Chapter 8! I looked up some Chinese street food to mention in this chapter. Yay research! I also showed you another couple of flashbacks... The first part of the flashback was supposed to go at the end of that one in chapter 6, but I ended up ending that one a little early. The second part is from a day that you will get more details about later down the road.
Oh, and I still don't know what to base Ishval after! Please, please, please help me! Just give me something for OC names.
Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist
When Fu Yao finally stopped dragging Maes through the street, both boys got on their hands and knees panting. And then Fu laid on the ground moaning about food. Maes probably would have found it hilarious, if it wasn't so inconvenient.
"Hey, we need to move," Maes nudged the Xingese boy with his foot.
"So... hungry..." Fu groaned.
Maes shook his head at the other boy's antics. He looked around to figure out where they had landed, and was pleasantly surprised to find another food vendor.
He nudged Fu again. "Hey, I'm hungry too and we're by a food vendor. Do you think you could order us some breakfast?"
Fu gave a short nod, and Maes dragged the teenager to where the chef was taking orders. After a lengthy conversation that Maes didn't understand, Fu started to check his pockets with a worried look on his face.
Fu grinned at Maes sheepishly. "Well, it seems like I forgot my money again. Sorry about that. Any chance you have some change on you?"
Maes nodded and pulled out what Aunt Winry gave him.
Fu counted the coins and checked the sign by the chef's window. "Aww, we don't have quite enough. Guess I won't be able to get the soup." He spoke to the chef a little more in Xingese then told Maes to look for someplace to sit.
Maes looked around for chairs or a bench, but he couldn't find any that were unoccupied in the immediate area. He was about to give up and look for a wall they could lean against when he noticed that a lot of people were sitting on the edge of a fountain. He was able to snag a spot for both of them on one of the cleaner edges just as Fu was heading his way, already munching on a kebob.
Maes's mouth dropped when he saw how many boxes of food the boy was carrying. "How are we going to eat all that? You didn't have to use all my money, you know!"
Fu looked amused. "Come on, I usually eat more than this by myself. And that's not even when I'm that hungry."
There was still a lot of food. There were rice dishes, various forms of stir-fry with different sauces, noodles, dumplings, rice balls, kebabs, and various breads. While Maes was staying with the Elrics and Changs, Aunt Winry had done most of the cooking, but Aunt May had made a few traditional Xingese dishes. As a result, Maes had tasted a little of the local cuisine but not much. He decided to start his true exploration of Xingese food with one of the stir-fries, but ran into a problem quickly.
"Uh, Fu?" Maes asked. "Where are the forks?"
Fu looked up from his noodle bowl. "Forks? What are those?"
"You know, forks," Maes tried to explain. "The pointy thing used to pick up solid food?"
Fu still looked confused, but soon realized what Maes was talking about. "Oh! You mean that trident-like eating utensil you Amestrians use. Sorry, but here in Xing we use these." Fu clicked the two short sticks in his hand together.
Maes looked around and pulled out a similar set of sticks. Now that he thought about it, he could remember Aunt May using similar utensils very often, and the others in the house would occasionally use them too. Now he wished that he had bothered to ask them how they used the sticks. He placed them in his hand like Fu, one clutched close to the joint between his thumb and forefinger, the other held like a pen. He pushed the tips together and opened them again a few times to try and get to know how they worked, and then decided to try picking up a piece of chicken.
He put an end of each of the sticks on either side of the chicken and squeezed. The chicken went flying into the fountain. He tried again, on a pea pod. This time it flew into the street where a pigeon picked it up.
Fu laughed and handed him a rice ball. "Maybe you should stick to finger food."
Despite his now limited options, Maes still enjoyed his meal. Fu shoved dish after dish his way and roughly explained what each on was. There were lamb kebabs, eggs boiled in green tea, several different types of dumplings, breads with different fillings in them, and something like a dumpling Fu called Guo tie or pot stickers. (They were very hot and a little delicate, but Maes enjoyed them anyway.) There was still a lot of food Maes couldn't eat, but Fu took care of them quickly. Turns out, the guy really was able to eat that much food.
