Envy woke up with a start. He hastily hopped out of bed and peered out his window. The wild-haired boy then sighed and climbed back in.
'Another nightmare…' he thought drearily. 'And it seems like I've woken up before the sun again.'
Now unable to fall back asleep, Envy lied on his back, staring at the ceiling of his bedroom. He could make out the intricate patterns of the tile, finding a tree and a few flowers. Or, at least, that's what his mind thought they looked like.
The boy sighed again and rolled over to his side, facing his alarm clock. He held a finger over the button that plays the classical radio station. 'I wonder if a little music can help me sleep.' Envy mused. He pushed the button and let the sweet sounds of Beethoven and Mozart lull him into a slumber.
This time, Envy woke to the sound of his alarm. He popped out of bed and quickly looked around, to see if he could find any signs of Greed. When he knew the coast was clear, Envy turned off his noisy clock and jumped out of his bed.
Making his way to the bathroom for morning rituals was another hazard for the wild-haired boy. You never knew what was lurking in the hallways or behind a closed door. It usually was Greed, but after listening to some spooky stories last year on Halloween, Envy knew to stay cautious.
Before stepping foot out of his room, Envy made sure to grab a flashlight. He tiptoed his way through the upper floor of his house, eyes roaming every nook and cranny of the place. Once finally at the bathroom, he slowly pushed the door open, shining his flashlight everywhere, before turning on the lights and setting the flashlight's off. Envy didn't hear the door close itself.
"BOO!" Greed shouted and jumped onto his little brother. Envy shrieked and fell to the ground.
"Get off me you big jerk!" Envy cried, tears brimming at his eyes. He flailed on the floor, attempting to push off his much larger older brother.
Greed chuckled darkly and got off Envy. "You're such a fraidy-cat." he mocked the poor boy.
Envy glowered from where he was sitting and wiped his eyes. "Leave me alone, Greed. And get out! I hafta use the bathroom!" Envy whined, slamming the door in Greed's face. "Stupid Greed…" he mumbled.
Breakfast went by rather quickly, with Lust reprimanding Greed for making a big ruckus too early in the morning. Lust won the argument, like she always did. Envy knew that his sister was only getting angry because she didn't like it to be too loud – well, louder than it already was – but he still liked the thought that she was doing it to stand up for him.
After saying their goodbyes to the nanny, Ms. Curchik, Envy, Greed, Lust, and Pride all headed out for school. Depending on the weather, they would either walk or take the bus. Today, it was nice and sunny out, so that meant they would walk.
Envy didn't mind. He enjoyed looking at all the plants and bugs and other little animals that you couldn't notice inside of a bus. Sometimes he would pack a little souvenir like a rock, to bring with him to school. However, today Envy already had something to bring – or rather, someone to bring.
"-An' then I'm gonna show 'er to Miss B and she'll love Lilac so much that she'll wanna give me a big 'ol prize for finding such a cute lil' wormy!" Envy exclaimed, finishing his 15 minute story of how his day would be with his new pet Lilac.
Lust sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "First of all, Envy, it's not a worm. It's a caterpillar. Second of all, I highly doubt a caterpillar will get you more friends. If anything, it'll do the opposite. And third of all, no worm or caterpillar is going to get you a prize. No matter how cute." She explained monotonously.
Envy frowned slightly and looked toward the ground, his walking pace a little slower. Why did Lust always have to crush his enthusiasm with...what was it called…large ick? Well, her large ick was certainly icky. It made everything she thought right and everything everyone else thought wrong.
Before Envy could at least retort something positive, the quartet reached the large building known as school. Pride ran off to his class without so much as a goodbye to his siblings. Lust soon followed after, catching up with a friend.
Greed looked down at his moping little brother and slapped a hand on his back. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get a reaction out of your bug." he said with a smirk. Sure, Greed's thought wasn't a positive reaction, but it was a reaction nonetheless. This made Envy smile a bit.
"Thanks, Greed. See ya later!" Envy called out to the spiky-haired boy that was running off into the distance. Envy stood in his spot and looked down at the caterpillar in his shirt pocket. "Looks like a new school day, huh Lilac? You'll like school, I'm sure of it." he spoke to the bug. After giving a long sigh, Envy ran to his class, right before the bell rang.
Math was definitely not Envy's favorite subject. He understood letters and such; how to say his ABC's. However, numbers were pretty tricky. What did the teacher mean when she said that numbers never end? Would Envy have to count all the way to the end one day? He really didn't want that day to come. For now, he would just stick with one through ten. That was another thing; why did they call it "ten"? Shouldn't it be called "one-zero"? It was all too confusing and weird for Envy's little brain to figure out!
Today, they were set up in pairs where they had to name every number. One partner would hold up a flash card with a number on it, and the other would have to say what number it was, and the one that came after it.
Envy's partner was a girl. She had short blonde hair and blue eyes, wearing a pretty pink dress. Envy and the girl didn't really know each other, so they had to introduce themselves, as did many other pairs.
"Hi," the girl chirped. She seemed really friendly, and had a nice smile. "My name is Winry! What's yours?"
Envy wore a big smile and pointed a thumb at his chest. "Mine's Envy! An' I got a pet cat-in-pill-her." he declared, and pulled out Lilac from his shirt pocket.
Winry's big blue eyes studied the bug. "Y'know, Miss B might not like seein' a bug like that in her class," warned the girl. "Not sayin' I don't like it. I think it's pretty cute! An' fuzzy, too." She reached out to pet Lilac.
Envy continued to smile as the little girl cooed over his pet. "Yeah, I know. But I don't think she'd go so far as to squash her." Envy replied and set the caterpillar back in his pocket.
"It's a girl?" Winry asked.
"Yep."
"Didja check?"
"What?"
