Brief Commentary:
Hooray for relatively fast updates! I need to do these more often...didn't this series once update like, weekly? Wow...I wonder if I can ever go back to that. Oh, for those of you who cared to notice (probably about .05 of you), I've now changed my personal chapter requirements for RNFYE. Before, it was a minimum of 1,800+ words per chapter. Now, I have raised the minimum a little bit, so now it's at least 2,000+ words. But on a differing not - review? :DDD

I see you lying next to me
With words I thought I'd never speak
Awake and unafraid,
Asleep or dead?

Reasons Not For Your Ears
Chapter Thirty-Six

Winry couldn't help but admire Paninya's ability to get through the remainder of the day as if nothing had ever happened. Back-talking to teachers had never seemed to be her friend's forte, but she appeared to do this with ease when responding to questions about her absence and slightly tear-eyed, thin condition. Winry felt upset with herself for suddenly being so interested, so concerned about Paninya, when she had before been almost successfully swearing off any and all emotion, in her immature attempt to escape the "clutches of reality."

The other object of distraction from her preferred routine day experiences, a.k.a. Edward Elric, was being quite successful in his mission to complain to her to the ends of the earth. First and foremost, it was about his lack of lunch, made helpful by Winry's lack of actually going to lunch and allowing him to steal most of her food. But this was easy to ignore. However, if it wasn't the lunch, it was the homework, or the newly assigned English project, or the schedule, or even Mustang's attire. The last of the remarks earned him another shot in the face from Hawkeye, who now appeared to have an uncannily accurate sense of hearing.

Soon the last bell of the day rang, and students quickly flowed out of all of the classrooms, pushing Winry along far enough that she almost missed her locker. After a minute or so spent rummaging around, making sure she had all she needed for the evening, she slung her book bag over her shoulder and firmly closed the locker door, just in time for Paninya to pass her by. She caught her friend's eye at the last second, and the dark-skinned woman came to a stop, a small smile on her face.

"Hey, Win," she said, touching her arm. "Looks like I'm not the only one whose had a rough time. Sorry you had to see...that. Well...you wanna walk with me?"

Winry's skin felt warm where Paninya's hand lingered, and she nodded at the offer.

"Yeah," she murmured, and the two fell into step beside each other as they exited the school.

"So, what've I missed? Everyone has really changed..." Paninya mused, her breaths leaving soft clouds of hot air in the significantly cold weather. She tightened her sweatshirt around herself and glanced at Winry expectantly.

"Um..." she hesitated, wondering how she could explain in as few words as possible. "Edward...Al's brother...is now attending, you might've noticed..."

"That loud mouth? Huh...he's pretty stupid, but at least he's hot," her friend conceded. Winry's facial expression must've changed without her knowing, for Paninya laughed and corrected herself, "It's not like I'm interested in him, though; you realize I just confessed to Al today. Geez, Win."

"Oh, right, good," the words had tumbled out of her mouth before she could think, and she felt something akin to horror as she took in what she had just said. "I mean..."

The dark-skinned girl laughed again and waved her off.

"Ah, it's okay. So, what's up with you? You used to talk a lot, and now you're like...what, a robot? Or maybe a zombie...hm...it's close tie."

Winry found it ironic how Paninya and the stupid, hot loud mouth had said just about the same thing. Shaking her head, she mumbled,

"Nothing really happened...I'm always like this."

"I beg to differ, Win," Paninya rolled her eyes and gave her a playful shove. "You used to be a lot more vocal. So seriously, what's going on? Don't leave me out on a limb here."

"I told you, it's nothing..."

Her friend sighed, voice taking on a teasing note.

"Aww, you suck. I'll have to force you tell me - but some other day; this is my street. See you tomorrow, Win. Don't get stalked home!"

Winry offered a lopsided half-smile and shrugged, waving at Paninya as she turned to depart into her neighborhood. The young Rockbell woman continued down the street, somewhat satisfied with how early she would be arriving home for once. Even in her robotic state, she was blissfully unaware that Paninya's last parting sentence was one that was more easily said than done. Without noticing, Winry passed a young man who couldn't be a few days earlier than twenty-four, and was completely oblivious as he began to follow, eyes (they were green in color, and slightly wild) trained on her every movement. He stopped once they reached her neighborhood, and departed in the opposite direction. Winry wouldn't recall anything, not the way his walk was a bit of a swagger, his unkempt appearance, and the way he kept mumbling to himself as he walked off, glancing back at her every few seconds as if to confirm something.

She remembered none of it, only wondering approximately how long it might take for her to finish the homework that she had been assigned for that evening. It was clear that their Mustang-sensei was just as reluctant as to begin grading more papers as the students were to actually complete the assignments. Exhaling loudly as she reached the front door to the apartment, Winry smoothed down her skirt and resurrected her iron-grip on her composure, before inserting the key and slowly opening the door.

