Envy disappeared. I had turned my back on him for two seconds, turned around to ask him something, and he was gone. The bed wasn't even imprinted with proof that he had been there. The room was warmer, though. It seemed that every time I was around Envy, things became colder than they really were.

"Stay out of Greed's path, and don't get involved with us. You could get yourself killed."

That statement brought a lot of questions to my mind, and I could barely concentrate on my lessons. Unfortunately for me, the man I had run into in the bathroom happened to be my first-period professor by the name of Roy Mustang. True to his promise, he called me out during the lesson to correct any problems that the other students had worked out. I was so exhausted by the end of first period that I thought my head was going to burst from stress. He laughed at me every time I jumped when I heard my name being called and struggled to find my point of focus. Of course, when I finished answering, he gave me a strict look that told me to get my head straight. I tried as hard as I could, but concentrating without finding some way to connect Envy's weird behavior into the lesson didn't seem to work.

"Edward!" Mustang called, making me stop in case he wanted to call on me again. I could literally feel the dread. "Come here for a moment." He curled his finger, and I slipped through the crowd of tall people to get to his desk. He was smiling at me and filing papers. "Wait for a moment. I have to talk to you about something important." He watched the other students quickly leaving the classroom. Once he was sure the majority of them were gone, the smile he was wearing vanished from sight and was replaced by a strict, tight line. I felt like I was about to get in trouble.

"Has something been bothering you?" he asked. "I thought you were a serious student. I even gave you a fair warning this morning, and you're acting like you don't give a damn." He cocked his brow. What could I say to him? That my roommate was insane? That he had threatened me twice before ten o'clock? That I had almost been flattened into a pancake just three hours earlier? He might have thought I was just paranoid.

"No, nothing's bothering me," I lied. "I didn't get much sleep last night; I'm still a little tired from the trip. I'm sorry, but I'll definitely be awake tomorrow!"

"You better," Mustang warned. "I'm expecting a lot from you."

"Thanks, sir." I bowed in respect and turned around quickly. I was going to be late for my physics class for sure.

"Elric!" I spun around, nearly falling over the steps up towards the door. Mustang scrutinized me for a moment. "Be careful."

Him too?

"Y-yes sir." I bowed my head again and jogged up the stairs in hopes of making it to my class before I missed too much. My physics class was down the hall from Mustang's room, which was actually quite convenient for me, but the teacher scared the hell out of me. He was large. Large. I mean, if he was to give someone a hug, he'd pop their head off like a cap from a run-over water bottle. He was entirely bald except for that one lock of hair hanging over his eyes.

"Yes?" he said when I walked in. Apparently, I had caught him in the beginning of his lesson. He looked me over.

"Um, sorry I'm late," I murmured, quickly moving to the back of the class and grabbing a random seat. The teacher stared at me for a few moments before returning to his lecture. I sighed.

"Got here in the nick of time, didn't you soldier?" I head a sultry voice beside me ask. I jumped and looked over. It was the girl from before, Greed's girl. She had that same Russian accent that Envy and Greed both had. She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry about Greed this morning. He's the violent one of the four of them."

"Four?" I asked, ducking my head and pretending to listen to the teacher's lecture.

"You don't know?" The girl chuckled. "Envy's the second youngest. There's Gluttony, the oldest and fattest, then Greed, Envy, and their baby brother Pride."

"What's with the weird names?" I opened my notebook and copied a few notes from off the board so that I wouldn't fall behind the next day. "That list kind of sounds familiar..."

"The seven deadly sins, honey," she replied. "It started with my mother, Tatiana, naming me Lust and my sister Sloth. Her friend - Dante, Envy's mother - copied her and went a little further with four boys." Lust looked over at me and smiled. "I just wanted to let you know that Greed isn't really a bad guy; he hangs out with a pretty bad crowd around here. And Envy's not a jerk either, he's just too antisocial." She laughed. "Okay, I take that back; Envy is a jerk. But he's a good jerk."

"Whatever 'good jerk' is supposed to mean," I mumbled.

I focused back onto the lesson, trying to at least gather some information from it before the lesson was over. All he was really doing was going over the projects we would have, the experiments we would conduct, and I think he came up with a reason to rip his shirt off somewhere in there. I wasn't entirely paying attention, but when the sleeve of his destroyed clothing fell over my head, I nearly fell backwards in my chair. Lust laughed and plucked it off my head.

"Mr. Armstrong is the most eccentric of the teachers here," she said. "He destroys at least five shirts a day. We're still trying to figure out where he gets the money to afford all of them."

"Those poor shirts."

I entered my dorm room, packed with homework all due the next day, and collapsed on my bed face-first. It was five in the afternoon. I had until nine a.m. the next morning to finish all of my homework for seven different classes. I seriously thought my head would explode. I could feel my head throbbing from stress.

"I'm going to die," I said to myself. "My head is going to explode, and they'll have to hose my brains off the walls."

"What a lovely image," I heard, and sat up. Envy slung his bag onto his bed. "I could have gone my entire life without having to imagine that."

