Usual disclaimer applies~ Enjoy~!

WES----

Entering their house, the same blue haired maid greeting him with a deep bow, he was met with the sight of a hooded person walking towards him, towards the exit. Wes remembered this as the visitor from the other day, but where was the other one? And truthfully, is there really a need to hide their face behind a hood?

He stared at the visitor's departing back, deciding that he/she was probably one of his mother's visitors. What would she want with someone like him/her? As the stranger disappeared round the corner, he continued to where his mother would be located.

The library.

The door was slightly ajar giving him a chance to hear a muffled version of a conversation, catching words here and there.

"Did you tell… think they didn't catch on… inside… adorable gift… have the keys… give it to her on…" Not one to eavesdrop, he immediately decided to knock and welcome himself inside to greet his mother and the familiar voice.

Opening the large double doors, he entered and was met with the familiar visitor and Cordelia looked to him, a small smile behind the teacup she was drinking from. Their visitor's calming teal eyes melted his own crimson gaze, wisps of her honey coloured hair landing to frame her petite face and emphasising the gentleness of her smile. Standing beside where she was sitting at - the armchair that Wes usually occupies himself - Wes greeted her by grasping her cool hand and brushing it against his lips, as he would always do.

Looking closely at her features, he noticed the similarity between mother and daughter.

"Its nice meeting you again, Kami Albarn."

SOUL----

As the two, meister and weapon, trod on towards their campus, Soul remembered how and what his former meister's reactions were to the truth. It had pained him, the decision to keep it from her, since he knew full well that even though he hadn't involved her in his family business and his own quest to break down this arrangement, she was still very much involved since she was the other half of the arrangement. At least, she accepted it without running away, unlike him.

How can she be so strong at a time like this when he himself was being buried in confusion?

He peeked at his former partner sideways and grinned - she was being cute, staring down at the cobble-stoned street and hopping onto the grey cobblestones as they walked ahead. She can be childish when she wanted to be.

Remembering the conversation from the cafe, when she asked to go to the ball, he had thought that she didn't want to stop the engagement - well, that was the feeling that he got. He had become… strangely hopeful, for some reason. Hopeful for what? She wanted to meet her mama and that's that. They'd continue to destroy this arrangement afterwards.

Truthfully, he'd want her away from the family as much as possible. His mother never usually paid any attention to him before so if she's intending continue to get Maka into the family, then surely there must be an ulterior motive. Her last reason was voided since the relic was safely delivered to Shibusen, so what else could be her reason? That was the one of the few reasons he wanted to destroy the arrangement, but thinking about it, there was no other reason to either accept or decline the arrangement.

Entering the large cobblestoned courtyard of Shibusen, just after they scaled the last step of the grand staircase, Maka immediately stopped just a few steps behind him, Soul only stopping a few moments later when he realized that she wasn't beside him any longer. She sighed with something akin to exasperation and reached her hand out to Soul. Feeling the strongly intruding wavelengths quickly approaching them, he only shook his head in amusement and grasped her gloved hand, his body wrapping in light shortly afterwards.

"HYAAHOOO!!" The familiarly irritating voice closed in quickly.

A shadow foot swiftly contacted with the scythe metal - held perpendicular to the contact as if to block the attack - from above, knocking both fighters off balance. Maka twirled her favoured weapon around her both elegantly and threateningly as she gauged the blue haired meister's reaction. Soul took in the fact that she handled him with such care and skill that he became nostalgic of their times together. From his translucent view he saw another thing which produced nostalgia. His old friends, Black*Star and Tsubaki.

The other meister was holding a ninja knife formed Tsubaki, twirling her as well, only less threatening than Maka's own display, and wearing an even less threatening expression - plain goofy - a wobbly grin crawling along his features and his eyes seemingly shining.

Black*Star quickly disappeared from the place he had been standing on, a few feet away from them, only to reappear in front of the scythe technician eliciting a surprised squeal from her. His face, which had the exhilarated challenging look a while ago was replaced with an expression of overflowing joy, tears streaming from both his eyes and nose in welcome.

"SOUL! You're back, man," as the ninja said… er, shouted this, Tsubaki regained her human form and bowed repeatedly in apology beside him as she helplessly watched Maka and the scythe become devoured in Black*Star's exaggeratingly strong embrace.

"Hey you stupid ninja!" Maka was squealing as she got crushed. "I. Can't. Breathe!"

