A sudden chill snapped Yuffie back to the world of the waken, her bare skin suddenly lining with goose bumps courtesy of some unknown sensation. Unwilling to open her long closed eyes and do battle with the standing forces of sunlight, Yuffie struggled to sink deeper into her couch, sliding her legs beneath the nearest cushion. Still not warmed, she rolled over, searching for warming body heat but finding it not. Frowning now, she reached around, searching for coarse hair to play with or thin layers of chin stubble to scrape against, but found neither. She was alone on the couch.
And, with that realization, she opened her eyes.
There was no one around, no dark black clothes strewn on the floor, no half empty bottle of booze or stubbed out cigarette. How Reno had managed to get off the couch without her even noticing she would never know, but somehow the how seemed a lot less important than the why at this point. Her clothes had been stacked up at the bottom of the couch, not exactly folded, but at least in a more presentable state than they had been when hanging from the various other pieces of furniture in the room. Probably an old trick he used, a way to get the random bar maid out of his apartment faster. Of course, this time he was at the girls place, and he was the one leaving.
Yuffie sighed, disgust tainting her voice. It wasn't like her to be that stupid, both in the act and in the person it had been with. The fact that the former Turk seemed to sweat aphrodisiac was no excuse, and was in fact was just a further testament to the depth of her mistake. She would have to go the doctor's now, and it would get back to her father... terrific. As much as she loved her homeland, there were definitely times Yuffie Kisaragi wished she could be just another citizen of Wutai.
She couldn't imagine she'd be seeing him around. He had got what he'd wanted, probably what he'd been sticking around all this time to begin with. She genuinely believed that he had nothing to do with the assassinations of the Pagoda leaders, but the fact he had used it as an excuse to leer around her home made her sick.
And what else?
There was nothing else, was there? She was upset at him, furious, and furious at herself. She had every right to be, though maybe she deserved more of her own contempt than she did. After all, this was what Reno did, and she had been able to guess that easily enough on their first meeting. What made her thing that she would be any different? Anything special? She had made an incredibly stupid mistake.
And what else?
And... and... she was scared, too. She had been scared since this started, since she found Shake's body laying sprawled on the floor of his apartment, since she had found a bloodstained piece of paper pegged to his door. Even more scared when they found Gorki, and she realized what was happening, the link between the killings quite plain. She had known that she might be a target, that all logical reason said she could be the next one attacked. But somehow, it hadn't hit her so hard, not when he was still around, with his cocky grin and his EMR. Not because he had been a Turk, but because he was Reno, and seemed genuinely concerned in keeping her alive, in helping her out.
"You son of a bitch...."
Swallowing hard, Yuffie rolled off the couch, and began to get dressed.
***
The saloon style doors that led into the bar swung inwards with a rusty squeak, drawing the look of the few individuals inside who had decided the best way to get rid of their hangovers was by starting work on the next one. Reno paid their bloodshot gazes and chapped lipped smiles no heed as he entered, faced with a sudden onslaught of random designer scents and pop music.
If Hell had a happy hour, Reno reasoned, this would be it. He didn't understand this place, had never pretended to, and he certainly hadn't understood Rude's insistence on stopping by whenever the two had found themselves in the area. His bald former colleague had seemed to hate this place as much as he, the sizable vein located over his left eyebrow always setting to throbbing when they entered, but for some reason he came back time and time again, self loathing coming to the surface in its most passive aggressive form.
Somehow, when Yuffie had asked why Reno took her across town and instead of to this place, the red haired man hadn't thought that the true answer would have been the one she wanted to hear.
Rude wasn't here yet, and since he knew his old friend as someone who never missed a deadline by accident, Reno took the proper message from that fact. He decided he might as well make the best of his waiting time and sidled over to the counter, finding himself faced with a pink haired bar tender who didn't look old enough to be drinking alcohol, yet alone serving it.
"What can I get ya?" her voice asked, peppy in a way no one outside of grade school should be able to manage.
"Chocolate milk," Reno said with a straight face, but when that drew only a puzzled look from the server he sighed and took a seat, slowly rubbing his eyes. The fact that he had left a perfectly proportioned and undeniably nude vixen to come here made him twitch, but somehow he doubted he would have been the first thing she wanted to see upon waking up, anyway. The girl had enough troubles in her life. "Uh, is it noon yet?"
"About half past," the girl answered without checking her watch. Reno shrugged.
