here is the second part! and to answer the lovely person who guessed this, yup, the title of this fic does indeed come from the song "runaways" by all time low. the titles of the chapters all come from that song too! anyhow, on with the story!
In the coming week, the tourists descend upon the town like a swarm of locusts. They're everywhere, arguing over prices in the stores and flocking to the main beach in droves. Patti takes more smoke breaks. Black*Star loses his favourite table at the pub and almost throws a fit before Tsubaki manages to calm him down. Soul spends his days swimming upstream on the sidewalks and in the shops, navigating around groups of people clumped together like schools of chattering fish. He spends his nights on the end of the dock, talking to Maka and playing music.
At first it's mostly him playing guitar and her offering the occasional suggestion or comment, but as the week goes on they both start talking more, telling each other about their respective days. He tells her about stupid things he messed up at work and the weird people they get in at the pub now, like the man who wanted a whole pineapple on the side, and the triplets who spoke in unison and all ordered a scotch on the rocks, and the woman who demanded they pay for her ferry ticket off the island once she discovered that they did not serve the rare type of unpronounceable alcohol she wanted. In turn, Maka tells him about how annoying it is to hide when the tourists are around, and how much garbage they throw in the water that has to be cleaned up by the spirits. She talks about taking care of the tourists if they get too near a developing riptide while swimming, and the damage control they have to do if one of them is spotted. To him, her stories are all very intense and magical, and it feels like food to Soul's fingers.
They talk and talk, and she swims around in the moonlight and bugs him about playing more. He does what he's told.
"Someone's looking chipper!" Liz teases him at work. "Ya got a girlfriend? A boyfriend? A significant other of some type?"
"No," Soul always says, because he doesn't. And he may be attracted to Maka for sure, but he has no idea where her head is about that kind of thing, or whether she would even entertain the possibility of dating him, Black*Star's pushing aside.
"Well, you clearly liiiike someone," Liz simpers.
Soul shrugs and she bursts into cackling laughter.
"I'll stop bugging you for now," she says. "But you will tell me eventually."
Days scream past. It gets warmer and warmer. On a Friday night Soul's shift ends early and Black*Star and Tsubaki invite him to join their booth in the pub and get truly wasted. That's not his scene usually—he doesn't feel comfortable with party type atmospheres—but he gives it a go because he's had a long day and the crowd isn't too big anymore. After about two drinks Black*Star asks him if he ever met up with Maka again, and Soul avoids the question as smoothly as he can while feeling tipsy—he sort of wants to keep those meetings with Maka to himself until he's figured out whether they mean more than inspiration for him and a mini concert for her. Tsubaki manages to distract Black*Star before he can pursue the topic, and Soul pounds back another one of the embarrassingly pink drinks Black*Star had ordered for him (the joke is on Black*Star though: Soul loves the sugary ones best).
By the time they separate for the night and Soul makes it down to the dock, he's staggering a bit and Maka is already there, swimming figure eights and throwing a fish up into the air.
"Oh my god," Soul says as he plops down at the end of the dock. "Are you going to eat that?"
Maka drops the fish and turns to stare at him.
"No," she says slowly. "I hate raw fish. And spirits don't really need to eat, we just like to. Are you drunk?"
"Yes," Soul says seriously. It's important she knows, probably. "If I fall off the dock, you might have to rescue me from drowning."
"The water wouldn't even be over your head here," Maka says. She has her judgey face on, but she's laughing a little, so Soul is taking it as a win.
"Yes," Soul says. "Can I have some of the fish?"
"No, god!" Maka says, splashing water at him. It feels good on his face. "Leave my fish friends alone, you bloody cave man. Besides, she's gone now."
"I don't think I can play you anything right now," Soul says. "I don't wanna...don't...wanna hurt my guitar." He keeps getting distracted mid-sentence, but he remembers the last time he got drunk and tried to play an instrument he accidentally left scratches from the guitar pic all down the side of it. He's not doing that again.
"That's okay," she says.
"Are you gonna leave?" he asks.
"Not just yet."
"Good."
He flops on his back and stares up at the stars. He fails to find the Big Dipper and she laughs at him for about five minutes before she takes his hand and points to it. He tells her he knows nothing about any other star formations, and she starts pointing out the constellations she learned as a kid.
"They're different than the ones you guys learn," she says. "See, there's the whale, Kishin, there. And the demon sword, Ragnarok."
"Demon sword?" Soul says. "I think we have a whale, but we don't have anything as cool as that. Just bears, and shit."
"Well, that's 'cause humans are boring," Maka says. "I like our whale though, because it's easy to find. The story of that one is that it tried to swallow the whole earth at the beginning of time because it was afraid of it."
"Did it choke on it?" Soul asks. He can't imagine swallowing the whole earth. Maybe like, a grape.
"Well, it sort of imploded," she explains. "It realized there was a whole universe around it and that it could never swallow it all, and the fear made it explode and all the little parts of it became the stars for the constellation."
