Edward groaned quietly to himself, slouching in his seat. And here he was, looking forward to a science lesson. Really, he should have expected the lesson standards to be Elementary level. Because really, it should common knowledge that the chemical formula of Pyrite is FeS2 [A/N Can't write it properly here.], that most of the chemical symbols in the Perodic Table are derived from the Latin versions of the Elements, and how refraction of light works.
Really, those were too simple. Basic stuff, that's what was being taught. Edward tried his best to resist the powerful urge to just crack open his bastard of a father's notes, because even though he hated the man, he had to admit that Hohenheim's notes were actually reliable and good.
But, it was his fault that Edward and Alphonse were in this whole situation in the first place. Damn that man, and his stupid-!
"Mr Heiderich!"
Edward's mental curses were abruptly cut off by Mustang calling him by his fake name, and he looked up, slightly startled.
"If you are so bored, why don't you solve the question?" Mustang smirked, tapping on the black board where a science equation was written out.
A collective murmur of sympathy rose up for the new student. They all knew that whoever failed to pay attention in class, and answered a question wrong, were doomed to spend the afternoon helping their lazy excuse of a teacher grade assignments. Anyone who had gone through that had vowed never to daydream in class ever again, just so that they could avoid that torture. There was even a rumor that someone ended up in therapy after one such session.
However, no one could have expected this.
Edward blinked, giving himself a moment to read the equation, before pushing himself off his seat and moving to the front of the blackboard and taking the chalk from Mustang, before he quickly scrawled out the answer in record time.
Mustang's eyes widened slightly, before returning to normal. "Alright, you may sit down. Don't daydream in my class again."
The whispers started up again, only this time, those whispers held respect or admiration for the small blonde who had successfully showed up their teacher. The only problem was that half of these whispers belonged to certain category of females.
Meanwhile, Mustang's brain was working at amazing speeds that would make a Ferrari's top speed seem dull in comparison.
The reason? Quite simple, really.
Mustang had given Edward the hardest university standard question he could come up with, but the blonde had solved it in no time at all, barely reacting to it, as if Mustang had only given an elementary standard question. Any normal fifteen year old student would have taken just one glance at the question, before proclaiming that a few brain cells had died.
Mustang had only known two people capable of such a feat in record time before this.
But it was funny how the two people were father and son.
The father, however, had left years ago and hadn't been heard from since. His son disappeared with his brother four years ago, and like his father, he hasn't been seen since.
The father was a well renowned chemist in his field, and the last time Mustang had heard from him, he was in the middle of some sort top secret research. And Mustang would know, since he himself was a former chemist who aided him in the first stage of research, before he left and took up a teaching position. But they had already became close friends despite the age difference and they kept in touch, until ten years ago.
Mustang always did wonder, where had Hohenheim and his sons, his godsons, had gone?
LINE BREAK
Edward stomped out of the classroom, his brains crying in agony at being fed such novice information. He was itching to actually use his brain for something actually worth his time, but unforetunately for him, it had appeared that he wasn't going to do anything remotely brain twisting by his standards anytime soon, as long as he stayed in school.
See? This one reason why he and Alphonse had dropped out when they were six. School taught things far too slowly, and the only thing it did was hold them back from what he really should be doing.
Edward sighed, massaging his temples. He probably wouldn't be able to hold a scientific conversation with anyone but Alphonse, considering how dumb everyone was, as seen during that one hour of science class. Really, Ed could see some students' eyes glazing over, some making airplanes, and some -meaning some females- were simply whispering and giggling, sending him glances.
Edward's first thought to that, was to stay far away from that particular group of females. They seemed as if they wanted to tear at Ed, and quite frankly, Edward liked his body intact, thank you very much.
Edward dragged his feet all the way to his locker to retrieve the second book of Hohemheim's research notes, Winry following closely behind, feeling utterly miserable. Why, oh why had he chosen to come here, of all places? Anywhere without those crazed females would be better.
