Chapter Text
While waiting for Sephiroth, Aerith’s phone pinged, a notification from their new group chat popping up. She squinted at the screen, darkened by the bright summer sun, fingers flicking down to the control center to adjust the brightness before opening the messenger app.
The Gang 😎
4:50 PM
Teef: [IMG_02] - [IMG_09]
Teef: here’s the pics as promised!
Kuns: oh sweet!
Kuns: the food looks so good
Kuns: sucks I couldn’t come with y’all
Kuns: maybe next time
Puppy: you better!
Emo #1: Zack stop texting while biking
Emo #1: youre gonna fall
Puppy: naw i got this
Emo #1: rip he dropped his phone
Puppy: ajhdshdjshkdjksdfksd
Kuns: F
Supreme Overlord: is he ok?
Emo #1: yeah he’s good
Emo #1: at least he didn’t fall off the bike
Dadgeal: Good.
Dadgeal: I don’t want to make another phone call to his mother telling her he hurt himself again
Puppy: Gealllllll no 😭
Drama Queen: Ha
Drama Queen: Dumbass
Puppy: once again
Puppy: fuck you gen
Puppy: like in the most disrespectful way possible
Dadgeal: First of all, language. Second of all, I took Gen’s phone away so don’t expect any messages from him until we get home
Kuns: OoOoOOo was he texting and driving LOL
Teef: Tsk tsk
Teef: horrible role model
Dadgeal: He said he’s a wonderful role model
Dadgeal: I firmly disagree
Emo #1: the world would end if genesis somehow managed to set a good example for children
Dadgeal: He said he takes offense to that
Emo #1: Cope.
Puppy: LMAOOOO
Teef: uh he fell off the bike for real this time
Dadgeal: Oh my god.
Puppy: donr worru im ok 👍
She muffled a giggle at Zack’s clumsiness when the sound of the bell jingled, signaling the opening of the door. She looked up and immediately felt her mood sour again.
“You’re not smooth, y’know.” she deadpanned, staring at Sephiroth humorlessly as he exited the cafe holding a very conspicuous bag in hand, the cafe’s logo boldly stamped on the thick white paper.
He shrugged, feigning an air of innocence. “I don’t see anything wrong with me purchasing a slice to take back home for my mother.”
Goddess help her.
She stamped her feet in annoyance and poked him hard in the shoulder, “You think you’re being sneaky but you’re not! I know you bought more than one slice in there,” she puffed her cheeks as she continued, “Would it kill you to just admit that you have a sweet tooth? It’s not like the world is going to end if you decide to add sugar and cream to your coffee in front of everyone.”
Stalking over to his side, she pulled at his arm and peeked inside the paper bag. As she had guessed there were a couple packets of sugar and creamer along with the cake boxes. Sephiroth took a sip of his barely touched coffee, refusing to make eye contact with Aerith.
She threw her hands up in the air, “You’re impossible, you know that?”
“So I have been told,” he replied noncommittally. She had already reminded him for the second time today after all.
His reply only further aggravated Aerith, it was astounding at how adept he was at needling someone into a fit of rage.
“ Ughhhh! Maybe I should’ve taken up on Zack’s offer to bike me home.” She groaned, slapping a palm to her forehead, “Seriously, I don’t even want to mention how many times I’ve caught you dumping sugar and cream into your coffee when you think no one’s looking!”
Sephiroth deigned not to respond, choosing to play selectively deaf as he continued to walk down the block, only forced to stop at the edge of the street by the laws of street crossing and the glowing red hand displayed on the pedestrian light. Woe is him.
“I hate to break it to you ‘Roth, but you also absolutely suck at stealth.” Aerith continued, breaking the tense silence and crossing her arms in irritation.
He continued to avoid her gaze, waiting for the traffic light to turn red—Goddess why is it taking so damn long to just turn red. At this point, he debated whether or not he should just leap over all the passing cars, but that would only lead to more complications he did not have the sanity to deal with.
A small voice in his head still grumbled in outrage at Aerith’s jab. In his defense, it wasn’t like he was built for stealth, not with his height and long silver hair.
While he never planned to ever cut his hair in the near future, it didn’t stop the feeling of utter mortification when the elderly aunties down the block would compliment his hair, labeling him ‘that pretty young man with hair like liquid mercury’. He had a name, thank you very much, and the uncomfortable compliments always prompted him to avoid taking the path whenever he could after the first few times of bobbing his head awkwardly at their cooing and gushing.
