[closed]

[wutaisrose]

Characters: Yuffie & Cloud
Location: Casualty Communal on the seventh floor, outside Cloud's room.
Rating: G
Time: August 30th, late afternoon.
Description: Cloud's in trouble and a certain not-so-itty-bitty-anymore-ninja is going to scold him.

Comments

[de_faulty_hero]

It had been a long while since he had experienced someone pounding on his door with the intention of forcing him out. It was generally because of the company that he kept, and clearly, Yuffie had figured out where he lived if the repeated banging on the door was any indication. He figured that she would have been here sooner, but perhaps he had soothed her temper by occasionally speaking to her over the network.

Of course, he hadn't actually realized it was Yuffie until she had started shouting at the door for him to come open it. He grumbled as he headed for the door, aware that she wouldn't relent until it became painfully clear he wasn't there or he opened up. Either way, he wasn't going to have her out there shouting and breaking down the door.

Reaching out, he hitched his towel higher on his hips and pulled open the door, raising an eyebrow as he stood clad in only a towel and still dripping wet. "You make it sound like Meteor is bearing down on Midgar again. I can't even have a shower without you demanding something," he said with feigned annoyance. "What's so important that we need to talk about it so urgently?"

[wutaisrose]

It seemed her Cloud-call worked, and Yuffie leaned back to ready a glare for the man. "Took you long enou-!!" Blink one was quickly followed by blink two and three, all of which ended in a speechless ninja with her mouth hanging open. Well, this was a Cloud she had never seen. She was sure Tifa had seen this Cloud, but not Yuffie. Ever. And so it was understandable when her face turned a hot shade of red and the girl uncomfortably looked away.

"Jeez! What kind of guy are you, answering the door like that..." If there was one thing Yuffie Kisaragi was naturally good at, though, it was recovering from embarrassment spells. The girl waved a hand and effectively slid by him and into his room. "You know what you did," the ever female response, and she knew it. After taking a short glance around she turned back to face him, though clearly making a point to avoid looking anywhere but his eyes.

"Tifa would kill you! I'm surprised," except not really, "Vincent hasn't already." That guy didn't care about anything. Keeping her mental grumblings to herself, Yuffie lifted a finger to waggle it at him. "And you thought you could keep it a secret!"

[de_faulty_hero]

Coming out in only a towel worked as he thought it would, and he had to smirk when Yuffie's jaw hung slack before her face turned bright red. Ah, it was good to have her back just so that he could get the upper hand on her again, though he apparently had done something urgently wrong. At least she would learn about pounding long periods of time on his door.

"What kind of girl are you pounding on my door making it sound like an emergency," he countered with as he stepped back to allow her entry into his apartment. He shut the door afterwards and casually walked back towards the bathroom where his shower was still running.

He turned it off before leaning his head out of the bathroom to regard the Wutai Princess. "Tifa tends to give me the benefit of the doubt when I don't answer the door right away," he replied. He wasn't sure why Vincent would kill him though, since the guy had seen him without much of clothing on anyway. "I know Vincent might be jealous of how wonderful I look, but he never was inclined to violence about it."

Wait, what secret? "Huh," he said intelligently.

[wutaisrose]

"A very important one," she responded without missing a beat, arms crossing over her chest once he disappeared into the bathroom. She breathed a sigh of relief, eyes closing for a moment as she shook her head. He was either so very dense or incredibly devious, but she hadn't figured which one yet. Taking these few seconds of privacy to snoop Yuffie moved toward the bed, sitting on the edge as she began to sift through the nightstand.

She didn't bother checking over her shoulder to see if he was looking when he spoke to her again. "I'm not talking about that," she refused to say anything about his lack of clothing aloud. Couldn't the guy have decency? This was something they would be yelling at her about, right? Not to mention the awkward blush that just wouldn't go away until he did.

"You and Sephiroth." Straight to the point and ignoring her thoughts. "Tifa would be really mad," then a pause and she withdrew her hands, half turning to look back at the blond. "Besides, Vincent would only be jealous of the fact that you've got a hot babe in your room and he doesn't." As if that were the entire argument to be made here.

[de_faulty_hero]

Turning around in the bathroom, he found his pants and slipped them on under the towel that kept him moderately decent. He dropped the towel down to the sink so he could button them. He grabbed the towel and wandered back out into the main room where Yuffie was complaining about something or other. He rubbed his hair with the towel, wondering what she was talking about.

