Disclaimer: All rights go to their respective owners, and I don't claim anything aside for my love for SoMa. ^_^

To Fool an Audience

by. Stré


Scene II

[at Gallows Mansion]


That bastard.

That idiotically annoying obnoxiously air-headed excuse-of-a-friend. He said that he would meet her at the gate, he had replied to her text message to confirm, yet he was still nowhere to be found. She even tried calling, ready to give him an earful for not honouring his word, but it went straight to his irritating voice mail. Walking into the party's main hall did not intimidate her, but she knew that it would be nearly impossible to find her friend: no matter how LOUD and how strikingly eye-catching his blue hair would be, this party nevertheless housed many rivalling loud-mouths such as the infamous Thompson sisters.

Actually, retract that thought. Finding BlackStar would not be the problem, but catching him was the real issue. More alarmingly enough, it was well past midnight, so the guests surely had enough to drink, and her idiot friend certainly never refrained himself from free booze.

If she were to put the blame on anything or anyone for her current predicament, it would surprisingly not be on BlackStar because she expected him to be drunk and more forgetful at this hour—it was a party after all and he did just land himself an excellent leading role, so celebrating was absolutely justified. If he was sober, she would seriously question his sanity.

She could blame herself for being late, but the real factor was no doubt that damn part-time job of hers. She had to work three hours overtime, mainly because she could not find any decent candidates. In truth, she could have just scouted anyone that looked pretty: she would simply give them Shibusen's contact information, say her spiel about the company, try to persuade them into the business, and her job would be done.

However, Maka had the unique ability of knowing when she saw potential, and unlike her ideas in writing that were not always certain of being a success, her acute perception of seeing a future star was always on the mark. She would see that orb of light shining from their core, the one that emitted more brightly from her Papa during the performance that changed her life, and she could just tell if they had a future in the entertainment industry.

During her scouting shifts, she would never approach someone if she did not see the light, but she still had a quota to fill, so working overtime came with the territory. She was rather unlucky tonight, only finding someone mediocre but still with an ounce of potential, so she settled and closed the case. She then had to rush to the party, not even bothering to change nor doll herself up, still clad in casual clothes consisting of a light-ochre oversized sweater and a burgundy pleated short skirt.

That house was huge, she thought to herself. Well, it did belong to the son of the president of Shibusen. With steps of reluctance and defeat from the wait she had endured, she made her way to the grand entrance to look for her childhood friend, but she abruptly stalled when a screaming distressed young man burst open those majestic doors and came rushing towards her.

"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! SOMEONE SAVE ME~~~" the poor soul shrieked in desperation, clutching his head, and Maka noticed there was blood leaking from his ears.

She grabbed him by the shoulders, urging him to straighten his posture and look up.

"Kidd, calm down," she said sympathetically. "Just close your eyes and pretend it's not happening." Maka knew exactly what was going on. Maybe not exactly, but she knew the gist of it. Kidd, although talented and dignified, had a severe case of OCD when it came to symmetry, and the Thompson sisters, those two beautiful actresses that he recruited and lived with, were surely pulling some stunts to get him riled up.

"I can't. I just can't. I'm a failure. I'm the worst. Let me rot in hell…" He crouched down, hugged his knees and shivered terribly in fear. He continued to mumble words of self-degradation until Maka walked behind him, squatted, and placed her hands over his eyes. She knew what to do because this was certainly not the first time this has happened.

"Kidd, just listen to my voice." She encouraged him to stand as she slowly straightened her legs to an upright position, never letting her hands falter to successfully block his vision. "Think of pretty, orderly things. Like the Pantheon. Or your Egyptian sculpture collection."

She guided him slowly but surely through the threshold and back into the mansion, all the while feeding his imagination with symbols of symmetry. Once in the hall, she could now understand why the usually prim young man was so dishevelled.

It was chaos.

Bottles: beer, hard liquor, champagne, wine, peroxide, paint thinner, just everything imaginable and unimaginable that was consumable yet unlikely digestible was strewn across the floor, sitting on every surface, broken or just empty, while an equal amount of full ones rested in the paws of the many rowdy attendants.

