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Cloud looks down at the ticket he’s holding, gently secured between his fingers. In bold letters he reads the words “loveless - a special broadcast” and in a smaller font the date of the show, that one show, from three years ago.
“For the future?” Aerith says as she wraps a hand around his arm, leaning closer against him and pointing at a small sign near the ticket office. “By chance they recorded today’s show! So we could watch it as many times as we want from now on, isn’t that right?” She excitedly asks the box office agent watching them from the other side of the counter.
“That’s right!” The agent nods. “You can come back on the same date as today every year in the future and watch the show, your show!” She informs in a cheerful lilt. “For the cheapest price of 1,000 Gil, we keep the film for you!”
“What do you say, Cloud?” Aerith asks him, she rests her hands on his arm, tip toeing to lean even closer to his face, smile wide and eyes bright. She got so close he could see the golden flecks of green in her irises. “We could come back and watch our wonderful performance together!”
He sighs, but there wasn’t much discussion to be held. “Fine.” He says, a tiny smile escaping his lips as he watches her cheer.
Cloud doesn’t know how long he’s been standing there staring at the small piece of paper in his hand, but it isn’t until someone bumps into him that he snaps back to reality, blinking rapidly to situate himself.
He feels a tightness in his chest, a knot in his throat. His legs can’t seem to move, feet cemented to the floor. Part of him wonders if he can continue to do this, reliving that night watching the recording, but part of him doesn’t want to stop or move on from it.
Tifa tells him when he visits the bar, time heals every wound, but the more time passes the more the ache seems to deepen, as if it were a wound refusing to close.
He’s learnt that time doesn’t care about pain, and not watching her every single year on this day would leave an even emptier space in him.
So he keeps coming back like clockwork, with an unfailing precision that both comforts and torments him.
He finally finds the strength to enter the booth he’s been standing outside of for who knows how long. It’s a familiar room now, like entering his childhood bedroom, worn and a bit frayed around the edges. It’s small on its walls, with a few chairs, a screen and a flickering projector he turns on, on his way down to his seat.
The smell of old film and dust surrounds him as he sits down, resting his elbows on his knees, his forehead against his knuckles as he waits for the screen to light up in the dim room.
He closes his eyes for a moment, listening to the gentle whir of the projector as it comes to life.
Slowly, the screen lights up to a start, the soft glow illuminates his skin as the orchestral music begins playing.
He puts on the VR glasses that would fake his reality into the one she shared with him three years ago on that stage.
And suddenly he is inside the stone-wall cell as Alphreid, anxiously waiting for her to glide into the room any moment.
His heart starts to pound, his palms begin to sweat.
“Alphreid! Are you unharmed?” He hears her voice and his heart skips a beat. Her voice, even as a recording, carries the same warmth and urgency he so tenderly remembers.
He can’t speak, he can’t move, he only watches her as she chants her lines so fervently, her eyes ablaze with emotion.
“Aerith…” her name escapes his lips for the millionth time, a whispered plea reaching out through the fog of memory. He calls her in his dreams every night, only to wake up in agony, grasping on to his sheets like they're the only tether to the world he longs to go back to.
If he only could reach out to her in his reality, tell her he’s missed her every single day of his life since she’s been gone.
He lifts his hand towards her, though he knows that it's nothing but air, nothing but the illusion of proximity.
He stretches his fingers to reach her but the scenario wavers around him, the set blends into an arena.
They stand side by side in front of Varvados. He couldn’t care less about the story rolling before him; his focus remains solely on Aerith's presence, so vivid and real that it blurs the line between memory and fantasy.
He watches her move, yielding her staff up in an easy effortless way. He listens to her speak, enchanted by the graceful way she inhabits her character, every gesture laden with meaning.
It’s the only moving footage he has of her and he’s sure his mind would go mad if he didn’t have it.
The video is the only proof of her he kept coming to so religiously every year, a moment suspended in time, a fragment of a life shared too briefly.
Chance had nothing to do with it, he begins to think.
He closes his hands into fists, feeling them shake, his heart swelling inside his chest. A longing too deep to be extinguished surges through him, rocks him to the core.
She’s smiling at him now, and he’s holding her holographic image so carefully, afraid it might shatter. He leans down towards her face as her lips curve into a mischievous grin, her eyes twinkling with the warmth he remembers.
