a/n: this is my first ever ff8 fic, I've been playing the game for the umpteenth time, and dissidia just recently and I thought, I've been a fan of Squall for 11 years now so why not make a fic? So yeah here it is! To the Squinoa fans out there, this is not for you. May contain Rinoa bashing, so don't say I didn't warn you!

I wont be going in to detail with the "after Ultimecia clichés" that I've read in a lot of ff8 fics. So yeah for the record, Seifer turned good, Quistis became an instructor again, Irvine transferred to Balamb and is now dating Selphie. And Zell is dating the library girl, and Squall is on good terms with Laguna. It saves a lot of time explaining the small things. Here goes… Hope you like it!

Disclaimer: The Characters depicted in this story belongs solely to Square Enix! I'm just borrowing them!

Chapter 1: 2 years later...

If he was asked to describe his daily life, he would only answer one word. It was endless. Oh and maybe pointless, meaningless, and some other word running along those lines. This routine life of his was becoming a seemingly endless cycle. He would wake up in the wee hours of the morning, slay grats, bite bugs and whatnot in the training center, grab something to eat in the cafeteria, Take a shower, then sit and sign papers in his office until the evening, then he would crash on his bed. His daily life had been boring, to say the least, and this had been going on for as long as he can remember. Fortunately for him, he only had to endure it for one more week. Classes would be starting then, and its back to school for him.

The Garden Association had imposed a new policy in all Gardens. To improve competency and skills of the SeeDs graduating from the academy, advanced courses will be provided to SeeDs who are under the age of 25. These courses would take at least 2 years to complete. These courses would not only better hone their fighting skills but they will also be a great help to the SeeDs should they be incapacitated or should they wish to pursue another career in the future. They would have fall backs, some of the courses would help them get normal jobs. So when he was informed of this new policy by the headmaster himself, he felt slightly relieved. The headmaster had promised him that his work, as the SeeD commander would be less, that would allow him to attend his classes. Although he did feel sorry for Xu, his secretary who would be handling most of his job (since she's already 26), he felt ecstatic to be studying again. Squall Leonhart Loire, 19 years old, SeeD commander, and of course together with the rest of his friends, would once again experience what its like to be a student.

When he woke up that Sunday, his day off, he could tell that it was just not his day. He woke up late, and by late, 2 hours late. This had never happened to him before in his daily routine. When he quickly got out of bed to take a shower, he ran over a pile of clothes (his) and slipped, and landed on his rear quite painfully. This had never happened to him before. When he got out of the shower, he couldn't find any more washed and ironed clothes, so he had no choice but to wear his unwashed white shirt and wrinkly jeans from two days back. When he went out to get something to eat, He fell in line for at least 10 minutes in the cafeteria, when he realized that he forgot to bring his wallet. He went back to his room and took his wallet, and when he opened it, there wasn't any cash. He had bought something yesterday and when he was about to withdraw cash from the ATM to replenish his funds, it had broken down and was now currently under repairs. Then he remembered that Zell owed him money, so he went to his room a few halls away from his. He knocked three times but there was no answer. He took out his mobile phone and dialed Zell's number. When Zell answered, he had told him that he had left early for a mission. He quickly hang up, and cursed silently. He would have to borrow money from someone else. Quistis left yesterday and was in Galbadia for a month long conference for SeeD instructors, Selphie was in Trabia for vacation, and Irvine went with her. He had no other choice but to seek out his least favorite friend.

Seifer Almasy was readmitted to the Garden over a year ago, turns out, the sorceress had manipulated and brain washed him to do her evil deeds, The Headmaster Cid and his wife Matron instantly took him back. And so he did went back and after a couple of months of tutoring from Quistis, he had passed the written SeeD exam and he would be taking the practical exams soon. He was well on his way of becoming a SeeD. With no passé behind him, Quistis had forcefully let him in the group since they all grew up together anyway, and so they were now all friends. Of course, there was still his occasional teasing of Zell, and his rivalry with Squall, but nonetheless, he was now one of them.

"What?" Seifer was quite surprised to see Squall standing on his doorway. "Squall? Now that's a surprise. What do you want?" he asked.

"Can I borrow money?" he spoke quite fast that it was barely audible.

"What was that?" he asked again, smirking as he did so.

