Sorry I Couldn't be Better 5- And Meet Everyone Else
Well here is the next update. Thanks are thoroughly extended to ThePhantomWish (wow thanks for thinking so! And sorry for cliffy…it's a bad habit of mine) Super Pan-Chan (Really!? *dies*) Sabrina Bina (Really? That's so sweet. If anything strikes you, don't hesitate to ask) SabIrene28, LittleAngel1031, Marik of Yami, TotalGamer98, BOOKWORM405 and lovesucks2000. As always, I love people I may have missed. All the support really helps me.
Disclaimer: Soul Eater is…maybe…totally…ok not mine…BUT I DO OWN AN ARMY OF GEMMA'S…according to my friend.
Maka wanted to shrink in on herself. She wanted to run from the room. She wanted to turn invisible or take back her entire life. Anything so that she wouldn't have to face the contents of the room before her. They were all staring at her with wide expectant eyes as though the wanted her to perform backflips or dance an Irish jig.
And why did they all look so happy? Weren't they all meant to have problems? Why would people with problems smile? Didn't they realize they were here because they were messed up in the head? Maka's eyes swiftly scanned the crowd, spotting the people she knew.
She saw Tsubaki smiling reassuringly at her, her fingers dancing in her lap. Liz was glaring at her and Patty was waving a hand frantically as if she was afraid Maka couldn't see her. The blue haired boy…BlackStar was it? Anyway, he was pulling a weird face at her. Maka swiftly looked on. She spotted the OCD boy Kid running his eyes up and down her before nodding approvingly. And she saw Soul who had found himself a seat next to a pink haired…person and was pointedly ignoring her.
Some other people she saw included the glasses wearing boy who'd upset Patty at lunch and a giggling girl with short cropped strawberry blonde hair. There were a few more people but before she could pick out their distinguishing features, Marie drew her attention to her. The cheerful woman was seated on a chair in the circle, smiling reassuringly at Maka. The therapist had changed clothes since Maka had seen her, now adorned in a comfy black wool sweater and grey track pants. Her eye patch remained firmly in place though.
"Nice to see you Maka," Marie was saying. "Even if you are a little late."
Maka wanted to snap at her about getting lost but she could feel the eyes practically burning into her so she stayed silent. Instead, the teen simply nodded and hurriedly scanned the room for a spare place to sit. The only spare place seemed to be to the right of Marie with the pink haired person on the other side. That meant Soul was only one person away from her but at least it would be hard to make eye contact.
Maka quickly shuffled over to the seat and plonked down into it, ignoring the pink teen who shied away from her. She folded her arms defensively across her chest and stared determinedly at the ground.
"Right," Marie piped up in her high tone. "So obviously, we have a new patient joining us today. Her name is Maka Albarn."
A chorus of ill-timed 'Hello Maka' rang out and Maka allowed herself to look up from the ground and form an 'I don't want to speak or smile but hi all the same because I don't want to be seen as a rude person' expression. She heard a snicker from one section of the room and instantly shot her eyes across there. Faces stared back at her innocently.
"Now I'd like everyone to introduce themselves and share a bit about yourself with Maka." Marie narrowed her eyes at the section that had laughed at Maka but her voice was still happy and bright. "Maybe if you want to, you can even tell her why you're here."
Groans and protests filled the room and Maka found herself silently agreeing with them. It was obviously a touchy subject to everyone. Why the hell would you share it with some stranger?
"Hey, hey quiet down." Marie almost shouted though she someone managed to maintain her cheerful tone. "I said if you wanted to, I never said you had to."
The complaints died down and an almost deathly silence fell across the room but was broken by Patty screaming about giraffes. A few people laughed and Liz rolled her eyes though Maka saw a fond smile tugging at her lips. Well they were sisters. Weren't siblings meant to get along?
"We'll start to the left of me so Maka can tell us about herself last." Marie continued on once everyone had calmed down. Maka frowned at this but upon glancing at the clock, decided that if everyone spoke for a long time, she wouldn't have time to speak.
The person to the left of Marie spoke first, a quite looking boy with hair tied in a spiky ponytail and dark glasses obscuring his eyes.
"Hello," he muttered quietly after a sly nudge from Marie. "I'm Harvar." He didn't speak after this even though Marie tried her best to get him to speak. Maka inwardly groaned. From the way things were going, she was going to have to talk after all. Maybe she could lie.
The boy next to Harvar was the bespectacled boy with spiky hair tuffs.
"I am Ox Ford!" The boy announced, standing up dramatically and thrusting a hand into the air. "I'm sure you've heard of me. If you haven't well…I'll have to make you have heard of me!"
