Freefall
by. Poisoned Scarlet
7a
"And...it's... done!" Tsubaki beamed, gazing at her flower arrangement proudly. Her fingers ran down a silk petal, admiring the contrast of colors that brightened her living room. The flowers were beautiful, given to her by a soft-spoken and kind man she had met a few weeks ago in the very same club where Maka met Soul. She had been lingering around a flower shop, gazing at the bouquets longingly, and he had seen and been kind enough to buy her one.
Tsubaki would say this year had been the best of all. It had been approximately one week since Maka arrived from Tokyo after visiting her mother for the first time in so many years. She appeared tired when she returned; tired, but grateful to be back. Tsubaki had hung in the background, her coin purse clutched in her hand, smiling warmly when Soul waved Maka over lazily and her friend's expression flashed with surprise.
Tsubaki could still envision her radiant smile; the way her eyes danced with a fire that had long-since been put dormant. She had ran to him, bringing him into a tight hug he returned, before catching her eye and waving her over energetically, also bringing her into a tight embrace.
"I missed you guys so much! You have no idea!"
"We did, too, Maka-chan!"
"Yeah, but it felt great to put my feet up on the coffee table without you nagging at me to put them down – OW!"
"You better have cleaned that table until it sparkled, Soul, or else!"
"She's happy." Tsubaki said to herself as that conversation faded back into the rich banks of her memory. Her smile softened, and her finger traced down another flower petal. Then her eyes dulled with conflict. "Maka-chan...has found her sun." She wondered when she would find hers, her fingers running down the stem prickled with thorns.
One caught her skin, tearing it open.
Tsubaki flinched back instantly.
"HEY-HOO!" Black Star's shout echoed through the hall, his knocking raucous and making the frames on her walls shake. "Tsubaki! Guess what? Guess what? Open up so I could tell you of my biggest conquest yet! HAHAHA!"
He always came unannounced.
But she didn't mind the sudden company.
Tsubaki watched Black Star with a mystified sort of look, closing the door as he bounced in cheerfully. With his carefree grin, eyes always alight with humor and glee, Tsubaki wondered how she could have ever forgotten such a refreshing, lively, person.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Black Star frowned, setting his hands on his hips. He looked younger than he was. Tsubaki wondered if this was because he was always so jubilant. "You look a little out of it."
"Oh! Ah, no, it's nothing." Tsubaki flushed, pasting on a nice smile. "I was just thinking about something, that's all. Do not bother yourself with it!"
Black Star's eyes were drawn to her hand and his frown deepened. He strode forward and took it, raising it up to her. With a crooked smile, he said: "How'd you get this, you klutz? Were you messing around with those flowers back there or something?"
Tsubaki's eyes widened. "I-I...yes, I was! How did you know?"
"Pfft, figured." Black Star laughed, good-naturedly. He walked her to her bathroom, going through her cabinets for a bandage. "You look like the type of person to do that! But you gotta' be careful," Black Star ran her finger under the faucet before tearing out a bandage from its packaging. He wrapped it around her wound, grinning out: "I can't have one of my closest followers injured, right?"
Closest...
"R...right!"
"Great! Now, c'mon! You gotta' hear this – you'll never believe it!" Black Star cackled, flying out of the bathroom. Her eyes caught herself in the mirror and she stared back at her pink face; her parted lips, words caught in her throat; the bandage on her finger...
Closest...I'm his closest friend?
Or was she misunderstanding again?
"Tsubaki!" Black Star hollered, impatiently. "What's the hold up? Tsu-ba-ki!"
"I'm coming!" Tsubaki shook herself from her forlorn thoughts, hurrying to attend her guest.
7b
They could both hear Black Star yell like a maniac down the hall. Maka had been relieved when he knocked on Tsubaki's door, not theirs, for she didn't think she could take another lazy bastard running around the house.
It was bad enough she had one whom she was positive dedicated half his life to annoying her...
"Soul! What did I tell you about leaving your boxers in my bathroom?" Maka shouted furiously, holding up a pair of silk black boxers at an arms length. Soul lazily turned his head to her, slumped on her couch with the remote control limp in his hand; the epitome of laziness. He had just returned from work an hour ago, exhausted. He liked being with her and all (it was the reason he just dropped by after work nowadays) but he did not want to deal with her and her temper at the moment...
"Not to leave them in your bathroom...?"
"Yes." Maka ground out, storming up to him. She shoved it in his face and he looked away, annoyed. "So why are they in my bathroom?"
"'Cause I left them there last night?"
"And why did you leave them there last night?"
"...'Cause I never left, genius?"
Maka scowled and dropped his boxers on his lap. She eyed his jeans, able to asking without stumbling over her words too much: "What...are you wearing underneath?"
"The boxers I left here last time." Soul drawled, grinning lazily at her candid look. "Maka, I basically have a whole three pairs of clothes here. I'm good for the next... six days or so."
