Welcome to a college!AU that spawned from a "SoMa first kiss" prompt and turned into a monster. Also, go listen to the acoustic "Take On Me" cover by Where's Ollie? on YT or something. Enjoy!
AUGUST
They met during the first big freshman event of the year while his roommate hit on hers with the tireless stamina of a young god.
The pair stood awkwardly next to each other in the middle of a wandering swarm of students who kept trying to hand them Greek Rush Week flyers and glow sticks. She leaned toward him and said, "I think our roommates may be into each other. What do you think?"
He glanced at her, then back at his blue-haired suitemate, who was currently flexing impressively for a tall, laughing beauty with a kind smile.
"I think you're probably right," he said, giving the girl beside him a half-hearted grin of his own as he tugged his cap further down over his white hair.
"I'm Maka," she said, green eyes bright and friendly as she held out her hand. "I'm pretty sure I live two doors down from you in the Sampson dorms."
He accepted her hand. Her skin was warm, her grip firm.
"I'm Soul."
SEPTEMBER
Black Star made regular appearances at Maka's door. One time he showed up clad only in a towel.
"Tsubaki's not here," she said, face averted and hand blocking his lower half from her line of sight.
"Bummer." He twisted a pinky finger in his ear and glanced around the girls' common room. "What was your name again?"
She restrained herself from grumbling. Barely. "Still Maka. Same as the last three times you asked."
He snapped his fingers. "That's right, yeah. One of my roommates keeps calling you Maybe-Mara-Can't-Remember, that's why I never get it right. Anyway. Wanna play Mario Kart?"
"Play what now?" She raised her eyebrows at him, modesty forgotten.
"Mario Kart, lady-dude. Other-other roommate brought it from home. If you're game, you should come over. We need a fourth." With that, he stuck his finger in his ear again and wandered off down the way.
Maka almost shut the door and went back to her book, but competitiveness and the desire to make some new friends pushed her out into the late afternoon sun. The boys' room wasn't hard to find - the door was swung wide and curses spilled onto the open-air deck that stretched the length of the building. She leaned against the doorframe and watched Black Star, who had thankfully changed into shorts, and his two roommates turn the final curve of their last lap.
"How are you rigging this game?" the tow-headed boy named Soul yelled. "That's your third win in a row."
Black Star stood with his arms stretched out above him in victory and took a bow. "We're unfairly matched, mortals, so I wouldn't feel too bad."
"I'm pretty sure I used to be good at this," said the third boy, slumping his slender shoulders and glancing over through a fringe of black bangs. He saw Maka standing in the doorway and blinked at her. "Oh, we have a guest."
Soul's head whipped around and she saw the hint of a smile flit across his mouth. "Oh, hey. Didn't we meet at the...?"
"Big Night, yeah," she answered, then gestured at Black Star. "He invited me over. Something about needing a fourth?"
"Come on in," the shirtless kinesiology major said as he nudged Soul over with a foot. "You can take the couch. I can still kick ass from the floor."
She plopped down next to Soul, who was still pulling his beanie down over his hair. Their main room was clean enough, though it still had that unique hint of college boy to it - Old Spice and unwashed clothes. Three walls displayed posters, and if she had to guess, she'd pin the kung fu films to Black Star, the slick modern art to the black-haired pretty boy, and the bands to Soul. Just a hunch.
"Don't believe we've met," said the unnamed boy, holding out a hand. "You can call me Kid."
They shook and she asked, "Kid?"
He shrugged. "You'd go by a nickname too if your dad named you what mine did."
"Don't bother asking, he won't tell," Soul said as he queued up the next race, eyes on the television.
"Wasn't going to." She accepted the controller Kid handed over. "Am going to kick your asses, though."
Black Star cackled. "A challenger appears!"
She settled in and leaned forward, her leg resting against Soul's. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught him looking at her.
Neither of them moved away.
OCTOBER
"Wait up!"
Soul paused on the path and turned around, adjusting the messenger bag strap across his chest. Maka did an odd half-jog to catch up to him and he felt the corner of his mouth tick up. She puffed a little as she reached him and pointed at his shirt while she caught her breath.
"Who's that?"
He gaped at her. "Are you serious?"
