Hey, I'm new. Well, not exactly, but I won't be explaining that right now.
This is kind of an experiment to me, a project. This is my first story written in English and I would like continuing to do it. It's an amazing way to learn and polish my English, and I enjoyed it a lot.
I've always wanted to write a story like this, so here it is. I hope you'll like it!
Oh, and it won't be too long. Four or five chapters, I think.
Title: Still Here
Summary: Just one mistake and she was gone. But every night, she's still here.
Warning: I do not speak nor write English as fluently as I would like since it isn't my first language. So I'm really sorry if there are a lot of incoherences or words poorly used. If someone wants to beta reader my writings I would be grateful.
PD: I started to write this story inspired on a song: Still Here of Digital Daggers. If you want to, you can go hear the song. At least I thing it does goes with the mood. Every chapter tittle is inspired on the song verses.
Chapter one
I dream you're still here
Just one mistake.
Her hand slipped from his grip and her soul vibrated one last time.
Goodbye, Soul.
He cried.
.
Black Star was shouting like always.
"Won't he ever shut up?" asked an annoyed Kid.
"I'm sorry," mumbled Tsubaki.
"I don't know how can you stand him being so loud all the time," stated Liz. "I would've gone crazy after just one day."
Patty laughed hysterically. "I can take care of him!"
The long silent agreement was the answer Patty needed to suddenly kick Black Star and beat him while he still wouldn't shut up. It was still better his agonising shout rather than proclaiming himself as everyone's mighty god.
No one laughed.
Soul leaned his head against the table.
He didn't feel like he belonged there. He was never able to talk with them nor to engage on their conversations. It wasn't him. Soul had no interest in them. And still, he hanged out with them once in a while—a very long while. It was more than necessary.
They weren't his friends anymore.
"Soul," called Liz. He lazily glared at her without moving his head. "Are you O.K.? You look like you're about to fall asleep."
Their glares pissed him off.
"I'm fine. No need to fuss over me."
Liz smiled sadly.
"It's obvious you haven't been fine, I can tell," she said. Her tone was careful and soft, as if she was trying not to break him. Soul buffed. He hated that—and he also hated that they were all trying to be overly protective. "You can talk to me if you want. I know you don't have anyone else since she's…"
She trailed off her words. Now even Patty and Black Star were looking at them without doing any sound.
She. It meant Maka.
Since a year ago, no one dared to say her name out loud.
Soul stood up from his chair.
"I'm leaving."
He didn't even had the chance to eat his pizza.
.
Soul usually wandered through the city the whole day. He'd woke up at six in the morning to grab a coffee in front of his building before anyone else arrived. The sour taste of coffee almost makes him want to throw up every morning, but it keeps him awake and returns the senses to his body. Then, he goes to Shibusen to grab another solo mission and if there's nothing, he just goes back to his motorcycle.
After a whole year of walking the city, Soul knows every corner of Death City.
He had gotten used to solitude.
"Soul!" someone shouts behind him when he was parking the motorcycle.
"Marie?" he said. The last person he thought he'd see was his old teacher.
Marie smiled at him looking more radiant than ever. Clutching to her hand was a little girl, resembling both Marie and Stein. Their daughter, Soul assumed. Marie's hair and Stein's green eyes. For some reasons, it perturbed him to know both their teachers had a child together. He wouldn't had believed it if it weren't because Maka had told him that she felt Stein's soul connected to the one on Marie's belly.
"I haven't seen you since years ago!" she exclaimed, laughing. Marie embraced him as if he was a long lost son.
Soul almost died on her arms.
"Ugh, Marie, I can't breath."
"Oh, right. Sorry."
He tried to smirk. "No worries."
"Mama," the little girl whined while hiding behind Marie's long skirt. "I don't like his soul."
Silence.
She could see souls, just like Stein did. And at such young age—Soul could tell she was around three years old—, she was able to distinguish a horrible soul like his.
His soul was dark and gloomy.
And full of black blood.
Marie reacted after a few long seconds. "Don't say that, honey! He's a amazing person, he's just… sad."
Sad. Everyone thought he was sad. But he wasn't.
Soul was miserable.
"Why did you came back to America?" asked Soul. He knew that if he deviate the conversation, it would lead to another person giving him unwanted attention. "I thought you would stay in Oceania's base for a long time."
