Carnival

By: Zero Hakaru

Love and Logic are not the best of friends. In fact, they are mortal enemies. Love causes one to behave radically and to ignore logic. Logic cause one to behave calmly and act upon the straight and narrow, but one misses out on the joys of pure love. Makes one wonder which path is really the right one.

Prologue: Poker and Chocobos

Seven months, just a mere seven months passed since Kadaj’s attempt at a Reunion, the entire planet all exhaled at once, relieved and grateful that Cloud Strife had slain the One Winged Angel, Sephiroth. Now the planet could live its life as it intended to, no Mako, no Jenova, no Sephiroth, just to follow its own path, its own desire.

Life for Cloud and the rest of Avalanche became rather enjoyable for them. Now able to let go of the tragedies of the past and live his life to the fullest, as the other griped to him about, Cloud found joy in almost everything around him.

Except this poker game…

“Booya! Read em and weep Spikey-boy! ROYAL FLUSH!” Yuffie slammed down her hand, revealing a gambler’s best fickle friend. The royal family of hearts with their ace and ten mocked the blonde hero, who sat shirtless at the other end of the table. Around him, Cloud can hear the snickers of his… “former” friends, some of which had surrendered some article of clothing, but not to the extent Cloud was ridiculed to and for some particular reason, it was all Yuffie’s fault. Yuffie had claimed Cloud’s shirt, earring, necklace, shoes, socks, and gloves, and now she had another opportunity to strip the blonde down.

“Remove thine pants, he of spiked hair.” Yuffie teased mischievously, which in turn, incited chuckles and lewd comments from Cid and Barret.

“Someone’s enjoyin’ her personal Chippendale dancer.” Barret snickered following up with his own variant of porno music.

“Jeez, Yuff… I really do not want or need to see Cloud f&$# naked.” added Cid as he took a drag of his cigarette.

“Just come out and say you want to mount him.” Everything just stopped after that, dropping whatever they held and staring in utter shock at the individual who said that.

“Vincent…” Tifa gasped in the fashion of a flustered mother.

“What?” Vincent shrugged. “It had to be said.”

And for the record for you Vinny fangirls, he still had all his clothing. V-man does have a pretty damn good poker face.

“AAAAANNNNYWAYYYY” urged Yuffie as she redirected the attention back to the game. “Cloudy, drop the pants.”

Damn, Cloud thought, he had hoped Vincent’s OOC comment would’ve diverted the attention of the kunoichi and let her forget about his pants.

“Damn, damn, damn.” Cloud grumbled as he stood up and unbuttoned his pants. “I’ll kill you for this Yuff.”

“Sure you will.” Yuffie said smugly as she mentally drooled over the strip session. Now Cloud stood clad in only a pair of chocobo print boxers and the instant those went public, EVERYONE doubled over in a serious laughing fit.

Yes, even Vincent.

Cloud sighed heavily. He felt like he could cry, his pride was destroyed. This hero was ridiculed mercilessly by a little brat.

-CxY-

After the night of Cloud ridicule died down and the gang retired to their rooms, Cloud redressed himself and lingered around for a night snack. After raiding the fridge he turned about and saw Yuffie’s smiling face.

“What now?” Cloud sighed. Yeah, you’d be a bit snippy too if you were ridiculed in less than four paragraphs of a story.

“Aww, you’re still mad at me?” Yuffie cooed in her adorable voice. She still remained smiling at him.

“…” Cloud was sore; damaging male pride is very painfully. Yuffie padded up to him and pinched his cheek.

“C’mon, smile blondie.” Yuffie’s immaturity was hard to resist at times, that was one quality Cloud liked about her. “If it makes you feel any better, I have to say you were pretty hot.”

Cloud broke into a smile. Dammit, Yuffie won again. Cloud was either easy to trick or flatter.

“I’ll get you back for this.” He threatened playfully through his smile.

“How? Planning to get a peek at me in a poker game?” Yuffie teased with a wink. Cloud felt his face warm up instantly at the image Yuffie gave him. She only let out a small laugh and punched him softly. “I’m not that easy.”

“W-wha?” Cloud waved his arms frantically, trying to dismiss this situation and hide the growing blush on his face while avoiding another set of humiliation. He soon stopped however, as he found himself enraptured with Yuffie’s eyes. The look they had… was different than her usual scheming ‘how can I con you’ look.

“Y’know Cloud, you are pretty cute…” She turned and bounded up the stairs quickly, but slow enough so Cloud could notice one other detail.

“Was she… blushing?”

-CxY-

“So… did you have any fun last night with the chocobos?”

“SHUT UP BARRET!”

Please insert Disc One

Author’s Note-arium

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII, well, I own a copy of the game and movie… does that count for something? No? Crap…

sigh Why do I feel that this prologue sucks? Probably cuz nothing really happened. But yeah, I could really see this situation happening. It’s just something about this generation of Final Fantasy characters that really seem to click, IMO though. Ah well.

I send my deepest gratitude to all those who took the time to read my fic. And since it’s summer vacation, I promise that I’ll add more. Well, that is if you would like me to.

Again, thank you for reading; I hope you enjoyed the madness.

Zero.