Anybody get the Harry Potter reference in the last chapter? Digital cookies if you did ;) *I disclaim* I own not Soul Eater. Or Harry Potter, for that matter.
Innocent Hearts, Tainted Souls
Chapter 4: New
"Oh, so you two are partners now?" Smiled Marie as she sat across from Stein at the lunch table. "That's great!" However, inwardly she was brooding over the fact that Stein hadn't chosen her. "I wanted him to be happy, sure," She thought to herself, "But is it bad to want to be happy, too?"
Stein nodded, not saying anything as he ate the cafeteria food.
"Well, it's gotta go through Lord Death first," Corrected Spirit. "He's got to sign our papers, or something like that."
Azusa nodded. "Of course he does. He's in charge, and he's got to make sure everything is orderly. Kids can't just decide they're partners when they want to; it's got to be officially approved," She pointed out. "Still, I think you two did something very rash," She scolded a little.
Spirit raised an eyebrow. "Eh? What's that about?" He asked.
The raven-haired teen rolled her eyes. "You didn't even check to see if your Soul Wavelengths were compatible before teaming up," She snapped, cutting into her meat as she talked. "For all you know, his shaft could burn you the first time you touch him, Stein."
Stein glanced over at her. "At least we can stand each other. That's the first step," He replied. "After that, we sort through each other's quirks and discover what we can live with and what has to stop. We change each other so that we like each other more."
Marie giggled awkwardly. "I'm not sure that's quite how friendship works, Stein…"
"It's fine," Spirit assured them. "I'm sure we'll find something in common, right, buddy?" He grinned, throwing his arm around Stein's shoulders.
Without even a glance at his partner, Stein muttered, "You're still annoying."
Spirit's eye twitched for a moment, and then he pulled back, muttering. "So? I don't like you either, pint-sized lunatic…"
Marie giggled again at their display. "They're already such great friends," She said.
Azusa shot her friend a sideways glance. "I'm going to quote you and say that I'm not sure that's quite how friendship works."
The rest of the school day passed uneventfully, but when the small group gathered after school, Stein barely spoke a word. Marie asked him once or twice what was wrong, but the boy simply told her that nothing was amiss, albeit unconvincingly. However, they all knew they weren't going to get a better answer out of him, so they left it at that.
While the other three were still talking, Stein left wordlessly. Spirit noticed this out of the corner of his eye, and whipped around in surprise.
"Hey! Where are you going?" He asked.
Stein stopped for a moment, not knowing how to answer that question. He could say 'home', but he wasn't going home. He was going to the Institution, and he couldn't think of anywhere that was more different from home than that place. So what could he say? After a long period of pause, in which all three of others' suspicions grew, the silver-haired boy lied and replied with his first answer.
"Home," He muttered, walking again. Spirit opened his mouth as if to ask another question, but sighed and stopped.
"Fine," He said. "See you tomorrow, right, Stein?"
The younger boy nodded as he turned a corner leading to the front of the building and was gone. The redhead sighed, sitting back down. "Real considerate guy, ain't he?" He chuckled sarcastically. "Anyway Azusa, I need some help with this homework assignment before I go. Think you can lend a hand?"
The other girl sighed in exasperation and nodded, crossing her legs and straightening up her pleated skirt. "Fine. What do you need?"
Spirit pulled his backpack around, digging through it. "Well, I'm supposed to research famous weapons, and I think Excalibur would be a good choice… Hold on," He stopped suddenly, pulling out a book on Soul Study. He stared at the cover for a moment, and then opened up to the first page.
Marie's eyes widened. "Look, Azusa! Spirit's reading! What's wrong with him?" He said jokingly, but the glassed girl looked genuinely confused.
"Are you okay, Spirit?" She asked. "That's a normal textbook. You never read your textbooks."
The redhead turned the book around so the two girls could see. Written inside the front cover was a handwritten note.
This textbook is property of Franken Stein.
