The boy's name is Soul, and Maka knocks him off his feet the first time they officially meet.
It's not her fault. Two weeks after the break-in finds Maka disconnected from both her senses and her loved ones. Puffy-eyed and exhausted from dedicating nights to patrolling the neighborhood as Meister Moon for the rogue witch, Maka wants to be at home napping with Blair perched on top of her like a blanket, not playing soccer with Jackie's ritzy country club friends who Maka doesn't know at all. What's worse is the reserved person sitting beside her on the sidelines refuses the ice packs she ruefully offers every time he brings a hand to rub his forehead with a wince.
No, he's not just some person – he's Jackie's best friend, the one she's been wanting to bring around. Soul. And it's not Maka's fault that he's been on her mind more often than not since the necklace incident, either.
Not that she would ever admit that to anyone.
Curiosity finally inspires Maka to turn and face him when he rests his cold water bottle against his scalp. He's been stealing glances at her since they sat down half an hour earlier, but her cheeks flush for no reason when he doesn't look away like the prolonged, honest eye contact sets something ablaze inside her.
"Why did you do it?"
He has a nice face, with thick eyebrows and a defined jawline. "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?"
"No, I mean – I didn't hit you on purpose, okay?"
"Sure," he laughs, and she can't help but find his dimple interesting – endearing, a detail about him that stays with her. Something about his squinty smile accentuates the reddish tint in his dark brown irises – it must be the white lashes lining his eyes because the contrast is something Maka has never seen before. "You even looked right at me when you kicked the ball, too. You have good aim, Pigtails."
Face now scalding hot, she almost bites her tongue with how quickly she jumps to retort, "Don't. My name's Maka, okay? M-a-k-a."
"P-i-g-t-a-i-l-s."
"You were that kid that everyone was surprised won the spelling bee in elementary school, weren't you?"
"Man, maybe, I don't even remember... Cuz, you know, you practically gave me a concussion." He pauses, leaning back on his elbows, his bravado mellowing right in front of her. "And to answer your question… you looked like you needed the necklace back."
Maka blinks at him, still focused on the sudden change in his demeanor, but all the pieces fall into place and she's there again, shaky-legged and beyond terrified of the razored hurt that assaults her and won't let up whenever she thinks about her papa. But he – Soul Evans, who seems to be everywhere lately and deliriously called her lethal when she asked if he was okay – is a stranger and she'll be damned if he sees her cry twice.
Sensing she needs a break from whatever she's feeling, he ventures, "You like it?"
"What? Oh, hmm… my papa's glad I'm wearing it." There's silence while Maka gathers her bearings, deciding that a change of topic seems like a great idea. Somehow, tightening her grip on the compact she stowed away in her short's pockets, the one she never lets out of her sight but never looks into unless she needs to be Meister Moon, grants her some safety. "Is it true you've known Jackie since you were four?"
"God, yeah, people think she's my sister or something," Soul groans, rolling his eyes. They watch Jackie argue with the unlucky referee about whether it's sportsmanlike to elbow the other team's goalie and call him a ballsucker after she scored the first point. "Our moms are best friends and our dads do business together, so we kinda got used to hanging out a lot."
Three months – that's how long it's been since she and Kim met Jackie during an absurdly competitive game of laser tag that ended with ear-splitting war cries, but it hasn't hit Maka how little she knows about Jackie's life until now, sitting on expensive grass and realizing her friend's fight-me attitude truly knows no bounds. Country clubs, private schools, running with Death City's elite children, responsible fathers – it's a foreign life to Maka.
At least Soul doesn't give her the same standoffish, too-good-for-you vibes she sensed from the others in his and Jackie's social circle. "How come you've never been to the arcade with Jackie before?"
"Private lessons," is all he says, busying himself with slurping down half his water bottle. Just when Maka thinks she has said the wrong thing, he adds, "But that's over with, so I'll be around more… I went the other day, but the girls said I had just missed you, Pigtails."
"I'm Maka."
"Maka," he repeats, testing how it fits in his mouth. "Ma-ka…"
She pulls her knees to her chest to distract herself from feeling like slow-moving lava at hearing him say her name.
