He was a weird one, that Edward Elric. She had lived as his neighbor since they were born, and yet she still wasn't sure when he had gotten so suddenly odd. She had even seen him open a bag of chips with an envelope opener of all things! –or whatever those things were called. She could never remember.
And his obsession with the occult. Ugh. Such a thing to be absorbed with, though he often corrected her with a scowl that it was not – in fact – occult. That it was alchemy. But really, what was the difference? In the end she would always humor him anyways, though, which she later realized had probably been a mistake, since he had thought after that that she had finally come to appreciate such trivialities.
And then he had started wearing those scarlet red hoodies with strange illustrations and symbols decorating his shoulders, in high school. And after that those gaudy red trench-coats. Disgusting. Both his choice of color and fashion sense. Oh what a bother.
Yet even with all his faults and exasperations, she would still be sure that she could depend on him in times of need and hardship, because deep inside, under that quirky façade, he understood her and her darkest secrets, his own overshadowing hers by large.
And now as she thought back, maybe she did remember when he had began to build that wall around him, build that false front that pushed others away.
She remembered his true smile when they had been younger, the way he laughed without an anxiety in the world— until the day that his mother died.
And worse was that he was now an orphan, left with just his brother, at that suspended age between adolescence and childhood of twelve.
His father? Well, he was technically, "still around", but far from what a father should have been. He had left them when they were but a few years into life, both they and their mother. Left to travel the world, to bring back its secrets. And even with all the leisure he had, he seemed to deem it too bothersome to even come back to visit when they had held his wife's funeral. And so the Elric brothers had stood alone, Ed stoic and his younger brother Alphonse sniffling, in front of their mother's simple stone grave.
Yes, that must have been the time. The time when his personality changed so drastically. When he had began to find interest in such strange things. When he began to conjure up those risky schemes. When he began to slip farther from her grasp, to push even her away.
And then he had suddenly left one day, he and his brother, with a foreign looking lady that had come around town for a brief pass-over.
And then he had suddenly come back, after a few months. And all he would reply to her queries as to what he had been doing was a simple "training".
Oh how she had thrown a fit then.
Shook her fists and yelled at him, and had been surprised when he yelled back. The first time he had broke down his wall to show his true emotions, the ones he always kept bottled up inside.
And then she had laughed and cried, relieved that he was still that feisty Edward Elric she knew, the one that she had loved and hated, the one that could bring her to the edge of hysteria and yet pull her out just as quickly. Then at the bewildered look on his face, she had laughed even harder, clutching her stomach and doubling over, eventually her giddiness infecting him as well, and they had both laughed and laughed, laughed like they hadn't for a long, long time.
But the relief was short lived on her part.
Just a few months after, she was already standing stricken by his hospital bed, staring unbelieving at his bandaged and almost mummified body. And she had screamed at him again, in agony, when she heard that it was an accident that occurred at home when he was working on one of his dodgy little experiments again.
She had wailed at him, why, why did he have to endanger his life so? Why did he have to make all those around him, all those that still cared for him so deeply, so pained?
And then when he had whispered faintly, "Mother… it was mother. I… wanted to see her again… so… much…" She had cried again, clutching his hand, as she cried the tears that he never could, hating him and yet unable to hate him.
Yes, that had been when their hate/love relationship had began, and continued throughout the years, as she pestered him and he infuriated her, neither opening up yet both acknowledging each other's pain.
Yes, both their parents were gone; both had pulled each other through the darkness, the tears, the broken hearts.
Ah yes, that was why she could never really hate him.
Could never truly worry over him as he came and went from their familiar hometown to the farthest edges of the world.
Could never blame him for all his wild dreams and misadventures.
Could only sigh in his presence yet smile when his back was turned.
It was faith that broke them apart.
It was faith that brought them to each other.
It was faith that would keep them together forever.
AN: Update in a loooooooong time, because this just suddenly came to me and I had to get it down. Yeah. It started out funny but them somehow became really angsty...? Well, anyways, different writing style for me, it was a nice experience.
Hope you enjoyed~
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