It was difficult for him to say it the first time and yet Seifer was telling him to say it again? If only he wasn't in dire need, he would have probably punched him. "I said, Can I borrow money?"

"I heard you the first time, man. I'm just playing with you. But who would've thought you of all people would run out of money?"

Of course, it was very unlikely. This was the first time Squall had run out of money. He was earning thousands, from being a SeeD, and on top of that, he had a wealthy president for a father who insisted on sending him money every month. It was quite a surprise, even for him, that he had run out of money.

"I guess I wasn't paying attention to my spending. So can I have it?"

"How much do you need? You're lucky I just got paid for that mission yesterday."

"10,000 Gil."

"10,000?! That's a third of my Salary!"

"The ATM will be inoperable for three days. I have to feed myself after all."

"Yeah but 10,000 Gil for just three days?"

"Just give me the damn money."

"You'll have to pay me back after three days, plus 6,000 Gil." Seifer said.

"Are you kidding? That's 20% interest!" Squall argued.

"That's fast math! Do you still want that money?"

What other choice did he have? "Fine." he answered. Seifer grinned as he handed the cash to him. Squall counted it to make sure.

Seifer held out his hand. "It's a pleasure doing business with you, Commander."

"Whatever." he quickly left before Seifer could say more. He made his way back to the cafeteria, the line was just as long as it was a few minutes earlier, He felt so hungry that he wanted to use his authority as Commander to cut into the line, but he had to be role model after all. After a couple of minutes, he was finally able to buy food for himself, and was able to eat. He thought his day had turned from worst to better, but he was wrong. After he was done eating, he stood up, but had failed to notice that someone was running carrying a food tray, and the next thing he knew, he was on the floor, with water and bits of food on his shirt. The entire Cafeteria had went silent. He felt someone help him up, It was a female SeeD whose name he forgot.

"Are you all right?" the female SeeD had asked him. Squall nodded. Great, just great. The fool who was carrying the tray had to eat a hotdog, and not just a hotdog, three hotdogs. His shirt was stained with ketchup and mustard and his hair was dripping wet from the uncapped water bottle that she was carrying. He was about to lose it, when he remembered that the cafeteria was full of people. If he would explode with rage here, the headmaster would surely find out and would reprimand him.

"You better watch where you're going!" the female SeeD snapped at the person carrying the tray, who had also fallen to the floor. She hoisted herself up, and glared at the female SeeD.

"Watch where I'm going?! He was the one who bumped into me! He should watch where he's going!" The person carrying the tray turned out to be female. She had long wavy blond hair, fair skin, and was wearing casual clothes. A black shirt and a pair of jeans. Squall had never seen her around the Garden before. Must be a new student, there were a lot of new faces aside from this girl here.

"How dare you! You should apologize to him!" said the female SeeD. The little scene was now the center of attention of the students currently having lunch in the cafeteria.

"He's the one who should be apologizing! He's the idiot who suddenly stood and bumped into me! There goes my lunch! You better pay up, mister!" argued the blond girl. She bent down on the floor and started gathering the remnants of her lunch.

"Article III, section 28 of the student manual, Running is forbidden in the Library, Infirmary, and the Cafeteria. Now shouldn't you be the one apologizing?" Squall said. He couldn't snap at the girl but, at least he could publicly humiliate her.

"Article what? What are you, a lawyer? Don't be so full of yourself just because you're a little good-looking!"

"I could report this to the discipline committee, of course, but I'm willing to shut my mouth if you were to apologize." It's not like he cared about the apology, he just felt like venting his frustrations of his day on the poor girl.

"Hah! You wish!" the girl stuck out her tongue. Squall was about the pounce on the poor girl verbally, when a Discipline officer had arrived. Nice timing. At least he didn't have to personally deal with the girl.

"What's going on here?" the officer asked. "Oh, Sir." he greeted Squall.

"This girl was running in the Cafeteria. I'll leave her to you." Squall said as he quickly left the scene. The smell of ketchup and mustard was not very appealing to him. After that, Squall had decided to lock himself up on his room for the rest of the day. And so, to sum it all up, he had never slipped on something, he had never forgotten his wallet, he had never ran out of money, he had never been dumped with a tray of food, and he had never been snapped at like that by a student before, that is, until today. It was the worst day of his life. Not the worst, but it definitely made the top five.