"Yes?" she said, raising an eyebrow.
"You don't know who Kurt Cobain is? Member of the 27 Club?"
"Should I?"
He shook his head in disbelief. "Remind me to make you a playlist sometime, because you're clearly in desperate need of musical education. Did you need something?"
She laughed. "Oh, I just saw you walking this way and I have a class nearby. Figured we could walk together."
"Oh, yeah." He was smiling again and tugged on his hat. "I'm on my way to Jazz Theory. Where are you headed?"
"Biology 101." She fell into step beside him, keeping up with his long strides easily enough. "Why do you always do that?"
He looked over at her as they passed beneath a maple tree. The leaves were going yellow and red. "Do what?" he asked.
"Yank your hat down over your hair." Her breath made a tiny cloud between them in the crisp morning air.
"Because people stare." He kicked a rock and watched it clatter over the path ahead. "They always have."
"Well that's because people tend to suck as a general rule. I wouldn't let it get to you. I bet you have nice hair."
"Do you now?" he laughed.
"I've only seen this bit -" She reached up and tugged on the pale tufts sticking out at the nape of his neck. "- but it's a nice bit."
He rubbed the place where his scalp still tingled and they walked in silence for a while until they reached the sciences building and she peeled off. As he watched her go, he noted that the sway of her twin braids matched the sway of her hips.
"Hey," he called, surprised at his own boldness even as she turned to look back at him. "I'm off at eleven. You want to meet at the caf for lunch?"
"Sure," she said. "I'll see you there."
NOVEMBER
Campus was practically deserted over Thanksgiving break, which was just as well, because it meant there weren't any RAs to come pester them about staying too late in each others' dorm rooms. Most didn't care, but one pompous asshat named Ox was a serious stickler for the technical "no members of the opposite sex in single-sex rooms after 10PM" rule. Maka suspected his particular streak of nasty had something to do with the epic crush he was harboring on the other RA, Kim, and she voiced as much.
"Why doesn't he just ask her out already?" Soul slouched in the monstrously uncomfortable campus-provided chair in Maka's common room and sipped on microwave-heated instant hot chocolate.
"Might have something to do with the fact that she has a girlfriend," Maka laughed as she sifted through her cards.
He tilted his head. "Ah. Yeah, I guess that would be an issue. Come on, sloth-ass, make your play."
Maka stuck her tongue out at him. "Cards Against Humanity just isn't the same when you only have two players. I'm trying to make them worth your while."
"Could be worse, I guess." He snatched up the remote control and turned up the random 80's flick they had on for background noise. "I could be eating dry turkey and listening to my mom go on and on about my brother's holiday concert schedule." He pitched his voice higher and batted his eyelashes. "Oh Wes, honey, make sure you cut 'Here We Come A-Wassailing,' it's so overdone this year."
Maka picked out a card, then changed her mind and put it back. "At least your parents are still married. I'd probably have to deal with the Lay Of The Season back at my dad's place. They always hug me and then I smell like pop star perfume and sadness. It's terrible."
"I'll take stale cheese fries with you any day," he said, taking one from the styrofoam container on the table between them. He held it out and waited for her to take one and toast him with it.
She wrinkled her nose as she chewed. "These are gross when they're cold."
"They're gross when they're fresh. PLAY YOUR FUCKING CARDS."
"All right, don't get your boxers in a twist." She smirked and put down two cards. "You asked for it."
He leaned over and looked at the cards. "Due to recent scientific breakthrough, scientists have deduced that 'the clitoris' is not actually 'a Bop It.'" There was a long pause and then he looked up at her with his eyebrows knit together. "So you don't twist it and pull it?"
She laughed and threw a French fry at him. He threw it back with a grin.
Behind them, John Cusack said something about how he gave a girl his heart and she gave him a pen.
DECEMBER
It was two in the morning and they'd somehow managed to avoid Ox's wrath. Maybe he was letting up for the holidays. They sat on the long twin bed in the single room attached to the common room Soul shared with Kid and Black Star, who slept soundly in the double next door. Maka picked at Soul's old guitar and tried to learn a chord or two.
He hid a yawn behind his hand before moving her fingers along the frets.
"No, that's G. This is A."
