

At the moment, the two close friends were sitting in the conservatory's crowded cafeteria. Aqua had invited the blond over to spend his free day with her. Unfortunately for them, Terra wasn't free today, so that left the two of them alone. The room was gigantic. The sunlight that fell through the huge windows only made the cafeteria look bigger and livelier. It smelled like tomato soup, sandwiches and different warm dishes mixed together. The most striking object, however, was the grand, black pianoforte in the middle of the room. A student with wavy, dirty blonde hair was playing a dramatic but difficult piece on it at the moment. It sounded a little like… Mozart? Or one of those old dudes, anyway; Ven sucked at hearing any difference between the composers, but that was what he had Aqua for. It was almost creepy how she could hear the differces between all those composers, even for someone as intelligent as her.

"It's okay, Ven. I wasn't exactly paying attention, either, so I deserved it. So now, it's all about you and me, and your adventures in Twilight Town. And Terra…even if he couldn't come to contradict everything I say about him."

She thought that he would curiously ask what that last comment meant, but instead, Ven had found interest in something else that she had mentioned. "Oh, were you thinking of someone special?" he inquired, his eyes twinkling mischievously.

Aqua mentally facepalmed at her slip-up, and she started to blush. "No…"

"Do you like him?"

"What? No, I don't even know him-" She stopped, her eyes widening when she realized that she'd just contradicted herself. "Oh, you're good!"

Ven flashed her a triumphant grin, which made him look much younger than he was. "Just because I'm the youngest doesn't mean that I never notice anything. I thought you knew me better than that, especially now that I'm studying psychology. I can practically guess your thoughts by looking at your face alone."

Aqua managed a small smile. "Touché. It's just that… There's this man who offered to help me with some of the more tricky pieces I have to master. You should have heard him playing the piano… I was impressed by his skills, that's all there is to it."

Ven wriggled his eyebrows suggestively. "I assume that this is merely his musical skills you're talking about… Not something else?"

Aqua's eyes widened once again at the implication (and at the fact that she heard Ven, her innocent Ven of all people, say something like that. Apparently, a certain brunet guy was rubbing off on him). "Of course I am! You're even worse than Terra sometimes!"

The blond let out a hearty laugh. "Hey, I'm just messing with you. So, I guess it's nice of him to help you without even knowing you. Is he here right now?"

Aqua quickly scanned her surroundings, in search for the brunet man. She was about to shake her head and say "No" when she spotted glossy, chocolate brown tresses and familiar steel blue eyes a few tables further to her right. He seemed to be discussing something with Xehanort, the latter making wild hand gestures, as though he was talking about the end of the world. Knowing him, it was probably about the orchestra and nothing too serious, because all Leon really did was nod with a solemn look on his face.

It didn't take long for her blonde friend to notice how she was distracted once again, so he followed her eyes. "Whoa, please tell me it's not the creepy Terra lookalike with the long, silver hair!"

The bluenette had to laugh at that. "No, Ven, I wasn't talking about Xehanort this time. It's the person next to him."

"Oh, thank god, Aqua. You had me scared there for a minute! Although that scar makes him look almost as dangerous as the Creepy Terra-nort. I mean, if he hadn't been that handsome to begin with…"

"You can actually see that from this distance?" she asked, utterly surprised.

"No, I was just trying to find out if you thought he was handsome or not," he replied with a big grin.

Aqua buried her face in her hands. Talk about messing up majorly.

"Ugh, Ven… What do I do with you?"

Ven was about to reply with something witty, when he caught another movement from that direction. So instead, he said, "Hey, he's getting up!"

The bluenette automatically looked up and saw that Ven was right; Leon took the tray that lay in front of him, on the table, and walked away to hand it in, leaving Xehanort in an even worse mood judging by the scowl on his face. As of now, the man looked as though he was ready to kill the first person who spoke to him.

Ven didn't bother to hide his grin. "Looks like Terra-nort is not pleased with whatever that guy did. I think I would get along very well with your new teacher."

"It's easy for you to find it funny, but something tells me that Xehanort's going to take it all out on his next class, which I happen to be in," Aqua said darkly.

Whatever it was that Leon said or did to tick him off like that must be really bad, though, considering that Xehanort hardly ever lost his patience in front of teachers (he had no problem with scaring his students, though...unfortunately). She didn't have much time to think of what it could be about, because at that moment, she noticed how the brunet teacher had spotted her and started approaching her. For a moment, she feared that somehow, he knew that they had been talking about him not too long ago, but thankfully, her suspicions were wrong.

After nodding politely to Ven, he turned to Aqua and started, "Apparently, Xehanort finds it necessary to change everyone's schedule, so this evening's tutoring will be in B 031 instead."

The way he talked about the silver-haired man didn't go unnoticed by her; he must find Xehanort just as annoying as everyone else did. She wouldn't be surprised if Leon had told him exactly how he felt about Xehanort's plan.

"Oh. Okay, thank you for telling me." A quiet beat passed between them, but when Ven coughed impatiently, she hastened to add, "This is Ventus, a good friend of mine. He studies psychology in Twilight Town."

"Hiya!" he started enthusiastically, until he realized that it might come off as rude. As he shook the man's hand, he tried again. "I mean, nice to meet you, professor… Sir."

The corner of Leon's mouth quirked upwards faintly, as though he wanted to smile. A hint of amusement was evident in his voice when he said, "Call me Leon. You're not a student of mine, after all."

"Oh… Alright."

"I'll leave you two alone now. It was nice to meet you, Ventus. Enjoy your lunch."

After another polite nod, he turned around and walked away with big, confident strides.

Ven rubbed his right hand. As soon as he was out of earshot, he said softly, "It's nice to finally meet a teacher of yours that doesn't give the impression that he wants to strangle me… But man, that guy has a firm grip! Hasn't he broken any musical instruments lately?"

Aqua laughed. "Not that I know."

"So… do you call him professor or Sir, too?"

"No. I did at first, but then he told me he preferred to be called Leon."

He was silent for a long time. Aqua wondered what was going through her friends mind, when he noted, "That's very interesting. I think he likes you…"

She rolled her eyes. "Just because I'm allowed to call him by his name?"

"That, and he's willingly spending his free time with you. We both know that you either have to be bonkers or madly in love if you go that far," the spiky-haired young man said teasingly.

If he thought he could make Aqua feel uncomfortable, then he was terribly wrong.

"So which one of those are you?"

Ven gave her a confused look. "Huh?"

"Do I have to remind you that you're spending your free time with me, too, right now?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, but that's beside the point."

"Oh, is it now?"

Ven let out an impatient huff. "Aqua, I'm telling you, my conclusion about this guy is right!"

"No, that's a common mistake made by first year students. Let's see if you're still convinced of that next year."

The blond shook his head, not at all impressed by his friend's teasing. "We both know that I don't have to wait that long; judging by the way he said it, this "tutoring" will be the spectacle of the year…if you know what I mean."

Finally, Aqua had had enough of her friend's teasing, so she gave him a smack on the head with a rolled up newspaper.

A/N: Next chapter: "I swear, a dictator has more understanding than that ice queen Larxene. Her bitchiness reached a whole new level today."

Darn, seems like this person is always underappreciated and never understood.