---Disclaimer: Everything is © Square.
----~----
55 Bar made Yuffie grimace as she came in. The smell of cigarette smoke drifted throughout the crowd, and even the loud, lively jazz music playing heartily in the back couldn't stop her from wishing she hadn't come. It took all of her restraint no to grab Squall's wrist and trail behind him like a little puppy, but fear of touching him and engaging his wrath was enough to make her clutch her own arms in fear. He had changed out of the stiff suit that was appropriate for work, and a leather jacket took its place with red wings stitched onto the back partially covered by his mane of bristly brown hair. He looked so different out of work context: heavy leather pants with about four belts that were unneeded, bangs brushed away to reveal an odd, diagonal scar between his eyes that Yuffie had never gotten the nerve to ask about. He seemed even more dangerous out of his neat apparel, and the eighteen-year-old assumed that that was how he was making it through the crowd so easily.
"Yo, Squall!" Cloud's voice was barely audible above the din to Yuffie, although her roommate seemed to have heard it with ease; he tore through the crowd easily, making it even more difficult for her to catch up to him. When she finally skidded to the small table that Cloud and Aerith were seated at, he was already trying to ignore the blonde's persistent jokes about what he was wearing, fingers threaded through his hair and lips moving nonstop to form the word 'whatever'.
"Hey, Yuffie! I didn't expect you'd be coming along; I forgot all together that you were rooming with him," Aerith said pleasantly, jerking her thumb in Squall's direction. "Cloud mentioned a Leonhart, but I wasn't paying attention; I just wanted to get out with him for the night, friends or alone. It's pretty funny how it worked out, really," she added, motioning to the four of them.
"Oh, yeah. Real funny," Squall remarked sarcastically, not looking at anyone.
Aerith hid her look of distaste and instead whispered to Yuffie, "Night the brightest star in the sky, I take it?" Yuffie nodded shortly.
"You don't know the half of it," she muttered, running her fingers through her hair. There was an odd silence for a couple of minutes in which Squall was fuming, Cloud was checking his cash supply, and Aerith and Yuffie were staring at the men, unsure of what to do.
Finally, Cloud offered, "How about a drink? That's what we came here for anyway, right?" His encouraging smile was enough to make Aerith lift a corner of her mouth, although Yuffie remained unchanged, and Squall's frown deepened.
"Sure," Aerith said supportively, and the blonde flashed her a grin before waving over a waitress with a short, lilac skirt under her black apron and auburn hair that seemed darker in the dim lights of the bar. She produced a pad and pencil out of nowhere, indigo eyes shining.
"Yeah?" she asked, sounding a bit distracted, but all together pleasant.
Cloud squinted at a button on the corner of her apron, and then leaned back, looking up at her with his most polite smile. "Aerith and I want a margarita, uh . . . Kairi," he said, fighting to remember the name on the miniscule button. She gave a short inclination of the head to acknowledge his request, and then turned her eyes on Yuffie.
"Oh, umm, me? Uh, yeah . . . just a club soda, thanks," she said, unsure of what to do in this situation. One reason she didn't like 55 Bar was because she didn't like most bars in general: she, unlike a lot of people, never did hold her liquor very well. Kairi went through the motions of scribbling an order onto the pad, and then glared at Squall, as if asking why he hadn't already supplied her with the necessary information.
"A glass of water," he said, so curt and clipped that Kairi didn't even bother trying to argue her way into another drink. She merely pocketed the pad, muttered something about five minutes or so, and disappeared into the throngs of people.
"What? A glass of water? C'mon, Squall, you're here to enjoy yourself tonight!" Cloud protested once the barmaid disappeared, electric blue eyes looking pleadingly into azure ones. Yuffie knew where this was going; she twirled her scarf around her finger expectantly, waiting for the blow to fall. Aerith looked tense, unsure of what to do in a last-ditch attempt to keep everything peaceful.