"So...we're looking at whale guts?"
"It's a story, dumbass!"
"Right, right."
"The point of the story is to teach us about bravery," she says. "And that acting on fear is a stupid idea."
"And will do nothing but get you exploded," Soul finishes. He's a smart guy—he gets morals.
"Exactly."
"I get afraid of lots of things," Soul says. "Sometimes so much I feel like I could explode."
"What kind of things?"
He turns his head sideways and she's right there, chin propped on her arms on the edge of the dock, gazing up at the stars. I'm afraid to tell you how much I like spending time with you, he thinks. Luckily, he's not drunk enough to say it.
"I get scared of stuff about me sometimes," he says. The stars have stopped swirling so much above him and there's a peculiar sort of peace in his chest. "Get scared that I'll push people away, or that I'll never live up to...what I'm...supposed to live up to. I'll let myself down."
She shifts her gaze from the sky to him.
"I know what you mean," she says.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. There are things I hold onto that I worry will keep me from truly...connecting to people. And I definitely know what you mean about trying to live up to expectations. Even just your own expectations."
"Those ones are the worst."
"Yeah."
Soul looks back up at the stars and realizes he's already lost track of where the constellations she showed him are.
"I'll play you something new tomorrow for sure," he says.
"I'm holding you to that. No claiming you don't remember."
"I'm not that drunk."
"Uh-huh."
"I'm not!"
He wakes up the next day with a splitting headache, but with full memory of the night before. For a solid two hours he doesn't move from bed, half-heartedly wishing he would just die and become one with the comforter. He'd been stupid in front of Maka and his head hurts now. Life, he thinks, is clearly pointless.
He gets up a little after noon and forces himself to eat some food. He's got the day off, which is nice, and he'd planned to do a little solo exploring of some of the big forest on the north side of the island. As soon as his head is no longer killing him and he can open his eyes more than a slit, he packs himself some food and water and heads out.
He comes back in the afternoon thrumming with excitement. The woods had been dark and deep and the music from the town was barely audible, made creepy and thin by the distance. He'd stood on a rock in a pool of lone sunshine streaming down through the trees and thought about the massive, impossible idea of a whale swallowing the earth. When he closed his eyes he could almost feel it, the darkness closing around him, the heat and the ultimate fear of it all, and he'd pulled out his pocket recorder and turned it on, let it record the sounds of the forest so he could remember this feeling. Back in the cottage he grabs his guitar and sits down, letting the recorder play back on a loop, and he writes and writes.
He plays what he has back to Maka that night and she closes her eyes when she listens, bobbing slightly up and down in the water.
"Told you I'd have something new," he says, nervous and excited by the look on her face. "I mean, it's not done—it would sound better with some piano and more patches of sound from the island, but it's something."
"It is," she says. She looks like she's glowing. "I like it."
I like you, he thinks suddenly. He doesn't say it, of course. He's not that much of an idiot.
"Do you guys ever get time off?" he asks one night, when they've known each other about two and a half weeks. It feels like longer to him.
"Well, yeah," she says. "Less for me, because I've got more things to oversee, and this time of year is busy. Preparations and shit. But yeah, that's usually when I come up into town. My free time."
Apparently there are some caves at the bottom of the cliff that are hidden, accessible mostly only by the water, and that's where the spirits keep their clothes and things to go up into the town. In the caves they have lockers and rooms and computers and a system to figure out how much of an allowance they get if they want to go into town. All of the coins that get scraped out of the bottom of the fountain in the centre of town go to the spirits. They don't use money usually, but they use it during the tourist season when they're dryside so that the tourists don't get confused that some people get everything for free. It's a complicated system, but Maka says she's got good people running it.
"Preparations?"
She shrugs. She's been twitchier lately—it's been grey and gloomy more often, and the worse the weather gets, the more nervous she gets. Soul puts it down to some sort of water spirit thing.
"For things," she says. "Anyway, why do you care about my free time?"
"How did you get this job?" Soul asks. If she gets to dodge questions, so does he. He's not about to explain that he maybe wants to ask her on a date, because that would be lame. "Like, you're really important in the ranks or whatever of the spirits, how did that happen?"
"Combination of work and...sort of being born into it," she says, looking uncomfortable. "I mean, it's all down to myself that I've gotten where I am, but my dad's kind of important. It's not that I was given things because of him, because I didn't, but...I probably got some talent from him or something."
"Is that part of the 'living up to expectations' thing we talked about last week?" Soul asks.
"Yeah, I guess."
"Don't like to talk about it?" Soul recognizes the hunted look on her face.
She shakes her head. "Not really."
Soul nods. Strums a few mournful chords. "I get that."
