Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater. If anything, it owns me.
Warnings: None for this chapter.
Chapter Two: The Missed Chance
Kid stared several long seconds at the scene in front of him.
His mind point-blank refused to work at all. Crona, shy, slightly insane Crona, was a boy. They'd all assumed he'd been a girl. The dress, the face. The only hint had been the way Crona talked.
Well, and the lack of any sort of chest development, but Kid really wasn't one to pay attention to such things, even if Crona had really nice long legs that seemed to go on forever--
Kid promptly pulled the cord on that train of thought, off-railing it, crashing it, and then burning it for good measures. Straightening himself with a cough - was he blushing? His cheeks were hot, damn he had to be - he managed a weak smile at the revealed boy, who had finally wrestled the hem of the dress away from Ragnarok and was now covered decently.
"Well, we won't be using Liz's closet for you, that's for sure..." He lapsed off into awkward silence. It remained that way for several minutes, Crona clutching at his arm like always and staring at the ground, mortified, and Kid determinedly fixing his gaze on Crona, on a place that cuold in no way be considered erotic--burn that thought train too.
Crona's dress was not symmetrical. It almost was, right up until the neck. It was not buttoned all the way up, and the buttons just threw the symmetry all off. Now, with Crona's hair no longer a distraction, his obsession was drawn by those darn little buttons. Crona did need new clothes, but now there was nothing to fit the slender boy. It was slightly galling, but the only ones in there little group who were tall and lanky enough to match Crona's slim frame were Liz and Tsubaki, who were both girls. And now, knowing what he did, Kid refused to allow the travesty of the dress on Crona any longer.
Of course. That's all he had to do.
He strolled forward purposefully, ignoring Crona's sudden babbles of apologies and attempts at hiding in the corner, and grabbed his arm. Startled, the lavender-haired teen followed in a daze as Kid dragged him through the house and outside.
After several minutes of walking, the wielder of Ragnarok - who had thankfully disappeared after he'd pulled up Crona's dress - finally mustered up the courage to actually ask a question. Kid was impressed.
"W-W-Where are we going...?"
"Shopping," Kid replied in his usual brisk manner. "You still need clothes, and ones of the correct gender. None of mine will fit you, so we are going shopping."
"B-But I've never been shopping...I-I don't know what to do..."
"Just follow me. I'll show you."
And with the finality in Kid's answered, they walked in silence for the remainder of the trip.
"I-I don't know w-what to do with all these clothes..."
Kid sighed slightly. Shopping for Crona was easy in one way, for the boy had simple tastes. He preferred mostly monochrome schemes of black and white, with an occasional red or burgundy item thrown in somewhere. The difficult part was dragging the information out of the boy. It had taken forever to get him to even say what colors he liked, which was after a long debate over how he didn't know what colors he liked and how was he supposed to decide when he didn't know?
After the colors, then came the styles. That had been much easier, to Kid's relief. True to his shy, timid nature, Crona preferred clothes that covered as much bare skin as possible - if it didn't remind him of Medusa so much, the boy would probably hide in an endless amount of black hoodie jackets.
A surprise, though, was the fits Crona chose. COnsidering the modest style of the clothes he picked, it was surprising that he seemed to prefer tighter clothes.
Then again, after seeing how a T-shirt that was supposedly Crona's size seemed to swamp the stick-thin teen, perhaps closer-fitting clothes were the better option.
So, after several hours - at which point was long into the night and the tailor had only been staying since Kid had flashed his father's card at him - they'd finally collected enough outfits for Crona to wear every day of the week, and a few extras besides. He also now had acceptable formal wear and other such things. All were, of course, perfectly symmetrical. Kid felt that even Liz couldn't have done a better job. Crona stood in place, arms filled with the bundle of bags, eyes wide and bewildered, showing off their natural lavender color.
Rolling his eyes slightly, Kid stepped forward and grabbed a few bags off the mountain that seemed to threaten to topple Crona over at any minute. "Come on. You take the clothes home and put them in your dresser or closet, it's not that hard." With that, he started walking out of the store, before Crona's soft voice stopped him.
"My room doesn't have a dresser...or a closet...and Mr. Corner would get the clothes all dirty..."
Kid turned back, belatedly remembered the bare state of the room in Shibusen which Crona occupied. He stood there for a moment, debating. On one hand, Crona wielded the Demon Sword Ragnarok, and could become a liability at any moment should any remnants of Medusa's influence return. On the other hand...the shy boy didn't deserve to be treated like a prisoner. And Kid knew of only one place safer than Shibusen, and one that enemies would never dare look for fear of invoking the wrath of a god.
His own house.
Deciding, he nodded. "Then you'll get a new room, with both a dresser and a closet, and I will show you how to use them."
Startled, crona looked up for once. "N-New room...? Where?"
"My house. There are plenty of unused rooms. And it will be more comfortable for you. Now come!"
Used to following orders, Crona stumbled forward at Kid's imperious tone of voice unconsciously, following the young god home. Kid did not know if his father would approve of his spontaneous decision, but it would certainly help the poor soul which had landed in their care. And his father was nothing if not compassionate.
In another part of town, closer to Shibusen, a small green frog hopped about listlessly, slightly fearful of the report she had to make.
Eruka had lost Crona, and couldn't find him again. Even Medusa couldn't sense his presence.
Hoping this wouldn't cause Medusa to kill her on the spot, Eruka started to head back to base.