A.N.: Sorry this took so long to get up! Honestly, I've had the chapter written, but I was just waiting for artwork (which was never drawn for me), so I kinda just gave up. I have the majority of the next chapter written, so I think I'll have that up as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I've kinda put this story on the back-burner after I've gotten obsessed with other fandoms (Young Justice!). But I want to hold a little equality with my stories, so I haven't given up!
I don't own Soul Eater; that belongs to Atsushi Ohkubo. I also don't own anything else, like Frankenstein.
That was officially the worst sleep Spirit had ever experienced. What was worse was that he didn't sleep at all. Instead, the redhead just lay in his bed and stared at the plain-colored ceiling, willing for death to silently creep into his bedroom and capture his soul. He just continued glaring at the dormitory ceiling, listening to the sounds of Jefferson's snoring. Sometimes, the other Weapon was a very quiet sleeper; at others, Jefferson really wasn't.
No such luck. The redhead retained his soul throughout the entire night; it gave him ample opportunity to think. Jefferson was already a silent sleeper, making the room that much more quiet. It was terrible, really. Spirit felt awful, and he felt even more terrible when he remembered the way Kami was trying (and failing) to hold back her tears.
He had effectively broken the girl's heart. Through school.
Kami seemed (and proved) to be the type of girl to put her studies above a lot of things; and even moreso, she liked an honest grade and greatly disliked anyone (even Spirit) who put an obstacle in the way of high marks.
This is why she hated Spirit. However, the Redhead was very much set on changing her opinion, even if it earned him a thousand or two Kami Chops.
There was just something about her expression that wouldn't stop haunting him. That glare of hers was pne of the many things that robbed Spirit of his blissful sleep.
The redhead got up relatively early in the morning and put on his uniform, taking his extra time to fix his hair. Spirit even tried to manage his terrible cowlick (to no avail, of course), and groaned in defeat. Glancing warily at the mirror, Spirit met with a very tired look. His normally bright eyes were a duller sort of teal. He had bags under his eyes and a worried expression that even Spirit himself didn't know he was even capable of.
Locking the dorm room behind him, because stupid Jefferson had already left, Spirit stepped into the corridor. He made sure that he still had all his books and notebooks (and an apology note for Kami) before starting off to Study Hall.
Stein was already seated when Spirit sauntered into the room. Without even thinking, Spirit threw his belongings beside his Partner and sighed heavily.
"Could I perhaps help you?" Stein asked, his tone irritated.
Spirit sighed again. "Sort of, since you're apparently a ladies' man."
Choosing to ignore Stein's eyebrow quirk, Spirit listened intently to his Meister. To his credit, though, Stein did respond. "Speak."
"What do you do when you meet a cute girl, and you really like her, but you totally messed up with her, and you made her cry, and she sort of hates you now? How do you even begin to make that up to her?"
Stein was very silent for a few moments. "I could dissect her brain and come back with results."
"No. No, I'm alright."
"Then I have nothing for you, I suppose." Stein didn't seem too concerned that he had no answer for his Weapon, though Spirit wasn't too keen on most (if not all) of the Meister's solutions. The silver-haired student turned away from Spirit then, nonchalant look on his face.
Sometimes, Spirit was glad that he only had to interact with Stein when it came to fighting. He wasn't sure if he could handle dealing with anyone else.
Of course, the redhead chose to ignore Shinigami-sama's advice of, "Weapons and Meisters are friends for life, y'know!"
If he were being completely honest, Spirit would admit to only listening to half of what the quirky Reaper said. The rest was lost forever to the wind.
Deciding that Stein was going to say nothing more on the matter, Spirit found it prudent to attempt (key word, "attempt") to finish some of his homework. In hindsight, he probably should have completed it the night before; but, of course, he was too busy trying to figure out what he was going to say to Kami.
He came up with zero results. Azusa would be so proud.
Spirit warily looked at his Technique homework, frowning when a question on swordsmanship came up. He scratched the back of his neck and looked back at Jefferson. The brunette was sitting beside his Partner, sleeping.
