I do not own Soul Eater or any other character (hahah get the pun?)
"Life changes, and the world can't wait for us to."
And here we were, holding hands on a moonlit shore near a carnival. They say that 'eyes are the windows to a person's soul'. I could sense something about this boy in front of me. Was it…
Distress?
Maka POV
"Do you feel that?" He asked me. I hadn't really noticed it too often but when we were both so stiff and straight, I could clearly see the height difference. And when he looked down on me with those partially closed eyes, it didn't really help at all.
"Feel what?" I asked. You're holding my hands...
"My hands." His tone was really soft and monotone. Ha I was right! Well, sort of.
"I don't get it." I said confusedly. "You're holding mine of course I can feel them, but what does that have to do with anything?"
He sighed. "They're calloused, can you feel it now?" He rubbed the tips of his fingers gently across my skin.
"Yeah I can." It was a soft and warm touch, I almost felt tickled. "But I still don't get what it-"
"Do you know how I got calloused fingers?"
That question took me by surprise, mostly because he interrupted me. "Hanging around the monkey bars?" It sounded like a dumb answer but to me it made sense. People can get calloused fingers from that... right?
He chuckled. "Simple-minded are we?" He joked.
"Well what kind of question was that? I don't see how calloused fingers have anything to do with-"
Again, he cut me off. "I'll give you a hint; you mentioned it earlier today."
I was getting frustrated and irritated. "Stop playing this game just cut to the chase."
He smirked. "I'm trying to be dramatic, just go along with it." It didn't seem like that. It felt more like seriousness and being deep. But whatever, playing along wouldn't hurt.
"Fine." I rolled my eyes. "Did you ride your motorcycle too much?" I guessed again.
"You're way off."
I groaned and slid my hands out of his grips by tugging down really hard and I shoved them in my pockets. "You know what, nevermind, it's not going to kill me if I don't know."
Because he no longer had nothing to hold, his arms just dangled at his sides before finally setting inside his pockets as well. "You're the one who wanted to know what my life was like, I was just trying to explain."
I pouted. "Well you suck at explaining things." I sighed. "I hate to downgrade myself like this but I don't catch on when people beat around the bush so just give it to me straight." Blunt, I thought, this guy is giving me a headache. I was not one who liked to play these kinds of 'games', mostly because I usually lost; metaphorically speaking of course.
He sighed in defeat. When he lifted his head up to face me he wore that stupid smirk I hated, but was oddly attracted to it. "I'm an Evans." He stated. What? That's it?
I pouted again. "There you go again, beating around the bush."
"I wouldn't say that was."
Ugh, he's going to make me think. That's right, he's an Evans, the most prestigious and well known family of musicians. It was a gift to just coincidentally share that common name in general but to actually be one. Normally, I am bad at figuring things out, but this time things clicked for some reason. Just those 3 words, I'm an Evans. Now I get it; that's all he had to say for one to understand his calloused fingers. A lot of people have the last name Evans, but this one had attended a high-class party. It was a far fetch but I'm assuming he was performing, though performers don't usually hang out in dimly lit sitting rooms...at least I don't think. Musician, musician, that means they play instruments right?
My eyes lit up. "You can play an instrument!" I said it mostly in amazement and admiration than to the fact I finally figured it out no thanks to him.
The smirk on his face grew. "Connected the dots?"
I nodded eagerly. "That's great! What instrument?"
I would have expected him to beat around the bush again and say something like 'you know what I play.'
"Piano."
Wow. That was a short answer. Well, I guess there isn't much to say when that's all you want to say. I've never had a talent, and still don't. I can read fast, but that's not really something of great interest. I wonder how good he is at the piano. He's an Evans so he must be fantastic! But he's still young looking so I don't suppose he's got much experience as let's say, that brother he mentioned or his parents. Either way I still saw it as amazing, simply because i was 100% sure that he's better than me. Have I ever even touched a piano before?
Before I responded to his answer I walked towards one of his sides so we could continue forward and he turned his body around and followed beside me, as we continued our stroll down that shoreline.
"That's so cool!" If his ego could fly I'm sure I just sent it skyrocketing to the moon. "How good are you?" That rocket his ego was flying in, just ran out of fuel.
The smirk on his face fell very quickly. If I didn't know any better I'd say he purposely tilted his head a little forward to hide his eyes under some of his messy bangs. I felt that the atmosphere around us began to get tense. I immediately wished I could take back my question. What kind of idiot asked a person how good they are at something? That has to be the most awkward question to answer for them. I guess I was just too caught up in awe because of the fact he had a hidden talent I had no idea about until now.