"Jackie's told me a lot about you, and she was right," he says, now looking up at the sky, pensive, but he doesn't continue with specifics, leaving Maka starved for the end of his sentence. Instead, he grumbles that he's at an ungodly level of exhaustion as he struggles to stand, pausing to support himself against the chain-link fence and hold his head.
"Sorry," she repeats for the hundredth time, mirroring his wince.
"S'okay, Piglet, it really didn't hurt," he reassures, ignoring her shrieks about her ears hurting from hearing that craptastic nickname. "I just haven't been sleeping much, and it makes me feel nauseous."
Still, she can't stand to see him go when she probably exacerbated his problems by drilling him into the turf with a misguided soccer ball. That, and she's not done admiring his lone dimple, or his expressive, high cheek-boned face – she barely knows him, but can already read all the different ways he raises his brows, knows what each curve his mouth forms means.
"We should all get something to eat – maybe pizza?" Stringing words together is more of a challenge when Soul looks at her, her toes curling in her cleats. "There's a place near the arcade."
"Cool, Piglet with Pigtails," he muses to himself, and that's how Maka knows he won't use her name. There's an uncertain shyness in his voice as he waves bye. "See you later?"
"See you later," she echoes, deciding she wouldn't mind running into him more often.
X
Saturday morning finds Blair snuggled in Maka's lap and Maka serenading her with a rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star using nothing but out-of-tune meows. The moment breaks when Maka's phone vibrates and pings, alerting her of a new message from Kim:
Shopppping for the formal! Meet us in 15 min?
Maka frowns at her phone. Hmm, she is on Death City High's party planning committee and knows for a fact there aren't any dances scheduled in the near future. It's not until an hour later, after she showers, sweeps her hair up in pigtails (not absentmindedly thinking about Soul, no), feeds Blair, and finds her best friend and her girlfriend at a boutique that Maka finally figures out what's going on. The revelation prompts her to remember Jackie's parents write a hefty tuition check every semester to the private school nestled in the newer, more exclusive part of the city.
"We should color coordinate," Kim tells Jackie, cheeks tinging as pink as her hair. "We'll look sooo cute. How high do you think stilettoes can be before it's against the rules?"
"Probably half an inch or something," Jackie snorts, holding a long, deep plum dress against her chest and looking in the mirror across the aisle. "The DWMA is so strict you'd be surprised they don't monitor what style underwear you're wearing."
Neither of them had mentioned the formal to Maka, but then again it's not like Maka has been in the best headspace to recollect whole conversations and events she isn't invited to. Or was she? Why would Jackie invite her to third-wheel on their date? Ugh. Studying and martial art classes and hunting for the witch by moonlight have her dreaming with her eyes open.
Maka smiles mechanically until her cheeks go numb, pretending she doesn't feel forgotten.
X
"Medusa is still out there, Blair knows it, Blair feels it," the kitten whispers in the darkness underneath Maka's comforter a few nights later. "Doesn't Kitten feel it, too?"
Thunder drums outside, its vibration rumbling in her chest. Maka imagines the night sky briefly lighting up, the thick clouds glowing grey above the outline of the trees behind the house. If she dwells on what happened there too much, the walls seem to breathe and close in on her, and her skin buzzes with the sensation of an incoming threat. Maka pulls Blair closer, both wanting to protect her and be protected. The cool metal of the compact that turns her into Meister Moon is reassuring when Maka squeezes it in her hand.
She's on her own. Piano Reaper saved her back then, but he's been a ghost ever since. Part of her wonders if they'll ever meet again because their paths haven't crossed. Judging by the inexplicable broken tree branches and patches of grass missing from random houses in the last few weeks, he's also been fighting evil by moonlight. However, he disappears without a trace before the authorities show up to investigate. Either way, his transience doesn't console her.
"No, I don't feel anything," Maka lies to Blair, squeezing her eyes shut and seeing the witch's smirk in the psychedelic lines swishing behind her eyelids.
"Are the other kittens at Kitten's school still acting weird?"
"Yeah, it's annoying. Can't eat my lunch because everyone's making out with their partner."
"Meister Moon needs to stop Medusa the Witch. Don't be discouraged, nya?"
"What does it matter?" Maka buries her scrunched face in Blair's fur.
