Hello, everyone. Some of you may know me; for those who don't, I'm Mengde, and I like to write for this section. In the spirit of the holidays, I thought I'd give my regular readers (who know I don't tend towards romance that much) a change of pace: a straight-up, no-holds-barred Yuffentine. For those of you who aren't regular readers but still like Yuffentine, well, I hope you enjoy this as well. A side note: chocolate oranges are an actual product - I'm sure someone else has had them before. They're actually quite good. That aside, I don't own FFVII and such. Have fun!

Chocolate Oranges
A Final Fantasy VII Fiction
Written By Mengde

What with all the momentous occasions the Planet has been put through in the last few years, it is no wonder that a number of holidays sprung up, interspersed throughout the calendar. Meteor Day, when AVALANCHE saved the world from the Ultimate Black Magic. Victory Day, when AVALANCHE defeated Sephiroth once and for all. Security Day, when AVALANCHE rooted out the seditious Deepground faction and preserved the fragile peace. The date upon which AVALANCHE was founded has also become a holiday, Founding Day.

Part of the mentality behind the formation of all these holidays, as officially announced by the World Regenesis Organization, was simply that the world did not have enough days on which one needed no excuse to get drunk and have a good time. Part of it was appreciation for the heroes of AVALANCHE who had done so much and received relatively so little in return save recognition. Part of it, as Cid maintains, is because he said so. This last is debatable.

Still, a point of fact is that AVALANCHE gets together on all of these days, four times a year, to reminisce about more interesting times. With their various positions of importance in the WRO and other important governmental bodies, they can afford to take four days a year off. They really have no excuse not to.

It is a new year, with the end of Deepground fresh in everyone's memory, and, chronologically speaking, Founding Day is first up.

Founding Day

"How are things?"

Yuffie purses her lips, considering how to best answer the question. She sits at the bar in the Seventh Heaven, where the Founding Day party is being held. In front of her, Tifa is mixing drinks, mostly for the men, who are already getting fairly boisterous – and it's not even two o'clock yet.

That is, the men are getting boisterous, with the exception of Vincent Valentine.

He showed up as he promised to, exchanging his usual minimalist greetings and promptly taking up his normal position in the corner booth of the bar. Now his ruby eyes, almost obscured by the lip of his cloak, peer out at the room from below his casual mess of silky black hair.

"What can I say?" Yuffie says to Tifa. "Pops is doing well, and by 'doing well' I mean 'being annoying as usual.' He's still got it in his head that someday I'm going to have to take up the royal Kisaragi mantle and blah blah blah. I keep telling him, you're not that old, stop thinking about that! He's so damn persistent, though."

Tifa shrugs as she finishes Yuffie's mojito. "I suppose he's just thinking of the city's future. It's his life, after all."

Taking a sip of the sweet concoction, Yuffie mutters, "Wish he would think about my future, occasionally. Not like it's written in stone or anything." She casts a furtive glance at Vincent, who apparently doesn't notice her scrutiny. "Not like I'm going to live forever."

Ever perceptive, Tifa notices the direction of Yuffie's gaze. "Go and talk to him if you're curious. I don't know what he's been up to for the past few months."

"Bet she knows," Yuffie says, jerking her head in the general direction of the quiet girl sitting in a booth with Red XIII. The red-furred beast is talking with Shelke Rui, a mature young woman trapped in the body of a young teenager. "They've been real buddy-buddy ever since the whole Deepground thing went down. I never know what she's thinking – kinda creepy."

Tifa smiles, just a bit, before returning to a more neutral expression and the drinks. "I couldn't say. Only one way to find out."

"Gee, thanks. Aren't bartenders supposed to give good advice?"

"As your friend, and a woman, and a bartender on top of that, the best way to find out is to go talk to him."

Yuffie sighs and picks herself up from the bar, bringing her mojito with her. She walks over to the booth Vincent is sitting at and slides into it. "Afternoon, Vinnie."

"Yuffie." He does not look at her, instead staring past her at something else. She glances in the direction of his gaze and finds herself looking into Shelke's somewhat unsettling blue eyes. An irrational wave of irritation washes over Yuffie for a moment and she bites back an annoyed growl.

She shifts herself in the booth to be directly between Vincent and Shelke. His gaze suddenly locks onto hers as though he is seeing her for the first time. "How's it going, Vinnie? Haven't seen you in a while."

Vincent nods. "That is true. I've been doing very little – I'm sure that by your standards you would find my life boring."

