Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. Don't sue me.

Also please review! This is my first story!

The Cadet woke up to a horrible grunting noise

The Cadet woke up to a horrible grunting noise. His room mate was snoring… again. He had already had trouble falling asleep that night due to the cafeteria food. His stomach still wasn't used to it and it kept him up for two hours in pain. He glanced at the clock next to him on a small table, 2:21 a.m. The blonde squeezed his eyes tightly together as his roommate snored again. His room mate was a nice guy, two years older than the fifteen year old blonde and about two feet taller than he was. He sat up as his room mate snored a little louder. Maybe some fresh air first, then he'd come back and try to deal with sleeping again.

The blonde slowly made his way over to the door, hoping that the floor would not creak so he would not wake up his roommate. Slowly opening the door and shutting it; home free. He stepped outside onto the small concrete porch and sat down. The coolness of the porch sending shivers up his spine. Gazing up at the moon his mind wandered from classes and training, and ended on wondering about everyone in his home town of Nibelheim.

Speaking out loud to himself, he said softly, "I wonder how everyone is doing…"

A voice came as if almost out of nowhere, "Well.. you could write them and ask?"

Startled by the voice coming from the left of him the boy jumped up to the right, turning to see who was next to him. It was a little hard to see, but he defiantly could tell this person was a lot taller than he and a lot stronger, and his eyes.. they were.. glowing.

With a small chuckle the voice said, "Sorry, did I startle you?"

It finally hit the blonde that this had to have been a SOLDIER for their eyes to be glowing and snapped to attention. Not responding to the question asked.

"At ease, at ease." The blonde could see a large grin on the others face. "So why are you out here? It's past curfew." The stranger questioned.

Cloud nervously answered back, "S.. sorry sir! I just wanted some fresh air!"

The other chuckled more, "No need to shout, you might wake someone up. By the way my name's Zack."

Cloud became dumbfounded when he heard this name. The Zack? No way, the blonde had heard so much about the SOLDIER Zack and General Sephiroth. The blonde became very nervous and stuttered his name back, "C-..Ca-.. Cadet Strife sir."

Zack laughed, "What's you're first name? Cadet Strife is too much of a mouth full, and stop with the sir's. It makes me feel old."

"My name is Cloud." The blonde said softly and dropped his gaze to the ground.

"Well Cloud, it's pretty late, you should get back inside and rest up for your classes early tomorrow morning." While walking over to Cloud and putting a hand on his shoulder, and smiling down on his even if the blonde could not really see the smile.

Cloud flinched a little at the hand on his shoulder and nodded, moving closer to the door.

"Well goodnight Cloud, see ya around." Walking past the blonde he got a whiff of alcohol. The SOLDIER must have been out drinking till a little while ago the blonde thought to himself as he pushed the door open and wandered back over to his bed to try to sleep again.

Zack walked home to his apartment, or more like swayed. He had been drinking tonight, he had quite a few but not over what he could handle. Cloud huh? He thought to himself about what the blonde had said out loud by accident and wondered if the kid was homesick. I'll pay him a visit soon to make sure he's okay, but for now.. He finally reached his apartment, and jammed his key into the door knob, unlocking it. Closing the door behind him and throwing his keys on nearby surface. ..Sleep.

--

Cloud now woke up to his roommate, Lev, singing. It must have been 4:30 a.m. by now. The blonde pulled his pillow over his head not wanting to go to classes today, but his roommate thought otherwise and started to shake him when he noticed his out of tune singing wasn't working.

"Come on Cloud! Get up! You don't want to be late do you? They'll make you run five miles if you are!"

Cloud took his pillow off of his head and looked up at his white haired roommate who was wearing a goofy smile. Glaring a little at the other Cloud pushed himself out of bed and got dressed for classes. He didn't want breakfast this morning, his stomach still kind of hurt.

He was ready to go and headed out the door when he heard his roommate yelling at him to wait. Lev stumbled out the door only two minutes later and smiled down at the yawning Cloud.

"Alright! Let's go get breakfast." Lev said joyfully and started to walk.

The blonde looked up at him walking with, "Nah, I'm not all that hungry."

"Oh well let me grab some toast at least and I'll eat it on the way over to class. Wait for me?"

"Sure."

They reached the cafeteria, Cloud stood outside the doors as Lev ran in to quickly make some toast. The blonde did not know how long he was waiting there because he was lost in his thoughts about the homework he had forgotten to do last night, and was trying to think of a way to get out of getting in trouble. Lev came back out with a piece of toast hanging from his mouth and tapped Cloud on the shoulder to tell him that he was ready to go.

