“Let’s go flying,” says Maka, in the last moments of daylight.
“Now?” Soul asks.
“Duh, when else?”
Soul shrugs and looks at Maka, who’s standing in his doorway. She’s wearing her usual skirt and combat boots, paired with mismatched thigh-high socks and an old sweater of his that’s too small on him now but fits her almost perfectly. Her hair’s done up in one ponytail instead of the usual two. Her bangs are getting a little long, falling into her eyes. As he watches she huffs a strand out of her face. Her eyes are very green.
“Well?” she asks, jolting him back to the present. “Today would be nice.”
His heart skips a beat. “Uh, yeah. Right. Yeah, let’s go.”
He arcs to her hands in a flash of light before she can reply, cool metal solidifying in her waiting, ungloved hands. He hopes she didn’t catch the blush on his face, although his soul wavelength is probably a dead giveaway. Her soul brushes up against and harmonizes with his own.
“You could’ve waited ‘til we got to the street, you know,” is all she says. Amusement trickles down to him, and he just grumbles inarticulately in response.
“Jumping out a window is cooler anyways.”
“Yeah, you’re kind of right about that.”
Maka maneuvers his blade out the bedroom window and then throws him, swan-diving after him a moment later. Soul’s transformation is quicker than thought, and he’s there the precise moment she reaches for him, slim fingers closing around his shaft. She uses her momentum from the leap to swing herself back upwards into the air. Her feet land squarely on Soul. He senses her exhilaration, the joy bubbling up in her even as she laughs, the sound bright in the rapidly cooling evening air, and so he speeds up, taking them higher and higher, faster and faster, in ever-expanding circles, until they’re whooshing past the turrets of the Academy. They’re in a low-level resonance without even really trying and it’s wonderful.
Watch this, murmurs Maka’s wavelength, and she kicks their resonance frequency up several notches, so that now he can get a vague sense of her body’s position from her perspective. He feels her spread her arms and take a deep, centering breath. A moment later, her leg lifts up behind her, like a ballerina’s, higher and higher until it’s perpendicular to the other and she can grab her ankle with her hand. The other extends in front of her for balance. The leg she’s balancing on wobbles minutely, but their resonance is deep, and she doesn’t lose her balance.
“Yoga with Tsu’s sure paying off, isn’t it,” he says out loud, letting how impressed he is bleed into their resonance. She relaxes her pose and twinkles warmly at him in reply, proud and satisfied.
He takes her above even the academy, into the cloudless air, where the stars twinkle around the leering moon and Death City is a tangled mass of lights, arranged in vaguely concentric circles. Around it, the desert spreads in a flat, inky black panorama, an ocean washing up against the island, extending for miles in every direction until it meets the jagged peaks of the mountains. It must be cold, but he can’t really feel much like this and Maka doesn’t seem to be shivering.
This is incredible, her wavelength says. He agrees.
His wings make quiet whooshing sounds in the night air, as feathery and angelic as Maka wanted, though perhaps not as fluffy and cute. He did some reading on angels on one of the library computers in an attempt to get a clearer visualization of what exactly Maka was so hell-bent on being. Apparently they weren’t as cute as she thought, and were far more mind-warping and totally fucking horrifying. Angels, it turns out, are actually pretty damn cool. This high up it almost feels like they could really be one, an otherworldly creature ready to swoop down and bring avenging fire.
“Angel,” he says, and her soul shivers happily at the nickname. “You’re becoming literal.”
“Huh?”
“Y’know, cause we’re so high up. You could be an angel.”
Amusement colors their resonance. “Haha, yeah. Hey, let’s practice battle moves.”
Of course.
He starts speeding downwards at an angle and then shifts in a flash of light from beneath Maka’s feet to her hands. She keeps the momentum going, hurtling feet-first through the air. She shifts their resonance to be even faster and closer, approaching battle frequencies. His soul opens up to receive hers, which settles there, a crystalline G tone, clear and all-encompassing. He matches his pitch to hers, a deeper, supporting echo; her thoughts are his thoughts, her will is his will. Soul’s blade becomes a translucent curve of light and her vicious satisfaction is his own as she swings his blade with the force of her whole body and sends a shockwave of power screaming through the sky.
You’re amazing, someone (maybe both of them) thinks, and then Soul shifts back into his winged form and catches Maka before streaking back upwards into the sky. Soul practices dodging, weaving, rolling, and looping through the air, while Maka experiments with kicks and punches and the myriad number of ways to position herself on him while he does this. It’s like a dance, weapon and meister moving in sinuous tandem, souls in perfect synchronicity. Maka’s an incredible athlete, really; they both wonder if Black Star could do all the flips and somersaults and acrobatics she’s doing right now and they smugly conclude that he totally couldn’t. They need to challenge him one of these days.
