Chibi: Ah, Two. Good old Two. I like Two.
As always ... please review!
Two
"Tea or coffee, Teef?" Zack mumbled. He pushed past me into the kitchen (I'd been stood like an idiot in the doorway, staring at the stranger), running a hand wearily through his crazy, spiked hair and yawning. I suddenly felt very aware that I was dressed only in a pair of ancient, crumpled, paisley print pyjama bottoms and an old, lacy black vest top. I was also horribly aware that I wasn't wearing a bra.
"Tea, please." I stiffly moved forward and sat down at the table, sitting opposite the blonde boy, watching my brother as he fumbled around with the kettle – he was a new comer to the culinary arts – until I got up again, and shooed his hands away, filling the kettle up with water and putting it on the hotplate of the stove. Zack looked sheepish for a moment, before going over to the cupboard that Dad had opened earlier that evening, and producing a bottle of whiskey. As I ripped open a new box of teabags, dropping them one by one into the Bananafish tin that we kept them in, I watched Zack get down two glasses from another cupboard, and proceed to fill both of these glasses up with whiskey. He took a deep drink from one, and then put the other one in front of the blonde boy, who stared at it for a few minutes, before realising what it was and picking it up, drinking deeply from it.
The kettle began whistling, so I picked it up off of the stove, pulling down the hotplate lid as I did, and pouring the water liberally into my mug. I could feel the blonde boy's eyes on me as I sat back down again opposite him, using a teaspoon to dunk the teabag up and down, and then stirring in milk and sugar. After I had done this, I noticed that both Zack and this new boy had drained their glasses of whiskey, and Zack was pouring them another. No, he was pouring the boy another glass, and then he himself was drinking out of the bottle. I guessed my brother was in need of it – he was certainly drinking it down quick. I thought with a pang of guilt of Aerith lying upstairs in bed, asleep or waiting for Zack to come home, whilst he sat downstairs in the kitchen, knocking back whiskey. I wasn't sure of how much he'd had to drink that night, but I had a fair idea – his eyes were bloodshot and he looked very tired; a sure sign that he'd drunk a fair amount. The blonde boy looked only slightly better – his eyes weren't as bloodshot as Zack's. I watched him pick up his glass again, and take another long, deep drink from it, before rubbing at his eyes resignedly. Then he looked up at me, and I could see even through the tiredness and the red around his irises, the crystal blue stood out, shone brightly, almost too brightly in his pale face.
"Are you okay now?" he asked me.
"Huh?"
"You were crying…we could hear you…"
"Oh," I mumbled, and then I blushed deeply. I was pretty embarrassed, to tell the truth. I didn't really like people knowing that I was crying, so the fact that he and Zack had heard me crying was a bit weird, it felt like they'd read my diary or something. And the fact that they could hear me downstairs surely meant that I had woken Dad and Aerith up … and what must this strange, beautiful boy think of me? A girl my age, crying in her sleep? Crying so loud that everyone could hear? "Yeah … I had a bit of a bad dream." I managed to mutter, hoping we could end any talk about this subject, but to my surprise he nodded.
"I know what you mean," he murmured, before looking down into his glass, staring at the whiskey inside and looking as though he wanted to drown himself in it.
"This is my little sister, Tifa," Zack yawned. The boy nodded vaguely. "And Tifa, this is Cloud."
The name set off a bell in my head, and I looked at him studiously for a minute, trying to work out how I could remember the name. And then, I remembered coming down the stairs to grab a towel, just before my bath the previous day, and seeing Dad stood at the front door, listening to an excited Mrs. Ruvi (our aged next door neighbour who adores any gossip or news about the village) talk about a newcomer.
"… a strapping young lad he is, staying with his father, old Mr. Strife, for the summer … yes, some strange name, Sky or Bird or something … no, that's it, Cloud. Strange name if you ask me, but apparently his mother was some kind of earth child … but he's seems strong, very handsome (takes after his father if you ask me), and he offered to help me with my gardening, so he's picking my courgettes for me next Tuesday … they're coming along nicely, now, thank you for asking … it's this beautiful weather…" And so she continued, jabbering on about the weather and the village fete next month whilst my Dad stood there trying to nod and not yawn at the same time.
And here was the same, strapping young lad that Mrs. Ruvi had been so ecstatic about, in my kitchen, opposite me. She'd certainly describe him perfectly – young, strapping, strange name, handsome … he was undeniably beautiful – a phrase that had passed through my head as soon as I'd seen him.
