"Yo, Maka. We're all headed to the basketball court. You in, or what?" Maka paused, mid page-turn, as she heard her weapon's voice call to her from the living room. Soul already knew the answer, he knew she hated letting her friends down when it came to hanging out or playing some sort of sport. Now that they had Crona around, there was always an even number of players, giving her no excuse to sit out to balance the teams. Sure in the past they could've had one extra player on a team, seeing as Maka wasn't that great of a player and didn't count for much anyway, but Kidd wouldn't allow it. It threw off the symmetry. With a regret filled sigh, she pulled the neat, un-creased book marker off her tidy night stand, tucked it into the pages and laid the book next to her on her fluffy comforter.
"Yeah," She called back, "I'm coming." Forcing herself into a standing position, Maka walked over to her closet, grabbed her tennis shoes, laced them, and met Soul in the living room. He looked at her with a cocked eyebrow, shifting the basketball from hand to hand, and laughed to himself before walking towards the door. "What?" Maka asked, defensively.
"Nothing." Soul shook his head. "I just don't see why you even bother coming if you don't want to go." He commented, locking the apartment door behind them.
"I do like going!" She defended, a hand on her hip.
Soul cocked his eyebrow again and showed off his sharky teeth in a small smirk. "So you're telling me you enjoy Blackstar teasing you?"
Maka blushed slightly at being caught in her lie. It was useless to try to lie to Soul, he could read her just as easily as she could her books. "No, I guess not..."
"You gotta stop doing that to yourself, Maka." Soul chastise, though it was gentle and he made it seem more like a suggestion. "If you don't want to go somewhere, just say you don't feel like it. You want be letting anyone down." Again. He read her like a book. For awhile the only noises to be heard were the quiet steps of the two teens and small children's giggles across the street.
"Well… I'm already out here. Plus, I could use the exercise." She said, grinning optimistically.
"You? Need exercise? There's hardly an inch of fat on you, tiny tits." Soul scoffed.
"Maka… Chop!"
"Sorry! Sorry," The white haired boy muttered, gently rubbing a newly formed dent in the top of his skull.
"There you guys are!" A familiar loud voice called from a fenced in basketball court. "We've been waiting for you guys!" The blue haired ninja yelled, climbing halfway up the chain-linked fence.
"You know what Patty? I think he really is a monkey…" Liz muttered, causing her younger sister to start up in fits of giggles.
"Now that everyone one is here…" Blackstar stated loudly, effectively averting all the attention back to himself. "We can get started!" He fist pumped, sizing up everyone around him. "And of course, your god has already decided on teams, no need for thanks." He smirked before continuing. "Me, Tsubaki and Patty are on team Star. Soul, you, Maka, Crona and Liz are on… the other team." He shrugged, giving up on names.
"What? Maka was on my team last time!" Soul complained, obviously forgetting his and his meister's conversation on the way over. "She's gotta be on your team at some point too!"
"Wait, where's Kidd?" Maka asked, trying to ignore the dismay in her weapon's voice. "The teams are uneven."
"Oh, he said he'd rather go skateboarding. He said something about that abandon parking lot across the street being perfect for trying new tricks." Liz shrugged, vaguely gesturing towards the lot. Maka looked over, her eyes squinted, and sure enough, she spotted a dark figure in mid air for a split second, then landing what she assumed to be a trick, perfectly.
"I thought Kidd's skateboard flew?" She questioned, noticing the board only left the ground when Kidd's distant figure would jump, mesmerized at the way he was able to keep perfect balance on a moving board.
"Yeah, it does. But it also functions as a normal skateboard, too. He's always practicing new tricks." Liz rolled her eyes, Maka figured it was best not to ask why. The scythe meister tilted her head in curiosity as she continued to watch the gliding figure in upmost interest.
"C'mon Maka, we're starting." Soul badgered, glaring at the blonde headed girl.
"Go ahead and start without me." She said, waving her hand, but not bothering to look at the group.
"What?"
"You heard me. There's an uneven number of players, right? I'll just sit out." She called, her feet already carrying her to the gate of the chain-linked fence.
"Alright, fine by me." Soul called, though she could hear a relieved tone in his voice. She didn't care, she could chop him later.
As she neared the boy on the board, she began to appreciate the tricks in more detail; rather than simply watching a body jump up and down on a moving piece of wood, she admired the way he strategically placed his feet on the board, one in the middle, the other on the tip, then in a single movement, he managed to bring all four wheels a good foot off the ground and make the board barrel roll in mid air, finishing by landing it perfectly and continuing to glide across the concrete. Maka grinned from ear to ear and clapped as loud as she could.
Caught off guard by the sudden attention, Kidd started and jumped off his board ungracefully, balancing on the ground with one foot and he stopped his runaway board with the other. Maka still had a huge smile on her face. "Oh- Maka. Didn't see you there." He said, laughed uneasily and slightly embarrassed.
"That was amazing!" She gasped, eyes wide in awe.
"Almost falling?"
"No! That jump! And the board; it spun!" She gushed.
Kidd's face pinked slightly, but he boarded Beelzebub all the same. "What, this?" Just as before, he positioned his feet and kicked up the board into a barrel roll with practiced ease.
"Yes! That!" She gasped again and Kidd was almost certain she was about to jump up and down in excitement.
"Oh, that's just a kick flip." He shrugged.
"Just a kick flip?"
"Yeah," He smirked slightly. "Watch this." He stepped on the grip tape and launched himself towards open parking lot and circled around, picking up speed as he neared his audience. Once he felt confident in his footing, he kicked the board up just as he had done the other two times, but this time he went twice as high, and the board seemed to turn as it spun in its signature barrel roll. If possible, Maka's eyes grew wider than they had been. He directed his board back over to the scythe meister and smirked slightly at the look on her face. "I never knew you had such an interest in skateboarding, Maka."
"I guess it never really crossed my mind…" She muttered, her voice distant as she studied the skateboard's shiny red wheels. "It all just looks so… Fake; so surreal. Almost like your flying…" Her eyes narrowed on the spot and snapped up to Kidd's. "You're not flying, are you?" She accused, knowing the true nature of the board.
"No, no." Kidd held up his hands in defense, "It's just a normal deck and wheels right now." He laughed slightly as Maka nodded, hesitant to take his word. Her eyes drifted back to the subject of her admiration, the skateboard.
After a few moments of Maka studying the wheeled piece of wood in awkward silence, Kidd cleared his throat. "Do you… Wanna ride it?"
A wicked grin spread across her face as she looked up at the young shinigami. "C-Could I?"
A multi-shot. Two, maybe three chapters for this one. All in honor of me finally getting off my ass to finally paint my Beelzebub replica. Geez, I've been skateboarding on that blank board for what, over a month now? 'Bout time I started working on it! And it's looking freakin' awesome so far! Plus, I needed something slightly happier and fresh to work on from writing Beyond Help ^^'