One day, upon waking up, Rude realized upon looking at his reflection in the mirror that he had grown hair.
And it's blonde.
"Oh my…" he muttered nervously.
He wanted to shave it off but he doesn't have any razor… or anything that he can use to shave his hair off.
But he still rummaged through the medicine cabinet of the bathroom, and the noise eventually woke up Reno who was his roommate.
"Hey, President Rufus! What are you doing in our room?" Reno asked in surprise.
Rude stiffened. "Oh no…." he muttered miserably, realizing that his hair was as blonde as Rufus's.
Reno realized that the guy was wearing shades and that he was sorta dark-skinned. He froze. "Rude?" he asked.
Silence.
"Where'd you get the wig?" Reno teased as he went to his Turk buddy and roommate, patting his head playfully. "Heheheh. I thought you were President Rufus!" he pointed out.
"I need scissors," Rude said nervously before he ran off.
"Is this even real?" Reno was still holding Rude's hair and realized that it was real because it made Rude yelp in pain. "Shit, it's real! Damn, Rude! What happened to you?" Reno asked in disbelief.
"Must be the new medicated shampoo that Hojo gave to me the other day!" Rude said.
"Why would you even shampoo your head while you're supposed to be bald?" Reno asked.
Rude ignored the question and just rushed out of their room.
"Where's Tseng, where's Tseng… where's Tseng?" he thought silently as he made his way to the Turks' lounge. Elena was inside, drinking some hot chocolate.
She almost spitted out her drink upon seeing the blonde stranger with sunglasses and the Turk uniform. "Eh? Are you a new member?" she asked curiously.
"Where's Tseng?" Rude asked, ignoring her question.
"Uhm… I think he's in the Dining Area with some other people preparing President Rufus's breakfast." Elena explained.
"Oh good! He's just preparing, meaning, President Rufus is not yet there!" Rude thought happily before dashing out of the Turks' Lounge and headed for the dining area, just barging inside without any warning and headed straight to Tseng who was standing by the seat next to the President's seat. "Tseng! Help! I need scissors! Hojo gave me this special shampoo which gave me this blonde hair and…"
"Can we just talk about that outside? It's embarrassing for President Rufus." Tseng said.
Silence.
Rude slowly turned his gaze to the person seated on the seat next to the President's seat. "OH NO!!!" he wailed, then turned to Rufus who was seated on the President's seat. Rufus was smiling sarcastically at him. "Aren't you going to say 'hi' to Miss Lockheart who is joining me for breakfast today?" he asked with an evil tone.
Well, we all know that Rude has a crush on Miss Lockheart, right? And since she became Rufus's girlfriend in this certain fic, well, Rude's got a problem… because Rufus knows that Rude's got a crush on Tifa and he keeps on giving him salary deductions for it.
Rude turned to Tifa with a forced smile on his face. "Uh… hi, Miss Lockheart!" he greeted, trying to sound cheerful.
Tifa stared at Rude before smiling. "Nice hair. Suits you well. You even resemble Ruffy." She said with a hinting tone.
The hinting tone means that she's making Rufus jealous so that Rufus would give Rude another salary deduction. It's her way of revenge against the Turks and the rest of the ShinRa executives who ruined her life before.
Upon hearing Tifa's 'compliment', Rude felt the background turn into black spiraling lines.
Rufus forced a smile too much that it turned psychotic. Tseng, upon seeing this, flinched. So imagine how Rude felt like. "Oh, Ruuude~! Did you hear that? My hairstyle suits you~!" Rufus said sarcastically before pointing the butter knife at him. "SALARY DEDUCTION!!!" he snapped impatiently.
Tifa winked at Rude.
Many more salary deductions came, because even if he shaved off his hair, the next day, it grew back again. "Oh… now I only have one Gil left…" Rude thought silently as he walked out of the ShinRa building. "At least today's my day-off…" he thought silently as he passed by Sector 6 moments later.
Then, he saw Aerith the flower girl walking with Cloud towards him. She smiled at him. "Buy a flower for a gil?" she asked sweetly.
"Uhm… no thanks," Rude answered.
He stopped when he saw Cloud sneering at him because he refused to buy a flower from Aerith.
Rude nervously got his wallet and pulled out his one remaining gil from it and handed it to Aerith. "Here you go." He said nervously.
Aerith smiled sweetly at him before handing him the flower. "Thanks!" she said before she and Cloud went off.
Rude, penniless and egoless, returned back to ShinRa with a frustrated look on his face. "I got a damn flower for all of my troubles…" he thought miserably before passing through the lobby… and there was Tifa approaching him. "Uh-oh…" he thought.
Tifa saw the flower. She approached him happily. "For me?" she asked happily.
Unfortunately, there's a surveillance camera there directly linked to President Rufus's monitor in his office.
"Oh no…" Rude thought as he felt himself shrinking…
Salary deduction.