He merely resigned to the fact that his appearance would always cause heads to turn whether he liked it or not.
“Thank you for the reminder.” He finally muttered, eyeing the lights impatiently. The moment it signaled for walking he started crossing, leaving Aerith to quickly scamper behind him, keeping up with his deliberately long strides with a roll of her eyes.
“You know your silent treatment won’t work on me right?” She called out. Wouldn’t he know, he chose the silent treatment either way because there was no better solution.
Aerith huffed, racing forward ahead of him before pivoting on her heel to turn around with her hands on her hips as she purposefully stood in his way.
He stopped a couple feet away from Aerith, leveling her irritated glare with a vapid expression.
She stared back at him expectantly but to her dismay, he merely sidestepped her and continued walking, leaving her spluttering as he chuckled quietly at her indignation.
“Se. Phi. Roth !” She exclaimed in exasperation, enunciating every syllable in his name, clinging onto his arm and digging her heels into the ground, trying to stop him to no avail as he dragged her across the sidewalk.
“You’re going to damage your shoes if we keep this up,” Sephiroth pointed out flatly, turning his head to look at her as she continued to skid across the sidewalk. The last he needed was to further her ire with a new problem, a la her damaged shoe soles.
“Well, whose fault is that?!” she retorted back, resorting to leaning her entire body weight backward in a failed attempt to further slow him down.
“Yours!”
“Yours.”
They responded at the same time. Aerith snorted, “Okay fine, you win just this once. Only because we’ve got to stop syncing with each other, this is getting weird.”
Sephiroth had paused mid-step at this, a mildly disgruntled expression settling on his face at Aerith’s mention of their ‘syncing’. Perhaps she was rubbing off a little too much on him, and that was most definitely not a good sign.
There was a soft ‘ Ahem!’ that snapped him out of his thoughts. He blinked and stared at Aerith who was staring at him in disconcertment, “You okay there? You were doing your weird spacing-out thing again. Lost in thoughts y’know.” she said, swaying her hands around her head as if to make her point.
“Ah. Yes, I agree.” He finally replied with a short nod.
“Did you even hear what I said?” Aerith complained.
In fact yes, he did. He had a habit of adopting a look of disinterest when in conversation, though he knew better than to truly disregard what was being spoken to him. It was a skill he learned back then when enduring Hojo’s long manic raves, but he never truly dropped the habit. Aerith knew about this habit yet she likely chose to lecture out of annoyance and for the sake of complaining more than truly from ignorance.
“The fact that we are ‘syncing’?” He answered, “Yes, it is a tad concerning.”
“Ugh, never mind. I shouldn’t have even bothered questioning you.” She grumbled, tugging on his wrist to get him moving, to which he willingly obliged.
Thankfully, didn’t take long for her grouchy mood to dissipate. As they turned the block, her eyes brightened when she noticed a familiar cream-colored cat wandering nearby.
“Hey! Look, it's Crunchwrap Supreme!” she exclaimed happily, pointing at the cat.
The so kindly dubbed ‘Crunchwrap Supreme’ was one of the first strays that Aerith and Sephiroth had befriended in their youth.
It had been a hot summer day, not unlike today, when they first stumbled upon a litter of kittens just barely old enough to explore on their own.
The mother cat had taken refuge under the shade of the bushes near the curb, sharp eyes never straying from her frisky kittens as they pranced through the grass on their neighbor’s lawn, batting at each other playfully.
The two were heading back home from their trip to the dollar store with popsicles successfully in hand. 8-year old Aerith held hands with Sephiroth, swinging them back and forth, humming happily to herself while licking her strawberry-flavored ice pop.
Sephiroth, on the other hand, sucked sullenly at his own lime-flavored popsicle, clearly unhappy with the unbearable heat despite just purchasing the cold treat from the store. Since the AC in his house had just broken, he had already resigned to spending the rest of the day sitting in front of the fan and reading a book.
His cat-like pupils were reduced to thin slivers under the blinding afternoon sun, darting towards the grass when he noticed movement to his left.
He paused and Aerith lifted her head to stare at him in confusion, wondering why he suddenly stopped. She turned and followed his gaze before breaking out into a wide gap-toothed smile, “KITTIES!” she exclaimed happily.
Said kittens froze, staring wide-eyed at the young girl as she stuck her popsicle in her mouth and crouched down, reaching out her hand and wiggling her fingers in a bid to catch their interest.
