AN: Hey, this is my first attempt at fan fiction. Hope you like it! Please review!
The image flashes through my mind again, pulsing through my eyelids. No matter how far I shoved it away, no matter how hard I worked to wring it out, it kept coming back. It wasn't like with cleaning, where I could just scrub away the black spots, the dirt, the blood. I couldn't scrub away the image of Blackstar kissing Maka. I couldn't destroy the picture of him brushing away a strand of her hair, looking at her like she was the sun. Like he didn't need to be the focus of attention as long as he had her.
I shove my back as hard as I can into the wall of the nearest building, granite digging into my leg. It didn't hurt enough. I slammed into it again and again, feeling the skin shred under the force with an almost malicious glee. It would hurt more later.
Maka and Blackstar kissing still hurt, but the betrayal was a different kind of wound. The blood was beginning to seep slowly from the cuts, and I slid down the wall, crouching in the dirt of the alley.
Blackstar didn't love me. I'd misread everything, even Maka, my best friend.
The sobs rippled through me silently as I crouched there, clutching the star on my chest. The star I had put there for him. I wanted to rip it off.
Somewhere I knew that the sun was setting and that Blackstar would be wondering where I was. Then I remembered he told me that he was going to hang out with Soul tonight, and not to wait up, because they were going to karaoke. Dimly, bitterly, I wonder what Maka told Soul.
I hear a rustling sound behind me, and the next thing I know is that someone has both of my arms. My eyes ache horribly and are so blurry with tears that I can't see who it is.
"Tsubaki?" I heard them say. I couldn't even hear who it was. "Tsubaki, it's Soul. What's wrong? Who did this?"
One thing I know, more than anything else, is that I can't do this to Soul. Maka and me... we'll work through this. But Soul could never forgive Blackstar. Not for this. Anything but this.
But how do I lie? What do I tell him to make him understand that no one hurt me? At least, not in the ways that matter.
"Um." I stall. My voice is raspy, unused. I cough several times, trying to clear it up. An idea hits me, but it hurts almost too badly to use. I don't want to dishonor him like this, but I don't have a choice. "It's nothing. Really. I saw a boy that reminded me of my brother and..." I gestured hopelessly around me, not wanting to continue. Leave, I beg him silently. Leave so I can cry.
Soul nodded, and agony shadowed his own eyes briefly. I frowned in concern, wiping my eyes. I had forgotten he had a brother, too. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders, obviously just searching for something to do. "I'm sorry, Tsubaki. You're just so strong, we forget sometimes. Blackstar started a manhunt the second Liz couldn't find you."
I stumbled a little as he began to lead me out into the street and home. Strong? Me? I had no idea that my friends thought that about me. I always considered myself... inherited, I guess. Everything, all the strength I've been given, was given to me by my family. All my different weapon forms – nothing is really mine. It's all theirs.
We walked the rest of the way to my house in silence, and I focused on the feeling of my hair bouncing up and down soothingly to my gait. As unnapealing as it was, I made myself remember the kiss. As far as I could tell, both of them had seen me. At least I hadn't run away at first. I had tried to act normal. I had walked until I couldn't bear it and then ran.
For once, I called Balckstar an idiot over and over and over in my head, and a few other things too. Moron. Bastard. Liar.
What had he been thinking? That it would just be ok to lie to me about going out with my best friend? I shook my head violently at his stupidity, knocking Soul on his face with my hair.
"I'm so sorry!" I said, crouching down beside him.
" 'S ok, Tsubaki. I'm actually surprised it hasn't happened sooner." Soul sat up slowly, not even bothering to rub the back of his head. "Don't tell Maka this, but all of that regular Maka-chopping has not only dropped my IQ by about ten points, but it also gave me a thicker skull. I barely even feel them any more, except when she's really mad at me."
I shook my head in admiration. It took real skill to pull something that big over on Maka. It made me smile a little, and Soul cracked a grin on the way up. He held my hand on the way back to the apartment me and Blackstar shared, and it felt good to have someone else to hold me to Earth for once, instead of the other way around.
Blackstar threw open the door as soon as we got there before we even knocked, and he took us all in immediately, instead of babbling about something. My red and cried out eyes, Soul's jacket on my shoulders, our hands twined together – Soul's loosely, mine a little tighter at the sight of Blackstar's face. I swallowed hard. His face was unreadable, blank.
"Soul?" I said quietly, slipping my hand out of his dry callused one. I took off his jacket and handed it to him. I knew my dress was dirty and rumpled, and that my one leg was a bloody mess.
"Yeah?" he answered. His hand took the jacket and he was talking to me but his eyes were on his friend, mouth shut tight. He knew.
"You're a good friend." I kissed his cheek and shut the door behind me on the way into the apartment.