As I sat there in my tiny, closed in office, I looked outside to see a rainy afternoon. It had been raining since morning and it wasn't lefting my sprits up at all. My name is Lilith Faux, but my close friends call me Lily.
Today I was asigned some paper work from Rufus. I hate the man, but what he says, goes. Even though I am on the best Soilders out, let alone, the best female Soilder, he insist I stay and work on catching up on "More important, values." What values do I have reading and signing paperwork? That man could drive me up a wall so badly it wasn't even funny. Of course there was one person who thought that my annoyance of Rufus was quite comical. His name is none other than Zack. Yes, you all know him; the happy-go-lucky guy out of the Soilder bunch. Speak of the devil, as I looked out my window, giving my poor eyes a break I saw him doing his daily excerise rutine. Why he pushed himself to that limit was beyond me. He would work out rain or shine. The man was unbelievable, yet something pulled me towards him; the way he talked and laugh and mad everyone feel so welcomed gave me the feeling that maybe this guy wasn't so bad after all.
Suddenly I heard a slap on my desk and jumped a little. A little snikering laugh erupted in my ears and I knew then who it was; I spun 'round in my chair and said, giving him the eye, "Reno." I said in a mono tone.
"Lily." he said back to me, resting his elbows on my desk and cupping his face with his hands, smiling awkwardly towards me.
"Stop smiling at me like that, you creep." and I grabbed for the papers he had so graciously handed me.
"Hows the paperwork coming?" he asked, standing up straight and as tall as he could.
"Truthfully?" he nodded. "Well now that your here my day has been made. Just give me another pile of shit work and that will double it!"
Reno raised a brow. "You ok?" he asked although he already knew the answer.
I rubbed my eyes and sighed. I laid back in my chair, the only comfy thing in this damn room and said to him, "Sorry," I began. "I'm just tired and this paperwork is nonesense!"
"Then stop." I looked up at Reno and stared at him for a while after he said this. Was he mad? "Why do you keep staring at me like that?" he asked after a few awkward moments.
"You really think I can just up and leave at any givin moment I want?" I asked him.
"Well if it bothers you THAT much then just stop."
I shook my head at him. "That is SO like you to say." I told him.
She smiled. "Thank you." after that he headed out of my office and ready to find someone else to annoy, I'm sure. I shook my head again while I looked at my paperwork and smiled. Reno was right. And like that I stood up from my desk and left to enjoy the rest of my day.
The next day I arose from my hard bed and sheilding my eyes from a light most unpleasant. When I realized what light it was I smiled and let the warm sun hit my face. I pressed my hand against the window and it was hot. Today was going to be a humid day; I could just tell. After all that rain we had yesterday, no doubt it wouldn't be like this. I got dresses in my uniform and walked outside my room. I saw some lower class Soilders and nodded to them and them to me. I walked to the cafitieria to get myself some breakfast: Apple, toast and some grape fruit punch. It wasn't much, but I didn't feel like stuffing my face like some of the others.
Just then, as I was about to put my cup into the trash, someone bumped into me and the rest of punch remaining in my cup spilt on my shirt. At first I wanted to give the idiot who ran into me a piece of my mind, that was until I saw who it was.
"Sorry, Lilith." It was Zack. His beaming blue orbs stared apologeticly towards my brown ones. I brushed part of my white hair back behind my ears in vain, seeing how my hair was short and I almost stumbled on my words.
"No need to apologize. It was mearly an acident, was it not?"
Suddenly that bright smile lit up on his face again. "Oh good! I thought for a moment that I might have really pissed you off or something. How about I make it up to you by buying you some breakfast?"
"Thanks, but sorry. I just ate, so no." I told him.
"C'mon on now," he said. "A piece of toast wont hold you over till lunch." he pointed towards the last bit of toast remaining between my thumb and index finger.
I sighed, giving in to his offer. "Alright. I'll let you take me, but only if I get to choose the place." I told him.
He smiled. "Great! I hoped you would say that." He did? I thought.
I went back to my room to change my shirt but then as I was about ready to put on another clean one I looked back at my closet. I had some pretty nice outfits to wear on a day like this so I took up my shirt and put it back in my closet. I grabbed out a nice red V-neck shirt that complemented my bossoms and waist curve. I felt awkward standing in my shirt. This is just breakfast, I told myself. No need to look so formal. So I took off the shirt and put back on the new work shirt of mine that I had on just moments before.