The intentional teenage, melodramatic angst Maka wanted to convey is beyond a kitten's comprehension. Blair pulls out of the hug and fixes Maka with a scandalized look. "Don't speak like that, Kitten. This is serious!"
How losing touch with reality by chasing after a witch and talking to a cat can't be serious, Maka will never know. Sometimes Maka wants to scream into her pillow because this can't be happening, can it? How is this real? Maka cups Blake's little mischievous face gently between her hands, squishing her cheeks together. It's like this isn't the same Blair who steals fish from the market, perches on the neighbor's front yard until their house is empty to sneaks inside to visit their pet hamster, and always tries to make Maka late for school. No, this Blair is solemn, and instead of meowing tunes or purring contently as Maka rubs her thumb over the crescent-shaped mark on Blair's forehead, she finally tells Maka the truth of the universe:
Human souls are tethered to the body they occupy by the heart and the mind. Legend says that if the human heart and mind become too corrupt, its soul leaves its body and becomes demon-like spirits called Kishin that possess destructive, murderous power. Too many loose Kishin could plunge the world into perpetual madness.
Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, exactly that happened. The Queen Witch Maaba managed to break enough humans and corrupt their souls to form an army of Kishin and overthrow Lord Death, who had ruled since the creation of the universe. His reign guaranteed long life, prosperity, health, and a warning when it was one's turn to die. Death's son sacrificed himself to rid the world of the evil Kishin, giving up the perks of 'controlled death' for all humans in exchange for creating four Meister Scouts with an infinite amount of lives and deaths. The Scouts would have no memory of their previous lives, but would respawn at the dawn of a new threat.
"Each Meister must protect the people, you know." Honestly, it's adorable when Blair repeats herself. Maka almost misses what she says for the second time because she's more focused on Blair's high-pitched voice than her words: "Meister Moon protects their Love. Meister Venus protects their Hope. Meister Mars protects their Passion. And Meister Earth protects their Peace."
They're destined to find each other and fight together to protect human souls from the evil that is bound to reincarnate endlessly. Death the Kid's kitten, Blair, was the only one granted life-long immortality to guide the Scouts once they're awakened.
But, she's not Kid's kitten anymore, no, she's Maka's. Sleep deprivation must be the reason why, out of all the things Blair explains in a trance-like tone, Maka responds to that bit more than the other information about finding three other people to help join her in this fantasy fight she hasn't quite accepted yet. Or the fact that there is a being greater than her out there with a say-so in her decisions and her life, her soul. No, none of that riles Maka up more than the fact that Blair is hers and hers alone.
"Are you listening, Kitten?" Blair puckers her lips, sending pumpkin-shaped bubbles to pop on Maka's nose.
When she opens her mouth to reply, the sound of the doorknob jiggling downstairs reaches her ears and sends a shiver down her spine – footsteps thud between her ragged breaths. They crescendo until they pause in front of her door.
"Maka, it's Papa," a voice says, speaking in third person exactly like Blair does. Why is everyone in Maka's family so weird? "I'm home… Are you okay?"
Confused as she feels about him, Maka sleeps better when her papa comes home and turns off the light she leaves on so he isn't met with darkness upon returning. While she's touched that he has made a habit of checking in on her before going to bed, she still responds with hesitant silence.
More pretending, this time to be asleep.
X
The next day brings more strange encounters.
"Do you think love is real?"
It's an odd question, but then again, Liz Thompson is notorious for her odd one-liners while street-vending at all hours of the day, rolling her eyes at the school security officers when they try to ticket her for breaking the rules. Detention must have just let out for her to still be lurking around the halls at this late hour after classes ended, cornering Maka against her locker after the student council meeting.
Caught off guard yet again, Maka can't seem to function any more under all this peer pressure to participate in silly trends.
"Well…the person who gave you your necklace must love you," Liz explains when Maka fixes her with a quizzical expression, as if the emotion were that simple. "And there are different types of love –"
"I know," Maka snaps – she's allowed to feel unsure about her papa. It's none of Liz's business anyway. What the general public rumors about Officer Spirit Albarn's personal life and what he does may sometimes match up, but they have no right to intrude on her family's life. Maka might judge him, but that's a right only she reserves. And it's no one's business that she gets mad at her papa sometimes – she wishes he would stop telling others their business.
