CHAPTER FOUR: GOD TOLD ME TO BREAK THROUGH THE FABRIC OF REALITY SO THAT'S WHAT I'M DOING I GUESS
LIBRARY KID LORE COLLECTION
1. Sixteen, blonde hair and gold eyes (not contacts, he said it was hereditary?), european features
2. Approx 160cm (do NOT mention this in front of him)
3. Right hand (possibly entire arm) is malnourished and thin, but left hand and arm is well trained
4. Claims he received his hand back as a "gift from his brother" (i dont think anyone knows where to start with this so we are ignoring it)
5. Walks with a slight limp (legs with metal sheets? kicking is painfulstick to the FACTS)
6. Has the craziest appetite
7. RUDE! (please stick to the facts oh my god) (this is FACTUAL)
8. Prodigy
9. Researching interdimensional travel and multiverse
10. Was enrolled in the military prior to coming to Tokyo
11. "Working to go home" (DID HE EVER SAY HE ALREADY LEFT THE MILITARY), claiming it to be a "job from God"
12. Is not religious (has openly insulted God/"Truth" at least once a week)
13. Knows at least 4 languages (Japanese, English, German, Unknown Mystery Language)
14. Homeschooled since young
15. Has his own apartment
16. Zero online presence
17. Works out at the gym daily
18. Closed off about his personal life
19. Frequented the library so much he got kicked out
ryuji: Can someone send the link to the lore collection again
ryuji: I lost the link
futaba: t/i/n/y/u/r/l/dot/c/o/m (slash) lorecollectn
akira: wrong link
akira: t/i/n/y/u/r/l/dot/c/o/m (slash) reallorecollection
ann: i am going to burn your attic down
makoto: t/i/n/y/u/r/l/dot/c/o/m (slash) lorecollectionreal
ryuji: Thanks queen ur a real one
Ed has, for some reason, moved on from interdimensional books to drawing circles. A few worn journals lay flat on the booth table, and loose sheets lie in an arc around the teen.
Warily, Akira approaches Ed and watches as he free-hands the most jarringly accurate circle, then anonther one with precision, and starts filling in the gaps with strange symbols. "What's all this?"
Ed doesn't even pause to look at Akira. "Arrays."
"Arrays?"
Ed pauses as he stares at his circle, then gnaws on the end of his pen. "Trying to math my way into punching a hole through the fabric of reality."
Akira eyes a loose sheet filled with numbers and equations, scratched out and underlined and circled. "Huh."
Ed hums. He discards the circle he was working on, grabs a fresh sheet, and starts writing notes in that strange, unidentifiable language. It might be German, but some symbols don't look like anything even vaguely related to German.
"Good luck with that."
Ed waves a lazy hand in acknowledgement and this time Akira recognises it more as familiarity rather than rudeness. It's nice, he supposes, that Ed is comfortable in his surroundings. He remembers the way Ed first entered, eyes flickering over the doors and the stairs to the attic, seated in a way that he's always tilted to the exit.
Actually, the military background makes so much sense.
"I hope nothing blows up with whatever he's doing," Morgana mumbles from within Akira's bag. Akira is inclined to agree, despite not knowing how circles can lead to explosions. Ed does seem to have a destructive tendency regardless.
CURRENT BETTING POOL: 10000 YEN, 5 MEALS AT LEBLANC, 3 ART COMMISSIONS
AKIRA (5 LEBLANC MEALS, 1000 YEN): German ex-spy with lots of trauma, ran from a cult
ANN (1000 YEN): Time traveller from Germany
RYUJI (1000 YEN): The weirdest dude from Germany ever. That's all
FUTABA (1000 YEN): Time traveller from Germany, previously a spy from a cult
MAKOTO (1000 YEN): German exchange student with unfortunate trauma
YUSUKE (3 ART COMMISSIONS, 500 YEN): Interdimensional traveller on a godly mission
HARU (4500 YEN): German spy from a cult
In a flurry of first encounters with a certain Edward Elric and tier lists of that, Futaba's one undoubtedly tops the list.
