Hey guys! So personally, I thought that there were a lot of ways this could go. Like, ALOT. So i just picked one of them. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own the amazingness that is Soul Eater.

Chapter 10: ...I'd fall in love with you

She was certain that they'd all be surprised. By they, she meant the boys she was associated with. The girls had all known already -they'd had enough sleepovers to establish that- but she would have liked to think she wasn't so transparent. Because Maka Albarn was brave and honest but not transparent. But as it turned out, she was, which was why, she supposed, she should have expected his calm response of: "I know."

Her heart froze in her chest, throat suddenly devoid of any moisture. Fingers twisted behind her back as her lips tried to form the words she wanted to say. "What?"

"I said, I know." Red roved over her flushed cheekbones, filled with an understanding that she didn't want to see. "I mean, I've known for a while."

"How long?"

"Well-"

"I asked how long." She couldn't bear to look at him anymore, and she fixed her gaze on the tiled floors instead. Her brain tried desperately to make sense of what was happening, but this words continued to resound in her mind, unceasing. He knew!

"Since our last mission together."

Maka felt her breath catch, nails digging into soft skin. Her gloves sat forgotten in her room but it was only now that she truly regretted leaving them behind. She had used them as a barrier of sorts over the last few years to prevent actually having to touch him in public. However, when it was just the two of them, the gloves were foolish, even hindering, when dealing with simple domesticity. "Soul, out last mission was months ago," she choked out.

"Yeah." He put his hands in his pockets and gave her an apologetic smile.

"And you've known ever since then."

"Yeah."

"And you never said." Her heart clenched painfully. She had been such a fool. Soul's mannerisms had changed since that time and yet she should have known how he was feeling. They had resonated so strongly back then.. and the glances he had been giving her after the missions should have been easy to read. She had thought he was just tired after that but clearly it had been something much more than that. His current lack of surprise and shifting stance gave away how uncomfortable he must have been as well, and the guilt rushed through her. She didn't dare check his soul to see how he was truly feeling. His pitying look said it all. "You know what? Forget it." She braced herself and took a couple steps back. She couldn't lose him. He had been the best friend she had ever had; the only one she had allowed herself to trust and to have gone and ruined it all by falling for him? Her feelings were nothing if they didn't have a friendship, and if taking back what she said would salvage that relationship then, by Death, she would do it. "I shouldn't have told you."

"But Maka, I haven't even said-" he started, reaching out to her only to be met with an instant recoil.

"Please, just forget it. It was stupid; I didn't mean it."

"Of course you meant it!" He sounded affronted by the words; hurt, even. "Maka, please, just let me-"

"No, it's fine, Soul. I don't want this to mess up what we have."

"But it-"

"I'm going to sleep now. I'll see you in the morning." She scampered into her room and heard the click as she locked it. She could catch her partner's sigh and noted how the lamp light filtering beneath her door grew blocked and blackened. "I'm not coming out for dinner. Go away, Soul."

"Are you seriously going to try and pretend this never happened?"

"What else am I supposed to do? You told me that you knew."

"But I haven't-"

"Just pretend that I didn't say thing. I didn't mean to blurt it out."

"You've never really done this before, have you?" he asked instead. She settled her body into the cot, drawing her legs up to her chest and hugging them. Her eye lids lowered, hiding fresh green from the sunset that was glazing her bedroom in what would have been considered a pleasant glow. She bowed her head, nails digging into the soft skin of her legs, and squeezed as if she could compress her whole body into oblivion. Everything had gone wrong. Stupid Liz and her stupid encouragements. She should never have trusted her older friend to begin with; that woman had too much confidence in all the wrong places. Maka hadn't even known what to expect from Soul but it surely hadn't been that.

"You've probably done it more." She tried not to sound as bitter as she felt. She didn't need his pity or him sympathy. Maybe it was all a dream and she would wake up and realize that she had never foolishly confessed her love to her partner and that he had turned in down in an instant.

"Once or twice, yeah, and both times it didn't work out."

"You prepare for everything. That can't be possible."

"What?"

"You're too lazy to put effort into something you haven't thought out," she said instead and heard him grumble from behind the door.

"Well, it's possible. The first girl was a big mistake. The second one? Friend-zoned me before I even got a shot."

"I didn't think that'd be possible for you."

"It happened," he said, and she could imagine him shrugging. "She told me she liked me too and that she was so glad we made great friends. Sometimes I don't think she realized that I told her that I liked her."