Cloud flinched and broke away from his daydreaming, "Sorry, you ready?"

Lev nodded and they started walking towards their first class. Lev noticed something was on Cloud's mind, "Are you okay?" He asked while munching on his toast.

"Yeah, was just wondering about that assignment due today. I kind of forgot to due it last night since my stomach hurt so much."

"Ahh.. well that's okay, the assignment was due for Mr. Kani wasn't it? He likes you, I'm sure he'll let it slide."

This was true, the only teacher the actually liked Cloud was Mr. Kani. And he hoped he would give him a break.

The two boys walked into Mr. Kani's room and decided to tell Mr. Kani right away that he did not have the assignment. The blonde slowly walked up to him, lowering his gaze which made a few small spikes of his hair fall in front of his eyes.

"Mr. Kani?"

"Yes Cadet Strife?" He questioned while looking up at the blonde.

"Uhm.. well.. My stomach is still not use to the food here yet, and well.. I was feeling sick last night and didn't have time to finish the assignment. Could you give me till tomorrow?"

Mr. Kani sighed and Cloud frowned thinking he had upset his teacher.

"You know, they really need to change the food here. It took me awhile to get used to it too. Make sure you give me that assignment no later than tomorrow at 8 a.m. I know this class is not meeting tomorrow, but I still expect this assignment."

"Yes sir, and thank you sir!" Cloud smiled and quickly made his way back to his seat as Mr. Kani got up to teach the class.

After class was time for basic training. Today they were learning about how to defend. Although Cloud was small and not as muscular as the other cadets, he understood everything he was taught and mastered it perfectly. This annoyed many of the other cadets. Cloud was thankful that Lev was in his class, and since they were roommates they were usually paired to spar together, and today was no different. The instructor asked for the cadets to work on their offensive and defensive skills.

Lev smiled at the blonde and asked, "So you want to be offensive or defensive?"

"Defensive, I want to practice those new skills."

12:30, basic skills class was over and it was time for lunch. First he wanted to shower, because he took the defensive side Lev didn't hold back and landed a couple of good hits on that blonde that sent him flying. Some of his muscles were sore. He took his clothes off and threw them in his locker while wrapping a towel around his waist. He made his way to the shower area hoping to relax his muscles in a warm shower, but apparently everyone else had thought the same thing too. So he waited till a shower was free, and it seemed like it took almost forever. Strangely enough when one of the bigger guys left his shower, all of the other showers freed up too. Cloud ran into one and turned the water on hot. He got cold. The blonde sighed and wondered if they had done this on purpose to pick on him. He frowned and turned his shower off and walked out. As he did he heard snickering from the locker room. Yeah, they did this on purpose. He thought to himself as he opened the door and quickly made his way to his locker to get dressed and headed off to lunch.

He grabbed a tray and got some food, a little ticked off and sat down at a table with Lev, and angrily ate his food. Lev noticed the blonde was mad and decided not to ask and instead talk about his dream girl.

--

He opened his eyes to an unpleasant surprise. Shutting the immediately.

He groaned, "Why did I forget to close the blinds..?"

Zack rose from his bed and shut the blinds. Since that was taken care of he focused on his splitting headache he had from his hang over. He practically drug himself into the kitchen and took a couple of asprin. I didn't drink that much. Why do I have such a bad hangover? Maybe I did drink a lot. He groaned and wondered how late he had slept in, he had a meeting that morning at 11 a.m., and was planning to find Cloud at lunch and talk to him a little more. Glancing at the clock he frowned when he saw that it was now 2 p.m.

"Shit." He sighed. "Seph is going to kill me for missing that meeting."

Walking out into the small living room he noticed his phone was blinking with new messages. Zack pushed the button and started listening.

A forceful yet calm voice played back, "Zackary, if you're going to get drunk, do it on a night where you don't have meetings or something important to do the next day. I cancelled anything you had going on today, I expect you to be back tomorrow, no excuses. Get some rest."

Seph, the raven haired SOLDIER thought to himself as a smile appeared on his face. He then slowly made his way back to his room to sleep for the rest of the day. He would talk to Cloud tomorrow.

--

That's it for chapter 1! I'm already close to finishing chapter two! It should be up by tomorrow. Sorry chapter one is kinda boring, but you know you have to set things up and what not, but chapter two will be a lot more exciting.

Once again please review 3