CHAPTER 7
Despite herself, Maka did walk down the hall to see Soul off. She stood in the hallway, far enough away that he and Liz did not notice her, and hence she only saw them walk down the driveway, past the gate and its guard, and then turn left back to where he had parked his bike. She then heard the motor turn on as he drove off with Liz.
She marched back to the kitchen. Gallows Mansion was less full than it usually was, which was saying something since it had only three permanent residents-four if you counted Lord Death, when he wasn't locked in the Death Chamber, that is. Maka glanced into the living room. Only Patty remained, her legs curled up on the couch, her back against one of its arms, and seated on her lap was a neon pink computer-likely stolen from her sister's room. Two cartons of eggnog sat on the coffee table, as she kept taking gulps from it while typing. Maka grimaced, not really sure she wanted to know what captivated Patty's attention as she typed furiously, or how she could stomach that drink. Still, it was amazing to see Patty so focused, her face so serious-but again, best not to ask what she was up to.
In the kitchen, Tsubaki remained, as she was preparing a few dishes for tomorrow's Christmas dinner-only what could keep a decent shelf life until tomorrow, such as some initial work on the salad and the desserts.
Despite herself, not wanting to bring attention to herself, Maka inhaled, and sighed.
Tsubaki said not a word, and did not look away from the cookbooks from Kid's library, which he had left out for her.
Okay, now Maka wanted a little attention. She walked up to where Tsubaki stood, placed her elbows on her counter, her chin into her hands, and sighed more loudly.
"If you have such oxygen deprivation, I hope Soul purchased you an inhaler or something this year, Maka."
She blinked at her friend. How was Tsubaki able to say utter such insults while still sounding so pleasant. Regardless how flustered and frustrated her friend's remark made her, Maka could not help but laugh. If she were around Black Star so much, she'd probably turn into a sugary sweet snarker, too-or, more likely, defenestrate the ninja at least four times a day.
"Can I help?" Maka asked, pointing to the cookbooks.
"No, I'm about finished with these dishes, and I want to wait a while before starting the main courses for tomorrow." She removed her apron. "Actually, I was about to take a break, so-" she patted on the kitchen chair opposite her.
Maka dragged her feet: it was funny how one minute she wants to talk, then as soon as the topic of gift-shopping is hinted at, she hesitates. "So, um, how is your day going?"
"Better than yours, it seems." Again, how could she be so snarky yet so sweet?
"Were we that loud?"
"I am more surprised you did not smack him this time. Is that your Christmas gift for Soul?"
Maka scratched her cheek, and avoided eye contact. "I wish."
"Oh, don't be modest, Maka!" Tsubaki said, grabbing her friend's arm and tugging at it. "Come on, out with it-I know you got Soul something great."
"I haven't gotten him anything."
The smile disappeared from Tsubaki's face. "Are you serious?"
"Very." She glanced at Tsubaki. "I'm sorry. I just can't think of anything, and I've been hitting my head against the wall for the better part of a month now!"
Now Tsubaki looked concerned. "You two have been busy. After all that work to make Soul into a Death Scythe, and then the additional training you both took, it makes sense that you both would be delayed in gift shopping."
"Soul hasn't."
"Well, he doesn't study as much as you!"
"He's been with me at every study session for the past two months-hasn't missed one, stayed as late as I did." Maka was staring at the wall, her frown turning downward more and more by the second.
Tsubaki cringed, struggling to find something optimistic to make out of this mess. "I'm sure he has struggled to brainstorm a great gift, too!"
"I think I already know what he got me."
"Oh, Maka-you didn't peek, did you?"
"No?"
Tsubaki crossed her arms and frowned.
"No, really! I just happened to find his receipt in his pants' pockets-"
"You dug through his pants?"
"We do each other's laundry, Tsubaki! I find things-I am observant!"
"Maka."
"He...went to my favorite bookstore. And to a chocolate shop. And a music store."
"That's three receipts."
"Okay, so I was thorough going through his pants."
Tsubaki smirked.
"Stop that!"
"I said nothing!" she held up her hands. "You find anything else juicy?"
"Tsubaki!" Maka paused. "I found $20, but I returned that to him."
Her friend blinked. "Well, no wonder he's angry-he knows that you know what he purchased! And now he's probably out there running around trying to find a better gift than what he already bought you!"
"You think I don't know that?!"
Their yelling was interrupted by a thud.
"Quiet in there! And bring me more eggnog!"
The two women looked at each other. At least they now knew what that creamy stuff was leaking on the partition between the kitchen and the living room.
Tsubaki calmed down. "Maka, I know you: I'm sure you got something Soul really good, and that you are being modest." She smiled widely. "So, what do you have?"
Maka studied her shoes. "A few items for his stocking."
"Well, good! What is in there?"
She was sweating.
"Maka?"
"A gift card to a hair salon I've been bugging him to go to."
Tsubaki's face froze.
"An electric toothbrush."
