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Midgard Seventh’s cafeteria wasn’t the most appealing choice for lunch, unless you liked your food complimented by the smell of mildew. The overcrowded tables and constant noise didn’t help, and the fact that Aerith was liable to start a fight in there at any given moment made it less than ideal, so more often than not, Tifa and her friends migrated to the Engineering room. Not necessarily because it was their first choice, given that the fluorescents flickered a tad too often to be comfortable and the room smelled strongly of something burnt and oily (as well as a tinge of cigarette smoke, if you were looking for it), but because Mr. Highwind was the only teacher who would actually let them bother him during his lunch hour.
They hadn’t always made for very appealing guests, she could admit. Today, for example, Aerith and Zack argued loudly behind her, while Yuffie shook what appeared to be some kind of bug at Cloud, after which he threatened her with his bat, their raised voices never falling even when the door swung open. Mr. Highwind peered out the door with some kind of stick occupying his mouth, appraising them with a raised brow. Tifa could only smile sheepishly as her classmates chattered, inclining her head in an apologetic bow.
Eventually, he waved them in without complaint, apparently unable or unwilling to speak around the stick. He did, however, set a timer.
Left them to their own devices, they settled in for the period and they turned to their usual topics of conversation: baseball, club activities, whether or not to skip last period, the newest drama plaguing the school—which this time happened to be about Mr. Rhodea’s new beau—and more baseball. When Zack left Cloud alone in favor of wolfing down his lunch, Tifa turned to him, phone in hand and a frown on her face.
“He just graded the homework, but I have no idea what I got wrong. What did you end up putting for number five?”
“Nothing,” he shrugged. “Gave up on that one.”
“You really should take it a little more seriously,” Tifa sighed. “Mr. Valentine’s homework is worth twenty percent, you know.”
Cloud was about to answer, but he was interrupted by Yuffie slamming her chopsticks loudly on the table, silencing all their conversations. Even the sound of Mr. Highwind’s keyboard stopped.
“There was homework?” Yuffie’s voice raised up at the end, her face ashen. “I have him next period.”
They all turned to her with varying expressions of pity and incredulity. Yuffie dove for Zack, shaking his shoulders violently until his head snapped back and forth abruptly.
“Let me copy yours!”
“No—dice,” Zack coughed, helpless, before pushing her off. “I forgot, too. I’ve just accepted my fate.”
“It's that kind of thinking that gets you held back,” Aerith wheezed, dodging the pencil aimed at her head. Surreptitiously, Tifa moved Cloud's bat out of Aerith-range. Yuffie ignored the encounter entirely and looked at Cloud and Tifa despairingly. They both shook their heads.
“You know he doesn’t return them until he grades all his classes,” Tifa said, her voice as gentle as she could manage.
Yuffie stilled, her eyes glazing over the table, as if contemplating all of the life choices that led her to this point. Then, out of the blue, she cursed loudly once, twice, before digging furiously in her bag, cursing Mr. Valentine’s name all the while, pulling out her laptop and wrenching it open with so much force that Tifa was surprised it stayed in one piece.
“Why do you even care so much? It’s just one assignment,” Cloud said.
“‘Cuz he said the next one I missed, he was gonna call up my old man, and the last thing I want is both those geezers on my back, so shut up and let me type!”
They all watched her with a mixture of amusement and pity, glancing back over every so often when she uttered a new curse.
“Another victim of Dracula,” Zack sighed. “An absolutely vile man, I tell you.”
“He’s not that bad, if you just do your work,” Tifa tried. She couldn’t help but defend him, even if Zack wasn’t completely wrong. “His critiques can be very rewarding.”
“Yeah, not that bad too look at, maybe,” Aerith snickered. Tifa smiled and ducked her head. Okay, sure, she couldn’t deny that.
Zack huffed with a wry shake of his head. “I could appreciate the whole hot teacher thing more if he wasn’t docking points for an un-stapled paper… When he keeps a stapler right on his desk.”
Cloud snorted, raising a brow.
“You’re still on that?”
“Spike, I’ve said it a million times and I'll say it again: those two points were the difference between a pass and a fail. It was right there.”
“That’s your own fault, man. The supply list went out first week,” Cloud said, barely glancing up from his phone to acknowledge Zack’s anguished wail, which cut off abruptly with a harsh shush from Yuffie. The furious typing of keys continued.
“That’s why you had to ask to use mine, right?” Tifa teased, a smile stretching across her face as she leaned to look at Cloud. He glanced at her before burying his face back in his phone.
“Money’s tight,” he groused instead of looking at her. “You know how much ink and paper I’ve wasted on his class alone?”