"I don't know the difference," she said, exasperated. She shoved the instrument at him. "Just play me something so my fingers don't hurt anymore."
He chuckled tiredly. "These are nylon strings. You want hurty fingers, try metal strings."
She put her elbow on her knee and propped her chin on her hand. With a sigh, he turned the guitar around and stuck his pick between his teeth so he could fingerpick the strings and started with the opening notes of "Tears In Heaven."
"You're a showoff and you suck," she said. Then she sat up straight and stretched her arms above her head. "I'd better get back to my room."
Soul scratched underneath his beanie. "You could just stay here."
"I only live two doors down, it's not like it's a long walk," she said. "And you only have this one tiny-ass bed. I'm not sleeping on the couch. Kid wakes up at 6AM."
He gestured at the beat-up old Goodwill recliner squished into the corner of his room. "I'll sleep in my chair. It's comfortable."
Maka looked longingly at his pillow, then back at him. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, go for it." He got up and leaned his guitar against his dresser, then pulled off his knit hat. He fluffed his matted down hair and she smiled up at him.
"The mythical hair makes a rare appearance," she said as she crawled under his covers. "It's cute."
"Whatever," he said, but he gave her a smirk before going off to the shared bathroom to brush his teeth. By the time he got back, she was fast asleep.
He turned off his red and black lamp and flumped into his chair, popping the footrest and leaning back. Through half-lidded eyes, he looked at her in his bed, a strip of winter moonlight casting her face in silver and marble. Her lips were just barely parted, her face smooth and free of the wrinkle that appeared between her brows when she thought too much, which was always.
As he drifted off, he felt an overwhelming desire to crawl in beside her, to kiss her and hold her and move with her in the dark. It pulsed beneath his skin like a fever. His lips tingled with want and he bit down.
"Shit," he whispered to the space between them.
He'd known this was coming, but that didn't make it any easier. They were friends. He didn't have a lot of friends.
So he wasn't going to fuck it up.
JANUARY
Winter break absolutely sucked. He'd only been home for two weeks and he already desperately wanted to return to campus with its bad coffee and boring theory classes and overloud, overanxious roommates. And its Makas. He could do with at least three of those.
Practically on cue, a GChat notification dinged behind his music and he rose out of his stupor to switch to his email tab. A bubble of totally cheesy, totally welcome happiness bloomed in his chest when he saw that "Maka Albarn" was telling him she was, quote, "BOOOOOOOORED."
"I know how that goes," he typed.
"Do a Hangout with me?" she typed back. "Skype's not working. Again."
Even though he knew his parents were out at a function, he still peered around at the vast, immaculate, empty Tuscan-style kitchen to make sure no one was around before he accepted her invite. In seconds, her face filled his laptop screen and he couldn't help but grin at her like a dumbass as he plugged in his earbuds.
"Hey," he said. "Miss me?"
"Only constantly," she responded. "You're not wearing a hat!"
He reached up automatically to flatten the messy cowlick that always stuck up on the side. "Oh, yeah. My dad won't let me wear them in the house. Rude or something." He made a jerk-off motion with his hand.
"At least your parents aren't having 4AM sex with randos right next to your room," she said, shooting a look sharp enough to kill a rhino at something off-screen. Soul heard a distant gasp and several stammered apologies while Maka rolled her eyes and used her left hand as a blinder.
He winced audibly. "You win, hands down."
After Maka held up a finger and went to slam her bedroom door, they talked about what they'd received for the holidays, which friends and family members they'd been forced to interact with, what they did with their days... everything. Soul was laughing at her impression of her Great Uncle Reaper when a hand clapped down on his shoulder and startled him half to death.
"Little brother, that looks like a girl," Wes said as he dipped down to get a better look at Maka. He waved. "Hello, girl-in-the-box."
"Fuck, I didn't hear you come in," Soul said, trying to calm his pounding heart.
"Language, darling," Wes intoned in a perfect impression of their mother. "Mom and Dad were about fifteen minutes behind me, fair warning."
"Are you Wes?" Maka said in Soul's ears. She realized the older Evans couldn't hear her and repeated, "Is that Wes? Let me say hi!"
With a scowl, he unplugged his headphones so her voice filled the room and prayed Wes would be cool.
