For all of the people who have put with my outlandish ways throught this fic, I thank you...

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"Why would something like you get into the dancing arena in the first place? It's too far-fetched, you know."

They sat across of each other between the bookshelves. Tifa watched as Cloud cocked his head from side to side, not necessarily looking back at her. He frowned, slightly, as if he couldn't fully understand what she was asking. He glared down out the floor, still not giving eye contact.

"Sorry," said Tifa. "I'm butting into your business again."

Cloud looked up and shook his head.

"Nah...It's quite alright..."

She stared at him, for a moment, as if her eyes were x-rays. Tifa concluded that he was being honest.

"But still...if people like you are in the professional arts...then the world's gone mad...it was risky enough to let you take dance lessons as a kid in the first place. I wonder why Shinra and the Board of Directors didn't go off into conniptions."

"They were the ones who suggested that I went."

She left her mouth drop.

"Don't be surprised," Cloud continued. "I'm not the only humanoid who's got an unusual job. Why...I have an acquaintance with someone who ended up starting a chain of restaurants all over the U.S...the Yard House to be more specific..."

Tifa contorted her face in disbelief.

"Why would the company let you do things like that?!" Tifa cried hysterically. "Have the Board of Directors gone crazy?!"

"I believe they encourage it so we can interact better with humans. Each of us live with "parents", but how well could I communicate with you if my parents had shut me up in the family estate? How could I talk to anyone? How would I understand social habits...or learn how to deal with certain people? Several missions, or jobs, include having to go into nightclubs, parties, hotels, beaches...how could someone like me blend in with the crowd, if we were not allowed to learn about people outside of the company? It would be a perfect mess. It's the same thing as not letting a normal human learn their own ways...well, almost."

"But what does your dancing career have to do with that?" asked Tifa.

Cloud leaned back on the bookshelf and yawned.

"It's something one of my old trainers told us almost everyday," Cloud answered calmly.

Then, out of amusement, Cloud cleared his throat and imitated his trainer's voice: a grumpy, radical, middle aged man.

"Find your favorite food. Learn how to cook. Learn how to speak different languages. Take music lessons. Learn arithmetic. Go to school and college. Make friends with people. Tell petty lies. Get in a fight. Smoke. Drink. Buy clothes. Get a job at an ice cream parlor. Travel. Find something ya like to do... do anything but just stand there and let the world pass ya by. Don't gimme that 'I'm not human' crap! Do you wanna look like an idiot when you grow up? Get a life!"

Tifa couldn't help but laugh. She still did not understand why humanoids were allowed to have a social life, but she decided to leave well enough alone. She already confused enough as it was.

"I remember him," Tifa replied. "Mr. Ergot, the guy that oversaw the boy trainees.

"He should never have told us that so thoroughly, though," Cloud stated. "Most of us got it in our heads that playing pranks on people in the building had something to do with what he said... never dared do anything to Mr. Shinra himself, but...we did all sorts of things...glued the breakroom door shut...put sardines in the receptionists' desk drawers...caricaturized the people we hated behind their backs...made prank calls...suckered people into eating spicy gum..."

Tifa suddenly gasped. She got on her hands and knees, crawled closer to Cloud, and pushed him hard against the bookshelf. Tifa's face was very close to his, and she glared venomous death at him.

"Your group," she growled, "we're the ones who were responsible for putting worms and bugs in the girls' lunch salad, weren't they?!"

Cloud looked into thin air, trying to remember. Tifa gave him a solid shake and asked again.

"Oh yeah," he said in surprise. "I remember that! That was when I was about thirteen or fourteen, or something."

"And did you have any input in that?" Tifa prodded.

Tifa let go of him, trying to keep calm. Cloud rested his chin on a fist and racked his brain.

"I...I may have helped find some of the worms in the dirt..."

Cloud watched as Tifa's face went as red as a pomegranate seed. She gnashed her teeth, and a low growl came about. Cloud knew that he was in for it...again.

"You were in that girls' group?" Cloud asked nervously.

"Do you know how many bugs I accidentally ate that day?!" Tifa shrieked. "Is that your idea of having fun?"

Cloud wisely did not answer.

"I don't care if all of you were humanoids!" Tifa yelled. "You're all nothing but a bunch of boys! That was just plain sick!"

"It is if you say it with that attitude," Cloud mumbled.

And the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, quickly made contact with his nose.

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Reno walked into the darkness of the kitchen, eyes bloodshot, begging for sleep. He managed to find the refrigerator and plumaged it, hoping to find a beer. Being a large, double door one, Reno was confident that he would find something. As the light filled the room, Marlene, who was happily munching away at Coco Puffs on the counter, turned her head and noticed the intruder.

"Hey," she said. "What are you doing here?"

Reno turned around, startled, but then continued to search.

"I'd ask you the same thing," he replied. "Isn't it a school night?"

"I eat late at night all the time," said Marlene. "Cloud does too. I thought you were him."

Reno's search was so far unsuccessful.

"Watcha looking for, Mister?"