"OK then, anything's game," Reno replied thoughtfully, "let's start off with just a Corona though. I feel like working my way up the ranks today." The bubbly tender nodded and scurried into the back to fetch his drink, and Reno had to admit that if nothing else this place did offer some entertaining visuals. He was unable to follow it, however, as a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, the owner having come upon him so quietly it could only have been one person.
"Reno," Rude said simply, with a nod of his head, and took a seat beside him. "You wanted to talk with me?"
Reno opened his mouth to answer, but his drink order came and he decided to wait until the girl had wandered off to help someone else before continuing. He lost the opportunity, however, as Rude gestured lightly towards the pink haired tender, a strange look on his face. "So you've met Bubbles," he said simply.
"Bubbles?" Reno asked with distaste. "That seems fitting. Is *she* why you always wade your way through this place? What is she, your kid?"
"Reno..." Rude sighed, running his hand back over the bare surface of his head.
Squinting at his old friend, Reno mocked surprise. "What? She is? Does she-"
"She's twenty two," Rude cut him off in mid sentence, "and although I appreciate the confidence you seem to have in me, I was not sleeping around before I turned ten."
"Fair enough," Reno agreed quickly. One thing, at least, had not changed since he had left the Turks, Rude was still absolutely no fun to try to banter with. Once Reno had tried a knock knock joke on the guy, and he'd almost gotten his lights punched out for it. "I have some questions I need you to answer."
"I don't think I can help you," Rude said simply, to Reno's surprise.
"What?" he asked. "Why? You don't even know what I'm going to ask yet!"
"Does it matter?" Rude asked.
"...I don't see how it wouldn't," Reno said, shooting Rude a confused look. Even he was never quite *this* blunt, and something was clearly irritating the bald man, "unless you've just automatically assumed I plan to ask for last years business report or something."
"Since when have you cared about that?" Rude asked, and Reno was back to square one.
"Well how about this..." he said slowly, "I ask a question, and if you don't like it, you don't answer it. You know. Conversation."
The corners of Rude's mouth dipped downward, and even though he was still wearing his ever present sunglasses Reno could tell the man was glaring at him. "You just don't get it, do you Reno?" he demanded, and there was that vein again, but apparently not caused by the bar itself this time.
"I guess not," Reno admitted, taking a drink and trying to give out the impression of indifference to Rude's apparent anger. "Care to explain!"
"No!" Rude suddenly snapped, drawing a few curious gazes from around the bar. "That's just it, it couldn't matter less if I care to explain it. *I can't tell you things*. Personal preference has nothing to do with this, it's just the way things are."
"Why?" Reno demanded. "Did Tseng order you not to?"
"He didn't have to," Rude replied, "it's an implied rule. It always has been, or have you forgotten that already? It doesn't matter what the question is, we don't pass information to outsiders."
Reno froze, the word burning in his ears. It was a label that had followed him almost all his life, and having it slapped on him by one of the people with whom he'd felt it didn't apply felt like a punch to the stomach. "Outsider?" he repeated it quietly, feeling it sting his throat. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Are you a Turk?" Rude asked with infuriating simplicity.
"Rude-" Reno began, but was cut off once again.
"Are... you.. a Turk?" Rude seemed to be speaking through gritted teeth, his hands sprawled out on the table trying to give out an illusion of serenity that was shattered by the way his nails dug into the wood. Reno stared at him a long time before answering his question.
"No," he said after the time had passed, his gaze falling to his beer. "I guess I'm not."
"There you go," Rude said, and to Reno's eternal aggravation began to rise, stopped only by a quick hand from his former colleague. For a brief moment, it looked like Rude was simply going to smack it away, but with a heavy sigh he allowed himself to be gently steered back into his seat, though his guarded demeanor didn't lesson at all. They sat in silence for a bit, Reno drawing occasionally from his drink.
"What are you guys doing in Wutai?" Reno asked, finally.
"I can't answer that," Rude replied quickly, firmly.
"Oh come on!" Reno protested angrily, but Rude seemed just as angry as he.
"We're doing this your way!" he growled, "You ask the question, and I tell you if I can answer it or not. You ask something about our current course of action and no, I can't tell you. Sorry. Anything else?"
"Are the Turks behind the recent assassinations from the past week?"
"I can't answer that."
"Has Tseng mentioned anything about how it's Pagoda leaders being killed?"
"I can't answer that."
"What are you doing in Wutai!?"
