"You know what your problem is, Vin?"
He didn't answer. Hopefully, if he stayed quiet, she would keep talking without requiring any input from him. It seemed to work under normal circumstances.
"Hey, hey," she slurred, pushing her newly drained cup of kusu to the side and getting to her feet. Vincent tried to keep his attention on the tumbler of Kalman scotch in his hand, but despite his efforts, he was soon distracted by the face of the very indignant-looking teenaged ninja across from him as it floated into view. Glancing up, he was greeted by a pair of narrowed, brown eyes and a scowl that made the liquor-flushed cheeks accompanying them seem out of place. "I'm talkin' ta you, here!"
Clearly, she would not be satisfied with silence. Sighing deeply, Vincent looked up from his glass, meeting those angry eyes. "Yes, Yuffie?"
"That's better," she said, plopping back down in her seat and snatching up her cup. Her scowl renewing upon finding it empty, she grabbed the porcelain flask at the far end of the table—the slosh of the liquid inside suggesting that, despite her current state, she couldn't have drunk more than half its contents yet—and refilled the diminutive mug, nearly overflowing it. "As I was sayin'," she continued after downing that cup as well, "you know what your problem is, Vinny?"
He could've thought of several things. Since he'd arrived at the Seventh Heaven an hour or so earlier in an attempt to be social (something he wouldn't have necessarily done of his own accord, had Tifa not threatened to haul him in herself, in which case he'd have been a lot less comfortable than if he decided to come quietly), Yuffie had pointed out enough things that were wrong with him to last even his lifetime. Nothing, from his cape to his hair to his voice to his manner of being, had escaped the Wutaian's scrutiny. And with the drinks that she kept procuring for the both of them—a friendly gesture, she called it, but the way she was trying to force more and more of the debilitating substance onto him had long ago become suspicious—the accusations became increasingly more abundant, not to mention ludicrous.
"No, Yuffie," he replied, and he doubted he could've kept the surrender out of his voice even if he'd tried. Not that she was likely to notice, the way she was. Her body was far too small to adequately handle the amount of kusu she'd foisted on it.
"Well, I'll tell you what your problem is!" she almost shouted, pointing at him accusingly. "You've got a horrible fashion sense, bucko!"
Bucko?
"I mean, look at you." She waved her free hand up and down in what Vincent suspected was a clumsy attempt to indicate his attire. "Maybe the whole vampire look worked for ya while you were still playin' dead and sleepin' in coffins, but it's not doin' ya in favors out here in the sunshine, Vinny-boy."
She didn't seem to realize it was already dark outside. That it had been for some time. Vincent didn't make a point of revealing that to her, however. He knew what she meant. Besides, bringing it up, even for the sake of being difficult, would probably send her on another tirade about how he was too observant, or something of the sort.
"And the shoes," she rattled on, the last word seemingly infected with the stigma, the way she let it slide from her tongue. "Man, Vince, where'd you even get those? The ugly-metal-crap store?"
She looked rather proud of herself for that last comment, a rather silly smile that a soberer person would have kept to themselves spreading across her face. Once again, he kept quiet, clicking a nail against the side of his tumbler and keeping his eyes, for the most part, on Yuffie, so she would feel like she had an adequate amount of his attention.
"And it's not all the clothes, either." Scanning his face with narrowed, scrutinizing eyes, she said, "Life isn't just about guns and darkness and black eye-shadow, Vinny. Go out in the sun once in a while, you know? Y'ur so white I'm surprised you don' melt."
That was closer to being clever, he supposed. It didn't make much sense, admittedly, but not bad, as intoxicated as she was.
"And another thing!" she squealed as she poured and downed another cup, seemingly all in the same motion. "You don' get drunk easy enough!"
…Hmm. Odd.
"I mean, you've drunk, like, three of those, haven'cha?"
True.
"So how come you dun even look buzzed yet, huh? My cups as twice as small as yours, and I'm still twice as bad as you righ' now!"
That might've had something to do with him being twice her size, or perhaps her drink being twice as strong as his. Of course, he kept that information to himself, lest she go into a rage.
"Tha's what this was all about, ya know?" she said, throwing her arms out and nearly knocking over her jug. "I was supposed to get you to loosen up, ya know? Geez, Vin, can't ya ever take a break?"
A break from what? From himself? As Yuffie glanced toward the window beside their booth (maybe she'd finally notice that it was, indeed, nighttime, and there was currently no sun to be had), Vincent let his gaze flit toward the bar, where Tifa stood, scrubbing mugs and shot glasses. She may have been trying her best to look nonchalant, but something in her movements told Vincent she was regretting distributing her wares to a nineteen-year-old ninja with a loud mouth and an agenda.
"You can' ever let your hair down, can ya?" Yuffie went on, waving her hands at him as if that would drive home whatever point she was trying to make. "Well, I mean, it's always down, but . . . you know!"
He was sure that, somewhere in that drink-addled brain of hers, she knew what people said about what assuming made 'you and me'—especially assuming that others would understand one's inebriated ranting—so he didn't bring it up.
"I wanna see ya when you're fun, Vin," she finally declared, her voice lowering to normal volume as she sank down onto the table, resting her head on her hands. Vincent illustrated his shock at this swift change of mood by raising his eyebrow an inch or so. "You can be fun, right?"
Once again, Vincent was surprised. As Yuffie slid a hand across the table and onto his own in what she must have thought was an astoundingly inconspicuous move, he realized he could feel her calluses even through the leather of his gloves. Admittedly, she was holding on rather hard—yet another mark of the famed Kisaragi subtlety, it would seem—but he still found it impressive, nonetheless.
Giving her grasping hand a brief glance, he looked back up at her, as impassive as always. She looked almost asleep by now, her head resting in the crook of her folded arms, unmoving. Had she been looking up, she might have seen the slightest change in his eyes, going from their usual inexpressive to somewhat tolerant; even, if one were to look too deeply into it, tender.
"I think you've had enough, Yuffie."