Thanks, Jefferson. Always an inspiration to everyone.
In Weapon form, Jefferson was a Medieval-like sword. He and his Partner worked well together, because, despite the Meister's lanky form, he was quite quick and coordinated.
Though it was hard to admit it, Spirit was quite jealous of those practical-type Weapons. Every aspiring Meister who longed to be a Three-Star wanted a good and useful Weapon. Not a giant cross-like Scythe.
Spirit was impractical, he was unnecessary, he was-
The bell rang loudly through the entire room.
-dead. Spirit Albarn was going to be dead. Not only had he not finished his homework, but he also had to face Kami. Frankly, he wasn't sure who he should be more worried about.
Placing bets on Kami seemed like a fair bargain.
Trying (and failing) to swallow the overwhelming sense of fear that crept up on him like Stein crept up on helpless rodents, Spirit gathered his belongings and beat his Partner in the race to get out of the room.
"Listen, Stein, I have about two minutes and forty seconds before I meet my maker-"
"Improbable, but go on."
"-...alright," Spirit continued, irritated, "First, I need the answer to Question 27. Do you have that?"
Without looking, Stein answered, "Alber."
"Who knew. Okay, what do I say to Kami? Should I sit beside her, or just hand her this note that I wrote for her at three in the morning, or should I ignore her-"
"Oh, but you can't do that. She's special," the Meister replied sarcastically. Spirit ignored him.
"Right, I can't. But she says she never wants to see me again. How do you respond to that?" At this point, Spirit was grasping for any sort of help that his (very awkward and anti-social) Partner could give.
As means to rub salt in the wound, Stein smirked. "Perhaps you should respect her words and do just such."
Spirit calmly walked away after that. And, as always, Stein didn't try to redeem himself. In fact, he was probably getting some sort of sick satisfaction from his Weapon's obvious discomfort.
The walk to First Aid Class was pretty short, in comparison to other classrooms. Spirit walked in and halted abruptly, stopping right in front of Sid. The Meister grunted and glared when the redhead stayed glued to his spot on the floor.
"Really?" Sid asked, walking away (and grumbling under his breath) before he got an answer.
Kami sat at her same seat in the front of the classroom; she seemed to be reading ahead in the textbook, predictably. Quietly, Spirit sat beside her and tapped on her shoulder.
"I thought I wasn't talking to you," Kami said without lifting her eyes from her book.
"You just did," Spirit replied, scratching the back of his neck nervously.
Sighing heavily, Kami shut her book and instead opted for a notebook. The redhead noticed her very tiny handwriting on the lined pages.
Her very tiny and rather messy handwriting. In fact, Spirit, though he would never outright flaunt it, prided himself in his handwriting. Whatever few notes he did take were neat and professional-looking.
Kami's left much to be desired. Still, her notes were detailed and informative, which is more than one can say for Spirit's notes. Truthfully, Spirit felt as if Kami's notes would be much more useful than the textbook itself.
If one could read them, of course.
"You're staring at my notebook," Kami informed the redhead. She seemed almost bored by talking to Spirit.
Quickly, the Weapon switched his gaze. This didn't seem to please Kami that much. "Listen, I-"
The bell rang again, and Spirit cursed. Loudly.
Miss Dietrich used her sharp blue eyes to glare daggers at the Scythe. "Meester Albarn, vy do you inseest on using ze profaneetees een my class."
"I ask myself why I don't every day," Spirit mumbled back; he immediately realized what he said and slapped a hand over his mouth. This did nothing to put the teacher in a passive mood. If anything, the Weapon could've sworn he saw a vein pop on her head.
Spirit might've found it funny, had he not been worried about his personal well-being. Apparently, the rest of the class did not share such a sentiment, for the sound of hearty laughter (much more confident than the day before) echoed throughout the room like an alarm. Looking over at Kami, Spirit wasn't surprised when he saw her straight face.
"Meester Albarn! Vy don't you learn? Do I have to send you to Lord Deaz's office?"