"Are you … Mr. Strife's son?" I asked hesitantly.
"Yeah … Cloud Strife, that's me," he said. He was surprisingly soft-spoken – I had to lean right in close sometimes to just hear him. He sounded pretty calm, thanks to his soft voice, but I could see from the way he kept looking away from me and to the side, or into his whiskey glass, or even just a glance at Zack to reassure himself, that he was pretty nervous, or else rather embarrassed. It sounds strange, but the fact that he was so soft-spoken – never needed to raise his voice; the only time, I guessed, would be to yell, in pain or anger … I wasn't sure. But anyway, the fact that he spoke so softly sort of calmed me. I was pretty jumpy, early that morning, as I sat there sipping my tea delicately and watching my brother and this beautiful stranger, Cloud, drown themselves in whiskey, and so his soft voice sort of calmed me down. It relaxed me, made me sit back in my seat and drink my tea deeply, inhaling the warm aroma of it as I hid my face in the mug. I was hiding my face to hide the blush that was creeping over my face again. I guess it was the thought that Cloud's voice relaxed me made me all embarrassed again.
"Well," murmured Zack, screwing the top back on the considerably empty whiskey bottle and putting it back in the cupboard. "I think we should all go to bed. You want us to put you up for the night, Cloud?" Cloud shook his head.
"No … I should go home. My Dad might worry …" he gestured vaguely with his hand, and we nodded, as though that unclear gesture actually meant something to us. We nodded as though we understood, and, in a way – I guess we did.
"I'm going back to bed then," I mumbled. I was feeling quite drowsy again, to be honest. The tea, and meeting Cloud, and soothed me a bit, and I felt quite ready to go back to bed and face those nightmares, if they came, once more.
"Good night," Zack said. I kissed him softly on the cheek.
"Night," Cloud murmured. I nodded vaguely in his direction, and then muttered "Good night" to them both, before heading out of the kitchen and back into my bedroom. As I settled back down into my cool bed, with it crisp, white sheets that were inviting me back for an easy, dreamless sleep, I heard Zack say goodbye to Cloud, and then the front door opened and closed.
I knelt up on my bed, just like I had done a few hours previously to watch Aerith climb out of a taxi-cab, and I watched Cloud, this strange, beautiful boy walk away from my house. His hair was illuminated by the moonlight, and he stood out like a beacon. A beacon for what, though, I wasn't sure. Hope? Danger? Love? Happiness? Heart-break?
As I watched the boy I already felt strangely attached to; even then I knew it, deep in my heart – he turned, and looked straight up at my window. It was as though he was looking straight into my soul, and even in the darkness I could see those brilliant blue eyes of his, glowing and searching through me. Just looking at him made me feel even calmer, more relaxed. I would later remember this, on top of the mountain that over-shadowed our village, as the rain shot down and spattered against skin and mingled with blood. I would always remember this.
It never struck me to ask Zack why he and Aerith hadn't come home together, that night; why he and Cloud had returned to the house at a quarter past three in the morning, and why Cloud had come to our house in the first place. I never asked most of the former stuff, so I still don't know why to this day, but I did ask Zack, after everything had happened, why he invited Cloud back to our house. Zack told me that he thought Cloud would like to meet me.
"Why?" I asked.
"He seemed to need a woman in his life. Or a girl, for that matter. And I thought of you. It seemed like you would be able to make him happy."
Zack then went on to say about how he had always had a hunch, as soon as he put Cloud and me together that something phenomenal was going to happen, blah blah blah, in his usual I'm-always-right kind of way, and so I stopped listening at that point. But what had struck me was the fact that Zack had thought, upon meeting Cloud in the Gongaga Inn that night, that Cloud needed a woman in his life. It was funny how things like that always turned out to be true in the end.
The next morning, I took breakfast in the kitchen with Aerith, who had been up since eight o'clock, making waffles and looking as fresh as a daisy, and we waited patiently for Zack to wake up and join us. I was watching her potter about the kitchen, looking very at home, even going so far as to make my father tea in the exact way he liked it and take it to him in his study (Dad seemed to be softening towards Aerith); when the doorbell rang. So, I swallowed my mouthful, got up and dusted waffle crumbs off of my pyjama bottoms, padded across the cool tiles of the hallway and opened the door.
"So when the hell were you planning on telling me you were home, betch?" I felt myself smiling just upon hearing the words, even though my best friend had just used the lame word "betch". "I had to find out from fricking Kadaj Shinra that my best girlfriend was home!"
