and this marks the beginning of Jealous!Soul: the trilogy, which can also be found on Tumblr and ao3! A huge shout out to ProMa, Lunar, Ash, and Bendy for betaing.
A pigtail dangles into view first on the other side of his doorway, at the edge of his vision, followed by a groomed brow and the delicate curve of a rosy cheek. She's not as inconspicuous as she thinks. But then again, he doesn't need to see scarred fingers curling around the doorframe or half of a face peering into his room to know it's Maka. He feels her like a sixth sense.
She pauses, blinking once, twice -
"Hey, Soul?" She is the harmony of silence. "I'm getting ready for my date. Can you help me curl my hair?"
Snark is his armor: "Does this look like a hair salon to you?"
Determined not to look into her pleading green eyes, he abandons plucking at strings that have calloused the pads of his fingers to wave around his room, pointing out his posters and weird knickknacks. Certainly his acoustic guitar is not as interesting as Maka, but he's invested an entire week of attention to it since learning of her unexpected curiosity about dating. While redirecting his energy to ignoring the envy gnawing at his insides may not be the greatest coping mechanism, it's a marker of his personal growth that he hasn't sought comfort in lazing around, snarling bitterly and sulking.
"Please?" The way she enunciates these words breaks his will.
"Bring your thingy," he relents, setting the guitar aside and wringing his hands in preparation for handling stick straight golden hair. Surely she absorbs sunlight like a flower, and he only hopes he's worthy of touching such heaven.
Flashing a vibrant smile, she vanishes down the hallway as quickly as she appeared, socks muffling her footfalls. "It's called a curling iron!"
And like always, he's left with the aftershock of both boxing away his feelings and making space for them. Little moments like these highlight how undeniably, incurably, and rampant his feelings for Maka have grown. Every gentle word and soft look she gifts him only nurtures the longing he perpetually fails to smother.
Envy and regret might corrupt him.
Many times has the idea crept into his mind of sabotaging her plans. Faking an injury would undoubtedly have her fielding a call to cancel the date, especially if vomit and an inhumanly high fever put him out of commission. However, praying for illness and wishing the worst upon himself spells out 'problematic' for both him and Maka. Not to mention that any form of interference with her happiness would be an unforgivable act of manipulation, the pinnacle of dishonesty.
So he bites his tongue and quiets his jealousy by offering his support, albeit masked in a semi-translucent layer of reluctance. Genuine happiness isn't hard to feign when it's for Maka - as long as she wants him by her side, he'll be there, even if he's not the one.
It's like chewing glass, swallowing, and pretending that his gums aren't bleeding and that his chest isn't raw from housing little shards.
He hears her pattering back. Betrayal is his heart attempting to match the rhythm of her footfalls. Maybe that is just his anxiety levels skyrocketing.
"I'm back," Maka singsongs, skipping toward him, a tote bag slung over her shoulder.
"If you brought your entire hair collection, you can leave right now," he says, finally daring to turn and face her openly. Even though there's nothing visibly different about her – she's clad in ripped jeans, an oversized shirt, and a bright expression – Soul can't help but detect a change between their souls. Recently, their link hiccups and its intensity is muted for a reason he can't pinpoint.
She's been in a weird headspace lately and he has no idea what she's thinking.
"You promised," she reminds, sticking her tongue out at him as she spills the bag's contents onto his bed. The hot pink curler lands with a subdued plop, and a rainbow-colored assortment of hair ties clashes with his blue sheets. Multiple bottles of full hair products with seals leave Soul thinking that she recently purchased them. He inspects the bubbly font of a lime colored container.
"Heat protector that leaves your hair shiny and luxurious without the burn'," he reads. Crinkling his nose is his only response. "Really, Maka? You've never seemed interested in this stuff before."
"I must have caught the hair obsession bug from you," she jests, motioning him to move over, practically sitting on him when he fails to move. He's mesmerized by her legs bending and folding as she settles down. "Just because you don't shower in gel anymore doesn't mean no one else remembers those days."
It must be a punishment to be this close to her, to have her asking to be touched.
"Let's just make it quick," he says, not wanting to have a hand at helping her leave but also not wanting to hinder her plans.
She undoes her pigtails while Soul tries to disconnect from himself – he's just her weapon, just a piece of lethally sharp metal that she swings around to slash throats, silence evil, and earn respect. He's a tool, an instrument - but she plays him so well and their souls hum in tune easily.
It's not fair.
"I was thinking I could go for the 'loose curls' look," she's saying, running dexterous fingers through her locks. Soon that will be his privilege. To say that he's cursed and blessed is a paradox, but reality is cruel.
"Liz probably knows a lot more about this than I do," he says, and it must come out as frailly as he feels because she pauses in her preening to check on him. Green eyes stare unblinkingly. It doesn't help that she's so close he can see himself in her irises, upside down and unhappy.
"Maybe," she admits. "But I really wanted your help. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable-" She's already scooting away from him, and it hurts more than it should. Regret freezing his veins, he reaches out and places a hand on her shoulder.
"Stay," he says, almost pleads. "I'm just complaining. I want to help."
