I'm so pleased to see that everyone missed me! I feel so special! I'm on my way to go live in Arizona, from Pennsylvania, with a dog, cat, and lizard. I didn't drag ass updating of my own free will. I had no internet so I just couldn't. That's why I put everything on hold and let you all know. I knew it would be a while! Everyone missed me! Happy, happy.

X X X

SNAP! SNAP, SNAP, SNAP!

The sound was like bones breaking in the silence of the classroom. Maka cracked the handle of the mop for the fifth time and Tsubaki's nervous little voice piped up over the cracking of the poor wooden implement. It was Maka's and Tsubaki's turn to clean the classroom after training. (Tsubaki and BlackStar had been training as well today.)

"Maka?" Tsubaki ventured. "Um?"

By now, Maka had smashed two holes in the innocent wall and had the mop in six pieces. "ARGH!" Maka shouted, but not at Tsubaki. She seemed to be angry at someone who wasn't there. Maybe poor Soul was lying somewhere with his head dented in by a book.

"Maka—" Tsubaki ventured during the breaths Maka gasped for after her enraged shouting.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT?"

"—did—"

"THAT IDIOT!"

"—something—"

"THAT ASSHOLE!"

"—happen?"

"THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT AND YOU KNOW IT!" Maka continued shouting. "WHAT THE HELL DOES HE MEAN BY THAT? I DON'T GET HIM!" Then, Maka lifted her foot and sent one savage kick into the wall, creating a third giant dent.

"Please stop," Tsubaki ventured. Even she, who was used to dealing with BlackStar's loudness and brash behavior wasn't sure what to do about Maka. "Please."

Five dents and the mop in eight pieces later, Tsubaki had managed to get Maka sitting down and talking calmly. The older girl was sitting beside Maka, patiently waiting for some sort of explanation, but Maka seemed content to sulk. She had her arms wrapped around her legs like a child and a flush on her face from the exertions she had put on the mop and the wall.

"Did you have another fight with Soul?" Tsubaki asked.

Maka didn't answer, but her face flushed even pinker. A long moment of silence stretched out and then Maka finally began to speak. "I guess I've been on a short fuse lately," she said finally. "It's been going on for a while now… I can't put my thoughts into words. I can't get across what I'm trying to say to Soul very clearly. They sound fine in my head, but whenever I try to say them out loud, something changes."

Tsubaki's eyes widened and she suddenly asked with great excitement, "Maka, uh, um, do you get this weird tugging feeling in your chest every time you try to talk to him?"

"No," Maka said flatly.

"Ah," Tsubaki said sadly. "But you're partners and all, too…"

"I don't feel anything like that," Maka said coldly. "If anything, every look or gesture that he makes pisses me off. It gets on my nerves, the way he always pretends to be Mister Cool Guy." Maka's expression was so fierce that it gave Tsubaki the chills.

Even so, after a moment, Maka's expression smoothed out and she seemed to be thinking about something that drew a small smile on her face. 'Ah, but, he was kind of cool back then…' she admitted to herself. The music Soul had played for her on the piano drifted through Maka's head. It was such beautiful music and Soul had been so strapping in his pinstriped suit, his fingers so thin and frail on the keys that Maka was amazed he was honestly a weapon. The whole memory was beautiful.

There was a knock on the doorway and Tsubaki looked up to see Soul lingering in the threshold.

"Oh, Soul!" Tsubaki called out.

"You ready to go home yet?" Soul called to Maka.

"And you know what else, Tsubaki?" Maka continued as if Soul hadn't arrived. By now, Soul was only a few feet away and Maka got right in his face so that she could smell his breath. He must have just finished the soda because the scent of it was still on his lips. "Hey, Soul, hypothetical question? Do you think of me as potential girlfriend material?"

Soul's face looked honestly shocked. His blood-colored eyes widened, but even so he blankly and flatly said, "No, it'll probably never happen." And he didn't think it would. Why would Maka ever love him or even date him? She cared for him as only her weapon-partner, nothing more. She showed no interest in him besides using him to replace her father. He thought that was the correct answer to her hypothetical question, but he was wrong.

SMASH!

The spine of the book cracked down on his head and he collapsed like a house of cards, writhing in agony. A small cry of panic squeezed from Tsubaki's mouth as she looked down at Soul's crumpled form. There hadn't been any warning, no chance for him to duck and cover, before Maka chopped him.

"See what I mean?" Maka said to Tsubaki. "You're never supposed to say that to a girl! He sure knows how to push the right buttons." She turned away from Soul carelessly. "Oh, Soul, you can go home without me. I'm going to be out pretty late so I don't need dinner, either, okay?"