"Are you weird about family too?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
Soul's taken to bringing his little recording device out to the end of the dock when he goes to meet Maka, recording any new things he comes up with out of just being around her. Ever since he went out to the forest he's had this hazy idea of putting together an album—or at least a collection of songs—based around her, around spirits, around this whole island. He's only got snippets, but he recreates them in the quiet of his cottage for better recording equipment and puts them on his computer in unnamed tracks. The most exciting part about it to him is that it's just something he wants to do, not something he wants to throw in his family's face, or make for school. It's for him. For the sake of music itself, even if it's only his idea of it.
"Can I record you swimming around?" he asks. "Just—water sounds would be cool to put in something, I think."
"Sure," she says. "What do you need? Splashes? Waves, ripples, loud, soft?"
"Do whatever," he says, pressing the button on the recorder. "I'll pull pieces from it later."
She grins at him and backflips into the water, too fast for him to see anything other than a blur of pale, wet skin. He slams his eyes shut anyways, a shaky giddiness surging up through his stomach. He can hear frantic, sloppy splashing, like a little kid kicking their feet, and he has to bite back a laugh so he doesn't mess up the recording. The splashing stops abruptly—Maka probably slipping all the way underwater—and for a long moment there's nothing but the sound of ripples folding softly over each other. Then, tiny at first, comes a vague bubbling, growing louder and crisper with every second, swelling until it's deafening. The air around him feels like it's moving, like it is the sound itself, and he can feel the spray of water on his knees and his face and his hands where he's clutching the recorder to his chest.
He opens his eyes, and the water all around the dock is alive, roiling and spitting and climbing up into white, frothing foam, hugely improbable bubbles inflating and bursting into shimmering drops of water. Maka is in the centre of it, her arms spread out to the sky, grinning like mad, and Soul doesn't know when he started smiling, but he's staring around, staring at her, and his face hurts with it.
Maka sweeps her arms down sharply and the water drops, going from boiling to mirror glass smooth in the space of a second, and suddenly without the huge bubbles in the way Soul can see that Maka's farther out of the water than he's ever seen her, shoulders to waist out in the open air. They realize it at the same time—Soul almost drops his recorder, and Maka lets out a tiny, high-pitched noise and sinks down into the water until only the top of her head is showing, hair spread out on the surface.
The wood is damp from her display, and the recorder is still going. Soul fumbles for the "stop" button. He stares at the way Maka's hair fans out against the water, like a strange abstract pattern in a painting. He'd been right, he thinks shakily. The spirits are naked in the water.
"I couldn't see—" he starts.
Maka's head pops out of the water.
"I didn't mean to—" she says.
"—it's too dark, I didn't see any—"
"—like I didn't do that on purpose, I just—"
They both stop talking, blinking warily at each other. Soul can't tell if she's blushing, but he knows he is.
"I'm just going to go now," Maka says. "I've had enough music for one night, I think."
"Oh," says Soul. "Okay, yeah, sure. That's cool. That's—will I see you tomorrow?"
She's silent for long enough that Soul thinks he's done it, he's gone and ruined everything without even really having done anything himself, but then she lets out a slow, raspy sigh. She nudges a gentle wave his way, says, "yeah," and disappears into the water.
Soul sits there on the dock for a long time after she's gone, playing the sound of her water antics out loud and trying to convince himself he actually hadn't seen anything.
Soul's on the steps outside his house the next morning, recording the sound of birdsong against the waves on the beach, when Black*Star comes running up.
"Soul!" he yells, arms windmilling. "Soul, buddy, friend, pal, bro!" He skids to a stop just in front of the bottom step, sand spraying up over Soul's feet.
Soul flicks off his recorder. "What?"
"Don't 'what' me," Black*Star says indignantly. "You've got a day off, so we're going to hang out properly. We're supposed to be friends, and I don't think I've even seen the inside of your house before."
"It's pretty messy right now," Soul says. It's true—he's got instruments and cords and junk strewn all over his table and bed, a frustrated splash of tools. He woke up feeling unsettled this morning, like his skin didn't fit properly and he needed to do something to swell himself up. Nothing worked though, and the mess chased him outside.
"Well, nevermind your house," Black*Star says. "Because me and 'Baki are meeting Kilik and some peeps to play basketball and eat food and stuff, and you're coming."
"Am I?" Soul says, pleased beyond words to be included and not wanting it to show.
"You definitely are," Black*Star says firmly, dragging him to his feet. Soul shoves his recorder into his pocket and allows himself to be pulled up the hill to the road. "You do know Kilik, right? He's come with me to the pub before, you've definitely met him, he's cool, though he always orders that gross blue cheese burger you guys have..."
Black*Star talks non-stop as they make their way into town, pausing occasionally in his detailed recounting of Kilik's finer points to yell greetings to people on the other side of the street. They turn off the main road pretty soon into the suburbs and spend a solid five minutes climbing over hedges and fences to walk through people's backyards, Black*Star insisting that "it's fine, I do this all the time".
"We're going to my place," he says. "Kilik and Tsubaki and some other people are already there—I wanted to get you myself so those two could spend a little time together without me around."