“Single sided only. Super lame,” Yuffie said in between her desperate key clacks.
“Back on task, Yuffie,” Tifa chastised, and Yuffie was quick to add Tifa’s name to her curses.
“Seriously, though. Who the hell uses a size 15 font? Is he eighty?” Aerith complained. “The trees don’t deserve that.”
“Sounds like him,” came a muffled voice. “His eyesight’s dogshit.”
They all paused. None of them had said that.
In unison, they all turned their heads to where Mr. Highwind had camped out at his desk, fingers tangled in his ashy blonde hair. When he saw them looking, mouths agape, he stopped to take the stick out of his mouth—a lollipop, apparently—to laugh. Yuffie’s hands had long since paused their frantic typing, and she abandoned her screen to point an accusatory finger at their teacher.
“You know Mr. Valentine?”
Their teacher rolled his eyes and let out a disbelieving sound remarkably similar to the kind of snort a pig would make. Tifa would have told him so, but she didn’t want to lose their one decent lunch spot, and decided the comparison was best kept to herself.
“Can you keep a secret, kid? We’re actually on the same staff,” Mr. Highwind said, his voice raising to a high, mocking whisper. Zack and Aerith snickered next to her, while Yuffie let out a frustrated noise, flailing her hands rapidly.
“Yeah, but, like, you know what I mean! Teachers don't exist to each other. Everyone knows that!”
Mr. Highwind stared at for a moment, before he shook his head in disappointment.
“If you honestly believe that, I can see why you’re having so much trouble with him, you dumbass. Don’t you have an assignment to do?”
It was a miracle Mr. Highwind hadn’t gotten fired over his motormouth yet, but it seemed all his students had an unspoken, mutual agreement that he was too cool to rat on. That being said, it certainly helped that few teachers were as lenient as he was. His class was basically free credit, and many students were loath to lose it. Besides, this was Midgard Seventh they were taking about. It was completely possible the administration was fully aware, but were too relieved to have a permanent teacher to care.
Yuffie grumbled, thoroughly chastened, and dragged her eyes back over to her laptop. That didn’t save Mr. Highwind from the rest of their lingering gazes. Yuffie may have been exaggerating, but when it came to their English and Engineering teachers, she wasn’t too off the mark. Lazy versus strict, messy versus well-kempt, liked versus… Well, disliked. They were oil and water, northern and southern poles, to the point where they may as well have existed in two completely different realms. Tifa hadn’t even seen them in the same room before, so it was weird to hear Mr. Highwind acknowledge Mr. Valentine's existence at all.
Unless…
“Are you two friends?” She finally asked, her curiosity triumphing her befuddlement. Mr. Highwind leaned back and kicked his ratty sneakers up on the desk, a considering look on his face.
“I mean, I wouldn’t go that far. Just as much as any other staff member, I guess.”
“Well, what do you think of him? Is he always…?” Tifa trailed off, wringing her hands. She didn’t want to say it, but…
“An asshole? Yeah.”
At that moment, the same lightbulb clicked on in all of their heads.
'Oh shit, a teacher is about to talk shit about another teacher."
...At least he would, so long as they didn’t break the spell point that out. So they stayed quiet, expectant gazes drilling holes in their nonchalant instructor.
And talk shit, Mr. Highwind did.
“Well, shit was just peachy when I started last year, right up until around January, right after winter break ended. I came back and there was just this… Impending doom in the air,” Mr. Highwind said, a laugh threatening to bubble up in his voice. “All my bright and happy little morons became monks, acting all freaky and solemn and shit. So, imagine my surprise when I found out it was just because some schmuck came back from leave,” Mr. Highwind said, the laugh finally breaking out into a cackle.
They all leaned forward in interest. This was new information to all of them as first years, besides Zack, who shook his head ruefully.
“Apparently, a lot of my brats had his class right before mine, so from then on I just kept hearing about how all of his assignments—questions and all—had to be hand-written, and eventually written again when he couldn’t read their chicken scratch. Y'all are lucky," he snorted. "Last I heard, he just started accepting typed assignments this year.”
The dozens of assignments doled out and the hundreds of words demanded by Mr. Valentine every other day came to mind… And it was only the second month of the school year. They all pressed their hands to their chests, phantom cramps making them twitch.
“Don’t feel too sorry for yourselves. It ain’t any better for us just ‘cuz we’re coworkers,” Mr. Highwind continued. “He’s like a big, broody bat that haunts the staff room. Really brings the mood down when you're just tryin' to stomach your meatloaf. And lately, he’s stopped responding to our emails, so if you ever need him, you’ve gotta go hunt him down like some carrier pigeon.