"Yes ma'am," Soul croaked out from his position strewn on the floor.

Tsubaki fussed over him while Maka walked away without a single glance back at her fallen partner. Maybe she was being just a little too careless, but she wasn't going to turn around and apologize. "Well, I'll see you later," she called as an apology instead.

Soul scraped himself off the floor, rubbed his head, and let out an exhausted sigh. He turned to watch Maka's back as she trotted away. He spied a glimpse of her white panties as she flounced away and quickly averted his eyes. Something must have shown in his face because Tsubaki asked him if he was alright.

Her pretty face was concerned, framed by her thick dark hair.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm used to it. It's no big deal." Then, he eyed the ruined wall and the shattered broom nervously.

…

Maka hustled through the streets of the necropolis, Death City, and gazed up at the laughing sun as he desperately fought off the call of an afternoon nap. It was still incredibly hot, but she stopped off at home to grab her black overcoat. It made her feel stronger and more secure and she was going to need all the emotional support she could get from it to survive this… date… What a dreaded horrible word! To think she had just been talking about getting a new partner and now she was afraid to go on a date. What was wrong with her?

Ugh, and her hypothetical question. Soul was always saying stuff like that so why did it bother her so much this time? It wasn't as if she hadn't been expecting his brutal answer, but it still pissed her off. He could have at least given it some thought rather than saying it like it was obvious, like she was repulsive or something.

Maka spied her reflection in the window she normally called Lord Death on and sighed as she picked one honey-colored pigtail off her shoulder. Maybe Soul did have a point, though, she relented as she studied her reflection. Her body was so thin and underdeveloped, no breasts and no curves to speak of. She even still wore her hair in goofy pigtails. She toyed with her hair as she leaned in closer to her reflection. Maybe if she did something with her hair…

"Maka!"

It seemed her dreaded date had arrived.

Maka turned around, still with a long honeyed strand twisted around one gloved finger.

"Sorry for the wait."

…

Soul bustled through his room, shuffling records and dusting off his record player, while his favorite headphones droned his favorite melody in his ears. Then, he shuffled from his bedroom and into the kitchen to take something out for his dinner. He spied Maka's wilting plant in the window and gave it a little water as he always did. (It was ridiculous that she even had a plant. She never watered it. It would be dead if not for Soul, but he supposed not everyone had a green thumb.)

Thinking of Maka reminded him that she had said she was going to be out late tonight and that she didn't need dinner. He put some of what he had been preparing to cook into the fridge since he didn't need to cook for Maka, too. What could she be doing? he wondered. She had been acting so strange lately—talking about getting a new partner, laughing at the weirdest times, getting mad for no reason. Honestly, what was up with her?

Soul hummed along with his song a little and adjusted the volume a little louder, as if he could drown out the thoughts of Maka, but he couldn't. He only wondered what she was doing again and then looked out the window as the sun sank below the horizon.

"So, what's she doing today?"

…

Maka turned to face her date, trying to keep the grimace like she had just met Excalibur off her face. "Ugh! Papa, you're late!" she snapped.

Lord Death's current weapon, stationed in Death City, Spirit Albarn looked like a sheepish one-star meister facing their first enemy in the face of his daughter. She was ten times as fierce as any Kishin, after all, and he actually cared what she thought about him—and she hated him! So it made life very complicated. Spirit was still reeling with the thought that she had even accepted to go out on a date with her oh-so hated father.

"So, where would you like to go?" Spirit ventured.

Maka had already turned on her heel and marched off.

"Huh? The bookstore again?" Spirit asked as he pushed through the door after his daughter. A smile tugged his lips as he watched her vanish among the many loaded shelves. She had already gathered a few books in his arms and was smiling with pure joy at all the books.

"Mhm," Maka said softly as she roamed the aisles.

"You haven't changed at all, you've loved books since you were a child, haven't you?" Spirit reminisced. He picked up a heavy hardcover and leafed through it. This appeared to be the wrong thing to say because Maka stiffened up.

"Well, it's not like I can go into any other shops with you. Bookstores are about the only places that will let you in," she said flatly and stiffly.

Spirit gulped, a shiver going down his spine at the feeling of her eyes spearing into his back. So, what could he do but buy his daughter some books and pray she would allow him back into her good graces? Books always seemed to make Maka happy regardless of the circumstances.

"So, should we go to a nice restaurant for dinner?" Spirit asked.

