Curse of Curves

By : Fearless_ Dranzer

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy 7, I do own this plot line and a piece of cheese.

Part 1

Chapter 1 - Mr. Brightside

I stared out the window in my English class. It was the first day of the beginning of the end—that is, the first day of my senior year of high school. This was it. This was supposed to be the best year of my life; so far it seemed exactly the same. I was listening to the same nonsense everyone hears on the first day of school, I just wasn't 'listening' listening. I was texting Tifa who strategically sat in front of me. Her long brown hair covered parts of my desk, but it didn't bother me. I figured if I had hair that long I wouldn't be able to control it either. A quick glance at the front of the room told me that the teacher was riffling through his desk, searching for papers to hand out to us.

My cell phone lit up and I could see its blue glow through my shorts pocket. I pulled it out and checked out the message, using Tifa's back to hide my actions. The text was from Tifa.

You should see the new math teacher, they say he's delicious!!!

I almost laughed out loud at her ability to incorporate Fergie into her every-day text messages, it was definitely a talent.

I texted her back.

That's great and when I grow breasts I'll care.

Her response was quick due to the full keyboard she employed.

I just hope Reno will be able to control himself…

I grimaced at that, clearly remembering all the times last year he refused to go alone to the hell that is detention and dragged me down with him. But it was senior year and it was supposed to be the perfect year, so I was ready for some weird type of magic that might make Reno behave for once in his damn life. I was seriously delusional.

When the bell rang Tifa got up quickly but I made a big scene of yawning as I picked my face up off the desk it had been glued to for the past fifteen minutes.

"Hurry it up! I wanna go see this new teacher!" Tifa whined, pulling on my arm as she tried to get me to stand up quicker.

I brushed her up and rubbed my eyes a little. "I'm up! I'm up! Jeez, this guy had better look like David Beckham with the way you're going on about him." Tifa snorted at me a dragged me down the hallway.

"You know for the fastest guy in school, you walk pretty damn slow." Tifa complained, but I could tell she was joking by the sparkle in her chocolate colored eyes.

"I run distance; I can go forever…just not very fast." I responded. Tifa laughed and flung her hair over her shoulder. Tifa was my best friend, we'd known each other since we were in diapers and even though she was cute, I thought of her more like a sister than a potential girlfriend. Besides, she had her heart set on Barret, the star quarterback on our Varsity football team. He hasn't noticed her, but I'm pretty sure it'll just be a matter of time. It's not easy to miss a girl like Tifa. Brown hair down her back, creamy skin, perfect hourglass figure and a great personality—Tifa attracted all kinds of guys.

"Yo!" A voice yelled out and Reno appeared out of the crowd, we high-fived and he hooked an arm around each of our shoulders. "So this new teacher…"

"Is a total babe!" Yuffie squealed as she popped up in front of us with a smiling Aerith and quiet Vincent in tow.

"You saw him?" Tifa gasped.

Yuffie shook her short bobbed hair and pointed a thumb in the direction of Aerith whose long braid swung with her hips with every step she took. "Aerith told me—and he must be gorgeous for Aerith to say anything."

Reno groaned. "Holy crap, he must be!"

"What's his problem?" I asked.

Yuffie shrugged, "Oh, he's just afraid the new teacher will steal all the 'babes' away from him."

I laughed because it was so stereotypical Reno. I waved to a few guys on the cross-country team that I occasionally hang out with, but too quickly we'd gotten to the math class room and Aerith was leaving us. She had English this period a few classrooms down. Yuffie picked in the door way and let out a small screech as Reno grabbed her hips and pulled her back so he could get a look.

"Oh crap!" Reno yelled. "He's a total babe magnet!"

"It's ok, Reno" Yuffie patted him on the head, "You still have me!"

"You're no babe!"

"Oh!" Yuffie let out a mad sigh and I flicked Reno in the forehead with a roll of my eyes.

"That's it. You guys don't appreciate me. Watch this." Reno yelled and he started working on pooling tears in his eyes. He had striking light green eyes that perfectly complimented his hair and when he got upset, were made all the more striking.

"Here it comes." Tifa sighed with a giggle.

Reno went running into the classroom and rushed up to the new teacher. From the position I was peering into the door way from I couldn't see the new teacher, but when I realized Reno was pointing to his forehead and then the door, I knew he was trying to get me in trouble… again.

Vincent must have realized the same thing as me because he glanced down at me with burning red eyes and I shrugged my shoulder. No one ever really took Reno seriously anyway.

Suddenly Reno came stomping back and he crossed his arms over his chest. "He doesn't care, can you believe it!" Reno went on martyring himself while Yuffie laughed at him.

The bell rang and we went inside the class room taking seats towards the back. One guy came running in behind me, but everyone's always late on the first day. So I was surprised to find that when I sat down and turned around, the new teacher was glaring at me.