"Kilik...and Tsubaki spending time together?" Soul clarifies, stumbling after Black*Star. Most things Black*Star says need to be repeated before they make any sense.
"Yeah," Black*Star says. "Me and Tsubaki are thinking of maybe opening things up, getting a third, and we both really like Kilik, but we wanna see how he gels with each of us individually and as a unit before we surprise the guy with any proposals."
It takes Soul a second to process that.
"Wait—you both...wanna date Kilik?"
"It's called polyamory, bro!" Black*Star says cheerfully. "Tsubaki's insatiable and I got a lot of love to give. And Kilik is hot. Like mega hot. You'll see. It's just up here."
He jogs across the street to a small house that looks just like all the other ones on the street except for a bright red front door. There's a gate to the backyard branching off from the side of the house and Soul can hear the sound of laughter and the rhythm of a basketball drumming against pavement.
Black*Star vaults over the gate and cups his hands around his mouth.
"Oi!" he yells. "All bow down! The great Black*Star has returned!"
He glances back at Soul, who is still dawdling in the middle of the empty street, and waves for Soul to follow before disappearing around the back of the house. Soul takes a second to get his bearings—Black*Star's an overwhelming person, and Soul needs a moment of quiet to steel himself for continued social interaction—and then goes after him. He clambers over the fence and walks down the small strip of grass, the voices getting louder and louder. Under Black*Star's cackle he can make out what he thinks is Tsubaki, and then another male voice, and then—
Then he rounds the corner into the backyard and stops still.
There's a short stretch of grass and then a wide rectangle of pavement for a basketball court, one basket set up normally on a post and the other hanging precariously from a tree, clearly homemade. There's four people on the court: Black*Star is nuzzling up to a black guy with glasses whom Soul assumes must be Kilik, and Tsubaki is standing a few metres away, whispering excitedly to another girl. The girl's back is to Soul, but it doesn't matter—he knows the nape of that neck and he knows those shoulders, even with clothes covering her skin. The recognition is like an electric charge through his body—his day and night are colliding, and his stomach is doing somersaults.
"Soul!" Black*Star says excitedly, wheeling around to face Soul and drawing everyone else's gaze with him. Maka's eyes meet Soul's and she freezes as well. He can't help but notice, dizzily, that the sunlight looks good on her face, her hair, her everything.
"Soul, this is my man Kilik," Black*Star says, squeezing his arm around the black guy's side. Kilik peels his eyes away from Black*Star to smile and nod at Soul. He is, in fact, mega hot. "Kilik, Soul. And of course, you've met Maka, right?"
You little dick, Soul wants to say. Black*Star clearly sees it on his face, his sharp, shit-eating grin widening in satisfaction.
"Uh, yeah," Soul says. Maka's no longer looking at him—she's turned back to Tsubaki, as if she isn't even weirded out to see him dryside after two weeks of meeting at night on his dock. As if she isn't even weirded out by what happened last night.
"Right, well, we've got uneven teams, so I'm proposing me and Kilik take the three of you on," Black*Star says. "Anybody opposed?"
"Wait," Maka says, putting her hand up. She sounds different out of the water, more human somehow, and god, Soul needs to stop staring at her. "First off, you should've invited Kid, then we'd have equal teams."
"He was busy," Tsubaki says. Soul almost believes it coming from her, but Black*Star's exaggerated nodding behind her erases that possibility.
"Second thing," Maka continues, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. "I've never actually played a proper game of basketball. I don't know anything about the positions."
"Wow," Black*Star says loudly. "This sounds like a great opportunity for you two"—he slings his other arm around Tsubaki's waist and yanks both her and Kilik together—"to give Maka a little rundown. I know you guys'll make a good team."
Tsubaki is blushing, and Kilik is looking at her the same way he was just looking at Black*Star—a little dazed, a lot interested. Soul is pretty sure that Black*Star's proposal—whatever and whenever it's gonna be—is not going to be turned down.
Soul waits until Kilik and Tsubaki are haltingly explaining things to a very put-upon looking Maka before he drags Black*Star away from the court.
"Why didn't you tell me Maka was going to be here?" he hisses.
"First off," Black*Star says magnanimously. "You should be thanking me. You may not talk to me ever about things, but Maka does, so I know you've seen each other for little late night chats for a while now. Nothing like hanging out in the day to grease the wheels a bit. And second, not everything is about you. Maka volunteered to help me and Tsubaki woo Kilik, because she's awesome, and she loves me."
Maka shoots them a glance over her shoulder, clearly having noticed that they've pulled away from the group. She looks away quickly when she sees Soul looking in her direction.
"Did she know I would be here?" Soul asks.
"Ahhhh, well," Black*Star drawls, waggling a hand in a so-so sort of gesture, "not really. But you guys move too slow for my tastes, and time is a wasting. Come on!"
