[ There's was a brief look of relief when Cloud decided to stay instead of run— that was progress, right? And now that he had fully set the stage there was no time to turn tail and run.

No, it had been too long and too many nights with bottled up feelings to let this moment slip by.

And so just as Cloud settles into a chair does Zack raise from his own. The sudden tension that filled the room left him feeling slightly uneasy, but he will attempt to brush it aside with a quick arm movement, almost like a stretch. Cloud had mentioned before that talking about things like this was unfamiliar to him, so maybe this was just another one of those hurdles they needed to pass over?

Because for so long... so many months of this strange feeling... Zack finally realized what is was. ]

Nothing's wrong. Promise. [ He assures with a half smile, a little smaller than the one he presented just moments ago. ] I just— I've been feeling a lot of things recently... some good, some great, actually!

And alotta of those feelings have to do with you, Spike. [ A nickname. Something he had spoken on a whim and it had caught on. Cloud didn't seem to mind it. It was cute, accurate, and only pushed their friendship a little closer together.

Enough that Zack felt like he could push himself to do something a bit bolder. ]

Like... "want to take you on a date" kind of feelings.