"I'm sorry, Sir. It's closing time. I really have to ask you to leave." The owner of the pet shop spoke deferentially as anyone would have to the 1st Class soldier with the out-sized sword on his back.

Angeal sighed and looked down at the puppy he had been cuddling. The black Labrador puppy whined as it was gently but firmly set back down into its pen. It reared up onto its hind legs, putting one paw against the walls of its enclosure, tail wagging, panting with a mouth that seemed to be laughing, radiating cuteness.

Angeal stared down at the puppy. His serious, stoic face showed nothing of the internal struggle to not whip out his wallet and pay for the puppy on the spot. He would have self-control, iron self-control, mythril self-control. . .

The puppy sat down, tilted its head to the side, blinked big brown eyes. . . and started thumping its tail enthusiastically on the floor.

Angeal's self control threatened to turn to water and leak through the holes of his punctured heart. The shop-keeper, murmuring soothing nothings, took him by the arm and gently led him out of the pet shop, after which he firmly pulled down the shutters, blocking off the puppy from view. Thank goodness it only happened once every two months or so.

The 1st Class soldier rubbed his eyes, ignoring the suspicious wetness gathering there. The air in the polluted city was the reason why his eyes were watering.

That was what he would always answer, if anyone asked why his eyes were slightly red.

First Class SOLDIERS had no time to care for pets. Their duties, keeping the peace, protecting Shinra executives, training the 2nd and 3rd Class SOLDIERS as well as being sent off to battle for months at a time meant that they were rarely around to provide the care for one. They were only allowed a few hours downtime between missions and duties, thus buying and keeping a pet, then leaving it abandoned, uncared for was definitely not an honourable thing to do. He had just come back from a 3 month stint in Modeoheim and had already found files detailing the training of some recently promoted 3rd Class SOLDIERS from the cadet corps on his desk.

Angeal almost sighed. Training duties would commence tomorrow, so he'd better get back to his bunk in Shinra HQ and get some rest. As he approached Fountain Square, in front of the steel and glass edifice that represented the company he worked for, he heard something strange. Yells and laughter.

"Go, wide receiver! Go wide! Go wide!"

Some youths were playing with a ball and as one of them prepared to throw it, another youth, dark haired, ran backwards to receive it. Angeal noted that the youth was running towards him. He also noted that most of the noise and laughter came from this one. The boy executed a magnificent backwards leap but missed the ball, landing in a heap at Angeal's feet. The ball landed in Angeal's hands. Angeal looked down bemusedly at the boy who didn't look like he was going to get up soon, mostly because he was laughing too hard to stand.

"Ow ow ow! That hurt, man!" Blue eyes looked up at Angeal, and the boy waved, still flat on the ground. "Hey, you caught the ball! Thanks!" The other boys gaped in shock at Angeal and hastily came to attention, and that was when he saw the tell-tale glow in their eyes. These boys were SOLDIER, most probably some recently promoted cadets. Maybe even the soon-to-be-his recently promoted cadets. As was the laughing boy at his feet, whose machine-stitched name on his PT attire proclaimed him as Zack.

Angeal lifted an eyebrow.

Zack flipped himself to a sitting position and turned around to look at Angeal, panting a little from the laughter, looking terribly like the black lab puppy in the pet shop.

Angeal's fingers twitched, tightening his grip on the ball. For some reason, the top of Zack's head seemed magnetically attractive to his hands.

The boy tilted his head, still smiling. One could almost see the puppy dog ears popping out of Zack's head, and that was when Angeal's self-control broke.

Angeal let his hand fall on top of the boy's black hair, messing up the already unruly bangs.

Then he turned and threw the ball down Loveless Alley, yelling, "Go fetch!"

Zack's eyes lighted up even more (if that were possible), sprang up and went running after ball, the other recruits following him.

As the unruly mess of recruits thundered away, Angeal found himself smiling.

He was looking forward to training tomorrow.