"You're late." He said pointedly. On first impression I could tell that the guy was a total dick. He had hair that was even longer than Tifa's and it was pure silver. But he wasn't old, he looked like he was barely twenty and his face was perfect and unlined with sharp cheekbones and full pouty lips. His were what held my attention though, they were such a bright green that my breath caught in my throat and my heart skipped a few beats. If I were a girl I probably would have dropped dead from the full force of his good looks aimed at me.

But the glare he was shooting me, if looks could kill… Jesus, the guy has fucking lasers for eyes.

He was still waiting for an answer. "Um, it's the first day of school… I got lost? Yeah…lost." I mentally applauded myself for my quick thinking. Cloud Strife, you the man.

The teacher cocked an eyebrow at me and that little act told me he didn't believe me, it also told me that beyond reasonable doubt—I hated this man. He walked over to his desk, with quick sure steps and under his button-up shirt I could see taunt, lithe muscle. Muscle like a runner. He picked up a file and opened it.

"What's you're name?"

"Cloud." I replied.

"Cloud?" He responded.

"Yes, Cloud."

I was ready to punch that smug smile on his face when he pulled a card out of the file. "According to your student file, you've been here for four years. So either you're lying to me or you're too simple-minded to remember the layout of your school." He replied.

My mouth dropped open and I'm pretty sure I heard Tifa gasp as well.

"I wasn't the only one who was late." I replied when I got my voice back.

"Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to hand out detention slips on the first day, but rest assured Mr…." he glanced down at the file, "Mr. Cloud, I'll keep an eye out for you." With that he turned around and I smashed my head into the desk.

"Is there a problem?" The teacher called out, twisting his body around to face me.

I waved him off. "No…no it just seems my neck muscles have given out on me." He ignored my sarcasm and turned back around. I could tell the rest of this school year was going to be fucking fantastic.

My pocket lit up and I knew it was Tifa texting me but I either couldn't bring myself to check the phone or I was too afraid of what might happen if the teacher caught me.

There was tapping as the dick wrote on the board. "My name is Mr. Jenova and I'm your new math teacher. I graduated from Shinra High four years ago as the valedictorian and…" Jenova continued talking but I just didn't give a shit.

For forty-two minutes, my eyes remained glued to the clock at the front of the room.

When the bell finally rang my friends got up and crowded around my desk. I wasn't the trouble maker that Reno was but I wasn't the saint that Aerith was either. Getting in trouble on my own was so unlike me that instantly my friends were concerned. I was Cloud, the nice guy who actually managed to finish first occasionally. I was usually mellow and even-tempered, I was the friend people liked to tell their secrets too. I was the guy every girl had a crush on at one point in their high school careers. I was the untouchable guy who never had a girl friend but was super sweet and funny and a good athlete.

Chapter 2- King of Hearts

We left the class room but not before I took a final look over my shoulder and saw those piercing green eyes still glaring at me. I glared back and could feel my cheeks growing redder.

Aerith caught up to us while Reno was in the middle of ranting about Jenova. "What the fuck dude? I mean, we were all late and then that guy came in behind you! I mean what was his problem?"

Sensible Vincent spoke, "He's a new teacher and he's young, maybe he just felt that he had to make an example so the other students wouldn't try to take advantage of him."

Tifa shrugged, "Yeah, but Cloud? I mean Cloud is the biggest sweetheart! He's never hurt anybody!"

I groaned at all the attention.

Reno grabbed my neck and rubbed my head with his fist while Yuffie latched on my arm. "Poor Cloud!" She said. "Our blond-haired, blue-eyed baby boy!"

"He's growing up so fast!" Reno sobbed and I had to remove myself from the both of them before I killed one of the two.

We walked to the cafeteria and took a seat near the windows so that the bright sun almost blinded us, but we basked in the heat of its glare. The girls talked about how cute they thought Jenova was, even if he was a total jackass. A guy from the team came over and for a few minutes Barrett joined us and Tifa was so happy I thought she was going to explode. Vincent was his normal quiet self and Reno was his normal, loud obnoxious self, all was right in the world. The guy I was talking to left and shortly afterwards, Barrett left too and Tifa's mood deflated.

Aerith took up the task of trying to lighten her moon. "Tifa, I'm sure he noticed you, he just has so much stuff of his mind—he is the star quarterback of the football team you know…" Tifa sniffled.

I chewed my rice and decided to step in and rescue Aerith, Tifa can be pretty vicious when she gets upset. "Look, Tiff. I know he noticed you because he looked at you more than he looked at anyone else. And every time you talked to him he smiled ridiculously."

"Really!" Tifa said, instantly she was happier.

"Yes, re…." I dropped my forkful of rice and stared open-mouthed in shock.

"Dude, are you alright?" Reno asked?