Without waiting for Soul to reply, he bounds off back to the court and steals the basketball right out of Maka's hands.
"That's enough teaching for now," he yells. "I'm sure she gets it. Let's play!"
Black*Star and Kilik retreat to their side of the court for a whispered conversation and Soul awkwardly sidles onto the pavement. Tsubaki gives him a little wave and then conspicuously moves away towards the centre of the court, leaving Soul and Maka standing next to each other.
"Hey," Soul says.
"Hey," she parrots back, smiling ruefully.
"From what you've told me, I thought the only thing you ever did for fun was read books and listen to music," Soul says. "Maybe if you're up for doing other things you won't end up growing mushrooms on your head."
Maka gapes at him and he tries very hard to look like he's cool and chill and unbothered by her presence or memories from last night. It's not like she can sense that he's never seen anyone other than himself naked in real life. Virginity is a social construct, he thinks inanely.
She snaps out of her shock and punches him in the arm; it's surprisingly painful.
"Shut up," she mutters. "If we weren't on the same team, I would kick your ass. Mushrooms on my head? Reading is fun!"
"Whatever," says Soul. He nudges her side with his elbow, trying not to think about how this is the first time he's actually touched her. The dock and the water separated them before, but here they're on the same playing ground, more similar than they are different. "Let's just beat Black*Star."
"Obviously," she snipes back.
Tsubaki and Kilik face off against each other to jump for the ball. Maka is given the task of throwing it up because she's deemed by Black*Star as the least likely to cheat. Tsubaki wins the jump, hitting it back to Soul, and then they're off.
Maka was not kidding—she clearly has no idea what she's doing. At first she just waves her arms a lot and tackles Black*Star to distract him while Soul or Tsubaki go for a shot, but after a while she starts trying to play properly, asking for the ball and making shots or passing when she gets it. It's a work in progress; she hits Kilik in the face at one point (which does give Tsubaki a chance to stand unnecessarily close to him while fussing about first aid) and gets the ball stolen from her more times than Soul can count. But somewhere along the way something between them starts to sync up.
Tsubaki is distracted by her two beaus more often than not, and the bulk of work for their team lands on Soul and Maka's shoulders. As the morning goes on, a physical understanding grows in the steps that separate Soul from Maka—he starts to know where she will be in a second's time in order to catch his pass, to know where he needs to be for her. They meet eyes over Black*Star's shoulder and Soul can read the plan as plainly as if she had said it out loud. There's an energy flowing between them, a feedback loop that makes him feel like he's been plugged directly into a wall socket, like he's charged full and could run and run and run for hours on the power of her with him.
They lose, because Black*Star and Kilik are clearly people who play basketball a lot, but it's closer than it should have been, and when they collapse on the grass for a break, Black*Star looks vaguely impressed.
"Okay, next time, you two aren't on the same team," he moans.
Soul pushes himself up off the ground to high five Maka before flopping down on his back again.
"You still won," Maka says to Black*Star. Her eyes are closed, face tilted up into the sun, and Soul looks away before she can catch him.
"I think that was all down to Kilik," Tsubaki says.
"Yeah!" Black*Star says. "I mean, okay, no, most of it was me, but also, look at the muscles on this guy, huh?"
Kilik bursts into laughter and Soul closes his own eyes; he doesn't need to see Black*Star's clumsy flirtations. The sun is warm on his skin and he drifts for a long moment, the voices around him fading into static background like a radio kept on for too long.
He's broken out of it only when something brushes against his side; he opens his eyes to see that Maka has sat up abruptly, collecting her knees up close to her chin as she leans forward. There are geometric imprints of grass cross-hatched into the pale skin of her calves—Soul stares, unsettled for some unknown reason deep in his chest. She's too human out here in the air.
"How did you guys meet?" he asks suddenly, looking away from Maka to aim the question at Black*Star. "Like, all of you."
"Well, me and Maka have known each other since she was a bunch of bubbles in a toilet,"—a shadow passes over Soul's face; Maka's arm flashing out to punch Black*Star in the arm—"'cause I was an orphan who spent all his time by the beach—"
"—and I hated my life enough to willingly spend time with you," Maka interjects.
"Whatever, my presence is a gift," Black*Star says. "Anyway, I met the star of my life, Tsubaki,"—he swings an arm around Tsubaki's shoulders and Soul notices Kilik looking away, his smile dimming—"in high school and we were friends for ages before she decided that looking after me was a romantic thing, because, obviously, who could pass this up?"
He gestures to himself, grinning broadly around like he's waiting for applause.
"Many people," Maka deadpans. "Thousands of people. People like that boy you had a crush on in fifth grade."
"Okay, Justin was a dick," Black*Star says. "He wouldn't even take his headphones out to hear me talk, so he clearly didn't deserve me."
"You—" Kilik says slowly. "You liked a guy?"