After a quick brush through my hair I headed out to meet up with Zack.
When I saw him I felt a little under dressed. Even though he still wore his work pants he hand on a black tang top instead, showing off his muscles more. It made me blush so I turned away quickly, afraid that he would see.
"You ready?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Where would you like to go eat?" he asked me.
"To seventh heaven." I told him.
As we walked inside the bar I could smell the freshly cooked eggs, bacon, bread and other breakfast foods. You wouldn't think it, but this place sure was nice in the morning. The girl worked the place was named Tifa. Didn't know her all too well, but I could tell that she was a nice person.
"What can I get you two this morning?" she asked, her cow girl hat hanging behind her and her while her black hair swayed as she came toward us. She had a nice, friendly smile.
"Nothing for me," said Zack. "I'm just the buyer." he nodded at her.
"Oh! So this must be some kind of date then huh?"
I began to open my mouth but I choked on my own spit and started coughing. I could hear Zack laughing and then explaining our situation. The girl named Tifa got an embarrased look on her face and apologized. "No, no. That's ok," I told her. "Now how about some breakfast?"
I ordered my usual pancakes and eggs with bacon and some orange juice and gulp everything down within minutes. With being in Soilder I had to learn to eat fast, so now everytime I have a chance to take my time to eat I end up finishing way before anyone else. I placed my glass down and handed Tifa a tip; she smiled and took it gladly and Zack and I left the bar with my belly full and me feeling lazy.
"I have someone I want you to meet." said Zack.
I sighed from having eating too much and patted my belly. "Who?" I asked.
"Her name is Aerith. I think you'll like her. She's a real nice person."
I nodded, agreeing this ivotation of his with meeting this girl, Aerith. "Alright. Lead the way." He lead me away from the busy part of Midgar and towards a broken down church. "She lives here?" I asked.
Zack scrached the back of his head and laughed uneasily. "I don't know for sure WHERE she lives, but she comes here a lot." Zack lead me into this church and when I stepped inside the sight of the place left me almost breathless; not because part of the cieling was gone, but by how everything was placed. The pews sat perfectly in line; the wood floor squeaked a little, giving it a home-like feeling; and far ahead of me was a small patch of yellow flowers. They smelt like honey.
"Zack?" A sweet voice called behind us and I turned around to see a young woman about my age wearing a blue and white dress with a pink tang top underneath. This must have been Aerith. When she saw Zack she quickly walked up to him to greet him. I saw that she had extremly long, golden brown hair put into a braid and a pink bow to match her outfit. She turned around and saw me standing there; she held out her hand and said hello and told me her name. I took her hand and did the same.
"Lilith? That's a pretty name." she told me. For a second I felt a little jealious. This Aerith girl was so pretty, Zack must like her and that thought got on my nerves a little, but I kept my cool face on and was friendly the whole entire time.
What was coming over me? Did I really like Zack?
When the day came to a close (and after she had told me twice to not step on the flowers) I realized how much time I had spent away from head quarters. I cursed under my breath and told Zack that we should probably get heading back. The two of us told Aerith goodbye and headed back. The whole way back I had wanted to talk to Zack, but about what though. Him and Aerith seemed to have talked to easily. Why couldn't I? Finally it was Zack that broke the silence.
"Listen, uh...Lilith?"
"Call me Lily."
"Right. Uh, Lily...What did you think of Aerith?"
Ugh. The dreaded question, I thought to myself."She seems real nice." I told him truthfully.
"Really? That's great! Now if your ever out and about you can go visit her. She always loves having company."
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked him.
He then stopped and scratched the back of his head again and got that same look of an innocent child on his face. "Well...to me...it just seems that you don't get out much."
"Excuse me?" I said to him.
He quickly thought and re-worded his last sentence. "Rufus, he uh...seems to really pile the work on you...literally."
A laughed a little. "Ah. Yeah. Glad to see someone besides Reno notices." He laughed a little too. "Thanks." I told him.
After we got back and had parted ways I ran into Rude, another good friend of mine, believe it or not. He had his shady glasses on as always (and always keep a spare in the top pocket of his coat) and he had the same serious look on his face too. "Rufus has been looking for you."
"Has he know?" I said.
Rude nodded. "He wanted me to deliver to a special message."
Oh great, I thought. "A raise?" I guessed.
