Chapter Ten: Destiny…?
"That was good," I said, putting down my fork
"Yeah," Ed agreed, wiping his mouth with his napkin, which he'd seriously needed.
"Yes, it is," Al said pointedly, twirling some noodles onto his fork. His plate was still almost full.
"Wow, you eat slowly," I said, looking at his plate in disbelief.
"No, you just eat too fast," Al pointed out, chewing his food very slowly. Or, since I did have a pretty fantastic appetite, I guess he was eating at a normal speed.
I blushed a little. "Um, I love food."
"So do I," Ed shrugged. "There's no reason to be shy about it."
"Except I'm a girl, and girls aren't supposed to eat very much or anything."
"Eh, I know a girl who can shoot anything and scare the living daylights out of Mustang, and there's this other girl who always attacks me with a wrench every time I see her. Besides, we met because you stole my watch, so it's not like I have the same opinion of you that I have of most girls in the first place."
"Oh." I sat back a little. "Well, either way, that was really tasty. You wanna take yours to go, Al? Or you just wanna sit here and finish?"
"Well, I would like to stay here, but I know you two will probably wind up buying more food if I do, so I guess I'll grab it."
"Okay, then we'll get a box." I raised my hand for the waiter, who brought Al a to-go box and handed me the check.
I groaned as I gave him the money. "You and I eat too much, Ed," I complained as I handed the bill to the waiter. Then we left.
"So, when do we get to Risembool?" I asked as we exited the restaurant, Al still eating his pasta-in-a-box.
"It depends," Ed said. "It'll take less time to take a train, but it'll also cost more money that way."
"Ah." I checked my pocket. "Well, I still got plenty of money, and surely we could go back and pick up some more if we started to run out."
"And we're pretty used to getting by without much cash," Al said around a mouthful of pasta. "So even if we couldn't get there immediately, we'd still manage."
"Okay, then," Ed said, "train it is!"
"Yeah!" I said, secretly hoping I wouldn't throw up. I'd definitely have to pull an all-nighter the night before the trip so I could sleep on the train.
Ed looked at me sideways again before saying timidly, "Lucy?"
"Yeah?" I turned off my fake rejoicing and turned to look at him. "What is it?"
"Nothing much, I just started thinking. We just met a couple of days ago, right? And the reason we met was because you stole my flipping watch."
"Yeah, sorry about that…" I rubbed the back of my head.
"But now we're all getting along just fine."
"And…?" I raised my eyebrows. Was he going somewhere with this?
"It just all seems really strange to me. We barely know each other, and yet we're all already traveling together and talking like we've known each other our whole lives…" He tilted his head toward the sky. "It's like there's something more to it than just the thief and the military dogs."
I shifted, kind of uncomfortable with the direction this was going. "Yeah, kind of."
He looked at me again, noticing my awkward expression. "Sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I was just thinking about it, 'cuz we're suddenly all buddy-buddy, and it seemed kind of weird to me."
"Oh." Some of the awkwardness dropped out of the atmosphere. "Yeah, I guess you're right. It is a little strange."
"Maybe there is such thing as destiny…" He trailed off.
"Maybe…" I stopped talking, too, and looked up at the clouds, too. The sun was hidden behind one, so I didn't mysteriously go blind.
One of the clouds looked kind of like Ed…..