A/N: I've been meaning to post this one for awhile now, but I had a few things at the end to finish up. Enjoy the finished chapter! ^^

4: Pretty Pocky with Mustard

Not So Bad

It had just been one of those days, the kind that seemed like it couldn't get any worse but always did. For Maka, she had gotten out of bed that morning only to stub two of her toes on her desk and knock a few of her schoolbooks to the floor when her foot collided with the wood as she lurched forward. So, as she danced around her room, keeping her throbbing, left foot raised off the ground, trying to bite down curses, Soul had walked in, given her the weirdest look, followed by a grin and then hysterical snickering.

Okay, so Maka agreed that wasn't so bad, she could live with it, but then while making breakfast, she reduced a pancake to charcoal when the hem of her pajama shirt snagged on the burner knob and she turned it up to high. Although, Maka decided finishing up the batch of pancakes hadn't even been worth it when Soul began gagging and spraying mashed up debris and spit everywhere. That's when Maka had sampled one for herself and found out that some unknown entity (for some odd reason, a compelling force urged her to name it Black Star) had switched the baking power and baking soda into opposite containers.

Maka had said 'screw it' and had thrown open the cupboard doors to pull down a loaf of bread for toast. However, when her eyes met only the bare expanse of wood inside the cupboard, Soul was already inching away down the hall with the excuse he had to use the bathroom. His meister had slapped a hand to her forehead and vowed to kill the scythe later for not going out shopping when she'd told him to.

So, with her stomach growling, Maka had just begun doing what little dishes were left to do that morning when Soul came in and reminded her that Black Star had declared the ultimate tournament of basketball. Maka gave him the look that screamed she couldn't have cared less, but Soul began listing all the things Black Star would do if they didn't all show up.

As Maka trudged out the door, toe throbbing and breakfast-less, she whined about how Liz could get away with skipping Black Star's ultimate games with only so much as a mere scolding to which Soul replied the annoying assassin found Maka more amusing when she was angry.

Like the scythe meister predicted, everyone at the basketball court didn't look happy to be there, apart from Black Star who was dribbling the basketball madly and shouting out rules left and right. Maka noticed with some disappointment Liz was absent, said to have some sort of abrupt head cold, according to Kid.

Soul asked about a penalty for the losing team and Maka could already see Kid going rigid, no doubt fearing for the safety of his symmetrically decorated home.

Black Star pondered the question for a few moments, before naming the punishment for his own team, consisting of Soul and Patty: The winners would have a victory feast made by the three, but seeing as Patty didn't cook (at least, not that they knew of) and Black Star would presumably do nothing, Soul got the end of the stick.

Maka demanded what fate would befall her own team of Kid and Tsubaki, guessing Black Star would choose some unfortunate ending for the paintings in Gallows Manor, but instead he grinned widely and declared Maka, being the team leader and all, would have to go on a date with the most scrawny, unpopular, and incompetent meister in the whole academy: Hiro. Maka gasped in alarm, Soul cringed, and Patty began shrieking with laughter like there was no tomorrow.

Black Star smirked at the sputtering scythe meister and waved his hands, saying something about not being able to take the punishment back, if she hated so much, she'd have to win.

The game began and after a few seconds of playing, both teams were already on their toes from the force of it. Maka's anger fueled her every throw and Black Star pushed himself to the limits just to block every shot the other team made. Tsubaki, watching the ball sail back and forth, was trying to decide which would be worse: having her meister lose and complain about it all the way home or sending Maka out on a date with the pathetic loser of a student. The older girl turned to Maka just as the scythe meister whipped the basketball at Kid while screaming something about either making a basket or having only half of his face drawn on, and inquired if going on a date with Hiro would really be so bad. Maka turned and gave the dark arm weapon a furious stare, and Tsubaki quickly told her friend to forget she'd said anything at all.

The game continued on, bringing with it the atmosphere of war. Soul had a bruise forming on his right temple and no matter how many times Kid screamed they were on the same team, Maka still wasn't forgiving him for trying to make baskets symmetrically and continued to chuck the ball at the back of his head if he wasn't paying attention. Patty was being psychotic and using terrible methods to get the basketball back at all costs, and Black Star had done the splits twice just to stop the opposing team from making baskets and was still playing.

