Random fic, woot! Written for Sorceress Fantasia's birthday, because she is epically awesome. But I hope you all like it. :D
Circle Yes or No
Dear Cloud,
Do you like me? Circle YES or NO.
Love, Zack
"Zack, what is this note about?" Cloud asked, holding it between two fingertips.
"What do you think?" The older man grinned and leaned back in his chair, not looking the bit embarrassed. How annoyingly typical.
Cloud sighed. "Okay, maybe a better question would be why did you leave it in my pocket during my uniform inspection!?"
"That was today? My bad."
"'Your bad'!?" Cloud's face had gone red with rage...or maybe embarrassment. "Is that your excuse!? My inspector almost found it! You're lucky I did before he got to me!"
Zack shrugged, still looking way too pleased with himself to be real. "You didn't circle one."
"What?"
"An answer." He deftly reached up and snatched the note, holding it up in front of the blond's face with a grin. "Which one would you have circled?"
Cloud bit his lip and turned away, leaving the room with an angry sigh. Zack continued smiling, because, hey...Cloud hadn't exactly said no...
--
Dear Cloud,
Do you want to have dinner tonight? Circle YES or NO.
Love, Zack
"I'm not going to dinner with you," Cloud muttered, crossing his arms. "I'm not even hungry."
"Oh, really?" Zack asked just as a loud rumble from Cloud's stomach made it known that the blond had eaten nothing but a breakfast of Shinra-standard gruel today, and that this was completely unacceptable.
Zack didn't even try to pretend he hadn't heard it like a normal person would. "I thought so. So c'mon, whaddya say? I'll treat you to the best restaurant in Midgar. And you can eat whatever you want, even it's one bite of that two-hundred gil lobster."
Cloud frowned. He would never be so rude as to throw away something like that, but...an evening alone with Zack? That sounded kind of like...
"As long as it's not a date."
"Okay."
He was bit surprised that the SOLDIER had agreed to those terms so easily. There had to be some other plan forming in his brain. There had to be.
Finally, Cloud just nodded and sighed in agreement. "But I'm only going because the food here stinks," he added in a quiet voice.
"Okay," Zack replied with that grin that never seemed to leave his face. They headed towards the restaurant a little while later, where Zack was surprisingly well-behaved during dinner – no under-the-table groping or anything. It was actually a bit...normal. Maybe too normal; just two dudes having dinner. At least the lobster was really good. And Zack had lied – it was only one-seventy-five gil, not two-hundred. Hmph.
--
Dear Cloud,
Do you want to hang out this weekend? Circle YES or NO.
Love, Zack
Cloud just stared at this latest note, wondering if he should finally circle one those words. Maybe he then he could finally tell Zack that he just wasn't interested.
Well...not that interested.
...
Okay, so he was interested, but he didn't see much of a reason to get close to Zack. If he got too close, his subordinates would just assume he was sucking up. And if Zack got tired of hanging around him – which seemed inevitable given the SOLDIER's attention span – Cloud would be left on his own. This wasn't anything new to him, but...it just seemed like it would hurt more this time around.
With a huge sigh, Cloud got up to go find Zack, leaving the noted unmarked on his desk.
--
Dear Cloud,
Want to go meet my friend Aerith with me later? Circle YES or NO.
Love, Zack
"I can't," Cloud replied to this note. He hadn't been surprised to find it shoved into his pocket. He was still trying to figure out exactly how Zack got them in there without him noticing, though.
"Why not?" Zack tilted his head a bit and – oh no, no – crap! The puppy eyes! Nooo! "You'll like Aerith. And you shouldn't be embarrassed just 'cause she's a girrrrl." He said the last word in an annoying sing-song voice.
"It's not that," Cloud explained, although he'd never been good at talking to girls. How had Zack known that? "I have a mission today."
"Where?"
Cloud sighed. Zack was so nosy. "I dunno. Someplace called Modeoheim."
"What a coincidence!" Zack grinned and put his hands on his hips. "I'm on that mission too!"
"No you're not."
"Yes I am! It was a...last minute addition. They needed a SOLDIER first class." He grinned again. "So go on, I'll catch up with you in the helicopter, okay?"
