(2,672 words) Ugh, it's short I know, I wasn't very inspired to write this at all. The writing isn't very good either I'm sorry. If there's anything in this that's confusing it shall be explained by the next chapter, and now this,

I CAUGHT THE HYLIAN LOACH, FULL SIZE BITCH, FULL SIZE. HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME!

shuush, that didn't happen.

I'm happy for the review I got (I know it says two but when I get them from my sister I don't count them), an alright hit count as well, I wouldn't call this popular in the least but it's certainly the most popular out of my VII stories. Now that makes me depressed so if you shall be kind enough, you may be interested in reading my other two; though for that you'll need a strong stomach because they're a little on the disturbed side.

Coin Laundry

Chapter 2: Angel Dust

The brunette was pulled to the footpath by a laughing man that towered over her tiny height. She was rolling his eyes at him; he wasn't going to get over that little mistake anytime soon. Passers-by might be talking about it for a while; it would've been so funny to all but those in the car. She felt sorry for them. She hadn't noticed at all; usually she was smarter, but she'd been making a number of stupid blunders lately.

The black haired man had his head in his hand, chuckling softly with his other hand wrapped softly around her dainty hand. They strode past the crowd of pedestrians with ease as they made their way back to their car. They'd had a quick snack in a small café as she'd been starving but it was still too early in the day to even think about dinner. There had been too many cars parked on the sides of the road to park near it so they had to go a way back.

Her feet were just starting to hurt by the time they made it back to the red sports car. Her heels were small but there were still heels after all. She clambered into the passenger seat and clipped on the seat belt. He followed after her, doing the same on his side and switched on the engine. It came to life with a mighty roar and the seats vibrated softly from the sound.

A minute went by in silence while he drove out into the lane and got going. She looked to the side, glad he wasn't laughing anymore, but still annoyed that he had and for so long too.

"Zack?" She asked the black haired man quietly.

"Hmm?" He half-heartedly responded, his mind more on the road than her.

"That was rude, you know."

He let out another short chuckle, only this one had different feelings put behind it.

"Yeah, sorry for that, that policeman's face was priceless though. That has to be the stupidest thing I've ever seen you do."

Her hand tightened its grip on the inside of the door as he went around a corner with unnecessary speed. From it he missed her sigh.

"To be honest this morning I almost got run over."

But he heard that.

"What?" he yelled. "How that'd happen?" He added, concerned.

"Did you see that woman next to that other officer? I'm pretty sure it was her. It would explain why she looked so surprised," she mumbled, fiddling with the hem of her purple blouse. She glanced over at Zack, who from the look on his face she couldn't figure out if he was trying to hold back another laugh or if he was worried for her.

"Did you go to that 'cursed' Laundromat again?" He asked with the slightest hint of sarcasm. Even he couldn't believe that it was 'cursed'. She'd called it so because she had been making an army of blunders and mistakes since she started going to it.

She was silent for near up to a minute.

"We need a working washing machine." She indirectly answered.

"I'll take that as a yes."

The car rolled into the building's parking lot with ease. The parking lot made up two of the building's floors, from saying that alone it gave the impression that it was the type of building that would tower into the sky. From an outside perspective, to be purely honest it would actually look to be on the small side, with only five stories. But to those who lived and worked here they knew it to be different; as it had a multitude of basement levels which the outsiders had no idea about. It was the point, as things went down there that needed to be unknown to the public.

Most of the cars were still inside, as most only went outside at night. It was virtually the opposite to empty but even so it didn't make it crowded thanks to its wide spaces. Zack parked the car on the left side of the second level like usual. Both got out rather quickly, not having to worry about banging the doors on any cars as this space had, unlike most other spaces in the lot, no cars by its side.

They made their way to the elevator on the other side of the car park: the stairs would take forever. As they waited for the door to open Zack started whistling a tune to himself from boredom. Finally after what had felt like an eternity the doors slid open to reveal a red haired girl standing on the other side doing basically the same as Zack was. She blinked fast from surprise as she hadn't expected to have people be on the other side waiting. Her hair was about shoulder length, but looked way shorter than that because of the high ponytail she had in. She had on a white blouse with a stylish black jacket and knee length pencil skirt. To anyone else she would have looked like a secretary, but the others present knew she was something much different to that.