You see, every other thief who has met Ed so far has had such plain, mild, almost boring encounters. Akira and Morgana bump into him outside the station. Ryuji works out with him at the gym. Ann spots him at Uniqlo picking out different shades of red jackets. Everyone else has yet to meet him.
(Though, she thinks Yusuke and Makoto's ones might come close to topping the list when they eventually meet him. Yusuke is… Yusuke, and Makoto is exactly the type of authority that clashes harshly with Ed's special brand of disrespect.)
For Futaba's encounter, she brings back the group chat an event that adds five lines of facts to the Edward Elric Lore Collection, shaves ten years off her life, and gives her a pounding headache for hours.
It starts off innocent enough: Sojiro is out for a grocery run, Akira is somewhere out in the city yapping to one of his twenty friends, and Futaba just ran out of coffee milk in the house.
Normally, she just texts Sojiro to pick up more for her and wait for his return, but she's craving so hard right now, the code isn't going to write itself without her coffee milk, and the closest establishment with her favourite brand available for her to drink now is Leblanc.
But Ed is currently working a shift there, and Futaba hesitates bolting out the door. There are no customers in the cafe — she knows this, she checked the bugs, and it's quiet save for the small hum of the television and the occasional flip of a page, which means Ed is reading.
Sure, she could just wait another day for her supply of coffee milk but there's also a part of her that's terribly, terribly curious about what the infamous Edward Elric is really like. Pictures and voices through bugs, stories through text and bizarre facts through wild tales from Akira — all these pieces build the picture of Edward Elric, but there are gaping holes everywhere. Futaba wants to see for herself and find the missing puzzle pieces. That's the danger in her curiosity, the very same curiosity that pushes her to leave her room, leave the house, and walk the short distance to the cafe.
She makes it to the entrance to Leblanc before her hand hesitates on the handle, heart pounding in her ears. Oh man, she's too nervous for this, she wants to swing the handle but she also doesn't, her mouth is dry and man, fuck the coffee milk she should go back home and wait for Sojiro instead, but also the coffee milk —
The door opens for her instead. Edward Elric stares at her, unblinking. "Can I help you?" he asks, gesturing inside the cafe. "You've been lingering outside for a while."
"Oh!" Futaba squeaks. Her eyes wander to a faint, thin scar above Ed's right eye. She forces her wooden legs to bring her into Leblanc and Ed heads back to the counter. "Coffee milk," she blurts out. At Ed's questioning look, she elaborates: "I ran out of coffee milk at home, and there's some in the fridge at the cafe, and I'm really craving for it, so —"
"You're Boss' daughter!" Ed says, and his eyes brighten in realisation. "Futaba-san, right? Boss and Akira have talked about you before."
Futaba doesn't know what to reply, so she just nods. Damn it, she wishes she brought her mask along. She's doing so much better now, but she feels too exposed at the moment. All she's done so far is stare at Ed and yap about coffee milk, and somehow he already figured out that she's Sojiro's little gremlin daughter. Maybe Sojiro told Ed about the coffee milk — he has to, otherwise, Ed might use up Futaba's special reserves of Oatside Coffee Milk (branded) for the customers.
"I'm Edward Elric, you can call me Ed," he says, as quick of an introduction as any. Wow, Ed privileges on the first meeting! That's better than Akira already, who needed five meetings just to upgrade from Elric to Ed. "You can sit down, I'll pour your coffee milk for you." Huh, Ed is really nice. He's nicer than every single one of Akira's encounters. Futaba is starting to think that Akira is completely demolishing Ed's niceness in his stories. The tension that locks her shoulders start easing out, and she relaxes, just a little bit.
Futaba obliges and settles on the seat closest to the television. "Use the green glass mug in the left cupboard," she says, stirring up her confidence in the wake of information that Ed likes Futaba more than Akira. It's not a high bar, considering that both of them are fairly annoying, but it pleases her nonetheless. "And don't pour the Meiji one! That one is for the customers. Oatside is just for me."
