Silver hair and green eyes - a boy slightly older than herself, peering at her through the glass. Aerith's mother was gone...taken away again by the awful man in a lab coat, shuffled away to the other room, out of sight where terrible things happened. Aerith was alone. Or maybe for a moment, not alone.
But this boy, she had never seen him before. She wondered if he was being held prisoner too, but he was not carefully contained like herself. He looked solemn, and her curiosity was piqued, despite her degraded status as a 'specimen', as Hojo liked to call them. My precious specimen. She was not a bitter or vengeful child, but even at five, it made her a little angry to hear it. She could tell it wasn't a compliment.
"Who are you?" Aerith asked in a small voice, scooching toward him and pressing her palms to the cool glass.
The boy didn't speak at first, looking momentarily surprised that she had initiated a conversation with him, despite his staring. His face took on a slightly furrowed but not unfriendly expression.
"I've never noticed you before. Are you one of Hojo's 'specimens' too?" she continued, trying not to sound as petulant as she was feeling. She had never actually met anyone her own age before, and part of her was bubbling with an eagerness to communicate with him. What was a boy doing wandering freely around the lab?
"Something like that," he said with a little edge of disdain himself, preferring to distance himself from the times he spent around that mediocre scientist. Hojo was nothing next to Professor Gast, hazy as the memories might be... "That weasel of a man prods enough. I'm a ward of the company."
"What do you mean?" Aerith asked, looking a bit puzzled but feeling silently pleased that this boy didn't seem to like Hojo either. She had never seen a weasel before, but the tone in his voice made her feel that it was not a compliment either...meaning it was probably pretty accurate.
"All of the executives see to my care and education," he responded, though 'care' was perhaps used in the loosest sense of 'nourishment and a place to sleep'.
Aerith wasn't a particularly jealous sort by nature, but she did feel a little pang of longing to know what that was like...To be able to wake up in a bed and go to school, rather than every day being a variation on the experiment-filled day before. On a good day, Hojo was too busy analyzing data to run any tests, so she and her mother were given reprieve, if only for a brief time. They could spend time in each other's company, keeping hope alive with thoughts of the world beyond Shinra's walls.
He seemed to notice some sort of internal struggle - tipped off by the slight scrunch in her face - and he spoke again. "Are you allowed to leave?"
"Here? No. We have to stay here until Hojo takes us out to run tests," she responded, the frown deepening a little.
"All the time?" he asked with eyebrows raised.
"Mmhmm."
Silence.
"The woman in there with you sometimes..." he started, seeming to hesitate for a moment before continuing, "...is she your mother?"
Aerith had thought for a moment he might have been gloating, but when he asked about her mother, she could see something different in his face...the way it softened around the edges, the way a sort of longing crept into his bright green eyes.
"She is." When she thought of her mother, a small smile replaced whatever subtly stony features had snuck into her expression. The only person she had in this world...Her mother who taught her things and told her stories about the Cetra and the Planet in those times Hojo was otherwise disposed... She wanted to ask him about his mother, but suddenly 'ward of the company' came to mind, under their 'care and education'... Maybe he didn't have a mother. It was a sad thought, but somehow she didn't want to make his eyes sadder by asking. "If you come again, you can meet her too."
"I don't think I should," the boy said, glancing around the lab and seeming to decide it was time to move on. "I need to go... but it was nice to meet you," he said, though it didn't sound quite natural on his lips, like it was not a phrase he was well-practiced in reciting. Aerith smiled all the same, even if she felt a bit sad that he didn't plan to visit again.
"It was nice to meet you too."
Just as quickly as he had come, the boy vanished around the corner, leaving Aerith alone. It was only then that she realized she had never asked his name.