"I'm sorry, Soul. That sounds awful." Only it didn't, not to her. He didn't sound as upset as she knew most boys got at being rejected and perhaps that was a good sign. The only variable was... "Are you both still friends?"

"Of course."

Then it certainly wasn't as awful. "Good. Then friend-zone me."

"What?!"

"I said friend-zone me. If it worked out between you and that girl, then maybe it can save our friendship too."

"We don't need saving," he said almost laughingly, though the wavering in his voice was sending a different message. "Why are you so scared?"

"Because it will screw up our resonance!"

"We've done a lot of things in our lives, Maka, and I hardly think that this could be the thing that screws it up." He paused a minute and she let it sink in, but just barely. Nothing he could say could make her feel better, at this point. She was such an idiot- "Could you do something for me?"

"What?" The soft cotton of her sweater muffled the sound but somehow he heard it anyway.

"Check my soul."

"Why would I do that?" Why in the name of Death would she want to see just how put off he was from her confession? He'd be creeped out, or perhaps even pity her, seeing as he'd known for so long. He'd be feeling awkward and it'd be all her fault.

"Just check it. You probably won't believe what I have to say, so just read my soul. Tell me what you see."

"I don't want-"

"Trust me."

"I thought we agreed that it was an invasion of-"

"Maka, I'm serious. Trust me. Look at it." She bit her lip. "Please?"

He was so confident and insistent about this... She raised her head and turned to stare at her closed door where Soul stood just behind, his hands still in his pockets, no doubt. What would she find in his soul? She knew what she didn't want to see, but what did he wish for her to see? What was he planning on showing her?

Maybe, she thought suddenly, he was planning to use his soul to show her that he thought of her only as a friend; that way, he would be more honest and it would be less awkward for them because no words would be exchanged. The mere thought of it made her anxious, but it had to be done, she reasoned. She had to look so he could show her that she was his best friend and that a best friend would be the only thing he would ever think of her as.

She widened her perception slowing, allowing her eyes to adjust to the soul wavelengths around her. She could catch Blair in Soul's room, the soul all soft and sleepy from her current nap. And then Soul's... She reached out to his soul with hesitation, but when she finally look at him, her perception reading it slower than ever, she was startled to find the one emotion she didn't think he would be having.

When she didn't respond after a while, he tried calling her name, perchance to catch her attention, however she could not hear him. Her mind was already in the process of spinning a thousand stories on why Soul would be feeling the way that he was with the intensity that he was feeling it. None of them seemed likely, and she continued to fabricate tale after tale until she was satisfied that nothing would make more sense than the truth. She got off her bed, the thirst for knowledge overcoming any other emotion as she pulled the door open to see a very bewildered Soul. A handful of fabric and a few motions later, he was inside her room and sitting on her bed, Maka taking her position a discrete distance away from him. "So," he started, a hand finding its way into his hair as she straightened himself ever so slightly, "I'm assuming you checked my soul?"

"Mhmm."

"And?"

"And you were," she hesitated a moment before finishing with, "happy."

His lips tugged up a bit at that. His shoulders slumped back down again and he replaced his palms behind him, stabilizing him on her cot as he leaned back. "Yeah, I was. Still am."

"But why? I don't get it."

"You never do. You're so book smart but you're not exactly life smart."

She felt the flush crawl up her neck and aimed a punch at his shoulder. "Shut up."

"It's not my fault you're blind. Especially as to why. Don't you know anything about me?"

"You're happy," she glanced at him for encouragement and got a small smile in return, "because I confessed to you?"

"Sure, why not? Don't you like it when guys confess to you?"

"Not really." He raised an eyebrow, the quirk of his mouth just as endearing as she remembered. "I mean, it's flattering, but I'm not happy because I have to turn them down and I feel bad."

"Because you don't like them?"

"Because I don't like them," she agreed, unsure of where he was going with the topic.

"But you like me, right?" The red made itself known on her cheeks again as she affirmed quietly. "So you would have been happy if I'd confessed to you instead, right?"

"I guess..."

"You guess?" He snorted. "Well, isn't that discouraging? I haven't even responded to your confession and you're already shooting me down."

"You...what?" He hadn't?! She tried to run through their conversation in their head, their words appearing in a whirlwind within her mind. She tried to grasp them in a flurry but nothing was adding up.

"You were so caught up in yourself that you didn't let me respond to your confession," he continued with a smirk. "That's kind of how these things work, you know?"

