Flatter Me

By Zuimi

Chapter One:
Nostalgic

Note to Reader: This chapter and the following have been heavily rewritten from the original chapters that were uploaded in 2011.

The taxi casually sped down the grainy desert road. Maka had been fast asleep the several hours before the vehicle made its way onto the rocky path. The dry sand was being sprinkled onto the metal side of the car by the unprepared rubber tires, and the sound that those sprinkles made was obnoxiously noticeable to the blonde girl awoken from her nap. Her emerald green eyes blinked a few times as she reached her arms out, allowing her muscles to stretch comfortably, when she realized sleep was no longer possible. Her hair had slipped out of the tight bun she had pulled it into that morning, and it annoyed her by resting itself on her shoulder, tickling her neck. Maka remade her bun and ran her finger through her bangs to align them. She looked down at her outfit: a sky blue button up shirt, rolled up to her elbows, tucked into a plain black skater skirt topped with black leather boots. She was pleased to find them unwrinkled, even after an uncomfortable car drive and nap.

Though her eyes were still getting used to her surroundings, she saw perfectly well the black leather cushions of the taxi. In between the cushions, she would find opened, licked, but unfinished lollipops; chewing gum wrappers tightly pressed into a less-than-neat balls; cigarette butts, to her disgust; and old, sticky key chains, all of which she had found by accident, earlier during her drive. She didn't even want to imagine the other surprises that await her in the depths of the taxi's seats. Or even better: underneath the driver's and front-seat passenger's chairs. She gazed outside her window, clearly disgusted with the interior of the vehicle. As she may have suspected, the sun was out, boiling the rest of the desert under its incredible heat. Luckily, the taxi that she ordered had a powerful (if not too powerful) air conditioning system.

Outdoors, she saw heat waves on the horizon, which allowed her to visualize exactly how hot that sand would feel if she decided to walk on it barefoot. The few cactuses out there seemed to be enduring the burning sunlight just fine, but otherwise, the desert looked quite… well, deserted. Not that Maka had imagined, nor remembered, people just hanging about Death Valley this far into it, but it seemed like a totally different landscape to the Death Valley everyone visited – the one with the natural monuments (tall, red rocks). Just a bit further would be the place where the population count differed enormously compared to the population of the rest of the valley. Soon, the taxi would be arriving at Maka's hometown. The famous, but barely reachable, Death City had just been spotted on the horizon as the taxi driver said:

"Almost there!"

Maka sat up straighter. She was nervous. She was anxious. She was bursting with excitement at the mere thought of setting foot in Death City. It was so close! She could actually see it. It was approaching dreadfully slow, but she didn't care because at least it was approaching. She fixed her skirt. She fixed the way she was sitting down on it. She fixed the way her shirt was tucked into her skirt. She fixed the way her shirt bunched up under the skirt. She was fidgeting. But she refused to consider herself to be panicking. 'Almost there!' The words echoed in the back of her head. Maka was almost there. She could almost taste the coffee from her favorite coffee shop that she had missed out on for so long. And while similar thoughts continued to race in her mind, Death City had come nearer and nearer. The taxi drove up onto a cobblestone street, which Maka was more than happy to welcome considering the sprinkling grains of sand had gone on for too long.

Immediately, Maka was greeted by the odd but familiar style of architecture known only to Death City. The buildings lined the narrow streets, rising high. They seemed to be towering over the lane, with their pale multicolored siding(but barely considered colorful since the hues they held were sandy, grey, dusty blue/green, etc which just decorated the buildings' main general base: a neutral dust color). The lampposts stationed along the side of the road seemed like gothic, electrical lanterns, giving the town a hollow and eerie feel. But the shops had contradicted that aura with their clients' genuine content expressions. She quickly read the signs as she whizzed past the stores. There was 'Skull Ice Cream' (best ice cream in town, in Maka's opinion), 'Lord Death's General' (a store where one would find things for everyday life, or things that they wished they'd never seen), 'Donuts for Dead' (a great donut bakery but it held some questionable flavors), and Maka's favorite café – 'Death Café'. As the car past the café and left it far behind, Maka stopped practically pressing her face on the window, aware of the taxi driver's gaze. And then the taxi passed the small park that resided in the city. It had a small play set, an even smaller playing field, but a grand tree house located on the only tree in the park. It looked half dead (it's been looking half dead for years), but it never bent under the house's weight. The tree house was a rugged, wooden thing that was much smaller than how Maka remembered it from years ago. Had it always been so small? Did she only imagine it as vast as a majestic castle held up by crisp planks? But it still made her smile when her eyes caught it. It's been too many years, but she still remembered the amazing times she had playing in that dumb park:

