For such a rotten start to a pretty half-baked plan, Operation Convince Soul to Embrace His Heart was progressing. Sort of.
Tamaki was out of commission for a full forty-five minutes. For at least twenty of those minutes, guests began to file into Music Room #3. Once he returned to the Host Club floor, Tamaki began serve his clients as if nothing mortifying had happened to him. The only sign that Tamaki was not over what happened earlier that afternoon was his refusal to come within a yard of Maka. Haruhi swore she was going to make that coward apologize. Eventually.
Though Tamaki's part in the Operation was a no-go, the rest was going smoothly. Since the Hitachiin twins were in charge of decorating the room in order to 'foster the illusion of privacy,' they turned Music Room #3 into a forest a la "A Midsummer Night's Dream." While Haruhi did not condone any of the Host Club's nosey schemes, she was actually impressed with the Hitachiins' ingenuity—the amount of foliage in the room was dense enough to make one feel secluded, but sparse enough that it was still easy to spy on people. Maka and Soul could be alone without really being alone. Plus, the trees and flowers sold the "magical forest of love" vibe.
Meanwhile, Honey and Mori helped smooth things over with Maka Albarn.
"Maka-chan!" Honey said. "I'm Honey, and these are my best friends Mori and Haruhi! You look much taller and prettier in person!" The sight of Honey's cute smile and adorable rabbit caused Maka's anger to melt away.
"Oh, thanks so much!" Maka said. She chuckled and scratched the back of her head shyly. "Wait, what did you mean by in per—" Honey grabbed Maka's hand.
"Do you like cake? Mori and I have a whole table of them!" Maka was dragged to the sweets table. Soul slouched sullenly before ambling after them. Haruhi supposed she ought to follow them too—she was supposed to be attached to Maka's side after all.
Once at the sweets table, Maka was pleased to see all of her favorite desserts. Haruhi snidely commented on the coincidence, though she knew that Maka's diet and taste in dessert was fully covered in Kyoya's mysterious folders. Soul acted more suspicious than happy when he noticed a table of sushi was also present in the room. Most of Soul's favorite foods were, as Kyoya explained, too "junky" to be served in the Host Club, but his taste for raw fish was more than welcome. Haruhi stole a couple bites of fancy tuna before leading the two to a somewhat secluded couch amidst the fake ferns and potted plants.
Kyoya, the Hitachiins, Honey, and Mori had all performed their parts. Tamaki's portion of the plan went up in a blaze of lacey, light pink smoke. It was now Haruhi's turn.
She poured a cup of coffee and handed the cup to Maka. "We heard a lot about you yesterday, Maka," Haruhi said.
Maka's eyebrow twitched and she glanced at Soul. "You heard about me, huh? Cause I didn't hear anything about you." Soul shrugged and draped his arms along the back cushions of the couch. Though they weren't touching, the pair was sitting closely enough that Soul's arm was basically around her shoulders. Whether it was intentional or not, Soul had just made the classic 'arm around the chair' move. Judging by the rustling of foliage and the giggling of nearby clients, everyone saw it.
Well, everyone but Maka.
"So what did he say?" Maka asked. Her olive eyes were narrow. She raised her coffee to her lips. "I want to know," she said before taking a sip.
Haruhi never did like to beat around the bush.
"Just that he would die for you," she stated plainly. Maka suddenly lost her grip on her cup, causing coffee to slosh over the sides. The arm Soul strategically placed behind Maka retracted back to his side, and he started coughing into his sleeve. Maka unsteadily put her coffee cup to the side. The clients that were undoubtedly spying on them murmured quietly in the background.
"Dude," Soul said after finishing his coughing fit. "That's libel!" Maka lightly hit his arm.
"Slander, Soul!"
"Sheesh, alright. Slander."
"Is something the matter?" Haruhi asked. "I thought that sort of devotion was normal between a meister and her weapon."
"It is!" Maka exclaimed. "I just—I didn't expect Soul to be telling you about any of that stuff. That's all." Being a host wasn't always easy, but at least it taught Haruhi how to read body language like a pro. Maka was laughing way too much and too shrilly to be genuine. Haruhi had struck a nerve. Perhaps Tamaki and the others were right when they suggested something was going on between the two partners.
"Well, he had to explain the scar somehow," Haruhi said.