*"I said I can't answer that!"*
Somehow, both men were now on their feet, Reno snapping out the questions and Rude snapping out his denials. Every eye in the house was on the pair now, and even Bubbles seemed to lose the majority of her pep in the face of the impending trouble. She slipped quickly into the back, in search of the bar's owner, while the two continued their spectacle. "I need to know about this!" Reno cried.
"Why?" Rude demanded, "What the fuck is so important about it? Why do you care so much?"
"No," Reno hissed, "this isn't about me. See... that, *I'm* not telling *you*. It should be enough for you to know that I need this information, that it's important to me."
"Well it isn't," came the heated response, and as Reno looked away in frustration Rude made his move for the door. This time there was no gentle hand on his shoulder to stop him, as Reno simply stuck out his entire arm and caught the man around the chest, pushing him forward and sending him bumping into the bar, eliciting gasps from the enthralled on lookers. Rude seemed stunned more than angered by the action, but as he saw the dangerous look in Reno's eyes his own narrowed in threat.
"You don't want to do this," he instructed Reno, taking a deep breath and swelling up like a balloon, expanding his massive frame to its full extent. It was an animal trick, but it works just as well for people, and the bald man made an impressive sight as he stared down his former colleague.
"Why not?" Reno asked, almost mockingly. "Because you'll dry up on me? Because you'll stop telling me all this great information? I don't think you understand me when I say that I need to get to the bottom of this, and I'm going to. I might not hear what I need to from you, but I'm going to do everything I can so I do."
"Fine," Rude said, nodding slowly. "Fine, if that's how you want to do things." With a shrug of his shoulders he slid off his navy blue jacket and laid it across the counter, revealing an undershirt stretched to its limits by the muscle underneath. A single tattoo marked the dark skin of the man's left arm, a coil of barbed wire that, unlike the standard issue, appeared to be puncturing into the skin, with little ink wells of blood at the point of every tip. "Are you going to hit me?" Rude demanded. "Then do it."
Reno couldn't believe it had come to this. He wasn't entirely sure what to expect when he had called Halo that morning and told him to set this meeting up, but it certainly wasn't this. Through all the disagreements, arguments, and flat out fights he and Rude had gone through since they'd met, they had always been fueled by anger, not this cold seething feeling in the bottom of his gut. Still. Reno was not the sort of man could ignore a direction like the one he'd just been given.
He leaned back as if to stretch, letting his furthest hand pat the table behind him experimentally. He felt cool glass on his palm and wrapped his fist around the bottle, and instead of protesting the current resident of the table and owner of the drink scooted hastily backwards to escape the imminent scuffle. Rude cocked his head a little to one side, questioning, almost daring Reno to take the swing. What the fuck, Reno thought, and the muscles in his arm tensed...
"Hey!"
Both Turks, one current and one former, turned to face the source of the noise, a meaty looking and heavily scarred man who was wearing what might, a few hundred spills ago, been a business suit. His name was Little Joe, a moniker which could not be more misleading if it said something about him being a female monkey. He was the owner of the bar, and was in fact so wide that it took Reno a few seconds to notice the thin form of Bubbles practically cowering being his bulk.
Little Joe cleared the distance between him and the two potential fighters in roughly three steps, positioning himself right between the two with a tempestuous look in his beady eyes. It didn't take long under that fixed stare for Reno to return the bottle to its proper place on the table, and for Rude to hastily snatch his jacket from the counter and wrap it once again around his shoulders. Once they had fully returned to their pre-aggression forms- and Joe had let a few awkward seconds pass for good measure- the owner of the bar gave a single, satisfied nod.
"That's what I thought," he rumbled, pointing towards the exit with a finger as thick as a sausage. "I trust you gentleman know where the exit is."
Briefly, Reno waged the satisfaction of frying the man like so much ham with his EMR against the possible reciprocations, but found in the end that the urge simply wasn't there. He hadn't actually wanted to fight Rude, both past incidents and the ripped form of his old friend attesting that it probably would have been an exchange he ended up on the losing side of. With an irritated growl, he turned on his heel and made his way out into the fresh air of the Wutai streets, well aware of Rude following close behind.
The two paused briefly on the streets, staring around at nothing at all, and then turn and begin to make their way in opposite directions. Reno, however, isn't ready to let the conversation die completely, and yells one final question at Rude. "Hey!" he began, getting the Turks attention. "You used to tell me everything, man, even when Tseng told you not to... what the fuck changed?"