"But," Mr. Highwind said, holding up a finger. "God forbid you misspell something or forget a goddamn period. Then you get him showing up to do a whole grammar lesson, and you end up forgettin' whatever the hell you were tryin’ to say in the first place,” Mr. Highwind said, shaking his head. “Guy’s a damn dinosaur.”
The same thought echoed in all their heads. Aerith leaned forward, the only one brave enough to ask, her voice uncharacteristically quiet as she whispered the question.
“How… How old is he?”
Mr. Highwind, oblivious to their anticipation, crunched his lollipop without much fanfare. Small bits of the sugared dust fluttered to his messy button up, settling over his lopsided, rocket ship-patterned tie.
“Dunno for sure, but I know he’s got ten years on me, at least.”
“No. Way!” Yuffie shouted, her assignment long forgotten. Zack was whispering ‘ten?’ and Cloud looked dumbfounded, an extremely hard look to wrangle out of someone as stoic as him. Aerith, meanwhile, had buried her head in her hands, and her shoulders were shaking. Tifa didn’t know if she was laughing or crying.
“Oh my god,” Tifa heard her wheeze. “He’s almost fifty.”
Just then, Mr. Highwind’s alarm went off. He sat up with a clap on his desk, startling them all to attention.
“This goes unsaid, but if any of this gets back to him, I’m gonna fail all of ya deadbeats. Now, get to class.”
He ushered them out with an unexpected haste, their belongings haphazardly gathered and their untouched food piling in the garbage can. It was only when they had all passed the threshold did Yuffie perk up, spinning on her heel to look at their teacher imploringly.
“Wait! Can I use the—” Yuffie’s voice was silenced by the resounding thud of the door.
“—Printer,” she groaned.
A chorus of condolences came for her.
“Sucks to suck.”
“Just accept your fate, man.”
“You could run away?”
“There's still fifteen minutes until class,” Tifa added unhelpfully, just barely dodging the bug Yuffie flicked in her direction.
𓏵
Tifa didn’t necessarily disagree with her friends. Yes, Mr. Valentine gave out too much work. Yes, he was a slave driver. Yes, he was probably secret vampire. Yes, it was most likely both. And yes, he was a general pain in the ass.
However, Tifa did disagree that was all Mr. Valentine was. Unlike her friends, Mr. Valentine was not only her English teacher, but her study hall supervisor. That meant she saw him every day instead of every other day, and she got to know him beyond his hell-class. It turned out that when he wasn’t making his students suffer through long, arduous tomes and compose treatise-length essays for them, he was a pretty alright guy, if a little quiet.
Still, when Yuffie’s class was leaving and Tifa’s was settling in, she saw her friend trudge past with a morose look on her face, and Tifa couldn’t help but wince. Two things could be true at once, she supposed.
Once Mr. Valentine had finished the required school announcements and left them to their free hour, Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge pulled their chairs up to her table. On paper, it was to work on their Engineering project, but the topic of Mr. Highwind's class brought Tifa to the incident at lunch, relaying the information he’d given away as quietly as she could. Of course, it was for naught as Jessie's voice raised loud enough for anyone across campus to hear.
“Mr. Highwind said he was how old?”
“Hush!” Tifa’s eyes flitted around the room. She only calmed when she saw Mr. Valentine sat sedately at his desk, peering down through his glasses, the attached chain swaying whenever he moved. Suddenly, a lot of his idiosyncrasies made more sense if she considered them as an old man thing, rather than a pretentious thing.
Then, he moved his papers, reaching over for—was that a quill? Nevermind. Tifa turned back to Jessie, who had also been watching the exchange with a barely stifled laugh.
“Look, maybe we can save it for when he’s not right there?”
Jessie groaned. “Then why even bring it up?”
“Later,” Tifa ground out, turning back to their classmates. “Made any progress on the design, guys?”
“Sure have,” Wedge said with a smile, pulling out their “blueprint.” They were in the process of creating a rubber-band propelled car, and while most of the groups in their class had opted for simpler designs, Wedge had forgone that for something much more creative. The basic mechanics were still there—body, wheels, detailed sketches of the axle—but the outer “shell” had been designed to resemble a cat. The “torso” would act as the main body of the car, while the head and limbs would be superficial design elements. It was rather cute, and would certainly earn points for creativity, but Tifa was more worried about the extra weight it would add.
“Was this inspired by Mr. Tuesti?”