The line between her brows is a sure sign that she isn't convinced.
"Really, Maka. Think I'd miss this chance to mess up your hair?"
She softens like ice cream. "Don't make me look too hideous," she warns him, a slight smile accompanying an even smaller laugh as she shoves the hair curler at him. It's like being entrusted with gold, and he's touched that she turned to him for support.
Vowing not to allow bitter jealousy to rot his bones, he begins separating her hair into sections. It's not like he's never played with her hair before – the number of times he's absentmindedly twirled a hair around his index finger while they've cuddled and watched TV is embarrassingly high. And he's not exactly proud that he takes every opportunity to playfully grab her pigtails whenever she wears them, because she's steadily moving away from 'that childish hairstyle,' as she put it when asked.
But this is different. This time he isn't wiping away dirt or grime from her scalp after a nasty encounter with a pre-kishin, or teasing her about split ends. She's trusting him enough to ask for his help, and the more her voice plays on repeat in his mind, the shittier he feels about secretly harboring feelings for her. They're the exact opposite of platonic. The escalation from "she's ok I guess" to "I want to kiss her soul" was fatally fast and unexpected – his feelings grew too quickly, and trying to cut them off only intensified their will to flourish.
They're neither weeds nor vines - they're a whole garden, and he's not sure if he should nurture more growth or hack away roots.
The curling iron now heated up, he thinks here goes nothing and focuses on the first section of honey colored hair.
Maka's breath hitches and her shoulders quiver when his fingers accidentally brush the nape of her neck. Static buzzes underneath his skin, and he wonders if the same pins-and-needle vibrations are overwhelming her - they are connected, after all.
"Sorry," Soul mumbles. "Did I pull your hair?"
"You're fine," Maka reassures, wiggling. "I was just surprised."
Handling a hot hair curler while compartmentalizing gross feelings requires Olympic level multitasking skills he didn't know he lacked. It doesn't help that his hand is unsteady and that unbridled jealousy has him seeing double.
"You don't seem excited at all about your date," he points out, glad that she has her back to him and won't see him sticking his tongue out as if it will enhance his hair curling abilities.
"I'm nervous... I don't really know Clay."
Now's the chance to ask without seeming like prying, which is what he's been burning to do since Maka had announced to him during their usual 'goodnight' routine that she wouldn't be joining him for dinner on Saturday night.
"So why'd you say you'd go out with him?" Does he sound casual enough? Treacherous voice cracks didn't mar his flawless execution of the question.
"Isn't that the whole point of dating? To get to know the person and see what you want in a partner?" Her tone genuinely sounds confused, and it's incredible to Soul that she's at a loss. He's used to seeing a confident, assertive Maka. Not that it discounts what she's going through.
"Wouldn't know," he mumbles. It's the truth. The closest he's come to being committed is his love-hate relationship with his piano.
"My mama and papa only dated each other for a few months before they found out about me, you know. I just want to make the right choices," she says. Silence falls around them like heavy drapes. Obviously, her parent did not serve as the best example of a healthy relationship, since their marriage consisted of her papa openly kissing everyone but her mama. To Soul, it seems like Maka is struggling with what her family's demons could potentially imply for her romantic future.
History tends to repeats itself.
"I just want to find my soul mate," she whispers.
"Yeah, I see what you mean," he concedes. Part of him wants to cry that they're already stitched at the soul, that they already know each other more than skin deep, but he's momentarily mute and his body is a graveyard for the unsaid. He refuses to be an obstacle to Maka finding someone who complements her strength.
"I was just surprised that he asked me out," she continues. They're both absolutely still, save for Soul delicately wrapping segments of her hair around the hot metal, and Maka twirling her thumbs in her lap. "He was there for Tsugumi's birthday party, and we just started talking…and he said he wanted to get to know me. I think he's really nice."
Now isn't the time to chide himself for his crowd-avoiding tendencies. Regret slaps him around – he should have fucking gone to that party, but his discomfort in large gatherings discouraged him from allowing Maka to drag him there, kicking and scowling. This recount of how the date came about answers his questions, but now he's subconsciously counting his bad luck tallies.
Potentially losing Maka tops anything terrible that has happened to him, and he's been inches away from being sliced into two at a cathedral. It's ironic that Clay is also a demon sword.
"Sounds nice," he says, distracted by the golden waves he's creating. Maka is ethereal, and he has a hard time accepting that she exists, even if their souls whisper to one another constantly. "Ah, uh… where are you guys going?"
"We're meeting at the library."
Soul fails to censor a snort.
"What? He spends a lot of time there!"
"He must be a huge nerd like you," Soul sniggers, though inwardly he's waging a war against himself. Of course Maka is interested in a fellow book fanatic and not a reticent, pointy-toothed pessimist.
"How's it looking?" she asks, shifting.
For a moment Soul forgets what she's referring too – he's so engrossed by cascading waves and golden softness. "S'okay," he replies. "It's not exactly curly… but whatever. It's supposed to make your hair smell like burned toast, right?"