"Uh...okay." Cloud sighed in defeat and walked off.
When he was out of earshot, Zack pulled out his phone and dialed a number, keeping his voice to a murmur in case Cloud was still around for whatever reason.
"Yeah, hey, Tseng? Uh, I was wondering if you had room for another on that trip to Modeoheim...?"
--
Dear Cloud,
Do you want to come over this weekend? Circle YES or NO.
Love, Zack
Zack wasn't even giving him a chance to answer anymore. The SOLDIER was at Cloud's side on Friday before he could even register what the note was about and whisked him away, where they'd watched movies and ate Wutainese until they practically exploded.
Cloud was kind of surprised that Zack could pack away so much food and yet still be totally buff. When he called him upon this, Zack had just shrugged and shoved more noodles into his mouth around a grin.
"Aww, you think I'm buff, Spike?"
"...No."
Zack cracked up, effectively spewing noodles everywhere. Alright, that was it – no more making Zack laugh while he was eating...even if he did have a really nice laugh.
--
Dear Cloud,
Want to go out to a movie tonight? Circle YES or NO.
Love, Zack
Cloud frowned and stared at the note with big, confused eyes before glancing up at Zack. "Go out? As in...like..."
"A date!"
"Uh..." The blond frowned, his gaze shifting from Zack's eager expression, to the note, and back again. "Uh, well..."
He wanted to say no, mostly because he didn't want to get involved with someone like this, but something in his gut was telling him not to stay away. It was this random gut feeling that caused him to blurt out, "Sure."
Zack's grin could've powered Midgar for a year. "Really? Are you sure?"
"Don't make me change my mind," Cloud muttered.
"Great!" Zack clapped his hands together. "Pick a flick and I'll stop by your place later, okay?"
"...Okay." Cloud sighed and stuffed the note in his pocket before shuffling towards the elevator. Zack watched and waited until he was safely gone before practically skipping down the hall like some giddy schoolgirl.
"Uh, Zack?" It was Kunsel. "Are you feeling alright?"
"He said yes! Finally!"
"Who said yes?"
"Cloud!"
"Who's Cloud?"
"An infantryman I've been hanging out." Zack was still grinning like a loon. "He agreed to go out with me tonight!" The SOLDIER continued skipping down the hall, much to the horror of his comrades.
Kunsel stared after him. This probably wasn't the best time to remind Zack that he had a meeting with Sephiroth that he was already ten minutes late for.
--
Dear Cloud,
Want some one-on-one training tonight? Circle YES or NO.
Love, Zack
This seemed like a sort of weird follow-up note to the previous date night, but Cloud couldn't complain. The whole date had been rather pleasant, actually. Zack had only tried the yawn-and-stretch trick once during the movie, and they'd gone walking around town afterwards, where he'd discovered that his hand fit perfectly against Zack's. It was really disconcerting, to be honest.
However, despite any weirdness fluttering in his stomach, he had to admit that Zack was an amazing fighter and he'd be a fool to give up a private training session. Well, another one. Zack seemed to spoil him in that respect.
As with all of the other private sessions they'd had, Cloud snuck into the training room after hours, unable to hide a small smile when he found Zack already there. Zack grinned when he noticed the blond, quickly grabbing his hand and pulling him into the room.
There was a minute or two of small talk before the tutoring began. Despite his restlessness, Zack was a surprisingly good teacher, and Cloud had to admit that he was learning a lot. Doing this was good for his confidence, and made him feel that maybe, just maybe, he would make it into SOLDIER someday.
During a particularly rough movement in their hand-to-hand combat, Cloud misjudged his footing and suddenly found his back on the floor with a certain someone's bright, amused grin in his face.
"You've gotta quit daydreaming," Zack scolded, although he might as well have saved his breath since he was trying not to laugh. To Cloud's horror, Zack leaned down a bit, unconsciously tightening the grip he had on the blond's wrists. "It'll get you in trouble one of these days."
Cloud wasn't paying attention. He could only see those glowing eyes above him, and was it his imagination, or were they getting closer?
No, it totally wasn't, especially if the sudden lips over his were any indication. It took him a second, but Cloud's eyes suddenly widened to absolute epic proportions when he realized that Zack was freaking kissing him!
