Two mirrors face each other, an infinite sea of reflections that lead on to nowhere. They greet one another similarly, their expressions blank, but in their gleaming faces the world can be seen multiplied, over and over again... This was her mind. She made her hopes into dreams that reflected those of the world. The world said that love meant marriage, and marriage meant children, and children meant grandchildren, and so on and so forth. The world said that love was a fairytale, and that love fit into destiny, and destiny fit into life. So if life were a fairytale, she dreamt she were the princess. She wanted to be the princess. All girls her age wanted to be the princess, so why couldn't she? After all, each princess had a knight to protect them. "Whenever I'm in trouble, my hero will come to rescue me. I want to experience that at least once." But she had no knight in shining armor. The one she believed to be her savior came too late, and nearly died in his battle. What the girl had, instead, was a martial artist; her mentor. A man, weakened by age, who used his final shred of strength to rescue her from the fiery clutches of death. Unable to stay with her, this man left her in the belly of a beast. Midgar. And even after waking alone in this place, she still dreamed and believed in something better and bigger than what her heart seemed to be drowning in. Yet she could not believe in the idea of the princess any longer. She was not a princess, and never would be. So she became a fighter. She sought to heal and to mend, she sought to stop the tyranny of a terrible organization and liberate the lives of thousands. In her attempts, she and her companions killed thousands. And yet, even after her mistakes, she plowed onward. Her failed knight had come back to her, broken as she had once been, in the belly of the beast. But he remembered nothing of his failings, and instead believed a fabrication of the past. Fearing the consequences of her correction, the woman remained silent. But even after her dreams had been drenched in blood, somewhere in her heart, she felt a notable lift at the sight of her failed knight. Draped on his shoulders was the sheer cloth of tragedy and heroism. He became a work of art, one that drove her imagination upwards. ...Was what she felt love? Surely one could call their unlikely reunion a design of fate. But regardless of the truth, the fighter found herself falling into a familiar march of romanticism. Round and round again, the beat went on. As the cycle turned to repeat itself, the woman failed to see the part of her that chose to deny. There was a part of her that found itself constantly looking for the truth, yet lying, just the same. What sort of splintered spirit made a person contradict herself so much? Deny her so much? The answer came in the woman who proclaimed love to a concept. The answer came in the woman who sought spirits in mountains. The answer came in the woman who kept her heart in a tin box buried deep in her mind. Tifa Lockhart. She was lost in a place lit with warm streetlights, the concrete stretching on and on as if never ending. She was looking into a mirror. She was certain the street she gazed down was a bare and empty continuation of nothing; a reflection of her heart. And in turn she reflected this dimly lit world, vague and unfamiliar. She felt it as intensely as any recognized emotion. "Make it go away," the woman breathed. She had wandered out onto the streets, away from The Neon Carnivale. She no longer saw it as a place for escape, but rather, a prison, one of demoralization and endless torment. Her skin crawled and she wanted to leap out of it. "Make it stop. Make it stop." Her senses slowed and dulled as they were, recognized that she was somewhere unfamiliar. Tifa's despair, however, led her to apathy. The only thing she wanted was for everything to disappear. The woman paused long enough to lean against a cold brick wall, her breathing heavy as she reached her hands up to her face and forcefully pressed her fingers into her eyes. "Make it go away!" the woman hissed. Though dimly aware of her surroundings, the woman was somehow caught in her head, and all she could recall was Chauncey's greedy hands clutching at her skin, all she could recall was Yuffie's broken expression... And it had been all her fault. "Make it go away!" Tifa shouted, falling to her knees. Tears slipped between her fingers as she bowed her head. Magicians often used mirrors to fool their audiences. Somehow, Tifa had done the same, using smoke, lights, and