Hello, my friends!

Starting up a new story, as you all can see here :) Just a heads up, I'm trying to characterize Soul and Maka a little differently from what I've seen in other Soul/Maka fics, so bear with me!

I might be complimenting myself when I say this, but I think I'm trying to base Maka off of myself, and what I would do in her situation, or what I would want myself to do in her situation.

Hope you guys like this unknowing encounter ;)

-wuffles

"Flow is an optimal state in which you feel totally engaged in an activity...you're neither bored nor anxious, and you don't question your own adequacy..." -Susan Cain

Class today wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either.

Of course Maka would have been more satisfied with herself had she gotten that quadruple pirouette down consistently, she'd been working on that for who knows how long now, and she's almost willing to admit to that it seems like it'll take even more time to master it. Not to mention her fouettés, which perhaps seemed to be losing their edge.

Maka sighed as she unlaced the ribbons of her pointe shoes and inspected her toes, her blister-ridden toes...not that they were painful, she'd developed enough calluses that a sore or two wouldn't hurt. Putting her shoes and ballet slippers into her blue-and-white striped backpack, she put on her shorts over her pinkish-white tights and her loose tee over her black leotard. Maka slipped on her sneakers, gave the mirror one last peek for her overall complexion, waved bye to her instructors, and walked towards the elevator of the building.

As she walked out the exit of Stratford Ballet School into the busy New York streets, Maka pondered whether or not she was excited to go back home to her father. After a few cars honked their horns as Maka crossed the street despite the red hand, she almost laughed at that previous thought. With her idiot father, she didn't know who would even have an ounce of positive feeling to go back to her apartment. Every night she would come home to the sounds of a different girl in her father's bedroom, the thuds and the groans echoing in the apartment; her father seemed to be bringing in girls more frequently than usual. She knew that her father wasn't her father.

Although Maka has long accepted that frequent stream of thought of her "father", she couldn't help but reach into her pocket for her phone, plug in her headphones, and listen to the only playlist on her phone, which she simply called "Playlist". Playlist works wonders every time: its multi-purposefulness allows Maka to draw motivation as well as peace of mind from it. It has been and will continue to function as her mental remedy for any situation.

Maka, finally reaching the entrance to the subway station, began to go over her plans for the next few days. The warm June night air was a constant reminder that she was reaching the home stretch of her sophomore year at Pach High, and finals were just around the corner. Even though she knew that she would ace each one of her difficult classes, she wanted to make sure that any sort of distraction or obstacle that might come up would not hinder the results of her academics.

By the time Maka would get home, it would be almost nine and she hadn't eaten dinner yet, but she might as well skip it. Yup. Remembering the probably permanent stench of alcohol in her apartment from the "father", she's going to skip dinner.

Maka swiped her metrocard at the subway station and continued to go over her plans, comforted by the bass from Playlist, though the bun on her head was starting to feel really tight. She decided that after a quick shower and maybe a quick granola bar, she would shut herself in her room to study, hopefully settling in before the "father" came back with a new giggling, drunk girl.

Maka stood waiting for the subway on the platform, staring forward and letting city-goers pass by her sight without actually paying too much attention to them. An announcement said that the train would arrive in two minutes, but she wouldn't have heard this let alone comprehend it if it hadn't for this one particular city-goer that caught her eye..

Maka broke her shallow stare, unable to stop her eyes to sneakily follow the white-haired, crimson-eyed boy who just sauntered in front of her. She knew him, at least knew of him. The white hair, crimson eyes..white hair, crimson eyes. How strange. She debated if these traits were natural, but knew it was futile; one cannot dye eye color and dye hair in such a brilliant white. She observed that he wore a muscle tee with baggy shorts and vans. First impression, slightly suspicious.

But, was this her first impression of the unknown boy? She could've sworn that she has seen him before...perhaps at school? Yet Maka couldn't quite seem to recall if she had seem him at Pach, and so she decided that even if he was enrolled at Pach, he probably was a part of one of the boy cliques.

She immediately noticed something peculiar, however, that made it seem like perhaps his character couldn't be molded into the everyday boy clique. She almost interpreted this phenomenon as an intrusion of emotion, if that even made any realistic sense to her, that almost whatever the boy was thinking was bombarding its way into Maka's brain. She barely comprehended some vague forms of frustration, irritation, helplessness, all things negative, and maybe a little bit of confusion...

Maka quickly returned her eyes to the front of her, realizing that such a trivial distraction was not worth her time. Although, perhaps she was slightly appreciative of him for snapping her attention back to her task at hand, commuting back to her apartment. She turned up the volume of Playlist.

The subway soon pulled up and squeaked to a stop as New Yorkers bustled in and out of the train, Maka one of them. Tomorrow morning, Maka would pick up breakfast somewhere and go back to Pach, her goal to leave early enough to avoid seeing the "father"and dealing with his hungover, she daresay, abusive attitude. After school, Maka is planning on doing her homework and studying at the library or stopping by the nearest Starbucks. After that, she would go to her daily ballet class at Stratford, and repeat.

Maka walked through the dark streets and strolled up to the door leading to her apartment complex, not looking forward to the upcoming possible scenes. She set her plan in motion.

He didn't know if he was supposed to call it parental issues, or just a serious case of Mr. and Mrs. Dick. Ever since their pride and glory aka his older brother Wes left the house for good, Soul only experienced his parent's increasing aggravation towards each other. It was annoying to say the least, their constant bickering, violence, and tears were basically a public disturbance. Usually of an aloof character, Soul just broke that night and stormed out of the apartment.

He wandered aimlessly until the sun went down and even as the sky got darker and darker he refused to go home. If this is what it's like to be a homeless man, walking around freely, then maybe it appealed to him. Soul dismissed the thought and walked about the intricate subway system.

He wandered around the most in one particular station. Odd, watching all the different sorts of people that traveled about the ever-awake city. Perhaps he didn't notice it before, but he really sunk in to him how there really aren't just two types of people in the world, when in fact, he can't even count how many there are. Which just makes him a type of his own. Cool.

At one point at this particular station, he just walked up and down a particular pathway until the NYPD warned him to get lost, go home. He didn't know what it was though, that attracted him to stay in that platform. A certain aura, he felt, radiated closeby, and his curiosity, maybe even his natural instinct drew him closer to that source of...source of...he couldn't quite put a word to it.

If Soul were to describe this awkward unawareness, it would be a convoluted mesh of tangible emotions, so raw that it seemed to almost encompass his own thoughts. He had to fight the questions arising in his already-conflicted mental state, wondering what was his own thought and what wasn't. What definitely was total resentment in his "alone" mind seemed almost foreign, yet shared. It then was pushed aside by, what is it, dissatisfaction?

Eventually, he couldn't come to a conclusion about what he had just experienced. Soul was overwhelmed by the events that happened that day, with his crazy parents and now his crazy mind. He decided to leave the station, not looking back.

Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Soul and Maka interaction coming soooon..

Next chapter will be called "A Letter in the Mail"