Compulsive
Multiple Pairings
7 Lies LJ Challenge :)

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01; SquallYuffie — “What the hell did you do that for?” a girl of seventeen screamed. She was flailing her hands in the air above her air while managing to point at the disaster that had once been her report on the French Revolution. Now it just looked like a giant coffee stain, but that’s only because it was.

“I didn’t mean to. Jesus, Yuffie,” the young man hovering beside her said, reaching for the rag that slumped over the kitchen sink behind them. “Didn’t I tell you to stop doing your homework in the kitchen anyway? Aerith is going to be home any moment from the market, and I’m guaranteeing that she’s going to want to cook something that won’t be edible.”

“That’s not the point!” the girl shrieked in response. She picked up her ruined paper with her index finger and thumb. “Look at what you did!” she waved the dripping brown paper in his face, spraying him slightly. “I have been working on this thing for a week, and it’s due tomorrow!”

The young man dropped the rag onto the table and wiped up the left-over coffee. “Don’t have a hernia, Yuffie. I’m sure you saved it after typing it right?”

“UGH! For your information, Squall, I did not!”

“It’s Leon,” came his automatic response.

“I’ll never forgive you,” the girl said, storming out of the room. He watched her leave, bringing his mug to his mouth and ridding it of its last drops of coffee. He smirked almost, knowing that she would come back in about an hour to say she was sorry.

02; RoxasNaminé — Olette stared at herself in the mirror. God, how she hated what she saw looking back at her. She looked almost dead, her usually tan skin turning whiter with every passing second. She felt like she was going throw up, but she wasn’t about to admit that in front of the girl on her bed. Naminé was the antithesis of her; she was wearing a broad smile, her skin was radiant. And she was humming to herself, flipping through old photo albums she had come to discover in the myriad bookshelves that lined the bedroom.

She looked up from the pages with her bright, happy eyes. “Gosh,” she spoke up, her voice gentle and melodic. “You guys have been friends forever! Is this a picture of you two… in diapers?!” She flipped the book and pointed to the top left corner.

Olette nodded. “Yeah, it is,” she answered. Her friend giggled and a sigh passed through her pink lips.

“Wow.”

Olette came and sat down beside her friend, her neighbor, her science lab partner, her enemy and looked over at the picture a little closer. He was laughing and holding her hand with his two front teeth missing. She had her free hands thrown in the air joyously above them, holding up a painted picture she had made of them; he was blue and she was red.

“You’re lucky to have him,” Olette said to her friend, shutting the book and standing up to tuck it away in her bookshelf, maybe forever. “He really likes you.”

She could almost feel Naminé smiling behind her.

“Yeah,” she said dreamily. “I mean, you’re okay with this right? He is your best friend, Olly.”

Olette spun around quickly, her cheeks feeling warm. “Oh, Naminé! I’m happy for you two. Really, I am.”

She wished she wasn’t lying to her friend.

03; HaynerKairi — He could not believe she had managed to drag him out to this nightmare. He would much rather be at the arcade breaking the record on the pinball machine or sneaking into the public swimming pool even though it had closed three hours ago. Instead, he was stuck here, stirring his finger in a plastic cup full of warm punch and watching her talk to Selphie about the yellow-flowered dress she was wearing.

And was Pence sitting next to him at the table… asleep?! God, sometimes Hayner wished he didn’t get girls like Pence. He never had to please anyone but himself.

And, wow. That thought totally made him sound like a complete and total asshole.

The DJ switched songs and a few people up at the turntable cheered with satisfaction, two of them being Selphie and his date. How the hell had she gotten over there so fast? “Hayner! Hayner! Come dance with me, Hayner!” she called out to him, beckoning him over with her index finger.

He shook his head rapidly. “I’m not feeling well!” he called to her. He rubbed his stomach for emphasis. It looked like she rolled her indigo eyes as she came toward him.

“Hayyyyynerrrrrrr,” she whined, tugging on his hand. “Come on, Hayner. This is the last dance of the year. The least you can do is dance with me once.”

“I’d rather be castrated with a wooden spoon.”

The girl looked like she was going to cry. “Don’t be a jerk, Hayner. Just dance with your freakin’ girlfriend,” Selphie said from behind her. She had some poor, helpless soul by the hand and he looked absolutely horrified, to say the least.

Hayner looked from the boy to his date and then back to the boy. And then he sighed. “Fine, I’ll dance with you.” Besides, at that moment, he was just glad that it wasn’t Selphie he was going to dance with.