"Don't . . . start on me," he said in a low, openly venomous voice. Yuffie quirked an eyebrow, twitching her cheek. Why was he acting so defensive? Nobody had done anything to him; he was edgy, but she'd never seen him actually get mad over something so stupid as a glass of water.
"Hey . . . what's up with you? You're never this touchy," she stated, reaching out to place a hand over his. He jerked it away, the leather glove gliding smoothly across the tabletop and falling onto his leg. Yuffie bit her lip, curling her fingers inward and gently placing her hand over the space where his used to be, and felt chest contract. So what? He'd jerked away from her hundreds of times before; why did it hurt now?
"I don't want to talk about it," he said coldly, looking her in the eye with a narrowed glare. She returned it just as fiercely, balling her hands into fists. Why was she acting defensive now, too? Some kid must've hit her harder than she thought.
"Well, that's no surprise, now is it? You barely say two words to me all day, yell at me for waking you up out of the goodness of MY heart so that you won't get fired, then up and ask me out for drinks without so much as a please - and now you're lashing out at me, like I did something wrong! You know what, Squall Leonhart? I think you're a bloody moron with serious problems," Yuffie shouted, unaware until she finished that she was standing up and shouting in the middle of a jazz club in Manhattan. After she realized that, she came to terms with the fact that 'bloody moron with serious problems' wasn't exactly a heart-wrenching insult, but since the truth was that she didn't want to jeopardize her living accommodations, she didn't want to go all-out swearing, like that Riku guy did when the kids started getting on his nerves.
"Didn't need you to narrate it for me!" he spat back, rising halfway before Cloud stood and put a firm hand on his shoulder, pushing him back down into his seat. It was then that Aerith made her move, waving her arms wildly, emerald eyes wide.
"Stop it! Come on, people, be rational: Yuffie, close your big mouth for once and let him be, and Squall, just chill, please?" she tried, but her attempt failed miserably as she was overruled by the eighteen-year-old raising her voice above her friend's.
"Who else is going to? You don't give anyone else the time of day - God, Squall, you barely talk to me, and I'm you're roommate! And since you obviously can't stand the presence of other people, why did you come out here tonight, bringing me along, of all people?" she shrilled; by now a good portion of the bar was staring at them, sipping their drinks in anticipation of the counterattack. Aerith covered her face with long, slender fingers, embarrassed to the point of a few limp tears, and Cloud was working hard not to drive his fist through the table.
"Because --" he began hotly, intending to say something, although he quickly shut his eyes and turned his head away. When he finally opened his eyes again and turned to face her, he stood, stating in a low voice that resembled a growl: "Whatever. I'm sorry I even bother." With that, he kicked back his chair and stormed out into the chilly November streets, leaving behind him a coworker, an acquaintance, and a roommate.
----~----
"Can I please stay with you tonight? My roommate and I really aren't on the best of terms right now, and I don't want to endanger myself with the rabid lion. Please? I already asked Aerith, but her cousin's staying over, and she says her apartment is about the size of a peapod. You know I wouldn't be asking you unless placed under threat of torture, so . . ." Yuffie begged into the payphone, shivering from the cold and clutching her coat close to her with her free hand. Her breath frosted the glass on the phone booth, hands shaking a she waited for the person on the other end to answer her.
"Kiddo, I told you that when you gotta room, I wouldn't keep lookin' after you if you got into scrapes. You gotta stop comin' to me, hear?" a gruff voice finally said over the line, and the eighteen-year-old breathed a sigh of relief: in Cid Highwind lingo, that meant, 'Yeah, but I'm not happy about it.'
"Thanks, Cid," Yuffie breathed, her voice shaking from the cold. If November was this bad, she dreaded what December would be like. "I'll be there in a few minutes; and don't worry, I'll sleep on the couch, I promise!"
There was a rumbling on the other end that sounded suspiciously like 'Yeah right,' but Cid responded in a firmer voice, "Yeah, sure. Just make sure that you get yerself outta here as fast as you can - I'm not bein' yer nanny anymore!"
