There he is.
Alone.
Go over and talk to him. The voice tells me. I take a step forward. Then stop.
He's bending over a garden, clutching a white flower in his hand. He closes his eyes and a tear rolls down his face. I know why he is crying. It was because of her.
"Cloud, stop!" I could hear the words every night. Every time I would lie in bed, unable to sleep, the scene would go over and over in my head, tormenting me. Like as if i was cursed. He would've killed her if not for me. It doesn't make a difference. Sephiroth did the deed instead. Either way, it broke his heart. I saw the pain in his eyes at that moment; the moment the cold steel pierced her back. Eyes full of pain, the kind of pain when you lost the one you love.
The one who made you happy.
She made him happy. I understand that now.
People don't understand me, although they think they do. Everyone thinks they understand. They don't.
I loved him.
Best friends for life? That's what I told him. I think he believed me.
I never told him how I actually felt, the way he made me feel. After all, he was in love. But not with me.
In love with a dead person. Does that even make any sense? Nothing does any more.
Even after we defeated the most powerful sorcerer of all time, after we saved the world from being destroyed, saved every life, it still doesn't make a difference to me. My life is not complete.
"Tifa?"
I look up, startled. Cloud is standing now, noticing I was there. I see that he is still holding the flower in hand.
"Hey." I say quietly, looking at the ground. I seem to have lost my voice. I can't say anything I had planned.
"She's really gone, Tifa." He says to me. His expression is unreadable although he gives a half-smile. Is he sad?
Is he over her?
My life will never be complete.
"I know." I say. I bite my lip, as if it's going to stop me from an overflow of tears pouring out of my sockets. "I'm sorry."
Cloud's now looking at the flower in his palm. "I just keep thinking…if I keep her in my head every moment, she'll come back to life, ya know?"
What is he thinking?
He kept on talking. "I just hoped that…that…"
I look up at him, and I see a fresh set of tears rimming around his eyes He doesn't bother to wipe them.
This is the first time in a while he's let me see him cry openly. Even though I shouldn't be, I was actually happy. I suddenly realized that throughout the whole journey, Cloud and I had grown apart. Grown apart from what we were, what we used to be…
"Cloud, I'll always be here, you know that… right?" I ask him slowly, making sure I was looking directly into his eyes.
He stared back at me. "Yeah." Then back at the flower.
Friends.
Author's Note: There we go! This story actually made myself cry. Hmm…maybe I'm just weird, but I hope you enjoyed my story! Write bad stuff about it, flame me as much as you want! I just want to know what you thought! Thanks for reading.
Disclaimer: I do not own the FF7 characters. They belong to Squaresoft and the people that created them. (good enough?)