Once he reached his locker, he reached out to unlock it, before grasping the handle and pulled, surprised to find the door jammed shut.
"What the-?!" Edward grunted as he planted his foot firmly on the side of his locker's door and tugged harder, but to no avail. Honestly, this couldn't get any worse, could it?
Normally, something like this would be a piece of cake to open, but since Ed came here to keep a low cover, he couldn't actually bust open the door via Elric style. Nope, too much attention.
"Ed?" Winry asked, trying to stop the smile that was creeping up her face. "Do you need any help?"
"No," Edward tugged harder. "I don- WAAAAUGH!"
With one final tug, the door burst open, practically flooding the front part of the hallway with colorful bits of paper, and almost drowned Ed in them. Literally.
"What the hell?!" Edward gasped as soon as he had unburied himself, picking out one small piece that had landed in his hair. "Who flooded my locker with freaking confetti?!"
By this point, most of the students in the hallway were staring. But, as always, Ed was oblivious to the jealous looks some of the male students were shooting him.
"Ed," Winry wheezed out, her laughing fit nowhere near ending anytime soon. "That isn't confetti."
"Wha?" Edward looked down at the piece of paper he held, to find that not only was it in the shape of a heart, it had some words written in cursive on it.
"Radiant as the sun, absolutely perfect- What the hell is this?!" Edward's eye twitched dangerously as he pulled yet another colorful paper out of his hair. "Is someone pranking me?!"
Winry, was by then on the floor, literally dying of laughter, and Edward wondered how she hadn't suffocated from not breathing.
No one did bother to explain to Edward what that was all about, though.
LINE BREAK
"Hey, bro- What happened to you?" Alphonse asked, taking in his brother disheveled appearance.
"Someone flooded my locker with so much freaking confetti!" Edward complained as he took a bite out of his ham sandwich, which had no cheese because of obvious reasons. Winry had been pulled away by her friends to help them out with a project, or something before they had reached the cafeteria, which was why Ed was on his own. "It took me forever to get that out of the way."
"I can see that," Alphonse remarked dryly, only noticing the colorful piece of paper that sat comfortably on Ed's shoulder.
"WHAT?! There's still more?!" Edward growled as he pulled it off and scrunched it up into a ball, ready to fling it over his shoulder, before Al stopped him by saying, "Let me see that, brother."
Edward grunted in acknowledgement, handing Alphonse the crumpled piece of paper which was then smoothened out on the table top.
Alphonse hadn't even made it past the first sentence, before he burst out into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. "Al! Not you too!" Edward complained. Really, what was so funny about that damn scrap of colorful paper? And why were they all shaped as hearts?!
"Brother," Alphonse managed between giggles. "These are love letters."
"WHAT?!" Edward spluttered and choked on his sandwich, thumping his chest to allow himself to breathe in precious air.
"Brother, you just gained a fan base. Honestly, brother. What did you do?"
"Nothing!" Edward protested, raising up his hands in defense. "Why do you think I would did something? Name one incident where I did something to attract attention unintentionally!"
"Germany, 1911. Xing, 1911. Drachma, 1912, and so many more I can't count on my fingers. Oh, and one that incident in Creta, 1913, where you-"
"Al, we said that we would never speak of that ever incident again!"
"Alright, brother." Alphonse smiled innocently.
Edward stuffed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth, brushing the crumbs off him. Checking his schedule, Ed groaned.
"Ugh, I've got History next."
"Brother, there's nothing wrong with that."
"Sure there is! Who the hell wants to listen to some old eccentric geezer ramble on and on about how some guy failed in soap manufacturing, which ended up in some bloody riot?" Edward ranted, waving his hands slightly for emphasis.
"Brother, I told you before. The Soapman incident was not caused by the failure of soap manufacturers." Alphonse sighed at his older brother's antics. His brother was good person, but he acted like a five year old at times. For a guy who didn't like being called little, he sure did act like a little kid.