It’s only when it gets well and truly dark and they’re both tired and in Maka’s case sweaty that they at last relax. They take their time getting back to the apartment, floating lazily down like a dandelion seed on the breeze, before alighting on the windowsill. Maka slips in first, and then Soul shifts back into human form and climbs in after her. Their resonance has all but dissipated but he still feels her presence, tugging on his soul. Maka’s hair is windblown and there’s a flush in her cheeks, visible even in the warm lamplit dimness of his bedroom.
They smile at each other. The low, constant bond between them is warm and soft with something that Soul doesn’t care to define at the moment. She seems like she’s on the verge of saying something, or of reaching out to him, but then thinks better of it, and instead turns and walks deeper into the apartment.
Nakatsukasa Tsubaki likes to consider herself rather observant. She notices things other people don’t – the spark of irritation in Liz’s eyes when Black Star laughs too loudly, the particular way that Stein ever-so-slightly favors his left side in fights regardless of the weapon he wields, and the peculiar orbit that Soul and Maka seem to fall into around each other. Their weapon-meister bond is as strong as it ever was – stronger, she thinks, since they reorganized into the Spartoi unit and Soul became a death scythe. It isn’t so much one or the other as them together lately, Soul-and-Maka, two parts of one whole. She came by one day to watch their training session, heard Soul call Maka “angel” with the barest hint of a smile on his face, watched the way Maka seemed to brighten all the way to the tips of her pigtails.
It was then that her suspicion solidified into a certainty.
She wonders, though, if either of them even really know it, on a conscious level at least. If Soul is precisely aware of the degree to which his eyes soften and his mouth curves upward when he looks at Maka. If Maka is aware of the blatant upswing in her mood whenever she’s around Soul, the way her cheeks color and her hands flutter around him, brushing him, not quite grabbing.
Knowing them, probably not. Tsubaki herself has never been in love, but she’s read a lot of shoujo manga.
She tries to untangle the situation in her gentle, oblique way on the rare occasions when they’re apart.
“You and Maka have a very strong partnership,” she remarks to Soul one day, when they’re in the middle of a paired assignment on the topic in a Weapon class.
“Yeah,” says Soul, and there’s that soft smile. “It’s…pretty damn cool, honestly. Without her I wouldn’t be where I am now.”
Tsubaki feels a brief, awful pang – lately it seems that Black Star needs her less and less. In the back of her mind she wonders if there will come a day when he doesn’t need her at all. She pushes the thought down. “I admire that,” she says instead, and means it. “What you two have is a precious thing. I don’t blame you for being joined at the hip.”
Soul shoots her a glance. “Joined at the hip?”
Oh, Shinigami have mercy. “Well, you two do spend a lot of time together.”
Soul seems to be mulling it over. “Yeah, I guess,” he says finally, and sets his pencil to paper.
Even Black Star notices something’s up. “Say,” he says to her one morning, in the midst of headstand pushups. “You notice something…weird about Soul and Maka lately?”
Tsubaki takes a pointed sip of her tea. “Yes.”
“Have they always been so…together? Like, every time Soul comes to game, Maka comes with him, and like, I know you girls like to do your girly shit or whatever in the bedroom, and that’s fine, like I love Maka don’t get me wrong, but didn’t she used to…stay home?”
“She did,” Tsubaki confirms. “I guess even she’s feeling a little less pressure to study all the time, now that we’re Spartoi.”
“Hmm, yeah. Who’da thunk, turbo-nerdette is chilling out. I think Patty owes me money now.”
Tsubaki just laughs. “You might have to fight her for it.”
Star makes a face and starts doing his pushups a little faster.
Tsubaki calls Maka one afternoon, because her strawberry plants are going crazy and she has enough to share. She doesn’t pick up. Tsubaki chews the inside of her cheek, debating, and then decides to anyway, because she’s got errands to run in that part of town and it couldn’t hurt, unless –
She shakes her head, a blush rising in her cheeks. No way would they have gotten to that stage yet, unless some weird freak accident happened where they both simultaneously stopped being dense as brick walls. She sighs, and hops on her bike.
She climbs the stairs to Maka and Soul’s apartment and knocks softly on the door, feeling a not-inconsiderable measure of relief when a muffled “come in!” wafts through the wood. She turns the knob and lets herself in to the apartment, closing the door carefully behind her. When she turns around, her eyes widen involuntarily.
“Oh – um – am I interrupting something?”
“No,” says Maka, looking up from the couch to smile at Tsubaki and wave with the hand not clutching her book, the one that was previously tangled in Soul’s white hair, free of product for once. It’s oddly intimate, even more so than their positions. “Ooh, whatcha got there?” she asks.
“Strawberries,” Tsubaki says, not sure where to put her eyes and settling on a spot just to the left of Maka’s face. “Fresh from my garden. Um, I’ll just…”
“Yeah, just put them in the kitchen. I’d get up, but…” She gestures to the sleeping boy on her chest and gives Tsubaki a vaguely sheepish, what-can-you-do sort of smile. Tsubaki returns it, albeit a little strained. Her brain is whirring.
