Summary: There is a common unspoken rule among men: you should return the gift you received on Valentine's Day three times its value on White Day. Now, White Day is tomorrow and Cloud still has yet to decide what he wants to give to Tifa.

Entry 2 for Final Heaven discord server's event ClotiConfessions2020: white day special.

Slight references to my other fic (Russian Roulette). I'm not sure how this turned out, tbh, but I hope you would still enjoy it, even for a little bit :) Anyway, comments/reviews are much appreciated! Thank you :D

White Day was tomorrow, and Cloud had no idea what he should give Tifa. Chocolate was probably the safest thing. White chocolate was advertised everywhere—from TVs to radio shows. That was the only thing he had been seeing these past several weeks. But, wouldn't that be too ordinary? Too common of a gift? Everyone would probably give a white chocolate to their girlfriends.

Barret had laughed when he heard Cloud had not bought anything for Tifa, said something about how Tifa would be so sad if she didn't get anything in return. Cloud was having lunch alone in a cafe when Barret had sauntered in and took the seat across from him without his consent. "You're not helping," Cloud had muttered, because yes, he knew how sad Tifa would be and he needed to up his game if he wanted to be able to get her something on time.

"Just buy a chocolate somewhere, I'm sure that'll be enough." Enough was the keyword, as Cloud wanted it more than enough. If he had settled for enough, he would have already bought one of those fancy chocolates he had eyed in a couple stores that he knew Tifa would like. But it didn't feel personal enough. "Or, well, I heard fancy guys buy them jewelries."

That caught his attention. He looked up at the dark, burly man. "Jewelries?"

Barret nodded, through a mouthful of burger. "Jewelries," Barret repeated. "Rings? Necklaces? Bracelets? All those girly stuffs."

Jewelries. He hadn't thought of that before. It would be nice to get her matching rings or something. But he probably couldn't have custom-made rings ready by the end of the day. Dammit. He should have thought of this sooner.

"Or," Barret went on. Cloud glanced at him and found him grinning.

"What?"

Barret leaned over the table and motioned for Cloud to do the same. Furrowing his eyebrow, Cloud did as he was told. However , he hadn't expected Barret to say something so…obscene.

"You could buy her some lingerie," Barret murmured.

Cloud didn't know how he looked. Feeling his face heating up, he had pushed away from the table so sudden that his chair scrapped against the floor. Whatever word he had had in mind as a retort or a counter was immediately gone and replaced by a blank page, leaving him speechless. Barret, on the hand, was laughing so hard and hitting his leg that they were drawing other people's attentions to them. The stares didn't help Cloud's embarrassment at all.

"Oh, man, the look on your face!" Barret said between laughter.

Realizing it had only been a joke, Cloud's mortification slowly transformed into irritation and he scowled. "That's not funny," he said.

"But your face is."

"I meant the joke."

Barret looked at him, wiping tears away from his eyes, as he, finally, managed to control himself. "What joke?"

"That,"—lingerie—"joke." How the hell could he buy her that?

Barret tilted his head to the side, genuinely confused, before his eyes lit up with understanding, and he started grinning again. "That's not a joke."

"What do you mean that's not a joke?"

"Oh, God, you really have no clue about this, do you?" Barret said, taking another bite off his burger. "Sure, the meanings aren't set in stone, but—" he looked at Cloud, who cocked an eyebrow and demanded an explanation, and sighed, though he was still smirking when he said, "I feel sorry for Tifa."

Cloud gritted his teeth. If Barret wasn't going to give him any useful advice, then he could just look for it somewhere else. He had finished his lunch and left the table with an irritated huff.

~ O ~

He had asked Zack once what his friend was going to give Aerith for White Day. They had been going out for several years now and Cloud had hoped Zack could give him some sort of light on the matter. Sure, this wasn't the first time he would give Tifa a White Day gift, but it would be their first time as a couple, and Cloud wanted to do it right.

"How do you measure a homemade chocolate?" he had asked his friend once, on their way out of a meat shop after having gone in to finish a delivery job.

"What do you mean?" Zack had asked.

"You know, that rule. The three-times-the-value rule?" It was a common unspoken rule among men that they should give back three times the value of what they had received. Cloud had never really cared much for it before because there hadn't been much meaning behind the chocolates that he had received. He would just give Tifa some sweets that she liked and that would be that. But it was different now. He had received his first ever honmei chocolate. How the hell should he return the favor? Not to mention it was homemade, delicious, intricately designed, with a cute little message on the side too.

When Cloud told Zack about all of this, Zack only nodded understandingly. "You could always buy her some of those fancy chocolates," he had said. "Or flowers. I give Aerith flowers sometimes. Or, what about making her something?"

"As in cook her something?"

"Yeah, you're a decent cook—at least, more decent than me, I think," Zack said. "What better way to return a homemade chocolate than a homemade cooking of yourself?"

Cloud shook his head. He would rather buy those chocolates than have Tifa eat his disastrous cooking on White Day.

"Well, what about—" Zack cast his eyes around him, but before he could spot anything, a figure had jumped into their line of sight: Yuffie, still in her school uniform, her grey scarf billowing around her. Cloud and Zack jumped in surprise.

"Hey, guys!" she greeted them in that flashy fashion of hers.

"God, Yuffie, you're going to give me a heart attack!" Zack said with a hand to his chest, but Yuffie just grinned it away.

"Where did you come from anyway?" Cloud asked.

"School?" Cloud and Zack frowned. That was not what he'd meant. "Hey, it's not my fault you two were too engrossed in your own little gossiping to notice—" She caught herself, then whipped her head at the two boys, grinning mischievously. "Were you talking about White Day?"

