Hey... if anyone's still out there... sorry for my crappy updating. Senior year junk and general laziness as kept me from writing.
Also, I GOT A LAPTOP! Unfortunatly, I tend to spend most of my time playing dumb games instead of doing anything useful.
So I know it's been a while since I updated, but here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy!
"What?" Roy asked as he stared at Grumman in confusion, wondering if he had heard correctly.
"Chess. Do you play chess, Mr. Mustang?" he repeated calmly while smiling ever so slightly.
"Um… no." Roy said slowly, still feeling very confused.
"Well I happen to think it is a very helpful game," he said as he sat back in his chair. "Helps one think, teaches strategy, very good learning tool."
There was a long silence between the two men while Roy tried desperately to take in the sudden change in topic. Was he going to be punished or not? Did Grumman want to know who he was out with, or was he just curious to see if Roy would sell out his friends? It was all too confusing.
"I think you would benefit from learning chess," Grumman continued. "You will come to my office every Monday after classes at four-thirty and I will teach you the game."
"So…. Is that it then?" Roy asked slowly, although he was not sure why he was asking this. "There's no other punishment? You're not going to call home?"
"Would you like me to?" he asked with a smile.
"No!" Roy exclaimed, thinking of the wrath his aunt would bring if she heard what he had been doing.
"Well then yes, that is all," Grumman said pleasantly. "You told me the truth when so many haven't and I award truthfulness."
Grumman smiled at Roy and Roy managed a weak smile back at him.
"You're only punishment will be having to spend an hour a week with this old fart," Grumman said with a loud laugh. "Now, let the officer escort you back to your dorm and stay inside until the sun has come up, if you would be so kind."
"Yes sir," Roy said gratefully as he stood up. "I promise to behave. And I'll see you on Monday."
"Good night, Mr. Mustang."
"Good night, sir."
Grumman watched as Roy walked of the room and listened as he and the officer walked down the empty halls for a moment before he shook his head and glanced down at the silver picture frame on his desk.
"You have a good friend, Riza, my dear," he said fondly. "I just wish you would be more careful sometimes."
"So what the hell happened?!" Sheska exclaimed.
Roy had just walked into the Common Room of East Dorm and found the majority of his friends, the ones who were not incapacitated due to alcohol, sitting around the room, waiting for him.
Roy stared at the group for a second before he shrugged his shoulders at them all.
"Nothing," he admitted. "I'm not in trouble."
"What?" Maes asked, looking at his friend skeptically. "Like, not at all?"
"Not a phone call home?" Ed asked.
"No detention?!" Winry exclaimed in disbelief.
"Nope," he said with a sigh. "Oh, but I do have to go to his office every Monday after school."
"For what?" Al asked.
"… he's going to teach me how to play chess," Roy said slowly, still not really believing it himself. "Says it's a good teaching tool or something."
"What?" most of his friends exclaimed in disbelief.
"That doesn't make sense," Russell said.
"Very few things Grumman does make sense to anyone except him," Maes said.
"Yeah, well, I'm beat," Roy said with a yawn. "Let's just go upstairs and get some sleep."
As his friends moved towards the stairs, Roy turned around to find Riza still standing, smiling at the ground slightly while she shook her head ever so slightly; she did not appear to have realized she was doing it because when Roy called out her name, she jumped.
"You were zoned out," he said. "You alright?"
"Yeah, I was just thinking about someone," she said vaguely, breaking out of her reverie. Her calm expression quickly turned into a much harder one as she took a step towards Roy. "You didn't have to push me out of the way. I wouldn't have gotten in trouble."
"And neither did I so no harm done," Roy said with a smirk.
Riza scowled at him before she shook her head and marched past him towards the stairs. Roy smiled at her retreating backside and followed after her, suddenly feeling rather exhausted after such a long night.
Nobody in East dorm seemed to have pulled themselves out of bed before noon and it was a safe bet that this was a similar occurrence in the other dorms. The cafeterias were empty during the breakfast hours and only after noon were people beginning to trickle inside them in search of food.
"Is Bec awake yet?" Winry asked as Riza and Gracia walked into her and Sheska's room, both fully dressed and looking perfectly normal.
"Nope," Riza sighed as she sat down on Sheska's desk chair.
"Occasionally she'll moan and groan and then go back to sleep," Gracia said as she perched herself on top of Sheska's desk.
"Well, she did have one hell of a night," Sheska said from her seat on her bed.
