For a Good Purpose
or
How Black*Star (Almost) Completely Ruined Soul's Life By Making Fun of Tsubaki's Pervert Mind
"I think we should kiss," said Maka, and Soul wondered how the hell he brought that to himself.
Actually, he already knew. It was all Black*Star's fault. They were having a fine afternoon last weekend, with Kid joining the rest of the group like he wasn't the almighty Shinigami-sama at all, just a regular teenager. It was a rare event these days, since Kid was busy all the time with his Shinigami affairs while the rest of the group was helping Sid-sensei with the junior students at EAT class and, at the same time, taking job requests all over the world. Despite the usual setbacks, they would still try to meet as often as their schedules would allow.
After a good old game of basketball, they sat around a picnic basket. Random chatter soon turned into reminiscing, which turned into Black*Star mocking Tsubaki about the Book of Eibon's gender bender episode. It was quite funny to think of Tsubaki as a pervert, Soul had to admit, and that's why he laughed along with Black*Star while the poor girl tried to hide her tomato-colored face from the others.
What he wasn't counting on, however, was that Tsubaki would do anything to divert their attention from the fact that she had a major dirty mind.
"A-And what about you and Maka, huh, Soul? Everybody knows you like each other. Can't we talk about that now? When are you to going to confess or something?" had asked Tsubaki between nervous laughs.
Of course Soul had tried to play it cool that day, though he didn't have the nerve to look at his meister's face. He had just rolled his eyes dismissively and was about to make a sarcastic comment to break the silence that had fallen after Tsubaki's question, when Maka stood up and ran away without even looking back.
The rest of the group had gasped in surprise — except for Black*Star, because whether the situation was below his "god-holiness" or he was just that stupid — with Maka's reaction, specially Tsubaki, who looked like she had just eaten something rotten.
"Shit," Soul had grunted before standing up as well and following her without further ado, but Maka had already sprinted like an animal in danger, so she was far from his reach.
When he had finally arrived home later that day, Maka was behind the closed door of her bedroom, the only place Soul was forbidden to enter in their house. They had this mutual agreement that their bedrooms were their own special sanctuaries, a refuge for when they wanted to be alone, so they wouldn't invade each other's personal spaces if not explicitly invited.
His first reaction had been to knock, but something had made his hand stop in midair. What the hell was he going to say to her if she opened the door? "Hey, it was just a stupid joke, leave it"? "Tsubaki didn't really mean to imply anything"? "We clearly don't like each other, you dork"?
Because the truth was that he, indeed, had feelings for her. He had had for quite some time now, though he didn't know exactly when it happened, all he knew is that he couldn't bring himself to tell her for a variety of reasons too big not to be taken into account.
The first one was that it was too uncool. Seriously, why did he have to be another damn victim of the stupid "meister and weapon fell in love with each other" cliché? And along with no one else but the very girl that got traumatized by the outcome of such cliché when her parents split up? Was fate playing a stupid joke with him? Because he wasn't laughing at all.
Second, it was Maka. She didn't have any inclination towards general romance — or else she was doing a damn good job hiding it —, let alone showed any kind of interest on him other than the day she really didn't want to wash the dishes and was trying to talk her way out of that by saying he was the coolest guy she had ever met. Heh, as if he was dumb enough to fall for that act.
(He did wash the dishes that night, though.)
And finally, the last reason he couldn't tell her about his feelings was no other than the fact he was a big ass coward.
Honestly, how could someone expect him to confess to the person who trusted him enough to leave her panties hanging to dry without thinking he was having nasty thoughts about them?
Not that he had. Nasty thoughts and stuff. He only had to control his teenage brain sometimes, that's all.
Although he had plenty of reasons — and very good ones, they were — to keep his feelings to himself, he still couldn't imply to Maka that he didn't like her that way. If he made her believe he thought of her as just a friend, then it would be over even before it began. He wouldn't ever have another shot with her — not that he was trying to have one now, but oh, well. That's why he had stopped at her door with no clue whatsoever to what he should say to her.