I am never careless with my books, so this textbook is either stolen property or has been pried off of my dead body. If this was stolen, I will find whoever stole it and/or who is currently in possession of it and use force to get my book back. I am not merciful. If this was found with blood on it, I've been brutally murdered. In that case, please locate my funeral and lay my book in my final resting place. Thank you.
"He's a pleasant guy, isn't he?" Azusa deadpanned, staring at the text incredulously.
"I must've accidently picked up his schoolbook with mine," Spirit sighed. "Great."
Marie sat on her knees, looking concerned. "He must've been distracted all through today," She murmured.
Spirit raised an eyebrow. "What makes you say that?" He asked.
The blonde frowned. "He said in his note that he's never careless with his books, yet he left this one and didn't even notice the weight missing from his backpack. He seems like the type of guy who'd normally notice that, but he didn't, meaning something was distracting him enough that he left beind something that was precious to him," She said quietly. "I hope he's all right…"
Spirit smiled a little. "Hey, don't worry," He told her. "I'll get his book back to him, no problem. Your boyfriend will be a happy camper again soon."
A blush rapidly spread across Marie's face. "W-what are you talking about?" She exclaimed. "S-Stein's not my boyfriend!"
The redhead chuckled as he stood. "Maybe not, but I know a crush when I see one," He smirked, walking off. "See ya later, guys."
Azusa nodded, waving casually, while Marie buried her burning face in her hands.
"Is my crush really that obvious…?" She whimpered to herself.
It didn't take long for Spirit to get home and pull all the books out of his backpack. He checked to make sure he hadn't taken anything else of Stein's, and after determining that the Soul Study book was the only one, he dropped all of the other books back in his bag before inspecting the cover of Stein's.
"I could wait until tomorrow to give it to him," He thought, "But I think that we have assigned reading tonight… He'll want his book back," He sighed. "But he never told me where he lives… Maybe there's a clue somewhere in here." He inspected the book's covers, looking for anything marked "return to this address" or something along the lines of that, but of course Stein wasn't that helpful. He flipped the pages through his fingers dispassionately, unable to find anything of use. However, when he shook the book once in frustration, a business card slipped out of the jacket cover. Raising an eyebrow, he knelt down and picked up the paper. It was marked all over in red marker and holes were punched through it in a few places, as if it was what Stein took his rage out on when he got frustrated. However, an address was still detectable. There was a phone number as well, but what stared Spirit right in the face were the large bold words written on the top of the card.
Death City Mental Institution
"Great," Muttered Stein as he dug through his backpack. "I must've left my book at the school. We had an assignment tonight," He grumbled, leaning face-first onto the desk in front of him. He then glanced up at the small ground-level window which was his only source of natural light in the cold room. It was too high for him to reach, and every piece of furniture in the room was bolted to the floor to prevent him from trying to climb out. And then, without warning, a redhead bent down and peered in the window, shocking Stein to fall out of his chair.
"Franken?" Asked his supervisor from outside the door upon hearing the noise. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine!" He called back, standing up as he stared at the face of his weapon partner in the window. The latter grinned, picking the lock after his finger shifted into a tiny scythe's blade. After that, he pried the window open.
"I came to give you your book back," Smiled Spirit, laying down in the grass so he could reach the window easier. "Don't know what I would've done if you stayed anywhere but the ground floor," He grinned, but when he glanced down at Stein, he saw that the younger boy looked devastated. His lip was even quivering. Spirit's eyes widened. "Hey. What's wrong?"
Stein turned his face away. "You figured it out," He murmured, shaking a little but keeping his voice low so his supervisor wouldn't figure out what was going on. "You figured out where I live. You're right; I am a lunatic. So now what are you going to do? Go tell Azusa and Marie? Have me expelled?" He whispered. "Madness has no place in the DWMA. The school's very purpose is to destroy it. I've… I've murdered people, Stein. I don't belong there."
Spirit's brow furrowed. "Don't you ever think that, Stein."
The silver-haired boy's head snapped up at his partner's words.
"You belong at the Academy just as much as every other student that goes there, and more so than a few of them," He insisted. "You're a strong kid. You'll be a great meister."
Stein stared at him for another moment, but then frowned. "What'll you do with my secret, then?" He asked. "What if anyone asks about me?"
Spirit smiled a little again. Seeing his partner in this state had changed the elder's opinion of him. Suddenly he was less of a sadistic freak and more of a scared, lonely boy that needed a friend. At that moment, the redhead swore to himself that he'd be that friend. "I promise I'll keep your secret. I won't tell anybody," He said. Stein's eyes widened as he continued. "If anyone asks about you, I'll tell them that you're a great meister and a cool guy."
After a moment, Stein did something surprising. He smiled. "You barely know me," He said quietly. "You don't know all that stuff."
Spirit grinned. "But I'm sure it's true," He assured the younger boy. He looked down at him again with kind blue eyes. "Do yourself a favor, eh Stein?"
Stein tilted his head to the side like a confused puppy. "What's that?"
The redhead beamed down at him. "Try harder to convince your higher-ups that living at the dorms would be better for you. Being around friendly people and all that," He said.
The silver-haired boy smiled again and nodded determinedly. "Right," He promised.
Spirit grinned again, but then realization showed in his eyes. "Oh, right. I almost forgot," He said, reaching behind himself for a moment before he turned back around and handed the book to Stein. "You left your book in class."
Stein reached his hand up, standing on his toes to reach his partner's arm that was stretched down. He took the book in one hand, and then before Spirit could retract his arm, shook his hand with the other.
"Thanks, partner," He smiled. Spirit smiled back.
"Anytime," He grinned, and then added jokingly, "Pint-sized lunatic."
Stein smirked. "Annoying redhead."
Spirit smirked as well while he closed the window again. "I'll see you tomorrow in school," He said, his voice sounding muffled as he stood, so that Stein only saw his ankles and boots.
"Count on it," Stein replied as he watched his partner's boots walk away. He smiled, simply watching the grass outside his window before sitting back down at his desk.
"I don't have friends," His own words echoed, "I have allies."
"Well maybe it's time that changed," He told himself with resolve. "Maybe someone like me can make friends."
"Stein?"
Stein's head turned to the doorway as his therapist stepped in. "We've come upon a revolutionary idea to help you."
The boy nodded. "That's good, because so did I," He began, wanting to ask about moving to the boys' dorms at the Academy, but he was cut off.
"Yes yes, wonderful Stein. But let's try the professionally-engineered idea first, and then we'll hear you out," He said. Somehow, Stein doubted his statement as he was led by his therapist's hand on his back.
The older man took him out the door and down a series of halls. Stein looked around, trying to get a sense of what was behind each door, but they passed by too quickly. He knew that to close his eyes and use his Soul Perception would be frowned upon, so he merely sighed and walked on.
When they finally stopped, his therapist opened a door on their right, revealing to Stein what seemed to be a lab room.
"Hello, Franken," Smiled a scientist, who sat before an apparent examination table. The silver-haired boy instantly stiffened.
"You're not doing experiments on me, are you?" He asked tentatively, to which the scientist chuckled a little. However, that instantly helped Stein to relax. It wasn't an evil chuckle; she sounded friendly. She didn't look malicious either, with soft brown skin, gentle green eyes and sleek black hair.
"Of course not," She assured him.
"We're going to try something different this time," His therapist explained, prompting Stein to look up at him again. "Well, we've noticed how you like to cut things up, but your methods are haphazard and sloppy."
Stein narrowed his eyes. "Thanks for the compliment," He muttered.
"What we decided," Said the scientist, "Is that maybe if you learned to cut with control, that in turn it would help you control the desire to cut things up in the first place," She explained as she set a dead frog on the examination table. The therapist held his nose at the smell, but Stein was oddly intrigued. As he stepped closer, the scientist handed him a scalpel and smiled.
"So I'm going to teach you about dissection."
Teaching Stein about dissection sounds like a great idea, doesn't it? It certainly won't lead to a sadistic obsession in the future LOL The chapter's name is for the new partners, Stein and Spirit, and also for Stein's new experience with dissection. See ya next chap!