Rude didn't say anything to my last comment, only Rufus's messages. "He says to be ready for tomorrow. Soilder training day." with that he walked away.
I sighed and stuffed my hands in my pockets. Tomorrow Soilder traininf day when we Soilders are put to a test against each other. To think I spent half my day sitting around the other half eating and talking to new people. In other words I was socializing instead of getting ready for the big day.
I walked back to my room soon after and got dressed into my nightware. It didn't dawn on me till I had been laying in bed for a half hour that what Zack did today was by no accident. His words kept running through my head about not getting out enough and always getting stuck with stupid crap. I smiled into my pillow and pulled the covers over me more, looking up at the stars from the window. They shown brightly, leaving me to remember my day and how much brighter it had been then my other days here at Soilder. I had forgotten what it was like when I was a new member of Soilder; parading around as if I owned the place and meeting new people everyday. Now I was stuck doing work for Rufus and taking on boring misstions. I might be young, but I know I am skilled.
I got back to thinking about Zack soon after remembering his words again: "Rufus seems to really pile the work on you...literally." I knew now that zack was trying to cheer me up. I felt myself blush. Maybe Zack wasn't such a bad guy after all.
The next day I was up and early. I had taken my morning shower and put on my Soilder uniform again. I combed my hair, laced up my boots and put on my belt and got my weapons ready. My specialty for weapons were two swords and gravity materia.
I headed to the caffeteria again this morning and took up from fruit and ate that. The training was going to start early again just like it always did. I saw the other Soilders getting ready while others lazed around, not worried about it at all.
When the training actually began it wasn't my turn until almost noon. My first fight was a piece of cake. I mowed through those amature Soilders like freshly cut grass. My next fight seemed just as easy. All the while I watched the other matches, seeing people getting thrown out and other moving up. There was on though imparticular that I saw progressing just as well as I and that was Zack. No doubt it was him. He might seem like a total goof ball, but he can be pretty serious when he wants to be. And then finally the time came for the two of to face each other. For the first time my heart was beating. My heart never beat like this when I went through trainig. This was the first time I had faced Zack. Damn it! Why did I have to spend all that time with him yesterday? Makes me have some sort of soft spot for him now.
The room around us changed into a beach and a few large rocks were scattered about and a moutain was far off into the distance. Nice, I thought. This will be perfect for my gravity materia. I grinned and Zack saw. He knew now that I had some sort of plan up my sleves. When the room fully reverted to this beach we stood facing each other for a while. I heard nothing but the ocean coming in and out and sea gals somewhere off in the distance. Suddenly I heard something roaring and it was coming from the sea. And before I knew it the ocean had risin to a big heeping moutain. Water Materia, eh? I moved quickly out of the way by using gravity to pull me away from the hungry ocean that crashed down right where I was standing. It was my turn now. I lifted up my hand, picking up sand and twirling it around and making it hard for anybody else but me to see. I had Zack ingulfed in my so called sand storm. This was my chance to strike him down while it was hard for him to see. I took up my two swords and headed right into my sand storm, ready to take on Zack. But just as I thought, it was going to be a lot harder to take him down than that. I felt our weapons clash a few times before my sand storm finally died down. Now that I had a clear view on him I took up one sword, readying to bring it down hard on him and my other sword coming up from the bottom, ready to strike him there too. But something made me resist my attack: He smiled mischiviously and I felt myself being pulled back by a hand of water and into the ocean. Blast it! I thought. I should have known he would pull something like this! Angry from not seeing through his trick I quickly recovered from his attack by coming back at him with a full swing of both my swords, crissing-crossing, making a giant gush of wind blow him back. I watched as he hit some rocks and as seeing how my swords were still in the criss-cross position I had them in I swung them up so that they were now side-by-side. Another gush of wind errupted from them, hitting zack again and nailing a hit on his shoulder. I watched as the cut opened up and the red liquid shown. He looked down at his shoulder and smiled, as if he was happy that I that I got a hit on him. It annoyed me and I went for him again; we both did. The effect from our weapons were so great that a sort of power shot up into the sky and lighting shot across the sky and thunder roared above us. Rain quickly came pouring down, which made it difficult to see. We both moved away from each other, uncertain of what had just happened. I didn't pay too much attention to it though and I quickly began my next attack. I lifted my hand toward the large moutain that was miles away from me and pulled out some earth from it with my gravity materia; I then quickly looked for Zack who was making up some sort of mischife with his water again and I quickly aimed my large pice of earth and hurtled it towards him. As I did this he shot his water towards me again and I fell backwards from the piece of land I standing on. The sharp niddle like water stung at my skin, making tiny scratch marks all over my body, but nothing too serious.
