Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ The Relative Merits of Fast Food ❯ Fast-Food ( Chapter 1 )

“Hey hey hey, I’m here!” The blond burst through the cafeteria doors in a eddy of his usual energy, wide grin plastered across his face. Squall glanced up at the sound of both Zell’s voice and the commotion that always accompanied him. He sighed, though still allowed the smallest of smiles to curve his lips at the younger teen’s irrepressible yet ever-so-slightly idiotic exuberance. Zell, however, did not see him, and headed straight towards the counter with a definite bounce in his step.

Squall’s smile widened almost imperceptibly as he watched Zell address the grey haired woman behind the cafeteria counter, heard her answer, and saw his face fall.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Dincht, but we’ve run out... Again. I just sold the last one a minute ago.”

It was a cliché, but in this instance it was true.

“What?” Zell exclaimed, before letting his shoulders slump forward in defeat. “Aw man…” He punched the air, efficiently expressing his frustration. “Who to?”

Squall could tell from the blond’s demeanour - and from his own knowledge of the boy’s temperament - that Zell would feel as though he had been personally robbed.

“Um, that gentleman over there,” the woman replied, and Squall turned away in time to avoid Zell’s eyes, a smug, lopsided smirk creeping onto his face. Seeing Zell in just the corner of his eye, and ignoring the look of disbelief and outrage that the blond shot him, Squall leaned nonchalantly back in his seat and took his first bite out of that day’s last hot-dog. Then, as though he hadn’t seen Zell at all, he stood up and began to stroll out of the cafeteria.

Being known as the man who had led the battle against the malevolent sorceress Ultimecia, as well as being the son of Esthar’s president, Squall found that he was often awarded certain special privileges in Garden. Eating in the hallways was one of them. He ambled calmly toward the residential area of the Garden, glancing over his shoulder now and then to glimpse a spiky blond head following behind him.

He was nearly at his room by the time Zell caught up with him, having had to wend his way through an inconvenient troupe of students and SeeDs who had unwittingly impeded his path.

“Hey, Squall!” Squall turned as he felt Zell’s hand on his arm, his expression deliberately blank. “What the hell, dude? Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

Squall pretended to look puzzled, then shrugged. “No. Sorry. What did you want?”

He saw Zell falter a moment, his eyes flicking to the partly eaten hot-dog in his hand. “Let me have a bite, won’t you?” he tried.

Squall blinked, feigning surprise. “Of this?…Oh yeah, I forgot you liked these. What, did they run out again?”

He thought his ruse had worked for a moment, before Zell caught the amusement in his eyes and frowned, his gloved hands balling into fists at his sides.

“You did that on purpose!” Zell accused.

Squall merely shrugged. “Did what?” He then raised the hot-dog, with deliberate slowness, about to take another bite. Zell, outraged, growled and made a grab for Squall’s hand. The brunet easily moved out of Zell’s reach, an infuriating little smirk on his usually blank face. “Oh, this?” Squall asked. He didn’t usually do this kind of thing, but he was starting to rather enjoy it. He began to see why Seifer enjoyed getting Zell riled up so often.

“Yeah, that!” Zell replied hotly, folding his arms and beginning to pout. “You know I love ‘em, and you go and take the last one on <I>purpose</I>… so gimme!”

Squall frowned, and took a long time before answering. “No,” he said.

“What?”
“I said no. This is mine. I paid for it, and I’m hungry.”

With that, Squall turned away from Zell and headed to the door of his room. The door opened with a hiss, but the blond darted through after Squall before it had the chance to slide shut again.

“C’mon, dude, really,” he tried again, not one to be defeated so easily.

Squall turned back to him, frowning. “Leave me alone,” he tried; he hadn’t anticipated this level of persistence from the young blond. He set the partially eaten hot-dog on his desk and sat down, leaning back and resting the heels of his boots on the desk next to it. It wasn’t even that good… Zell hovered near Squall’s bed, eyeing the hot-dog hungrily.

“I’ll trade you for it,” Zell offered after a moment. Squall raised an eyebrow.

“Like what?”

“Like… whatever you want,” Zell elaborated, accompanying his words with an expansive gesture. “C’mon, what do you really want? Except for, you know… Rinoa, or something…” The last few words were mumbled, as though the blond had realised part way through that he was saying something he shouldn’t. Squall simply frowned, then looked away for an instant before returning his attention to Zell.

“That’s not true, you know,” he said quietly. It was true that he had been pretty low in the weeks following Rinoa’s departure, and of course his friends had picked up on it… but he had gotten through it, gotten over it. He had spent a lifetime being left behind anyway; it was nothing he hadn’t done before. Zell tilted his head to one side. “No, I mean it…” Squall tried to explain. “She’s… she’s not a part of my life any more.”

