A/N: This chapter contains swearing and sexual references. I do not own Soul Eater.
This City Never Sleeps
Lisp.
Two.
She can't believe what this is turning her into. Just two nights ago she was a fearless nightwalker, a sane and intelligent young woman unprejudiced by the fear and cowardice plaguing the rest of the town. And what is she now? A stupid girl cowering in the corner, afraid of the monsters under the bed.
"Up reading again last night, Maka?" her boss asks as she lifts two encyclopaedias onto a high shelf. Normally they would require both hands and a lot of muscle to lift one to that height, let alone the fact that the woman juggling them is currently four months pregnant, but Maka knows better than to question the inhuman strength of Marie Mjólnir. This is the same woman who lifted the front end of a car three months ago to free the tail of a stray cat, and while this goodness in her heart is inspiring, it can just as quickly turn to wrath whenever her strength as a female is called into question.
Maka ducks her head so as to not make eye contact; she's never been a good liar. "Yes, I . . . had some case studies to look over and I lost track of time." The words taste false in her mouth and her hands fidget as she tries to sound convincing, but it apparently does the trick as the honey-blonde woman does no more than give her a light laugh and reprimand before going back to lifting her incredible weights with ease.
It is a good thing she is so occupied, leaving Maka alone on the register – otherwise she might see just how badly the younger woman's hands are shaking, or the way she bites her lip. The truth is she had been far from doing work for her classes or any such trivial pursuit last night. She had been too preoccupied with skimming over Death City's town archives on her old laptop, trying to find out just where the rumours of the dark had begun.
Well, that and occasionally twitching aside the curtains to assuage her ever-plaguing fears. No matter what she does, it feels like those eyes are trained on her again, watching her every move.
Honestly, she chides herself again as her thoughts begin to drift back towards that white-haired stranger. Maka can already feel goosebumps rising to stand at attention on her arms when she replays the scene in her mind, the same way she has done so many times over the last two days. The unnatural glow of his hair, the sharpness of his teeth gleaming like rows of serrated chainsaw blades awaiting purchase on her smooth, unblemished skin. What he is, she isn't sure; she doesn't want to jump to the conclusion that he is a demon or monster like the idiotic folklore describe. But there is something raw about him, something so alien that she cannot simply occupy her thoughts with happy images until he disappears altogether among the sea of faces she has seen and since forgotten.
He makes her curious. It's an all-consuming, skin-itching kind of curiosity, and it is riddled with the pockmarks of fear and suspicion and doubt, but it is strong all the same. She wants at the same time to study him and never see him again. All this time she's been spending trying to figure out the source behind Death City's heavy paranoia, but never once has she allowed herself to believe that it may be justifiable.
This stranger has thrown a spanner in the works, and knocked out more than a few crucial screws upon collision. Maka can feel something instinctive inside her, the force that summons the goosebumps and keeps her eyes wide open late at night, telling her that she was lucky to escape the last encounter with her life and to run away fast. She feels like a rabbit upon scenting a wild hunting dog. And yet she wants to know. It's always been her curse. She wants to, needs to see what he is and discover whether he is connected to this town's oddities. She has to ask why he is apparently roaming the streets at a time where it is usually she alone stalking along the cobblestones. She just has to find out, but at the same time she hopes never to lay eyes on him again.
Curiosity killed the cat, and everything inside her is telling her not to bait the dog and allow him another chance at her. But still . . .
"Anybody in there?" a voice rings out teasingly as a hand waves before her eyes. Maka blinks twice, hard, and grabs the heavy tome before her as a snap instinct. She raises wary eyes, already feeling the telltale jolt in her chest from being surprised at such a time, until she notices who her apparent assailant is. It takes all she has in her not to groan out loud or sigh and walk away.
"Oh, hello," she says instead to the customer – or browser, depending on his motives today – and busies herself with sorting through order forms to keep her hands and eyes busy. She knows if she gives him any attention whatsoever he will gain the wrong impression yet again and jump on the trail like a dog with a bone, and she doesn't have the energy to deal with his irritating attempts at flattery and sweet-talking today. She just hasn't had enough sleep, and frankly, he's insufferable enough as it is. "Sorry, I was spacing out."
"I could see – your head was up in the clouds. At least the sun on your face makes it shine brighter," Noah says with a smirk, picking up a book on the counter and pretending to be interested in the cover. He toys with it slowly, occasionally glancing up at her with that infuriating little half-smile. It's as if he's expecting her to bend over backwards and swoon.
Instead she says blankly, "Unfortunately the rays sent me blind while I was up there, so there aren't really any perks. Then again, I'd be the first to know if it rained." She wishes Marie would come back to the counter so she might have an excuse to duck back to the shelves behind the desk, but by the sounds of things she will have no such luck.
Noah laughs loudly as if she has just said the joke of the century. "You're too much, Maka," he says in a smooth voice, changing his stance to lean dominantly on the wooden desk as she walks past briskly to return a tome to its correct shelf. "I like a girl with a sense of humour."
