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Maka emerged from the bathroom in a waft of scented steam at eleven-thirty, long after Soul usually went to bed, but music was still jazzing out from his record player even though the apartment was dark and quiet. Was he just sitting in the dark, listening to music, or had he fallen asleep on the couch or was he waiting up for her? Maka slouched the towel down over her head and padded into the living room in her slippers. Soul's silver head was lolled over the arm of the couch.

Even so, Maka called, "Soul? Are you asleep?" on the off chance he was faking.

He looked so peaceful and cute in his sleep with his silver-white hair feathered against his pale cheeks, his crimson eyes hidden by creamy lashes, and his luscious mouth just barely open to show a hint of pointed teeth. (And Maka had just kissed that mouth. She wondered if he had been able to taste her on his lips afterwards.) The white shirt he wore under his jacket was the same white as his skin. The jazz was playing in the background, softly, softly.

"You'll catch a cold like this, you know," Maka murmured, but Soul just kept on sleeping. He must not be faking after all. That meant she could touch him. It was her little secret, her furtive indulgence, her hidden addiction. She loved to touch Soul, but she could only do it when he was asleep and wouldn't be able to open those crimson eyes of his and look straight into her soul. Maka reached out quietly and fingered a strand of his silver-white hair. It was as soft as silk and so warm in her hands. She loved his hair and his eyes and his teeth, her beautiful albino partner.

In his sleep, the waves of his soul reached out gingerly and caressed her skin.

Maka crouched beside the couch and felt his soul stir. He was awake now and she retracted her hand. Sneaky bastard was still feigning sleep though. "Hey, are you really asleep?" she asked and played along. She laughed quietly when his mouth quirked into part of a smile, giving him away.

He heard her small chuckle and knew he was caught. He had no choice now. Silently, Soul opened his blood-colored eyes and stared up into the face of his meister.

"So you were awake," Maka teased.

Groaning, he sat up and stretched, maintaining his ruse of having been sleeping. "Gah," he grumbled. "What do you want now?"

Maka only sat down beside him on the couch and didn't say anything.

So, Soul took it upon himself to start the conversation he knew they had to have. "You've been weird lately," he began slowly. His lips tingled at the memory of Maka's kiss and he forced his next words out. "Take what happened just now, for instance."

Maka jolted beside him and drew her legs up against her chest. She looked like a child, small and frail, with her damp hair plastered against her cheeks. He wanted to put his arms around her and protect her from the world and Maka felt the tendrils of his soul grasping at her shoulders. Soul wanted to draw her into himself again, devour her so that no one could even look at her. She should have been frightened by that possessiveness, but she wasn't. Soul would never hurt her—never.

"You get mad for no reason," Soul continued.

Maka rested her chin on her knees, hiding her mouth with her hands. She didn't want Soul to see the flesh there tightening as she forced back tears. There was a boulder lodged in her throat, choking her as she tried to breathe. All she could smell was the scent of Soul's skin, of his body.

"You start laughing at the weirdest times."

She curled her toes into the couch cushions and tightened the towel around her shoulders. His crimson eyes, blood-colored eyes, shone in the pale silvery moonlight. High in the sky, the creepy moon gazed down on them, all teeth and blood, just like Soul. Soul was like the moon.

"You've just been weird," he said softly.

Everything Soul said was true. She had been acting weird lately and his overpowering soul didn't count for anything. He had every reason to be getting stronger and trying to defend her. She had been acting like a child, like someone who needed protection.

"There's… nothing wrong with me…" Maka whispered to Soul.

He leaned down so he could look into her face. She was hiding from him, curtained behind her honeyed hair, and there was nothing Soul could do to pull her back onto the stage. Instead, he decided to take center stage himself and reclined back into the cushions while he pondered his words. The soothing sound of jazz music drifted around the room like the music of the night and Soul's lips pulled into a small smile. He knew exactly what to say.

As many times as things had come back to the fight with Chrona—to Soul taking that blow for her, to Maka's guilt, to the thick scar that bisected his chest, to the black blood, to everything that came afterwards—it came back to one other thing just as often, if not more.

"Hey," Soul began, "do you remember when we first met?"

Maka's head snapped up and her eyes went into him like daggers.

