DISCLAIMER: I OWN... none of this. Not even the plot (le gasp!) except for certain things I changed to make it all fit together better. If anyone'd like to give me Squall, though, I wouldn't say no. Or Cid. Same thing applies.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I have no idea where this came from, but it amuses me to no end XD I watched the movie last night with a friend of mine, and I was listening to the soundtrack today when this just popped into my mind and I began giggling my head off. It was just too perfect to ignore.
This is based off both Taming of the Shrew by the inestimable William Shakespeare and the much more recent movie 10 Things I Hate About You. No, there is no high school in this fic, which is why it's based on both and not just the movie, but I think it's gonna end up following the movie more.
This is oh so most definitely AU, so the pasts have been changed from those in the game, but I've tried to stick with the personalities in the game (except for some tinkering with Cloud, but I've got this whole theory on him I don't want to get into now). I've monkeyed with the ages because originally I was going to try and do it in a school, but it just didn't want to be done that way, so I figured out something else I like better. Though the ages'll all come out later, just for reference, here they are: Sora and Kairi are both sixteen, Riku and Yuffie are seventeen, Cloud and Aerith are eighteen, and Squall is nineteen. Cid is... Cid XD Probably in his forties.
As for the rest, just sit back, and enjoy! Ja!
(Soundtrack: 10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack, especially the first half of the CD.)
"Bye, Mom! I'll be back later!" the spiky-headed sixteen-year-old called over his shoulder as he dashed out of the new home, the door closing in his wake. He was bound and determined to explore this new place… whatever it was like.
Oh first glance, Traverse Town looked much more quaint than his former home on the Destiny Isles; there were cobblestones instead of paving, it looked like the streetlights were still gas lamps, and everything was a lot taller than he was used to, as if homes were built on top of each other rather than one by one. Well, they are Sora reminded himself; apartments were the rule in this town, rather than the houses he was used to. Though fortunately the apartments were nice and large; otherwise, his parents might drive him completely insane. On second glance, the quaintness hadn't gone away, but it was a comfortable type of quaintness rather than a stifling one, and he at last decided that this place might just be a lot more fun than he thought it would be.
As he clomped out of the apartment building in what was rather unimaginatively called Third District, Sora realized yet another thing about his new home: there was barely anybody around. He was just beginning to wonder whether he would, in fact, be bored out of his mind here, when a shadow detached itself from the wall across the square and started heading in his direction. The shadow resolved itself into a young man with very blond hair who looked to be a little older (and much taller) than Sora himself, dressed entirely in black and, for some reason, with only one sleeve. Sora waited where he was; his instincts about people were rarely wrong, but for some reason he couldn't tell if this new guy was friendly or not.
"Hey," the stranger said casually when stopped a few feet away. "You new here?"
"Yeah, is it that obvious?" Sora asked, a little ruefully.
The blond laughed quietly, immediately driving Sora's impression of him towards the "friendly" side, and he grinned. "We don't get a lot of people standing around in doorways looking like they lost their way," One Sleeve explained, grinning himself. "When that happens, it's pretty clear someone's new."
Sora laughed, scratching the back of his head at the same time. "I guess when you put it that way… I'm Sora," he offered, sticking his hand out.
The blond took it and shook it firmly. "Cloud Strife."
"…Cloud?" Sora had to concentrate very, very hard to keep from bursting out into insane laughter.
Clearly, this was an old grievance; Cloud just rolled his eyes with a time-tested suffering expression and groaned a little. "I tell myself my parents were nuts. Or that they meant it in the 'obscuring vision' way, rather than 'the fluffy things in the sky'."
Sora couldn't help it; he let out a great squawk of laughter, doubling over with his hands on his knees. "Fluffy!" he managed to get out, gesturing vaguely at Cloud's hair.
"Heyyyyyyy," the older boy said warningly, "no getting any ideas."
"Too late!"
Cloud groaned again. "I walked into that one... Just don't ever call me that and I won't kick your ass."
"You and what army?" Sora recovered enough to say with a grin, but he began to calm down at last and finally stood upright again, grinning still. "Actually, we sorta match – Mom heard my name on a trip somewhere and gave it to me, and Dad figured out it meant 'sky' too late to stop her using it."
"See? You embarrass me, I'll embarrass you. So are you just looking around right now, or are you looking for something specific?"
Sora's stomach chose that moment to rumble, loudly, and Sora looked up at Cloud with a sheepish expression. "Is there anywhere a guy can get something to eat around here?"
Cloud glanced up at the building behind them, then back down again. "Don't want to get something for free in your own kitchen?"
"Mom's unpacking. If you're smart, you run for cover."
"Got it. Come on, if you can wait a little, I'll give you the abbreviated tour before we go to the café." Cloud turned and began heading for the stairs that led to one of the large sets of doors that Sora had noticed in the district; assuming these led to another part of Traverse, he eagerly followed his new guide.
