They call each other a lot over the summer, though with their time differences, the connections can sometimes prove difficult.

"Hello?" he mumbles from a pulsating New York City, his voice raspy at the edges, old-sounding through the fragments of static. She can feel how much he resents being at home even thousands of miles away; every time he calls, he's asleep or soon-to-be. His voice is heavier, more tired. She wishes she could grab his hand through the phone.

"Sorry," she whispers back, "did I wake you again?" She fiddles with a loose strand of honeyed hair. She hears her father's television in the distance, melded with a bout of giggling and sheets rustling. She thinks she might be sick soon. She blocks the ear unattached to the phone and breathes deeply.

"It's okay," Soul says, and she focuses intently on his voice as if it's her lifeline. "I figured it's important if you're calling me this late."

She exhales long and slow into the chilling silence of her childhood bedroom. "Yeah, it is, actually."

"What's up?" His voice smooths out each time he speaks, and she smiles.

"My father told me today that he's getting remarried." This secret has been clouding her heart the way black tea unravels in clear, warm water: browning it, changing the color, the taste. She's so relieved to dispel it, even if for just this one moment.

"And I'm guessing you're not okay with it?"

"I don't even know how to feel," she admits. The face she had given her father had been blank, devoid of any tangible emotion. She knew it was bound to happen at some point; her father so easily caved to the charms of beautiful women. He always had. That's why mama had left all those years ago. She couldn't blame her mother for parting from her father; the only thing she blamed her mother for was this overbearing feeling of abandonment that blossomed like a reoccurring bruise in her aching soul. She didn't just leave her father, she left her entire family. She left Maka with nothing but her fluttery father, some mediocre cooking skills and a box of bees. No letters, no phone calls. It was like her mother had passed on overnight. Sometimes she thinks that'd be easier to deal with, as sad as it sounded in her head.

With her mother alive somewhere in the world, all she can think is what did she do to be a daughter worth leaving behind?

He's silent on the other end of the line for a while, probably sensing he'd lost her temporarily to her own convoluted thoughts. "Are you going to be in the wedding?"

"I guess I have to be." She clicks her pen over and over.

"When is it?"

"Next August they think. They haven't planned much yet. They need to save money to afford it first so they're stretching it a bit."

"Do you like her?"

"She's okay," Maka says, her voice faltering, "but… she's not my mother, you know?"

"I'll come with you," he says.

"I would love that." She wipes the tears forming on the edges of her eyes and restrains a sniffle. She can feel his pressing worry and she does not want to worsen it. "I can't wait to go back to school. I already need a break from home."

"Same. Only two weeks left." She can hear the smile in his voice now, can picture the serrated ends of his teeth that she's so fascinated by, the alabaster of his silken hair.

Two weeks till I get to see you, too, she thinks, but the words sit on her tongue. This secret she won't unburden today.

Their first meeting upon returning is a house-warming party at Liz, Patty and Kid's new apartment. Kid has locked himself in his room until it ends – like a shark roaming the waters for food, he waits for the liberating moment he can take a vacuum and can of Lysol to the living room. Patty and Liz love that they are responsible for no cleaning but the house they rented remains spotless. They could eat off of the floor.

It is a small group, mainly the same people that find themselves at the free parish dinners.

The stress the events of the summer place on Maka make the bowl of alcoholic punch and plate of pot brownies way more appealing than they have ever been. She has a cup in one hand, and a pastry in the other. She feels like she's been turned inside out but nothing can stop her now: she is Maka Albarn, girl wonder.

Tsubaki grabs the third cup from her hand. "I think you should slow down, you know?" She smiles, gentle and full. Maka is blessed for her roommate's friendship; she is like an attentive mother. It's a nice feeling, one she hasn't known for many years. She leans her head on her taller friend's shoulder, reveling in the scent of her citrus shampoo.

"Love you, Tsubaki," she mumbles. She knows her words are slurred but she needs to get them out while she has time, while she still has some trembling consciousness.

Her friend pats her head. "Love you, too, Maka. I'm glad fate made us roommates."

The brownie kicks in way after the liquor, and she moves to sit on the rickety porch swing. She closes her eyes and the world's turning seems to have accelerated. The late-summer breeze is so nice. She imagines rolling into it, floating away like a dandelion seed. She could be worth making a wish on, she thinks.

Soul arrives late with Black Star in tow. His roommate screeches as usual and runs inside to amplify the noise of the group within.

