The Trouble with Turks
He doesn't call my name when I hear him come through the front door. Instead, he goes to his main bathroom and washes his hands before he goes to his cooling unit and pulls out some ingredients to make his lunch. When I come out and lean against the frame of his bedroom door, he doesn't even turn around when he detachedly states, "I see you've found your clothes."
"I cleaned your rug," I tell him, figuring there's no point in answering to an obvious statement while he nods and mutters in an almost disapproving and thankless tone.
"I don't need you to tend to my belongings."
Then he snorts and places whatever he's done with back into the cooling unit and says, "Sit down," with his back to me.
Unable to stop myself from being cautious, I do as he commands and I sit at the table while he fills his kettle with water and places it on the heating element. Then he turns with two sandwiches on a plate and brings it to the table.
"I suppose I should have left some books or something out in the open to keep you entertained," he muses while keeping his attention from me as he picks up one of the sandwiches to take a bite. After that, he takes a moment to finish chewing before he mutters out, "But from the cautious mannerism you're displaying, I assume you've already found something of interest… under my bed, perhaps?"
I suppose it's nothing more than a gut instinct to jump from the seat and pull out my gun to aim it at him. Why I do it, I don't really know, and why he doesn't react confuses me even more. That is, until he takes a moment to snicker about something he finds amusing and starts speaking with that biting tongue of his.
"Well, I suppose that answers that question."
He says it like he was doing nothing more than thinking mindlessly about it and takes another bite as if there's nothing threatening for him to be concerned about.
Then he looks up at me with those hardened eyes of his and calmly orders, "Put the gun away, Vince. You could hurt someone with that."
"Vincent," I remind him while refusing to take my aim from his smug form as he continues to eat his lunch like there's nothing to be concerned about.
"And why should I?"
"Because if you shoot me," he starts, calmly and casually before he takes a moment to swallow the rest of his food and quirk his brow, "The others will hear it."
Then he puts his sandwich down and leans forward over the table while resting on his forearms, "And they'll hunt you down like the mangy mongrel that you are."
He smirks then, and quirks his brow before he picks his sandwich back up and orders me to put the gun away and to sit down again so that he can enjoy his lunch without some high strung science experiment lurking above him. And once I do, he pushes the other sandwich across the table toward me and tells me to eat it.
"It's very good," he says, and after he finishes his next bite, he notices that I'm refusing to pick it up and he mentions with that glint in his eyes that, "You'll like it."
"So, may I ask how far you've been digging into my personal life?" he asks after I reluctantly accept his offer and he gets up to turn his kettle off, "Or are you going to behave like an untamed savage over it again?"
"You were married," I state, offended by his insult and suddenly not caring if I piss him off by letting him know what I found.
But I'm suddenly wondering if I should have just kept that part to myself and only admitted to looking at the other photos, considering the amount that he's paled and the fact that he's making an even bigger effort not to look at me than he was before. He remains calm and steady though, along with his voice when he asks, "How much did you see?"
"The letter and the first couple of photos sitting on the top."
He nods while he stands near his stove and moves his kettle over to an unheated element. Then he walks quickly into his room, ignoring me completely and noisily grabs all of the boxes from under his bed. After that, he places them in a locked cabinet in his closet and locks it back up, making it obvious that I'd come across something he didn't and doesn't want to share with me.
And once he's done, he comes back out and stands under the doorframe while looking at the floor.
"It would appear that luck is smiling upon you, Vince."
Not knowing what he's talking about, I turn to watch him place his hand in his pocket and fiddle with something in it before he nods in my direction, but he still refuses to look at me.
"Due to unforeseen circumstances, something has come up that has given me the opportunity to send Reno and Rude out on the field."
Then he straightens himself up and goes back to his kettle before he continues.
"I've ordered Elena to stay here and watch over Rufus, along with myself. So after nineteen-hundred hours tonight, everything should be settling down and you should be able to leave without drawing any attention to yourself."
After that, he pours two cups of tea and brings them to the table before smothering his in sugar.
"For your own sake, Vince," he starts, and pauses for a moment while he stirs his tea, "Leave and don't ever come back."
"What happened?" I ask him, completely ignoring what he's saying and knowing that he knows it. But I can't help but be curious over what I've found even though he's made it more than clear that I've overstepped his boundaries.
"Even if it was your business, I still wouldn't tell you," he tells me.
Then he takes a sip and nods while closing his eyes.
"I didn't think of it this morning. In fact, I didn't even think about it until I started back for lunch," he admits before he smirks with a slight bitterness and finally focuses on me. Or more accurately, he focuses on my hair and suddenly frowns at its wild appearance.
"But then it suddenly hit me that it's in your nature to live through others and that I probably shouldn't have left those anywhere where they could have been easily found."
