Yeah, this took a while to upload due to computer viruses, five school projects all due on the same day and tryouts for school.

Oh, yeah. About Roy wearing cologne, Roy is actually fifteen and Riza is thirteen. Just to clear things up, since I might or might not mention age.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything that is related to FMA in this story what-so-ever. So if you think I do, you need to go to the doctors and get your head checked somewhere.


Roy's Point of View

As Mr. Hawkeye led the way upstairs, I looked back concerned whether Riza would be okay with her foot from my clumsiness. As we ascended the stairs higher and higher, the noises from the kitchen started to disappear and the house started to get dustier until I started to cough and sneeze.

Mr. Hawkeye turned to look at me and said, "Name?"

Startled by the sudden question, I choked out, "Roy. Mustang"

He eyed me carefully. I suddenly grew very uncomfortable under his golden gaze and decided to look around at the room.

"Why did you pick me to be your alchemy teacher?" He asked.

Was this some sort of interrogation? I took a breath in to stay calm and began, "I picked you as my alchemy teacher, because of not only your skill in the subject its self, sir, but the way that you use the alchemy. When alchemy sparked my interest, I started to pay attention to which alchemist could be fit to be my teacher. As I researched, I realized many of them started to use alchemy against the people. Which I believe is wrong. I believe that alchemy was created for the people and should be used to protect those people. And I noticed that you seemed to do a perfect job with that, which is why I chose you."

"Roy," Mr. Hawkeye started, using his horse voice, "You may have been accepted to come and study alchemy. However, I will not just hand over my research to you just yet, because firstly it's not done yet. And secondly, I don't trust you with it."

I stood there, shocked. Nobody ever told somebody straight forward that they didn't trust them. But I guessed it was understandable, as I just arrived here. But it was still a fatal blow, because my expression must have given it away. My anger swelled up, and determination sparked in the back of my mind to retort, "What do I have to do to prove that I'm trustworthy?"

I saw him smile. It was a smile like no other as well. The smile looked as if it had not been used in years, but was clearly not forced.

"To be trusted," He began, "I will evaluate you. Or you can call it the test to become my official student more like. Many boys have failed this test. I suggest you go home now, and not waste a month of your life."

I stood there not making a sound.

"Stubborn I see," Mr. Hawkeye stated, raising an eyebrow, "I will continue on to the instructions then. Before you can become my student, I will evaluate not only for trust, but for character, determination, and skill. I do not wish to waste my time teaching a child that has no talents in this area of expertise alchemy. That is all."

"No requirements? You'll just be watching me?" I asked, stunned. This man was the strangest person I've ever met. No wonder his daughter was a bit off too.

"I'll be watching you, and my daughter will evaluate your character from school and outside school. How you treat people around you, and all that good stuff. I'll pay for everything you need such as food, water, and clothes for the month. So don't bother about getting a part time job. Until the end of the month, I'll be teaching you the basics of alchemy, so you can still get a taste of it, if you don't pass my judgment."

"Okay," I answered, feeling slightly relieved. So I still got to learn alchemy, even when I wasn't officially his student.

"Anyways, dinner will be on the table when you get downstairs," Mr. Hawkeye rasped as he left the room. I stepped out the room as well, trying to catch up, but I realized how useless that was, because nobody was even out in the hallway.

When I arrived downstairs and went into the kitchen that Riza had disappeared into, I found some cold soup on the table and some steak and vegetables on the side. I looked around the deserted kitchen. After I had seated myself and consumed the dinner, which I had to admit was actually really good, Riza came into the kitchen, as if she had been waiting for me to finish and started to take my dishes to the sink to wash.

"I can do the dishes you know," I said as I tucked the chair in.

"Yes, I'm sure you can," she answered from the sink, "But you are going to be a student and will have to start studying soon, so I don't want you to get overworked before my father starts to evaluate you."

"That just gives me more reasons to help, because when I do get accepted," I started, as she turned to look at me in shock, "I won't be able to help anymore, so I should start helping when I can."

"No. And who said that you were going to be accepted?" Riza stated firmly.

"I did! Now please!" I begged. I actually felt kind of stupid begging to do a chore, but oh well, when I was at home, I always had to wash and dry the dishes, and just skipping that routine would just bother me.

"No." Riza said, not even looking up.

"Pretty please!" I asked, making puppy dog eyes. This technique worked on every woman I knew, except for Madame herself, and they did anything I wanted.

She looked up at my eyes, looked back down and answered "No."

