Sooo, we withheld this chapter until we got some reviews. And we kind of left it on a backburner for a while.
Anyways, enjoy it.
"Where ya goin'?" He says as he walks through the door. Normally, I'd respond quickly and continue about my business, but I'm kinda shirtless in front of a gay guy.
"Uhm… Date. My girlfriend."
"Oh…" Zack kinda strolls in and flumps down on his bed. He must still be sick from earlier. Wonder what's wrong with him? Wonder if its contagious? Oh, God, what if he has AIDS? No, they wouldn't put someone with AIDS around healthy people… Would they?
Can't worry about him right now. That's pretty heartless, but it's none of my business and he said he was fine. Gotta get ready and get going; Tifa will be pissed if I'm late… Again. For, like, the ninth time since we've been dating.
"You going somewhere fancy?" He's probably talking about the fact that I look like I'm going to a black-tie auction or something. Black pants, white button-up, polished shoes: The name's Bond. Cloud Bond.
"Not really. Tifa just likes me to get dressed up for dates, is all."
"Ah…" Zack's kind of weirding me out. He's all curled up on the side of the bed closest to the wall. He looks like me when I was all emo in high school. That was before I met Tifa and Cid and people.
Ugh, if I don't ask, I'm gonna feel like a bastard. I lean over him with my jacket over my shoulder. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"Yeah, I'm good."
"Alright, as long as you're sure."
I'll spare you the details of my date; Mostly because it wasn't such a good date. Tifa said I wasn't as focused on her as I should be. I honestly don't know where my head was but I know it wasn't with her. Dammit.
I know where it was. It was in my dorm room, wondering if Zack had died or something just yet. But I'm not worrying in a gay way; I'm worrying in a friendly way. I'll be friends with him, if he manages to worm his way into a friendship, but I don't want to be his boyfriend.
When I get back, I hear giggling. Female giggling. So, I knock on the door. Like, maybe I walked into the wrong dorm.
A girl opens the door. I'm at an all-men's school, in the dorms, and a girl opens the door. Not as busty as Tifa but still pretty and a billion times more feminine. Screw Tifa, I'm getting laid tonight!
"Oh… You must be… Zack's roommate… Cloud, right?" She's even hotter when she's confused.
"Uhm, yeah…"
"Nice to meet you. I'm Aeris Gainborough, Zack's friend." She sticks her hand out to shake. I'm nowhere near as suave as Vincent, who would probably kiss her hand at this point, so I just shake like the puppy dog I probably look like.
"I'm… Cloud Strife. His roommate."
She smiles. Great smile. Zack didn't fall for her? Or maybe he did, she rejected him and he still wants to be friends…
So I trail this Aeris into my own room. Zack is laying on his bed (I refuse to say "our bed"), eating what look like chocolate-covered potato chips. No wonder he's sick, if he's eating that. "Welcome back. How'd your date go?"
I might bare some fangs. "Nothing. How've you been?"
"Pretty well. Aeris came over and we've been watching Two Weeks Notice."
A chick flick? That's a chick flick. "Cool."
"It's awesome. Almost over though."
I observe the random lovey dovey on the screen. "Adorable."
"Isn't it?" Aeris practically swoons. Which one of these two actually elected this drivel as a movie?
So I sit on the floor and watch a bit more. It gets really old really fast. Don't get me wrong; Tifa likes this, so I watch them, but they're nowhere near my first choice. Then the movie ends. Zack stretches, gets up and gives Aeris a hug. Hands nowhere near her butt. "Thanks, Aeris. This was good."
"I'm glad," she says, cuddling him. I wonder if it was Zack who had the crush on her or vice versa?
She leaves without crying anyways, leaving me with Zack and a box of PMS killers (as Tifa calls chocolate-covered potato chips). "So, uh…"
"You ready to turn in?" He says quickly. Is he, like, eager to go to sleep? Oh shit… Nu-uh, man…
"Not quite."
"So, really, how'd your date go?"
"It sucked. Tifa thought my mind was somewhere else."
He pouts and stashes the chips in his desk. "Was it?"
"Kinda… I was mostly wondering if you… were… okay…" Am I blushing? AGH! Gay!!
Zack doesn't take it that way, thank God. He just kinda smiles. "Thanks, man, but you shouldn't get your girlfriend mad at you because of me."
"Yeah… You're right…"
"Call her," he says as I'm digging my cell-phone out. Read my mind, why don't you?
She picks up on the third ring. It's a tactic that I've seen her use on other people to make them worry. Like, if she's pissed at Yuffie, she'll do that to make Yuffie sweat. Mean, but highly effective. "Hello?"
"Hey, Tifa."
"Hey," she says, still sounding kinda pissed.
"Listen, about tonight, I'm sorry."
"You should be." I cringe. She's not pissed; She's downright bitchy. Then she warms up like spring. "I'm sorry too, though."
"It's alright. My bad anyways." Zack cuddles into bed. Looks like he's going to sleep.
So, Tifa and I chat for a bit longer, about half an hour, until we say our goodbyes and I'm faced with Zack's back. His asleep back. I've avoided another night of rape. Huzzah!
In Trig, Weiss calls me over to his desk after class.
"Yes, professor?"
"It's Weiss."
"Yes, p-Weiss?"
"Listen, as you can probably imagine, I'm not a nice person. At all. Honestly." And I believe him. Weiss is scary. I heard that, a few days ago, some Jenova's Witnesses went to his apartment and they still aren't speaking in clear English.
"Um, okay… Sir…"
"So, you could imagine, that the few people I do like, I like them immensely. Nero, for example." I nod, because this makes sense. "But also my nephew, the one family member who hasn't estranged us." I raise my eyebrow, but keep nodding.
"That's… good, sir. I'm happy that you have family."
