The Bloody Alchemist

Trying To Change Your Mind (And Failing Miserably)

        The sun had set right after Cecelia had gotten on the train. She was glaring out the window into the darkness, fuming silently. Across from her, sitting with his legs crossed widely, taking up the entire seat, was Greed.

He cleared his throat loudly, Cecelia didn't even spare him a glance. "Alright," he finally said. "I think we got off on the wrong foot. Let's start over." He held out his hand for Cecelia to shake. "My name is Greed, it's a pleasure to meet you."

Cecelia stared blankly at his hand but kept her hands firmly crossed on her chest.

"Conversations are a two-way street," Greed joked. "Give me something here."

"Why are you even bothering with this?" Cecelia finally opened her mouth.

"With what?"

"Trying to build some kind of relationship here," Cecelia hissed.

"Because you seem to hate me, which is impossible since I'm such a great guy"

"A great guy who is working with a group of people who were responsible for the near genocide of a whole race of people."

Greed pressed his lips together and averted his eyes out the window. "You got me there."

They fell back into silence. Greed rolled his head back on his shoulders and stared up at the roof. Cecelia defiantly kept her head turned out the window. But occasionally she stole a glance at Ling's body. Greed sat nothing like Ling. His legs were spread across the seat and his arms stretched across the back of the seat, not only taking up his two-seater, but also somehow managing to take up the seat behind him with his arms on the back of the seat.

Greed boredly blew air out of his mouth. Feeling eyes on him he took a peak at Cecelia, catching her staring. Cecelia averted her eyes as Greed bemused, "You say you hate me but you can't keep your eyes off my gorgeous good looks."

Cecelia scoffed. "You mean Ling's good looks."

"So you admit I'm hot!" He jeered.

"I did not!" Cecelia quickly defended. "I just meant that-"

"So you and the prince were like a thing right?" Greed interrupted.

"What? No, we were not!"

"Oh my god of course you were. After he sent his little note to that Lan Fan girl he kept asking 'Where's Cecelia? How is she?' sounded like a lovesick puppy." Greed's eyes shot down to his left as if listening to someone behind him, despite no one talking. "And he says you feel the same. Said you cried on him and everything. A date too, how romantic." A condescending smirk spread across his face, but Cecelia's face started to fall. "If you need a shoulder, I promise I'll feel the same. If not better."

"He can still talk?" Cecelia quickly hopped on his language. "You can hear Ling and everything?"

"Huh?" Greed asked before catching up with the girl. "Yeah, the kid's pretty damn hard to ignore."

"Well tell him to keep his mouth shut about me," Cecelia growled.

"He can hear you," Greed explained. He pointed to his ear and said, "Leads to the same place, honey."

"So he can hear everything, and he is still able to keep himself composed?" Cecelia asked mainly to herself, but Greed confirmed with a nod, slightly annoyed that she cared to talk more about the bratty prince and not him.

She quickly dug out her notebook from her bag and started to jot down her thoughts in (almost purposefully) messy handwriting. Greed quickly took interest in her sudden silence and started to lean forward trying to see what she was writing, almost unable to decipher her handwriting.

Ling's voice rang in his head. "Possible to keep individuality... cause?" He was trying to read it to himself but Greed repeated what he said to Cecelia, if not to get her to translate then to get in her head.

"What?" Cecelia asked, looking up and seeing how close he was to her face. She quickly leaned back and tilted her book away from him. Not many people could decode her chicken scratch. "You can read my handwriting?"

"Obviously," Greed nonchalantly lied. Ling called him out in his head but Greed ignored the boy. "What are you writing?"

Cecelia quickly erased what she had written then started over. "Nothing."

Cecelia stuck her nose back into her notebook and started from the top. Greed watched her sink into her work. He found himself admiring how her eyebrows furrowed the more she wrote, biting the inside of her lip, never lifting her pencil from the paper. And when she started to scribble on the page she was writing on his curiosity was peaked. He stretched his neck to try and see over her page and Cecelia was so deep in her work that she didn't even notice. He could see a drawing of a symbol that he didn't recognize, but as she added more detail it looked less like a symbol and more like a messy rose.

"What's she doing?" Greed asked Ling inside his head, but Ling refused to answer, clearly taking Cecelia's warning to heart. "Whatever" he tsked to himself. He could read her handwriting if it was right side up. He stood quietly and watched Cecelia, still ignoring his presence, so much so that she didn't notice him stand. He stuffed his hands into his pockets then walked to the seat behind her. He was lucky that so few people wanted the midnight ride back to central. They were the only ones in this car. Once in the other seat he leaned over the seat and craned his neck for a better view. This close to her he could smell the lavender-scented body wash she used

"Color changes in roses... identifiable by...specifics?" Greed read to Ling who scoffed at his translation. "What? Jealous that I can read her writing as you can? It's not that hard."

"It says species," Ling corrected sassily. "And you need to get away from her Greed!"

"So jealous. Never got this close, did you? And no way that says species. There are like six other letters in that. But thanks for the help buddy," Greed smirked to himself as Ling's soul smacked his forehead.

"So what you like, talk about flowers as a code?" Greed murmured into Cecelia's ear.

The girl screamed and jumped from her seat. So he's just as sneaky as Ling Cecelia thought to herself. "Ling told you that didn't he?"

"No, you did," Green snickered. "Just now."

Cecelia pressed her tongue to the side of her mouth. "You're a bastard, you know that."

"What are you going to do about it?" Greed challenged.

Cecelia shook her head. He looked so different, but that face, his eyes, his mouth, his lips... It was all still Ling's. "Stay away from me." She turned to leave the car, to find one populated by other people.

Greed grabbed hold of her wrist. "Come on little lady, don't go anywhere, we're having fun." Cecelia whipped around and reeled her fist back, but hesitated once again when she came face to face with Ling. "What's the matter...? Oh, I get it, you really do like the prince's pretty face. Can't harm someone you wuve huh?" His tone was mocking and infuriating. "You know that's the exact way that my Father and my siblings are going to control you."

Cecelia grit her teeth then pulled away again. When Greed didn't let go she kicked into his ribs, immediately forcing Greed to let go of her hand. Greed tumbled backward, almost falling to the ground but steadying himself on the empty seats. Greed looked up at her with a fire in his eyes and a smile that poorly hid how annoyed he was. "Thanks for that reminder Greed. You're right, you're not the man I love. You're just a monster in his skin." Cecelia turned her back and stormed to the next car, her heart pounding in her ears.

Did she just admit that she loved Ling Yao?

Sorry, this is short but I wanted to get something out.

IM ALIVE just suffering.

See you soon