“Well, I’ll just see myself out,” she says. “Again, I’m so sorry – I should have called again – “
“Don’t worry,” Maka says with a wave of her hand. “Hey, sit down. Talk to me. It’s Saturday.”
“Um, ok.” Tsubaki perches nervously at the edge of an armchair.
“Hey, don’t look so scared. You didn’t interrupt anything, I promise,” says Maka, but her eyes are distant. Inwardly, Tsubaki narrows her own.
“No?” she asks.
“No,” says Maka, and shakes her head, dialing back into the present.
Tsubaki’s eyes dart from Soul, snoring softly on Maka’s chest, arms splayed around her, body resting on top of her closed legs, and then back to Maka. She decides to just go for it.
“Are you two…together?”
“Huh?” Maka frowns, and then her eyes widen a little before she chuckles quietly. “Like…that? No. No. We’re not a couple, Tsu.”
Could have fooled me. “Hm. I was beginning to have my suspicions,” she says lightly, smiling a little to make it clear she’s teasing.
“How?” Maka asks, smiling but to all appearances earnestly confused.
“Um…call it a feeling.”
“A feeling?”
“You two are together a lot, after all.”
“Yeah, I guess we are. That’s pretty normal, though, for a weapon-meister pair, isn’t it? Besides,” and her smile turns rueful and a little sad. “Men are…not very trustworthy.”
“You trust Soul, though, don’t you?”
“That’s not what I meant, Tsu.”
Tsubaki presses her lips together. “Well…if, hypothetically, the two of you were to, um, get together – not that you ever will,” she says quickly, at the little crease that appears between Maka’s eyebrows, “but if you did say something to Soul – I think he’d be more receptive than you think.”
Maka gives her a strange, guarded look. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Tsubaki repeats, and gives her friend an encouraging smile.
Tsu stays a little while longer, chatting with Maka about classes and strawberry plants and Black Star’s new tendency to blast himself in the air with his soul wavelength in the middle of the hallways. It’s only when Soul starts stirring on Maka’s chest that she excuses herself, leaving with a wave.
Bonus Day Heartbeat! Enjoy and thanks so much for the support, whether it was here, AO3, or FF.net
Summary: She couldn't exactly explain it, but the steady rhythm comforted her in a way nothing else could. It made her sigh in contentment because he was there. Alive and well…with her.
Warning: There are shades of PTSD and mentions of anxiety/panic attacks. If these themes discomfort you in any way please don’t feel obligated to read this.
FF.net // AO3
It all started after that fateful battle with Crona in Italy.
The trauma was enough to give her nightmares for weeks. She would relive that same moment over and over again. Only the outcome would be different. Instead of Professor Stein and her father coming to their rescue, Maka found herself sitting there with Soul’s lifeless body in her lap. Her hand would be placed over his bleeding chest as she’s forced to feel his pulse fade under it.
It’s enough to wake her in the middle of the night, screaming until her throat was raw and her lungs burned. During those first few days, no one was there to comfort her. Blair often came home well into the night from working at Chupra Cabra to find the young girl sobbing hysterically on her bedroom floor.
“Soul’s gone!” she would cry into the magical cat’s chest, “He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone!”
“Shhh.” Blair would soothe, running her manicured fingers through her ash blonde locks, “He’s fine, Maka. Soul’s fine. He’s in the infirmary at the school, remember?”
It took a long time, but she would remember. And experiencing his death was only a dream.
Despite the reality that her partner was well and alive, the reminder that his heart could stop one day gave her so much panic. There were days this realization would give her an anxiety attack and she’ll begin hyperventilating.
She couldn’t let his heart stop. He was her weapon—her best friend! She had to protect him! Protect his heart!
So she vowed to be stronger for him. Soul rolled his eyes at her and told her she was doing everything backwards—why would you protect the thing that was meant to protect you—but she knew he didn’t understand. He just didn’t get it. But that was okay. Maka would admit she felt somewhat embarrassed with her reasoning why she was so determined to get stronger as a meister.
Her fascination with his beating heart sometimes led to awkward situations. Well, awkward for Soul at least.
There was the moment after Maka declared her resolve to get stronger where she placed her hand on his chest. She would reveal to him later on that she was vowing to face his scar, but truthfully she also wanted to feel his thrumming pulse under her hand.
Then there were those occasional moments, during the quiet of the evening, when Maka and Soul would be sitting on the couch and somehow Maka’s head found its way onto Soul’s shoulder. It was a sweet, tender kind of moment that Maka relished in, especially when she realized she could hear Soul’s heart if she tilted her head just right…
And then there were those times with the nightmares. It didn’t matter who they happened to, once the night terror was over, either Soul or Maka would find themselves in their counterpart’s bed. It wasn’t very “cool” as Soul put it, but neither cared because in their moments of vulnerability, they needed the reassurance that their partner was still alive. Maka especially, as she could hear her scythe’s heart loud and clear in the silence of the night.
Ba-bump…ba-bump…ba-bump…
She couldn’t exactly explain it, but the steady rhythm comforted her in a way nothing else could. It made her sigh in contentment because he was there. Alive and well…with her.
