The Price of Beauty, or
Why Everybody Hates Cloud

While Yuffie foamed at the mouth with an overabundance of toothpaste on her toothbrush, Aerith stood behind her and attempted to tie her hair back behind her head without accidentally jabbing Leon in the eye with her elbow as Leon carefully untangled the knots in his hair with Tifa's hairbrush since he couldn't find his comb. Everyone was crowded together in front of the bathroom sink, every so often shifting in place for a better view in the mirror and bumping into each other along the way. Just as Yuffie bent over the sink and spat out nasty-tasting, orange-flavored toothpaste (she hated, hated, hated orange-flavored toothpaste, but since Cid was the one who shopped most often, that was the kind of toothpaste they ended up with), Tifa joined the party, stage left, and reached around Aerith to get her brush back from Leon, and Yuffie asked Squall ("It's Leon.") if she could borrow his razor.

"...Why?"

"Because girls get underarm hair just like guys do, but for some reason, we're expected to shave it off."

Leon looked like he wished he hadn't asked, but opened the mirror cupboard in search of his razor anyway. He made a mental note to buy one for Yuffie later, since it was unlikely she would get one herself. Meanwhile, Aerith moved out into the hall and continued her conversation with Tifa about going to the shop sometime this weekend for new clothes and maybe a new mat for the bathroom, since the one they had was now a permanent shade of gray.

"And new toothpaste," Yuffie added as Tifa made a disgusted face in the mirror, toothbrush in her mouth. "Definitely need to get new toothpaste."

"Yeth, pweathe," Tifa agreed, although she bravely continued to brush her teeth.

The group in front of the mirror had narrowed down to Leon and Tifa by the time Cid showed up. Aerith now trying to convince Leon to join their planned shopping spree while he reluctantly reclaimed his razor from Yuffie, who then joined Aerith in the hall, and Tifa hunted for her earrings without much success on the crowded shelf over the toilet. (Aerith's hair ribbons, Cloud's sunglasses, Merlin's hairclips, a new box of razors, an old box of band-aids, one rubber duck, but no earrings so far.) As the newest arrival, Cid sidled up next to Leon and grabbed the bottle of shaving cream just as Leon nicked her jaw with his razor while shaving. Without even glancing around, Tifa handed him the box of band-aids.

Then, as Leon was tearing open a new band-aid and Aerith tripped over Cid on her way back in - in all the fuss, she had forgotten to brush her hair before tying it back - Merlin showed up shoved them all out the door so he could take a shower, so everyone stood around grumbling and crossing their arms and tapping their feet impatiently. Yuffie remembered she hadn't put on deodorant yet, which any self-respecting ninja put on before a hard day of work. She asked Leon if she could borrow his. Nearly half an hour later, Merlin left quite satisfied, and everyone bottlenecked in the doorway in their haste to finish the morning routine. Then Tifa had to brush her hair again because the steam from Merlin's shower made the ends of her hair curl.

From start to finish, this all took a little more than an hour to accomplish. The grand total of bruises from running into one another and being jammed accidentally into walls and out the doorway was seven that morning, the number of nicks caused by razors an all time low at just the one, and resisting the gag reflex on the taste of orange-flavored toothpaste: 27.

When Yuffie, Aerith, Tifa Leon and Cid finally made it downstairs, they found Cloud already waiting at the kitchen table with a bowl of Heartios Cheerios and the comic section of the newspaper opened in front of him. (Merlin had left to do Merlin-y work). Although he had been conspicuously missing from the early morning bathroom crowd, he was surprisingly well-groomed. Actually, Cloud always looked great, come to think of it, and it didn't hurt that the morning sunlight beamed through the window like a theater spotlight, created pools of subtle shadows and soft light against his face, transformed his blonde hair into shades of gold. He lifted his head when the rush hour crowd arrived, and his eyes flashed a stunning blue under the soft shadow of long eyelashes, eyebrows quirked curiously up and pale lips slightly pursed.

Wow, thought Yuffie, Aerith, Tifa, Leon and even Cid, who all, just for an instant, forgot how to breathe. Aerith was the first to recover.

"How long have you been up?" Aerith asked politely.

Cloud glanced up at the ceiling. After doing some early morning math in his head, Cloud belatedly replied, "About five minutes," before returning to his cereal and comics.

It was very strange – Cloud suddenly felt as though an icy wave of cold air had blasted its way through the kitchen. He looked up from the comics, wondering if anyone else had sensed it, too, and found that everyone was staring at him in a particularly unfriendly manner.

He blinked at them, trying to understand what he'd done wrong this time. He hadn't tried to run away again... hadn't even picked a fight with Sephiroth since Chapter 3...

...

The next morning, Cloud joined the usual morning rush hour at the bathroom sink because someone had drawn a black handlebar mustache on him with permanent marker sometime during the night. Yuffie claimed innocence. Aerith did not. Leon handed him a bar of soap, the corners of his mouth threatening to twitch up into a (somewhat smug) smile.