She hears him sit next to her and she jumps. She can feel a string of drool on her mouth but doesn't have the strength to wipe it off. He does. She's thankful, but she also wants to bury herself in the ground at the way he laughs. She looks down, and it looks like her feet are meshing right in with the wood. Her eyes widen, and she reaches out to see if she can still feel her toes.

"Jeez," he says, "what did they do to you?"

She looks to him, and there are stars at the edges of her vision. "This is the plan," she gets out. "This is god's plan."

"You're gonna have a hell of a hangover," he says, still laughing. "You must be so glad you have a week to recover before school starts, huh, bookworm?"

Maka reaches out, cups one side of his face in her hand. His skin is smooth like warm porcelain. She keeps her hand moving, grips his hair with the weakest tug. "So pretty," she mumbles. She has stepped outside of herself. There is no Maka left in her body.

His face reddens. "Oh my god," he says with a sharp intake of breath, "I think it's already time for you to go to bed."

"Come with me?" She tugs his hair again. Her emerald eyes, bloodshot and heavy-lidded, fall to his lips.

He takes her hand and places it back on her lap. "You're freaking me out."

She leans back, and she cannot flick the tears away. They fall like they've been loose for ages, unbridled and unwarranted, down her cheeks. "Sorry. I forgot you're not attracted to me. It's hard. Must be the tiny-tits." She gets up and almost falls, but he is quick and right by her side to catch her. "I'm gonna go to my dorm now, okay, Soul? I'll see you later."

"I'll walk you."

"Nope. I have someone to walk me." She points to her left, where no one stands.

"Don't throw up on me," he says, and she's suddenly scooped up into his arms. She feels like she's floating, and also a little bit like she might puke but she bites it back.

"I can walk," she says, and she punches him with what she thinks is her full force but is really the strength of a child.

"Uhhuh," he mumbles. His voice rumbles in her chest. She leans her head into it. His chest is so reassuring, so tough. She is not okay. She is being her dad right now and she needs to stop. He already confirmed that he has no desire for her. She tries to tell herself that, but she loses all her thoughts to a migraine that forms like an eclipse in her mind.

He walks through unfamiliar halls to a door that is not hers. It is a single dorm room: an RA's room.

"Where are we?" Her voice is leaving her, fading out at the end.

"I registered to be a resident assistant and got my own room." He places her on the bed with a gentleness she hasn't known in some time. It reminds her of Tsubaki. It reminds her of one of the first times she was ever sick, the way he tucks her in like a restless child. He lays on the sheet near her, after dragging over a wastebasket. He tugs one of her pigtails. "So stop by any time you want, okay?"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm too attracted to you." She rolls over and stares at the ceiling. "I didn't know you could have a koi pond in here?" She points up.

He grins. "Yeah. You can. Only allowed in the ceiling, though."

"I bet they like being that high up," she says. "Because that's a legend. The strongest koi become dragons. They fly."

"I bet you like being this high, too," he replies.

"Not at all. I'm too honest."

"It's okay. I like it."

She rolls away from him. "No, you don't. You pushed me away." She cannot block the bitterness from opening in her voice.

"Maka, you're completely obliterated. You're not clear-headed. Of course I'm going to push you away."

"That was my decision."

"I believe you."

"But you don't feel the same."

"Maka, are you going to remember any of this tomorrow?"

"I don't think so. The room is going black. I can't see the fish."

He is so close she can feel his breath on her neck. The hair there rises and she grips at the comforter, on edge. "Then I'll tell you something that I can't tell sober you."

She turns to face him, their noses touching. "Why can't you tell sober me?"

"Because you'd hate me, because it's such a… man thought and I know how much you hate that kind of talk."

"Not from you." She grabs his hand. "Because you're Soul and I trust you, anyway."

His cheeks are almost the same shade as his eyes. "I am extremely attracted to you," he whispers, as if any louder and they'll break the bed. "Like, in a completely selfish way. Like, in a I-want-you-all-to-myself sort of way."

"Why?" She is cotton-mouthed. She would love to drink some of the ceiling water, even if it tasted like scales and algae.

"Your legs. Your hair. Your smile. Your laugh. Your whole existence. Everything."

"So eloquent."

"You are words girl. I speak in music."

"So you've… thought about doing terrible things to me?" Her voice is betraying her a lot today. She wants to run, but her hand is on his face again. She wants to get completely lost with him in these sheets. She licks her lips and her chest tightens. This is going to do irreparable damage to the friendship that she holds above all her others but she cannot stop herself.

