Summary: All she ever wanted was to follow in her mama’s footsteps, and now Maka Albarn owns Pocket Full of Posies, the children’s bookstore her mother built from nothing. All he ever wanted was to decide his own fate, but Soul Evans took the path his parents laid out for him and currently runs the retail division of Evans, Inc. When the two clash in a vicious retail war, will their online friendship and budding romance survive that one, tiny little threat of putting her out of business? A You’ve Got Mail AU.
Rating: R/T for language and off screen sexy times.
Pairings: Soul x Maka, with a side of DeathStar, LizWes, SteinMarie, HarvKillik, TsuMifune, and mentions of JacKim.
Warnings: Language (potty mouths abound), sexual innuendo, mentions of physical, verbal, and psychological abuse, off screen sexual content, mentions of masturbation.
This is my Resbang offering, a You’ve Got Mail inspired AU. I had fun writing it, and I hope you all have as much fun reading it.
Thanks go to my two wonderful artists, @tilliquoi and @macabremermaid. I had so much fun working with both! Please, please check out their phenomenal work:
I also must thank my betasquad, @sahdah, @sandmancircus, and @macabremermaid, who helped make this far more readable, with a shoutout to @lunar–resonance who gave her love to chapter one.
Final thanks go to @sahdah and @macabremermaid again for being my personal cheer squad. Your feels are the gas that made this fic go. Bae especially gave me so much encouragement, and I appreciate it like Maka appreciates blueberry muffins.
She had never thought much about the closing of Fox’s department store. An overpriced dinosaur, with dated fixtures, even more dated customers, and wares that were generally a few strides out of season, the place had been well past its heyday when they shut the doors last year. Maka is convinced it had only lasted so long because of fierce customer loyalty and an excellent in store restaurant that she herself had frequented a time or twelve. Sure, she has some fond memories of going to the place with her mama as a young child, but as long as she still has her shop, her mama will always be with her.
No, Fox’s had been a blip on her radar, just one more change in the ever-changing landscape of a massive metropolis like Death City, up until this morning when she had walked past the ghost of the place on her way to open shop only to find instead of boarded windows there is a large, colorful building fence around the long dormant remains that declare boldly the imminent coming of Evans Books and Music.
Evans, Inc. The bargain basement of the online world that recently encroached on big cityscapes to become the upscale Wal-Mart of retail entertainment. Where Evans comes, small shops die.
Maka is rarely phased by much, but as she sees the slick, bright siding, she stops in the middle of the sidewalk and does a double take. This is–probably bad, right? But it doesn’t have to be bad. Maybe. Her shop is highly specialized, after all, and people come to her for expertise and service, neither of which Evans Books can offer.
They’ll be fine, she tells herself, because the alternative is simply unacceptable.
Resuming her walk, she comes to the next corner and turns down 42nd, moving to the second building over where a welcoming wooden door painted a cheery green greets her. She doesn’t have to look up at the large wooden sign above to know where she is. Most people call it Pocket Full of Posies. Maka just calls it home.
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