She continued to meet him after lunch every day, without fail. Mostly, they sat in silence as Tifa play on her imaginary piano while humming. Time flew pass and it was summer.

Then one day, she brought a large cardboard with scribbled black and white stripes. She started playing on it while humming. What has gotten into her, he thought, had she finally lost it?

"So you finally lost it huh?" he teased, one eye open as he crossed his legs.

Her eyes darted up to him, where he threw a thin twig down to her. She caught it and playfully placed it in the fold of her ear. "Nope, just practicing with some visible keys." She smiled at him, and waved for him to come down.

"What?"

"Come over, I'll show you!"

Cloud grunted and shifted; but the look in her eyes seemed to pull him down, and within seconds, he had landed on the rooftop with no effort at all.

He bent over to look at the cardboard. It was old and washed out, with pieces falling off and mysterious bite marks, yet she treated it with so much care when her fingers danced elegantly, over the black and white stripes.

"Cloud, come, I'll teach you some."

"No thanks…" But before he could deny and walk away, she pulled him by the arm and settled him by her. She placed the cardboard on his thigh while he shifted uncomfortably by the ledge of the rooftop. She could fall off anytime, he noticed. Usually she sat on the floor, but today, they sat on the ledge.

"This is do, and this re, then mi, fa, sol…" She continued on, while he lost interest soon. He just looked at her hair blown to her back by the wind, and her fringe dancing on her forehead.

"Do, Re, Mi, Ti, La ~" She hummed, this time, with the keys name to allow him to have a better grasp at it. She pulled up one of his finger and pointed it at 'Do' then moved to 're' so on and so forth.

By the end of the day, he learnt two lines. "Do Re Mi Ti La~" and "Do Re Mi So Fa Do Re Do" the simplistic version of the song she often hummed.

He was pretty confident he would forget all the notes by the next lesson but she didn't let him. Tifa repeatedly taught him these two lines. And he obeyed.

"Why didn't you ever celebrate your birthday?" Tifa asked. He recalled earlier that year, where Elmyra had prepared a birthday celebration for her twelfth birthday, and he had purposely skipped it. A sudden wave of guilt drowned him in that moment. "The other children all do."

"Really?" He shrugged.

"When's your birthday?" She asked, lowering her volume as she spoke. She stood up and look over to him, for once she seemed to slightly tower over him.

"August." He paused, recalling. "19th."

She nodded; she was not planning to surprise him with a party of some sorts, but just to make sure he had someone with him to share that special moment. Perhaps she could plan something since it was already mid-June.

They often sat in silence; to an outsider that may pass as something bizarre, but to them, silence was comfortable, and the silence between them has the ability to stop their thoughts, stop those depressing thoughts which had consumed them for the whole of their life.

Outside of their short session, they rarely talk, but Tifa made a conscious effort to include him in everything.

Lately, Cloud had been quieter than before; he would reply with nods, shrugs, and rarely sentences, even with Zack, he kept his distance, days passed, weeks passed and months passed, no one seemed to notice it as well as Tifa did.

He did not tease her anymore.

He stopped flipping the hem of her skirt, stopped commenting on her cooking, and stopped asking her to lose weight. Something she had to get used to; something had changed, something had affected him on the deepest level possible, that he lost the last thing that had made him warm.

She found herself looking at him, searching for the parts that were missing; she was pretty sure it was all in him, just like when she was pretty sure that he was lying when he said he did not believe in relationships.

She had been practicing martial arts for a while now – as insisted by Zangan. First, she did stretches, which was awkward with all the boys around and Aerith watching in a corner waving. She decided that she needed to wear long pants around the boys and so she did, and her stretches were much better than the boys. Rude and Rufus would trip over their own legs, she noted. Cloud was slightly stiffer than her, but better than the rest. Zack was too stiff; and always complained how brute strength and sword is better than stupid flexibility.

Zangan was pleased; next she had to do stances, she had always been confident in her speed and aggression. When she set her mind to do something, she accomplishes, and accomplishes it well. She looked intimidating when needed, flexible when punches were thrown. She made martial arts seem like an elegant dance.

Tifa received special training from Zangan since then; she had been the disciple Zangan was looking for. Since then, Zangan proclaimed that he will only teach Tifa martial arts, thus the other boys had to learn amateur sword craft from him instead.

It was August; Cloud's 14th Birthday was just around the corner and Tifa had thought of a perfect present for him, of which she had carefully chosen with her permission to visit Nibelheim village after the completing the Mount Nibel expedition.

