un.
This is what he always says: “I wanna win.”
You are too young to have heart (you will always be too young to have heart); you always tell him he will lose. He still cries when he scrapes his knees on the bluff every morning; he still cries when he waits on the bluff every evening, waits for Ell to return. You do not tell him that no one ever comes for orphans, for the ones like him and you.
Last summer, Matron took you aside. (You are still young enough that your memories are slotted neatly by season and year; you will not realize how slow time passes when you are young until you are not, until it doesn’t.) You’re the oldest, Matron said to you with a kind, expectant smile. You should take care of the others, she said to you.
So you squared your shoulders and stood a little straighter, you strode up the grass sea until the orphanage faded into the grey sky, and you said, “Princes don’t wait around for princesses to come.”
He said, “We’re not princes,” like you were the stupid one.
You wanted to yell at him, you wanted to hit him, but you remembered Matron’s hand on your shoulder, and you tried to hold yourself inside, you tried to be worthy. “Knights, whatever,” you pretended you’d said, for you still believed you could change the world with enough obstinance and enough confidence. So you and him fought as if you were grand, noble knights, and because there was still a part of you that was petty, and because you knew you could say you were only being fair, you won.
So every day, you both pretend you are knights: he always says, “I wanna win,” and he never wins for you never lose. He always complains, whines about losing and says he’ll tell on you, but he never has.
Today, though, today is the day Ell left, and you weren’t close to her but she was still one of you. You hate her a little, a lot, for leaving, for leaving another empty bed, another chore undone. So today, after lunch, while everyone younger than you, everyone else must nap, Matron pulls you aside and whispers to you. So today, on the bluff, even though you say as you always do, “I’ll win because I’m the best knight!”, you let him win.
He gloats triumphantly at defeating the evil knight. You clutch at your shoulder and you fall, slowly like in the movies, like a last rite, your knees hitting the still-dewy grass with a soft thump and rustle. “I’m wounded! I’m dying!”, you say with a gasped breath, and finally you collapse to the ground.
deux.
The curtains are half-open in your room. Half-awake, you watch the dust motes dance in the low yellow sunlight that overlays your bed and warms your covers. (When you are older, when you sleep in tents and on uncovered ground, you will miss the feeling of a heavy sun-drenched blanket, the cloying smell of tomato soup wafting up the stairs.)
“You made fun of me for being sick,” he says, righteous and gloating and all the things you are but cannot stand in others. “You totally deserve it!”
You press your arms into the mattress to sit up, but you are too weak, so you let your useless arms hide under the covers where he cannot see them struggle. Still, you look terrible, red eyes and nose stark against your pale face and lips. You can barely care. “I could be dying,” you say, trying to sound casual through the ache of your lungs. “I’ll tell Matron you were being mean.” (You would never tell her; he would never tell her.)
“Matron’d never believe you,” he says with an indignant huff. “And you can’t die. People don’t die unless they’re really old.” For you were both too young when the war touched you, the casualties it left, your parents, are abstract. People leave; they do not die.
“If I die you’re not getting my sword,” you say, a grin naturally forming on your face. (One day it will become your trademark; it will become cocky, infuriating, and forced.)
He pouts, and says, “I wouldn’t want your sword anyway.”
You’re just jealous, you want to say, but you’re coughing again. His arms jerk like he wants to reach for the tissue box, but then they drop back to his sides. You try to stay awake, to look strong, but you drift off again.
trois.
The infirmary is brightly lit. It would be empty if it weren’t for you, in the bed you wheedled Kadowaki to let you have every time, the one furthest from the door. A child’s comic lies in your lap, half-read, but you are already bored. You hear the door slide open, always too slow and too quick at the same time; you hear familiar footfalls on the too-clean tile.
“Thought you were in class,” you say, leaning back into the pillow and forcing your aching arms to cross behind your head. “What’s this, teacher’s pet skipping classes?”
“You should have listened to Headmaster Cid,” he says, half-righteous, half-mocking, and completely annoying. “He told you to stay away from the T-Rexaurs after last time.” He comes to stand over you, and you ache to hit him but you try to look unruffled. You keep your arms, already straining, steady behind your head.
“I’m fine,” you say. “Hyne, you’re such a stick in the mud. Precious Squally and his rules.”
He scoffs. “You never learn, do you? You’re an idiot. Don’t expect me to show up at your funeral when you die.”
You know with certainty you will never die, not until you are old and rich and famous, and you hate him for believing you could.
quatre.
You would have become a modern-day knight today. It was the day of your SeeD exam, the most important day of your life. Everyone had said so to you and you, despite your worldly airs, still believed them. You were the one everyone was sure would make it, would ascend to protector and hero, and when you come back, rain-drenched and defeated, it is all you can do to avoid the stares.
He comes to your room in the quiet of night, stands in silence for too long. “You should have made it,” he says, accusing and disappointed and every one of the emotions you hate.
You are still Seifer Almasy, still the most promising student in Balamb-G and all of the Gardens; you still have to smirk. “Have you ever known me to follow instructions?” you say.
“You wanted be a knight,” he says, and you can’t make him leave, because if you did, he would know you care.
“There was a girl,” you say, trying to sound cocky, and he scoffs and rolls his eyes. He leans against the door, waiting, as if he wanted more from you, as if he could still expect anything from you.
(There was a girl: she’d lost her mother in the bustle of the market, and she wouldn’t trust strangers but she’d trust you. You sat her on your shoulders, wandered around Balamb Harbour looking for a woman who looked just like her, who burst into tears when she saw her daughter.)
“There was a girl,” he says, the disappointment heavy in his voice, and turns to leave.
“We’ll never be princes, but at least we can be knights,” he says, before the door slides open to Balamb Garden and its expectations.
cinq.
It was your third exam. It was your last chance, you’d known, and even if you hadn’t sure if you were becoming a protector or a mercenary it was the only chance you had. (You had spent the last summer in Deling, and you envied their family money and family connections and hated their reliance and regard of them, but you knew that this would be your future even in Balamb-G; you knew you would never really be respected.)
You’d failed, though, and you would be too old soon, so you could only pack your belongings into a duffle bag. There was nowhere left for you.
The door to your empty room closes behind you.
six.
You’re falling. Once you’d known the future, knew that you would fail, that you would be forgotten, that you would never be a hero, you could do nothing but fight to the end. You’d lost Rinoa five hundred years ago and a continent over, and now there is nothing but blackness. You think you might end up in another time, a time you could blend anonymously into society, not too far in the future that you couldn’t blend in, far enough that you would already be forgotten. You think you might never leave, might spend the rest of your life, an eternity, with your regrets. You think you might die before you can leave.
et un.
You’re alive.