"Yeah thanks bye!" Yuffie said in a rush, hanging up the phone with a loud "clack" as she attempted to dodge another one of Cid's 'you're in college now so you have to take care of yourself' speeches. That man was truly a saint, even if he was incognito: her second cousin, although she wasn't REALLY related to him; everyone in her family merely referred to the rather eccentric man as the 'second cousin,' possibly because he acted more like family than some of the first cousins.
Yuffie shook her head, pushing open the phone booth door and jogging down the street in hopes of catching a cab. It would probably be easier just to walk, but by then her shoes would be nothing but laces, and she really wasn't up for that. Yeah, this was certainly a winner of a day - arguing with Squall, losing another kid on her shift, having to stay with CID - man, it didn't get ANY worse than this.
"Yuffie!"
A voice she recognized as familiar, if not very often heard, rang from down the street, and the eighteen-year-old swiveled on the spot, turning on her heel to see, with a lot of surprise, that Riku kid, panting as he staggered up the street to meet her. She jogged back down and met him halfway, indigo eyes widening as she noticed a bruise that was forming around his right eye that would take on spectacular multicolored shades in a few hours.
"What happened to you?" she asked, breathless, examining the silver-haired (she didn't know where it came from, but, surprisingly, it looked good on him) teenager with a mixture of shock and confusion.
He laughed bitterly. "What else? I got mugged. Why do they always assume that teenagers carry around loads of money?" Yuffie hissed in sympathy.
"Anything I can do?" she asked, scrambling in to dig a few extra coins out of her jeans pocket.
"Yeah - can you call Sora for me?" When she raised a questioning eyebrow, he explained, "A friend of mine. I live with my older brother, but he's not home from work until later, and I don't want to bother him - he's a good guy and all, but work's tough. Sora'd let me stay over even if it was an hour before his SATs." Yuffie nodded, still somewhat confused, and motioned to the payphone she had left behind.
"C'mon, you can call Sora or whoever it is, and I'll get you a cab, right?" she said, trying to be helpful. He nodded emphatically, and she pushed him towards the phone booth while she attempted to hail a taxi. When she finally did and put Riku in the backseat, she realized with a groan that she was now broke, as she had given Riku money enough for his cab ride.
Swearing angrily, she pounded half-heartedly against the side of the payphone, then sank to her ankles and hugged her knees tight to her chest. Tonight, she decided firmly, sucked. Sucked worse than most nights ever even came close to. She was so absorbed in finding every possible explanation for how totally vile that night was that she didn't notice the scraping of boots across the sidewalk, or the creasing of leather as arms folded.
"Get up," Squall demanded, and, Yuffie, so completely oblivious to him before, jerked her head up so fast that she hit the side of the phone booth. Growling in frustration, she rubbed the back of her head and stood slowly, blinking open one eye to look at a positively freezing Squall - short-sleeved leather jackets didn't do much in preventing November's chill, which had returned in full-force once Yuffie was brought back among the aware.
"What're you doing here?" she said, trying to sound indifferent but failing miserably.
"This way goes by Cloud's place; he told me I could stay for the night. But since you obviously had similar intentions but with no way of fulfilling them, I decided to cut you some slack and invite you back to the apartment without the overload of snarky remarks that you deserve," he said dryly, fishing around in his pants pocket for enough money for a cab fare.
"Gee, big of you," Yuffie replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes, although, in a few ways, it was; for a minute she felt like a Jewish girl at a Seder table, reading out of a booklet the start of the Four Questions:
Why is this night different from all other nights?
----~----
Fact: 55 Bar is a real bar. Never been there, but I looked it up on Google, and it is, in fact, a real bar. I was tempted to make them go to the Kit Kat Club, but, unfortunately, that's merely part of the wonderful show Cabaret.
Fact: The whole Seder reference is completely, utterly correct. I'm Jewish, so I know it - do not question my authority! *defensive stance*
Fact: If you don't review, I won't do a chapter a day, like I so enjoy doing. So, in easiest terms: review! Please!