a clever diversion of attention to arrive at different conclusion than what her heart wished. The world said happy endings consisted of families and old age. The world said normal was good, different was bad, and forever could only exist between two opposites. The world offered many good excuses. And she used all of them. But never did her heart believe in these things. It was the mind, feeble as it was, that stumbled along this commonly used path. But even Tifa's mind knew that she was not common, not by any stretch of the definition. Tifa's hair fell about her face in miserable wisps, their strands lifting with each gust of the wind. Her dress was a wrinkled mess, and her eyes were red and swollen. Her body moved uncertainly, unsteadily, both a result of her mental state as well as her intoxication. Tifa was in distress. She found herself the prey of her own demons, the world coming down on her in a rain of expectations and condemnations. "...Tifa?" The woman dropped her hands and turned her head, her glistening eyes spotting a man coming toward her hurriedly. "My god, it is you!" The man knelt quickly next to her, and his bright green eyes met hers. Roland was gazing at her in surprise and deep concern, his handsome face producing the slightest wrinkle as he frowned at her. "Ms. Lockhart, what are you doing out here alone?" Tifa gazed at him with soulless eyes. "I made a mistake..." she croaked after a moment. Turning her head, she looked down at her hands. "Everything came undone. I...I made a terrible mistake!" the woman's voice strained at these last words, her eyes quickly filling with tears. Covering her mouth, Tifa looked away and pressed herself to the wall; ashamed and wishing that she could fade into nothing. Roland gazed at her in distress. Turning his head, his eyes fell on the companion he was with. "Mason, help me. I don't think we should leave her here like this..." Mason, a tall man with dark hair that swept about his ears, approached him, a frown on his face. He was dressed in a large gray coat, a white button up shirt tucked into his pants. Gesturing with a broad hand, Mason asked in a deep and clear voice, "Who is this?" Roland glared at him as he wrapped Tifa's limp arm around his shoulders. "Didn't you hear me? This is Tifa Lockhart!" Mason's gray eyes bugged, and he gazed at Tifa in bewilderment. "But...But she's completely out of it! Are you sure this is her?" Roland's patience grew thin. "Mason will you quit asking questions and just help me for gods sake?" The man's lips pursed, but he did as he was told. ---------- It was all white. Tifa's eyes gazed forward uncertainly, their narrowed vision blurred further from sleepiness. Her hand clutched at the sheets about her, and they felt unfamiliar against her fingertips. Sitting up carefully, the woman looked down at her clothes in confusion. A man's worn t-shirt. The t-shirt was large and long, so that it reached down to Tifa's thighs. The front of it had a martini glass and read, "Costa del Sol's Annual Martini Festival." Alarm gripping her, the woman looked quickly around. The room she was in was not her hotel room, but rather, someone's bedroom. She was sitting in a large bed with white sheets and a dark comforter, the walls painted gray and the furniture painted black. The curtains were pulled over the window to the right so that no sunlight came through, and in the mirror on her left, Tifa could see a reflection of herself. Her hair was disheveled and she was pink about the eyes and nose. Repulsed at the sight, the woman looked away. Memories of the night before trickled into her conscious, and Tifa's body sagged as she gazed ahead at the closed door across from the bed. "I've ruined it all..." the woman breathed in despair. Turning her head, she noticed on the bedside table a framed photograph of a certain young man with light hair and bright green eyes. "Roland." Tifa said, her stomach now twisting in discomfort. Burying her face in her hands, the woman groaned, "Shiva I've been so terrible..." A creak. Tifa lifted her head with a jerk, her puffy eyes turning wide. Roland peeked uncertainly around the door, his face pulled in concern as he gazed at Tifa in the bed. Seeing she was awake, the man carefully slipped into the bedroom, his bare feet making no sound on the carpeted floor. Shuffling towards the bed, the man pulled his pajama pants up a little as he sat carefully on the edge. Eyes trained on Tifa, he asked in a low voice, "How are you feeling?" Tifa blinked at him, then turned her gaze