Maka's nervous laughter dried up instantly, and she turned to her partner. "You told them about that?" It suddenly occurred to Haruhi that maybe the event that caused Soul to receive that long, twisted scar was personal, even traumatic. She had to prod the conversation along in a romantic direction, but she had to be more careful.
Soul sharply exhaled through his nostrils. "They wanted to know what being a weapon was like, so I showed them," Soul said. "It's not like it was a secret or anything."
"You took off your shirt? For the Host Club?"
"Not all the way! And who are you to talk anyway, Miss Pink and Lacey-" Maka snatched another textbook out of her coat-how many books did she have squirreled away in that thing?-and smacked Soul on the back of the head. He retaliated by tugging on one of Maka's pigtails, earning him yet another smack with the textbook. If they start fighting in the middle of the Host Club, Haruhi thought, I'M going to be the one who gets in trouble. Alarmed, Haruhi leapt to her feet.
"I'm sorry!" Haruhi exclaimed. The two DWMA students stopped hitting and poking at one another to look at Haruhi. "I mean, I'm sorry about how Tamaki-senpai behaved today." To Soul, Haruhi added "And yesterday too. This is just how we're dealing with..." Haruhi searched for words that captured her meaning without blatantly stating it. "...all this stress. The others don't show it, but we're all freaked out. The way they've been treating you in the Host Club is just their way of-"
"Coping," Maka finished. She dropped the book and glanced guiltily at her partner. Soul's body relaxed, and though his expression was blank Haruhi caught his red eyes narrowing slightly, perhaps even sheepishly.
"I'm not really allowed to tell you much about it," Haruhi said. Kyoya would add tens of thousands of yen to her already colossal mountain of debt if she revealed the details of their kishin situation before that damn contract was signed. Haruhi reached across the coffee table to touch Maka's shoulder, and the meister sucked in her breath in surprise. "But I want you to know that we really appreciate that you are here. We just want to understand what you do so we know what we're getting into."
Maka quietly considered this. "Okay!" she said with a grin.
The meister suddenly became an open book, and a talkative one at that. When she wasn't embarrassed or angry, Maka was very outgoing. Without prompting, she started lecturing Haruhi on the basics of soul resonance, how soul perception works, and how weapons developed into kishin eggs. Kyoya's folders clearly did not encapsulate Maka's vast intellect-they saw her grade transcripts, but Maka's intelligence went much farther than that. She was a strategist, a problem solver, a seat-of-the-pants leader. She conjured facts and theories out of thin air as if she were reading from an encyclopedia instead of reciting knowledge on the top of her head.
Meanwhile, Soul was as engaging as a brick wall. Maka prevailed upon Soul to give Haruhi a demonstration of a weapon's transformation ("You were totally fine showing him what it was like to be a weapon yesterday!"), but he refused to humor her. Harhui found Maka's impromptu presentation on the basics of weapon/meister theory fascinating, but Soul remained bored and distant. However, she noticed that Soul's eyes would often flick towards Maka, drinking in her animated mouth and energetic eyes as she explained exactly how, during battle when the adrenaline was high and and her blood pounding like thunder, their soul wavelengths could collide. Clearly, Harhui wasn't the only one enraptured by Maka's speech.
When Maka was finally left breathless from her own persistent lecturing, Haruhi attempted to return the favor and explain how the Host Club worked. She wasn't doing the best job.
"We all have a request rating," Haruhi explained. "Tamaki is an idiot, but he's the best at what we do here. His rating is 70%, which is the highest out of the whole club. I, uh, have a score to settle with Kyoya, so I've been trying really hard to get more requests." The abridged version of the truth was still the truth.
"If my extracurricular lessons were to convince people to flirt and talk to me, I would flunk for sure," Maka said with a shy laugh.
Haruhi's large brown eyes softened. "Why would you say that?" The air around Haruhi's face began to sparkle. "You're cute and you're really smart. Why wouldn't people want to talk to you?"
A light pink blush settled on Maka's cheeks. She began shifting in her seat, smoothing out her skirt, and fiddling with the tip of her right pigtail as if she is suddenly hyper conscious of not of how she looked, but of how Haruhi looked at her. Soul scowled and looked in another direction. He was probably going for cool and aloof, but even someone with Tamaki's powers of perception could see that he was feeling anything but cool.
Drat. A girl was developing a crush on Haruhi. Again. She wasn't even trying to be charming. She was just being honest. This is probably what Tamaki and the others meant when they heralded Haruhi as a "natural type." It was annoying, frustrating even, that Haruhi couldn't have a conversation with anyone, of any gender, without being gazed at through long eye lashes and with demure smiles.
