Disclaimer: Final Fantasy, characters and everything associated with the Final Fantasy world belong to Square Enix.

Summary: In which Cloud discovers a particular poster and asks Tifa about it.

Warnings: Please note that some of the stories will contain spoilers or reference to the original game, Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core and Remake. This chapter will also reference some characters from the official light novel: "Final Fantasy VII - The Kids are alright: A Turks story".

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During his afternoon breaks from deliveries, Cloud would often amble around the middle of Edge, and scan through the notice board next to the half-built Meteor monument. He found it quite surprising that the monument was built near to completion after Bahamut SIN destroyed half the city a few months ago.

Although nothing ever piqued any of Cloud's interest, he still casually took a gander at any upcoming events or requests out of habit.

Today, nothing seemed to pop up. But then he had to do a double-take. Triple-take actually.

Slapped right in the middle was a 11x18 inch poster that caught his full attention. He could not believe what he was seeing. How in the world did this happen? Why did it happen? Who in the hell put this together?

Cloud ripped the poster off the board, and flipped over a few other newspaper clippings and papers to ensure there were no other similar flyers hidden behind.

He sped down the road on Fenrir, gathering all the posters he could find along the way.

Within the span of an hour, the doors to Seventh Heaven slammed opened. Cloud marched over the bar area and abruptly dropped a pile of the same posters down in front of Tifa.

The sudden whack of the papers hitting the marble bartop startled Tifa to drop the glass martini cup she was wiping down, "What the heck, Cloud?"

Cloud paid no mind to the broken glass and demanded some answers, "What is the meaning of this?"

Tifa blinked in confusion as she picked up the broken pieces of glass and threw it in the garbage, "What are you talking about?"

Cloud pulled a poster from the top stack and tapped on it several times, hoping she would take notice of the monstrosity.

She finally glanced down and stared at what Cloud pointed at with her mouth agape.

He noticed her biting her bottom lip, and the way she twirled the lock of her hair that fell around her right shoulder. It was a sign that she knew something but didn't want to let him know.

After a pregnant pause, Tifa let out a heavy sigh.

"Nothing else to explain. It is what it is." She stated, with a solemn face.

Cloud pursed his lips, "Don't give me that bullshit answer. Tifa, how could you?"

Tifa gave him a casual shrug, one that mimicked his with the scratch behind the head when he didn't know how to exactly answer.

"Marketing purposes. It was Leslie's idea."

"Leslie? You mean the punk that used to work for Don Corneo?"

Tifa tried to convince Cloud of Leslie's talents, "He's a good kid and made good use of a camera. He's quite the photographer, you should see the beautiful shots he took of Cos-"

"Wait, he's the one that took the photo?" Cloud interjected, his eyes now full of pure rage.

He whipped his head around to locate the bastard who usually sat in the back corner with his buddies drinking boba tea.

It was Leslie's lucky day to live.

"Well...He also had help from Evan and Kyrie…Kyrie was the one that suggested the outfit." Tifa basically just threw all three Mirelle Investigative Services fools under the bus.

"Evan was there too?!" He didn't even mention Kyrie's name. Cloud was now on the verge of flipping all the tables with his immense SOLDIER strength and breathing fire out of his mouth.

"What is the matter with you? So what if I'm on the poster? To be honest, I think it's a great innovative way to bring in new customers to Seventh Heaven!" Tifa defended, now ticked off at Cloud's irrational behavior.

"To hell I'm going to allow THIS to be shown everywhere." He stomped his feet, hoping to get the last word.

Tifa groaned and crossed her arms, "You didn't have this problem with the outfit three years ago when we reunited in Sector 7."

"That was a different time..." He subtly mentioned the journey they all went through with Avalanche, Shinra, Sephiroth, everything to the day Meteor almost crashed into Gaia.

It was becoming an argument that Tifa did not want to escalate any more than it should, especially with her bar full of customers and with Marlene, Denzel and Shelke upstairs. Shelke would come barreling down with her EM Sabers, ready to attack anyone who made Tifa cry.

Tifa clenched her fists at her sides, wanting so much to punch this blonde idiot to his senses.

Instead she pulled off her silver Fenrir ring, threw it at Cloud, and stormed off.

"I just can't right now with you anymore!"

The loud slam of her bedroom door caused the stack of posters to topple over the table and scatter around Cloud's feet.

Cloud clicked his tongue and let out a frustrated sigh, "Well f*ck…"

He could not stand to see Tifa display herself like that, holding two large bottles of Vodka endorsing Cosmo Canyon and Gray Chocobo brand, as she leaned against what looked like the emerald green version of Fenrir, which also included a vinyl decal of the Seventh Heaven logo on the side.

She donned her familiar short black pleated skirt, black thigh-length stockings, red boots, suspenders and white tank top over her black sports bra. Her hair wasn't as long as he remembered, but she had tied a ribbon near the end to show off that cute dolphin split.

In Cloud's opinion, he found the poster a little too seductive. Tifa Lockhart looked like a car import model, too damn fine to elicit unwanted attention and nasty perverts, something he did NOT want.

He picked up one of the fallen posters and meticulously looked it over again. He slowly looked up and down her body, the curves, and the way the outfit fit perfectly on her. An ordinary barmaid holding two bottles of alcohol. Ok, so maybe he blew everything out of proportion.

To everyone else, it was just a regular advertisement for the grand re-opening of Seventh Heaven. Everything focused on the logo and alcohol. The graphical text also covered up most of the areas that were deemed too "sexy".

With a mental slap on the face, the spiky blonde ex-SOLDIER chased after the martial artist, clutching the ring in his palm.

He rolled his knuckles against her bedroom door and softly called out to her, "Tifa…?"

She opened the door after several minutes of silence and glared back at him, "If you're here to lecture me about that damn poster, you can just-"

Cloud hastily took her hands and brought them up to his lips, "I'm sorry."

Tifa pulled her hands and looked away to hide her blush, "Doing that won't make me forget what a total idiot you are."

"I can't help it." Here, Cloud pouted, hoping she would forgive him, "I'm being a 'petty asshole jerk' again."

Tifa let out a chuckle. Finally, the tension between them lifted.

"To the max." She added with a soft smile, which suited her better than a scowl.

"So...Yeah, you want this back?" He held out the Fenrir ring.

"I don't know, you gonna act like a big baby if I wear it the wrong way?"

Cloud scrunched his nose at her. Taking the ring back, Tifa began slipping it back on her right ring finger, but Cloud stopped her.

"Wait, it's on the wrong finger."

Tifa arched her brow, "Huh?"

With a wide grin, Cloud slipped the ring on the correct finger, where it should belong.

~owari