"I thought you liked Kadaj?"
"Yeah, well, it ain't his business to tell me when my best mate gets home, is it? I should be hearing that from you, girl!" As she said the words from you, Yuffie stepped forward and poked me hard in the chest. Then her frown melted away, and she smiled with me.
"Come here, girl," she muttered, and wrapped her arms around me. "Nice tan you got there. Non-existent, I like it. What you do, sit under an umbrella wrapped in a shawl all the fortnight?"
"Yeah, well, you know me, the Girl with the Porcelain Skin."
"Too right. I gave you that name, and I wouldn't want ya to ruin your reputation, now, would I?"
Yuffie Kisaragi had been my best friend ever since we were three years old, and met in nursery, when she hit me over the head with an inflatable bus. I loved her to pieces, and she had always been exceedingly bubbly and mad – the life and soul of any party – but even now, looking at her after I had been away for two weeks, she had definitely changed. Not just in appearance - although her hair had been chopped from it lovely long locks, that used to reach her waist and were the envy of nearly every girl in the village, to a short, choppy, stylish bob, and she was dressing differently again, with a pair of Rayban Wayfarers balanced on her nose (her family were stinking rich too) – but she was definitely becoming a bit, well, wild. I could see, even through the dark lenses of the glasses, that she hadn't slept at all last night, as there her slightly tanned skin looked pale and tired, and there were large, dark circles under her eyes. I could also see a huge, painful looking love-bite on her neck, although she had clearly tried to cover it a bit with concealer.
"So, you were out last night?" I asked her, stepping back to let her in. She stepped inside, and I closed the door behind her. She slipped off her glasses, pushing them onto the top of her head, and I could see her wincing at the bright light of the hallway. I knew the signs of a Yuffie Hangover, and these were as obvious as hell.
"Yeah … does it show?" I nodded.
"Someone's left their mark." She winced again, and prodded the bruise on her neck gingerly. "So who did that?"
"Fricking Yazoo. Last time I let him buy me a vodka-cranberry…I asked for a single, but that was definitely a triple…" I nodded as though I understood. Yeah, like I was a part of this world where love-bites from random strangers, alcohol and staying up all night were the main attractions. Yuffie had always been popular with the boys in our village. She was about as popular with the boys as Zack has been with the girls. I can still remember only a year before, shortly after she'd turned fourteen, Yuffie bounding up to me at school, and proudly declaring that she had lost her virginity the night before to one Reno Beck. They had only been going out for a week. And they only lasted another week after that. But Yuffie was pretty much the object of desire for all of the boys in Gongaga. Each year, she ended up with one boy for most of the summer, and this summer, she'd picked Kadaj Shinra.
"So, get your togs on."
"Huh?"
"Get some nice clothes on! We're going out!"
"Out where?"
"To Midgar!"
"What? That's three hours away by train! I don't have the money for that!"
"It's only two hours by car, if you know the right routes! And I got us a lift with someone who does!"
"Who?
"It's a surprise! Now, come on!" She grabbed my hand and yanked me up the stairs towards my room. I thought sadly of the remaining half of my waffle, sitting down there in the kitchen on a plate, drowned in maple syrup, slowly growing cold. I have to say, I was fairly used to Yuffie coming up with mad, spur of the moment ideas. But I wasn't really willing to take a two hour trip to Midgar. I shook my head, and sank down wearily on my unmade bed as Yuffie wrenched open my wardrobe and began deciding on my outfit.
I'm not a big style queen, or a fashion like follower Yuffie, preferring to spend the summer in shorts and t-shirts and the winter in jeans and jumpers, but I have nice clothes that Yuffie made me buy when we went out shopping. And so, it was these clothes that Yuffie began pulling out of my wardrobe.
I looked at her, then, and began taking in her outfit. She was dressed in an impossibly short yellow denim miniskirt, a sheer, white, lacy blouse, the Raybans, and a pair of incredibly high stacked black wedges. She looked amazing, I had to say, but she also looked like a slut. I wondered then where in Midgar she wanted us to go, and if she was going to dress me in something similar.
"Here, put this on!" She called, handing me a dress. I wasn't sure if I should wear it out in the middle of the day. It was more of a party dress. But, looking at what Yuffie was wearing, I could have got away with it in church on a Sunday. So I pulled off my pyjama bottoms and black vest, selected some clean underwear from my drawer and began getting dressed.
