For those who even know who I am and about my two other stories, such as "My Father's Student" and Country Daughter in Law," for those who care about what happened to them I am currently putting them on short hold, simply because I have been very busy lately with tennis tournaments and schoolwork. I also came up with this idea for a story, and I didn't want to forget it. I will be updating both "My Father's Student" and "Country Daughter in Law" as soon as possible. For now, here's another story that my mind came up with.
Disclaimer: I do not own the FMA characters in any type of way. This story is kind of based of the manga, Hana Yori Dango, in how the characters are set up. However, it is a completely different plot. Anyways I hope you enjoy the first chapter!
"Rebecca," I said nudging the brunette's shoulder a bit harder than last time. "Becca, wake up. Listen, I know you want to be late to your next class and all, but as your friend I won't allow it."
Sophomore year had just begun this week, and Friday had come so fast. Although not much was done in the first week, some students still complained about homework. My thought: grow up. Last year, Rebecca and I had wanted to take an extra extracurricular activity. In order to take that class however, we had to take a class before the regular school day started, called a zero period class. The zero period class could be of any subject the student wished to choose; Rebecca and I chose English. As I've always been the type of person to wake up early, adjusting to the zero period class was no problem. For Rebecca, on the other hand, it was taking its toll right now, on the first week of school.
As Rebecca refused to wake up from her slumber on the desk, frustrated, I pushed her completely out of her seat to the floor. This got an immediate reaction and an anticipated yelp.
"Riza," Rebecca started, glaring daggers at me, "Do you know how much I hate zero period."
"Yes," I replied simply as Rebecca gathered her books and we started to head out of the abandoned classroom, "You've told me every single day after I've waken you up this week."
"You were supposed to be sympathetic," Rebecca stated as she stared straight ahead through the halls.
"You know as well as I do, that I'm not the sympathetic type," was my reply as we headed to the main hall. Earlier when I had said that Rebecca was going to be late to class was a lie since it helps Rebecca get up faster. In reality, we actually have ten minutes until our classes begin on regular schedule.
"Oh, Ri! Guess what?" Rebecca started, suddenly regaining her hyper composure out of nowhere.
"What?" I unenthusiastically answered; we stopped to lean on some lockers.
"So I like met these freshies yesterday, today's Friday right? So yesterday I met the freshies at the mall with my mom, who knew the freshie's mom and the freshies' mom friends and they got into a big conversation, right? So, I went and talked to them, and they are so cute! I have to introduce you to them, once Maria gets here, okay?" she said, all amazingly in one breath.
I raised an eyebrow. I barely understand half of what Rebecca says sometimes, which is why I have Maria to translate "Rebecca –hyper" language into a real, understandable language. Maria, is a sophomore as well in our class, 10-B. She had known Rebecca since they were in diapers, thus why she could understand Rebecca perfectly fine, when normal people couldn't. Last year, when we were deciding classes Maria, knowing full well that she would not be able to cope with a zero period, decided not to join us. Therefore, after our main courses ended, we had different schedules.
Rebecca and I waited for some time, discussing how our summer was, until Maria showed up. The first thing we took notice of, was Maria's cut hair.
"Maria!" Rebecca said rushing over to Maria, the second she entered school grounds. "What did you do to your hair? Yesterday it was there, and today…today it's just…"
"Gone?" Maria finished, as she came to lean on the lockers with us. "My mom's going on a business trip for a couple of months, and she's the one that manages my hair. So I requested to get it cut, otherwise I'd have no idea what type of state my hair would be in…Becca, are you even listening?"
Rebecca nodded innocently, but her eyes were jumping with excitement. Then without warning she pulled both Maria and I off the lockers and headed towards the entrance of the school, where two girls, who were significantly shorter than us stood, looking like they were about to wet themselves.
"I'm guessing these are the freshmen that you were telling me about?" I prompted, as we slowed down to a walking pace.
"Yup," Rebecca simply said. When the freshmen noticed Rebecca walking towards them, they started to look a bit calmer than before.
"Becca!" cried the girl with fuzzy brown hair and large glasses, "I almost thought you wouldn't find me in this crowd! I never thought the high school section could be this huge!"
The school that I go to is Central Elite Academy, a private school for the richest kids in the country. Although I am rich, I could actually be considered poor in this school, just because my dad is a big time healer, while some of these other kids parents are founders of a new cure to a disease or company owner.
The school is broken down into four sections. The first section is the primary school, consisting of classes 1-5. The second section is the secondary school, consisting of class 6-8. Then there's the high school section, which I'm in. The classes are 9-12. Lastly there's the university section. The university section is actually located on a completely different campus, since there are many branches to study in the university.
