I've been thinking about Rufus and his father a lot recently.
What You Wish For
He never cries. It's become part of his mythology already and he's not even officially the president yet, but everyone's heard the stories: Rufus Shinra never bleeds; never cries. Like most myths there's truth behind the tales – an everyday truth rather than a supernatural mystery: he learned his lessons early. When tears are at best ignored, or punished with blows, or – worse than either to his mind – consistently ridiculed, then you learn not to cry.
As for never bleeding – well, he has eternally vigilant bodyguards, and is rarely seen in public, which explains the rumour. In fact he suffers from long-lasting and heavy nosebleeds, especially during periods of meteorological or metaphorical high pressure. He's been told he'll grow out of them, but he's twenty-five now and still sometimes wakes choking on blood, his usually pristine white sheets looking like the scene of a massacre -
looking like these bloody trails along white-tiled corridors…
In the office on the seventieth floor, Tseng wordlessly hands him a neatly folded handkerchief. Rufus' laugh could be mistaken for a sob, as he wipes his eyes impatiently, and comments, "Whatever else, I never thought I was a hypocrite."
Tseng, at his shoulder, replies, "He was still your father, Sir."