He sets his cup down then and tilts his head, very slightly as he continues to run his eyes over my hair and shakes his head.
"You sure did let yourself go. Didn't you?" he observes.
Then he snickers and returns his attention to his tea while I clench my teeth at the fact that he somehow managed to throw that in before he goes on with the rest of his thoughts.
"I suppose I can't blame you, considering you lost the woman you loved to another man because of your father, and then you wound up putting yourself in a coffin and being locked in a stone dungeon by the very same man that stole your woman. You slept for what?" he muses as he quirks his brow and daintily lifts his cup on purpose to take a proper drink from it.
"You're an asshole, Tseng," I mutter as I lower my head into my mantle and let my bangs fall forward while I unwillingly sink inward.
"Glad you're noticing," he states, making me suddenly wonder if he's doing it on purpose to get me to want to stay away. Then he lets out a sigh that almost sounds frustrated and he puts his cup down and leans forward again. But this time, he searches for my eyes that are hidden behind my untamed bangs and staring at the table.
"I do have somerespect for you, Vince."
"Vincent."
"I'm not calling you that," he states with a strong resolve as he sits back and straightens up to make his retort more concrete, contradicting the fact that he's telling me he respects me.
"But what I will do for you, is remind you that this is not the place you want to be. You're a good man and you should be somewhere that won't destroy you any further than you've already been."
After that, he returns his attention to his tea and mutters like he's almost reluctant to say it, "And you should be around people that won't drag you down with them."
Then he takes a sip and says nothing more while he stares at the table and I turn my attention back over to him, knowing full-well that he's referring to himself while I wonder if he's even capable of genuinely caring, or if he's simply rehearsing something that he feels might have substance.
I can't help but feel like I'm a rope that's being tugged on with him, back and forth. He doesn't say a word for the rest of his lunch hour, and again, he doesn't even look at me and acts like I'm not even here. Except for when he's about to leave, he reminds me without turning around, "Nineteen-hundred hours, Vince."
And that's all he says. But I can finish the rest of it in my mind as I remind myself that he wants me gone. I'm also under the impression that I won't be seeing him again before I go either, not that it should matter.
He may be arrogant and more direct than he needs to be, but everything he says makes more sense than I probably want it to. And he's right about this being the wrong place for me and even more right about him being the wrong person even though I don't really know who that person is.
All I know is that the more I find out about him, the less I know, and the more I want to know.
Besides the fact that he lies to his mother, kills people, was married, and likes men, there's really nothing that I know about him, except that every now and then, I get a glimpse of someone I believe I'd like to know, and I'd even go so far as to say that he's drowning inside. But none of it's really important, or at least it shouldn't be, and as I waste my time sitting above the covers on his bed, nineteen-hundred hours finally arrives and I'm disappointed that he never came back.
Though I shouldn't have expected anything else as I find my way to the door at the back of his laundry room that has some bushes around it, and I carefully make my way, unseen, and half-hoping that I get to run into him one last time.
But I don't. And it's probably just as well.
For some reason, I never went back to Kalm. I wanted to stay away from it. Instead, I found myself going to Edge and staying there for nearly a month. But the truth is that I probably only wanted to stay somewhere near him as if I'm becoming unhealthily obsessed by him and can't stray too far from his presence. All the while, I constantly fight the urge to go back to see him.
And what better person to stay with than someone else who is unhealthily obsessed. Only in Tifa's defence, she knows Cloud from her childhood and probably has more of a valid reason to involve herself with him than I do with Tseng. She never asked any questions though, and she offered a room without hesitation as if she was genuinely happy to see me even though I don't really know why, considering I haven't made any effort to keep in touch with anyone since the last time Sephiroth made his appearance.
It doesn't help that I also blame myself for what happened to her and her family. If I had been successful at stopping Sephiroth like I set out to do in the beginning, she never would have lost her family, her town, or Cloud to his personal demons conjured by my failures.
And I suppose that's only one of the reasons why I don't know if I'd call her a friend, or even if I'd say she was someone I sought out from time to time. I guess I just consider her the way I've come to consider most people in my life. She's there, and if I see her, I do. If I don't, I don't. And I suppose it doesn't help that she can be too compassionate at times, almost overbearing, which I suppose is just another one of my reasons for wanting to stay away.
It might be because she's young though, early twenties, and I've just lost touch with what it's like to be young anymore. But she was lucky enough to find her calling in life at a young age by discovering that she liked taking care of children. She even went so far as to open an orphanage even though it fell upon her by chance in the beginning.
Maybe it's strange, that she started out running a cheap tavern in one of the old Sectors that are buried under the ground I'm walking on—Sector 7, I think it was, or as they called it, the Slums. But it seems that all of her woes and hardships stemming from there were what helped her find her way in the end.
