"SOUL!!!" Maka screeched so loudly that the neighbors would probably start complaining soon. It wasn't the first time either. This past week, the silver-haired weapon had been getting on her nerves constantly. First it was burning the dinner she had worked on all day, then it was spilling water on her favorite book, then it was walking in on her while she was changing (and daring to make a comment about her non-existent chest, and that it was to the same effect as walking in on a half-naked boy), and so on and so forth. But this, this was the final straw.

"M- Maka, I… help?"

She proceeded to condemn him to an extreme 'Maka-chop' that sent him flying through the window.

.:S.E--*--M.A:.

Maka gave her partner the silent treatment on the way to school.

"Come on, Maka! The last few times I understood, but this? It wasn't my fault!"

Maka stayed silent.

"I mean, it wasn't like I asked Blair to jump me!"

Maka said nothing.

"Especially not naked! I hate that cat, and I want her gone! She's too distracting!"

Maka didn't speak a word.

"And why is it that you never punish Blair, who instigates it all, and you hit me who was just innocently getting ready for school? How is that fair!"

Soul chanced a glance at his meister. He sighed when he realized that she probably wasn't even listening to him.

"Fine! Two can play at this game!"

Neither of them spoke for the remaining of the trip.

.:S.E--*--M.A:.

At school, the tension between them was so great that it could be cut with a knife.

Black Star nudged his partner. "Yo, Tsubaki, you think it's safe to talk to them?"

Tsubaki risked a glance at her friend Maka who was so angry that you could almost see the flames rising off her skin. She regretfully shook her head. "I wouldn't risk it" She told her blue-haired roommate who groaned.

"Come ON, they've been at this for two weeks you'd think that they'd kiss and make up by now!" The immature meister said loudly, as Tsubaki tried to shush him.

Maka and Soul both whirled around in their seats to glare at the pair, and Tsubaki must have said 'sorry' about a million times before they turned back around.

She sighed. She really liked her friend Maka, and even though she didn't know Soul as a person very well, she was used to thinking of them as part of a team. Now she didn't know what to think. She had asked Liz and Patty about it a few days ago (maybe the problem had to do with romance?) but neither sister was very helpful. "Just wait it out" was Liz's advice, while Patty had been rattling off about something irrelevant.

Whatever it was, she just wanted everything to go back to the way it was before.

Maka, on the other hand, just wanted Soul to disappear. She was so sick of him always messing around, of that smirk, and of the fact that calling her 'tiny tits' seemed to give him some sort of amusement. Well she was through. If she had a choice, she would partner up with the first available weapon that could match her wavelength.

Her musing was cut short as Stein wheeled into the room. "Okay everyone, quiet down, we've got a lot to get through today." The murmuring in the classroom stopped immediately, for you never knew when Professor Stein was going to choose you for his next experiment. "Since all of you have pretty much reached a stand still in your training, I have devised a new tactic to make you appreciate your partner a little more"

Both Soul and Maka scoffed. Yeah, that would be the day.

"I have decided that you are going to be switching partners for a month!"