When the war finally ended, Maka was lying as flat as her charcoaled pancake breakfast with clouds of doom forming over her. The next day at school, she would have to find Hiro and ask the poorly named child on a date.

-/-\-|-/-\-

When Hiro sat down at his usual lunch table in the corner and was quickly flocked around by meisters and weapons that had requested he buy food for them, he didn't expect the day to get any better. Just as the last triple-decker, cheese and chicken sandwich was taken by Kim Dehl, he pulled out his own measly carton of chocolate milk, only to have that snatched by her as well before the witch stalked away.

Sighing in disappointment as his stomach grumbled up angrily to him (no, seriously, the words were to Hiro. They sounded suspiciously like, 'You're a pathetic loser,'), Hiro was about to skip lunch altogether when suddenly a tray of salad, spaghetti, and lemonade was slammed down in front of him, followed by the words 'eat up'. Looking up slowly, the blond haired student blinked in surprise at a sour faced Maka Albarn who gazed at him like he was a cockroach that had made her shoe its new home.

At his confused expression, Maka sat and threw down her own tray she had been holding and began tearing at a sour dough bread roll. When he gave her a bewildered glance, she snarled something about taking his food away if he didn't eat, to which Hiro hurriedly began slurping up pasta and gulping down lemonade.

So his day could get a little better, he thought as he piled smooth, green leaves of lettuce into his mouth. He didn't care what her motive was, only that he had the chance to actually consume something edible and pleasant during school. Just as he was chugging down the last drops of sugary beverage, Maka muttered something in a dark tone that sounded very close to, 'Would you go on a date with me?'.

Okay, so if a girl asked him out, even if it was flat-as-book-cover chested Maka, the one thing greatly advised against would be spitting out whatever food or drink he had in his mouth into the girl's face. As Maka impatiently wiped sticky drops of lemonade from her nose and chin, Hiro apologized profusely, going as far as lunging to the floor and bowing low at her feet.

Maka angrily lashed out at him with her feet, causing him to squeak and bolt upright. She looked like she was regretting asking him out, and she kept shooting dirty looks over to the lunch table to their right where Black Star, Soul, Patty, Liz, and Tsubaki sat, a few of them snickering quietly and talking behind their hands.

Ah-ha, Hiro thought as he dusted off his pants and straightened his shirt. So it was probably something Black Star had dragged her into.

Smiling at the meister and feeling his soul begin to disintegrate from all the trembling it was doing under Maka's fiery glare, Hiro answered yes, he was free that evening, and they could go wherever she wanted to. He couldn't help but notice her shoulders droop visibly and her expression morph into something slightly akin to what everyone called the Just-Met-Excalibur Face. Okay, so perhaps she was detesting the idea of going on a date with him, but she was still a girl (and one of the more popular ones, at that), and Hiro could use some help climbing the staircase of popularity. If she was only going on a date with him because of some bet or just to show Black Star, then he could use her for his own purposes of striking out to be known.

-/-\-|-/-\-

As Maka straightened the smooth fabric of the black sweater she had bought just the other week, she glared back at Soul when he scoffed and demanded if she was actually being serious enough about the date to wear something nice. The scythe shrugged when she began stomping angrily towards the door, murmuring something to himself about advising her to wear casual clothes, the flea of a student probably was.

She left Soul to his sniggering and left the apartment in a huff, already hearing the scythe scrambling to grab his own jacket so he could follow at a safe distance behind. She was positive everyone was going to meet up in the café she and Hiro were going to, just to watch their spoils for winning, as well as losing, the basketball game. Well…maybe except for Kid… and Tsubaki, Maka realized, thinking that the Grim Reaper and weapon may be kind enough to say something like it was none of their business. She was suddenly feeling sorry for glaring at Tsubaki and whaling on the back of Kid's head with the basketball…

The rusted bell attached to Burned Black Soul Café jangled unpleasantly when the door squeaked open on broken hinges. The café was a dark, shady place none of the students of the academy really went to, fearing the mysterious people who resided in the shop's lonely corners and loitered in the disgusting alleyways outside. It wasn't the smartest place to go to, especially when she was a girl by herself, but if she didn't want to be seen by fellow classmates who could gossip about the unusual sighting of pathetic Hiro and scythe technician Makatogether, it was the greatest little hideout.