"Why not?" I asked, surprised that she didn't fall for the trick. Better add her to my list of people that the puppy dog eyes don't work with. Mentally anyways.

"Because I said so," She retorted, annoyance creeping into

"That's not an answer!" I retorted.

She blew some golden strands of hair out of her face and asked, "Why do you want to help so badly anyways?"

"Habit," I answered simply.

"Habit?" Riza questioned. I looked at her with her big amber eyes questioning me annoyed. However, when I looked closely, I could tell she was just as curious about me as I was of her. She was actually really cute in her own way. Although she wasn't like most of the girls I had met, with all their dresses and ribbons and fretting over their hair, I liked her. She had an aura that made me want to stay with her longer.

"Yea," I said taking me time. "I lived in a home with a lot of sisters. I was actually adopted, but my foster mother is actually my mother's elder sister, so she's really my aunt as well. Anyways, she never wanted to marry since men always seemed to hurt her, but wanted kids of her own. So she adopted a bunch of unfortunate girls that had a rough life. She also wanted to raise one boy to be a good man. So she found me, and somehow, I ended up learning how to do every chore a girl is usually taught."

Riza stared dumbfounded at me, then asked, "You do know how to do guy chores, right?"

That was the last thing I would expect as a comment on a story like that. "Yes!" I said definitely.

"Ok, just making sure," Riza replied, "I wanted to make sure you weren't going to be completely useless when it comes to your chores."

Then I snapped.

"USELESS!?!" I yelled. "I am not useless! You may have called me useless back on the hill, but that had a reason to it! You've only met me for about two hours. You don't have any right to call me useless. For your information, I help my mother run her shop, and my friends with their homework, because I'm the top of my class. I've helped old people cross the busy streets of Central, and I've stayed after school before to help my teacher clean up the blackboard! I've saved cats from drowning in rivers, and girls from being seduced by sick perverts! I'm far from being useless!"

"Wow," Riza said making an "o" with her mouth. "Nice rant. I'll believe you aren't useless, with the exception at the hill. For now anyways."

"What is that supposed to mean?" I exclaimed.

Riza started to dry the dishes. "It means that I'm not fully convinced, silly."

"How was that not convincing?" I asked. "If that wasn't convincing, I'll show you that I can be helpful!"

So I walked to her side and started to dry the dishes along side with her. We dried and dried countless dishes, throwing comments of how useless the other was and making a competition on who could dry the most dishes. Eventually we got to a tie of 29 dishes each. One dish lay in the sink, wet. We both reached for the dish, but as we did that both of our hands hit each other. From such a touch, Riza seemed surprised and caught off guard, and jumped, causing her to trip on the rag below us. In moments, Riza lay on top of me, her faces inches from mine. I saw the heat rise up to her face. From this view I could easily see her breasts under her loose shirt and bra. I suddenly felt heat rush to my face as well. Unsure of what to do, I tried to get up.

Wrong move.

I instantly felt Riza's warm lips on mine and I saw round amber eyes the size of tennis balls staring at me. I instantly felt a cold hand slap me back to the kitchen floor as Riza got up instantly and recovered instantly as well.

"Idiot," she muttered and went back to the sink to grab the last dish.

After we had said an awkward goodnight to each other, I took as shower, and lay in bed touching my lips were Riza's were only a few hours ago. I didn't know how long I lay in bed with my hands on my lips. The only thing I figured out before I drifted to sleep was that I had fallen in love with Riza Hawkeye.

Riza's Point of View

As I stepped out of the shower, I looked at myself in the mirror. My short hair clung to my face as my skinny body hid under the white towel. I gently dried my hair with a smaller towel, thinking and going over what had happened today.

First I met Father's new alchemy student. Cute, but clumsy.

Then Father probably told him about the evaluation. Nothing strange there.

Then dinner was a pain in the butt. Warming up last night's soup and cooking steak wasn't my ideal of fun.

Finally I arrived Roy's and mine competition with dish drying. Even though Father's student was really clumsy, he could actually do chores that girls usually were meant to do. That was surprising at first. Then after I had slipped, of course making me a hypocrite in his mind by now, he had accidentally kissed me. I touched my lips where his lips where once planted for the few seconds.

I came to the conclusion about Roy after I had gotten into bed.

Although he was cute, and many girls at school would probably fawn over him at school tomorrow, he was still an alchemy dork. He could be very polite at times, but was extremely clumsy and useless. My final evaluation on Roy…

I detested him.


So, like it? Hate it? Please review whether you liked this chapter or not. I accept criticism. Anyways, reviews are highly appreciated.