A Maka for All Seasons

By DarkAngel

Disclaimer: Soul Eater doesn't belong to me.

[02. Scrape]

"This is all your fault," Maka muttered murderously, shooting her most vicious glare at Black Star and Soul. She cursed inelegantly as she scraped at a particularly stubborn wad of gum wedged in the cleft under a desk. Beside her Tsubaki silently continued her own work, the sounds of the metal scraper rasping against the wood filling her ears.

Black Star only laughed. The bastard wasn't even doing any work, and it was his fault they were in this situation in the first place! And Soul! He should know better! He was supposed to be cool. He was supposed to have matured.

She had no idea where they'd gotten the explosives. All she knew was that one minute she'd been sitting in class watching Stein prepare to dissect some poor endangered creature. The moment Stein's scalpel had made contact with the creature, it had exploded, leaving a wide spread of goopy mess that stuck to the walls, desks and several unfortunate students who'd been sitting closer to the front.

With a grunt, she got a large chunk of the gum separated from the desk. She chucked it at the back of Black Star's head and he caught it, like the infuriating, insufferable prick he was. "AHAHAHA! It'll take more than a puny wad of gum chucked by your puny little girl arms to get the likes of me!" Without so much as a glance, he lobbed the wad at the trash can, where it landed with a decisive clunking sound. Maka's jaw clenched.

Tsubaki, sensing the danger, looked up from her work. "Black Star."

The way she said his name was gentle, but something about it seemed to work, for the blue-haired boy gave a great sigh and leapt off the table, letting his comic book slide off the desk as he tossed it behind him. "Yeah, yeah." He bounded to the back of the classroom, grabbing a scraper as he went. Maka raised her eyebrows. How did she do that? She'd known Black Star since she was a kid and she'd never gotten him to listen with one word like that. She shook her head in wonderment.

"Ow! Goddamn!" Maka ignored the stream of inelegant curses, only watching coolly as her partner's head shot up from between a row of desks. He was rubbing at his head with his free hand, muttering something she couldn't catch. She sniffed. She didn't see why he should complain. If anything, she should be the one grumbling, since it wasn't even her fault. She hadn't been in any way involved.

She went back to checking under the desks in her assigned row. As she went, her mind wandered. Now that she thought about it, it had been a good long while since either Black Star or Soul had done something as puerile as this. She frowned. As a matter of fact, the last time Black Star had pranked anyone like this was before they'd become members of Spartoi. And as for Soul... she reached back into her memories. She remembered yelling at him for that disaster involving Black Star, his motorcycle and the doughnut shop.

Good lord. He'd been wearing that yellow and black letterman jacket of his then. She blinked, rocking back on her heels. That had been more than a year ago. She contemplated the gum stuck under one of the benches. So much had happened in that time. If she really wanted to get philosophical about it, then this gum was probably as old as they'd been when they were 12 year olds. Sure, Black Star still went around yelling about how he was the biggest and the best, but he'd stopped trying to break the school apart to make his point (much to Kid's relief). And Soul might still be lazy and sarcastic, but he'd long ago stopped drooling and slouching and skipping class.

Maka was so caught up in her thoughts she didn't realize they'd finished cleaning the desks and benches until she heard Black Star's loud, revolted groan.

"Oh man. This is gonna be a bitch. Why do gods like me have to do this scud work anyway? This is more for peons like Hiro."

Maka had to admit, it was pretty gruesome. Chunks of Stein's erstwhile experiment covered a whole three rows and spread out as from one end of the classroom to the other. The sight and the added stench made her want to retch, and it was with great difficulty that she swallowed down the urge.

Soul and Tsubaki wordlessly grabbed the latex gloves they'd been oh-so-kindly provided. ("Just be thankful I'm in a merciful mood," Stein had said mildly, although the glint of his eyes under his glasses belied any mercy. I could have made you clean this all by hand.") Maka reluctantly grabbed a pair. When this was done, she was going to soak in the bathtub for an hour. The formaldehyde was definitely starting to get to her. Ugh.

As they worked, Maka flicked a glance at her partner. He kept his head down, scraping innards off of the metallic surface of the gurney and depositing them into a bag for biohazardous materials. Off to the side, Black Star had given up any pretence of trying to help and was sitting way at the back of the classroom, yukking it up over his stupid comic book. She gave Soul a nudge.

"Why'd you do it?" she asked lowly. She gave him a soft nudge to show she wasn't angry. He glanced at her briefly before looking back at his work. Maka sighed. "This isn't you, Soul. At least, I thought you didn't do this kind of thing anymore." She paused. "Am I wrong?"

Those last words seemed to do the trick. With a soft sigh, he dumped the rag he'd been wiping the lectern with down. He shifted slightly, jerking his head shortly, indicating Black Star and Tsubaki. "I dunno why." Before Maka could retort, he spoke again. "I mean, it wasn't even that it sounded like a good idea at the time." Soul's brows scrunched together. "But I dunno, it felt like I was letting myself go." He scratched at the back of his head. "I kind of forgot what being a kid was like before going through with it."

Maka rocked back on her heels. He'd said the exact same thing she'd been thinking. She pursed her lips for a moment in thought.

The thing is he was right. What Shibusen put them through more or less guaranteed that they wouldn't have a normal childhood. With the missions and the danger they put themselves in almost daily, that was a given. And then there were added factors like Soul's Black Blood, Maka's Grigori Soul, and the fact that they were taking on the added rigours of being Spartoi members. When she thought about it, they were living lives just as strenuous and unrelenting as that of an adult. She couldn't even remember the last time they had all played basketball. Now that she thought about it, she rarely left the confines of Death City without someone shadowing her – not since Medusa's attempt on her life.

"I see." Forgetting what it's like to be a kid, huh? Then she smiled. "Hey, Black Star! Tsubaki! What do you say after this we hit the showers and then go out to the basketball courts? We can get some burgers and shakes at the diner after!" They looked at her as if she'd lost her head, but Maka's grin never let up. She tugged Soul up with her. "Come on! Let's get this done with fast so we can get out of here! Let's go, let's go!" She picked up her sponge with renewed vigour.

"What's gotten into Maka?" Black Star asked, leaping down to the front of the classroom again, blue brows raised so high they disappeared into his hair. Tsubaki only shook her head. "Maka-chan?"

Maka only shrugged. Behind her, she could hear Soul's scoffing smirk. She turned around and grinned at him. "Soul agrees with me, right Soul?"

Soul stared at her for some moments, his lazy grin in place, his eyes a warm shade of red she rarely saw on him these days. His mouth twitched, showing one sharp incisor. "Yeah," he drawled at last. He shuffled to the others. "Come on. Let's get this over with."

As everyone - including Black Star - returned to his work, Soul grinned at her. "You're the coolest meister ever, you know that?"

"I know." Soul rolled his eyes at her cocky response.

"Brat."

"Prick."

"Bookworm."

"Idiot."

"Tiny tits."

"Maka chop!"

"Ow! Fuck it, Maka!"

She'd forgotten how much fun being a kid could be.