Sunshine and Seasalt // KH/FF

[12] Sunday in the City

 "Why'd you end up sticking around, Leon?" Yuffie asks. She's taking you on a tour of Cid's garage and her favorite ships, and the aforementioned teen has stuck around. He trails a bit behind, not saying much or doing much, picking up a dusty thing here and there, but mostly minding his own business in your shared company. "Never known you to be social."

"I'm not," he says. He doesn't say anything about her getting his name wrong again. "Seifer's probably at home and I don't want to deal with it right now."

"Is he... Is Seifer your brother?" you ask, looking back over your shoulder. He makes a noise.

"No freaking way," he says. He just looks annoyed. "...but we're both living with Cid and Edea."

"The other Cid," Yuffie says. You could figure that one out easy enough.

"Oh, you're... um..." you struggle to ask.

"Fostered, yeah. It doesn't bother me," he says.

Yuffie leads you out of the ship you're exploring and into another garage. The.... thing in here is weird and blocky, brightly colored, and sort of... jiggly. "What... what is that? Is it a kid's toy?" you ask. If you squint and circle it a few times, it almost looks like an airship. Almost.

"Sora named it a Gummi Ship when we were little," Yuffie says. "It flies... just not as well as some others. When we got a bit older, Cid told us it was unstable and a little dangerous. He hasn't quite figured it out yet. Some science-y stuff. I slept in it once. It's.... weird. Don't touch it, it's kinda.... tacky, I guess? The material is the strangest stuff I've ever touched, and I've touched a LOT of strange stuff."

"That's a weird thing to brag about," Squall says.

"So what'd you miss the first week of school for?" you ask, while Yuffie rifles through some stuff in the back of the garage. You peruse a workbench near the front of the shop, picking up a gooey orange piece of... something. It sort of looks like the same material as the Gummi ship.

"My sister got sick. I stayed with her in the hospital and missed my trip back," Squall says. Then he looks... really annoyed. "And then my... father... tried to convince me to stay in Esthar."

You nearly drop the jiggly piece of ship. He raises an eyebrow. "Oh, my... my mom's in Esthar right now," you say. "Just a weird coincidence."

"Huh," he says. He doesn't say anymore on it, and neither are you. It's getting tiring, having to explain that your mother is sick all the time. Maybe he doesn't care, but there's some small relief you can take in not having to say it again. In a way, you're grateful.

---

Around noon, Yuffie leads you a couple blocks over to the secondhand shop she pointed out yesterday. The signs in the windows all say "25GIL PER ITEM SUNDAY ONLY" and you understand why Yuffie waited until today to come in. It's busy, and you see some familiar faces from school, but none you could put names to right now. Yuffie is perusing sweaters ("winter is coming"), and you start looking for some good leggings for under your school skirt.

You find orange, and green, and some with unsightly patterns. You'd bet Ms. Trepe would call you out for them, if King and Queen wouldn't do it first. You settle for some darker greens and blues for now, thinking the black ones must have been picked clean by other high schoolers, and wander a few different aisles.

You think you must have wandered away from the teens section, because the clothes are looking awfully small. And when you think to turn the other way, at the end of one long row, you nearly run right into Nan Ruvie and Denzel.