Disclaimer- Dissidia and all its characters belong to Square Enix

Re-posted 10.01.09

He was always cheerful and always smiling. It was like nothing in the world could ever bring him down, and I envied him for that.

"Is something wrong?"

I must have had a bad expression on my face, because he walked up to me with a worried face. I shook my head. "No, it's nothing. I'm fine."

"You sure? Lately, it looks like you're kinda out of it."

Sometimes, he tended to use words and expressions that most of us didn't understand. "Out of it? What am I out of?"

He waved both of his hands in front of him. "No, it's not like you're really out of something. It's more like, hmm, you've been looking kinda sad lately. Is something bothering you?"

I giggled, he was such a sweet and innocent boy. "No, it really is nothing. I was just thinking how nice it is that you're smiling all the time."

"It wasn't easy, but I had to go through training to smile in tough times." He seemed so proud about it, I giggled again.

"You know, you have a pretty nice smile." That took me by surprise, I haven't been complimented like that before. Well, Edgar did try to impress me with his flattery, but this felt more, genuine and innocent. "Why don't you smile more?"

"Well, there really isn't much to be happy about now, is there?" I told him truthfully. "Besides, I never really found reasons to smile in the past."

He crossed his arms and looked at the ground. "Yea, I kinda heard from Onion Knight and Cloud that you don't remember your past too much and stuff."

"I do remember a little, but the things I remember scares me." I looked down at the ground. "It's not a past that I'm proud of."

He started to look troubled. "But, whatever you did, it wasn't your fault right? Isn't it that crazy clown, what's his name, Kefka? Didn't he control you, or something like that?"

"Yes, he did. But it doesn't change the fact that I hurt so many people, and took so many lives..." I hugged myself for support. Cecil had once told us he was responsible for burning a village of innocents, and Cloud had said he had destroyed part of a city with innocent residents, but they never meant to hurt anyone intentionally like I was made to.

He paced back and forth, scratching his head in thought. After a while, he stopped and looked at me. "Why don't you just forget about it then?"

"What?"

"Well, trying to remember doesn't make you feel any better, does it? And you definitely don't wanna hurt other people intentionally, right?"

I shook my head firmly. "Of course not."

"Then just forget about it all. Don't focus on all the bad stuff." He looked up to the sky. "I told you before that I went through training to smile all the time. I learned it from a girl I was traveling with. She had a lot of tough stuff to deal with, but instead of letting everything get her down, she smiled to remember the good times we had. And even though our journey was hard and tiring most of the time, because I saw her smiling, it made everything seem better."

He looked back at me. "I guess, what I wanna say is, don't dwell on the bad things. Just smile with the rest of us, and make this journey a good one to remember. Besides, it bothers us guys when we see a pretty girl in distress."

I was touched that he cared so much. "Thank you for your concern, really. It means a lot to me." I gave him a bright, genuine smile, and he gave me a smile in return.

He always smiles to cheer us up when we were feeling down. He laughs so that we can forget our troubles and remember something good that happened.

In good times and in bad times, he smiles to bring us hope.