Tsubaki knew it had been a horrible idea to wear white.
During the first class of the day she had felt the horrible gnawing sensation in her lower gut begin, the one that always spelled trouble with a capital T. She glanced nervously at the clock and evaluated the intensity of her uterus pain - Can I make it until lunch? This lecture seems important, I don't want to miss it…
So, instead of heading to the ladies' room, she discreetly took a few Advil and decided to wait. Typically the first day wasn't that bad. If everything went according to plan, she'd last for a while.
She made it through her second class without issue (Black Star and Soul seemed to be having some sort of paperclip battle), but noted nervously that the Advil wasn't helping as much as it usually would.
Second period rolled to a close. Black Star took it upon himself to walk with Tsubaki to their third class, carrying her backpack and books, insisting, as always, it was his "godly duty." She hoped he didn't notice her blush as she twined her ponytail around her fingers.
Tsubaki, personally, enjoyed her third period class - art. She could draw or paint pictures in long sweeps of her arm, ending up with a tiny smudge of paint on the end of her nose, across her forehead, in her eyebrow. Black Star (who sat right beside her; Tsubaki continually prayed to Death for patience) was more like a blender - colors would be flying in tandem to his flailing appendages, the results would be choppy, and he usually left the class with paint all over him, everywhere.
Tsubaki had been sitting at her easel, daubing the canvas with dark blue, when she felt something warm run down her leg.
Her eyes widened in horror. She quickly swiped her hand down her calf and brought it up to see: it took less than a second for her face to turn bright red. Incredible embarrassment and fear swept through her like a wave at the color staining her hand. No, oh no, oh no, what do I do, everyone will see...she felt tears pricking at the corners of her eyes as she hurriedly wiped her fingers on a nearby rag.
She bit her lip as she felt another trickle down her leg, eyes darting around for escape routes. The only door was at the front of the room; she'd have to walk past the entire class to get there. She felt panic begin to push in on her, the threat of tears imminent now. She collapsed mentally in a panic, wishing the class would go by faster, pleading that no one would look, wishing she hadn't chosen today to wear white -
There was the creak of a stool to her left and a gentle tug at her ponytail. "Tsu? What's wrong?"
She swiveled enough to see Black Star and his frown, to which she forced an awkward, shaky smile. "Wrong? N-nothing's wrong, Black Star. I'm just concentrating is all." She bit her lip again when she felt another line of blood begin its descent towards her sandals.
Black Star frowned deeper. "You don't cry when you concentrate." He crossed his arms, subconsciously flexing his biceps in the process. Tsubaki wanted to slap herself when she nearly drooled. Not the hormones, too! "So c'mon, what is it? What's wrong? Tell me Tsubaki! I'm a god, I can fix whatever it is!" He beamed.
Tsubaki sighed, gritting her teeth when that particular movement shifted her uterus in a way it did not like. "It's not something you can fix, Black Star." Tears started welling up again in her eyes in shame. "It's something that isn't fun and right now it's really embarrassing. I'm going to humiliate myself in front of the entire class -" she blinked violently to keep the tears from falling, "-and I'm really scared."
"Uh…"
"It's…" Tsubaki's entire face felt on fire, "period. Stuff."
"Well, yeah. It's third period. I don't get why that's embarrass- oh."
She looked up at Black Star, wanting the ground to swallow her whole. He had the good grace to be blushing a little.
He scratched the back of his head, then shook it and met her eyes with a gentleness that Tsubaki knew only she ever saw. "How bad?"
She bit her lip and stared at her feet.
"That bad, huh?"
She nodded mutely.
She heard him sigh, then the sound of his stool creaking as he moved. "Well, Tsu, you're wrong." She blinked in surprise before confusion settled in.
Tsubaki looked up just in time to catch sight of Black Star's enthusiastic grin. "I might not be able to fix your girly issue, but I can still fix this."
Then the first blob of red paint hit her on the chest.
The class froze for a moment, staring at the incriminating color splashed across Tsubaki's ample assets, before violently erupting into chaos. Paint began to fly in every conceivable direction, decimating one victim after another. Maka was in the corner, her eyebrows drawn together fiercely, shouting something at Black Star - is that Soul with a bucket of paint behind her?
Said deathscythe sported an evil grin. Oh no.
The bucket ended up emptied over Maka's head, Maka's eyebrows had never been angrier, and though Tsubaki had never seen a demon, Maka covered head-to-toe in red paint was more than close enough.
Almost every other student turned some shade of colorful: Jackie and Kim ended up splattered in various pastels, Ox had a daub of green on his cheek, Havar was somehow completely spotless, and Black Star...Black Star was like a color-wheel hurricane.
Paint brushes were flying. His easel fell over. Tsubaki heard wild cackling and saw a flash of blue hair before her back was soundly doused with a cup of flying purple that materialized from the spectacle of flailing limbs she proudly called her meister.
She sniffled once, wiping her watery eyes with the back of her relatively-clean hand before finding her way quietly out of the room, a silent thank you on her lips.
By the time she'd managed to get herself cleaned up in the bathroom (and changed into her gym clothes which she now had an excuse to wear, thank Death) she hurried back to her art class, the majority of the time eaten up by the paint war Black Star had started. By the end of the battle, everyone was so covered in paint that there was no way anyone would have thought twice about the color on the back of her dress or the stains on the inside of her thighs.
She winced as she made her way back to her easel. Black Star was at the front, standing proudly as he got slapped with another detention note. He withered slightly under Maka's flaming gaze, walking back to his seat a little faster than he normally would.
Tsubaki couldn't help but feel guilty when he sat down at the station next to hers. She glanced down at her baggy sweatpants, which, while wonderfully comfortable, had cost Black Star something - something Tsubaki had never felt entitled to.
She didn't believe he should have to sacrifice anything for her: the weapon's job description was 'If necessary, give everything.' Yet here came Black Star: the boy who shattered all her conceptions about the world, who was loud and obnoxious but still remembered the art kit she wanted for her birthday, who always believed in her even when she didn't believe in herself - her meister. Her roommate. My best friend.
"How long is it for?" She asked quietly when Black Star cheerfully stuffed the detention note in his pocket.
"Psh, who cares? Like they'll keep this Star behind bars."
She laughed at that, then sobered. Her familiar blush crawled up her face, coiling in her cheeks like a teasing dragon. "Thank you."
He shrugged and smiled, reaching out to tug her ponytail. "Yeah, sure."
When his warm smile made something other than cramps stir in her, Tsubaki realized that her ponytail wasn't the only thing wrapped around her meister's fingers.