Chapter 88 - Lines Fed and Delivered
November, 2000
The stage lights are blinding.
Sephiroth is used to them but it is like how he is used to getting injections or getting hurt in battle. They are accepted and understood pains. They can be categorized and put away. They are insubstantial. He blinks slowly, ignoring the sting. The suit jacket scratches the back of his neck. It's a new one that they have put in his rotation. It's black. It is SOLDIER black.
Like Angeal used to wear.
The chair is uncomfortable.
"So…can you give us any insight?" The interviewer asks, all smiles and lipstick.
She's pretty, Sephiroth can recognize that as she sits behind her desk. Her eyes are brown, unusual for him but normal for everyone else. The blonde hair is pulled to the side. She needs to have her roots dyed. A mug of coffee has been set out before him. The cameras shift behind the lights like cats stalking prey.
"You will have to be more specific, Bethany," he responds even though he knows what she is asking. It's the only thing that anyone asks anymore. It is the reason that PR keeps sending him out. It is why they sit him on this couch, turn him to the camera and pat his back before retreating off screen.
Sephiroth will say his lines like the good toy SOLDIER that he is.
She puts on a fake pout and slumps away, cleavage towards the screen. "Both Angeal Hewley and Genesis Rhapsodos have abandoned Shinra. They've destroyed property. They've taken men. It seems they have some sort of agenda but it is unclear."
It doesn't matter how many times this situation is explained to him. It causes a flash of pain and grief.
This is yet another thing that he can expect and categorize. He can put it away and so he does.
"All that information is correct," he says.
"So why?"
Sephiroth wonders what time they will deliver dinner. Alvar picked it for him. He'll be working late tonight. These TV interviews are eating into too much of his time. Being the only First, his duties have doubled.
No.
He's wrong.
They have tripled.
Sephiroth waves a hand. "You are right. Their motivations are unclear. I can say that Shinra is doing their best to come to an understanding and recover both Rhapsodos and Hewley."
He fights a frown. He said the line incorrectly. It pings in the back of his head. It's a mistake, an error, a line in an email when he is able to check his phone again: "Please use the following correct phrasing from now on in relation to motivations. 'Their motivations are unclear. I can say that we are doing our best to come to an understanding and recover both men.'"
"But you are friends with both of them?"
"I knew both of them."
She leans across the desk and stage whispers, "Did they ask you to come along?"
"No."
Her face is shocked as if she wasn't prepared for this answer. Perhaps she hasn't done her research and doesn't know that this question has been asked publicly, informally and formally by the Turks in windowless offices multiple times.
"How is that possible? You are the most powerful SOLDIER. Surely they'd want you on your side? You seemed…so close."
Sephiroth remembers the way that Genesis breathed against his skin clinging onto him days before he defected.
"What the public perceived about our friendship and the truth of the matter are two separate things."
This is the part where his body starts to hurt. It is an embroidery of emotions that sews itself into his back.
"So you weren't close with them?"
He has to distract himself to keep the tightness from rising to his face.
Alvar probably ordered him steak.
Last week there had been a slice of cake and sparkling filtered water added. Sephiroth hadn't mentioned the additions but he had been thankful for them.
Someone keeps sending his office expensive wine. Every few days a bottle as bloody as it is red sits on his desk with a glass beside it. No note, no giver, just a temptation. They want him to slip. It's so apparent. They want him to trip over himself and spill what they want to hear. The truth is simply too unbelievable.
Bethany smiles. "Sephiroth, weren't you friends?"
"It was a working relationship. They were coworkers." Sephiroth lies on camera because these are these lines penned by Shinra and forced down his throat so they can burn their way out of his heart.
Alvar makes the alcohol disappear.
Sephiroth had paused by his desk after the first few bottles, the words broken and quiet. He had to be careful not to break the wine bottle as he held it out. Already he has forgotten how to ask for help. It doesn't matter how jumbled his request was. Realization appeared on Alvar's face and he had risen, taken the alcohol and promised him never again.
For the first time, the interviewer's brown eyes look straight into his. "Really?"
A small part of Sephiroth wishes he wouldn't make the drinks go away.
"Yes. It was a PR stunt and it worked…effectively."
He wonders if they are watching this and what they think of him.
"I'm so disappointed." She laughs and slaps the table hard enough to make him suppress a flinch.
"Me too," he says and takes a drink out of the mug.
He wonders if they understand how much he is being forced to lie.
The stage lights blind him and he looks away from the camera.