Zell woke up in the morning, more tired than usual. He sat up and sighed. He had a dry taste in his mouth he couldn't get rid of, but could neither recall from the day before. "Oh frikken a.... my stomach," he muttered to himself. Must have ate something bad last night. He got dressed and headed out the door randomly. No class was to be held that day; Lina had a meeting to get to and the students were dismissed from studies for the day. He walked out and saw directly in his view, Sadie standing in the middle of the hallway, hands placed thoughtfully behind her back, a sly smile on her face. "Hi," Zell said. "Um... what's up?" He felt the words bubble to the surface with no control. Oh, bad stomachache. Sadie smirked.
"Nothing much, Zell, how about you?" Sadie replied as if there was nothing weird about their forced "conversation".
Lina ran around the corner muttering, "Damn, alarm clock... Stupid meeting... I could be asleep right now..." She was slipping her instructor uniform over a tank top and skidding down the hallway towards the turn to the elevator. When she looked up, she saw Zell talking to Sadie and completely tripped in shock. Zell caught her, luckily.
"You alright?" Zell asked. Sadie glared--no! focus your attention back over here! Not on her!
"I uh... was just about to ask you the same thing," Lina replied, but glanced at her watch. "Oh, sorry Zell, I gotta go... see you later. Bye, Sadie." Sadie stuck up a stiff hand that looked more like an insult than a wave. Lina gave Zell a kiss on the cheek and dashed off down the hall. Zell just stood there, frozen, something dropping in his gut. He felt like someone inside of him was forcing him--even controlling him to stay where he was. He wanted to leave--to follow Lina and sneak in to her meeting with her and hold her hand under the table like they'd usually do, but his legs stood firm.
"You wanna go to the library with me?" Sadie asked. The love potion seemed to actually have worked.
"I uh... um... sure," Zell replied monotonously, but he didn't actually want to. He wanted to be sitting next to Lina in the back of a large lecture hall with her hand in his, squeezing it at just the right times to threaten a giggle out of her that could ultimately ruin the professional visage of the staff meeting. However, since he could not do anything but listen to his twisted intuition, he said in the library with Sadie chatting about absolutely nothing and sitting in silence for more of the time.
The bell rang just about an hour later and the instructors were released from their meeting. Lina walked out exhausted--she hated these stupid meetings, but usually they were okay to get through. Today, however, it seemed especially hard. She felt tired, especially after being shocked when she saw Zell talking to Sadie. Was there something she didn't know? She felt so unusually tired. She headed towards down the hallway in the direction of the library and as she was walking past the entrance, she saw Zell sitting with Sadie again at a small round table. "Hey, Zell... Sadie..." Lina said, taking an obliged seat next to Zell at their table.
"Hey Lina," Zell replied wrapping his arm around her waist and automatically drawing her closer to him along with her chair; he placed a random, but tender kiss on her neck. Lina looked just about as startled as Sadie did. Lina could feel Sadie's menacingly glare pierce through her. She wanted Zell to focus on her, not Lina. Not Lina.
"Guess I'd better go now," Sadie muttered, standing up stiffly. "Bye, Zell." And only Zell. She walked by and gave him a pat on the arm before stepping behind a shelf of books two rows back. Zell waved goodbye, a weird looking forced smile lingering on his face.
"Zell, are you feeling alright?" Lina asked him. Zell licked his lips twice before giving a shaky nod.
"Y-yeah...fine..." Zell muttered, mainly to himself. "Excuse me, Lina..." He left her in the library, sitting there alone and watching him walk out towards the Dormitory. Lina sat there for a moment, fingers cold from what had just happened. She felt a harsh jolt in her stomach and suddenly, she wasn't feeling so well herself. Lina then left--there was no point in her staying there in the library.
"Did you see that!?" Sadie asked Seifer who happened to be sitting in the back of the library for the past hour while everything had gradually begun changing. "He actually sat there and talked to me for about an hour! Did you see the look on her face!? I'm sure you did, I saw you poking your head out once in a while to see how things were going! Wasn't it awesome?"
"That was pretty amazing... it seems to be working," Seifer nodded. "But nothing happened to Rinoa... that's what I don't understand. She's still acting normal... with Squall." Seifer shrugged and let it go--not allowing it to bother him. Maybe the double had had some kind of effect on the potion. Maybe, it just wasn't meant to be used twice for two different people. So many different factors could have contributed to the general flaw that was apparent right now, but he wasn't sure which one--and so he just let it go.