ᴛʜᴜʀꜱᴅᴀʏ, ꜱᴇᴘᴛᴇᴍʙᴇʀ 18ᴛʜ, 7:40 ᴀᴍ☀️

it was more into the school year at this point, and you had opened up a little more to the group.

you and sephiroth had been talking more in class (mostly just last class) but not outside of school, such as what you were doing with the group.

this morning, you skipped out on walking with yuffie, as you wanted to arrive a bit earlier.

as you were walking down, a large and cold hand fell on your shoulder.

"eeEE-" you shrieked and whipped your head around to see none other than your silver haired friend.

he chuckled lowly, "sorry, didn't mean to scare you."

"it's fine.." you shivered, "what are you doing here?"

"walking to school," he shrugged.

"oh, duh..sorry."

"don't be. i saw you walking alone and thought i'd join you. you looked lonely, and it is unsafe to walk alone in some neighborhoods around here."

you face warmed at his kindness, and you smiled, "thank you sephiroth.."

"mhm.."

you walked close together, only talking about the little things like classes and other things.

you were laughing slightly about a small joke he said about your math teacher when you heard a voice from the sidewalk coming up from the side.

"y/n?"

you saw cloud, alone.

his eyes that were oh so similar to sephiroth's moved between you and your friend.

"y/n, this is isn't someone you should be with..at all."

you blinked innocently, "why not?"

"yes, cloud..i'd like to know as well."

you could see the change in his face from calm to pissed off, and his voice shifted to a deeper, more in intimidating tone.

"you know exactly why," cloud scoffed, as he then took your free hand by the wrist to pull you over to him.

you were practically about to fall over him since he pulled roughly, but sephiroth quickly to your other hand, interlacing his fingers with yours.

that made your heart beat heavy.

"y/n, c'mon.." cloud clicked his tongue.

he gave your arm a little tug, but sephiroth refused to let go.

"let. her. go." sephiroth growled.

cloud blinked, but retaliated, "over my dead body."

"so be it.." sephiroth let go of your hand and roughly pushed you back away from the two, and looked like he was about to go for cloud, while cloud already had his fists up.

"h-hey! stop!" you tried to pull them apart, but neither listened as they shouted at each other while fighting in the street.

"seriously, you guys are gonna get in trouble if the school finds out!" you said as you tried to pull cloud away from under his arms as a final hail mary, but when he pushed you away, and you knew it wouldn't work for sephiroth, you just started crying.

you hated fights.

it's the reason why you and your dad came to midgar, and left your mom and brother.

and then, your saving grace came.

"both of you! stop it!"

tifa came up running, hitting cloud in the back of the head, and pulling him away from sephiroth during his moment of being stunned.

sephiroth just stood there and wiped his bloody nose.

"tifa, i-" cloud began but she cut him off.

"i don't need either of your excuses, i saw the whole thing. you two can have your problems but look at y/n!" she pointed to the crying you that she took in her arms, "she shouldn't be caught in the middle..and she should be friends with whoever she wants cloud."

cloud looked to the street, away from everyone, his cheeks red.

tifa turned to sephiroth, "and you..if you ever hurt her, and i find out, you're a dead man."

he nodded slowly.

tifa let go of you and started to pull cloud by the ear towards school, "we'll let you continue your walk.."

she practically dragged him away from you so you two could talk again.

you turned to him to see his nose still bleeding from one of the punches cloud threw.

you pulled out a tissue from the packet you had on your bags side pocket and cautiously lifted his head straight, earning a blush on both of your cheeks.

you gently wiped his nose, your hand shaking from the embarrassment and nervousness.

"a-are you okay..?"

you stammered a little since you were still shaken up about the fight.

"yes, yes i'm alright."

in return he said, "i'm sorry this happened and it made you cry..can i..make it up to you?"