Cloud x Tifa - Last Train to Brooklyn (Final Fantasy VII)

Chapter 4 - Half in Light and Half in Dark

"You really should smile more, Tifa."

Tifa glanced across the backseat of Brian's town car, catching her father staring back at her, watching her face carefully.  She felt a sudden, bright flare of anger stab her from his words, but it was extinguished quickly by the nervousness that was building inside of her as they drove deeper into Manhattan, nearing the Waldorf-Astoria, one of the ritziest hotels that towered over Park Avenue in gleaming gold and silver.

The weeks following Thanksgiving had transpired with agonizing slowness as the temperatures dropped even further, as the leaves that had fallen from the neighborhood trees began to fade and blow away, as the first snowfalls of the season descended on the city, leaving it painted with whites and grays as everything began to freeze over.  In tandem, holiday decorations began to spring up, the facades of houses and skyscrapers and the pines in the parks lighting up with bright colorful lights and the sparkles of garland and Christmas cheer.

Even though it was her favorite time of year and arguably the happiest, Tifa found herself struggling to enjoy the season, striving to even enjoy the crisp snowfalls that decorated her front steps with a thick layer of white fluff, unable to let go of her anxiety long enough to appreciate the echoes of children laughing, or the bright holiday music that seemed to emanate from every shop and building or park in all five boroughs. 

The semester had already drawn to a close, her final projects and exams cleared away and paperwork for her degree conferment already processing.  While it was a load off of Tifa's shoulders to be finally, fully done with school, it only made more real the increasing certainty that once the holidays were over, she would be working for Shinra Capitol.

She hadn't even spoken to Barret about it yet, knowing that she would likely have to quit working at Seventh Heaven and probably wouldn't be able to spend nearly as much time volunteering with AVALANCHE as she had in the past.  It was not a conversation she was looking forward to having at all.

Worse than that, there was the matter of Rufus Shinra himself.  He was not the type to wait idly by, and ever since her first meeting with him, he had taken to phoning and texting her far more than she thought was appropriate.  Most of the time, she ignored his calls, utilizing the excuse that she was working or otherwise busy and unable to take his calls.  But she did occasionally respond to his texts, as cooly as possible, until he began to ask her out to coffee and brunch, leaving her to shuffle through excuses until she truly felt trapped.

She knew that she could not avoid his advances forever, and judging from his persistence, he was not the type to take no for an answer.

Then, there was Cloud.  Since the night on the church rooftop before Thanksgiving, Tifa remained conflicted and torn by her feelings for him.  She had been so close to him that night, pressed against his warm body, his arm around her, his face inches from hers, that she had almost thought that maybe, maybe, there was a chance that there was something growing between them.  He had been about to kiss her, she was sure of it, right before her phone rang. Then everything had been interrupted, and even though she'd sent Rufus to voicemail, she knew the moment had passed, and she suddenly realized that she no longer felt quite as giddy and stoned and happy as she had moments prior.  Attempting to avoid the awkwardness of the situation, she tried to play it off by enjoying Cloud's company for the rest of the night, but between the rigid stiffness that his body had assumed and the way he flinched at their friends' drunken teasing, Tifa had gotten the impression that something had been damaged.

As much as she tried to convince herself that she didn't want a relationship, that she and Cloud were not sharing threads of attraction, that they were both simply content to remain friends, she knew deep inside that none of that was true.  She had felt it between them both as they sat side by side on the rooftop that night, moments away from sharing something physical between them that might give an indication of what they both were truly feeling.