Walking home for Reno usually wasn’t such an arduous task. However, usually Edge didn’t reach temperatures of upwards of 100 degrees. Usually he left work much later. Usually he didn’t have a Remnant of Sephiroth following him like some sort of lost puppy he’d been dumped with.
Yazoo walked slowly, constantly looking about in wonder, as if he’d never seen the city of Edge before in his life.
‘But he has,’ Reno reminded himself mentally. ‘He tried to destroy it.’
“C’mon,” he said to Yazoo abruptly. “You’ll have time to look around later. Let’s get going, yo.” Yazoo picked up his pace slightly, so that he was now walking along side the Turk.
“Why do you do that?” he asked curiously.
“Do what, yo?” the redhead responded grumpily.
“That. You say that word a lot. Yo.” Reno glared at him.
“What does it matter to you how I speak?” he snapped. Yazoo flinched. He did not say another word the entire walk to Reno’s apartment.
Reno lived in a building not far from the new Shinra complex; in fact it was only about ten minutes away. It wasn’t fancy, but then again neither was Reno. And due to the fact that his job was so time consuming, he barely did anything but sleep there and drink juice directly from the carton in the fridge. When the two entered the apartment, they were hit with a wave of cool air from the air conditioning. Reno threw his jacket in the direction of a table and started making his way to his bedroom. He then paused and turned to face Yazoo, who was standing in the middle of the living room looking about in awe.
“You,” he said. Yazoo turned and stared straight at him with his strange bright eyes. Reno hesitated for a moment, and then continued. “Make yourself comfortable and don’t break anything, yo. I’m taking a shower.” And with that he retreated to his bedroom and closed the door. After thinking for a few seconds, he locked it as well.
‘What a day,’ he thought, making his way to the bathroom. He turned on the water to the shower, and after throwing his clothing to the ground haphazardly he stepped in and let the cool water just pour over his body. It felt good after being so unbearably hot for the majority of the day. Reno closed his eyes, but all he could see was Yazoo smirking at him.
“Come on now, out of my head,” he mumbled to himself, kneading his eye sockets with his palms. Reno just couldn’t get over the fact that the man had just kissed him like that. The last time they had seen each other, Yazoo had been trying to kill him. Then he had killed Yazoo. Or at least, he thought he had. And Yazoo just came back, strolled into his office and kissed him. Just like that.
‘It was a better kiss than what you usually get,’ he thought. Abruptly, he lifted up his head and banged it on the shower head accidentally. Cursing inwardly and clutching his now throbbing head, Reno bit his lip. What was going on with him? Why did he keep thinking things like that? He sighed. Elena was right, he was into it. Now Reno just felt depressed and his head hurt.
A few minutes later, Reno left his room now wearing his favorite red chocobo pajama pants and a large t-shirt. Yazoo took one look at him from his place on the couch and snorted, trying to stifle his laughter. Reno looked at him, his expression slightly hurt.
“What?” he said. “My mom gave me these when I was 17!” His voice cracked as he said this, and Yazoo nearly lost it completely. Reno just kept on giving him the same mortified look.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Yazoo said, still trying not to laugh. He held up his palms as if they were a peace offering. “I’m just not used to seeing you like that.” The redhead began chewing on his lower lip. “You don’t usually wear your hair down like that,” Yazoo observed. “It looks good.” And for the second time, Yazoo watched Reno blush. It just seemed so out of character for someone whose usual demeanor was so joking and cynical.
“You don’t wear yours up like that often either,” the Turk mumbled, turning away. He then said something about food and walked away. Yazoo stood and followed him.
“So what do you have to eat here?” he asked when they had reached the kitchen. He placed a hand on Reno’s shoulder, and suddenly, before the Remnant could even react, Reno had him pinned against a wall.
“Listen to me very closely Remnant,” he said, baring his teeth. “You are here because the President ordered it. If it were up to me, I would have sent you home with Tseng so he could kill you for a second time. I don’t know why you keep acting like we’re going to be friends, because we aren’t. And just because you kissed me doesn’t mean…” Reno trailed off, lost in Yazoo’s blue green eyes. And suddenly he felt the overpowering urge to taste those lips once again. He leaned in very close to Yazoo. “Ah, look at what you’ve done to me,” he said quietly. He then closed his eyes and gave in, kissing the silver haired man.
It wasn’t long before the chocobo PJs too found themselves discarded in a heap on Reno’s clothing littered bedroom floor.
The next morning Reno awoke the sound of his phone going off. He reached blindly for it on his bedside table. Yazoo groaned softly. Eventually he did find it, and he answered groggily.
“Hello, thissis Reno. Waddyu want, yo?”
“Reno, why are you not at your office?” The voice was that of Rude.
“Oh shit,” he swore loudly, sitting up hastily. Yazoo made a sound of discontent at being jolted awake. “Oh Rude, I’m sorry. It’s just with Yazoo… the Remnant I mean. I didn’t get much sleep. Gods, I’m so sorry, yo.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rude said, but it didn’t stop Reno from feeling guilty.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes I swear!” he said scrambling out of bed and looking for some sort of clean pants.
“No, I said don’t worry about it. The Director told me to tell you the President is reassigning you anyway. Elena’s taken over Midgar restoration; you have to guard the Remnant. You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to.” Reno paused in his pants search.
“So if I had actually woken up this morning, I would have got there and had nothing to do?”
“Precisely.”
“Fun, yo,” Reno said. He sighed. “Well thanks man… What should I do then?”
“Take him on a picnic?”
“That doesn’t exactly strike me as a good idea, partner,” Reno said. Rude laughed and hung up. Placing the phone on the ground beside him, Reno turned to face Yazoo, who smiled at him affectionately.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Nothing,” the redhead replied. “Just a false alarm.”
