Chapter Text
“Why do I have to go to this lame ass school?” Aerith rolled down the car window and gave Midgar Seventh High School a quick look up and down.
“Can you at least give it a try this time?” her mother, Elmyra, said with her hand on the car wheel. “At least… fight with your words instead of your…”
Aerith’s eyes met Elmyra’s in the car’s rear view mirror. “My staff?” Aerith laughed, bringing her bamboo staff to rest on her shoulders. “No promises. Lily-chan’s got a mind of her own.”
Elmyra sighed. “You named your staff?”
“Everyone names their staff, mom.” Aerith opened the car door and stepped out, staff in hand and her long black skirt swaying as she strode towards the school.
“Love you, honey!” shouted Elmyra to Aerith.
Aerith, still walking and with her back to her mom, tucked her staff under her left arm and made a heart above her head with her hands.
Elmyra smiled. “That’s my girl.” She then glanced at Aerith’s staff. “I sure hope she doesn’t get into any trouble today. Better head to the temple and pray just in case.”
—
Aerith was a few steps away from the school entrance when she noticed something in the corner of her eye. “Blasphemous,” said Aerith. She ran over to the side of the school and found a flower garden, or at least what was supposed to be a flower garden. All of the flowers were wilting and turning brown. “Don’t worry, guys.” Aerith bent down next to the flowers. “I’ll save you.”
—
Cloud heard the school bell ring as he sprinted towards Midgar Seventh. “Fuck,” Cloud said. “Tifa’s not going to let me hear the end of it…”
Not wanting to receive another lecture from his childhood pal who was also his next door neighbor, Cloud decided to take a detour and enter through the side of the school instead of the front. “This should save me a few minutes.” Cloud ran towards the side schoolyard wall and took a giant leap. He cleared the wall, as he expected, but the tip of his right foot hit the wall as he was going over, causing him to fall not very gracefully into the school yard.
“Hey!”
Cloud rubbed the back of his head and sat up. He thought he heard a girl’s voice.
“Ah!” Cloud shrieked, jump scared by a small and delicate face just inches away from his. “Ah…” he said again, this time quietly as his face warmed and his eyes met those of the girl staring at him.
“Get off the flowers!” said the girl.
Cloud quickly stood up and looked down, realizing he had landed in a flowerbed of the school’s neglected flower garden. “Uh, they’re dead anyway-“.
Whack!
Before Cloud could finish his statement, he was on the floor again, except this time in even more pain than before with what he assumed was a large red bump forming on the back of his head.
“Say something like that again, and it’ll be your pretty face!”
Cloud looked up and saw a bamboo staff inches away from his face. His eyes shifted upwards from the staff to the girl wielding the staff, her cheeks puffed and eyebrows furrowed. Clearly she was angry, but Cloud couldn’t help but chuckle. He wondered if she knew she looked cute instead of intimidating. Also, wait a second, Cloud thought, Did she just call me pretty?
“I’m not kidding!” The girl knelt down and grabbed Cloud’s collar, bringing his face to hers. Her previously narrowed eyes widened as she looked into Cloud’s eyes, as if she noticed something. Cloud noticed something too. Her eyes were green. And for some reason his heart was beating faster than it had been earlier when he was sprinting to school.
Tooot!
A sharp whistle made its way through the air.
The two students turned to see a large man in sunglasses blowing a whistle at them from the school doors.
“Get over here and save that lovey dovey shit for after school!” shouted the man.
The students glanced at each other, then quickly looked away, the girl releasing Cloud’s collar, causing Cloud to drop to the floor. They collected their school bags and jogged to the school, not wanting to further upset the man who Cloud knew as Barret, the Baseball coach.
They entered the school and the girl stopped at classroom 2B. She reached for the door handle, but before opening the door, turned to look at Cloud and stuck out her tongue. “It was nice meeting you!” she said, then shoved something at his chest.
Cloud grabbed it, but before he could check what it was, he saw the girl’s long brown ponytail sway and disappear behind the classroom’s door. He looked in his hand and found a wilted lily that he assumed the girl had plucked from the garden.
—
“How many times has it been already?” said Tifa, arms crossed and long black hair shining in the sunlight from the classroom window. Tifa shifted her attention from Cloud to the wilted flower on Cloud’s desk. “And what’s that?”
“Uh,” Cloud said, images of what happened this morning before class flashing before his eyes.
“Cloud, don’t tell me you were late to class because you were pulling some weeds.” Tifa shook her head. “Mr. Tuesti said if you are late one more time, you could get expelled!”
Cloud groaned. “Do you really believe everything Reeve tells you?”
“You also should be more respectful and not call him by his first name. If you want to go to a good college, you’ll need his endorsement.”
“Whatever.” said Cloud.
Cloud noticed a bunch of his classmates huddled around a desk at the opposite side of the room.
“That’s right,” exclaimed Zack, owner of said desk and the most popular kid in class. Zack was the school’s top brawler, a position Cloud couldn’t help but envy. “My ex-girlfriend just transferred here.”
“Oooh,” said the students surrounding Zack in unison.
“I wonder how she’s like!” said one of the female classmates.
“She must be gorgeous!” said another.
Transferred? thought Cloud. It couldn’t be.
“She sure is cute!” said Zack. “Long brown hair. Her name’s Aerith.”
“Aerith?” Cloud said, picking up the wilted flower on his desk.
“Cloud?” Tifa leaned in to look at Cloud, her arms uncrossing. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” Cloud looked away and put down the flower.
Is that why she transferred here? To see Zack? Cloud looked out the window from his desk at the back of the classroom over at the flower garden. He imagined the spunky girl from earlier, “Aerith,” being someone’s girlfriend.
“Did Zack, like, do something to you?” asked Tifa.
Cloud turned to look at Tifa. “No, why do you ask?”
“Well, you’ve been kind of glaring at him, and honestly, I don’t think you even blinked in the last minute.”
Cloud blinked a few times, noticing that his eyes were indeed dry. “Oh.”
—
After school, instead of walking home with Tifa as he did everyday, Cloud found himself hiding behind a tree behind the school. He ended up following Zack, and as he expected, Zack met up with the girl from the morning who whacked him upside the head and shoved a flower at him. He couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but he could see Zack laughing and the girl, Aerith, was wearing a black face mask, so he couldn’t tell if she was laughing too. He didn’t know why, but he had to know. Does Aerith have feelings for Zack?