Best Friends and True Love
Chapter 2
Ed, Winry, and Vampire Teeth?
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Gay? How could she even suggest that I might be gay?!
I wondered that for what was maybe the hundredth time within the hour since she’d said that. We weren’t doing anything exciting, just hanging out by the big water fountain in the center of town.
It was a nice day. The sun was shining, the sky was clear, and there was a nice breeze. If somebody had said, “Hey Ed, how’s the weather over there?” then I’d reply, “Just fine, how about over there where you are?”
I looked over at Winry. She had her soft hand in the water, waving it around. She didn’t seem to notice me staring at her, so I just continued.
My gaze gradually moved up her arm and to her slender shoulder. From there, I gazed at the delicate skin of her neck.
From there…well, you don’t really need to think to hard to figure that out, right?!
I’d known her since I was thirteen. She was my best friend. She understood me better than anybody else, right?
She’d been there for me for so long.
If I were to try to come up with one single word to describe Winry Rockbell, what would it be? Beautiful, it’d definitely be the word beautiful.
It was unusually warm and the heat obviously getting to her since she’d started to sweat slightly.
I just couldn’t tear my gaze away from the dampness of her skin. She wiped her forehead with her dry hand and took the other out of the water.
“It’s hot out today. I mean, it’s nice weather, just hot, though. Do you want to go somewhere else?”
“Hmm?” I asked, not really paying attention to her words. She’d started to look at me and that was when I snapped out of it and looked away, not really wanting her to catch me staring.
“Ed, are you okay?” she asked.
I laughed nervously.
“Yep, I’m fine, just fine. No need to worry about me!”
She looked at me suspiciously before shrugging and putting her hand on my forehead, the wet hand.
It was cool against my heated skin, soothing. Even her hand was beautiful.
“So do you want to?” she asked.
“Want to what?”
She sighed.
“I knew it. You weren’t listening before. I asked you if you wanted to go somewhere else since it’s so hot here. Just look at us, we’re both sweating.”
I nodded faintly. I still didn’t really hear what she was saying, but I responded anyway.
She stood up and grabbed my hand, dragging me away from that place. We ended up in an arcade, which thankfully, had air conditioning.
After beating her for the fifteenth time at a fighting game, I grabbed the tickets I’d won.
“No fair Ed. You must be cheating every time. Nobody can beat me that many times like that.”
I smiled.
“You’re right Win, nobody can except for me.”
She pouted and looked away.
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll take the tickets I won by beating you and get you a prize.”
She seemed to agree to that and followed me to the counter. She looked at the prizes under the glass and for some strange reason she selected the plastic vampire teeth.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yep,” she replied.
I shrugged before telling the woman behind the counter to get the teeth.
She giggled as I placed them in her hand and gave the woman the tickets.
“Here I,” she said as she put the teeth up to my mouth. “I wanted these so that you could wear them.”
“What? Oh hell no,” I replied as I pushed them away.
She grinned.
“Oh come on Ed. I think that a guy with fangs is hot. You never know…maybe they’ll help you get a girlfriend.”
I blushed before glaring at her.
She offered me the teeth again.
“Please? For me?” she said.
How could I say no to that face?
Sighing, I grabbed the teeth and stuck them in my mouth. She clapped happily before flashing me that victorious grin of hers.
I didn’t want help finding a girlfriend. I could get one easily if I wanted to, but I didn’t. The only girl I wanted, I couldn’t have, right? And she had no clue about how I felt about her.
The first thing I thought about Winry Rockbell the first time I saw her through that window was that she was pretty.
But pretty had one day turned into beautiful.
I didn’t know when it happened, but I’d fallen in love with her, with Winry. She was the only girlfriend I wanted and she didn’t know it.
And she might not ever know…
I thought I looked ridiculous with the fake teeth in my mouth and they irritated my real teeth.
“This sucks,” I said gloomily as I readjusted the wretched plastic.
She shocked me when she grabbed the teeth out of my mouth and stuck them into her own.
“That can’t be sanitary. Now all of my spit is in your mouth,” I said quickly.
She shrugged.
“You brush your teeth, you floss, you have no girlfriend so you haven’t been kissing anybody, and your mouth hasn’t been any other place that it shouldn’t be so what do I have to worry about? Besides, if this grosses you out, then what will you do when you get married?”
I rolled my eyes.
“I could get kissed if I wanted to,” I said defensively. “And what do you mean my mouth hasn’t been any places that it shouldn’t?”
This time she rolled her eyes.
“Just use your imagination, buddy,” she told me.
I raised my eyebrows and looked away.
Sometimes she said the strangest, most disturbing things to me that I doubted she would say to anybody else.
“So,” she began. “How do they look?”
She smiled with the teeth.