Not wanting to stab either Maka or Black*Star - again - with his blade, he returned to his human form only to find him still crushed between the two meister's bodies. Even worse still was how he was facing Maka's direction, his meister's cheek and body pressed comically against his chest, struggling while an exaggeratingly teary Black*Star was wiping his running nose against Soul's hair even as a panicking Tsubaki was pulling at her meister's arms to let go of his two suffocating hostages. Struggling himself, he pushed back the blubbering meister behind him using his forearm, resulting in Maka being further crushed into him, desperately freeing her trapped arms by pushing out Black*Star's hold on her from both sides.

Finally, Black*Star decided to let go, resulting in both pairs flying off in different directions as he did so. From the corner of his eye, Soul noticed that Tsubaki had landed on top of Black*Star's chest whilst the ninja meister was found unconscious on the floor. It could've looked like one of those cliche scenes where one of the pair lands on top of the other and finds themselves staring into each other's eyes or something like that - where Soul got that sudden thought, he didn't know. Anyway, the ninja and chain weapon could've played that scene in front of him if not for one of the two being unconscious.

Unfortunately, as Soul shook the dizziness away, he realized that he and his former technician were in the exact same position. But he could feel that she wasn't unconscious like a certain ninja.

His head was resting against her not-so-flat-anymore-chest, her heartbeat drumming loudly into his ear, her breath blowing from above him, gently tickling his head as a few strands of hair were being moved. His hands were planted on the floor on both her sides, trapping half of her body underneath him.

He couldn't move. He wouldn't move. This is so embarrassing! What if people were staring?!

Slowly, he felt his Maka shuffle underneath him and raise herself slowly as if she didn't want to disturb him. But Soul didn't want to burden her with his weight so he also raised himself, but quicker than her.

Reflexively raising his head, he was met with wide green eyes, so close to his own that he saw that her pretty shade of green had small specks of blue and his skin felt her shallow breaths fanning around his face - so warm and inviting. The breeze around them made her subtle scent drift to him and his breath hitched suddenly when he inhaled. It was a soft sweetness that made his mouth water.

"Soul?" The whisper only brought his attention to the fluid movement of her lips and his awareness highlighted them. If he leaned in just a bit closer…

"Hey!" Her hand shot up towards Soul's forehead, half blocking his eyesight and finally breaking him off from the reverie. "What is it?" Her voice was louder now, gently quivering as if panicking, her cheeks flushing pink, which the scythe didn't seem to notice.

Her small hand was gently pressing against him, as if pushing him away. Of course, how could he be so stupid! She was uncomfortable with the position and what he had almost done. What came over him? It might be because she was just so b--

"N-nothing… Sorry." Shaking his head, he apologized quietly as he made to stand, offering his hand to her once he was fully stood and pulling her up with him. In doing so, he realized how light she was - well considering her body shape and size, she would be.

He watched silently as his technician jogged over to the other duo, towering over the still knocked out Black*Star and consoling the embarrassed Tsubaki.

Looking around at their surroundings, it seemed that it was early enough that there weren't any spectators to their little sparring session and the embarrassingly cliche moment.

Running his fingers through his mess of hair to rid himself of the self annoyance, he followed to where Maka was, the memory of what he felt and saw during their momentary closeness invading his senses.

----------

"--ul!? Hey! What's up with you today, man?" Black*Star's questioning face appeared only inches away from Soul's, instantly grabbing his attention, and the Death Scythe had to cringe backwards into his chair, almost tipping it over. "Were you even listening to my godly stories?"

"Oh… I think I had been, but you lost me when you started saying something about the sky falling-"

"Wha-? I never said that! You didn't listen, you bastard! Now feel my godly wrath!!" The blue haired boy raised his fist in the air, threatening, ready to strike down.

Soul sighed, freezing the meister's action. "Sorry, man, not today…"

His bored gaze drifted towards where Maka sat with Tsubaki, Kim and Jacqueline only a few seats down, happily chattering about girly nonsense. Then his attention was caught by the familiar shock of bronze hair close by that was Kiel's and the sight provoked such unnecessary irritation.

Entering the classroom this morning, Soul had found the knife weapon occupying his seat. Next to Maka. His seat.

Lancet was still quivering from his presence yet Soul had to respect the guy for holding his ground, keeping the seat that wasn't his even with the lethal glare the white haired weapon had been giving him. Grunting in annoyance, Soul only let the matter go when Maka had told him about the seating arrangement being only temporary and he had decided to sit next to Kiel, dragging the chair noisily behind him and sitting down with a thud, showing the knife weapon how much he didn't like their seating arrangement. All throughout the first class, Soul had been bristling with irritation and he didn't let Kiel miss that fact - he had forced his wavelength to pulsate just enough for Kiel alone to feel it.

