Chapter Nineteen: Casual Chase

The sun had already shown its lovely face when Tifa and the whole crew arrived in the location. It was a quaint, little corner café that she had never gotten the chance to visit in the past. Café et joie meant "coffee and joy" in French. "This place is so neat!" Aerith squealed as soon as they stepped out of the bus. "Don't you think so, Zack?" she looked up at the raven haired man she was clinging to. He stifled a yawn and nodded. "Yeah, it is."

"Aw, Zack! You're still sleepy!" Aerith laughed. "Don't worry, the staff's prepared loads of food and coffee for us. Why don't we get some?" Without waiting for his answer, she pulled him inside the coffee shop.

Tifa and Cloud were already inside, enjoying the simple posh interior of the shop. They sipped black coffee and éclairs—Cloud was surprised that she had not added cream or sugar—and talked about anything that popped into their minds. Everybody around them was in high spirits as well. The excitement which was running through the models' and the crews' was heavily evident. Lazard's excitement was the most evident—he didn't even want to sit down for a second.

"Tifa! Cloud! Aerith! Zack! It's time for hair and make-up!" he called out, waving at them impatiently. Reluctantly, the group stood up and abandoned the café's delicious éclairs and made their way over to the makeshift tent beside the bus.

A team of make-up artists, hairdressers and stylists bustled about inside the tent, ushering the models from one station to another. They were quickly ushered to the make-up department. The make-up artists applied barely there make-up on both the boys and natural looking make up on the girls.

Aerith's hair was braided in an elaborate fashion, which finally rested on her right shoulder, while Tifa's hair was simply let down.

Once they were done, they were ushered out of the tent to start the filming. A large crowd had started to converge beyond the barriers the security personnel had put up. The whole block had been closed, and so was the pedestrian lane. The sun was already up the sky, bright and gentle.

"Alright, everybody take your places!" Bart yelled through the megaphone as the group took their assigned seats.

"HL commercial: casual chase, take one!"

Tifa sat beside Aerith, stirring her coffee lazily with her head resting on her left hand. The hazel haired girl was biting on her cupcake. Zack was doing a great job with goofing off with Cloud in the next table.

"Good, good." Bart said. "Now, Cloud, accidentally glance at Tifa, and keep your gaze on her."

He did just that. She knew that it was just acting, but the intensity of his blue eyes made her heart skip a beat. Suddenly, stirring the cup of coffee was difficult.

"Perfect! Tifa, look up and catch him staring at you."

Her body stiffened, but she looked up with easy, gentle grace and caught his beautiful blue eyes boring onto hers.

"Smile at him. Allure him. Entice him. Then Zack, look the way Cloud's looking and keep your eyes on Aerith."

Smiles quickly leapt up on the pair's lips the moment their eyes met.

"Tifa whisper to Aerith, laugh briefly and leave. Boys, look puzzled, and go after them without hesitation."

Bart didn't really need to dictate everything they had to do, it was sort of annoying, but they followed his instructions anyway.

"Walk slowly Tifa, then look back. Break into a half-run, flag the cab and it's a wrap!"

"Good work everybody!" Bart said as they finished filming. "This is the first time that I've shot a video with just one take. It'll save us more time in the editing process."

Tifa nodded appreciatively at the man's string of praises and words, not really hearing them properly. She couldn't stop looking at Cloud, who stood across the room, getting his make-up removed. He looked so adorable even if he wasn't trying. It's his charm.

Aerith and Zack were chatting in the corner, giggling about something in her phone. Tifa wondered what it was, but didn't care enough to find out. She sat down on the chair and had her own make-up removed.

"Hey Tifa," he called out softly as he jogged to match her pace. She turned her head to see Cloud wearing a mischievous grin.

"Hey Cloud. What's up?" she said as he stopped beside her. She could feel her cheeks heating up slightly. Annoyingly… "Good job today. It was like, you've been acting and modeling since forever." she added with a cheeky grin.

"Thanks," Cloud said, returning her grin. "Hey… are you doing anything this afternoon?"

She shook her head. "Not really, why?"

He placed his hands in his back pockets and said, "Wanna hang out? Aerith just invited Zack out. The apartment's mine… for a few hours." Cloud chuckled softly.

"That sounds great," she said.

"Great!" Cloud said, with a smile. "Well… I parked the Fenrir in the studio's parking lot… is it okay for us to ride the bus back?"

She nodded, "I don't really mind, silly."

When they boarded the bus, Cloud and Tifa sat together at the front. Rufus, Bart and Lazard sat behind them, discussing something the pair wasn't paying attention to. It was probably just another theme or about the budget cost to broadcast it. Okay, so she was supposed to pay attention to these things, but how could she, when he was so near?

Her manager suddenly called for her attention.

"Yes?" she said, feeling the premonition of ruined plans.

"Bart said that he could probably finish the editing by tonight," Rufus said softly, "and then contact the TV networks to air it tomorrow."

