A Picnic and Playful Banter

Chapter 4 - Quite a Sight

By Darkest Desire

Seeing as how Seifer and Squall were both in desperate need of a shower now, they decided to head off to their respective dorm rooms in order to do so (before the macaroni salad and pudding in turn could begin to dry and adhere to their hair.) Accompanying each other up the pathway that led back into the garden, Seifer and Squall endured the stares and curious looks they received from the many passer-bys, who, at the combined effects of Seifer and Squall's glares, refrained from commenting on the rivals' interesting (and, to many, highly amusing) appearance.

The rest of the group watched as the other two rushed out of the quad doors, eager to get changed out of their food splattered clothes. When he was certain that Seifer and Squall were gone for good and, therefore, wouldn't here his nefarious plan, Irvine turned with a wicked grin on his face and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes to the rest of the group.

"Well, now that those two are gone, I believe it's time we talked about a little revenge," he commented with a smirk to rival one of Seifer's, seemingly very pleased with himself.

The rest of the group merely looked at him as if he had completely lost it, confusion over what the hell Irvine was talking about clearly showing on their features. They looked around at each other, silently asking whether anyone had any idea what Irvine was referring to. When enough shrugs and shaking of the head had gone around and it became apparent that no one else was in on Irvine's little plan, Zell finally decided to speak up on behalf of the group.

"Umm...Irvine? What in Hyne's name are you talking about?" he asked incredulously, raising a blonde eyebrow in question.

Irvine's face fell suddenly as he realized that no one else remembered 'the incident.' "For Odin's sake, are you telling me that none of you remember?!" he exclaimed, unable to believe what Zell had just said. When all he received were blank stares and Zell moving his finger in a circular motion around his temple as if to signal to the others that Irvine was, indeed, crazy, he felt a surge of frustration. "Did somebody cast confusion on you all or something? Don't you remember last month when Seifer and Squall got mad at us for trying to break up their sparring session and decided to get us back for it by playing a little prank?" he prompted, sure that this bit of information would help jog their memories.

The rest of the group pondered what Irvine had just said, searching their memories for some such incidence, but all came up blank. Quistis seemed, by far, the most irritated about not being able to remember. She was an instructor—the youngest one in the history of Balamb garden—and she couldn't even remember an event that had happened last month?! It was like the GF induced memory lapses that they'd had before, only it couldn't be that because Dr. Odine had found a cure to those.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I certainly don't remember," Quistis declared, desperately hoping she was not the only one who seemed to be lacking in memory. Selphie, Zell, and Rinoa all voiced their agreement to Quistis's statement; they certainly didn't remember either.

Irvine let out a slight groan as he resigned himself to quickly explaining to his forgetful friends what had transpired not 30 days before. "Okay, so we were sitting in the cafeteria during our lunch break when Seifer and Squall suddenly showed up and— " Irvine began before Quistis suddenly (and quite rudely in his opinion) cut in.

"Wait, hold on just a minute. Why would they want to get back at us just for breaking up one of their 'training sessions'?" Quistis asked skeptically.

"Well...I didn't mention exactly how we broke up the fight..." Irvine stated guiltily, letting the sentence trail, as if he was reluctant to tell them what they had done in order to deserve Seifer and Squall's revenge. "You see, we were in the training center looking for Seifer and Squall because they never showed up to the Festival Committee meeting. We figured that they must be 'training' or rather sparring; why else would they have forgotten? Well, we were right, they were in there fighting—big surprise—over on that little bridge/platform thing that runs over the pond, you know? When they wouldn't stop fighting, Selphie told me to break it up and so I did the only thing that made sense to me at the time—I pushed the two of them into the pond." Here he paused to gauge everyone's reaction to the story so far. Quistis, Selphie, Rinoa, and Zell were frozen in shock for a moment, mouths hanging open in surprise, before they all promptly burst out laughing. This being the reaction Irvine was waiting for, he moved on.

"Well, needless to say, Seifer and Squall were furious. Thankfully Squall was wearing his SeeD uniform at the time, because if the water had ruined his favorite, trademark leather pants that he wears all the time—even when it happens to be the middle of summer—then heads would role, starting with mine. Seifer, however, had been wearing his gray trench coat, which got completely soaked through with the smell of pond scum.

"They were soaked to the bone. Everyone was stunned. But once the shock wore off, the rest of us began to laugh uproariously. Of course, Seifer and Squall glared daggers at us as they made their way out of the pond, their clothes dripping with water. Then they made their way to the exit, a shlip-shlop noise being made by their sopping clothes as the walked. This, of course, only made the rest of us laugh all the harder.

"They finally made their way to the exit, with the rest of us following, and were about to leave the training center, when Squall just froze dead in his tracks. Then he started frantically ripping his jacket off, before throwing it to the ground. I was, naturally, wondering what in Hyne's name was going on—until I got a good look at his arms that is. There were all these little, brown, slug-like creatures latched onto his skin. Only they weren't slugs; they were leeches.

"We were all watching this, Seifer included. Of course Seifer then froze with shock as well, seeing as he was covered in the same pond water as Squall. Seifer and Squall just stood there, stunned, looking at each other for a moment before both of them began to strip. I swear on Eden's name that I have never seen anyone take their clothes off as quickly as they did at that moment—and I've seen a lot of people take their clothes off before.

"So, soon they were left standing there with just their boxers on, desperately picking the leeches from their skin and each others. After all of them had been removed, thrown to the ground, and everyone had stepped away, Quistis over here cast a fire spell and burnt the little buggers to a crisp," Irvine described with a chuckle as the others looked on with amazement and amusement. Seeing as the best part, or at least his favorite part, was coming up, Irvine paused dramatically for effect before continuing.

"We finally left the training center—Squall and Seifer still just in their boxers mind you—when we ran into a member of the Garden faculty. Well, you know how all those faculty members have a stick up their ass and are such a stickler for rules; he told Seifer and Squall that their 'attire was not in accordance to Garden's dress code.' We tried to explain what had happened to him, but he wouldn't listen and h-he ma-made—" here Irvine broke into hysterics, unable to continue because he was laughing so hard. The four listening intently to his story leaned in closer to him in anticipation of what was to come next, attempting to prompt Irvine to tell them the rest.

Finally Irvine reigned in his uncontrollable laughter, taking a few deep breathes to calm himself before finishing what he had started to say before he had completely lost it. "As I was saying, he told Seifer and Squall that they couldn't walk around practically naked through the halls. So he made me take off my coat and give it to Seifer to wear and then forced Squall to put on Rinoa's jacket—the blue, sweater one!" he cried out as the laughter seized him once more. "They had to wear them all the way back to their dorm rooms, practically the whole school saw; it was the funniest thing I have ever seen!"

By now the rest of the group had broken down laughing as well. The image of Seifer and Squall trudging through the hallways sopping wet and in Irvine's too small jacket and Rinoa's girly one respectively was almost too much for them to handle. "Ifrit's whip, are you serious?!" Rinoa managed to gasp out, laughing even harder when she got a nod of affirmation from Irvine.

They finally stopped laughing when their need for air grew too great and attempted to calm themselves down. "Well, I'm sure that must have made quite a sight," Quistis commented wryly. The rest voiced their agreement to her comment.

"Yep, it most certainly did," Irvine informed her, "It was quite a sight to see; too bad you all seem to have forgotten it."

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