"I wouldn't call them terrible," he says. His voice is lower, too, but his face remains buried in a potent blush. Her face is heated as well. There is enough tension for her to slice in two. It has been resting between them for so long and suddenly it's here, real, and she's too gone to do anything about it.

"I want you so bad," she says. She's never been this sexual before in her life. She will not be like this in the morning and she's irritated over it.

"If you still feel the same when you wake up, I'll give you all of me."

Her eyes close and her dreams are so vivid and tainted she wants to panic, but these are thoughts she's had for a while and been too scared to feel.

She forgets everything in the roiling hangover that strikes her in the morning with the sun.

And he remembers it all and can do nothing about it.

"You're sure I didn't do anything weird?" she asks as they stride to their side-by-side classes. "You're being very tight-lipped about what I was like that night and it's making me uneasy."

"I just can't say it, because you won't believe me."

"I always believe you." She tugs on his sleeve as they stand in the hall swarming with students. "Just tell me."

He points behind him. "I'm going to be late for class." He walks backward, out of her grasp with a weakened grin. "Sorry. Gotta go."

"You've never cared about being late before!" she shouts in the midst of the swelling noise.

"New year, new me! Meet up with you for lunch!"

She scoffs. She racks her brain for memories, but it's like they've been locked away. She cannot open them, cannot access them. She remembers, for some reason, how his skin feels beneath her hand and that's it. And that one thought is enough to torture her.

"I want to show you something," she says. She reaches out and grabs his hand and drags him to the garden beyond the science building.

They walk through a patch of slight-wilting sunflowers to a clearing. Autumn leaves crunch beneath their feet, though it hasn't been cold much yet this October. He kind of wishes the air would catch up to the colors of the trees.

"I couldn't get enough people interested in the club, but the school still let me keep bees here because of their importance," she says as she leads him to two hives sitting on cinderblocks only a few feet from each other.

Her hand in his, which he once found comfortable, has his heart thumping like a turbulent bird trapped beneath his ribs. He tries to keep himself in check because of how thrilled she is to bring him here. "I'm honored to meet them," he says. He slows his breathing, tries to calm his chattering pulse.

"They make music, too. Just stand here and close your eyes. Don't be afraid. They won't even know you're there if you're quiet enough." They stand in the middle of the two hives, and the honeybees swirl around them to reach the nearby wildflowers growing in many different directions.

He closes his eyes and tries to fight the nervousness that has plagued him in her presence since that strange night in the wake of the party. Their flight patterns create a small wind near him, filled with a low humming. The scent of pollen is as thick as the lump in his throat, but he feels calmer.

"This is cool." He grins.

"I know. That's why I had to show you. You can help me harvest the honey, too, if you want." She smiles back at him, and for a moment they are lost in each other's sparkling gazes as waves of bees move around them, like they're not even there at all.

"Soul," she says as she barges into his room unannounced like always, her arms crossed tight over her jacket, "I need to request a huge favor." She slams the door behind her, as if she is on the run from the police.

"Me too."

"You first."

"Stop just coming into my room. What if I was in the middle of something?"

Her face is blank. "Were you jerking off or something? Oh my god. I'm so sorry. Or are you having a girl over? Is that why you got the single room?"

He puts his face in his hands, his face burning. "No! I'm just generally speaking."

"Soul, if you masturbate it's very normal-"

"Just stop the science talk right now. Please. It freaks me out how you can say things like that without any ounce of embarrassment."

"It's natural. A lot of people do it. I don't know why you get so flustered about sex talk."

He refrains from the urge to scream in frustration. He decides to take a new angle to get her to drop the topic that she loves to freely bring up in front of him, just to make him uncomfortable in his own skin. It amuses her. He rises from his desk chair and stands just an inch from her, their faces almost touching. He puts a hand on either side of her head and leans in so close that he can smell the peppermint chapstick she drenches her lips in the colder months.

"You want to know why I get flustered about sex talk with you?" he asks in the lowest voice possible, internally grinning at the way her face grows red in their proximity.

"W-why?" He is reveling in the way she shrinks, like she would fall right into his arms if he held them out.

"Because you're on my mind when-"

Before he can finish the sentence, her arms drop to her sides and what falls from her winter coat is a real, live cat.

"The favor I need is for you to keep this stray cat here!" she yells over the rest of his sentence. "Her name is Blair and I found her hunting birds near my bees!"

The cat meows at it circles his feet, rubbing her head against his socks. He feels the vibration in her purr.

A cat person, yes. But the birds and the bees he has no knack for.

