Title: Letdown
Fandom: FF7 (AC)
Pairing: Tseng+Cloud
Rating: G
Contains: humor
Letdown
Cloud was used to people hitting on him. It happened no matter where he went, people staring at him - some shyly, some blatantly ogling - and it happened every now and again that random people walked up to him, tried to chat him up and - no matter if he stared holes in the ceiling or informed them that he already knew which places to go to for mindless sex, thankyouverymuch - thrust a slip of paper with their phone number into his hands. The strangest place this had ever happened to him had been the dairy section of a supermarket.
The first few times, it had confused and embarrassed the hell out of him - he didn't consider himself attractive, and certainly not attractive enough for things to happen as often as they did - but now, it was just mildly annoying. One of the minor, yet irritating complications in his life.
Tifa thought it was funny; Tifa thought a lot of things were funny, and Cloud getting hit on by random strangers was funny enough for her to keep a scoreboard at the back of the bar: "How Many People Hit on Cloud Already", it proclaimed proudly, and she usually snatched any phone numbers Cloud was given right out of his hands and pinned them to the board for all to see. Once, one of her regulars - a burly construction worker in his late forties - innocently asked her why she had his phone number displayed in her bar, and flushed a deep crimson when he belatedly discovered the title adorning the board.
Cloud usually ignored it all with as much dignity as he could muster, and threw Tifa his best glare whenever she dared to mention the current score. Unfortunately, Tifa was immune to his glares.
By now, Cloud could safely claim that he was well and truly prepared to get rid of even the most persistent flirt. What he couldn't handle so well were those who weren't overly confident and flirty, but were blushing and stammering while they nicely asked him out for coffee instead of just telling him to "call [them], winkwink nudgenudge." Cloud felt bad whenever he had to let down such a person, because he knew most of them would be honestly hurt if he said no.
So yes, Cloud was used to people hitting on him. Meanwhile, he had also learned to let down people who were desperately trying to sound professional while stumbling through an obviously unfamiliar ritual. But no matter how used to it he had become, Cloud couldn't help but feel that this was getting ridiculous.
"...Um, I... I'm sorry. I'm flattered, Tseng, but..."
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- Fin -
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