"Oh, how about these?"

Chrona blinked at the pair of shoes that Liz was wagging in her face. They looked like black sandals, but the heel was raised up by a large spike of some kind. Chrona shivered. "I-i-it looks like it c-could stab someone…"

Liz, Patty, Maka, and Tsubaki had decided to take a trip to "the mall", and Chrona reluctantly came along. She didn't know what a mall was; when she first walked in, she found herself surrounded by lots of people and big spaces and lights—she hid in a corner because she didn't know how to deal with it. (She became rather good friends with that corner, and named it Little Corner) The four tried to persuade her to get out of Little Corner, but what finally did the job was when Ragnarok came out and started yelling about how hungry he was, and kept punching Chrona until she was forced to leave Little Corner and find some food for Ragnarok. Chrona got a "pretzel", which she found out was just deep-fried dough with grease and salt. Not that she got any; Ragnarok devoured it in one gulp. Then, her four friends dragged her into a big room that was full of clothes, shoved her in a closet that they called a "dressing room", and made her try on different dresses.

"Why do I need to try on all these dresses, anyways?" Chrona asked after trying on dress number one million and one.

Patty looked up from a colouring book with a big smile. "Kid's holding a party tonight!"

Liz answered Chrona's questioning looks. "That white suit of yours makes you look too much like a guy. Besides, you never know when you'll need formal wear."

Another one million and one dresses later, they had all finally agreed on one; it was a simple long-sleeved violet dress that went down to her knees, but it looked really good on Chrona. Chrona thought it was all over, but then Liz declared that Chrona also needed new shoes. The poor girl found herself being dragged into another enormous room, this one filled with different pairs of shoes.

And now here was Liz, wagging a pair of shoes with spiky, impaling heels in Chrona's face. Liz chuckled at Chrona's comment. "The heels aren't that sharp. Although, I guess they are rather tall…" Liz put the shoes back, and then pulled out another pair. These shoes were silver, and the heels didn't look as tall or sharp. Chrona nervously slipped them on.

Tsubaki clapped her hands together, a cheerful smile on her face. "They look great on you, Chrona-chan!"

Chrona looked down at her feet, holding her left arm with her right hand. "R-really? You think so?"

Maka nodded, causing Chrona to smile a little. She took a step forward, only to find herself falling flat on her face. "Chrona!" Maka exclaimed, rushing forward.

Chrona lifted her face, which was covered in dust. "I-I'm okay…but th-these are hard t-to walk around in…"

Liz sighed at Patty, who was laughing at Chrona's misfortune. She turned back to Chrona. "We'll buy them for you, and I'll give you some lessons for how to walk in heels. Don't worry, you'll be a pro by the party tonight."

/

A few hours later, some students from Shibusen were coming into Death the Kid's symmetrical home. Soul and Maka came in with a few music records (Soul refrained from bringing jazz records, it brought back bad memories for him), and Tsubaki came with an over-energetic Black Star. Oxford was trying to hit on Kim, but was now being beaten up by Jacqueline, and Harvar was chuckling at him with a video camera in hand. Kilik was hanging out with Thunder and Fire, and Patty was building a giraffe sculpture out of pineapple and chocolate. Kid hadn't seen Liz or Chrona anywhere, and this made him very mad. For one, with only one of the Thompson sisters around, it made everything so asymmetrical! The other thing that bothered him was that he really wanted Chrona to come to the party…

"Sorry we're late, Kid!"

Kid turned around to see Liz wearing a strapless red dress, and next to her was Chrona, looking as nervous as ever. Kid felt his heart skip a beat; he had never seen Chrona look so dressed up before, and she looked really good. Then his eyes trailed down to her feet, only to see them: the high-heeled shoes.

Liz saw Kid's expression change drastically when he looked down to Chrona's feet. Before Liz was able to laugh and/or question, she felt herself get dragged at full speed across the room, finding herself behind a potted plant with Kid right next to her. Liz blinked. "What's up, Kid? Her dress is symmetrical, so what's the matter now?"

Kid felt his eye twitch as he looked at Chrona from across the room. "Why…why did you get her…" He turned to Liz with flames in his eyes. "Why did you get her high heels?"

Liz felt like smacking herself in the forehead. "What's so wrong about getting Chrona high heels? Seriously, they make her legs look fantastic. I'm almost jealous."

The young shinigami poked his head out from behind the potted plant to take another look at Chrona. He felt his face flush as he caught a glimpse of her legs. Chrona may have hidden her legs underneath that black robe of hers, but Liz was right, the high heels did make her legs look great…Kid shook his head to clear his mind, and then looked back to Liz. "Th-that's besides the point! If I'm not at least as tall as Chrona, then I can't tell her how I feel, because it won't be symmetrical!"

