Chapter 7

(Maka)

I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed. Ok, time to make breakfast. As I went to the kitchen, I noticed the bathroom door was closed. That was rare, Soul must be already up for once. Seems he grew up a bit and could now get up on his own. That's what I thought until the door opened.

"Morning Soul…. You look worse than Sid on one of his bad days. You didn't happen to…."

"Don't you goddamn say it Maka." he said.

He looked horrible. He had dark circles under his eyes, and he looked a little pale like someone drained a bit too much blood. He ran back to his room grabbed the book then flung it into my arms before fleeing back shortly after speaking to me. He didn't happen to stay up all night reading, did he? I thought back to the moment he shoved the book into my arms and giggled to myself. His face was bright red, He so stayed up. I better make him eggs and bacon for breakfast to help him recover. I need to reward him for at least trying to read something I liked. As soon as I finished cooking, I knocked on his door.

"Soul, breakfast is ready."

I heard some sluggish shuffling and the door opened revealing a completely messed up looking Soul. He glared at me as if saying it was all my fault. Looking at him I couldn't help but burst out laughing, which Soul only scolded. He huffingly sat down at the table and started digging into his breakfast.

"So, did you enjoy the story?" I asked teasingly.

"Damn it Maka, did you have to bring that up?! The story might have been good, but It was a goddamn torture! It was worse than Blair and your dad's dirty magazines put together! How did that Neon person even have the guts to write something like that?! Is Neon some old pervert that is sick in the head?!"

I blinked at his outburst.

"So, you liked the story?"

"…yes." He said in a small voice blushing.

"I'm glad you liked it, and you see now why I meant it was crazy. That's literally the only one of Neon's books like that. If there was romance it was only implied not described in the other books. By the way what did you mean by my dad's dirty magazines?"

He looked relieved at the change of subject.

"Your dad had some with when we worked together a few times. Seriously getting off of paper is so uncool."

"Your right, but I still consider that more tolerable than all his cheating."

"So, for you it's a matter of this isn't as bad as that, so I'll tolerate it?"

"Pretty much, but I still hate it."

"Why did you think they were dirty anyway, don't guys like them?"

"You're seriously going to ask that?"

"What, I'm curious."

"…."

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to."
"If I had to say to my preference, I'd have to say I don't. I'd rather deal with the real deal than some photo. I consider the idea of jerking off over some paper rather pointless. Doing that is kind of like putting yourself down before you even know or meet the person."

"What do you mean?"

"Well think about it. A guy who does that is basically saying he can hook up easy with the girl's photo, but the real thing he doesn't have a shot. Pointless right, and kind of stalkerish."

"When you put it that way your right. My dad's still the worst though."

"Maybe, there's a lot of weirder people out there. I just put up with it when we worked together."

"Next time don't, just threaten him using me if he's being a bother."

"I'll try, but I don't know how that will go over."

He got up and took his dishes over to the sink. When he reached for the sponge, I stopped him.

"Soul I'll do it. You were up all-night reading, right? You should go to bed. I'll wake you up at noon, ok?"

He looked at me a bit before heading back to his room.

"Thanks, Maka." He said walking by.

"No problem."

I washed the dishes then went over to the sofa and started rereading one of Neon's earlier books. Remembering about making lunch boxes for the road I place the book down. I need to consider what I should make for lunch and pack for tomorrow. I know I'll use one of those multi-tier lunch boxes. I know I'll call up Tsubaki since she and Black Star are coming. We can both do them. I know how to do a lot of western dishes, and I know she's best at traditional Japanese foods. We can eat them together on the train then. After getting ahold of her we decided to coordinate that way and I got started. Let's see some western dishes that taste good cold are quiche, tuna noodle salad, deviled eggs, and what else? Oh yeah there was that new recipe I wanted to try. First you take cucumber, tomato, and pineapple and blend them together. Then you mix in one to two 8oz cubes of cream cheese. Then you make dumpling dough, the kind that you deep-fry. Finally, you use the cream cheese mixture as a filing for the dumplings before you fry them. Refrigerate and done. Simple right, I hope Soul likes them. I should do the quiche next. What sort of filling should I make I already have eggs boiling for devil eggs, so I should decide what to put in it by the time their done? Hmmm? We're going to have BBQ at the beach, so I better make it a vegetable quiche with lemon. I remember Soul saying he like it the one time I did make it before. We never really got the time after that to make it again. I walked over to the fridge and saw I was missing a few ingredients. Ok, I'll run to the store after I take the eggs off the stove. The phone rang just as I took them off.

"Hey Maka, it's Tsubaki. You wouldn't mind sending Soul over to play video games with Black Star would you, He's been getting in the way of cooking a bit."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Soul's sleeping right now."

"You let him sleep in? That's unusual, is he sick?"

"No, he apparently was up all night reading the new Neon book I showed him. He couldn't put it down apparently, I can't really blame him though considering how that book is."

"The new Neon books? Isn't that the one people were saying was really controversial?"

"Yeah, that's the one. I got it when it came out."

"I wanted to read that one, but I never got around to buying it."

"I'll lend you mine if you'd like."

"Really thanks. Now I just need to find a way to distract Black Star for a few hours when he gets back from getting groceries for me."

"I need to run out to get groceries too, how about I swing the book by, and you make him read it. That should keep him distracted for a while at least."

"Maka, you know how Black Star is with books."

"I know, remember Soul is a little similar in that regard, and this one kept him up all night. It should work a little on someone as crazy as Black Star."

"Well, we'll give it a try. No guarantees though."

"I know."