"And these, they're great…" Yuffie was mumbling, throwing down a pair of heels she had tricked me into buying on our last shopping trip. They had been impossibly expensive, and had cost about three months worth of pocket money from Dad. But they were nice. Although extremely high. I was quite worried about what Dad and Zack were going to say when they saw me dressed like a hooker.
"You're so lucky you don't need makeup." Yuffie sighed. She closed my wardrobe and sat down carefully on the floor, waiting for me to finish. She sat patiently in my room as I brushed my teeth, packed my handbag and sprayed myself with perfume. She then bounded down the stairs, pulling me with her, and tried to stifle a giggle as I guiltily stole thirty gil from Dad's wallet, which had been left on the table in the hall. And then, I yelled a quick goodbye to everyone and let Yuffie drag me out of the house.
The surprise was that we were to travel to Midgar in the back of Kadaj Shinra's van. Yeah, in his van. After yesterday, up at the mountain, I didn't want to spend any time with that boy whatsoever, but it looked like I was going to be stuck for the next two hours in his van. And it wasn't just him, either. No, his creepy friends who I couldn't stand, and were known as "rebels" throughout the village, were with us, cramped in the back of Kadaj's van. I recognised Yazoo immediately, with his long silver hair and feminine face (he looked like a girl, but I thought it rude and dangerous to voice this opinion – there were rumours that he carried a gun on him at all times), and there was also a man I had only seen a couple of times briefly when accompanying my father to the inn, and his name was Loz. He was a big, beefy, threatening kind of guy, who looked to be in his mid-twenties. His hair, unlike Kadaj and Yazoo's, was cut short and spiky, and he sat there, staring at me from across the van, a set of knuckledusters on his fingers that he kept stroking. They were pretty ominous and threatening looking – kind of spiky. I wondered briefly what it would feel like to have them driven into your face, which would surely happen if the wearer were to punch you, but it wasn't something I really wanted to test.
As we sat there, me trying to angle my legs in such a way that Loz and Yazoo couldn't see up my dress and Yuffie jabbering away to all three of the men in the car, I could feel Kadaj watching me through the rear-view mirror of the car. I glanced up, and he caught my eye, giving me a lecherous wink. I tried not to grimace and looked away. I didn't fancy finding out what it would be like to be chucked out of a speeding car, which was surely what he'd do if I got on the wrong side of him. There were rumours that Kadaj was bipolar, and I could see what people meant – his personality could change just like that. He could be a sort of easy going guy one minute, and then be violent and threatening the next. Not for the first time, I wondered why on earth my brother was friends with Kadaj Shinra.
Yuffie pulled out a packet of cigarettes, and shoved one in her mouth, fumbling around in her pocket for a lighter. It was nothing to be shocked about – Yuffie had made it very public on many occasions that she had been smoking twenty a day for a few years, and her mother often bought packets for her. She offered me one and I shook my head. I wasn't new to it either – when we were young it had felt like an exciting and rebellious thing to do. But right now, I felt that it would make me sick. Yuffie kept searching for a lighter, until Yazoo fished one out of his pocket and chucked it to her.
"Tar," she mumbled, lighting the cigarette dangling precariously from her lip. I saw Kadaj look up and into the rear-view mirror, and his eyes narrowed.
"What the-? No, no smoking in the back of my van!"
"Aw, c'mon Kadaj, like you've never smoked before?" Yuffie giggled.
"Smoking in the front is fine, where we can have the window open! I don't want this truck to stink of smoke just because you needed a fag!" Yuffie sighed in a big, dramatic way, and then stood up, wobbling unsteadily as the van bounced over a pothole, still giggling the entire time. Then she clambered very ungracefully through the gap of the front two seats, over the handbrake and settled down, taking a deep drag of her cigarette. I noticed that whilst she had taken this short journey, the entire van had gotten a very good look at her hot pink lace thong. I shook my head and tried to concentrate on not being sick. I didn't know if it was travel sickness or just the smoke or just the fact that we had all seen up Yuffie's skirt, but I was feeling very nauseous and I was pretty sure that anything else disgusting, be it a lecherous wink or another look at Yuffie's lingerie, would make me hurl all over the back of Kadaj Shinra's van.
We bounced over another pothole, and I was sent flying forward, straight into Yazoo's lap. I felt myself blushing furiously, and tried in vain to pull my dress down even further. He grinned at me, a sleazy, unwelcome grin, and I had to swallow a mouthful of vomit. I stood up shakily, and stumbled back over to my side of the van again, but not before Yazoo had given me a sharp slap on the backside. I ignored this, not really wanting to make a scene.