"That's why there were more clothes in the hamper than usual!" Maka realized, shooting him one last glare before moving to the kitchen to grab her laundry basket. "Your clothes were in there, too! Stop leaving them behind, Soul, I'm not your maid!" She glanced at the clock. "They should be done by now...I'll be right back! Don't burn the house down while I'm gone!"
"No promises."
"Soul..." Maka warned. She only saw his thumbs up from the couch, his body still sprawled across the cushions. She rolled her eyes instead, deciding she'd deal with him later, and headed out to the laundry mat downstairs to pick up their washed clothes.
Soul, on the other hand, took a deep breath of the floral scent that mingled with his cologne. His eyes landed on various things, small things, really, that spoke largely of his influence in her life.
Like the leather jacket thrown over the kitchen chair, which had been there for the past two days. Or the pair of headphones he'd brought over when Maka complained her ear-buds had bit the dust and now she was unable to listen to her crappy music (in his opinion, she was getting better, but she wouldn't let go of drum and bass). And his cellphone, on the coffee table, or his keys on the bedside table in her room. His cellphone charger was still plugged into the wall beside her laptop; the mail he'd picked up at his place but ended up leaving at her place was stacked on the kitchen table.
Perhaps the fact that, over the course of many weeks, he had left an armful of his clothing behind and she had stored it in her drawers neatly with the promise of giving it back to him later. There was a growing pile of his CD's on her vanity, a few headbands he'd left behind in her bathroom since she had taken a tendency to sling-shoot them away when they indulged in each other.
He practically lived with her, Soul realized. He visited daily and, most of the time, ended up spending the night. His own apartment held signs of neglect in the way half of the food in his fridge had spoiled and there was dust on every surface area. His bed had been made for the past, what, four days? He hadn't turned on his television in weeks, preferring to watch his shows on Maka's, and his stereo had been inconspicuously transferred to Maka's living room when he discovered she didn't own one.
Maka refused to let his cool stereo go, though – she said techno sounded divine on it.
Soul nearly had a panic-attack at the thought of his precious sound system being abused in such a way.
"Hey, Soul, get off your lazy butt and help me with this!" Maka barked, pushing the front door open with her foot. Soul heaved himself off the couch, keeping the door open for her while she shuffled inside with a huge laundry basket in her arms. He locked the door and had been on his merry way to the couch when Maka's voice rang again.
"Soul! Come in here and help me fold the clothes!"
"But, Maka..." Soul groaned, so not in the mood. He gazed longingly at the couch. "Do I have to?"
"Unless you want me to throw out your clothes, then yes!"
Soul took his sweet time, scowling when he saw Maka had been patiently waiting for him. She tossed him a few articles of clothes, not bothering to separate them, and began to fold her pile herself. Soul sighed loudly but got to work, his pace much slower than Maka's.
While Maka folded five, he folded one and a half.
Soul smirked, holding up a pair of white panties. "Don't you have any sexy underwear? I always see you wearing these kiddy ones." He snickered when she snatched them back with a flush, shoving them under her stack of clothes.
"No, why would I want any of that?" Maka stiffly said, returning to her task. "It's not like anyone else is going to see me in them! I think it's a waste of money!"
"... I'll be seeing – !"
"You don't count." Maka flatly told him.
"That's cold, Maka, what if I really wanted see you in a thong and you wouldn't do it because you're too much of a prude – whoa, not cool!" Soul dodged a Maka Chop from her, warily eying the novel in her hand. It was softcover but the spine of those things hurt even more than the hardcover ones. "Take a joke, Maka!"
"Clothes are clothes and their main function is to cover oneself." Maka simply reasoned, folding a shirt in three moves. He wondered how she did that. "I'm not going to buy lacy underwear just because someone thinks they're needed." She shook her head at him. "They'd be taken off in the end, anyway, so what's the point?"
It was silent for a second.
Then her heart lurched at the ghosting touch of his fingertips up her arm.
"The point is..." Soul purred into her ear from behind. His hands grabbed her wrists, halting her: the skirt in her hand fell back into the pile. She felt his chest on her back, almost instinctively slumping against him while he hummed something in the back of his throat in the way he always did. "...foreplay, Maka. I don't believe we've ever really explored that, huh?"
Maka felt her stomach both drop and flutter at his suggestion, the way she felt his lips stretch into that wicked grin against her neck.
Her toes curled in anticipation.
"I...I don't think so."
"There's a first time for everything." Soul chuckled when her shoulders tensed. His arms wrapped tightly around her thin frame, already fingering the edge of her shirt. There was one thing she would never understand about Soul: despite not wanting to do anything because of exhaustion, he seemed to suddenly fill with energy when anything remotely sexual came up. Even she couldn't do that, although Maka suspected those days were the most gratifying for Soul since her body was practically under his entire control. She bit her lip when he whispered against her neck,"After this, you'll see it my way."
She didn't, Maka would tell anyone who dared to ask, not really.
Truthfully, she did.
But that didn't mean she'd step foot into a Victoria Secret's store.
That would be proving him right, and seeing his smug grin when he realized her underwear was no longer safe cotton but daring lace would ruin her entire day.