Bodies: fully clothed, barely dressed, in their birthday suits, performing all the possibilities of acts known and unknown to humanity—brawling in the corner, bawling over boys, baring breasts, bearing intoxication, barfing their innards, boning one another…

and…

BlackStar: hanging from a chandelier while Patty Thompson cheered from the sidelines.

That explains why he did not answer his phone, but she would deal with that idiot after she finished handling this OCD nutcase.

"Maka, what's that sound? I hear something cracking. And I don't hear two cracks, only one. Tell me, what is it?" he uttered in panic, trying to pry the girls hands away from his eyes to inspect the damage himself. She ignored his protest and kept her hands firmly where they were.

"You're hearing things, Kidd. There isn't anything wrong, just walk faster," she said in her best fake-calm voice. She managed to get him up the grand staircase and into the hallway, before noticing from the corner of her eye, a blue-haired figure swinging back and forth on that expensive lighting fixture.

Finally arriving at his bedroom, she entered with him and slammed the door shut with extra force to synchronise the noise with the deafening crash from downstairs, presumably BlackStar's success at destruction. Kidd apparently did not notice, much to Maka's relief.

"Okay Kidd. It's late, so just go to sleep." She guided his traumatized body to his bed, and searched the drawer of his bedside table for his earplugs and pyjamas. "Okay, so get changed and then put these on, it'll help you ignore the outside world." She handed him the sound-blocking contraptions along with his more comfortable clothes. "Oh, you might want to clean off the dried blood from your ears too."

He did as he was told, still looking shell-shocked, and was soon in bed. Maka whispered a goodnight that he obviously could not hear, and she excused herself from his room.

Next step: BlackStar.

At this point, she was only here for damage control, and the thought of finding that possible musician partner was placed on hold. She did not want to get her hopes up for something that was highly improbable, so she accepted the fact that tonight would be a disaster and there was no point pining over its outcome. She heaved a heavy sigh, and just as she was about to make her way back downstairs to tame her childhood friend, a thought sprang up in her mind. She wanted to visit that room.

Kidd, being the crazy yet sophisticated individual that he was, had set up a series of eight rooms devoted to the various domains of art—painting, sculpture, dance, theatre, film, music, architecture, and literature. He was inspired by the nine Muses of Greek mythology, but he insisted on the number eight and he chose respective disciplines that better reflected contemporary society. Some of those ancient Greek muses, like Urania the muse of astronomy, were totally outdated in Kidd's opinion.

It was not everyday that Maka came to Gallows Mansion, the proclaimed name of this luxurious abode. She may have been good friends with Kidd, but she hardly had the time to visit this place since it was on the outskirts of Death City, and there was not much reason to come here anyways, aside from the wild parties he—or rather the Thompsons—would organise every so often. She therefore saw this as the best opportunity to visit that room, the muse of literature.

In her memory, it was a breathtaking sight: walls lined with gorgeous bookcases filled with innumerable tomes of wisdom and beauty. It was pristine, orderly and symmetrical like the way he liked it, but what marked her most was the musty yet attractive scent of a mature library that drove her to the insane depths of desire. She needed to see it again.

Racking her brain for any hint of its location, she vaguely remembered that it must have been further down the hallway. Asking Kidd was not an option since he was definitely dead to the world, and asking either of the Thompsons was certainly out of the question as they would probably coax her into a drinking game where she would then lose the opportunity to visit the room, or simply lose all of her clothes. Maka felt that peering into every room was the best option—it may have been rude to rummage through someone else's house, but at least she wasn't breaking anything.

The search was like a waltz, a three-part movement: creak the door open, crane her neck inside, take a deep breath. If she smelled that familiar delectable scent of aged parchment, she would know that she was in the right place. She repeated these steps many times, but she quickly grew tired of the dance because the hallway seemed endless; it was taking longer than expected and the impending destruction by the hands of BlackStar was significantly increasing if she did not come to the rescue soon.

