"I don't see why we can't use the motorcycle," I complained again as we made our way through the streets of Death City, each step we took leading us farther and farther into what I like to call the "boonies". The buildings became more spread out and trees took their places.

"Because, in case you haven't noticed, the engine makes a loud noise and that would be counterproductive considering this is a sneak out mission," Soul said matter-of-factly. I rolled my eyes.

"At least I wore flats instead of heels." I looked down at the ground. "Are we almost there?"

"Almost?" Soul snorted. "We're here."

Shocked, I pulled my head back up. My brow furrowed when I saw nothing in front of me but a sign that said the address AJ had told me earlier. I pulled the scrap of paper out of my pocket just to check - but nevertheless it was still the same.

"That can't be right," I murmured. Soul took a step towards the sign, gently placing his hand on top of it. As soon as his fingers came in contact with the wood, the ground beneath us began to tremor. "What did you do?" I cried, panicked.

Soul quickly snapped his hand back. "Nothing, I just touched it!"

All at once, the ground under our feet seemed to collapse and disappear, and we found ourselves falling. Moments later we came to a sudden stop and I felt a soft, cushiony surface beneath me.

"Who needs a front door?" I quipped, face down in the cottony landing.

"Get up, Red," Soul whispered urgently, tugging on my arm. "We've got to get going before someone finds us here."

Remembering our mission, I nodded and hopped up. "Where to now?" I asked myself, gazing around. There was surrounding darkness in all directions and the only things I could see clearly were Soul who was standing right in front of me, and the mattress on the ground we had landed on. I looked up to where we had fallen from and realized to my dismay that it was thick darkness in that direction as well. "Do all Phantoms live like this?" I inquired quietly, rubbing my temples. There came the sound of faint footsteps somewhere to our right, and Soul stiffened.

"I don't know but we don't have time to find out," he hissed, and suddenly my hand was in his and he was running blindly into the dark, yanking me along behind him.

"Where are we going?" I demanded. Giving me a steely glare out of the corner of his crimson eyes, Soul shushed me. I was about to say something in protest when he came to a sudden stop.

"There's a wall here," he whispered, reaching his hand out in front of him. "I wonder how long it goes on for." He began feeling his way down the wall to the left, then his hand swiped across something. "What's this?" He grasped it and it turned out to be a doorknob. He turned and looked towards me. "Well, what do you think? Should we risk it?"

The footsteps were still echoing behind us, and I stole a glance over my shoulder into the darkness. I looked back to Soul and our eyes met, and he nodded, understanding the exchanged glances. In one swift movement he flung the door open and we both tumbled inside.

I had to shield my eyes from the sudden blinding light that met us on the other side of the door. I heard a gasp and then child-sized arms went around me. "AJ?" I asked, pulling my hands away from my eyes. The green-haired boy looked absolutely overjoyed to see me. Soul on the other hand, didn't look quite as enthusiastic.

"Are you guys gonna take me to the party with you now?" AJ asked, wide-eyed. I laughed and patted him on top of his green head.

"Of course we are. Are you ready to go?"

He looked down, blushing. "I didn't really know what to wear."

I laughed, and glanced around. It looked like a normal, everyday bedroom - perhaps too normal. White walls, white sheets, white dresser. I moved towards the dresser and looked back at AJ, who nodded to me in approval. Upon opening one of his drawers I came to the conclusion that the boy had very few clothes. After doing some rummaging I pulled out a crisp, white button-down shirt. "How about this?" I asked, and he nodded wordlessly in reply. I tossed it towards him, and turned back to the drawers. I pulled out a pair of dark denim jeans and tossed those over my shoulder to him, as well as some socks. "Do you have a tie?" I asked, turning back towards him to see that he was now dressed and attempting to button his shirt correctly. I laughed and went over to help him.

"Yeah, but it's in my daddy's room," AJ replied somberly.

"Well you'll just have to go without, then." I stepped back and looked him up and down. "But you look adorable anyway." I ruffled his hair and he blushed again. Soul rolled his eyes.

"Will your pops know you left?" Soul asked, stepping towards us with his hands stuffed in his pockets. AJ shook his head.

"He's not even here right now. He went on a vacation with Leena. So the housekeeper is supposed to keep an eye on me, but he goes out to drink every night."

"That must have been who we heard," I murmured to Soul, who nodded.

"Anyway," AJ added, "The housekeeper leaves every night at six and doesn't come back until past midnight, so we should be good considering it's 5:55."

I opened my mouth to say something but Soul cut me off. "How'd you know that?" Soul asked suddenly, almost accusing.

"Know what?"

"The time." He grabbed both AJ's wrists and quickly drew back his sleeves. "You don't have a watch..."

AJ shrugged. "I just knew."

