Author's Note: Thanks for stopping by to read! The song Maka and Hiro play in this chapter is based on a duet performance of saxophonist Lee Konitz and guitarist Billy Bauer that I listened to get ideas.
Chapter 5: People get Suspicious…
"Hiro stop pulling me by the arm, I'm not going to run off!" Maka snapped out, as they entered the lobby of the club.
"Really, well to me it looked like you were ready to turn around. Don't worry we'll be fine, like I mentioned earlier. Nobody is going to know it is us up there." Hiro retorted back, letting go of her arm and walking up to the manager of the club.
"Hello and welcome to the White Lily Café and Pub, how can I help you two?" The manager asked as Hiro approached the booth.
"Yes, I heard that you guys like to take live requests for music performances every day from 4 to 5 pm and I was wondering if my companion and I could play." Hiro requested, pointing towards Maka at the mention of companion.
"Sure! We always enjoy hearing newcomers' play! You two can start setting up backstage while the other performers finish up. Oh and my name is Jessica, but everyone here likes to call me Jess for short." She replied back happily.
"Thanks Jess and I think you'll be speechless in awe by the time you finish hearing us play!" Hiro said, winking and being openly flirtatious.
"Oh um, okay then?" Jess replied backing away from Hiro slightly in repulsion.
While Hiro continued his vain attempts at trying to flirt with Jess, Maka took in the atmosphere of the club.
The velvet red walls of the club were aligned with portraits of famous jazz musicians and artists from throughout the ages particularly from the 50s and 60s era. Many of the customers were talking casually amongst themselves at the bar or were lounging on the matching velvet colored sofas.
"Well, at least it seems like the club isn't too busy right now and I don't really see anyone from school that would recognize me." Maka thought, beginning to feel a bit relieved.
"Hey Maka, we are going to be up soon. Let's just head backstage now." Hiro piped up, bringing Maka out of her thoughts.
"Oh, alright then. I thought you were still talking to Jess." Maka remarked when she suddenly noticed the imprint of a hand on Hiro's left cheek.
Maka started to smirk. "Did she really slap you?" Maka asked trying to hold back a laugh.
Hiro scowled. "I don't want to talk about it. Let's get ready for our performance."
Maka sighed as she fixed the curls in her hair and applied a bit more make-up to her cheeks. "There's no need to be nervous, there's no need to be nervous." Maka repeated in her head.
"Don't forget your mask." Hiro remarked, breaking Maka's internal mantra.
"I won't, that's the main feature." Maka replied back as she placed the verdant-colored mask back onto her face and took a quick glance at herself in the mirror.
"I think I'm all ready to go, how about you?" Maka asked.
Hiro looked over his hair, making sure there weren't any blonde spots left that he might have missed back at the apartment and applied his silver-colored mask.
"Okay I'm ready now and we have our music sheets also just in case we forget where we left off." Hiro explained as he opened up his case and took out his guitar.
Maka took out her saxophone and placed the strap around her neck.
"Alright next up in our variety music hour we have two newcomers playing at our club today. Everyone please give a big welcome to the duo Masquerade!" Jess announced loudly from onstage.
"Well, that's our cue." Hiro said standing up and heading out.
"Yeah it's show-time." Maka replied back. 'Today is the start of me playing for others the melodies that Hiro and I have been working on for weeks.'
~X~
Maka and Hiro's playing together started out slightly out of sync at first, with Maka at first moving too slowly behind Hiro's strumming of the guitar's chords and forgetting at one point where they were on the music sheet, but eventually after telling herself to mentally calm down, Maka was able to keep up with Hiro's tempo and the two played a nice melody of smooth and classical jazz.
Maka was mostly surprised by how much the audience had seemed to enjoy the performance, even with all the mistakes she had made.
"You guys did great!" Jessica called out to them as she walked up back to the two of them once the applause had died down. "A little bumpy in some spots, but still overall really good! Would you two mind performing for us again at our club? I'll even pay you guys to perform on our busier nights since the crowd seemed to like you so much." Jessica added in as an incentive.
'We could actually get paid to do this? But that would mean having to put in more practice hours and I already have so much work as a meister…' Maka thought feeling unsure what to say.
Hiro looked excited at the prospect of being paid. "See I told you that you would find a way to pay back your dad and get more money." Hiro whispered to Maka.
"I still need to think about this! I don't just want to rush into doing performances every week now." Maka muttered back angrily.
"Oh come on Maka, don't you want to continue to get better so you can perform with Soul Eater someday?" Hiro taunted causing Maka to redden in embarrassment.
At the mention of Soul's name though, Maka's eyes suddenly started to widen in horror.
"Oh crap, what time is it anyways? We got here at about a little past 4 pm." Maka asked, fear suddenly lacing her voice.
'How could I be so stupid to lose track of time and forget I needed to be home at least by 5:30 pm.' Maka thought in alarm.
"Right now it is close to 6:00 pm." Jessica remarked checking the clock on the back wall.
"Crap, that's even worse! I'll have to get back to you in terms of the performing again." Maka said, already feeling apprehensive now. 'What excuse can I give Soul today?!'
"It's fine really, there's no need to make a decision today, but here's my business card in case you want to keep in touch. I never got your names by the way." Jessica mentioned, as she handed a card to both Hiro and Maka before they left out the doors.
