Tidus was used to showering with teammates; Wakka, it turned out, wasn’t used to showering at all, having grown up on Besaid where the devotion to the teachings was such that even a machina that expelled pressurised water was considered heretical. But, they soon discovered, the mainlanders seemed unconcerned by this issue, and Tidus was secretly glad: a shower was just what he needed to wake up each morning.

The two of them tended to use the men’s facilities in only each other’s company – Kimahri was too tall, and cleaned himself using some other undisclosed method, while Auron refused to enter the showers if anyone else was likely to be in there. It was a strange kind of intimacy, showering with just one player instead of an entire blitzball squad; but there was no denying it made them closer, and after a few days, Tidus was beginning to feel as if he really was Wakka’s brother, in spirit as well as physical resemblance.