"I thought so too," she said, finally speaking with a serious voice. "But Shinigami-sama called me. He's worried."
"Worried?"
Marie nodded. "About you, Soul."
Soul laughed, but no happiness could be heard.
"Everyone's worrying about nothing," he said tiredly. "Just leave me alone."
"But your black blood is getting out of control and you could-"
"Just leave me alone," he repeated himself.
Like a mantra.
"You need an anti-magic wavelength, Soul. That's why I'm here."
"I don't want to see any of you," he snapped.
And he disappeared into the building, leaving Marie without any other word.
.
"We're getting late, Soul! Get up!"
He twisted himself in the blankets and groaned when he felt the sunlight over his eyes.
"Five more minutes."
Maka laughed almost madly. "Don't be such a lazy ass. You're getting up now or I'll break your skull in two."
"Such violence."
"You'll survive, I don't care."
"I hate you so much," groaned Soul once again.
He hide behind the blanket, pissed at the sunlight.
The weight of Maka sitting by his side in the bed woke him up a little bit more. What was she planning? By that time, she would have already kill him with one of her incredibly big books.
"I won't be late again because of you," she whispered over him. She had leaned over Souls covered body and didn't let him move.
Soul was almost having a heart attack.
"It's kind of contradicting that you're not letting me get up when you want me to stand up," he said sarcastically. He needed a distraction of her body over his if he still wanted to live a bit more.
"It's strategy."
"Your usual strategy doesn't require much thinking," he mocked. "You don't think twice before planting your book in my head."
Maka laughed and Souls heart flustered.
He felt so gay.
"Today, I want your memories to be intact," she said.
"Oh?" he exclaimed."Your book usually doesn't mind killing half my childhood memories."
Silence welcomed him during a few seconds. Through their latent resonant, Soul felt how sorrowful she was feeling. It startled him. Maka wasn't the kind of person who regrets her actions—and yet, so out of the blue, Maka was being like that.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled so lowly that even with their closeness he had trouble hearing her.
"What for?"
"For being so violent with you. I don't know how have you stayed with me for so long even after everyday violence. It may actually be true I've killed some of your childhood memories."
Soul smiled, touched by her unusual sentimentalism.
"I don't need them."
"What?"
Maka's wavelength jumped and Soul felt it.
"I don't need my childhood memories," he explained. "They aren't good, anyways. Besides, I can still create a whole lot more memories I'll treasure in the future."
Maka giggled like a little girl.
"How so? You sound like there's something really good coming up."
Even before she could react, Soul untangled his arms from the sheets and embraced her. He could felt how Maka almost jumped but she didn't resist him.
She was probably freaking out.
"It's not coming up. It started when I meat you."
Maka buried her head in Souls covered neck. Even he could felt her rapid heartbeats that matched his.
He really loved that sensation.
But not as much as he loved her.
"Maka?" Soul called her after her completely silenced being.
"Hmm?"
"Are you falling asleep?"
She nodded against him. "I'm tired. I studied almost the whole night."
"And you were the one hurrying me up," he laughed.
Maka got scared instantly and jerked up, but Souls arms were still caging her. And she was still tired.
"Let me go! Now we're definitely late!"
"Correction," Soul grinned, "we're late already."
"Shit," Maka groaned.
"Lets stay here. We had a long battle yesterday. They won't miss us a day."
For the first time in his life, Maka accepted his petition to miss class. And before he could proclaim his victory, Maka was already curling up to him.
He laughed. "Hey, at least let me uncover myself. It's too hot behind the blanket."
It wasn't a lie. After the heat of the sentimental moment was over, Soul started to feel how horribly hot he was because of the sunlight burning through the blankets. The air was thick in there he could hardly breath. And Maka being in top of him, Soul was asphyxiating himself.
Maka giggled softly while letting him out of the sheet. "That was the strategy."
"What?"
"The strategy was to get you desperate in there with the warmth."
"You're such a demon," whined Soul.
"And you love me like that," said Maka before finally falling asleep.
Souls heart skipped a beat.
She had probably said it without any meaning, but hell, Maka didn't know how right she was.
Because Soul Eater Evans loved his partner, best friend and meister.
He smiled and leaned over to kiss her forehead. "One day you'll know."
