These are just silly pieces that got cut from Theory and Terminal Velocity but I liked too much to totally get rid of. So obviously the logical thing to do is expand them and smash them all together and here! Have an outtake!
Written and compiled for lilhb421, who always asks for more Yuffie and is incredibly patient when I say 'oh yeah, sure' and then... give her nothing...
Posted as part of Leon & Yuffie appreciation week, hosted by ninjaprincessofthieves on Tumblr. Check it out!
Seduction for Dummies
Yuffie needed a plan. A brilliant, well-executed, knock-it-into-orbit, amazing plan that would settle all the wriggling in her stomach and heat in her face once and for all. This Leon thing was a Problem with a capital P, and she was going to figure out something to do about it if it took her all day.
She ran through her pitifully few options.
She didn't particularly care for sappy confessions or long, boring talks about feelings; that left the more underhanded techniques. She was good for stealing, blackmail, and bribery—she'd mastered that type of skill by the time she was a teenager, and Reno had helped fill in her weak points towards the end. Unfortunately, neither of them had ever been much good at the subtler aspects of manipulation. She entertained the notion of hog-tying Leon and letting all her pent-up feelings come spewing out while parked on top of him—at least that way she could have some sort of upper-hand—but that felt a bit extreme; it was a solid Plan C.
So, manipulation. Seduction. Yuffie could do that—maybe. She could try… Yuffie wasn't sure if all this flawed logic came from ignorance or desperation.
The obvious thing to do was find Tifa. She'd spent years in a bar, she had to have picked up a trick or two at some point. The problem was that it was almost as difficult to find Tifa as it was to find Cloud, if only because she spent half her time chasing after him and demanding explanations he wasn't ever going to give.
It took nearly all day, but after systematically combing the ruined castle and town, she spied her target leaning against the Accessory shop in the shopping district; the first place she'd looked.
"Figures." Yuffie muttered before shouting, "Oy! My savior! I've been looking for you everywhere."
"Yuffie." Tifa's face broke into a small smile. "And just what outrageous favors do you need today?"
There was no sense in beating around the bush. "I need to learn me some feminine wiles, pronto."
Tifa's nose wrinkled in thought. "Why on earth would you ask me?"
"I don't know. You worked in a bar, right? Even if you've never done the whole…" she waved an arm through the air, "thing, you've got more second-hand knowledge of it than I do."
"So do lots of people."
Tifa was being difficult on purpose, Yuffie was sure of it. "But they aren't here! You're all I've got, so suck it up and teach me how to be seductive, damnit!"
"What do you expect me to do? Teach you how to tie a cherry stem in a knot with your tongue?" Tifa rolled her eyes. "It's not like I spent my time taking notes on how to pick up men."
Yuffie had found that when she had absolutely no counter-attack, the best thing to do was glare; a trick she'd picked up from Leon. Tifa caved within twenty seconds.
"You can't possibly be this desperate."
Yuffie crossed her arms. "Try me."
"Fine!" Tifa huffed, turned on her heel, and stalked toward the houses. "Where the hell are we even going to find cherries around here, anyway?"
Truth be told, Yuffie wasn't sure what she should expect from lessons in seduction. Instead of letting on that she doubted her aptitude for the subject in every way, she sat cross-legged and watched with ravenous attention as Tifa's lips twisted in a wholly unnatural way before a slimy, gnawed cherry stem catapulted across Yuffie's bedroom and stuck to the wall.
"That's supposed to be sexy?" Yuffie arched an eyebrow.
Tifa frowned. "Maybe if you could figure out how to use it to kill heartless, Leon would think so."
Yuffie's face burned. "Who said anything about Leon?"
"Oh, please."
Yuffie didn't want to think about who else might know about what was turning out to be the single most humiliating crush in history. Her ego was already smashed beyond repair; she couldn't handle a larger sample size.
"I just have to say, that look on your face is fantastic." Tifa didn't bother hiding her laughter.
Yuffie groaned. "Does everyone know about this?!"
"Pretty much."
"Does he know?" That wouldn't do at all. Yuffie still needed to figure out what to do! Plan A was a bust and she was going to do this on her terms. If Leon-the-jerkass had managed to beat her to the punch she was going to have to kick him.
Tifa slid to her feet and shrugged. "Don't know."
"I'm going on record as saying this is the biggest disaster I've found myself in, yet."
"Oh, don't be so dramatic." Tifa bumped Yuffie's shoulder with her fist and smiled. "Why don't you just tell him that you like him?"
Yuffie wanted to say that was rich, coming from Tifa, but managed to hold it in. It wasn't Tifa's fault she was worked up and snippy. "Because that would be disgusting."
Tifa chuckled and threw a wave over her shoulder on her way out. "If you say so."
Yuffie flopped backward, then decided that laying down was too much like giving up and snapped upright. She refused to think of the afternoon as a failure. Sure, she'd been outed and embarrassed and hadn't managed to learn a damn thing, but all of that had been a dry run. Training. Experimentation. All she needed now was a new plan A.
There were these books in one of the shops. Under normal circumstances, Yuffie would never admit any knowledge of them, but these were desperate times. They couldn't be completely full of nonsense, even if they were ninety-nine percent trash. She felt grimy when she touched the pages, but she persevered to select the most reasonable looking suggestion before shoving the book back where she'd found it and all but running from the store.
This was Plan A, beta. Yuffie didn't actually have much faith she'd succeed, but the suggestion was simple and subtle, and she couldn't find any harm in it.
Yuffie mustered all her confidence before strutting to Leon's side, cocking a hip, and doing her best to look interested as well as a little pathetic. She'd need all her acting skills to get through this, but if anyone could pull it off, it was her.
Leon spared her a glance. Game on.
"So, I was wondering if you could show me… um…" Yuffie drew a blank. Horror curled in her belly. Why didn't she think this part through?
"Hmm?" Leon stayed focused on the task in front of him. He wasn't even looking at her.
"Aw, fuck. This isn't going to work at all!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Yuffie couldn't help the distressed wail that crept into her voice. "How the hell am I supposed to take an interest in your hobbies?! We like all the same things already, you giant asshole!"
She could have sworn she caught a chuckle from him.
"Are you laughing at me?"
"Of course not." Leon could teach a master course in keeping a poker face.
"I'm gonna get all the way to phi before anything works…" Yuffie muttered as she stomped away from the building site. She could have stuck around and attempted to recover, but first she had to return to a certain book store she knew nothing about, shoplift a book she'd never read, and then send a flaming mass of leather and pulp sailing into the Maw.
"Yuffie… what are you wearing?"
"You like it?" Yuffie asked, tugging on the hem of her shorts. The getup was, admittedly, skimpy to a degree even she felt was obscene.
"Is it even clothes?" Leon sounded positively baffled. This wasn't going how she'd planned.
"It's…" Yuffie wracked her brain for any kind of an excuse to get her out of the mis-fire. "It's a bathing suit?"
"For in public?!"
"No!" Yuffie's cheeks got warm, her heartbeat sped; she was about five seconds away from having to flee the situation. "It's for when I take a bath. I'm about to take a bath! God, Leon."
He didn't believe her at all. "Why?"
"It's just more fun that way!" Yuffie had to regroup and reassess. This was nothing but the latest failure in a long string, each more ridiculous than the last. Enough was enough, and Yuffie was done. Plan A sucked. "You just sit there and wait while I get the supplies for Plan C!"
The only thing she could hear beyond the roaring in her ears as she raced up the stairs was Leon's confused shout.
"What?!"