Momentarily, I caught the alarmed expression on Soul's face, before he stepped away from AJ and regained his composure. "We should get going then."

I turned to AJ, who was pulling on his sneakers. "Is there another way out of here, besides the way we came in?"

AJ nodded. "There's a rope latter in the closet." He appeared to be having trouble tying his laces, so I knelt down to help him.

"Soul, open the closet door," I called over my shoulder. A moment later I heard the shuffling of feet and the slide of a closet door. For some reason, now of all times my brain was having trouble puzzling together how to tie shoelaces. "Bunny ears," I told myself sternly, "Now wrap it around..."

Within seconds Soul appeared next to me. "It's not that hard to tie a damn kid's shoes," he grunted in annoyance. "I swear, you're worse than asparagus-head over here." He placed his hands on top of mine and walked me through the procedure, but my heart was pounding so loud in my ears I barely heard a thing he was saying. Meanwhile, AJ looked pretty appalled at being referred to as "asparagus-head."

"Now, let's blow this popsicle stand." Soul stood up swiftly and turned towards the ladder in the closet. "Come on, you big babies." AJ and I followed suit, although I have to admit AJ didn't look too thrilled about following a guy who had just called him an asparagus-head and a big baby within the same few minutes. I was used to it however, and slid the closet door shut behind us.

The closet was dark, and I felt Soul grasp my arm. "Ladies' first," he murmured, and I could practically hear the wry smile in his voice.

"But Soul -" I started to protest, "I don't even know what's up there."

"That's okay, I'll go first," AJ chirped. "I use this ladder to sneak out anyway."

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I watched AJ grab ahold of the ladder and hoist himself up. Once he was up a few rungs I felt Soul's hand on my back, gently pushing me forward. I whirled around to face him and found he was closer than I'd expected. Ignoring the fact that he was smirking at our closeness, I went on, "You know, I find your whole 'ladies first' thing incredibly rude and sexist."

"Why's that?"

"Well, it's implying that women get special treatment just because...because..."

"Because why, Red?"

I scrambled for an answer. "- Because they have boobs!"

Soul burst out laughing, and I was thankful for the darkness because I felt my face blushing to match the color of my hair.

"I'm serious!" I cried, embarrassed. "It's not fair to treat women differently just because of their 'hot bods'. I'll have you know that in the old days -"

"I was doing it to be chivalrous," Soul said matter-of-factly, stepping towards the ladder. "But if you'd rather me go first and leave you down here by yourself in the darkness, that's alright with me."

To be honest, I was a teeensy bit afraid of the dark. "On second thought, I think I'll take you up on that offer," I said as I slid past him and clutched the rope ladder in my hands. I heard him laughing but I ignored it and began climbing.

"I didn't think the word 'chivalry' was even in your vocabulary," I called down to Soul. I couldn't see his reaction but I could tell it was sarcastic.

When I had been climbing for about two minutes the ladder came to a stop, and there was a dark-colored sheet above my head. "What the..." I murmured, moving the sheet aside. Bright evening sunlight shone through, almost blinding me. I shielded my eyes and crawled out onto the fresh crisp grass. AJ was standing to my right, smiling nervously.

"You guys act like you've never snuck out before," he joked quietly. I laughed.

"Oh trust me, I have."

Following close behind, Soul pulled himself out of the hole and onto the ground. "You're a damn fast climber, Red," he said, close to breathless. "Are you part monkey?"

I rolled my eyes, pulling the sheet back into place over the hole. "No, Soul. Let's get going. After all, it's not a party without us."

Meh, i dont like this chapter so much. but you guys can feel free to disagree.(;

bleach102 - hm, that's something you'll just have to find out.(;

Confetti108 - no i actually like golfing too, its fun whacking those golf balls, but you know how those funny old guys always dress weird when they go golfing :P but yeah, soul is always "cool", glad i amused you.(; and no, they get there safely, but its the party you have to worry about...shhhh, i've said too much already ;)

MourningMemories7 - I usually don't like OCs for ANY story, but for some reason this idea just spoke to me and I couldn't ignore it. Thank you so much for your encouraging words, I appreciate it, and you really reassured me because my biggest worry is the character relationships and how they interact. At some points I kind of feel like an intruder, creating a character that almost gets between Soul and Maka's close relationship, then I get all concerned that SoMa fans will throw a fit in their reviews (which I have unfortunately already experienced). Then I get all guilty, and this makes it a lot more difficult to construct the storyline in the direction I'm considering going, but it's nice to hear that someone thinks I'm doing a good job with it. Guess all the worrying pays off :) And as for Blair, I'm sorry about that, she's not really a main character after all so I don't really work much on her :P but from now on I'll try my hardest to keep her in character, thanks for the advice. :)

Person - thanks! i appreciate your feedback ((: