Teaming Up
The next day, Kirikou's team went to classes like the other approved teams. After Stein told them about what happened to the teams that didn't managed to pass his test, the three meisters of the group looked very relieved at the perfect timing of their truce. But in spite of knowing that small piece of information, the group still had no idea who else managed to pass the test so they were a little nervous to see how much of the original Crescent Moon class remained.
The seven entered the classroom a little too cautiously, but soon relaxed after taking a good look around. As much as improbable and stupid their fear was they all were afraid of being the only ones left in the class. Their fear was in vain it seemed as there was a small bunch of remaining kids dispersed around the room. They were nothing compared to the numbers of the original class, true, but there were other kids around.
"Uh?" Kirikou said as he spotted a familiar messy mass of blue hair. "Oh, yeah! Man, it's good to see you Bla-Star!" then the Pot meister proceeded to high-five a pleased-looking Black Star.
The blue-haired assassin smirked. "Hiya Kirikou! Nice to see ya' here too. There was no doubt in my GODLY heart that you'll arrive. Obviously some REAL big men like ME-" he used his thumb to signal himself. "-and you would be here!"
The two boys started chatting and joking loudly while their weapons greeted each other. Tsubaki Nakatsukasa, the Demon Shadow Weapon, was happy to see the little Pots Fire and Thunder, and the kids were very happy to see her as well. The elder girl acted like a big sister figure to them, and no sooner they arrived, the Japanese girl was already playing with them.
On the other hand, Ox and Kim just ignored the two meister and went to take a seat. Even after arriving five minutes late because of this and that (read it as Kirikou and the Pots getting stuck on the right wing bathroom thanks to a flawed handle in the door), there was no signal of Professor Stein in the room.
'Lucky us…' the kids thought. They didn't want to imagine what could have happened if the mad Professor had been in the room when they arrived… there were some small chills that went down their spines.
The bald meister was about to sit next to the pink-haired girl, but he was beaten to it by Jackie who took that same seat. He tried with the other side with Harvar in toe, but Kim suddenly raised her feet and put them in the seat. Clearly, the two girls sent a "do not sit near here" message at the two boys.
He finally decided to sit a line behind the duo.
Black Star, Kirikou and their weapons went to sit together. Right in the bunch of empty seats that separated their respective teams if we want to be exact. It seemed that Patricia Thomson was about to join them, alongside Soul Eater, but they all were interrupted when the figure of an adult in a white stitched coat entered the classroom.
"It seems that we're complete now. Good."
All the kids watched Professor Stein intently as he slowly made his way inside the classroom. He loosely walked directly towards his stitched chair and plumped into it. The students were in silence and expecting the mad teacher to say something more, but they were met with more silence and the piercing glare of the older meister. He took that moment to grab and light up a cigarette he had in one of the pockets on his coat.
The silence in the room reminded for some seconds, until…
"HELLOOO?" suddenly yelled Black Star. "You there?"
No response.
"Are we going to do something, or not?" The Star heir asked, not caring that everybody was watching him now. He hated wasting time when he could be doing something awesome to show off his godly-like moves to the mere mortals.
Again, the mad meister didn't bother to move. He smoked and watched them all intently as if they were all laboratory specimens.
"Ugh! How annoying!" The assassin said as he stood on his desk. He was about to rip the hair off his head in frustration when an idea struck him. He smirked darkly. If that wasn't going to get a reaction from Stein, nothing could! He turned over and faced his rump over the teacher. All while making some noises like "HUEHUEHUEHUE!" and blowing raspberries.
"Hey!" Maka spat while frowning. She was ready to Maka-chop the blue-haired boy for his insolence.
"Black Star!" said Tsubaki at the same time in a very worried tone. And it was under stable as there was never a good ending when someone messed with Stein. Never. "What are you doing?"
The ninja stopped his idiotic boasting to look over his companion. "This is SO stupid! I cannot show myself as the GREAT star I am if we just sit here all day doing nothing!"
Even if the other people in the class didn't approve Black Star's methods, they too were wondering what in the name of Death were they supposed to be doing at the moment.
"Hm, nothing in particular,"
Everybody turned their attention from the narcissistic assassin to their teacher who just shrugged in his spot completely relaxed, not caring the look of shock he got from most of his students when he appeared to read their minds.
"You can do whatever you feel like; talk with your teammates if you want. The only rules are that you aren't allowed to kill each other without a good reason or destroy any of the school's properties. Also," Stein looked coldly at the slackers known as Soul Eater, Kirikou and Black Star, who were already making their ways to the door after he said the first phrase. "You aren't dismissed from class until the ring says so."
"Aw, c'mon! We're not even going to do anything here!"
"This is not cool at all…"
"And how you're going to stop ME, old m-?"
A scalpel went flying straight at the face of the assassin boy, but got stuck at the wall, merely missing Black Star's right eye for some millimeters.
The three boys gulped hard while a small trickle of blood came from a shallow cut in the face of the blue-haired boy. All took their respective seat without any other objection.
There was silence in the room of the Crescent Moon class for what felt like an eternity. The students were all scared for what Stein could do to them if they didn't behave as he expected them to. Nobody moved an inch until the bodily functions of Kirikou's body won against his fear and he then excused himself to go to the bathroom. He blamed the fact he had too much energetic fiber shakes at breakfast to his unusual activity in his guts.