She was mortified.
"And a lottery ticket."
Tsubaki glowered. "Oh, Maka."
"I know, okay?!" She hit her head against the table. "I'm the worst," she mumbled into the wood.
Tsubaki stood from her chair, walked around, and hugged her. "These things take time, okay? Christmas is just a day-"
"No, it-!"
"Let me finish," Tsubaki said, kindly but sternly. "Soul has a great partner, who he knows will give him the right gift when she finds it."
She placed a hand under Maka's neck, tickled a little under there so she could lift her chin up.
"Stop that!" Maka giggled.
"Look at me!" Tsubaki said, giggling, too. "Look. Give yourself some more time to think through this gift giving problem, okay? I know it is not what you want, that you want to have the gift for him by Christmas Day, but no matter what, you will get him the perfect gift, when the time is right. Right?"
Maka stopped giggling, and sighed. "Okay. I'll give it more time."
They re-seated themselves.
"What have you gotten Soul in the past?"
"I used to buy him headbands-but he's outgrown them, I guess."
"Yes, I'm a bit happy he stopped wearing that girly one he started wearing a while ago!"
Maka glared at her. "I just said: I bought him that headband."
Tsubaki froze and started sweating. "Girly…is a great look for him!"
"Soul is a girly-girl!"
Both young women froze again.
"Patty has heard everything, hasn't she?" Maka said, her face falling back into despair.
"Every syllable, you terribly bad gift-giving meister!"
Maka slammed her head back against the table.
Tsubaki sighed. "Patty, please tell me you left me a bit of eggnog."
o-o-o
"Welcome to the Brooklyn Eagle, the borough's top news resource! How may I help you at this late hour?"
The receptionist was oddly chipper for this hour of night. Kid assumed it was the grande sized latte sitting on her table.
"Yes, hello. I am looking for Jeffrey Cruz. Is he present?"
"I'm sorry, but who is asking?"
Kid sighed, removing his wallet and showing his DWMA identification. "Lord Death's son, Death the Kid."
The woman's eyes widened. "Oh my...Um, you...you aren't here to collect his soul, are you?"
"No, I am not," Kid said, replacing his wallet. "I had called him earlier concerning some materials I thought he might have, but upon future correspondence with him he has not replied." He looked past her, to see the few night-beat reporters milling in the back. "Perhaps you could direct me to his office?"
"He is home, sir," the woman said, her fingers texting furiously on the phone in her hands.
"May I ask that you please stop that? The clicking of your typing is rather distracting."
"Sorry-it's just, if I'm facing someone like you, sir, I-I-I would feel more comfortable letting my loved ones know in case something happened to-"
Kid seized her hands. "Nothing will. Now, please, I am in a hurry: this mission is very important to me, and Mr. Cruz may hold the key to it. Where is he?"
"Home, West Village, the Carrión Flats!"
"Thank you," Kid said, removing his hands from hers. He paused. "West Village. Manhattan?"
"Y-yes."
"Damn," Kid muttered. "Trying to fly through that many skyscrapers is never fun."
"May I suggest you have the proper New York experience and take the subway!" She sounded happier, although she became timid again when his golden eyes met her blue ones. "J-just head north on Whitman Boulevard until you reach the subway station, and there take the 8 Train."
He perked up. "Well, that does sound delightful! Thank you! And Merry Christmas!"
"Oh, wait!" the woman shouted, stopping Kid. She held up her phone, snapped a pic, and waved him off. Kid raised an eyebrow, shrugged, and sprinted out of the office and back down the stairs to street level.
The receptionist, Ligeia, looked down at her phone to finish her micro-blogging message and to attach the pic. "#OMG #DTK in #NYC!" She inhaled and exhaled, on the one hand overjoyed to have met Lord Death's actual son, on the other hand, still recovering from the shock she felt at potentially dying by his hand.
o-o-o
"Now, remember, Black Star, quietness is key to assassination," Santa whispered.
"Right, Santa," Black Star whispered back.
"Sir," Rupert whispered, as he looked over the snow bank and down into a valley oasis in the middle of the North Pole. "We have arrived at your workshop."
"Yahoo!"
"Ho! Ho! Ho!"
"Shh!" Rupert silenced them.
Both men slapped their hands over their mouths. "Sorry," they whispered.
They had been on foot for more than an hour, so that the spinning top would not attract attention. Rupert rubbed his temples, fearing his caution failed thanks to his partner's exuberance. He glanced back down the valley, but so far none of the potential threats there noticed their presence. The figure in the black hood in particular seemed particularly ignorant of them, pleasing the otherwise irritable elf.
"Say, Black Star. What is that battle cry you make?"
"Oh, you mean, 'Yahoo'?"
"Yes! Ya-ho-ho-ho!"
"Hey!" Black Star said, taking mock offense, playfully pushing the jolly old man. "Don't steal my line!"