Liz smacks on her gum once, blows a bubble, and snickers at Maka's skittish flinch when it pops, satisfaction flashing in her eyes. "I'm glad you're wearing it."
So is Maka's papa, who wouldn't stop fawning over it until Maka took a selfie and messaged it to him to earn her privacy back. Pictures last longer. That's why Maka turned the picture frame holding Mr. and Mrs. and Belly Bump Albarn's wedding day photo face down after the first time papa strayed.
She was six.
Winking, a satisfied Liz wiggles her fingers at Maka as a goodbye. "Toodle-loo. I'm here if you ever want to buy one for someone you love…"
X
The bell above the door chimes as Maka enters the pizzeria, her textbook-laden backpack and weird conversation with Liz barely thirty minutes earlier making her back ache. Maka scans the mural-walled, mismatched chandeliered, garlic-bread scented, dingy place over with a quick turn of her head until finally spotting Kim's unmistakable pink bob in one of the booths.
As Maka nears, she catches Kim hissing, "You cheated! There's no way you're this good at tic-tac-toe."
Seated across from Kim, Soul offers a gloating, sharp grin. "Loser. There's no way I'd cheat. Cool guys don't cheat."
If that isn't the most reassuring, validating thing Maka has heard her whole life, she doesn't know what is, even if it's out of context and definitely about a dumb game instead of actual relationships. Still, Maka can't help but want to thank Soul, but her thoughts disappear as soon as he slides his eyes over to meet hers when she reaches their table.
"Hi, sorry I'm late," she exhales, not realizing she had been holding her breath.
"YES! Now we can eat," Jackie cheers, already twisting and turning beside Kim in search of the waiter.
Maka, hyperaware that the only vacant spot for her at the booth is next to Soul, shrugs off her backpack and heaves it onto the seat first. She puts in extra effort to make sure it stays upright as an excuse to peek at Soul – but only because a rainbow-colored bandage covering his cheek catches her attention.
"What happened to you?" she can't help but screech. So much for being conspicuous. "Your eye – you look like you got beat up!"
Soul turns away from her, taking his drink with him. "You kicked me with a soccer ball, remember?"
A cold chill washes over Maka. Just when her thoughts begin to spiral in self-blame and embarrassment (wow she really did a number on him!), Jackie aims a glare at her best friend. "Stop torturing her, Soul, you're such a drama queen!" Jackie then addresses Maka: "He doesn't know how he got it."
Maka forgets to scold him for lying, instead incredibly skeptical of his ensuing long rant about sleepwalking and running into the door.
"I'm completely serious," Soul insists, pouting around his straw. "I keep waking up with bruises I don't remember getting. It's the only reason I can come up with. Ghost detective over there –" he points at Jackie "– thinks I'm being possessed by a demon."
"In my defense, I'm always right." Jackie flips her long hair over her shoulder. "Except when I'm not."
The waiter interrupts Soul and Jackie's ensuing argument about a joint family childhood camping trip in Colorado that ended early because Soul kept complaining about a gnome watching him from behind a clump of bushes. Kim and Jackie order spaghetti plates.
"I'll have a small white pizza," Soul says, closing the menu and handing it to the waiter.
"No way, that's my favorite!" flies out of Maka's mouth before she can think – she's never met anyone who likes ricotta cheese on pizza too – and, in her flailing excitement, knocks over her glass of lemonade. The drink spills across the clear nylon covered table like water bursting through a dam; unfortunately, most of it spills to her left, onto Soul's lap, and the rest of it trickles onto the booth as she dabs at Soul's pants with a clump of napkins she snatched from the dispenser.
Despite herself, her face blisters with heat. She'll never be able to live this down. First, she hit him with a necklace, then a soccer ball, and now this. It seems that she's fated to act like a total klutz in front of Soul Evans.
"Make that a large white pizza," Soul tells the waiter, who is watching the debacle with a disinterested face, pen hovering expectantly above their notepad for their order. "She and I will share."
