He smelt death.
It was all around him.
In every corner of every room, claiming the souls of all those who were unfortunate enough to be there.
At least, those who were unfortunate enough to be male.
"Perfume is not cool."
"It's Liz and Patty's birthday, so we have to get them something, and Kid told me that Liz had her eye on this bottle," Maka said in her usual strict and commanding manner, shoving a bottle of purple liquid in Soul's face. "He also said that we have to get two, so that he can arrange them symmetrically and fix up the rest of the bottles in Liz's bathroom." That's considerate of him, thought the tortured scythe. "The finest perfume there is, and we need to know what it smells like," Maka murmered slowly, gazing at the label on the bottle, and before Soul could comprehend what she was saying, she sprayed it all over her partner. Soul coughed and spluttered, his eyes beginning to water. "W-What's wrong with you?!" he shouted, tears now streaming down his face, much to the amusement of Maka.
"Don't worry, Soul. It hurts but you won't get sick or anything, see?" Maka smiled her sadistic little smile as she shoved the label in his face again to show him the apparent optical-friendly facts on the bottle, or whatever it was. Soul ignored her, focusing on the burning pain his poor eyes were being forced through for the sake of beauty.
This is really uncool, Soul thought, just hoping that no one else could see him, especially not anyone from Shibusen. God forbid if anyone found out that he had not only gone shopping for perfume, but also wore some. Not cool.
Maka took a wiff of the putrid air as a grimace creeped it's way onto her face, replacing her earlier amusement. "Hm. I don't think I should use that on you again, you have an... interesting aroma that clashes with this perfume."
Soul seethed as his meister put the bottle back on the wooden shelf and selected another one.
A few hours and a couple of Maka Chops later, the two arrived outside a fashionable boutique, bags from the perfume death room swinging from Maka's wrists. Not surprisingly, the salesmen in the previous store were a bit offended that their expensive (and pungent) merchandise was being used in a battle of epic proportions between a flat-chested, blonde-haired teenage girl and a slouching, groaning, red-eyed 'punk'.
"What are we doing here?" Soul groaned, his slouch deepening – his way of expressing how entirely pointless and supportive of the materialistic businesses this was. Or something like that.
"We need to get a gift for Patty, and she needs new pants, right?" Liz, Kid and the gang (AN: Yep, they're a gang now :B) made the mistake of taking her into an art store where she, being Patty, opened bottles of oil paint and painted her pants green. Kid had been in depression ever since, with the asymmetry between his two pistols becoming too much for him to bear.
Soul let out another groan as he remembered that eventful afternoon. "Everyone is going to get Patty new pants, Maka. You need to think of something els-" Soul was silenced as he saw Maka reach into her bag for a book, an encyclopedia to be exact, judging by the gold lettering stamped into the excessively thick spine. Soul sighed. "Fine. Get her the pants. Maybe if you got her the same ones that Liz wears, Kid might prefer them over everyone else's." Soul noticed how these gifts were really more for Kid than the two Thompson Sisters.
"Don't worry, this place will have the right ones." Maka's confidence was as strong as ever, something Soul noted, even when they were shopping for pants. Not waiting for her weapon, Maka charged into the designer clothing store, a determined grin plastered on her face. Soul sighed again. That idiot, he thought before following the light-haired girl into the boutique of death.
Thankfully the boutique wasn't as bad as the perfume section had been. It wasn't even all that girly, something which surprised Soul. Then he realised that women's fashion boutiques were sophisticated and stylish, something which the stores Maka went to shop in lacked because she wasn't actually a woman. Soul snickered at that thought.
A few minutes later, Soul found Maka browsing through a rack of blue denim jeans. Just as he thought that Maka had finally begun to slow down, he noticed the large metal rack of supposedly different jeans slung over the top, sitting just behind her.
"Soul! There you are!" Already Soul knew that he should regret entering the place. "I need you to look at these two pairs and decide which is more like Patty." Maka held up two nearly identical pairs, the same ones that Liz wore. "Quick! Decide!" She snapped, annoyed with his delayed response. Shopping always made Maka so angry.
"... Only two pairs? What about all those other pairs behind you?"
"You really are slow, aren't you?" Soul scowled at her comment. "I'm deciding through process of elimination. It's the only way to get the best possible pair," Maka said matter-of-factly.
Trust Maka to go through a process like that for a pair of jeans.