That's bullshit, of course. She's often told by her friends that there isn't one humourous bone in her body – which she corrects, because technically she has a humerus in both arms – and Noah doesn't care whether she can make a good joke or not. She knows the reason he comes down here day after day to try and charm or impress her. He wants to add her to his Collection, like he does all the girls in Death City. She remains one of the few females he hadn't managed to persuade into going on a date with him during high school, and although it's been a year and a half since she graduated, he's still trying to complete his list. She isn't falling for it in the slightest; she's never liked guys like Noah and anyway, she doesn't date.
Therefore if he can succeed to claim her, she will be the prize jewel of his Collection, worth boasting about to everyone who's anyone around this part of the city.
Maka sucks back a sharp retort as he tries and fails yet again to wow her with yet another bad pick-up line and merely gives him an extremely thin-lipped and forced smile before continuing her work. She wants nothing more than to be able to go home; he's doubtless finished work at wherever he spends his time during the day – he's told her before but she doesn't care enough to remember the place – and that means he'll stick around as long as possible if it means he has a shot at snagging her.
Which he doesn't, but that is beside the point.
She is momentarily saved by a small line of customers, giving her an excuse to engage in conversation with them and give Noah the cold shoulder. However, he merely saunters over to a self-help section and fakes interest in other things until she is free again. How appropriate that section is for you, she thinks ungenerously as she counts change. Maybe you can find a guide on how to sense when a girl is completely uninterested in you.
"Do you think you could give me a price check on this one, beautiful?" he asks with a grin as he places his own choice on the counter after the line dies down. It's a fantasy novel – The Fellowship Of The Ring. It briefly flits through her mind that someone as petty as him shouldn't even be allowed to touch such a brilliant book before she performs the inquiry with a remote expression, as demure as possible. She can see the price tag immediately before the book at the section and grounds her teeth.
"The price is written on the stand. Try to be more observant next time," she mutters, her polite persona slipping.
"Ah, so it is. I guess I just wanted to have a reason to talk to you," he says, aiming for the 'confident on the surface' tactic.
She wants to reach over the counter and hit the man square in the face with the book to make him leave her alone. However, she is a pushover by nature and therefore unable to do anything of the sort and it is doubtful that this will help her to stay employed. Marie probably wouldn't say anything because she knows of the young woman's frustration, but there is a limit to how far she can test her friendship with her boss.
So she turns around to attempt cooling her now-searing while straightening a display and manages, "I would appreciate if you didn't try to get my attention while I'm trying to work."
"'Try' to get your attention? Please. Your eyes are glued to me," he mocks with a sleazy grin, before winking. "Well, no worries. I'll wait until after you finish and walk you home, and then you'll get a chance to have something other than your eyes on me. As prudish as you try to seem, I can sense that desire burning in you. Why deny it when it could give both of us so much pleasure?"
That's it. Burning point.
Job or no job, this ends here – with his dead body on the floor and the bloodied spine of the murder weapon in her hand, preferably. She can't take it anymore; this is sexual assault and she feels disgusted, and moreover threatened. He's going to wait for her to finish her shift whether she likes it or not unless she ends his delusions and puts him in his place now.
However, before she can so much as turn around, she is cut off by a definitely male voice saying sharply, "That's enough. Back off, man."
Noah turns incredulously. "Excuse me? This doesn't concern you, dude, so why don't you take your own advice and piss off?"
Maka freezes as she listens to the sudden challenge. She doesn't twist to see her saviour for fear of getting involved in the argument her common sense is screaming will break out, but there's something in the newcomer's voice that fills her with a sudden desire to glimpse his appearance. His voice is low but the tone is hard to describe – it's like he has a rough voice loosely coated by something smooth and alluring. She settles for clenching her fists and awaiting a sign that a fist fight may break out. The newcomer will most likely back off first but she knows enough of Noah to fear his actions. He is not usually violent, preferring underhand moves and others doing his dirty work, but when his Collection is threatened to his face he tends to get aggressive. Seeing as he is currently under the belief that she may actually be added to his list by the end of the night, she is expecting the worst and therefore planning how she may resolve the issue before it gets out of hand and her boss has to get involved or outside action is taken.
Just because she can't lift two enormous encyclopaedias by herself and she is technically small for her size, that does not mean she is incapable of completely destroying an opponent if they attack her without adequate training. Being trained in karate and Tai Kwon Do for five and a half years gives her the necessary skill to kick ass when she is in danger.
One thought of the white haired stranger quickly crushes the sudden burst of confidence.
Her attention is once again snared when the newcomer scoffs. "Come on," he says sharply. "She clearly isn't interested in you and you're making yourself look pathetic; also, threatening to wait for her to finish work before 'escorting' her home is a violation of her security and privacy bordering on abuse. So how about you leave her alone and get lost, okay?"
"She and I are talking about our own personal relationship, and I have a right to be a customer in here for however long I want!"
"You call this a relationship, having to resort to sweet talking her into letting you walk her home? And nobody here really believes you're intelligent enough to read any of the books in this store besides those in the kiddie section."
