Summary: Continuation! "The Diary of Jane" is the theme song for this story. Hehe.
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy 7, or any of its qualities or characters.
Chapter Two:
Vincent slowly sipped down his glass of water at the Seventh Heaven bar. It was now 9:00 at night, and Vincent had spent the whole day with Avalanche. Most of them were there too, hanging out and having some drinks. Vincent had always prefered water over anything, and the occasional glass of red wine. While the rest of Avalanche thirsted for beer, vodka, or brandy, he would rather clean out his system with water.
Tifa then approached him from behind the counter. "Having fun?" she asked, drying a glass cup with a white handkerchief.
"As always, Tifa..." he replied before taking another swig of water. He looked around the bar with tired eyes. Cloud was speaking with a very drunk Reno, and Barret was engaged in a very demonstrative conversation with Cid. The smoke from Cid's cigarette slowly drifted over to the bar, clouding Vincent's eyes. He blinked rapidly as he turned away, taking yet another sip of his water. He listened to the sounds of clinking glass and running water as Tifa continued to tidy behind the counter.
Suddenly, someone entered the bar with loud footsteps. "Hey guys!" a girl said. Vincent hunched further into his cape as he recognized who it was.
"Hey Vincent! I was looking for you today!" the black haired ninja said cheerfully as she bounced up to the seat next to Vincent.
Reluctant to come out of the shadow of his cape, he turned his face toward Tifa. "Tifa...Could I please have a shot?" he asked quietly, almost skeptical about asking. It had been awhile since he had a shot. But he didn't want to deal with the Wutai ninja after the day of work he had done. Tifa nodded, her eyes signaling that she knew why Vincnt had crossed his own boundaries. Vincent sighed in relief, shrinking back against his cape once again.
"..Hello Yuffie," he said, his voice barely audible.
The ninja giggled, spinning on the swivelling stool next to him. "Were you with Cloud today? I didn't know where Avalanche would be today. Where were you guys?"
Tifa slid a small shot across the counter to Vincent, evading their conversation. Vincent grasped the glass, speaking before he gulped it down. "..We were outside the Midgar ruins today." The sharp drink stung his throat.
"Really? I looked there. Maybe you were in a different place than I looked. Then again, where could you really find someone in that rubble? Hey, are you guys going out tomorrow? Maybe I could come with you guys if you just come and get me-"
"I don't think we'll be out tomorrow, Yuffie." Tifa then approached Vincent once again, filling his empty shot glass at his request. She stayed close in case he suggested another, or if she recognized that things were getting drastic.
Yuffie whined. "Ooooh, that's a shame! Just let me know when you're going out again, okay? I'll be of assistance to you guys! I'm gonna go talk to Cid. See you around, Vincey!" With that, she bounced off towards Cid's direction. Vincent let out an exasperated sigh, glad that their conversation had only lasted five minutes. Tifa slowly approached him.
"Something wrong, Vincent?" she asked, leaning down as to not put anyone else in the conversation.
"...Yuffie has been stalking me lately, Tifa..."
"Lately? But this has been going on for-"
"I know...She has taken it to escalating heights...One night, I saw her hopping on the sidewalk near my door."
"Vincent, she's just fond of you. So what if she likes you? I think that you ultimately have the control."
Vincent didn't say another word as he lowered his lips to his abandoned glass of water. Tifa sighed, and walked away. He decided not to bother him. All he would ever be to her was a big mystery.
Suddenly, Cloud came up to Vincent and sat on the bar stool beside him. "Hey Vincent," he said.
Vincent nodded in his direction. "Cloud," he acknowledged.
Cloud sighed, sensing a problem. "Hey, what's wrong with you, Vincent? Lately you've just seemed detached, more than you usually are. Did something bad happen, or...?" Just then, Cloud took notice to the empty shot glass in front of Vincent. He eyed him. "...Shots? I haven't seen you drink since-"
"It was two, Cloud." Vincent held up two fingers as he spoke.
The ex SOLDIER merely nodded, arguing no further.
"...I thought the conversation with Yuffie was going to last all night. I figured that I would have a few shots to...weaken the noise."
"I see...Do you loathe her so much?"
