In Secrecy (Final Fantasy VII, Rufus/Tseng)

It was well-known, both within the company and outside, that Shinra’s new President, the previous president’s golden child and former Vice-President, was an avid playboy. His conquests before becoming President had been legendary. There were few beautiful women among the media elite – actresses, models, singers – that could not claim to have graced the Vice-President’s bed. Of those who had not fallen prey to the Vice-President’s advances, fewer still that wouldn’t lie and say they had.

All of that stopped when Rufus became President. It was as if the new role added restrictions that only he could see. There was something about being President that restrained Rufus in a way the Vice-Presidency had not. The company rumor mill was baffled by the almost overnight change. A few weeks without another legendary fling would have been excusable – there was a lot of work that needed taken care of with the changeover. But the especially attentive would have noticed that this strange pattern had begun weeks earlier as Rufus’ one night stands had slowly decreased in frequency.

Rufus made no secret that there was someone, perhaps several someones, that he was sleeping with. He never said anything about the new woman in his life, but he didn’t have to for his staff to know there was something going on that they couldn’t see. It was obvious in the way he would arrive for meetings on time and seemingly perfectly composed except for the slight wrinkling of his collar, or in the ways he would disappear for hours at a time at random intervals during the day and yet never seemed to leave the Shinra Corporate Headquarters. Even more obvious were the times one of the secretaries or aides would catch a glimpse of a kiss mark barely hidden by the collar of Rufus’ shirt – worn open almost as if to flaunt the tiny bruise.