His loud tone startled a shy looking black haired girl who immediately clapped her hands over her ears and drew her knees up to shield her body. There she trembled as Ox continued his rant, threatening to…let's just say Maka nodded and pretended to know him.
"Ox sit down please." Marie said patiently as if she'd had to deal with this situation a hundred times. "You're scaring Jacqueline."
Ox grumbled but he sunk back into his seat and folded his arms, looking very angry and sulky. The shy girl slowly withdrew from herself once she saw Ox was seated. She kept her hands firmly in place over her ears however. Marie sighed but moved onto the next people, two small almost identical kids who were sharing the same seat. However it was a boy who introduced them.
"This is Thunder," he gestured to one of them. "And Fire," he said confidently.
Maka remembered the door with the names and Marie's explanation. She decides to be nice, giving the kids a normal smile.
"Nice to meet you." She said easily, unsure of the tone in her voice but deciding it didn't sound rude or sarcastic.
Thunder, the girl, whisper into the boy's ear and he nodded. Fire did the exact same thing moments later.
"They say hello back and they like your hair." Marie seemed delighted by this comment though Maka thought it was nothing special, just a greeting and a compliment. Perhaps it had to do with their…condition. That must've be it.
There wasn't any more awkward interacting between Maka and the twins so they moved onto the brown skinned boy who called himself Kilik. He seemed very open and relaxed and Maka found herself subconsciously relaxing around him.
"I'm here for substance abuse and some anger issues." The teen scratched the back of his head, obviously embarrassed. "My dad's a bit of a tosser so…"
"Language," Marie chided him gently and he laughed easily. Maka suddenly found herself being jealous of him. He seemed so happy and confident and sure of himself. It wasn't fair. Even the kids in the mental hospital were happier than her.
"I like video games and I'll read the occasional book." Kilik spoke again, pushing his glasses up his nose. "And I like food and steak and apples." He rambled on for a while and Maka was happy to just let it wash over her as she tried to secretly scan the room. Everyone looked bored and Marie probably realised it to because she smoothly cut Kilik off.
"Perhaps we should move on now Kilik." The therapist said calmly. "I'm sure Kim wants to speak."
The girl in question was the girl with short strawberry blonde hair and she groaned as Marie drew the attention to her. She was obviously the 'cool girl' type that Maka had seen around school, the type to not do work and try and make others do it last minute.
"Well I'm Kim," the girl said in a bored tone, somehow offending Maka who had been treated rather nicely up until then. "I'm a klepto and this stupid place couldn't mind their own business so…"
"Kim try to be nicer please." Marie scolded the girl. "This is all very new for Maka and don't you remember how nervous you were on your first day?"
Kim shrugged carelessly and nudged the shy girl who drew her hands away from her ears to smile at Maka.
"I'm Jaqueline," the girl blushed. "I have Misophonia. It's very nice to meet you Maka."
"Same," Maka said lightly, not sure how to respond to the girl's condition considering she didn't know what it was.
"Woooooooooooo I'm next!" BlackStar spoke up before Jaqueline could say anything else. "I am the amazing BlackStar! I am going to be a God and no one can stop me! You can have my autograph if you like."
"Um no thanks." Maka tried declining politely. "I'm okay actually."
There was a blur of movement and suddenly BlackStar was right in front of her, tilting his head almost innocently. Maka jolted back in her chair from shock. Before the hyper teen could say or do anything, Marie was dragging him back to his seat, ruffling his hair affectionately.
"Try to control your impulse to do that BlackStar." She lightly pushed the boy into his seat. "Maka doesn't need you scaring her on her first day."
BlackStar pouted but smiled as Marie gave him a lolly from the bag Maka suddenly noticed was hanging off her shoulder.
"Let's move onto you Liz," Marie said as BlackStar carefully unwrapped the lolly as though it was some deadly mission. The blonde girl shook her head however.
"We met at lunch. I don't have anything else to share…and neither does Patty." Marie seemed to accept this but Maka was inwardly panicking. The time the lesson was scheduled to finish (5:30) was nowhere near being up which would mean she would have to talk. Maybe Kid…or Death or whatever his name was would take a while. He was sitting next to Patty, fiddling with the sleeves of his black jacket.
Once it was perfectly clear that Liz and Patty weren't going to say anything about from patty declaring her love for giraffes, the boy straightened up and smiled brightly at Maka.
"I'm Kid and I love symmetry…apparently loving something means you have OCD." The last sentence left him looking just as sulky as everyone else. Maka figured if sulky was a condition, everyone here would have…including her. She hated to admit it but the way she was acting right now could only be classified as sulky.