Ed nods approvingly as he reads the label on the carton. "Coffee-flavoured oat milk. Much better than cow milk."
That's a line to the lore collection, as little as it is. Is that why he's on the shorter side? Severe lack of nutrients and calcium? His bones are rock hard, though, if Akira's bizarre testimony was anything to go by. Serves him right for trying to kick Ed.
"That's a fancy cup," Ed comments, admiring the gorgeous Featherman print on her favourite green cup. The glass glimmers, shades of green catching light as Ed turns it in his hands.
"Of course!" she puffs up, unable to stop herself from gushing about Featherman, "It's a limited edition lottery-only Featherman R glass cup! They only gave out a thousand sets, and I like green the most, so I use it pretty often."
Ed sets the cup on the counter and pours a generous portion of coffee milk into it, so close to the rim that Futaba will have to be careful when drinking it later.
"Enjoy your coffee oat milk," he says, then picks up a book from who knows where and completely locks in. It's a thick volume, but the words on the cover are somehow a small enough font that Futaba can't read at first glance.
She leans forward to peer at the title, elbows tilted sideways, then, before she realises her mistake, her glorious, beautiful, very limited edition and very fragile glass cup tumbles to the floor. She doesn't see it shatter, but the sound echoes through the cafe and she can't bear herself to see the damage. She freezes in place.
"Ah shit," Ed mutters appropriately. There's probably coffee milk spilt all over his giant platform boots.
In slow motion, Futaba leans back into her seat and places her head in her hands. "My favourite cup… my darling Featherman cup," she bemoans, eyes closed and face tilted towards the ceiling. Oh, her luck (in obtaining the cups) and subsequent lack thereof (in breaking cups) is phenomenal.
There's a long length of silence from Ed, then she hears him shuffling as he places his book down, and bending down below the counter to assess the damage.
Then he murmurs, a strange conviction in his voice, "I don't think it's broken."
A sharp clap echoes in the cafe, and Futaba —
Futaba will always, always regret closing her eyes and looking away from the scene, because now there's an undamaged cup in Ed's hands, which doesn't make any sense at all because she heard it shatter.
"It's…" Futaba's throat closes, opens, and her words are strangled, though not for the reason Ed thinks. Yes, she's definitely happy and relieved that her cup is safe, but it doesn't make sense. "It's fine…?"
She heard it shatter. She remembers hearing the pieces scratch across the wooden floor, shattering along with her heart, and definitely, in no way, whole.
(She's shattered two, separate mugs before, on this same seat, on the same floor. Those mugs were ceramic and thicker than her beloved glass cup, and both ended up very shattered and very broken on the floor. The green glass cup only comes out on special occasions, like coffee milk.)
At this point, Futaba is questioning both her ears and her sanity.
The blonde teen smiles gleefully. He places the undamaged cup on the counter with a clink, a ring of oat milk forming on the table. "Yeah." He grimaces at the floor, still wet with spilt milk. "Not the floor though. I'll have to mop that up, but I need to clean myself up first. Don't move."
Futaba hums an acknowledgement and Ed moves to the bathroom, shoes squeaking with each step. She stares at the Featherman cup in all its glory, not a single hairline crack to be seen. Even the print is perfect, with not a fracture in its print despite the number of times it has been shoved in the dishwasher.
She leans over the counter to survey the damage. The milk is spread out most spectacularly, and Sojiro will definitely sigh at her when he finds out.
Then, in the corner of her eyes, she spots something shining that catches her breath: right under the cashier, a small, glimmering bit of green glass, of the exact shade as her cup.
This suggests several things, and blares many, many alarms in her head, because the only conclusion that Futaba can gain from this is that Ed somehow put her shattered glass cup back together.
Futaba has absolutely no idea where to start on the next entry to the lore collection.
A/N:
hi the links are real btw. ff dot net doesn't want links in the fic so u can type them in if you are curious why they react that way lmao. thanks for reading!