Rude's sunglasses blocked his eyes, but Reno knew he was being stared intently at. Slowly, Rude licked his lips, thinking over the question, and then gave a simple shrug. "You have," he said, and was off again before Reno could even think of asking what the hell he had meant.
And, with that realization, she opened her eyes.
There was no one around, no dark black clothes strewn on the floor, no half empty bottle of booze or stubbed out cigarette. How Reno had managed to get off the couch without her even noticing she would never know, but somehow the how seemed a lot less important than the why at this point. Her clothes had been stacked up at the bottom of the couch, not exactly folded, but at least in a more presentable state than they had been when hanging from the various other pieces of furniture in the room. Probably an old trick he used, a way to get the random bar maid out of his apartment faster. Of course, this time he was at the girls place, and he was the one leaving.
Yuffie sighed, disgust tainting her voice. It wasn't like her to be that stupid, both in the act and in the person it had been with. The fact that the former Turk seemed to sweat aphrodisiac was no excuse, and was in fact was just a further testament to the depth of her mistake. She would have to go the doctor's now, and it would get back to her father... terrific. As much as she loved her homeland, there were definitely times Yuffie Kisaragi wished she could be just another citizen of Wutai.
She couldn't imagine she'd be seeing him around. He had got what he'd wanted, probably what he'd been sticking around all this time to begin with. She genuinely believed that he had nothing to do with the assassinations of the Pagoda leaders, but the fact he had used it as an excuse to leer around her home made her sick.
And what else?
There was nothing else, was there? She was upset at him, furious, and furious at herself. She had every right to be, though maybe she deserved more of her own contempt than she did. After all, this was what Reno did, and she had been able to guess that easily enough on their first meeting. What made her thing that she would be any different? Anything special? She had made an incredibly stupid mistake.
And what else?
And... and... she was scared, too. She had been scared since this started, since she found Shake's body laying sprawled on the floor of his apartment, since she had found a bloodstained piece of paper pegged to his door. Even more scared when they found Gorki, and she realized what was happening, the link between the killings quite plain. She had known that she might be a target, that all logical reason said she could be the next one attacked. But somehow, it hadn't hit her so hard, not when he was still around, with his cocky grin and his EMR. Not because he had been a Turk, but because he was Reno, and seemed genuinely concerned in keeping her alive, in helping her out.
"You son of a bitch...."
Swallowing hard, Yuffie rolled off the couch, and began to get dressed.
***
The saloon style doors that led into the bar swung inwards with a rusty squeak, drawing the look of the few individuals inside who had decided the best way to get rid of their hangovers was by starting work on the next one. Reno paid their bloodshot gazes and chapped lipped smiles no heed as he entered, faced with a sudden onslaught of random designer scents and pop music.
If Hell had a happy hour, Reno reasoned, this would be it. He didn't understand this place, had never pretended to, and he certainly hadn't understood Rude's insistence on stopping by whenever the two had found themselves in the area. His bald former colleague had seemed to hate this place as much as he, the sizable vein located over his left eyebrow always setting to throbbing when they entered, but for some reason he came back time and time again, self loathing coming to the surface in its most passive aggressive form.
Somehow, when Yuffie had asked why Reno took her across town and instead of to this place, the red haired man hadn't thought that the true answer would have been the one she wanted to hear.
Rude wasn't here yet, and since he knew his old friend as someone who never missed a deadline by accident, Reno took the proper message from that fact. He decided he might as well make the best of his waiting time and sidled over to the counter, finding himself faced with a pink haired bar tender who didn't look old enough to be drinking alcohol, yet alone serving it.
"What can I get ya?" her voice asked, peppy in a way no one outside of grade school should be able to manage.
"Chocolate milk," Reno said with a straight face, but when that drew only a puzzled look from the server he sighed and took a seat, slowly rubbing his eyes. The fact that he had left a perfectly proportioned and undeniably nude vixen to come here made him twitch, but somehow he doubted he would have been the first thing she wanted to see upon waking up, anyway. The girl had enough troubles in her life. "Uh, is it noon yet?"
"About half past," the girl answered without checking her watch. Reno shrugged.
"OK then, anything's game," Reno replied thoughtfully, "let's start off with just a Corona though. I feel like working my way up the ranks today." The bubbly tender nodded and scurried into the back to fetch his drink, and Reno had to admit that if nothing else this place did offer some entertaining visuals. He was unable to follow it, however, as a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, the owner having come upon him so quietly it could only have been one person.