The only thing that saves him from a skull-shattering chop is the fact that he's armed with a curling iron and is literally clutching the last section of pin-straight hair. Laughing fills the spaces that jealousy and insecurity dug out of him. He doesn't have to be looking at Maka's face to know that one corner of her lips is trembling in a failing endeavor to repress giggles while the other is pinned high.
Curling the last section of hair hits him with a strange upsurge of nostalgia. She's not even gone yet and he already misses her.
"I'm so excited to see," she says, bouncing off his bed and running down the hall.
She's gone so fast. He's a complete idiot for getting sentimental over hair.
A shriek cuts off his thoughts: "IT'S CROOKED!"
"How can that be possible?" he yells back, standing up as if readying himself for a chase that will probably end in chops.
She slides back into his room, pointing at her hair. "The left side of my hair starts to curl higher up, and then on the right, there's barely anything!"
"Sorry," he offers, this time successfully withholding cackles. "I can fix it, if you want."
And he does – after a miniature lecture about symmetry, which she stops after Soul compares her to Kid. When she's satisfied with her hairdo, she announces that she's going to change and that she'll be off soon. She emerges from her room half an hour later, and he already has a tirade of teases to throw at her as she walks out the door when he notices she's dressed to snap necks.
Short skirts are her favorite, after all.
"I'll see you in a little bit," she tells him, hand on the doorknob.
"Wait - you're walking?"
"Yeah, Soul, I have legs," she says, and all the sarcasm flies over his head when she sticks out a glorious leg in emphasis. It's unexpected and his lips part with an audible gasp, low and amazed. Whether playing it off by blowing out a puff of air through his nostrils distracts her or just adds another point against him is unclear – she smooths the skirt over her thighs, which are conditioned thanks to training.
"Wait! I'll take you," he says too quickly, and when she studies him through narrowed eyelids he tacks on, "I have to run by the library anyway." It's an unbelievable excuse - he always says the air smells staler around the building - but the skepticism contorting her face fades. She seizes his wrist with an excited hand-holding and his attention with a daredevil beam.
"Can we go the long way and take the freeway?"
"You only want me for my motorcycle," he pretends to gripe. Resilience inspires him to cheer up a little bit. Sometimes he detests that he's so easily influenced by her.
"Live fast, die cool, right?" she teases, using his own words against him.
Keys jangle in his pocket as they descend the scorching stairs. Even the midsummer sun above their heads seems to be taunting Soul. Each step toward his motorcycle feels like a goodbye. It's irrational to say the least – they are weapon and meister, nothing more, nothing less. Just because his daydreams insist on reading more into their interactions doesn't mean it is reality – but what if it is?
Reading between the lines is difficult.
He floors it on the freeway, Maka's hands flat against his belly, her cheek smooshed against his back. The wind roaring in his ears doesn't stifle her laughter, nor does it give him an excuse to ignore her pat on the shoulder as a cue for him to drop her off.
All too quickly they're at the parking garage, Maka asking him if her hair is still curled. He can barely look at her. It feels like he's giving her away at her wedding. But he takes a long, long breath and says that she looks great, and before she can reply, they're in front of the water fountain and her date spots them, hurrying over.
"Hey," Clay greets, trained on Maka. The way his eyes light up disgusts Soul, especially because his neatly ironed button-up shirt and slacks remind him too much of his old life, back when he was just a shell of Soul Evans, Pained Piano Prodigy. Except he never stood tall nor smiled openly, his teeth showing, relaxed and content with himself.
"Hey," Maka says. Soul can't look at her. Fear has made his body a home.
It shouldn't surprise him that Clay has the audacity to flirt with Maka in front of him, but he has to remind himself that he's the third wheel, the intruder, the extra. "Your hair looks cute."
"Thanks so much – Soul did it for me, actually!"
How sadistic is it of him to hope this tidbit of information breaks Clay's confidence?
"See ya later," he half-snarls half-chokes, slouching because his chest is heavy, so heavy, his sternum suddenly unsteady like it's nothing but melting plastic. There is stabbing rawness on either of his sides making him suspect that his ribs are piercing his lungs. Breathing is a challenge. Hands safely tucked into his jean pockets, he pivots on his foot, chin tilted down at the grass he is stomping on because he has zero fucks to give about cutting through a field that's protected by a 'please use the sidewalk' sign. All he cares about is reaching his bike before he crumbles in public.
But he can't ignore Maka Albarn, who is the embodiment of lightning and fire and soul-pulling power. She says his name and he responds like every atom making up his existence is wired to be beckoned by her - he glances back, and he doesn't regret it, not even when her smile jars more of the glass sitting in his chest. She sways an arm in the air, exaggeratedly waving goodbye. Soul appreciates its graceful beauty when his phone rings at ten later that night, jerking him from a weird dream about Maka smiling at a long line from inside a kissing booth.
Groggily, he remembers it was only hours ago when he dropped her off that he daydreamed about what her arm would feel like snaked up his shirt, her mouth on his neck.
He wonders if it's the same limb she's talking about:
"Soul? I'm at the hospital – I'm okay! I just broke my arm… can you come get me?"