The way she said "Lord Death" was what made most of her class bearable. That, and the rest of her accented words; they did hold power, however. Spirit most certainly did not want to be sent to Shinigami-sama's office. It sounded like too scary of a place to be, if one is not invited.
From the way things were going, Spirit was quite certain that the Reaper was not going to have a "Welcome" placemat set out for the Scythe.
"No, ma'am."
Petra seemed to be quite pleased with herself. "Good. Now zen, let us pass up our homevork!"
Spirit gulped. Sure, he had the majority of his homework done, but it wasn't enough. The neo-Nazi would be sure to notice. And the Weapon would be reaped by Shinigami-sama for sure.
Not good. Not good at all.
What would he even say as means to defend himself? "No, sir, I don't normally forgo homework and mouth off. I'm just preoccupied by this girl…"
As previously stated, Azusa would be so proud.
Kami was already ripping (careful not to tear the pages, only the perforated lines) her homework pages from her notebook. She glanced up at Spirit's helpless gaze and smirked. "You deserve this," she mouthed.
That one hurt. But egos could wait until later. At this moment, Spirit tried to pick his brain for an idea or two to get out of this mess.
The only problem was that Spirit's brain, simply put, was not efficient in solution-making. His battle reflexes always required more work than Stein's, as the silver-haired Meister was the type to improvise in less than three seconds. He made for a great Partner but a crummy friend.
Unfortunately, Stein was all Spirit had some of the time. Sid and Mira were good friends, sure, but they were also Partners. Which meant that Spirit often (always) played the third wheel in the group.
Sob stories could wait. "Meester Albarn, you have yet to get out your vork. Please say you have eet," Miss Dietrich said flatly.
"You won't go for the 'dog' thing, huh?"
"Meester Albarn."
Kami's hand shot in the air. "Miss Dietrich, I have a question: when questions on swordplay came up, I wasn't quite sure whether you were talking about swords in general; or swords from a time period, such as Medieval, or Victorian, or modern; or swords from different regions, like-"
"General, Mees Tsutano."
"And by 'general', you mean…?"
Huffing, Petra strode to the front of the room and chose a long piece of white chalk. "Vat I mean, Mees Tsutano, ees zat…"
While the teacher's words continued to drone and mingle, Kami stole Spirit's unfinished homework. She quickly uncapped her pen and filled in the remaining blanks. "Some of them are wrong answers because, frankly, I don't think you'd know the answer, but the rest is fine." Kami refused to make eye contact as she handed back the paper just as Petra turned back to Kami.
"Does zat answer your qvestion, Mees Tsutano?" Miss Dietrich asked, exasperated.
"Perfectly, actually, thank you." Kami's sweet smile was believable and cute, and Petra nodded, returning her attention back to Spirit.
"Here ve are again, Meester Albarn. Do you have your homevork?"
"Like I said, 'You won't go for the dog thing, huh?'." Spirit noticed Kami's confused expression turn violently obvious. "But you don't need to, because I have it right here. See," Spirit said, perhaps a bit cockily, pointing to his paper. Petra studied it for a moment before nodding.
In an alternate universe, she may have even been pleased. "For vonce you have not let me down. Very good."
"I do try, ma'am."
For the rest of the class, Spirit tried to figure out why Kami would even consider helping the Scythe, especially after everything that happened. Just the day before, she had said that she never wanted to see him again, and now…
She saved him. Again, actually.
When the bell rang, Spirit caught Kami by the wrist before she could leave. The blonde stared at his hand for a moment before attempting to shake Spirit off.
Oh, but he was much stronger than he looked. The redhead kept his firm grip. "Can we talk?"
"I have class."
"Huh. I do, too. Can we talk?"
"You're going to get me in trouble. Again." Yes, Kami was still apparently bitter about yesterday's transpirations; she did have good reason, of course.
Spirit sighed and thought for a moment. He silently prayed that his limited improv skills would work at least once. "Just say you weren't feeling well. They have to let you go on that one."