"Kid we understand you love symmetry," Marie said patiently. "That doesn't mean you can attack bus drivers with crooked caps."
"But he wasn't symmetrical." Kid complained.
"Let's move on." Was all Marie said, an obvious dismissal on Kid's behalf. It was Tsubaki next but all she did was smile and wave, obviously silently agreeing with Liz's point. Maka already knew a lot about her and any other questions Maka had for the nervous teen could be asked in private. It was blatantly obvious that Tsubaki didn't want to speak in front of the group.
Maka ignored the next two teens who seemed to fade into the background. There was a blank faced brown haired girl called Tami who mumbled something about Anorexia and a gothic looking boy who introduced himself as Luke and admitted he had factitious disorder.
After the two people who made little to no impact on Maka, the teens gaze fell upon the next seat. Oh crap it was Soul! Now she either had to listen to the jerk rave on about how awesome he was or sit silently as he embarrassed her in front of everyone.
She was surprised then when all he did was raise an eyebrow, mutter his name and then seem to fall back into his dream like state where he blocked everyone else out. Maka had noticed this when she was ignoring Tami. It wasn't like she wanted to stare at him of course. She was bored and her eyes just happened to fall on him…and stay there.
There was now only one person left before Maka would have to talk and she could feel her heart beating fast as Marie smiled reassuringly at the next teenager to speak, the pink haired person. Maka still wasn't sure of the gender.
"I d-don't know how to d-deal with this." They stammered, casting their eyes downwards.
"It's ok," Marie said in a tone that matched her reassuring look. "Just introduce yourself."
The teen shook their head firmly causing the pink hair to whip around.
"I d-don't know how to." They explained miserably and Maka felt a pang of sympathy for them. To be unable to deal with doing anything must be a tough way to live.
"Just try to okay." Marie said, her tone now one of patience and understanding. "I'm sure Maka would love to know your name."
The pink haired person made an 'eep' sound and their cheeks flamed red.
"C-Crona," They stammered eventually. "I'm C-Crona."
Apparently satisfied, Marie turned to face Maka, a huge smile plastered on her face.
"It's your turn Maka," She said with a tinge of relief in her voice. Obviously making it round the full circle was a hard task to achieve. "Tell us about yourself."
Now there was no way Maka wanted to address a bunch of people she didn't even know and tell them about herself. They were all strangers here. She only knew their names and she was sure she would have forgotten a few by tomorrow. But the key to getting out of the hospital was to pretend to be getting better and…happier so that's what she was going to do.
But how?
Maka squirmed uncomfortably in her seat, not sure what to say. If she said she liked books, people might call her a nerd. She was bullied enough at school. She could make a hobbie up or invent a random back story about life at home but what if she forgot about it or was asked to talk about a movie she'd never seen. Her best bet was to share the bare minimal and make it sound like a lot.
"Well I'm Maka as you know and I go to Death City South High School or Death South for short." Good one Maka. Prattle on about school for a while. "I uh…like english and science. I also don't mind P.E or art." This was going great. No one was giving her weird looks. They all seemed mildly interested.
"What else Maka?" Marie prompted and Maka racked her brains hurriedly for something convincing to say.
"I have a cat called Blair and I like the colour red." Maka found herself not lying to the group as she had done before with her favourite subjects. After all, liking a colour and having a pet wouldn't get her labelled…would it?
"That's great Maka, I'm sure we all know a bit more about you know." Marie broke in suddenly and Maka glanced towards the clock. The session wasn't up, why had she been stopped?
"Well since it's Maka's first day and it's too late to start a new activity now, why don't you all go hang out in the Rec Room."
There were a few voice agreements but most of the teenagers just nodded and stood up, stretching or nudging each other. Maka quickly got to her feet but she wasn't sure what to do or where to go. Luckily, she was saved from finding her own answer to that when a hand pulled her over to where Tsubaki and Patty stood. It was Liz!
"Tsubaki told me to get you." The paranoid teen muttered, shuffling her feet and looking away.
"Uh thankyou," Maka said back just as awkwardly.
"Let's g-go or the good seats will be t-taken." Tsubaki said hastily and with a 'woop' from Patty, the group of girls had headed out the room and down the corridor.
Hope this chapter is long enough.
The two OC's are only there because I wanted more characters as patients but also need people as doctors and stuff. Ignore them or whatever, they won't kill you.
Also not sure if ya'll know this but Crona has no gender in Manga unlike in Anime where it's hinted they are a boy. I just chose to go with Manga here.
Next up- Are all Dinner's This Chaotic?