LINE BREAK
Edward dragged his feet to his next class, sighing repeatedly. He vaguely recalled from somewhere that sighing would give people grey hairs, but quite frankly, he didn't care, and the with amount of stress he was constantly under, he wasn't going to get any grey hairs just by sighing.
He arrived at his class about three minutes early, which was already nearly full, and the only empty seat was right next to a -was that girl or boy?! Edward couldn't actually tell- person with dark greenish colored hair that stuck out in a fashion that reminded Ed of a palm tree.
Whoever he/she was, that person, whatever gender he/she had, was awfully familiar and quite frankly, Ed didn't think that it was a good thing.
Ed dumped his bag on the floor next to his desk, and slid onto the seat, surprising the other person who immediately looked up to see who sat next to him.
"All the other seats are taken." Ed grumbled as he pulled out his notes for reading, missing the way the the other's purple eyes widened slightly, before narrowing.
The lesson was as boring as Ed had feared. But mainly because the teacher, Mr Falman -Who wasn't an old eccentric geezer-, was teaching them about events that happened recently in the past five or so years. And Ed would know because he was there, and witnessed the whole damn civil war in Liore, where he and Alphose were hiding out just before they came to Central.
Huh, now that he thought about it, wasn't Winry's friend, Rose, from Liore? Ed couldn't remember, but that was what he heard Winry say.
Edward sighed quietly, for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. He truly wished that he could have helped out with stopping the riots in Liore, but two reasons prevented him from doing so. One, what can he do? He didn't have the ability to do anything. Ok, maybe he did, but that brought him to reason two. He could help using his clapping, risk having his location found out, therefore risking Alphonse, which he wasn't going to do in a million years.
Not then, not now and not ever.
LINE BREAK
"I'm exhausted." Ed complained to his younger brother as they trudged back to their small rented apartment. "That was easily one of the worst days of my life. And that was only the first day."
School had been a killer for Ed. Not because it was hard, but because it was too damn easy, as Ed had put it. If he wasn't so sure, he would have thought that his brain cells had died from the simplicity.
Honestly, and students call what they learn hard?! That's just sad.
"So, how was your day, brother?" Alphonse asked curiously, wanting to know what happened.
"It was terrible!" Edward groaned, running his fingers through his hair. "The lessons were too damn easy, my science teacher seemed like an arrogant prick with a ten foot pole shoved up his ass, my locker was flooded with love letters, as I told you, history was boring as hell, AND THE GIRLS WON'T STOP GIGGLING! Oh, and I saw Winry."
Alphonse laughed awkwardly. "Bad day?"
"You don't know the half of it."
Just then, the last part of Edward's rant registered in Al's head. "Wait, Winry?" Alphonse brightened up considerably at this. "How is she? We haven't seen her for four years!"
"She's still a Mechanic freak. She whacked me over the head with her damn wrench too!" Edward's head began to throb from the reunion he had with Winry's wrench. Ouch... That was his first indication that Winry hadn't changed one bit since his last meeting with her.
"Say, brother?"
Edward turned his head to his brother, his pace never changing. "Yeah?"
"Do you think we would ever be able to live a normal life, like Winry?"
Edward stopped cold in his tracks, his eyes tilted downwards, unimaginable emotional pain shining in his eyes. "I don't know, Al." Edward shook his head. "I don't know."
One day, the older brother made a discovery, and on that day, everything changed.
[A/N Ok, so I'm done with this chapter. And like my other story, I won't be able to update this for about two weeks, tops. Because damn it, exams! And my results are bad enough as they are. And I'm so sad I didn't get any reviews on the last chapter. Waaaah... Ahem, ignore that.
So, basically, I wouldn't call this a filler, but then again, I don't know what counts as a filler. And how do you like that interesting fact about Mustang I made?! Cool, huh? No? Anybody? Damn it.
So, yeah, no prizes for who Ed sat next to in History. It's pretty obvious that whenever an author describes someone as a palm tree in a FMA fanfiction, it's definitely Envy.
So, thanks for reading and please review! I'm still sad no bothered to do that for the previous chapter.
~Gwntan12]