Liz crossed her arms. "So?"

"What do you mean, 'so'? I've just grown to be an exact inch taller than Chrona, and now she's wearing heels! Thanks to you, the symmetry is completely ruined!"

Liz sighed. "Yeah, sure…now, let's get back to the party. I don't want people to get suspicious if they find us two hiding behind a plant." She grabbed the back of Kid's collar and started dragging him back, despite his crying and begging to be kept hidden.

Meanwhile, Chrona was standing as far away from people as possible, looking around with nervous eyes. Ragnarok popped out of her back. "Hey Chrona, where's the food? This is a damn party, ain't it? So get me some food!"

Chrona whimpered as Ragnarok started pounding his fists on her head. "Alright, I-I'll get you food! Just s-stop hitting me!" Chrona shuttered at the thought of walking all the way across the room to where the tables of food were; even though Liz had been encouraging her about the heels and helping her with walking, she didn't feel comfortable. Just then she heard someone say her name. She turned to see Liz smiling at her, a sobbing Kid on the ground next to her.

"Hey Chrona, are you enjoying the party?" Liz said casually as Chrona stared at Kid.

"Wh-what happened t-to him?" Chrona stuttered,feeling herself become worried. The young shinigami looked as though he had just seen something absolutely horrifying, but couldn't bring himself to tell someone about it.

Liz laughed, waving her hand. "Ah ha, it's nothing really! Right, Kid?" She kicked Kid in the side, causing him to roll over onto his back and clutch his ribs, complaining about how "if Liz is going to kick one side, she has to kick the other, so then it will be symmetrical". Chrona frowned as a confused look came to her face, and Ragnarok kept complaining about being hungry. Liz smacked Kid on both cheeks and must have said something threatening, because in the next instant he was back on his feet, adjusting his tie. Liz shot a mischievous smile at Chrona. "I better go check up on Patty now. You two have fun, okay?" Before Chrona could ask what was going on, Liz had left.

Death the Kid cleared his throat, and Chrona looked at him. "Ah…let's go to the balcony," he suggested. Chrona nodded in agreement, and Kid started walking towards the balcony. He turned to his right, expecting Chrona to be there, but he was surprised when she wasn't. He turned around and saw her a few paces behind, struggling to walk on high heels.

"I…don't know h-how to d-deal with these shoes…" she muttered to herself, only to feel two fists pound on her head.

"I said I was hungry! So where's the damn food?" Ragnarok exclaimed, ignoring Chrona's pleading for him to stop. Suddenly, Ragnarok felt a fist collide with his face, and immediately assumed it was Chrona. "Why, you little—!"

"Leave her alone."

Ragnarok looked down to see who had really punched him: Kid. He let out a grunt. "Fine. But if I don't get food soon, I'll give you the sleep deprivation punishment, Chrona." Ragnarok turned back into black blood and returned to Chrona, who let out a sigh of relief.

"Ah…th-thank you, Shinigami-san…"

Kid smiled at her. "It's no problem. Ragnarok must get on your nerves a lot, he deserved that. Now, shall we go to the balcony?" He held out his hand, and after a hesitant moment Chrona held it, her cheeks turning slightly pink. She stumbled quite a bit on their short walk to the balcony, but Kid helped her balance the entire way.

It was after what felt like years that they made it to the balcony. Chrona looked over the stone railing, looking over the breathtaking landscape. The moon was out and glowing brightly, but there wasn't any blood leaking out of its eyes or mouth for a change. Death City was dark, and almost all the lights of the small city had gone out, letting a few stars overhead become visible. Beyond the city, desert stretched for as far as the eye could see, looking like a large, peaceful ocean in the moonlight. Chrona smiled to herself. She hadn't felt so peaceful in a long time.

Kid wasn't looking at the landscape, but he was looking at Chrona instead. Her blue eyes had a look of peace and content in them, and a small smile had formed on her lips. When Chrona looked like this, it had always made Kid feel at peace himself. It could sometimes take an extremely long time to get Kid to snap out of this giddy daze. This is what made this night become the record-breaking time.

You see, on this very night, a lot of coincidences occurred that all lead to one large event. The first coincidence was that Chrona wasn't holding on to the railing on the balcony, so she had no balance support. The second coincidence was that Kid was on Chrona's left and, as mentioned before, facing Chrona so that he could look at her. The third coincidence was that a tornado was brewing a few miles away, and some of the strong winds sent off from the tornado had reached Death City, and blew in such a direction that it went from right to left, so that it would blow against Kid's face as he looked at Chrona. The fourth coincidence was that Black Star was holding a "show" inside that distracted everybody but Chrona and Kid, so they were the only ones on the balcony.