"Wow, that's fast." Tifa said, astonished. Usually, editing commercials took at least a week—well, at least her shampoo commercials with Sephiroth did.

"Of course, being fast is what I do best, darling." Bart said pompously.

"Hey Tifa, is this how things always work around here?" Cloud whispered to her, his breath fanned her ear and jaw, causing her baby hairs to stand slightly.

"Hmm, sort of." Tifa answered, taking quick deep breaths to calm down her excitement.

"Ah," Cloud said, reclining his lithe figure into a more relaxed position next to her. "That's cool. Ahh, I feel so tired." He yawned.

"I do too," she muttered, looking out of the darkly tinted window. The thick crowd was starting to disperse.

"Tifa, where are you going?" Rufus asked as Tifa followed Cloud towards his Fenrir. She turned around and smiled a little at her boss. "I'm going to take a well-deserved rest, Rufus. I'm sure that everybody can use it, too. The call time was way too early!"

The blonde man nodded and waved his hand with effortless grace. "Will I be able to call you in a regular interval today, or should I wait until tomorrow?"

"Why do need to call me anyway?"

Clearing his throat, Rufus told her that they were already going to discuss the second commercial. However, since she was leaving, they had to move the meeting the day after tomorrow. Sensing his annoyance, the black haired beauty smiled and said, "You can call."

"Alright. You can go."

"Thanks," she said breathlessly before breaking into a half-walk, half-run towards Cloud who was already seated on the Fenrir, revving it up. Something about the way he was bent over that made her just want to stare. He straightened up when she approached. "I, uh, only have one helmet. You can wear it, if you'd like."

She nodded and took his helmet. He placed it on her. His masculine smell was strong, but it was still sweet. Tifa swung her leg over to sit down behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. It made her break into a cold sweat. The reason behind it was not because she was on a motorcycle—she'd been on it a thousand times—no, it was because she was embracing Cloud.

"Well… this is a first," Cloud mumbled quietly. Tifa did not miss it.

"What's a first?"

They passed the gates of the studio, where a handful of media people were standing by. All of them screamed and raised hell to get pictures and videos. He sped up and they were out of the camera's lenses in no time.

Cloud and Zack's apartment was a mess. Their dishes hadn't been washed, clothes and candy wrappers lay strewn all over.

"What happened to your place?" she blurted.

"Well… we didn't have time to clean up before leaving."

"Alright… So, what are we…"

"Er…" Cloud said, he bent over to gather some discarded articles of clothing and turned to face her. "I wanted to give you something, as a token of our friendship." He smiled and winked, before heading over to his room. "Why don't you take a seat first?" he called out.

Tifa sat down and waited for him to come out of his room. Silence had fallen over them. She felt the need to end it, but couldn't think anything to say. She bit her bottom lip and stared at her lap. Cloud walked out of his room, carrying a CD. She furrowed her brows.

"This is kind of like, a mix tape… except it's not a tape. It's a mix CD…whatever." he lamely said, looking shy as he handed it to her. "I put a couple of songs that reminds me of you there, and some of my favorites. I hope you like them."

She took the CD, and smiled. Nobody had ever given her a mix CD before—not even Genesis however that man did write and record songs for her, though. "Thank you, Cloud."

He merely shrugged. "Hey, do you play video games?"

"No… not really."

Cloud chuckled. "I just bought this new game yesterday. I was going to wait for Zack to play it with me, but heck… do you want to play?"

"What game is that anyway?"

"Skyrim."

"Sounds interesting…"

"Great!"

'Sounds interesting' was an understatement. The game was great, and they didn't want to stop. Zack was still not back, and it was already midnight. Cans of soda and crumpled bags of chips lay beside Cloud and Tifa.

"Uh oh." she said.

"What is it?"

"I didn't check my phone. Rufus might have been calling." she said.

Tifa rummaged through her bag and fished out her phone. Sure enough, Rufus had called twenty-three times. "I'm dead meat." she muttered as she called her manager. Rufus yelled at her for a good ten minutes about being too aloof. Then she bit back with threats of finding another manager. It shut him up.

"Hey, Tifa, why don't you stay? It's too late out." Cloud suddenly said when her phone call ended.

She looked at him and smiled. "Thanks Cloud. I'd love to stay."

"You can sleep in my room. I'll sleep here..." he said.

"What? Where will you sleep here? Oh come on, Cloud, it's totally fine if we sleep together." As soon as the words slipped out of her lips, she regretted them. It sounded too wrong. Brushing it off, the brunette looked at him, trying to bend his will. Her eyes won him over.

"Alright fine."

Author's Note: And so, an era ends. My holiday vacation's starting, and I'm commemorating it by updating this. Thank you all for the support! I hope you won't forget to review this update as well. :) EHHHH is it bad that I mentioned another, completely irrelevant game here? o_o I hope not! I just wanted to mention that because the apple of my eyes likes that game. (like he's ever going to read this anyway, bahahaha!)

-ah, being a senior is so depressing. The last of everything's happening to me so fast. ;(

Victoria Chrystallis