Stopgap
by. Poisoned Scarlet
2a
"You left."
"Ah!" Maka gasped, nearly spilling her coffee all over her shirt. She turned, finding Soul standing directly behind her, looking distinctly annoyed. "Soul! How many times have I told you not to do that?" She snapped.
"You left." Soul repeated. He crossed his arms. "That was not cool."
"What – oh." Maka tensed. "I was late for class..."
"You could've woken me up." Soul muttered. "I would've given you a lift back, since I did drag you back to my place."
"Yeah, but..." Maka fidgeted. "You looked really tired. And I don't need someone to drive me back! I don't live very far from you, actually..."
He perked up at this. "Where do you live?"
"Three blocks down, near Shear street." Maka answered quickly, watching his eyes grow distant with thought before they locked with hers again. She hastily looked away when they did, taking a drink of her coffee. "What are you doing here?"
"Saw you from over there." Soul thumbed lazily behind him, to the auto-shop.
"Oh..." Maka murmured, awkwardly. She had never had much contact with men – or people in general. Hiro and she had met during class, having been paired for a project, and it had grown from therein rather smoothly. Maka communicated with Soul better under the cloak of nightfall, anyway. "Is something wrong with your car?"
"Nah, just there to pick up some oil for my bike."
Maka stared. "...Bike?"
"Yeah, my motorcycle." Soul snorted at her horrified look and added: "What's with the face? Motorcycles are cool."
"They're deathtraps!" Maka insisted. "How could you even get on one? Wearing a helmet won't save you from breaking a bone if you crash!"
"Helmet? Those are so uncool..."
Maka gawked. "You don't even wear a helmet?"
"I have to." Soul sighed, forlorn. "Or else I get a ticket, and I can't afford another one - !"
Maka reached forward and smacked him, scowling and ignoring his sputtering. "You should wear it all the time – not just because you may get a ticket! One accident could kill you, you moron!"
He grinned, revealing jagged teeth.
Her heart sped up.
"Care about me that much already?" He teased. "Chill out, as if a stupid accident is gonna' finish me off. It'll take more than that to make me bite the dust."
Maka pressed her lips together. "It's not like that. You're my friend: I wouldn't want something bad to happen to you!"
A shadow crossed his eyes and she took a step back in caution when he leaned forward and said, his tone a cross between sweetness and cruelty: "You wouldn't want me to go because I'm the only one you can go to on lonely nights, right?"
Eyes wide, mouth drying, Maka barely rasped: "N-no! What are you—?"
Then he laughed and patted her head.
"I was kidding, you should've seen the look on your face! Don't take me too seriously – OW!" He howled in pain, sending her a watery glare: "Why'd you do that for? That hurt!"
"THAT WASN'T FUNNY!" She screeched, punching him on the shoulder this time. He hissed, rubbing the pain out of his arm while simultaneously trying to mitigate the pain in his skull. "You're such an asshole!"
Soul snorted, shrugging out his sore arm. "Whatever, you didn't have to hit me so hard. Take a fucking joke." Something in the distance caught his eye because he turned to it and began to walk away from her. "Anyway, see ya' later, Maka. Gotta' go."
"Wai - mm." Maka cut herself off, as he walked away from her and toward another man standing beside a row of motorcycles; right beside a busty, purple-haired, woman who was rummaging through a white leather handbag furiously.
2b
There was a deep jealousy burning in her gut.
Black Star's rambling fell on deaf ears: Maka was staring across the street, to the lean man who was shaking out a lighter with a slight frown.
Beside him, a voluptuous woman with long, purple-dyed, hair pulled back into a ponytail held onto his elbow; whining something Maka couldn't hear over the roaring in her ears.
Maka refused to dig deeper into the rooted hatred for the woman who was now running her fingers across his cheek in a mock-loving gesture. That woman's eyes were an insidious golden, lips curled into a deceiving grin that made the hairs on her arm rise; lips pull back into a fierce snarl.
She was poison.
Yet he did nothing more than stand there, allowing her to dangle off his arm, shaking out his lighter absently and snapping things at the woman when she drew too close to him or bothered him with her ceaseless whines.
"Maka-chan, are you okay?" Tsubaki asked, concerned.