Tifa followed my line of vision over to the object that caught my attention.

"Oh shit."

"You've got to be kidding me." Yuffie said and I just groaned and had the biggest urge to smash my face into my tray of food.

"Dude you probably have the shittiest luck I've ever seen." Reno stated around a mouthful of his turkey sandwich.

"Thanks, Reno." I replied. Jenova glanced over at us and I looked away.

"Let's just ignore him, I suggested." Reluctantly, the others followed my advice and the conversation slowly turned back to normal.

"Hey Aerith, did you see who Jenova came in with?" Yuffie started wheedling and Aerith turned pink. "Holy crap girl!" Yuffie yelled, noticing Aerith's obvious response when she brought Zack to her attention. Zack is a teacher, but he's probably just as young as Jenova and insists we call him by his first name especially since some of us were in high school with him. He's Aerith's English teacher and mine too.

"Oh she's got it bad." Tifa said to me and I smirked in response. What a tangled web we weave. Trying to return the favor, Tifa saved Aerith from further abuse from Reno and Yuffie. "Hey does anyone know where Cid is?"

"Lunch detention." Vincent said.

"But Jenova said he couldn't give out detentions on the first day of school." I said, confused.

Vincent shrugged, "I guess that rule doesn't apply to Shinra." I nodded, Mr. Shinra was the president of the school and his family had been the founder of this humble establishment. Shinra and Cid had been battling it out for years, in my opinion, Shinra will be very lonely once (if) Cid graduates.

Towards the end of the period Vincent called my attention to Jenova. "He's been staring at you all period Cloud." Vincent said while shooting a blank look over at Jenova and Zack.

"Ohhhh! Cloud I finally found out who your secret lover is!" Yuffie joked, Yuffie's been convinced for a while that the reason I don't have a girlfriend is because I have a secret lover. Yeah, I think Yuffie knows how stupid the idea sounds, I just think she doesn't really care. It's in her nature to be silly and cute and it's one of the best things she has going for her. Hanging out around Aerith and Tifa could give any girl a severe inferiority complex, but not Yuffie. It response to her buxom brunette friends, Yuffie because the pixie-like, waif whose exotic Wutai features helped her garner attention. And attention is what a girl like Yuffie runs on, that and pixie sticks.

"Lucky." Reno joked and I'm still not sure who the lucky one was in mine and Jenova's secret relationship.

"I don't like it." Vincent said completely serious and I had to agree with him, I didn't like it one bit either.

Zack noticed us looking and waved at Aerith, who waved back shyly. He threaded his way through students and come over to us holding a packet of paper.

"Aerith! I wanted to congratulate you! I started reading your summer assignment and I have to say it's really good! Way above and beyond the requirements, good job girl!" Zack praised Aerith until I thought she was going to stay permanently pink.

"Thank you so much Mr. Zack." Aerith replied demurely looking at her feet.

"Aerith it's just Zack, now the real reason I came over… I wanted to know if you would be willing to join the newspaper club." Zack asked.

Aerith's head whipped up and her smile had a thousand watts. "Oh, of course ! I'll join thank you for asking me!"

"Alright, the first meetings on Monday! I expect to see you there!"

"Of course!"

Zack walked away and our table was strangely quiet for a few minutes—

at least until Reno broke the silence.

"Whi-pp-ed." He sang and Aerith blushed, covering her face with her hands and Yuffie whacked Reno on the head while Tifa comforted Aerith.

But they all kept sneaking glances at Jenova until Reno joked and the bell rang. "Wouldn't it just be crazy if Jenova was a run-for-fun type too Cloud?"

"I hate you." I muttered at him as I thought back to my earlier revelation that he had a runner's body.

Tifa rolled her eyes. "Don't jinx him Reno!"

Vincent though stared hard at Jenova's retreating back, "Murphy's Law." He said and we all fell quiet as we walked to our next classes.

Chapter 3 - DOA

I barely made it into the locker room before the bell rang; I had to go to my locker to grab my cross-country clothes so that I could maximize my time before practice starts.

Almost everyone had already come and changed since the locker assignments had been mailed out a few days prior. I changed in solitude into a pair of bright green shorts with a Puma insignia, a t-shirt with a running quote on the back and my Mizunos. As I laced up my Mizunos, I took a deep breath, this was one of the first minutes all day I'd actually had to myself and I savored it before I went out to join the other people in my class.

The teacher was going taking attendance when I made it to the gym and I managed to make roll call just in time to hear my name. I went over and stood next to Barrett who was near a few other football guys and their cheerleader girlfriends.

"Heard what happened to you bro. Fucking harsh." Barrett said in his deep voice, he had his massive arms crossed over his chest and I felt small next to him. Which was in fact perfectly understandable since I was barely 5'7 and he was well over six feet. He was a big hulking football player, I was a scrawny little distance runner. I had tried going out for lacrosse with Vincent and Reno, let's just say I'm definitely a runner.