downwards. "I have a bit of a headache...but it'll go away." The man nodded, pressing his lips together. A pause. Tifa swallowed and said suddenly, "I'm sorry for being such a bother. I...I only met you yesterday and yet-" Roland shook his head. Patting her foot, he said soothingly. "Hush. No good person would have left you there. I would have hated myself if I ignored you." Tifa's chin crumpled and she pulled her legs up to her chest. "You're too kind. Compassion like that shouldn't be wasted on a person like me." Roland frowned at her, leaning forward and gazing up into Tifa's down-turned face, the man waited until the woman hesitantly met his gaze. "What happened last night? From what I could tell, you were more distraught than drunk." Tifa swallowed, "...I went out with Chauncey." At the mention of his cousin's name, the man's face hardened and he asked in a stern voice, "And what did that idiot do?" The fighter's lip trembled and she looked away. Roland touched her knee. "Tifa...did he hurt you?" Tifa quickly shook her head. "No! No...I-" she swallowed, trying desperately to keep from crying. "It was my fault." She eventually managed. Now Roland gazed at her in confusion. "Your fault?" he shook his head. "I don't understand." The fighter bit her lip and looked up at the ceiling. Tears filled her eyes, and she hastily wiped them away. "I never was interested in him. He was like so many other guys I had met. Cocky, stupid, handsome...but he seemed like such a good excuse." "Excuse? You saw Chauncey as an excuse?" Tifa nodded her head once. "You can't feel jealous if you haven't got anything to be jealous for." Roland gazed at her blankly. "I'm sorry honey, I don't think I follow." The woman smiled brokenly. "You were right before, Roland. The dress...it...it was for her. I wanted to wear the dress for her." "Her?" the man's frown deepened, but realization soon set in as his mind recalled their previous meeting at the store. "Ahhh!" he said, tilting his head back and smiling. "So you really cared for her then?" but his face returned quickly to a scowl as he pieced Tifa's reasoning together. "So you tried to lie to yourself? Tried to make yourself believe there was never a chance to begin with? And with Chauncey of all people!" Tifa hugged herself tighter, burying her face in her knees. "I know!" she cried, her voice straining as she neared breaking down into tears. Roland's face softened considerably to hear her. Sighing, he looked down at the bed covers. "That never works. You just hurt yourself more when you do that...and worse yet, you hurt others too." The man glanced at her, now regretting his stern tone. "But I just can't understand it. Why would you do something like that? Are you really so afraid of what the world thinks to get involved with someone you don't even like?" Tifa sniffled. "...I don't know." Roland blinked. "...You don't know?" "I don't know." The fighter glanced at him meekly. "But you have to know." Roland smiled slightly in disbelief. "It's one thing to be confused about your sexuality, it's another thing entirely to be confused of what you're afraid of!" Tifa shook her head helplessly. "I honestly don't know!" The man blinked his green eyes, confounded. Running a hand through his hair, he sighed. "Well this is certainly odd..." Tifa shifted to the side of the bed, slipping her legs out of the covers and placing her feet on the floor. "Thank you, Roland." She stood slowly, her head aching slightly at her movements. "I think...it'll be best if I leave now." Roland gazed up at her with genuine concern. "What will you do?" "I'm not sure." Tifa answered honestly. She looked down at her feet. "I guess I'll just go back home. Yuffie will be gone by now. I can't imagine why she'd stay. Maybe she's already on a ship to Junon." The woman swallowed and hugged herself. "There won't be anyway for me to reach her." Roland bit his lip and looked down at his lap. Tifa turned to him, her face apologetic. "How much should I pay you? For letting me stay here? I know it's a superficial way of showing my gratitude, but I don't know what else I can do to repay for your kindness." Roland shook his head adamantly. "No!" he stood and moved to her, his hands touching her arms tenderly. "No, no, sweetheart. You don't need to repay me." Tifa shook her head in return, "But please! I've been such a bother, you have to let me pay you back!" her tone broached on pleading. Roland sighed and cupped her face in his hands. After a moment, he said, "You wanna know what you can do for me? You