Malty beer. Fried potatoes and onions. Acrid smoke from burning cigarettes. Sweat-drenched armpits.

Johnny's Heaven is a mishmash of all these stenches.

Tifa never liked coming to this overrated bar.

Lack of windows and poor ventilation. Worn out stools with cushions full of holes. Greasy tables that are not cleaned regularly. Customers are always fucking in the bathroom stalls behind doors that don't have locks. Once or twice in a week, the redhead owner would be chasing rats out into the streets with a broom.

It's just an entirely unsanitary place.

But Midgar residents still flock here, especially those living in gentrified Edge, mostly because of its cheap beer, frequent happy hours… and probably access to Johnny's call girls and boys.

She's stuck here during a drizzling Saturday evening because her boyfriend has been invited by the social but asshole Zack Fair, and he needed company.

Or more like a trophy girlfriend to drag around.

It's now two hours since she's been in this godforsaken bar and all she feels is exclusion from the "boys' club".

While she sits miserably silent for the last two hours at the bar counter, stupidly fiddling with her phone and consuming nothing but a bottle of gross Corneo Beer, her boyfriend is going crazy with his full-of-testerones work colleagues, paying zero attention to her.

Why is she here again?

The evening just can't get any worse.

The owner has been giving her those leering eyes ever since she came in and it doesn't seem like he's planning to stop.

Instead, he gets more daring.

"Just say the word and I'll close the bar for you, babe," he remarks, hovering close. And when she downright ignores him, he adds, "I can do so many things to you…"

"Are you done?" she snaps. "Or am I supposed to sit here and listen to more of your shit?"

Owner Johnny pulls his hands up, a gesture of mock surrender. The smile on his face tells her that he's not done taunting, "Chill, babe. I'm just telling you that I'm here watching… even if your man isn't."

And that's it. She wants to leave. A S A P. She just needs to chug the rest of her beer and take off.

She grabs her coat, slings her bag onto her shoulder and strides to the entry-exit doors.

She's about to walk out… but a familiar female figure standing right outside those glass doors slightly tinted by fog numbs her feet.

The bell that hangs at those doors rings as the woman walks in – the woman she kissed two weeks ago.

Aerith with her matching black low cut top and crepe wrap mini skirt.

Never. Not. Stunning.

"Leaving already?" Aerith asks, her grassy green eyes softening as she smiles.

Tifa opens her mouth but not a word leaves her before Aerith is already hauling her back to the bar counter.

Johnny looks at them with a frisky smile. "Oh, so Ms. Melon Tits over here is your friend. Why didn't you tell me, Aerith?"

"We just met two weeks ago, Johnny," Aerith replies, pushing her brown wavy hair past her shoulders so they would flow onto her back. "Also, watch your mouth."

Johnny winks. "Would love a threesome with you girls someday, if you're up for it."

Aerith rolls her eyes but she's not annoyed. "Oh, shut up. Get me the usual."

"Aye, Aye."

Johnny prepares her 'usual', and she is all eyes on Tifa. "You okay?"

Somehow, Tifa's a little taken aback. Is she that transparent?

"Yeah, I am. Why?"

Aerith shrugs. "Dunno. You don't seem okay."

Cloud and Zack's group crack another round of cheers, pumping up the noise they're making in the bar.

Aerith gives them a glance. "Jeez. Some people are having their fill of fun."

"They've been at it for a couple of hours now," Johnny says, serving Aerith her 'usual' in a lowball glass. "And Ms. Melon Tits here has been left all alone by her boyfriend."

Tifa is one step away from swinging at this waste of air.

Aerith smiles flatly, eyes set onto her, all judgemental. "So much for the great boyfriend status."

Clearly, Aerith's still hung up on their conversation about her asshole boyfriend.

But Tifa bites down her tongue. Aerith's being bitchy but she isn't wrong.

Aerith's sipping her drink when some random NPC-looking man comes over and slides ever so smoothly to the empty seat to her left. "Let me buy you a drink."

As much as the man's presence is unwelcome, Aerith isn't one to turn down a good offer.

"Sure. But you've to buy one for my friend here-"

"What the FUCK are you doing over there?"

And just like that, the entire bar shuts up, stunned by Zack's aggression.

Zack's standing up now, leaving his table. Everyone else is watching. Tension cuts through the air like it's a knife that can kill anyone in the room.

"What are you doing with my girlfriend?"

The NPC-looking man rises up and backs away. "Chill, man. I didn't know she's your girl."