There is a beat of silence in which even the musty books on the shelves hold their breath, fearful of stirring dust into the already-clouded air, before Noah begins to loudly and abusively swear at Maka's unidentified saviour. She draws in a deep breath as she listens to the man's witty retorts to the barbed and vulgar insults thrown at him, counting to ten mentally in her mind. There are customers here and Marie will have to get involved soon. Strong or not, she is pregnant and already under stress. So, it looks like she will have to resolve this issue herself, running low on sleep and heavily armed with the multitude of books surrounding her.
Those poor bastards.
She whirls around in one rapid motion, her hand already clutching the heaviest and therefore most deadly work she can get to, and slams it heavily on the counter. The customers in the store, already interested or aggravated by Noah's loud vulgarity, flinch. Maka sets what she knows is a burning green glare on the tattoo-riddled and pierced man, and he instinctively takes a step back.
"How dare you," she says with every word practically accompanied by the hot fires of her rage, "talk about me like that, while I stand here no less! In case you couldn't get it through your thick skull, I'm not interested in you! I never have been, and I am not interested in becoming another name on your petty, idiotic list! Now, if you don't leave by your own accord, I'll just get on the phone to my father as the Chief of Police and see what he thinks about all this. Or, better yet, my boss can call in her husband – the Division Coroner!"
Noah goes an odd pasty colour, venomous retorts bubbling up in his mouth, but the fierce ferocity of her glare pushes his words back until they are jammed in his throat. As a habit he looks around for his usual gang of cronies to support him, but even his most faithful little follower, Gopher, isn't with him today. It's only him and a store full of disgusted shoppers. He splutters twice before finally pointing a finger at her.
"Fine, you common woman! You aren't even worth being Collected!" he says as strongly as he can muster with his increasing embarrassment. A light door-trill away, he is out the door and hopefully gone from Maka's life for good.
With heaving breaths from her outburst and her hands still clenched into fists, she manages to let out most of her anger and carry on with stiffly filing away the order forms, sending the message that everyone in the bookstore should continue with their shopping. She knows Marie had to have heard some of the commotion but as the honey blonde has never liked Noah, she is hoping nothing will be said of this little incident. After all, he had it coming, right?
"Nicely handled. I didn't even need to do anything, by the looks of things."
She tenses and looks up, remembering for the first time the person who had come to her aid. She blinks a few times when her eyes catch him, holding a book in his hands rather hesitantly. Although his exterior is cool and unruffled at her explosive attack, his movements show that he is wary to try and purchase the book lest she wrench it from his hands and beat out his brains with it.
"Thank you for that," she says with her best efforts at calm, forcing on a smile and breathing out to show him the danger has momentarily passed. "He's been bugging me for months. Just that one today?"
"Thanks," he confirms, taking care not to let her skin touch his as he hands it over.
Surely she couldn't have scared him that much, right? Granted, she has earned the nickname 'Angel of Death' by a few of her old classmates for her inability to tolerate the pigheadedness of men, but that particular encounter hadn't even warranted a Maka Chop. She tries to discreetly eye the man as she processes his purchase. His hands are now firmly in his jacket pockets again and he is not looking directly at her, rather at a poster over her shoulder. It seems as if he is extremely uncomfortable making contact with her at all, and she feels slightly insulted. After all, she may hold wrath in her otherwise small body, but she isn't so hideous as to trigger such obvious attempts at avoidance, is she?
Then again, compared to him she may be. He is taller than her by about half a head, and his skin is that perfect shade of tan she likes – enough to be present, but not the six-pack, Jersey Shore ostentatious tone. He's dressed casually in black jeans, a white shirt and a leather jacket thrown almost carelessly over the top but it fits him well and gives him a good shape. His eyes are brown, but they hold some sort of light in them whenever he turns to an angle facing the sun, catching the rays in a way that is almost unnatural. His hair is artfully messy, with a fringe coming partly over his face and spikes at the back as if he has gelled it, but it looks soft and unpolluted. It is also brown, a mundane shade. It does not seem like it fits him; perhaps he dyes it. She feels a streak of recognition, but it is quenched instantly. If she'd seen someone like him before, she'd remember it.
Maka notes all this with the same dull pang of envy she feels when confronted with attractive people. She bags his purchase – The Messenger by Markus Zusak – and pushes the bag across the counter before dropping the change into his palm rather than handing it to him. If he does not want to touch her, she will make it easy for him. He seems rather confused by her sudden hostility but still manages to give her a grin and a polite 'thanks' before leaving the store.
As he turns, she sees it. Just for a second, but it's there. His straight white teeth catch the gold of the four-thirty afternoon sun, and when the light glints off them, a flicker takes place before Maka's eyes. For the tiniest moment, she is looking at not straight flat rows, but neat serrated edges.
The door-chime sings in the sudden silence of her heart as it skips a beat, and her eyes are filled with not brown hair and grins, but white and lazy waves in the glow of a streetlamp.
In an instant, she feels the fear swallow her like a tide and she is a little girl, scared of the dark.