She had only been in this place for three days, all her stuff hadn't been unpacked yet, and already, she had been given detention worth 20 hours. An hour a day starting tomorrow, and that's including the weekends. Her dad was right, Balamb Garden was a terrible idea. Rikku Bennet, 17 years old, had transferred from Trabia Garden. She could've taken the SeeD exam in Trabia, but she didn't. It was a very well known fact in terms of producing competent SeeDs, Balamb would grab the first spot. She didn't want to be stuck at a runner-up Garden. Galbadia's pretty good too, but then those guys fancy war as much as the average person fancies cheese. Her roommate Hailey Auguste, with short black hair, and gothic, was a childhood friend of hers also from Trabia. She had transferred a year earlier, and had just recently become a SeeD. Although they were complete opposites, Rikku being bubbly, mischievous, and out-going, and Hailey being the silent, only speaks when spoken to type, they were the best of friends.

"Ugghh…" She landed with a thud on the bench. She had been hanging out at the Quad with Hailey when her Dad called. She had just gotten off the phone with her Dad, he had been informed of her detention. He had went on and on for a good half hour about being responsible and bringing her back home if she were to get detention again.

"It's gonna get better." Her roommate had told her.

"I guess…"

"But 20 hours worth of detention by just running in the cafeteria? That's too much. What else did the discipline officer say?" Hailey asked.

"Something about disrespecting a superior, or something like that. The hell did that mean?!"

"A superior? Who did you bump into anyway?"

"Your question should be, who bumped into me! I dunno. A guy with dark brown hair, I don't think he's a SeeD, he was just wearing a shirt and jeans. But he actually has the student manual memorized, so I'm guessing he's an instructor?" said Rikku.

"An instructor huh? If he was, that'd be pretty bad…."

"I'm gonna get back at that guy for humiliating me! But you know, he was pretty good-looking…" said Rikku.

"Yeah… Most good-looking guys are jerks…"

"He's gonna get it! The next time I see him, I oughta feed him to the Grats! And then I'll…" Rikku's sentence was cut short when she saw the object of her plans of torture, enter the Quad. "Hail! That's him! The jerk guy who I ran into!" Hailey glanced at the direction she was pointing and was quite surprised.

Squall had been cooped up in his office for 6 hours straight working his ass off, when Xu had suggested he take a walk and get some fresh air. Which led him to go straight to the Quad, because at this time of the day (afternoon), the Quad would be almost empty. He spotted the bench the one near the stage and the veranda, and the one he and the gang usually sit on, but turns out it was occupied by two girls. And one of them had wavy blond hair. The girl who dumped her lunch on him yesterday. He felt slightly annoyed that his favorite bench, was being sat on by the blond girl. Rather than be annoyed by the girl's presence, he had decided on going back to his office instead.

"Oi! You there!" the girl stood up and had shouted, she couldn't have been referring to someone else since the Quad was empty except for them. Squall stopped on his feet and turned to face her.

"Are you talking to me?" he asked, his face expressionless. (As always)

"Of course I'm talking to you! Do you see anybody else around? Are you stupid or what?!"

One of the things that Squall hated the most, even more than hearing Zell sing, was to be called stupid. The word just brought on that feeling again, one which he had been working very hard on the past couple of months to forget. But he had to be calm, take deep calm breaths and ignore the girl. He turned his back on the girl and walked away.

"Hey! I'm not done with you yet! Come back here!" Rikku was about to walk up to him, when Hailey had caught her arm.

"Rikku, I'm not sure that's a good idea…" said Hailey.

"Why not? I'll give him a piece of my mind!" It was because of him that she had to serve detention after all.

"That's Squall Leonhart…"

"Who?" she asked. The name seemed familiar to her, like she had heard it somewhere before.

"Squall Leonhart, he was one of the SeeDs who defeated the Sorceress two years ago. He's also the Commander!" And then she remembered, the discipline officer had been rambling about disrespecting a superior, and he even said something like, if it wasn't for him, we would be under the control of the sorceress. Great, Just great. There goes her dream of becoming a SeeD. Of all the people she could've bumped into, it had to be him…

a/n: Liked it? Hated it? Please let me know by reviewing!