The tavern was used as a cover to a rebellion underground called Avalanche that she was a member to. From what I understand, they used the basement as their headquarters until Sector 7 was obliterated by Reno. He was ordered by President Shinra to drop a section of the upper plate onto it to flush the rebels out, and it wound up destroying everything along with those that lived on that section of the plate known as Upper Midgar, or just plain Midgar, as it was later known.
Of course, everyone from the Shinra side was more than aware that the event would be as disastrous as it was—as one of their ex-employees later explained—and they decided that it would be a good way to gain face and point the finger at Avalanche by telling the people that Avalanche was responsible for their losses.
Luckily for Tifa though, she was one of the active members that was trying to stop Shinra from carrying out that plan and was spared from being one of the unsuspecting individuals above or below. She's one quarter Wutian, from her mother's mother, giving her the same black and bone straight hair that Tseng has, only her complexion is milkier and her dark-brown eyes carry a loving and contrasting warmth to Tseng's, despite her losses.
The rest of her ancestry falls a little from Cosmo Canyon. Though most of it's from Nibelheim where she was born and raised. It's also where she grew up with the man she still has a crush on, Cloud Strife, even though he's disappeared again and no one knows if or when he'll return.
She says it doesn't bother her though, even though she's not very convincing when she says it, and the fact that she's nearly given up on keeping up with the martial arts she used to love so much, makes me believe her even less. But I'm not here to judge her or to pry into her personal life, or any other part of her life for that matter as I find myself a table in the farthest and darkest corner of the new Seventh Heaven that she owns and runs.
It doesn't take her long to notice I've come out of my room, or more accurately, in from outside and immediately, she comes over with a warm smile on her face and pulls out the chair opposite to me so she can sit down and say hello. It's the usual mindless small talk that goes on between two people who hardly know each other but say they're friends, making me wonder why she even considers me as one.
She means well though, and who knows, maybe if she wasn't generations away from me, and I wasn't so closed, we could have been better friends. But we're not. So I don't bother to make an effort. Instead, I do what I always do, I answer every thoughtful question thrown at me in as few words as possible, and I ask none in return while hoping she'll get the message that I only came in for no known reason and a place to stay for another night.
And like always, she takes none of it personally since Cloud is the same way and she knows just as well as I do that we're nothing but two people who know each other's names. It doesn't stop her from making an effort though, as she smiles warmly at me again and gives me that sympathetic look that makes me want to leave before she gets up to return to tending her bar.
Then I suddenly wonder if that's what it was that attracted me to Tseng. He never looked at me like he felt sorry for me. Nor was there any hint of fear. He was so different from anyone I've come across so far and he treated me more like he would have treated anybody else than anybody else would have treated me. And despite his degrading condescension towards me, he treated me more like an equal than anyone else ever has.
But I shouldn't be thinking about those things as I look around the tavern from the shadows and my ears perk up the moment I hear Reno's voice. It's not because I'm happy to hear it though, and I'm suddenly lowering my face farther into my cloak so I can blend more into the background while I watch his sickly eyes scan his surroundings before he notices me and the corner of his mouth subtly turns upward.
"Looks like an Avalanche meetin," he mutters as he leans into his partner and snickers. Then he grabs a bottle from a patron that's passed out and finishes what's in it as they walk by him.
"Be good, Reno," Rude comments, unmoving and with an intimidating lack of expression while carrying an earthy heaviness to his voice as he continues to escort his superior to the bar as if he's the one that's in control.
"Er, what?" Reno slurs before he moves his gangly body like a puppet on strings and leans against his partner while looking up, "Ya gonna spank me?"
"Two coffees, please," his partner requests from Tifa as he takes a frustrated sigh and reaches for his wallet while trying to ignore his partner who appears to be out of sorts.
"I guess Turks can't read… The sign outside, says no pets," Comes a voice from a table near them as Rude loses his grip on Reno and the redhead jumps onto their table to land on all fours and knocks all of their drinks over in the process. Then he chuckles as he peers like a crazed man into the outspoken man's eyes and takes him off guard by suddenly letting out a sharp bark, like a dog's, into his face.
All Rude does is roll his eyes before he asks Tifa if she can make one of the coffees a double shot of espresso while Reno starts chuckling like a madman and climbs off the table.
"Git these boys n'other round too. They spilled all them drinks!"
"Is everything all right?" Tifa asks as she looks over to Reno cautiously and he blows her a kiss to let her know he caught her checking him out before he stumbles over to Rude and blurts out, "He thinks yer hot."
"Everything's fine," Rude answers as he ignores the man again and counts his gil before handing it to Tifa while she asks with a genuine concern, "Is he drunk?"
"Loco Weed," Rude detachedly answers as he dumps something into the coffee with the single shot and steadies his partner so he can safely hand it to him while telling him to, "Drink this."