----~----
55 Bar made Yuffie grimace as she came in. The smell of cigarette smoke drifted throughout the crowd, and even the loud, lively jazz music playing heartily in the back couldn't stop her from wishing she hadn't come. It took all of her restraint no to grab Squall's wrist and trail behind him like a little puppy, but fear of touching him and engaging his wrath was enough to make her clutch her own arms in fear. He had changed out of the stiff suit that was appropriate for work, and a leather jacket took its place with red wings stitched onto the back partially covered by his mane of bristly brown hair. He looked so different out of work context: heavy leather pants with about four belts that were unneeded, bangs brushed away to reveal an odd, diagonal scar between his eyes that Yuffie had never gotten the nerve to ask about. He seemed even more dangerous out of his neat apparel, and the eighteen-year-old assumed that that was how he was making it through the crowd so easily.
"Yo, Squall!" Cloud's voice was barely audible above the din to Yuffie, although her roommate seemed to have heard it with ease; he tore through the crowd easily, making it even more difficult for her to catch up to him. When she finally skidded to the small table that Cloud and Aerith were seated at, he was already trying to ignore the blonde's persistent jokes about what he was wearing, fingers threaded through his hair and lips moving nonstop to form the word 'whatever'.
"Hey, Yuffie! I didn't expect you'd be coming along; I forgot all together that you were rooming with him," Aerith said pleasantly, jerking her thumb in Squall's direction. "Cloud mentioned a Leonhart, but I wasn't paying attention; I just wanted to get out with him for the night, friends or alone. It's pretty funny how it worked out, really," she added, motioning to the four of them.
"Oh, yeah. Real funny," Squall remarked sarcastically, not looking at anyone.
Aerith hid her look of distaste and instead whispered to Yuffie, "Night the brightest star in the sky, I take it?" Yuffie nodded shortly.
"You don't know the half of it," she muttered, running her fingers through her hair. There was an odd silence for a couple of minutes in which Squall was fuming, Cloud was checking his cash supply, and Aerith and Yuffie were staring at the men, unsure of what to do.
Finally, Cloud offered, "How about a drink? That's what we came here for anyway, right?" His encouraging smile was enough to make Aerith lift a corner of her mouth, although Yuffie remained unchanged, and Squall's frown deepened.
"Sure," Aerith said supportively, and the blonde flashed her a grin before waving over a waitress with a short, lilac skirt under her black apron and auburn hair that seemed darker in the dim lights of the bar. She produced a pad and pencil out of nowhere, indigo eyes shining.
"Yeah?" she asked, sounding a bit distracted, but all together pleasant.
Cloud squinted at a button on the corner of her apron, and then leaned back, looking up at her with his most polite smile. "Aerith and I want a margarita, uh . . . Kairi," he said, fighting to remember the name on the miniscule button. She gave a short inclination of the head to acknowledge his request, and then turned her eyes on Yuffie.
"Oh, umm, me? Uh, yeah . . . just a club soda, thanks," she said, unsure of what to do in this situation. One reason she didn't like 55 Bar was because she didn't like most bars in general: she, unlike a lot of people, never did hold her liquor very well. Kairi went through the motions of scribbling an order onto the pad, and then glared at Squall, as if asking why he hadn't already supplied her with the necessary information.
"A glass of water," he said, so curt and clipped that Kairi didn't even bother trying to argue her way into another drink. She merely pocketed the pad, muttered something about five minutes or so, and disappeared into the throngs of people.
"What? A glass of water? C'mon, Squall, you're here to enjoy yourself tonight!" Cloud protested once the barmaid disappeared, electric blue eyes looking pleadingly into azure ones. Yuffie knew where this was going; she twirled her scarf around her finger expectantly, waiting for the blow to fall. Aerith looked tense, unsure of what to do in a last-ditch attempt to keep everything peaceful.
