Kalta79
03-11-2017, 10:46 PM
This starts during the end of Advent Children
Chapter One: Beginnings
Kunnia stood in her bedroom, fighting with her back-closure bra clasp, trying to hurry up and get ready in time for a night out with her girlfriends.
"What is wrong with this stupid thing?" Kunnia exclaimed in frustration.
"Need some help with that?" A familiar voice asked as Kunnia felt fingers on her back.
Kunnia turned around, causing the bra to become undone, and exclaimed in pleased surprise. "Roth!"
Hugging him, Kunnia felt him start to tense up as if in pain. Releasing him slightly, Kunnia looked more closely at him. His red spiky hair was more unkempt than usual, and he did seem rather worn around the edges. "Are you okay?"
"It's nothing, just a rough day at work." Roth replied.
That surprised and worried her. In the nearly three years Kunnia had known him, he never talked about work, except once in the beginning to say he was a company man. "Are you sure you're okay?"
His fingers moved from her back to her now exposed breasts. "I will be."
Kunnia started to open her mouth to say she was busy tonight, but then he kissed her and didn't give her a chance to say anything else until they both fell asleep.
Kunnia woke up the next morning alone, as she expected, since Roth never stayed the night, well except that one time, but Kunnia was surprised to find his side of the bed still warm. Usually he was gone long before she woke up. As Kunnia got out of bed to get dressed for work, she was glad not to see any packages on her nightstand. He would occassionally leave presents for her to see first thing in the morning. Sometimes Kunnia thought it was sweet, but at other times it made her feel like a damned prostitute.
Noticing the time, Kunnia took a quick shower, got dressed, and ran across the street to the pub where Kunnia worked as a waitress. Kunnia had gotten the job after she got back from a vacation in Wutai where she had met Roth. As Kunnia hurried in the door, Lori was at the bar, double-checking that everything was clean before opening.
"You're almost late." Lori said without looking up. "Five more minutes, and you would have been in trouble."
"I know, I know." Kunnia said as she tied her apron on.
"We missed you last night." Lori finally looked up at her. "He came by, didn't he?"
"Yes." Wanting to change the topic, Kunnia looked up at the chalkboard. "Wasn't that yesterday's special?"
"What? Oh dammit..." Lori grabbed the chalkboard and furiously erased the writing and wrote down a new daily special before putting it back. "There, happy now?"
"Sure thing." Kunnia was actually happy, because she didn't want to get into any discussion about Roth. Her girlfriends were overly curious about her mystery man, but she didn't have any answers, especially as to why she put up with him.
As Kunnia put her order pad and a pen in her apron pockets, another waitress flipped the switch for the OPEN lighted sign and unlocked the door. It was a few minutes before the first customers started trickling in, but it was a steady stream once lunch hour hit. During one of her breaks, her mind kept going back to how she got involved with Roth in the first place, or what Kunnia could remember of it at least. It was her first real vacation when she got to be on her own, and she chose Wutai, since they seemed to have a good reputation as a vacation spot. Unfortunately Kunnia felt the best way to celebrate was to get blackout drunk. Kunnia remembered being at the bar, then she's waking up next to a guy who said his name was Roth. Kunnia figured she'd never see him again, especially after she ignored him leaving because she was in the bathroom trying to puke her guts out.
But once Kunnia got back home and got her waitressing job to save up for college, she was coming home from working two shifts a few weeks later when Roth approached her. Kunnia decided to invite him into her apartment to keep the nosy neighbors from seeing anything, even though she was extremely tired. Roth had to help her up the stairs to her second floor apartment, and before she knew it, they were in bed again. He was sweet that night, even if she had been too exhausted to enjoy it much. She had woken up to find him gone, with a bracelet and a note on her nightstand. Based on what he said in the note, and other comments he'd made over the years, she must have told him her name meant "honor" that first night in Wutai, and for some reason that was important to him. She had wondered on occassion if it was related to his work he never talked about.