Ah, so that was it? "Possibly," he said with a shrug of his shoulders, brushing off the topic easily. He cast a glance to Yuffie and smirked while shaking his head. "You're a minor; I doubt he'd want that in his room."

He tossed the towel back into the bathroom, ready to clean it up later once he had weathered the Kisaragi storm. "I don't have anything of value in here, so you can stop snooping through my stuff." He had hidden the money that he had been given in a very good place.

[wutaisrose]

Yuffie frowned and promptly looked away again. Even if he had pants on, it was no better! Clearing her throat uncomfortably, she decided to stare thoughtfully at a particular spot on the wall. "I'm not a minor," she argued - granted, fighting this wasn't really proving her new maturity. "I'm nineteen now! Figured you would at least notice that much!" She thought she'd grown up, anyway.

Her gaze dropped to the open drawer and its lack of anything worthy of her attention, so with a "hmph!" she quickly closed the drawer and forced herself to look up at him. Nope, still just as awkward and jeez did he always walk around without a shirt on and she just didn't notice? No, wait, back then she'd noticed and then... Then she grew up.

Standing up, Yuffie put her hands on her hips and leaned forward a little. "So what's the big deal, huh? Sephiroth's not one of us! He's not a good guy! In fact, after you beat him up and down Edge I thought we would never have to see the guy again, but here I come in and all I see is the two of you being buddy buddy and like nothing ever happened which is so not okay!" All in one breath...

[de_faulty_hero]

Pausing as he watched her, Cloud actually had to stop and stare at Yuffie for a long moment. He had noticed it the first time with the first Yuffie he had encountered, but he hadn't really seen her as older. The girl he had traveled with did look younger he realized, and he rubbed the back of his neck. But... what about that five year age gap? "I... you do look older. Your clothes are different," he said softly. "That means... we're only two years apart."

It was clear that she was at least slightly upset over the distinct lack of something to steal or at the very least examine. He didn't keep much in his room, and it was generally very plain. He had no need for extras when he planned on going home sooner rather than later.

Crossing his arms over his bare chest, he again simply shrugged his shoulders as if the topic wasn't an issue. "When I arrived here, there were no other members of AVALANCHE available. Sephiroth approached me for a temporary partnership. I got to keep a close eye on him, and he got what little benefit I could provide him battle-wise."

Then he paused and asked, "Where's... Edge?"

[wutaisrose]

Her head tilted to the side. "My clothes look different? Of course they're different! I don't wear the same thing everyday," she grumbled, tapping a foot on the floor in frustration. At least he acknowledged that she wasn't the sixteen-year-old girl anymore, that had to be a good sign. "Two years, huh? That's better, looks like I'm catching up already. Who knows, maybe tomorrow something'll happen and I'll be the same age!" On the other hand, she didn't really want to get old.

But that was painfully sidetracking.

Despite how much she hated their partnership, she did note that he had a point. What better way to keep an eye on Sephiroth than to partner up with him? But still, "it's Sephiroth, though. Not Rufus or any of those Turks. That's a big 'no'!" Still, there didn't seem to be much point in arguing as the decision had already been made. Ignoring the way his muscles moved with his slightest shift, Yuffie did her best to level a glare at him in place of further shouting.

"Where's..." Yuffie threw her hands in the air and shook her head. "Forget it! You know, I don't feel like changing the future, I told you that!"

[de_faulty_hero]

"Yeah but... there's less of it than I last remember," Cloud clarified. Though, thankfully she remembered to do up the button on her shorts this time. That was awkward having to avoid looking at her open button and wandering how long it would take for her shorts to hit her ankles. "I appreciated it more when you were a lot younger than me. Now you're almost like... dateable or something. Your father hasn't arranged a marriage for you yet?"

Shrugging his shoulders, he didn't think that there was a problem with dealing with the ex-General as he was. "Yes, the most dangerous man on the planet, and the one I can defeat if he makes a wrong move. He's close enough that he generally behaves himself," he murmured and passed a hand through his damp but fully formed spikes.

"How can you change the future when I'm just confused about what Edge is?" If it was a city, it had a very bad name. Someone needed to be a little more creative.

[wutaisrose]

That was definitely an eye twitch. "Less of it..." The apparent annoyance at his pointing out the obvious only worsened and her entire face lit up in crimson. "D-Dateable?! Jeez, Cloud, stop it already!" She could have just died on the spot. The great Cloud Strife, leader of AVALANCHE and hero to the Planet just called her dateable. She didn't even want to think of the possibilities of who her deadbeat of a father would even think to pick out (assuming the old man had a choice - Yuffie was quite content doing things on her own) for marriage. Probably Cloud just for popularity's sake.

