A/N: Hello all! Just a random drabble conjusred up by a "Word of the Day" generator. This is not a yaoi, but a friend ship piece, so if you're looking for hot sex, you ain't gonna find it here. Sorry and enjoy!

Disclaimer: Final Fnatasy VII characters and settings are property of Square-Enix.

Bricolage

Noun: Construction or something constructed by using whatever materials happen to be available: cooking with leftovers was bricolage.

Truthfully, Yuffie's jealous of her: her silky hair, ample chest area, and confidence. Tifa's smiles ever so much brighter than her own and she hates how she feels so utterly unattractive when she stands next to her. She's so damn pretty and so damn nice and Yuffie's so damn jealous but none of that is what irks her. It's that silent-suffering look: the way men pant after her when they learn that her parents died at the hands of Sephiroth and that she grew up so perfect all by herself. She wants to tell Tifa that she knows her secret, but to utter those words would be to shatter an idol.

Besides, Yuffie knows her words are heavy. They are large and accusatory and block up her throat. Barret is always telling her to think of what she's going to say before she says it 'cause it might hurt someone's feelings, but Yuffie rarely does. She doesn't see the point in thinking things out: you should say what you mean and mean it.

And that's why Tifa bugs her. The ruby-eyed woman thinks about what she says: she dangles tantalizingly delicious sentences of hope and courage, urges of holding on and staying the course. Her words are pretty and tied with string, arriving to the ears in a pretty package with a little bow. Yuffie wants to tell her to shut up and quit being a hypocrite, but she can't because she likes Tifa and Tifa likes her and with Aerith gone, there's an unspoken bond between the last females of the former AVALANCHE.

Tifa cuts her hair in a perfect 'U' shape and always paints her nails red and laughs at Yuffie's baseball caps and stubby fingers. She throws birthday parties for old companions who don't' even call, and even gave time to Cloud to think if marrying her was the right thing to do. When she was pregnant with his kid! Yuffie wants to tell her that her fake confidence isn't getting her anywhere and that everyone knows just how broken she really is. Even when Cloud and she finally got hitched, everyone wondered, but Tifa just kept smiling. Smiling like he wasn't in love with both her and a dead girl. Yuffie still can't help but wonder what their dinner conversation was like.

So, when Yuffie falls in love, she's not really sure what to think. Her parents married for political reasons and Reno was just a silly fling. The only example of love she knows is Cloud and Tifa's, and sometimes she wonders if that sort of adoration is healthy. If she can handle wondering about the other love of his life everyday for the rest of her life.

"How do you do it?" the raven-haired girl asks one day, sipping on Tifa's fresh lemonade.

Tifa smiles brightly and turns to her.

"Do what?"

Yuffie glances back at her and then at her on bright yellow shoes.

"Um, nevermindforgetIsaidanything." She back-peddles, her tongue thick in her throat.

Tifa laughs, a sound that resembles bells.

"You know Yuffie," she trills, lightly brushing her wrist ever so lightly, "if you're going to say something, stick to your guns. It's the only way you'll get anything you want."

Yuffie bites at her lips and the blood tastes sour, but it soothes the lump in her throat that holds in all those ugly and awful words.

"You don't have what you want," Yuffie says, and she flinches because the words are true and Tifa slumps in her chair.

Tifa's eyes focus on the sky and the sun and Yuffie's eyes trail pathetically along with her gaze; her dazzling smile and the sun blinding.

"I know," she states, and her words still seem so much more lighter that Yuffie's do.

They both take a quiet sip of lemonade.

"He loves you." Yuffie maintains; a statement of both truth and necessity.

Tifa smiles softly.

"I know. And your new man…he loves you. You won't be like me." Tifa replied, and she stares at her perfect nails.

Yuffie nods.

"He loves you too" she repeats, feeling the need to defend her friend in air-sickness and in health, "he just misses her."

Tifa laughs.

"I can share," she says, and her voice is quiet and sad and ever so resolute and it makes Yuffie want to vomit.

"But" the younger girl interrupts, wanting to strike at her beautiful idol for a lack of self-respect, wasting her good looks, and her awesome cooking talents, "don't you-"

Tifa raises her hand gracefully and blocks up Yuffie's accusatory words and tames them into the hollow of her neck and out of sight.

"You will learn," she begins, her lemonade trembling in her shaking lap, "that you will have to make the best out of everything you have."

And Yuffie flinches because Tifa's halo falls askew when the lemonade glass crashes to the pavement. They both go inside to grab a mop and a trash bag to clean up the bits and Yuffie cannot breathe because, for a moment, Tifa is real. She fingers each shard and bites at her nails and her hair seems all tangled. Yuffie thinks she see tears but then sees it was just tricks of light and they go back inside to watch a movie about true love and purity and it kills Yuffie.

Tifa picks up the movie case with perfect hands and perfect poise and ever so nicely offers Yuffie the remote. Yuffie loves Tifa, really she does, but with all this stilted perfection, she just wants to punch her in the face.

- End -

A/N: As always, please review!