The other waitress poked her head into the break room. "Okay, my turn, Kunnia."
"Okay, I'm coming, I'm coming." Kunnia stood up, finished the last dregs of her soda, and headed back to main room. She was surprised to notice a blond woman sitting at the bar, in an outfit similar to Roth's. Kunnia ignored her and waited tables, flirting with the regular males who were good tippers, trying to not think the woman was watching her. Ever since Roth started showing up, she had a feeling of being watched every so often.
Finally Kunnia's shift was over, and after adding up her tips and writing it down in the ledger kept for employees to reference during tax time, she got her purse and headed out the front door. The blond woman was leaving at the same time, and she and Kunnia bumped into each other. The apologies were brief, because Kunnia was in a hurry to get home, since she had the next two days off. Rushing back across the street to her apartment building, she got upstairs and in front of her door before she discovered the key wasn't in her purse. Annoyed, she knocked on her landlady's door and had to control herself while listening to older woman's opinions Kunnia living alone with strange men coming and going at all hours. Once she used her master key to unlock Kunnia's door, Kunnia forced herself to smile at her landlady and wish her a good night.
Back inside her apartment, Kunnia locked the door and wondered where she could have left her key. Her door was locked when she got home, so she obviously must have locked it before going to work. Dumping her purse contents on the kitchen table, she looked through it all for her missing key, but couldn't find it. Roth had his own key, but she had no way to get in touch with him, he just showed up when he did. Putting everything back in her purse, she thought maybe it fell out when she and the blond woman bumped into each other. Briefly she wondered in the blond woman might be Roth's wife and she had found out about Kunnia. She herself had the thought every so often that she might just be something on the side for him. Except it wasn't always sex. A few months after he started coming around, she had a duplicate key made and left it on the nightstand on his side of the bed, and he didn't take it the first time he came by after that, but he did the next time. Once he had his own key, sometimes she'd wake up in the middle of the night and find him there in bed with her, just holding her. She remembered the first time he did that, the next morning at work everyone was talking about the terrorist group AVALANCHE destroying the Sector 7 pillar in Midgar, resulting in mass casualties. Kunnia thought he had lost someone in Sector 7, but she never got a chance to ask him. That was the only time he had stayed the whole night, and when she woke up to take a shower before work, he was still asleep, but he was gone when she got out of the shower.
Taking another shower to refresh herself after work, she put her bathrobe as soon as she got out and headed for the kitchen to make something for dinner. One of the rare times she and Roth had an actual conversation, he made her laugh by recounting his one attempt to learn how to cook by taking a class.
Checking her refrigerator, she found some pre-made meals on nice plates with a note from Roth. That was a new one, but when she looked more closely, she noticed they were takeout from one of the nicer restaurants in town. Well at least he hadn't lied about not being able to cook. She took the one closest to her and put it in the microwave to warm it up. Once it was reheated, she took the plate and some silverware and sat down by the balcony so she could watch the sunset. That's where Roth usually found her when he bothered to show up. Sometimes he would stand in the background and watch with her, other times he had different ideas about how to spend their time.
Dinner finished, she put the plate in the sink, and went back into the bathroom to hang her robe back up, then went to her bedroom to put her favorite pair of lounging pajamas on. If she thought Roth might be stopping by, she'd put on some lingerie, but he had stopped by last night, and he never came two nights in a row. In fact, after coming by on average about once a week, after that night with the Sector 7 tragedy, he didn't show up for weeks. Then nearly three months later, he appeared in the middle of the night again, just holding her in bed. After that, his reappearances were sporadic. Sometimes she feared the Geostigma would get him. Kunnia couldn't really say she loved him, because despite the longevity of their...she couldn't really call it a relationship either, not exactly, but whatever it was, she was ambivalent about the whole thing. Sometimes she thought she'd be relieved if it ended, other times she was glad to have someone in her life who just made one demand of her. Kunnia got in bed and turned her nightstand lamp off.[COLOR="Silver"]
Chapter One: Beginnings
Kunnia stood in her bedroom, fighting with her back-closure bra clasp, trying to hurry up and get ready in time for a night out with her girlfriends.