"You gotta check ta see if it's a girl or a boy. That's what my granny did for our doggie, Den."
"Hm…I never thought about that…"
Miss B interrupted the two kindergartener's conversation. "Alright, class, now that everyone has met each other, please begin the project!" she said.
Winry grabbed the stack of flash cards and separated them into halves, keeping one and giving the other to Envy. "There! Now we both got-" she paused to count her cards. "-five!"
Envy counted his cards, with a little trouble, and ended up with the same answer. He looked back up at Winry with a puzzled look. "How'dja know how many to split 'em into?" he asked her.
Winry smiled. "It's just simple math! I'm real good at math, so you're lucky that you got me as a partner."
Envy curtly nodded and looked down at his cards. "I guess I'll go first." He pulled out a card with a weird circle-y number on it. "Um…I don't really know this one, so I'm glad you're doing it." he muttered shyly.
Winry giggled and patted Envy's shoulder. "It's okay, Envy. It's a number eight and it comes after seven and before nine." she explained.
Envy nodded again, still astonished at this girl's ability to understand numbers. He saw her pull up a number that looked like someone tried drawing a circle, but missed the top. The wild-haired boy smiled; he knew this number. "It's six," Envy said. "I know because it's how old I am."
Winry smiled and set the card down. "Alright, then. Your turn!" she cheered.
After lunchtime, it was recess. Envy's lunchtime was a little strange, because Lilac kept trying to escape his pocket and eat his sugar cookies. At least Envy now knew that she liked sugar.
Walking out to the playground, the boy spotted an unoccupied sandbox that still had a few castles in it. 'Perfect! Me an' Lilac can play there.' he thought happily. Envy skipped over to the sandbox and set Lilac down on a sand tower.
After playing pretend for a bit, Envy decided a castle was no castle without a moat. "I'm gonna go get some water for the moat, so you just stay here, okay Lilac?" he explained to his pet. Envy got up, dusted himself off, and headed over to the drinking fountain.
Envy came back with a small pail of water, to find that Lilac was no longer sitting on the sand tower. He set down the pail and ran to the sandbox in a frantic search. "Lilac? Lilac where did you go?" he cried, sifting through the sand.
Just as tears began forming in his eyes, a little boy came up from behind Envy. "Hey, are you looking for that green caterpillar that was lying there?" the boy asked. Envy turned around swiftly, his eyes bulging.
"Yes! Yes! Have you seen her?" he asked in a worried tone.
The boy merely smiled and pulled a hand from behind his back, revealing Lilac, munching on a leaf. "I found it crawling out of the sandbox. Looks like it was hungry, huh?" he chuckled.
Envy beamed and took the caterpillar from the boy's hand. "Thank you so much! I thought I'd lost her." he squealed. Envy looked up to meet eye with the boy. He was a little short, with golden blonde hair and eyes to match. He looked as if he had just rolled around in dirt, with his cheeks dusted brown and his clothes stained.
"It's no problem," the boy replied modestly, waving a hand in the air. "I really like bugs. All sorts of 'em. Caterpillars are really nice 'cuz they can turn into butterflies!" When Envy looked confused at the blonde boy's statement, he began to explain how caterpillar metamorphosis worked. "Yours will probably be yellow and black, from what my picture book says."
Envy was glad to find another person who liked Lilac just as much as he did. And maybe Lust was wrong this time; maybe Envy could make a friend from his pet caterpillar. "My name's Envy. What's yours?" the wild-haired boy asked, placing Lilac back into his shirt pocket.
The other boy smiled and set his hands on his hips. "I'm Edward Elric and I'm five years old! But you can call me Ed."
Envy decided that he liked this Ed kid. When he was about to ask more about him, a whistle interrupted. A lady called for "Class C" to come back inside for study time. Envy was in Class B. However, Ed was in Class C, and he had to go.
"Sorry, that's me. We can talk tomorrow though, right?" Ed asked, and grinned when Envy nodded, smiling back. "Okay, then! See you later, Envy!" And with that, the blonde ran to his teacher along with the rest of his class.
Envy turned to go continue playing in the sandbox with Lilac.
After school, Envy skipped along ahead of his siblings, humming a happy tune.
"What's got you so chipper?" Lust asked, a ghost of a smile on her face.
Envy turned and smirked slyly. "You were wrong! I did make friends out of Lilac. One, two of them!" he affirmed, holding up two fingers.
Lust raised her eyebrows, then shrugged and walked farther past Envy. Greed laughed. "She's walking away because she's upset that she got something wrong." He sing-songed.
"That's not it! You guys are just walking slow. How was I supposed to know that the people in Envy's grade are creepy-bug lovers?" she harrumphed, earning another laugh from Greed.
Envy smiled all the way home.
That night, Ms. Curchik helped Envy create a little cage for Lilac. He didn't like calling it a cage, though, so he dubbed it "Lilac's Paradise". Ms. Curchik only smiled.
Envy had set Lilac's home on his bedside table, near a lamp. He smiled from under his covers, watching as she nibbled on a leaf. He learned that Lilac liked sugar and leaves, so that would definitely help her grow into one of those butterflies Ed was talking about.
His mind drifted more towards that blonde-haired boy. He wondered if he could actually make friends with him? The kid seemed nice enough. And Winry, what about her? She was good with those stinky numbers, plus she liked Lilac. Envy smiled and pulled the covers over his head so his giggles were muffled to anyone outside his room.
'I finally made some new friends!' was his last thought before he drifted off to a peaceful sleep.
A/N: Aaaand that's the second chapter! Boy am I pooped. A party cut in the middle of this story -.-"
Well, anyway, I hope you all like this chapter. I'm proud to say that I already have two followers and a favorite on this fic! Let's keep 'em comin'!