Maybe, in hindsight, it made sense. After all, if he had to admit it, he did like Zack. And obviously Zack really, really liked him. Enough to kiss him in the middle of the training room, it seemed. He let himself press his own lips back for a moment.
Of course, the rational side of his brain decided to make an appearance at that moment. His eyes flew open and he pushed Zack off of him with a yell, running out of the training room like a Chocobo with its head cut off.
--
Dear Cloud,
Are you mad at me? Circle YES or NO.
Love, Zack
Cloud stared at the note that had magically appeared in his pocket the next day. How, he had no idea, since he hadn't even seen Zack yet today.
Was he mad at the SOLDIER? The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he...really wasn't. He was just mostly shocked, even though looking back, he should've seen it coming from a mile away. Hello, incoming lips!
He wasn't sure how to explain this without sounding like a total fool, though. Then again, was there any way to explain his reaction without sounding like an idiot?
He stood up with a sigh and started towards the elevator when it suddenly opened in front of him to reveal none other than Zack.
"Oh...hey," the SOLDIER greeted with a nervous grin, scratching the back of his neck.
"Hey."
"Hey, um..." Zack glanced down and saw the note clutched in Cloud's hands. "Ah, well, you did. So...are you?"
It was a garbled mishmash of words, something no one else would've understood if they were listening, and it both scared and excited Cloud to think that he would be the only one to understand them for as long as Zack would let him.
He shook his head. Whoa, when had this gotten so serious?
Zack took Cloud's head-shaking as an affirmative answer and grinned. "Good! I mean, I don't know, I thought you might be with what last night and everything. And I'm sorry about that, but I kind of couldn't help myself, and I know that's stupid excuse but – "
Zack's babbling cut off when Cloud stood up on his tip-toes to kiss him, right there in the entrance of the Shinra building. He probably should've thought through this sudden plan more, but neither of them really seemed to care, especially if Zack's enthusiastic response was any indication.
They pulled apart after a minute, pausing for another to catch their breath. Zack was staring at Cloud like he'd never quite seen him before.
The blond frowned a little. "What?"
"Sooo...you're not mad?"
Cloud smacked him, but still couldn't hide a grin when Zack laughed and led him out of the building.
--
Dear Cloud,
Do you like me? Circle YES or NO.
Love, Zack
This was the first note in a month, since they hardly seemed necessary anymore. And this one wasn't a secret – Cloud had been sitting around in Zack's room since the SOLDIER seemed to be hard at work on something – paperwork, the blond assumed, until this note was chucked at him.
Zack was grinning at him from his chair. "I just realized that you never answered."
Cloud rolled his eyes. "I would've thought that the answer was pretty obvious by now."
"Humor me."
"Fine. Throw me a pen."
Zack chucked him one, watching in amusement as Cloud quickly circled one of the words, his hand cupped around the paper so Zack couldn't see, and folded the paper into an airplane, sending it towards the other man so that it landed in his hair.
"Good aim," Zack laughed, unfolding the note. His grin fell a little when he noticed the big, bold circle around the word 'NO.' He glanced at Cloud, confusion in his eyes. "Huh?"
Cloud had suddenly taken to picking at a thread on the comforter, his face quickly going red. "No, I...don't like you...because..." He sucked in a quick breath, glancing at Zack and blurting out the words before he lost his nerve. "Because I love you."
Zack's grin instantly split his face again at Cloud's words, and he suddenly tackled the blond in a flurry of tangled arms, legs, and lips. After a few minutes of smooching, where Zack murmured those three words back, he got up again and carefully tucked the note into a drawer.
"Why are you saving it?" Cloud asked.
"Well, you know, in case you ever change your mind, I practically have it in writing." Zack chuckled.
"I'd have to be an idiot to change my mind."
"It's been known to happen."
"..."
Zack snickered and gathered Cloud in his arms, proceeding to kiss all nonexistent doubt away.
Dear Cloud,
This is just in case I become the idiot – love you, too.
Love, Zack
Aw, how could anyone not love them? :3 And I happen to be a big fan of reviews too, hehehe. ;D