Away From the Sun
by. Poisoned Scarlett
Neuf
"Was it scary?"
"Playing in front of people?" Soul let out a breath. "Hell yeah. I didn't wanna' do it at first, but my friend Kilik convinced me. It wasn't so bad after the first time."
"I was so nervous the first time I had to do a major presentation. I can only imagine how it'd be playing songs for a crowd of strangers." Maka sympathizes, but he shrugs it off and continues with his tale. It's probably the most to date that Soul had spoken of his past to her and Maka feels content knowing he trusts her enough to do so.
"Is that why you're here then?" Maka asks, turning to look at him. He raises a brow, urging to continue her thought. "You had a lot of gigs, right? Did you get discovered or something?"
His lips quirk into a small grin at her sharp deduction skills. "Yeah. I never thought I'd get a record deal. I mean, I was gonna' be a producer for the label that signed me." He shakes his head, chuckling. "Man, if I knew I was gonna' be famous I wouldn't have gone to college."
Maka laughs, elbowing him softly in the ribs. "College prepared you for that!"
"Trust me: it didn't."
She only shakes her head, delving into another thought and voicing it once more, getting a response again. This continues, sliding from subject to subject.
Comfortable, absent talk.
"Winters are killer in New York. Freezed my ass off every time."
"It's always been really hot here..."
"I'd take heat over cold any day, Maka."
"You say that now..."
"Yes. I say that now and every time. I like the heat, not snow."
She just rolls her eyes, knowing he'd be complaining about it when summer came.
Stupid, funny, crazy talk.
"You're lucky you didn't get fired on the first day."
"I wasn't gonna' mop up puke. That's disgusting, and someone as cool as me shouldn't be reduced to moping up some kids vomit."
"But it was your job!"
"My uncool job. I quit after a week, anyway. Got a job as a waiter at some classy restaurant. The tips were great."
Maka shakes her head. "You're such a...a..."
"A what?" He grins, looking at her. The word is plastered all over her face; he wants to hear it come out of her mouth. "Say it."
"A..."
"Say it, Maka, I dare you."
"A slut!"
"I think the word you're looking for is whore, actually."
Maka runs a hand down her face as he cracks up at her irritation.
Personal divulging of information.
"Lemme' get this straight..." Soul says after another hour, slowly. Maka sits beside him, comfortably seated on the bench. The night is cool and the sky is dark, the moon cut out in the wall of black. There's a pond a couple of feet away from them, and the ghostly mist that rolls off the surface of the water makes her tremble a little. "So, your old man cheated on your mom with a bunch of strippers and then she left… and then you left? You were, what, fifteen?"
"Yeah, but I was confident I could make it on my own. I got a job at a fast food place and I rented a room… granted, I barely made enough a month to pay the rent, but it was better than living with my dad until I was eighteen." Maka says, wrapping the hem of her sweater around her hands to keep them warm
She doesn't quite recall the exact sequence of events that led to this bearing of the heart but she doesn't really care. She remembers entering the train that Thursday night and next thing she knows, she's getting off three whole stops early and walking with Soul down to the park, which has been deserted for the past hour or so. She doesn't mind the lonely atmosphere of the place. It's a little hard to, with Soul beside her the entire time. He's enough company.
"You got it worse," he decides. "I just called up Black Star and asked him if I could crash with him for a while. Idiot didn't even charge me anything for living there until my dumbass mentioned it."
Maka giggles. "Do you still room with him now?"
"Nah. I moved out when I went to New York. It was hell over there – I actually had to work." He sighs, loudly. But he grins when she laughs, able to catch 'so lazy' between each giggle. "Right now I got my own place and I don't wake up with hangovers every Saturday." He rolls his eyes. "Black Star always threw parties at his place. It was annoying when I actually wanted to sleep."
"I heard about them when we were in high school. He would always invite everyone and people got used to partying at his place every Friday night." Maka remembers always being excluded from such invitations. It wasn't that Black Star directly singled her out, but it was obvious someone of her social ranking wouldn't fit in at one of Black Star's parties.
"You never came though."
"I didn't think I should. I know Tsubaki was dating him but it just felt like he wouldn't want me there." Maka shrugs. "I didn't like him, so it wasn't a complete loss. I still don't. If I wanted to party, I'd just go with Liz and Patty."
"Oh, yeah. The Thompson sisters. They were pretty cool." Soul reminisces. He glances at her, mischievously. "So, I take it you weren't such a buzz kill as everyone thought you were?"
Maka smiles back, coyly. "I don't think anyone who doesn't know how to live a little would ever think about hanging out with Liz and Patty. They got really wild but they didn't force me to join in on their games. That's why I liked them so much: they didn't pressure me into doing something I didn't want to. I wasn't comfortable drinking until my head was numb, or hooking up with a random stranger in the bar, and they understood that and left me alone."
"Sounds crazy." Soul whistles. "So, what, you just babysat them, then?"
"Sometimes."
"Sometimes?"
"I had fun, too, Soul. I wasn't just sitting there drinking water!" Maka huffs. He looks skeptical. She purses her lips but doesn't comment. "I stopped going after I realized my dad was looking for me again. If I got caught with my fake ID, I'd give away my location instantly and I couldn't have that. That's the only reason I stopped accepting their invitations. They didn't hold it against me."
Soul digests this, amused at the thought of how Black Star would react to this news. He'd probably deny it – he was hardheaded that way. Soul grins and pats her head roughly, making her squeak in surprise. "Not fair, Maka. You were badass and I didn't even know it!"
"Quit it, Soul, you're messing up my hair!" She whines.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Here, let me fix it for you." He smirks, removing her hair bands and mussing up her hair something crazy. He only laughs harder when she blows up furiously; reaches over for his own head like lightening and extracting her own revenge. Only his hair seems to return to its usual shape like rubber, to her bewilderment and his smugness.
"Problem?"
"Your hair is weird!" Maka exclaims, running her fingers through it in an attempt to smooth it down. But it just spikes back up like plastic. She can't feel any sort of gel, anything of anything, it just feels soft and manageable. It defies any sort of logic she can muster up. "Why won't it stay down? You're not even using gel!"
"Beats me. It's always been like that." He yawns with disinterest, not bothered by the fact that she's practically leaning on him, trying to, in vain, ruin the cool tousle of his hair. He just looks up after a while of her tampering with his hair, snorting at the completely concentrated look in her eye as she continues to fight a losing battle.
He reaches up, halting her hands mid-swipe. "Seriously, it's not gonna' happen. I tried once – I had to use a whole bottle of gel to keep it down. " She scowls, glaring at his spiked hair as if it had wronged her somehow, but leans away.
His hand stays closed around her wrist as he lowers them between them and she sneaks a look at him. He's just looking up at the sky again, his other hand trying to flatten a tuff of white hair down his forehead absently. After a moment of hesitation, Maka wiggles out of his grasp and catches his hand before he can stuff it back into his pocket, looking down at her lap.
He doesn't look at her, either. He just tightens his grip on her hand, some tension releasing from his shoulders.
And she smiles a little.
His hand is warmer than any pocket, anyway.