"I think everyone had one hell of a night," Winry said as she tried to pull a brush through her tangled hair.
"And what about your night, Win?" Paninya asked from her seat on top of Winry's bed. "You never did tell us what happened in that shed."
Sheska and Riza turned and stared wide-eyed at Winry while she averted her eyes from them while he face turned steadily pinker.
"Nothing," she said after a moment as she grabbed a pony tail for her hair.
"Bull. Shit," Paninya said bluntly.
"Really, nothing happened!" she exclaimed as she turned around to look at her friends. "He apologized for standing me up at the dance and that was it. Nothing monumental happened."
"Really?" Sheska asked, sounding a little let-down. "That was all?"
"Yes," she said, feeling annoyed. "And if you hoped for him to let out some big declaration of love while trapped in there with me, you really need to learn to lower your standards when it comes to Ed."
"Yeah well, we just kinda hoped that the so-called magic of the Island would push Ed in the direction of something a little more romantic," Paninya explained.
"I doubt that kid has a single romantic bone in his body," Winry said as she pulled her hair back. "And that's fine. But you guys have got to release that you can't just force someone into liking someone else with a little voodoo magic and booze."
"I wasn't trying to force him into liking you," Riza said, raising her hand. "I just wanted him to own up to his mistake and apologize."
"Me too!" Gracia exclaimed, looking innocent.
"And that's fine, guys," Winry said calmly. "I appreciated it. Even if it was really super awkward."
"Hey, do you guys wanna go get some food?" Sheska asked after a pause. "The café's probably still pretty empty. Not many people are going to pull themselves out of their beds."
"Sounds like a plan," Winry said. "And then I think we need to clean up and get Paninya's things together. She needs to be at the airport in a few hours."
"Really?" Gracia said sadly.
"Yeah, sorry girls," Paninya said as they walked out of the dorm room. "But I can always sneak back here and meet up with you again."
"You better," Sheska said seriously.
"She will," Winry said, smiling at her friend, who grinned back at her.
"Oh, hold up, I need to go get my wallet from my room," Riza said, stopping just as she passed her room.
She walked quietly inside, stealthily took out her wallet from her purse, and just before the door closed, Riza slammed the door the last three inches with all of her might.
"See ya later, Bec!" Riza yelled through the door.
A loud, tortured groan issued from behind the door and all of the girls giggled.
"That was a little harsh, don't you think?" Gracia said as she glanced over her shoulder at the door.
"Nope," Riza said while Paninya and Sheska continued to laugh. "It would have been harsh if I came in there with an air-horn and dumped a bucket of water on her."
"Jean!" Roy yelled as the air-horn he had found in the Common Room blared into his friend's exposed ear. "Wake! Up!"
"Stop!" Jean cried miserably as he crawled under his blankets in an attempt to escape from the noise. "Please sweet baby Jesus, stop!"
"Well that's what you get for getting so drunk that you made out with that harpy-succubus and then puked on my new shoes," Roy yelled over the shrieking wail.
"Can you please stop, Roy?" Maes asked calmly from his seat at his desk. "It's kinda hard to focus while you're raping my eardrums."
"What do you need to focus on?" Roy asked, not stopping the air-horn. "We haven't had class in over two weeks."
"Yes well you see, there are these things called exams and they're in about four days," Maes said with a roll of his eyes. "Maybe you'd like to study too."
"Okay, first off, a normal Saturday is a day of rest," Roy said, finally stopping the wailing of the air-horn. "Second off, it's January first, which is the universal day of rest. So, no, I'm not going to study. I'll study tomorrow, or Monday, or Tuesday, or maybe even Wednesday morning before the test."
"Well you do know that the study guides are worth fifteen percent of your final exam score and last time I checked, you didn't have them all done yet," Maes countered.
"Dude, seriously, I promise, I'll look at them, tomorrow. But right now, I'm just trying to take a break."
"You call taking a break torturing your roommates?"
"Okay, Hughes, right now, Havoc is like a dog who just pissed all over the house and now I gotta rub his face in it so that he knows not to do it ever again."
"Doesn't do what? Piss all over the floor or make out with Rebecca?" Maes asked.
"Both," Roy said after a slight pause. "But mostly the second one."
"Alright but can you punish him in like, an hour or two when I'm done looking over my chem study guide?" he asked politely. "Because I really need to look over this again and I'm sure Jean will still be in a similar position in an hour."
"Fine," Roy said with a roll of his eyes.