Soul heaved another, yet not final, sigh of exasperation and tried to determine the difference between the two possibilities. This was WAY too hard. Who cares about the differences between two identical pairs of jeans anyway? Especially since they're for Patty. If she didn't mind painting them with green oil paint, Soul was sure she wouldn't mind a slight difference in buttons or which country they were made in. With that reasoning in mind, Soul made a choice. "The right one," he said, his slouch deepening still, not really knowing what he was doing or why. Oh well. It's not like he cared.
"Wrong," Maka said as Soul stood there in shock, before his expression slowly changed to one that said 'I'm desperately resisting the urge to take your liver and devour it for dinner.' Maka ignored him. "Patty's jeans always had a beige coloured stitch down the side," she continued all-knowingly with her eyes closed, pointing at the little beeline-like threads as if she'd read a book on the subject and learnt the passages off by heart.
"Then why are you asking for my opnion?" Soul hissed through gritted teeth. He was trying to stay cool. He really was.
"I didn't ask for your opinion. I asked you a question," Maka said as she put the blue-stitched pants back where she found them and the beige-stitched pants back into the never-ending pile of denim.
Don't leave her. Remember, that's not cool.
"Next ones!" Maka announced brightly, taking another two pairs of identical jeans out of her little stash and holding them up for Soul to see.
Stay cool, Soul. Stay cool.
***
"Hold still! The nurse said to apply this every 5 minutes for the next half hour, and then we can go."
"I hope you're happy."
"Since when was I pleased about this situation?"
"Oh, so you're admitting that what you did was uncalled for?"
"I don't regret doing what I did – I just don't want to waste time waiting here for half an hour."
"Woe is you."
"You deserved it."
"I what?"
"You deserved it."
"How does talking to another customer deserve a Maka Chop?"
"You were obviously flirting with her."
"I was asking her what the time was."
"Seemed like a pretty lengthy conversation."
"I asked her where she got her watch from."
"Why would you want to know something like that?"
"Maybe I wanted to get it as a gift for someone."
"We already got Liz and Patty their gifts."
"I never said Liz and Patty."
"There's no holidays or special occasions coming up."
"Generosity doesn't require a holiday."
Maka opened her mouth to retaliate, but for once, the young meister didn't seem to have anything to say. Defeated, she lowered her eyes and continued taking care of Soul's wound.
The nurse came out of her dingy office and into the dingy ward to see them, thankfully after the two partner's little argument, politely asking how the pain was.
"It's fine." Soul's annoyance and hostility was increasingly obvious as he turned away from the young woman, but the nurse must've been used to that sort of attitude as she she took no notice of Soul's rudeness and instead reminded Maka that she'd have to re-apply to treatment in a few more minutes and quietly retreated back into her office.
Silence descended between the two teenagers as they sat waiting in the cold, grey nursing ward, the sheets of the bed looking old and unchanged, matching the grey tone of the chipped sink. Soul slowly extended a hand to feel his wound.
"Don't touch it," Maka mumbled without looking up.
There it was. That weird, almost eerie silence. Soul didn't understand what he'd said this time to make his meister so quiet. He had every right to be annoyed with her – there's a limit to how many Maka Chops a person can take, but was his hostility really getting to her? Soul couldn't believe it. Not Maka. She's far too proud to be silenced by a guy like him.
Soul heaved another sigh. He really hoped that Maka wasn't hurt.
Author's Note: Yeah, okay. You can shoot me with your Anti-Fail bazookas now. The Fail must be eredicated!
Oh yeah, and sorry for spelling/grammatical/perfume related mistakes. I may be female, but I know nothing about beauty products. If perfume counts as a beauty product. Since you can't really see it... I'm cool like that :B
Now I'm sure what we're all wondering...
What was Kid doing in Liz's bathroom?
Edit: 'Kay, I was really annoyed with this first chapter, so I've added more to it so it makes sense. Also, because I'm so amazingly cool, I'm adding a sort of prologue... so this is now more like the second chapter.
I'm gonna have to come back and fix up this 'edit' so that it makes sense too.
Ugh wejgoij :C
Edit No. 2 YEAH :D : I swear this is the last I'm messing around with this chapter. This must be the third time it's appeared as a new chapter xD Anyway, I just posted the first chapter 'Breakfast Time' so now this is chapter 2 'Death and Denim' C:
Sorry guys ^^;
More updates soon