With a quick strike across the redhead's eyes, almost too quick to notice, he nods and accepts the cup. Then he downs it like it's a cool liquid and smirks when he turns his attention back to me as he slumps into his partner's arms. For a moment, he stares at my hair with a tilt to his head and whispers in a voice almost too hard to hear, "Coarse black hair… broken ends," while his partner asks, "What?" and I find myself lowering my face even more.
"Nuthin," he replies before he turns his attention to an attractive female walking to the back where the washrooms are. Then he pushes himself up and shakes his head.
"I hafta pee."
"Do you need help?"
"Fuck, no! I kin 'old it myself!"
"This job doesn't pay enough," Rude mutters as he shakes his head and takes a drink from his espresso. Then he sits back on an empty stool and checks his watch before appearing to wait patiently.
The redhead spends over a good ten minutes doing whatever he's doing before he comes back out, seeming more clear-headed than he was. Then he takes the seat next to his partner and sits with his back to the bar so he can watch the men at the table where he knocked all the drinks over.
"You get it?" Rude asks with a voice that no natural person at my distance is capable of hearing while his partner nods and mutters out, "Some dance club. Majestic Motor Ball'r somethin like that."
Then he adjusts his pants as he looks around the bar again and turns his attention back to the men at the table he jumped on.
"Ya guys enjoyin yer drinks?" he asks as he walks up to them and tilts his head when they all cautiously nod. Then he smiles at them and turns to the bar while pointing at the table and tossing a generous amount of gil at the counter.
"N'other round for the gentlemen, Darlin. They're good men."
Then he winks at the man he barked at and sizes him up for a moment before Rude nudges him to get his attention and they leave.
I know Tseng told me to leave him alone, and I know he was within his right even though I know he didn't tell me the whole reason as I watch two of his Turks walk out like they own the world and are about to cause trouble.
But as I sit there and ignore the food Tifa brought to me as an act of courtesy, I can't help but justify the fact that he never mentioned anything about me not following anyone else, and I'm quickly on my way out to follow them after tossing some gil on the table for the food I never touched.
I can't help but find it ironic that there's a dance club named after one of Shinra's more powerful machines that Avalanche destroyed, and I find myself shaking my head and taking a deep breath before I reluctantly walk in.
It's a typical club environment, loud, flashing, colourful lights, a crowd that moves like they're performing the latest crop spell, and it's complete with a disc jockey that has his own personal flock surrounding him. It's not the type of place I could normally be found in.
But my silent argument gives me a good enough reason to be here and I finally find one of my reasons sitting at the bar. Like always, he has his dark shades on that make it hard to tell what he's thinking. He stands nearly above everyone around him and is twice the size of them as well. He has the body of a serious fighter and his ears are heavily pierced. Solid metal is a word that often comes to mind when I look at him and I also wouldn't be surprised if he had more tattoos than the one Reno and Tseng were talking about a while back.
His skin is dark, like those from Mideel. But he's slightly lighter than they are, making me think he might be a cross from some other region as well. I'm not sure if he shaves his head or if he's naturally bald, but either way, it only adds to his intimidating appearance.
It's not just his appearance that's threatening though. He has a voice that demands attention, deep, baritone, always serious, and he never lets the enemy see him smile. Although I've seen him laugh hard enough to bring tears to his eyes when he's around his partner who seems to be adored by everyone, and for some strange reason, all I want to do is drive that little Turk's head into the wall until he forgets who he is.
Maybe I just don't see what everyone else sees and I have no idea why I'm sneering as I finally see the little demon on the dance floor and I back into the shadows as far as I can. If anything, he's a superficial tramp that wants everyone to want him. And he couldn't be making it more obvious than he is right now as he grinds against everyone like he's performing a ceremonial dance under a full moon.
Why in Kjata's name Tseng thinks he's flattering and easy on the eyes is beyond me, and why in the hell he has to check him out all the time since I now realize that's what he's doing when he looks at him, makes even less sense. Not to mention, I really have no idea why I'm so bothered by him while I watch him move like he's in a trance and his vibrant hair-tail flies through the air like a crimson snake as he moves his head like he's in a pitched fever.
Not to mention, I'm suddenly wondering why I'm here since neither of them appear to be up to anything other than bothering me for some unknown reason. But all of that changes the moment Reno manages to work his way behind some woman that he's dancing near and suddenly pulls a gun that she must have been carrying since it looks nothing like the modest model he carries and never uses.
Then he presses it to her back while keeping it concealed from everyone else and hisses into her ear from behind, "Let's get some air, Darlin."
"Reno!" she nervously exclaims while he nods over at his partner and the man quickly gets up and goes to the back of the club to open the door.
In the meantime, Reno's already on his way as he escorts the woman with a look on his face that suggests they're simply going out for a stroll and suddenly, I'm on their trail like some sort of crazed hound.