Guests from around the room were poking their heads over and around potted plants in order to get a better look at what transpired at Haruhi's couch. They were whispering ecstatically. Oh, I get it, Haruhi thought with a groan. With Tamaki out of the picture, I'm the one who is supposed to flirt with Maka now.
"I'm gonna take a walk," Soul announced.
Soul's cool and calculated retreat was somewhat complicated by all the goddamn trees. He thought the sparkling, pink ballroom was an eyesore yesterday, but he would choose that a thousand times over this maze of foliage.
The secretly flustered weapon staggered through some plants and stumbled upon another cluster of of tables chairs all populated by Ouran students. They tittered amongst themselves and greeted him, but Soul could not distinguish their voices. Were they literally three feet away from him this entire time? How did he not notice? Did Maka notice? He should have known better than to assume the Host Club would give him or Maka an ounce of privacy. Soul ignored the girls and kept walking forward. He would find a wall eventually, and then he would find a window to jump out of.
He had only just escaped the first pocket of Ouran students when he stumbled upon another-this time a crowd them who were standing in a long, neat line. At the end of the line, Kyoya was swiping credit cards and recording names on his clipboard. Soul's eyes trailed the long line of school girls before settling on what it was they were lining up for.
Tamaki was lounging on a velvet loveseat with a female Ouran student. In his hand was a small, plastic scythe. With the other hand, Tamaki cupped the girl's cheek.
"I would leap in front of a thousand swords to protect you from harm, my beloved meister," Tamaki crooned. He waved the tiny scythe in the air. "With this blade, I am your weapon. With this body, I am your shield!"
"Tamaki!" the girl gasped. Soul realized with mounting alarm that the girl's hair was styled into two poofy pigtails.
"Next in line," Kyoya said briskly. The girl rose from the couch, a blush spread across her cheeks, and another took her place. The second girl's curly hair was also styled into pigtails that flounced with each step. Tamaki took her hands.
"Don't be afraid," Tamaki whispered in the new girl's ear. "If we are to defeat this madness, we must harmonize our souls. And our hearts!"
Soul's face burned. This was all kinds of wrong. Wrong because Soul and Maka never have time for these tender moments on the battlefield, wrong because souls don't 'harmonize,' and wrong because he even though he thought things similar to this in the past, he could never actually voice those thoughts without suffering an absolute partnership-dissolving disaster. Maka Albarn wasn't the kind of girl to get involved with her partner, a fact Soul never challenged because a partnership on her terms was better than going back to being an Evans.
Except now there was some dude batting his bushbaby eyes at Maka. Worse-after knowing the guy for all of fifteen minutes, the googley eyes appeared to already be mutual. It was like the moment some guy called her pretty, all the brains Maka spent her all whole life accumulating dribbled out her ears like melted wax. And it bothered Soul, it irritated him to the core. It just wasn't how his partner behaved. That was the real issue here. Soul spent all day keeping his guard up around blue-blazered rich kids, but he didn't anticipate his own partner turning heel on him in the middle of the mission. If he knew all he had to do to make that woman stop talking and start blushing was to say she was smart and pretty, he would have done that ages ago.
He stalked away from Tamaki, brushing past Kyoya and the line of girls, and headed back into the consuming flora. After a couple minutes of pushing his way through the room, Soul finally made it to a solitary corner. It seemed like a good place to chill and brood until his meister found him.
Maka faint eyebrows knitted together, though Soul couldn't decide if it was out of anger or worry. "Soul, why did you storm off like that?"
"You nerds wanted some privacy, and I gave it to you," Soul answered neutrally. "No need to thank me."
Maka blushed fiercely. "He was just being nice . Haruhi is a nice boy-"
"Don't tell me about it." Soul murmured.
"-who is going through a lot right now. You should really stop being so rude for no reason. He's just scared. Is it really so hard to just-" Maka stopped cold. This time, Soul knew she was definitely worried than mad.
"Can't you just tell me what's wrong?" Maka said with a quiet voice. "You've been so weird since coming here."
"Dunno what you mean." Maka smacked him behind the head. "HEY! There is nothing wrong, you crazy woman! You're just jumping to conclusions again."
"Soul Eater Evans, don't you play dumb with me! You make me so angry sometimes, you know that?"