When the two of them finished the last container, Fu rubbed his belly. "Boy, that was really good."
Maes agreed, "Yeah, Xing has some pretty nice cuisine."
Fu smirked for a second, and then turned serious. "So, what's a kid like you who doesn't even know the correct way to eat doing this side of the desert?"
Maes sighed, not sure how much he should tell Fu. "It's kind of a long story. Why are you so interested in me? Better yet, how do you know how to speak Amestrian?"
Fu looked away, like he also was trying to figure out how much he should tell. "I... I have something that I'm going to do when I get older, and to prepare me for it I've been asked to learn a lot of things. This includes several foreign languages and cultures. My dad knows a lot about Amestris, so I decided to pick it up first."
Maes nodded, though it was obvious Fu was hiding something. "What are you going to do when you get older? And why does it have to be you?"
Fu gave Maes a mysterious smile that said he was definitely hiding something. "It's a long story."
Maes sighed. "Alright, fine. Don't tell me." He decided to try an easier question. "Where do you live? Is it close to here?"
Fu thought about it. "It depends on your definition of 'close to here.' It's in the city limits, but it is still several miles away from here. What about you? Where do you live?"
Maes really had to consider that question. Where did he live? It had been a long time since there had been a specific house that he could call home. "I live in Amestris, but I move around a lot. My parents are military, so I moved a couple of times when I was really little. When I was six, I thought we were going to be in a better situation, but the invasion started a year later and all that changed. I spent several years staying with my teacher in the South, but I eventually decided I had to do something to help in the invasion and went back to where the fighting was. I haven't stayed anywhere more than a month at a time since then."
Fu looked somber when he heard that. "You must really hate Drachma, don't you?"
Maes thought about it. "I don't think I hate Drachma itself, but I do hate what they've done. The people... my people... their lives have been completely changed, and not in a good way." Maes remembered the horrors he couldn't bring himself to talk about: the captured soldiers used for experimentation only to be returned with their mind and soul broken, the innocent children being slaughtered in the street, the scientists using all their strengths in combat but unable to do more than hold the horse at bay.
Fu's voice pulled Maes out of his thoughts. "You must really care about your country."
Maes looked at his feet. "I kinda... feel responsible for it. It's difficult to explain."
"Actually, I think I understand completely."
Maes looked up at Fu. "What do you mean?"
"I know what you're talking about," Fu explained. "I feel the same way about Xing. I can't imagine what it would be like if some country came and ransacked my home, my people."
Maes smiled. "You know, my dad has this philosophy. It's kind of a guideline for good leadership that he came up with when he experienced something terrible. He says that it's a person's duty to protect the people they love, and in return they'll protect the people they love. The idea is that eventually, with a pyramid effect, the whole world will end up protected. I try to live by that philosophy, and I think that's part of the reason why I feel responsible for my country."
Fu laughed. "You know, that reminds me of something my dad said. He believes that a king's duty is to his people, since without them he would be no king. My mom always likes to finish that off with reminding him that without their king the people would be lost as well. It's more of a symbiotic relationship than what you're talking about, but it reminds me of that."
Maes chuckled a little. "I think our dads would get along well."
"Well, their sons are friends aren't they?"
Maes froze. Friends. The last person who had called him that was... No. He couldn't think about that. But still, the memory came to the forefront of his mind against his will...
"Hey! Kid!"
Maes turned toward the voice. It was right after the ceremony, and he wanted to see his father and congratulate him. The boy who had sat behind big sis Elicia was calling him though, and Maes didn't want to seem rude.
"Um, hi." Maes replied to the other boy. "You're Selim Bradley, right?"
"Yeah!" The older boy looked surprised. "Good job on remembering my name. I hear yours is Maes Mustang, correct?"
Maes nodded.
"He's your dad, isn't he?" Selim indicated Maes's father, who was being congratulated by some higher ups.
Maes nodded again, though he didn't have any idea where this was going.
