Genkai-chan: This is a slightly different take on Hughes and Roy and Maes's death. Review please!
Well, we all know whenever Hughes brings up finding a wife to Roy, Roy gets so mad he hangs up, but what happens when Roy gets to the bottom of things?
Roy Mustang is a very proud man, he is in the Military, he's a Colonel at age 29 and he can use Fire alchemy with just a snap of his fingers. Not much gets to Mustang, he dates many women and teases some of his friends. All in all Mustang has a pretty good life, well with the exception of a certain War, but we won't go there today...
Ring...riiing...rinnng...ring...ring...
"Hello?" Second Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye asked after picking up the phone. "Yes, I will...alright, Sir." Hawkeye sighed handing the phone to Roy Mustang who was tapping his pen on his desk. There was no need for words here, just the usual.
"Heya, Roy, did Riza get to the phone before you did?" Maes Hughes asked in a high pitched voice. For someone who works in investigations, he asks stupid questions. Or maybe he just wants to talk to his best buddy more.
"Get to the point." Mustang growled, this was the fifth time in the last hour that Maes called Roy, tying up the line and wasting both their time at work.
"Aww, where's the, 'Oh hi Maes, how are you?'" Hughes pouted, sounding like a child. Really, did Maes Hughes have reasons for calling Roy Mustang like this every chance he got to sneak to the phone?
"Now." Roy glared, his bare hand gripping the phone tighter with every second his friend spent being stupid.
"Oh, alright. You're no fun." Maes gave up for now on annoying Mustang. Yes as a matter of fact, Maes did have reasons for his actions.
"Hughes..." Roy started, he wanted to get to the bottom of this, now.
"Oh! Roy guess what?" Maes said, cutting in. Maes Hughes did seem like such a happy and peppy guy, but deep down...
"..." Roy Mustang, dared not encourage then man on the other line, no way.
"Well I saw this friend of Garcia's and I think you and her would be a great husband and wife-" Maes paused, waiting for Roy to yell and slam the phone down, causing Hawkeye to shoot at the Colonel, but...
"Hughes..." Roy sighed, poor guy, he is at the end of his rope, if it even started that is.
"Oh you're still there? Usually you hang up by now." Maes blinked and his olive eyes traveled to the phone, his attention now fully on his friend.
"Yes I am! Now tell me something..." Mustang said, so calmly it was a bit frightening, even Hawkeye stopped her work, she knew the Colonel should've been off by now...
"Yeees?" Maes sang, smiling. What an odd fellow, that Hughes...
"Why?" Roy muttered looking down at his desk, his black eyes starting hard at his papers.
"Why, what?" Maes urged, this is a surprise for their usual antics, Maes couldn't help but be interested now.
"Why the hell do you keep calling? Why you do want me to find a wife? Why do you always talk about your family? Why, why, why!" Roy said loudly, Roy Mustang wanted to know why...
"Kokoro." Maes said and hung up, just as if Roy would. Maes's only answer to Roy's many questions; Kokoro, it means heart.
"Koko- Maes? Maes? Hughes! Are you there? Why did you hang up?" He asked and looked at the phone and set it back in the receiver. He'll call back, he always does...
Maes Hughes didn't call back at all the rest of the day, or the rest of that week. Mustang found out from Alex Armstrong that Edward and Alphonse were with Maes Hughes in Central. Roy tried to call Hughes. But Maes never answered, he was always told Hughes was busy or something, but Mustang knew better. He also learned that Maes wouldn't always call back...
Roy had had enough, he got on a train to Central with Hawkeye, and he was going to talk to Maes Hughes.
When Roy reached Central, the news hit him, hit him hard. Hard as anything you can think of really...
Roy Mustang was a proud man, proud to say that Brigadier General Maes Hughes was his best friend, and maybe only the one.
Mustang stood in front of Maes's grave, "It's been eight long years...since I head you..." Roy spoke, ever since Hughes died in action and the killer most likely got away, ever since Hughes uttered the answer, Roy kept thinking...
"Kokoro...heart, soul, spirit...what do you mean...?" Roy muttered running a smooth hand through his hair, it was getting thinner now that he was thirty-seven. Wow, thirty-seven, Roy didn't think he'd be that young to even think about death, let alone witness it.
Roy took out a photo of him and Maes when they were maybe, twenty-two...
An envelope fell out of Roy's coat pocket, 'To Roy. M' it read.
Roy Mustang opened it and reread it out loud, as if to comprehend it more in the company of Hughes him self.
It was dated the day Roy asked Maes why everything was, the way it was...
"Dear Roy, I hung up on you because you have all the fun. Kokoro means heart, or something like it...Anyway, I guess I should answer your questions fully now that I have my phone privileges taken away for the next year. Can they do that? What if there's an emergency? Or I gotta talk to you? Oh well I'll get on with something you can read without killing the letter. I keep calling so, you won't forget me. I mean, I'm getting closer to something secret in the Military and I don't know what'll happen. I know we're friends, but, ah, you'll understand when you're older. Okay, why do I want you to have good wife? Well easy, so there's someone else to get on your case about health, no not just that. It's so you have someone else in your life, duh! And lastly, I talk about my family so they aren't forgotten Roy, follow the clues I left behind, okay? Okay! Well I better go, it's Meatloaf Monday and I need my food, though it isn't even comparable to Garcia's food. Later Roy." Roy ended the letter, he had to laugh, he was imagining Maes writing the letter, talking to him self, being Maes...
Roy looked at the letter in his hands, he folded it neatly, and back into his pocket it went. Roy learned, that Maes wouldn't always call back like he used to, no more jokes, or one liner's about getting a wife, or going easy on Edward…
Times has passed, eight year since the death of his friend but now, but now he understood…
What Maes Hughes did, had reason to it, you just had to see the kokoro in it...
Genkai: Review and I'll make more like these.