"So Sheska," Rebecca started, "These are my two best friends. The boy is Maria, and the pretty one is Riza. Call them whatever you want to though, they don't mind."
I had to admit, Rebecca could be nice when she wanted to. But right now, I could tell that Maria wasn't enjoying her compliment so much as I could feel her twitching next to me.
"BOY?" Maria yelled, "You're the boy! You don't even know how to apply make-up properly!"
"At least I don't have to become a boy when my mom leaves on business trips!" Rebecca retorted back, earning a blush from Maria.
As the two continued bickering, I noticed another girl behind Sheska. She had beautiful, long dark hair, and could evidentially be defined as Chinese. I stepped forward, stretched out my hand towards Sheska, and said, "Hi Sheska, nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you to!" she replied energetically, "Becca didn't lie when she said you were pretty. She did the last time she tried to set me up with a guy. She said he was my type."
I could feel my cheeks warm up a bit from the compliment. It was rare that people talked to me from my stoic demeanor, and it was once in a blue moon somebody would even compliment my appearance. "Thank you," I replied, "Are you excited for your first year in this section of the campus?"
"Yes!" Sheska said quickly, "I've already studied all my text books and can tell you it word by word!"
"Word by word?" I asked raising an eyebrow. How did she become friends with a person like Rebecca?
"Yes ma'am," she said nodding her head furiously. "I have a photographic memory."
"That's cool," I said in awe. Never had I ever me anybody with a memory like that. "What is it like?"
"I don't really know. Since I've had it my entire life, I just find it normal. I think I would actually find it strange to read and not remember every single word that I had read. You know?" she said.
"Yeah, I think it would be the same with us. Hey who's the girl behind you?" I whispered.
"Oh Ran Fan?" Sheska said, "She's my best friend."
"Nice to meet you," said Ran Fan, stepping out of Sheska's shadow.
"Nice to meet you too," I said. But then I noticed her eye focus on something behind me.
I turned around to see a boy, from senior year, in a nervous breakdown behind me. It looked exactly like he had seen a ghost. I know this because in elementary school, one of his classmates had played a ghost prank on him, and he looked exactly like now.
"Ms…" He stuttured, "Ms Hawkeye, right?"
"Yes," I said smirking, knowing full well who had done this to him, "I can get the note now."
He looked relieved as he gave it to me, as if making sure that note that was given to me was the decision between his life and death, which it probably was. As he left, I looked up to find Rebecca smirking.
"Was that guy asking you to go out with him?" she asked smugly.
"No," I replied, crushing Rebecca's fantasy, "He was just giving me a note from one of my other friends…"
"You mean Curtis right?" Maria questioned, joining in the conversation.
"You're going out with Ricky Curtis?" exclaimed Rebecca. "No way! I know that he's smart, but isn't he like, you know, psycho?"
"Becca shut up," I said, hoping that nobody hear what she said, "I would never go out with Ricky. He's gross. And he's a senior. Guys dig older women, remember? Anyways, I'm talking about IZUMI Curtis."
Maria hit Rebecca on the back of the head, "You've known Riza longer than I have, and you can still accuse her of that type of stuff. I'm completely ashamed of you, did you know that?"
"When have people not been ashamed of me," Rebecca said lifting her head up, "They know nothing of Rebecca Catalina's greatness."
"Which is?" I prompted, causing Rebecca to quickly shut up.
After school had ended, Rebecca, Maria, Sheska, Ran fan, and I had met up at the gate entrance to catch up on how everybody's day went and the latest drama.
As we chatted, Rebecca suddenly looked up and started to blush furiously. Maria and I sighed, knowing full well who took away Rebecca's attention.
A group of six guys passed us. At the back was senior Vato Falman, the absolute smartest guy in the school setting the record in everything related to academics. Near Vato was a newly added member to their group. By the looks of him, he was a freshman. He had large glasses and short spiky black hair. He looked adorable, and from the corner of my eye I could see Sheska blushing at his direction. It was obvious he attracted plenty of girls, because even I thought he was kind of cute.
Right in front of the small freshman was a large sophomore, Alex Armstrong. He was ridiculously ripped for his age and of course super tall. He was nice, but way too passionate to everything. For girls who like ripped guys, Alex was their man, but he wasn't my type.
