Author's Note: I don't own Soul Eater. I was walking my dog and got thinking and I thought this would be a fun idea. I got partially inspired by ThatcherJoe (hence Soul's job), and by Hood Ornament, because it gave me the idea of giving Soul a job that wasn't the usual musician sort of thing. I hope you guys like it, please review! Points to anyone who can tell me where the last line of this story came from.
Up on the Rooftop
by: Setkia
She's bad for his health and he's not just saying that because the first time he spoke to her, he fell off the roof.
i.
The first time he sees her she's walking down the street with five dogs attached to her, three on her right arm, two on her left and it's an ungodly hour that makes him wonder why the damn chimney couldn't be inspected by a professional instead of him.
The sun has barely risen, he has not had his coffee and his hair is sticking up in odd places which he wouldn't originally mind but because the mostly deserted street now has a girl walking down it, a girl who even he can admit is kind of cute, he suddenly feels the urge to impress her. Of course, he doesn't because she doesn't notice him at all and he may just be a bit conceited thinking she'd look his way. He watches her not-so-subtlety until she leaves the street, not pausing once, not even to pick up dog shit.
ii.
The next time he sees her, she's got four dogs, two on each arm and he vaguely recognizes three of them. Maybe. The fourth one is new though. That makes six dogs and he wonders if she owns a kennel or something.
It's not easy to see her perfectly considering he's on the roof because the damn tiling is weird and they're considering thatching it, but he can notice her odd hairstyle. She looks about his age and yet she wears her hair in pigtails? What's with that?
iii.
The third time he sees her he actually speaks. Or, tries to.
She's walking down with two dogs, the smallest amount he's seen, and he recognizes none of them. It's later in the day too and he's got straw with him now so he may as well start thatching, but he doesn't. Instead, he stares at her. She's wearing some kind of fancy jacket that runs longer in the back and boots that remind him of soldiers. She has a grace about her as she walks.
He decides he can say hello to her, just open his mouth and greet her.
Instead, he loses his balance and comes crashing down.
She notices him then, probably because of the loud sounds he's made now and he's staring up at her face that's blocking out the sun. She has large, olive green eyes and before he knows it, he puts his foot in his mouth and says something stupid.
"Are you an angel?"
She furrows her brow. "Excuse me?"
"Never mind, angels aren't so flat chested."
Idiot.
iv.
He sees her again some other time and this time she talks to him. It nearly stops him in his tracks.
"How's your head?"
He gawks at her and intelligently replies, "huh?"
"You hit your head when you fell. Are you okay? No concussion?" And if it wasn't confirmed before, it is now. She has a really lovely voice.
"Nothing that wasn't already there," he says. He's proud of himself. Five whole words and he hasn't sounded like a complete idiot quite yet. "So … seven dogs this time around? How much shit do you pick up?" And let's retract that last statement, shall we?
She looks at him strangely. No duh she looks at him strangely, he just asked how much crap she put her hands in. He's starting to recognize the dogs now at this point though. He's seen four of them before.
She walks away without another comment.
Yeah, that could've gone better.
v.
When he sees her again, she's wearing pyjamas. It's ungodly early, it rained a lot and the straw on the roof needs to be replaced. Wes insists he do it early so he does. Mainly cause he's hoping he'll see her because he thinks for some strange reason his chances of seeing her will increase if he gets up earlier. Thankfully, he does see her.
"Cute shoes," he tells her, nodding towards her bunny slippers.
She glares at him.
And he thought he was being smooth.
vi.
He sees her late at night when he's just sitting on the roof, a habit he developed a few years ago just to clear his head. He frowns. "No slippers today?"
He's scared she's going to turn around and leave again, but this time she stops. "Why are you on the roof all the time?"
"I'm a thatcher," he says.
"You put straw on other people's houses?"
"In the simplest of terms, yes."
"Do you also sit on stranger's houses?"
"I live here."
She nods slowly and that's the end of that conversation. It's when she's probably two blocks away and he's called off the roof for dinner that he realizes he should've asked about the dogs.
vii.
So naturally, the next time he sees her he starts with that. "Do you just own a lot of canines?"
"I'm a dog-sitter/walker," she says. "I need the extra money."
"For what?"
"Tuition. Why are you a thatcher?"
"Same reason. Tuition."
He's filthy rich.
viii.
The guilt of his lie torments him and he feels bad that he's never had to worry about something like tuition. He's going to Juilliard and he doesn't have to pay a cent, his parents have it all covered. He's never realized how much of a brat he appears to be in other's eyes. He considers confessing that he's lying when he sees her again. It doesn't go the way he plans.
"Why's your hair white?"
"Why's your hair blonde?"
"My mother's side," says the girl simply.
"My dad's side," he says simply. "Don't you need to walk them?" He nods towards the dogs.
"They can wait."
He's above dogs in her mind. That's an improvement. No, he doesn't know what he's thinking. This is uncool. "What are their names?"
"Bruce, The Rock, Tony, Daisy, Henry and Optimus." She nods to each dog as she says their names and they all look at her adoringly when called by name.
"Optimus?" he repeats. "Like Optimus Prime?"