"Reno," Rude said simply, with a nod of his head, and took a seat beside him. "You wanted to talk with me?"
Reno opened his mouth to answer, but his drink order came and he decided to wait until the girl had wandered off to help someone else before continuing. He lost the opportunity, however, as Rude gestured lightly towards the pink haired tender, a strange look on his face. "So you've met Bubbles," he said simply.
"Bubbles?" Reno asked with distaste. "That seems fitting. Is *she* why you always wade your way through this place? What is she, your kid?"
"Reno..." Rude sighed, running his hand back over the bare surface of his head.
Squinting at his old friend, Reno mocked surprise. "What? She is? Does she-"
"She's twenty two," Rude cut him off in mid sentence, "and although I appreciate the confidence you seem to have in me, I was not sleeping around before I turned ten."
"Fair enough," Reno agreed quickly. One thing, at least, had not changed since he had left the Turks, Rude was still absolutely no fun to try to banter with. Once Reno had tried a knock knock joke on the guy, and he'd almost gotten his lights punched out for it. "I have some questions I need you to answer."
"I don't think I can help you," Rude said simply, to Reno's surprise.
"What?" he asked. "Why? You don't even know what I'm going to ask yet!"
"Does it matter?" Rude asked.
"...I don't see how it wouldn't," Reno said, shooting Rude a confused look. Even he was never quite *this* blunt, and something was clearly irritating the bald man, "unless you've just automatically assumed I plan to ask for last years business report or something."
"Since when have you cared about that?" Rude asked, and Reno was back to square one.
"Well how about this..." he said slowly, "I ask a question, and if you don't like it, you don't answer it. You know. Conversation."
The corners of Rude's mouth dipped downward, and even though he was still wearing his ever present sunglasses Reno could tell the man was glaring at him. "You just don't get it, do you Reno?" he demanded, and there was that vein again, but apparently not caused by the bar itself this time.
"I guess not," Reno admitted, taking a drink and trying to give out the impression of indifference to Rude's apparent anger. "Care to explain!"
"No!" Rude suddenly snapped, drawing a few curious gazes from around the bar. "That's just it, it couldn't matter less if I care to explain it. *I can't tell you things*. Personal preference has nothing to do with this, it's just the way things are."
"Why?" Reno demanded. "Did Tseng order you not to?"
"He didn't have to," Rude replied, "it's an implied rule. It always has been, or have you forgotten that already? It doesn't matter what the question is, we don't pass information to outsiders."
Reno froze, the word burning in his ears. It was a label that had followed him almost all his life, and having it slapped on him by one of the people with whom he'd felt it didn't apply felt like a punch to the stomach. "Outsider?" he repeated it quietly, feeling it sting his throat. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Are you a Turk?" Rude asked with infuriating simplicity.
"Rude-" Reno began, but was cut off once again.
"Are... you.. a Turk?" Rude seemed to be speaking through gritted teeth, his hands sprawled out on the table trying to give out an illusion of serenity that was shattered by the way his nails dug into the wood. Reno stared at him a long time before answering his question.
"No," he said after the time had passed, his gaze falling to his beer. "I guess I'm not."
"There you go," Rude said, and to Reno's eternal aggravation began to rise, stopped only by a quick hand from his former colleague. For a brief moment, it looked like Rude was simply going to smack it away, but with a heavy sigh he allowed himself to be gently steered back into his seat, though his guarded demeanor didn't lesson at all. They sat in silence for a bit, Reno drawing occasionally from his drink.
"What are you guys doing in Wutai?" Reno asked, finally.
"I can't answer that," Rude replied quickly, firmly.
"Oh come on!" Reno protested angrily, but Rude seemed just as angry as he.
"We're doing this your way!" he growled, "You ask the question, and I tell you if I can answer it or not. You ask something about our current course of action and no, I can't tell you. Sorry. Anything else?"
"Are the Turks behind the recent assassinations from the past week?"
"I can't answer that."
"Has Tseng mentioned anything about how it's Pagoda leaders being killed?"
"I can't answer that."
"What are you doing in Wutai!?"
*"I said I can't answer that!"*
Somehow, both men were now on their feet, Reno snapping out the questions and Rude snapping out his denials. Every eye in the house was on the pair now, and even Bubbles seemed to lose the majority of her pep in the face of the impending trouble. She slipped quickly into the back, in search of the bar's owner, while the two continued their spectacle. "I need to know about this!" Reno cried.