Her short blonde hair was trapped into neat pigtails that curled towards the end. Her green eyes dashed this way and that, searching eagerly. She looked about frantically, quite frustrated. Then she found what she was looking for: stark white hair stuck out from behind a bush. A wide smile was now plastered onto her round face. Her short little legs propelled her body to the bush, dashing behind it, and then pouncing on the little boy that had hid himself there. His scarlet eyes remained unalarmed, even though his plan was seemingly ruined. Instead, he pulled his face into a toothy grin, grabbing her little fists and nailing them to the ground with his.

"I found you," The little girl said confidently, though she was very unsure of the situation at the moment, "That means I win."

"But I," the little boy said, not moving from his position, "really won since I got you!"

The little girl mustered up all her strength and pushed the boy off of her, "That's not what you said! That's not how you play the game! It's Hide-and-Seek not Hide-and-Ambush the Seeker!"

The boy had no idea what the word 'ambush' meant and now, he wasn't exactly sure what 'seek' meant, either. He picked himself off the ground, "Well, it doesn't matter, I won."

"Says who?" The girl got up, as well, and punched the boy lightly in the arm, "You can't just make up the rules!"

"Yeah, I can!" The boy held up six fingers, "I'm six."

"So am I!"

"Well, you're wearing a stupid dress so it would be hard for you to play games, so you can't make up the rules for them!"

The girl wasn't pleased to discover this new inferiority to this rude little boy she just met. She simply asked him if he wanted to play Hide-and-Seek. And he agreed. But here he goes, messing up the rules to the almost best game in the world. She ran up to stand in front of him, effectively blocking his way, saying, "I think that if someone has to mess up rules to win, then they're the real, real losers!"

The boy pushed the girl out of the way, knocking her off her feet and onto her rear. She picked herself up just as he said, "Well, no girl will ever be able to play the best game in the world!"

"What's the best game in the world?" The girl put her hands on her hips. She was honestly curious, but she had taken up a tone that sounded both bitter and snobby.

"Why do you care?" the boy sneered at her. "It's not like you'll ever play it. Only me and my brother play it."

The girl stepped closer to the boy, hands remaining on her hips, "Well, I just want to know how to play."

The boy then crossed his arms, "Fine. I'll tell you. But don't tell anyone else, okay?"

"Okay, okay!"

"Imagine that there are these monster things everywhere. And they do really bad things. Like, they are cromon-nails!" the boy said dramatically.

"You mean, criminals?"

"Yeah, shhh-!" the boy continued, "And they have bad souls. They're called kishins. But me and my brother, we can stop them. Because we're heros. And we eat the souls!"

"You eat them?!" the girl looked disgusted.

"Yeah, and we have these super cool hero names," the boy grinned again, "I'm called Soul Eater because my real name's Soul. And then in the game, I eat souls. So my name is Soul Eater."

"Your name is Soul?"

"Yeah," the boy nodded , "Soul Evans. My brother is Wes Evans. And his hero name is - !"

The girl interrupted, "So, how do you eat the souls? Because they're not real."

The boy rolled his eyes, "You pretend a cracker or a chip is the soul! Duh!"

The girl did not appreciate the attitude of the little boy. She then crossed her arms and said, "Sounds stupid. I would never play something so dumb."

"Hey!" the boy pointed a finger at the girl, "Don't call it dumb! You've never played it, so you wouldn't even know how cool it is!"

"I don't think it'd be cool ever," The girl was lying. It sounded like a marvelous game. But since the boy had banned her from playing it, the least she could do was ridicule it and make him feel bad about it. She started to walk away when the boy stopped her.

He said, "Fine. Let's play it once. You'll see! You'll see that it's awesome!"

The little girl smiled brightly at his words, "Really? Okay… but we don't have any snacks to eat!"

"I do," The boy smiled, running to his small backpack that rested on the old park bench. He pulled out a bag of 'Doritos', smiling.

"Why do you have that?"

"Because my brother's gonna pick me up from the park, and I thought maybe I would play with him. But now I'm gonna play with you."

"Okay, set it up."