Yuffie twisted round, her ass up in the air and her elbows leaning on the headrest of her chair. She took another long, showy drag of her cigarette, and offered me it. I shook my head again.
"It's just a cigarette, girl. Not gonna kill ya. You ain't said no before."
"I just don't feel like it right now."
"Your Daddy does it."
"I know. But he doesn't offer me them, does he?" I tried to keep the irritable tone out of my voice, not wanting to start an argument with Yuffie, but it was pretty apparent. She didn't offer me one again.
Instead, she carried on chatting to us, well, Yazoo, Loz and Kadaj with me making 'mm' noises in agreement now and then. The journey seemed to last forever, and Kadaj was proving to be a reckless driver. But then, just as I thought I might actually vomit, he announced:
"And here's Midgar, folks!"
I looked up, through the windscreen, and sure enough we were in the city centre. It was impossibly busy, even though it was a Wednesday, with about a million cars circulating the roundabout at a time. It was smoky, hazy and noisy – completely the opposite of what I was used to. But it was exciting. Almost thrilling. I had only been here once before, to drop Zack off at university, and we hadn't seen much of the city. But Zack had given us the details we needed – it was a big shopping city, with numerous bars and clubs, but it was dirty. From our place in the middle of a traffic jam, I could see rats on the pavements, trying to avoid the heavy feet of pedestrians and eventually seeking refuge down the drains and in the sewers.
"Where to, Yuff?" Kadaj asked. He slapped her playfully on the backside, and she gave him a slow, seductive grin. Such was the way of Yuffie Kisaragi. I could tell already that she was going to find it very hard to hold out for the entire summer. She never did normally, anyway.
"Any shopping mall…and we'll meet you back outside the mall in four hours, 'kay?"
"Sounds good," Kadaj murmured, manoeuvring the car across a junction and pulling up in front of an enormous shopping centre. There was no back door in the van, or if there was, no one was willing to open it for me and enlighten me as to its whereabouts, so I had to take the journey through the front two seats, just as Yuffie had done, to get out. I was pretty certain that all three men got a good look at my underwear too. I was just relieved that I hadn't chosen the same type of lingerie as Yuffie.
With just a cheery wave to Kadaj, Yuffie pulled me towards the entrance of the shopping mall. I waited for the sound of the van pulling away, and I wondered briefly what Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo were planning on doing in Midgar (business? Shopping? I didn't think so) but the sound never came. I could still hear the soft purring of the van, letting me know that it was still switched on and ready to roar off at the flick of a wrist and a slight pressure on a pedal, but it wasn't moving. And when I turned, just before we went inside the complex, I saw Kadaj, just staring at us out of the door window. He saw me looking, gave a horrible, sordid grin, and then, the van kicked into motion once more, and it pulled away from the pavement, roaring off down the street.
It was quite relaxing, actually. Walking with my best friend, however mad and sluttish she may be with a seedy taste in lingerie; dipping in and out of shops and trying on nice new clothes, the warm feeling of having money in my pocket. Well, in my purse. It ought to have been fun. And for a while, it was. We meandered along through the mall, and we stopped in our favourite shops, and tried on pretty clothes, ridiculously expensive shoes, mad hats and strange scarves, all the while giggling. But pretty soon, as I watched Yuffie buy hundreds of gil's of clothes, handing over thick wedges of notes over as easy as anything (I guessed it was a token of Kadaj's affection, as Yuffie was always infamously broke), the warm feeling I'd had of money in my purse turned to an icy cold feeling, that froze my body as we walked. I knew what the feeling was, it was guilt – the guilt of knowing that I shouldn't have taken the money, I had only taken it to spend of stupid clothes when I knew that my Dad needed it more than I did, he didn't earn much as a writer and his bank account was running low. The house kitty – a small, ceramic pot in the shape of a frog with its mouth open that stood on the kitchen windowsill – had always been pretty full of money, notes and coins and the like; but since Mum had died, and Dad had turned even more towards his good, and sometimes only, friend whiskey, that little pot had recently only held a couple of golden coins.