Eventually Soul caught onto what exactly it was about his chest that she was fascinated with, and learned to roll with it when the urge to be close to him took her over. She was thankful he never teased her in these moments. He understood her perfectly.
And he never complained either. Especially not after particularly rough battles.
They were gathering their 72nd soul for the second time around (damn Blair…). It wasn’t a particularly difficult kishin egg—pretty much your typical serial killer type. What Maka and Soul didn’t know, however, was that this evil being had a special talent with pyrotechnics…specifically bombs.
In a last ditch effort to thwart the meister-weapon duo, the pre-kishin threw off his trench coat to reveal an abundance of explosives strapped to his chest. If he was going down he was going to take the DWMA students with him!
Maka yelped as she struggled to scramble away. She managed to get some distance between herself and the evil soul but the amount of bombs he let off would produce such a large explosion there was no way she’d get off scot-free.
Soul knew this, so against Maka’s wishes he transformed into his human form and draped himself over his meister—willing a blade to form from his back in hopes that the metal would shield them from the brunt of the explosion.
Maka screeched as the bombs went off, feeling the ground scrape into her body as the force knocked her back many feet. She’s not sure, but she thought she had blacked out at some point. When she felt the ringing in her ears subside, she groaned and eased her eyes open. After gaining her bearings, she managed to lift herself up.
Examining her body, she saw that her clothes were dirty and tattered. Her gloves were stained red with her blood. She moved her extremities to make sure nothing was broken before prodding her head. She winced at some tenderness, hoping she didn’t have a concussion.
Next, she viewed her surroundings. The ground of the clearing they were in was scorched black; debris of different shapes and sizes surrounding her. Off in the distance she spotted the red floating soul of the pre-kishin, ready to be eaten by Soul.
Soul!
Maka frantically looked around. Didn’t he shield her? Why wasn’t he around? Where was Soul?!
Finally she spotted him a few feet to the left of her. The force of the explosion must have separated him from her. Her heart dropped into her stomach when she saw that his body was prone and it didn’t look like there was any sign of movement from him…
Was he even breathing?!
“Soul!” Maka cried, ignoring her aches and pains in favor of jumping up and sprinting to her fallen partner.
Upon reaching him, she fell to her knees—ignoring the sting from landing onto the hard ground—and turned him over onto his back. Her wide, green eyes looked his figure over.
Like her, he had multiple scrapes and cuts marring his skin, his clothes practically in shambles thanks to the fact he took the brunt of the explosion. There was a flat piece of rock lodged into his left thigh. Maka had a feeling he’ll need stitches for the wound. His face was blank though, his eyes closed and his skin looking a lot paler than Maka remembered.
Maka felt her breathing quicken, “No, no, no, no. Please be okay. Please be okay,” she pleaded as she grasped his shoulders, shaking them.
Bile rose to her throat but she bit it back. She couldn’t lose focus now, she had to help him somehow…
But he wasn’t moving, why wasn’t he moving?!
Panic clouded her brain. In hindsight, soul perception could have been used to indicate whether he was still alive or not, but the intense fear she felt overwhelmed any logic she may have had.
She couldn’t think…she couldn’t focus. All she wanted was for Soul to wake up and smile at her and tell her she was reckless and stubborn and a nerd and…and…
Unable to hold back anymore, a strangled sob tore through Maka’s throat as she fell onto her partner’s chest. She wailed—pleading, bargaining, begging for him to wake up.
“Don’t leave me! Please don’t leave me!” were her desperate cries. She didn’t know what she’d do if he actually left her. She was faced with that possibility almost a year ago, but since then they’d been fine. They had gotten stronger together. But now here they were, Maka reduced to that of a crying little girl while her best friend lay motionless underneath her.
What good was she?
Was her resolve all that time ago pointless?
She was an awful meister. A better meister wouldn’t have allowed this to happen. Soul deserved so much better than her!
She was so caught up in her despondent thoughts, she barely registered that there was a weight on the back of her head.
“’M okay…” came a hoarse voice before a ragged cough was choked out. “Not going…anywhere. J-Just listen, alright?”
Maka stiffened. She didn’t dare look up, afraid that her misery was producing a hallucination. When she registered his request for her to listen, she stopped everything, including breathing, as she strained her ears.
…ba-bump…ba-bump…ba-bump…
A fresh wave of tears welled in her eyes as she sobbed into her partner’s chest. He was alive. He was alive!
“Thank God… Thank God!”
She’s not sure how long they lay there—her crying until she couldn’t anymore while he silently stroked her head—but eventually Sid and Nygus came to retrieve them and took them to the dispensary at the DWMA. There, they shared a room, Soul insisting their beds be moved together so they could easily reach each other if need be.
She knew he only suggested that because she was too embarrassed to voice it. She was thankful though, because it was a good excuse to lie close to him and listen to his heartbeat while they both recovered.
“It’s the same for me.” He told her later, after Nygus left them for the evening.