can have breakfast with me. With me and Mason." Tifa hesitated, but after a moment, she smiled and nodded. "A-All right..." The man smiled warmly. "Brilliant." He turned and began to walk toward the door. "Help yourself to the bathroom. Your dress is hanging on the door and your shoes are to the side of it." He opened the door and prepared to walk out. Tifa started forward with a jerk. "Wait!" Roland looked back at her curiously. "Whose Mason?" she asked shyly. Roland grinned. "He's my lover." Tifa stared as he disappeared through the door. Looking down at herself with raised eyebrows, the woman muttered, "Well, at least its good to know I wasn't taken advantage of..." ---------- Mason immediately came across as a strong-minded fellow who went about things as efficiently as he could. His handshake had been firm, and his voice was solemn. Roland had stood at Tifa's side at their introduction, his lips turned up at the corners as he regarded his lover with a bright gaze. Mason, after taking one look at Tifa, stated clearly, "You're going to have a plate of pancakes and eggs. It'll do you good." And before she could say anything on her own behalf, the man disappeared into the kitchen, pots and pans clanging and ringing as he set to his task. Tifa, bewildered at Mason's brusque behavior, gazed uncertainly at Roland. Roland smiled apologetically at her. "He's nervous." He explained softly. Soon the woman's plate was ready and she was at the table, her food set before her. But Tifa hesitated, her eyes turning forlorn at the sight of the pancakes. Roland, his own food in front of him, gave her a curious look as he salted his eggs. "What's the matter? You don't like your eggs fried?" Tifa blinked and looked up at him in distraction. "Pardon?" The man's gaze grew soft. "What is it? Your expression is wistful." The fighter stared at him blankly for a moment before returning her gaze to her plate. "Pancakes are...her favorite." "Whose favorite?" Tifa jumped as Mason sat down across from her, his gaze probing. Roland sighed and looked at him with mild annoyance. "Mason, you're being abrasive." He scolded. Mason slouched apologetically. Tifa shook her head. "No, that's fine..." gazing at Mason shyly, she explained. "I was talking about my friend...Yuffie. She loves pancakes." "Yuffie? So Yuffie Kisaragi is in Costa del Sol as well?" "Well...she was. I'm almost certain she's left now." Tifa muttered her gaze turning downward. "You can't know that." Roland said, trying to offer a bit of optimism. The woman gazed at him miserably. "You didn't see her last night." "Why don't you explain it to us?" Mason said simply. Roland glared at him. The dark haired man shrugged in response. "It would help us understand!" Tonguing his cheek, Roland offered him one last dirty look before turning back to Tifa. "Well?" he asked lightly, "DO you want to tell us what happened? ...You don't have to if you don't want to." He added quickly. Tifa sighed and looked up at them both. Sometime later, the fighter had explained everything from Yuffie's sudden arrival at her home, to Tifa's date with Chauncey. Towards the end of her tale, the woman became increasingly flustered and shame-faced, her shoulders slumping as she described Yuffie's reaction at the Neon Carnivale. When she was through, both Mason and Roland were gazing at her with thoughtful expressions their eyes keenly searching her face for any omitted details in her account. The woman blushed under such scrutiny. "My! That's quite a tale." "Yes...very interesting." Both men sat back and put on pondering faces. Feeling almost as if she were being judged, Tifa cleared her throat. "I'm sorry I took so long explaining." Anxiously, she shifted in her chair. "I guess I got carried away..." Roland, his hand covering half his face, looked at the woman with eyes that suggested he was smiling. "No need to apologize. We wanted to understand...and now I think..." he looked to Mason. "Mason, did you draw the same conclusion as me, or am I just silly?" The man looked at him calmly. "I think we're thinking the same thing." Roland nodded his head and made a small, "Hmm." Tifa looked between them both nervously. "What? What are you both thinking?" Roland looked at her. "Your way of recounting all that had happened to you was rather interesting. When it came to time, people, and things, you seemed to gloss over details. ...But you seemed to remember colors and sensations pretty well. You also seem to remember conversations very well, too. The conversations between you and