Maka shook her head and pointed to a burger joint where she often went with Soul. The sign glowed overhead, real enough that it looked as if the burger should be raining grease down on their heads, but it was only a picture after all. (1)

After they ordered and received their food, Spirit and Maka sat in a booth by the window. Night had fallen outside and the moon was grinning like some kind of laughing beast. Sometimes, the watching moon unnerved Maka, but tonight was not one of those nights. (It used to creep her out all the time, but Soul had changed her mind.) Tonight, she appreciated its strangeness and admired it outside the window as it painted the world in a dim yellow glow.

"How are your classes going?" Spirit asked conversationally.

"They're alright."

"And Mama, how's she?"

"Ask her yourself."

Spirit blanched. That had been a stupid question! "T-This sure is delicious!" he fumbled.

"Yeah," Maka agreed.

Soul loved these burgers. They were his favorite food aside from a few little things Maka could prepare at home. She decided to buy him one on the way home as an apology for the way she had treated him earlier—tricking him with the partner thing, asking him hypothetical trick questions, bashing him in the head. He would like that.

Thinking of Soul and the way his soul had been behaving lately made Maka lose her appetite. She stood from the table abruptly with a clatter and told her father, "I'll be waiting for you outside."

"What?"

Maka walked around outside a little while her father finished his meal. She had gathered the new books against her chest along with the burger she had bought and had wrapped up for Soul. It was a nice night, but it had grown cold. She was glad she had her overcoat or else she might have been freezing to death. She knew her father would have given her his jacket, but she didn't want to give him any chance to do that. She would have taken Soul's jacket, but not her father's. She was glad she had her own.

"Maka, come over here for a second." Spirit's voice broke through her thoughts. "Look in the window," he said when she joined him before the window.

Maka stared in at the hanging lianas of multicolored ribbons, bows, and other hair ornaments. "What? Ribbons?"

Spirit nodded vigorously and his face had that stupid look on it.

"Oh, jeez, Papa," Maka said before he could really get going. "I'm a little too old to be wearing those anymore."

"Don't be ridiculous. You wore them all the time when you were a little girl," Spirit explained. His face gleamed in the moonlight and Maka saw why her mother had fallen so in love with him despite his player attitude. He was rather handsome and his face looked so little-boy-lost in the moonlight.

Maka recalled how much she herself used to love him. When she was a little girl, she used to always be so excited at the thought of showing her father whatever new ribbons she had gotten from the store and every new little jumper she had.

"It's not like I wear them to school anymore," Maka said flatly, but let her father go into the store and charge back out with two pretty black ribbons for her hair. They reminded her of the ones she wore in Soul's soul to go with the beautiful black dress his soul dressed her in.

"It doesn't matter," Spirit said and tied the ribbon in a bow over her already-bound pigtail. "There all done!"

Maka stared at her reflection in the glass and thought she looked even more like a child than usual, but her father was smiling happily behind her. Now that she thought of it, Soul's soul put ribbons in her hair, too. Maybe they did make her look a little prettier and a little older.

"You look very pretty," Spirit agreed.

Maka clutched the books and burger to her chest. "Thank y—"

"Spirit!" A woman's shrill cry split the night and someone in a tight slinky red dress vaulted out of nowhere to latch onto her father's arm. "Found you! You just ran out on me all the sudden." The woman got up on her toes to kiss her father's cheek. "Hm? Who is this girl?"

Spirit, in his usual spineless fashion, sputtered out, "N-Now's not the best time."

As if seeping into her through the ribbons her father had tied in her hair, Maka felt her childish fear and insecurities swelling up in her chest again. She remembered being a child and seeing her father with another woman for the first time. Those old thoughts raced through her head—Who is this? Why isn't it Mama? Why isn't it me? And Maka couldn't have those old thoughts creeping into her head anymore, so she banished them.

"No," she said coldly as she forced back the tears. "I'm not!"

"Wha—"

"I've got to go."

"W-Wait—"

"Goodbye."

"WAIT!" Spirit shouted and reached out desperately to his daughter. "MAKA!" She slipped through is fingers like smoke and all he was left with was a ribbon clutched in his fingers. Before he even had a chance to catch her, his fast daughter was gone into the night. Well, that could have gone better.

To top it all off, it began to rain.

'Papa loves you and Mama the most… I really mean it.' Her papa's most eloquent and repeated lie. It was drilling into her brain like an arrow.

Maka panted for breath, sucking in more water than air as she rushed through the rain. "He's always… always… telling lies," Maka sobbed to herself as she ran. All around her, the rain crashed down and Death City closed in like the lid on a coffin.

X X X

(1) I wasn't quite sure what was going on in that panel. So I played it out as Spirit wanting to go to a nice restaurant like a typical adult and Maka wanting a greasy burger like a typical kid. I figured that was good.

Questions, comments, concerns?