He turned to leave the room but just before he made a complete turn, he forced the air horn back by Jean's ear and pressed the button one last quick time before he turned, laughing, and left the room.
"That dude's a douche of epic proportions," Jean moaned weakly from under the covers.
"Yeah well maybe you shouldn't drink so much and then barf all over the place," Maes said calmly as he returned to his chemistry notes.
"So the log of thirty-six divided by the log of twenty-five is… what, exactly?" Winry asked as she stared at her half-finished pre-calculus exam packet.
Winry looked up when Riza did not answer and found her for the third time today staring off into the distance. She glanced over at Gracia, who was helping them study, and exchanged nervous glances with each other. It was very unlike Riza to zone out so frequently. Sighing slightly, Winry lightly tossed her pencil at her friend so that it hit her in the forehead, effectively waking her out of her daydream.
"Wha…?" Riza mumbled as she blinked owlishly at them.
"Uh, are you alright, Riza?" Gracia asked kindly. "You seem a little out of it today."
"I'm just a little tired from last night is all," she said quickly in her usual brisk tone. "Busy night last night."
"Busy in what way?" Winry asked while she gave her friend a suggestive wink.
Riza scowled at her before she rolled her eyes at Winry and returned back to her completed math packet. She blindly tossed Winry's pencil at her, with it just barely missing her face.
"Hey!"
"So what was you're question again?"
"Um, question seventeen."
"Oh. Right, so the answer is…."
Winry, Gracia, and Riza continued to study for their Pre-Calculus exam until dinner and ever though Riza appeared to be normal through the rest of the study time, the two girls could not help but wonder what was on Riza's mind.
If Winry was sure about one thing, she was sure that whatever was on Riza's mind was much more than something stupid like midterm exams.
"Yes, mom, I actually did do things with my friends last night," Edward sighed into his cell phone as he stared at the ceiling of his dorm room. "I can have Al vouch for me if you still don't believe me."
"Oh, I believe you, honey," Trisha said kindly. "I know you wouldn't dare lie to your mother over something like this."
Edward scowled slightly as his stomach squirmed in discomfort; the mere idea of disappointing his mother made him sick and uncomfortable.
"So did you have any fun last night?"
"Ehh, yeah, I guess," Ed admitted after a second of thought. "It was all pretty chill."
"But wasn't it nice to pull yourself away from your room and all of your books and research for once?" Trisha asked in a knowing tone that irked Ed.
"…it wasn't that bad," Ed mumbled reluctantly.
"I think you had an amazing time and you just don't want to admit it," she said teasingly.
"I already said I had a good time, mom," he argued. "But it wasn't some fantastic, life-altering night that I'll remember for years on end."
"Uh-huh," she said in a skeptic tone.
"Really, nothing happened," Ed continued. "We hung around and listened to music and we ate and drank and were merry. Nothing big."
"I didn't question whether you had had a good time or not, Edward," Trisha said with a tiny laugh in her voice. "But if you'd like to tell me more about what you and your friends did…"
"Nothing happened mom," he persisted. "I would just bore you with the recap of the party."
"Hearing you were out with friends will never bore me, Edward," she said sincerely, causing Ed to blush slightly.
"Yeah well… I gotta go, mom," Ed said as he sat hunched in bed, the top of his head brushing the ceiling. "Dinner."
"Alright, I'll talk to you later then," she said. "You're father just got home anyhow."
"Right, bye," he said quickly while he tried to keep the anger than came to him when he thought of his father out of his voice.
"Goodbye, Edward."
Once Ed had ended the call, he stared at the phone for a moment, thinking of not only his mother but of the party from the previous night. While most of the party had been run of the mill, there still had been that weird moment where he and Winry were forced into the shed.
He shook his head as he tried to rid himself of the slightly embarrassed feeling that came over him at the memory before he slid off of the top bunk, stepped into his shoes, and walked from the room, content to forget about any aspect of the party for a long time.
Riza laid on her back on her bed in her dark dorm room, staring blankly into the darkness while a million thoughts ran across her head. Her head had been filled to capacity ever since she had accidentally stumbled into Alphonse's conversation with his friends during the party. She knew that her friends saw that her mind was somewhere else and if she kept acting this way, her friends would begin pestering and then what would she do? It wasn't her information to spread so she wouldn't but that wouldn't mean her friends would stop. Riza knew how her friends acted. If they had something to investigate, they'd search all over until they came up with something.