Blair is quiet enough as long as she's fed and she can sit comfortably on his windowsill, and he is the resident assistant in this hall, so no one comes to inspect his room. He discovers, from her winded rant about it, that Tsubaki is allergic and that her resident assistant is a tad on the dictator side of the school's rule book and she got written up for a box of expired cheezits but she could not leave this cat out in the chill. Winter is coming on quick. She promises to bring her home to her father's house in the summer. She just needs a home until May.

Soul is attached very fast. He likes that after coming back to his long day of classes, she's sitting there, waiting to greet him. It is a balm on his anxious spirit.

But what he finds he likes more than just coming back to Blair is also opening his door to find her curled up in Maka's arms on his bed, the two of them dozing at ease in his warm room.

He sometimes crawls in with them but other times - like today - he scrawls away at his notes and listens to the peaceful rhythm of the two of them snoring away, as if they have never known another home beyond this room.

Finals bog Maka down more than usual this semester, he notices. The library remains open till 2 a.m. the week before and during finals. She sucks down tea like it is the only thing keeping her alive and he only sees her for a few minutes each week when she stops by to drop off more food or litter for Blair. The bags around her eyes look more like suitcases, her shoulders stuck in a permanent slouch. His little jabs at her which she usually can take and give back irritate her and she starts to ignore his concerned texts.

He finishes his finals a few days before her, but decides to wait as long as possible to return home for the holidays.

He ventures to the library at midnight, his scarf wrapped tight around his neck to block as much of the December wind as he can. He finds her in a corner of the third floor, ensconced by stacks of psychology and biology books. She is asleep in her textbook, highlighter stains on one side of her face. He cannot believe he has finally seen Maka Albarn at her studying limit. He smiles, but decides not to wake her. This is probably the most sleep she's gotten all month.

He bookmarks the chapter she was on, tucks away all of her belongings, and drapes his jacket over her. Soul picks her up like he did all those months ago - when the night air still smelled sweet and was hung with the sounds of late-summer crickets- and carries her back to his room, placing her beside a very cozy, but still very alert, Blair.

She groans to life after Blair continues to paw at her nose – no claws out as always – and reaches out a sleepy hand to scratch her between her tiny shoulder blades. "Hi, baby," she says with a half-hearted smile. The cat curls up right above Maka's head, kneading the pillow.

His friend peeks out from beneath his comforter, her eyes softened. "Thank you, Soul," she mumbles from beneath the fabric. "Sorry I've been… mean."

"It's okay. I'm mean, too."

"Yeah, but that's your personality, not mine."

He turns to glare, but her eyes are mirthful. He sighs and slides into bed with her, two layers of sweatpants on. He has become expert lately at hiding his overwhelming physical attraction for her. He was already a professional at hiding the emotional attraction, so this was a simpler bump in the road, in a sense. The staying-away tactic doesn't work well with her, he finds. This is the next best thing.

His eyes meet hers beneath the blankets, and her smile is as contagious as always.

He wishes very often that she had remembered everything she had said that night, so he could give in to his selfish whims.

But he stays quiet like always, wrapped up in her warmth and his fumbling thoughts.

She calls him at 11:55 pm on New Year's Eve. He answers after only one ring.

"Sure you want to enter the new year talking to me?" he says with a laugh.

"Duh. That's why I called you."

"That can't be the only reason you called me."

"I was standing on my porch, enjoying the fine desert night and pretending I lived in my own house instead of being stuck with my father and his fiancé, and I figured you might be doing something similar." He can hear the grin in her voice.

"You are correct," he responds. He leans onto the railing on his own porch, staring out into the bone-chilling night. "I am avoiding my family's annual bash. Though I should check on my brother. Last I saw him he had passed out on the stairwell after the third round of chardonnay."

"He is a super lightweight, huh?"

"Oh, absolutely. And I love every minute of it, because all it does is make mom and dad embarrassed. Especially when he forgets to close the bathroom door."

He loves the tinkling of her laugh through the phone. He is addicted to the sound. Her laughter is swallowed by the party-goers beginning the countdown to the ball drop. After ten seconds, there is a collective, overjoyed screaming.

"Happy New Year, Soul," she says.

"Happy New Year, Maka. See you soon." The selfish thoughts come to him in droves: of kissing Maka at midnight, tasting cheap peppermint instead of caviar. Maybe next year.

He takes initiative and decides to come to her door on a Thursday night. He wishes he hadn't made that decision.