"Don't . . . start on me," he said in a low, openly venomous voice. Yuffie quirked an eyebrow, twitching her cheek. Why was he acting so defensive? Nobody had done anything to him; he was edgy, but she'd never seen him actually get mad over something so stupid as a glass of water.
"Hey . . . what's up with you? You're never this touchy," she stated, reaching out to place a hand over his. He jerked it away, the leather glove gliding smoothly across the tabletop and falling onto his leg. Yuffie bit her lip, curling her fingers inward and gently placing her hand over the space where his used to be, and felt chest contract. So what? He'd jerked away from her hundreds of times before; why did it hurt now?
"I don't want to talk about it," he said coldly, looking her in the eye with a narrowed glare. She returned it just as fiercely, balling her hands into fists. Why was she acting defensive now, too? Some kid must've hit her harder than she thought.
"Well, that's no surprise, now is it? You barely say two words to me all day, yell at me for waking you up out of the goodness of MY heart so that you won't get fired, then up and ask me out for drinks without so much as a please - and now you're lashing out at me, like I did something wrong! You know what, Squall Leonhart? I think you're a bloody moron with serious problems," Yuffie shouted, unaware until she finished that she was standing up and shouting in the middle of a jazz club in Manhattan. After she realized that, she came to terms with the fact that 'bloody moron with serious problems' wasn't exactly a heart-wrenching insult, but since the truth was that she didn't want to jeopardize her living accommodations, she didn't want to go all-out swearing, like that Riku guy did when the kids started getting on his nerves.
"Didn't need you to narrate it for me!" he spat back, rising halfway before Cloud stood and put a firm hand on his shoulder, pushing him back down into his seat. It was then that Aerith made her move, waving her arms wildly, emerald eyes wide.
"Stop it! Come on, people, be rational: Yuffie, close your big mouth for once and let him be, and Squall, just chill, please?" she tried, but her attempt failed miserably as she was overruled by the eighteen-year-old raising her voice above her friend's.
"Who else is going to? You don't give anyone else the time of day - God, Squall, you barely talk to me, and I'm you're roommate! And since you obviously can't stand the presence of other people, why did you come out here tonight, bringing me along, of all people?" she shrilled; by now a good portion of the bar was staring at them, sipping their drinks in anticipation of the counterattack. Aerith covered her face with long, slender fingers, embarrassed to the point of a few limp tears, and Cloud was working hard not to drive his fist through the table.
"Because --" he began hotly, intending to say something, although he quickly shut his eyes and turned his head away. When he finally opened his eyes again and turned to face her, he stood, stating in a low voice that resembled a growl: "Whatever. I'm sorry I even bother." With that, he kicked back his chair and stormed out into the chilly November streets, leaving behind him a coworker, an acquaintance, and a roommate.
----~----
"Can I please stay with you tonight? My roommate and I really aren't on the best of terms right now, and I don't want to endanger myself with the rabid lion. Please? I already asked Aerith, but her cousin's staying over, and she says her apartment is about the size of a peapod. You know I wouldn't be asking you unless placed under threat of torture, so . . ." Yuffie begged into the payphone, shivering from the cold and clutching her coat close to her with her free hand. Her breath frosted the glass on the phone booth, hands shaking a she waited for the person on the other end to answer her.
"Kiddo, I told you that when you gotta room, I wouldn't keep lookin' after you if you got into scrapes. You gotta stop comin' to me, hear?" a gruff voice finally said over the line, and the eighteen-year-old breathed a sigh of relief: in Cid Highwind lingo, that meant, 'Yeah, but I'm not happy about it.'
"Thanks, Cid," Yuffie breathed, her voice shaking from the cold. If November was this bad, she dreaded what December would be like. "I'll be there in a few minutes; and don't worry, I'll sleep on the couch, I promise!"
There was a rumbling on the other end that sounded suspiciously like 'Yeah right,' but Cid responded in a firmer voice, "Yeah, sure. Just make sure that you get yerself outta here as fast as you can - I'm not bein' yer nanny anymore!"