I shrugged a thin shoulder. "You know what I'm just going to ignore him for the rest of the year, maybe I'll keep out of trouble."

Barrett laughed in response to that. "Good luck with that, I heard Reno's in your class."

I had to laugh at that, yeah my plan was pretty much trash once you through Reno into the equation. Reno, the guy who somehow managed to orchestrate every senior prank for the last five years. Reno could ruin anyone's best laid plans.

"All I know is that I'm getting sick of all the girls goin' crazy over him." Barrett grumbled.

I saw and opening and dived for it. "Yeah, thank god Tifa doesn't like him; I'd have to listen to her go on about his long flowing locks for hours." I laughed and laid the bait.

He took it.

"Oh yeah? Tifa doesn't like him? What kind of guy does Tifa like?"

I spent the rest of the period singing Tifa's praises to Barrett and let me tell you, that girl owes me big time.

When the 8th period bell rang I was ready to start running. I said good-bye to Barrett in the locker room and to a couple of other guys. I opened my locker and grabbed my orange drawstring bag, it was my track bag and it had some water bottles in it, my cell phone and a few pins, medical tape and other random crap for those just-in-case moments. I also put a clean t-shirt in to change into when I was done with my run.

I tucked my necklace that I wear everywhere into my shirt, Tseng—my coach, doesn't like it when we were jewelry to practice. But I never take this necklace off; it was a gift from my parents before they died in a car crash a few years ago. I took my knee straps out of my bag and wrapped them around my legs right under my knee caps. There meant for tendonitis, which while normal a problem girls have, my excessive running for the past few years on uneven ground has really damaged my knees. I used the medical tape to wrap my feet in a few places to protect blisters I had been nursing for a few days and was finally satisfied that I was ready.

I left through the back door of the locker room that brought me out to the soccer and foot ball fields, I dropped my bag off in the dugout the cross-country teams occupied and started my thirty minute run.

I set the timer on my watch and headed off into the extensive woods that run behind my school and surround it, cutting it off from most of the outside world. At this point, Yuffie would be heading to gymnastics practice, Cid would still be in detention, Tifa would be going to kickboxing and Aerith, Reno and Vincent would be walking home. Barrett would be at football practice and I'm doing extra running before my own practice starts.

Rude would probably be meeting up with Aerith, Reno and Vincent and he would probably drive them to get ice cream and then to Tifa's family's pub. All of them worked there part time and when Tifa isn't at school or dance practice she bartends there. Even I have a job over there during the summer.

By the time I got back to the dugout I was hot and sweaty since even though I had gone easy, it was horribly humid out. I drank some water and changed shirts before most of the guys even made it to the dugout.

Coach Tseng came up to me while the last few guys were straggling in, the girls had already started their warm-up run.

"A little pre-practice running?" Tseng joked. It was no secret I was the best on the team. The team knew it, I knew it, and the rest of the school knew it. And since the seniors from last year had graduated, I wasn't going to have any real competition during practice, so we'd talked about me doing extra running before the work-outs.

I grinned back. "I think we may have a solution to your practice problems Cloud. An old friend of mine and a cross-country veteran is back in town and when I told him about your situation, well he offered to help. He's the assistant coach this year and he also offered to be your running partner for workouts and distance runs." Tseng said and I immediately was excited and then I remembered.

Murphy's Law.

"Here let me introduce you Cloud!" Tseng said and he went to get someone. I didn't move and I wasn't shocked when he came back with his arm around Jenova's shoulders. It was just my fucking luck.

"This is Sephiroth Jenova, we used to run together a few years ago." Tseng said and Sephiroth offers me a smirk.

I just glare back as I feel my cheeks heating up.

"I'll only be observing today." He said in that deep emotionless voice of his.

"Whoop-de-fucking-do." I mumbled under my breath and turned away to join the rest of my team for a workout. No one noticed that I was uncharacteristically quiet and I didn't speak for the rest of practice.

Sephiroth was gone by the time I was done but the damage was done. My favorite time of the day was ruined.

It seemed like no matter how hard I resolved to try and ignore Sephiroth, he just kept popping up out of no where to ruin my life.

End Part 1

Diana - OK! This story is a long time in coming and is oddly almost autobiographical. Tell me you haven't had a crush on one of your teachers at least once in your lifetime? It's just a little strange because I planned this story out at the beginning of the year and now let's just say I've got my eyes set on a certain guy.

Don't worry things haven't even gotten near the scale that they will go with Sephiroth and Cloud.

And I'm having trouble pinpointing Cloud's personality since in this story he's supposed to be laid back and mellow. But does anyone really know what Cloud's personality is like… he's just so quiet….

Anyway thanks to my lovely beta!