Quest For The Secret Admirer
I couldn't resist the need to write another MustangxHawkeye fic so I finally gave in and wrote another one. This is a two-chapter fic, I made it short so I can finish it before sembreak ends. I beg the readers to post a review afterward.
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A floral fragrance tickled his senses the minute he opened his table drawer… which doesn't make any sense since he's a straight male and was never fond of feminine scents, unless, of course, they come directly from a warm blooded female's skin. Anyway, the scent irritated him, and he made it his mission to locate the source of that unusual aroma before somebody finds out and thinks of him as a homo. He already took out everything in his drawer when the culprit finally showed itself: a piece of yellow paper, folded at the middle. Something was scribbled inside, and it didn't take a while for the colonel to realize that he has an admirer.
"Lt. Havoc.." he asked when the clueless lieutenant arrived at the office early the following day. Poor Jean Havoc jumped with surprise when the colonel's authoritative voice boomed from within the supposed empty room. Normally, the boss arrives at exactly five minutes before office hours. In other words, Jean wasn't expecting him to be in his throne at thirty minutes before time.
"S-sir… you're early t-today."
"Do you always arrive earlier than everyone else?"
Havoc, with that irritating cigarette stuck in his mouth at such an early hour, lifted a hand and scratched the back of his head. "Well, not always. I came in late for two weeks straight and received a memo yesterday, that's why I'm early today. Have you forgotten? It's all written in the paper."
Mustang nodded, ignoring Havoc's reference to a particular paper he probably hasn't read yet. "Good. Anyway, do you have any idea if an outsider came into the office without my knowledge?"
"An outsider, sir?"
"Yes. A guest perhaps. Someone who doesn't belong in our team?"
Havoc's expression was that of bewilderment, he could not comprehend the importance of such questions at this time of the morning… unless… "Is there something wrong, sir?" He was already thinking if something important is missing from the office, a cause significant enough to haul the colonel off his bed earlier than he regularly does.
"No. No. No. Everything's fine."
"Are you sure, sir?"
"Yes."
Havoc exhaled, took a seat and remembered something. "Sir, Lt. Col. Hughes came by yesterday… but you were out for an important task so Lt. Col. said he'll drop by again sometime."
Mustang's eyes nearly popped out from their sockets. "You mean, Maes?"
Havoc nodded, again with the same bewildered expression. "Y-yes… s-sir…"
Mustang had this gnawing suspicion at the back of his mind but he dismissed it quickly. Impossible. He had known Maes Hughes for the longest time, and if there's anyone in this world besides his wife who can prove the Lt. Col.'s a straight guy, he should be it.
Havoc eyed the colonel, who now watched the swimming clouds through the huge windows behind his table (like he usually does). Mustang was a man who never asked questions, especially unnecessary ones. And these inquiries at this time of the day must be of certain importance.
"Havoc."
"Yes sir?"
"The previous conversation never occurred. Do you understand?"
Now the peculiarity of the situation is 100% complete. "Yes sir."
The door opened and Lt. Riza Hawkeye stepped into the office. She was unable to hide her surprise upon seeing two males inside the office, two lazy males whose alarm clocks are normally set one hour behind the actual time.
Mustang, who looked over his shoulder upon hearing the door open, ignored the surprise on Hawkeye's face and returned to his cloud-watching.
"You're early today." Hawkeye said to Havoc. She was answered with a chuckle.
"I think you scared the heck out of him." Breda said when he arrived, overhearing the lieutenant's statement while on his way to the partly-opened door. "Otherwise it'll be impossible to make him wake up earlier than a regular early bird like you."
