Tears

Maka found herself hiding her tears more and more often. After Soul's disappearance during a mission a month ago, she wasn't the same anymore.

At first, she had told herself time after time that he would be coming home soon, but her spirits died down eventually. Now, she wasn't even sure if he was still alive or not.

Maka was brave though. Everyone started looking up to her for guidance after the Kishin's defeat and she couldn't let all of them down. If everyone knew that she wasn't as fearless as they had thought, then they would be disappointed and it would stab her in the heart.

Which is why Maka locked herself in her room to cry. The other reason was because she didn't want to worry her close friends with her problems. Sure, they could help her, but that would be troubling them and Maka needed to get through this herself.

When it first started happening, Blair often knocked on her door and voiced her worries. But it was always the same; Maka would only answer with a choked up sob and the cat would sigh. And then she would go out. Blair was starting to go to the Chupacabra more and more often because of this.

Maka missed Soul so much. The void in her heart that once held her partner could not be refilled and it left her with an empty feeling. She squeezed her pillow tightly and let more tears escape. Was he ever going to come home?

"Soul, don't you want to be a Death Scythe…?" Maka sobbed at the thought. If he didn't come back, he'd never accomplish his dream of being Shinigami-sama's weapon.

Maka needed something. Someone to take his place in her heart so she wouldn't be all alone. She could taste her salty tears as they continued to fall. Nobody could replace Soul. But… She couldn't lament forever; Soul wouldn't want that.

Maka reached over to her desk where she kept a recent photograph of all of her close friends. She scanned through them with slightly blurred vision. The only two people in the photograph that she could attempt anything with was…

Black*Star and Death the Kid. Black*Star was similar to Soul in almost every way possible, except for the fact that he was overly obnoxious and had an ego bigger than the entirety of Death City, if that were possible. But those two traits in themselves were enough to make Maka's choice for her.

And then there was Death the Kid. Maka's fingers traced over his face in the picture. He was a complete gentleman and the opposite of Soul. Kid was cute and rich, too. Not to mention a shinigami. Almost everything about him was appealing, except for the one fault that drove away every girl that attempted to go out with him. His obsession with symmetry.

It didn't bother Maka too much, partly for the fact that he had never freaked out about her own appearance. The good things about Kid outweighed the bad by a lot. Maybe he was worth a shot. Unless Maka was seeing things, she was almost positive that Kid was interested in her in that way.

Maka sniffled, but couldn't help but smile slightly at the memory. Although she hadn't been paying much attention at the time, in hindsight it seemed pretty obvious.

A couple of days ago, Maka was rushing to her apartment, already feeling the tears welling up in her eyes. At the DWMA they had introduced her to new weapons that could be her replacement partner and she didn't take it too well.

Apparently Kid had followed her. He ended up matching her pace and, upon noticing the pink and puffy eyes, inquired, "Maka, are you okay?"

She hadn't even noticed he was there. Even though he had already seen it, Maka attempted to hide her face by turning away.

"I'm fine." Her voice came out hoarsely, and Maka felt as if a stranger had stolen her voice away.

"You don't look fine. Did something happen in the Death Room?" He sounded concerned. Maka sniffed, and coughed inaudibly so her voice wouldn't come out so terribly.

"I don't want to talk about it." It seemed he was going to follow her all the way to her apartment. Which was only a few more paces.

"Alright…I copied down the notes for you, so…here. Talk to me more often, okay?" Maka glanced towards Kid and he had a slight blush.

"Yeah…Talk to you later," She half-heartedly waved before entering into her apartment. Once Maka was inside, Kid clutched his still fast beating heart. After Maka cried her heart out that day, and finally got the courage to look over the notes did she see that Kid had slipped in a phone number. Obviously, it was a completely symmetrical number with eights.

Maka looked over at those notes and pulled out the cell phone number. She sniffled once more and checked to make sure her voice didn't sound like she was crying. Maka then pulled out her phone and dialed.

Kid answered almost a little too quickly, "Hello?"

"Hey, Kid. It's Maka." She cheered for herself when she sounded normal.

"Oh, so what's the call about?" Maka could practically hear his blush. It was cute, but it wasn't really a romantic feeling.

"I just wanted to…um…talk. Are you busy?" Maka twiddled her thumbs nervously. Kid was always busy.

"No, I'm not. What do you want to talk about?" Kid pushed his books aside and listened to Maka completely. He knew something had been bothering her lately, (well, he knew it was about Soul Eater Evans already) and was waiting for her to talk to him about it.

"Do you have a girlfriend, Kid?" Maka questioned randomly. She could hear the innocent curiosity in her voice and guessed that he would assume it was simply a conversation starter rather than something suggestive.

"N-No. I've had my eye on someone for a while, though." Kid was listening intently at this point. What was her response going to be?

"I see…Kid, do you maybe want to go out sometime?" There was a hopeful edge in her tone that was impossible to miss. Kid almost nodded, but caught himself.

"Yes, that would be nice."

They hit it off after that and eventually got married. Kid was in love, but Maka… She was basking in his affection. She was still in love with her missing partner, Soul. Maka was painfully reminded of this fact every time she went to sleep with silent tears.

Kid couldn't replace Soul.