Mr. Valentine, Tifa later came to learn, had a rather nasty habit of not making a sound when he was moving around the room. It was her only excuse for the mild shriek she emitted, and how she nearly fell out of her chair onto the floor. At least her group mates didn’t fare much better. Wedge actually had fallen.
Mr. Valentine towered over them—god, he was so tall—a curious look on his face. His red eyes perused their table over his glasses, finding the errant blueprint. As Tifa traced his features, Aerith’s words echoed in her head.
Almost fifty. Almost fifty. Almost fifty.
She believed it the less she looked at him.
Biggs, the first to recover, brandished the paper so Mr. Valentine could look at it a little closer, nodding his head vigorously.
“Yeah. It’s neat, right?”
She had been so startled she nearly forgot that Mr. Valentine had actually asked something. She peered up at the paper to confirm, and the English teacher leant it downward to let her see better. Now that she was looking for it, it did remind her of the little cat plush Mr. Tuesti kept on his desk.
“This is the vehicle assignment, correct?”
They all nodded.
“It rather charming, but will the additions affect the utility?”
Wedge shrugged. “I guess we’ll see.”
Mr. Valentine set the paper on their desk, his gloved hand tracing the proposed dimensions sketched along the edges of the car.
“Then I would suggest scaling it down. I’ve seen smaller cars fail. In the best case scenario, you save materials, and in the worst, you save your grade. You may test it outside when it progresses past a proof of concept,” Mr. Valentine said, nodding toward the door. “Mr. Highwind appreciates creativity, but not at the cost of efficiency.”
This is what Tifa had meant about Mr. Valentine. His advice was always sound, and even if his critiques could be scathing, he always left room for improvement. It made any praise he deemed to give feel truly earned.
“You think?” Biggs tilted his head. “I mean, it seems fine. Mr. Highwind's not that picky, right?”
“Nah, he doesn't care. He always lets me turn things in weeks late for full points.”
“Really? Shit, I wish I’d known that before. That’s pretty cool.”
“Cool, is it?” they heard in a frosty tone. They hadn’t realized Mr. Valentine was still there. The students turned to stare at him again.
“I recommend you avoid the engineering club if you wish to maintain that impression. He’s rather flippant when it comes to your grading, but he can be quite critical in a competitive setting,” Mr. Valentine said with a rueful shake of the head. “Now, if only he would apply that same rigor to your academic pursuits…”
The last part hadn’t sounded like it had been meant for their ears, and the whole group glanced at one another.
Mr. Valentine, openly criticizing another teacher? Tifa may have been a "goody-goody," as Aerith liked to put it, but even she knew good drama when she saw it.
She turned to Mr. Valentine, who had turned to retreat to his desk, and tried to keep her tone as innocent as possible.
“What do you mean?”
The English teacher paused. He looked over his shoulder, an unreadable look in his eyes.
“Highwind is a competent instructor with students who show a vested interest in his subject,” Mr. Valentine began. Notably, he dropped the Mr. in his coworker’s title. Spicy.
“However, such rigor is not applied equally to the rest of the student body. As of now, I have yet to find a single student he’s failed.”
“Wait. You’re saying you want him to give us more work?” Wedge balked.
“I am saying that he is too soft with you all. I attribute that to the fact he is still a relatively new teacher, but if he keeps you going at this rate, it will do you no favors in the long-term.” Mr. Valentine shook his head in disgust.
“He may be content receiving half-hearted effort, but I want all my students to leave my class having actually learned something.”
‘Maybe we could if we weren't drowning in assignments,’ Tifa thought, but as she valued her life (and more importantly, her grades), she kept silent. With that, Mr. Valentine glided away, presumably to startle some other unsuspecting students.
They stayed silent for a few moments, all caught between thinking the same thought.
Harsh.
Tifa could hardly believe it. This wasn’t just a healthy disagreement about teaching styles. Mr. Highwind's insults, Mr. Valentine's vehemence...
This was personal, mutual distaste.
After some time, they tentatively returned to their work. Jessie and Biggs continued to chatter about the encounter while Tifa and Wedge worked on scaling down the design.
“...But man, that sucks about the engineering club,” Biggs sighed. “I can’t believe Mr. Highwind of all teachers puts effort into it.”
“I know,” Jessie moaned. “I like Mr. Highwind, but I don't like Engineering that much.”
“Well, you could always play ball,” Tifa teased.
“Absolutely not.”
The rest of the period passed in relative peace. Once the hour lagged to the point they were all beginning to doze off, the end of the school day rapidly approaching, Tifa began to pack her things. She was interrupted by a polite cough, and Jessie and Tifa, the only ones still fully cognizant, turned to find Mr. Valentine near their desk. He pulled a folded flyer out of his blazer pocket, setting it delicately in front of Jessie, who eyed it like he’d set a bomb in front of her.
