Soul had already been at the café for fifteen minutes by the time Maka arrives.
Why he'd gotten there so early, he probably couldn't tell you. But he'd spent nearly half an hour getting ready for this – which was a good 25 minutes longer than he'd ever spent getting ready for anything in his life – and he wanted to make sure Maka wasn't the first one there.
He stares at his wrist, reading his Sentence for the millionth time this week while twirling the paper cup full of coffee in his other hand. He'd thought it was a pretty cool sentence to have when he first got it.
It was certainly better than Black-Star's one word ("huh?") which had disappointed the eccentric, blue-haired kid immensely.
He'd ranted about how boring his Sentence was for hours, Soul tuning him out after the first 15 minutes. The day he'd woken up to his Sentence, right there on his left wrist, he'd shown it to Black-Star almost immediately, a smug look on his face. The kid fumed for days about how much better Soul's Sentence was than his, and how he really didn't deserve it, and he certainly didn't deserve a soulmate that seemed so cool.
But Soul didn't care too much about whether or not his soulmate was cool. Actually, he didn't care too much about finding his soulmate, period. He just figured it'd happen when it happened.
He never thought it would take 10 days, though. And he never thought that the first thing he would say to his soulmate would be so stupid.
Part of him thought it was hilarious; really, who else would have the words Tiny Tits tattooed on their wrists for the rest of their lives? But on the other hand, he felt pretty shitty about that exact same thing.
What if she wanted to be a doctor or something, and some patient didn't trust her since her soulmate had insulted her immediately after meeting her? Or what if people used his insult as a way to make fun of her?
He'd heard of people trying to cover their Sentences if they were unhappy with the one they got, or if they and their soulmate broke up.
But would Maka want to do that? What if she hated tattoos? Or what if she hated him?
He's second guessing his decision to meet her for their date when she walks through the door, stopping and surveying the tables around the café to find him. He raises his hand to give a small wave, catching her attention.
She smiles back at him, and his breath catches in his throat.
He doesn't want to let her know how pretty he thinks she was. That would be pretty uncool to give her the upper hand like that. But as she weaves her way through the small shop to the corner Soul's secured for them, he thinks that she's making it pretty hard for him, because damn it - she is really pretty.
She's in tight jeans and a loose-fitting, too big t-shirt, with a pair of big boots and her hair in pigtails. It looks like she wasn't wearing any makeup, and Soul is glad he didn't dress up too much for this.
He waves again as she sits down, and she raises an eyebrow at him as if to say "you already did that".
He panics, cursing silently to himself.
Why is he so freaked out about this? He just needs to play it cool, and there will be no problems. But here he is instead, freaking out like an idiot.
He waits for her to say something first, because he's pretty sure that if he tried to talk now, he would just end up puking all over the floor.
"You look nice."
She's smiling softly, and he wants to die right here and now.
"Uh, thanks," he mutters back, scratching the back of his head, "you look really nice too."
Her smile only grows, and he assumes it's because he hadn't insulted her physical appearance.
You're doing okay so far. Don't screw it up.
"So, I'm sorry. You know, about yesterday. That was kinda lame," he smiles awkwardly, hoping that she doesn't hate him too much.
She waves her hand dismissively, leaning back in her chair. "No, no. It's fine. You couldn't have known, I guess."
"Yeah, I guess so. So, how about we start over then," he holds out his hand across the table, a silent white flag. "I'm Soul."
She smiles again, and God he loves when she does that.
He kicks himself, pushing the thought out of his mind. What's wrong with him? He's never been this hung up on anyone before, let alone someone he's just met.
He silently chalks it up to the fact that she's his soulmate - maybe this was how it was just supposed to be.
He focuses instead on the feeling of her hand in his, and decides that he loves it.
"I'm Maka. It's nice to meet you."
He smiles again. He doesn't think he's ever smiled so much in his life.
It's a weird feeling.
"I uh, I got you a coffee. I didn't know how you like it so I just got it black, and figured you could put whatever you wanted into it." He pushes a second paper cup across the table towards her, and she takes it with a bit of hesitation.
"Thanks… I don't normally drink coffee. But I like it black when I do, anyway. So this is great." She takes the lid off of the top and takes a sip, cringing almost immediately.
Soul holds back a laugh.
"So, Maka, tell me about yourself." He lifts his own coffee to take a sip, hiding his laughter behind the rim of the cup. It's loaded with cream and sugar, so he avoids making any faces Maka may deem uncool.
"Well," she starts, pushing her coffee towards the middle of the table. Soul thinks he may have spent 4 dollars on something that will not be finished.
Maka tilts her head to the side, thinking for a moment before she continues "I just turned 18, and I'm going to community college before transferring to law school. I want to become a really great lawyer, like my mom. She's the best. I don't get to see her often since she lives in New York, but I go visit her sometimes over the summer. Now that I live on my own I don't have much money left to go see her after I pay rent and buy food and stuff. But I'm saving up for another trip. Uh, I really like to read, and I don't really know how all of this dating stuff works, so I may not be the best at it."