Ms. Kisaragi, I mean." Tifa gazed at him, bemused. "But I spent most of my time with her. That isn't so strange, is it?" Mason sat forward and laced his fingers together. "The pitch and tone your voice took suggested otherwise. You spent time with others, but you seem to recall better what your friend did over all of them." Roland smiled complacently. "You love her." He shrugged. "That's all we're saying by this." Tifa blinked at him, surprised at his candidness. "Love her?" she repeated her eyebrows rising high and her cheeks turning rosy. Mason raised an eyebrow. "Yes. Is it so hard to believe?" The woman gazed across at him helplessly. Roland reached over and grabbed the woman's hand. "You've got this fear in you, I can see it. You took a chance leaving your home the way you did back in Tiesmire, and suddenly you found yourself back in this crazy place," Roland rolled his eyes about the room, "This world. It is frightening. And your mind was still somehow mired in memories of your struggle against Shinra and the general, Sephiroth, yes?" He gave her hand a slight squeeze. "But you shouldn't let the past stop you. In anything that you do. Your fear of disappointment and pain was what was hindering you all along. Don't you see? Love came to you in a different form and you didn't understand it. You feared it because you were so certain that it would come crashing down on you in more ways than one. You pushed it away, trying to deny that you ever wanted it to begin with. But its like I said, that doesn't work. That doesn't work at all." Tifa gazed at Roland with wide eyes. At first, she thought the man was insane. She was still looking into her mirror, her mirror that was the world, and the world insisted that the matter was different entirely. But something squirmed in Tifa's heart at the earnest expression that was on Roland's face. Fearfully, she turned her mind and looked back to all the things that had happened to her before. In her past, she recalled warmth and a feeling of joy. Yuffie's smile. Yuffie's laugh. Yuffie's eyes. But even in her memories she could see how the hesitation had snaked about her limbs and mind, restraining her when her feelings threatened to spill over. Always were the words, "It would never work." Or "It's wrong." Excuses. They were just excuses. She had seen it in the wrong way. She had misinterpreted her own fears to believe that she cared what the world thought...in reality, she had simply been afraid of failure. Been afraid of the pain. Knights had failed her. Others had abandoned her. She had been let down many-a-time before. Could she truly allow herself to try again with something so unfamiliar? Was the possibility of pain worth it? After suffering so much already, was it really worth it? The world gave her the means to deny the truth, and she took it. But now the smoke cleared and Tifa's eyes were looking in the right direction. No more concepts, no more fairytales, no more lies. The mirror cracked. Along the broken rivulets, the woman could see the light seeping between the glass fragments. She had feared her own selfishness, she had feared her own deceitfulness, and in turn, she saw Yuffie as some foreign, strange thing, capable of permanently breaking what was left of her spirit. Not certain of this new path and where it would lead, the woman clung to her past dreams. Family, knights, normality... But 'normal' was an abstract word, and it suddenly hit Tifa that she didn't understand it...and never had. ...A talking beast with a flaming tail. ...A revolutionary with a gun for an arm. ...A robotic fortune-telling cat. Tifa's life consisted of characters of such extreme shades that the world now lit to become a fluorescent show of colors. All that separated people seemed to be thin black lines, lines which could easily be erased or reshaped at one's will. In such a world, could the word 'normal' hold any weight? At the look on the woman's face, Roland sat back and gave her hand one last squeeze before letting go. Mason, finishing off his plate, asked simply, "So are you going to try and find her? Tell her how you feel?" Tifa gazed across the table at him, her eyes hazy. "I...don't think I could find her." Roland bit his lip. "Well, if she really loves you, I'd imagine she'd still be there. At your hotel. She might even be waiting for you." The woman looked at him sharply. After a brief second, she stood up. "I have to go." As she hurried back to the bedroom, Mason called after her, "If you could fold that t-shirt your wearing and just place it on