Meanwhile, Ox tried once again to get his fair lady's attention. This time he tried sending her a small folded note. He watched happily as Harvar (with a disapproving look in face) threw it at Jacqueline's desk, pulling the girl's attention to the paper from whatever she was reading. Said girl took the folded paper and examined it, reading its contents intently as if looking for some kind of code hidden in the words of pure unconditional love the Lighting King had written.
The genius smiled widely as the brown-haired girl finally showed his love-note to Kim after her inspection, but his hopes got badly crushed when his petite Goddess made a sour face and shook her head in disapproval to what the lamp girl answered with crushing the note on her palm and proceeded to use her elemental power to burn the paper into ashes, opening her hand just to blow the remaining dust of the burned note between her fingers.
Ox didn't know why he something different than the usual disappointment as Kim refuses his approaches almost all the time, but this time his heart felt like the destiny of his love letter: completely turned into ashes. Harvar, from his part next to the boy, turned his head down in annoyance as Ox started whimpering on place. The Demon Spear could swear hearing the heart of his meister crush in thousands of pieces.
In that moment the Lighting King stood up, bowed deeply and quickly said "I am terribly sorry, Pr-professor Stein, but it seems that y-you'll *sniff* have to excuse me f-for some minutes."
He ran out of the classroom, leaving some curious gases and raised eyebrows behind him.
"What's with him?" asked an oblivious Patty to her sister – Elizabeth Thompson – as the doors closed behind the bald boy.
The eldest Demon Twin Pistol just shrugged as she checked her pedicure. A Lady has some important matter to attend than petty unrequited love issues, after all. "Um… dunno… problems in paradise, maybe?
"Ooooh…. I see! Keyahahahahaha, he got dumped!"
Shibusen Men Bathrooms. Left Wing.
"No, no, no, NO!"
Ox was at the bathroom in one of the sinks. He was splashing some cold water on his head furiously. "What in Death was I thinking? Escaping classes like that… geez."
He watched his reflection on the large mirror and remembered the ashes in which his beloved noted got converted.
"Ugh!"
Splash.
He started splashing more water on his face again while thinking how miserable he felt when Kim rejected his feeling once again.
"Maybe I should leave my f- I mean, Kim alone…" he said as he closed the faucet and put his hands in both sides of the sink."After all, she doesn't seem to try and evade people anymore…"
"Should I surrender?" he remembered the cold and hurt eyes the green-eyed girl used to have when she was still known as the Witch of the Girl's Dormitory and Jacqueline wasn't her partner. Compared to the somewhat cheerful girl – in Kim's twisted way – she was now; there was a very huge change. Well, maybe not in the money affair… but there was still was a great change in her persona.
The genius smiled sadly when he remembered her cold remarks at him every time he confessed his feeling for her. Maybe he should…
"No!" he said, raising both hands in the air. Even now, he could detect the small traces of insecurity and fear in those pure green-eyes of the Lamp meister. There was no time for his conviction to wave. Not in the sightless. "I will continue with my quest until I prove her that I'm worthy and always for her! That's my duty," he put his hands down. "And my final decision!"
PUM!
A door being opened violently while a toilet was flushed sounded behind the bald meister. He then heard someone clapping.
"Way to go, Ox. I'm surely impressed," said Kirikou, stomping a little as he lazily emerged from the small bathroom cubicle. There was a piece of toilet paper stuck in one of his shoes. "That was a hell of self-pity and auto-recover discourses you had there."
"K-Kirikou-san?" asked the Lighting King a little stunned at being caught in such private moment. "What are you…?"
In reality Kirikou was more than impressed. The fact of hearing Ox's monologues with himself, feel the iron-like conviction between every word he said (and being able to take care of certain lil' problem back at the cubicle) managed to get into the candid heart of the Pot meister and fill him with hot passion. If that was really the type of person Ox was and not the nerdy nerd he appears to be, Kirikou knew he found a really good pal.
"Who would believe that the great Ox Ford doubted his feelings? That ain't possible, man! Ain't possible!" the African-American put his hand on the shoulder of his teammate. "I believe in you, dude."
"Huh?"
"The girl, man." Kirikou removed his hands from the other boy and smashed his knuckles together. "You've got what it takes to get her so, go for it! Never give up."
Ox felt his hopes rebuild again. "You seriously think so? Kirikou-sa—"
The African-American waved his hand lazily. "It's Kirikou."
"Right, Kirikou."
Ox offered his hand and the two high-fived; they ended up face to face with the other.
"Chill man, I'll be supporting you in whatever way I can."
"Of course you will, man."
The two boys grinned and left the bathroom together. Not even a fierce inferno of blazing flames could be compared to the fire burning in their youthful hearths.
Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater, their characters or locations; they're the properties of Atsushi Ohkubo. I just took them without permission for entertaining purposes.
Hiya!
Damn Ox, I felt like I got him a little OOC in some parts. Oops.
Agh! This chapter was hell. I mean, when I wrote the first sketch last Monday, I ended throwing it away. With 800 hundred words already typed. So, I had to start looking for new ideas all over again. Luckily, today I had this silly dream that inspired half chapter (?). Yay!
Bis bald, alle!
Edith: There wasn't supposed to be more Edith-notes after the first one… but… I believe that some situations in this chapter sound kinda… you know… with a double sense (or maybe it's just me and my weird mind)… I apologize for that. (^^;