"Hi, Wes!" Maka waved.
"Bless her, Box Girl knows my name. Hello! And you are?"
She laughed. "I'm Maka. I live down the hall from Soul at school. He talks about you all the time, by the way."
"Does he, now?" Wes shot Soul a grin, which he didn't return. Instead, he crossed his arms and looked away.
"Yep," Maka said. "How was your holiday tour?"
"Exhausting and exhilarating, so wonderful of you to ask. You're sweet. She's sweet, Soul."
Soul shrugged. "You haven't seen her in the morning before she's had breakfast."
His older brother's eyebrows rose high on his forehead. "And you have? Are you two...?"
Then Soul's hand was on the side of Wes' face, shoving him out of frame. "Bye, bro. I'm sure you're tired from the schmoozing." He turned back to the screen and gave Maka what he hoped was a suitably apologetic smile. "Sorry, I have to go. My parents will be home soon."
"Oh, okay," she said with a sigh. "Call me later this week?"
"Will do."
"I'll talk to you in a while, then. Bye, Wes!"
"Very nice to meet you," Wes called back from where he leaned against the counter with a glass of red wine from their always-available stock.
Soul signed off and closed his laptop screen before turning on the barstool to glare at his brother. Wes took a sip of wine and tilted his head with a smirk that wasn't all that unlike Soul's.
"She's cute. How long have you wanted to have her babies?"
"It's not like that," Soul said.
Wes pointed at him with a pinky while managing to hold on to the stem of his glass. "You're full of copious amounts of shit, kid. I haven't seen you laughing like that in years."
"Language, darling," Soul mocked. "I'm gonna go shower."
As he slid off the stool and walked away, Wes yelled "Do we need to have The Talk again?" after him and Soul gave him the finger. "Articulate as ever, I see."
Soul squirreled himself away in the bedroom he'd grown up in, which felt far too big after a semester of dorm living. He dropped his laptop on the bed and shucked off his clothes as he walked to his en suite, leaving them strewn all over the floor. It didn't have quite the same taste of freedom to it as it did at school - his mom would nag him to pick them up before the housekeeper came on Wednesday, right after his dad nagged him about squeezing in extra lessons with his old piano instructor. Wouldn't they both be pissed when they found out his emphasis was Jazz, not Classical.
He cranked the hot water high and let steam fill the room, fogging away his reflection in the mirror. The humidity brought out the smell of those weird guest soaps his mom always used in the bathrooms and he remembered being young and angry that he got ousted every year when important relatives needed a nicer room to stay in. The guest rooms were hardly squalor, but Wes never had to give up his room. He was almost ten years older, but still.
The water pressure here was better than at school, at least, and Soul sighed as it pulsed into his back. He didn't want to think about family or childhood or being home, so he thought of Maka. Two and half more weeks until he got to see her again. It felt like a lifetime, so he filled the tiny space with her laugh and her eyes and her smile. Before he knew it, his mind wandered places he hadn't exactly told it to go, but he wasn't exactly opposed, either.
He made it about halfway through his shower before the fantasy won out over his lapsed Protestant upbringing and he slid a hand down between his legs to do something about it.
Not like he was going to do anything else about it, after all.
FEBRUARY
The little bookstore smelled like sandalwood and was packed to the highest shelves with poets in thrift store sweaters and overlarge glasses. Maka ran her fingers along the spines of the books on the used shelf, wishing she had more splurge money to blow on the copy of Stranger in a Strange Land with the classic 1970's cover. Nearby, Black Star continued to openly flirt with Tsubaki, who he was now dating, and Kid sat on one of the only available chairs and studied his psych class notes so intently that Maka was a teensy bit worried he'd hurt himself. She considered herself a hardcore studier and she still had nothing on him.
Someone stepped up to the mic on the tiny corner stage and tapped it, testing.
"Hey everyone, welcome to Open Mic Night," said the skinny kid with the choppy pinkish hair. "I'm beyond nervous up here... don't do well with crowds... so how about we just have our first performer come on up. Is there a S-Soul in the house?"
Maka perked up and went to join the others. They all whooped while Soul stepped up with his guitar and sat on the provided stool. He scanned the crowd and found her, his mouth quirking in a nervous grin while he made sure everything was in tune.
