Holes AU is finally here! Please head over to Tumblr and view the art that Addie drew for this piece, and also listen to the playlist MacabreMermaid put together! They are wonderful partners and I absolutely loved working with them. Please drop some love on their talented work! Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

Summary: When Maka Albarn takes the fall for a friend's crime, she is sentenced to Shibusen Juvenile Detention Center in Death City, Nevada. It's almost bearable thanks to a frustrating - and cute - camper who helps her dig holes under the hot sun. Despite Soul Evans's reluctance to open up about himself or his past, the two soon bond over investigating the disappearances in Death City a hundred years ago and sneaking out to see each other past curfew. But, it turns out Shibusen's intentions are far from pure. Will Soul and Maka be able to combat the other rowdy campers, the desert sun, and the cruel warden to discover the secret behind all those holes? Rated T.

Warnings: language, canon-typical cartoon violence and gore

X

Caught Dead by redphlox

There's nothing in Death City but misery and heat. Soul often daydreams about wandering into the endless desert to sleep until he's another half-buried skeleton in the dirt, but that's a lost cause. He's tethered to this place by a promise to stay, even if it's led him to this dazed moment: reeling from a punch, wiping blood from his lip.

"C'mon, hit me back," Jackie hisses under her breath, eyes wide with guilt and panic as the reality of what she's done sinks in.

There is no going back now. All he can do is stare down at the streak of inky blood on his dust-powdered fingers. He licks at his lips in hopes to surreptitiously clean the rest off, but the taste of overpowering iron swirls around in his mouth. Gulping doesn't stop the incoming bout of hysteria from tying his stomach into knots. Damnit, his and Jackie's deal hadn't included blood. His vision tunnels, the arid, cracked ground and overly bright light no longer the biggest of his worries.

"Soul, snap out of it, hit me!" Jackie's voice comes out more of a screeching plea than a command. As nosey campers drop their shovels and hurry over to scope out the latest fight, Jackie picks hers up, a new determination stretched over her face. She edges toward him like a snake preparing to bite. "Fight me!"

Except Soul can't move, can't say that his stage fright now extends to this show they're putting on for the sake of extending their sentences. Never would he have thought he'd find himself looking for trouble so that he wouldn't be released and sent home, but… here he is, desperate.

Jackie hisses his name as a warning before raising her shovel like a baseball bat. It happens so fast, Soul doesn't have time to think. The second he's distracted by a distant puff of dust smoke whirling around an incoming bus, Jackie jumps the distance between them, shovel colliding with his shoulder. Lightning-like pain shoots up his arm from his elbow where it strikes the dirt. She looms over him, her shadow a cursed reprieve from the sun.

"Sorry," she mouths, wincing, raising her shovel over her head.

X

Maka lost her softness when her mama disappeared.

It's didn't leave overnight, even if her mama did. It left in pieces, in such a silent, gentle way that she doesn't notice until her papa bursts out sobbing when the judge brings down both his hammer and judgment. Maka Albarn will spend a whole year at Shibusen digging holes to think about what she's done. Three-hundred sixty-five days of her life taken away from her, derailing her future, smudging her squeaky clean record, and all that she can think about is that she's glad for the distance, even if she didn't commit the crime.

Next to her papa, Blake flashes a supportive grin at her, though the corners of his mouth fall prematurely.

"We'll file an appeal," her papa sniffles when they're saying goodbye after the trial. Maka allows him to wipe his nose on her orange jumpsuit and resists rolling her eyes when he bearhugs her, still inconsolable.

"It's fine," she lies, patting his shoulders. "Maybe I'll learn some responsibility."

"But it's a mistake! My perfect little angel never does anything wrong!"

"Yeah," Blake whispers behind Spirit Albarn, hands dug into the pockets of his blazer. The formal getup reminds Maka of funeral attire, not an outfit one would wear to an important law proceeding. Maybe there's not a difference. "Breaking and entering… sounds like something I would do."

The two blink at each other, knowingly.

Then it's time to go. The pair trail after her as she's handcuffed and escorted onto a dingy, mud-plastered bus. She pauses at the top of the steps, voice suddenly missing as she takes in her papa's quivering shoulders and puffy eyes. A stab of melancholy passes through her: this must be deja vu for him, losing someone again...

Though Maka sees no visible signs of regret, Blake's muted tone is enough. "See ya later, Maks…"

"Bye, Angel," her papa coos, wiggling his fingers at her… just like mama did before she disappeared.

It's even around the same time of the day too, with the same weather conditions: bright, sunny, with no signs of clouds or of the impending heartbreak looming around the corner. Mama had driven Maka to school that morning and blew a kiss to her before driving off. In retrospect, Maka wishes she would have begged to go with her to work, or at least caught the kiss and held on to it, but she was only six and too trusting, too optimistic.

Maybe the sudden absence would have hurt Maka less if she had been younger and couldn't understand custody agreements, but she's always been too alert and intelligent for her own good. Weekends belonged to her papa, and weekdays to her mama. It was a Tuesday, which meant Maka had a whole week left to enjoy with her mama, so alarms rang in Maka's head when evening came and she was the only kindergartener left waiting for their parent after school. No one had to explain that her mama's tardiness translated into permanent absence. When a frazzled Papa arrived instead and picked her up, Maka couldn't help but to feel... forsaken.

