Room 421, Friday Afternoon

[angelo_wings]

Rinoa was sort of worrying about Ethics class, yesterday. And so she decided to leave a voicemail for Squall. And then another, explaining the first, and another, explaining the second, and yet another, with something else she'd considered, and one more, to be huffy at him for not calling her back yet.

He should have known better than to date a princess.

While she was at it, she needed to call her BFF Ariel. And then she noticed that she had a message, herself! ... Weird. She returned it, with no small amount of confusion.



And then Ariel called her back, except her message was all weird. Rinoa hoped to clear that up with another call of her own.

(establishy! open! subject to updates!)

Comments

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

"...Call you back?" Squall asked. His phone hadn't rung at all in... well, weeks, to be honest. If it were broken, he probably wouldn't know. "I didn't get your message." His puzzled look continued when the second half of what she'd said processed. "...What tiger?"

[angelo_wings]

"Do you not even check your messages?" Rinoa asked, putting her hands on her hips. Ah, yes. Lecture time. "Why have a phone if you're not going to check it? It could have been important!"

Seriously! She could have been kidnapped by Esthar officials and not, say, bored.

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

"My room phone is supposed to pass messages through to my portable phone," Squall told her. "It hasn't rung."

He could pull it out and show her, if that helped? It probably wouldn't. "Sorry."

[angelo_wings]

"Okay," she said. "You should check the forwarding on that, then. Because I called. Several times."

And because it was easier to be huffy at him than to get to what she really needed to talk to him about. She scuffed her toes on the ground. "I ... picked the tiger," she said. "In class. I don't ... know if that's gonna bother you or not."

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

Oh, well, then... Squall still had no idea what she was trying to say. "Which class?" he asked. "What tiger? I don't know what you mean."

It seemed to be very important to her, so he didn't want to mess this up.

[angelo_wings]

"The story, in Ethics," she said, still not looking up. She had one arm looped around behind her, holding her opposite elbow. "Where my dad catches us together and makes you pick a door, and I have to tell you if it's the lady or the tiger."

Technically, the story was a hypothetical. She was the one casting the roles, here.

"So I was supposed to pick lady, and I ... I didn't."

'Supposed to' in no one's interpretation but her own. The teacher had informed her, personally, that it was completely okay to pick tiger.

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

Squall frowned. Ethics class. The lady or the tiger. That sounded really familiar -- he'd just taken Ethics, after all -- and he tried to remember the exercise.

"..."

It was... he'd have to either marry the lady or get eaten by the tiger, wasn't it? That sounded right.

"So?" he asked her, eventually. "I'd rather the tiger anyway."

[angelo_wings]

"... You would?" Rinoa was going to stare at Squall for a few moments. "You know the tiger's supposed to eat you, right?"

He did have memory problems.

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, so?" Squall shrugged.

It was only a tiger -- he could take it. Besides, even in the thought experiment world... he wouldn't want to marry someone else.

[angelo_wings]

Rinoa rolled her eyes.

"Okay, pretend you're not you," she said, "and the tiger really is going to eat you."

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

Squall considered that again, because she'd asked him to.

"I'd still want the tiger," he decided.

[angelo_wings]

"Really?" she asked, her voice soft. She stood up and twined her arms around his neck. "Because ... because of me?"

That was stupid and foolhardy and ridiculous and she should tell him that, instead of wanting to kiss him witless.

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

Squall shrugged. "Well... yeah. Is that wrong?"

He didn't know. Maybe it was.

[angelo_wings]

"It's ... probably not very good, for you," she said. "I'm supposed to be noble and tell you that I just want you to be happy and that I'd hope you fell in love with her and had babies but I ... I can't. I can't stand the thought of it."

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

"Neither can I," Squall told her, holding her close. "I'd rather not think about it. I don't want anyone other than you."

[angelo_wings]

Rinoa leaned up for a light kiss. "I told you you're not allowed to dump me in the first week," she said. "That's a rule, isn't it?"

No, Rinoa. It wasn't.

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

Squall leaned in and deepened the kiss. After a while, he pulled back for a breath. "I'm not going to dump you, ever," he told her definitively. "That's my rule."

[angelo_wings]

Excuse Rinoa for a moment. A kiss like that deserved another one. Or two.

And then she was going to remember she had a roommate and things like that, and also, that she needed air.

"I like your rule," she said, in a low voice. "So when are you taking me on that date?"

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

"When do you want to?" Squall asked, breathing heavily. "How's tomorrow sound?"

[angelo_wings]

"Perfect," she said. "Pick me up at eight? Maybe bring me flowers?"

She could probably, at this point, request he bring her baby heads on spikes and he'd try to give it a go. It wasn't fair to make requests of guys once you've kissed them silly.

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

"Sounds good," Squall told her. "I'll do that."

For now, though, he was going to look deeply into her eyes, and then kiss her again.