"Yeah thanks bye!" Yuffie said in a rush, hanging up the phone with a loud "clack" as she attempted to dodge another one of Cid's 'you're in college now so you have to take care of yourself' speeches. That man was truly a saint, even if he was incognito: her second cousin, although she wasn't REALLY related to him; everyone in her family merely referred to the rather eccentric man as the 'second cousin,' possibly because he acted more like family than some of the first cousins.
Yuffie shook her head, pushing open the phone booth door and jogging down the street in hopes of catching a cab. It would probably be easier just to walk, but by then her shoes would be nothing but laces, and she really wasn't up for that. Yeah, this was certainly a winner of a day - arguing with Squall, losing another kid on her shift, having to stay with CID - man, it didn't get ANY worse than this.
"Yuffie!"
A voice she recognized as familiar, if not very often heard, rang from down the street, and the eighteen-year-old swiveled on the spot, turning on her heel to see, with a lot of surprise, that Riku kid, panting as he staggered up the street to meet her. She jogged back down and met him halfway, indigo eyes widening as she noticed a bruise that was forming around his right eye that would take on spectacular multicolored shades in a few hours.
"What happened to you?" she asked, breathless, examining the silver-haired (she didn't know where it came from, but, surprisingly, it looked good on him) teenager with a mixture of shock and confusion.
He laughed bitterly. "What else? I got mugged. Why do they always assume that teenagers carry around loads of money?" Yuffie hissed in sympathy.
"Anything I can do?" she asked, scrambling in to dig a few extra coins out of her jeans pocket.
"Yeah - can you call Sora for me?" When she raised a questioning eyebrow, he explained, "A friend of mine. I live with my older brother, but he's not home from work until later, and I don't want to bother him - he's a good guy and all, but work's tough. Sora'd let me stay over even if it was an hour before his SATs." Yuffie nodded, still somewhat confused, and motioned to the payphone she had left behind.
"C'mon, you can call Sora or whoever it is, and I'll get you a cab, right?" she said, trying to be helpful. He nodded emphatically, and she pushed him towards the phone booth while she attempted to hail a taxi. When she finally did and put Riku in the backseat, she realized with a groan that she was now broke, as she had given Riku money enough for his cab ride.
Swearing angrily, she pounded half-heartedly against the side of the payphone, then sank to her ankles and hugged her knees tight to her chest. Tonight, she decided firmly, sucked. Sucked worse than most nights ever even came close to. She was so absorbed in finding every possible explanation for how totally vile that night was that she didn't notice the scraping of boots across the sidewalk, or the creasing of leather as arms folded.
"Get up," Squall demanded, and, Yuffie, so completely oblivious to him before, jerked her head up so fast that she hit the side of the phone booth. Growling in frustration, she rubbed the back of her head and stood slowly, blinking open one eye to look at a positively freezing Squall - short-sleeved leather jackets didn't do much in preventing November's chill, which had returned in full-force once Yuffie was brought back among the aware.
"What're you doing here?" she said, trying to sound indifferent but failing miserably.
"This way goes by Cloud's place; he told me I could stay for the night. But since you obviously had similar intentions but with no way of fulfilling them, I decided to cut you some slack and invite you back to the apartment without the overload of snarky remarks that you deserve," he said dryly, fishing around in his pants pocket for enough money for a cab fare.
"Gee, big of you," Yuffie replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes, although, in a few ways, it was; for a minute she felt like a Jewish girl at a Seder table, reading out of a booklet the start of the Four Questions:
Why is this night different from all other nights?
----~----
Fact: 55 Bar is a real bar. Never been there, but I looked it up on Google, and it is, in fact, a real bar. I was tempted to make them go to the Kit Kat Club, but, unfortunately, that's merely part of the wonderful show Cabaret.
Fact: The whole Seder reference is completely, utterly correct. I'm Jewish, so I know it - do not question my authority! *defensive stance*
Fact: If you don't review, I won't do a chapter a day, like I so enjoy doing. So, in easiest terms: review! Please!