I tried to keep positive, thinking that he was just making a dramatic pause and then he would answer with only a few words. I waited with puppy-like eyes, never looking away from his direction. Maybe I was wrong, even if he is an Evans. Maybe my judgmental and stereotypical thoughts about the Evans family were wrong, maybe he wasn't as good as I thought he was. Then I felt guilty, because what if he was ashamed of not being a good pianist, and I practically asked him a question that would almost force him to confess that to me. Of course he could avoid the question entirely but that too would also reveal some sort of secret. I tried to set aside my judgments, it's not fully right to just keep making guesses, I haven't even heard him play.
"Uh wait, sorry, you don't have to answer that!" I told him, fighting off the uneasiness in my voice.
The tension I felt between us never faltered one bit, he still seemed to hide his eyes with his bangs. The only reason why someone would be as stiff as this was if they were thinking deeply about something. Liz, Patty, and Tsubaki pointed that out to me whenever I would get lost in thoughts as well. This made me pout. Why was he being so unfair? I had told him practically every detail of my life, and he can't even answer a few questions! I had to consider the fact his life must have been much different and harder than mine, which may have helped form his closet personality, completely different from my open personality. It did seem unreasonable, to completely trust a person the way I suddenly trusted him within 24 hours, but trust was trust, nothing else around it matters. I wonder why he can't trust me to tell me anything, I mean who can I tell? Well, yeah, my friends but who are they going to tell? Well, yeah, others but...whatever.
"Hey, look at that."
He stopped walking and soon I stopped as well. I looked at his face, his eyes were staring towards the carnival. I felt kind of relieved he had revealed his eyes to the world again. I followed his gaze to one heck of a light source. A smile filled my entire face, grinning from ear to ear would be an understatement. I didn't care if he was avoiding my question, this was a perfectly logical excuse.
"It's a ferris wheel!" I exclaimed in excitement. I grabbed his arm and pointed to it. "Let's ride it!"
He looked down on my with droopy and uninterested smile. My heart kind of fell thinking of the possibility he'd refuse, but I never let go of my smile, just in case he said-
"Sure, sounds cool." Replacing that bored expression was another crooked smile.
For some reason I laughed that he agreed to it. Heck, he's the one who found the damn thing! I wonder why he let me hang on to his arm the entire time we went towards the ride. We talked about tickets, which turned out we never needed. I would look up to see how he was doing every few minutes, completely unaware I had my arms hooked onto one of his. He didn't look like he hated it, in fact he looked like he didn't mind it.
We walked all the way up to the ferris wheel, which was a lot emptier than I had expected it to be. We easily got into the one of the cars and took our seats on separate sides, so we could face each other. It was mostly silent for a while, which didn't bug me because I was too busy noticing how big the carnival had gotten. All the lights and all the music, and I even challenged myself to try and find Black Star and Tsubaki.
I heard a sigh once we were almost halfway to the top.
"I don't know."
Confused, as any person would be, I moved my attention from out the window to him, who was sitting across from me with his hands in his pockets and his body slouched backwards as if he was sliding out of the seat.
"Don't know what?" I had turned the rest of my body to face him.
"What i'm capable of."
I blinked once. Twice. "Meaning you don't know...?" I wanted him to finish my sentence.
He sighed again. "How good I am."
I get it now, he's talking about the piano. I felt elated inside. So he decided to answer my question! So, he doesn't know what he's capable of? Does that mean he's good or bad? Actually, that was a PERFECT way to reply to my question without revealing that you are either a virtuoso or not.
I smiled. "I'm sure you're good, you're an Evans!"
"Being an Evans has nothing to do with it. A musician is a musician no matter what their name is, you're either capable of becoming one or not."
Woah, when did this conversation turn serious? I dropped my smile. I didn't start the subject this time, but I was definitely going to be the one to change it. If everytime his life is brought up into question he's going to get all serious about it and not have a good laugh about it, i'm just not going to keep that conversation alive.
"So why'd you wait this long to answer?" Surely it didn't take him this long to find a good enough reply to neither reveal whether he was good or bad. Even i'm better than that. Indirectly asking about his thoughts counts as changing the subject...right?
He shrugged and put his arms behind his head, resting on the plastic glass as we finally reached the top of the ferris wheel.
"We're alone up here, no one can hear us." He stated a little too casually.
I raised an eyebrow. "And we weren't alone down there...?" Moreover, why don't you want people to hear our conversation?
