"Ed did WHAT?!"
Sam, Jill, and Gabrielle had met up in the school hallway, discussing the damage the young alchemist had made so far. Sam seemed to be on an endless tirade about the events that occurred on the bus, waving her arms around in order to demonstrate her emotions. "To put it bluntly, Ed woke me up, scared the crap out of me, and beat the living daylights out of some kid who called him short." She said, shaking her head. "Can't anything go normally for once?"
Gabbie interjected and grabbed her arms so that the girl wouldn't wail anyone in the face. "If you call having an anime character who isn't supposed to exist living in your house normal, than yes, I'd say that's normal."
Jill took her chance to but in as well. "I'll just bet you that you're too embarrassed to admit that you have certain feelings for our little Edo-cun, Sammi." she said, grinning as her friend's face turned a spectacular shade of crimson.
Sam shook her head frantically and backed away from them, afraid of their words. "No I don't!"
Gabbie snorted and grinned, enjoying the sight of her friend's obvious lie. "Sam, don't even bother trying to hide it. Your little crush on Ed is as plain as day; anyone who has half a brain could see that!"
The girl blushed even more as her friend began to sing the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song under her breath. "Please, just stop…" she protested, backing towards an adjacent hallway. "This isn't funny!"
When the two of them continued to sing along, Sam ran down the next hallway and disappeared out of sight, leaving two confused teens behind her.
Meanwhile, in another hallway, Ed was pacing up and down the corridor, cursing whoever made the daily schedule so confusing to read. "I swear if I ever find the person who put a dozen typos on this thing, they're going to wish they had another job!" he muttered, running his automail hand through this hair in frustration. "Where in the hell am I supposed to start?!"
As the young man was cursing his horrible luck, an obscured form peered out at him from behind a nearby corner. The boy in front of him certainly matched the description he remembered, that much was for sure, though his patience left something to be desired. True, his hair was longer that it was previously, and he had grown up somewhat, but he was still the ill-tempered child that he remembered. Letting out a sigh, the man moved to slip away, but dropped something out his pocket, causing the young teenager to look up abruptly in surprise.
Edward peered at the form of the person in front of him, his eyes narrowing considerably. "Who are you?" he demanded, moving into a defensive stance. "Why were you watching me just now?"
Realizing he had been caught, the man bolted in the opposite direction, disappearing from sight. Panting as he ran, he managed to outrun the teenager, forgetting that he had left something behind.
Coming to a stop at the once occupied corner, Ed bend down and picked up the fallen object, his eyes scanning over it numerous times. In his palm lay a pair of rectangular shaped glasses, well worn and used by the looks of it. Whoever owned them obviously needed to use them often. Grinning slightly, Ed pocketed the glasses and continued down the hallway, knowing that he'd run into the person sooner or later. If they couldn't see well that day, they'd be forced to come back looking for the glasses and Edward would finally know who was spying on him that day.
Things were finally starting to look up.
Whistling a cheery tune, Ed turned around the corner, only to come in contact with something rather solid that let out a small "eep" as it fell down. Blinking twice, Ed realized who it was he ran into and went to help her up, smiling sheepishly. "Hey there, Sam… Sorry about that!"
Sam jumped up and blushed profusely, not believing her horrible luck took her to this point. "Oh, hey there Ed…" she muttered, trying to calm down again, "how'd everything go so far?"
The alchemist scoffed and held up his schedule to her eye level. "This piece of crap schedule is leading me in circles, I still haven't found my locker, and some guy was spying on me from this corner a minute ago!"
The girl cringed and looked disgusted. "Eww…" she muttered, mentally imagining the scene. "Are you sure he wasn't some pedophile?"
Ed's eyes bugged out of his head and he shook his head furiously. "What the hell?! Sam, what made you think that?!"
"I don't know, you never know with people these days!" the teenager protested, waving her hands in the air for emphasis. "Other than a strange stalker following you, anything else?"
The young man nodded and removed his gloves, exposing his automail hand to the light. "Yeah… Something weird's going on with my arm and leg. I don't know if you noticed, but when I went to grab the toast this morning, I burned my hand."
Sam nodded. "Yeah, but what does this have to do with your metal arm?"
"It has everything to do with it, Sam." he interjected, holding up his hand. "I grabbed the toast with my automail hand… and I felt the pain as it got burned! I can feel things with my metal limbs again!"
"What the heck?!" Sam exclaimed, prodding at the metal extremity. "So that's what the whole thing was about last night! But I still don't get it… Why would you be able to feel with them now, of all times? Why not earlier?"
The alchemist shook his head, not knowing what to say. "I haven't got a clue, but whatever it is; I'll bet it's got something to do with crossing over through the Gate…"
Sam nodded her head. "Come on, let's get going. All four of us share the same classes, thanks to Jill's hacking skills. We have to get a move on, or we'll be late!"
And so the day progressed. English was as monotonous as Ed thought it would be, with him thinking that this Shakespeare guy should just shut his trap his stuff was so boring. Physical Education wasn't any better. Luckily for Ed, they didn't have to change into their gym clothes that day, so the period was spent in roll call and learning the names of everyone else. Hoping that the next class wouldn't be as boring as the others, Ed and Sam, along with Gabbie and Jill, walked into Science class about 5 minutes early, taking whatever seats they could get close to one another.
The rest of the class was whispering to one another, nervous about what the class was going to be like. Filtering out their droning, Ed managed to get into a mental state of calmness before a sudden noise shook him out of his reverie.
The teacher had just collided with the doorframe, muttering curses as he rubbed his aching forehead. Feeling around for his desk, the middle aged man managed to sit down in his chair before setting down his suitcase, unlatching it and pulling out an attendance book. Frowning slightly, he held it farther away from his face, as if putting it better into focus.
Inwardly, Edward grinned in his mind. If his hunch was right, his mysterious stalker was sitting right in front of him.
Jackpot.
Nudging Sam in the ribs, Jill did a double take and pointed at the teacher. "Sam, does that man seem a little too familiar to you?" she hissed.
Sam took another look at the man in front of her. Blonde hair, golden eyes, golden beard… There was so mistaking it.
Hoenheim of Light was sitting in front of her. But one key feature about him was not there.
His small, rectangular glasses, that were normally perched on edge of his nose, were missing.
