Brief
Commentary:
Sorry for
taking so long to update; severe case of writers block, ahoy! After
Winry had at last collided with our beloved Eddo, and decided that
he's an ass, I sat there with a bemused expression on my face and
thought to myself 'Well…that's nice. Now what?' Eventually I
wrote a couple more pieces to get my creative juices flowing, and
hopefully this chapter will be a successful production of that.
Please review, ne!
Reasons
Not For Your Ears
Chapter Five
The following week Winry remained grouchy and irritable from her encounter with Edward. Part of her was disappointed with how the both of them had behaved, while she was also scolding herself for thinking that Edward would be some kind of charmer that would sweep her off her feet and carry her off into the night for a romantic evening. But she was also upset with his actual personality; he had lashed out at her for absolutely no reason what-so-ever and dumped her on the street like an expired piece of meat. On top of that, the guy smoked! Well, so did her grandmother, but that was entirely different.
The
Rockbell's behavior did not go unnoticed by the ever nosy Paninya, who was by far
more observant than Alphonse was when it came to women. So without
any hesitation at all, during their lunch period in the middle of the
day (this was Thursday, so they had a later lunch schedule due to
block days), she plunked herself down next to Winry, pausing to take
a bite out of her chicken sandwich, before asking,
"What the
hell's the matter with you?"
Well, to be more accurate, it
sounded like this:
"Whuh tha hull'samahher wi'oo?"
Winry stared at her as if she had just turned into a pig, sprouted demonic wings, and begun to fly in circles above the heads of the other students.
"…What?"
Swallowing, Paninya repeated herself.
"It's
nothing," Winry scowled.
"That ain't 'nothing,' Win,"
the dark skinned girl leaned back in her seat and glanced at her
through hooded eyes, passively observing her friend's tense body.
"You look like you're standing in front of a monster truck doing
eighty with your hands and legs bound together."
Winry
rolled her eyes at her friend and moodily picked at the salad she had
in front of her.
"Just tell me, Win; you know I don't like begging," Paninya whined, pouting her lower lip in a fruitless request for pity. "Pleeeeeease? It might make you feel better."
"Aw, shut up," she tore the wrapper on her straw and blew the remainder of the paper encasement into her friend's face. Paninya brushed it away and tried out her 'puppy dog' eyes, leaning forward to remain face to face with Winry. Her 'puppy dog' eyes in actuality made her resemble a cranky seven year old who was trying to goad an ever firm mother into lending them coins for a gum-ball machine, and a seven year old who would complain loudly if they got the color they didn't want, at that.
"Alright, fine," Winry pursed her lips in irritation, before she described the events that had occurred the week before, and how she had seen him the first time, not missing the sudden widening of Paninya's eyes as she mentioned the boy's name.
"And what's really pissing me off is that I asked his last name and he just yells at me and throws me to the ground like some...ugh, I don't know! He was a complete asshole!" she growled, folding her arms over her chest. Paninya glanced at her in slight surprise.
"You don't know who he is?"
"No; no one's bothered to tell me," Winry said testily, glaring at her friend. The dark skinned girl allowed her eyes to casually roam around, landing on surrounding students who were immersed in their own conversations. After she had made sure no one would be eavesdropping, she leaned forward and whispered,
"He's Al's older brother."
Paninya very nearly laughed at Winry's stunned face.
"W-what?"
"Al's 'big bro;' his 'Nii-san,' or his 'Onii-san.' Elder sibling...you getting this?" she snapped her fingers in her face for emphasis. Winry scowled at her and smacked her hand away.
"I get that, but Al never told me that when I asked him about Edward the first time," the blonde-haired girl hissed at her. Paninya shot her an appalled look.
"You asked Al about him?"
"...yeah...what's wrong with that?"
"Win, those two hate each other. They see each other, they fight. Everybody knows that!"