Mustang, who had been busy staring at clouds straightened himself up. Could it be Lt. Hawkeye? Well, she does come to work early, and leaves later than everyone else in his company. Either she was the one who placed the letter, or she knows the identity of the culprit who planted that letter in his drawer. Both possibilities require that he direct his inquiries to the female lieutenant, and face the chances of looking like an idiot were his estimates inaccurate. Imagine the look on Hawkeye's face should she find out that she's under suspicion of writing a love letter to his superior officer. With that in mind, Mustang immediately dismissed his initial plan, investigating on his own seems preferable (also with little room for humiliation).
x x x x
A weird, uneasy feeling kept Lt. Riza Hawkeye from doing her job properly. She kept running into the colonel for several times already, which, she dismissed as plainly coincidental at first. After sometime, she started being paranoid and noticed that the colonel has been following her. Wherever she went, the colonel followed (thank goodness the rest room is off limits). It wasn't really scary, but the situation felt kind of odd, especially because they usually work together. Apprehension, no matter how minimal, results to a significant change in behavior and a certain degree of doubt. Of why the colonel acted bizarrely remains as an irking question running inside her head.
"His sudden inquiry about visitors coming into our office makes me worry."
"If it's very important and concerns all of us, I don't think the colonel will want to keep it a secret." Fuery said to Havoc.
"Maybe it's personal." Breda wondered.
Havoc turned the faucet, scooped some water with one hand and splashed it across his face. "I don't know… its just that… something about it… seems…"
"Suspicious?"
Everyone jumped when Lt. Hawkeye entered the male rest room and interrupted their conversation. "You know, if you intend to talk about something that you intend to keep secret from everybody else, the least you can do is keep your voices down."
"H-how long have you been listening?" Fuery asked.
"Well, I just passed by the corridor, heard voices then somehow ended up in here. "She swept her gaze across the male rest room. "What was it about the colonel that you've been chattering about?"
Havoc gulped. "I'm ordered not to breathe a single word about it."
"And yet here you are, gossiping in here with three… no, four," she included Falman who just came out of the cubicle. "…of your officemates and you expect me to believe that? I can actually go to the colonel right now and ask him to reprimand you for not…"
She was on her way out when Havoc yielded. "Okay. Okay. Just for the five of us, alright?"
Lt. Hawkeye gave one of those haughty smirk of hers. "Of course."
Jean Havoc was left with no choice, and began a recount of his odd conversation with Col. Roy Mustang.
After hearing Lt. Havoc's tale, Hawkeye became hypersensitive to everything inside the office. During their accidental gathering inside the toilet, she did tell the other officers to dismiss the earlier encounter as insignificant… although she herself was determined to find out what's going on. When the day was through, she lingered inside the office and counted off the officers as they left. She pretended to be busy sorting out some papers, though she was in fact waiting for the last man remaining, Col. Roy Mustang, to leave. Pretty unusual, though, since he's usually the most eager to leave for home.
Mustang had been reading this particular document for the hundredth time already. His strained eyes are welling up with tears, which was further aggravated by his occasional rubbing. Shit, it doesn't seem like the lieutenant is going to leave anytime soon!
When he was sure Lt. Hawkeye wasn't aware, Mustang watched her walk toward one of the tables, open a drawer and deposit some of the folders she held in her other hand. What if it was Lt.. Hawkeye who planted that letter in his desk? And what if she was the one who had written it in the first place? There are few women in this office, and all of them had no access to his office save for the blonde lieutenant.
Could it be?
His hands were cold, his heart pounded hard against his chest. Unsure of what he should do in such a situation, he immediately left the office without a word.
Hawkeye inwardly rejoiced, waited for a few minutes to make sure that the colonel won't return, locked the door, then raced toward his desk. Nothing seemed unusual or lacking, so she proceeded with the sole drawer and rummaged through the messy contents. Nothing of interest, she's very familiar with everything inside (papers, papers and more papers) because she was the one who kept all of them in there in the first place (like most men, Col. Mustang never really cared about organizing his things). The lieutenant was about to give up when she suddenly noticed the faint floral scent coming from inside. She withdrew her hands and pressed them close to her nostrils. Faint and floral. She once again dug through the papers, this time more slowly, and found the intriguing source of the scent. This could be from any of Mustang's horde of women, and she never took interest in that part of his life… but something about this piece of sweet-smelling paper gave her the chills.
Following her intuition, she opened the letter and began to read. And out of the thousand possibilities that would come to mind, Lt. Riza Hawkeye thought of the one closest to the truth: Mustang is under the impression that she had written this damn letter.