"So that makes you the new Fuhrer's son." Selim fiddled with his hands a little. "My mom's old husband... I guess you could say he's kinda my dad... was the Fuhrer a long time ago. So, in a way, you could say we are in similar situations."
Maes sized up the older boy, then smiled. "That's great!"
Selim held out his hand for Maes to shake. "How about we be friends, kid?"
Maes gratefully took the older boy's hand, grateful to have a friend in his new home.
But just as that happy memory faded, the last time he had seen his friend came back to haunt him...
A terrible stench hung in the air. Part of it might be the smoke from the fires outside the building, terrible infernos of destruction that bore no resemblance to the friendly flames Maes had watched his father create. Part of it might be the sweaty foreign soldiers that surrounded the place, glaring at the two boys huddled in a corner of the room. But Maes knew that most of the smell came from the slowly decomposing body of a teenage girl lying in the middle of the room, where she had fallen when she had been shot hours ago.
Maes turned to look at Selim. The older boy was shaking uncontrollably, and his eyes looked like he was fighting a war within himself. Maes wished that he could say something to comfort his friend, but the soldiers would hit them if they said a word. And after seeing what they had done to Elicia, he didn't want to make the soldiers any angrier.
After several minutes, Selim finally calmed down. He looked around the room, as though this was the first time he had seen anything. And then he laughed.
Something about his laughter scared Maes. Deciding that it would be worth it to go against the soldiers' commands, Maes jumped up and tried to calm down his friend. "Please stop!" Maes cried, "You're scaring me, and the soldiers will get mad!"
Selim stopped laughing. He looked down at Maes, and almost looked creepier than when he had been laughing. "You cared about her, didn't you?"
Maes could feel the tears starting to come again, the same tears he had barely managed to hold at bay after the soldiers had demanded he stop crying or they would shoot him. He could only nod at his friend's question.
Selim pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket and started drawing a small circle. Out of the corner of his eye, Maes noticed the soldiers bustling around, getting ready for something. Maes was worried about what they were getting ready for, but was still a little grateful that they weren't looking their way since they would undoubtedly want to confiscate the paper that Selim was drawing a transmutation circle on.
When Selim was done he pushed the paper into Maes's hands and whispered, "Do you want to save Elicia?"
Maes looked startled. "Wait, what are you talking about Selim?"
"Do you want to save her? I can't, but with this circle, you just might be able to pull it off," Selim explained. "I saw this circle a long time ago, it is used for human transmutation."
Suddenly, Maes realized what his friend was talking about. "Wait, but that's illegal! Not to mention bad..."
"It's Elicia's only chance!" Selim probably would have shouted if they hadn't been whispering. "I'm not an Alchemist, I barely understand the basics, but you're really good and understand more of the complicated stuff. You already have the ingredients over there," he indicated to the rotting corpse, "and I'm showing you the circle. Please, you have to do it!"
At that point, soldiers came and dragged Selim away by his arms. With his last glimpses of his friend, Maes made a silent promise to perform the transmutation the first chance he got. It would be that promise that would become Maes's greatest regret.
Maes shook himself out of the past. Fu was looking worried, and considering how long Maes had spaced out for, it wasn't surprising.
Maes cleared his throat. "Hey, Fu, do you know what time it is?"
Fu still looked worried, but pulled out a pocketwatch and checked the time. "Uh, it's 11:45. Do you have somewhere to be?"
Maes's face paled. "Yes, at noon. Do you know the quickest way to the statue in front of the train station?"
Fu nodded. "Yeah, sure. Just go down the street 4 blocks and turn left, you aren't that far. Hey!" He shouted as Maes ran off in the direction he indicated. "I don't think I caught your name!"
Maes turned around and shouted back, "I'm Maes Mustang! It was nice meeting you, Fu!"
4 blocks and a left turn later, Maes was running up to Aunt May. "Sorry I'm late! Nina ditched me and I had to find my own way back."
May shook her head. "Of course she did. Well, are you ready to meet the Emperor?"
Maes nodded, his mind now completely empty of friends that could never be and haunted memories, instead filled with hope for the future.
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