Written for Day 7 of Royai Week: The Past/The Future

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The game was conceived by a bored Riza Hawkeye, sprawled on Roy's bed with her head hanging upside down, admiring the young aspiring alchemist as he worked on her father's assignments for the day at his desk. She frowned at his concentrated eyes; she had loudly sighed several times, but had failed to catch his attention. She focused first on his broad shoulders, then on his well-defined clenched jaw. Suddenly, she had an idea.

Riza scrambled off of the bed and began to approach her father's apprentice. Quietly, the way she imagined a cat would stalk a squirrel, she crept up behind him.

"Miss Hawkeye, what are you doing?" Roy didn't even pause to look up from his work.

"Just sneaking up on you, Mr. Mustang!"

"Is there a reason?"

"It's a game!"

Before Roy could inquire further, Riza leaned over his shoulder and blew into his ear. Hard. Startled, Roy jerked up and turned to face her, only to be met with the sensation of her soft lips on his. A second later, she was halfway out the door.

"You're it!" Her amber eyes glinted, mischievous.

Roy stared after her, dumbfounded, as he listened to her skip out of the room and down the stairs. It took a moment for him to realize that he was grinning like a fool. He considered her words - it's a game… and he's "it." His grin broadened. A second later, he bounded out of the room after her, abandoning his studies.

He found her outside, giggling in a tree. His attempt to climb up to her caused her to laugh so hard that she had to hug the trunk to keep from toppling off the branch on which she sat. She was still laughing when he reached her. He pressed his lips to hers triumphantly until she pulled away second later, looking surprised by the firmness of the kiss.

"Now you're it!"

Riza grinned and jumped down from the tree. She turned to look at Roy, still mischievous. "I'll get you when you least expect it. That's what makes it fun!" She ran back inside, leaving Roy in the tree. His grin had yet to leave his face - studying with Master Hawkeye, however repetitive his lessons had become, had just gotten a whole lot more worthwhile.

They played for months, pausing the game for Roy to return to Central City every so often. Each kiss (whether it be to the lips, cheek, or occasionally the neck) was fleeting, never lasting more than a few seconds and rarely implying anything more than a game between two crushes. They became more and more creative with ways to sneak up on each other; Riza surprised Roy from under his bed on more than one occasion (though he screamed the first time), and Roy had at one point waited for over an hour for Riza to walk by from the inside of a cupboard.

Once, while the two were down at the lake, Roy had attempted to sneak up on Riza from behind. Riza, prepared for this, turned around to face him and let his lips meet the large frog she was holding in her hands. While Roy attempted to wash his mouth out on his sleeve, Riza had stared at the frog, "waiting for it to turn into a prince or a princess." Eventually, she sighed. "I guess you're not enough of a prince, then." Roy's response was to chase her around the house three times, insisting she kiss the frog as well. When he finally caught her and pressed a large, wet kiss to her cheek, she continued to refuse the frog. "I don't need a prince or a princess. I have you."

The game was paused when Roy left for the Academy, and remained paused once he returned and Riza's father died. She didn't count the butterfly kissed that Roy impulsively trailed along her back from time to time as he studied it, nor did she count the long, passionate kiss she gave him right before his train left for his military service.

The game wasn't even considered when they met in Ishval. Neither of them felt human enough for such trivial human contact. To survive, they found it was necessary to not feel human.

In fact, the game was forgotten for several years. It wasn't remembered until Colonel Roy Mustang noticed agitation on the face of Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, and sat tapping his pen as he considered possible ways to remove that agitation… ways that didn't involve paperwork (the likely source of Riza's agitation).

As the entire team left for lunch, Roy called Riza back into the room for a moment.

"Sir?"

In an instant she was in his arms, his lips pressed to hers with such a fervor it was as if he were trying to make up for the lost time. Finally, he released her. "You're it," he smirked, following the rest of the team. But he couldn't help but notice the wide smile and blush on her face that she was trying to hide as she stood there staring at him as he left.

She waited over a week to act, and only did so through her own impulse. Returning home late from work one night, she noticed a certain colonel walking arm and arm with a young woman. Riza hardly registered what she was doing as she marched across the street, spun Roy around, and crashed her lips onto his right in front of his date. "Now you're it." Riza was about to march away, only to be caught by Roy, whose date had already stormed off in anger.

"Come home with me?"

Riza only considered briefly before nodding. The game was officially back on.

So they continued playing, in empty offices, behind doors, in supply closets, and in the shadows they passed together as they walked home at night. It was no longer an innocent game of childhood, but a game filled with passion and longing for something that was now technically forbidden. The game was hindered but not stopped when Riza was reassigned to Fuhrer Bradley, but Roy noticed when she started avoiding the shadows.

It was their primary source of entertainment while they were in the hospital following the Promised Day. Roy considered any contact with skin that he could make through his blindness to be an accomplishment. Sometimes Riza would eagerly guide his lips to her own, relieved to be alive and desperate to physically hold him. Other times featured the return of her playful side, and she would dodge his grasp, laughing, careful to let him know that she was still there even as she playfully avoided his touch.

When his sight was finally healed, Roy Mustang didn't even wait for the haziness to clear before grabbing hold of the golden-haired person sitting right in front of him. His lips met a cheek covered in bristles.

"You know, colonel, I may be a beautiful blonde lieutenant, but I have a feeling that you were trying to kiss a different beautiful blonde lieutenant. She's sitting on your right."

By this point, Roy's vision had cleared enough for him to make out his slightly-embarrassed team, Jean Havoc right in front of him with his eyebrows quirked in amusement, Riza laughing to his right, and Edward Elric crying in the corner as he tried to hold in his laughter.

Roy turned to Riza with a pout. "I had wanted to kiss you the moment I got my vision back."

Riza rolled her eyes and cupped his face in her slender hands. "You'll have plenty of chances for that. And besides," she smirked, "I'm 'it,' anyway." She leaned forward and kissed him, silently promising him that the game that had started in their childhood would be continued for years to come.

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