Tea was a pleasure he rarely allowed himself; something more delicate and subtle than the heavy coffee the cafeteria provided on a morning. Green tea was a pleasure for the evenings, and never after a battle or time in the training center. Green tea was for nights spent alone, with his guard down, relaxing as much as he ever relaxed. It was a gentle slipping away from the cares and worries of too much paperwork, a team returning late, a new request from some government or other, or the latest outbreak of mutant monsters in all sorts of improbable forms.

And of course, those were the nights, when they hadn't been fighting, that Seifer would slip into his room, sometimes to apologise. Those would be the nights that, instead of the life of a pair of SeeDs - one the hero, one the villain - trapped into their lives, they played pretend. Squall might have preferred to spend those green tea nights alone, but Seifer loved him that way, a little more relaxed, less the Commander, more the human being.

On nights like those, his mouth always tasted like green tea, instead of coffee or gunpowder or whatever crap the training center had served up that day. He tasted like sophistication, like relaxation, and Seifer always thought he'd never get enough. That was part of the reason why he always went back, when he knew Squall would be relaxing, those green tea nights that always turned into nights of sex and, eventually, something deeper and more meaningful.

Seifer knew he was in love with Squall when the mere smell of green tea made him ache for Squall, when he found himself in Squall's room even after those long fights, when sex turned into love making and kisses turned into an expression of feelings. When even on days when there was nothing but coffee to drink, he could swear that he smelt green tea.