.
Soul growled.
He had a horrible backache that really ached him when he got up to the bathroom.
And he hated so much to be in that apartment he once shared with Maka. But at the same time, he refused to let go of that place. It just seemed wrong. Maka's belongings—her books, her clothes, her bed, they were all still there. Untouched.
Soul looked over at Maka's closed door.
He hadn't entered there since a year ago.
Sometimes, he liked to imagine that she was still there. Reading. And he wouldn't dare to interrupt her, so he didn't enter her room.
How silly of him.
She was long gone and nothing could change that fact.
It was all shit that saying about dead people still there within their hearts. He remembered her every single time but it didn't change the fact that she had died. Anything mattered if she wasn't by his side.
He didn't wanted to live with those happy memories without her.
There was no meaning.
The reflection he was seeing in the bathrooms mirror didn't look like himself. Or maybe it did. He had always had those gloomy red eyes, sharp shark teeth and disordered hair. But those features were even more scarier with his lifeless expression.
Soul leaned over to wash his face. Cold water was needed to woke him at least a bit.
"Why did anyone helped me?"
Her voice. Cracked and cold.
Soul looked at the mirror, water drops slicing through his face.
It didn't startled him. Not anymore.
Maka was standing behind him. She didn't had her pigtails done and her skin was a thousand times more pale, almost a little bit greenish. Her eyes shut, not wanting to see him. Soul had never seen her eyes again—those he loved so much. That creature refused to see him and he didn't complained. Because it wasn't Maka.
She was dead.
It was the portrayal of a dead Maka. Or how he thought she would look like dead.
"WHY?" it shouted.
Soul shook his head.
"I'm sorry."
"No one helped me."
"I know."
"You didn't, either."
"I tried," sobbed Soul.
"No, you didn't."
He let himself fall into the floor, vanishing the image of Maka on the mirror.
Tears ran through his face, melting with the water drops.
No one knew.
Maka was gone and everyone tried to make him move one. But he couldn't. She was still there, in his memories, his dreams, and even his daily life. He saw her everywhere he went. And it followed him.
It made his life miserable.
More than it was already.
Though he knew it wasn't real, it still stroke him.
He had tried to get ride of it. But he couldn't. He had broken mirrors and everything it appeared on, but it kept showing up every day. And on top of that, deep in his heart, he still didn't wanted it to actually go away.
Seeing Maka, even if it was a horrible hallucination, brought a tiny sensation that she was still alive somewhere.
He was really going insane.
Soul stood up lazily. He had no energy even though he had just slept for hours. Five hours, exactly. Much more than he was usually able to.
The clock on the wall stated that it was three in the morning.
No coffee shop opened yet.
But he still needed that coffee, so he went to the kitchen to prepare it. Ten minutes until the coffee machine could finish.
He felt in the couch.
His hand unconsciously reached to the red bottom that tilted by his side and the mechanic female voice of the voicemail announced two unheard messages. He didn't actually wanted to hear them, but after a minute of complete silence in his empty apartment, he pressed the button again.
"Hey, Soul. It's Liz. You never pick up the phone calls but I hope you at least hear your voicemail. So… I'm sorry if I was too pushing earlier. I didn't meant to make you uncomfortable, but you need to know that we are all worried about you. I am worried about you, don't try to negate it. It's been a rough year, I know. We have all been sad because of Maka's… Maka's death. You of all have been the worst, and I get it since she was your partner. But you shouldn't lock yourself up. It's probably the hundredth time I've told you that. And… we were going to tell you today that we're going to visit her tomb at Wednesday. I hope you'll come. Take care, Soul."
Wednesday. Soul furrowed his eyebrows, trying to locate himself in time. It was Monday, so it was in two days.
Two days until Maka's death anniversary.
How have he survived that long?
The coffee machine whistled and he got up.
"You even forgot me," it said swiftly, almost making him spill his coffee.
"I didn't."
"The why won't you go?"
"I'm scared," he admitted.
Soul had gotten so used to that appearance that he no longer freaked out at their conversations. It did made him want to cry every time, but he controlled himself when he could. When it wasn't screaming, he actually thought he was talking to a zombie Maka.
He had finally accepted he was crazy.
Talking to his hallucination wasn't as rare as it seemed if he admitted to be crazy.