She answers the door and she has on a light layer of makeup, enough to bring out her eyes more than before – which he didn't think was possible – and her hair curled at the ends, loose and wavy. Her lips are wine-red, like his eyes which are drawn there against his will. She has a lace-sleeved dress on that hugs all of her hidden curves and heels that make her legs stand out more. He wonders if his jaw is hanging loose. He's so pathetic; an unneutered dog, a disgusting primeval man that reconsiders avoiding church. His mind is a dark place right now that he wishes he could break free from.

"Soul? Are you okay? You look like you just got struck by lightning? You're worrying me?" Her voice seems so small.

"Are you…" He chokes on his own words for a moment, his chest heavy. "Are you… going on a date?" Keep it casual, he thinks. Don't get petty. She can do what she wants.

"No. Going to the club with Liz and Patty, that's all."

"Oh. I see. Well, have fun and be safe." He pats her head once. He turns and almost runs back to his dorm room. He needs to listen to hymns and think about the way Black Star eats the mystery meat in the dining hall because his pants were not this tight ten minutes ago and whyis he so awkward and pathetic? He patted her head when he really wanted to drop to his knees in her luminescent presence and say a prayer beneath her dress. He is being like her old man. He needs to stop. He pets Blair and closes his eyes and focuses on the fact that he just patted her head.

"Was he acting bizarre or is it just me?" Maka asks.

Liz gives her a stern look from across her dorm room, where she was attempting to fix Patty's crooked eyeliner. "How oblivious are you?"

She blinks. "What?"

"You are aware that Soul is completely and totally infatuated with you, right? And you answered your door to him in the world's tightest dress and you expect him to act normal?"

"Liz, he's not into me. He told me I had small boobs before, remember?"

"That was a defense mechanism and you know it."

"Don't get my hopes up."

"I don't have to. If you walked into his room right now and told him to ravish you he would. Maybe you wouldn't even have to ask."

She sits in her desk chair, examining her dagger-sharp heels. She has a flicker of a memory again from the dreaded housewarming: she remembers his bed and his breath on her neck. She remembers how bad she wanted to pin her lips on his. She hopes she didn't say it. "I need alcohol," she says.

Liz rolls her eyes as Patty chucks a nip to Maka and she swallows it down in under a minute.

She stumbles up to his room some long hour past midnight. Her heels came off long ago, which she wished she hadn't done. The bottoms of her feet are rubbed raw and red from the ice that she stepped over on the sidewalks back to the dorm. February isn't a good time to go out but rules be damned. She's here for answers and she's going to get them.

He opens the door with some reluctance, but she can tell he hasn't fallen asleep yet. His hair is still neat.

She moves past him to sit on his bed. Blair is on the pillow, so deep in her dream that she doesn't stir when the bed creaks. She pats the spot next to her, and Soul obeys, but she can't read the befuddled gaze he throws her. She thinks he might have been drinking, too. It's on his breath, though not as much as hers.

"What?" she says, her voice hoarse.

He points to her neck, where a small, ruddy mark is forming and unfurling like the petal of a rose. She may have given in just a bit before she came to her senses and realized that this stranger from the club was not Soul, but an unfamiliar boy with blazing eyes. She shrugs it off.

"Moment of weakness."

He avoids her stare now. "Did you…?"

"Fuck him? No. I don't operate that way."

He clasps his hands together on his lap. She thinks he looks relieved.

"Soul," she starts, "what did I say to you after that party?"

He falls back onto his bed, and she follows suit. The room spins for her. She hates this feeling. She knows what often comes after a night like this.

"Depends," he says, "how drunk are you?"

"Drunk enough. But I'm getting sober. I had a very long, cold walk back here."

He turns back to her. "You were trying to get me to kiss you that night. You said you were attracted to me."

"And what did you do?"

"Nothing. You were really gone."

"What if I'm less gone now?"

"Depends," he says again, "how good of a kisser was the guy at the club?"

She inches closer. "Don't remember."

"So not very good, I'm guessing." His smile is off-kilter, blurred.

"Probably not even half as good as you will be?" Her question hangs between them, and she hopes he answers the way Liz said he would. If she gets rejected by him, she's not sure what she'll do. She just risked their whole friendship in this weird, buzzing moment. There are sparks in the air, she can feel them. She swears she said the right thing.

Their noses brush as he gets closer. Her heart is pounding so hard she wonders if the bed is vibrating beneath her chest, if he can feel it. She reaches out and puts a hand where his heart is, and his beats just as wildly as hers does. She smiles.

He kisses her, and she knows that this is something she could never forget.