AN: I wrote this for the East City Writer's Workshop discord prompt. I had listened to a poem about a guy whos grandfather ran an army surplus store after WWII and mentioned a customer bringing in his daughter to show her old war memorabilia and thought it would be interesting to write about someone watching Roy do the same.
Prompt: Write about your main muse/otp from an outsider's perspective. A minor character, a random "everyday" worker they've met etc.
Surplus
The bell for the door rings, continuing to chime as the customer walks over to the counter.
"Excuse me, your book section?" He says.
The shopkeeper walks him to the furthest shelves. It is a place that is half store, half encyclopedia. Books date back to before Amestris' founding, there are replicas of war ships, and hunting knives are kept behind glass.
"Alchemy?" He asks.
"They were all bought out." She hands him a book on the basics of chemistry. "I'm afraid you're late. Alchemy's gotten popular after the war."
"I understand. This will do, thank you."
He starts sorting through the shelves on his own, seeming to forget her presence in only moments. She leaves him to look, hearing the frantic rustle of pages as he leafs through the shop's collection.
The door chimes again, a boy of only about ten races through to the back shelves, his mother trails behind.
They spend an hour in the books, the boy's father has an arm full of them as they begin to roam. The boy darts between the rows of tables and shelves, and picking things out of bins. His mother stops him when he picks up an old scarf.
His father kneels down, encouraging him to hold it. "Do you know where that's from?"
The boy shakes his head.
"It's from a place not far from here. It's in the east."
"Roy." The mother says, but he puts up a hand and keeps going.
As he tries to gather words, he takes the garment but it looks like he's being pushed down by the weight of it.
"If you pay attention, you'll know that this is what it smelled like there."
"When you were a hero?"
"Sand and gunpowder." He says, "There were no heroes there."
His wife puts a hand on his shoulder. Suddenly, the shopkeeper feels like a guest listening to their recollection of the war. It was not a happy place, they say—they didn't win.
They point out different patterns on more scarfs and tunics—pausing for comments and answering questions. Eventually, they bring the books to the counter.
"I've never heard any stories." The clerk says, "All I remember is what was heard on the radio." But she knows that the soldiers who pass through the store are often broken men. They bring in their memorabilia, dropping off the things they'd like to forget, like shedding skin.
"Sometimes it's better that way."
Roy takes the paper bag off of the counter, replacing it with a few cenz. On the way out they tell her to remember that they are lucky people.