She raises an eyebrow in his direction as though to dare him to come down from the roof and challenge her. He grins, showing his sharp teeth. "I like it." And somewhere in his mind, he says "I like you". He's not sure though.
ix.
She's bad for his health and he's not just saying that because the the first time he spoke to her, he fell off the roof. It's because each time he speaks to her his mind goes to weird places and he thinks weird things and his stomach does flips and he feels his breath escape him, same way it does when going down a roller-coaster. He should really stop talking to her.
But he doesn't.
"Where's Optimus?"
"Owner took him back for a while," says the blonde with the pigtails. He's come to like those pigtails, though he hasn't got the faintest idea why she wears her hair that way.
"Why don't you let your hair down?" he asks before he can stop himself.
"Why don't you brush yours?"
"Touché."
He wishes he was closer so he could better look at her smile of victory.
x.
He doesn't know what to say when his parents come out while she's walking the dogs and look her up and down. He can tell they don't like her. They don't like her because she wears cheap clothes, has no sense of style and is not in the same rank as them.
Wes likes her though.
He thinks Wes likes her too much.
She stumbles past them though and hides her face and he wishes she would look at him because if she did she would see he's cheering her on despite the frowns of disapproval from his parents.
"I don't like her son," says Father.
"Don't fall in love with her," says Mother.
Too late, he thinks.
Wes gives him a knowing look. He knows he's screwed.
xi.
"You lied to me."
"Huh?" He's tongue tied and cannot manage a single word.
"I saw your parents, you said you had to pay tuition. You're rich, aren't you?"
Like an idiot, he makes thinks worse for himself. "Define rich."
"You're an asshole."
He can't deny that.
"I can't believe I almost—" She cuts herself off and walks away, almost choking the dogs as she goes, getting sprayed harshly by their water sprinkler as she walks.
He's dug himself a hole, hasn't he?
xii.
Summer's almost over and then he'll have to go back to school and she'll go back to school and he won't see her as often. He doesn't see her often right now she's started avoiding his street, he's sure of it. He sees her start to walk down the street and then turn away. He's pretty sure she's holding a grudge.
He can explain it. He had a good reason to lie.
If you know, trying to get a girl to like you more by sympathizing with her situation counts as a good reason.
Shit, he's screwed.
xiii.
He watches her battle against sprinklers. If she'd just come down this way of the street, he'd tell her how to avoid them. But she doesn't.
Girls are good at holding grudges.
xiv.
In the end, it's not him who gets to her. It's Wes.
"I'm only here because your brother was stalking me and wouldn't let me go till I spoke to you."
Straight and to the point. He likes that about her.
"You have to walk there," he says, pointing towards a certain spot of the street. "And run every fifteen seconds."
"What?"
"To avoid the sprinklers."
She nods at him slowly. "Right. Can I go now?"
He forces the word out, a word he's never actually had to say aloud before in his entire life because quite frankly, being rich just meant never having to say it. "I'm sorry."
She turns on her heel and he can only hope that she'll accept his shitty excuse for an apology.
xv.
She comes back, so he guesses it worked. And she knows how to avoid the sprinklers now. Shame. He liked seeing her in a wet shirt.
xvi.
He supposes that maybe he should've perhaps thought this through. He realizes he's been on and off flirting with this girl (or what he calls flirting, his brother may disagree) for over a month and he has no clue what her name is.
"What's your name?" he asks her one day while she walks by with her thousand of dogs attached to her arm, including Optimus.
"Who wants to know?"
"A thatcher who lies about his family's wealth," he replies.
"Don't know if I want to share."
He grins and is more amused than irritated.
xvii.
"What's it gonna take to learn your name?"
"Come down from there."
He considers it, he really does, but decides against. She says that he must not want to know her name as badly as she thought, but she'd be wrong. He tells her his reason though, as stupid as it is.
"I think I'll lose my mysterious factor if I come down."
She tells him he's scared she'll be disgusted by his face.
He reminds her she's already seen it and she blushes.
xviii.
"Come on, a hint."
"Why don't you tell me yours?"
"You wouldn't believe me."
"Try me."
"Son Goku, Pokémon master."
"That doesn't even make sense."
They both laugh at his horrible attempt at humour, or more accurately, at him. He laughs mainly just to cover up how nervous he is. He's pretty sure it doesn't work.
xix.
"We're going back to school soon. Am I going to have to tell my friends about my anonymous girlfriend from Canada?"
"You have a girlfriend from Canada?"
"Have pity on me."
She shakes her head and he thinks she's adorable. She probably thinks he's a creep though.
He's okay with that though because she still talks to him.
xx.
"Maka."
He stares at her.
"My name's Maka. Maka Albarn."
He grins at her, slowly climbing down the ladder. He offers a hand to her. "Name's Soul. Soul Eater."
She rolls her eyes. "You're lying."
"I told you, you wouldn't believe me," he says, shoving his other hand in his pocket and shrugging. He realizes quickly that she can't quite shake his hand with all the dogs on her arms, so he settles for patting her on the shoulder awkwardly.
"That's a stupid name."
"Took you two months to get it. Was it worth it?" he teases.
She kisses him to shut him up.
Soul grins so widely he thinks he's just scared away his not-so-anonymous not-Canadian girlfriend away. "You know what, Maka Albarn? I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."