Chapter 6

~ Flirt Flirt Revenge ~

"So, Vincent, what have you been doing since we last saw you?" Tifa asked.

It was late afternoon and Seventh Heaven was about to open. Vincent had been on his way through Edge to meet with Reeve and so had decided to drop by. Cloud and Tifa had both been pleasantly surprised by it, and, with Tifa's shy encouragement, Cloud had decided to take the night off.

"Gathering intel on Shinra and the new oil companies that are establishing themselves," Vincent replied.

They continued with more small talk until Tifa realised the time with a small gasp. She flipped the "open" sign at the front of the bar and turned on all the lights, illuminating the bar's logo outside. Cloud and Vincent moved to sit on the stools near the end of the bar to make more room for the customers. The regulars soon poured in, then the occasional customers, then some new faces and so on. Vincent found himself enjoying the atmosphere. As he and Cloud drank their drinks Vincent's eyes wondered around the bustle of bodies clinging about the tables. Eventually his dark eyes steadied, and he found himself watching how Tifa interacted with the customers. After some time he decided to relay his observations to Cloud:

"If she flirted more she'd get more tips," he said, nodding his head in Tifa's direction as she took an order from a male customer.

Cloud looked up at him and then watched Tifa himself. He could see where Vincent was coming from. When he went to bars as he travelled around himself the bartenders would often flirt with him. They were always, or at least usually, women and girls. It didn't make him tip any more or any less himself, but he had seen how it worked on other men.

Tifa soon approached them again.

"Tifa, you should try flirting to get more tips," Cloud said innocently.

Tifa stopped what she was doing and gave him an icy look.

"What makes you think I need more tips?"

"I'm not saying you need them, just that you'd get more if you flirted once in a while."

"And what exactly would the Cloud Strife define as flirting?"

"I don't know." Cloud struggled as he raked his thoughts. "Raise your eyebrows a little, wink once in a while, toss your hair, smile a little more, squint your eyes a little, giggle, laugh..."

With every word Tifa's frown deepened to the extent that Vincent thought she was about to eat him alive. The poor guy was clueless, and he continued to try to define what flirting was to her.

She suddenly interrupted Cloud mid-way through his list, "Alright, Cloud! If you insist!" and hastily strutted off to the other end of the bar.

Vincent had watched the whole exchange uncomfortably, resisting the urge to shift under his cloak.

"Are you... okay with that, Cloud?" Vincent asked tentatively.

"Yeah, if all the other female bartenders do it to get more money then I don't see why Tifa shouldn't."

Vincent let out a sigh into the high collar of his red cloak.

You'll see, Cloud

***

A few afternoons later and Cloud was finding it hard to concentrate on his maps. She'd got more tips, sure, but the number of men checking her out had tripled within the space of the first hour on the very first night, and, because she was flirting just as he'd suggested she should, he couldn't tell if she was enjoying it or not. The after effects were becoming more evident in the afternoon rush for lunch. Plenty of workmen and builders came in from the major construction going on just down the street, much more than usual. He was hoping the construction would hurry up and finish.

He forced his eyes to avert from the burly men populating the tables and get on with planning his routes. As he traced his way back to a little stronghold in a corner of the Junon region he suddenly found a certain feeling irking him again, that want to turn around and check that she wasn't being pestered, bothered or... enjoying herself. He heard yet another set of heavy, confident footfalls moving across the floor towards her at the bar. His eyes flicked up briefly but he forced himself to look down again. He was just getting paranoid. It would just be another looser like all the rest. There was nothing to worry about.

Then she was laughing again in that modestly flirtatious way that was driving him mad.

Don't look up. Don't look up.

The tip of his pencil suddenly flew into his face as it snapped under the pressure of his frustration, his fierce pushing of it into the table. He placed the pencil down, defeated, on the table-top, and folded his arms where he sat. He pushed his shoulders back into the hard wood of the chair. After a few moments he finally gave into temptation and looked over to the bar. There she was with her smouldering eyes, soft lips, delicately caressing her dark hair back behind her ear whenever it fell down over her face, with that sexy smile, smoothed over voice, uncommon, breath-taking beauty, all while she teased and giggled at all the men as they ogled back at her, trying not to fumble their order.

He was going to snap.

Then he realised who and what she was talking to and his frustration suddenly stilled. His concentration honed in on the new man at the bar. He stood up and walked slowly into a position with a better view. The man was bulky in a muscular way, good looking, dressed smarter than the others which suggested he was doing quite well for himself but, most importantly, he was perfectly mirroring everything Tifa did. He was definitely flirting back.

When the good looking guy with the muscular shoulders and smart suit finally finished his drink he left with a big wave to Tifa who gave a small wave back. Cloud finally decided to approach the bar.

"Do you want something, Cloud?" she asked with a smile; her normal, sweet smile.

"Maybe you shouldn't flirt as much."

She paused slightly as she took another glass from the shelf.

"What makes you say that? I'm getting plenty more tips just like you said I would."

"Yes, but you're attracting some of the wrong kind of attention."

"Oh?"

"Just watch out for ex-SOLDIERs, okay? I know what they're like."

He began to move back from behind the bar when Tifa stopped him, "Cloud, thank you."

He nodded his head and returned to his table. There he took back up his pencil, sharpened it, and got back on with his route planning. The bustle of the mid-day hours eventually died down; the workmen filtered back to their construction sites; the women with their young children walked back to their nearby homes; the regulars took their last gulps of beer and then gave Tifa their friendly and casual wink goodbye each, and then, once the bar was finally to themselves again, Tifa began to clear down the tables.

All the while Cloud sat calmly. But when the last customer shut the bar's door behind him the loud sound jerked him out of his calmness and he looked down at the jagged, hard pencil line that had verred and bisected a large section of the Junon region only an hour or so before. He remembered the distraction that had caused it, the strange feeling of annoyance, suspicion and anger, and the increasingly intense need to become aggressive towards every other man in the room. The muscles of his back twinged a little as he re-lived the strong physical reaction of his body.

I guess... I just don't like it when other men look at her.