"I was trying to be nice. I don't want to talk to you. I thought Marie might've told you."
"And she did. I just - you are - I was -"
The Meister raised an eyebrow. "Is this going somewhere?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you in trouble, because you were only trying to help me, and you helped me today, too. So, thank you, and I'm sorry. And I wrote you a note," Spirit began, rummaging around in his pocket for his apology letter. When he didn't find it in the left pocket, the Weapon favored his books on his other arm and checked his right pocket.
No such luck. Panicking, Spirit turned around and bent slightly backwards; he attempted to see if he could find even a hint of paper in his pocket, though he noticed nothing.
"I know we just met, and I know you still hate me, but could you please check this pocket."
Kami hesitated. "Is this…normal in American culture?"
"Not at all. Please?" How could he have lost it? Spirit had been keeping such a good eye on that stupid slip of paper, too.
The Weapon felt a light pressure on his butt, could make out the sensation of each of Kami's thin fingers brushing against his pant fabric. He liked the feeling, naturally.
Kami, on the other hand, was a bright red. "It's very official. I hate you."
"Did you find it?" Spirit asked when the pressure of her hand left. The Meister shook her head quickly.
"Sorry," Kami muttered, keeping her forest green eyes trained on the floor. Once again, her red face and green eyes resulted in the illusion of a Christmas tree. With strawberry frosting.
"No, it's cool-" the redhead cut himself off when his perfectly-balanced pile of books and notebooks became rather unbalanced. His belongings loudly fell to the floor. Cursing, he bent down to gather them up, stopping when he noticed a haphazardly folded piece of paper hidden under his BYOM textbook. He swore once more than cheered with delight. "Yes! This is your note!" The Scythe proudly presented the shoddy piece of paper with the goofiest grin he had ever used. What was worse was that he hadn't meant on using it.
Incredulously, Kami raised an eyebrow. "You mean to say that this is the note that you worked so hard on? Do you honestly expect me to forgive you because of this note?"
In hindsight, the idea in itself didn't sound very convincing. But the note seemed very...personal, to say the least. It was all of Spirit's hard work wrapped into one sleepless night of writing. And, of course, the Weapon's writing wasn't the best literary work in the world, but he also tried his best.
And he sounded just like a struggling fourth grader.
Spirit shifted his weight on one foot to the other. "I was kind of hoping you would, actually."
"Yes, well, I won't."
"Just-"
The Meister glowered. "I don't want to hear it, Albarn," she said, venom oozing in her voice. Her tone was almost enough to deter Spirit from his current goal. Almost. Not quite.
"-Just read it, please?"
Perhaps it was the sweet look in his teal eyes, or maybe the nervous habits he kept performing as he waited for her response. Perhaps it was even the desperate way he worded his question. No matter the reason, Kami sighed and swiped the note from the redhead's hand. Avoiding his gaze, she stuffed the paper into the front her Singled Survival textbook. Again, Spirit grinned.
"Thanks. You're so awesome!" Spirit practically shouted, running outside the First Aid classroom. This time, he managed to keep his books in perfect balance with his body weight. Somewhere, there must have been some science involved in running velocity and mass and the books. Somewhere, Spirit was very sure, there was science involved.
The Weapon was so ecstatic that he didn't even bother to look behind him, which meant that he didn't notice the blonde Meister shyly watching Spirit run away; she lowered her gaze to a certain part of his body that Kami's hand had recently been. The blonde's right hand shook ever-so-slightly as she reached for her books, still keeping her eyes glued to Spirit's retreating form. Fighting the lightest of smiles to etch itself onto her face, Kami finally pulled her stare away.
It was "very official." Kami did not hate Spirit; quite the opposite, really.
Kami had been checking him out.
As she walked away, Kami curiously cast a glance over her shoulder to notice Miss Dietrich fondly smiling. "Were you watching this entire time, Miss Dietrich?" the Meister asked politely.
"Vell, you vere een my classroom. I had to. Ah, ze young love. Eet vill not last, but eet ees cute vile eet ees still young. Enjoy eet, my dear."