He leaned into the mic after a minute and said, "I, uh, haven't done this in a long time. Well, I've never done this, exactly, but it's been a while since I've been on a stage. I'm imagining all of you naked, just so you know."
A smattering of laughter rippled through the crowd. Maka hid her grin behind her hand and felt her cheeks warm. Soul gave her the ghost of a wink.
"I'm just gonna start," he said. His fingers went to the strings and he started strumming out a melody. Then he started singing, sweet and soft. It took a minute, but eventually the people in the crowd began to laugh appreciatively as they recognized the song - "Take On Me" by A-Ha, rendered in acoustic.
Maka's cheeks warmed even more, mostly because she'd actually recognized the song immediately. The original was one of the few songs she knew by heart and loved unabashedly. Soul gave her crap about it all the time.
"You're all the things I've got to remember," Soul sang, glancing up and meeting her eyes for the shortest second before looking back at his guitar. "You're shying away, I'll be coming for you anyway."
There, next to her friends and surrounded by books and coffee and music, she tried to catch her breath.
"Shit," she whispered.
MARCH
"You can't come over here to force me to study and then yank my head around like that," Soul grumbled.
"Shut up, you like it," she said around the rubber bands hanging out of her mouth.
He did like it, but he didn't want to admit it. Over the past month, she'd finally convinced him to ditch the hat sometimes and actually venture out in public with his hair visible. People did stare, but it passed quickly. Most of them knew him now, so he wasn't just the weird kid with the pigmentation issue. Of course, the real bonus was the fact that when his hair was fluffy and washed and uncovered, Maka would play with it, and that was nice.
This time, she sat above him on the bed and ran her fingers through his shag, separating it into sections she could braid. It was stupid and he'd take them out immediately, but for now she was touching him, and the feel of her nails against his scalp was soothing. Didn't hurt that her calves were draped over his shoulders.
It did make focusing on his statistics workbook difficult, though. Mainly because his mutinous brain kept imagining him rotated 180 degrees. Book on lap. Book. On. Lap.
"You thought any more about where you're going to live next year?" he asked.
It was still pretty early, but the RAs were already reminding them they should consider putting in for their preferred on-campus (or off-campus, if they wanted) housing as soon as possible. Some of the newer dorms even had kitchens.
He heard her swallow behind him. "Not sure," she said. "Have to talk to Tsu."
"Right, yeah," he said. "We have time."
There was a long pause before she answered. "True. Lots of time."
Birds chirped outside his window and with a sudden jolt, he realized he'd said "we."
APRIL
Maka and Tsubaki whirled on the dance floor, laughing under the spinning lights along with several other girls Soul didn't know very well. He leaned against the table they'd staked out near the bar. Black Star was the only one who'd bothered with a fake ID. The rest of them were there for the 18+ dance night.
Well. Maka was there for the 18+ dance night, and Soul was there for Maka. Every time a random guy came up behind her and started making grinding motions, she'd scowl over her shoulder and the girls would do this intricate huddle and move away in unison. It made him chuckle.
Kid dug anti-bacterial wipes out of his pocket and started washing down the table, wrinkling his nose as he did.
"This place is disgusting," he yelled over the music.
"Not gonna argue," Soul said.
Finally satisfied enough to lean gingerly on the table's surface, Kid huffed. "Why are we here, again?"
Black Star grabbed their roommate around the neck and whooped, clinking his glass in front of Kid's face. "Because they make a mean cocktail, bro."
"It's neon blue," Kid said. "What the hell is in that?"
"Dunno, but it's awesome." The jock threw up the horns and waggled his blue stained tongue before bouncing over to the dance floor to take his girlfriend for a spin. Tsubaki managed to get his glass away from him and safely placed on a nearby table before he whirled her around and dipped her.
Soul tried to hold a conversation with Kid, but it wasn't going very well. They couldn't hear each other. Then two little arms wrapped around his waist from behind and he stiffened.
"Come dance," Maka laughed in his ear. He heard that just fine.
When he turned to look at her, she was flushed and giggling.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm great," she yelled. "Black Star gave me some of his blue thing. It tastes like a Jolly Rancher."