Rupert narrowed his eyes, focusing on their targets below. He could count them all: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, all of them. Those reindeers' eyes were blank, and aptly enough they stumbled across the thick snow, not under control of themselves, only mindless beasts taking on a predictable pattern, pushing their noses against the snow or running into the barriers of snow banks, houses, and overturned sleds.
"Say it with me, lad!"
"Okay!"
Both chanted simultaneously: "Ya-ho-ho-ho!"
Two snowballs crumbled against the heads of both overgrown children.
"Stop with the pirate laughs!" Rupert said only loud enough for them to hear.
"Hey!" Black Star said, his face reddening. "Don't you dare call me a pirate!"
Another snowball knocked the ninja to the ground.
"There's the target, sir," Rupert said, patting the snow off his hands and off his designer winter coat.
"Ho," he said, spying upon milling reindeer. "Ho, ho, oh, my."
As Black Star grew concerned hearing someone like Santa so disconcerted about this image of voodoo zombiefied reindeer, the ninja's attention was on the black cloaked figure. He was seated in a throne-Santa's chair, which based on the marks on the snow the figure had evidently dragged from the elf's workshop.
"Anyone in the workshop?" Black Star asked.
"No, thank goodness," Rupert said. "Aside from me, all other employees were given their vacation, as they had finished their toy quota two weeks ago."
"And Mrs. Claus?"
Santa gave a jolly laugh. "Oh, that rat bastard is collecting alimony payments in Miami!"
Black Star now picked up on the contrast between Santa's words and tone of voice. "Bitter much?"
"Incredibly!" Santa giggled again.
Black Star raised an eyebrow at the otherwise jolly man, returning his attention to the threat below. "If it's voodoo that he's do-doing, then I say we knock down the black cloaked man." He narrowed his eyes. "Look at that disgusting bastard. He even has petrified antlers on his head-that ain't right." He studied him harder, peering into the darkness of the masked man-and noticed the shining light coming out of it. "I can even see the glint of his red eye."
Santa was stroking his beard, meditating on all this information. "Hmm...Red, huh? So, the prodigal son returns, eh?"
"The guy in the black pajamas is someone you know?" Black Star asked.
"Oh, we go a long way back."
Black Star shook his head. "Kid and his old family friends. I hate to know who else his family knows-having the Kishin being a best bud is bad enough."
"Ho? Is that how Lord Death refers to his own s-"
Rupert tugged at Santa's pant leg, crossing his flat hand over his neck. Santa took the hint, and silenced himself.
"Well, Black Star," Santa began, "I trust you know how to subterfuge to unman that foe and save my reindeer, ho ho ho?"
Silence persisted.
"Ho?" he asked.
"Um, Santa?" Rupert asked, pointing to the valley below, as a bulge was seen under the snow, as if someone tunneling from the bank to the throne below. As both elves noticed the gaping hole next to them where Black Star once stood, the identity of the bulge was easily identified.
"Ho! Marvelous! How smart he is-he is using literal subterfuge, Rupert! How clever!"
Rupert hesitated. "I...am honestly impressed, sir."
Then, only a few yards into the valley, nowhere near the throne, Black Star leapt from the snow, with a shout of "Ya-ho-ho-ho! Merry Christmas, fuckers!"
The hooded figure stood, assuming a pose of displeasure. His reindeer zombies stopped their milling, staring in surprise, their mouths hung open, whether from surprise or from their stupefaction. Both the tall man and his shorter partner, too, felt their chins hit the snow, mouths agape. "Oh, criminy," Santa said, shaking his head. "Christmas is doomed."
"Right-o, sir."
WRITER'S NOTES: CHAPTER 7
I like Soul-I really do! While I do not subscribe to gendering clothes as manly or womanly, that does not preclude me from imagining that his peers think that second headband he wears in the manga and the anime is conventionally gendered as feminine. And as a gut reaction, it does not look great on him: it is so thin in that mess of white hair, whereas his headbands with the wider band, especially the black one he wears in the moon battle, have such contrast in colors. Then again, I think it is adorable that, over the course of the manga, Soul starts to dress more like Maka, not just the Spartoi uniform but the black jacket he starts wearing. The headband stuff was a topic of conversation before on my Tumblr at user name soul-dwelling: /post/66918886381
The headcanon that Maka is the one to buy Soul's headbands is inspired by a piece of fan art from PixIv that I cannot re-find: it featured every gift that Maka got Soul for his birthday and other days, and each year it was a thin headband in a different color. And if I could get around to writing some Year 1 stories, my own headcanon is that she also bought him that first headband he wears in the manga.
I came from a family—and I know other families for which this is the same—where lottery tickets were a stocking stuffer. Now I shall enjoy headcanon that Spirit more than once did the same, exacerbating the characterization Maka has made of her father—and hence why she is so disappointed in herself now, just imagining that she really is her father's daughter.
The Brooklyn Eagle was a real paper-so, I'm just shoving nineteenth-century allusions into this story.