"What is wrong with this stupid thing?" Kunnia exclaimed in frustration.
"Need some help with that?" A familiar voice asked as Kunnia felt fingers on her back.
Kunnia turned around, causing the bra to become undone, and exclaimed in pleased surprise. "Roth!"
Hugging him, Kunnia felt him start to tense up as if in pain. Releasing him slightly, Kunnia looked more closely at him. His red spiky hair was more unkempt than usual, and he did seem rather worn around the edges. "Are you okay?"
"It's nothing, just a rough day at work." Roth replied.
That surprised and worried her. In the nearly three years Kunnia had known him, he never talked about work, except once in the beginning to say he was a company man. "Are you sure you're okay?"
His fingers moved from her back to her now exposed breasts. "I will be."
Kunnia started to open her mouth to say she was busy tonight, but then he kissed her and didn't give her a chance to say anything else until they both fell asleep.
Kunnia woke up the next morning alone, as she expected, since Roth never stayed the night, well except that one time, but Kunnia was surprised to find his side of the bed still warm. Usually he was gone long before she woke up. As Kunnia got out of bed to get dressed for work, she was glad not to see any packages on her nightstand. He would occassionally leave presents for her to see first thing in the morning. Sometimes Kunnia thought it was sweet, but at other times it made her feel like a damned prostitute.
Noticing the time, Kunnia took a quick shower, got dressed, and ran across the street to the pub where Kunnia worked as a waitress. Kunnia had gotten the job after she got back from a vacation in Wutai where she had met Roth. As Kunnia hurried in the door, Lori was at the bar, double-checking that everything was clean before opening.
"You're almost late." Lori said without looking up. "Five more minutes, and you would have been in trouble."
"I know, I know." Kunnia said as she tied her apron on.
"We missed you last night." Lori finally looked up at her. "He came by, didn't he?"
"Yes." Wanting to change the topic, Kunnia looked up at the chalkboard. "Wasn't that yesterday's special?"
"What? Oh dammit..." Lori grabbed the chalkboard and furiously erased the writing and wrote down a new daily special before putting it back. "There, happy now?"
"Sure thing." Kunnia was actually happy, because she didn't want to get into any discussion about Roth. Her girlfriends were overly curious about her mystery man, but she didn't have any answers, especially as to why she put up with him.
As Kunnia put her order pad and a pen in her apron pockets, another waitress flipped the switch for the OPEN lighted sign and unlocked the door. It was a few minutes before the first customers started trickling in, but it was a steady stream once lunch hour hit. During one of her breaks, her mind kept going back to how she got involved with Roth in the first place, or what Kunnia could remember of it at least. It was her first real vacation when she got to be on her own, and she chose Wutai, since they seemed to have a good reputation as a vacation spot. Unfortunately Kunnia felt the best way to celebrate was to get blackout drunk. Kunnia remembered being at the bar, then she's waking up next to a guy who said his name was Roth. Kunnia figured she'd never see him again, especially after she ignored him leaving because she was in the bathroom trying to puke her guts out.
But once Kunnia got back home and got her waitressing job to save up for college, she was coming home from working two shifts a few weeks later when Roth approached her. Kunnia decided to invite him into her apartment to keep the nosy neighbors from seeing anything, even though she was extremely tired. Roth had to help her up the stairs to her second floor apartment, and before she knew it, they were in bed again. He was sweet that night, even if she had been too exhausted to enjoy it much. She had woken up to find him gone, with a bracelet and a note on her nightstand. Based on what he said in the note, and other comments he'd made over the years, she must have told him her name meant "honor" that first night in Wutai, and for some reason that was important to him. She had wondered on occassion if it was related to his work he never talked about.