Maka tore her eyes from the scene, swallowing down her bitterness, and forced a smile on. "Yeah, I'm fine, Tsubaki! I just got lost in a thought, that's all!"
Tsubaki stole a glance to where Maka had been intently staring at and pursed her lips when she saw nothing but a man with a woman, whom Tsubaki assumed was his girlfriend by how closely they were standing although she could not be sure. He looked annoyed, the woman looked annoyed and impatient.
"Are you sure? You look a little angry—!"
"Yeah, why're you pissed, Maka?" Black Star smirked, also having noticed her fury. "Ox get a better score on a test or something?"
"No!" Maka regretted ever blowing off steam by ranting about Ox Ford, her intellectual rival, to Black Star when Tsubaki had been absent. "I was just thinking, alright?"
"About becoming my fan?" Black Star guessed, hopeful his monologue had convinced her somehow.
"NO!" Maka growled. Her hand gripped her bookbag tightly and she began to walk down the street, resolutely staring anywhere but where she knew Soul stood with that gorgeous woman. "I'll see you two later – the Professor left me a lot of homework tonight, and I want to start it now while I have free time!"
"Ah – wait, Maka-chan!" Tsubaki called, alarmed. "Before you go: I won't be able to come this Saturday!"
Maka stilled, looking over her shoulder. "Why not? We always go..." She meant the club, where Tsubaki would dance the night away and Maka would tangle herself with Soul until morning.
Tsubaki's face flushed and before she could open her mouth, Black Star cut in excitedly: "Tsubaki and I are gonna' go on a date! I'm taking her to a place built for gods," he grinned, "Burger King—OW!"
"Don't you dare, Black Star!" Maka hissed, raising her book threateningly.
"What the hell did you do that for?" Black Star barked, holding his head. "I was kidding, you witch!"
"Shut up, you midget!"
"Flat-chest!"
"Asshole!"
"Bit—!"
"Guys, please, stop!" Tsubaki interrupted, cutting between them. "Black Star, don't! Maka-chan..."
Maka sneered.
Black Star snarled.
"It's okay, Tsubaki." Maka said stiffly, ignoring Black Star, who rudely mimicked her when she wasn't looking. "You two have fun – we can just go next time." She clutched the book to her chest, smiling weakly. "Okay?"
Unsure, Tsubaki nodded. "Okay... sorry, again, Maka-chan...I know how you really like to go."
Maka stole a glance across the street and was appalled to see Soul looking back.
She darted her eyes away quickly when she noticed the gorgeous woman was peering at her curiously, obviously intrigued by Soul's interest in her.
Maka began to walk backwards down the sidewalk. "I'll see you tomorrow, Tsubaki! It's no big deal - we'll just go next time!" She shouted, pivoting on her heel as her friend waved her goodbye and Black Star shouted his own farewell.
Her stomach felt upset.
It wrenched and twisted; bitterness rising up her throat, pooling in her chest with every stomping step.
She shouldn't be feeling possessive over someone she only saw every weekend – no matter how much they spoke after they had relations, no matter how much she liked his morbid humor and jagged grin when she said something dorky or the other.
Building a relationship upon sex would never work...
Who was she kidding?
Soul hardly had any obligation to her aside from screwing her every weekend: they'd discussed this, after she had broken it off with Hiro, between heated kisses inside that sweltering room, that they were doing nothing more than benefiting themselves from each others bodies.
Yet...
"You ain't so bad," Soul grinned, ruffling her hair. She slapped his hand away, scowling. He had pulled off her pigtails in their roughhousing. "You know, once I got over your dorkiness."
"Shut up! You wouldn't be so bad, either, if you weren't such a slacker!" Maka huffed, pulling the sheets up her chest conservatively.
"Being lazy never killed anyone." Soul smirked.
"But it does get you thrown out on the street." Maka quipped.
He laughed, although his eyes had grown strangely distant. "Don't worry about that - the last place I'm gonna' end up is like some bum on the corner of some street."
"Why would you say that?"
He turned his head, mouth parted to answer. Instead, he smiled crookedly and flicked her forehead; swallowing down his words. "None of your business, nerd."
Who was she kidding?
Those conversations meant nothing to a person who viewed her as nothing more than a thing they could use to blow off steam after a hard week.