The first thing that was off was that Zack was holding the pen wrong.
Sephiroth dismissed it as him just never being taught how to hold pens and pencils properly. After all, it wasn't like there was only one way to write.
Then he saw how much his hand shook as he set the pen to the paper.
"Zack," he started, curious at the sight of him flinching at his voice. "Is something the matter?"
He glanced at him over his shoulder, embarrassment swimming in his blue eyes while he gripped the edge of the crate harder. He put on a skewed smile, saying, "N-no, of course not, bro!"
Gods, how he hated hearing him call him a "bro". There were many things about him that mildly irritated him, but his habitual "bro" ate at him the most.
The ink was flowing from the tip, but the pen wasn't moving. His hand was still shaking, and Sephiroth noticed sweat on his forehead reflecting the closet's overhead light. It was slightly stuffy in the closet, but not unbearably so—as Zack made it seem.
"Hey…how do you, uh…um…" He suddenly jerked his hand upward on the sheet, then forced it through an awkward curve. Sephiroth drew closer, trying to see what he had written.
It was a letter that didn't exist.
The two of them stared at it for a moment. Then, in a low voice, the faintest wisp of concern in his words, Sephiroth said, "What's bothering you?"
"N-nothing, bro. Everything's fine!" His fearful glimpse at him implied he knew exactly what was up. Zack was hilariously terrible at hiding things.
"Do you not know how to write 'Cloud'?"
"I do know how to write her name, it's just—you're making me nervous!"
Sephiroth snickered at this. Rich, coming from Zack—he was the only person he'd met that had ever hugged him (not that he minded in that moment). And he while seemed like the type that thrived on physical contact, he never saw him hug anyone else.
He pressed the pen into the paper again, making a few swift, crooked motions. Sephiroth looked again, and his handiwork was once again illegible. The only thing he could liken to a real letter was a semi-circle close to the top left corner of the paper.
He tried a more gentle tone of voice, perhaps in an effort to soothe his nerves. "Zack, can you at least spell your own name?"
He faced him quickly, scoffed, and smirked at him. "Everyone can do that!"
His pen noisily marred the paper's surface, and then a tear erupted from underneath his hand. He growled under his breath but kept the pen moving, and soon enough, he presented his work to Sephiroth.
Still unreadable, minus a backward "z" below what was supposed to be Cloud.
"Um," Sephiroth said, finding himself bewildered. How did someone like him get into SOLDIER? "Can you…write? At all?"
There was a flicker of hurt in Zack's eyes before he looked down at his boots. His cheeks burned red. "There's no point in hiding it anymore, huh?"
Sephiroth was already somewhat suspicious of his illiteracy the day he met him, when he had asked him what a "Caution: Wet Floor" sign meant. The question stumped him and it took a while for Sephiroth to come up with an appropriate response. Strangely, he wanted to give him the benefit of doubt.
"Can't you read it?" He thought that, maybe, there was something wrong with his eyes.
Zack was bashful, no doubt already discomforted by the general's powerful presence. For someone like him to find out that Shinra was deploying illiterate men was disastrous—namely for Zack himself, probably, but a military that couldn't read or write looked and, undeniably, was terrible.
He twiddled his fingers, focusing on everything but his eyes. "I have eye problems."
Sephiroth was briefly quiet, then said, "You're lying."
Zack let out a breath he had been holding in, slumping his shoulders and blushing. "Please don't tell anyone." He finally locked his gaze on his own, adding, "Can you…do that for me?"
He promised. But he forgot that if someone couldn't read, then they couldn't necessarily write, either. It was an obvious fact, yet common sense appeared to elude him rather frequently.
After all, if Zack needed to write something, he never did it himself. Cloud was often his personal transcriber, though she didn't seem to really mind. And even if he could write, Cloud's handwriting would probably be much more visually pleasing. Girls always had prettier handwriting.
"Does she know?" Sephiroth leaned against the closet door, unable to resist a smile at the thought of Cloud discovering Zack's illiteracy. She wouldn't be disgusted, necessarily, but she'd be disappointed, and her response would be rather amusing to hear. He already knew that Zack would be the one to gloomily report to him about it, too.
"No. She thinks I have carpal tunnel or something." He started to play with that silly cowlick of his that jut out five feet from his head.
Sephiroth, while watching him do so, thought of something and moved closer toward Zack.
The only thing he hoped for in that moment was that he wasn't blushing himself. "You know, if I've any spare time down the line, I could…try to teach you how to read and write."
Zack stared at him as if he had just asked him to brush his hair.
"Bro, are you…serious?"
"When am I not serious?"
"It's just, oh, I don't know…" A flustered smile worked its way onto Zack's face. "I never thought of you doing anything for anyone."
He was right, in a way. Sephiroth's mind went blank.
"Well, I think—" He stopped himself before he could embarrass himself any further, though it was too late. Zack was now giving him a coy, knowing expression. "Dammit."
"I didn't know you could blush."
Sephiroth turned around, gripping the doorknob, growing angry with himself. "Let's just—get out of here. We've both done stupid things today, agreed?"
"Agreed, bro…But you know, I hope you follow through with your promise. You're pretty reliable on that front…"
Sephiroth did indeed plan to follow through, regardless of what the future held for him. He couldn't, for whatever reason, bring himself to be as careless with Zack as he often was with others. There was something about him and his goofy disposition that comforted him.
And a happy Zack made him happy.