The Highwind rocked gently back and forth. They had been airborn since early morning; making their way to Junon.
Red XIII sat in his room, alone. He was lying on the floor in the northwest corner of the room. His ears were pressed back against his head; his claws scraping against the floor, almost leaving marks. The metal flooring was cold, but he didn't notice. He was watching a ball bearing with painful intensity. The metal ball was about the size of a marble. Cid kept them around in case of an emergency, (what kind of emergency, no one could tell).
Red watched as it rolled… rolled… rolled across the floor until, TINK, it hit the wall. Red grimaced. Then it would roll… roll… roll back across, TUNK, on the other side of the room.
This had been going on ever since the Highwind had lifted off the ground. There was nowhere else on the ship Red could go to be alone. It seemed everyone had claimed his or her own spot on the airship: Cid piloted in the cockpit, Cloud loitered in the cargo hold , Tifa baked in the kitchen, Aeris comforted the nervous chocobos in their stalls, Barret lounged in the meeting room, Yuffie groaned, leaning over the deck railing, Cait Sith fiddled with a battery for his moogle in the bathroom, of all places, and Vincent was resting in the supply closet, (the darkest place he could find).
Red could have gone to any of these places if he felt the need for company, but he did not. Rather, he wanted to be alone with his thoughts for a while. He enjoyed the brief moments of silence between the action of AVALANCHE, but that confounded ball bearing was ruining the quite! It rolled… and rolled… and rolled……. Never ceasing… Cid would not allow the throwing away of any of his ball bearings. He might need them, he said, so hurling it over the deck railing, (poor choice of words, considering Yuffie's current state on deck), was not an option. Red had tried putting it in a box, a trash can, anything to make it stop its rolling, but still it rolled. He tried laying on it, but the cold metal ball against his ribs was almost as unbearable as the rolling. He had tried scooting it out the door, but always, he could hear it rolling. What a curse it was to have sensitive hearing!
He watched it. It rolled… rolled… rolled across the room, TINK, into the wall. Then rolled… rolled… rolled back across, TUNK!
He held his paws over his poor, tortured ears. The sound of it rolling would soon drive him insane!
In his near madness, Red realized the solution. Since there seemed to be no other way to stop the rolling, he knew that he had to do it to preserve what was left of his sanity. He got to his feet, and padded determinedly toward the still-rolling ball bearing. He stopped it deftly with his paws and, without hesitation, took the small, metal ball in his mouth and swallowed it.
Satisfied, he padded back to the corner and lay down to enjoy the silence.