Ahead of the Alex was another fairly large junior by the name of Heymans Breda. He was well known for, well by his size, eating anything as long as it was food. To this day, nobody knows how he even got into the group of elites in the first place. I knew however, and it was because he was best friends with the blond junior in front of him, Jean Havoc. Jean Havoc, according to the girls in our school, was a chick magnet. He was tall, blond, and funny. The downside to him was that he had already started smoking, was dumb in many ways, and lacked perfect common sense.
Up front of the group was senior Maes Hughes. He was smart and kind, but was well known for his over-loving doting on his girlfriends. It didn't take much to charm him. And finally, the last of the group was its founder, leader, junior, and best friend of Maes Hughes, Roy Mustang. He wasn't as tall as Maes or Jean, but his looks seemed to make up for it. He was supposedly smart, funny, charming, and the fantasy of many girls at our school. Although I had to admit, he was kind of cute and I liked him just a little bit because of that, to me he was just another annoying playboy.
"Becca, Mustang wouldn't even look at you twice if you keep looking so desperate whenever he passes by," I pointed out to my love-sick friend.
"Come on Riza!" Rebecca said tilting her head to one side, "Everybody likes him."
"Except for me," I retorted.
"Now that's just being stubborn," Maria said crossly.
"No," I replied calmly, "It's being smart. What's so great about that rich playboy anyways?"
"About who?" asked Sheska.
Rebecca nearly fainted when Sheska asked the question.
"You don't know who Roy Mustang is?" Maria said, after a quick recovery. "He's only the hottest guy in the school and maybe even Amestris! In my opinion anyways…"
"What's so great about him?" asked Ran Fan curiously.
"Well, you know the elite families right? The top ten richest families in Central?" Maria started nervously.
Sheska replied, "I don't know any of them."
Rebecca, who had just recovered, nearly fainted again.
"You mean you don't know them?" Maria exclaimed.
"Well, no," Sheska replied, "Neither does Ran Fan. Can you tell us?"
Maria was now knocked out cold with Rebecca on the floor. Seriously, if their great Roy Mustang isn't known, this is how they react. I get more and more doubtful about ever becoming friends with them in the first place.
"I'll do the honors, as those two buffoons don't look like they'll be getting up anytime soon," I said, getting some chuckles from the two freshmen. "For starters, in our country of Amestris, families have rankings in how much power and money they have. Don't ask me how our country came up with this dumb system, they just did."
"For families that are in the top 500 in ranking, their children can come to this school for free. If a family was ranked outside of the top 500, the family would have to pay a lot for the student to just even get accepted. Don't even get started on the fees."
"So everybody here is in the top 500?" Sheska asked looking around in awe.
"Why, are you not?" asked Ran Fan.
"I am!" Sheska replied gruffly.
"Just checking," Ran Fan said and turned to look at me, giving me the heads up to continue.
"So the people in the top ten in the rankings are referred to as the "Elites," simply because they are the richest. And that's how it works," I finished.
"But who's in the top ten?" Ran Fan asked.
"Well, at number ten, there's the Fuery family. They specialize in animal care and stuff like that. At nine is the Breda family, who specializes in the Amestris' greatest food markets. At eight, is the Havoc family. I've heard they are the most fair in terms of competition and should be top five, but whatever. That family specializes in one of the greatest shopping centers that sell anything that one could possibly need."
"We were just at Havoc Center yesterday Ran Fan!" Sheska whispered excitedly. Ran Fan nodded.
"Anyways, at seven is the Hughes family that specializes in technology. It is probably why Hughes always has the latest camera to take pictures of everything every time you guys are going to see him. At six, is the Kimbley family. They specialize in military weapons and of course the military adores that family. In every soldiers' mind, I believe they think the Kimbley family is the best. I believe differently."
"When you get to the top five families, the families are considered gods and are mostly called "GEs" which stands for "Godly Elite." Again, I don't know who made this stuff up. At five is the Mustang family. They specialize in the entertainment industry. Which is why Roy Mustang is probably so good at womanizing . At four is the Armstrong family. They specialize in athletics and activities as well as vacation sites. At three is the Elric family. They specialize in the medical and science field. At two is the Bradley family. They specialize in interior designs, home designs, as well as the government. And lastly at one is the Grumman family. This family is unique in that they are the leaders of our country. I'm sure you two know that, right?" I asked.
The two girls nodded.
"Good," I said in relief, "But saying says that this family is about to come to an end."
"Why's that?" Sheska asked, "The Grumman family has been doing a fine job with our country as far as I can see."
"Well," I began, "They are. But the Grumman family doesn't have an heir. The story is that our current leader's daughter fell in love with a commoner. However, Grumman didn't approve of his daughter's choice in love, and she ran away and got married. Apparently, the last time she was on the news was when she died. The last thing she reported to the press was that she has one daughter. So now, the Grumman family is searching for that daughter as hard as they can."