"How the fuck do you not know? We're here almost every single day."

Aerith is pressing her forehead with her fingers. "Zack, stop blowing this up," she warns, her voice heavy with exhaustion.

He starts snickering and Tifa can feel all the hairs on her body rising up.

"You like that, don't you? All that attention?" he heckles, moving closer as if he's trying to trap Aerith to where she is. "Because you're a whore. Just like that whore of a mother of yours."

"Zack, you're out of line!" another voice blares and Tifa sees that it's coming from the barrier man. If she remembers correctly, his name's Tseng.

"You're trying to be her knight in shining armour again, Tseng?" Zack derides, arms wide open. "Because you know she'll open her legs for you. You guys used to fuck, after all. Of course, you want to fuck her again. And she'll let you fuck her just the way her mother used to fuck around."

In a millisecond, chaos ensues.

Tables crash. Drinking glasses fall and break. People all around are screaming. Zack and Tseng grunt and groan as they wrestle against each other, blowing punches to one another's faces. Johnny leaves his station behind the bar counter to try and stop the fight.

Tifa doesn't even want to look at any of that mess behind her because her mind is all on Aerith.

For the first time since they met, Aerith is quiet and trembling.

A hand soon rests on Tifa's shoulder and she looks up to find it's Johnny.

"Take Aerith home."

Aerith's home is a ten minute walk from the Cetra Gallery. It's a decent one-bedroom apartment, complete with an average size common room, a bathroom and a kitchen, in a high rise building that overlooks the city.

Pots of flowers fill the balcony that extends from the common room. The walls are decorated with her paintings, and the paintings of others she had commissioned. Other ornate items that she has includes marble statuettes, seashells, china plates and ceramic vases.

But there are hardly any photographs.

The photographs that Tifa did find on a dresser in the common room are those of a woman with long brown wavy hair and green eyes, just like Aerith's.

It's been an hour since they've arrived at the apartment and Aerith is still where she was when they came: the only window bench in the common room. She's hugging her legs closely to her chest, eyes locked onto the panoramic view of the city below as she draws on a cigarette.

Tifa doesn't want to leave, unless she's entirely sure that Aerith's okay.

"I hate it when he talks about my mom like that," Aerith gives in and speaks. "She's not perfect and she made many mistakes but… he can't talk about her like that. He just can't."

Tifa finds nothing to say in return.

They haven't shared secrets or anything deep with one another, so she thinks it's not her place to pitch in her two cents.

Aerith finally rises up from the bench and walks towards the coffee table to crush her cigarette into an astray.

She joins Tifa at the two-seater, and they're both staring at the view of the city again as light rain returns, smearing water onto the glass windows.

In time, Tifa feels Aerith resting her head onto her shoulder.

"Thank you… for staying."

She looks down… and her ruby red eyes meet Aerith's emerald green.

A single breath passes.

Without warning, their lips crash onto one another. Unlike the first time, this feels more urgent, as if Aerith's trying to have all of her within the few seconds and minutes that they have.

Tifa's driven by an equally concentrated amount of need.

She readily opens her mouth, pressing for Aerith to take in more of her. Warmth thickens in her chest and pelvis as their tongues meet and entangle. She moves her hands up to bury them within Aerith's hair, while Aerith moves her hands down to circle them around her hips. At times, Aerith would briefly disengage, only to kiss the areas around her lips.

Tifa doesn't know how long they're at it. By the time Aerith is sucking on her tongue, her brain just hazes.

A phone call happens, forcing her rationality to return. She checks to find Cloud's name flashing on the screen.

"Hello?" Aerith is raining kisses along her jaw as she answers the call.

"Hey. You're still at Aerith's?"

Aerith starts running her lips on her throat, and she can barely stop her whimper. "Yeah… Mmmmph."

"Okay… they just finished filing the police report. Zack's on his way there."

Aerith snatches the phone away from her hand, abruptly ends the call and leans in to kiss her again.

In the midst of drowning in Aerith's kisses, she manages to move her face a tad away to speak, "Zack's coming…"

When it seems like Aerith's going to kiss her forever, she cradles the other woman's face in her hands. "Aerith, I'm serious. He's on his way."

Aerith exhales and falls back onto the two-seater. "I wish he isn't."

Tifa doesn't want to leave her alone with the man either.

She gathers her stuff, then hands Aerith a small note with her number written on it. "Just call me… so I know you're safe."

"'Kay."

Aerith pulls her into another kiss before she steps out of the apartment.

She walks home that night… feeling a little too conflicted.