"Oh, yeah," Maka says casually. "You didn't know? Black*Star's pan and poly." Black*Star shoots Maka an incredibly obvious thumbs up and Tsubaki frantically claps her hand over his to cover it up.
"And—and so am I," Tsubaki puts in, with infinitely less casualness. "Poly, that is. Yup. What about, um, what about you?"
Kilik opens and closes his mouth, staring at Black*Star and Tsubaki, who have somehow tangled themselves around each other during the conversation so that they resemble a two-headed snake more than separate people.
"Yeah, how did you meet Black*Star?" Soul says. Kilik seems like a confident guy in general, but someone should still help him out in the face of Black*Star and Tsubaki's overwhelming attention.
"Oh, right," Kilik says, seizing upon the question with relief. "Uh, well, I moved here about two years back now, with my kids, and I work down at the docks with Black*Star, working on the boats and stuff. So we met there."
"You have kids?" Soul says. Kilik can't be much younger than Soul, and certainly isn't older, and while it's not unheard of for someone over 20 to have kids, it's still a weird shock to Soul if he meets a parent his age. Especially if two of his friends want to invite said parent into a polyamorous relationship.
Kilik steels his jaw, a defensive mask coming over his face.
"Yeah," he says. "Twins. Girl and a boy. Their mum's out of the picture, has been since they were born, so it's just me and them. They're three, and they're great."
He wraps his hand around a hunk of grass and rips it out of the ground to punctuate his statement. It's almost like he's waiting for someone to disagree with him.
"What are their names?" Soul asks.
Kilik still looks vaguely suspicious, but he softens a little at that, fists relaxing.
"Fire and Thunder," he says.
"They're lovely," Tsubaki says. "Star and I have met them and they're—they're adorable, really."
"Yeah, but you haven't seen them at bedtime," Kilik laughs. He opens his hand and lets the blades of grass fall gently to the earth before looking up at Tsubaki again. "They like you. You're really good with them."
"What about me?" Black*Star whines, because it's a well-documented fact that he can't go five seconds in a conversation without all the attention on him. "If they like Tsubaki, they gotta love me, right?"
"I bet they hate you," Maka says, her smile half-hidden behind her knees.
Black*Star starts untangling himself from Tsubaki, looking ready to throw down, and Kilik quickly gets his hands up between them.
"They think you're awesome, Black*Star," he says.
"But if they got over their fear of water, they would think I was way awesomer," Maka grumbles.
Soul can't help laughing at that. "They're afraid of you?"
"They're afraid of water spirits in general,"Maka corrects. "They were perfectly fine with me until I tried to show them some tricks I can do, which terrified them, and they have refused to see me since. That was like, a year ago too."
"What did you do?" Soul asks. "Conjure up a tidal wave?"
"Oh, yeah, 'cause I'm stupid enough to make a tsunami for the amusement of babies," Maka mutters, shoving lightly at Soul's shoulder. "No, it was just little stuff."
"Show him, show him!" Tsubaki exclaims.
"I am starting to feel thirsty," Black*Star comments, faux-thoughtfully.
Maka rolls her eyes, but everyone's watching her now, and she cracks a small, pleased smile.
"Okay," she says, and they all whoop and cheer and clap her on until she waves her arms and shouts for quiet.
She closes her eyes and for a moment she's completely still, like she's trying to hear something far off in the distance. Then she opens her hand and a trail of white steam spins up from her palm before forming into a tiny globe of floating water, clear and shimmering in the sun.
"Sick," Kilik says, clearly impressed.
"I wish I could do that," Tsubaki says wistfully. "Half-water-spirit just means I can dry off really quickly after swimming, apparently."
Soul says nothing, because he's a little afraid he'll end up breathing something stupid about magic and beauty and how amazing Maka is.
"There's a tap dripping upstairs in Star's bathroom," Maka says, sounding distant. "I'm just stealing a little of the water from there."
"Hey," Black*Star says indignantly. "That's mine!"
"Ours," Tsubaki corrects.
"I don't know," Maka says cheekily, opening her eyes again to smirk at Black*Star. "It looks like it's mine right now. If you want it back though...I guess I could..."
She flicks her wrist suddenly, lobbing the ball of water right into Black*Star's face. Black*Star roars in fury, Tsubaki squeals, and Soul and Kilik burst into simultaneous laughter. Maka grins, sharp and familiar, giggles bursting like trapped bubbles in her throat.
"You did say you were thirsty," she says.
Black*Star shakes his head like a dog, sending water droplets spattering over them all.
"Oh, fuck you Albarn," he says, and lunges.
The two of them go rolling down the grass, wrestling like cats, and the rest of them start chanting support for Maka. Black*Star pauses in fighting first to take offence that Kilik isn't cheering for him and then to yell, "Tsubaki, at least you should be on my side", and it's enough of a distraction that Maka is the clear winner, knocking him on his back and dancing up and away with her arms held over her head.