the bed, I'd very much appreciate it!" Roland reached over and slapped the man's shoulder. Mason glared at him. "It's my favorite shirt!" he snapped. Roland sighed and rolled his eyes. "Mason..." ---------- The taxi ride from Roland's house seemed to take ages, especially when the driver managed to get stuck in morning traffic. Tifa almost leapt out of the car in frustration when the driver began to hum to himself. But eventually the traffic let up, and like blood freed from a clogged artery, the taxi was once again on its way to the Oceanside Inn. As the city went by in a blur, the fighter tried to keep her breathing steady; she wanted to be as calm as possible when she entered the hotel. But as she stared down at her upturned palms, the woman could see how her body shivered uncontrollably. Clenching her fists, she willed the nervous energy out of her limbs. Finally the taxi arrived at its destination. Tifa, annoyed with the driver, paid for the fare without tipping and entered through the hotel's front doors as quickly as she could. But for all her hurry the woman could not help but pause at the painting near the entrance. Tifa's eyes trained on the face of the woman in the painting, her sunlit face striking a note in the woman that it failed to hit before. "Ms. Lockhart?" Otis gazed at her from his place at the reception desk, his eyes wide. "Ms. Lockhart there you are! You've been gone so long and your friend-" Tifa's head snapped towards him. "Yuffie?" She hurried towards him. "Did she come back?" "Yes! Yes she did! And-And-" The man stammered as Tifa hurried up the stairs. "Ah, Ms. Lockhart? Ms. Lockhart!" But Tifa didn't stop. Yuffie had come back and now was her chance to make things right. Before it had been so easy to blame everything on circumstance, but this time, Tifa knew she was at fault, and she had to make amends for it. But as she entered the hotel room, the key still in the doorknob, Tifa's world came to a screeching halt. ...The room was empty. Stepping forward slowly, the woman looked around her with wide eyes, her body shaking terribly. Suddenly feeling exhausted, Tifa sat heavily on the edge of her bed, her eyebrows pressing together in distress as she gazed down at the carpet. Her eyes began to burn. Otis appeared at the door, his demeanor apologetic as he gazed quietly at Tifa's shivering form. When he spoke, his voice was low and embarrassed. "What I was trying to tell you, Ms. Lockhart, was that Ms. Kisaragi came sometime last night and turned her key in. ...She...she's gone I'm afraid." ---------- "They were right." This thought came to her in the most abstract of ways. She was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling when she suddenly imagined a butterfly fluttering away from her in a meadow. She wasn't sure why or how, but the image seemed to speak the words as clearly as if it were speech. "They were absolutely right." Mason and Roland, two people she had barely come to know, had figured it out before she did. "I love her. Why else would it all hurt so much? I love her, that's just how it is." Tifa could feel two more drops of tears stream along the sides of her face and down into her ears, but she didn't wipe at them. There was no point in wiping them away. More would come in their wake. At first she had thought, "Why. Why now? Why didn't this come before?" But the answer was simple. It was because the two had never really spoken before. Tifa, being second-in-command to Cloud (whom she then believed she loved) had little time to converse with Yuffie. At any rate, the ninja had been distracted by her goals (and illnesses; half the time the girl was fighting nausea elsewhere on Cid's ship and refused conversation.) And what could the two have done even if they could have talked? The pace of their adventure put a strain on everyone, no matter where they stood in the group. Amiable friendship came only after their struggle was done. And with all the time in the world set between them, Tifa and Yuffie had come to understand each other better then they ever had together in Avalanche. But that time was gone. Tifa, through her continuous denial had managed to ruin her friendship with the one person she had come to love more than anything else. "That's why it hurts so much..." the woman whispered. She turned onto her side and curled up into a ball, her dress bunching at her knees. "That's why..." Tears spilled from her eyes at her movements, and through her blurred vision, the woman thought she saw phantoms. Chauncey, Roland, Mason, Otis, Vera, Mal, Barret, Cid, Cloud... Yuffie? Tifa's