For once in her life, she pushed her systematic reasoning aside and followed her intuition. She would chose a door based on its aura, very much like the way she scouts for talents, concentrating on that feeling—the attractive, sensual, passion-evoking aroma that she once experienced in the muse of literature.

She chose a door, creaked it open, craned her neck, but her breath halted.

A piano.

A melody that she could not interpret because she could never associate words to music.

BlackStar had been exaggerating when he accused her of being tone deaf because she could hear music, but she simply could not understand it. Take this song for example. She could physically hear the intricate patterns of notes—it sped up, slowed down, hammered urgently, hummed softly—but she could not understand its language, the words that it was chanting and the expression it was trying to convey. Whether it was weeping in pain or crying out of joy, she could never tell.

Maka slipped her entire body into the dimly-lit room and rested her eyes on the back of the pianist himself, a man in a classy deep-red dress shirt that contrasted starkly against his messy white hair, gliding those long limber fingers across those keys, with ease and composure, like this activity was as simple as breathing. She watched and listened to him at a modest distance, her heart pulsating furiously, rivalling the speed of those trills and sixteenth-notes that he swiftly delivered with perfect accuracy.

The fifteen minutes of the sonata had passed. Fifteen minutes of indescribable feelings.

When the music ended, Maka was not sure how to act. Despite failing at its interpretation, she knew that the piece was beautiful, and she certainly enjoyed the performance. Should she applaud? Maybe say something? Or introduce herself? She wondered if he even sensed her presence at all, and as she continued to ruminate over these questions, the man had solved her query by turning around and looking straight into her eyes.

He was as cryptic as music, and she was left speechless.

Was he handsome? She could not decide. An expression as unreadable as those words in-between the lines, with those intense eyes of rich carmine, this man was not only mysterious, but extremely compelling and she was left at his mercy. But Maka did not let her appearance show any signs of vulnerability, refusing to believe this helplessness, this speechlessness, this embarrassment at actually being stumped and unable to formulate a clear thought, all by the mere gaze of a man.

Her instincts told her to hit him, to smack him really hard so that he would be seeing stars instead of her eyes, but she suppressed this inappropriate urge and instead countered with a fierce look of confidence. She first told him the story of her life—her unwavering courage in the face of fear, her competitive ambitious nature, her determination to succeed—then she hardened her look, attacking his retinas with her burning drive, and essentially declared war as she injected green poison into that lush red blood.

He grinned lopsidedly, as if accepting her challenge, and she could have sworn his teeth had appeared serrated, looking like a demon about to pull her back into his clutches.

It left her heart out of control, her brain in an equal mess. And as the devil turned back to face his keyboard, she would only sink deeper into the chaos that had only just begun.

Rage. Notes clamouring at an unbearable speed, trampling over one another like a violent stampede, they progressed with more anger and force, pummelling their opponents with murderous beats and killer intent. The notes turned into chords like warriors forming squads, but even as they fought in groups and held a semblance of cohesion, they remained unpredictable, scattered, blinded by their wrath. Soldiers then defected from their factions, preferring solo combat, while others gathered into larger teams, creating further complicated patterns to the already chaotic battle. The war escalated to impossible heights as the piano shrieked, wailed in fury, and pleaded for the pain to end.

But it did not. The devil was a greedy bastard, always pushing for more, grasping for every inch of the piano's flesh with blood-thirsty eyes, as he now used his foot pedal to elongate the cacophony which amplified the instrument's pitiful cries. He relished in its delicious pleas of distress, the greed now turned into gluttony as he ravished the sounds of this discordant symphony, leering at its tattered soul with insatiable hunger.

The soldiers however grew tired, and a decrescendo of notes eventually took place. The first movement had ended, but the battle with no victor left an unfinished war. The piano was panting, catching its breath in this moment of god-send rest, but the devil's fingers never braked as he continued to play erratic notes, ranging from a lazy whole to a fervent sixteenth.

While he never left room for a real pause, Maka still found a split second to collect her thoughts and temporarily calm her heart.

This could not be music because she felt like she actually understood it. For once, words were unnecessary for describing her comprehension and she did not bother to translate the sounds that she heard, nor did she even care that logic could possibly fail her. She simply let her mind free, throwing herself in the dissonance that this devil had lured her into.

