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A week after their first meeting, almost to the minute, Cloud gets a summons - and it really can't be called anything else - from General Sephiroth. They talk, awkwardly, for an hour or more, about basic training and weapons training and whether or not infantrymen will ever get to work with materia, and he leaves with a vague sense of unease, because, seriously, what the hell?
It eventually becomes a weekly thing, and sooner rather than later Sephiroth stops sending someone for him and Cloud stops waiting for it. None of his barracks mates care enough to ask where he disappears to every Sunday, and Zack's hardly ever around these days, always out on missions or wherever, so there aren't even any awkward questions thrown his way.
He arrives one afternoon to find Sephiroth pacing, of all things, and when they see Cloud they huff and push their hair over their shoulder.
"Something up?" Cloud asks, having long since dropped the sir here, in this room.
"This," says Sephiroth, tugging at their great fall of silver hair. "It is... in the way. The Professor suggested I cut it, but I find myself... loathe to do so."
They don't say why, but Cloud can guess, whether they realise it or not, that it's about having something of their own untouched by Professor Hojo.
"Well," says Cloud slowly, coming closer and circling around Sephiroth, "I could put it up for you if you want."
"I don't understand," admits Sephiroth, which has been happening with greater frequency over the weeks. Cloud gets the feeling that particular phrase was excised from their vocabulary young and is only now making itself known again.
"A braid, maybe."
"That would be... acceptable."
Acceptable is about as close as Sephiroth has come to nice, so Cloud directs them to sit. "You got a comb or a brush anywhere?"
"In the second right drawer of the desk."
Sephiroth's hair is an absolute delight to brush, thick and heavy and almost entirely tangle-free, though Cloud indulges himself and brushes it for a while longer than strictly necessary. The braid itself is the work of moments, the movements soothing and mindless, and strangely nostalgic; he'd learnt to braid the year before he left home, after his mother had broken her shoulder and couldn't lift her arm properly any more.
"How's that?" he says, some time later, tying it off with one of the spare hair bands he always has around one wrist or the other.
Sephiroth gets up from the couch, moves around a little, turns sharply once or twice. Then they hum, thoughtful. "Thank you."
"No problem. Maybe next time I can show you how."
"Maybe."
(He never does get around to teaching them how, but neither of them are complaining that Cloud keeps doing it himself.)