face pulled into a scowl as she saw light coming from the doorway leading out into the hall. In the door frame, a slim figure stood, her body rigid as the light cut around her form. Tifa wiped at her eyes and lifted her body up halfway, her left arm supporting her body as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. "Yuffie...is that you?" Yuffie gazed at her with hard eyes, her back straight and her shoulders squared. Her head was tilted back slightly, a defiant tilt of the chin that made her seem distant. Tifa's heart hammered against her chest as she sat completely upright, her lips parted in surprise. "You're back." was all the fighter could manage to say. Yuffie exhaled through her nose, her hands clenching at her sides. Finally looking down at the ground, she said quietly, "I don't know why I'm here." Crossing her arms, she leaned against the door frame and tongued her cheek, her hair falling about her eyes. "Otis gave me back the hotel key. Said you'd only got here two hours ago..." Tifa rubbed her arm. "Yeah, I slept somewhere else last night." Yuffie's jaw clenched. "Where were you?" The fighter's head jerked up when she realized what the girl was thinking. "I wasn't with Chauncey!" she said quickly, desperate to dispel the thought from Yuffie's mind. "I left him at the club. I...I don't even know what happened to him." Tifa sighed, "I went wandering around last night. A friend gave me a place to stay." Yuffie didn't say anything to this. Instead she swallowed and looked up at the ceiling. The silence that came after Tifa's words was thick and stifling. The woman, her mind fearing the girl's reticence, willed Yuffie to say something. The girl, as Tifa thought this, had been tapping her fingers on her arms, idly gazing around at everything else but the fighter. As she turned her head and tapped, the scowl on her face grew increasingly intense with the passing time, and soon, tears began to show in her eyes. Turning suddenly, the girl shut the door, a shaky sigh escaping her lips as she pressed her forehead against it. Speaking in a low voice, she said, "At first I couldn't believe it. My legs...I couldn't feel them." Tifa closed her eyes to hear Yuffie speak. Yuffie pressed her palms to the door tenderly, as if it were a living thing. "It all hit me so fast I wasn't sure what to do. Cry? Scream? A bunch of things ran through my head at once. The biggest thing I thought was 'why?' 'Why am I seeing this?' Why would she do this?'" Yuffie grit her teeth and slammed her palm into the wood. "And that idiot! I wanted to kill him!" Tifa swallowed, her throat tightening unbearably. "Yuffie-" "When I came back here to the hotel, I was ready to leave. I didn't care where I was going anymore, I just needed to get away." The girl turned and leaned back against the door, her head tilted all the way back. "By then I decided I'd rather be angry than let myself drop into some stupid depression...but as I rode out on my bike, I felt the wind at my back...and I felt empty. I stopped at some run-down motel on the outskirts of town and barely slept at all. By the time the morning came, I felt worse than before. My plan failed. I couldn't stay angry. I wanted to, but I couldn't." Yuffie tilted her head forward and looked at Tifa, who still had her eyes closed. "I wish I was as shallow as everyone seems to think I am. Maybe then, none of this woulda been such a big deal." Tifa looked at Yuffie sorrowfully. "Yuffie...I'm sorry." The girl scowled, her body recoiling at the woman's words. "Save it!" the ninja snapped. She pushed off the door with her shoulders and stepped further into the room, her hands jamming into her back pockets. "I don't want your apology. It won't make me feel better. What I want is an explanation." Yuffie turned her gaze on the fighter, her eyes searing. "You still have to make me understand. I've broken some promises myself, but I can't wrap my head around this one." She wanted her to explain? Tifa paused, her mind churning as she tried to gather herself enough to speak. The ninja mistook her brief silence as hesitation, however, and barked, "Just give me an excuse! A lie! Anything! Fool me with some stupid reasoning and I'll just live with that!" Tifa looked at her sharply, her eyes lighting some. "I can't just lie to you!" "So tell me the truth, then!" Yuffie half-shouted, leaning forward slightly as the words burst from her lips. "I'm sick of your bogusness! You've been screwing around with my head ever since we've