Maka knew she was being ridiculous. But now that the idea had been planted in her mind it wouldn't go away. She had begun to overanalyze every interaction she had with Soul, constantly breaking every minute down into how others might see it. She hated it. She hated that she couldn't stop. She hated the shadow that had been cast over her relationship with Soul. She hated how this obsession was creating tension and paranoia over what was once was comfortable and safe. She wanted to go back in time and change that day, make it so she never heard that awful three minutes of gossip. She wanted to convince herself that she was way off base with the startling conclusions she had begun to draw. She wanted to fix this. What she needed was an objective opinion so she could put things in perspective and get over this…fixation.
Which was why she was having lunch off campus with Tsubaki. Not unheard of, if rare. She definitely didn't want anyone to hear the conversation that she had no idea how to start. Tsubaki was both clearheaded and non-judgmental, an incredibly rare combination. Maka was so lucky to have her as a friend. Still she had to approach this carefully. Tsubaki wasn't like the Thompson twins, to immediately assume that Maka wanted to get kissy face with Soul. But she didn't want her friend to get the wrong impression. Asking personal questions about another Weapon/Meister pair was slightly taboo. But she had to know.
Still, they had made it to the desert portion of lunch and her hour was running out when she blurted out some nonsense about how she had been observing Tsubaki and Blackstar and how they seemed to be especially close. She wanted to bang her head into the table, she wanted to flee in embarrassment. Now it looked like she was stalking her friend. Or judging her. "What I mean to say, is I just happened to see, you know, the other day. And Blackstar was holding your hand and smiling at you and not being his usual self at all and I just wanted to know, how often, you know, you all touch like that."
Tsubaki blushed and looked down at the table. "Blackstar isn't always physically affectionate like Soul but he does care about me in his own way." She twisted her hands and Maka reached out to still them. She wasn't judging. She needed Tsubaki to know that. "Sometimes Blackstar is kinder to me in private, because it's hard for him. You know how he is."
"I know BlackStar adores you!" Maka exclaimed and squeezed her friends' hands. "I just wanted to know how often you guys touch because I've been watching the class. I've been counting casual touches between pairs. Soul touches me 40% more than the average in our class, but I don't know if other Meister Weapon pairs are more affectionate in private or if it's an aberration."
There it was out on the table.
She and Soul were physically closer than any other Meister pair that she had observed. They also had the very best resonance rate. Before those foul gossip hounds had cast a weird light on her relationship with Soul she would have simply correlated these two facts, cause and effect. He trusted her. She trusted him. They worked on their relationship. But now she needed to know if people saw more than there was.
Maka knew with 100% certainty that Soul had no romantic interest in her. This allowed them to continue as partners. He loved her. She loved him. But he did not want to get into her pants. He did not stare at her breasts and spout a nosebleed every time she flashed some thigh. She didn't know why it bothered her so much that others might think there was more to it.
Tsubaki burst out with a rare giggle and squeezed Maka's hands.
"Maka, are you trying to research how physical touching affects resonance rates by counting how often weapon pairs hug?"
Make pulled her hands loose and sat back fighting to keep her face smooth and not give into the scowl that was lurking under her skin. She was irrationally hurt. Yes, there was nothing going on with her and Soul. She most certainly had just been trying her best to word things carefully so her friend would not draw the absolute wrong conclusions. But it did sting a bit that the idea didn't even occur to Tsubaki. That she was pigeon holed into her "brain" persona.
Just because Soul was so "Cool" Didn't mean it was completely out of the realm of possibility that he would ever be interested in a wallflower book worm. Actually it was. She knew that. Everyone knew that. That was the point of bringing up this conversation. It was stupid to be hurt. "It's a legitimate theory."
If her voice came out a little cool, well she had done her best. Tsubaki, sweet girl that she was gave her a bracing smile and tried to help her with this now ridiculous line of reason. "I doubt Kid and the Thompson sisters are any more physically affectionate in private. Touching is a side effect of a close relationship, but I think that it's not a good way to measure since it's so subjective to personality."
Maka smiled her best friendship everything is cool smile and sipped her drink. Touching was subjective to personality. Soul was a cuddle whore. That was all. That was why they touched more. She was just being paranoid.
