Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VII
Okay so it's not a Christmas chapter but oh well, it's Christmas and I thought I'd give you guys another chapter! It's super depressing but... whoops...
Enjoy!
024. Aghast
I was like an adult crammed into a child's body; fifteen going on sixteen and ready to give it all up. And he wondered why I fell so hard and so fast.
It's been so long, and only now can I see how wrong it was. Wrong for me to be pushed into that life, and wrong for everyone to let me. I should've been chased back to the Dojo and left there, not chased across the fields by gargantuan monsters. I'm so many kinds of wrong now, and it could've all been stopped by anyone who stopped to remember that I was just a child.
My legs swing heavily between the cool metal bars. There's a sign next to me saying 'no leaning over the edge'. Well, apparently I never learnt to follow the rules.
The sun is setting prettily beyond the edge of the sea. It's dying the water the colour of fresh blood; the sky the colour of bruised flesh. The clouds only make it look more like a bruise in pretty sure I got, once. Maybe when I was fifteen, or sixteen or seventeen. You know. The ages when I should've been sitting on the pier at sunset, swinging my legs between the bars.
It's so messed up. And I can't believe I never noticed until now. I'm the age Tifa was when I first met her, now. And even I, the number one fuck-up extraordinaire, have realised that a fifteen-year-old seeing everything I did is so, so wrong. It's not because it's a peace time now and it's not because it's a 'different scenario'. It's because I met my cousin twice removed who's fifteen, and she's not fit to see even an inch of what I saw. No wonder the newspapers call out all the weird shit I do. No wonder I do all that weird shit in the first place.
I feel too big for the little body I'm trapped in. Every time I stretch out my leg, it should go further; every time I reach out to hold something, I have to move closer. It's some strange dysmorphia where my mind knows that I wasn't done growing at fifteen, but my body was tricked into thinking it was.
I smell him behind me before I hear him. He smells like cedar, from the pine trees in the wood behind Nibelheim.
"I know you're there," I call back to him, dropping my head back to catch a glimpse of him through my top lashes. Handsome, and eerie, as always.
"How?"
I shrug. Now's not the time for anyone to point out how weird I am.
"Yuffie." He warns, and of course, I'm broken down in an instant.
"Smell. Y' smell like cedar."
"Hn. Interesting."
He sits with me in my miserable, wallowing silence and I'm grateful for it. If there's anyone who knows how to properly do silence, you bet your ass it's Vinnie.
"I was a child, y'know?" I say, and I can't help myself. It's like word vomit, breaking through my gag reflex.
"Yes. I remember. During the Wutai War?"
"No. Six years ago, when we fought Sephiroth."
"You were?"
"Yeah. That's the whole problem. I was fifteen, and no one said a word."
He's silent again, but this time his silence bugs me.
"I am sorry."
"Okay fine. But why did no one say anything - why did no one stop me!?"
"Because you were as determined and fierce then as you are now. That fire has always burned in you. I doubt any of us could've stopped you if we tried."
His answer should pacify me, I know, but I don't want to be pacified. Not now.
"I saw things no fifteen-year-old should ever see. I get mad when people swear around Cassia and I saw people die. I watched my friend get /murdered/. I saw all of Hojo's creations and—"
I can't continue, because this time there's real vomit pushing up my throat.
"I know. You and Nanaki were far too young. Even Cloud and Tifa and Aerith were too young to witness what happened. But each of us had a passion to fight against those we vanquished."
"I still—"
"No. There is no use dwelling on it. What you saw was beyond words, yes, but your mind was mature enough to match this seventy-year-old."
"Seventy? Ew."
"Yes. Even this old man is still just as haunted as you were, back then. It isn't about the age we see these things at, but the mental maturity we have, and how we deal with the aftermath."
Finally, he does pacify me. And we return to a comfortable silence.
"Okay. I'm still mad that none of you even tried to dissuade a fifteen-year-old girl from seeing all that."
"Oh," Vincent sighs, "Tifa still carries the burden with her. Cloud too. And Cid, of course, is upset."
His words surprise me. So I push a little further. "And you?"
"I'm disappointed you had to witness that. But not disappointed I met you."
Yeah, so I was thinking how messed up the ages are. The ages are reaaally messed up. It's pretty sad.
Please review if you've got time and follow for more. Thanks!