"But I-" she spluttered, realizing that he was was right; he had to be. He'd done this before, he knew how it worked. He never had really 'responded' to her. Soul had only accepted what she had said as fact, one that he had been aware of for a while. And yet...

"And my response is thank you, I like you too. We should go on a date sometime." She blinked twice, trying to dispel the rising hope in her chest, coming up to stall her breathing and flood her face with feeling. "Or would you prefer just to chill here? I wouldn't mind. I could probably think of some things we could do." She smacked his shoulder reproachfully. "What? What would you prefer?"

"I don't really know."

He frowned. "...You don't know if you want to go on a date with me?"

"I don't know," she posed very carefully, "what just happened." When he didn't respond to that, they sort of stared at one another for a fixed amount of time, trying to gamer what they could from the other person's expressions and failing miserably. He looked...upset? No...more calculated, like he was planing something. "What?"

"I'm trying to figure out the coolest and easiest way to get across what I'm trying to say so you'll be less confused. That alright with you?"

"Yeah. I guess..."

"Ask me something."

"Huh?"

"You're confused, so ask me. You've always been a pretty verbal person, which always kind of sucked, but whatever. "

"I told you I liked you," she blurted out first. Once they were out and said in the open, the situation seemed so much more real than before.

"No, you told me you loved me."

"Same difference." The heat on her cheeks intensified.

"No it's not. There's a difference between you liking me and you loving me."

"Stop saying that." Hand shifted to cover her flushed face.

"Why? I like hearing you say you love me. I could get used to it in real life."

"Can I move on now?"

"Yeah."

"And then I ran in here," she continued, peeking out at him from between her fingers.

"Yeah."

"And then you came in and were happy with me and said that you wanted to go on a date with me?"

"You say it like it's such a bad thing."

"It's not. I just can't believe it, that's all."

"Me neither. I mean, I'm super cool and you're the most aggressive girl I've ever met in my entire life."

"That's not what I meant."

"Well, what don't you get, then? I love you. You love me. We should go out on a date or something. That's what most couples do."

"C-couples?!"

She wondered if she would ever be able to stop blushing in this conversation as Soul fixed his gaze on her, eyebrow raised. "Sure. We could be that, if you wanted. It'd make it a lot easier than saying that we're partners that like each other, know that we like each other, and then haven't done anything about it."

"But I don't... I mean, I haven't really done anything like that before."

"Well, everybody has to start somewhere, right?" He smirked. "The stereotypical ideal is that I could pick you up from your house whenever but we live together so we can free style it all anyway. We're not very stereotypical."

"I guess not." Her chest felt tighten as he reached over to take her hand and play with her fingers, the hopefulness in her chest blooming grander than anything she'd even felt. It was almost strange to see him do so, even though he had done so in the past multiple times.

"We're not so good with labels, either.." He paused and locked eyes with her. "Any of this finally sinking in?"

"Yeah." Maka couldn't stop herself from smiling, and she was certain that she looked foolish to Soul because she always felt foolish when it came to him. Realizing that she had liked him had been rough. But hearing that he reciprocated the feeling brought out something even stranger in her soul; some mix of happiness and fear that she didn't quite understand. "I get it now."

"Is that okay?" he posed carefully.

"I think so."

"And how do you feel about it?" She felt... How to put it into words? She felt...felt-

She hadn't surprised him with the confession, but the moment her lips touched his, she felt his shock shudder through him. He twisted his fingers through hers and moved closer so as to eliminate as much of the awkward stretching their necks were doing. To be honest, she hadn't even thought about it that way. To put her feelings into words seemed so trivial now that they were connected this way. She just knew that she'd been wanting to kiss for just about forever and that he, in all his white haired glory, was doing his best to kiss her back and make her as comfortable as possible. It was not her first kiss, but in her mind it was the only significant one, one that meant so much more to her.

She pulled away to fix her gaze on him as if she could freeze him in time with his tousled hair and calloused hands and lips made as if just to kiss her. "I love you." She cleared her voice and repeated the declaration, watching Soul's eyes glow with pride as his soul echoed the sentiment joyously. Her own spirit echoed the feeling as it flooded her senses and strengthened her conviction. It was in that moment that she was sure that Soul would likely be the first and last person she would ever have the ability to love; and that would be okay with her.

He brought the back of her hand to his lips and gave one of his softer smiles. "I know."

Thoughts? I really liked writing this, tbh. Probably one of the more vocal confession scenes but that's how I envisioned it. Stay tuned!