"You just came right up to me and asked me to play," Soul continued without looking at his partner. "Well, you know little old twisted me… I'm not really the kind of person who will tell you what I'm really thinking a lot of the time."

Maka lowered her feet to the floor and sat up straighter beside him. He felt her eyes on his face and wondered what kind of expression he was making.

"That time I played for you, I was telling the truth," Soul explained. "I thought that if I played for you, you would get creeped out and run away." He didn't add that everyone else had run away from him, but she knew he was thinking about it. "But you just…"

He didn't have to say it. Maka remembered every single detail of that day as if it had happened yesterday. She reached out to him and asked him to be her partner despite his frightening appearance and dangerous music. She remembered how soft and warm his hand had been in hers, so thin and fragile, and wondering again if this slender pianist could really be a weapon on the inside. Well, he was a lot more than a mere frightening albino or beautiful scythe to her now. Soul was her partner, her roommate, her best friend, her everything.

"And from that point on," Soul took a deep breath and forced himself to say it, "I knew that I liked you."

His words hung in the air and the record skipped a few times in the silence before continuing.

Maka was staring at him, waiting for the words to sink in, and then her mouth fell open and she whispered, "Huh?"

Soul's crimson gaze slid to the side, but he already had his foot in the door so he may as well come in now. "I'm saying that I love you," he repeated.

Maka's expression was stricken. She didn't want to go through this, not now and not ever. She didn't want to hear Soul lie to her, to spout those pretty lies like she saw in cheesy movies. She trusted him with every shred of herself and she couldn't take him lying to her, lying like every other man, lying like her papa.

'Papa, who is that? Why isn't it Mama? Why isn't it me?'

She didn't want to love Soul and watch as he cheated and lied like her papa did. She didn't want him to be like her papa. She didn't want him to take her papa's place. She just wanted Soul to be Soul, to play the piano for her and to look at her with those blood-colored eyes and to smile with those pointed teeth.

'Papa… you told me you loved me…'

Soul couldn't love her. Her papa loved her, said he loved her, and yet he still replaced her with other women. He still let her run away in the rain. She didn't want Soul to become her papa. She wanted Soul to stay Soul, to remain her precious partner and only that! She couldn't take it if he lied to her!

While all these terrible desperate thoughts raced through Maka's head, Soul sat beside her patiently. He could feel her soul going crazy and calmly rested his cheek on his knee. He just watched her, waited for her to come around, to come back to him.

Finally, Maka spoke. "I told myself I would never… like or fall in love with someone… and that the reason we're together is because we're partners. I'm a meister and you're a weapon. It's as simple as that. I kept telling myself that and trying not to pay attention to what I might really have felt."

Because it was impossible not to fall in love with Soul… All those other girls loved Soul and wanted to be his partner, but he was Maka's and he always turned them down—even the pretty ones with breasts like Blair's and curves like Liz's.

Maka pulled her thin bare legs back against her chest and hugged them tightly. "I'm scared of being lied to," she confessed. "I can't tell someone what I'm feeling. I can never say what's really important. I just keep running away."

Soul was watching her with those eyes of his, as if he could see into every inch of her being. The waves of his soul wrapped around her like a warm blanket, swelling out and holding her gently. Maka wanted to lean into him, into his soul, but she forced herself to stay where she was.

The record playing was the only sound in the room.

"Hm," Soul murmured after a long moment of silence. "Does that mean… you like me too?"

Her head snapped in his direction. "Huh? I didn't say—"

His mouth cut her off.

For the second time that afternoon, the partners kissed and this time Soul had initiated it and it wasn't to distract her. He wasn't playing with her the way she had played with him. Soul wasn't that kind of person. The way he was really feeling always shone through in some small action of his—in his piano playing, in a brush of his fragile hands, in the waves of his powerful soul, and now in his kiss. Maka knew he really cared for her and that he was different than her papa who kissed every woman who looked his way. Maka could taste Soul's awkwardness and the hint of fear that he was doing something wrong.

This was only Soul's second kiss.

His crimson eyes slid open and she was staring right into his gaze. Their lips parted and Soul whispered to her, "For that kiss earlier."

Then, his arms were all around her. One hand was on the back of her neck and he was holding her other hand tightly in his own. It was his soul all over again as he devoured her like he wanted to pull her into himself.