I made myself promise to put the money back into his wallet as soon as I got home. It was pretty easy not to spend it, actually – unlike Yuffie I did not have a large obsession with buying new clothes, and I wasn't particularly tempted by the fast-food restaurants lining the mall. So I just sat back and watched, occasionally laughing with her, sometimes at her, as Yuffie tried on crazy clothes, bought expensive, beautiful clothes and pranced about, preening and flirting with the male shop assistants in impossibly revealing clothes. I felt quite embarrassed for at some points – didn't she realise she was making a fool of herself? – but most of the time I just felt a bit weird, a feeling that most probably came from knowing that my best friend had, as she seemed to have threatened to do for the last couple of years, veered out of my control.
After about two hours, Yuffie claimed herself to be "shopped out", as she put it, and we left the shopping mall, Yuffie laden with numerous shopping bags and me swinging my little handbag, through a different entrance. We were soon lost in a maze of backstreets, filled with dodgy looking bars and equally dodgy looking men. I hoped we would turn around, and try and get back into mall, and find some other exit to leave through, but to my surprise, anger and annoyance, Yuffie turned to me, grinned, and giggled: "Let's go get a drink in that bar!"
That bar was a dark, dingy looking bar that would no doubt be thriving at night time. It wasn't the kind of place I had in mind to sit down in.
It wasn't hard for us to get in – the doorman just glanced at our short skirts, Yuffie grinned at him, biting her lip and pulling down the neckline of her blouse a little more, so that even more cleavage was on show, and he just waved us in. I can remember to this day the horribly excited looking smile he gave us as we tottered on inside, as if letting such young, soft, nubile flesh in was purely his pleasure. Or it could have just been Yuffie's deep cleavage, I'm not sure, but that smile always came to me whenever someone mentioned the word "porn" afterwards. I'm not entirely sure why.
Inside, the bar was relatively empty. There was music playing – loud, thumping music that had an all too familiar tune playing somewhere amidst the shouts and general talk of the people in the building. There was an upstairs area, where there were soft sofas and armchairs seated around low tables, and the lighting wasn't so harsh up there. I was hoping to go up there, to relax and maybe put up my feet, when suddenly Yuffie screamed loudly: "RENO?"
And just like that, she'd grabbed my arm, and was dragging me up the stairs to the upstairs area behind her, until we stopped in front of a fairly familiar redhead, seated on a soft looking sofa.
"Reno, you sonofabitch, why didn't ya tell me you were still here?"
And then she hugged him tightly. She sat down happily next to him, in the middle of the sofa, grinning widely and introducing herself to the big black guy sat down on the other end of the sofa. Reno, a redheaded boy (the very same who'd dated Yuffie) who we'd known from school and now attended Midgar University with Zack, and who had seemingly recently acquired some strange red tattoos underneath his eyes that stood out vividly on his pale skin; stood up to kiss me on the cheek.
"Hey Teef," he yelled over the music. "You look great, as always!"
"You too!" I screamed back.
"This is Rude!" Reno bellowed, gesturing to the bald, black guy, who was for some strange reason wearing a suit and sunglasses indoors, and whom Yuffie was talking to animatedly, and Rude nodded at me. I sat myself down on one of the armchairs nearby, and Reno yelled in my ear that he was off to get some drinks.
We drank a lot. We hadn't meant to, but Reno had insisted on buying round after round. It didn't seem to affect me whilst I was sitting down, numbly knocking back shots and nodding when Reno offered to get another round. But once Yuffie had checked her watch, and announced that we needed to meet Kadaj, and I had stood up, I could feel the effect of the alcohol. So, I guess, I was pretty drunk as we tripped out of the club and into the maze of backstreets beyond it.
I don't exactly remember the journey back to the van, or how we managed to find our way back into the mall, I just remember stumbling out of the entrance of the mall, and checking my purse to find that I'd lost the money I'd been intending to return to my father. I felt pretty ashamed of myself, to be honest. Stealing money from dad, getting stupidly drunk underage … but I felt even more ashamed of myself when the van loomed into view, and leant against it, talking to Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo were Zack and Cloud, the strangely beautiful boy from that early that morning. I felt myself blushing with shame and embarrassment as Yuffie and I tripped over our own feet in an effort to get to the van. I didn't know why Zack and Cloud were here, in Midgar, but as I tried to ask Zack I tripped again, and he roughly grabbed my arm and hauled me upright. He was swaying nauseously in and out of my line of vision, but even through my drunken stupor I could see the surprise, anger and disappointment in his eyes.
"What the fuck do you think you're playing at, Tifa?" he hissed. I could see Cloud looking away in embarrassment, which made my face flush even deeper. I think it was the fact that Cloud was seeing me in such a vulnerable, disgusting state that did it. I tried to make my fuggy brain focus, but it didn't do much good – all I could really see were the wavering images of Zack and Cloud, projected into my eyes as though through a dirty lens.
