It started when she'd poked round his new house and not been told to go away. Some people could take hints but Yuffie Kisaragi was one to deliberately ignore them. So when he tired and walked inside she followed. At the time she thought of herself rather like a lost dog and found she didn't mind in the slightest. She didn't have any ulterior motives (well she always had ulterior motives, but this time curiosity was the winner) she simply found him there and didn't want to leave. Despite his opposition:
"…"
"…..."
"…………."
"Hey Vincent, I like that lamp."
So she stayed the night, and then she stayed another, and then a week passed, and when he thought about it finally he was cooking and cleaning for two. She cooked sometimes too but those were nights that they consumed a lot of alcohol and he always forgot to really taste what he ate.
They never talked about how she moved in, she just bought things and put them places, until eventually there were orange towels hanging in the bathroom, and a stuffed chocobo on his pillow. Not that she slept there. She claimed that it was his; a house-warming gift. Sometimes it would have wild flowers stuck between its wings.
One night he did ask. It was long into the summer and they were sat out under his porch listening to the cicadas sing. She with her shorts rolled up even higher than usual and a paper fan wafting the hair out of her face. He in a plain white shirt with a few buttons left undone, feet bare, looking at the fading light of the sky.
She snorted, "Are you sick of me already?"
"You will have to return home sooner or later." The truth they never spoke of; her heritage.
"Will I? Maybe they'll just state me as dead after a few years."
"Why are you so insistent on staying away?"
"I'm not insistent on staying away;" she mocked his voice "I'm insistent on staying here." And in that way that only Yuffie can be perfectly confident and embarrassed and awkward at the same time she leaned over, flapped her fan in his face to distract him and pressed a dainty little kiss to his cheek.
He felt the danger in the pit of his stomach and the urgency to run, but instead he looked passed her at the stars that had begun to peek out. "You'll waste here."
She let out a derisive laugh at his predictable one-liner -even he knows he is predictable- and padded off to bed.
x
The next morning she was gone. He knew he should have felt gladness for her escape but he made a black coffee, burnt his toast, and sat staring at the floor boards. The house was empty because he was, he thought bitterly with a smile that turned down at the edges more than it turned up. He adorned his red cloak in the summer heat and polished his gun.
x
He learned later that she did return to Wutai (something in his words?) Her father was ailing and she showed up long enough to kick his behind out of bed and back onto the throne- 19 was definitely too young to be ruling a country. She'd made him soup (Vincent's recipe) and changed his sheets before she took flight in the middle of the night (a nasty habit she had developed.)
After that he'd opened the door to an armful of cushions and a jar with a butterfly in it. She dropped the load in an empty corner of the lounge. The jar bounced and rolled to the butterfly's dismay while she took a quick look around and announced that he had missed her.
In turn he admitted she was right by an arm around her waist and his face buried between her neck and collar bone where she smelled of forests and fire.
He talked her into setting the butterfly free later but let her leave the pile of cushions where they were. It would become their place for books, and passion and story telling.
"Bullshit Vincent, you're talking shit" and she laughs. And he laughs too.
A/N: a observational attempt that changes abruptly from Yuffie to Vincent. That's what happens when you leave a drabble too long. I wanted him to be desperate for her love rather than the other way around in the end. This was supposed to be long and thoughtful but it came out clipped and a bit simple. Still I like it. It was a prompt for "me, you, and our insanity," but well, it became this.
Thank you for reading.