A/N: Dedicated to my lovely beta, Sarah, who is the end-all, be-all, hands down. There's your slightly angsty fluff, and now, onto more silly one-shots. (They should be up in a day or two!)

Disclaimer: All characters and settings belong to Square-Enix (i.e. NOT me.)

Entry #13: Excessive Chain – Addiction

He watches as the smoke escapes the butt of his cigarette and flutters up to the early morning sky. The roof of his upscale apartment is dusted with the ash of his past seven cigarettes and his cashmere suit is torn on the leg. He sits out there because he dreads the daylight, the sun that bleeds red upon the ancient structures of Wutai and over the palace in which Yuffie is supposed to be at.

The party was a big bore, Reno muses, and he would have left early if not for the much anticipated entrance of the new monarchs of Wutai. Shinra had been trying to cultivate a business relationship with the country since a large coal deposit had been discovered, and for the past two years, cheesy parties had been thrown both by his company and the country of interest. It was at Shinra's request that he had decided to move up here, and after a few bar trips, he and their rambunctious princess had fallen into a relationship.

When Godo died and named Yuffie his official heir, they knew the end was near. He could see it in her upright posture at the funeral, the crisp and elegant dress she had donned for her coronation, her fake, pleasing laugh that she had adopted for her first state dinner, and the tears that traced their way down her cheeks as she had walked away from him for the "last" time. She had grown up, and in two months, she was engaged.

This first time he had seen Yuffie on the arm of an attractive, raven-haired youth who looked like he had been born wrapped in jewels, he had been jealous: the man was cultured, good-looking, nice, scar-less, and rich. But worst of all, he had the one woman that Reno could not attain. Not even four weeks after meeting him at a corporate party, they were married, and Reno could not help but be relieved that he had not been invited to the ceremony.

Reno knows he's no dancer, especially compared to Yuffie's pretty-boy husband, and so he wonders what got him to ask her to dance with him at a ball held by the royal couple. She was completely off-limits, still is, and yet her lavender eyes had been so inviting and he was so drawn to her presence not only because he had been the one by her side for so long, but because she'd brush her hand against his own when she thought no one was looking.

Another thin line of smoke flitters away and Reno exhales a cloud to chase after it.

The first ball, and their first dance, had bristled against his defenses: they spoke civilly and longingly, asking how being a queen or the new head of the Turks was suiting the other. With shrugs and sighs, they separated, but the second, third, and fourth balls, in which he held her so close that he was able to commit the feel of her skin to memory, reduced his walls to rubble. The smell of her hair tore apart his carefully constructed apathy, and, defenseless, he had brought her home with him.

He can't regret the crashes and bangs that signals that Yuffie was awake and destroying his apartment: she had done it the first time she had realized she had put her own needs before her country's and she had continued to do so after. Reno had stopped buying new furniture after the fifth time, and was annoyed to find holes punched into the walls when she had left nothing else to be destroyed. He doesn't look forward to the ensuing fight in which the whole escapade will be blamed solely on him, and he doesn't relish that she will walk away from him in the end. He hates that he cannot win the girl, and he wants to kill her aristocratic husband, but then he remembers that he hasn't lost Yuffie to a man that she does not love, but to a country she will die for.

He does, however, light an eighth cigarette and begin to make his way down to the ladder because he loves her, the kiss that she always sadly presses to his cheek and she tells him that it's the last time, and the knowledge that, as she walks away, she will always be back.

-End-

A/N: Please, please, please don't forget to leave a review!