04; AxelSelphie — His foot tapped to the song playing in the background. It was a nice, pulsing beat that for reason made him want to get up and dance. That just doesn’t usually happen. He helped himself to another drink, some fruity mixture the bartender had highly recommended and stared at the hordes of people on the dance floor, twisting and turning beneath the strobe lights.

And that’s when he saw her.

She was a little on the shorter side, but he decided right then that he liked them that way. Her brown-red hair flipped outwards and her green eyes lit up like fireworks under the lights. Their eyes connected and she smiled his way.

He straightened up as she approached him. She carried herself like she knew what she was doing, and he most certainly liked that about a girl. And confidence never looked so good. “Hey there,” she greeted him, sitting on the barstool next to his. She turned to the bartender and ordered a daiquiri.

“Hey,” he replied, feeling himself lean closer. “And you are?”

“Selphie. I’m Selphie,” she answered, reaching out her hand. He grasped it and shook it gently, a grin widening his face. He only released her hand when she raised her eyebrows, questioning, awaiting for him to reveal his own name.

“Oh. I’m Axel.”

“What brings you here tonight, Axel?” Selphie said, receiving her drink. She brought the glass to her lips, making his heart leap forward.

“Oh, I just came here to find you,” he said.

“You’re lying. We’ve never met before!” she said, looking amused.

“Babe, I never lie.”

05; SoraRiku — “Hey, Sora?”

“Yeah, Selphie?”

“I saw you and Riku the other day behind the football bleachers after school.”

“…Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. What’s with that?”

“Oh, uh, nothing! Nothing at all!”

“Puh-lease. Spill it.”

“I swear, Selphie. It was nothing.”

“Were you two fighting?”

“No.”

“So you’re still friends.”

“Of course we’re friends! We’re just friends.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing!”

“Sure, Sora. Sure.”

06; CloudYuffie — They sat side by side, staring up at the giant, drop-down screen. “Previews are the best part,” the girl whispered loudly. She stuffed gummy worms into her mouth as she spoke, so her speech was indecipherable to the boy next to her. He rolled his eyes and simultaneously decided that the trailer to the movie he had just watched was going to bomb in the box office this summer.

The screen went black for a moment, the audience hushing. “Are you scared, Yuffie? I mean, this movie is pretty gruesome, I hear,” the boy said quietly.

He felt the girl beside him fold her arms. “Yeah right. I’m not afraid. I watch movies like this with Cid and Leon all the time,” she claimed proudly. “Oh, and don’t think this is some date, Cloud. I only came because Aerith is a chicken and wouldn’t come and plus, I had nothing else better to do.”

“So you came to see this horror movie with me because you ‘had nothing else better to do’?” the boy said, acting as if he were offended, which he really wasn’t. He just enjoyed getting a ride out of Yuffie.

“No! That’s not what I meant!”

“Hey! Up front! Shut up!” someone called to Yuffie from the back.

The girl turned around and gave him the finger.

When she turned back around and settled in her seat, she could feel the boy beside her shaking with silenced laughter. She turned her attention to the screen and helped herself to the popcorn Cloud had purchased for himself.

Ten minutes into the movie, and Yuffie could not be any closer to Cloud unless she literally sat on him. “I thought you weren’t scared, Yuffie,” he whispered in her ear.

“I’m not,” she said. Of course, she kind of was, but she really just wanted to be close to him.

07; HaynerSeifer — “I win. Again. God, you are such a lamer, Hayner.”

“Shut up, Seifer,” Hayner said, sliding off of the motorcycle to the arcade game. “You only won because you kicked me off my bike before we even started.”

“My foot slipped.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

They headed to the counter with the faded red tickets they had won after spending twenty bucks each. “I bet you I got more than you,” Seifer said, handing his over to the guy behind the counter.

“That’s because you’re a cheater,” Hayner countered.

“You can’t prove that.”

“Whatever.” Hayner handed the guy his tickets as well, leaning against the counter while looking through the glass to decide what he wanted to waste his tickets on today. “Oh, damn. I think I left my wallet by the motorcycle!” he suddenly realized. “I’ll be right back.”

Seifer watched as he left then turned back to the counter.

When Hayner returned, he found Seifer standing there with two things; there was a really awesome-looking gigantic bubblegum machine that had to be half the size of Seifer himself and there was a pink teddy bear.

“You ass! You spent all my tickets. Wait, let me guess. I’m getting the bear!?” Hayner yelled at him.

“Actually, no. The teddy bear is for my little sister. The bubblegum machine is for you.”

“God, Seifer, I can’t believe you… wait, what?”