come to this stupid city and I'm getting fed up with it!" "I didn't like seeing you with her!" Tifa blurted out. Her body stiffened after saying this and she continued hurriedly, "With that girl. From the bakery, I mean." Yuffie blinked, the anger draining from her body. "You...you saw us?" Tifa nodded. "It made me jealous...but I didn't want to admit it. I didn't want to admit it because I had just rejected you and because I was still scared out of my wits that, somehow, if I allowed myself to be with you, something terrible would happen. So I asked Chauncey out. I...I can't recall the last time I did something so ridiculous." Tifa looked down at the floor. "The entire night, I tried to convince myself that I wasn't doing anything wrong... I tried finding the missing piece to make the ache in my chest go away, but I couldn't find what I was looking for. That's because it wasn't there. It never was. I wanted to feel whole. I...I wanted you, Yuffie." Tifa looked fearfully up at the girl, her hands wringing themselves in her lap. Yuffie was gazing at her blankly, her eyes wide. "What're you saying?" she shook her head and her eyes became pained. "What the heck do you think you're saying to me right now? Is this some kind of game to you!?" Tifa gazed somberly at the girl. "...I love you." She whispered. Yuffie took a quick step back, her face pulling one of surprise. "No...that," her face pulled slowly into a scowl, and she shook her head. "That isn't," without warning, she stomped her foot. "That isn't fair! You can't just say that! You can't just say that after all the practical bull you shoved in my face yesterday morning! What about not getting ahead of your emotions and keeping realistic?" the girl pointed at herself energetically, "I'm not an on-and-off switch to fuck around with at your liking, Tifa!" Yuffie's face was pink, and her eyes were wide. Heaving, she stomped her foot again, a small cry ripping from her lips as she did so. "To HELL with you! To hell with you Tifa!" After saying this, the girl reeled back, and an agonized sound came from deep within Yuffie's throat. When she began to teeter Tifa rushed forward in alarm, catching the girl and hugging her tightly. "To hell with you, Tifa..." Yuffie sobbed as the woman held her around the shoulders, her expression tender. The girl huddled herself in the woman's embrace, hands pressing at Tifa's shoulders. "This is my heart you're messing with...my heart... You can't keep twisting it around, you can't, or I'll die..." "Do you want me to take what I said back?" the woman asked sadly. Yuffie shook her head against Tifa's shoulder. "Don't ask me that." She whispered. Tifa frowned, genuinely confused. "Why?" Yuffie lifted her head and looked at Tifa. The woman's breath held to see the girl's eyes so tender and anxious, her cheeks moist from her tears. "Because I'll never have an answer." The girl breathed shakily. "Does that mean you're going to leave?" Tifa asked, distraught. The girl smiled wryly. "Dummy. You don't get it, do you?" She pressed her forehead to Tifa's. "I lied to you. I knew exactly why I came back here..." Tifa swallowed. "Why did you come back?" Yuffie looked at her with a warm gaze. "...It's because I love you, Tifa." "...What?" "I said I love you. That's why you can't lie to me. If you do, I won't be able to take it." The girl buried her face in Tifa's neck, her arms coming around and holding onto the fighter fiercely. She began to shiver, and Tifa, feeling her heart throb at the girl's vulnerability, tightened her embrace. Suddenly, she wished she could take the ninja into herself, to make her realize the strong sense of feeling she elicited in Tifa's soul. The girl had become such an important part of the woman's life in such a short time...but that was the force of her personality. It was why so many failed to understand her. Yuffie Kisaragi channeled the very essence of passion. "Yuffie..." Tifa whispered, her voice thick with emotion. The girl lifted her head, her eyes warily gazing at Tifa through a curtain of hair. Brushing the hair behind the girl's ear, the woman caressed Yuffie's cheek with her thumb, her eyes half-closed. The woman could feel the girl's warm breath against her parted lips, and Tifa could feel her mind turn hazy. She wanted Yuffie to understand. The girl had to understand... ...How much Tifa needed her. Leaning forward slowly, the woman pressed her lips firmly against Yuffie's. ...And there, the world slipped away into nothing.
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