“Huh?” she asked, on the verge of sleep.
“I like to listen to your heart too.” He confessed. “Reassures me you’re still there. That I did my job and protected you.”
Despite her eyes watering for the umpteenth time that day, she gave a small smile.
“Let’s keep protecting each other’s heartbeats, okay?”
He held her closer, his face burying into her hair.
Royal AU, a story between Prince Soleil Arthur Evans of Evandell and Lady Makenna Albarn of Gregor
jhsgjfhgsjfg I’m sorry the actual fic isn’t ready yet but please have these two-page teaser wwwwww
Gift for @mystery-shrouded, who designed Maka’s necklace and earrings (I’m so sorry I can’t draw it as pretty as the actual thing hsjdfgkjsfd), and @silvvergears, who helped me designing Maka’s ballgown
Soul crinkles his nose at his brother. “A love song?”
“Yep! It’s like a love potion but with music. It’s the key to making Maka fall in love with you.” Winking mischievously from under his messy bangs, Wes pats Soul on the head. “Just let me compose a song for you. It’ll work its magic and soon you two will be even more lovey-dovey and sickeningly sweet on each other than usual.”
“The idea of making Maka fall in love with me without her consent doesn’t sit right with me,” Soul says, swatting away his brother’s hand. “It’s not right. I can’t force her to have feelings for me, or trick her into a relationship. That’s kind of gross.”
“Of course it is! That’s why you have to confess your feelings and ask if she loves you back before playing it!”
In response to Soul’s horrified gape, Wes clasps his hands together and laughs. A daredevil glint flashes in his eyes before spinning on his heels and rushing up the staircase of their family’s overly grandeur home. Dreading his brother’s burgeoning scheme, Soul chases after him into the study room like a cop shadowing a speeding car.
“I know I have my secret stash of scores in here somewhere,” Soul hears Wes mumble to himself as he pulls open drawers and thumbs through each hanging file folder.
“Don’t,” Soul croaks, breaking into a cold sweat. “I don’t want to play her a love song, Wes. It’s not going to work---”
“Of course it will!” Giving up on the drawers, Wes scratches his chin, thinking, his eyes eventually landing on the floor-to-ceiling bookcase to his right. He doesn’t pause to use the rolling ladder, instead scaling the shelves all the way to the top before eventually locating a leather-bound binder and hopping down wearing a proud grin. “My music always works magic. Want to pick your favorite song?”
Hell no, Soul thinks, crossing his arms in an act of silent defiance. Magic and feelings shouldn’t mix and most definitely won’t in this case. It’s a huge violation of the Magic Code of Honor to use it to manipulate mortals or any of Earth’s beings or creatures. Those born with the gift of spinning nothing into something, of creating and destroying with a wave of a hand or a point of a finger, shouldn’t play God. Soul reminds him of the world’s rules with gusto. Wes, however, isn't fazed, simply rolling his eyes like the drama queen he is. Soul watches from a safe distance away as his obnoxious older brother makes himself comfortable at the desk.
The tranquility lasts about five seconds because Wes snaps his head up. “Wait, I have the perfect violin for this!”
“Wha-what? Wes, I said I’m not interested---” Desperate, Soul trails Wes into his moon-themed bedroom in the other wing. Soul can’t help but notice a shrine dedicated to Tsubaki on the nightstand, a collection of jars filled with leaves, tiny trinkets, and shiny, oddly shaped rocks arranged in a neat semi-circle in front of a hand-painted portrait of the demon weapon.
Before Soul can open his mouth to ask what the heck this setup dedicated to Wes’s girlfriend is all about, Wes snaps her fingers in triumph and enters his walk-in closet. “This one will be perfect, Soul!”
“Wes!” Soul shrieks, forgetting his millions of other questions as Wes shoves the jet-black instrument into his hands. “I am not playing that stupid violin!”
X
Soul can’t believe he’s contemplating playing this stupid violin. What’s he doing, walking through the streets at this hour carrying an instrument his brother blessed with magic? Sure, Wes has always wanted the best for his younger brother, but this is ridiculous. And illegal and immoral. Maka is his childhood best friend---his confidant when he went through the Change and discovered his demon scythe powers, his protector and savior when the other kids at school bullied him for his oddly sharp teeth and too-white hair on the playground. Maka had come out swinging, pigtails flailing behind her. They’ve been together ever since.
Does he really want to risk their friendship?
After all, no amount of magic in this world can make up for what he lacks. He’s just wrong on so many levels. Of course he had to be the odd one out in his musical family, choosing the piano as his specialty instead of the violin, inheriting the demon gene instead of the magical gene. He’s a freak, and he shouldn’t jeopardize Maka, even if he has to pine secretly.
Before he knows it, Soul is standing on Maka’s porch, fist hovering near the door to knock.
“I just can’t,” he whispers to himself, lowering his hand.
And then the door swings open suddenly, the light falling on him blinding.
“Oh!” Maka gasps, jerking to a stop. “I almost ran you over Soul! What are you doing here?”