Hyperawareness was ruining her life. Her stomach was twisted in knots. She wasn't able to relax even when she was alone. All she could do was play the day's details over and over again in her mind. She was making Crona look well-adjusted and happy. She had never thought she would wish for the day that she would bounce through life oblivious to the world around her like Patty. Now she knew it wouldn't be so bad. She wanted that obliviousness and she watched Patty now with a twisted sort of envy as the girl made a rather impressive castle out of her mashed potatoes. Maka wished she could be so absorbed completely by a task. Any task. Instead she was very carefully not watching Soul as he made his way through the dining hall. Late, even for lunch, absolutely unapologetic about shoving Black Star down a couple of inches so he could swing his way over the bench to squeeze in next to her.
Maka hated herself even as she carefully noted that most weapon pairs sat next to each other at lunch. Hated that she couldn't stop herself from adjusting her body to make room for him and being unable to stop nagging at him for being late. Like she was his mother. She couldn't help but swat at his hand when he snagged her lunch, she couldn't help it when she hip bumped him in her irritation while trying to get her apple back. Hated that her table laughed at their antics but didn't seem all that surprised when she practically had to climb him like a tree to get her apple back.
Maka hated that she shoved her tray towards him, making him finish her burger and fries while she devoured the coveted apple. She munched angrily, well aware that she failed again in this interaction. Not only were they the most physical weapon pair, she had come to the disturbing realization that she was the one who did most of the touching. Soul wasn't the cuddle whore. She was! She was even more disturbed that she couldn't remember when it happened. When she got so comfortable touching him. She distinctly remembered when she didn't touch him at all outside of practice. She just couldn't remember when that had changed.
How much of this touch fest was just being comfortable friends? How much of this touch fest was leaking feelings from her much abused, long abandoned, carefully repressed, unrequited crush that she had on her weapon. She didn't want to be one of those girls who couldn't have a friendship with a hot guy without making moon eyes. She had been proud of herself that she had outgrown her silly lovesick obsession and moved onto a mature platonic love for Soul. Of course she loved him. He was the first guy she'd ever been able to trust. Her true heart friend. So what if sometimes he gave her the physical low down tinglies, she was human and he was attractive. It was just a chemical reaction and they were above it.
Her out of control Jealousy when other girls flirted with him was her cross to bear at the moment, but she was working on it, because they weren't like that.
But she couldn't un-know what she knew. And now she knew she was staking a physical claim on him every time they were together. Just like she had last week on his bike. It was unconscious before. Now however she knew about it. And she still couldn't stop. She couldn't stop and now she began to worry whether he would know.
Soul wasn't stupid. Lazy, inconsiderate about their grades, mouthy. But not stupid. In fact, he was a lot more socially wise than she was. He usually was the one to clue her in on the emotional mood of the group. He was the one so in tune he could literally play their souls on the piano. If she hadn't given her stupid unprofessional one-sided attraction away before by glomming all over him daily, she would surely give it away now that she was nervous about it. He'd even asked her if she was okay this morning.
Shirtless and tousled, voice rough with sleep, eyes droopy. Her personal favorite look of his. Because she was usually the only one who saw him that way. It was another one of those private thrills that he was hers and no one else's. Now she was forced to acknowledge how much she liked living with him because of moments just like that one. He'd stepped into her space, hand checking the back of her neck for fever, peering at her closely with an attention to detail usually shut away behind his cool persona. Caring about her, worried about her. Knowing something wasn't right. She knew it wasn't right either. To lean into his touch, to murmur that she was fine, even as she soaked up the heat from his body and inhaled his clean boy scent fresh from his blankets before coffee or breakfast or anything layered on top of Soul smell. She shouldn't be doing that. She shouldn't be feeding the dysfunction of it.
She ought to be able to get this compulsion under control. Now that she was aware of it, it was creepy and wrong. It was also extremely creepy that none of her friends had ever teased her about it even once. They teased her about everything. They teased her about her hair and her dad and her scholastic ambition. They teased her about her books and her tits and her clothes. It now seemed incredibly off to her that they didn't tease her about being jealous over Soul's many admirers. That no one blinked an eye when she used an apple as an unconscious excuse to clamber all over her weapon. After her lunch with Tsubaki on Friday she had been slightly miffed that her friend wouldn't even for a second entertain the possibility of her and Soul as a couple. Now she had an infinitely more disturbing suspicion. That instead no one teased her because even her friends assumed they were a couple.
It was the only deeply discombobulating theory that made sense.
Did Soul know about this? Had he let people think that? How had she not known about it?
In irritation she tossed her able core at his face, cursed his reflexes even as he ducked, and sighed as her core landed spectacularly in the middle of Patti's truly mountainous mashed potato castle. Never a peaceful lunch among her people to be had. She couldn't even blame Patty when the mashed potatoes came flying back at her face with deadly precision. That castle had been a work of art and Patti was pissed!