Something suddenly collided with the side of his head knocking him out of his memories and bringing him back to the present, hard enough that the impact caused him to fall off of his seat sideways. Looking up to see the perpetrator, he saw Black*Star stood over his table, his hand still balled into a fist, a huge grin pasted onto his features.

"What the hell was that for?" The weapon squeaked in disbelief, a hand flying to the spot where he was hit.

"Sorry, man! I had to wake you from your daydreams." The meister jumped off of the table and squatted down in front of the still dazed weapon.

"You didn't have to hit me that hard…" Soul grumbled.

"I'm sorry, I forgot little ones like you cannot take on even the weakest of a great god's punch," then he laughed that high pitched and annoying laugh of his, resulting in the appearance of the twitch underneath Soul's eye. "Now, I'm guessing all this daydreaming must be because of Maka right?"

Soul did his best to pretend being completely bored looking so that the egotist can't tell that he hit a bull's eye. Yet even his pretending couldn't hide the fact that he was gaping at the meister.

Black*Star produced a knowing sound and put his thumb and forefinger to his chin, one eyebrow raised even as his eyes were closed in concentration. "Its about Maka and Kiel… you're jealous aren't you?"

As Soul's gaping intensified, Black*Star's thin line of a mouth curved and was replaced with a Cheshire cat-like grin. "Haha! I knew it! There is nothing a god like me doesn't know!" He stands. He points at Soul with much exaggeration. He starts shouting. "Soul is je--"

"--A CHOP!"

Thank god! Saved from the embarrassment! Those were the words that swiftly crossed his mind as his friend fell face down onto the floor beside him - was that a crack he just heard?

Looking up with his half-lidded eyes to his saviour, he grinned thankfully as he saw Maka shoulder the thick tome as she sighed in frustration. "Really! How loud can he get?" she said in an exasperated tone of voice, one that provoked Soul's amusement.

"Loud enough to get stabbed on the spot for embarrassing me…" He gladly took the hand Maka was offering to him and was easily supported to a stand.

Just like he does, his meister would rescue him in lots of uncomfortable situations, both in and out of battle. It was just the way they worked. Sometimes he thinks that Maka was overprotective of him - well, he pretty much is too, but he only prefers not to admit it to himself.

Both had their little subtle ways of protecting one another.

Thanking her, she showed him a small frown as she scrutinized the area where Black*Star had hit him. It was possible that there was a fist-shaped spot on his temple that was slowly turning red since it was throbbing so much from the pain - wow, that's gonna be a huge bruise, he thought, disconcerted. It wasn't a pain that he couldn't endure though, he decided, wincing as he sat down and examined the spot with his hands, pushing down to feel if there was some sort of bump growing - if there was, well, he would be generous enough to pay Black*Star back with his own punch. The soreness was starting to burn a little - really, how strong is Black*Star?!

A gloved hand caught three of the fingers that were massaging the soreness, the hold on them gentle but constricting.

Puzzled by the girl's action, the weapon turned his head to look up at her only to feel a soft, coolness hover above the throbbing area, caressing so gently that it took his mind off the pain. Gazing up at her, he saw that her features were gently scrunched as she examined the area with an uncovered hand, much like what he had done only a few moments ago, only this felt as if a feather was being trailed along the spot of pain, slowly taking his mind away from it, taking his mind away from their surroundings, not exactly caring about what people would see.

When she noticed him gaping stupidly at her, she only showed him her pretty little grin and whispered, "I'll have to ask Kim to take a look at this." She let go of his fingers and he had an immediate urge to grab hers, to tell her to keep her hold there, but he refrained and instead watched her dress her other hand with a glove, her bowed head only showing him how her eyelashes delicately framed her half lidded eyes.

As she finished her quick gesture, she glanced back at him, eyes filled with both disappointment and amusement, shaking her head gently with a grin. "I'll go get Kim. Don't press it," she pointedly commanded as she started to walk to where the girls were, Soul focusing on how lithely she moved, avoiding the tables, chairs and people with much elegance.

Slowly, he released this breath that he hadn't noticed he held. It might also be because of the lack of breath that his heart was rapidly drumming against his chest, the sound of it filling his ears.

It was attraction. Now, he was definitely sure it was back.

A/N: whew...updates are slower lately (i'll try to pick up the pace again though~) since i've been trying to firgure out the plot...
a proper plot that is currently making my brain bleed out of my nose... (eeew...) i guess thats the only way to describe it, disgusting as it is...of course it isnt literal xDD;;
i've decided to skip denial with Soul~ although it will have to start from only...something like admiration~
i'd like to explore emotional development~

thanks so much for the reviews guys, as always~
you guys keep me writing 8]

please dont forget to leave me a review~ 8DD