"Why scared?" It continued to push his limits. "I'm already dead. You can't do anything about that."
"… I know."
It appeared leaned over Maka's closed door.
Soul glared hatefully at the appearance. He hated everything that threatened to disturb Maka's belongings.
"They are so hypocritical to be concerned about me now when I'm already dead," it hissed.
For once, he wasn't guilty to agree with it.
He was tired.
It didn't followed him into the room nor his bed.
He just wanted to keep dreaming about Maka.
.
"Welcome back, Soul," grinned the little devil.
Soul growled.
This wasn't what he wanted. He was into that tiny black room again, and hated it. Why couldn't he keep dreaming about Maka?
"You hate the power black blood is giving you."
"I do, aren't I clear about that?"
"You're limiting yourself," said the little devil.
"I don't care."
"Lets go play, Soul Evans."
It was always like that. And he was tired of it.
He didn't wanted to pour his soul into true piano. It would break him more than he already was.
Gloomy and dark.
His existence had enough of that to keep pouring in more.
"Maybe you'll be able to find her in there," kept saying the little devil. Soul looked up at him—he was pointing at the black void.
His memories. The black void.
It represented him well.
"That's why I'll go," Soul said before falling into the void.
.
She was crying.
Soul sat by his side without talking. He knew that the last thing Maka would want was him acknowledging she was crying. Maka hated to cry, and even more, she hated that someone watched her cry.
"Your dad's an asshole," Soul said after a long silence.
Maka nodded slowly.
"He is," she said with wrecked voice."I hate him. I really do."
"No, you don't."
She didn't replied until another sob escaped her mouth. "You're right, I don't. And I hate that. I want to hate him but I can't."
"He's your dad, Maka. And he loves you. He does actually loves you, and he will even after you die."
Silence.
They didn't need words. He could feel themselves resonate even against their will. That was the kind of connection they had—their bond was unbreakable and incredibly strong. Soul was proud to know it. Because Maka was her partner, the only one he was able to resonate with. Shinigami-sama had even told them once that their bond was beyond rare.
They were soulmates.
As cheesy as it sounded.
"You said that... but you haven't talk to your family in years."
Soul froze in his spot.
His family.
He hated to talk about them.
"There's nothing to say about them," he snapped.
"You should give them a chance," Maka insisted.
She was no longer crying.
"I don't need them as long as you're with me."
Soul stood up and, to Maka's unbelieving glare, he offered his hand to her. She looked up at him without understanding. Her cheeks were red.
"Would this beautiful lady share a dance with me?"
"You must be kidding. I probably look like a ghost with my make up all smudged," she joked.
"I can only see a beautiful girl on a stunning green dress," Soul said with a smirk. "And she's perfect."
Maka completely reddened.
Soul laughed at her adorable expression. He took her hand and forced her to stand up. They were too close, their souls vibrantly resonating. And she wasn't threatening his life, so it was a good chance.
Before she could react, he leaned over and kissed her.
Slowly, lovingly.
And she kissed him back.
"You'll probably regret doing that," she said against his lips. His breath tangling with hers.
"I could never regret kissing you."
Maka trembled in his arms. "I know you will."
"I know I won't."
He kissed her again.
Their souls resonated as one.
.
He opened his eyes and found himself alone.
Soul could almost still feel Maka's warm covering him on that night and her soft lips against his.
If only he could see her again.
Kiss her again.
Hug her again.
But he could only see her on his dreams, his memories. And when she was in his arms, she'd disappear.
He hated reality.
Soul slipped from his bed again. After it's appearance, his mind went blank. So he forgot to drink his coffee hours ago and now it was cold.
He still needed his coffee and he had already prepare some, so expending money on a new one wasn't the best idea. He just needed to warm it up a bit.
Same routine every day.
Or so he thought.
Maka's door was open, he noticed while passing by.
Hesitantly, he walked over to her room but couldn't get himself to completely open the door. He didn't need the motivation, though. A gentle wind opened it up when he was about to touch the door.
Ash blond hair in pigtails.
She was facing the window until the door opened.
Green beautiful cheerful eyes.
"Soul!" she shouted energetically. "Long time no see!"
After a whole year of solitude, his soul finally vibrated happily at the resonation.