Yes. I'm on crack. Nah, just putting my two favorite characters together.

"Literature is a laboratory for real life."

-My Lit teacher

Disclaimer: If I owned Shin-Ra, I would have owned the world by now. If I owned Aerith, I would have owned you all by now. Too bad I don't. They belong to Square-Enix, who owns the world and (WARNING: sappy) my heart. Sniff.

Thanks to Requiem of the Nobodies for putting up the forum, OC Cafe, which cracked me enough to write of a cafe scene.

I sip from my cup of strong expresso.

Hmph. I've tasted a better one.

Everything's going down to the dogs. This cafe is supposed to be the most expensive one in Midgar. But, well, commercialism ruins this cup's taste. How? Competition. Each cafe's striving to lower the prices to gain an edge in the market. Quality is compromised.

It would have been better if one cafe dominates everything. One cafe with one capable leader. One cafe that serves only the best coffee - no matter what the price.

I take another sip. Second-rate.

I shrug. Hmph. Everything's second-rate, anyway. Second-rate leadership. Second-rate people with second-rate lives. Second-rate world.

This is getting ... distasteful. So I read the newspaper.

Stupid news.

Second-rate journalists.

The reading of newspapers quickly becomes a pretense.

Look at that girl, I say. That girl walking into this damned cafe. Is she a worker here? Such a stupid dress. That dress - that work-stained red jacket and pink dress - just screams hoi polloi.

Though, hands down, she could have been an exquisite beauty...if it were not for the fact that she's poor. Well, she has a svelte figure (too starved), long brunette hair (stupid ribbon), nice lips (a little too thin), elegant nose (too perky), bright green eyes (too... happy).

Happy.

Wait. I know that sight. It's the Cetra girl.

But what is she doing here? Surely she knows better... and I doubt she has the money, anyway.

Foolish girl.

"Excuse me," the foolish girl says to someone.

Hmph. Such a stupid cheery voice.

"Excuse me. Seat taken? There are no more seats, see."

Oh, so she's addressing me. I put the stupid paper down.

"It's foolish of you to come here, don't you think? I could have you taken in right now."

"S-Shin-Ra?!"

Oh. Have I scared her shitless? Boohoo. That's too bad.

(Not that I care or anything.)

"Indeed," I answered coolly. "Though, at the moment, I'm more curious as to why a commoner-" I make sure to enunciate the word like it is filth "-like you chance to appear in this cafe. Aren't the prices here too expensive for your kind?"

"I-I only thought of g-giving myself a treat!" the girl countered. She's tensing, preparing to run away... or fight. How amusing. Almost too amusing for my father - damn that title - to milk for information about some Promised Land. "And what's wrong w-with us c-commoners ordering h-here?" she's putting her hands up to her slim waist now. Reminds me of an army officer barking at his cadets. Amusing. "Customers are always right, whatever their social c-class!"

Hmph. Very revolutionary. Careful, miss. Your pretty head can roll off just for saying that.

"Oh, don't you have a poor ailing parent or siblings to feed? That's your story, all of you, right?"

"No, don't generalize, and there's nothing wrong with trying a few luxuries once in a while," she snaps. "Enjoy life while it lasts, right?"

And then she's smiling.

Smiling, like we're old friends or something.

Foolish girl.

I can have her captured any time...

But I decide to humor her, for now.

"And what have you to enjoy, pray tell?" I sneer. "Eating off garbage once a week? Living under eternal night? Having to stand smoke getting into every orifice on your body?"

She sits down on the chair right in front of me.

Right in front of me.

Oh, what nerve.

For a pretty little innocent slum girl, she's got nerve.

"Life," she answers.

As simple as that.

As foolishly simple as that.

"I don't understand your point," I counter softly.

"Just living, cherishing the hope that tomorrow would be a bright, sunny day!"

How childishly, foolishly simple.

I think I have enough.

I'll have her taken in now...

On second thought, let's provoke her further.

"A fool's hope."

I smirk.

I can't believe I'm philosophizing with an uneducated street girl.

A beautiful but uneducated street girl.

(An uneducated but beautiful street girl?)

"But it's better than sitting on a big chair and dealing with the world," she says in an airy, sing-song voice. "Too big a burden, don't you think?"

"The world's too small for me," I correct her.

"And yet you preoccupy yourself day by day with thoughts on commercialism, monopoly, policies, power, and domination. Geez, I'd like to think that I'm free of all that, being busy working for a brighter tomorrow and all."

"Hmph. As if you can do anything else," I snap back.

Really. She's that foolish! Tut tut... looks clearly aren't everything.

(But does it mean looks account for something?)

"Precisely. There's nothing else to do!" she quipped merrily.

She's going in circles.

I've had enough.

(Enough, or I'll go mad.)

"Fine with me," I remark, standing up. "And thank you for making me lose my appetite. I'm going."

"Okay, then!" she replies cheerily, also standing up. "I'll just order a... chocolate milkshake!"

Chocolate milkshake?!?!

She has an irreparably childish taste.

But...

No.

(Yes.)

Hmph. Apparently being stupid is a contagious. I can't help it after all; it's all around me. Especially concentrated on her face. Her goofy (pretty) face.

So I ask the question that has been nagging me all this time... though in a variation.

"On another note, though," I speak again - though I haven't turned to face her again; once's bad enough. "Why didn't you just run away upon seeing me? I could have ordered troopers into here and apprehend you."

"You could have," she agrees. "But that doesn't mean I have to stop having fun, right? Why burden myself with fear?" And then I imagine... no, I feel... her wink. Wink - like we are old friends. Almost more like good friends. Almost. "Besides, I know you can be a good guy deep inside. Tseng's a gentleman, after all, and Reno's almost comical."

"Hmph."

Excessively happy lady.

Excessively happy (beautiful) lady.

Excessively beautiful (happy) lady.

Excessively beautiful lady.

Perhaps she has used a Cetra spell to confound my judgment.

How can I say so?

Well, as I leave the second-rate cafe, I muse to myself:

"Perhaps I should be a little more foolish too, after all."