"You can just call us Emerald and Diamond, respectively." Hiro yelled out to Jessica as she left them to talk and get changed.
"I think we should perform again here, imagine how much money we could accumulate over the weeks!" Hiro brought up gleefully.
Maka just glared at Hiro in annoyance. "We should at least think this over before we just sign a deal and say yes." Maka grumbled. "And besides, there might be other places in town we could perform at also." Maka added in.
Hiro sighed. "I guess you have a point." The two finished packing up their stuff and headed outside.
The sun was already getting close to setting, the sky a colorful mix of orange and red.
"Here, hold onto my saxophone and I'll pick it up from you next week." Maka said as she handed him the case.
"Why do you want me to hold onto it?" Hiro asked in confusion.
"I can't go back to my apartment carrying that. Soul would question me and I already have to come up with an excuse as to why I'm so late coming home." Maka replied back, as she finished fixing her hair back into their usual pigtails.
"Oh alright then, hurry home then so that you don't keep that boyfriend of yours waiting any longer!" Hiro teased as he began walked in the opposite direction.
Maka sighed. 'I'm totally screwed when I get home. I have only one excuse I can think of that hopefully won't make him question me too much.'
~X~
"See there she is Soul and you were so worried because she wouldn't respond to any of your calls or texts!" Blair purred out as she watched Maka quietly walk in and close the door.
"Shut up Blair I wasn't worried about wherever Tiny Tits was it." Soul grumbled from the couch.
Maka watched him silently for a moment, before coming up behind him and dropping her largest textbook onto his head from her bag.
"Ouch what the hell was that for?" Soul growled out, glaring back up at Maka as he rubbed his head.
"For calling me names, I don't call you mean nicknames so why do you do the same to me?" Maka replied back, becoming just as mad as Soul.
"Well maybe I wouldn't need to insult you so much if that wasn't the only way to catch your attention now in days!" Soul replied back in frustration.
"Huh? Wait, what are you talking about? Maka asked her anger starting to dissipate a bit.
"Where were you earlier Maka? And be honest with me." Soul questioned changing the topic as he got off the couch and grabbed Maka by the shoulders to force her to look at him.
Maka's heart sped up at how close they were getting. Making sure to keep eye contact with Soul she replied back softly "I was at the library reading when I lost track of time, I was so focused on what I was reading I didn't hear my phone going off. I'm sorry I'm being keep you in dark, its...it's something I don't think you'll understand." Maka lied trying to keep your heartbeat and wavelength in check.
Soul stared at her for what seemed like ages before he finally let go of her shoulders and turned away.
"You can be such a bookworm sometimes." Soul chuckled a bit before turning his attention back towards the TV.
"Yeah I know, well I'm going to take a quick shower and a nap. It's your turn to make dinner anyways." Maka muttered with a yawn as she trudged over to her room and closed the door.
Soul watched her walk out, his eyes narrowing. 'You may think it's something I won't understand Maka, but I plan on finding out about whatever it you're keeping from me one way or another.'
~X~
Maka was hoping that the following week at school would hopefully lead back to some normalcy after doing her first performance, but unfortunately things only seemed to get stranger.
"Hiro! Please pick me to be your weapon!" One girl cried out.
"No Hiro, I should be your weapon!" Another girl said with a pout, shoving the other girl out of the way.
"Now ladies, please there's really no need to fight over me!" Hiro stated suavely wrapping his arms around both girls.
"I never thought I would see the day that Hiro of all people would be getting partner requests, and was Hiro always that muscular?" Kim ogled as she watched Hiro chat with two girls from the NOT class.
"Kim don't pay any attention to that idiot. Remember that's Hiro you're talking about." Ox ford stated next to her, watching him with envy from afar. 'When the hell did Hiro get so muscular and since when do girls go after him? Something just isn't right about this situation.' He pondered as he continued to watch girls flock towards him.
Maka rolled her eyes at Hiro's antics. Hiro might have gotten stronger from taking her advice and watching Black Star's videos, but his ego had gone back up with it when girls took notice of his change in appearance and attitude.
"I don't get why those girls are focusing on Hiro when they could be focusing on a God like me!" Black Star scoffed as he passed by Maka and headed inside class with Tsubaki trying to tell him to lower his voice.
"This isn't good Hiro is drawing too much attention to himself, I should have been better prepared for this." Maka grumbled to herself.
Finally the end of the school day came as Maka walked over to her locker, to her surprise she saw Hiro already waiting for her there.
"What are you doing here? What if someone sees us?" Maka whispered as she quickly looked around.
"Don't worry there is nobody in the halls. I just wanted to give you your sax back. I put it in my locker after you left last week and I didn't want to forget since I have a date after school." Hiro boasted.
"Oh okay well come on. Let's go get it before somebody sees us." Maka said as the two walked down the corridor to his locker.
Unbeknownst to the two of them a pair of eyes followed them down the hall and snapped a quick photo of them with their phone.
'Why is Maka Albarn hanging out with the school's loser Hiro? This could be perfect blackmail I could use to finally get the upper edge on her.' Sauntering away in the opposite direction.
A/N: That's it for Chapter 5 feedback is always welcomed and thanks for reading as always