"Hey," Crona heard Soul's voice abruptly follow the sound of footsteps making their way to where he sat at a two-person table, alone. Crona looked up a bit to see Soul sit in the opposite seat of him, watching Crona with his usual casual look, though curiosity showed in his red eyes.

'The note you slipped to me, what's up?' Soul asked.

Earlier that day during school, after lunch, as the usual group of friends were walking out of the cafeteria, Crona walked very closely next to him, gave him a brief look, and slipped a small rectangle of paper into his hands before rapidly heading in the other direction.

When Soul had opened it, he found, in Crona's penmanship: 'I need to talk to you, and you alone. Please meet me at the only sandwich shop nearby after school.'

"You could have just asked me, you know?" Soul smiled a little, after Crona hung his head in silence. "I don't bite or anything. Though, if you didn't want to attract the attention of Black Star or Maka or whatever, that was a good move."

Crona still didn't say anything, looking further down, clenching and unclenching his robe. He only looked up briefly at Soul at times, then looked back down, waiting for when the words he needed to say would come.

Soul's smile swapped for a look of concern. 'You okay, man?' He asked. 'I'm not scaring you or anything, am I?'

At that moment a small 'ting!' went off, that being of the small bell the shop's front counter kept. Soul turned away, and after noticing that his order had been made, stood up. 'Hold on a sec,' he said.

Crona didn't respond as Soul walked away. He partially wasn't even sure why he was doing this. Was it really any of Soul's business? Would it do anything besides possibly make Soul angry at him? Was this the right thing to do?

Soul sat back down with three wrapped-to-go sandwiches. 'Sorry 'bout that. Maka seemed particularly tired today, so I reckon she doesn't feel like making dinner. Thought it'd be cool to let her off the hook tonight.' He said with a quick grin.

Soul's actions settled it. This -was- the right thing to do.

'M-Maka,' Crona mumbled.

Soul raised his eyes towards him, leaning his face on his fist. "Mm?"

Crona looked at him briefly again, then back down. He didn't lower his face though so he hid behind his bangs, merely staring at the ground. 'You care for her a lot, right?'

Soul looked at him, curiosity growing. 'I guess,' He shrugged. 'I mean, she is my meister after all.'

'And your friend,' Crona added.

'Yeah, she's that too. And my roommate.'

'A-anything else?' Crona asked.

Now Soul was a bit confused. He blinked. 'Huh?'

'Do you think of Maka as anything other than your meister, friend, or roommate?' Crona asked.

Soul stared blankly at Crona for a few seconds. 'Why? What else would she be? She's my bookworm meister-friend I live with, who's smarter than I'll probably ever be, and has absolutely no cool CDs to listen to.'

Crona paused. 'I guess that if you feel anything else about her, then you probably haven't thought much about it, right? Maybe you d-don't think you do, but you'll feel differently later. Is that wrong?' He asked tentatively.

Soul's stare continued drilling holes. 'What do you mean? Why are we talking about Maka? Why do we have to do it privately?'

He really has no idea what I'm talking about. Crona thought, slightly dejected. He didn't want to have to do all of the directing in this conversation. He was kind of hoping Soul would pick up on what he was trying to talk about and give Crona reasonable answers without Crona having to ask for them. He could also feel Ragnarok's impatience from inside. Before Soul arrived, Crona bought Ragnarok a huge sandwich to bribe him to keep quiet and stay inside the duration of the meeting. If it weren't for that, Ragnarok would be popping out of him breaking the news to Soul in the least tactful manner. Crona shook a little.

'I-I...'

He let out a shaky breath, and finally unclenched his hands for the last time. He raised his head to look up at Soul, getting rid of some of his fear, though he trembled on the inside.

'I have feelings for Maka...not just friendly ones...feelings that she is the only person I truly trust, and that her smile makes me feel all warm, and...stuff like that...'

Soul took his arm off the table and sat up a bit. "Wait...so..."

"I like her...more than a friend." Crona finally admitted.

It took a few seconds to register with Soul, and then he finally grinned a little. "Oh, is that it? You had me thinking something was seriously wrong! Nothing wrong with you having a crush on Maka, I guess, you know?'

'Yes,' He said. 'But I also know you and Maka are close. And...well...I think you're closer than you realize.'

Soul raised an eyebrow. Crona continued. 'You care a lot for her, right? You'd put your life on the line for her-'

'That's sort of my job,' Soul interrupted. 'Also an obligation as her weapon.'

'...And you have a strong, personal, connection with her, that only the two of you can fully understand, and I probably couldn't replace no matter how badly I-I tried for her.'

-That- shut Soul up for a few minutes in thought, until he finally came up with something of a rebuttal. 'Couldn't the same be said for all of Maka's relationships?'

'Yours definitely seems stronger though.' Crona seemed a bit dejected upon saying that, but then after a couple seconds he picked up where he left off. 'I don't want you to h-hate me, Soul...or dislike me. I don't want to take something very important away from you. Not to mention, when we first met, when I was trying to k-k-kill Maka, you nearly sacrificed yourself for her."

Soul was now awkwardly lost. "What does any of that mean?"

"You're better for her than I am, and you deserve her before I do. You probably deserve her more than I ever will." He shrunk temporarily as he said that final sentence, tensing up and looking down at the floor as if he were being punished.

'But...' Soul's eyebrows disappeared past his strands of white hair. 'That's...what do you...?'

"But I don't want to give up entirely on the one thing that makes me truly h-happy either." Crona now focused entirely on Soul, most of his fear gone and replaced with seriousness. "So I thought about it for a while...and I think you should be given the chance to tell Maka how you feel for her first...' Soul opened his mouth to speak, likely to object or deny any feelings, but Crona continued. "In a week, I plan to tell her how I feel, sometime after school, regardless of whether you do anything or not...but you should have the chance to do so b-before I do..."

Soul had no reaction. He just continued to look back at Crona with surprise, trying to piece together everything Crona just laid on the table. At the point he noticed that this was kind of uncool, he opened his mouth to try to talk again 'But why...?'

'I really need to get back," Crona stood up. "Thank you for meeting with me, I'm really sorry if I took up too much of your time. I hope we're still c-cool, as you say. But Soul-," Crona looked back at him, his expression unreadable. "P-please take this week seriously, and if you let it go to waste...be really sure about it."

Silence from both parties, until Crona said "B-bye," and started to leave.

"Hey, Crona." Soul's voice stopped him. Crona turned. "Yes?"

Soul turned to him, and gave him a small grin. "I think we'll always be cool,"

Crona gave the tiniest, most brief relieved smile, before turning and leaving.

Soul normally would have gotten up and left at this point as well. Maybe even walk with Crona until they reached his and Maka's apartment. But he was still lost, still staring ahead. He felt like Crona had strapped a timer onto him and walked away. A timer that shouldn't mean anything to him but was ringing so loudly in his ears that he had no choice but to pay attention to it. Dammit. He wasn't the least bit concerned about the nature of his and Maka's relationship previously because that stuff had never crossed his mind.

Now, Crona was jamming it into his mind with, whatever thoughts he had on it now only counting for anything till next Wednesday.

As Soul grabbed his carry-out and finally stood up to leave, he had a feeling that this week was going to be a damn long one.