So he had decided to give her some space. He had stepped away and shut himself in his own bedroom, so if she needed to get out of hers to go to the bathroom and get something to eat, she wouldn't have to deal with the awkwardness of the situation.
In the meantime, he had started to think about her reasons to run away like that. Maka wouldn't usually take that comment too seriously, even more when it came from a very embarrassed Tsubaki trying to evade Black*Star's bullshit-ness with everything she got. Instead, the real Maka would probably tell that wannabe ninja to shut his mouth if he didn't want to be Maka-chopped, and then would compel Tsubaki to spill some of Black*Star's nasty secrets everybody knew she kept in respect of her meister. Maka had long suspected Black*Star peed on his bed when he had nightmares.
Reaching no conclusion, he had given up and gone to sleep, deciding it was better to just apologize to her in the morning. It was not like he could control what came out of Tsubaki's mouth, but he had felt guilty for making fun of the girl along with Black*Douche.
On the next day, though, Maka was acting like nothing had happened. He was confused, not really knowing whether to bring the subject or just play along, but eventually had chosen the latter option. That was how their partnership had always worked: they would talk when they would be ready to talk and not before that. All was left for him to do was respect her decision and be there when — and if — she wanted to talk about it.
Just like that, things had come back to normal for a few days. Maka didn't seem uncomfortable around him, so he had decided to leave the matter. Maybe she had just overreacted that day on the picnic, maybe it was something else entirely. If she was fine, then he was fine too.
Until she dropped the bomb.
"Soul, I think we should kiss," Maka said, as if she was talking about the weather. At that moment, he was with his back to her, taking the sheets out of the washing machine, but when Soul heard those words, he turned so abruptly towards her he ended up hitting his head on the open door of the laundry cabinet.
"W-What?" He asked with a dumbfounded expression, while rubbing his aching forehead.
"I mean," Maka stared at her own bare feet and put her hands behind her back, a small faint of red on her cheeks. "it's just that I'm tired of the girls teasing me over us and… well, if we just kiss and be done with it, we will prove to them we feel nothing for each other and they will stop bothering me, you see…"
Soul swallowed hard, sensing he had started to sweat through all the pores of his skin. He couldn't agree to that when she had no clue about his true feelings for her, nor kiss her knowing she didn't really want to be kissed. That was probably the part when he should say something like "that won't happen, because, well, I already like you, so", or "we can't, I think I have this disease I just forgot the name and this can be transmitted through my saliva", or just "I just remembered Ox invited me to play video games, bye"; instead, he wisely replied:
"Huh."
"You know what? Forget it," Maka let out a heavy sigh, throwing her hands in the air. "It was a stupid idea to begin with. Just pretend I didn't say anything."
As she was turning on her back to leave, however, the words came out of Soul's mouth without him even realizing it. "I'll do it."
Damn.
Her head slowly turned to look back at him, a question hidden beneath her eyes. He shifted his weight between his legs uncomfortably, not really knowing how to proceed, but on the inside his mind was screaming with all its might for him to stop that madness at once.
"Really?" his meister blinked with surprise. "Like… right now?"
No! "Sure."
"… Ok, then."
"Whatever," Soul leaned against the laundry cabinet as if he didn't give a damn in the world, but internally he was wondering if he really sounded and acted as cool as he wanted it to look like. If the sweat covering his face was any indication, then probably not.
"Fine," Maka hesitantly approached him with short, slow steps, and stopped in front of him. She looked down and motioned at the sheets that were still hanging in one of his arms. "What about those…?"
"Oh," he dropped them in the sink bluntly. "There you are."
They stood staring at each other for a few moments.
"So."
"So."
"I can't… reach you."
