A/N: Here's a short cheesy oneshot written at night (again oh damn i gotta stop doing that). As I said, it's short. And cheesy. And probably not very well written since it went through very little proofing. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Man, gotta update my other account's stories as well...x____x

It's just a picture.

So why did it matter so much to him?

It hung in his bedroom wall, directly across from his bed so the first thing he saw in the morning was the picture.

(Of course whenever they came over, they meaning Vanessa and the others he took it down. He knew what kind of half-drunken fit they would throw if they saw it. On those mornings he often found himself staring unhappily at the bare wall, the scent of cheap perfume and booze surrounding him.)

The picture. It was a stupid thing, really. An accidental but clear snapshot of him and his teacher's daughter. At that time, Roy had thrown a bucket of water at an unsuspecting Riza, who had been calmly reading a book. Afterward, she had attacked his back with her fists, her expression a mixture of anger and laughter at the same time. Mr. Hawkeye must have taken the photograph with the new camera that had been presented to him as a gift from some unknown relative. It was rare enough that Hawkeye would come out to watch both of them play, but it was even rarer for him to take photographs with the device. "A useless piece of technology compared to what alchemy can do," he would usually say when given something like that. "Dispose of it, Elizabeth."
And yet it meant everything to him. It was a fragment from his childhood, a long-lost carefree life that would probably never fall in his hands again. It was a memory he wanted to remember forever.

That was one reason why he thought the picture was so important. The other reason was probably the main one.

The other reason—well, it was more like the entire reason itself. He cherished the picture because it had her in it. Riza Hawkeye. His teacher's daughter, his childhood friend, and...his (he wouldn't admit it for a while, but he now knew it was true) first and only love.

So he kept the picture safe. He kept it safe for the day he could show it to her, and tell her that he loved her. So until then, he would wait.

Yeah, uber-short. It's only 361 words. The entire thing with this weird author's note is probably around 500, buut...well, you get the point. IT'S SHORT DAMMIT.

Reviews are love~