I thought she looked just as ridiculous as I had, but even so, she still looked beautiful.
“Weird, you look weird,” I told her with a grin.
She hit my arm lightly and walked ahead of me, poking her head out of the door and looking down the street.
As we stepped out onto the street, an old couple that was passing by said “Oh what a cute young couple. They look perfect together.”
I had immediately blushed. I didn’t get the chance to see if Winry was blushing too since I immediately looked in the opposite direction!
Couple? Did they look like a couple? And not only that, but we looked perfect together? I wished that was true.
We avoided looking at each other as we walked down the street. I’d done my best to avoid the local hardware shop, but to no avail.
Winry was stronger than she looked and even though I was stronger than her and could have easily resisted, I let her drag me inside.
The store’s owner, Pinako Rockbell, greeted us as we entered.
“Winry and Ed. Out again today, are you?”
“Hi grandma,” Winry said as she stepped up to the counter.
“I see you got rid of the stool. Nice stairs,” I teased.
Pinako glared at me. She’d been standing on a stool so that she could see above the counter. But that wasn’t convenient enough so she’d had some stairs installed instead.
“Keep it up Ed and I’ll have to knock you back down to your old height,” she said as she picked up the wrench she had sitting on display in front of the window.
Winry knocked me lightly on the arm and grabbed the wrench out of her hand.
“Speaking of this,” Winry said as she examined the item. “I saw this in the window and this is why I came inside! How about giving your one and only granddaughter an early birthday present?”
Pinako had an amused look on her face as she laughed at Winry.
“I don’t think so, kid. Buy something or else get out, just like all my other customers.”
“Please grandma? Just this once? I absolutely must have this! It’s so shiny and pretty, yet strong and reliable at the same time!”
Pinako shook her head.
“Sorry. No can do.”
Winry turned toward me, her last resort, with fake tears in her eyes.
“Don’t cry to me. I’m not buying it for you,” I told her with a stern expression on my face.
“But Eddie!” she cried as she put on her version of the “sad puppy dog face”.
‘Eddie?’ I thought. ‘Damn, she’s using that puppy dog face again….’
“I’ll love you forever,” she said as she continued to make that face.
I sighed and hung my head low before nodding.
‘If only you would love me forever,’ I thought as I pulled out my wallet and handed over the money. ‘Especially since she asked me for the most expensive on in the whole store…’
“Yay!” Winry said as Pinako stuck the money in the cash register. “You’re the best Ed.”
“Yeah, I better be after what you just cost me,” I said with a scowl on my face, the same scowl I’d been wearing the day we met.
“Don’t scowl. You wouldn’t like it if that look got stuck on your face, would you?”
“Ah, what the hell, I’m over it. Lets just go now,” I said as I grabbed her hand and left the store.
We reached her house and were standing at the front door of the Rockbell residence.
“It’s the last day of my weekend and I just got dragged all around town and cheated out of a chunk of my money,” I complained.
Winry rolled her eyes and then turned around to face me.
“But Ed,” she said in a soft tone. “Wasn’t it worth it to see me happy?”
She smiled at me before she opened the door and disappeared behind it, closing it in my face.
“That smile of hers made it worth it,” I whispered to myself before I cut across the lawn and went straight to my house.
Closing the door behind me, I was walking by the living room when I heard my father’s voice.
“That you Ed?” Hohenheim asked from his seat on the couch.
I entered the room and stood in the doorway.
“Nope, it’s just some random guy off of the street that looks like me,” I joked.
Hohenheim had to work a lot of the time, but he always made time for his family it seemed.
I sat down next to him and thanked the heavens for whoever it was that invented the air conditioner.
“It’s hot out there today, isn’t it?” Hohenheim asked as he changed the channel on the television.
“Yeah. And the fact that Winry pulled me all the way around town all day didn’t make it any less hot. Plus, she ended up making me spend half the money in my wallet on her, all for a stupid wrench.”
Hohenheim laughed.
“She made you spend the money? Yeah, sure” he said sarcastically. “You just couldn’t resist her woman charms, could you?”
“What?!” I said quickly. “What “womanly charms”?”
Dad gave me a look that accused me of playing dumb.
“Oh come on Ed. Winry’s grown up. I’ve noticed, you’ve noticed, everybody’s noticed. So what did she do? Give you a kiss on the cheek…or…something more?”
I took a cushion off of the couch and threw it at his head and headed toward the door.
“No! She didn’t…we didn’t…uh, I am not discussing this with you. Get your mind out of the gutter dad.”
“You’re not a kid anymore Ed. Trisha and I never know what you’re up to,” he called behind me as I hurried upstairs. “When I was your age, I…”
I didn’t get the chance to hear the rest of his sentence since I slammed my door shut behind me, effectively ending the conversation.
