Chapter 2: Clothes Store! Shopping is Like a War Game!
服のストアショッピングはゲームの戦ライックます
Edward and Roy dodged around carefully in the dimly lit dawn light. Edward had managed to, very snuggly, squeeze into Roy's pants, but Ed's clothes were still too big Roy. Roy was wearing his own long white shirt, pretty much as a dress, and wandering around in that. The shops were just about to open… even though no one really bought clothes or books at the crack of dawn, the stores still opened early anyway, in case of weary travelers.
Herein they marched.
The stores opened. Quickly! Stealthier than the ninja, they disappeared inside of the clothes store. Voosh! They were gone. The storekeeper hadn't even realized they had gone in. She sat on a rocking chair outside of the doorway and began to smoke a pipe.
"What size do you think I am?" Edward asked Roy. "How should I know? What size am I?" The Colonel looked very cranky all of a sudden. Need a nap? Edward thought to himself. "We'll figure this out the hard way, then, I guess." Edward said. He was still having a hard time adjusting to his new voice and height. His voice was much deeper and sounded slightly gruff. At first, he had disliked it, but now he was starting to think it sounded pretty cool. His head was so close to the ceiling now, too. He was almost scared he might hit it. In fact, he would, if he were to stand on tiptoe. "Fine. See you in a bit." The Colonel walked off in search of fitting clothes.
Edward walked over to the men's section. In all honesty, he hadn't ever been here before; he always had to shop in the youth section. He smiled. This was actually very, very cool. He was an adult, an actual adult. He could say things to people and be respected, and he didn't always have to say, 'sir' or 'ma-am'.
He started to look over clothes. Normally, he hated to clothes shopping, but for some reason now he really wanted to get a lot of clothes. This thought, in all respect, embarrassed him, and he decided to keep it to himself. It was a girly thought. Even if Ed was physically an adult, his mind was still an angsty-15-year-old teenage boy's. He wanted to defend his newfound manliness in any way he could.
His favorite color to wear was black, without a doubt, but he figured he needed some more practical clothes, too. He picked out several casual suits to try out, as well as a couple pairs of darkly colored jeans and some black shirts. In the dressing room, there was a long mirror on the wall.
Edward stood and looked at himself in his new appearance, for the first time. Edward couldn't believe it. He looked really… well, sort of cool, but… he also…he couldn't deny it. He looked a lot like his father, Von Hohenheim. Broad shoulders, long blonde hair, a wide chin and a thick neck; the resemblance was all too obvious now. Hell, if he grew himself a funky-looking beard, he could be his dad's younger brother.
He decided it better to ignore it. He dressed himself in a plain suit with a gray vest and a brown coat and pants, and put a long chocolate color overcoat on top of it. He nearly tore the suit back off. In those kinds of clothes, he looked even more like his father. It was yet another thing he hated desperately: the man who had abandoned his family and left his wife to die of sickness and loneliness, and his children to grow up orphans.
After trying on several outfits, he decided on getting two long-sleeved plain white button-up collared shirts, two black tank tops, three pairs of black jeans, one pair of blue jeans, one pair of khaki jeans, a tuxedo, five plain shirts of assorted colors, a denim jacket, a couple of thick leather belts, and a red overcoat.
Next, shoes. He had been walking around barefoot since he woke up; his shoes appeared to have… exploded… with his feet growing inside of them, so of course he needed a new pair. He was still baffled as to how his automail had managed to grow, too; scientifically, it didn't make any sense that it would, but it still made more sense than his rapid change in stature.
He walked by the men's section, and then the boy's section, looking for the shoes. How is this place supposed to be organized? He stopped. There was Roy. Standing there, just standing there. Standing there, in front of the young boys/toddlers section.
"Oh, no way! Ya ha ha ha!" "Shut up."
Roy once again looked on the verge of tears. This time it was anger scrolling across his face, not fear. This time, Ed couldn't help but laugh. "Oh god – are you serious? Aww, poor Colonel Flame, he's so-" "What? Small!" Roy turned and glared up at Edward. Edward frowned. "So that's it, huh?" The Colonel turned away, stuck his nose in the air, and began to look through clothes. "Hmph." He was intentionally ignoring Edward now.