"I am the champion, my friends," she sings, raspy spirit voice distorting the tune until it sounds like something completely different, something not of this world. Soul's laughter dies in his throat. He's very aware of the recorder still in his pocket, waiting for more sound bites for songs.
"That's not how the song even goes," Black*Star grumbles, laid flat on his back.
"Soul," Maka says, spinning to face him abruptly, still grinning. "You know music. Tell this loser that that's how the song goes."
"I figure the song is whatever the winner says it is," Soul says. "Sorry, Black*Star."
Black*Star whines about conspiracy and unfairness until Tsubaki and Kilik come over to help him up and pay attention to him. Soul stays where he is, watching Maka laugh at the other three, and thinks to himself that this is one of the best days he's had in months.
They retreat inside to get some lunch and squabble over sandwich making materials in Black*Star and Tsubaki's kitchen; both Kilik and Maka want the last bit of peanut butter and start having some sort of complicated competition to win it, judged by Black*Star. When utensils start flying, Tsubaki retreats to the basement under the pretense of getting pop. After a moment longer, Soul decides she's got the right idea, and follows her.
It's cool and quiet in the basement, surprisingly so; the second he closes the door behind him he can barely hear the other three yelling in the kitchen. He pauses halfway down the stairs for a moment, listening to their muffled, disembodied voices, and then climbs the rest of the way down until he sees Tsubaki in a dim corner, leaning over into a giant freezer.
"Hey," he says. "I can give you a hand, if you want."
"Oh, thanks!" Tsubaki says, glancing over her shoulder at him. She straightens up, five cans of root beer cradled in her arms, and awkwardly sets them down on a cardboard box full of tomato cans before handing Soul one can. "I figure they won't notice if we stay down here for just a minute though. Kilik and Maka are pretty competitive people, so all the fuss could last a while."
Soul accepts the pop and cracks it open for a sip.
"How long have you and Black*Star," he starts, trailing off a little in uncertainty, "uh, been looking for a third?"
"We haven't been," Tsubaki says, opening up a pop for herself. "I mean, we both knew we were poly when we got together, but we agreed that if we added anyone to our relationship, it would be someone we both wanted romantically, and who wanted both of us. We wanted to be a unit no matter what. So we were fine with monogamy since there wasn't anyone around that fit into that idea."
"And then you guys met Kilik?"
She shrugs, a small smile coming over her face. "It wasn't that fast. We met him and he was great and we became friends and...I guess the more we spent time with him, the more we both started to think about it, but we only really had that conversation together about feelings about a month ago."
"What about his kids?" Soul asks.
"That's why it's taken us this long to act on it," Tsubaki admits. "They're really little and we don't want to possibly mess them up by having them get used to having us around a lot and then...what if Kilik and us broke up and the kids were confused about why we weren't always there anymore..."
"There's a lot of factors, yeah," Soul says. A strange sort of relief spreads through him; it's not that he thought Tsubaki wouldn't have thought about the kids, because Tsubaki's awesome, but he knows how much family can fuck a kid up.
"And the twins are Kilik's priority for sure." Tsubaki takes a long pull of root beer and exhales slowly. "We know it's complicated, but we're on board to try. What about you?"
Her question follows so quickly on the heels of their other discussion that it catches him completely off guard. "What?"
"With Maka," Tsubaki says calmly. "You like her, right?
Soul changes his mind. Tsubaki is horrible.
"I—"
He looks down at the ground, avoiding her eyes. The floor is dirty cement, a strange, dark stain peeking out from under his socked feet, and he shuffles until he can cover it up completely. He's lost for words. There's really one answer for him, but he doesn't know if their meetings at the end of the dock have meant the same thing to her that they have to him. He can't tell if she's been flirting back, but either way he's not even sure if it would matter; she is music and magic and he is nothing more than a stupid kid who couldn't even get a music degree.
"Well," Tsubaki says at length. "Regardless, I'm glad you came today. Whether Black*Star's little 'double date' plan is how things are between you and Maka or not, I know she had fun this morning, and god knows she needs all the relaxation and happiness she can get right now."
Something about the way she says that sticks into Soul. It sounds like more than just a commentary on Maka being too serious or uptight—which hasn't been the truth as he's seen it anyway—and he asks, "What do you mean?"
"Well, it's almost time, isn't it?" Tsubaki says. "For the storm."
The basement door slams open like a clap of thunder directly above, and Soul splashes root beer all over his hand.
"Tsubaki!" Black*Star yells. "What are you guys doing down there? Are you two fucking or something?"
Tsubaki bursts into laughter and Black*Star dramatically howls, "You are, aren't you? Oh my god, guys, Tsubaki is leaving me for Soul!"
Tsubaki picks up two more of the root beer cans lying on the cardboard box and slips past Soul to head up the stairs, still giggling. The door is left open, and Soul can hear them all talking, joking a floor above him.
"I'll just have to date Kilik, clearly," Black*Star says.
