AN: I know this fic is only a day old so it hasn't gotten a huge response, but I still appreciate any attention it has gotten so far. Thank you and I hope you continue to enjoy each installment of this mini-series.

Timeline: Roughly a year and a half before the series proper (roughly half a year before Not!)

Disclaimer: Don't own

Soul took Wes's request of calling "every now and then" quite literally.

Meaning he only called once a month. Twice a month if Wes was lucky or there was a birthday in the family (and usually then Soul would just shoot a quick text telling Wes to tell said family member "happy birthday" from him).

Another thing was how Soul called him. He hardly ever used his cell phone.

While Soul's meister meant well, Maka tended to be…how should Soul put it...? Freaking nosy!

She was always asking questions. Some questions weren't that bad (What's your favorite food? Do you prefer to shower in the mornings or at night? Did you really just google how to iron your clothes?), but other questions—the more personal ones—were annoying.

It took Maka asking for the third time in a day about his family for Soul to snap and tell her he didn't want to talk about it. It had led to an argument (something the two were getting quite good at) and slamming of doors; but after the cool-down, Soul admitted he didn't like talking about his past or his family. Maka apologized for bothering him and dropped the personal questions altogether.

Despite this, she still tried to get to know him on a more personal level, and that meant trying to innocently listen in on his phone calls to Wes.

Not wanting to chance Maka's attempts at eavesdropping to succeed, Soul took matters into his own hands.

During one of his monthly calls, he left the apartment with some excuse as to where he was going before proceeding to go down a couple of blocks to a payphone.

After digging into his pocket for the right amount of change, Soul paid for his call and punched in Wes's phone number that he (as much as he hated to admit it) knew by heart.

He sat there listening to the ringer for some time. Soul frowned. Normally Wes picked up on the third ring. Was he busy? Did he have a concert? He didn't mention a concert last time they talked but then again Soul made it clear he did not want to talk about music with Wes during these phone calls.

He was about to hang up and try again the next day when he finally heard his brother's voice.

"Hello?" Wes greeted. There was a strange, untrusting edge to his voice that Soul was not used to hearing from his older brother.

"Hey, 'sup?"

"Soul?" Wes asked, surprise lacing his voice. Soul raised an eyebrow at the receiver. Who else would be calling him?

"Uh, yeah? Of course it's me. Who else?"

"I'm sorry, the number was one I didn't recognize. I almost didn't pick up, thinking it was a prank call or something."

Oh, well that made sense. Soul felt embarrassed and rubbed the back of his head, not knowing how to proceed from here.

"What phone are you using? Is it a landline?"

"Not…exactly." Soul said slowly, "It's a payphone actually."

"A payphone? Why are you using a payphone? Why aren't you using your cell phone?" Wes asked.

Because his meister could be a little shit sometimes and Soul was low-key paranoid she'll somehow grab his phone away from him and look through his call history and contacts in order to dig up every dirty little secret he had.

Which seemed like a violent breech of privacy that he felt in his gut Maka would never do but, hey, you never know. Their partnership was still fairly new after all.

Instead he said, "…Personal reasons."

He knew Wes was rolling his eyes after he said that. He tried to fight a grin at the mental image of his brother's exasperated expression as he scolded Soul, "Soul Evans, that phone was a birthday gift! I'd like it if you'd use it to call me instead of wasting your change on some random payphone."

Now it was Soul's turn to roll his eyes. The way Wes was talking you'd think a payphone was a commoner's way of talking to people. Honestly, while mostly down-to-earth, Wes could be a bit of a snob sometimes.

"It's vintage," Soul bit back, knowing Wes hated it when Soul acted all "hipster" on him. "Besides, it doesn't matter what I call you on as long as I get through to you, right?"

There was a pause before he heard his older brother heave a long sigh.

"Okay you win…this time." And there was his brother's good-natured chuckle, "Now tell me what's been going on before your call ends and you have to use up more change."

And so they talked. Soul and Wes's phone calls were never long (Soul would never allow them to be that way), but the younger of the Evans brothers always managed to fit a month's worth of updates for him.

"I've got 53 souls under my belt. Maka and I are gonna do some extra work in these next few weeks. Hopefully we can make it to 99 by the end of this year."

"I see. Be careful and don't overdo it, now."

"It'll be a piece of cake. After all, you are talking to a future Death Scythe," Soul said cockily.

Wes chuckled at his brother's enthusiasm. "Ah, of course, how could I forget? Well, future Death Scythe, I've got practice in 15 minutes so I better hang up here. Don't work yourself and your little meister too hard, you hear me?"

Soul sighed, "I know, I know, I won't."

"Good. And please call me on your cell phone. That's what it's for."

Soul couldn't help another eye roll, "Okay, okay, mother."

The sound of his brother's laughter rang loud through the phone's speaker before he called out, "Bye Soul! Love you!"

Again with his cheesy goodbye… "See ya."

He hung up and steadily made his way back to his and Maka's apartment, stopping by a random magazine kiosk to purchase something so it didn't look like Soul wasted 30 minutes of his time doing nothing in the city.

Maka still questioned him though. "All that time and you just bought a magazine? What else did you do?"

Soul shrugged, "Just went for a walk is all…"

He knew she was frowning at him in that way that told him she didn't approve of his secrets, but he didn't really care right now. He just wanted to shower and go to bed.

Soul would continue to use the payphone for the rest of the year. Not because he was worried about Maka listening in on his conversations or search through his phone (he had gotten rid of that line of thinking the more he got to know her and trust her), but because it really pissed Wes off.

And Soul, being a little brother, loved to piss his big brother off.

Trivia:

1. Not sure how many payphones are still in the world, but since Death City is canonically a mismatch of different cultures (including telephone booths) I figured the streets having payphones wasn't a stretch either.

2. What didn't make it into the fic: Wes slowly dying inside because Soul is purposely messing with him by not calling on his cellphone.

Please review if you enjoyed. Have a nice day!