"Right," Soul leaned forward, lowering his head a few inches. For the past few years he had been growing taller really quickly, though the same couldn't be said for Maka. She did, however, gain a few curves, which only contributed for his teenage brain to look at her legs expectantly every time she wore a skirt on windy days. Yeah, Soul Eater, like that could happen. The girl who had managed to fight in a skirt. Idiot.
Now their faces were standing so close to one another their breaths mingled. Soul cleared his throat, not really knowing if he should take the first step or just wait for her.
"So."
"So."
"This is awkward," Maka confessed, but she didn't take a step back. They just kept staring right into each other's eyes.
"Yeah," Soul absently agreed, as he was more concentrated on the fact that she was biting her lower lip in a very sexy way. The tiny details on her face he could never have noticed if not this close to her got him hypnotized. Her green irises had tiny beads of gold that made them sparkly against the light that came from the laundry room's window, and the bridge of her nose was covered in freckles almost imperceptible to the sharpest observer.
"I'll just close my eyes and then you do it when you are ready, ok?" he heard her saying, but his mouth was already closing up on hers, ignoring every warning message his freaked out mind was sending him.
Suddenly, it was just like he was on fire. Every hair of his body bristled when his lips touched hers, and a shiver ran down his spine upon the realization they were softer than they looked. Damn, the feeling was way more satisfying than he had ever dreamt of.
Soul wondered, then, if she tasted just as good as she felt, and driven by curiosity and also a great deal of desire, he slid his tongue through her lips to part them open. At the moment he did it, however, he felt himself being harshly pushed away by a horrified Maka, who ran away before he could say anything and shut herself on her bedroom again.
His first reaction was to not have any whatsoever. Then, he started to panic. Every bit of the flame that ignited his body just a few seconds ago was completely gone, and the sweat ran cold on his neck. He wanted to reach her, call her name, but his feet were not obeying him. So he stood there in the middle of the laundry room, the wet sheets tossed at the sink long forgotten, waiting for the adrenaline to get out of his system.
What he could say to her anyway? That he was sorry? It was an utter lie and she would notice it on the spot. Maka had an inner lie detector that could spook even the most skilled of liars, and every time he had to hide even something banal from her, like a surprise birthday party, it was a nightmare. She could sniff the lie on him, and even if she didn't, he hated to lie to her anyway. She was his best friend and the person he swore to protect with his life not due to some sense of duty towards his meister, but because he truly liked her and respected her as a person, as a comrade.
Soul touched his lips. There was a tingling sensation there, the kind that he knew it would be on his mind for a while. He wanted to kiss her again so badly it hurt, but at the thought of doing something that could jeopardize their friendship forever, he felt stuck with fear. Maka was the most important person of his life. It was thanks to her that he was able to grow as a person and overcome the fear of not being good enough as a pianist. She turned all of his insecurities into weapons and wielded them just like she wielded his scythe form.
He would just apologize to her, then. Not for being sorry for kissing her, but rather for making her feel uncomfortable. And after that they would go back to being what they always were, and although the perspective of Maka being just a friend was not ideal for him — even less now that he finally kissed her and liked it —, at least it was better than if Maka distanced herself from him.
With that in mind, Soul marched towards his meister's door and knocked with determination.
"Maka," he called. "open up, let me talk to you. Please."
There was no reply.
.
.
He reached the point of pulling his hair out in desperation.
Maka wouldn't let him talk to her. She was waking up earlier and leaving before he couldn't even see her face in the morning. At school, she surrounded herself with other girls, which would shoot confused looks at him all day. Then, after the classes were over, she would state she needed to study and would go hide in the library until dawn, when she would come back home and head straight to the shower, then her room.
The girl was avoiding him like the plague and Soul didn't know what else he could do. He knocked on her door almost daily, asking her to talk to him. He tried to find her in the library once, searching every floor, every abandoned corner of the old building, but to no use. Actually, he long suspected she was going to someplace else, but couldn't find her in any of the places they usually went to. One of his classmates declared he saw Maka with his father on the mall once, and for his meister to willingly go out with her father like that, it could only mean one thing: she was trying to escape from him with all her might.