"You're lucky that I'm not gonna tell Dad that I found you in fucking Midgar, of all places, drunk!"
"What the hell are you doing here, anyway?" I managed to mumble, with only the hint of a slur.
"Cloud and I were just picking up the rest of my stuff from the dorm. We came by train, but Kadaj offered us a lift back. I'm glad I did, now." He fixed me with a serious, disappointed look, and then looked around, almost furtively, before leaning in close, to whisper in my ear: "What the hell are you doing, anyway, catching lifts with Kadaj, to bloody Midgar, for God's sake?"
"Yuffie's idea…"
"Ah," he said, almost understandingly, but I could tell he didn't understand. He'd never really trusted Yuffie, and I could finally see why. "Her prey for the summer?" I nodded. "Got it."
"You coming or what, Fair?" Kadaj yelled, beeping the horn of the van violently. He was leaning out of the van window, having evidently climbed in, along with everybody else. A back door to the van had been revealed and opened, my seat awaiting me inside. Zack moved to get into the passenger seat next to Kadaj, but then he stopped, and pulled off his jumper.
"Cover yourself up a bit, you can practically see your ass," he muttered, handing it to me. I nodded slowly, my mind taking a while to digest this information in its intoxicated state, and I then pulled it on. Thankfully, it came to just above my knees. I then tried to climb into the back of the van. I stumbled, and almost fell flat on my face on the floor of the van, but I managed to catch myself in time. Nobody bothered helping me anyway.
The only seat left was next to Cloud, who was sitting, staring – in a seemingly moody way, but I later found out that he was just nervous being around so many new people, and being around me – at the floor, across the way from Loz, Yazoo and Yuffie, who I noticed with some disgust had climbed onto Yazoo's lap and was kissing him feverishly. I had to remind myself over and over that she - and, of course, I – was drunk, but it was still a pretty sluttish and gruesome display of affection. I could see Kadaj watching them vaguely in the van mirror, but if he cared he didn't show it. I remember thinking at the time, whilst sorting through the jumble of words and images in my intoxicated mind, if Yuffie was doing this with Yazoo to make Kadaj jealous. He didn't really seem to be, but then it was always hard to tell with him.
He had evidently taken something – I wasn't sure what, though – because his eyes were as wide as saucers, and his movements were wild and jerky, which became worse as he started driving down the road, and then pulling out riskily onto the motorway at top speed. His hands twitched on the steering wheel, as though restless.
"How bout TUNES, Fair? Huh? Yeah hah, tunes!" He yelled, looking at Zack expectantly. Zack shrugged in a bored manner, but Kadaj was not perturbed. He twisted back dangerously, taking his eyes off of the road, and looked back at us in the back of the van.
"How bout you, Cloudy BOY? You want some effing TUNES? I got tunes, yeah, I got every music-"
"-Just drive the car." Cloud muttered. Kadaj twisted back round to face the road.
"Yesserie, I'll drive the car, I can do that, old Strife…Strifey boy…" He was acting as though he belonged in a mental ward, and I began worrying for our safety when I leant forwards and saw on the speedometer how fast he was driving. I began wishing we could get home as soon as possible.
We were about halfway home, still on the motorway, when it happened. The van bounced – over a pothole, I presume – and the movement sent me flying, once again, across the van, this time into Loz's lap. I blushed, and stood up shakily, meaning to stagger back over to my side of the van, but he suddenly yanked me back down again. The feel of his hands in me, through the hooded material and on the bare skin of my thighs, made my skin crawl, and I fought the urge to vomit all over him, although that would have given quite a rewarding reaction. I merely glared at him, swallowing my mouthful of vomit like I had earlier that day, when I had found myself thrown at Yazoo, and tried to pull away, but he held on fast, his fingers digging into the flesh of my thighs.
"Let me go!" He ignored me, and I tried prising his fingers off of my thighs, one by one, but it was like trying to bend a metal rod – he was just too strong. "Get off!"
Cloud looked up at that point, and Zack turned around in his seat. At the same time, they registered the sight of me struggling to get out of Loz's lap, saw him holding on with a grin full of malice; they saw my fear, panic and desperation, and they saw the bruises slowly rising on my legs from his fingers.
"What are you doing?" Zack yelled.
"Get off her!" Cloud shouted - the loudest dialogue I had yet heard from him.