A low, loud groan from above her broke Riza out of her thoughts for a second while he still incapacitated roommate rolled over on her bed. Riza sighed heavily and shook her head in an attempt to keep her thoughts away from her but they just came back with a vengeance.
She had always known that Edward and Alphonse were hiding something from them all. Now she knew what it was; their mother appeared to be very sick. Riza's heart twisted as she thought of her own mother, who had passed away when she was young. She remembered how she wished there was something she could do to relieve her mother of her sickness. It appeared to her, from the brief conversation she had overheard, that Ed and Al were trying to do what she never could.
Riza thought back to all those times Ed chose to stay inside and study instead of going out with them. She remembered how they had fought with him and sometimes even forcibly removed him from the room while none of them understood why he was so hell-bent on studying instead of having fun with his friends.
Now she knew why and the knowledge made all the difference in the world. Instead of appearing like a weird, anti-social, shut in, Edward appeared more like a silent hero and instead of Al appearing like a perfectly normal teen, he turned into someone with much more depth; they both gained much more depth.
Riza sighed and closed her eyes. She wanted to know more about Ed and Al but at the same time, she did not want to pry. It was not her place to pry. It wasn't her life. She didn't want people to pry into her life so why should she pry into someone else's?
Riza opened her eyes and stared up at the dark underside of Rebecca's bunk bed while she searched for some sort of peace that would never really come to her. Hours later, she would get up from her bed and begin her day, while she pretended everything was perfectly normal on the inside when in all reality, everything was still so mixed up.
She wanted someone to tell her what she should do but she didn't want anyone to know she was so confused either. It was a real dilemma in Riza's mind; one that she could just not go spitting out to jut anyone. It appeared as if this was just one of those things she'd have to figure out on her own.
Once Saturday had sufficiently melted into Sunday, students slowly broke out of the funk that encased them after their intense celebration. One by one, the students of Amestris academy seemed to realize the closeness of the approaching exams and one by one, they quickly switched from extreme lethargy to extreme studying.
Sunday was spent in a haze for most people while their brains desperately tried to switch themselves back to thinking academically after such a long break. Sunday quickly bled into Monday and before Roy knew it, it was time for his first meeting with Grumman.
"What do you think he's going to really make you do?" Jean, who finally seemed to have broken out of hangover funk, asked as Roy prepared to leave.
"What do you mean?" Roy asked as he threw on his jacket. "He's going to teach me chess."
"There has to be some so of ulterior motive here," Jean said in exasperation. "Like, maybe 'teach chess' is some sort of secret teacher code for extreme punishment."
Roy stared at Jean for three beats before he shook his head and began walking towards the door.
"You know, you had me worried there for a second when you used a word like 'ulterior' in proper context but that dumbass theory of yours proved that a second of intelligence from you was merely a fluke."
Maes laughed as Roy closed the door. Jean scowled and turned to look at Maes, who was still chuckling into his math book.
"Seriously, there's gotta be something else going on here," Jean continued.
"Like what exactly?" Maes asked, still grinning lightly as he turned to look at Jean.
"I bet Grumman's gonna try and catch Roy off guard and make him fess up on who he was with!" Jean declared victoriously.
"First off, it has never been Grumman's style to play tricks on you to fess up," Maes said as he shook his head slightly. "He'll call you out and wait if you have the balls to tell the truth and lessen your sentence if you do."
"Well maybe he's switching it up to keep us on our toes," the blond invented quickly.
"While I still doubt that, I'm sure if Grumman really wanted to know who was out with Roy, he could call us all out in a second," Maes said with a roll of his eyes. "He knows a lot of us, whether it be because we're in trouble a lot or because we're doing good things a lot, and I'm pretty sure he knows who Roy would be hanging out with."
"So what, do you think Grumman's really just going to teach Roy chess and leave it at that?"
"I'm sure that's what it'll appear to everyone, including Roy, on the surface but I bet you a million bucks Grumman has some sort of plan that none of us would ever be able to guess in a billion years."
"Aha! So he does have an ulterior motive!"
"Yeah but nothing idiotic like you came up with."
Hmm, wonder what is going to happen with Grumman. And next chapter will go more in depth to the aftershocks of the New Years Party, so wait for that. I'll try to get it up as soon as I can.
BTW, if there are any Legend of Korra fans out there, I put up a new story for that series and I would appreciate it if someone stopped by and dropped a review my way. :)
Thanks for reading, I'll try to get this updated again pronto!
-FSK