"Whoa!" The boy grabbed the little girl's arm before she could run off anywhere to prepare for the game. "You need to pick a superhero name before we can play! It has to have something to do with eating…"

"Hmmm…" Both children walked over to the bench, thinking hard. Every now and then, one of them would blurt out an idea that they had come up with, but then the other would shoot it down with a few words of disapproval. The boy finally pulled out his notebook from his bag, as well as a pencil. They started to brainstorm on paper, but to no avail. Finally, after at least fifteen minutes had passed of pure hope to be inspired, the girl wrote down 'Tiny Bite' on the sheet of paper. She then said, "Because I'm short. I think it's cute."

"Tiny Bits?" the boy asked, raising a brow.

"No! Tiny Bite!" the girl corrected.

"No."

"No?"

"No," the boy replied, "I'm gonna call you Tiny Bits – 'cos you'll tear 'em to tiny bits!"

"But that doesn't have to do with eating!" the girl said in an exasperated tone.

"Doesn't matter!" The boy skipped off to place 'Doritos' around the park, choosing the locations of the dreaded kishins, "I make up the rules!"

"Why?"

"'Cos you're still wearing the dress."

"What?!"

And as the girl chased after him to beat him up for undermining her once more, the boy turned around and asked, "What's your name?"

"Maka."
The boy looked like he was waiting for something more.
"Maka Albarn."

The boy smiled, revealing all his teeth, which, the girl just noticed, were sharp and pointy, "Tiny Bits, you'll be an awesome sidekick to the great Soul Eater!"

He raced towards the nearest chip with a battle cry. His hands tightly pulled into fists. He hit an invisible kishin in the jaw, shouting orders at his sidekick, who was handing a separate kishin a few feet away. Both children fiercely fought alongside each other playing the game the first out of many times together.

Maka smiled at the memory. 'Tiny Bits'. Her amazing alter ego who bravely fought kishin with the hero Soul Eater. It was truly a game better than Hide-and-Seek. Soul became her best friend after that day. They met a week later, by chance, at the park, when they decided to meet up every few days. They parents soon caught on to their friendship, and though her parents seemed to encourage it, Soul's parents seemed to limit it. After they turned eight, however, his parents seemed to go out of their way to restrain their son from playing with his best friend (and sidekick). They got to see each other at school and walked home together, but it seemed to be too much to play the game anymore. Sometimes they would, when they got the chance on a lucky afternoon, but by the time they were nine, they left the games behind them. In the meantime, they found themselves more friends. Tsubaki had befriended Maka when they were both seven, but they weren't necessarily close until they were nine. During the same year, Soul became good friends with a rambunctious boy by the name of Black Star, an heir to a respected fighting dojo. His family had been in the spotlight of martial arts and hand-to-hand combat for centuries. In the fifth grade, or when Maka was ten, she befriended two sisters by the names of Liz and Patty Thompson. They moved from Brooklyn, and mischievous and rude as they were when they first arrived, they developed a liking for Maka and Tsubaki and became their friends. A boy named Kid had also wormed their way into their friend group, though Maka, looking bad, was not entirely sure how. But she liked him no less. Though he was closer to the boys and the sisters than her, he seemed to be the only person who was as clever as her. He always dressed to impress, though, considering his father was the mayor of Death City. However, he seemed to lose respect when people found out about his strange OCD. He worshipped symmetry.

And thinking about her friends now made Maka grow more excited to see all of them. Well, almost all of them…

In sixth grade, at age eleven, Maka had received her acceptance letter to the prestigious boarding upper middle school and high school 'Gorgon Academy'. It was an all-girls school that offered incredible education with the best professors and services. Upon graduation, the graduates would almost always be leaving with full scholarships, large scholarships, incredible deals, immense financial support, and other things of the sort to the best universities around the world. It also had programs that would ensure a high-paying job in the employment path the student desires. In short, graduating from the school guaranteed success in the future.

She was thrilled when she had gotten the letter, but she was heartbroken to leave her friends. She looked out her window, watching as she passed the incredible sights that were Death City. She had just finished her junior year at Gorgon Academy. She had not left the school all these years. During the summers, Maka would occupy herself with the summer homework in her dorm. She didn't mind it, really, she didn't. But her roommate, Eruka, had finally gotten on her nerves. The girl wasn't incredibly mean, but she would just say unnecessary comments that had hurt Maka's feelings. A few days ago, while Maka was doing her bun, she had said, 'Maka, really, if you expect anyone to like you, you don't have to dress like a prude.' but it was her that told Maka during her first year at the academy to 'get rid of those stupid pigtails that made her look like everything was a joke.' She constantly joked about Maka with her friend Mizune teasing her about her clothes, her love for books, her care for her grades. Eruka did say she didn't mean for it to hurt her, but it didn't change the fact that it did.