“Aerith, they’re stray cats. They might scratch you,” Sephiroth sighed, tugging on her hand that still clung to him. Despite secretly also wanting to pet the kittens, the need to go home overpowered the temptation of holding a spicy fuzzball.
As much as he prided in his endurance with extreme temperatures, the blazing heat was really starting to get to him and he felt like he was being roasted alive under the sun. It had been particularly hot that day, temperatures reaching an all-time high, and for once he was actually glad his mother had forced him to wear shorts before going out to buy popsicles or he would’ve turned into a puddle by now.
Aerith pouted but retracted her hand though she continued to stay put in her squat. The mother cat had slinked out of her spot under the shade, staring at the two warily as the kittens scrambled to hide behind her.
“Hey… look!” Aerith pointed to one of the kittens, a sly grin creeping up her face. Oh no, he knew where this was going. ”That one looks just like you, Sephy!“
There it was. He squinted at the gray kitten that cowered beneath the mother cat, identical green eyes staring at one another. It puffed up when they made eye contact, hissing at him before running behind its mother.
“It even acts like you!” She said gleefully, “I’m naming it Firo!”
“ Aerith, ” Sephiroth groaned, tugging on her hand more insistently this time, “They are stray kittens and we are not adopting them.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t name it!”
“Can we just go home?”
“ No ! I wanna pet them!”
Sephiroth bit back the urge to sigh again, reluctantly squatting down next to Aerith who had resumed wiggling her fingers at the wary kittens, sticking the remainder of his popsicle back into his mouth.
Eventually one of the creamy orange ones slowly crept forward, green eyes trained on her fingers. She let out a quiet gasp and flashed an excited grin at Sephiroth.
The kitten continued to press forward, wiggling its little tail as it crouched before finally pouncing at Aerith’s fingers. She squealed in delight when the kitten proceeded to chase her hand around, to which she lifted them in the air to avoid being scratched. The kitten took with this stride, moving to bat wildly at the air with its paws instead.
Sephiroth watched as she shoved the remaining piece of frozen strawberry goodness into her mouth and dangled the now-cleaned popsicle at the kitten. Its green eyes tracked the red-stained wood, crouched on its haunches, and launched itself into the air.
Aerith giggled and raised the popsicle stick, watching the kitten bat at the air in glee before finally relenting and dropping the stick on the ground. It promptly snatched up the stick and rolled onto its back to play with it.
By now, the mother cat had let her guard down significantly, deeming that the two human children posed no threat to her kittens. The silver-haired child with eerily similar eyes had sent the mother on high alert when the brunette child pulled him over to inspect her kittens, but he had proven himself to be harmless after further inspection. With their mother relaxing, the rest of the kittens were tempted with curiosity as they watched the younger girl play with their littermate, slowly edging forward as well.
Sephiroth squinted at the kitten once it was on its back, meowing happily as it bunny-kicked the popsicle stick trapped in its paws. “It’s a boy.” He murmured after a moment of scrutinizing.
There was a moment of content silence. He watched the rest of the kittens creep up towards them, his hands slowly moving forward to dangle his own green-dyed popsicle stick in the air; letting out a small huff in amusement when several pairs of eyes immediately shot up and zeroed in on the object in his hand.
“—I’m naming him Crunchwrap Supreme.” Aerith suddenly announced, scratching the happy kitten’s soft belly.
Sephiroth blanched at the declaration, head snapping to the side to stare at her in confusion; his mind was going blank in a struggling bid to find a proper response.
The kittens were immediately startled at his sudden movement, backing up and piling against each other, the popsicle stick now forgotten.
“What.” He finally managed after a moment of silence, raising an eyebrow at her and after coaxing the kittens forward again, he then added, “That is a horrible name.”
“Uhuh? You got any better ideas?”
A beat.
“…Fluffy.”
“That’s even worse! You suck at coming up with names, this is why your name is Sephiroth! Who even names their kid Sephiroth?” She retorted, before quickly adding, “No offense to Auntie Lu.”
“Excuse me? At least Fluffy is better than Crunchwrap!” He snapped, “Also is that not a meal you order from Taco Bell? Why would you name a cat after that?”
“It’s a funny name! I heard from a friend that cats are s’posed to have silly names, plus he’s orange !” Aerith insisted.
Sephiroth rolled his eyes, letting out a breath of annoyance before finally relenting, “Fine. His name is Crunchwrap.”
The kitten mewled happily as if in agreement, rolling over to toddle towards Sephiroth for his attention. Well, it’s not that bad, he thought to himself, hands reaching down to pet the orange ball of fluff.
