They had the weirdest friendship. None of their peers understood how the tall, towheaded burnout with the permanent slouch and the studious, radical, nerd-girl valedictorian got along, but they were rarely seen apart. Early in their high school career, rumors circulated that they were dating in secret, but they petered out. They weren't a couple. They just were.
It wasn't uncommon for their classmates to watch them walking down the hall, her waving her hands and ranting about something political while he strolled beside her with one earbud in his ear, regularly punctuating her ravings with interjections of "I don't care. I don't care. I stiiiiiiiiill dooooooon't caaaaaaaare."
"Your apathy is a sickness," she'd snap.
"Your non-existent ass is a sickness," he'd respond.
Their fights were catastrophic. People would skip class to watch them go at it. Screaming to the heavens, Olympian-level eyerolls, insults so creative that students would write them down. He would walk away from her backwards with his two middle fingers raised high in the air and she'd throw the heaviest book she could find after him.
They'd be spotted alone for a few days, but then it was business as usual, them eating together on a bench under the peppercorn trees like nothing had ever happened.
If only we knew what went on behind closed doors, everyone would whisper to each other. How did they even work?
It really wasn't as complicated as they all thought.
Like always, Maka lounged on Soul's futon at his apartment, studying and waiting for him to get home from his job at the nearby stop-and-shop. He'd given her a key a year ago after a huge fight with her dad and told her she could stop by whenever. So she did.
The apartment was little more than a hole in the wall — a studio with a tiny bathroom, a tinier kitchenette, scattered furnishings, and a futon he could pull into a bed. It was dingy and coming apart at the seams, but it was his.
When she heard the lock rattle, she blinked and looked up to see Soul push his way in, stretching and yawning as he dumped his bag beside his shoes. He gave her a little wave, unsurprised.
He picked up the plain white envelope on the floor and opened it. Looked like several hundred dollar bills this time.
"Is she at it again?" Maka said, glancing back at the pages of her book.
"Seems like it." He went back out and she heard him knocking on his neighbor's door.
"Yeah, hey, Rita," he said. "Another gift for you, courtesy of my mom. No problem."
When he came back inside, Maka said, "You could probably use some of that, you know. It doesn't mean you have to do anything."
He shrugged, lighting up a clove cigarette before walking over to flump into his beanbag chair. "Rita can use it more. She's got a kid."
Maka wrinkled her nose as the scent of plastic-y cherries filled the air. "I can't believe you still smoke those nasty things."
He blew his next puff out at her. "It's been a long day. You won't let me smoke weed around you, so I do what I can."
They sat in comfortable silence for a while, him listening to some chick warbling with a harp on his iPod while she studied. Soon enough, he flopped over the arm of the futon and poked her in the side.
"Maka. Maka. Maka. I'm bored. Maka."
She swatted his hand away. "Maybe you could actually complete an assignment?"
"Uuuuuuuugh no. You wanna fool around or something?"
It was an old joke between them, and she gave one of her typical responses. "No. You probably taste like bong water and repressed childhood angst. I'll pass."
This went on for several minutes before she agreed to flip on his shitty TV and watch a music award show with him. They were right in the middle of snarking at the latest pop star's ridiculous cry-for-attention performance when her phone chimed.
"Christ, it's my dad." She muted the television and answered with a huff. "What?"
Soul was about to light up another clove when he glanced her face and saw her expression move from annoyance to shock to terror.
"Where is she?" Anxiety made her voice skyrocket a full octave. "How bad is it? No, I don't need you to fucking… I can get there myself. I'll meet you." She threw her phone to the ground and ran her shaking hands through her hair. "God damn it."
"Maka, what…?"
Before he could stop her, she was up and moving, making her way around his apartment like a whirlwind. He picked up her phone and held it out, and she snatched it from his hand, throwing it into her bag with her pens and notebook and anything else she could grab, including his latest issue of Rolling Stone.
"My mom was in an accident," she finally said, breathless. "He said there was a pile-up on the freeway, and she's in surgery, and they called him because he's still her emergency contact, and… and… Jesus, I can't…"
She was starting to hyperventilate, panicking because she couldn't locate her other book, where was her book, why couldn't she find her fucking book? He gathered her into his arms, squeezing her against his chest, and pulled her down to the floor where she sat between his crossed legs, curled and tiny. They rocked back and forth until her breathing slowed and her hands loosened where they'd been white-knuckling his jacket.
"Hey," he said into her hair. "It's cool. It'll be okay. I'll drive."
She nodded against him, inhaling deeply. He always smelled resinous, smoky, and a little like cheap aftershave. Comfortable. Familiar.
Thirty minutes later, he was walking her up to the hospital entrance. She paused and stared up at the building. He could see her throat fluttering as her pulse picked up.
"If you'd rather go back and hotbox in my beater, offer still stands," he said, jerking his thumb to point behind him.
She laughed and gave a weak kick to the back of his legs. Then she pulled him down into a hug, standing on her toes. When she leaned back, she pressed a kiss to his forehead.
"I'll be here when you're ready," he said. "Just text me."
He watched her go, meeting her father outside the automatic doors. The man reached for her sleeve and she jerked her arm away. Soul was too far away to hear, but based on her dad's expression, he could imagine what she'd said to him before going inside. He smirked.
After a minute, he went back to his rusty orange-ish car, leaning the seat back and pulling his hair band low over his eyes to block out the streetlights. He was bone-tired, stretched thin from a day of menial labor and customer service and high school and all the bullshit he kept bottled up. Exhaustion pulled at him, but he wasn't going anywhere. He'd told her he'd wait, so he'd wait.
He'd always wait for her, just like she'd always wait for him.
When his old man had knocked him around one too many times, she'd helped him seek legal emancipation. When her parents had split, he'd sat on her bedroom floor all night, smoking and holding her hand while she sobbed. They were both broken, and strange, and occasionally reckless. Most of all, they were all those things together.
These were the moments no one ever saw. This is why they worked.