All he did was smirk right back at me and pierce me with those crimson eyes. Why he was obsessed with that side smile of his was a question I never found the answer to, but I didn't care. I kind of found it...interesting. Intriguing maybe, it seemed to be one of his personality traits.
I sighed heavily. "Geez, I don't get you."
"There's not much to get."
I was about to make a comment when the ride came to a sudden, abrupt halt as soon as we reached the exact top of the wheel. The surprise stop threw me around in my seat and our car, as well as the others, were swinging violently back and forth. I looked over at him, he seemed to be just as confused as me, but he kept his composure and 'cool' physique by pretending he wasn't worried at all or that he was effected in any way. As soon as the swinging slowed down enough that I could stand up, I bolted to the window and looked outside to figure out what was going on.
There was a lot of commotion, that much I managed to figure out, but there didn't seem to be a huge problem because I didn't see any emergency mechanics running towards us or anything. Maybe it just got stuck for a little while? A few heads were turned from the crowd around us but many lost interest in the matter and soon continued with whatever they were doing. I looked over at him again, he went back to that position. Hands behind his head and legs crossed the guy way, except he had his eyes closed like he was sleeping or trying to drown out the noise and find some peace and quiet. Wasn't he the least bit curious? This made me more frustrated about him, acting all tough was only his exterior, it's stupid to have to put a fake attitude on for everyone. I sat back down and crossed my arms.
"It looks like we're going to be up here for a while."
He swiftly took out his phone, typed something, and put it back in his pocket, all with one hand before placing it behind his head again.
"Did you text Black Star?" I asked.
"Yeah."
I took out my own phone. "Maybe I should text Tsubaki too..." I typed with both my hands, hoping he wouldn't notice or bring it up sometime.
"Go for it."
I glared at him for lack of communication and put my phone back in pocket.
It got awkward again, why couldn't he be a little more enthusiastic about things? It's not my fault it's silent...is it? Of course not! I'm open to talking about anything, but I can't talk to him first because apparently he likes to keep EVERYTHING about him to himself. Should I try to squeeze it out of him? No, there's a special thing called privacy, I should really respect that. I leaned back and put my hands in my lap. Whatever, he wants to keep things quiet and awkward, fine by me.
And that's exactly how it was. Not that I cared. The ride got started again and we started moving down. We never did find out what happened, but honestly that wasn't the biggest thing on my mind. It stayed silent between us while we finally got off the ride, met up with Black Star and Tsubaki, and the carnival was about to close.
"Well, there's still time for one more game. What do you guys wanna do?" Tsubaki asked while taking bites out of her cotton candy.
I don't know about the guys but I actually began to think about the choices we had. Ride another ride? No, not enough time. Take pictures in a photobooth? No, these guys don't seem like the type to do that. Something caught my attention in the corner of my eye and I turned my head to take a closer look. It was a stuffed animal about the size of a backpack. The animal was a regular brown teddy bear in a bowtie that you would see a man wearing with a tuxedo. Recently, I've only seen colorful bears or smaller bears or giant bears or even bears with the most outrageous props attached to them, so this boring yet classy bear immediately took my heart. You didn't see a normal one like this these days.
"How about this game?" I offered, running towards it anyway. I was going to win that teddy bear. Period.
"M-Maka, it's a shooting game." Tsubaki commented.
"Yeah so?" I want that teddy bear.
"Damn girl got balls." Black Star said with his mouth full.
All three of us looked at him. Did he really just say that? About me? "It's not that." I responded. "I just want to win that!" I pointed the teddy bear out to them.
"What's the big deal? Just buy one at the store." That was the first time in what seemed forever that he finally talked to me after that horrible ferris wheel ride.
Does he have any idea how long it would take for me to find one like this? I became slightly infuriated. Why did he always have to rile me up like this? Why? I turned my back on him and slapped down my 3 bucks. The point of the game was to shoot a bebe gun at a target. I had 5 shots to make a bullseye; no bullseye, no prize. I readied my gun, determined to get that friggin teddy bear. First shot, miss. Second shot, edge of the target circle. Third shot, a random spot on the paper, missing the target. Fourth shot, the circle right outside the bullseye.
"Come on Maka you can do it!" Tsubaki cheered me on. I turned to see her smiling and encouraging face and Black Star and Soul's skeptical looks. That fired me up and I spent quite a while on this last shot.
Fifth times a charm. I told myself. Aiming and steadying the gun as much as I could, with what little experience I had, I pressed down on the trigger. Fifth shot, miss.
