Soul was rarely home now.

Compared to the days before his move, he hardly paid any attention to his musical hobbies now, didn't touch Natasha for days in a row. She was starved for attention, but she waited patiently for the nights when he did come back to her, composing love songs on her keyboard until dawn. And once the sun just peeked over the horizon, Soul ran out of the door as if he couldn't get away from Natasha fast enough.

Where did he go, you ask? Probably to the bitch from downstairs, the same one stuffing Soul's face with too many carbs. Probably ruining his perfect skin and his slender fingers. Probably convincing him to stay with her longer and away from home.

But it was alright… right?

At those ballads were for Natasha… weren't they?

The dust on her once sparkling wood gathered as the weeks passed by and as the days grew colder. In the dark of the night, Soul whispered to her in the way that he used to. Bae, you sound off, he said. But Natasha didn't want to hear that from him. Everything was fine, she believed as Soul tapped a few of her keys. It will be if she had Soul by her side.

One day, he didn't come back for the night at all. Or the night after that. Or the night after that, until one day, the front door swung open, and in came the girl from the bakery after him.

He brought her home into their space.

When his fingers touched Natasha, the music the created was different. A new source of inspiration was found under his fingertips, leaving her feeling wretched inside. So this was what his songs were about- who the songs were for.

They weren't for Natasha.

Her noise became too much for her to bear, knowing that her music that she created with Soul never meant to be her's. There was pain in her wood and heartbreak in her song, but Soul didn't notice at all. He was too busy glancing at the baker's face, smiling at her reaction as she closed her eyes, lost in the gentle melody that sang for her.

It was unfair.

As the girl leaned closer into Soul's shoulder, dipping her head into the crook of his neck, Natasha slammed the hood of her keys onto his hands, closing off herself and her concern for Soul as he yelped. She could care less about the one who left her alone for all those weeks, for all those lonely nights with nothing else than the dim light from the curtains to keep her company as dust swirled in the glow. He had the other girl to worry about his precious fingers and his perfect, sensitive skin now. He didn't need her. And as the one by his side doted over the cry baby of a boy, Natasha had never been so offended at such an unsightly human.

This could be us, she thought. But Soul, you playing.

They left together again, hand-in-hand as the front door clicked behind them. He took more than just a duffle bag thing time, rubbing salt into the wound as he slung a backpack full of toiletries onto his shoulders, squeezing a lemon over the cut as he held another bag of perishable food in another hand.

This isn't for fucking real, she thought.

It couldn't be real.

It couldn't.

But it became a nightmare when Soul returned one night after another lunar cycle had passed with a newspaper clipping that he placed onto her dusty hood. He ran into his room without giving Natasha a second thought, rummaging through loudly for who knows what. More than curious, she read the side that was pressed against her.

It was a picture of their apartment- no, of the bakery downstairs. In the headlines, it read that the baker's daughter had single handedly saved her family's company and was offered a place among the world's most successful patissieres.

In France.

No doubt that Soul would go with her, back to his home country that he escaped from with Natasha. They'd gone through so much, only for Soul to throw everything away for a girl that he'd only known for a year.

She saw red, but read on to see that the inspiration of the pastry that turned the business all around was inspired by a precious friend of the baker's daughter who stuck by her through all her restless nights and soothed her worries. The girl found a spark one night when that person played her a song, and with that song came her love for baking again. And a love for someone too.

Despicable.

Natasha vibrated as Soul came back out of his room, holding something up that vaguely resembled a miniature notebook in one hand and yet a new bag on his back. His sudden approach disturbed the air enough to rip the clipping off from Natasha, and as he bent down underneath her to retrieve it, the pent up rage and frustration that Natasha held within her finally broke.

It broke her.

Her legs gave out as she crashed into the ground below her, knowing well where Soul was, knowing well that the weight would crush him. She'd already given up on her life, finding no will to live after Soul had forgotten her in favor of another. It was like this for a long time and she was no more than a shell of what she used to be. But Natasha remembered the vows that she took with Soul when he was just learning to walk.

Till death do us part.

She loved Soul more than anything else in the world- he was more precious to her than her own lemon scented finish that he used to apply on her as they made love to one another. But that was in the past, she reminded herself. Natasha's front legs caught herself before she could crush Soul, saving him in the only way she could before she collapsed entirely from the weight of her sins.

Hurry, she groaned out. Her strings from within were twisted and sounded on their own, broken from the destruction of her back legs. She was beyond repair now, but at least she could save Soul. And at least he would remember her this way.

Or so she thought.

The girl appeared again, scrambling to Soul's side and tugging him away from Natasha while he was frozen from shock. He was leaving her again, pulled from the wreckage by the same siren that was leading him to his utter demise. Natasha let out one last hum, her chords broken and her bitterness pouring from her dusty shell. Her knobs twisted within.

She spat out, "Soul…. you've abandoned me again…"

But he didn't hear her at all. Instead, he was fixated on the witch still holding onto his hand. If anything, he was more grateful towards the human than his real savior.

"Soul why do you never notice me, you just always... go back to... this bitch who had a lot to say about me last night, Maka, what's good."

And with that, Natasha's last note ended, and she spontaneously combusted because what else do you do when the love of your life was snatched from you?

This piano's in paino.