- Soul Eaters -

Chapter 1: I've been waiting for this silence all night long

The room was packed with a huge number of people. Most of them were standing in groups, some of them appeared to know each other, some obviously had brought their families as emotional back up on this special day. One boy stood alone in the corner by the balcony, looking around frantically and gripping a glass in his hand hard enough to nearly break it. He was blond and of average height for a boy of 15 years. His bright green eyes were searching the room for his parents who had left him there on his own to get some food. „Have fun my boy" is what his father had said before giving him a quick pat on his head, already passing him by. „There are so many children your age, honey. You are bound to know some of them, so go and make some conversation." Is what his mother left him with.

The truth was Tweek didn't know many people his age and even if saw someone he recognized they should know that he would never approach them, especially not in a huge mass of people like this. Of course he knew what his problem was and his parents knew it too, even if they chose to just ignore it altogether. Tweek was by far the shyest boy he knew. The few times he had had eye contact with an acquaintance all he would do was grip his glass tighter and lower his eyes immediately. Really, it was no wonder that people didn't come over to talk to him either, he was such an awkward mess! The green double breasted coat with the nice embroidery he wore was a bit too stiff for his liking and the black bow around his neck didn't exactly make him feel more comfortable either. The white cotton shirt he wore underneath had already suffered a little damage because he had managed to spill a bit of his drink over himself the moment someone had entrusted the expensive crystal glass to him. Out of sheer nervousness he had nearly dropped it to the floor. Now he had to suffer the consequences and keep his coat buttoned even though it was quite a warm summer night and he would have liked to at least wear it unbuttoned. At least his dark gray breeches were still clean and his brown leather shoes had been polished to perfection. That was at least one part of his appearance he did feel comfortable with.

Besides his immense shyness Tweek was actually a boy like most others of his age and social class. His parents were rather well off, his father successfully running the family business (his ancestor had been a merchant that had started rapidly growing trade company. To this day they held the monopole on importing coffee...hmmm...) that had been established many generations ago and his mother being a very normal, calm and loving house wife. Like any other child he had been home schooled up until now. Since his 15th birthday three months ago his parents had started to cart him around and accompanied him to events such as this.

Even though it looked like a social gathering of all the members of the higher class it actually was much more than just that. The point of herding all these young people in here was to give them a chance to acquire a "weapon". Not a weapon like a sword or a gun, but an actual person.

Tweek had of course always known that this day would come. His parents had been so excited for him when he had first shown a certain talent as a weapons wielder. Which was ironic if you considered his cautious nature. His father had broken into a beautiful speech full of metaphors and big words he didn't understand. His mother had smiled contently for hours, brought him his favorite drinks and started to re-plan his entire future for him.

But the hardest part was yet to come. He had to actually find his weapon before he could enroll at the prestigious school his parents had chosen for him. And then he would have to get along with this stranger, train with them, get close to them, spend copious amounts of time with him... was there any chance for him at all not to disappoint his parents and embarrass himself completely? And what kind of person would his counterpart be? His father had told him lots about the people that were born as weapons- that they were all violent ruffians, simple minded and not be trusted. Of course, Richard Tweek had never acquired a weapon himself and therefore could only repeat what he overheard from other people or what he had read in books. Since he had never met his destined partner he had never been able to fulfill his dreams of becoming a great warrior. Now he loaded all of his dreams onto his sons shoulders. Tweek half wished he would never meet his partner either. Then he could just go back home, hide from the world a bit longer and live a quiet, unimportant little life. And he wouldn't be dressed up anymore like a doll and dragged to these terrible gatherings.

The weapons were almost exclusively people from the lower class. This had to do with how their abilities were inherited. For a wielder, it was always clear; if one of your parents had the gift of being able to feel soul's wavelengths then their children would have the same ability. Over centuries these families had become influential and wealthy due to their rare talents. But for a weapon things were a bit different. They came for the common people, far below T week's own social class. Their abilities were not hereditary but often skipped many generations or only occurred once in the family like a flickering candle in the dark, never to arise in anyone again.

Therefore the separation between the social classes had become more and more firm and had reached a point by now that made it unbeseeming for their youths to mingle before enrollment at one of the few academies was possible.

Tweek had lived a very sheltered life. His days had been filled with his home schooling, learning all about the family trade from his father and his alone time which he spent reading, riding horses or other hobbies that were ideal to carry out in solitude. The only low class people he had ever met were the servants at his fathers' house or laborers hired to work on plantations or to fix things.

Now there was a high probability that one of them would become his contract-bound partner, share a room with him, share the next few years with him even! The thought made a big lump form in his throat. He hadn't been properly prepared for this at all he realized. What if his partner thought him to be so unfitting that he would be rejected on the spot? What if his abilities weren't good enough in the end and he'd make a complete fool of himself? What if he never found the one and his parents would look at him with these disappointed eyes for the rest of his life?

The sound of a bell ripped him forcefully out of his thoughts. Now the same thing would happen again that usually happened at these things... all the wielder candidates would leave the room and meet with the weapons in another room, separated from the family and friends that had tagged along to this point. Tweek had only been at a few of those gatherings (the first time no one had been able to pry him away from his parents to the great embarrassment of Richard Tweak) but they always seemed to follow the same procedures: They were herded into an adjoining room, they wandered about for a while under the watchful eyes of several attendants and during this time some people would meet their partners. How that took place Tweek had only seen from afar a few times. Two people would suddenly staring at each other glued to the spot as if in trance, then they would come closer slowly, as if the gap separating them would be too much to bear any longer. You could see in their eyes of how sure they were to have found the one. The blond couldn't really imagine the same thing happening to him at all. He had never looked at a person and felt any kind of connection for his fears and suspiciousness would always be in the way.