When that happened I didn't get a chance to see what happened to Zack with my attack, but when I regained my composer I stood up, ready to take on anything he had to throw at me and it was then when I had noticed he had split the huge piece of earth in two with his buster sword. He walked through it and towards me. I got my swords ready and we clashed weapons again. The rain started to beat down on us more; the water getting in our eyes. The weather got chilly too and I swore I saw my breath.
Zack soon knocked one of my swords out of my hand and it went flying, too far for me to reach it. It pissed me off and I used the last of my gravity materia to blast Zacks buster sword right out of his hands. It too went flying. Now he was left without a weapon, he would have to give up now and I'm sure we was out of materia too. But my wishful thinking was not so wishful after all. He stopped my attack by grabbing my wrist and taking my swords right from my grasp and tossing it. Now it was a fight against fists, which I gladly took him up on that offer.
We restled for a while, trying to knock each other down and then finally he got me. He pinned me to the sandy ground and I fought him for dominence, but I was quickly failing at it. I cried out and punched him in the face the moment I got one of my hands free from his grasp. This gave me my chance and I mauled him over. I now had dominence as I pinned him down, the rain still coming down hard and thunder roaring. As I held him down he got back at me by flinging his head forward, hitting mine. I fell backwards, holding on to my head and I felt him take a strong hold on my waist and pull me towards him. I looked up at him, my vesion hazy. I so wanted to punch him that and kick him, but the world around me was spinning. Who would think that a head butt would hurt this much?
"You know, I was kind of hoping I would get to fight with you." I heard him say.
"What?" I said to him.
"I think your a reallt great Soilder and it does me honor having this match with you."
"...Zack." my vesion was starting to get more stable.
"I've actrually enjoyed it. You make training not so boring."
Why was he talking to me in a middle of a fight? I then pointed my index finger at his chest without him realzing it, feeling a bit of my materia left and I shot him back just enough to get him off of me.
I crawled towards him, ready to pin him down, as if that would mean I would win.
"Just give up already!" I told him. He laughed. "Why are you laughing?" I then felt his hand trail up the side of my body and up to cup my face. He pulled me down kissed me right then and there. My eyes blazed open and watched as he kept his closed. I pulled away from him and sat next to him on the sand, more dazed than what I was getting hit in the head. He quickly sat himself up soon after and came to sit next to me. The rain was starting to light up and the thunder and lighting had finally stopped.
"Why?" I asked him. "I thought you liked that sweet girl Aerith."
"She is a sweet girl, but I've had my eyes on you for a while. You never did notice me till I became more known in Soilder, even then you never talked to me. So yesterday I made the attempt to take you out. I wasn't exactly planning for breakfast but it seemed like the perfect shot, seeing the condition we were in at that moment." Zack had a point. I never did notice him until he became better as a Soilder. I felt like an ass. Here I was, beating the crap out of him and accusing him of liking this Aerith girl and forcing back from his kiss when all he wanted was to talk to me.
"Sorry." I said to him. It was a word I hardly used.
"Soory for what?" he asked.
"All this."
I heard him chuckle and scoot closer to me. he turned my face towards him again and this time I let him kiss me and I closed my eyes; we both did. His lips were soft and wet from all the rain and I'm sure mine were too. I felt his warm hands grasp my shoulders and bring me in closer; his hot, wet chest on mine.
A week had passed since that day and I was enjoying a day off. The sun was out and it wasn't too hot. I had just had my morning coffee and getting ready to go for a run, though the person combing the chocobos didn't help much seeing how there was a light wind and their feathers found their way to me, making me sneez. Good thing I was getting ready for a run.
I didn't forget my match with Zack though. Ever. We decided to keep our little moment a secret until the time was right and we would eventually end up leaving Soilder together. That day wasn't today though and as I ran, enjoying the wind in my face I saw Zack chatting with a few Soilders who seemed to be new to the place. We both glanced at each other, aknowleging our precenses. For now we would look at each other from afar and have small talk while around other people, but now I knew how he felt about me and how he always had, it just took me awhile to realize my feelings for him too. That I loved him.