Ignoring the looks of the shifty eyed regulars that watched her go by, Maka calmly sat in a seat by the window, resisting the urge to sneeze when dust billowed up from the tattered seat. As she tapped her fingers on the rotting wooden table with knife cuts and stained, unknown substances on it, she saw Hiro's pale face appear in the shop's window as he gazed inside with a look that made her almost certain he was soiling his pants. When he saw his date, he gulped and uncertainly made his way inside, passing by thugs and drunks. He mumbled a quiet 'hello' and sat in the seat across from Maka, pulling uncomfortably at the collar of his red T-shirt with a comical, black soul print.

A waiter that was anything but came over and grumbled the menu was always changing and not to trust the thin, make-shift lists of peculiar food options made of ripped up cardboard boxes and colored on with sharpie. He slid two shot glasses towards them before filling them both with a cloudy, green liquid from a chipped pitcher, growling that water could start them off for the evening.

Maka admitted the place was definitely a health hazard of Death City, one of the worst since Black Star's boycotting to clean his locker at school. (She thanked God Tsubaki had it in her to grab her meister by the ear and scream at him.) The scythe meister, trying not to look to disgusted, dismissed the 'water' and proceeded to stare icily at her date and make him feel as insecure as possible.

It was working; Hiro was trying to steel his soul and resisted the urge to go crashing out the window beside him while shrieking like an escapee from an asylum. The dented bell above the front door jangled, and Hiro jumped from the sudden noise, though he wasn't able to break eye contact with Maka who continued to stare coldly into the depths of his soul.

As a taller figure shuffled by, head bowed and hands shoved into the pockets of a gray hoodie that appeared a few sizes too large, Hiro felt a bead of sweat roll down the side of his face; Maka could tell the boy was probably running a short scenario of them being slaughtered by the passing thug through his head. However, the hooded stranger only shoved past Maka's seat, brushing her school bag hanging over the top and settled down in a seat farthest from them by the long, front window.

Licking his lips nervously, Hiro began casual talk with the iceberg imitating meister by asking where she had come across such a… 'charming' place. He almost crashed to the floor when Maka answered in a solemn, uninterested tone that a friend had told her about it.

It was true, Maka thought to herself, leaning back in her seat and praying that the termite massacred piece of wood wouldn't break on her. Right after her situation at lunch, she had been asking for a good, secluded place students avoided and would hopefully scare Hiro away. Some sort of run down bar or abandoned club would've done the trick, but as she had suspected, everyone answered with bored 'No's', except for Patty, who's head immediately shot up at the question, and she stared at the meister with a never ending, wide eyed, insane look.

Later, as Maka had been walking to class, a hand had whipped out of nowhere and latched around her wrist, yanking her into the girl's bathroom. As the youngest of the twin pistols shoved Maka into a bathroom stall and locked the door behind her, Maka sputtered in shock until Patty had spun around and whispered something about shutting up and listening toeverything she had to say. The girl had continued to give Maka explicit directions to a isolated, back alley bar where only the bravest of sane people dared to venture.

After Maka had finished nodding rapidly and shoved a folded up piece of notebook paper with scribbled directions to The Burned Black Soul Café, she slowly backed out of the bathroom stall and had inquired how Patty knew of such an anti-social, underworld place. Patty had only cocked her head to the side and smiled innocently, leaving Maka in a daze as she stumbled out of the bathroom.

Hiro was glancing about nervously at the quietly muttering customers and began inquiring if the bar, that was by no means a café like the sign read, was really the nicest place Maka could find. Maka gave him a dark look and leaned down to lift her schoolbag she had brought with her, briefly entertaining the idea she was striking Hiro with a wet-yourself inducing nightmare that maybe, concealed in her bag was a syringe filled with a sedative that would knock him out so she, as well as the other strangers in the bar, could offer him up as a sacrifice to the Booze God. However, if he was thinking such things, he didn't show it for he only watched her curiously as she pulled up a small package she scrutinized briefly before tearing up the top, cardboard flap. Grabbing Hiro's hand, she faced his palm upward and slid two sticks of pocky into his fingers before grabbing one for herself.

Hiro raised the candy and inspected it before looking back at Maka who was crunching away, watching him with her forest green eyes before asking what his problem was, the stuff wasn't poisoned. Hiro raised the treat to his own mouth and bit off the end, chewing thoughtfully before deciding it tasted fine.