Getting over her mild shock she stepped out and flashed a smile.

"Didn't expect to see you Zack. You doing good lately?" she asked with a grin. One hand on her hip, the other holding the strap of the white and blue shoulder bag.

"Yeah, I'm doing fine." He chuckled and returned the smile.

The red head's grin widened and she looked at the brunette to his right.

"Hey I've seen you before haven't I? Did we go to the same school or something?" she questioned with the slightest of laughs, doubting her own thought.

"Umm," She stuttered, not expecting that the stranger would want to talk to her too. "I went to a private school in sector 3."

She was interrupting by a short giggle.

"Oh hey I was right. Did you hear about that teacher that got charged with raping a student? It was all over the news a couple years back."

She missed the look Zack sent her. That was news to him.

"Yeah I heard about it, pretty sure it was just a bunch of lies made up by a parent that didn't like one of the teachers." It almost came out as a mumble; however the redhead was talking about it so calmly was beyond her.

"Yeah I heard that too. So what's your name?" She said while adjusting the strap on her shoulder.

"Umm, Aerith, why do y.."

"It's pretty." She stopped her and walked past them both, she gave one quick look back to Zack and informed him.

"Oh, Zack, Angeal wanted to walk to you. Same place as always. I really gotta get going now if I want to get that next shipment, Bye!" She waved and turned a corner disappearing from sight.

Aerith followed Zack into the elevator, with an expression of curiosity present.

"Who was that?"

He turned his gaze to her expecting emerald eyes.

"Cissnei, haven't seen her in about a year and a half. She can be strange sometimes sorry, she's so used to bad stuff happening it doesn't affect her to talk about it."

He pressed the buttons on the side to go to the 4th basement level. There were 10 in all, stopping just a metre or two above where the plate ended.

"So was there really a teacher at your school that got charged with rape?" He continued.

"Yeah," she sighed, still not very comfortable on the topic. "He was my history teacher in year 9 and 10. He was a good guy; I know he wouldn't have done such a thing. And if there was anything between him and a student I'm sure it would have been consensual."

Zack nodded in response, eyes stuck on the numbers above the door impatiently waiting for the door to open. He hated the feeling elevators gave you as they moved.

"So did he go to jail?"

"No, he kind of just disappeared," She made a shape with her hands like an explosion going off and made a poof sound with her mouth, an adorable thing to do whilst explaining a bad topic. "He was never found, so police suspected he'd ditched the city. They searched for him for another two months then gave up."

Zack gave a sigh of relief as the doors opened, but he continued his end of the conversation.

"What was his name?' He asked simply.

Aerith gave him a look but it was missed as he wasn't actually looking her in the eye right this second.

"All the students and teachers were told not to say it in the public. Even thought it was all over the news for about a month he was never named."

Zack stepped out into the black walled hallway devoid of anything but a picture hanging on the wall here and there and themselves.

"But what if he really had raped her? He might've done it again."

Aerith almost rolled her eyes at it; surely she'd already said enough for him to know that just wouldn't happen.

"He hadn't been working there for that long, but the staff knew what he was like and the students loved him. Not a single person thought or believed he could have done it; they don't have a clue where the accusation came from. It was a lie and that was that."

The tone of her voice pointed that this would be the end of the conversation; from the start it had been a topic she would have not liked to dwell on. It didn't matter what it was about or what really happened. The part that bothered her was that in the end regardless of the truth someone had had their life ruined.

"Well okay, I'll take your word for it. I have to go and find Angeal, but you'll be fine by yourself for a while, right?" He asked with his usual cheeky smirk.

Well she rolled her eyes at that. "Yes I'll be fine, I'm pretty sure there's a movie marathon on TV that is supposed to be on today, I can easily go and watch that," she replied and with a smile, turned to walk off in the opposite direction as him. She heard him call out goodbye; he probably waved too, even with her back turned.

Aerith was just about to open the door to go into her apartment when she heard angry yelling. Now the smart thing to do was ignore it and walk away, and the good thing to do was find out what was going on. Now she, being the kind person she was, with a little bit of curiosity filling her, ducked her head around the next corner and found a tall familiar brunette screaming his head off at a black haired teenager. Poor girl, this must have been the fifth time this month that man had done this; she wasn't really doing anything bad was she? Well she knew what her profession was and it was common for such a thing to happen to women such as her, but for sure she wasn't actually deserving of this?