"Everyone has family, Strife, some just have family who like them. Now, pay attention; You know my nephew well enough and you haven't abandoned him yet. Which is good. I would have been far stricter with you if you hadn't. Advanced Trigonometry would have become your personal hell."
More nodding. I feel like a bobble-head.
"So, this is what I want you to do. If you do this, my class will only be a purgatory, rather than a hell. My nephew, I need you to be gentle with him. He's going through a hard time right now. Talk to him. You don't have to be his friend if you don't wish to, I understand that you can't force these things, but be someone he can talk to."
"Well, who's your nephew?" I try to think about who this whack job's nephew could be. Probably someone crazy, like Cid, or someone just plain creepy, like Kadaj.
"Your roommate. Zack Fair. My dearest nephew. I'll call him what I like."
When Weiss says that, I get this interesting sinking feeling in my guts. I have to talk about feelings with a gay guy. And… Am I alone in this classroom with Weiss!? Oh shit…
"Sure… Uhm… Yeah… I can do that."
"Glad to hear it." GAWD, Weiss is creepy when he smiles.
Talking to Zack about how he feels. You may as well ask me to inform Tifa that she should get a breast reduction; It's a good thought and it's meant to be taken in the entirely right way, but it has a high potential to be taken horribly, horribly wrong.
When I get about half way to the dorms it starts raining. Looks like the thunderstorm I heard about is going to happen. When I was younger, my brother Roxas and I would make hot chocolate and watch the lightening. Then he kind of turned into a bastard and I didn't exactly do anything different.
Still, hot chocolate sounds good. So I stop by a convenience store and pick up some of the powdered stuff and some milk. My plan is to warm some milk in the microwave, add the cocoa, curl up on Zack's bed and zone out. If Zack is on his bed, I'll take the desk. My textbooks make wonderful pillows.
When I do get to my dorm, Zack is nowhere to be found though. So I rev up the microwave and turn off the lights. The sky lights up and there's a crash, a boom… and a whimper? "Zack?"
A really small voice answers from under the bed, "Yeah?"
"Zack what are you doing under there?"
"Uhm…" He belly-crawls out. "I was hiding…"
"From the storm?"
"Yeah… They just scare me, is all. I'm fine though."
Weiss' words kind of smack me in the face around there and I wind up saying four words that I knew I'd regret later. "Want some hot chocolate?"
His eyes light up. Gawd, they're blue. Like mine, only lighter. Prettier. Whoa... Wait... Prettier? No. Not pretty. Cool. His eyes are cool, because the color is really deep and they kind of suck you in and... I'm staring. At him. Not good. I avert my eyes and grab an extra mug. Zack sits up on the bed... In his PJ's, with his knees bent in front of him, clutching a pillow like a teddy bear.
"So... Uhm... I... Met any... Uhm... Shit... Guys?"
He smiles, lightly, but keeps an eye on the window. "Yeah. One guy I'm actually interested in."
That relieves me. If he had a crush on me, he wouldn't have said anything. "Yeah? Uhm... Well, if you wanna talk about him... Go ahead. I'm not exactly sure how to ask about guys..."
"Same way you ask about girls," Zack chirps, until a thunder rumble shuts off the happy. "Just switch some pronouns and don't ask about boobs, really."
"Then... I ask about... ya know...?"
"No, I haven't done it with him, yet. He's not into me." Then Zack sighs and clings to the pillow harder. Makes me wonder what he does with that thing. Ew. I stir in the chocolate powder.
"Why not?"
With his entire body to the wall, he lifts up one arm and ticks off the reasons. "Number one, he's a homophobe. Number two, he's taken. Number three, even if he were gay and single, there's no way I could hook him. I'm not cute enough."
How the hell do I respond to that? If I tell him he's cute, he'll take it the wrong way. If I don't say anything, I'll look like a real asshole. "He probably disagrees."
"Homophobe, Cloud. Homophobe was the biggest part of that list."
"Ehn... He's probably in denial... Or shy..." I hand Zack his mug and sit, not curl up, next to him. Even though it looks like I curled up, I only sat down and put my feet up. I'm not curled.
"Might be. I doubt it, but thanks for trying to make me feel better." He sips at the hot cocoa, looking like his about ten.
"No problem." I sip at mine too. It's hot. Like, burn the roof of my mouth kind of hot. Zack's probably is too. Thank God no lightening or whatever jolts him and makes him spill it. There's a nice long silence. "So... Uh... What's he like?"
Zack's eyes light up like it's Christmas. "He's perfect, Cloud. He's smart, and cute, and sweet and he's got the tightest butt... Ooops... Uhm..." Zack blushes. Looks like a girl there. "TMI, much?"
"Just a little. Leave out the ass comments."
"Sorry man."
Zack sets down the cocoa. "He's perfect. I just wish he wasn't… ya know… so…"
"Unavailable?"
"Close enough." I set down mine too. Oh, God, what if I drink his and I catch his gay? No, that doesn't happen, I reassure myself. Can't be too sure though, so I turn my handle opposite the way his is. Still a homophobe, but I'm trying to deal.
Wait, Zack said his crush was a homophobe. Does he…? Can't be. He'd probably try to rape me in my sleep if that was the case.
"He's still really awesome, though. He's perfect. Absolutely perfect! Thing is, he'd never get that I have a thing for him. Even if I dropped the hints and everything. He's kinda stupid like that."
Thunder crash-booms the dorm and Zack clings to me, like a scared kitten or a teenage girl clutching her boyfriend during the scary part of the movie. That last simile drags the moment out. He's a gay guy. He's clasping onto my shoulders like the world's about to end. I'm not gay.
This is, though. This is so gay.
Ahahaha, poor Cloud. Zack-poo, too. But we're making Cloud sweat.