Disclaimer. I do not own any of the Characters from FF7 below.

A/N: I had a shock when 1st seen the AC screenshot of Seph in the flames. He looked pretty much like a drag queen? With boldly lined eyes(I assumed he used KOHL pencil) and plum colored lips. What was square thinking? So anyway this story is to ahem explain why he ended up with purple lips. LOL. I had it for sometime but was just lazy to upload. Enjoy!


Sephiroth sat in front of the dressing mirror, critically assessing his profile. Two overtly large turquoise eyes set in a delicately boned face stared back at him, set in a face framed by a cascading waterfall of pale hair the very colour of moonbeams.He stared at his lips. They were curved, sensuous lips but still he wasn't satisfied. They weren't pretty enough for his liking.

He opened the first drawer to reveal an assortment of lipsticks. There were all colors imaginable - red, black, pink, coral and so on. His hand settled on the Red. He had this fascination with red lips. Cos you see, there was this woman called Scarlett in the Shinra Head Office and as her name implied, she had scarlett-red lips. Beautiful arresting lips that warranted attention wherever she went. However, she wore a magenta dress not a black one, and she was a blonde bombshell, not a Goth he had to remind himself. Besides, as much as he wanted attention, he was not sure he wanted that kind of attention from his men...

His conclusion: Red OUT!

Next, his long tapered finger rested on the Pink. Yes, pink lips were sweet. Brings out the image of innocence and naivete. Youth and demureness. Nice, great things except... they were NOT what Sephiroth thought himself to be. Innocence? How could he be innocent? His hands were stained with the blood of countles Wutains and other such unfortunate saps which Shinra sent him to dispatch.

Naivete? He allowed himself a small, derisive smile. No! Sephiroth was not naive at all. He never believed in Shinra's bullshit about improving people's lives and all those crap. Nope, not even for once. He knew they were just a bunch of powerhungry(old man Shinra was one), egoistic(that psycho Hojo), whimsical(Scarlett), spoilt(that Rufus... GRRRRH) maniacs who acted as if they were always having PMS! Actually he could accept Scarlett behaving that way at times because you know... it may have been THAT time of the Month for her but for the others? HAH!

Youth? That's strange but Sephiroth never thought himself as a youth, not even for once in his young life. Perhaps growing up in as a science experiment(courtesy of Hojo) contributed to that? He had no clue, really. He was, and had always thought of himself as a Man. Not boy, not youth. Man. And that is the way it's gonna stay in future, if Sephiroth could help it.

Demureness? Haha, impossible. He's a Man. How's a man to act demure? That would be most absurb. Dammit, he was no coquettish schoolgirl. In fact he's now Shinra's General, the youngest in their entire history. Their 'one shining star' or so, as that old bloke Shinra put it. And a true 'star' he intended to be... so far away and distant, thus unattainable. Just like the beautiful gems sprinkled in the darkness of the night sky.

Conclusion: Pink was also out, though regrettably.

He gazed at the assortment again. Coral... hmmn. Honestly, Sephiroth would have gone coral because honestly, it set off his fair coloring pretty well. Made his skin look more pinkish-white. But sadly, the one occasion he had adorned his lips with that beautiful color was enough to deter him for the rest of his life...

Cos you see, Sephiroth had worn that while on his one-time (thankfully it remains so!) assignment to 'guard' old man Shinra during his weekly 'frolicking' at Honey Bee Inn. He had chosen to wear Coral on that particular assignment, attracting the attention of none other than both Shinra-officers and wannabes (who btw seemed to be the only patrons) at that Inn. Men flocked to him like Bees to Honey, which unfortunately was himself in this case. Heck, even Palmer and Heidegger were amongst them! (at least on the bright side, he now knew why that damned place was aptly named Honey Bee Inn, because well… he knew who the honey and bees were)

He could not understand why, until many of the scantily clad PROS, public relations officers, as they prefer to be called appeared. Apparently, Coral lips were a 'sign' that you were moonlighting there. Cos that was the only color all the whores(sorry, he just couldn't bring himself to think of them as PROs) were wearing on their mouths back then. Needless to say, the entire fiasco ended when Sephiroth finally wiped the accursed color off his lips, though he could swear the entire male population there (with the exception of foggy old Shinra of course) looked a tad disappointed.

He shuddered. No more Coral! That was it! He picked up the beautiful Coral tube and threw it into the convenient dustbin next to the dressing table. Back to brainstorming. He looked through the entire array of colors, relieving fond and not-so-fond memories with each and every of them.

Finally, one color caught his eye. Plum. Strange, but he had never noticed it there. Where did it come from? And more importantly, how would it look on him? Well, there was only one way to find…

Bravely, Sephiroth held the lipstick in his left hand and began to deftly apply with skillful precise strokes. His daily practice with Masamune did have its benefits afterall, he thought to himself. Finally, he stopped and admired his handiwork. His strokes were so artistically precise that he didn't need any lipliner. And no, his lipstick didn't bleed. It was there, sitting perfectly on the smooth skin of his lips. He laid back against the comfy chair and critically assessed his new look.

The plum color definitely brought out the color of his eyes. Never in his entire life had he seen them more vibrant, more alive! While his skin appeared paler in contrast against his dark, forbidding lips… which was not necessarily a bad thing. Plus most importantly, it matched his black attire and his Goth image. Yeah, not bad at all.

Sephiroth felt he looked somewhat prettier in a dark, forbidding way which was the look he had been trying so hard to achieve thus far. Yeah! He had decided. This was going to be his color afterall. He gave himself a smirk, and was pleased to see he looked cruel, heck even menacing, in the mirror.

And so with his freshly applied Plum lipstick he went swaggering out of his room with full confidence. He couldn't wait to see the look on the blokes'(he meant Shinra & his crew) faces when he saw them! Hah!

"Let them marvel and be dazzled by my new look. This should prove to them that I am indeed badass, and that one time in Honey Bee Inn was truly, purely an accident!" He thought to himself, still strangely disturbed by the Coral lips incident. It seemed that after that day, no one in Shinra ever saw him as the same again. Many times he caught men, which included Rufus and even gasp Hojo, giving him strange suggestive looks.

Which by the way was actually the entire point of him brainstorming on revamping his image all this time (especially where lips was concerned), although he would never admit it to anyone, least of all himself.


End