Their spat was interrupted by the sound of rustling leaves and shattered pottery. Kyoya was briskly crossing the room to their couch, shoving foliage out of the way and swing his clipboard underneath his arm as he went. His normally serene smile looked strained. More than a few clients yelped in surprise as Kyoya sent a potted plant or two crashing their way. Oddly enough, Kyoya did not seem to care about them at all. He stopped in front of Maka and Soul and tilted his body towards them.
"My personal security force has sighted a kishin-egg in the vicinity," Kyoya said with a low voice. "They're are keeping it at bay as we speak. I suggest you start doing the job we hired you for."
Maka grabbed Soul's shoulder. The grip was surprisingly tender for someone who claimed to be angry with him.
"We aren't supposed to do anything until you've signed a contract right?" Maka said steadily. "That's why we're here, isn't it?"
Kyoya pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, yes, the contract is being signed as we speak. Death the Kid just hasn't finished initialing his portion yet."
The host wasn't exaggerating. On their way out, Soul spotted Kid hunched over a piece of paper, making minute strokes with a fountain pen. He didn't have to write his full name this time-just his initials!
Unfortunately, their hands were tied. Maka and Soul sat beside Kid and twiddled their thumbs until the grim reaper finished struggling through the paperwork. By the time he was finished, the Host Club clients had left and Kyoya's personal police force had chased away the kishin. Another false start. Kyoya gathered his friends for a Host Club meeting while the DWMA students looked on from afar.
"I guess it's back to Death City already," Maka grumbled. Soul was peeved to notice that Maka was actually bummed.
"Not quite," Kid said. "While you were with the Hosts, Kyoyo Ootori finally made me privy to the details of their situation. It isn't just one. They've already encountered at least three separate kishin-eggs, none of which were killed. There must be more in the area."
"So we hunt 'em down, take 'em out, get back to Death City by tomorrow," Soul said.
"Again, it isn't so simple. Kishin-eggs are normally driven to consume any souls that come in their path. They don't target specific victims, and they never work together." Kid put a contemplative hand to his chin. "There is more going on, but we don't have enough information. Ootori is still unwilling to let us in on the full story."
The Host Club was huddled around a red armchair, Tamaki sitting in the middle. Haruhi looked over his shoulder to cast an anxious glance at the DWMA students while the others spoke in hushed tones. Soul strained to hear, but luckily he didn't have to. The brown-eyed boy's attention suddenly snapped back to the group, and his voice raised considerably in volume.
"Don't be stupid!" Haruhi shouted. His normally congenial voice was tinged with anger and irritation. The Hitachiins tried to grab his shoulders, but Haruhi shrugged them off to advance towards the Host Club president. "I don't need any protection because I'm not the one that's in danger here! You're all worrying about me just because-"
The six other boys hushed her in unison, and one of the Hitachiin brothers clamped his hand over Haruhi's mouth. Haruhi struggled and put up a decent fight until the large guy, Mori, picked him up under his armpits and held him in the air.
"Sorry," Kyoya said. It was purely a formality-his tone indicated that he wasn't sorry about anything at all. "We were just discussing our arrangements this evening. We want a weapon and meister team stationed with Tamaki, the Hitachiins, and Haruhi. Unfortunately, Haruhi's living situation isn't really amenable to stayover visitors, you'll have to station yourselves outside his building."
Kyoya was issuing orders as if he were talking to some servants instead of the DWMA's top students, let alone the son of Lord Death himself. Though, he probably did view them as the help. Soul and his friends were practically hired hands now, doing Kyoya's bidding until he was satisfied and they could finally go home. At least, Soul thought, he didn't have to be nice to them anymore.
Kid's hand shot up in the air. "I volunteer to keep watch over the Hitachiins." Kid said.
"Huh? We get to pick?" Maka asked. She grabbed Soul's wrist and held it in the air above their heads. "Soul and I call dibs on Haruhi!" Soul tried to yank his hand away, but he couldn't escape his meister's vice grip. How could such small hands be tender one minute and steel the next?
"I guess that leaves Tamaki with Black Star," Kid noted. He crossed his arms and turned to Maka. "Should we warn him?"
Maka snorted and grinned. "No way. It's the ultimate revenge."
"Um, sorry?"
Tamaki, undoubtedly summoned by the mention of his name, had materialized beside Kyoya. He scratched the side of his mouth, blue eyes full of confusion. "Who is Black Star again?"