“If Engineering is not to your taste, the theater club always has space. We meet Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.”
Jessie picked up the flyer gingerly, her apprehension melting into something more considering, before she slipped it into her bag with a nod.
Meanwhile, Tifa blinked, her face incredulous at the exchange. Did Mr. Valentine really just poach a student from Mr. Highwind so blatantly?
When she looked up in disbelief, Mr. Valentine put a finger to his lips just as the final bell blared.
𓏵
The light of the late afternoon shone through the windows of Vincent’s classroom in one of the rare times he allowed the blinds to remain open. His eyes were normally too sensitive to handle such direct light, but today was an exception. He was expecting a guest, after all.
The sweet silence of his room ended sharply with the sound of footsteps echoing in the halls, someone with a heavy tread thumping their way up the hallway stairs. To his knowledge, the last few students had petered out of the school an hour ago, so it could only be one person.
Vincent pulled his pocket watch from his suit vest, eyes roving over the delicate face. Right on schedule.
Before the telltale banging of the door could reverberate around the room, Vincent opened it to find Cid, panting and red-faced, slumped against the door frame, his fist raised to knock. Vincent inclined his head in greeting.
“Cid,” he greeted, bottle of water already extended. He'd barely finished speaking before Cid snatched it out of his hand.
“Don’t you hello me, you… You asshole,” Cid panted.
Vincent had already returned to his desk once Cid cracked open the water, chugging it down like his life depended on it. A bottle of water was a small price to pay to watch the long line of partner's throat move so rapidly.
His eyes dropped back to his desk before Cid could see him looking, shuffling his desk in an attempt to look some facsimile of busy. When the bottle was empty and Cid's chest had stopped heaving, he finally looked back at the other teacher.
“Stop ruining my club prospects!”
Vincent pushed up his glasses, eyes still resolute on the paper he was pretending to read. If he looked at Cid, he wouldn’t be able to stop the smirk tugging at his mouth.
“I only told them the truth. Maybe you could as well and stop spreading misinformation about my age?”
“Seven is basically ten."
At Vincent’s pointed look, Cid crossed his arms, a leer on his face. “What, you got a problem being my older man?”
“Cid,” Vincent sighed. The man in question wandered to one of his student’s seats, draping himself bodily over the slightly small chair. He slumped forward, burying his face in his elbow with a groan, before one of his eyes peeked from the basket of his arms. It was much, much too blue.
“Look, maybe if you started answering my emails, I’d think about it. You really should get a phone," he said, voice muffled.
"So you resorted to spreading petty gossip to the children instead?" Vincent ignored Cid's eyeroll. "Besides, phones are prohibited during school hours," Vincent said primly.
"Whatever. I'm just gettin’ real tired of running all the way across campus just to ask shit like if you want to go to Reeve’s damn bowling thing. Seriously, who pissed in your cheerios? What’s with the email crusade?”
“I still read them,” Vincent said, setting his paper down. He couldn’t hold back the smile. “Just not yours.”
The eye narrowed.
“You know what? I stand by what I said. You’re a real asshole.”
The engineering teacher straightened back up, hauling himself out of the chair. The bottle was chucked violently in the trash, and Vincent let him have his little moment of petulance before he spoke once more.
“If it’s what brings you to me, so be it.”
Cid paused, his hand on the door knob.
“'Scuse me?”
“We’re both so busy during the day,” Vincent said slowly, “so excuse me if I take some liberties in order to see you.”
The hand dropped from the knob. Vincent took it as his cue to stand, walking up to Cid’s side, close enough to feel his body heat. His hand, divested of its glove, trailed over the exposed skin of Cid’s arm. They were nearly the same height, so Vincent barely had to lean down to breathe near his ear.
“Will you come over tonight?”
Cid glanced over his shoulder, a question in his eyes. Not disinterested, though.
“Thought you had Sephiroth the rest of the week?”
“Lucrecia changed her mind. The apartment is ours.”
There was still a slight bitterness when Vincent murmured Lucrecia, but it was leagues better than the miasma of it seeping off him when Cid met him last school year. It had only been a handful of months since then, but my, how far they’d come.
Cid jerked his head to Vincent’s desk.
“You finished grading?”
“Hours ago, yes.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?”
𓏵
Tifa stood still, long after her teachers had passed down the hall in a tangle of limbs, Jessie's theater flyer pressed to her chest. Her face burnt crimson red.
Not distaste, then.