"Well, I didn't. Did every one just assume a person who hasn't lived here her whole life would automatically catch on as soon as she moved in? Do they have it on the town's leaflet or something and I just missed it? God damn it, Paninya, I'm not fucking psychic!" Winry fumed, Paninya taking special care to move several inches away, in order to avoid any violent physical contact that her friend might bestow on her. The blonde girl continued to rant privately to herself for the remainder of the lunch period, while her friend preferred to quietly sip at her orange juice and pretend she was deaf to any explicit words that rolled off of Winry's tongue.
"Baa-chan, I'm ho - oh, hi, Baa-chan," Winry had swung open the front door only to find her grandmother standing there, the usual pipe in hand, as if waiting for her. Smiling slightly, she slipped past,
"Well, I'm home!"
"Winry."
She froze at the bottom of the stairs, shoulders tense. Her grandmother generally didn't use such a bland tone unless she wanted to speak to her.
"...yes, Baa-chan?" Winry turned to look at her with a forced grin.
"You've been in a mood all week," Pinako raised her eyebrows at her granddaughter. "And I know it wasn't your monthly."
She blushed slightly and looked away.
"Uh, well, it was just...things at school. Yeah, that's it."
The elderly Rockbell woman sighed, the pipe in her mouth bobbing up and down with the movement of her lips.
"Stop lying to me, Winry. It's not like you to mope around all week. Did what ever boy this was do something so awful you have to be upset about it for so long?"
Winry stared at her, her face slowly turning red.
"B-boy? H-how did you...I don't have any trouble with boys!"
Pinako chuckled and gave her granddaughter a disbelieving glance.
"How long do you think I've been around? Your mother always had the same kind of expression on her face whenever she had bantered with your father. You were just unfortunate enough to inherit that look."
She said nothing in response, choosing to stare carefully at her feet. Eventually her grandmother let out a sigh, and motioned towards the two seats surrounding the small kitchen table. Winry fidgeted nervously as she sat down; it was embarrassing enough to have to sit down with her grandmother to talk about 'boy troubles,' but even more so because Pinako was currently giving her a stern look that signaled she was in interrogation mode. And Winry had a gut feeling that she wouldn't get off of this one easily.
"Name."
"Edward...Elric."
"Hair color."
"Gold."
"Eye color."
"Gold."
"Strange. Skin tone?"
"...tan, I guess."
"Age?"
"...a year older than me?"
"Status."
"Baa-chaaaan!"
"Status, Winry."
Here she huffed.
"Single."
"Family."
"..."
"Winry. Family?"
"He hates his brother, his mother is dead, his father doesn't look after him, and he's supposed to live with a guardian."
"Supposed to?"
"He wanders the streets."
Pinako stood abruptly and said with a loud voice,
"No."
"I wasn't even interested in him in the first place!" Winry glared at her grandmother. "I've seen him around a few times, and he was really rude when I tried to talk about him. That's all, okay?"
She looked her over studiously, before turning her head slightly.
"Rude? How?"
"He...well, he smoked..."
"I smoke, Winry."
"Yeah, but it was cigarettes!"
There was an audible sigh, Pinako choosing to wave her hand and mutter a 'Continue.'
"I asked him for his name, and he asked me for mine first, but when I wasn't even finished talking, he started to walk away. He grabbed my wrist because I accidentally ran into him when I was trying to get his name out of him, and it had a bad bruise for three days! Then when I asked him for his last name, because I had given him mine, he threw me to the ground and ran away!" Winry pouted and unconsciously began to finger said wrist, although by now there was no sign of a bruise.
"All right," Pinako chewed on her pipe for a moment before nodding to signal Winry's dismisal. "Go on ahead upstairs Winry. Just don't wake up tomorrow in a dirty mood; this Edward, I'm sure will be easy to forget about if you just avoid each other."
"Right," Winry quickly stood up and brushed invisible dust from her uniform, before picking up her school bag and racing up the stairs, eager to escape the confinements of the kitchen table. With a sigh, Pinako stood also, a humble smile on her aged lips.
"Kids these days..."
Aww, no Mustang-sensei in this one. :( Oh well. Maybe the next chapter.
