Ah, first submission. I assume I'm doing at all correctly, but I'll just have to play around a bit.

This story is about random events in the lives of Cid Highwind and Vincent Valentine. Some of it is meant to be silly, some of it is meant to be rather emo, some of it is just a bunch of pervy fun stuff. It'll eventually end up Cid/Vin.

Yeah, this story's all yaoi / slash / m/m / whatever you wanna call it. So just go ahead and skedaddle if you don't wanna deal with all that, cos I don't wanna hear about it.

Is a disclaimer really necessary? I erm, don't own Cid, but I own his second grade personality. Also Willie Bristow.

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01. Slightly Bemused By The Total Rejection. (Cid's POV)

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The very first heartbreak I fully remember happened...well, a long time ago. Second grade.

It was Valentine's Day. The class had all exchanged cards. The teacher had given up trying to actually teach anything or keep us under control and let us run around and talk with each other.

I was sitting in the corner with my best friend, Willie Bristow. I had that awful nervous feeling in my stomach that feels like your insides are flipping around all over the place and is enough to keep a boy from the simplest of deeds.

I handed Willie his Valentine's Day card. It wasn't one of the store bought ones that come in a box of fifty and all say the same thing like I'd given to the rest of the class. No way.

Willie's was hand made, the front decorated with a rocket (above all things, there must be rockets), cut, drawn, and coloured (painstakingly, I might add) by the Cid Highwind himself.

I then proceeded with the following explanation (then given in awkward-seven-year-old-speak, now given in paraphrase):

On Valentine's Day, as tradition goes, you give special gifts to the ones you love the most. Because I loved my friend, I saw fit that he should be given the best card I could possibly create. I poured my heart into that card (just look at the rocket for crap's sake!) because I loved him.

Now, I really don't have any idea if I was capable of "being in love" back then, but I do know that I loved Willie differently, somehow. More than my other friends, and more than most things (excluding things of the flying kind). I didn't think anything was wrong with that, and why the hell shouldn't he know about it?

Hah, well, judging by his confused "Uh...thanks?" it seemed pretty clear that this wasn't about to go as spectacularly as planned. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to save this from crashing to the ground in flames.

"Is something wrong with it?" I asked. I mean, come on. I'd basically bared my soul to the guy, so why weren't we running off into the sunset together to live happily ever after? That's what happens after you profess your love to someone, right? So what's the holdup?

"Well, it's just that guys don't like guys. Any idiot knows that, dumb ass," he handed the card back to me. "Here, Cid. You'd better take it. I don't think I want my parents seeing it."

Uhh...what?

"That's not how it works!" I growled back.

All the movies I'd seen, all the stories I've read...There were so many renditions of the same basic event, how could it possibly not be true?

I followed Willie back to his desk and just stared at him. Angry, taken aback, and scowling with more feeling than I've ever scowled before.

Oh yeah. Then I hauled off and gave him a good punch in the mouth. He fell awkwardly into his chair, which toppled over, taking him with it to the floor.

"You're the dumb ass, fucker!" I ran out of the class room before anyone could grab me, forsaking my school bag, and making my way back home.

Stopping for a moment to catch my breath, I glanced down at the damned piece of construction paper still in my hand. How could Willie have been so stupid?

For a moment, I thought about the possibility of being incorrect. That I may have had it all wrong. Maybe I'd been misled, or maybe I misunderstood something. Maybe growing up was learning that everything you believe in is completely false.

It was a good explanation, though I wasn't entirely convinced.

I felt heavy inside. Depressed and defeated. The same sort of feeling I got whenever I was grounded (except multiplied times far higher than I could count). And I hated being grounded. Grounded meant you were stuck, couldn't fly. I wished so badly to be able to fly.

I cried out, exasperated, as I ripped the damn card in half.

I would fly so far away, and I would find someplace entirely new (preferably someplace that didn't know what "school" was) where I could be able to forget that day.

I kept tearing the paper till the pieces were too small to tear further. They littered the sidewalk at my feet. And I was done with it. It was a damn stupid idea anyways...

Set on auto, I made my way home, leaving the mess behind. I wanted to get to my house before the school called my mum. Before shit went down and she learned about what I'd done, I wanted her calming hugs and kind words.