That week, he noticed Tifa behaving strangely; she would yawn throughout the day, and was extraordinarily clumsy. He furrowed his brows and watched as she staggered across the corridor, dark eye rings under her eyes, at first he had thought it was Zangan's training, but apparently his hypothesis was proven wrong when Zangan seemed very concern about her health. "Tifa, you alright? Look at how pale you are! Now take a rest! Today's training will be to rest!"

Their afternoon sessions continued; she would talk to him about how she had a big triangular piano back home; she had lived in Edge for two years, before that, she had been living in Nibelheim, but she was too young to remember anything significant about her hometown. Of which he would tell her about how his family had moved away from Midgar, passing through Nibelheim to Wutai, but had left him here instead.

In his voice, little emotions could be heard; but when Tifa listened to him, surges of emotions ran through her; perhaps it was from her own experience, or perhaps it was the fact that he had said those words so casually, like a small chat over dinner. She knew that he would only tell her about such things, yet he hides what's most important in the words; his heart.

Sometimes she would wonder if his heart was void and empty; but she believed otherwise. She knew he was a hypersensitive idiot who always thought of others, but she knew too, that he had always been searching for a place to belong, or someone to belong with.

"Cloud, wolves are usually in packs, right?" She asked.

"…Yeah."

"But then, when someone is a self declared outcast, he is a lone wolf right?"

"…"

"Precisely because wolves are usually together in packs, therefore when they are alone, it is a sign of extreme loneliness."

"What are you trying to imply?" He arched his brow and shot her an icy look that she found amusing at times.

"I think you're like the lone wolf!" she stood up again, and popped her arms behind her back, pulling her shoulders back, and pushed her chest forward, something she had always done when she was confident, like a victorious cheer. He watched and a sudden tinge of the lightest pink flushed his cheeks when he realized that she had begun to grow breasts. They were small, but there, nonetheless. It was his first time noticing something so personal about a girl; and for the first time, he was self conscious. He was almost fourteen.

He looked away and busied himself with the apples that are pretty much ripe now and plucked one off the branches.

"-cool though, nevertheless. Cool like a wolf." She turned to him and smiled. He had missed half of her sentence, nevertheless, he looked away and blushed slightly at her comment. He felt ridiculous. He looked over at her, and threw the apple in his hand at her. She caught it effortlessly.

He had begun to notice things about Tifa.

It was disturbing to him, but his mind seemed to act on its own. He notice how her thighs are long, bony around the knees and ankles, a small yet elegant muscle stretched from her knee to her ankle, forming a perfect curve, a beautiful gap between the two calve muscles when her knees are pushed together. She was, contrary to his belief, thin; yet she curved at the right places. Her neck was slender and when she tilts her head, her burgundy colored silk strains falls onto her shoulders, casting a shade on her neck. Her lips were full around the middle, but slightly thinner as it arched outwards and upwards; they were rosy in the inner corners, and lighter towards the outer corners, kissing the pale skin on her face.

She was, in fact, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

Aerith –whom he had known since 4 - had a flat torso; her hips were slightly wider than proportionate, slightly flat. Her eyes were of a lighter shade of green, it was quite a calming colour. But Tifa's were more reddish than brown, which glitters under the sun and gives it a ruby colored shade. When they looked at him, it felt like fire burnt through him.

He blamed all these on hormones.

"What's this?" He asked, looking at a palm sized box in his hands. Tifa had pulled him away from the others after dinner, when they were supposed to have night sparring practice.

"Open it!" She grinned, her arms popped behind her again.

He tore the covering with ease, and came face to face with a wooden box, of which the covering was carved into the shape of a wolf's head, the wolf's ears poped out of the frame, its eyes menacing yet elegant, and its mouth clenching on a silver ring. He pulled the ring and the top slid open, to reveal hair wax in the box. The whole box was completely handmade, and was painted in three tones; black, gold and mostly silver.

"Happy fourteenth birthday, Cloud." Tifa whispered, her voice sounded like ringing bells; soft and clear, melodious like the tune she always hummed.

He could feel a sting in his sinus as tears threatened to flow; but he had too much self control to allow that to happen in front of Tifa. He remained silent.

"Do you not like it?" She asked. Her head slowly tilted to her right, and her rose colored eyes stared up at him under slightly furrowed brows. There was a slight gap between her upper and lower lips. He stared and had to swallow a lump in his throat.

How many sleepless nights had she spent to do this? So much as it had caused a dark ring to form under her almond shaped eyes.

If human heart was viscous, his would have over flown, like a waterfall.

"Thank you." He said, the gentleness in his voice startled him and he had to clear his throat. "It's great."

She stared into his eyes and smiled, genuine and sincere happiness filled her eyes. "I'm glad you like it!" She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.

He slowly slid his arms to her back and pressed her head softly against his shoulder.