“Uh,” Soul replies, rubbing the back of his neck. He follows her gaze to the violin case at his side. Crap. Caught red handed. “I was-”
“Oh, you’re going to play me a song finally?” When she grins, it lights up the night. “Wow! The last time you played for me was when we were twelve and you played a scale on the xylophone! Is that a violin? I thought you hated it?”
Soul takes her in, admiring her perfectly arched eyebrows, the faint freckles dusted across the bridge of her nose, the curve of her mouth, the way her stare makes him feel brave. High. Yes, he decides suddenly, he has to play a song for her to let her know him completely, but not on the violin. It has to be on the piano.
He holds his hand out, and surprisingly, it doesn’t shake. “I came to ask you to fall in love with me, Maka. Can I play my piano for you?”
“You’re too late,” she replies, her beam breaking his heart and mending it at the same time. “I already love you, dummy. I thought I’d never get to hear your music.”
At the end of the night I’ll ask her if I can kiss her, Soul thinks, lightheaded as they walk back to Evans' Manor. Looks like he didn’t need magic to confess his feelings or have them reciprocated at all, just a bit of impulsive courage.
Day 7: Magic. And what’s more magical than love potions lmao. Yes, I'm pulling the old, "Love Potion No. 9" cliché. BUT WITH A TWIST! Read and find out what that twist is!
Summary: Kim's up to no good, brandishing a love potion guaranteed to make your unrequited love requited. Shame it doesn't seem to work on her intended target...
FF.net // AO3
"C'mon, Maka. You know you waaaant to!" Kim tried to entice, wiggling the little pink vial of liquid in her hand.
The scythe meister scowled at the young witch. "No, Kim. I've told you a thousands times already: I do not want any part of a love potion!"
Maka ignored Kim's pout. Ever since Kim revealed a witch acquaintance of hers had brewed up a love potion guaranteed to make your—quote—"unrequited love requited"—unquote—she had been bugging Maka nonstop to use it on Soul.
The blonde didn't even understand why Kim was so insistent on it. It's not like she liked Soul or anything…
Okay, fine, she'll admit she may be developing feelings for him that may or may not be romantic. HOWEVER, she refused to play Kim's game and force her weapon to develop the same affections toward her.
It was practically inhumane! And probably illegal as Kid hadn't figured out all the details when it came to using forms of magic in this new DWMA/Witch alliance yet…
Kim groaned, "Maka! Everyone knows you and Soul are, like, endgame! Why don't you do every single one of us a favor and speed up the process a little?"
Maka pushed away the proffered drink, "No, Kim. Please stop pushing this. It's making me mad."
She was not above Maka Chopping a friend—ask Soul and Black Star.
Thankfully, the witch backed down, but Maka could tell she was displeased.
"Fine! See if I try helping you gain a love life in the future!"
Maka rolled her eyes, "I don't need anyone's help, thank you very much. If I want a boyfriend, I can get one."
Kim snorted, eyeing Maka up and down, "Not with that figure you ain't."
Maka felt a vein about to burst. Maybe she should go ahead and Maka Chop her. Sure, Kim might get revenge on her in some way, but it wouldn't be anything major considering she knew Kim somewhat feared the scythe meister. After all, Maka did kill Arachne and went toe-to-toe with Kishin Asura.
"Who cares what anyone thinks about my 'figure'?" Maka huffed, "If they were worth anything, they wouldn't care. Anyways, even if I did want to 'speed up' my relationship with Soul—which, by the way, is none of your business—I wouldn't use something as underhanded as a love potion. I want Soul to like me because he chooses to. It's really sleazy trying to force feelings onto somebody, and Soul would never forgive me if I did that to him."
Kim held up her hands in defense, "Okay, okay. I won't bother you about it anymore. Geez, no need to get all noble on me…"
Maka nodded, "Thank you for understanding. I gotta go meet up with Soul now, so I'll see you in Stein's class later today okay?"
Kim waved at her friend's retreating back, "Alright, see you then."
As she watched Maka round the corner, Kim turned her gaze back to the love potion in her hands. She puffed her cheeks out in annoyance. She spent a good amount of money for this bottle!
When her friend Winifred sent out that notice that she had brewed "the perfect love potion," Kim couldn't help but jump on the opportunity. All the students at the DWMA could tell that Maka and Soul were taken with each other, so this felt like the most logical thing to do.
Sure, it may be an…she'll say unorthodox way in getting the two together, but she figured that if Soul started acting desperately in love with his meister then it would kick start his actual real feelings for her.
All the romcoms with love potions ended in happily ever after, who's to say this wouldn't turn out favorably?
Putting the love potion in her pocket, Kim leaned against the wall, waiting for Jackie to meet up with her so they could go to their next class. Across from her she noticed a soda machine. As she stared at it, she felt an idea pop into her head.
Well…Maka did say she didn't want to use the love potion. She never said anything about Kim using it for her own goals.
Goals that happened to involve her two friends getting together, that was.