"Depends on how you've been living it," Yuffie tells him brightly. "Whatcha been up to?"

He seems momentarily taken aback by her acute interest, but that quickly passes. "Some assignments for the WRO. Reeve doesn't like to ask me for help, being considerate, so I volunteer it. Mostly blue milk runs – convoy escorts, peacekeeping. Not much of interest."

"Cool, cool." Yuffie decides to test the waters a bit. "What about Shelke? You work with her a lot?"

If Vincent detects precisely why Yuffie has picked out this line of inquiry, he doesn't give any sign of it. "No," he says, face blank. "She's taken over her sister's position in R and D. We see one another now and then, but not what I would call 'a lot.'"

"Hmm." A notion strikes her. "Vinnie, do you ever think about the future? I mean, I know you got a lot of it, but do you think about it?"

"Not really."

The response is somewhat disappointing. Where Yuffie acquired the romanticized image of Vincent brooding over things to come she has no idea, but it always appealed to her, possibly because of the man's nature. "I do. I wonder if we're gonna all keep doing this, getting together for the holidays we basically created. I wonder how long we're gonna stay together. I wonder how long it's gonna last."

This is highly philosophical for her. Vincent, seeming to stare through her head at Shelke, does not notice. "As long as we want it to last, I think it will. It all depends on us. Isn't it how things have always been?"

Yuffie pauses and sips at her drink. "Y'know, that's true. Maybe that's just what I needed to hear, actually. Thanks, Vinnie."

She gets up to leave, but Vincent suddenly catches her by the wrist with his right hand. "Just a minute. I have something for you." Taken aback by the sudden contact, Yuffie doesn't have the presence of mind to give more of a response than letting her mouth drop open a bit.

Vincent reaches into a bag resting on the booth seat next to him, one she didn't notice until now, and withdraws what looks like a gleaming orange ball. He puts it in her hand, and she realizes for the first time that the color is actually from foil wrapping.

"It's a chocolate orange," he says. "You tap it on something before you eat it, and it breaks into slices. I brought them for everyone – they sell them near my home." Apparently Yuffie is looking at him inquisitively, because he shrugs and lamely adds, "I couldn't think of anything else to bring."

"I see. Thanks, Vinnie."

She takes the orange over to the bar and raps it against the wood several times before unwrapping it. Just as Vincent said, it has broken into slices. Yuffie bites the end off of one and is instantly disappointed. The candy can't decide whether it's a chocolate or an orange, so it strikes a compromise by having the chocolate be waxy and cheap and the orange be a vaguely poor imitation of citrus.

Yuffie looks back at Vincent, who is still looking at Shelke. He really must have been desperate to bring something. With a small sigh, she eats the rest of the slice and then wraps the orange back up. She'll find the heart to finish it later.

Victory Day

For Victory Day, Cid insisted on hosting the AVALANCHE get-together on the Shera. He came and picked up everyone, acting every bit the role of the genial host. He still chain-smoked and cursed up a storm, but that was to be expected; he was Cid, after all.

Yuffie would like to be celebrating wholeheartedly with the rest of them, since it has been several months since she last saw them, but she is feeling pensive and somewhat afraid. Her father is at odds with a strange, pervasive ailment that has been plaguing him for the last few weeks, and she is worried about his health.

The bridge of the Sherais full of raucous laughter and bad karaoke on the part of Cloud and Barret. Shelke is nowhere in evidence, a fact from which Yuffie takes some small, jealous comfort. Vincent is standing in a corner of the bridge, watching the festivities with his usual distant air.

She goes over to him, a plastic cup of beer in each hand. They are not her first. He looks at her, then at her drinks, and raises an eyebrow. "Double-fisting? I didn't know you were a party girl."

His comment is so out of place she momentarily squints at him, as though trying to bring him back into focus. "What the hell? You hit yourself over the head or something since last time, Vinnie?"

He gives her a small smile. "No. It's been decades since the last time I regularly went to parties like this one, but one bit of party etiquette that I remember is that you poke fun at anyone who double-fists."

Yuffie takes a gulp from the cup in her left hand, registering the fact that she is starting to feel a bit drunk, just getting there, not enough to set off any alarms. "You used to be a Turk, right, Vinnie? Show me some of your deductive reasoning. It's an open bar and it's not like we're only here for an hour or whatever. Why would I be double-fisting?" She punctuates the statement with a swig from the cup in her right hand.