Laughing nervously, Kami replied, "No, ma'am, I'm not in love. He's just annoying."
"So you say, so you say. Just vait."
When Kami walked away, much more confused than she had been at the beginning of the class, she started. Because, honestly, she hadn't seen that one coming. And she certainly didn't have any feelings for Spirit Albarn whatsoever. He was rash and impulsive and rude at times, but she didn't care. She could've cared a little less, in fact. The Meister walked slowly to her next class, Singled Survival, and sighed; she didn't like how stupid Spirit made her scatter-brained, not one bit.
She didn't want to open this note. It could wait until the world stopped spinning, and she couldn't have cared one bit. Kami never wanted to see what the contents of this note had. Because-
She halted by the time her hand met the handle of the classroom door. Maybe she could pretend to be ill for just a little longer. This note couldn't wait for too long; it could crumble to pieces, after all. Kami turned and sprinted down the hallway, settling herself into an empty classroom. She was rebelling and being terrible, and what if she was missing an important piece of information that would be used on the next exam? Or the next two exams?
What worried Kami Tsutano the most was that she didn't care. This note was bugging her. Badly.
Dear Kami,
I know that I really messed up. And I know that you never want to see me again. Ever again. But I want to see you again, because I really like you. You're pretty and smart, and I bet you'd be really nice if I didn't make you mad. I bet you're really good at being a Meister and stabbing things, because that's what Stein does...and he's sort of my Meister.
And I hear that he's pretty good.
I'm really sorry that I hurt your feelings. I really didn't mean to.
P.S.: Thanks for your help in Miss Dietrich's class. I really needed that notebook.
From Spirit
Kami smiled lightly, then quickly stopped. She was not, she could not be...sympathetic...for that Albarn boy. He was stupid and immature and lived to get her in trouble. And yes, he had a nice (incredibly nice) backside, but that was it.
Unfortunately for Kami, the blonde spent so much time brooding about her (nonexistent) feelings that she forgot to check the time. When the green-eyed Meister finally did look up, she only had ten minutes left of Singled Survival class. Perhaps Spirit had a point in the faking of the illness trick to get out of just this one class. She would never do it again, of course.
Taking just a few moments to perfect a fake cough and grimace, Kami smiled lightly to herself and ventured out of the classroom. She would deal with those stupid butterflies in her stomach later, she decided.
#FrankenStein
"I really enjoyed it!" Marie chirped, holding out the weathered copy of Frankenstein. She held the book delicately in both of her hands; from a distance, Stein noticed her nicely-painted yellow nails. They were a little bright for his liking, but at least they weren't smudged or chipped. He could appreciate that.
Back to the matter at hand. "You've already finished it?" the silver-haired teen asked. He quirked an eyebrow, trying to look nonchalant, though it was rather hard to hide his surprise. Honestly, Franken hadn't considered the fact that Marie was actually a speed-reader. He took his book as politely as possible but didn't bother to smile in thanks.
Because Stein had been the one lending her the book; he shouldn't have to extend his kindness any farther.
"Do you have Dracula?" Marie asked.
"Do I look like I own that book?"
The blonde contemplated the question for a few moments. "You're pale..." she answered, uncertain.
Holding back a sigh, Stein began to think to himself. He had originally been right, he thought. Marie wasn't a speed-reader, not at all. In fact, the Meister figured that she just flipped through to book to see all the pretty pictures.
"Oh, and Franken?"
"I prefer 'Stein'."
"Oookay... Anyway, I just wanted to say 'thank-you'. It was a really good book, much better than the movie."
With that, Marie turned and practically skipped away, allowing Franken to bask in her blondeness. He wasn't surprised; it would've been wrong to overestimate someone. And yet, that certain part of Stein that he suspected was still semi-normal argued. Maybe it was a ruse of Marie's. Perhaps she was just trying to get the Meister to let his guard down.
But when the blonde girl couldn't push open a door that said "Pull", Stein's other half smirked.
Because, of course, maybe not.
