Love didn't come easy to any of them. Both had experienced bad childhoods, where love surely wasn't included.

Genesis with his parents in Banora. He had been given any material thing that he had ever wished for, but in the end, that wasn't what a child truly needed. Genesis mother had been uninterested in children, preferring the company of other high-class ladies. His father had never taken interest in him, claiming he was too weak and sickly for him to spend his precious time on. Genesis had truly hated himself during his childhood. He cried too easily, he was too weak... That was why he now never showed any emotion other than smugness and confidence, and why he trained and trained and trained until he threw up in exhaustion. He would never be a waste of time again! Never...

Sephiroth, on the other hand, didn't grow up in a family. Well, not a proper family, at least. He had grown up in the labs of Shinra, with Hojo and other scientists as his only company for his first 13 years before he was introduced into the military. There, in the labs, he was forced to do cruel, and sometimes completely pointless, tests every day and night. He had used to fantasize about his parents. What they looked like, if they ever thought of him, if they missed him... Then, at the age of ten, Hojo had stomped all over that dream by telling him of his heritage. The day Sephiroth learned that Hojo had sired him, was the first time he ever cried.

So when they met, befriended each other and eventually entered a tentative and hesitant relationship, love wasn't easy for them to handle. But they promised each other that they would manage.

Somehow.