"Simple," he says. "You want to get drunk, and you want to do it as efficiently as possible."

"Genius." Yuffie hesitates and then thrusts one of the cups at Vincent. "Want one? I don't have cooties."

He shakes his head. "I don't get drunk."

"What? Oh, right. Your…" She doesn't quite feel up to saying the word 'alterations,' so she goes with 'specialness' instead.

He snorts. "You could put it that way."

"Well, you figured out what I'm up to. I wanna get nice and drunk. But Vinnie, Mr. Turk, you haven't explained why."

Vincent cocks his head. "It could be for any number of reasons. Word has it, though, that your father has come down with an ailment. Nothing serious, but nothing that would keep a younger man in bed for any more than a day." He looks at her, his ruby gaze intense. "You're worried about him."

"Woo! Bravo! He's amazing!" Yuffie laughs and tries to drain the left cup, but theShera hits a sudden patch of rough air. The alcohol in her sashays wildly through her guts and the world tries to turn itself upside-down. Her knees go weak and her airsickness, combined with all the beer she's had, suddenly makes a fearsome assault.

Everything after that is somewhat unclear for a long while until Yuffie crawls slowly back to consciousness to find herself in the small guest quarters assigned to her aboard the airship. She gives a long moan, partly from the throbbing in her head and partly from the awful taste in her mouth.

The door opens and Cloud comes in. "Hey. Welcome back to the land of the living."

"Bite me," she mutters. "What the hell happened?"

"You apparently had too much to drink. You threw up all over Vincent's shoes."

Yuffie feels the blood rush to her face. "I did what now?"

"Yup. You'd think you'd be past the drinking-until-you-hurl stage, Yuffie. You're not a kid anymore."

She sulkily rolls onto her other side, facing the wall away from Cloud. "I don't wanna be a grown-up, dammit. Grown-ups have responsibilities and other stupid crap that just complicate things."

Cloud laughs, quietly, not aware that she is dead serious. "I guess so. Anyway, the party sort of died down a while after we cleaned your vomit off of the bridge – "

"Wonderful."

"And Vincent left an hour ago. He asked me to tell you that everything is fine, his shoes are good as new. He also asked me to give you this." Yuffie rolls back over in time to catch a chocolate orange that Cloud tosses at her. "He brought it for you. Nice of him, eh?"

"Yeah," Yuffie mutters. "Nice."

"You'd better get some sleep. I'll bring you some water first, for the dehydration." Cloud steps out to do that, and Yuffie unwraps the orange, only remembering afterwards that she needs to break the segments apart. She halfheartedly bashes the orange against the wall above the bed, and it all comes apart and rains down on her.

Yuffie moves her head over a bit and gets her teeth around one of the slices, hoping that it will kill some of the taste in her mouth. It isn't much of an improvement.

Meteor Day

Almost directly on the heels of Victory Day is Meteor Day, separated by only a couple months. In that time, Yuffie's father makes a complete recovery, but spurred by the reminder of his own mortality, he begins grooming her even more to be his successor, having her come to council meetings, training her in court etiquette – or, to be more precise, retraining her, since she did her best to unlearn it all during her teenaged years as a wandering ninja – and other functions, laying it on thick enough to make her scream.

Therefore, any excuse to get away is welcome. AVALANCHE meets up this time in the WRO Tower, the headquarters of the movement. Yuffie arrives last to find the celebration already underway. As always, Vincent is sitting in a corner of the room, watching the proceedings.

This time, however, he is talking with Shelke. Yuffie sees them and feels another pang of jealousy, not bothering to wonder at why it strikes her. She knows precisely why. She loves him, in the sense that she loves needling him and poking at him and trying to figure out precisely what makes him tick, what makes him continue to tick after all those years in a coffin atoning for sins that weren't really his own.

The idea that he could be explaining all of it to Shelke, needy little Shelke who essentially fell out of the sky just months ago, is infuriating.

It takes a little doing to get a drink out of the bartender on hand – he looks at her suspiciously and wonders loudly if he needs to see ID before she tells him that he will have all the trained killers of Wutai out to castrate him if he does not give her a cement mixer.

The drink is disgusting, a mixture of lime juice and cream-based liqueur. She tosses it back and feels the lime juice cause the liqueur to curdle inside her mouth, taking on the consistency of soupy concrete. She swirls it around for a while before finally forcing it down with no small amount of satisfaction. More than once she's spit it right back up, much to the amusement of everyone around her. She thinks back on that and silently hurls curses at Cid. Vincent was the only one that hadn't laughed.