Tweek's eyes nervously scanned the room for his parents but they were nowhere to be seen. With a sigh he slowly made his way over to the doors through which everyone else was already leaving into the adjoined room in order to meet with the weapons. He would just do what he always did – keep out of trouble and out of sight as well as he could manage, stand in the corner somewhere and wait for this social nightmare to end so he could go home and sulk underneath his blankets for a few hours.

The room he entered looked much like the first one, a beautiful hall probably meant for dancing, held in beautiful soft cream colours and lavishly decorated with gold. The warm light made everything look rather calm and harmonious but Tweek noticed with a little bit of satisfaction that he was not the only one who was nervous and uncomfortable. Among the youths gathered there was an awful amount of awkward silences and anxious shuffling as they started to move around a bit. Tweek's gaze was caught by some movement above his head. There was a gallery above the room, nearly going all around. Perched on it there were perched some attendants in professional looking black attire, all looking down at them with cold eyes and a stiff demeanor.

"Great, being watched makes me feel so much more confident..." Tweek thought to himself, subconsciously grimacing at the prospect of even more pressure. He would just go and find himself a nice corner now...

Then, the doors on the other side of the room swung open, revealing the other guests- the future weapons. Tweek involuntarily let out a squeak which earned him a few dubious looks from the more confident wielder candidates. Without looking up the blond boy quickly tried to disappear into the mass of wielders, letting himself fall back so he couldn't be seen from across the room. He could feel his cheeks burning (Both for the shame of having squeaked like a mouse just now and for the general shyness that was determined to make this evening hell for him again) and spilled some of his drink over his sleeve. But he was too nervous to care about that right now.

The was a impenetrable silence within the whole room that even the soft music that could be heard from somewhere could not cure. The weapons were the first to move. With sure steps they entered the room and made their way across it within only a few short moments. From his position at the far end of the room Tweek was unable to see any more and was thankful for that. His sleeve was wet and smelled of sweet light alcohol now but it still did little distract him from the cold dread that sat in his stomach like a brick stone. Hopefully every possible match that could be made here today would be made quickly so he could finally leave and go home. After a few minutes the silence was not quite as thick anymore. The people had started talking to one another, most of the upper class youth's standing in little groups but the curiosity had mostly won over the skepticism by now so most of the people had mingled class be damned.

From the corner of his eye Tweek had even seen one or two pairs finding together. It did look rather amazing from the view of a bystander. Both people looked as if they had been slapped, then looked at each other in awe before closing the distance and initiating physical contact for the first time by simply holding hands or something similar. Probably only one hour or even less than that had passed but his feet were hurting from standing around for so long and he wanted out of these stiff clothes now. Thankfully this would all be over soon, he could go find his parents and finally-

Then it hit him with an unexpected force.

His gaze locked with someone else's.

Dark eyes focused on him from across the room. And Tweek realized instantly that this was it. It didn't feel like being slept though, it felt as if someone had emptied a huge bucket of ice water over his head. Within his heart something suddenly fit, some emptiness that he had never noticed was there in the first place was suddenly filled with something undefinable. There was a sudden feeling of awe and admiration and confidence that had never been there before the dark gaze had met his. He had found his weapon. Everything and everyone else was gone from his mind and faded from his view. A tall young man with short black hair and sharp eyes was the one for him. His counterpart differed from him like night and day. He wore rather casual clothes much more loose then his, a dark brown jacket over a dark blue pullover and gray pants over beaten black boots.

In the blink of an hair the dark haired male had made his way over to him but to Tweek who was rooted to the spot as if under a spell, it felt like half an eternity of waiting. He was even taller than he had estimated before, at least a head taller then the blond boy. Tweek felt dwarfed by him but for some reason not intimidated at all.

His partner was in front of him now, their eyes still in contact and unable to break the connection. A strong hand extended towards him slowly until it was gently placed on his left cheek. It was warmer than he had expected and softer than he would have guessed from the appearance of it's owner.

The slightly narrow lips above him parted and a deep voice spoke to him in a calm and confident tone.

"Your name?"

This was it, this was it, this was it. The only man that could ever be his partner had found him and immediately became invaluable to him and filled Tweek's soul with warmth with his mere presence.

"Tweek", was the only word the blonde could whisper in his trance.

The dark eyes adopted a certain spark that nearly made his knees go weak.

"I'm Craig."

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

End of Chapter One

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This time I'll put my blabbering down here so people won't be put off right away :D

So, this story does have a few elements of the manga Soul Eater, but it's mostly just the setting. I might steal a few characters as well, but only minor ones if at all, therefore you do not have to know SE at all since barely anything will be used without some major alterations.

I do like Soul Eater to be honest – I think the idea of a Shinigami school is great and there are endless possibilities to it but I'm not all that happy about the execution I guess. The SE artwork is not as good as could be and things aren't explained too well either.

As you could already guess these are the biggest changes I made to the original SE setting:

The story takes place in the 19th century (or something. I'm not going to be historically correct about everything)

The relationship between Meister and Weapon will not be equal. So forming a team will be very difficult for any of them.

There will be mostly yaoi parings (Creek, Style, Tyde, Bunny etc.) and I might try my hand at some Cendy for the first time ever... ;)

The process of the Soul Eating will also be changed. I thought it really weird that the manga is called Soul Eater but there isn't much soul eating going on at all.

For some more inspiration go check out the "South Eater" opening on youtube 3

The title of this Chapter was taken from the Silversun Pickups' Song "Lazy eye".