"Oh, so you're actually talking to me." I fixed my messy hair and tightened my ponytail. "I thought you said to stay away from you."

"I did," Envy replied, falling onto his bed and picking out a book from his bag. "But I didn't say I couldn't at least be friendly to you, considering we'll be roommates for the rest of the semester, and I'd rather not have my roommate plotting my death while I'm sleeping. Being friendly and being friends are two different things entirely."

"I know." I frowned. He and I stared each other down before he gave up and pulled a book out of his bag. "So, why did your mom name you 'Envy'?" He frowned and let his book drop to his lap.

"Why does it concern you?" he demanded.

"Lust told me," I said. Envy slapped his forehead audibly. I physically flinched away from the sound. "What? Do I not have a right to be curious?"

"You can be curious, but whatever..." Envy picked his book up. "It's none of your business. If I feel like telling you, I might." He flashed a devilish smirk my way before looking back down to his book and ignoring me for the rest of the afternoon.

I spent the next four hours going through my homework, managing to just barely get through without having to have my brains hosed off the walls. Envy seemed to find my mental freak-outs amusing, and would sometimes let out a scoff or laugh when he thought I was too distracted to remember he was there. After a while of reading, he jumped up and pulled out an outfit from the closet near the foot of his bed, tossing it over the chair where his current ensemble had been slung over. He turned towards me, looked as if he wanted to say something, before he stopped himself and quickly looked away, hair whipping around his face. I frowned. He was so weird.

"Say...," he started, pausing for a few moments and biting his knuckle. I could have sworn I saw blood trickling down his finger before he jammed it into his pocket. "Has... has Greed said anything to you today?"

"Greed? Your psychopath brother?" I scoffed. "Of course not. Other than this morning, that bastard hasn't spoken a word to me."

"Good." His voice was cold but shaky. "If he ever does, let me know." He bent down to his suitcase and picked out another black shirt and a pair of jeans that looked like it had gotten into a fight with a pair of scissors.

"Why should I?" I shot back. " 'It's none of your business. If I feel like telling you, I might.'" I gave him a smirk as he turned back to me and scowled.

"Do whatever the fuck you want!" he suddenly snapped. "I don't care!" He threw the dorm room door open and stormed out. I blinked for a few moments. What had set him off? I was just joking with him. Sure as hell, if Greed threatened my life, I'd come running to Envy to let him know his brother was trying to kill me, in hopes that he could actually do something about Greed's temper.

"He's so sensitive about the smallest things," I murmured, crossing my arms. "I wonder what has him so worked up..."

The excitement started around three a.m. the next morning. It was pitch black outside, cold as hell in my dorm room, and I couldn't get to sleep. Something had my heart racing in my chest. I couldn't even manage to close my eyes. I sighed and sat up. Across the room, Envy was fast asleep. He was snoring. It didn't sound as bad as mine (as I learned from Alphonse, who had taken it upon himself to record me around midnight at Pinako's one night), but it was still funny to hear.

I pulled pants on over my red boxers and searched through my jeans for my key. I quickly realized the pants in my hand were Envy's, and dropped them quickly. My key was in my sweatshirt pocket; I had made sure to put it there so that I wouldn't lose it. And after searching in the dark for a few more minutes, I found my shirt and the key inside the pocket. I snatched up my wallet and quickly exited my room. The hallway lights were extremely bright, and I had to lean against the door and squint from the dull sting in my eyes.

"Ow," I said drowsily. I was too tired to bother with sounding half-conscious. I had a few sleeping pills in my suitcase (they were mainly for allergies, but they worked whether you had them or not) that I could wash down with some water. I bought the bottle and stretched. My body was stiff. I yawned loudly and chugged most of the water down. I hadn't realized how dry my throat was.

A girl walked past me, yawning, her hair a mess. I don't think she realized she was walking around with her top missing, but I didn't bother sending her a second glance. I turned to go back to my room when something outside popped. It sounded like a solid metal box hitting against a concrete wall. I nearly fell to the floor with the shock. My heart started pounding so loudly that I thought I was the reason people were coming out of their rooms. One guy gave me a look.

"What the hell was that?" he asked me.

"I have no idea," I replied, fully awake. He turned to look down the hall as Mustang rushed through. He stopped and looked at me angrily.

"Get back to your dorm!" he shouted. "Get back there and stay! Don't leave until authorized!" I jumped from the harshness in his voice and hurried to do as he said. I came to the dorm room and fumbled with my key. I opened the door. Envy turned towards me, wide-eyed and paler than I thought he could get.

"Shit," he said with a rough sigh. "Where the fuck were you? I thought that was you getting shot!"

"Getting shot?" I asked. Envy's hand flew to his mouth. I panicked. "Envy, what the hell is going on? Who got shot?"

"No one!" he replied. "It's none of your business." He quickly averted his eyes to the foot of his bed and chewed on the skin of his thumb. "This is bad. This is really bad." He didn't realize that his chewing led to him breaking skin, and blood trickled down his hand. I was too afraid to tell him he had hurt himself. The thing I was more focused on was how he was reacting to the sound like he knew what was going on.