The situation was insufferable. He couldn't sleep. He couldn't eat. He couldn't focus on anything else than settling that matter once and for all. "On the edge" was a concept he had surpassed a long time ago and, for the sake of Maka's door — as he was about to kick it to the ground or slice it in little pieces with his scythe arm — and his own, he decided to open an exception to the "give her time" thing and employ drastic measures.
Later that day, he waited for Maka to complete his routine of taking a bath and shutting herself on her room, then grabbed his pillow and a blanket and sat down by her door, leaning his back against it.
"Maka," he shouted in anger. "I'll set camp here until you come and talk to me! Do you hear me? I won't give up this time!"
The door burst open, which made him fall on his back. He cursed as his head hit the floor, and looked up to where Maka stood watching him.
"So I was thinking," she began, pulling up one of the straps of her nightdress that insisted on falling. "we haven't quite finished… doing that, so it doesn't count, right? I mean, we can't use that as proof that we are not... I'm sorry I had bailed on you before, ok, I just freaked out a little because… anyway, I won't do it this time."
Soul blinked once, then twice. Was he having hearing problems? Did he just hear Maka — the same Maka who ran away with disgust, the same Maka who was avoiding him until now — say — and saying it like she was just choosing what to cook for dinner — that she wanted him to kiss her again?
Slowly, he stood up in silence and turned to look at her, a blank expression on his face. She seemed as serious as the first time, which made his mind go swirling all over with the thought of joining his lips with her once more, of feeling her hot breath hitting his face. He had never wanted anything so much in his life than to do just as she asked.
For the second time that week, Soul took notice of the golden beads of her eyes, the tiny freckles that speckled her nose and cheeks, the way she bit her lower lip when she was anxious. All he needed to do was lean forward and capture her mouth with his, this time for real. It would be so simple to do that… and yet so hard.
After taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes for a second before speaking. "I'm sorry, Maka. I can't do that."
As much as he yearned to kiss her again, this time he wouldn't surrender so easily to his own wishes and would choose reason instead of heart. He couldn't risk losing her friendship over a kiss she didn't even truly want in the first place.
That didn't stop him from hurting at the sight of her disappointed expression, though.
"Oh, I see," Maka looked away, hugging her own self. Her face had the slightest faint of red. "I'm the one who's sorry. I thought you wouldn't mind, considering… you know… all the girls and stuff."
"What?" Soul raised a brow, suddenly confused. "What girls?"
Maka snorted with sarcasm, then rolled her eyes.
"Oh, come on, I'm no idiot," she said. "I know about your secret dates."
"What secret dates?" he insisted impatiently, not really having the nerve to make things even messier than they were.
"Gosh, Soul, don't play dumb with me!"
"I have no idea what you are talking about, woman!"
"Those girls!" Maka threw her hands in the air as if it was too obvious. "The ones that leave love letters in your locker."
Oh, his stalkers. He liked to brag about them to Black*Star sometimes, but he only did that to look cool. He couldn't care less about them.
"Yes, but—"
"I know what means when you say you are going out but don't tell where you are going, nor invite me to tag along," Maka had a victorious smile on her lips, as she had just unveiled the mystery of the century. "You have dates with those girls!"
Soul couldn't do anything other than facepalm.
"This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
"Admit it!" Maka pointed an accusatory finger at him.
"I've never dated those lunatics, you dumbass! It was just me and the guys doing stupid things you girls would probabl— oh, oh, oh, wait a sec," Soul smacked her finger away from his face. "You just said you thought I wouldn't mind kissing you because of those other girls… so in fact you think I am a… a… a whore?"
"Ugh, I wouldn't use that word," Maka used her gosh-this-is-so-obvious tone, but she couldn't meet his gaze, suddenly finding her fingernails very intriguing. "It's more of a… smoocher, perhaps?"