Letting out an almost sinister giggle, Kim reached into her pocket to locate some change.
----------
Maka and Soul made themselves comfortable in their seats as they waited for Stein to enter the room to begin class. In the row below them, Maka noticed Jacqueline but not her meister.
"Jackie? Where's Kim?" Maka inquired.
The demon lantern shrugged, "I'm not sure. We were on our way here when she told me she had to do something really quick. I asked her if she wanted me to go with her, but she declined and told me to save her seat."
Maka hummed, feeling unease in the pit of her stomach. She hoped this didn't have anything to do with what the two discussed roughly an hour ago…
"Here I am! Sorry for making you wait, Jackie!" Maka was pulled out of her thoughts at the sound of the witch's voice.
She looked normal enough, a bright smile painted on her porcelain face. In each hand were bottles of Coke. Maka felt herself smile. She supposed she was being paranoid over nothing.
"I got us some drinks. Here!" Kim said, placing one bottle in front of her on the desk before offering the second to her weapon.
Jackie frowned, "Kim, you know that I cut out soda from my diet after I got that kidney stone last month. I can't drink that."
Kim's mouth formed an "o" as she dramatically smacked herself in the head, "Oh darn! I completely forgot! Oh well…"
She then turned around, eyeing Soul and Maka…particularly Soul.
"I don't want this to go to waste, so…Soul! Would you like this Coke?"
Soul gave a nonchalant shrug, reaching for the drink, "Sure, whatever."
It was when she saw Kim's triumphant smirk that it hit Maka what game the witch was playing at. Widening her eyes, she reached out to her weapon as he opened the bottle to take a sip.
"Wait, Soul, stop!"
"Yes, Soul, drink it!" Kim exclaimed, grabbing Maka's hand, so she could prevent her from stopping her weapon. She then used her grip on Maka's hand to pull her forward so Maka was the first person Soul saw.
Seeing the strange reaction in front of him, Soul stopped drinking the Coke to give his meister an incredulous stare. "What's the problem?"
Maka blinked at him, biting her lip in anticipation of something happening. But after a minute passed and the only reaction she got out of her weapon was his usual bored expression, Maka felt herself relax before breaking away from Kim's hold.
Kim, on the other hand, gaped at the scythe in shock. "Wait, what?! You look and act the same!"
Soul blinked, his lips turning downwards, "Am…I not supposed to?"
Kim forcefully grabbed the bottle from his hand and sniffed it. Humming in thought she turned back to Soul.
"Did this taste any different to you?"
Soul narrowed his eyes, "I admit, it's a lot sweeter than I thought it'd be. Why? Did you do something to it?"
Kim ignored his questions, chucking the Coke across the room as she ranted and raved about "scams" and how she was going to skin alive some person named Winifred for "making a fool out of her." All the while everyone in the class stared at the pink haired girl as if she had gone crazy.
Soul turned to Maka, confusion clearly written in his red eyes, "What the hell just happened?"
Maka frowned. She knew exactly what happened. However, like Kim, the outcome was not something she expected. The young witch obviously put the love potion in the drink she gave to Soul. Her plan was to trick him into drinking it so it would have the desired effect on him. Only it didn't work.
The question though, was why didn't it work?
Why wasn't Soul in love with Maka?
"Hey, earth to Maka. I asked you a question."
Maka returned Soul's gaze, searching his eyes. They were the same. He really wasn't affected by the magic of the potion.
Before she could explain, she heard the faint rolling of Stein's chair and the subsequent crash of him falling over, indicating the beginning of his class.
"I'll tell you later." She said, hoping by the time the lecture was over and they made it home she'd have come up with an explanation as to why her weapon wasn't head over heels in fake love with her.
----------
An hour and a half later Maka still didn't know the answer.
She and Soul were walking back to their apartment after school was over (the weather was so nice, Maka had begged Soul to forgo using the bike for today). Maka was concentrating silently on her thoughts while Soul trudged afterwards, glancing at his meister every now and then.
"So you gonna tell me what was up with Kim or what?" he asked.
Maka furrowed her brow. In theory the love potion should have worked. Soul didn't love her, so therefore if he had drank the potion he should be acting out of character right now as his emotions were forced to recognize her as the object of his affections. Keyword should. The reality of the situation was that Soul was acting the same, indicating that there was a flaw somewhere in Kim’s plan.
Maybe the potion was faulty? She couldn't imagine a witch selling Kim a product that wouldn't work, but witches were very crafty, so it couldn't be too off the mark.
"Hey, Maka! Are you listening to me?"
Maybe the ingredients of the soft drink messed with the composition of the potion? That seemed like a reach, and she didn't feel the urge to perform experiments in relation to whether carbonation affected your hormone levels or not…
"Maaaaaka!"
Maybe the potion didn’t affect weapons? Or maybe Soul’s Black Blood had something to do with it? Like maybe it protects him from magic and spells. But, wait, then all the magic the witches they’ve faced in the past wouldn’t have affected him either… Ugh, she was getting a headache from all this analyzing.
