Disclaimer: Final Fantasy XIII does not belong to me.

Author's Note: It astounds me the amount of responses I actually got to this story. When I first started it, it was meant to be a oneshot with a lot less detail and expansion, but I had entirely too much fun writing scenarios and so it stretched out into a proper short story. Thank you for all the comments, and alerts! Please keep reviewing, it brightens up my day.

This chapter is fairly short, but the story requires a transition. The next one more than makes up for it, I promise. Also, updates might take a little longer after the next chapter is posted – I am entering my final several weeks of the semester, and the papers and studying have begun to attack in full. I have majority of the following chapters either written out in a rough draft or at least drafted in notes, it'll be just actually writing them that might take a bit. I am hoping to finish this by mid April at the latest.

The One With The Kiss

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The first time Claire kisses Hope is when she is seventeen and he is twenty-four and she thinks she is old enough, now, to do this, but when he doesn't move and she pulls away and he only looks at her and shakes his head.

"You're seventeen, Claire," he tells her as if she doesn't already know this – she's done the math in her times plenty of times since she's been twelve, for crying out loud, and so what if she is less than one year away from being a legal adult? "I'm not going to kiss you back," he says in such a gentle voice as if he is afraid she will break, and how dare he even do this, as he completely shatters her heart—

But he also looks sad, in a sort of way she's never seen him be before, with a look in his eyes she can't quite place (it almost looks like heartbreak, she thinks, but it can't be because he doesn't kiss her back) and she pushes herself away from him and storms out of the house. The front door slams behind her, but it's not like anyone other than him is around to hear it, anyway, and so she does it for his benefit alone. She knows him and knows how he will feel sad and guilty for making her angry, but he's no pushover despite his kindness and will hold on to what he's said. But she doesn't care about hurting him because it feels like she can't breathe and if she looks at him for even one more second, she will never recover from this humiliation.

So she power walks down the street to a friend's house and holds back tears and thinks – loving Hope Villiers was never worth it.

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She spends the night over at her friend's and returns only in the morning when she knows Hope will have gone to his classes. After an entire night of pouring her heart out and eating ice cream and crying until she feels like her eyes will never recover, Claire's decided that her best course of action is to avoid him the best she can and hope he does the same, until her heart no longer hurts nearly as much and she is no longer in love with him.

She turns her house key in the lock and is surprised when the door comes away already open. A quick perusal of their entryway reveals Snow's shoes sitting in a messy pile, one of top of the other, and a stranger's pair right beside them. She furrows her brow – Snow typically had work already. "Hello?" She calls out. Her keys are dropped on a rack, followed by her jacket and boots; an echoing greeting sounds from the study and she follows Snow's voice, curious over his unexpected presence home.

"Morning, Claire!" The blond greets her from where he's sitting at his office chair, as giant as always and with faint greying at his temples. He grins at her. "Shouldn't you be at school? Or, you know, at least in your own bed?"

She flushes. "I slept over at a friend's. Why are you not at work?" Snow's eyes slide behind her and she turns, jumping when she notices the figure leaning against the wall there. "Oh… sorry. I didn't know you had guests over." The black haired man only nods at her, his arms crossed over his Cavalry uniform.

"No harm done, Miss Farron." He smiles at her and she's surprised at how young he actually looks. "Snow, I can let myself out."

Claire watches as the man leaves the room, and then listens for the shutting of the front door before turning back to the blond. "Who was that? I didn't know the Cavalry hired on anyone that young."

Snow shrugs, leaning back in the chair – Claire always expects it to break under his bulk, one day. "Cid? He's not that young. I think he's around Hope's age. Must be the curse of the baby-face." Claire rolls her eyes. "So why were you out having a sleep over on a weekday, anyway?"

"Why are you not at work and having secret meetings with your coworkers?" Claire crosses her arms and leans on one hip, raising an eyebrow when he only laughs in response. "What? If you can ask the serious questions, so can I."

Snow falls silent and watches her for a moment, a smile on his lips. "I guess you are pretty grown up now, aren't you," he says. "I remember when you were only this tall and calling me Mr. Villiers…"

"Apparently not old enough…" she mutters under her breath before sighing, and ignores Snow's raised eyebrow at her words. "Whatever. I should head to class."

Snow's chuckle follows her out the room and to her own, where she changes out of yesterday's clothes, grabs her school bag and prepares for a day full of irrelevant studying while trying to mend her broken heart. She comes home and Hope is gone, apparently staying over at a classmate's for a project (according to Serah) and so Claire shuts herself in her room and pretends the whole world doesn't exist.

She stays inside for dinner, too, when she hears him come back in, and only leaves in the morning when he's busy in the washroom.

The mortification of what she'd done finally catches up to her and embarrassment swells alongside the pain, and Claire desperately wishes for some force to sweep her up and away from her life, and away from him.

She was so incredibly stupid. What had she been thinking, kissing him when he never even showed any signs of affection towards her? Everything he said, everything he did – it was just him being a good friend. And she was just a kid.

She was just a kid and Hope Villiers, who she is convinced she's been in love with since she was a teenager, did not kiss her back.

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She comes home from school two days later and there's a note on the fridge with Hope's name on it, and he tells them that he's finally moved out to his own apartment and that he'll be by later to grab his stuff. A smiley face is scrawled at the very end of it and Claire's fingers jump towards the note, wanting to crush it through the tremor that has started up inside her body – she resists, and smoothes it down instead with shaking fingers, and turns her back on it and walks straight out of the house.

Claire walks, and keeps walking, until her legs feel numb and the cold air of the evening bites at her exposed skin. And she tells herself, resolutely, through the pain that is beginning to spread in every ache throughout her body,

Loving Hope Villiers was never worth it.