They both sat in silence for awhile, munching on pocky and watching blurs of people pass outside the shop's murky window. The drowsy sun was hanging low in the sky, dousing both meisters in a warm, golden hue. It almost made the greatly avoided shop a little peaceful and more normal looking.

The blond haired teen glanced over at Maka, focusing on her long hair that shone a light caramel color. It looked better when she left it down, Hiro realized, and the way the sun added a dreamy glow to her skin and caused her narrowed eyes to shine made her look… kind of pretty.

Maka spotted the meister staring and twirled the stick of pocky between her lips, before inquiring what he was looking at. When Hiro took awhile to answer and began sputtering incoherently, Maka rolled her eyes and smiled just a fraction, amused that his eyes looked like the souls of Immortals in the setting sun's light.

Seeing the meister's sudden smile, the most pleasant thing he'd seen that evening, Hiro grew silent and hurriedly finished off an end of pocky. Folding his hands in front of him, he offered hesitantly if she wanted, he could take her to a nicer restaurant. When his date appeared skeptical, he quickly assured her that he had plenty of money to spare.

Maka thought about the offer for a few seconds and glanced around at the dreary atmosphere surrounding them, before deciding to take the chance, how bad could it be? She stood with a smile, pulled her book bag across her shoulder and said the thought sounded lovely, all the while thinking perhaps Tsubaki had had a point all along.

Walking towards the front door while customers watched the two with interested eyes, Maka began inquiring if Hiro should be spending money on stuff like fancy dinners; wasn't rent more important? Hiro only scoffed and waved his hands dismissively, assuring the meister that despite his appearance, he actually had rich parents, much to Maka's absolute bewilderment.

As the two students left, three shadows in the corner shifted and rose, nodding slowly to a pair of shadows by the door and one more concealed in the opposite corner of the shop, the one who had walked past Maka and Hiro. The suspicious group creepily followed the couple, mumbling quietly amongst themselves as they watched both teens continue down the street, no doubt heading to the fancy French 'Deathaurant' on Third Street. Whispering darkly, the one leading the group began giving directions to cut off the two at the end of the alley while he would come around and give them both a good scare.

Beside the leader of the group, the second figure's hand shot out and grabbed the plotting menace by the ear, demanding in an incredulous tone that wasn't seeing the two together already enough? Come on, Black Star, Maka had fulfilled her punishment, couldn't they go home already?

Black Star shrugged his ear lobe out of Liz's iron grip and began nervously laughing something about how, yes, Liz was absolutely right and they should probably head home. Liz glared suspiciously at the boy while Soul grimaced and stretched, feeling cramped after sitting rigidly in the shady underworld bar for so long. Tsubaki looked relieved about finally being allowed to go home and Kid was already making his way down the street, followed by a giggling Patty.

Black Star watched his team members retreat before turning back to where Maka and Hiro had disappeared around a corner that would bring them to the French restaurant. He was vaguely aware that Tsubaki had come to stand beside him and was now exhaling deeply with a content sigh before she began murmuring something about how Maka and Hiro might make a good couple. The scythe technician would be a good influence and role model for the seemingly useless meister. The weapon hoped the date would continue peacefully without another long, dead silence like before and murmured gratefully about how the pocky had perhaps saved the evening.

As his partner turned and began following after their friends, Black Star's eyes suddenly narrowed in confusion as he began to realize he hadn't the slightest idea where Maka had gotten the pocky in the first place. Soul had given a full report, having watched Maka pack very closely, under Black Star's orders. Only a few books to discourage Hiro from talking as well as a few notebooks from school she decided not to take out. Soul had watched her until the moment she'd stepped into the café to make sure she didn't bolt, and then he'd snuck in through the back door. The only time Maka could have gotten the pocky was when she was inside the café, but they'd been watching her closely. Also, he didn't think anyone had walked by her or her bag, so—

A sudden thought struck Black Star, and he turned slowly, narrowing his eyes at Tsubaki's tall, retreating form. He quickly hurried after his demon weapon, inquiring suspiciously if she knew how Maka had gotten the pocky without them seeing, to which Tsubaki replied innocently she had no idea, all the while with a strange look of smugness on her face.

-/-\-|-/-\-

A/N: Motives – Tsubaki has them.

Hey, if anyone has a certain crack pairing in mind, I could use the ideas. I don't write yaoi or yuri, but I'll still write boyxboy and girlxgirl, just without the romance.