For a moment he loses himself in the memory, his heart aching with a bittersweet blend of joy and sorrow. For only an instance his lips brush hers, and the room around him dissolves, replaced by the vast, starry sky of their first night together in the open world.
“Whoa!” She exclaims, voice carrying a melody of wonder that dances through the air. “I had never seen as many stars before!”
The night was crystal pale, illuminated by the ghostly moon in the sky. Stars twinkled brightly, like a tapestry of diamonds, casting a gentle glow over her features, brightening the forest green of her eyes. She had an eager smile on her lips, as if she couldn’t contain the happiness flowing through her.
He remembers looking at her for such a long moment his mouth fell open, just gapping at her bubbling enthusiasm watching something as constant as the night sky, before she catches him staring and he has to fake a cough to cover his embarrassment.
She chuckles, she’d never miss a thing. “You know, if I’d known it was this beautiful I’d have come outside Midgar sooner than this!”
“And what of the plains monsters?” He asked her, with a valiant demeanor she could see right past.
“No worse than the ones inside the city.” She shakes her head, smile faltering as she looks at him, the bright of her eyes dimming for a second. “But at least out here, there's freedom.” She extends her arms out to the expanse of the wild fields before them, as if she was trying to embrace the world.
She was light in the dark, someone who chased the shadows away with laughter and dreams. He wished he could go back to that moment, hold onto it forever in the cradle of his heart.
Now she can only stand before him in digital colors that flicker like a memory he's afraid to forget.
She reaches for him in the motion picture he’s playing, holding him tightly while flames crackle behind them. His arms lift up to embrace her shape, so gently yet firm enough her image flutters.
He leans his head against hers, but he can’t smell the sweet floral scent of her hair or feel the warming touch of her skin.
And it hurts to breathe because he can’t. And it hurts to think how pathetic he must look like if someone saw him right now from the outside, holding on to a hologram, holding on to the only remnant of her image he has.
The scenario changes, she’s no longer in his arms but in the center of the stage. Wearing a long sleeveless white dress with her hair cascading loosely down her back.
She looks at him and smiles, the corners of her eyes crinkle softly, lips curving wider as she notices him blush.
It feels just like the first time he ever watched her sing, butterflies flutter in his stomach as he stands there gaping stupidly at her once again. His heart pounding in his ears, wanting to burst out of his chest. He feels his cheeks burn, his lips tremble.
He tries his hardest to engrave every detail of her in his mind, every flower of her dress, every loose string of hair, every motion of her body, how the light envelopes the edges of her face in an ethereal golden glow.
The mako coursing through his blood is starting to wear his mind frail, he feels it foggier each day, so he needs to strain himself extra hard to remember everything.
He can’t take his eyes off her.
Only this time, fate stands in the way, the acrid taste of time and distance leaves a bad taste in his mouth.
His eyes prickle hot as she sings. As he listens to the lyrics of the song.
A yellow petal floats towards him as she glances at him once again from amongst the flowers that surround her. He still hasn’t seen a more beautiful picture than this.
He extends his palm to let the petal sit there, it’s the one gesture he repeats from the story, as if that single yellow petal could become real one of these times and he could feel its velvety texture, keep it close, take it back with him.
But it never is anything more than made of light. And when he opens up his hand, it’s gone. And with it, a little bit more of his heart, if there’s any piece of it left.
Then the song ends and the curtain falls, leaving her in the dark.
And it’s all over as quickly as it had begun. The video stops and it’s time to take off the VR glasses.
The room falls silent and darkness engulfs him, just like the curtain falling over her and ending the show, leaving a dark void in its wake.
“Wow.” He hears her voice though she’s not really there. “It amazes me every time.” She tells him.
“Yeah…” he replies, voice hoarse from being silent for too long. “Me too.”
“But Cloud…” She trails off and he knows what she’s going to say. That he can’t keep doing this, that keeping the film wasn’t a good idea after all, it’s killing him, draining his life away.
She hesitates and his eyes search the room looking for her, unsuccessfully, he’s definitely going crazy now.
“Thank you.” She says instead, and it’s the last thing she says before going silent and all he can hear now is the muffled voices and laughter coming from outside the booth.
He breathes in and out, slow, hard, like it’s painful to, his chest feels heavy and pressured.
He takes a moment to process the image of her in his mind, her voice and the song, and all the events he has just watched and the memories it has unlocked.
And after he calms himself down and all the emotions running through him slow down and the world stops spinning…
…he presses ‘play’, again.