I'm sorry for the delay. College has been a serious pain. Oh, hi there. A big hug and kiss for those who are still with me, and thank you for the most encouraging reviews. I always update for you. Please let me know what you think of the little chapter, and any question/suggestion is rather well-received :)

Disclaimer: I own very few things, mainly the plot and Grandma Grace.

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I reckon it all started with Aerith. Not in an obvious manner or anything: it just started. He was the first one to feel it – somehow he was always the first at things. Maybe I was too young to understand it. I remember Zack complaining a lot that I was too slow at figuring stuff out; important stuff. I couldn't help but notice, however, that he never did the least effort to explain them to me. He just assumed I should ultimately understand them the way he did.

Maybe that was the reason he got so angry at me that day. Oh, he was angry.

It was the day he ran into a dirty magazine around the house – his dad's probably, for Mrs Fair was the kind of person who would only touch her own husband with her eyes closed.

We were in the Graveyard.

The sun never seemed to reach that side of town, which meant the metal was cold more so than dead.

We sat on opposite ends of an open goods wagon, me with my knees bent to my chest, Zack with one leg hanging loosely out of the train.

"Just look at this one! You can nearly see the insides of it!" he burst into laughter, breaking the silence.

"Sounds disgusting," I said, not looking up from my sketches. He kept turning pages.

"Yeah… I assume it's not the same to having the real thing…" he smirked.

That kind of matter confused me, so I chose not to say anything.

Slowly, I whistled to the tune inside my head – Telegram Sam, I think – and began to tap my feet to the rhythm. It distracted me, of course. My charcoal stopped moving and I lost my trail of thought. It happened all the time. As usual now, he didn't bother asking me what I was drawing.

I looked down at my boots and thought maybe it was time to buy another pair – maybe ones with laces like the older boys used them. Like his.

"Look up!" he called, and I instantly felt the sharp magazine hitting me on the face.

He laughed.

"I don't wanna see it…!" I complained.

"You're such a pansy. Just look at it," he grumbled, saving his hands in his pockets.

I did look, only because his eyes were haunting me with scorn. A naked woman with ridiculous breasts and orange-coloured hair laid on a pool table with her legs wide open and a devilish smirk, as if someone had been spying on her dirty deeds.

My eyes lingered for a moment, but my body got no reaction.

"Did you know they could stretch like that?" he asked, outstretching an arm and trying to grab a loose cable that hanged above his head.

"Must hurt the few first times…" I said. Silence compelled me to wait.

"Don't you feel weird…? Looking at it, that is…"

I shook my head and thought deeply for a moment, eyes still on the naked woman.

"Do you think Aerith can stretch hers like this?" I then asked.

Zack left the plastic cable be and spitted to the ground beside him at once. His dark eyebrows narrowed closer when he turned to me, his aqua-blue eyes nearly becoming grey.

"Why are you asking me that?" he said.

"Aerith is a girl, isn't she? She might be able to."

I saw a small cloud of dust lifting from the ground as he stood up. He helped himself out of the open wagon and zipped up his flight jacket – it was a hideous thing but everyone had one.

"And how should I know? She's your friend, ask her yourself." he said.

I squinted, watching his restless moves.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Home."

"Why?"

"You annoy me!"

"Don't forget your magazine…" I warned, pretending he hadn't upset me.

He chuckled. "I'm 15. Do you really think I'll need that shit? That's a kid's magazine."

And I watched him stride along the railway towards the fence, hop the wall in front the bright-yellow sign and disappear. I felt like I could have run after him, apologise for whatever I had said and hand the stupid dirty magazine back to its rightful owner.

I was, indeed, naive. I couldn't have known back then that the jealousy bite had struck him. He couldn't stand it, the fact Aerith and I spent every school morning together, sharing little notes under the table. He couldn't stand that he never understood our conversations during our journeys home, that we read Shakespeare in unison by the candle light…

And yet, until the day he confronted me about it, I had never thought of our time together as anything other than friendship. I felt gravely stupid then.

Edea was the one to alert me. He might feel excluded sometimes, she said.

"He has his own friends too!" I complained, looking up from my drawing book with menacing eyes.

She chuckled, amused, and squeezed into my bed.

"That's really nice. Who is it?" she asked, leaning closer. I eyed her, suspicious.

"Can't you tell?"

She shook her head. "Someone I know?"

"Maybe I'm failing miserably…" my hands were freezing under the blanket.

She chuckled, with the tip of her tongue out. "Why so? It's just a draft. I bet I'll recognise it in the end."

I shrugged, closed the notebook. "Guess so."