"No...I just don't really feel like talking today. Excuse me, Cloud, but I think I shall return home to get some rest. Tell Tifa I said thanks for the shots." The gunslinger stood up, leaving his empty cups at the counter. He tried to block out everything as he strolled toward the door. Something inside him felt sick and uneasy. All he needed was some rest.
"Vincent? Going already?" Cid asked from across the room. Vincent nodded, keeping his head down. Yuffie shouted something out the door as he made his way out.
'And now we bring you tonight's big story...'
Vincent was laying on his bed, his arm laying across his eyes. When he had arrived home, he felt sick as a result of the shots. His body wasn't used to so strong a drink. His head was throbbing violently, his stomach churning wildly. He couldn't really escape the strong moonlight that hit him through his window. The light made his head hurt even worse. Vincent let out a sigh, and popped two more pills into his mouth, hoping it would control the aching.
Then, he got up. He needed something to do. His laptop rested on top of the TV. His vision slightly obscure, he slowly walked toward the laptop, and picked it up. He sat on the edge of his bed as he plugged it in to turn it on. It took him a good five minutes to type in his passwords and log-ins before he finally came to the internet. His email inbox said he had recieved two emails since his last visit, and he was somewhat intrigued by it. He suddenly felt...known?
He clicked on his email box, and he saw who sent them. One of them was from Cloud, requesting his return to Healin the next day. It turns out that he was helping to recover the lost materia, which was the main focus of the news. Vincent began to type his reply to him, saying that he would show up. He scoffed at how slow he typed; it took him fifteen minutes to type four sentences. When he was done, he sent the email to Cloud, and looked at his other email.
'HEEEEEEY, VINCENT!' was in the subject box, and the sender was Yuffie Kisaragi. Vincent sighed, and instantly scrolled to the delete button. He had just gotten the computer! How could she know his screenname?
...Of course, it's rather easy when his username is VincentValentine.
When Vincent was about to click the delete button, he had a change of heart. He sighed as he clicked on her email. He wasn't going to make himself that mean. A new window popped up to display the ninja's message.
'Hi, Vincent! Its awesome that you have a computer now. Now we can talk ALL the time! Email me back, okay? Promise? Bye, Vincent!'
Vincent's eyebrow raised. Yuffie had become overly enthusiastic. Instead of tossing the email into the spam section and blocking her username for good like he had pondered, he hit the reply button with a heavy heart. His message was short and sweet:
'Thank you.'
After typing, he sent the email and quickly exited the inbox. He hadn't really had the chance to look up any websites when he was last on. He glanced at the TV just as the late night news was ending, and a late night TV show was just starting. Turning back to his laptop, he clicked on a link for a website the weather. The pages loaded quickly, and displayed what the weather would be like the next day 'Partly cloudy with a small chance of Aeris's rain.'
Just then, Vincent saw an ad on the side of the page for a singles website. There was a blonde woman on the front, smiling rather seductively and wearing a small shirt. Vincent knew that he would never normally respond to things such as this, resulting from personal matters. However, it had been a long time since he had been with someone. He hadn't seen a woman in her natural state in a long time; he couldn't even remember when. Lucrecia was definitely out of the picture. He didn't even like thinking about her anymore, even though she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. In fact, he still wanted her. But, he knew he couldn't ever have her again. Still, he reserved a spot in his heart just for her. He put his attention back to the suggestive ad. Yellow words flashed at the top of the ad, 'Sexy Singles'. Not particularly interested in the woman on the current ad, he clicked on the link to see who else was a so-called 'sexy single'.
What popped up wasn't what he expected. Busty fonts and sensual designs appeared on the pages, displaying pictures of scandalous women. The large picture was of a naked woman, eyeing the camera temptingly and touching her hips suggestively. Her long brown hair was toussled, and on her feet were a pair of risky, strapped black heels. Her woman parts were beared for all the world to see; Vincent was staring directly at her. He felt his face flush bright red, and his stomach constrict into a tight knot. His hands couldn't quite control the mousepad, making it hard to close the page out. Sparkling words hovered over the picture of the woman. 'I Want You!' it said.