The other waitress poked her head into the break room. "Okay, my turn, Kunnia."
"Okay, I'm coming, I'm coming." Kunnia stood up, finished the last dregs of her soda, and headed back to main room. She was surprised to notice a blond woman sitting at the bar, in an outfit similar to Roth's. Kunnia ignored her and waited tables, flirting with the regular males who were good tippers, trying to not think the woman was watching her. Ever since Roth started showing up, she had a feeling of being watched every so often.
Finally Kunnia's shift was over, and after adding up her tips and writing it down in the ledger kept for employees to reference during tax time, she got her purse and headed out the front door. The blond woman was leaving at the same time, and she and Kunnia bumped into each other. The apologies were brief, because Kunnia was in a hurry to get home, since she had the next two days off. Rushing back across the street to her apartment building, she got upstairs and in front of her door before she discovered the key wasn't in her purse. Annoyed, she knocked on her landlady's door and had to control herself while listening to older woman's opinions Kunnia living alone with strange men coming and going at all hours. Once she used her master key to unlock Kunnia's door, Kunnia forced herself to smile at her landlady and wish her a good night.
Back inside her apartment, Kunnia locked the door and wondered where she could have left her key. Her door was locked when she got home, so she obviously must have locked it before going to work. Dumping her purse contents on the kitchen table, she looked through it all for her missing key, but couldn't find it. Roth had his own key, but she had no way to get in touch with him, he just showed up when he did. Putting everything back in her purse, she thought maybe it fell out when she and the blond woman bumped into each other. Briefly she wondered in the blond woman might be Roth's wife and she had found out about Kunnia. She herself had the thought every so often that she might just be something on the side for him. Except it wasn't always sex. A few months after he started coming around, she had a duplicate key made and left it on the nightstand on his side of the bed, and he didn't take it the first time he came by after that, but he did the next time. Once he had his own key, sometimes she'd wake up in the middle of the night and find him there in bed with her, just holding her. She remembered the first time he did that, the next morning at work everyone was talking about the terrorist group AVALANCHE destroying the Sector 7 pillar in Midgar, resulting in mass casualties. Kunnia thought he had lost someone in Sector 7, but she never got a chance to ask him. That was the only time he had stayed the whole night, and when she woke up to take a shower before work, he was still asleep, but he was gone when she got out of the shower.
Taking another shower to refresh herself after work, she put her bathrobe as soon as she got out and headed for the kitchen to make something for dinner. One of the rare times she and Roth had an actual conversation, he made her laugh by recounting his one attempt to learn how to cook by taking a class.
Checking her refrigerator, she found some pre-made meals on nice plates with a note from Roth. That was a new one, but when she looked more closely, she noticed they were takeout from one of the nicer restaurants in town. Well at least he hadn't lied about not being able to cook. She took the one closest to her and put it in the microwave to warm it up. Once it was reheated, she took the plate and some silverware and sat down by the balcony so she could watch the sunset. That's where Roth usually found her when he bothered to show up. Sometimes he would stand in the background and watch with her, other times he had different ideas about how to spend their time.
Dinner finished, she put the plate in the sink, and went back into the bathroom to hang her robe back up, then went to her bedroom to put her favorite pair of lounging pajamas on. If she thought Roth might be stopping by, she'd put on some lingerie, but he had stopped by last night, and he never came two nights in a row. In fact, after coming by on average about once a week, after that night with the Sector 7 tragedy, he didn't show up for weeks. Then nearly three months later, he appeared in the middle of the night again, just holding her in bed. After that, his reappearances were sporadic. Sometimes she feared the Geostigma would get him. Kunnia couldn't really say she loved him, because despite the longevity of their...she couldn't really call it a relationship either, not exactly, but whatever it was, she was ambivalent about the whole thing. Sometimes she thought she'd be relieved if it ended, other times she was glad to have someone in her life who just made one demand of her. Kunnia got in bed and turned her nightstand lamp off.[COLOR="Silver"]