"Have they found her yet?" Ran Fan asked.
"No," I replied.
Then a man in a black suit walked up to me and bowed. As he straightened up he said, "Ms Curtis is waiting for you in the limo."
"Hey sorry guys I gotta go," I said as I followed the man out to the school gates, "Tell Becca and Maria I'm just going to be hanging out with Izumi today. See you guys around sometime."
"Bye!" the two said in collision.
When I got into the limo, I sat straight across from my long-time friend, Izumi Curtis. She had graduated last year at the top of her class.
Izumi had her hair braided as usual and was dressed up in a short dress, with spandex underneath.
"Hey Riza," Izumi said smiling at me, "How are you?"
"I'm good, thanks," I replied, "And you?"
"Couldn't be better," she replied as she looked out the window. "So today, I thought that maybe we should go over to my house. Not my separate house I take you to all the time, but the one that my family stays in. You haven't been there before, and I thought that since I probably might not be seeing you until Winter break, why not spend the today and the weekend at my real house. There's tons of stuff to do, so we should be occupied."
I looked at her in awe. I heard that Izumi never invited anybody to her real house. Even her boyfriend, Sig, had never been there.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Definitely," Izumi replied without hesitation, "It's better than spending time at the mall. Trust me, everything is free, and I bet I could give you some of my designer clothes too. I bet they'll look adorable on you."
"No thanks for the clothes," I said, as the limo drove through the bustling streets of Central.
When the limo came to a stop, I didn't even notice, as Izumi and I were watching a movie. When I stepped out I immediately felt a difference in my surrounding.
For one, the air was a lot cleaner and fresher than that of Centrals. Secondly, everything around us was nature, except for the grand estate in front of me.
In front of the magnificent, white estate, was a beautiful godly-looking fountain that rose up to at the very least on my calculations 15 feet tall. My feet unconsciously carried me with Izumi into the estate were I nearly went blind.
Everything. Was. So. Shiny.
I felt as though I could see my reflection everywhere, from the floor where my old school shoes walked to the ceiling that contained crystal chandeliers. The household seemed like it came from one of those interior design magazines, and as I took a closer look, it did! This house was placed second in the best looking households of Amestris. The first, of course, being the Grumman household. I didn't even want to think about what that household looked like, if this one already looked like my version of heaven.
Izumi threw my black backpack onto the ground. I quickly gasped, without intention. I had a laptop in there, and I didn't want to think what state it would be in from the contact of hitting the shining marble floor. Izumi looked up and smiled.
"Relax Riza. If I broke anything, I'll get you a brand new one."
Izumi started walking towards the grand stairs, and I followed, as always. We climbed the steps, and gradually reached the top. I was exhausted by the time I reached the top, but it was only normal since I had asthma. Izumi glanced back and me and gave me an apologetic look.
"I'm sorry! I forgot you had mild asthma! We should've taken the elevator!"
I glanced up, since I my hands were over my knees and I was bent. "Then why didn't we?" I hissed, getting up slowly.
"I enjoy walking up the stairs better. I don't feel like I have the right to take the elevator anyways."
"What do you mean you don't have the right? It's your house!" I exclaimed, surprised. Izumi, when given the chance, always claimed that everything was hers, even when it wasn't. Thus, it struck me as very odd when she said she didn't have "the right" to take her own elevator.
Izumi smiled sadly. "Well it's not exactly my house. It's my step-dad's house really. As you already know, my mother died when I was young, and left me in my step-dad's care. Since it's a hate-hate relationship, we made a pact: after I graduate college, we'll never cross paths again. So since the house belongs to my step-dad, I don't really have "the right" to use anything. But his sister allows me to, since he's never home. But I usually try not to."
I nodded, taking the information in. I had known that Izumi was like an orphan, but I never really knew that, even though she was rich, it was only temporary.
Walking down the long hallway, both of us kept quiet, until we reached a door. Along the way, I realized the house had no type of family pictures. In fact, the house showed no signs of anybody living in it, except for the fact that the maids kept on dusting and mopping.
"So who lives here?" I asked, as Izumi unbolted the locked door.
"My step-dad, his sister, and my little half-brother. More proof as to why I don't stay in this house," Izumi replied. As I walked in, I couldn't stop my mouth from dropping. I knew that when we arrived Izumi's room, it was anticipated for something rebellious. Instead, got a shock.
