I have a scar. Hard not to notice since it's hip to armpit, a line that practically killed me. While maybe some guys would love it for the braggin' rights, I think I'd prefer forgettin' it exists. It healed- so why do I have to give it another thought?

…

Shit.

OK, I know I do. I know there's somethin' there, but I'll be damned if I actually want to scratch anywhere past the surface of it.

I have a scar.

Easy to notice.

Hip to armpit.

Didn't kill me, but…

Maybe it sorta did. Or- man, do I feel stupid saying this, but- maybe it killed a part of me. Puttin' the rest of that explanation into words sounds as promisin' as havin' my teeth pulled but… here goes:

Maka Albarn is a giant pain in my ass. Has been from day one and has succeeded in doin' nothin' but improvin' on that skill each day of our partnership. 'Cept… at the same time, she is the only reason I'm alive.

That doesn't make any sense- mostly 'cause the reason for that scar is Maka Albarn needin' my protection, needin' me to take a death blow for her and not hesitatin' to do it.

Well, it makes some sense since she was the one that kept me together after. A guy who practically loses his guts doesn't exactly have the mental or physical oomph to feed, clothe, wash, and all-around take care of himself. Maka did that. Stein may have stitched me up, but eatin', drinkin', sleepin', even showerin' was all thanks to Maka. And, for the first time in our entire lives, none of it came with even a breath of complaint or a look other than somethin' close to pitiful from those green eyes.

So I lived because Maka did the heavy liftin'.

But part of me died because Maka did the heavy liftin'.

See, if you look back at that fourteen-year-old Soul who came to DWMA, my general hope is that you'd see a cool guy, but I know the truth. I wasn't anywhere near cool in my own head. Sure, I had the look- still do- but if you cracked me open you'd hear the racket. Even before that annoyin' lil' gremlin, I had voices foggin' up my inner workin's. My mom, my dad, my brother- just to name a few. I hated it. I lived with it every step I took and there didn't seem like a way to escape it.

But she killed it.

Guess I should say somethin' nice like "she healed me with her love," but goddamnit is that ever corny, and I'd rather complete that teeth pullin' I mentioned than have her actually hear those words from my mouth.

'Cause it's really fuckin' hard to hate yourself when you got someone who'll drag your ass into the bath if you can't do it yourself or someone who'll sleep with you every night until the nightmares settle. It's even harder to doubt yourself when they're always there tellin' you that you'll make it through, tellin' you that you're more than enough.

That old Soul died with that slash.

The new Soul… guess he just heals a lil' more every day that I'm he's with her.

Maka barely glanced over the composition before she ticked her eyes to him in annoyance. "What is this?"

"Tol' you- it's that stupid paper Marie wanted us to write about 'where we find our strength,'" Soul tried to deliver that with the same enthusiasm he had for laundry day. "You said you'd proofread mine because, and I quote: 'You always mess up your grammar and you're lazy with your main ideas so you always get the same grade.' And heaven forbid lil' Ms. Perfect's weapon get anything other than-"

"I can already tell you that your structure is terrible." She glanced again at the page, not absorbing the words just the awful penmanship and the truncated lines. "You know what paragraphs are, right?"

Soul rolled his eyes. "Maka, just read it."

She only dared another quick peek before leveling a grimace at him. "And are you serious with all those apostrophes?"

"It's how I talk," Soul offered with a shrug.

Maka released an all-suffering sigh before she centered her glare on the first line of the page.

Soul watched her eyebrows wrinkle.

Her mouth gaped and snapped shut again.

Her eyes flicked only a second's worth of attention to him before hitting the paper again.

He tried to relax, slipping his hands into his pockets to keep himself from drumming unsteady beats on his thighs to echo the ones in his heart.

Pink and then red started to drift to the top of her ears.

"Well?" He was eternally grateful that he managed that with impatience rather than one of those boyish, nervous squeaks that were threatening in this throat.

"Y-you-" she was stammering off the word, her eyes still glued to the paper. "You can't use an expletive in a school essay, Soul!"

He sucked his teeth. "Maka Albarn, that's all you got to say to me?"

She waved the paper at him, less a white flag of defeat and more a banner for her cause. "One- fix the apostrophes. I don't care if it's the way you talk- no one writes like that! Two- take out the curses. They seriously have no place in academic responses. And three-" She heaved a breath as she pulled the paper taut, making it hide her face from him. "Three- if you thought this was romantic, you shouldn't have prefaced it with the idea that first and foremost I'm a pain in the ass!"

"A giant pain in the ass," he corrected.

"Soul!" That was a tumultuous mix of tones from the refusal of defeat to the outright embarrassment of having her feelings written so perfectly yet entirely not eloquently.

"You're ruinin' my paper." He moved towards her, hands coming over hers to relax the strain in the page and uncover her face. "So you said you'd correct my mistakes, right? So correct me if I'm wrong, Maka…" His cool was fizzling as he needed to stop to take a swallow in hopes of easing his voice. "I sorta… I'd sorta like to know if I'm wrong about the love part. Like… do I have to fix it to say partners- friends- or…"

"You have to fix it to say you love me too," Maka snapped bluntly.

In vain he tried to catch the giddy little laugh that escaped his mouth, but there was no snatching it from taking flight. "Guess I did forget the main idea."

Maka's face burned while her fingers crinkled the edges, but a wonderful fluttering was starting in her heart. "But that is the main idea, right?"

"Yeah, sorta the whole point of the essay." He tried to shrug it off but the glow on her cheeks was being amplified by the smile that was starting to break through the worry. "So, uh, I guess I'll fix it. I'll just- I should probably just say it plain, right? That I-" Maybe this was the moment his point was proved, looking down at her, holding her hands in his, killing the last little bit of that scared boy who no longer existed. The real wound finally healed. "I love you, Maka."