AN: Just a short comedy piece today. Scribbled on a slow Sunday afternoon.

The Fly

Yuffie followed her two companions as they marched through the sultry jungle, parched from the unrelenting heat bearing down on the three of them. The band she was now travelling with, 'Avalanche', had decreed that it was too risky to travel in a single, large group, for fear of attracting too much attention. As such, they would split into groups of three or four, taking care to keep in touch via radio and to meet at selected rendezvous points at night. During said reunions, they would decide who would be travelling with whom the next day, careful to mix things up from time to time. Today, she was paired up with one Cloud Strife, hereby designated 'Spikes', and that dog-thing that kept following them around and setting fire to things with its tail. Red something or other. So, there she was, happily trudging through the jungle, minding her own business, when Cloud derailed her train of thoughts with an unexpected question.

"Yuffie?"

"Hmmm?"

"Why do you always leave your fly unzipped?"

"...Why do you ask?" she replied, his question catching her completely off guard.

Her wariness quickly gave way to amusement, however, a devilish grin surfacing on her features as she realized what an opportunity this presented. She moved up closer to her travelling companion, leaning over to look up at him. "Were you sneaking a peek?"

He turned away, growing red-faced. "..No," he replied dryly.

She skipped up in front of him, causing him to stop in his tracks. "Were you? Huh? Huh? Were you?" she pressed him, a cheeky grin plastered on her face as she ate up his growing discomfort and embarrassment with great relish.

"I wasn't," he replied.

She narrowed her eyes, fixing them firmly upon his, interrogating him with her gaze. He looked away, doing his best to avoid her probing stare. As she looked left, he looked right, and vice versa, until he finally gave up on trying to ignore the inquisitive young girl.

"Really, I wasn't," he repeated, more emphatically this time.

She backed off, relaxing her stance. "Then why do you care?" she asked.

Cloud gave a nonchalant shrug, doing his best to indicate his lack of interest. "Who said I did?"

"You're the one who brought it up," she reminded him.

"I was just curious."

"Liar."

"Cross my heart."

Yuffie rolled her eyes. "Fine. If you say so."

With that, they resumed their walk. She sensed, however, that her travelling partner wasn't quite ready to put the subject to rest. Casting him the occasional sideways glance, it was clear that he was trying to choose his next words with great care.

"What about... er.. exposure?"

"Exposure?"

"I mean, when there's other people around," he said. "You're not concerned about that?"

"What do I care?" she replied, shrugging. "Besides, it's too much of a pain to worry about doing it up every morning."

"Are you saying you don't mind people looking?" Cloud asked.

Her reaction landed somewhere between righteous indignation and pure glee. "So you were sneaking a peek!"

Again, she came to a halt in front of him, and he had to lean back ever so slightly to avoid the accusatory finger pointed squarely at his face.

"I was not," he insisted.

"Yes, you were."

"Why would I want to.."

He paused, mentally kicking himself. In an effort to make the conversation go away, words had failed him, quite literally. And judging by the expression on his companion's face, the implications of those ill-chosen words were not lost on her, as she went from gleeful to hopping mad within the space of a second.

"You..."

Now her face was the one turning bright red. She blew air into her cheeks, as she often did when she was fed up with someone, and her hands swung back down to her sides as she clenched them into fists.

"You... unbelievable... jerk!"

Before he could utter a reply, she dealt him a short, sharp whack across the face.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" she demanded.

"...I'm sorry?" he replied, puzzled, scratching the back of his head, unsure of how to interpret her reaction.

"Whatever," Yuffie sighed. "All right, fine, if it bothers you that much.."

She reached down to zip up her shorts, even doing up the button at the top for good measure. "Happy now?" she asked.

Her sudden lapse into propriety left him more speechless than the slap across the face had. Before he could say anything in reply, she walked off alongside Nanaki, leaving him a few paces behind. He trailed behind them, rubbing the bright red hand-print on his cheek.

"..Not really."