Getting Cloud Strife a Date

Ah, most certainly this is one of my favorite stories to tell. Cloud Strife, a man considered to be a hero by many, is quite the character in his day to day life. Simply put, he is a man who loves to abuse himself. Whether it be verbally or physically, Cloud enjoyed getting himself down. It was no wonder then, why he was still single. This is how my adventure came to pass young ones.

Yes, I recall that day. I was around twenty four at the time. I had not direct line to Cloud at that point, I only saw him on occasion when Raiden had poker nights at my house. That however, is a completely different story I won't get into at this point. Right now we speak of Cloud, and only Cloud. Through casual conversation with Raiden I discovered that Cloud was going through somewhat of a rough patch, romantically.

It seemed that through his awkward social skills and constant depressive outlook on life, he had successfully driven away any women interested in him. To put it bluntly, Cloud needed some lady help. Now, granted, I am no expert when it comes to understanding women. But this was an opportunity I could not pass up. When Raiden said that Cloud was beginning to seek help from dating books, I immediately volunteered to help him to go and do some lady searching. Raiden didn't seem nearly as ecstatic about the idea as I was, but through some violent arguing I managed to get Cloud Strife's personal cell number.

This however, was only the beginning of the adventure. Even though I had gotten a way to contact Cloud, I knew full well my chances of reaching him were slim to none. Cloud never answered his phone, ever. I didn't believe this until I tried calling him, for two full weeks. Indeed, I called that sorrowful hero for two straight weeks, day in and day out. I never ceased, in fact, I even started to write him poetry.

What could it hurt? A little poetry can go a long way, especially with the emotionally unstable. I would write sonnets, haiku's, even free verse. All of them were basically my resume for him to accept my help for his dating life. I tried to sound as emotionally understanding as I could with lines like, "My heart yearns for your orifice." There was absolutely no way I could wrong with such ingenious wording and sentence structure. Well… now that I think about it… I guess there were some ways that could go wrong. I digress however.

My newfound confidence was quickly sapped from me, as two weeks slowly turned into two months. I do recall crying myself to sleep more than once during that time. Cloud Strife was becoming an unhealthy obsession in my life, I'd lost sight of everything else.

Perhaps it would be in my best interest to tell you readers that I was in no way shape or form attracted to Cloud. No, that was far from the case. I simply wanted to meet the man, he had defeated Sephiroth so many times, who wouldn't want to meet him? It was because of my constant yearning that I slowly began to have frequent emotional breakdowns.

Four months had passed, and by now I had given up on Mr. Strife. Strange how fate works, because as soon as I stopped calling that depressed blonde haired crybaby – he called me. The call took me by surprise to say the least. I still remember what he said clearly to this day. My phone rang, I looked to see who it was, and when I saw it was Cloud I answered immediately.

"Hello?" I said with a large potency of excitement.

"Ok." That's what Cloud whispered over the receiver.

"Ok?"

"Yeah, I don't deserve this and… I don't deserve you but… ok." I cloud hear Cloud starting to sob over the line, it made me scratch the back of my head in discomfort.

"Yeah Cloud… so I don't want to sound like a jerk or anything but I have no idea what you're talking about right now."

"Relationships!" Cloud screamed, "You said you could help me make things right, well, let's make things right."

"Ok, so, you want me to help you get a date then?" I asked, still slightly confused what Cloud wanted exactly.

"Ok." Was his reply. With that he hung up, and I didn't hear from him for a week.

Things only got stranger from this point on. Even though I knew Cloud wanted me to help him, he had left no way for me to contact him. What I didn't know, was that Cloud had been watching me the entire week. I don't know why he did things the way he did, but to be honest I'd simply like to leave things where they lie.

Span another week, I had gone to the mall by myself to do some clothes shopping. For once I looked decent, well dressed. Remember that, it ties into this story much farther down the line. Apparently this was the day Cloud thought it best to begin our lady hunting. And so, while I sat at the food court drinking a freshly bought coke a cola, I heard the sound of heavy footsteps behind me. Like everyone else in the food court I looked around to see who it was, and there stood Cloud Strife.

Like the ignorant man that he was, Cloud had taken the liberty of bringing his overgrown buster sword with him. He wore a black drab, and heavy black biker boots. The only thing that was favorable about him at the time was his well done spiky hair. To this day I don't know how that man styled his hair so well, I've tried many times. That is irrelevant to what we speak of now however.

"Cloud!" I said with some surprise. I stood up immediately and walked over to him, "Wow, I didn't expect to see you here… with your… sword." It was here that I realized just how short Cloud was. Have you ever stood next to that man? He stands an even five six, trust me, it takes away from his magnificent persona.

Cloud nodded, "So… are we going to do this thing?"

Luckily for me I remembered right away that Cloud had asked for my help with dating, "Oh, yeah sure! You caught me at a good time actually. Come on sit down with me."

"No." He said with contempt.

"No?"

"We can't do this sitting down can we? Can we?" For a thin short man Cloud certainly carried a commanding voice. By now many of the people around us were looking at Cloud with a great amount of fear in their eyes.

"Alright, look Cloud there's a few things we should cover before we venture any further."

Cloud crossed his arms, "Like what?"

"Like for starters you can't be carrying around that giant sword in this mall." I said pointing to the buster sword on his back.

Cloud scoffed and shook his head, he looked at the people around us, then back at me. "Are you madness?"

Honestly, I didn't know how to respond to that, "What?"

"If this sword leaves my side… I will be weaponless." Cloud's eyes scanned over mine.

I answered quickly, "Girls like that Cloud. When you don't carry lethal weapons, girls like you a lot more."

Thankfully Cloud seemed to understand my statement, because after a long pause he pulled the sword off his back and handed it to me. "Then do with it what you will. I don't deserve it anyway…"

I tried to hold the sword with as much ease as he, I quickly found that impossible. I let the iron mass of a blade crash to the ground. I dusted off my hands and smiled at Cloud politely.

"Ok, so, let's get you a girl huh?"

"How?" He asked me weakly, "How will you get anyone to like me? This mess that is me? How can anyone like me? I am mess! Me is mess! A Mess!"

Yeah, right then I knew this would be a difficult process. But hey, it hadn't been easy up to this point anyway. So, girding up my loins, I grabbed onto Cloud's shoulder and led him down one of the large halls of the mall. I waited for him to calm down, and then I spoke.

"Now Cloud, being at the mall is a good advantage for us. First, let me ask you, how good are you at making conversation with the opposite sex?"

"What is conversation?" Cloud asked me blandly.

I stared at him, "Was… that a joke?"

He stared back, "Should it be?" We looked at each other awkwardly for a moment. This little finding only made things worse. After further investigation I soon found out that Cloud had absolutely no social skills whatsoever, let alone the ability to attract a mate one day. So I sat him down and went through the basics.

Like how to introduce one's self, how to be a gentlemen, understanding that the right intentions lead to a healthy relationships... so on and so forth. After our three hour talk Cloud jumped up from his seat.

"Ok… I'm ready for this… I think." He looked over to me, making sure he stood in an attractive and masculine pose. "How does my hair look right now?"

I sighed and shook my head, "It looks fine. Alright now let's see… we need ourselves just a lady you can talk to." I began to search for someone that Cloud could practice his conversation skills on, by no means did I mean for him to attempt a pickup at this point. Cloud seemed to have some other ideas on his mind however.

"I've spotted one… I'm going in." Cloud's eyes were fierce, and I, like the silly child I was, simply sat back and let it happen… what happened next was pure amazement.