FMA Fic: "A Selfish Man"
Title: A Selfish Man
Author: Lalikaa
Series: Manga/Brotherhood
Characters: Yoki and mentions of others
Rating: G
Word Count: 432
Authors' Notes: This was written a couple of weeks ago for fma_fic_contest's prompt, “Yoki”. Enjoy!
Yoki had always been a selfish man. He wanted money and power; he wanted to be respected and admired by all. He had no desire for friends or a family of his own. He wanted to live for himself and himself alone.
So why…
Why had he grown such a fondness for the little Xingese girl?
Why had he developed such a deep respect for the old doctor?
Why had he committed a sense of loyalty to the scarred Ishballan?
He didn’t understand it. He was well aware he had never been liked by his peers, but then again, he had never liked any of them either.
So why…
Why did he feel a sense of camaraderie with the chimeras?
Why were the alchemist brats beginning to grow on him?
Why did he feel such admiration for the old alchemist?
For the first time in his life, Yoki felt like he had friends. And it unnerved him.
Maybe it was because they were going to save the world. That had to be it. He only felt as though they were his friends because he had been with them so long, because their goal was more or less the same; they all wanted to save Amestres from total destruction. That was the kind of thing that bonded people, right?
He had always been used to thinking of himself as superior to all. But traveling with the others, hearing their stories, he no longer felt as though he was superior. And then he realized something.
He realized that they were all humans, and humans are all on the same level. No matter their intent or goals, they were all humans.
He wasn’t superior to any other human. He was no more or less of a human than any of his comrades. Even the chimeras, even the armored boy, were humans. In fact, they were even braver humans than he could ever hope to be.
It had taken seeing what true monsters were for him to fully understand all this. It doesn’t matter if you have a different skin color or are a different ethnicity. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor. It doesn’t matter if you’re an alchemist or a vagabond, or even both. They were all humans, and they were all on the same level. They were all in this together.
And so, Yoki, an extraordinarily selfish man, risked his life to help his comrades. He could've abandoned them, but he didn't, somehow found that he couldn't.
“I did something, I did something!” He had cried.
And he had. He was part of something.