"You think I'm a whore!"
"I do not—"
"A whore!"
"Oh, shut it, you love to boast about all the female attention you get," Maka pouted.
"No, Maka, I only talk about it around Black*Star to make him look uncool!" Soul snapped, clenching his teeth. "You know what? I should have gone out on a date with all of those girls instead of wasting my time falling for a frigid girl who thinks I'm a whore!"
Maka frowned in response, sparks of anger flying from her eyes.
"Have you just called me frigid?"
"Yes, so what?" Soul lifted his chin in defiance.
"Well, I'm sorry if I came up with a lame excuse to kiss a useless bastard who thinks I'm frigid, you jerk!"
"Moron!"
"Dumbass!"
After the name calling festival was over, both of them crossed their arms and turned their backs on each other, too stubborn to yield.
The vein on Soul's forehead was about to pop out of his face from the anger that was running through his system. How could Maka think he was some sort of womanizer? Aside from receiving a lot of love letters, there was no other indication that could lead her to think he had been interacting with the opposite sex. But no, his meister was too much of a headstrong and she wanted to believe what she wanted to believe. She could have simply asked him what he was up to when he didn't invite her to go out with him. He hardly doubted she would be interested in the "who pees farther" competition between Black*Star, Kid and him.
It was only after a few seconds of sulking that Soul could overlook his anger and realize that maybe, maybe, Maka had just confessed to him.
He turned his head slowly in her direction again, and found her looking back at him with the same wide eyes that were probably mirroring his own. Suddenly, his throat felt dry, very dry. A heat sensation was rising up to his face from the base of his neck and he found himself sweating again.
"So…" Soul cleared his throat, staring at the ceiling. "you really wanted to kiss me."
"And you… fell… for me." Maka meddled with her fingers, while focusing on the point between her feet.
"Right."
"Yeah."
They stood in silence for a moment, looking anywhere but to each other, when Maka finally spoke, her voice so low it was nothing but a whisper. "I, uhm, liked when you kissed me."
Soul's blood boiled on his veins by hearing that. Was he really standing in front of his meister, the girl he held feelings for, the least person in the world he would expect to enjoy being kissed by him? He had so many questions to ask her, but somehow all that mattered on that moment was that she liked him back.
Slowly, he felt his confidence building up inside of him again. There was nothing to be worried about anymore.
"Well," he smirked, leaning against the doorframe trying to look cool, and put his hands on his pockets. "wanna do that again?"
Maka shyly hesitated for a bit, but finally replied with a shy smile, stepping closer. "Sure."
"If you close your eyes, I—" Soul was taken by surprise when her lips crushed against his, but didn't take long to kiss her back. All the previous feelings of the first kiss they shared came back in full force, and he closed his fingers tightly around her waist, sticking their bodies together. This time, Maka didn't push him back when he attempted to part her lips with his tongue; instead, her actions mimicked his own, and she intertwined her fingers on his hair, deepening their kiss. He could feel every inch of his body being heated up by the warmth of hers.
Then, he was finally able to feel her taste. There were simply no words that could describe it with precision — though toothpaste was a close enough candidate. She tasted good. Honestly, if he had known how addictive kissing Maka was, he would have never worried about being consumed by madness.
"Soul," Maka mewled against his lips when they parted to catch their breaths for a brief moment. "this is my room. You can't be here."
"… How about the couch?"
"Perfect."
Black*Star was forgiven. For now.
.
.
"—and then I easily defeated the Kisshin all by myself, of cours—OW!" Black*Star flinched when Soul came up from nowhere and punched his face. "What the hell, man?"
"If Maka and I weren't so cool, you wouldn't be alive now, so you really should be thanking me, you bastard."
"I don't even kno—OW! Dammit, Evans!"
"Shut up."
THE END
A/N: If you liked it, please leave a review! I'd love to hear your opinion. :)