Inside the bedroom, it felt like I had walked into a whole new house. The "house" was not as rebellious as I had anticipated, but it wasn't like the other parts of the real mansion: neat, shiny, and clean. As I stepped through the door, the first thing I laid my eyes on was the staircase at the center of the room. Around the room, were countless doors. In the center of this bedroom were couches and a 90 inch, 3D, plasma TV. Along the floor of the TV were a bunch of gaming devices such as the Wii, Xbox, and Playstation 3. I noticed at the end of the room, was a kitchen, that looked like it could fit a dozen people, and a dining room made for a king.
I felt Izumi smirking next to me, "Surprised?"
I nodded and stepped inside curtly.
"I haven't been in here for a couple of months so it might be a bit dusty, and I suggest you don't go to the kitchen because there might be some unwashed dishes," Izumi stated, as she plopped herself onto the couch, while I stood rigid at the doorway.
"You know you can come in? It's not a museum. It's my room. Also, can you get the remote from the table there please, I forgot it on the way in." Izumi replied.
I nodded and slowly walked in to the room.
"So what should we do today Riza?" Izumi asked, switching on the TV. A TV show popped on, but as I didn't watch TV, I didn't know what it was. Izumi watched it for half an hour with me until it ended. The show was about a guy that was perfect in school and financially stable, and went out of his way to make mischief.
As Izumi turned the TV off, she headed towards the refrigerator, saying, "Hey, you wouldn't mind messing with my little brother would you?"
I spit the soda out that I was drinking. Mess with him? Right now, I believed that Izumi's younger half-brother was Ricky Curtis. It would make sense, since his family was a top 20, and they were only half-siblings. He had black hair just like Izumi with pointed eyes.
Izumi laughed, "Not in that way Riza! Geez, I didn't know you were that perverted!"
I blushed. "What did you mean then?"
"I meant we can prank him and stuff like that. He does it to me all the time whenever I stay here. We should too." Izumi said, giving an evil smirk, which looked very familiar.
After some thought, I decided we could. We had walked down the hallway a bit further to another bedroom. The door was slightly ajar. Izumi stepped up and kicked the door open. Inside, the room looked just like Izumi's, except it was messy, with textbooks stacked all over the room. You could barely even distinguish the walls from the stacks of books. As we stepped through the mess, I realized that the room was nothing like Izumi's. It was actually bigger! I realized, that the main room just had couches. As I looked past the mountains of books, I notice another door labeled, "Theater Room." I looked back as Izumi was going through the books. I quickly went and opened the "Theater Room" door, to find a room the size found at a regular theater. Inside were couches the sizes of beds, with a bar near the door.
I quickly shut the door, as Izumi started coming back to me.
"So first things first," Izumi began, "We annoy him by cleaning up this mess of books."
I stared at Izumi, confused, and asked, "Wouldn't that just satisfy him?"
Izumi smirked, "No, it would only make him pissed. Everything in this room is in his "alphabetical order" so just to move one book to its rightful place would take him a while to find. Like me, he orders the maids not to clean up the books. Unlike me, he just wants them to dust and vacuum, whereas I just want them to clean up when I'm temporarily staying here."
I nodded, and got to work. It didn't take as long as we both expected, so we decided to add the finishing touch of putting a bucket of water above the door.
"Doesn't this seem very elementary though?" I asked Izumi. I didn't feel like it was right for a high school student and a college student to put a bucket of water above somebody's head.
"Don't worry if you're thinking that this isn't good enough," Izumi replied, waving her hand with no worry. "He absolutely hates water on him, with the exception of a nice cool shower in the summer."
I nodded slowly. As Izumi was known as the greatest mental and physical torturer of all time, when she still attended the high school section of Central Elite Academy, I decided to trust her on this, since I realized that she wasn't going to physically harm her brother, but do it mentally.
"So let's go and get lunch," Izumi replied, leading the way to the kitchen.
Halfway through eating our lunch, which consisted of spaghetti, salads, steaks, burgers, and the simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich, we heard the front door open.
"Bros home," Izumi mumbled, as she bit into her steak.
After two minutes had passed, Izumi suddenly started counting, "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one."
The moment "one" was said, a ding could be heard from the elevator, and a boy's voice yelling.
"Izumi!" The voice began as it neared the kitchen, "I want an explanation for this!"
With the end of the sentence, Izumi's half-brother appeared in the kitchen, making my eyes grow large.
There, in the doorway, stood Roy Mustang.
Yea, this chapter is basically an introduction. It was a long one, but I didn't know where to stop. More action picks up in the next chapter. Please leave a review about what you think about this story Constructive criticism is accepted.