"Maka Albarn is a scrawny, nerdy bookworm who definitely loves her Papa!"
"Excuse me?!" Maka cried out, halting in her stride. She glared at her partner, feeling the familiar urge to reach for a book.
Soul gave her an infuriating grin, holding his arms over his head in protection of a possible Maka Chop, "I had to get your attention somehow."
She pouted. "What do you want?"
"I want you to tell me what was up with Kim in class this afternoon. You told me you'd explain, so start explaining."
Oh, right. Of course. Even if Maka didn't know the full explanation as to why Kim's plan failed, the least she could do was tell Soul what said plan was.
"Alright, I'll tell you. But don't get mad at me about it because I specifically told her not to do it!"
Soul waved her off, "Yeah, sure. I got it. Now spill."
Maka took a deep breath. "Kim purchased a love potion from a witch friend of hers. She's been wanting to use it on you as a…prank."
She'd rather die than tell him the real reason for why Kim wanted to trick him into drinking the potion.
Soul blanched. "A…love potion?"
Maka nodded. "Yeah, she wanted to see if it would work and make you fall in love. I guess she thought it'd be even funnier if it were me you fell in love with…"
She averted her gaze away from his, unable to handle the look of disgust he must have on his face. She already knew he didn't have feelings for her, no need to rub salt into the wounds at his vehement protesting for why he would never fall for her, ever.
"I can't believe it…" he said, shock lacing his voice. Suddenly she heard him growl, "That meddling little bitch!"
While Maka didn't usually condone Soul's harsh language toward their comrades, she admitted he was justified in his name-calling. After all, she was thinking the same thing when she realized what Kim's plan had been with that Coke.
"I know. I told her it was a bad idea."
"A bad idea?! She was basically gonna drug me!"
"I know! It was definitely not cool!"
"Hell no, it wasn't! And she actually thought her stupid little plan was gonna work? As if!"
Maka felt herself wince. Okay, now she was hearing the part of his rant that she didn't feel inclined to listen to. Again, he was justified in his anger, but it didn't make it hurt any less that he didn't want to fall in love with her.
"I mean, of course I didn't fall in love with you after drinking it! I'm already—"
He immediately fell silent, his teeth audibly clicking together with how strongly he snapped his mouth shut. Maka blinked in shock.
"You're already…what?"
Sweat began to form on the Death Scythe's brow. "Nothing…"
Maka narrowed her eyes, "No, you were going to say something. What were you going to say?"
He began walking again, his pace picking up as he swiftly moved passed her, "I wasn't going to say anything, let's just drop it!"
"Hey, wait up Soul!" she called after him, practically running to catch up to him.
"I'm feeling pasta tonight, are you? What would you rather have, fettuccini or spaghetti?"
"Quit avoiding the subject, Soul!"
"What subject? The only subject I'm talking about is pasta!"
Maka screamed in frustration.
Why did she have to fall in love with this moron?
----------
"Uh-huh… Yeah, okay… I get it now. Sorry for bitching at you earlier, Winnie. I'll see you at the next Witch Mass… Okay, bye!"
Kim sighed as she closed her cell phone. She and Jackie were sitting at Death Bucks, having a quick snack before heading back to the girls' dorm.
Jackie sipped her chai tea, "So what did she say?"
Kim stirred her iced mocha, "Winifred's potion wasn't a scam like I thought it was. Apparently, if the person drinking it lays eyes on the person they're already in love with it then there's no effect. Something about their love cancelling out the fake love or whatever."
Jackie nodded, "So it does work, you just have to be sure your target really doesn't love you."
"Yep…" she trailed off.
The two were silent for a second, sipping their respective drinks before Jacqueline spoke up again.
"Isn't this a good thing though? I mean, that means the reason Soul wasn't affected was because he already loves Maka. We now have concrete proof."
Kim nodded, but she still looked peeved, "Well, duh, of course I'm happy that the number one pair at the DWMA is practically one step closer to being a legit couple—fucking ecstatic actually!"
"But…?"
"But I was robbed of wacky hijinks!" Kim bellowed, "That emotionally constipated scythe was supposed to act stupidly in love with Maka! Think of the blackmail, Jackie! All the glorious blackmail!"
Jackie sighed. Sometimes she wished her meister didn't have such a devious side. "Well, maybe Maka will figure out why the potion didn't work and she and Soul can finally be together."
Before Kim could retort, they were distracted by the sudden appearance of Soul who was sprinting at impressively high speeds passed their table.
The two girls blinked, flabbergasted. Before either of them could comment on the strange occurrence, another figure barreled by.
"SOUL EATER EVANS!" Maka Albarn bellowed, "GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE! YOU CAN'T USE PASTA AS AN EXCUSE FOREVER!"
Once the scythe meister had disappeared from view, Kim turned back to Jackie. Her face was passive, as if what had just happened didn't even faze her.
"Please! It's gonna take those two a miracle to get their shit together!"
