How Izumi and Sig Met

Author: MoonStarDutchess

Chapter 4: A Kiss and Confession.

Disclaimer: I don’t own FMA

A Kiss and Confession

The doctor whistled happily, as he made his way into the back door of the shop. As he suspected, Olaf was getting some supplies. His wife had insisted that most of the things be put back there in favor of the more expensive items being out front. Unfortunately, for her, the items that cost a lot never were sold. Nevertheless, the woman was stubborn and still insisted that people would buy them eventually.

“Hey Olaf,” the doctor said.

The man looked up from his work and nodded at the doctor. “Just a second I’m getting someone’s order.”

“It would happen to be a good looking woman with black braids would it?”

Olaf looked surprised at the doctor’s guess. “Yes, how did you know that? Did you see her come into the shop?”

“Come here my friend,” he said, grabbing the man’s arm and dragging him over to the door. They looked out an Izumi standing there at the counter, waiting on her order. “You see, she’s got the hots for Sig Curtis and he feels the same way. What they need is a tiny bit more time and you are going to help give them that.

“I am?” he questioned.

“Yes, you are,” the doctor said.

“Okay Doc, just what are you planning this time? Last time you got me involved in matchmaking my wife thought I’d turned drag queen and almost literally made me a woman with a pair of scissors and two knitting needles.”

The doctor cringed, “Yeah I remember that incident. You were a nervous wreck for a month. I promise though, this plan won’t be nearly as dangerous to your masculine area. All you have to do is tell her that you don’t have a shipment in of some of the ingredients and that you’ll have them in, say, three days. That should be enough time.”

“That’s it?” Olaf said.

“That’s it. Then we’ll leave the rest up to fate.”

“And if fate doesn’t intervene?”

“Oh, it will my friend. It will.”

“You are certainly confident. Well, if you have that much confidence then I’ll trust you. However, if this ends with me in some kind of dress I will kill you with one of those ugly letter openers my wife is trying to sell out front.”

“Fair enough,” the doctor replied.

Olaf straightened his collar and walked out front. “I’m so sorry Miss, but it seems that we are out of saltpeter, iodine, and a few other ingredients on this list. We should get a new shipment in, within a few days.”

Izumi sighed; this was just her luck. For every day that she was delayed, she knew the bitching from Dante would increase a small percentage. The woman didn’t like to be kept waiting.

“Could I use your phone? I need to know if my alchemy teacher wants me to just come back with what you do have or not.”

“Um…sure…”

“Damn!” the doctor muttered from his vantage point. This wasn’t supposed to be happening.

Izumi picked up the phone and growled. “This phone doesn’t work?”

“Yes, it does. The lines must be down again.”

“Again? But they were working this morning. How often do these things die?”

“Very often,” Olaf said, trying to hide his amusement. Perhaps the doctor was right, perhaps fate did want this young woman and Sig to get together.

Olaf laid the list on the counter and smiled at Izumi. “If you will tell me your name I can notify you of when I have your items.”

“Izumi,” she said.

“And your last name?”
“It’s just Izumi,” she replied.

“I see,” Olaf said. He wrote her name down on the list and tacked it up on a bulletin board beside the door. He turned back around. “Where are you staying?”

“I…well, probably at an inn. I’ll come back and tell you when I find a place.”

“Alright then, have a nice day,” he said, watching her walk to the door.

“Thank you,” she replied and left the shop.

The doctor walked out into the front of the shop. “Fate my friend, fate.”

--

Izumi muttered to herself as she walked back to Sig’s shop. Why was everything making it harder and harder to leave this town? If it wasn’t the circumstances surrounding her, it was the fact that she didn’t want to leave. She really liked the odd people; she liked the closed in surrounds and the feelings as if she belonged for once. Most of all, she liked the man that ran the butcher shop. That kind man that let her stay with him when he could have just let her wonder around without a clue where the closest inn was. He was someone that actually understood her feelings about being alone and not having anyone to care for her and vice versa. He knew about that strong self-reliance that she had to develop within her. Moreover, she knew the he knew this because she watched him and he was very much the same as she.

Now it was bringing trouble and annoyances upon him. It wasn’t right that the townspeople teased him about her, that they got the wrong idea. If she left, then maybe they would stop harassing the man that she’d grown to have feelings for against her better judgment.

She walked into the shop and through the door to the back.

“Did you get what you needed?” Sig asked, as he looked up from chopping up some more beef.

“No, he said it would take another three days. Since it will take so long I’ll find an inn somewhere so I’ll be out of your way,” she said, walking over to him.

“You don’t have to do that. It’s fine if you stay here. I mean, you can leave if you feel uncomfortable but …”

“It’s not that at all. . . I’m…I’m very comfortable around you. But aren’t you annoyed with all the…talk that’s bound to happen?”

“Talk?”

“About um…me being your girlfriend.”

“If it isn’t that then it’s always something else. I’m used to it. If you want to say then you can stay,” he said.

“Do you want me to stay?”She asked before she thought better of it. Her tone was actually…gentle. It was definitely a side that she wasn’t used to showing to anyone.

He turned his head toward her, leaned down, and grinned. Something that he himself was surprised he did.

