Ehm. This is a chapter story, but the second chapter will probably take a while. I apologize in advance.

Although Shibusen was a rather … unusual school, there were some times when the meisters and weapons didn't seem too different from normal students. One of those events was Valentine's Day.

Well, it might have not been too different from other institutions, but in an academy where the students were educated in killing pre-kishins and aligning wavelengths, most of them already from childhood on, not even something as simple as giving chocolates could be the same as in other schools. Normal schools.

Fights against aforementioned pre-kishins or traitorous witches who didn't heed the pact could end up deadly and most of the battle-hardened students were so focussed on classes, training and missions that they hardly had the nerve or the time to pursue a serious romantic relationship, but ironically it was the elite group Spartoi where love had been blossoming the strongest in Shibusen recently.

Though, recently might have been the wrong thing to say, or maybe the right word to use instead of "blossoming" would be "realized", the feelings had begun to grow years ago after all, but as a thirteen-year-old a person would tend to misread their own emotions of love as a very strong friendship or devotion to their partner. Now all of Spartoi had grown in height, strength and also wisdom and knew how to read what was there correctly.

So apart from Kim and Ox, who had already hooked up long ago because of his constant noisiness about how much he adored her, several teens were troubled as to whether they should use the opportunity of Valentine's Day to confess to their special person or to give it a rest and shut up about it for the next few decades and maybe longer, an option that wouldn't seem too appealing to anyone normal.

And that was where the difference came in: Yes, any normal person would never even consider the second option, but a weapon that was possibly in love with his meister would act on caution first, not on feelings. Could you still be in an effective partnership if a rejection would make everything awkward? Would the rejector still trust the rejected with everything when the rejected was looking for something more and possibly restraining himself from jumping the rejector? Could a partnership be wrecked by something as simple as a confession?

Those were pretty much the thoughts of Soul "Eater" Evans, the last deathscythe in history, self-proclaimed cool guy and hopelessly in love with his meister.

She was determined, she was gorgeous, she had a temper like Godzilla, she was violent when she was cranky and most of all, she was too good for him. The possibility that Maka, his wonderful, strong, beautiful meister could maybe fall for him seemed to have chances about nil. He would lose so much if he decided to go ahead and tell her when she didn't have those feelings towards him. It would probably be too much to handle.

He had tried dating before, back when he still didn't know what the weird warm feeling in his chest appearing whenever his Maka was concerned meant, back when he still only wanted to get away from it. It hadn't worked. He had found something wrong with the girl every time of the few dates it took for him to understand, be it that they were too dumb, too flirtatious, too just-not-right and a bunch of other things. One time, he even thought that a girl's bust was too big. He had slightly wondered if that was even possible and the answer was surprisingly little in his favour. When it finally got to him that he had been searching for traits of Maka in every girl that came his way, that she was the one he wanted, that he'd never want anyone that wasn't her, he had pretty much given up hope about the whole romance thing. It still bugged him though, thoughts of why didn't he do something about it already running through his head every so often.

And if he gave him a chance, if she gave him just one single chance, he wouldn't fuck it up, not with her, not with that. If she ever gave him a chance, he was going to nail it. It might have been stupid to other people if they knew just how hung up he was on this girl, but to him it would be a lifelong goal to get her to love him in a different way than platonic. If she ever gave him a chance, he wasn't going to let her go that easily.

But if there was one thing that was certain, it was that she would never tell him something like deeper running affections on a whim. She was the kind of person that would simply bottle it all up inside her and try to forget it without saying a word to anyone. Her trust in stabile romantic relationships was currently higher than before, but he was sure it was far from easily accepting matters that had to do with possible cheating and the broken pieces that it caused. That was why if he ever wanted to change things, he'd have to take matters in his own hands.

If he'd change them in a positive or a negative direction was yet to be decided.

Unbeknownst to Soul, the subject of his thoughts and affection, scythe meister Maka Albarn, was thinking about similar things. Ironically, they were thoughts about her weapon, who had no idea of his incredible luck and was thinking about how he didn't have much chances with her, just like Maka was thinking about how much she loved, adored – everything she once swore she'd never do – her weapon.

How in the world had it gotten this bad? When exactly had things changed from simply caring for her weapon to missing his mere presence and feeling the addicting need to always stay by his side? When exactly had the walls she had built to protect herself from romantic feelings and the sorrows that came with them crumbled? She only knew that they had and that if she just blurted this out sometime, she would probably mess up their partnership badly if he didn't feel the same.

If.

Because no matter how she looked at it, it wasn't 100% sure that he didn't like her that way and the small chance that he did could come true in a heartbeat. Still, that did not mean that she had to take a small chance like that, even if she wanted to just throw away all caution and reason away and – mind you – jump him the next time he stood before her simply being himself. It would be like gambling and Maka Albarn did not gamble. Maka Albarn calculated.

