I do not own Soul Eater; I do not profit from this writing.
001
Moonlight
Tsubaki sighed, her eyes wandering along the cityscape of Death City. It was already dark, and above her the moon hung low in the sky, teeth gritted and blood seeping from its jaws. It had been that way since she'd moved to the academy. She turned away from the window with a sigh and looked at the clock on the cable box in the apartment she and BlackStar shared. She didn't like it when he was out so late without her. She knew he was very capable, but she was used to his presence. It was her own fault this time; she'd been feeling under the weather lately because of all of the training they'd been doing, and BlackStar had made her go lay down and wouldn't take no for an answer.
She just hated being alone. Maybe that was what it was. She was so accustomed to his mannerisms that the sudden absence of his presence around their home was bothersome to her and off-putting. She sat down on the couch to try and watch a movie, bundled in her fuzzy yellow bathrobe and duck slippers, but it just wasn't the same without him leaning in to ask her questions about the plot every five minutes – or calling the movie stupid and making up his own dialogue. She pretended like it bothered her, but it was hard for her to deny that it was often more funny than what she was trying to watch.
She turned off the TV and sat there in silence, and again another sad sigh escaped her lips. She knew that she should be in bed, but she had mustered up just enough energy to feel restless. She began to clean up the empty bags of chips and soda cans and sandwich trays from the table; the remnants of BlackStar's appetite. She put the last of the dishes in the sink into the dishwasher and pressed the start button, then went back to the window. She could see the street below the apartment, and waited eagerly for BlackStar's return, but as the minutes turned into hours, she realized that it would be a late night for him.
She supposed that it would be selfish to expect for him to stay home just for her, even if she would have done the same for him. Actually, no, that wasn't entirely true. BlackStar never would allow an illness to confine him to a bed, let alone the apartment. He'd have said that he was too much of a god to catch the flu, and that would have been that. He would never have acknowledged the fact that he was sick, because to him, mind over matter was truly a way of life.
Tsubaki finally gave up wandering around the apartment around one or two in the morning. She had at least been able to get some of her schoolwork done without having to stop and talk BlackStar down from setting his own books on fire. He had been nice enough to bring her work home for the past few days, but until now she hadn't even felt well enough to peel herself out of bed and take care of any of it. This was definitely good. It was Friday night, she was totally caught up, and now she had two full days to rest. They had a test on the following Monday, so she really didn't want to fall too far behind.
She laid down in the oversized bed that she and BlackStar shared, her long hair falling around her like a silky cloak. Through the window, she could still see the moon and its homicidal gaze, and though it should have been terrifying, she knew it was only how it looked over Death City. She rolled onto her back and exhaled slowly, enjoying the cool feel of the fresh blankets against her hot skin. Her temperature had started to come up again, and she guessed she had worked a little too hard on her papers. She stretched a hand out and reached to his side of the bed, feeling the wad of pillows he slept amid like some sort of burrowing animal. It made her smile.
She fell asleep like that, one arm outstretched to his side of the bed, hugging an invisible partner. It was nearly four AM when BlackStar finally came in. He was careful not to wake her, because he knew how poor she'd been feeling. He set his bag down in the living room and used the bathroom in the hall to clean off, knowing if he uses the other one in the bedroom he may wake her up accidentally. Once done, he checked the locks around the apartment to ensure that nothing would be getting in while they were asleep, and then entered the bedroom, shutting the door with a soft click.
She was in her duck pajamas, her robe on the floor in a pool next to the bed. He smiled as he thought of how utterly ridiculous those things looked on her. He couldn't make too much fun though, because they made her happy. They were what she always went to when she felt bad, and he used the presence of the flannel night clothes to interpret her state of mind before she had fallen asleep. A glass of water and medicine by the bed said that she'd been feeling bad, too, but he knew her well enough that he wouldn't have needed those to confirm anything.
He approached her slowly, leaning over her to rest a hand on her forehead. She was cool, thankfully, and her cheeks are their same cream colour with no feverish flush to them. He didn't ever want to wake up to her puking and wrecked with a high fever again, and not just because he ended up cleaning it all up. He hesitated for a second, looking at her face illuminated in the pale moonlight from the strip glimmering through the window. He was still even for another second further, and then leaned further in and pressed his lips to her forehead, forming a chaste kiss. If she woke up, he would tell her he was checking for a fever. It would be a lie, but she would not mind.