Then Yuffie notices that while she was struggling with the cement mixer, Shelke came over to the bar and asked for a root beer. She is looking at Yuffie and sipping contemplatively at the drink, wearing a curious expression.

"I got something on my face?" Yuffie asks.

"No. You're Yuffie Kisaragi."

"No shit, Sherlock."

Shelke blinks at the unfamiliar reference. "He talks a lot about you, you know."

Yuffie eyes the girl. "What, who does?"

"Vincent Valentine. He talks a lot about you. I think it's funny. He doesn't talk much about other people."

A glow blossoms in Yuffie's chest, and it has nothing to do with the alcohol. "Really?"

Shelke nods. "He likes you, I think. Which is funny, because he only recently started to even like himself."

Yuffie feels an idiot's grin spreading across her face, but she doesn't care. "For real, now? Thanks, Shelke. I – I appreciate you telling me."

The girl gives a noncommittal shrug. "You and Lucrecia. He talks about her a lot, too."

Just like that, the glow disappears and the smile slips off of Yuffie's face. "Ah. Well. Thanks, still." She stares at the polished surface of he bar and starts to despair silently. Why is she being so stupid? How can she expect any reciprocation from dying-on-the-cross Vincent Valentine? Sure he likes her, along with maybe himself and definitely a woman frozen in a crystal formation until the end of time.

It only takes a few more drinks for her to get indignant enough about the whole situation to get up and walk over to his table, then sit down in front of him and ask, "Vinnie, do you like me?"

He looks at her like she's sprouted tentacles and is trying to strangle him. "Yes?"

She rolls her eyes. "I'm the one asking the questions. Do you. Like me. Yes or no."

"Yes."

"Do you like – " she almost mangles the damn pronunciation of the woman's name, this time – "Lucrecia?"

"Yes."

Yuffie nods and says, "Alright. Cool. Thanks."

She makes ready to storm away, but Vincent catches her right in the middle of her preparations. "Here. I brought this again. Go ahead, take it."

Yuffie looks stupidly at him for a full five seconds before she realizes he is holding a chocolate orange out for her to take. Making sure to look pleased, she accepts it and says, "Thanks." Then she gets up and heads back over to the bar.

As she sits down, Shelke asks, "Well? Was I right?"

"You bet you were," Yuffie mutters. She pounds the orange entirely harder than necessary on the bar, then unwraps it and shoves a slice into her mouth. It is still waxy and unpleasant. "You bet."

Security Day

For Security Day, it is easiest for Yuffie to host the AVALANCHE party at her home in Wutai. Lately, it has become impossible for her to leave.

After all, the city is hers now. How could she?

She serves her friends the last of her father's stock of sake. He doesn't need it any more, after all, so she doubts he would object.

Vincent again sits alone in a corner, as is his wont. Seizing upon the opportunity provided by the rice wine, Yuffie grabs an ochoko, a small, shallow cup for drinking the wine, and the tokkuri flask, then heads over to him.

"Want some?" she asks, extending the ochoko to him.

He looks at her, then at the cup. "You know I can't get drunk."

"I'm not looking to get you drunk, dummy. I'm offering to serve you sake, here. This is a big thing here in Wutai. It's really awesome when a girl asks to serve you sake. Really sexy."

Vincent gives her a level stare, as though trying to determine if she is being straight with him or not, before accepting the ochoko and holding it up for her. She tips the tokkuri and pours him a drink, and he takes it in one shot. "Good stuff."

"Not that it really matters how good it is to you."

"True. Thank you, though." He looks lost as to what to do with the ochoko, so Yuffie motions for him to put it down on the floor. She settles herself next to him and asks, "So, how are things? Haven't asked you that since Founding Day. Anything change?"

He shakes his head. "No, not really."

She keeps her smile steady. "Cool. How's Shelke? And Lucrecia?"

"The same as always."

"Good. Good." She stares at the empty ochoko on the floor, sympathizing with it. "Good."

"What about with you?" he asks, somewhat suddenly. "Things have changed with you."

Yuffie nods, slowly. "I'm sure you heard about Dad. The city really is mine, now. He was right all along."

"I'm sorry for your loss. Are you happy to take over the city, though?"