But how could she calculate a person like Soul?

She stared at her reflection in the mirror, as if her self on the other side of the glass could tell her the answers to all of her problems. It stared back just as blankly and she wanted to chop herself. It was unsettling enough that for once she didn't know the answers to the test of life that should have been obvious to her, but consoling her mirror image about it went too far.

She splashed a little cold water into her face and chided herself for thinking about things that would do her no good and inevitably make her feel lonely. Especially on this horrible, horrible date, February 14th, the accursed day where nearly seventy percent of the female student body decided to profess their so-called "undying love" for her weapon with a letter, chocolates or full-front confessions. Take your pick.

School today would be such a pain.

As expected the classroom was noisy today, full of blushing, giggling girls and loudly boasting boys, shouting out how many chocolates they had gotten before class alone. Most of it was probably a lie, because if she added up all the chocolates they had presumably gotten, that would be more than the number of girls who had even arrived at Shibusen up until now. She shook her head at the stupidity of it all.

In the next seconds however, that consisted of Dr. Stein coming (or rather rolling) in and telling them just what they'd dissect today, a change erupted from the carpet of annoying noise:

Apparently Patty did not like the fact that their teacher had made their dissection-object for today a giraffe – a baby giraffe at that – and threw herself at him with a battle cry and a mean glint in her eyes, attempting to save the innocent animal from the maniac's clutches. Despite her heroic measures to come to the poor thing's rescue like Superman would have done, Stein simply dodged her and threw a scalpel in Patty's general direction. The blade barely missed her.

But Patty, silly as she might have been, had lived years on the streets and knew how to play her cards. In this case: Kid. As the new Shinigami, he managed to bribe – ah, no, persuade the crazy scientist to use his secondary dissection object today and let the giraffe be brought to the nearest zoo. Given that there wasn't a zoo in Death City, Patty decided to keep it until she could bring it to one.

The scene was so ridiculous that Maka felt the corners of her mouth lift up in a smile. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. Today – that she was sure of – would be the one time she was glad that her friends were such lunatics.

And she was right. Patty's animal-loving side that almost cuddled the little giraffe beside her seat to death, Kid's little but continuous symmetry-fits about the asymmetrical Valentine cards everyone was showing off, Liz's Brooklyn Mode, that activated when she was annoyed by constantly being interrupted from the serious task of painting her nails red by too many suitors that immediately ran away after a few death glares and death threats, Stein's normal freakiness, Marie's overly happy gushing at the romantic day and her students, and also Black Star's anger when anyone that wasn't Kid, Soul or female dared to come to close to his goddess were things that made the contras of the day worthwhile.

Contras like the sea of letters in Soul's locker, the mountains of chocolate on Soul's seat, the sheer number of girls that confessed to Soul, and the lack of any romantic interest directed towards her. Not that she would have responded to it, it just would have been nice knowing that someone appreciated her in any other way than as the meister who had made the last deathscythe. It wasn't that unreasonable to ask that someone noticed her as a girl, right?

Because her ankles were not fat and her breasts may have been a little under average, but they were certainly there and noticeable, Soul could go die in a hole. She doubted that he knew enough of the female anatomy to appreciate or degrade it. It was just his subjective opinion. And sadly, that was the one opinion she wanted to be positive.

Well, it wasn't like there was anything she could do to change his opinion on her sex-appeal or lack thereof. Besides seduction maybe, but that was a job she would gladly leave to Blair. It didn't seem to work either. After years of stuffing her breasts in Soul's face, the cat had still not accomplished anything besides major nosebleeds and Maka-chops.

Not that the feline would really have wanted to, that would have just been plain creepy. The cat and her weapon, who was decidedly too young for her, even if the purring seductress might or might not have had a thing for younger boys? That was something she wouldn't want to see. If that had anything to do with her dislike to see Soul hook up with any girl (or guy for that matter, she wouldn't judge him), that was her problem.

The rest of the day went by as predicted. Stein dissected, couples were born, girls confessed to Soul. He rejected every single one of them. Sometimes she wanted to ask him why, only to see that he was looking at her, eyes begging her silently to rescue him, he couldn't stand those fangirls any longer. And she would roll her eyes and tug him away before some drooling female went apeshit and jumped him. They were pretty annoying and one glance at Soul's face told her he thought the same.

They went through the back door that day and left the motorcycle at school. Walking was better than being overrun by a dozen of girls that saw the bike as the perfect confession place. They thought they could trap Soul into a corner, because he had to get his precious bike. Too bad her weapon was smart enough to use another route. The walking didn't do him any harm either.

At home, the atmosphere felt like every day again, warm and comfortable. She cooked, he did the dishes and when they watched TV, some drama that she didn't really pay attention to, they lay together on their small couch, limbs entangled and breaths almost mingling.

Another Valentine's Day down.