The doors were made of heavy wood and iron, but were relatively easy to open once Cloud had showed him the special latch that kept them closed and the trick of pushing them exactly in the middle, and they stepped into what looked to be a narrow alley with buildings even taller than were in the Third District. Sora had never considered himself a claustrophobic, but with those buildings surrounding him and blocking out nearly all of the natural light, he could certainly understand how people could be. "This is the Second District," Cloud said, obviously not bothered by the narrow lane. "More apartments, and that's almost all. Library to your left, dojo to your right-"
"Dojo?" Sora asked in confusion, caught off guard by that. "There's a dojo here?"
"More like an indoor practice area, but yeah. There." Cloud pointed at a pair of dull blue doors to their right, which didn't appear any different than any of the other doors he'd seen there. "There's a pair of swordsmen in the town and a retired ninja, and they all sort of share the space and paying for it to get fixed and everything. You practice?"
"I'd started with the sword right before we moved, but… well, we moved," Sora replied, still looking at the doors.
"If you want to start again, they won't mind. I take classes there, but I'm nearly done with them; I think they want me to help assist when I finish. Come on, there's open space this way." Apparently Cloud had noticed Sora's discomfort in the alley, and he lead the smaller boy around a corner and into a large, long, open space that made Sora much more comfortable, with many more people around than in the Third District. "You must be from somewhere pretty sparse."
Sora shook his head, looking around at the new area. "It's bigger than this, but a lot flatter. The most we had was two stories, not-" he did a quick count of the buildings lining the alley "-five. We lived on the beach; no one wanted to kill the view."
Cloud whistled slightly at that revelation. "Wow, that sounds… really nice. We don't have anything like that around here."
"Yeah, I can tell." He shoved away a slight pang of homesickness and pointed to the end of the open space. "So you guys have a bell tower?"
"Yeah, and it never rings. Right below that is the Gizmo Shop, and over there is the hotel, and that way are all the shops for clothes and books and stuff like that." Cloud swung easily back into tour guide mode, motioning to each of the places as he named them, finally gesturing to another wooden door below the hotel. "Back there's the alley where a lot of people our age hang out; it's just a place to get away from the parents, and there's a good dumpling stand back there, but it's closed today."
Sora, however, hadn't been paying attention since the word "place," because at that point, the door to said alley had opened and two people had walked out: a silver-haired boy in a yellow shirt and blue pants who was impossibly good-looking, and a small auburn-haired girl in a white shirt and purple skirt, who was laughing at something the boy had just said. Sora's eyes widened as they locked on her, and he unconsciously started heading in her direction until he felt a jerk on the back of his clothing.
"Hey, don't do that," Cloud warned, pulling Sora back by the collar of his shirt. "Trust me, that's not smart."
"Who is she?" he asked, still trying to get over to her somehow and completely not listening to Cloud.
Recognizing the warning signs, Cloud literally dragged Sora off to the side of the open area, out of the path of the girl and boy who were completely oblivious to the minor struggle that was going on. Whacking him on the back of the head with one gloved hand, Cloud managed to get Sora's attention enough to get him to look at him. "You don't want to try that."
"What? Why not? Who is she?"
"Her name is Kairi, and reason number one is that her guardian is an overprotective insane man who will not let her associate with any guy."
"Well then who was that guy?"
"Reason number two," Cloud retorted as the boy and girl disappeared into the alley with the dojo-practice area. "His name is Riku, and if her guardian did let her have anything to do with boys, they would be dating so fast it's not even funny."
"Anything else while you're crushing my hopes?"
"Yeah, reason number three. She also-"
But Cloud was interrupted by a yell from far above them, and the blond immediately dived out of the way, dragging Sora rather painfully along by the hand still gripping his shirt collar. Within a second there was a thud from the space they'd been standing in, and a small form rolled to its feet from the somersault it had tucked into when it hit the ground.
Just as Sora was trying to figure out who would be suicidal enough to jump off the top of the two-story building next to them, a loud, almost piercing female voice rang out from the dust cloud that had been kicked up with the landing. "Get out of my landing space quicker next time!" the voice yelled, before turning and running down the alley with the dojo. Sora just barely caught a glimpse of a girl who was about his height with very short black hair before Cloud started speaking again.
"-has an older sister who's even more insane than their guardian."
"That's Kairi's sister?" Sora demanded in disbelief, spinning to stare at Cloud.
"Step-sister, actually; it's kind of complicated and I don't know all of it, but essentially they're sisters. Her name's Yuffie; she's one of the retired ninja's pupils, and she's a pain in everyone's ass."
"How- Wha-"
"Come on, let's get you fed before your brain breaks entirely." Cloud secured his grip on Sora's collar once again and hauled him off towards the set of large doors that led into the First District.