"Why?" Rude demanded, "What the fuck is so important about it? Why do you care so much?"
"No," Reno hissed, "this isn't about me. See... that, *I'm* not telling *you*. It should be enough for you to know that I need this information, that it's important to me."
"Well it isn't," came the heated response, and as Reno looked away in frustration Rude made his move for the door. This time there was no gentle hand on his shoulder to stop him, as Reno simply stuck out his entire arm and caught the man around the chest, pushing him forward and sending him bumping into the bar, eliciting gasps from the enthralled on lookers. Rude seemed stunned more than angered by the action, but as he saw the dangerous look in Reno's eyes his own narrowed in threat.
"You don't want to do this," he instructed Reno, taking a deep breath and swelling up like a balloon, expanding his massive frame to its full extent. It was an animal trick, but it works just as well for people, and the bald man made an impressive sight as he stared down his former colleague.
"Why not?" Reno asked, almost mockingly. "Because you'll dry up on me? Because you'll stop telling me all this great information? I don't think you understand me when I say that I need to get to the bottom of this, and I'm going to. I might not hear what I need to from you, but I'm going to do everything I can so I do."
"Fine," Rude said, nodding slowly. "Fine, if that's how you want to do things." With a shrug of his shoulders he slid off his navy blue jacket and laid it across the counter, revealing an undershirt stretched to its limits by the muscle underneath. A single tattoo marked the dark skin of the man's left arm, a coil of barbed wire that, unlike the standard issue, appeared to be puncturing into the skin, with little ink wells of blood at the point of every tip. "Are you going to hit me?" Rude demanded. "Then do it."
Reno couldn't believe it had come to this. He wasn't entirely sure what to expect when he had called Halo that morning and told him to set this meeting up, but it certainly wasn't this. Through all the disagreements, arguments, and flat out fights he and Rude had gone through since they'd met, they had always been fueled by anger, not this cold seething feeling in the bottom of his gut. Still. Reno was not the sort of man could ignore a direction like the one he'd just been given.
He leaned back as if to stretch, letting his furthest hand pat the table behind him experimentally. He felt cool glass on his palm and wrapped his fist around the bottle, and instead of protesting the current resident of the table and owner of the drink scooted hastily backwards to escape the imminent scuffle. Rude cocked his head a little to one side, questioning, almost daring Reno to take the swing. What the fuck, Reno thought, and the muscles in his arm tensed...
"Hey!"
Both Turks, one current and one former, turned to face the source of the noise, a meaty looking and heavily scarred man who was wearing what might, a few hundred spills ago, been a business suit. His name was Little Joe, a moniker which could not be more misleading if it said something about him being a female monkey. He was the owner of the bar, and was in fact so wide that it took Reno a few seconds to notice the thin form of Bubbles practically cowering being his bulk.
Little Joe cleared the distance between him and the two potential fighters in roughly three steps, positioning himself right between the two with a tempestuous look in his beady eyes. It didn't take long under that fixed stare for Reno to return the bottle to its proper place on the table, and for Rude to hastily snatch his jacket from the counter and wrap it once again around his shoulders. Once they had fully returned to their pre-aggression forms- and Joe had let a few awkward seconds pass for good measure- the owner of the bar gave a single, satisfied nod.
"That's what I thought," he rumbled, pointing towards the exit with a finger as thick as a sausage. "I trust you gentleman know where the exit is."
Briefly, Reno waged the satisfaction of frying the man like so much ham with his EMR against the possible reciprocations, but found in the end that the urge simply wasn't there. He hadn't actually wanted to fight Rude, both past incidents and the ripped form of his old friend attesting that it probably would have been an exchange he ended up on the losing side of. With an irritated growl, he turned on his heel and made his way out into the fresh air of the Wutai streets, well aware of Rude following close behind.
The two paused briefly on the streets, staring around at nothing at all, and then turn and begin to make their way in opposite directions. Reno, however, isn't ready to let the conversation die completely, and yells one final question at Rude. "Hey!" he began, getting the Turks attention. "You used to tell me everything, man, even when Tseng told you not to... what the fuck changed?"
Rude's sunglasses blocked his eyes, but Reno knew he was being stared intently at. Slowly, Rude licked his lips, thinking over the question, and then gave a simple shrug. "You have," he said, and was off again before Reno could even think of asking what the hell he had meant.