An important realisation however did occur: this was her music. Perhaps, this feeling could equate to what others experienced when listening to so-called heartfelt symphonies or soulful jazz that she could never seem to relate with. If it indeed was the case, she finally understood its full power without her extensive research and reasoning; she felt its visceral quality through a direct channel, without the chasms of language, and she sincerely envied this devil that could naturally reel the hearts of his prey into his damned world.

The white-haired demon sensed her brief break from his grasp, and he did not appreciate that she had a moment to think. He quickly picked up the tempo, grabbing her attention immediately, and he decided to proceed to the third movement, the one he treasured with quite some pride. She surely would not be able to handle the next part, he thought to himself with overconfidence.

It opened with a series of arpeggios, those rich notes of a chord that were played in succession, like soldiers within a group asserting their individuality one by one. Their yells were still discordant, screaming over one another's voice, desperately crying for their identity that was lost in the battlefield. They were tired of fighting, fed up of war and its atrocities, but they still held the passion and drive to continue living despite their crimes. The pace of this movement was urgent yet drawn out, stretching chords that left her wanting more, delivering that distinct cacophonic style yet coupling it with bouts of harmony.

While she loved the sheer tremor of dissonance, she absolutely craved those moments of synched resonance. It left parts of her body other than just her heart trembling in desire, particularly the regions where she would never indulge herself, places that were too sinful to even consider. This devil seemed to know the right buttons to push, the areas he could touch and leave her screaming for more, yet the music entered another lull, waning towards the grand finale as he commanded his troupes to raise their hands and drop their weapons. The war had ended, but the conflict was not over, as repercussions still lingered on in the hearts of the people.

It was then that she saw it. That blue orb buried deep inside his chest now swelled at an alarming rate, matching the ascending volume of that crescendo of notes, soon engulfing the entire piano with its intensity.

He poured himself out. It leaked from every crevasse of the instrument, pooled onto the floor and shifted to high-tide, effectively drowning the girl within the depths of his inner being. Each key was the voice of a soldier, speaking all at once and creating layers upon layers of diverse emotions that were bottled up, now exploding into a collective cry that resounded much like a harmonized cacophony.

She choked from the overload. These raw emotions were too much to bear, she felt faint, blinded by its power, yet she could not get enough of it, fully determined to stay composed and conscious to successfully intake every last moment of this insanity. This devil may have dragged her into sin, but the feeling was undeniably amazing.

Her own masterpiece then flashed before her eyes. She already had ideas of what she needed to write, but in this moment, she saw it more clearly. Every scene, the imagery, the dialogue, the emotions, the meaning.

This was it. He was it.

Her weapon.

The finale drew a close, and with arms limply falling to his sides, the white-haired man took a stand. He was panting, completely worn out, while all traces of his demon persona had vanished like the music that no longer existed in this now silent room. At first, he continued to stare at those black and white keys, seemingly awed and shocked by his own performance, but he quickly turned around to see if he had successfully scared off that annoyingly cocky young woman.

When he saw that she was still there, standing and actually smiling like there was no tomorrow, he originally thought that he would feel defeated at failing to intimidate her, but he instead felt a warm comfort spread throughout his being. The corner of his mouth then instinctively lifted into a smirk that seemed to say "that's the type of guy I really am." Her eyes responded with excitement.

"What's your name?"

"Soul."


A/N: The first piano piece that Soul played was inspired by the first movement of Beethoven's Sonata no. 23 "Appassionata". Go check it out if you've never heard it before; I can somehow see Soul playing it. ^_^

As for the second "piece", I went to go bang on my own piano but it just sounded retarded, like I was fighting with it or something, hence the war metaphors. Then somehow the cliché seven deadly sins wormed their way in there, so I hope it wasn't too cheesy. o_0

Also, I hope no one felt any KiMa vibes because that was really NOT my intention. I actually wrote that bit so that it would erase any future signs of Kid being a love interest, since I think they're strictly friends.

Feedback is love like usual. Thanks for reading!