"Why do I have to buy flowers for you?" Liz whined.
"I already tried, I can't do it!" Kid explained. "It's disgracefully, disgustingly asymmetrical in there."
"Fine. What kind should I get?" Kid hadn't thought of that. He wondered what kind of flowers Maka would like best.
"Just get a bouquet. Something bright and beautiful and symmetrical."
Liz came back out of the shop a half hour later in a huff. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a perfectly symmetrical bouquet? They had to make a new one and it took three tries." The bouquet in her hand was a mix of pink and yellow flowers, perfectly arranged.
"Thank you Liz! This is perfect!" Kid grabbed it and took off running.
"Hey! You're gonna pay me back for that!"
He paused outside of Maka's apartment to write a note on the card in the flowers, then knocked on the door.
Too late to go back now. He straightened his jacket and checked his posture. The door opened a crack and Soul's red eyes peered out at him. Soul looked at Kid's hopeful and nervous expression, then at the flowers, and closed the door.
"Again?" Kid rolled his eyes. He knocked again. "Maka? Hello?"
"She isn't here," Soul replied.
"What do you mean she isn't here?"
"I mean, she got up and left about an hour ago and isn't back yet."
"She was in a coma two days ago and you let her go out?" Kid was shocked that even Soul, who he believed to be a fairly irresponsible person, could be so incredibly irresponsible.
"I didn't let her!" Soul yelled back. Since when does Maka listen to me?
Where could she have gone? Kid wondered. He spent the rest of the day wandering Death City, searching for Maka. He looked for her at the academy, at Tsubaki's, even at her father's house.
"Where could she have possibly gone?" Out of the corner of his eye, Kid caught sight of a bookstore. "Oh, right." He found Maka sitting on the floor in the fiction section, piles of books around her. She looked up, surprised to see him.
"Did you find a good book?" He asked.
"Yeah," she nodded. "Only now I can't decide which one I want." Kid sat down next to her, crossing his legs and setting the now rustled and wilted flowers on the floor in front of them. He started picking up books and rearranging them. Maka watched as he sorted out the books into four piles. They were set in a square and each the same height, except for one. Kid pulled another book off of the shelf and added it to the shorter pile.
"There!" He smiled, satisfied with his little creation. Maka laughed lightly. She picked up the top book from the pile closest to her and looked over the back cover.
"This one looks interesting. It's about a different world, one without weapons or meisters. Could you imagine that?" She picked up another book. "But this one is a love story. Oh, and this one is about an underground revolution. How am I supposed to decide?" Kid didn't even mind that she was destroying his perfect piles. He quietly enjoyed watching her struggle over the books. He pulled the first one she'd pick up, and the romance novel out of her hand.
"Eenie meanie minie mo.. This one," he handed the romance novel back to her. "I didn't choose, the fates did." Maka didn't say anything for a little while, she just sat there holding the book and staring at her lap.
"I chose this book nearly an hour ago," she admitted. "But I can't get up."
"Can you walk?" She shook her head. "How do you feel about piggyback rides?"
"I haven't had one since I was little, but I can't say I'm wholly opposed to them." A few minutes later Kid was walking down the street with a girl on his back, a new book in one hand, and flowers in the other. Maka was blushing a burying her face in Kids neck to hide from anyone they might pass on the streets the entire way back to her apartment.
"Here we are," Kid announced, pushing open the door. Maka pointed to the couch and Kid carefully dropped her onto it.
"Thanks, Kid," she murmured, tired. Soul wandered out from his room, took one look at Maka's drooping eyelids and headed towards the kitchen.
"I'll make some tea,"
Maka pulled a blanket off of the floor to curl up with in the corner of the couch and Kid sat down next to her feet. In the kitchen, Soul was preparing a cup of tea just the way Maka liked it. When he turned away to put the sugar back in the cupboard, something small and quick and evil slid into her drink. He brought the tray out to Kid and Maka, stared at them on the couch for a moment then sat down on the edge of the coffee table with the tray set next to him. Kid thanked him and took a cup. Soul snorted at Kid's niceties and threw back his own cup.
"Maka, tea for you," Soul said, gently shaking her shoulder.
"I don't want any right now. Thanks, though." Soul shrugged and drank her cup of tea in one gulp. He made a weird face and coughed a bit, as if he'd swallowed something wrong. Maka fell asleep soon and Soul settled into his spot on the table. Kid shifted in his seat and avoided Soul's piercing gaze.
"Perhaps, um, perhaps I should go now," Kid stood and looked to the door.
"Yes, perhaps you should."
Kid set the flowers on the coffee table in front of Maka, rearranging them to be slightly more symmetrical and setting the note in front. He wanted it to be the first thing she saw when she woke up.
"Damn," the witch muttered. How could she have known Soul would drink Maka's tea? She would have to make some slight alterations to her plan. Maka was the one who was supposed to swallow the snake, but maybe this was even better. She could destroy the academy's favorite young meister using her own weapon.
Yes, she plotted. That will do just fine.