It was like they were yelling at a deaf man. But even a deaf man would be able to see the anger, pure rage, on their faces, and would have wisely let go of me. But Loz was neither deaf nor wise, just apparently stupid, and so he just held on to me, seemingly oblivious of the shouts of three different people and the girl struggling to get away from his grip.
"Please, let go!" I begged, feeling the onset of tears by the sting in my eyes. It was painful, now – it felt like metal claws clamped around my legs.
Zack seemed to snap at that point. I don't know if it was his anger that Loz was ignoring him, or the rage of seeing his little sister in such obvious pain, but something made him explode. At the time, none of us were very sure about what was happening. We were just suddenly spinning around and around, being bashed mercilessly against the sides of the van, until we smashed into something very solid and the spinning stopped. But, thinking back on it now, I can sort of form a little scene in my head, and work out exactly what happened: Zack threw himself between the two front seats, in an effort to pull me away from Loz, but knocked Kadaj as he did so. This sent the steering wheel spinning wildly out of control, which resulted in the van flying around in circles and finally smashing into the barrier at the side of the motorway.
We were lucky we all survived, what with the oncoming traffic as we span around. We all got a bit banged up from being bashed into the sides of the van, but other than that we were okay. Physically, anyway. I was shaking badly as we got out of the van, and Zack suddenly appeared and wrapped an arm around me. I watched, around the rise and fall of Zack's chest, Kadaj assess the damage done to the front of his van, and then there was a sudden yell of pain. We all turned, and saw Loz rubbing his jaw angrily, which was rapidly reddening, and then took in Cloud, stood there with his fists clenched, and we all managed to put two and two together. But Loz seemed to feel the need to help us, anyway.
"You hit me, you bastard!" he roared.
"You should have let go of her when she told you to."
"You'll pay for that!" Loz launched himself at Cloud, clearly meaning to punch him, and I winced at the thought of those knuckle dusters smashing into Cloud's face. But he never managed to do that, because Zack intervened, stepping between the two of them and pushing Loz away.
"Come on," he muttered. "We can sort this out another time. Right now, we need to figure out how to get home."
"No," Kadaj said suddenly. "I can drive this van home. You two," he pointed at Zack and Cloud, "need to figure out how to get home. And you can take your bitch with you."
I guess it was the unfairness of the situation, the injustice, the very idea that we were to be left on the side of a motorway miles from anywhere and it wasn't our fault, that made me do it. I'm not entirely sure; it could have just been my drunken mind being daft. But I suddenly reached out and slapped Kadaj Shinra as hard as I could around the face. It was as though I was perfectly sober, and it felt good, satisfying to do it, but I knew as soon as I saw his face that it had been a mistake. He looked absolutely livid – his eyes were wide again, the pupils tiny pinpricks in a mass of green, and he was breathing in a strangely heavy way.
"You bitch!" He bellowed, and grabbed hold of my wrist tightly, so tight it hurt and I yelled in pain, but Zack stepped forward again and wrenched Kadaj Shinra's hand off of my wrist.
"Don't you ever touch my sister!"
Kadaj just stood there, panting, his eyes wide and staring, before turning angrily on his heel and climbing into the van. Loz and Yazoo followed suit without a word, but Yuffie hesitated. She had one foot in the van, and one foot on the roadside. She looked from Kadaj, inside the van and twitching angrily, to me, giving her pleading looks. I thought for a minute she was going to shut the van door and join me, Zack and Cloud, but instead she just gave a half-hearted shrug, as though to say "What can ya do?" and then hopped into the back of the van and slamming the door shut behind her. The van drove off quickly, careering briefly across the road before returning to the left and leaving us be.
It was a pretty awful feeling, watching my best friend drive away without me. I felt like yelling in anger, but I realised Zack must be feeling it to. Kadaj was his best friend, after all. But as I studied his face, as he watched the rapidly distant growing van, I couldn't read him. His face was blank, he was sending off zero signals and his body language was unnaturally wooden. I guess he was just shocked. I wasn't surprised at what Kadaj had done, but he seemed to be. Zack didn't know Kadaj like I did.
But now, we were stuck on the roadside, miles away from anywhere and over two hours away from Gongaga by foot, and it was growing dark. Things were not brightening up, nor looking up, in the least.
Chibi: There it is, folks! Hope you enjoyed it. Sorry about swearing. I can't exactly pretend it doesn't happen in real life ...
Anyway, thank you for reading, and it would be great if you could please drop a review. See you in the next chapter!