Kim and Jackie share a telepathic glance with a message only they can understand, brows hiked up and corners of their mouth twitching. Maka opens her mouth to warn them to buzz off when a firm hand catches hers.
"My pants are dry enough now, thanks Piggy."
If she didn't know any better, Maka would have bet money that her whole body spontaneously combusted because there is no other explanation for the surge of heat enveloping her body. Apparently mortification causes fevers. God, strike her down now and take her out of her misery, amen. Her quick prayer goes unanswered, though. Whatever higher deity is up there has an affinity for letting her suffer and act like the worst clown ever because who else is to blame for Maka's less than graceful behavior around Soul Evans?
"I'm not Piggy, I'm Maka," she chides Soul as Jackie quizzes the waiter on the restaurant's menu. Great – now she sounds like a toddler. "I'll pay for our pizza if you stop calling me that and never bring this up again."
"I don't take bribes," is Soul's cool response. "But, how about this – if you can beat me at air hockey at the arcade on Saturday, I'll call you by your name Baka and forgive you for ruining my pants."
"It's Maka!" The squeak in her voice is new and also embarrassing, but at least no one seems to notice and therefore she can deny it happened if he tries to use this as ammunition in the future. "And – wait, what?" Another flush crawls across her face, which she files away to dissect later because a disconcerting bubble called Fear of Missing Out swells in her stomach – did Jackie and Kim forget to invite her to something else? "Saturday? No one told me anything was happening on Saturday."
Soul's bravado disappears as quickly as it appeared, his shoulders rounding visibly. "Uhm, well...I mean, I just did. If you want!" He pauses to take another sip of his drink as if gathering his wits. "If you're not scared to lose to me, anyway."
Maka is nothing if not competitive. Plus, a shiver rolls down her spine at the fleeting voice in her head suggesting that Soul wanted to hang out with her and only her. That couldn't be true, could it? He was just trying to bully her, as friends tend to do – if they could be called that since this is their third time meeting. Something tells her, though, that if she could only stop humiliating herself, she and Soul would click. "You're on! I'll wipe the floor with you."
"Please don't," he deadpans. "I'm not a mop and I'm afraid you'd use me as a weapon."
They blink in unison before bursting into laughter, Maka mentally conceding that she walked right into that jab. It's stupid but Maka can't help it; he's easy to be goofy around, even if her ego lives in fear he'll tease her about it later. They end up reaching for the same slice when their pizza arrives after a few minutes of small talk, their fingers brushing against each other briefly. Maka retracts her hand as though she just touched a stovetop.
An eyebrow quirked but smile shy, Soul does a small bow. "Go ahead, P –"
"Choose your words wisely," she warns, spinning the dish around and stopping it to yank a slice out, sinking her teeth furiously into cheesy heaven in an attempt to emphasize her seriousness.
Soul, it turns out, is more of a heathen than she originally thought. He folds his pizza like a taco to eat it. The inhumane noise that escapes her draws a snort from Soul, commenting that she sounds like a squeaky toy. She blames him, saying that it's his fault for being weird.
"That's the first time anyone's called me that and it wasn't meant to hurt my feelings," Soul comments offhandedly, reaching for a second slice.
How many times can I say the wrong thing? Maka wonders as regret washes over her, wishing she could rewind time and be mindful of her teasing. Sometimes it can sound too much like bullying. "Sorry! I didn't mean it –"
But Soul waves off her apology, stating that he never fit in anyway and never wanted to because the kids at his and Jackie's school were pretentious jocks with concerning, disproportionate money to brain cell ratio. "I mean, you met them...they're annoying and shallow."
Jackie jumps into their conversation then, and Maka is reminded that she and Soul have company. It'd been too easy to forget about their surroundings when he was hounding her for carrying "a whole-ass library" in her backpack and she gave him grief about his skull-patterned headband that clashed with his school-issued uniform. "Oh, are we talking smack about the kids at school?"
"Dum-ashes," Soul says with a mouthful of garlic bread he steals off Jackie's plate. "Cantch schtand 'em."
"And they made Soul's life miserable," she stage-whispers to Maka, cupping her mouth to prevent Soul from reading her lips. "He's not the most popular person at our school."
Looking like a cat who had its fur rubbed the wrong way, Soul pouts. "Neither are you!"