"Damnit…" I muttered, trying to hide my disappointment and embarrassment, in vain of course. I turned around after taking one long hopeful look at that teddy bear and walked back over to them, hanging my head.
"Don't worry Maka, I'm sure it'll be back next year." She patted me on my back.
"Thanks Tsubaki…" I said as nice as I could.
I caught a glimpse of someone moving out of the corner of my eye and turned around. Soul was quietly and nonchalantly walking up to the booth. He swiftly slid 3 bucks onto the table and the lady handed him the gun. Bastard, trying to show me up. I was irritated at first, then a thought made me laugh. Well Mister Fancyfingers Evans is probably too "high class prancy" to even pull the trigger! My silent laughing and giggling came to a halt when I saw how even more nonchalantly he took his shots. ONE HAND in his pocket and ONE HAND holding the gun, he single-handedly lifted the gun eye level, and took less than 4 seconds to fire ALL 5 shots. What the hell? He took his one hand out of his pocket so he could gently place the gun back onto the table. Oh one hand to shoot like some assassin but both hands to hold the gun? Freak.
I turned around to see the others' reactions. Black Star was just LOOKING at him, eating the rest of Tsubaki's cotton candy. Of course…So I looked over to her. Not only was Tsubaki's mouth open and her eyes wide, but it seems a lot of people gathered behind her who happened to have seen Soul shoot the target. Such a large crowd.. I didn't even have to look to guess the result. The entire crowd began to cheer and exclaim in amazement. But I did it anyways. I turned around as the paper was finally visible.
"NO WAY!" I screamed. The bullseye had 5 little dots covering it in the shape of a circle. Soul had shot a perfect circle inside the bullseye! When did he learn that kind of marksmanship? He's a fancypants!
Soul just turned around with a blank, careless face, his hands once again shoved in his pockets. "What?" He asked.
I ran up to him and got nearly nose to nose with him. "Don't act so clueless! Where did you learn how to do that?"
He looked over his shoulder. The lady was motioning him to come over for his prize and he did so, avoiding the question. I stood still, waiting for him and he returned with that teddy bear in a bowtie in one hand, the other in his pocket.
"Yeah yeah shove it in my face." I said irritated.
"Okay." In one quick motion he pushed the stuffed animal onto my face so hard I stumbled back a little. I grabbed the teddy bear to get it off and he let go of it as I succeeded in taking it off my face. I held it with both my hands and frowned at him with a hint of anger.
"I didn't mean it literally!"
And there it is. Soul smirked in that cute way that I usually try to not notice and walked past me towards Tsubaki and Black Star. I turned around, eyes following his prided steps. The crowd seemed to have disappeared, which I thought was a good thing, but it meant the carnival was closing. I looked down at the teddy bear in my hands.
"Hey Soul! I'm still holding this you know!" Crap! Why did I say that? I should have just run off with it.
He stopped walking and with his hands still in his pockets he turned his head. "Well, you said you wanted it so…" He said carelessly and nodded his head towards the teddy bear.
I looked from him, down to the teddy bear that was resting in my hands. What, was this a gift? No, there's no way this bipolar freak would do something like that. It does seem as though he won it for me just because I said I wanted it though. No, he just wanted to show off. Yeah, that's it! Ritzy bastard. But still, to be able to do that, he's got to be some superhuman. Great, now I sound like a lunatic.
"Um, thanks?" I replied. I was pretty speechless.
He smirked again and turned around to face Black Star and Tsubaki, who were just standing there watching aimlessly.
"The carnival's closing, what should we do?" Tsubaki asked.
"What do you mean? If it's closing we have to leave, naturally." Soul replied.
I tensed up. I had forgotten that these two weren't with us when that happened. I could tell Tsubaki tensed up too, which isn't good because she'd start stuttering. I had to quickly respond before she could.
"Y-You're right. Heh-heh. M-My bad."
Crap, I can tell she's getting nervous. She always was the one who would just go along with our…troubles. I looked over at Black Star and Soul. It seemed to have no affect on the blue-haired idiot but for some reason I could feel that Soul wasn't buying it as much; even though he tried to hide his curiosity behind a bored facial expression. I was suddenly overcome with this fear he would find out, and I had to rerun the memories to make sure there wasn't anything bad that we did…
Even though I knew I wouldn't find anything.
Aww daang what'd they do? Jkjk
Here's the next chapter! But the ending is kind of crappy. Sorry it took me so long!
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