Edea pulled the duvet up to her chin and swung her body for a while. She was an unusual Edea that night: a silent Edea. And she had been quiet for some weeks now.

I didn't turn to that sketchbook for one whole month. And Zack and I didn't talk for one whole month either. It had been a childish fight but I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. And I wouldn't give in. I just… didn't want to give up either.

Finally it was the 17th of November, the day Edea baked her special chocolate and vanilla cheesecake and let me clean the cooking bowl with my tongue. It was my birthday after all.

"Zack is coming for dinner, right?" Joanna counted the plates on the table for the twentieth time.

"Dunno." I muttered from the couch.

"Well, you ought to pick him up then. I made pumpkin bread." she smirked.

I squinted, turning my eyes away from the television. "So what? I like pumpkin bread too…"

She threw me one of her funny faces and returned to the kitchen, only to reappear a second later and order me to go buy some beers. Classic. Whoever said women didn't drink as much as men, clearly never met enough women. Those three together drank more in one night than most men I came to know would drink in a week or two.

Grace turned on the radio, her Shostakovich's Waltz No.2 gradually consuming the room. She nudged me and pointed a skeletal forefinger to her feathery wallet above the sideboard.

I leaned closer to her lips.

"Stop by Pedro's and buy me one or two…" - she made the smoking gesture with her hand.

"I thought you were to quit smoking cigars, Grandma…" I whispered back.

She snickered. "That's the joy of being old. You can lie all you want, people will just think you're senile."

"Well…" I grabbed her wallet "Which brand do you want?"

Grace tried to laugh but only a dry cough came out.

"Like I only smoke Montecarlo!" she waved a hand in the air – "Just buy me one of 'em plains. They taste awful, like an injection on the forehead, but eh… gets the job done."

A fine, fine lady.

I tightened the scarf around my neck before I reached the doorway. It was a quarter to seven already, and twilight broke through with the voice of high winds. The thick fog covered each corner, melted my sight into nothing. Not that I needed that. I knew the way like the palm of my hand. Still, I had to make it to the town centre before the hour, otherwise both the convenience store and Pedro's would be closed.

I sharpened my pace.

The Lower District was the worst part. People weren't nice there and the streets were too steep, too narrow and smelled funny. My heart nearly stopped when a dark shadow crossed my way, likely out of nowhere.

I instantly drove my fingers to my lips.

"Stop doing that!" he clapped the hand away from my mouth.

"Geez! You really scared me there!" I snarled – "What are you doing here?"

I feared that my voice would sound too shaky but I did ask him anyway. Somehow, I wanted to make sure he had a very good reason to be missing my birthday dinner. Or better yet: a good reason not to say anything for weeks, not even on my birthday…

"Feeding the cats. You?" he asked, matter-of-factly.

"I need some— Wait, which cats?" he stretched his lips in a smile and reached for my wrist.

When we turned left against the fog, I finally understood where he had come from.

An alley, of course. A gritty alley dividing two old buildings of very poor quality; puddles of rainwater collected on the pavement. But at least I had my boots.

Zack squatted before a pile of tyres, whistled for them in a melody only they could recognise, and one by one the three little pussies began to reveal themselves. So small, so weak. I nearly fell for the urge to hold them all. As I leaned to do it, Zack forced me to squat down beside him.

"Don't, their mother's watching…" he whispered.

"The mother…?"

He waved upward towards the mess of cardboard boxes beside us. Skeptical, I followed his eyes to find a majestic black cat, bibelot-like, with the yellowish-green eyes sternly focused on our movements.

I chuckled without a sound, "I feel like an intruder…" I muttered.

"Yeah, it's awkward the first couple of times." he laughed.

My fingers met my lips again. "That's not what I mean…" I said.

He squinted, turning to look at me. "Then what?"

I shrugged, "Feels like we barely talk now… Because of a magazine, I think…?"

He scoffed, punching me with his shoulder. "Happy birthday, Chocobo! I meant to call you early."

"Yeah…" I shrugged again.

He held my hand so I would stop eating my fingers. "I don't like when you do this." he lifted our hands together – "Look how ugly it looks."

I chuckled, sarcastic. "Fourteen year-olds don't care for pretty hands."

"Hey, I haven't got you a present yet!" he said, very naturally.

I noticed the way he returned his attention to the little cats again, smiling at the way they stepped all over each other to find a comfortable way to sleep.

"I don't need presents." I said. And I meant it.

He shook his head. "I ought to give you something…"

And then it was fairly quick. One of his hands reached for my squatted knee, he leaned closer. His lips were warm. I remember doing nothing.

A kiss, soft and soundless, on the cheek.

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