Chapter Text
The trip to the restaurant that night had been peaceful and the food delicious. Really, Sephiroth felt quite relaxed. Overall, it had been a worthwhile outing after a long day of overworking. Now all that was left was to pay the bill and . . .
BUUUURRRRRP.
It wasn’t the kind of quiet, awkward burp that could be easily ignored. It was the loudest kind that seemed to reverberate off every wall and pitcher of ice water as the person’s meal was announced to the entire city block. To Sephiroth, it felt like the entire restaurant fell silent. He wouldn’t be surprised if everyone in it was now looking at them. Cloud looked like he wanted to hide under the table. Tifa was appalled. Genesis and Kuja looked personally affronted. Aerith and Angeal and Elmyra looked stern, but their eyes were dancing. Barret and the kids and Zack’s parents had unreadable reactions. Zidane was snickering behind a napkin. But none of them were responsible for the offensive sound.
“Zack,” Sephiroth said quietly in reproving dismay, “we are in public.”
“Goodness, Zack,” said Aerith.
“Really, Zack,” Genesis sniffed. “So uncouth.”
“I know, I know!” Zack looked sheepish. “Sorry, Seph. Aerith. Genesis. Everyone. It just kinda escaped.”
“Escaped?! It staged a prison break, Zack!” Zidane giggled.
Hoping to make it better, Zack continued, “You know, there’s some cultures where if you don’t burp, they think you didn’t like the food and they’re insulted?”
Sephiroth sighed, covering his face with a hand. “And I am most grateful that it’s not an expectation here.”
“If it was, I’d move,” Cloud muttered.
“I would never set foot in any eatery that would demand I relinquish my dignity in such a manner!” Kuja declared.
“It’s not that bad, is it?” Zack looked around. By now, the few other late-night patrons were returning to their own meals and starting to talk again. “I mean, it’s probably something people hear all the time in restaurants. . . .”
“I rarely hear it,” Sephiroth remarked.
“I daresay the chefs have stopped plating the souffles to look at us,” Kuja said flatly. “In fact, the souffles have very likely descended from the force of that . . . very vocal demonstration.”
Sephiroth sighed in agreement. “One of the few contests Genesis and I refused to do was a belching contest. We saw some of the Thirds engaging in such behavior and we proclaimed it uncouth and left.”
“Did they hear you say it?” Zack wondered.
“Yes,” Sephiroth said. “We both let them know in no uncertain terms that we didn’t feel it appropriate behavior for SOLDIERs to participate in. Genesis gave a long lecture on the degeneracy of youth and culture. I think they were quite mortified. I didn’t have much to add to his spiel, but I did make it clear that I agreed with him.” He sighed. “That was, perhaps, one of the only things we ever agreed on back then.”
Genesis smirked, looking pleased by the memory of scolding the Thirds for such unbecoming nonsense.
“Was Angeal there too?” Zack asked.
“Angeal. . . .” Sephiroth wearily shook his head. “Angeal looked stern, but I think he went back and quietly told them to have the contest in their quarters, at least. Maybe he felt a bit sorry for them after the level of humiliation they received.”
Angeal didn’t comment, but from his slight smirk, Sephiroth was right.
“They weren’t humiliated to make such sounds, but only to be scolded for deliberately doing so,” Genesis scoffed.
Cloud snorted at that. “Angeal was more permissive than you guys?”
“Sometimes it sure didn’t seem that way,” Zack said, glancing to his old mentor. “But on some things . . . yeah, he could loosen up. Seph’s always been a big softie too, really. Just not when it comes to things like that.”
“And I sincerely pray that will never change,” Sephiroth intoned. Wanting to get back to the matter at hand, he looked over the check and took out his wallet. Kuja did likewise.
“It’s just a natural body function,” Angeal finally said.
“It is not natural to exploit it in such a crude manner!” Genesis huffed.
Cloud looked to Zack. “Did you ever do stuff like that? Burping contests, I mean.”
Zack went red. “No, of course not!” he exclaimed. “Not as a SOLDIER anyway. . . . Maybe when I was like, five or something.”
“Yes, that would be about the age when I would think someone might do it,” Sephiroth said flatly. “At least it would take the mindset of a five-year-old to want to engage in something so crass.” He placed his card in the folder and leaned back to wait for the waitress to return to claim it.
Now Genesis was just reveling in Sephiroth’s commentary, instead of trying to one-up him with a comeback just as good or better as he might have years ago. “Perfectly said, my friend.”
Cloud nodded in agreement to Sephiroth’s assessment. “Those guys would do some pretty stupid things,” he mumbled. “Burping contests . . . or worse. . . .”
Kuja looked revolted at the implication of that.
“And they often tried to pull rank and bully the Shinra guards into joining them, if they were discovered,” Genesis remarked.
Sephiroth stiffened, shooting Cloud a concerned look. “Did they ever do that to you?”
Tifa also looked concerned at the thought.
“Yeah, they tried sometimes,” Cloud said, bitter at the memories. “I never did it, no matter how rough they treated me.”
Zack clapped Cloud on the shoulder. “Of course not! You’d probably rather have fallen through the floor than joined them! Right, buddy?”
Cloud nodded. “The last time they ever did it, they got caught.” He finally smiled a bit. “They really got a chewing out from Sephiroth for not just being gross, but trying to abuse their power by bullying a Shinra guard.”
Sephiroth stared at him. “You were the unfortunate guard I rescued?”
“Yeah. I didn’t take my helmet off. Then you got called away on a mission before you could ask questions like my name or something.” Cloud smiled a bit more. “I never forgot that.”
Sephiroth smiled too. “I’m glad I was there.”
“Of course, you’d never do anything like the bullying, but you probably didn’t even do just the contests when you really were a kid. Right, Seph?” Zack said with a bit of a cheeky smile.
“Of course not,” Sephiroth said. “If there was one positive thing Hojo did in how he raised me, it was to teach me that such things are completely inappropriate. I have never done it on purpose. And I’ve learned to have enough control that it doesn’t happen by accident either.”
“Maybe I’ll have to take some lessons from you on that,” Zack said.
Sephiroth finally gave a slight smile. “I would be happy to teach you.”
Cloud’s mind was now on other things. He furtively looked around at the other customers as he sipped his ice water. “I hope they don’t think I’m the one who burped,” he whispered. Something in his eyes said that he had been wrongfully blamed for such things in the past, and knowing how unkindly he had been treated at Nibelheim, that was sadly believable.
“You don’t look the type,” Genesis said.
“There’s a type?” Zack blinked.
“People always thought I was the type for anything crude or bad growing up,” Cloud muttered.
“Oh Cloud,” Tifa said sadly.
“I could tell them it was me?” Zack offered.
“No!” Cloud and Sephiroth exclaimed in unison.
“Let’s let the memory of this unfortunate incident fade,” Sephiroth added. “To admit to it would draw more unwanted attention to us and to it.”
“I guess you’re right, Seph,” Zack said with a weak smirk. “And hey, it could be worse.”
“I am not sure exactly how,” Kuja remarked.
“Come on, guys, it was a burp, not a war crime,” Zidane said.
“Such a sound can absolutely be a crime,” Genesis retorted haughtily.
“And I will likely have nightmares about that tonight,” Sephiroth intoned.
No one was sure if he was kidding.