"Ah," Soul said.
She took his hand and pulled. "Dance with me."
He very nearly went. The sequins on her halter top winked at him, and her hair curled at her shoulders. Tsubaki or someone must've let her borrow some lip stuff, because her mouth was slick and shiny, and suddenly the bar was way too hot.
"I'm gonna get some air, I think," he said.
He took his hand back and thought he caught something in her face before he moved away. Disappointment, maybe. Confusion.
"You could come, too?" he offered, half-hoping.
She shook her head. "No. I'm going to go back out."
As Soul watched her turn on her heel and return to the floor, something in his chest deflated like it'd been punctured. It was a terrible feeling. He didn't like it at all, but he didn't know what to do about it. So he went outside.
The early spring air smelled like rain and felt cool on his skin. A few minutes later, someone punched his arm and he looked around.
"You gotta do something, bro," Black Star said, swaying where he stood. "Soon. Whatever you got, it ain't gonna last the summer unless you make it solid."
Soul turned away. "I think you've had enough."
"Yeah," Black Star said. "Probably."
MAY
After her last final, Maka started packing up her room. Little things, like decorations and books she didn't need anymore. The weirdest feeling kept washing over her, like this was the end of something. She'd never live in this tiny room again. Tsubaki would be her roommate next year, but they'd never make up new stories about the patched-over hole in the wall of their common room, or sit on that particular threadbare couch.
The boys would never be next door again.
Her chest had been tight all day long, full of something that felt nauseatingly close to sorrow. It was completely ridiculous. They'd be back next year, up to the same shenanigans, going to the same classes.
So why did it feel like everything teetered on the edge of an abyss?
More than anything else, she dreaded the thought of going three whole months without Soul. They could talk and text, but it wasn't the same at all. Winter break had been awful, and now she had to deal with three times that?
She slammed her copy of Beowulf down harder than she meant to.
Screw this. She'd pack later. She was going to spend every last waking second with her friends before she was shuffled off back to her dad's place.
The deck was awash with sunlight, and she stopped to chat with the girls in the room between her dorm and Soul's. Then Kim caught her, then a history major she'd met at a party. At last, she made it to the boys' suite and made a beeline for Soul's room.
Except he wasn't there.
She walked down the hall past the shared common room to Black Star and Kid's room. Unsurprisingly, Kid was already completely packed except for the bare necessities, and he lounged on his bed with his earbuds in, speaking Japanese under his breath while he studied his textbook. Black Star's side of the room remained a natural disaster, and he seemed perfectly content doing crunches in the middle of it.
"Hey guys," she said. "You both coming out to the group dinner tonight?"
Kid gave her a thumbs up without looking away from his book and Black Star sat up and looked at her. He'd barely broken a sweat, which meant he'd probably only done a few hundred crunches instead of a few thousand.
"You know we are," Star said, cocking an eyebrow at her.
"Right, yeah, well. I just wanted to check." She leaned against the doorframe and bit her cheek before adding, "Any idea when Soul will be back?"
Black Star rolled his eyes. "Shoulda fucking known."
His response threw her and she stammered for a few seconds before getting out, "Known what?"
"You're always looking for Soul, Soul's always looking for you. Would you two just bang it out already? You've only got, like, forty-eight hours."
Maka's brain made a dull buzzing noise. "Excuse me?"
Black Star rolled back and pushed himself off the floor, bouncing and swinging his arms. "Look, Maka, I like you. You're cool, most of the time, and your my babe's bestie, so I'm going to give it to you straight. Either let Soul into the promised land or cut him loose. You can't keep stringing him out. It's not good for a dude in his prime to be hung up."
Kid flicked his eyes up to regard them both before staring intently at the next page of his book.
She clenched her fists to hide their shaking. "I'm not stringing him out. We're friends. We're all friends."
"Oh no," Star wagged a finger at her. "You're not friends with him like you're friends with us. Don't even play."
"I don't know what you-"
Star released a frustrated groan and waved his hands on either side of his head in a how are you not getting this gesture. "The dude wants to do the freaking Roaring Dragon with you, lady. And I think you want him to."
She snorted. "The fuck is that?"