He kissed her again, stronger and with more passion than she thought possible. She couldn't escape him, but then she wasn't sure she even wanted to. The waves of his soul were washing over her, spinning around and pulling her even closer to him. She felt every inch of what he was feeling through his soul—how he didn't want this to end, how much he loved her taste, how he wondered if she expected him to grab her small breasts or something equally ungentlemanly. She wondered if he could sense what she was feeling, too.

Soul's tongue touched her lower lip, begging entrance and she didn't hesitate. She allowed him in and a small little sound escaped her. Maka's small fingers found his shoulder and squeezed tightly. Soul's body was warm and thin. His shoulders felt like the skulls of birds, frail and thin, yet he was her weapon, so strong and powerful. Soul hugged one arm around her back and tried to pull her closer. He deepened their kiss, tongue exploring her mouth and drawing her own tongue into a battle. Maka couldn't even win against him.

She felt lightheaded at the taste and smell of him, at the warmth of his soul around her, at his hands on her neck and threaded through her fingers, at the pureness of his feeling flowing into her. Then, she realized she hadn't been breathing and pushed Soul back sharply so she could gasp for breath.

He looked stunned and his soul prickled. Had he done something wrong?

"Ah, sorry," Maka gasped out. Her face was flushed and she couldn't get in a deep enough breath to sustain her lungs. Soul made her feel all out of breath, like she had just run a mile, and she felt as if something inside her was suddenly too big for her body.

Was that her heart that was beating so fast or was it Soul's? Or was it a combination of both where their souls had joined?

"I was hiding too," he whispered and she felt his warm breath on her face. His crimson eyes glowed in the dark. "Pretending to be uninterested because I didn't think you felt the same." He found her hand and held it tightly. "I'm tired of pretending," he murmured. "I'm tired of being patient."

Maka stared desperately up into his face, into his earnest straight-forward gaze, and felt the tears burning in her throat and eyes. She didn't like lies and she didn't want to hear them. She hated lies! Yet… why did she want Soul to keep telling her beautiful lies like that? Why did she want to hear him say that he loved her over and over again? She sobbed, lifting one hand to her tear-streaked face.

"Why is that making you cry?" Soul asked.

She practically punched him in the face in her haste to push him away. "I'm not crying!" she shouted. "I'm just allergic!" To what, she wasn't sure.

"Huh?" Soul rubbed his brutalized face for the fourteenth time that day, glowering at his meister. He tells her that he loves her and she punches him? What was up with that? It didn't work that way in the movies. She was supposed to fall into his arms and all that good stuff.

"You're always like that!" Maka continued shouting through her tears. "You always say stuff like that with the exact same expression! I hate it when you do that!" She pulled away from him, hugging herself and drying her eyes. "It makes me feel like an idiot," she said and peeked at his expression through her hair.

He was just watching her, crimson eyes soft and honest, without saying anything.

"Ugh, will you stop staring at me?" Maka snapped.

"So if I don't look, it's alright, is it?" Soul asked. Then, without warning, he threw his arms around her and hugged her tightly.

"What do you think you're—?"

"It doesn't matter anymore, does it?" Soul whispered into her hair. His body was so warm against hers and his soul was coiled around both of them, binding them tightly. "Who cares if it's a lie or if it's the truth," he murmured. "I don't care."

Maka wrapped her arms around him, clutching him tightly, and sniffled back her tears. "Why is it that you can make it sound so easy?" she whispered.

He twisted a strand of her honey-colored hair around his long finger. "It's not that easy," he said softly. "It's just that you think too much."

"Shut up, idiot," Maka grumbled, but buried herself closer to Soul's body.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

Maka snuggled tighter into Soul's embrace and he coiled himself around her protectively. Maka realized that his soul hadn't been trying to devour her or possess her. It had only wanted to be close to her and now that they were together like this… She inhaled the scent of Soul's skin and closed her eyes. Everything was alright now.

These feelings, they can't be understood by logic or reason…

Maka realized that she had loved Soul from the first moment they met, too.

Maybe they were meant to be. (1)

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(1) All you Tsubasa or XXXHolic readers, "Everything is Hitsuzen."

Questions, comments, concerns?