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“Excuse me miss?”
Aerith pats down her flowerbed and slowly lifts her head up to greet the stranger standing by the door. She stiffens when she recognizes that long silver hair, the green mako eyes, and black leather trench coat. She’d seen him before, in those posters in Midgar.
Sephiroth.
Aerith stands up in alarm, hand reaching behind for her staff. “What do you want?” She sneers.
“I…” He takes notice of her defensive stance and raises his hands in surrender. “I heard you sold flowers here.”
Aerith hesitates, but slowly let’s go of her weapon. “Why? Who sent you?”
“Zack mentioned you,” Sephiroth answers, stepping closer to her. “I would like to buy some for a close acquaintance of mine.”
Aerith owlishly blinks at him, then shrugs and drops to her knees. “Well, I guess you can have some, but it’ll cost you.”
Sephiroth shuffles closer. He towers over her, careful not to step on the soil.
“How much?”
Aerith plucks several into her basket and stands up, smiling at the taller man. She circles around him, once, twice, then stops behind his silver white hair. She takes a handful and yanks it.
“Ouch."
“It’ll cost you a fortune,” she says, grinning as the taller man's face wilts. “Now how about you sit down and lemme tidy you up, okay?”
“I did not ask for this.”
“Did you want the flowers or not?”
Sephiroth hesitates, then drops to his knees.
“Good boy.” Aerith comments, and she begins to braid his hair in silence.
After a long hair session, Aerith roughly shoves the taller man forward until he’s folded over. “There! All set! Now you can give this special someone all the flowers they want!”
Sephiroth sighs, legs creaking as he rises to feet. He nods at the woman. “Thank you, for… For this.”
“Don’t mention it,” Aerith waves him off. “I know he’ll absolutely love them once you find him again.”
Sephiroth owlishly blinks at her, and then smiles warmly at her. He reaches to touch his hair.
“I hope he does.”
“Now go out there and get him already, silly!” Aerith exclaims, shoving Sephiroth out the door. “And tell Cloud I said hi.”
Sephiroth whips his head at her in alarm, however the doors are already closed and he’s left standing there dumbfounded.
“How did she know?”