Zell paused for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay then… so does this mean you’ll stop being such a drag all the time, then?” When Squall looked displeased, he laughed and sat down on Squall’s bed, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, his arms still crossed. “Sorry, dude, but you’ve been really depressing lately… you just mope around. You know I’m right.”

“I have?”

“Don’t even try to deny it,” Zell replied, waving one hand in an unarguably dismissive gesture, his eyes closed, his expression taking on that infuriating, you-know-I’m-right attitude that it was nigh impossible to reason with.

“I wasn’t denying anything,” Squall said, rather sullenly.

“You weren’t?” Zell’s eye opened a crack, and he frowned at the older boy for a moment. When Squall shook his head, he shrugged and relaxed his posture so that he was reclining across the bed, supported by his hands placed flat atop the sheets. “Okay, well, whatever. You get the point, though.”

Squall was not completely sure that he did, but felt that at this point it was easier to simply agree with whatever the blond said. “Okay then,” he said, a slightly baffled expression on his face. “But what about the more serious matter?”

Zell tilted his head to one side. It seemed that his attention span was only shortening with age. Squall motioned with his head to the remains of the hotdog. It had mostly cooled by now, and to Squall it looked decidedly unappetising. Zell, however, was as keen as ever, if the widening of his eyes and the sudden eager smile were anything to go by. “Oh man! Yeah, I’d forgotten. So, like, what do you want for it?”

Squall would have quite happily given him the thing for free, if only to be rid of it, but for some reason he found playing with Zell too amusing to give up just yet. “What do you have to trade?” he said, folding his arms and trying not to look too superior.

“Uhh,” Zell thought for a moment, a look of utmost concentration on his face. “I’ll …” Then he laughed, and his expression became so mischievous that Squall wondered if he should worry. “I’ll give you a kiss!” The grin that accompanied this bizarre and unexpected proposition was so bright, so self-assured, that for a full five seconds Squall could only blink at him.

Then, finally, he managed to say, “What?”

Zell’s smile didn’t even falter. “C’mon, most of Garden would give <I>way</I> more than half a hotdog for a kiss from Zell Dincht.”

“Is that so?” Squall replied, regaining enough of his composure to raise one eyebrow with his usual deadpan style.

“Yeah!” Zell said, looking slightly hurt at Squall’s apparent disbelief. “You don’t believe me?” he asked, spreading his arms in an expansive and challenging gesture.

“…I didn’t say that,” Squall replied, in his most level tone. The last thing he needed was for the blond to swing off into one of his little tantrums; while comical, they were inconvenient when levelled at him.

“You… implied it…!”

Squall maintained a reflective silence for a moment, meditating on how best to proceed. To his consternation, only one course of action seemed forthcoming, however much he batted the idea away while looking for an alternative. Unfortunately for him, Zell seemed to have had the same idea.

“I’ll prove it to you!”

“What?”

“C’mere, lemme prove it..”

“Zell,” Squall tried to say levelly. “If you are thinking of what I think you’re thinking of, for starters it doesn’t even make sense-”

“I <I>said</I> come here,” Zell interrupted. He had never been one to pay much attention to logic. To Squall’s horror, the blond was standing up and crossing the room in two long, easy strides, leaning forward with a purposeful look on his face. Oh, <I>hell</I> no, Squall found himself thinking. Unfortunately, the positioning of his chair in relation to the rest of the room afforded him little leeway for escape, and before he knew which way was <I>out</I> Zell’s face was inches from his, and the blond had grabbed the lapel of his jacket so as to stop him from twisting away. “Why are you so goddamn difficult, man?” Zell asked. “Now hold still.”

“Now w-… Mh!” came Squall’s eloquent reply, muffled by the pair of lips that had managed to find their way to his. Zell hadn’t been kidding. As expected, though, the sensation was nothing if not uncomfortable, and was not aided by the uncharacteristic blush that Squall felt rising to his cheeks.

He raised his gloved palms to Zell’s chest and shoved, forcing the blond to break the contact. “Zell, what the hell?” Squall blustered.

Zell, however, paid him little attention, as he was too busy taking advantage of the brunet’s distracted state, darting a hand out to grab his coveted prize, the cold hotdog.

“Yeah!” he exclaimed in glee, springing back to his feet and already heading for the door with his usual bouncing steps. “Got ya that time, Leonhart.”

Squall followed him with his eyes, still too dumbstruck to formulate a proper response. “Whu…?”

“Sorry, Squall. Even you’ll admit it was worth it, though, right?” And with that same infuriating grin he left the room, already stuffing the hotdog into his mouth.

As the door hissed shut, Squall Leonhart merely remained where he sat, and remained so for several moments. He had the odd sensation that he had been cheated out of something, though he was sure he didn’t even like hotdogs.