The fifth coincidence was, of course, that Chrona wasn't good at balancing with high heeled shoes.

When the wind blew, Chrona felt herself teeter on her feet, until she lost balance completely and fell in the direction that the wind was blowing. She spun around to try to catch herself when she fell.

"Chrona!" Kid saw her falling, and rushed to catch her.

Chrona felt warm, strong arms wrap around her waist, and knew that Kid was catching her from the fall. What she hadn't expected was to find herself pushed into an accidental lip lock. Her face flushed, and she felt butterflies in her stomach.

Kid's mind went blank when he felt Chrona's lips touch his. He could feel his face turning red, and his heart felt as if it had jumped into his throat. Kid thought this moment would never end…that is, until a fist collided with the top of his head.

"Augh!" Kid kneeled on the floor with his hands on the fresh dent in his head. It was almost as if he had just been Maka chopped—in fact, he thought he had been Maka chopped until he looked up to see Ragnarok in his face, looking even more dangerous than when he was in his powerful and large state.

"And what the hell do you think you're doing?" Ragnarok exclaimed as he shoved his face into Kid's. "Leave my meister alone, damn it!"

"R-Ragnarok, it's n-n-not h-his fault…" Chrona was fumbling with her thumbs, with her eyes to the ground, and Kid could see that her face had gone a bright shade of red. "I-it was an a-accident…"

Ragnarok turned on the embarrassed girl. "Accident or not, you skipped out on my food to go make out with this little shit!"

Chrona looked up at Ragnarok with a puzzled expression. "M-make out…?"

Death the Kid could still feel the ghostly warmth of Chrona's lips on his, but he tried to push that out of his mind for now. What he had to do at the moment was defend Chrona from Ragnarok. "She's telling the truth, so leave her alone."

Chrona looked up at Kid with slight confusion that he was standing up for her. Ragnarok scoffed. "And what say should you have in this, huh?"

Kid scowled, but then got an idea. "Chrona, stay here. I'll be right back!" He rushed off into the main room, leaving a very confused Chrona and an angry Ragnarok on the balcony. He ran over to the food table and piled some sweets onto a plate, not even bothering to put it all in order. That little brat doesn't deserve symmetry, Kid assumed, and he rushed back to the balcony, where Ragnarok was tugging at the hem of Chrona's dress.

"Say, this dress is much shorter than that damn robe of yours, ain't it? It will make it a lot easier to pull up!" Ragnarok cackled.

Chrona was fighting a losing battle of keeping her dress down and maintaining balance at the same time. "St-stop it! I-I don't know h-how to d-d-deal with you p-pulling on m-my dress!"

Kid jumped into action, shoving the plate of sweets into Ragnarok's face. "Here's your food, you worthless brat!"

Ragnarok ignored Kid's insult and gobbled down all the food in one bite, including the plate. "Seriously, all I was asking for was some damn food!" He melted down into black blood and returned into Chrona, who sighed.

Chrona kneeled down on the ground and started to take off the high heeled shoes. "I-I think th-these have c-c-caused us enough t-trouble tonight…"

Kid sighed and sat down next to her. "I couldn't agree more."

"Ah, Sh-Shinigami-san?"

"Hm?" Kid turned to Chrona to see that she was looking at him with those large, blue eyes, confusion on her face.

"W-well…wh-what did R-Ragnarok mean b-by 'm-make out-?"

Kid almost fell over at Chrona's dead-pan question. "Ah…well, I suppose it's kissing at an…um, intense level…" he trailed off, fumbling his fingers in a nervous manner.

Chrona blinked. "And, wh-what's 'kissing'?"

This time, Kid did fall over at Chrona's dead-pan question. He quickly regained his composure. "Well, that's what we accidently did that started this whole mess…" He felt his face grow hot as he said this, and his voice got quieter with every word he spoke.

Chrona's cheeks went a little pink. "Oh, I-I s-see…" Unconscious of what she was doing, she put her fingers up to her lips as that moment did an instant replay in her head. Her stomach had butterflies in them again.

Kid stood up, and extended his hand to Chrona to help her stand up as well. She took it and pulled herself up to her full height, the high heeled shoes in her other hand. Kid smiled as he looked at her. Exactly one inch taller than Chrona…absolutely perfect. They stayed out on the balcony for a little bit longer and looked out over Death City, barely even aware that they were still holding hands.

Death the Kid smiled to himself. Perhaps those shoes did me some good after all.