"You were supposed to give me 30 percent!" he screamed in a rage, waving a handful of dollar notes in his left hand at her. "What is this? I know you have more, now give me 30 percent or I'm kicking you out onto the street again!" She flinched and shut her eyes fearfully as a response to his anger. Girl must be scared out of her mind by him.

"I told you, I didn't get much at all this week. It was one client and that was that, he barely even paid me." She held up her hands in front of her chest feeling that she needed a physical barrier between him and her.

"One client! You have got to be kidding me! I'm giving you so much and this is what you give me? That's it, get out of here! You're sleeping on the side of the road tonight!"

He slapped her on the side of the cheek and she fell to the floor a pitiful mess. He twisted his body to walk off but before he did Aerith came back and kicked him in the back of the knee, with the unexpected force he tripped and fell on his butt. In a second he was up again, turning to see the culprit. He made a sound like a wounded animal when he saw the brunette woman glaring daggers.

"God damn it you're more annoying than that stuck up woman at the gym earlier." He growled.

To piss him off further she decided she would smile at his remark.

"Well as amazed as I am that you actually go to the gym, I guess first I'd rather thank you that a person like you finds me annoying; that was my target from the beginning." She widened her smile and knelt down to help the crying teen up.

As she did she could hear him mumble under his breath: the usual of course. That being that he hated her and he knew he couldn't hit her in case her boyfriend found out and whenever he found out something a certain someone was going to lecture him on hitting girls again. She was pretty glad that in the end he left without saying another word. Though he did say while a good deal down the hallway but not out of earshot him complaining over her helping a stupid whore.

She didn't say anything to the young girl, but she gave her a comforting smile as she led her down to her apartment. She couldn't let her go without a place to sleep; it just wasn't right when she wasn't the one that had done anything wrong.

She took her to the lounge room where she took a seat on the poofy electric crimson couch. She had skinned her knees in a way Aerith was clueless of and a red hand-shaped mark was already forming on her left cheek. She switched the TV on and took the seat next to her.

"So what's your name anyway?" She inquired.

Fearful grey eyes glanced up to her own beautiful emerald ones.

"Angel Dust." She monotonously got out.

"I know that's not your real one."

"What makes you think that?" she asked in a whisper, her attention taken up by picking bits of fluff out of the lounge.

"Because on personal opinion it sounds like it belongs to a porn star. No offence if you're being truthful."

The girl was silent for almost up to a minute before she made the slightest sound.

"It's fine, I think it's stupid too. But that doesn't mean I'm going to tell you what it really is, or what this is," She lifted up a miniature suitcase literally handcuffed to her arm. It was made of a simple brown material with highly detailed symbols engraved where the lock should be. Though she guessed as it was locked at current, those symbols were the lock. The item for plainly obvious reasons had been an object of interest.

"That's fine." she lied; she really wanted to know, and knowing she couldn't was only going to make her want to see it more.

"Do you want anything to eat? Kitchen's right there." She pointed diagonally to her right.

The girl shook her head.

"Am I really allowed to stay here?" she questioned with obvious fear ringing in her voice.

"Of course you are, I'll just explain to Zack when he gets back. It'll be fine, don't worry."

The teenager nodded and lay herself down properly on the couch. In less than a minute she had fallen into a deep sleep. Aerith stood up to allow her room. She had to wonder, what on earth had gotten such a young girl into the life she had now?

I had no idea what to call this, I guess Angel's somewhat important so I'll name it after her. Oh and that guy wasn't simply insulting her, she really is a prostitute...a 15 year old one...you can see what I meant in the A/N for the last chap when I said I'm not allowed to say no. I did say no to yaoi though, I'm fine with the existence of yaoi, I've got a non fanfiction story filled to the brim with it, but I couldn't in this. I found something better.

I'm going to have fangirls yelling at me when they find out there was a chance for yaoi in this story aren't I? Oh god.

Reviews shall help me get paranoia to stop talking to me (yes it's talking to me).

Bye bye,

~Serah Villers Valentine