Yuffie groaned and sank back onto the bed, covering her face with her hands and slowly shaking her head. "Agh, just don't start with weird sleepovers or anything," she mumbled into her palms, finally letting them slide down to her lap as she looked up at him. "I mean it! I won't think of that guy as a friend or anything. Ever!"

Sighing, the ninja leaned back with her hands on the mattress to support herself. "You never know, just telling you about Edge could change everything! Listen, I'm not taking that chance!" Although, most likely they wouldn't remember anything from here if they did get to go back. Who knew?

[de_faulty_hero]

Tilting his head to the side, Cloud scratched his nose as he tried to figure out which comment was the one that got her back up so much. He decided that her lack of clothing probably wasn't an issue given how it continued to be reduced over the years. "What? You're less underage now, that's all I meant." He gave Yuffie a skeptical look. "You never were interested in boys though... just robbing everyone blind."

He wasn't so certain what all this groaning and looking pained was all about. He was pretty sure of himself and his ability to handle the situation in question. "Well... he does sometimes stay here," he said with a shrug of his shoulders. It wasn't a big deal, since he knew Sephiroth wouldn't sleep anywhere else. "You don't have to. I'll deal with him."

When had Yuffie gotten so paranoid? "I take it that my future self is just such a wonderfully awesome person that you want preserve that, huh?"

[wutaisrose]

And finally she figured it out. Dense. Definitely dense. There was no devious bone in his body. Yuffie sighed at the thoughts running through her mind, a hand lifting to idly flick at her bangs. "I've been interested, I just don't have the time." Not to mention Yuffie was simply not the 'settle down' type. She would probably lose her mind, and besides, there was nobody good enough for her - that was her reason and she was sticking to it.

She threw him a look, and for a moment she wasn't sure what to say. Maybe something along the lines of 'what' and 'your brain is broken', but she'd finally decided on, "What's wrong with you?!" Arguing with this guy was exhausting! "He could've killed you in your sleep! So not safe," she continued, falling back on the bed to stare up at the ceiling while her arms folded behind her head.

"Not at all. You suck," she replied quickly, snickering a little to herself. "But we like you anyway, and I don't want anything to change."

[de_faulty_hero]

Well, saving the world did take up a lot of their time, he supposed. However, she was from the future, and he figured that things had settled down after Sephiroth had dissolved into the Lifestream, even if was for a little while. "Does that mean that they are still scared of you because you beat them up in Wutai?"

He pretended to look aside at the exact moment that she threw that dirty look, examining his kitchen area instead. "Nothing is wrong with me. He's not interested in killing me right now," he replied simply, as if that was good enough for him. He sometimes did have a problem with trusting too much. "He hasn't yet, so I'm not expecting him to either."

He sucked? He supposed that wasn't any different from usual according to them. "Of course you do. I saved the world; you have to continue to like me."

[wutaisrose]

Yuffie gave a dramatic sigh and kicked her legs back and forth over the edge of the bed. "Not my fault they're all pansies!" True, she hadn't been the most dainty of daughters, and no matter how many boys she met back then, none of them could match her skills! So, clearly, they just weren't worth whatever free time she could get. Then she'd met AVALANCHE and free time was far and few in between anymore. Maybe it was also their fault for her lack of interest in finding somebody like that. Well, she would blame it on them if it ever came up at least.

But it felt weird talking about things like that, especially with Cloud. She expected Tifa or Aerith to pester her, ask about her love life, or (god she hoped never) to play matchmaker - this conversation and Cloud just did not mix.

"Not right now, but it's still not safe." The girl jumped up from the bed, walking toward him to flick a finger at his forehead. "But you're still as thick as ever!" It explained how he always ended up in such dangerous situations as the worlds threats. Twice now! She decided it had to be his lack of luck. Or maybe he was just always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yuffie laughed, shaking her head a little. "Nope, that's not why we like you." But she left it at that. No explanation, no continuation, just that. The ninja moved by him again, toward the door mostly because sheesh this poor guy really wasn't kidding when he said he had nothing, and even though she'd taken a sneaky (she thought it was sneaky) glance toward his pockets to see if he was lying she wasn't about to slip her hands anywhere until she had a better opportunity for anything valuable. "Just be careful. There aren't a lot of spiky headed idiots to replace you with."