In sixth grade, Soul had also decided to ditch town, but not because he was going to start attending a different school. His parents simply decided to move out. According to Soul, he was moving to a town in California, but Maka could neither recall the town's name nor recall if Soul ever said it. In short, she would not be meeting him today. Or ever, perhaps. She hoped that, at least, she could get some contact information to say 'hi'. 'Tiny Bits' was alone without her 'Soul Eater'.

She took her mind off of the topic. Besides, Maka finally decided to escape the Academy for a while. Just for the last summer before the end of high school forever.

"Yeh get off 'here," said the taxi driver, parking in front of a modest sand-colored apartment building that had one of its floors painted dusty green from the outside.

Maka looked at the apartment, and then the neighborhood, before she said, "Wait, but this isn't my house. My apartment building, that is."

The taxi driver then started to dig through her thing on the small furniture that was placed between the driver's seat and the front passenger's seat. Her incredibly curled hair was tied into a low ponytail that bobbed every time she moved. She finally found a folding sheet of paper and explained, "Can' believe I fergot this! From yer pa. Sorry."

She didn't sound sorry, but I took the paper politely from her grasp. Unfolding it, and was revealed to a letter written by my father:

Dear my darling angel,

I'm so sorry we can't be there to welcome you to Death City!

You know how fast we'd do it if we could!

But, sweetheart, we went on a small trip for a few days.

It may be a bit longer, but, sunshine, we talked it out with

Tsubaki's parents – they'll take you in for just a wee bit!

Your mama and I can't wait to see you again, honey!

Make sure to act amazing like you always do!

From, Mama and Papa

Maka nearly gagged at her father's words. And she was furious that her own parents would not even be here to witness her return to Death City after five long years. I mean, they have visited countless of times and she kept in touch with Tsubaki, Liz, and Patty over the internet, but she was finally back home. Back where she couldn't hear Eruka and Mizune's revolting gossip! But she didn't have enough time to react appropriately to the letter. The taxi driver had already gotten out of the cab, and she started to take Maka's two suitcases out of the trunk. The minute, Maka got out of the car, the driver got in, and she sped out of sight. Maka assumed her father must've prepaid.

Then, she hurt a squeal behind her, and arms wrapped around Maka's torso. The girl who seized her had a long, long black hair that fell all the way down her back. It was none other than Tsubaki. But when the two separated friends pulled away from their hug, they were astonished by how they had changed. Maka, for one, did not expect her shy friend to fill in so nicely (into her bra). The tall, asian girl that stood before her was much taller than the one she befriended in middle school. Instead of wearing corny, childish floral shirt, she was wearing an airy elbow-length-sleeved shirt colored blush with a pair of tight white shorts. Her feet wore modest white flip-flops, but it was probably only because she had just rushed out of her house. Maka was glad to see that she wasn't wearing only ponytails, and Tsubaki had finally become confident enough with her looks to let it down.

"You've changed so much!" Maka exclaimed, gesturing to her friend's figure, "I mean, I know we talked over video, but it's so much different in person, you know?"

Tsubaki chuckled, "You're telling me! I'm still not over you losing your pigtails!"

Author's Note:

PLEASE READ: URGENT

A few days ago, I read this fanfiction (I had discontinued it, not officially but inside, I had no motivation to do ever continued writing it). I completely hated how I wrote it and the way I chose to angle the story in general (and I completely forgot what I was going to do with the story in the first place), but I didn't want to delete it because it had reviews and I didn't hate its concept. So, I'm rewriting the chapters I've already written along the same lines that I had started with it, but much better (in my opinion). I apologize to those who read and liked the story when it first came out in 2011, but trust me, this is for the better.

For now, I hope that you review/favorite/follow this story (please do so) and wait for me to complete the following chapters. I plan for there to be nine chapters in total. It may change, but this is my prediction. I apologize to those who have been inconvenienced, but please, bear with me. I do not own Soul Eater, the characters. The store names used in this chapter are made up, though. I hope you liked this chapter and will continue!

-Zuimi