“I’d like you to stay,” he said. “Only if you want to.”

She smiled at him and nodded. “I’ll stay then.”

They were so close to each other that they could feel each other’s breaths. Their eyes locked and before Izumi knew it, she’d pressed her lips against his in a soft kiss. She pulled away and blushed.

“I’m…I’m sorry about that!” she said, turning as red as the bloodied meat that was on his chopping block.

“Are you really?” he questioned, straitening up and beginning work as if nothing happened.

Izumi realized the way he took it and shook her head rapidly. She rested her hand on top of his and he turned his gaze to look at her. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, I shouldn’t have done that because well, it wasn’t right. We’ve just met and well…damn it. I feel like I’ve—”

“Known you forever,” Sig finished, interrupting her sentence.

Izumi nodded and sat down on a stool beside the work area. “I don’t get it. I’m terribly confused at it all. I was just supposed to come here, get Dante’s supplies and leave. I wasn’t supposed to fall in …love.”

Sig’s eyes widened upon her confession then went back to normal as he gazed at the girl sitting there with her head looking at her lap. “I never expected that a girl who ran into a lamppost after fighting off a bunch of drunks would be the one I feel in love with either.”

She looked up in shock. This man before her really knew how to draw out emotions she didn’t know she even had the ability to express. “You love me?”

“I think I do. I’m not really good with knowing about things like that.”

“Same here,” she said.

Sig started stocking the meat into the freezer case and didn’t say a word for a while. Izumi stood, grabbed a cloth, and started cleaning the counter. The two were still reeling from their confessions and didn’t know what to do about their emotional situation.

Their hand both reached for a cleaning cloth on the sink, his covering hers and she stared up at him with a smile. With that small touch, they knew what they should do. As cliché as it was. They knew it would last between them. That there was some unshakable bond there that would never be broken no matter what happened.

--

Three days later, the doctor saw Izumi talking to someone going out of the city. It was over, she was leaving, and Sig would be alone once again. He thought for sure that fate would have intervened and found that she and Sig would be together. It was the first time in his year s of matching people up, that he’d been wrong. He vowed that he would never again try to match a couple up.

He grabbed his coat and hat, locked up his office, and made his way over to Sig’s butcher shop. He met Olaf on the way.

“She’s leaving,” Olaf said, stepping into pace with the doctor.

“I saw,” he said.

“Heading to Sig’s?”

“Yeah, you?”

“Yeah,” he said.

Both men were very surprised when they saw Sig sitting outside on one of the chairs, a glass of lemonade in his hand and a pitcher resting on the table. They both wondered why he wasn’t absorbed in his work and where he learned to make lemonade.

They both walked up to the man who merely gazed at them.

“We’re sorry Sig, we saw Izumi leaving town,” Olaf said.

“Oh? You did?”

“Yeah, I swear I wouldn’t have tried to match you two up if I didn’t think she was the woman for you. I swear I have given up matchmaking ever again.”

“Matchmaking? What do you mean matchmaking,” Sig boomed, his voice making the doctor jump. He sat down the lemonade much roughly that he should have.

“Well, I asked Olaf here to hold the supplies for her so that she could stay longer and perhaps you two could see that attraction you held for each other. I guess I was wrong.”

“You did what!” a feminine voice boomed. The two men turned to see Izumi standing there. Instead of her old outfit, she now wore a white sleeveless shirt that went down to her knees and a pair of black leggings. On her feet, she wore a pair of house slippers.

“It’s you!”

“Damn right! Do you realize the bitching out I am going to get because my alchemy teacher’s supplies are late? Well you are going to! Go get on that wagon over there, and we’ll be there in a moment. You are going to explain exactly what happened, to my teacher AND you are going to be the ones to tell her that I am quitting. I’m not even going to set foot on the premises and you will be left to her ramblings.”

“Make us!” Olaf said, standing up for himself. He yelped, and his eyes widened when Izumi picked him up and tossed him across the street and into the wagon she borrowed and drove to the shop. She turned to glare at the doctor, placing her hands on her hips once more.

“I’m going, I’m going,” the doctor said turning to the wagon he stopped mid street and turned around. “Quitting? Does this mean you are staying? Here?”

Sig put an arm around Izumi’s shoulder and narrowed his eyes. “Get into the wagon,” he said.

The doctor smiled widely. “So my matchmaking worked! The master matchmaker strikes aga—” he was greeted with a rock to the face, courtesy of the future Mrs. Curtis.

The End

AN: Now, I know I am going to get someone to say, this engagement happened too quick, well, I’ll tell you my reasons for making it so. Izumi and Sig have always reminded me of my Grandmother and Grandpa and I decided that I would base their relationship on something that happened to them. My GP and GM met at 16 years old and got engaged after 5 days (remember that this was a really really long time ago). Everyone said, it shouldn’t have happened. Well guess what? They stayed married until they were 80 years old. That was when my grandmother died. My grandpa insisted that he and grandmother never feel out of love and the day he died he mentioned my grandmother. My parents only dated for a few weeks and they’ve been married for going on 27 years. It can happen that quickly, though it’s rare, and I see that in Izumi and Sig. Thank you so much for reading and please review this fiction.