Stand By Me

A/N: Hi everyone! This is kaystrife. You can call me kaystrife or kay or whatever you like as long as the name doesn't hurt my feelings. As you can see from my profile, I'm from Hong Kong and English is not my mother tongue. I've been trying really hard to learn English and recently I've gathered up the courage to write fanfic in English! Weeeeeeeeeeee. Each chapter will be short though because it's quite hard for me to write in English.

I'm now obsessed with Zack and Cloud (especially Zack, I love him yay!) and so my first English fanfic is a ZxC one! I hope you guys can tolerate my bad English and I promise I will try my best to improve it. Now seat back and enjoy the very first chapter! Oh, and don't forget to review 0u0!

Warnings: In this fic, boys are gonna be romantically attracted to boys. Leave this page and fly to the mars if you cannot accept gays. Contains strong language, violence, and may contain adult scenes in late chapters, so rated M for safety.

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII or any of its characters. But I own the plot.

Chapter 1

Zack was wakened by the repeating discordant noise of the alarm clock. He removed the sheet covering his head, and regretted promptly as the sun greeted his eyes. After rubbing the hurting orbits for a while, he got used to the ambient light intensity and reopened his eyes to check the time on the digital device nearby.

7:56 A.M, just 9 minutes before the first lesson started.

Damn.

With a deep frown on his face, he turned off the alarm and got out of his bed reluctantly.

The winter break had ended three days ago, yet Zack wouldn't have noticed it if he didn't receive a call from Kunsel last night. He was calling to ask Zack if he was okay since he didn't appear in the class. Zack just explained to his friend that he had forgotten the start date of school.

The frown deepened as he recalled his memories. How could he have forgotten that? Not that he really cared about missing any lecture; He paid no attention to the teaching at all. He just didn't want to get into any troubles again. The school principal had already warned Zack of serious disciplinary actions if he broke any school rules once more.

Well, he had to face it anyway. What's done was done.

Putting all the negative emotions aside, Zack walked towards the mirrored closet and stretched his muscles which had tensed up after a night's sleep. In the reflection, he saw his usual self - a handsome, well-built young man with a glamorous big grin on his face.

Behold! The school idol had returned.

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It took no time for Squall to recognize who's at the classroom door thirty minutes late. Zackary Fair could be the only one.

"Morning!" The boy greeted his English teacher casually, ignoring the man's glares towards him.

"Good morning Mr. Fair and would you mind telling me the reason why you're late for the class again?" Squall faced the latecomer with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"Well, I couldn't find my boxer this morning and so I had to drop in my girlfriend's place to get one. Funny right?" Zack joked while walking towards his seat. The whole class burst into laughter at Zack's humour. He never failed to entertain the class by driving Squall mad.

Squall was truly furious at Zack's words, but still he managed to suppress his anger towards the discourteous student.

"No, not at all. And come to my office after class."

'Whatever.' The boy mumbled before sitting down.

The teacher continued the lecture once everyone had stopped laughing. Zack took out some textbooks and his ipod from his sport bag. The pile of books was good enough to make a pillow and the earphones could perfectly prevent him from being bothered by any noises in the surroundings.

'Time for a nice nap.'

The raven-haired boy yawned, but his notion of sleeping vanished at the moment he sensed something unusual from the corner of his eye.

The seat next to him was occupied, occupied by a blonde kid unbeknown to him.

Zack didn't expect anyone sitting there, as he had once warned everyone not to sit beside him, not even the hottest girl in his class. He knew that many people were attempting to get close with him just because he's the popular one at school. He didn't understand why they were doing so but their sweet words and hypocrisy made him sick and has the urge to kick their asses real hard.

Nevertheless, the blond was sitting next to him like nothing would happen.

'He must be a new kid here.' Zack thought to himself.

"Hey." Zack whispered, trying to draw the blond's attention. To his surprise, the boy showed no intention to turn his head towards Zack's direction. This made Zack doubted if his voice was too soft to be heard or simply he was ignored by the kid.

"Hey, blondie." He raised his voice a bit. This time the blond turned his head to Zack with an annoyed look, almost scowling.

"What?" the person next to him spoke with an unexpected unfriendly tone.

'Whoa. Guess no one tells him who I am.'

He was surprised to see someone at school talking to him like this. But considering the kid was new, Zack controlled himself not to intimidate him, at least not for now.

"You shouldn't be sitting here, ya know."

He forced a shallow smile on his face, pretending to be amiable.

Zack expected the kid to question, get mad, or at least say something, but he received no immediate reply but a stare.

The blond was staring at him with a blank face, having no emotions at all, simply just staring into Zack's eyes. Zack had no idea what the blond was thinking at this point but he was forced to stare back. Like they were having a staring contest, they carried on like this for quite a moment. During the time, Zack was actually observing the weird kid. He had huge eyes with the colour of the sky, or maybe a lake, pale skin, and a thick and full lower lip. But what drew most of Zack's attention was the golden spiky hair which grew in all directions. It seemed like this kid's having a hard time in taming his hair.

As time passed, Zack was starting to feel awkward at two guys staring at each other without saying anything. When he decided to say something, the blond spoked.

"I can sit wherever I like. Now piss off."

As he finished, he turned away from Zack and regained his attentiveness to Squall's lecture, leaving Zack with his mouth slightly opened, astonished.