Vincent was finally able to close the website, and was left with a blank buddy list and small page of local news. For a few moments, he was petrified. It was as if he had messed up his whole part in a play, then toppled into the audience into a naked woman. He just stared at the screen blankly, unable to really comprehend what he had just seen. Half of him was frozen with embarrassment, and the other part of him was filled with regret. What was he thinking, going to a website that was obviously for the desperate and perverse?
He felt tainted.
After a few more minutes of sitting in complete shock, he moved the mousepad again. His moves were halting, but he tried to forget all about what he had just seen. Instead, he tried to remember the social site in which Tifa told him about. typed the address into the address box, and waited for something rated G to pop up on the screen. Of course, Tifa wouldn't give him the address to a nudie website; unless she had something to hide...
Instead, he was greeted by a social networking site with many different options. He could 'create an account', 'search Myspace', 'invite someone', and possibly anything else you could do on a site like it. He was interested in it, so he clicked on the link to create an account.
As it had done many times before, a page popped up that asked for him to create a username. He spent the next hour filling out the application with his username (VincentValentine), password (Lucrecia), and things such as status, personality, age, preference, and favorites. When it came time to add pictures of himself, he found out that he had none. However, he knew that Cloud had mentioned something about having a picture of him on his MySpace profile. Being a sneak, he used that picture as his own. In this picture, he looked ready to kill, and almost happy about it. (Author's Note: For anyone who owns Dirge of Cerberus, I am speaking of a closeup of his face of his picture in the character's section.) Vincent then set his profile to public, not caring about so-called 'sexual predators'. Ha, he had a gun. Really, who would win?
After that, he decided to add some music to his profile page. He hadn't really revealed alot in the 'About Me' section, stating, 'None' for every box. He searched the website for songs to choose, and he finally decided on a few. He chose "The Diary of Jane Acoustic" by Breaking Benjamin to be choice of sound, and "Redemption" by Gackt to be his background melody. Somehow, that song reminded him of himself, and heard it being played whenever he experianced a self-changing moment...
At first, Vincent couldn't believe that he was joining a site such as this. He didn't know that he'd really stoop to a sudden 'teenage' level. Exactly how many people over 50 were on this site? That gave him a reason to be skeptical; that, and the fact that he had always enjoyed solitude, even when it came to computers. Then again, he figured that he needed a change. This would be...an alternate recreation for him.
For the rest of night, Vincent kept his MySpace page up in case he recieved messages. He stayed up until one in the morning, surfing the web for news about Shinra...The news had captivated him lately.
Suddenly, a message popped up in his MySpace inbox. Almost hesitantly he clicked on it, remembering his little slip-up earlier in the night. The username the girl had used made him wonder to the point of paranoia.
The username was DiaryofJane.
He clicked on the username, and the message came up. Somehow, he thought he heard her voice from her typing.
"...I do love 'The Diary of Jane.'"
At first, Vincent thought it was a weird first message to recieve, but he figured that he would see who this person was. Skeptically he clicked on the username, and saw the person's profile pop up. As he had expected, the person was a girl.
Vincent was suprised when he looked at her profile picture and noticed her age. She was only 15, but she looked to be 21. In this picture, it looked as though someone else had taken it when she was writing. The background indicated that she was outside, and sitting on the ground. A notebook was in her hand, and she was writing with a pen. Her eyes met the camera in a way that perplexed Vincent. He couldn't tell what color they were because it was a black and white photo, but they explained something prominent. They were shy, and perched above a lovely small smile. Her eyes peeked out from the top of her black rimmed glasses, which framed her face perfectly. Her hair looked to go past her shoulders. Vincent studied the picture more closely. She was the very picture of youth.
Just then, he was startled by the sound her profile displayed. It started as a soft violin, and then gentle acoustic guitar chords came in. Piano played in the background, and everything fit together perfectly. Vincent had never heard anything like it before; it was the most calming music he had listened to in a long time. He wondered who the artist of the song was. When he looked, he found no artist displayed for the work. DiaryofJane's background was a picture of a beautiful deep red rose, it's petals spiraling outward on the webpage. He eyes wandered to the girl's picture again, and he smiled inside.
Her profile indicated that her name was Jane, hence the liking of the song.
Vincent clicked on the link to reply to her message. Slowly he began to type, a friendly feeling in his heart.
'As do I, Miss Jane.'
