Day 2 - Chocolate: "huge crush on the person who works in the shop across from mine in the mall" AU

"Go away and shop at a normal store. The lava lamps here give you cancer."

Maka blinked, taken aback Her first instinct was to lecture this guy– Soul, his black name tag said– on customer service. Her second instinct was to yell at him for sitting on store merchandise because who didthat?

More specifically, Soul (was that even his real name or just his Hot Topic pseudonym?) lounged on top of a pile of unfolded My Chemical Romance t-shirts and flipped through a Batman comic seemingly without a care in the world. "I'm actually not here to shop. I work at Choco Loco," she pointed to the kiosk a couple of feet away from the store, "and I just came by to see if you wanted some of these leftover samples."

He finally deigned to look up at her and she wondered if his white hair and red eyes look was a goth-y, vampire thing. He– Soul– dressed relatively normal compared to the sea of the corsets and bondage pants of his coworkers. There was suspicion in his eyes and he reminded Maka of a stray dog that was contemplating approaching a stranger.

"Choco Loco is a dorky name," he offered but took the small plastic cup filled with chocolate covered gummy bears.

Maka bristled. This might have been just a summer job to pay her way through college but she took her work seriously. She wasn't going to just stand there and let some slacker insult her kiosk. "Yeah, well, you work at Hot Topic," was the only thing she managed to get out through her anger. "Are you really in a position to badmouth someone else's store?"

"Damn. Touché," he grimaced, showing off rows of sharp teeth. Maka wondered if those were natural or a prop from the store. Soul looked over at a row of faux leather collars and sighed. "It's true, this is the place where dreams go to die."

"Then why do you work here?" And why was she still talking to him?

"Desperation," Soul stood up and tossed the empty plastic cup to her. Maka fumbled with it for a brief moment before catching it. "Thanks for the sample."

"Whatever," Maka huffed and briskly walked out. What a jerk, she thought. What an incorrigible, lazy, rude, jerk. Unable to help herself, Maka looked back over her shoulder. Soul gave her a head tilt– some weird form of recognition, maybe?– and a small smirk.

Oh no, Maka thought with alarm. He's cute.

"Lunch?"

Maka looked up from the cash register to find herself face to face with Soul from Hot Topic. "What?"

"You know," he said, looking more and more unsure of himself as the seconds ticked by, "lunch. A light meal that usually happens in the afternoon?"

"I know what lunch is, thank you very much, but as you can see, I'm very busy."

Soul looked around. The mall was a ghost town and Maka hadn't seen a customer in over three hours. "Oh, yeah, I had to fight my way through the crowd of people dyin' to get mall chocolate on a Sunday afternoon."

Maka ignored him and pretended to look through old receipts. Part of her, she was ashamed to admit, really wanted to accept his invitation. The more logical part of her just wanted to hit him in the head with a plastic tray. "I owe you for the free samples."

"You just want an excuse not to go back to work," Maka accused.

He grinned. He had a nice smile, if a little pointy. "That isanother perk."

She put the receipts down. Maka was probably going to regret this. "Bad mall Chinese food on you?"

"Deal."

Six mall lunches later:

"Can I take you out sometime?" Soul asked quickly around a mouthful of eggroll. "Uh, outside of the mall. Not as a repayment for the free samples. As a date… thing." He groaned. "God, I suck at this."

Maka reached under the table to take his hand. He blushed something furious. She smiled widely. "I think that can be arranged."