"No," Zack immediately said.

"You are!" Yuffie exclaimed. She looked at Cloud. "Do you know what you're going to get Tifa yet?"

"Yuffie—"

But she took Cloud's silence as answer enough, and immediately said, "Did you know that marshmallows are so in, right now?"

"Marshmallows?" Cloud asked.

Yuffie nodded enthusiastically, her grin growing wider. "Yes! They have these little chocolates covered in these white marshmallows and they look so cute! I'm sure Tifa would—"

Zack smacked her at the back of her head, cutting her words off. "Don't give him any weird ideas, all right?" he said, frowning. "And I haven't paid you back for the wasabi prank you pulled last time."

"Ah, yes, did you like my present?" Yuffie asked, grinning up at him, as though he hadn't just reprimanded her. "You'd better give me a White Day present too."

"Oh, just you wait, I'm going to give you ten-fold for what you gave me."

Yuffie gave a feral grin. "Bring it on, my friend."

Cloud looked at one person to the other. Zack had said something about Yuffie messing with Aerith's chocolates that he had ended up eating some wasabi chocolates on Valentine's Day. Cloud hadn't been able to stop himself from laughing when he heard it. But, knowing that they had been making the chocolates together, Cloud could only be grateful that those wasabi ones hadn't gotten into Tifa's batch. He didn't have any score to settle with Yuffie right now, so he decided to leave the two be and went on White-Day-gift hunting by himself.

~ O ~

For all his reluctance to buy chocolates, Cloud ended up buying one from one of the stores that he knew Tifa liked—because he was running out of time and he didn't know what he should do. A heart-shaped box filled with various white chocolates. This should be enough, he told himself, even though part of him felt he should buy something else. Maybe some candies, or cookies—jewelries. That was what Barret had told him. But he had spent a lot of money on this chocolate alone that he wasn't sure he had much to spare for an additional jewelry.

Cloud desperately looked for ideas when his eyes fell on a game center building across the street. He didn't know what had gotten over him when his feet decided to take him there. It had been so long since he last entered one of these and Cloud had almost forgotten how crowded they could get. It was filled with mostly children to high schoolers playing shooting games or racing games or dancing games. His eyes searched for the specific machine that he was looking for and finally found it somewhere near the back.

Crane games.

He remembered playing a lot of these back when he was a kid, and he was quite decent at them—though probably not extremely good either. Sometimes, not knowing what to give Tifa for her birthday, Cloud would spend hours here trying to get that one stuffed animal or another for her. He remembered getting her a white stuffed carbuncle from one of these machines in middle school. He wondered if Tifa still remembered that.

The machines now had a 'WHITE DAY SPECIAL' banner on them and he could see various stuffed animals or chocolates or even some cute jewelries in there. He even spotted a white chocobo. She had given him a chocobo chocolate, so it would be great if he could get her a chocobo-themed gift too. Would it be okay to get her one of these? It's not fancy nor expensive but at least he would put some effort to get it, instead of just picking one and paying for it at the cashier.

And maybe, Tifa would appreciate the nostalgic gesture.

Staring at the chocolate in his hand, Cloud fished in his pocket for some change and decided to give the game a try.

~ O ~

He waited for her at the park, at a favorite spot of theirs, beneath a tree overlooking a lake. In the spring, the tree would hold a plethora of sakura, and they would often have a picnic here with Zack and Aerith to watch the flowers blooming. Now, however, there were only a foliage of green leaves waiting for spring to arrive.

Cloud held the presents in his hands—the box of white chocolates and the white stuffed chocobo wrapped in white paper and red ribbon. He had won it after several tries, and when he was taking it out of the machine, it had come to him as a surprise to find a silver chain bracelet hanging around its neck with a silver chocobo charm attached to it. And it had looked so authentic—not one of those plastic imitations you could find in cheap stores.

Cloud had tried taking it off and worn it around his own wrist. If he hadn't known any better, he would have thought the bracelet had been from some jewelry store, not won it in a seventy-gil crane game. When he imagined the bracelet around Tifa's hand, he couldn't stop himself from smiling.

"Cloud!"

Cloud looked up to suddenly find Tifa's face directly in front of him. "Whoa!" he exclaimed, almost jumping in surprise and dropping her presents to the ground. "T—Tifa, how—wh—when did you get here?" he stammered, trying hard to get a firmer grip on the gifts

Tifa giggled. "Just now," she said. "You seemed to be too focused on something, so I wanted to surprise you." She smiled up at him. "Are those for me?"

Those… He looked down at his hands and forgot that his presents for her were out in the open. "Ah!" He fumbled to hide them away, but there was no use. She had seen them.

"Uh, yeah—" Gods! He wasn't ready for this. He looked at her—at her grey overcoat and maroon scarf around her neck; at the way her dark hair was tucked behind her ears, revealing a hint of a blush on her cheeks—and, like always, the sight of her took his breath away. Maybe it would be all right. What mattered was the heart behind it, not the value of the present. He steeled himself and straightened his back. Taking a deep breath, he held out the presents and said, "Happy White Day, Tifa."

Tifa looked at them and she smiled. As she took them into her hands, she stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his cheek. "Thank you, Cloud."

And there it was, her bright smile—a smile that made her eyes crinkle in delight and drove away any sort of anxiety, doubt, or hesitation Cloud had felt about his present. She'll love it, he thought to himself. I'm sure of it. With that in mind, Cloud finally felt the tension leaving his body and his face finally relaxed into a smile.

~ END ~