Speechless

Alphonse sighed, rolling over to lie down on his back, facing his bedroom ceiling. The images kept playing over and over in his head; a flashback repeating itself in his brain. The words were soft, echoes and echoes of whispers through his mind. He shut his eyes tight, just wanting to get away from such memories. They were recent memories, surely nothing to find important. But…her name. It kept repeating itself inside his head, making his memories its new home. They were all about one thing:
Raven.

Raven, Raven, Raven, Raven, Raven, Raven…

“Ugh!” he yelled, only to slap his hand over his mouth, realizing it was the middle of the night and he was supposed to be sleeping. Why was that girl so…weird? Alphonse looked hard at the ceiling, questioning his choice of words. Weird, he thought. Is she really weird? Or is it just me? He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to know the answer. There wasn’t much that was strange about her. In fact, he couldn’t even be sure about that. He barely knew her. He only just met her that afternoon! “Dammit!” he cursed, standing up from his bed and walking over to his window.

The door was then abruptly opened, and in walked Alphonse’s brother, not exactly looking in a good mood. “What is going on?” demanded Claude, glaring at his younger brother with irritation.
“
Uh-sorry,” said Alphonse, sitting back on his bed and looking down at the floor. “Couldn’t sleep. Go back to bed, I won’t wake you up again.”

Claude eyed him speculatively. “Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked.

Alphonse snorted bitterly. “Since when do youcare?” Alphonse shot back.

“Oh, come on, Al.” Claude sighed, clearly not in the mood to lecture him. “Stop being difficult.”

“Oh, well, excuse me for being ‘difficult.’”

“You know what? We’ll talk about this tomorrow, it’s too late for this now.” He turned to walk away when Alphonse said, “How about we don’t.” Claude said nothing and walked out of the room, quietly closing the door behind him.

“Know-at-all…” Alphonse muttered, before pulling his blanket over his head and going to sleep, however pointless it was.

The sun was the first intruder in his room of the day. Its light streamed down upon his uncovered face, letting him know it was morning and time for school. Alphonse dragged himself from his bed and headed first for the bathroom, his hand tucked between his legs. His hair was messy and it made him look homeless, though of course, just like all teenagers in the morning. As he walked out of the bathroom-emptied and teeth brushed-he heard someone in his room. Alphonse quietly looked at his second intruder of the day-and found himself staring. What was she doing here?

“Hey…” he said, uncomfortable.

“Good morning,” his mother said casually, as if what she was doing-rummaging through his underwear drawer in the morning-was normal.

Alphonse paused, looking back and forth from his door and his mother. Wondering if he should ask, or just ignore it and get ready for school. He decided to ignore it. He slowly walked towards the only exit to his room-and then she said, “Have you seen my keys?”

He looked back at her and said, “What?”

She sighed, taking a step back from the drawer and putting her hands on her hips. “My keys. I can’t find them anywhere.”

Alphonse blinked at her mother, thinking this was the most interesting-and disturbing-thing that has happened to him in the last years. With his mother. “And…why would they be in my-” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “In my underwear…drawer…”
“
I hid them there,” she said simply, going back to search of her keys within his underwear.

“Why… Excuse me, did you just say you hid your keys in my underwear?” He stared at her mother, thinking-and almost not believing-that his mother was acting like a complete stranger. Since when did she hide things in his room? And in his underwear?

“Yes…” she sighed, continuing her thorough search through his undergarments.

Alphonse found himself laughing. This person wasn’t his mother. “Why?”

His mother, finally catching on that her son was being extremely alarmed by her behavior, straightened up and explained. “Oh, your father’s sick-thought you should know that. He insists on going to work, and since his car is in repair and mine is the only one available, I decided to cut the access to my keys.” She stopped. Then chuckled, watching Alphonse’s expression more of a kindergarten kid than before. “I wanted to hide them somewhere he couldn’t find them.”

"And you couldn’t hide them in your underwear? In fact, why not just hide them in Claude’s?”

“Oh, are you kidding?” She laughed. “That’s the first place he’d look. Plus, your brother folds his underwear so it’d not be such a good hiding place…I thought.”

Alphonse laughed, then caught himself from bursting into hysterical laughter. Who folds their underwear? He shook his head slowly, and walked over to his drawer. Instead of having the “pleasure” of watching his mother keep touching his private things, he began to search for them instead. He quickly found them-for some reason, she only looked under the reds-and handed his mother the keys with a smug grin on his face.

She smiled, and kissed Alphonse on the forehead, before walking out of the room with a wondering look on her face that Alphonse already knew what it meant. “Why the reds?”