DISCLAIMER: I don't own Soul Eater. Atsushi Ohkubo does. So good on him.

"Let's go Tsubaki! Those who will surpass God can never rest!"

"Yes, Black Star."

Black Star runs off with Tsubaki struggling to keep up.

"They always run off so fast when they loose, so not cool." Soul turned his red eyes to face those of his meister. "We're surpassing him at basketball."

"You're surpassing him." Maka clarified, "I can barely bounce the stupid ball." She looked down at her feet and kicked at the gravel.

"You wanna learn?"

Maka's looked up, a million thoughts going through her head, not the least of which involved her complete failure. "We have homework to do." She murmured.

"Not due til next week, but if you don't want to... it's cool"

Soul wanted to teach her, she realised, and she did want to learn.

"Alright then." She grinned at him and Soul even let a smile drift across his face too before picking up the basketball.

"First lesson, how to defend." He took his position, with Maka between the goals and him. "Without touching me, slow me down and stop me from scoring."

Maka watched as he shifted his weight slowly and then ran at her, all she could think to do was put out her hand.

"Ouch!" Soul let out a yelp of pain. He lowered himself to the ground and through gritted teeth said: "I told you to stop me without touching me, not to slap me in the face."

Maka opened her eyes (She'd closed them when putting out her hand) and saw her partner sitting on the gravel with a puffy, red cheek and one dribble of blood running across the hand he was cupping his face with. She gasped and fell to the ground next to him. "Soul! I'm sorry. Let's go home and I'll bandage it for you."

"Yeah." He replied, slightly muffled by his hand.

Maka pulled a first aid kit out of a cupboard in the kitchen and carried it to the couch where Soul was lying down.

"It's really not that bad, Maka." He looked up as she walked into the room, "Cool guys don't need first aid."

"Let me fix it." She looked at him with sad eyes so he let it pass. "Show me."

He lifted his hand away to show only a tiny cut the size of Maka's fingernail. She pulled out a wet wipe and started to clean it.

"So, Maka," Soul filled the silence, "What do you want for dinner?"

"I was going to make pasta." She replied without looking up.

"No, what do you want? I'll make it for you. Cool guys do things for their meisters."