Something gives a little inside Yuffie and suddenly she has tears in her eyes. "No. No, I'm not happy to take over the goddamn city, Vinnie. I don't want to be the queen. I don't want to have to manage things and deal with people and be good and powder my nose. I want to run around and steal materia from suckers and misbehave. I want to stay with you guys forever and not have to worry about anything changing. You have no idea how jealous I am of you, Vincent. You and Shelke and Lucrecia, you never change, you never have to worry about that. You stand still. I wish I could do that. I wish you looked at me the way you look at her!" For the first time she knows why she is so jealous of Shelke, never mind the fact that he looks at her in that particular way of his, the way that penetrates all defenses and leaves nothing unbared. She wishes she was really, truly young again, even if the youth were just an illusion, a prison even. She wishes for the solidarity of youthful immortality, knowing that it will never change and that she will live forever.

Vincent is obviously taken aback, but he remains silent until he can gather his thoughts properly. "I think you've misinterpreted my intent, Yuffie. I look at Shelke the way I do, however you claim that is, because she is a puzzle to me. She, and Lucrecia, and myself, all puzzles. We're trying to figure out how to let her move again, to let her stop standing still. Maybe when we've accomplished that I'll be able to do the same for Lucrecia, and perhaps even for me. But I don't look at her the way I look at you."

Yuffie sits straight up and looks, really looks, at him. The rest of the party is lost to her: they are in their own little world, oblivious. "What?"

"Please don't take this the wrong way – but you aren't a puzzle to me. You are full of life and active and always changing, and as someone who is always standing still, it's wonderful. You remind me why I keep going. In some ways, you are why I keep going. I understand why you might not want this, but trust me when I say that it is for the best. Eventually things will settle. The problem with standing still is that you can't come to equilibrium like you can when you are always moving."

In one moment they are sitting there in a corner of the common room of Yuffie's house, and in the next moment they are stumbling down her hallway, trying to move and kiss at the same time and failing somewhat prodigiously. Vincent tastes wonderful, deep and rich and indescribably alive, much better than the alcohol that has been becoming Yuffie's refuge for the past year. His lips are rough, but that only makes him more human and real to her; she tangles her fingers in his hair, delighting in how solid he is.

They just remember to shut the door to her bedroom behind them before collapsing onto her bed, Yuffie working at the belts on Vincent's cape before they even come to a relative rest. He shrugs out of the garment and pulls his shirt off over his head, shaking his hair out of his face afterwards, before shucking his gleaming gauntlet to reveal a regular, leather-gloved human arm. He peels that off and drops it next to the gauntlet. He is lean and muscled, his skin pale from lack of exposure to the sun. Yuffie wriggles out of her own top and pulls him down onto her, running her tongue from his ear along his jaw to the nape of his neck and stopping there to bite, playfully. He responds eagerly, and she feels her stomach do a flip as he shucks his pants before beginning to undo her shorts.

Things stop being coherent. She remembers later the feeling of him working her nipples between his teeth; the feeling of his back beneath her fingers as she clutched him; the feeling of his tongue, roaming over her body; the feeling of her throat growing hoarse from practically screaming, her face buried in his neck.

The sounds of the party are dying down by the time they grow exhausted enough to stop. Yuffie lies on top of Vincent, underneath a thin blanket. She feels the steady rise and fall of his stomach against her own as she rests her head on his chest.

"That was fun," she observes quietly, her voice a bit rough.

"Mm," he says. "I just remembered. Yuffie, reach my cloak, would you?"

She obliges him, grabbing the nearest edge of the garment and pulling it onto the bed with them. He reaches into an inner fold and withdraws another chocolate orange. "Here. I brought another one."

Yuffie rolls her eyes and before she knows it, the words are out: "I hate those goddamn things."

He stares at her, uncomprehending. "What? I thought you liked them. You were the only one, at any rate – after the first time, everyone else told me to stop bringing them."

She nearly laughs at the absurdity. "You were bringing those things just for me all this time before you thought I liked them? You're sweet."

"You should have told me you didn't like them! I wouldn't have brought them!"

Yuffie takes the orange from him and raps it against the headboard of the bed. "It's the thought that counts, Vinnie. If there's one thing that this has sort of driven into my skull, it's that any constant you can get in life you should take."

Vincent looks at her, somewhat confused. "What?"

She unwraps the orange, grins, and sticks a slice in her mouth. "As long as we keep meeting up, you'll keep bringing me these oranges. And they'll continue to be crap. As long as I have that to rely on, I think I'll be able to handle anything."

"All right. It's a deal."

Yuffie grins and kisses him, and somehow that makes the taste almost palatable.

Almost.