"Well, fine, be that way." Edward muttered under his breath. "I don't care." He marched off towards the shoes. This sucks. Even if I'm big now, actually, He didn't want to confess it, even to himself. Whether he liked it or not, it was true, though. Actually, I'm short. I can't mock him without mocking myself. It's the exact same thing as what he did to me. This confused and troubled Edward. He wanted desperately to get revenge on Mustang this way, but at the same time he remembered very vividly what it was like and how much it hurt, and he did not want to be the one to cause that pain, even towards someone he disliked so much as Mustang.
Mustang, on the other hand, was equally confused. Even though it was humiliating to be so small that he had to get clothes in the young boys/toddlers section, and he was aggravated by the inconveniences caused by being that height, he did not understand why Edward had been in such loathsome denial about his height.
He found a rack with several small suits on it. He decided to try some on. Mustang felt incredibly uncomfortable without some sort of uniform; he even tended to go around in his military clothes on weekends and his days off.
He remembered a time back when he was a bit younger when he had gone out to the pub for a couple of drinks with Maes. Every other man there was wearing plain shirts and casual sloppy clothes (Maes himself was wearing a polo shirt topped off with a sweater his new wife Gracia had knit for him) while Roy had come in with a fancy suit complete with hat.
On the rare occasions in which he did wear something casual, if he was not wearing a collared shirt he became uncomfortable and wrapped a scarf around his bare neck. This had occurred once, and only once, and it did not last for very long, either, because as he met Maes later that evening, he greeted him and told him, "My mother used to have a scarf exactly like that."
Now that he thought about it, even though Maes was his best friend, he sure did take a lot of crap from him. He sighed. Oh well, at least he's honest. Better than Jean, who feels he has to lie to me.
He looked at himself in the mirror. How the hell old am I, four and a half? He frowned stubbornly at the child in the mirror, then adjusted his tie. He cringed. Two things about this bothered him. Firstly, he looked exactly like he did when he actually was four and a half. Secondly, as much as he didn't want to confess it, even to himself,
I look really girly. He remembered back when he was a child and all the other boys made fun of him, shoving him over and calling him names like, "Cute little miss" and "Darling". He would run home, crying, "Diana! Diana!" And cry into her knees. "What's the matter, Roy?" she would smile sweetly and ask him. "All the other boys are making fun of me and saying I'm girly!" he would sob. "That's not true," she softly stroked his head, "they're just jealous that you're so good looking." And she would pick him up and carry him inside.
Even if she wasn't his real mother, he really did love Diana. He remembered clearly the day he had come home to an empty house, and sat waiting at the dinner table well into the night for the woman who never came home from her work in the coal mines. Diana was strong, and Roy refused to believe she could let her body lose in a fight against something so pathetic in comparison as a pile of rock. He left a week later to live with his teacher, leaving the empty home, which once housed a strong woman and a weak little boy.
He chuckled softly. If he remembered correctly, when he finally did come back home, he only did so to light that empty, ghostly shack on fire.
"You alright there, Colonel?" Edward was serious this time. He had come back to check up on the Colonel, but he did not expect to find him looking so solemn and stern. Although Edward couldn't see it (mostly he saw the top of Roy's head) a quiet tear had fallen down his cheek. "I'm fine," the Colonel said, looking up while casually wiping away the tear on his face. "Is that all you're getting?" Ed asked, pointing at the bundle of clothes in Roy's arms. "For now." He replied.
Edward took the pile. "I guess I'm paying, huh?" Edward had already chosen an outfit to wear out of the store, and taken off all of the tags. "Yeah." The Colonel laughed softly.
The two headed up to the register, after Roy had quickly and discreetly changed his outfit. After the clerk had rung up several items, he glanced up and said, "Say, isn't that one we sell?" he pointed suspiciously. "Er, this?" Ed asked. "I got this at another store back in the last town." "Let me see," said the man, and he pulled the hem of his jacket. "Say, this is definitely one of our designs." "Wow, really?" said Edward in false astonishment, "I guess that store's been stealing your designs."
Edward and Roy trotted out of the store and down the oldsey style road. "I can believe that buffoon bought your story." Mustang said under his breath. "Neither can I. Oh well." They walked down the road. "What are we gonna do, Colonel?" "What else can we do? We're going to find my subordinates –and your brother- and explain what the hell is going on." "Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, what if they don't believe us?" "You got something better?" "Not really."
The two headed down the road back towards main Central City.
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The title of this chapter is in both Japanese and English, because I thought it sounded like an episode title to DragonBall Z or something. Don't you just love the original version of the anime? Diana may get another appearance in a certain other fanfiction of mine I'm not telling you yet. I actually didn't mean for her to appear in this one, but she sort of slipped in there. Oops.