"I think I know what's wrong with you." They were sitting side-by-side, Leon facing one direction, Seifer facing the completely opposite, and there was a good foot between them on the black leather couch. Seifer was leaning over the armrest, his elbow propped up on the cushion and his chin held in the palm of his hand; Leon was sitting at the opposite side, his knees pulled up on the couch and his body tilted toward the armrest, reading a faded, gray novel that Seifer didn't know anything about.
Seifer spoke up because the silence was starting to get the best of him. He had never been the kind of kid who liked to sit around and keep to himself, always demanding attention or asking questions or forcing his way into the conversations around him, and the silence that was ever present around Leon made him uncomfortable.
Leon looked up from his novel, dark blue-gray eyes flickering to the back of Seifer's head briefly before he glanced back down again, burying himself in the layers of the book once more. Seifer either did not notice his companion's reluctance to talk, or did not care, and he simply leaned back and glanced over his shoulder at the stoic brunette.
"I do. Took me forever to figure it out." Leon did not glance up this time, merely went on reading, but that didn't deter Seifer from pressing the issue further. "You've lived in this place alone for god-knows-how-long, keepin' all to yourself and reading those musty old books of yours," he pointed toward the book in Leon's hand with a jab of his thumb, "never making an effort to live a little."
Leon tore his eyes from the page at these words, his icy, intense gaze capturing Seifer's and locking him there, his eyes flickering with cold irritation and a slight glare of anger.
"Why—"
"—does it matter?" Seifer laughed quietly, spinning in his spot on the couch and pressing his back to the armrest, his arms crossed over his chest and his head tilted, allowing him to look Leon dead in the face. "'Cause I said it did."
"Mind your own business." Leon turned back to his book, ignoring any further attempt at conversation Seifer might toss out at him, a dark glare set into his eyes and a frown creasing his lips. Seifer rolled his eyes at this, watching Leon for a moment longer before leaning forward, snatching the book from the brunette's hands and tossing it onto the coffee table with a flutter of pages and a thump on the tabletop.
"I don't want to." An arrogant smirk, so familiar and perfect on his face, spread over his lips, and he leaned in closer to the brunette, ensuring that his face was the only thing the older man could see at that angle. A flutter of warmth gathered in his insides, beating at his stomach, when a warm curl of Leon's breath brushed over his cheeks and mouth, and he wondered how it was that a man so icy-cold as Leon could really be this warm up close. "Your problem is that you don't pay enough attention to everyone else. You just keep yourself locked up in that little world of yours never noticing the world around you, and it makes you a stiff, icy hardass because of it. Stop being so selfish."
Seifer wasn't exactly sure why he said all of that, or why he cared to do so, but the part of him that danced and fluttered at their closeness and the part that remembered Aerith's sad, sad face from their talk, the way she seemed to care so much for Leon and he never even noticed, told him that it was exactly what he should have said.
They remained motionless for a moment – a split second or several minutes, Seifer couldn't tell – before Leon's eyes narrowed into a sharp glare and he forced Seifer away from him, pushing him back with a swing of his arm and a snarl.
"It doesn't matter to you." Leon was on his feet and stalking off to his bedroom before Seifer could get in a response to that, and he lunged forward, frustration and anger burning in his mind, grabbed the book from the coffee table, and tore the damned thing in half, watching with a lopsided, false grin of satisfaction as several pages that had been torn loose from the binding fluttered down before him, landing on the floor like faded, dead leaves.