Winry had just walked in when the unmistakable shattering of a plate violently entered her ears, her body stiffening in for once, unmasked surprise. Her blue eyes swiveled around the room to land on her grandmother, who was muttering something to herself as she carefully stepped over the remains of one of their ceramic plates, intending to make for the hall closet; where they kept the broom.

"Baa-chan," Winry said softly, trying not to seem too concerned. "Everything is fine?"

Pinako looked up at her in surprise, before nodding her head.

"Just call me Butterfingers-san from now on...that's the fifth plate in the last two weeks. Damn fingers..."

"Well...be careful," she murmured, beating her grandmother to the closet and handing her the broom. She muttered her thanks and began back towards the kitchen/living room to clear up the mess, leaving Winry to retreat to her room in hopes to distract herself with homework. She had just closed her bedroom door when a loud coughing fit issued from Pinako, but after a period of silence, she shrugged it off and began to study.

Several more days had passed, leaving Winry with a terrible feeling of foreboding, as if something disastrous had been set to occur. It was maddening not knowing what it was, or what to expect, and even worse that she had to pretend not to do so. It was getting harder and harder to resist the insistent pull of emotions, no matter how often she reminded herself the simplicity and "happiness" she found in being without concern, without regard to the world and people around her.

It had also recently dawned on her that she felt as though whenever she went outside, she was being watched. She ignored it in favor of assuming that it was merely her imagination, struggling to make a come back into her life, but she still felt a deep chill in her bones that wasn't from the unusually frigid October weather.

As she clambered onto her bike early one Friday morning, she shrugged off her subconscious uneasiness and began on the usual route to school, hoping the day would pass as smoothly and as dully as possible. She didn't want excitement in her life, it was just a nuisance. She spent the whole ride to the high school trying to convince herself of this, without even really realizing it.

The first person she laid eyes on when she walked through the doors was Alphonse, who looked quite exhausted. She sent him a questioning glance, which he did not see, so she merely shrugged and trailed along behind him until they reached their lockers. Winry wondered how Paninya would be holding up, if she even bothered to come to school that day. Ever since her friend's little "confession," both Alphonse and herself had looked more and more tired every day. Winry stiffened as she realized that she was feeling concerned again, and angrily shook her head to try and clear it. This failed to work, and, exhaling loudly, she entered her locker combination and opened it, setting herself to retrieve her English homework from her book bag and pull out her English binder from the locker's shelf. The chewed pencil (which was starting to look brittle; it had so many bite marks) was slipped into its usual place, and she shut the locker door.

It was suddenly loud in the narrow hallway, and it wasn't hard to find that the source of all the noise came from Edward Elric, who was arguing with a few other guys Winry thought she recognized from a few of the classes they shared. The arguing wasn't serious, although with their raised voices and "joking" shoves and elbowing, it seemed as though it just could be. Edward looked as though he were being mobbed, but by cheerful spectators, and even though he had a scowl on his face, it was clear that he was enjoying himself.

"Yup, he's turned out to be pretty popular," she mumbled, turning away before the risk of making eye-contact with him rose. It wasn't like she didn't like talking to him - he was a wonderful distraction, but often he could be too distracting. His appearance, for one. Recently, he had begun to look somewhat physically appearing to her. Even behind the school's uniform, Winry had begun to notice the subtle flexing of his muscles, even when he made casual movements. His face, for once unclouded by hate and mistrust, now seemed a tad kinder, more human. And as always, his golden hair and eyes never failed to present her with a god-like illusion of him on the occasion that they made eye contact while speaking.

Realizing how far her thoughts had drifted, Winry rubbed at her eyes in exasperation and set off for the classroom, intending to get there early enough so that she wouldn't have to deal with Edward Elric for another ten minutes or so.

The day passed slowly, for once in its usual, uneventful rut. She felt somewhat pleased at this, and was so out-of-it (as she preferred) that she nearly forgot to eat. Not that there was much left after Edward had eaten his "share," but Winry found she couldn't care. Or was it she didn't mind when it came to him, because...?

No, no, it was because she couldn't care.

And so the day ended dully, and Winry couldn't have felt more contented with this as she hoisted her book bag over her shoulder and closed her locker door and made her way outside, alone. It was with some dismay that she realized it had begun to rain, and not only was it raining; it was pouring. And once again, she found herself with out an umbrella. At the very least, she had a jacket this time, and quickly adjusting herself so that her book bag was beneath it, Winry clambered onto her wet bicycle and set for home, her head lowered against the chilling breeze as she went. At least the longest part of the day had gone as she wished; nothing out of the ordinary, everything dull and tedious. She could deal with that.

But little did Winry know that within the next thirty minutes or so of her life, things were going to change drastically.

Gah ha ha, some kind of lame cliff hanger. Yay! I'll update...when I can. :( With sncnhnononl right around the corner, it's going to get much harder to do so.