"How do you know I'm not going to prove myself better than Soul and steal Tsubaki away?" Kilik counters.
"Poor Black*Star's left all alone," Maka says.
Soul blinks and shudders slowly, trying to shake off the strange feeling in him. He grabs the last root beer and heads up the steps as fast as he can, needing to feel warmth again.
"That would never happen," Black*Star's saying when Soul makes it back into the kitchen. "I'm too great to be single. Clearly they both will have to date me."
"Looks like I'm the one left in the lurch then," Soul says. There are half-eaten sandwiches lying all over the counter, and the only one without a pop is Maka. Soul hands the remaining one over to her, his own held safe in his other hand.
"Not necessarily," Kilik says, flushed either from his battle with Maka or from Black*Star's arm around his shoulder. "I mean, Maka's here."
Maka glances up at Soul in the middle of taking the root beer from him, one of her fingers laying softly over his. Their eyes meet, and Soul is hit with a flash of last night, of Maka with water around her waist and moonlight in her hair. Maka takes the pop from him and he pulls his hand back as fast as he can.
"So, uh, what's with the storm?" he blurts out.
Something goes strange in the air all at once, everything darkening as if the sun had abruptly dropped out of the sky. The can in his hand is cutting into him with coldness and Tsubaki's face says that he shouldn't have said what he just did.
"What?" Kilik says. He looks the most comfortable out of all of them. "You don't know what a storm is?"
"I just—"
Maka isn't looking at Soul, but he's looking at her.
"I've just heard a lot of vague stuff from people about this island and storms," Soul says. "It just seems like—I dunno, like more than how people anywhere else I've been talk about them. It seems like something important."
Black*Star steps away from Tsubaki and Kilik, arms sliding from their shoulders. He drains the rest of his root beer in one pull and then crushes the can in his hand, chucking it across the room to the recycling bin.
"It is to some people," he says shortly.
"The town just likes to celebrate the first storm of the year," Tsubaki says quickly. She's clearly hoping to head off any other questions, but Soul just doesn't understand why they're all being so weird about it. Maka is holding herself like she's going to break if she moves, and he needs to understand.
"Oh," Soul says. "So, what, is it happening soon or something? Is it some sort of special storm, or—"
"It's nothing we need to talk about right now," Maka says sharply. She sets her unopened root beer down on the counter like she might throw it if she doesn't get it out of her hands. "You can watch it yourself in a couple days if you're so damn interested, but I'd like to go back to other stuff, if that's okay."
"Okay," Soul says, taken aback. "That's fine. Calm your tits." He tries on a smile, attempting to steer them back to the joking tone they all had before. "Your tiny tits, that is."
It's far from the worst thing he's said to her or vice versa; trading insults is pretty much part of their meetings by the dock. But this time Maka goes white for a split second, and then flushes a blotchy, brick red.
"You said you didn't—" she hisses furiously, cutting herself off with a quick glance at the other three. It hits Soul like a brick in the face; she thinks he's being a dick and referencing last night's clusterfuck. What was meant to be a harmless joke suddenly seems like a deliberate attack.
"I—I didn't mean—sorry, I—"
"Forget it," Maka says. "I—have to go. To the bathroom. Screw you."
She shoves past him and out of the room, the sound of her storming upstairs coming a few seconds later. Soul is frozen to the floor. Black*Star, Tsubaki, and Kilik are staring at him.
"Okaaay," Black*Star says slowly.
"I'm gonna go too, I think," Soul says. He feels a little sick and confused and he just wants to get back to his cottage. The entire day has flipped on a dime and he's managed to sour everything the way he always does. "Not to the bathroom, I mean, just—home. I've got things to do. Music things."
"Right," says Tsubaki.
"Good luck on your polyamorous...thing," Soul says, gesturing vaguely as he sidesteps towards the door.
"What?" Kilik says. Tsubaki makes a sharp, throat-cutting motion and Soul remembers that they hadn't exactly told Kilik they were wooing him yet. Today is apparently his day to ruin all sorts of things.
"Nothing!" he says. "I'm just going. Thanks for basketball! Nice to meet you! Bye!"
When he gets outside the sun from the morning is gone, the sky thick and overcast. He doesn't run home, but it's a near thing. The clouds seem to follow him all the way through the suburbs and down the main streets of town, rolling huge and grey just behind him. As he peels down the sidewalk through crowds of tourists, brightly coloured umbrellas pop open all around him, bursting up like a highspeed film of a field of flowers blooming. The rain starts just as he leaves the main road for the dirt path down to his cottage, and he gets soaked in the seconds it takes him to get to the porch.
He'd forgotten about the mess he left inside that morning, and when he opens the door he has to lean against the frame for a moment, weak with the sudden surge of despair crashing over him. He takes a couple deep breaths, closing his eyes. He's dripping a puddle of water onto his door mat. The ocean rages behind him.
He goes inside his cottage and closes the door.
