Mission 10: Ham
It seemed that ham had become Rude's worse enemy, as odd as it may sound. His latest missions had somehow involved ham, and he was fed up with it, no pun intended.
First it was Tifa and her quest to find the most delicious ham to for the big dinner she was planning for a reunion with all her friends. Rude's job was simple, to carry the grocery bags filled with an assortment of different hams and other foods that went well with ham. Cloud was off delivering packages so Tifa didn't even bother to ask him for help with the groceries.
As luck would have it, Cloud's deliveries for the day were not just any packages; they were ham, special gourmet hams that were to be taken to the Shinra grocery store for safe keeping, until Elena went by to pick them up and take them to Healin Lodge later that day.
After Cloud delivered the gourmet hams that Rufus would eventually consume, the grocery store employees made him an offer that was hard to resist. They would give him a little extra gil if he helped unload and set up some regular hams that had just arrived in a truck, and Cloud agreed.
The delivery boy was setting up the hams at the grocery store when he spotted Tifa. She was discussing hams with Rude as if it was the most interesting topic in the world. That's when his jealous side woke up and his insecurities kicked in. Then Cloud proceeded to whine and complain to Tifa about being excluded from ham shopping.
The argument, and Tifa's attempt to console Cloud, made the shopping process move a lot slower, which meant they had to stay in the meat section right next to the hams for far longer than they originally intended. Even after Tifa finally choose all her hams, and the groceries were paid for and carried back to the Seventh Heaven, by both Rude and Cloud, Rude could not get the scent of ham out of his nose.
At first Rude was annoyed, but when the scent of ham finally left him as he got home after a long day's work, he inexplicably felt like eating ham. That should be easy to solve, he had some ham in the refrigerator. It wasn't as fancy as Rufus' gourmet ham, but it would do.
But alas that was not Rude's day. When he tried to search for the ham in the refrigerator, anticipating the delicious ham and cheese sandwich he would make, he found that the ham was missing, as were several other foods.
"..." Rude only had one suspect, his best friend who came and went in and out of his apartment, making a mess, eating whatever he could find, and disappearing without cleaning after himself or mentioning what he ate. "Reno..." Rude settled for some ramen since he was not in the mood to leave his apartment again just to go buy some ham.
The next day, Rude discovered that Elena had not cooked Rufus' ham on the previous day. The president had changed his mind and said he wanted to "leave it for tomorrow." That was the previous day, so the "tomorrow" that Rufus spoke of was today. On the previous day Elena could have cooked the ham, but today was her day off, which left Rufus' secondary cook in charge of feeding the hungry president, and the secondary cook was Rude.
"No," Rude was not in the mood to deal with hams. Hams have been there when he did not want them to, their scent stayed with him when he wanted it to go away, and then, when he actually wanted ham, he didn't have ham.
Rufus stared at Rude in disbelief, "you said no?" The Turks were there to protect him and to tend to his every need, which of course included food.
Rude shook his head and looked at Reno. The redhead pointed at himself, "me? But the president banned me from the kitchen." Not only did Reno burn everything he attempted to cook, but he ate everything that did not needed to be cooked.
"Rude, get me my ham, that's an order!" Rufus insisted.
"No," Rude walked away. It was best that he didn't force himself to attempt to prepare Rufus' meal, because as fed up as he was with ham, the president might end up with a too large to swallow piece of ham forcefully jammed in his throat.
Rufus was in shock from seeing Rude walk out. Reno was also surprised but he was the first to recover the ability to speak, "should I get the ham?"
"No," Rufus decided that the ham would just have to wait. "Order a pizza instead."
End of Mission 10
Mission 10 was requested by Windy. Disclaimer, I don't own Final Fantasy VII.