"Yeah, but I'm gay and I don't care."
"She's also bad at geometry," Soul informs Maka, already going to work on another slice of pizza. "And she's tone-deaf."
That last comment crosses a line. Jackie erupts in a cacophony of name-calling and betrayed hurt animal noises. "Not everyone can be as gifted as you in music, donuthole!"
Soul splays a hand across his chest, taken aback. "I'm not sure how to react to that – that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me…"
Maka watches the two go at it like following a tennis ball rocket between two ends of a tennis court. She tries to ignore Kim's eyes, but the two end up in a staredown, Maka carefully crafting her face so as not to blush or smile like a schoolgirl. It works until Kim winks at Maka, exaggerated and tilting her head in Soul's direction. Oh no, no, no, Kim is definitely misunderstanding Maka and Soul sitting next to each other. Can't she see there was nowhere else to sit?
"Looks like our dates get along great." Kim leans on her elbows and rests her chin in her palm. "We'll have to make double dates a tradition."
"Stoooopp!" If Maka could shoot laser beams out of her eyeballs instead of glares, she would gladly do it. She keeps tabs on Soul from the corner of her eyes – he hadn't heard Kim's remark thanks to defending himself from Jackie's accusations of being "emo beyond salvation."
Kim, evidently overflowing with mercy, smirks in a way that warns 'we'll talk about this later' as she swathes an arm around her girlfriend's shoulders.
"I'm telling you, it's not natural to play that many sad songs," Jackie is telling Soul, melting into Kim's side.
"Sad songs?" Maka echoes, her interest piqued.
"Yeah, he plays piano."
Maka turns to face him, unintentionally giving him her undivided attention. "You never mentioned that! I want to hear you play."
Soul's features soften and lose their liveliness, giving way to a melancholic heaviness that vanishes so quickly Maka questions if she saw it at all. He shrugs, non-committing, busying himself with his drink to avoid talking about the subject. His walls are so high and thick, Maka can't help but feel locked out. But what's strange is that it feels like a betrayal, as if he'd never treated her like that when they knew each other a long, long time ago…
"I…" Soul rubs the back of his neck stiffly, eyes trained in the table. "I have a recital coming up. On Saturday in the morning, You can come, if you want…"
Jackie's pouting and loud indignant shrieks cancel out Maka's blood pounding in her ears at the prospect of being invited to something so intimate. That, and he had invited her to hang out afterward. "What about me? I'm your best friend –"
"All of you are welcome," Soul clarifies. He glances at Maka though, seemingly without intending to because he visibly startles once their gazes meet and he distracts himself with another slice.
The four of them disperse soon after, but not before Soul and Maka's knees touch in the midst of all four of them laughing about the latest episode of an anime they all watch. Maka and Soul share a look, frozen, but neither moves away until the staff begins their cleaning routine in preparation for closing time. Jackie calls her family's limo to pick them up, saluting Soul and Maka before slamming the door without offering Maka a lift home. The windows may be tinted, but they don't mask Jackie and Kim's giggles before the vehicle rolls away.
Figures they would leave Maka in this predicament, alone with Soul –
"I can give you a ride," he offers as they stand in the purples and pinks that wash the world before the night settles. He points at a black motorcycle detailed with orange flames in the parking lot. And, well, why not? He smells like fresh laundry and feels familiar in her arms as she holds on to dear life while he speeds through yellow traffic lights, weaving through congested streets until they arrive at her house. It's dark now, the last light of day having finally yielded to black. Why her brain records every movement of his hand waving goodnight as he drives off after seeing her walk through the front door, she doesn't know.
It's almost as if in another life they said goodbye, never knowing it would be the last.
Or maybe it's because her blood curled as soon as he turned the corner and went out of view. Goosebumps erupt up and down her arms and her breath slows before she can understand why.
"What's wrong, Kitten?" Blair asks when Maka bursts into her room, immediately testing that her window is locked.
"Are you ok? Did someone..." No matter how many times Maka tells herself to calm down, her pulse won't let up. The anxiety climbing up her throat sours any butterflies she may have been feeling. "Did someone try to come into the house? I don't know, but I have this strange feeling someone was watching me when I got home…"