Seymour looked around the bathroom to see if there was anything strange going on with reality. Except for his towel, everything was as he had unwillingly left it.
Seymour reached for the doorknob, which wasn’t where he’d left it. "I think I’m going out of my mi—ind!"
After figuring out which way was up, and determining that he had not, in fact, broken his nose on the floor, he pushed himself off what he’d just tripped on and stood up. "See? I don’t’ remember leaving a little blonde girl in the doorway," he said, making sure his towel was where he’d left it—and indeed it was. The last thing he was going to let happen was to be humiliated in front of his own imagination.
"Excuse me?" she said, tapping him on the shoulder.
"Not now, I’m losing my mind," Seymour said, waving her away. "See?" he asked himself. "Now you’re talking to it, that’s not a good sign. Well, neither is talking to yourself…"
"Hello!" she shouted, jumping in front of him.
"Shoo, you don’t exist," he said, gently nudging her out of his way, even though he really didn’t know where he was going.
Rikku glowered. She may not have been the brightest of people in Spira (then again, taking into account the general populace’s habit of giving expensive items to random strangers, maybe she was), but she was pretty sure he’d insulted her basic essence within reality, or some such. Still not being the brightest person in Spira (or possibly just someone a bit random and very silly,) she jumped on Seymour’s back.
Seymour stopped walking and just stood there.
"Well?" Rikku asked.
"Well, what?" Seymour responded. "If I started screaming at the top of my lungs that there was a scantily clad girl half my age on top of me, everyone would assume I was bragging."
"Well, I proved I exist, at least… right?"
"Well, I’m no existentialist, so I’d have to agree with that."
"Okay!" Rikku said cheerfully and got off his back.
"Are you a spirit, or jut someone who came into my room to take my stuff?" Seymour asked.
"I can’t be both?" Rikku asked.
"Wait, I remember you," Seymour said. "You took my wallet. Three times."
"Five—but that’s not important, I’m here to show you Spira present."
"Spira present?"
"Yunie showed you Spira past, and I’m here to show you Spira present."
"If I wanted to see that, I’d just open the door!"
"Well, it’s more like Spira present now. A right now that’s actually twelve hours from now.
"That’s Spira future."
"Okay, so I’m here to show you Spira Immediate Future, shut up already," she said and started going through her pockets. Seymour noticed that several things she dropped were his and half of them couldn’t possibly fit in he pocket, let alone with all the other stuff, but he didn’t voice it, lest he break the fourth wall again.
"Here we go," Rikku said, pulling out a rather large machina, whose only purpose must be to confuse anyone who attempted to figure out what it did just by looking at it to the point of severe migraine.
The scenery changed and Seymour found himself watching Mika saying things that he thought were important to a secretary who was actually writing her grocery list (and that his towel was the same color).
"Um…" Seymour said. "This works just like before, I mean, no can see me right?"
"I can see you just fine," Rikku said.
"I meant them."
"Of course not. Besides, this isn’t real, it’s a sphere."
"A big giant sphere?" Seymour asked.
"Yep."
"You mean a big giant sphere of the future?"
"Immediate future."
"How’s it work, the future hasn’t happened yet." He winced.
"Oh, poopie, you broke the fourth wall."
"I’m pretty good at maintaining the other three, Seymour said, only making the mess bigger. He sighed.
"The fut—the immediate future looks just like every other day. Wait, did I sleep in late?"
"Very late," Rikku said. "Just recently late."
"What’s—Who the hell? I’m going to kill whoever killed me!"
Just then, an illusionary Kinoc wandered into the scenery. Usually he had the expression of playing a mental game of Tetris and losing, but now he seemed to have made a satisfactory purchase of a cheat book.
"Oh, that bloody bastard!"
"Figuratively or in actuality?" Rikku asked.
"You rotten piece of scum! First you’re fudging the numbers on your own paycheck, now you bump me off! Hey! You borrowed three hundred gil from me too!"
"They can’t hear you!"
"Oh. Right."
"As you can see, you gotta watch your head, and what it’s on."
"Good advice. Wouldn’t it be easier let me go back to my room, panic, and then at least attempt to change all this?"
"Well, I was hoping to enlighten you about the whole mess Spira’s in because all the Maesters aren’t really paying attention to the problems of the world."
"Hey, I AM a Maest—Well I know about the problems of the world, at least. And I care, that should get me a few points."
"I don’t think you’re going about things the right way, though."
"Well, it’s the best I could come up with without anyone’s help!" Seymour said, waving his arms, then began pointing at people in the scene. "Look, Mika’s completely senile, but no on really notices, because the only thing he remembers is correct grammar and big words. He thinks the spiders are out to get him, but no one cares because he can make a sentence with the word ‘syllogism’ in it. Kelk’s only a Maester because he’s the only Ronso who doesn’t clean himself in public… besides yours I mean."
Rikku twisted her foot back and forth and stared at part of the floor, which was suddenly very interesting to her. She didn’t say anything.
"…Oh. I didn’t know. Sorry. Look, Kinoc’s cheating on his wife with that secretary, and she spends the time writing romance novels instead of listening."
"That’s so cruel!" Rikku said.
"Not really. Considering all the gibberish Mika says. They’re pretty good novels, actually. I’ve edited a few of them… although there are some parts I’m not really the person to ask—"
"I meant about him cheating on his wife."
"Oh don’t worry about that."
"Why not? He’s being a big poopiehead!"
"She’s cheating on him with the secretary too."
"I’m not sure that really makes things—"
"Technically his wife’s ahead. At least she knows the secretary is a guy."
Rikku’s eyes went wide and her face went red. Her expression indicated her eyebrows were trying to escape in different directions.
"Miss?" Seymour asked.
"But—" Rikku tried.
"Fooled me too."
"With those--?" Rikku attempted to gesture to her chest, which was in no way a similar shape as the secretary’s and she had no idea hoe to get her hands to indicated the right shape either.
"Yep."
"But not even Lulu—"
"Trust me on this one."
"How would you know?"
Seymour sighed. "It’s a long story. You know, this could really change the world for the better."
"I really don’t see how a transgender secretary that writes romance novels is going to—"
"I meant this sphere! Is you can see the immediate future, think to all the good you can accomplish."
"Like what?"
"Like knowing when Sin is coming."
"So you can blow it up?"
"No, so you can evacuate the city."
"But something blows up, right?"
"There’s more to machina than just blowing things up… or kicking things."
"What do you know about Machina?"
"I…but… Well, there should be!"
"I never thought of it that way," Rikku said and picked up the machina and left. How, Seymour didn’t see. He was too busy collecting the stuff that was his that she’d dropped earlier and getting ready to leave for a hotel (via the window) and in all his rush he failed to notice not just her leaving, but that the mattress went missing as she did.