She shrugs awkwardly at the end, proceeding to grab hold of one of her pigtails. She runs her fingers through it, twisting and pulling until Soul thinks it may just pop clean off the side of her head.
"So, uh, what about you?"
"Huh?" He had zoned out while staring at her hands, and she laughs a bit as he comes to. He makes a quick recovery, though, coughing as he tells her about himself.
"I turned 18 last week. Well, like a week and a half. I'm at community college too, but only because my parents wanted me to go out to Julliard like my older brother. So I decided to come here instead. Plus, as much as I like playing, I don't want to go into composing and performing like the rest of my family, so I figure I'll just kinda wing it until I figure out exactly what I do want to do."
He shrugs like she did, and Maka's mouth hangs open.
"Wing it?"
"Yeah, why not? Lots of people don't know their majors yet. Or they change them at least a dozen times. I'm just going to keep taking classes until I find something that sticks. I have the funds. Maybe I'll get like 8 degrees and just do a bunch of different stuff. Who knows."
"That's..." she begins to shake her head, apparently shocked beyond words. "That's… Interesting. I don't think I could ever do that in a million years. I've had my life planned out since I was 5."
"So have I, but mine was never my choice," Soul shrugs a second time, sitting back in his chair. "I decided to change that."
"That's pretty brave. What instruments do you play?"
"Piano, mostly. My roommate hates it. He's into completely different music than I am so he goes crazy when I play."
"That's funny," Maka says, leaning forward as if to grab her coffee. She seems to decide against it, though, and rests her elbows on the table instead. "My friend was just talking last night about her boyfriend feeling the same way about his roommate. I think piano is cool, but Black-Star has the attention span of a toddler so I could totally see him going crazy over that."
"Wait, wait," Soul puts his hands on the table, pushing his coffee off to the side. "You know Black-Star?"
"Uh, yeah. I've known him since we were kids. His foster-dad was friends with my parents so we'd hang out a lot. Why?" Maka leans away, face skeptical.
"He's my roommate. That's… weird. Did you meet Tsubaki through him, too?"
"No way!" she springs forward toward the table, and this time it's Soul's turn to lean back quickly. "That's crazy! I wonder why we've never met before. How long have you known him?"
He crosses his arms. "Not until you answer my question."
Maka rolls her eyes and rests her chin on the back of her hands, lacing her fingers together to support herself. "I met Tsubaki in one of my classes. She and Black-Star actually met at my place, and he tried hitting on her. Turns out his shitty pick-up line was Tsu's Sentence."
Soul laughs. "Seriously? I was supposed to go with him that night but I went to a concert instead. That's funny. I've only known him since the summer before college. We met through work and decided to room together once school started."
"You work at the gym?"
Soul laughs at this, too, but it comes out as more of a snort than anything. "No way. We were both working at Deathbucks when we met. Once we came here he quit and got that job at the gym. It suits him better, I think."
"Makes sense." Maka becomes silent for a moment, thinking. Soul watches her, taking sips of his coffee.
He doesn't mind the silence. In fact, he thinks it's pretty comfortable as he takes in the image of her in front of him. Her green eyes are slightly glossed over as her bottom lip sticks out in a small pout. He isn't sure how much time has passed before she suddenly turns toward him and speaks again.
"So do you wanna maybe get out of here? We could… I dunno. We could go do something I guess? I know this really cool bookstore a few blocks away. Unless you're not into that sort of thing. I dunno. I was just thinking, is all…"
As a matter of fact, Soul is definitely not into that sort of thing. It isn't that he doesn't like reading, no. He reads sometimes, if his mood calls for it. He's just very, very picky about what he will read.
He's only enjoyed maybe about 6 or 7 books in his lifetime, and has re-read all of them so much that he could probably recite them from memory.
But there's no way that he was about to let Maka know that.
"Yeah! No, that sounds cool. Let's check it out." And then he's standing, waiting for her to gather her purse and coffee before heading out.
Once they reach the door, Maka tosses the still-full coffee in the trash while she thinks he isn't looking. He smirks to himself, but says nothing.
They walk the first couple of streets in silence, taking in the city around them. Soul thinks it's was just as comfortable as the silence at the café, and he thinks that maybe having a soulmate that he can fall comfortably into step with might not be too bad.
Soon, though, Maka breaks the silence with the question he'd been waiting for since the second he'd opened the door for it.
"So… why didn't you want to go to Julliard? That sounds like it'd be pretty cool, I think." Maka
"Uh, that's kind of a long story. And it's only our first date, so I don't want to bore you with details that don't really matter much right now," he shrugs, trying to look as casual as possible, and counters her question with one of his own: "What about your dad? You talked about how great your mom is. Is he in New York with her?"
He can see from the look on her face that he's treading through dangerous waters, and it makes him more nervous than he thought it would.
"That's a long story, too. So maybe we should save both of or stories for our next date."
"There will be another one?"
He holds back a laugh as she trips forward, nearly falling onto the pavement in front of her.
"If," she scrambles to straighten herself up, cheeks flushing, "if there's a second date. If."
Soul grins, and decides that Maka is possibly the cutest thing he'd seen in his 18 years of living.
"Yeah," he says, "if."