-first kiss-

"Hey! Cloud!" she called, waving at him happily.

"Yuffie." She saw his lips form her name, but it was impossible to hear his quiet voice over the noise of the crowd. He made his way towards her, and she couldn't help but notice the way that the crowd parted for him, moving out of his way without seeming to realize that they were doing it. He was dressed casually, jeans, a t-shirt and a light black jacket with no sword in sight but it was like some instinct sensed the Jenova cells (or maybe it's just the man himself) and warned people: This is a predator. Watch your back.

Yuffie had learned to blatantly ignore that instinct when it came to him. "Where's Tifa?" She asked as he drew near.

Cloud jerked his chin back toward the rides. "With Marlene and Denzel." She caught the way his gaze swept from her head to her feet, and the intensity in his eyes would have made her blush had she been anyone else.

The moment Cloud was in range she attached herself to his arm, purposely invading his personal space. "Good. Us motion-sensitives have to stick together!"

His face was blank but his eyes were amused. "I suppose."

"Right! Come on! Let's go play some games!" She said, dragging him towards the booths. "You are now my date-"

Cloud raised an eyebrow. "When did I agree to be your date?"

"When you came over here. Now, as I was saying. You are now my date and as such you are obligated to win me things!" She hauled him over to an air rifle game and grinned at him. "Please?"

He sighed, but smiled at her and reached into his pocket for his gil.

By evening Yuffie had half a dozen stuffed animals and had dragged Cloud to a face painting booth. They now sported identical smiley faces on their cheeks. They were heading back to the others when they passed a stall selling Wutainese food. Yuffie's stomach growled loudly. Figuring they still had at least half an hour before everyone else was done, they ordered something to eat and went to sit on the empty bleachers.

They didn't talk. Despite popular belief, Yuffie was capable of being quiet. Especially while busy shoveling food into her mouth, which she did at a much slower pace than when Cloud had first met her. She actually chewed before she swallowed now and hadn't choked in a week- and even then it had been in extenuating circumstances. She had been talking with Vincent, and he had cracked a joke. Choking was perfectly reasonable.

All in all, Yuffie wrote the evening off as a success. Four years after Meteor there had been a five day long festival held in Kalm to celebrate the fact that they were all alive. Yuffie had insisted that they all go together. That first time it had been her personal mission to make sure that everyone had fun. Until they reached the rides and she found herself feeling queasy just looking at them. She tried just one. It had only spun her around once, but she'd had to swallow down her breakfast twice. Luckily, Tifa and Marlene shared her mission, so the day had not been a total bust when she stumbled back towards the booths. There she had come across Cloud, who was looking rather green, and for every year after they had spent the day together, occasionally joined for a few hours by Vincent.

It took Yuffie only until the end of the first day of the first year to realize the crush she'd had on Cloud since she first joined them had grown into much, much more. She figured it was probably how much time she'd been spending with him- or maybe the fact that her feelings had changed was why she'd felt compelled to spend so much time with him in the first place. Either way- she cherished the days that she had Cloud all to herself. She almost felt normal during them. Going to a fair with a guy she liked like most other young women her age. Only she was nowhere near normal and neither was Cloud, and they were comrades, not lovers, and since Tifa had been her competition, she hadn't thought that it would ever be different.

The second year she'd learned that she had no competition. Tifa herself had told her so.

A few weeks after the festival the older woman had cornered her at the bar while she waited for Cloud to return. Well, not cornered so much as sat down next to Yuffie and gave her a look that said it would be for the best if she stayed put. (She often saw Tifa use the exact same look with Cid and Barret. It was much more amusing when it was directed at them.) The martial artist had just stared at her for a minute.

Then: "You really like him, don't you?"

She had contemplated playing stupid, then denial. She finally decided that she respected Tifa way too much to lie to her. "Yes."

Tifa had looked away and busied herself with pouring them both a drink. After a few minutes, she spoke again. "I really loved him, you know? While we were chasing Sephiroth… and after. I had thought that we'd get together. It just seemed to be what we were supposed to do."

"Why didn't you?"

Tifa had shrugged. "At first it seemed like there was never the right time to bring it up. Cloud was still hurting because of Aerith. He was still trying to get himself sorted out- he's still trying. So I waited. We lived together and we worked together. We raised Marlene and Denzel together. We were a family." She was smiling softly into her drink, but the smile turned sad. "I wanted us to be a…different kind of family at first."

Yuffie had sipped her drink and waited.

"He drew away from me. Despite how much I tried to be there for him, he still drew away from me. I felt like I wasn't good enough to fill her shoes, and it hurt."

"You can't be Aerith." Yuffie had interjected. She thought of the flower girl. No one could ever hope to take her place.

"I know. I knew. After… you know, with Kadaj and them, when he finally decided to start living again, I realized that he just didn't think of me that way anymore. He loved me, but not the way that I loved him, and it had been that way for a while." A mirthless chuckle. "Those years that we were apart, we grew so different. I'm young where he's old and I'm old where he's young. We were both in love with who the other used to be. With the idea of us, of our promise. In truth… I think he sees me as an older sister now, almost a mother, and I... I'm not sure how I see him."

Heart to hearts had never been Yuffie's forte, and she hadn't been sure what to say. She'd tried to think of what she should say and asked "Why are you telling me this?" which wasn't quite what she had been aiming for, but she figured it worked.

Tifa had looked at her long and hard. "I want him to be happy Yuffie. He's my closest friend, and I want him to be happy. He likes you." She'd stood up, patted Yuffie's head and smirked. "Besides. You won't let him mope around, and he seems to be able to calm you down. I fail to see how this can be anything but good."

So armed with Tifa's blessing, Yuffie had went to the third year's festival and it had brought her to sitting hip to hip with a relaxed and happy Cloud eating noodles out of a cardboard box after a day of gaming and goofing that Cloud had whole heartily participated in, and whether Cloud had thought she was joking or not, she'd called it a date and he hadn't protested. She was fairly certain that Cloud was interested, but there was only one way to find out for sure.

Yuffie broke open her fortune cookie, stared at it thoughtfully, then reached into her pocket and pulled out the pen she'd snatched from a booth selling cheap jewelry. (Because they'd gypped her damn it!) She crossed out a few of the words and filled in her own, then scooted over to look at Cloud's. "What's it say?"

"If you continually give, you will continually have." Cloud read.

"Perfect." Yuffie said.

"What's yours?" Cloud turned his head towards her and found soft lips pressed against his own.

Yuffie pulled back, smiling shyly. "Give a kiss to the person sitting next to you."

Cloud looked down at her altered fortune, then smiled and leaned forward to return the favor.

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Author's Note: They're in chronological order, by the way. At this point Yuffie is 23 and Cloud is 28. Please tell me what you liked and what you didn't.