"The story, as far as I know, is something like this: Kairi's mother married Yuffie's father when the girls were young, then they both died in a ship crash. Their guardian is a man named Cid Highwind, and he moved them all here after the funeral nine years ago. There's two men you don't want to mess with in this town, and he's one of them."
"Why? And who's the other?"
Somehow – he still wasn't sure how – Cloud had managed to drag the new boy into the first district and get him into a chair at the café, and then had proceeded to drop an ice cube down the back of his shirt to "wake him up." It worked, with amusing results. Sora now had a sandwich in front of him while Cloud just had a drink, and the blond was attempting to steer Sora away from the path his thoughts were clearly going. Cid Highwind made a very good threat.
"Cid's the best pilot around and one of the people who keeps this town working. There's nothing he can't fix, it seems, and they say he used to be a soldier before they moved here. He could pick you up and throw you in the air like a toy."
And the threat definitely had no effect, because Sora obviously discarded it from relevancy. "Who's the other?"
Cloud mentally groaned; the kid was way too determined for his own good. "Riku's father. He is this town; he's in charge, he's got the most money. Not a bad guy, really, but powerful. He expects Riku and Kairi to be together. The whole town expects it. Trust me, it's just not something you want to get involved in."
"Well I can't know if it won't work or not unless I try it, right?" Sora asked, relatively reasonably. Half the sandwich had vanished without Cloud even noticing; apparently the kid liked to eat a lot. "Is there any way I can even meet her? That's not such a big thing, is it?"
Yes. "I guess not…" Damn you, Strife! "But don't make any moves for her. Definitely not in front of Riku, and definitely not in front of Cid." Better.
"Okay, okay," Sora finally gave in, just a little sullenly. He picked up the second half of the sandwich, and took a large bite before speaking again. "But how do I meet her?"
Cloud mentally groaned yet again and gave into the inevitable; maybe Sora just needed to learn through hard experience. "She doesn't do sword work or martial arts, so I guess you'll just have to go to the alley at some point. Hell, you'll probably meet just about everyone else at the same time, so it won't be a total waste of time." He ignored Sora's glare as he finished off his drink. "You'll meet Riku at practice, too; he's a natural at swordplay, better than me even."
"So when are those classes?"
"Every day you can come at four." As he was speaking, a jingling came from behind Cloud, in time with heavy footsteps on the cobblestones. Sora looked up from his sandwich at the new noise and his eyes widened; he hurriedly looked down again as a tall figure, dressed almost entirely in leather, passed their table and took a seat in the darkest corner.
"Who is that?" Sora hissed across the table, still mentally shaking; that man gave off a sense of "intimidating" the like of which he'd never seen.
"That's Leon," Cloud replied under his breath, leaning slightly over the table to keep the conversation quiet, an action that Sora copied.
"Leon?"
"Yeah, that's all he'll tell us. He keeps to himself; it doesn't seem like he lives with anybody, either. He just showed up here a few months ago. The only time anyone sees him is when he has to buy things or when he comes here occasionally for some food. Rumor has it he's a swordsman, even better than the masters, but he doesn't practice with anyone so no one knows for sure."
Sora shuddered just a little at the feeling that was still scratching at the back of his head, and he devoutly hoped that Leon hadn't seen it. "I'll keep out of his way, then."
"Smart move." Cloud sat back again, sticking the straw that he had taken out of the glass back in and stirring the melting ice cubes a little. "So, anything else you want to know about this place?"
He couldn't help it; Sora glanced over his shoulder in Leon's direction once more, wondering what was so intimidating about him and hoping he wouldn't notice, but fortunately for him Leon had opened a newspaper and was apparently reading it. It was hard to tell how tall the man was since he was sitting, but he had to be very tall indeed, which didn't help the feeling at all, and it was apparent he was very strong as the muscles on his arms were definitely visible. On a second look, it turned out that only his short-sleeved jacket was leather – but it was black leather, and it had a red lion's head on the sleeve. His pants and boots were solid black as well, and the source of the jingling was very apparent as there were no less than four belts either holding up his pants or just there for decoration. For some reason he also wore three small brown belts around his left forearm as well, as well as black gloves. His hair was long and brown, and his eye – at least the one that Sora could see – was cold blue. He couldn't be sure, but it appeared as though there was a scar across the bridge of his nose; Sora wasn't in a hurry to find out if that was true or not, though.
Suppressing another shudder, Sora turned back to Cloud and his sandwich, trying to ignore the feeling that he had just jumped into a pool of ice water. "So how good are these sword masters?"
AUTHOR'S NOTES II: Yeah, I Advent Children'd Cloud. I just couldn't see him in the cape and everything with this story, and he is in AC garb for KH2, so I just went with it.
Usually I'm not a fast writer, but I'm feeling inspired on this. I think I had too much chocolate XD Until next time!