"A beer," Reno answered. "But no hospitality in under this roof."

Marlene abandoned her cereal and turned on a light switch. She walked out of sight, to the pantry and brought back a bottle.

"Will Heineken do just fine?" she asked. "It's what we have for now."

"Yeah, that's okay."

Marlene sat the bottle on the counter and went to the refrigerator. She opened the freezer door and grabbed a glass, iced mug.

"Thanks, kid."

"My mum was not a Billy goat," Marlene answered.

Reno chuckled and received the mug graciously.

"Cloud's not a frequent drinker," Marlene explained. "He just keeps it around to please the guests. There's vodka in there too."

She received a 'hmmmm' from Reno, who was already having his drink.

"I seem to recall," he finally said, "that you were mad at him for some reason."

"I'm not mad anymore," Marlene replied. "I'm just pretending to be now."

"Why?"

"Because I know he's going to make it up to me for my birthday out of guilt."

Reno nearly choked on his beer.

"You little conniver," he scolded. "Who taught you that?"

"Mum did," Marlene answered proudly. "She did it to papa all the time...and it worked all the time too! Besides...it's payback."

"What did Cloud do to deserve that?" Reno asked.

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Earlier that day, before the school bell rang, the last period class "visited" each other. Marlene sat meekly at her desk, by the window, as she slowly packed her school supplies. She glanced over to the other side of the room, for relief, and spotted her school crush, Denzel Peterson. They made eye contact for a moment, but then, Marlene shyly looked away.

At that moment, Cloud happened to walk past, with Vincent right behind him. Marlene waved a friendly hello and blew a kiss, catching her brother's attention. He walked closer to the window. From the other side, Marlene began to chatter with him through sign language.

"Why are you here early?" she asked.

"I went out after out after lunch to get medicine," he signed back.

Marlene became confused.

"What kind of medicine did you get? No one is sick back home."

"Not that kind of medicine," Cloud replied. "The one that mom used when we got bruises."

Marlene tilted her head, still not understanding. Cloud scratched his head, trying to figure out how to remind her. Vincent watched from a distance, completely ignorant of the conversation.

"You know," he finally answered. "The one that really smelled!"

It wasn't what Cloud said that was funny; it was the way that he signed it. He waved his hand in front of his face, violently. He scowled in disgust, his eyes shut tight, and his tongue sticking out. Marlene forgot where she was and began to imitate him. An old joke.

Unfortunately, this did not go unnoticed by the other students. A girl, among her clique, saw the droll ritual and pointed it out to them. They began to giggle silently, alerting the rest of the class. Soon, the teacher's head was brought up by the loud noise of laughter in the classroom. He looked up from side to side and saw Marlene making the gesture by the window. At that moment, Cloud was waving goodbye and heading back to Vincent. Marlene stopped making the "face" and bid him farewell.

The teacher's ruler slammed down on Marlene's desk, causing more hilarity.

"Miss Marlene Strife!" he bellowed. "Anymore disruption of the class and you will be sent to the office!"

Marlene looked around and saw that everyone was laughing at her. Denzel gazed at her as if she was bizarre animal and moved away into a group of boys.

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"Ouch," Reno said. "I guess that was kinda was Cloud's fault."

Marlene drank the leftover milk in the bowl in one gulp.

"Yeah, but I still didn't have to imitate it...but I couldn't resist..."

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Yuffie knocked on Tifa's bedroom door. No answer. She knocked a second time, and then let herself in. The bed was empty.

"She's not there?"

Yuffie saw a maid quickly coming towards her.

"No," said Yuffie in astonishment. "Wasn't she supposed to be in bed?"

The maid began to rub her arms nervously.

"Oh dear," she said. "It's my entire fault. I let her convince me to take her down to the estate library...I don't really know why..."

Yuffie smacked her forehead.

"That's Tifa," she mumbled. "Stubborn as a donkey."

The maid rubbed her arms even faster.

"Are there couches in the library?"

"Yes, miss. At the far end."

Yuffie smiled and nodded, no longer worried.

"She probably found a book and fell asleep on it in the library," said Yuffie. "Will you help me get her?"

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Yuffie and the nervous maid walked towards the end of the library. Peeved, Yuffie vowed to make sure that Tifa did not here the end of it. Although, the library was interesting...

"This place is big," Yuffie said to the maid. "Is this underground."

"Yes, miss. This estate is old."

The straight walk turned into a very slow stroll as Yuffie's curiosity got the better of her.

"Yeash, how many books does this guy have?"

Yuffie unwittingly came across the end of the room by herself. Walking backwards, she stared at the high ceiling. She turned around and was shocked at what she saw.

"Are they back there, Miss Kisaragi?"

The maid joined her and was shocked as well. They turned to each other, in bewilderment, and then stared back at the alarming sight.

Before them, on a soft couch, Tifa was sitting down. Cloud was lying down on the rest of the couch and using Tifa's lap as a pillow. And both were in peaceful sleep.

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And the real romance will start from this point on...