Kid loosed an exasperated sigh and yanked his earbuds out. "A sex position, as far as I've been able to tell. He hasn't shut up about it."
Her laugh was high and tinny in her ears. "Hasn't shut up about the position, or about me doing it with Soul?"
"Either, honestly," Kid said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Black Star was on a roll now. "He wants to boink you so bad that I wouldn't be surprised if his entire lower half is blue. For the love of all that is good in the world, put him out of his misery. One way or another."
"This is ridiculous," she snapped. "Kid, tell him he's being ridiculous."
Kid huffed and tossed his book away, glaring at her. "He's being crass about it, but he's not wrong about Soul having feelings for you."
A stone dropped in her stomach. "What?"
"He hasn't said as much, but it's pretty obvious. I've never had a crush on anyone in my life and I can still tell you've both got it bad for each other. So please, go let him know. I have a final in an hour."
She had no idea what to say. All she knew was that A-Ha kept playing on repeat in her head.
Not too much later, Soul opened the door to his room and was in the process of dropping his bag onto the floor when he was abruptly shoved into the nearest wall.
"What the-" he said, flailing to regain his balance. "Maka?"
She stomped over and kicked his door closed with enough force to reverberate through the entire room. Then she whirled on him, and she looked pissed.
"Something wrong?" he asked, holding out a hand. He didn't know what it was for. To placate her, maybe, or hold her off if she rushed him again.
Her fists clenched against her thighs as she paced back and forth, jaw set and eyes full of emerald fire.
Soul was at a loss. "Did you fail a final or something? Seriously, what the fuck?"
"Two days," she yelled, spinning to face him. Her hair stood out around her face like it feared touching her as much as he did in that moment.
"I'm not in your brain. I don't know what that means," he said, trying to keep his voice calm while simultaneously flipping through his internal database and trying to figure out what the fuck he'd done wrong.
"Two days, Soul." Her expression suddenly softened, her eyes turning from fire to glass. "I'm moving back home in two days."
"I know?" he said, even as his heart constricted at the thought.
She laughed and it sounded like cracking ice. "When were you going to tell me you had a crush on me? The very last minute, with my dad glaring over my shoulder?"
Just like that, the ground tilted at an impossible angle and he leaned back into the wall. Fuck. Fuck. How long had she known?
"Please say something," she said.
He licked his lip and forced his voice through his too-tight throat. "I played you a song."
Her breath shuddered in her chest. "Yeah," she said, voice quiet. "I was there."
"That was me trying to tell you," he explained. "I thought it would be safe, you know? You'd either understand what I was saying, or you wouldn't, and either way would be fine."
She gave a confused shake of her head.
He tried again. "You're my best friend, Maka. I didn't want to lose you. And if you don't feel that way, then we can just, you know. Still do this."
A laugh escaped her and she put her fingers to her lips. "It won't be the same. "
"Don't say that," he said. His heart beat way too quickly behind his breastbone.
Maka took a deep gulping breath. "It won't be the same because we won't be the same. Not after this."
She stepped closer, tilting her head up to look at him. Adrenaline rushed through his veins, making his hands shake. He didn't know what was happening, what was going to happen. It terrified him.
Her eyes searched his and he couldn't look away. They stood toe to toe and she smiled, tight and scared.
"Kiss me, you dummy," she said.
Everything stopped. His next blink took a thousand years, a thousand heartbeats.
Then his hands were on either side of her face and he kissed her. Kissed her like an inexperienced nerd, kissed her like a dream, kissed her like he was crazy about her. Her hands reached for his waist and pulled him close. He stumbled into her and righted himself, parting his lips and going gentle and insistent and soft and needy. Beat for beat, she met him.
When they parted, they were panting like they'd run a mile, their foreheads still pressed together.
"I liked my song," she whispered.
"Good," he laughed.
"Promise you'll play it for me again when you visit this summer."
"You got it."
They were smiles and skin, laughter and love, and kisses, kisses, kisses.
Later, as they walked hand in hand in front of Black Star and Tsubaki on the way to dinner, the blue-haired athlete leaned toward his girlfriend.
"I think our roommates may be into each other," he said with a smirk. "What do you think?"
"I think you're probably right," she answered.