Since then, Crunchwrap Supreme cemented himself as a constant in their lives. Sephiroth was always sure to see him wandering about the general area of their neighborhood once the kitten was old enough to go about on his own. Not that he was complaining, he was more than happy to give a good belly rub to any of the friendlier strays that approached him.
Crunchwrap was eventually joined by several other strays over the years, most of them following the trend of being named by Aerith, including littermates Firo and Q-tip, as well as new members of the stray colony; Jet Engine, Cosmo Canyon Deluxe, and many more.
The said orange cat strode over, tail waving languidly in the air, and brushed against Sephiroth’s leg, looking up expectantly. He sighed but there was a small smile that tugged on his lips; crouching down, he began to affectionately scratch the cat behind the ears.
“Hello to you too.” He murmured, smiling as the cat purred happily at the scritches.
“You’re such a sucker for cats.” Aerith teased, squatting down next to him. Despite the poking, she willingly joined him with the pets as Crunchwrap rolled on his back and bared his soft underbelly out to them.
She watched Sephiroth’s normally impassive expression melt into one of soft affection while he scratched behind Crunchwrap’s ears. She could already feel a smile creeping up her lips just from watching the scene; this was yet another one of his secret guilty pleasures that he really should not be hiding.
At this point, she should really convince Auntie Lu to either adopt or buy a cat for Sephiroth. Which gave her an idea.
She stood up and brushed her skirt down, hands moving down to reach for her phone in her bag. The mirthful smile quickly morphed into one of mischief when she opened the camera app, snapping a few sneaky photos under the guise of texting.
4:09 PM
Aerith : [IMG_01] - [IMG_04]
Aerith: look at sephy
Aerith: isnt he cute
Lucrecia : Oh my goodness!
Lucrecia: Absolutely adorable, I am saving this
Lucrecia : Thank you, Aerith sweetheart ❤️
Aerith: no problemo auntie lu!
Aerith: we’re walking back home rn, will be back soon!
Lucrecia : Take your time :)
“What were you doing?” Sephiroth asked, finally looking up to stare at Aerith.
“Nothing! Just texting Zack to make sure he’s okay. He fell off his bike earlier so I wanted to check up on him.” She replied innocently, batting her eyelids and tucking her phone safely back into her bag, “We should head back soon, those cakes of yours probably can’t last any longer in this heat.”
Sephiroth narrowed his eyes in skepticism but nodded and stood up.
“Bye Crunchy! Stay safe as usual!” Aerith cooed, giving the stray one last affectionate pat. He meowed in response as if understanding their intention to leave, brushing against Sephiroth’s leg one last time before turning to cross the street and tucking himself under a parked car.
The two spent the remainder of their walk back home in content silence, finally arriving at the Crescent-Valentine household. Aerith waved cheerily at him in farewell, continuing to walk the remainder of the path back to her own house.
Sephiroth paused at the porch, “Wait.” he called out to her.
She turned around and cocked her head to the side, “Hmm? What’s up, ‘Roth?” she asked in confusion, backtracking to the front steps of his porch with her hands behind her back.
“Here,” he rummaged through his bag and took out the second cake box she had seen earlier, “I had bought a few slices for you to take back to Aunt Ifalna and Professor Gast as well.”
Aerith stared dumbly at the box before lifting her gaze to stare at Sephiroth instead. He had turned his head, shielding his expression with his bangs, shoulders lifting ever so slightly as he shifted in uncomfortably under her intense scrutinization.
Expecting her usual teasing, he was surprised when she laughed instead, carefully taking the box from his hands.
“Thanks, Sephy. I’ll let Mom and Dad know when I get home.” She chirped sweetly, maneuvering the box to give him a one-handed hug.
He returned it awkwardly, watching her skip off with a wave before he could say anything. Letting out an amused huff, he turned to unlock the front door but it swung open instead, revealing his mother.
Lucrecia stared at her son in amusement, accepting the bag he handed to her. “That was awfully sweet of you.” she said, tittering behind her hand, “I’m sure Aerith’s parents would be very happy to hear that you got them something.”
Sephiroth frowned, “I don’t particularly appreciate the spying, mother.”
“I’m just so proud that my baby’s all grown up now.” She teased, bumping her shoulder lightly against him.
“ Mother !”
“Alright alright, I’ll leave you be.” Lucrecia laughed as Sephiroth hurried into the hall and up the stairs, “You did buy a slice for me too, right?” She called out to him.
He chose not to respond, aware that she already knew the answer.