Now, all she wants is to be left alone. For now. A hidden blessing in this messed up situation is that the space and time away from her no-good, overbearing, lying Papa will be good. She does catch the kiss he blows to her as the bus rolls away, though. Just in case. After all, there's no harm or admittance of emotional attachment on her part: he didn't see, and she can let go at any time.

X

A disturbed cackle thunders through the still, hot air. "Kill him, Jackie!"

Liz Thompson grins like a Cheshire cat, wicked and entertained. "Easy there, Patti, it's fun to play with them a little first."

Jackie wavers, arms trembling, but whether it's from the weight of her shovel or the gravity of their situation, Soul isn't sure. What's shameful is that he flinches when she shifts, bracing himself for what will be more colorful bruises and possibly blood, but she turns the shovel and pokes him with the handle.

"Like this, Patti?" she laughs over her shoulder, the three girls shouting with malevolent laughter.

Soul takes advantage of the momentary distraction to kick Jackie's legs out from under her, as gently as possible. She falls with a surprised, "Eee!" that morphs to an annoyed and insulted "UGH!" as he gains the upper hand, tsk-ing.

"Don't test me, Jackie. We might be friends but don't. Try. Me."

She lets out a growl, cheeks pink with amusement either at his empty threat or because he actually started fighting back. But the other campers gasp at his words, and Soul catches a glimpse of Kilik shaking his head at the familiar scene of violence on the campground. In the distance, the cloud at the bus's wheels tapers off, like the yellow eyesore is slowing down. Not that it's Soul's problem - he's on his butt again, under a hail of Jackie's fists.

The Thompson sisters howl wildly. Kilik makes no move to stop the fighting, instead pinching his nose in exasperation before wandering back to his hole on the other side of camp. The wrestling-ring of campers flees once Soul stops blocking her punches and begins coughing. When Ox runs off, threatening to tattletale, the remaining onlookers run away, everyone avoiding trouble.

"You can stop, they're gone-"

Jackie's stronger than her lithe frame reveals, shoving him down when he tries to stand up. "We have to keep fighting until the Warden comes out here and stops us herself. I can't leave this place, I won't!" She grabs him by the collar. "Don't you get it? If I get out of here, I have to go home, and that's worse than getting a god forsaken sunburn here everyday!"

"I get it, but stop shaking me-"

"No! NO!" Her eyes shine with unshed tears. The show of vulnerability touches him, and he almost excuses the concussion she's giving him. "Listen to me Soul, we're staying here!"

"Calm down, I get it, I'm-"

"I CAN'T LEAVE, I CAN'T LEAVE!"

He snaps. Pinning her down is the easiest thing in the world when she's caught off guard, but he knows he's in trouble when her brows furrow dangerously. Again, the world is a whirl of color and shapes as she slams him into the ground, his joints aching. Jackie moves faster than a hummingbird's wings, grappling for the shovel, swinging it back and stabbing it down-

And then his arm glints in the desert sun, flesh replaced with metal that clanks as it meets the shovel, stopping it mid-strike. Instead of a forearm and a hand and fingers, a razor-sharp scythe extends from his elbow. The blade doubles as a mirror; in it, Jackie's eyes betray her horror as she falls to her knees. It's worse when he manages to regain his human limb and muster up the courage to meet her gaze.

She's petrified. "God, Soul, that's freaky…"

He sputters, forming syllables but not coherent sentences. Shanking him in the back would have stung less.

Suddenly, the bus veers off the road, heading straight for them, veering right to avoid a hole. It slides to a stop a thousand feet away, and a burly man hops off - the one Soul has briefly spied wandering around the campground after curfew. The man with half a missing eyebrow and a black marble wedged in his eye socket. "What's going on here?"

"Hey!" another voice bellows, much higher and somehow scarier. All Soul catches sight of are pigtails flying out of the bus and at him in a storm of indignation and self-righteousness. "Don't push her, you bully!"

Next thing he knows, Soul is seeing stars, his skull vibrating and throbbing in agony, the side of his face burning. Looking up at her is no use - everything's in vivid technicolor, her face eclipsed by the sun. But he doesn't need sight to know the color of his blood when he swipes at his nose. It's always been wrong, always will be.

The girl pauses, crouching down next to him, her voice barely a whisper. "...Black blood?"

X

The detention center resembles a summer camp more than it does a prison. No barbed wire fence lines its borders, no enormous search lights beam down on the dorms. It's open land, Death City proper actually an hour away down the road - not that anyone lives there. Maka remembers the green sign that welcomed her as she leaned her head on the rickety bus window:

Death City

Population: 55

And they're probably all in the detention center.

Sitting here in the heavily air-conditioned office that Maka suspects is a five-star hotel compared to the campers' facilities, she actually misses her bed, her home, coming back from school to find her papa cooking...

A woman sails into the room, plopping down behind the gaudy desk. "Miss Barn-"

"Albarn," Maka corrects, crossing her ankles in her chair, hands folded in her lap, back ironed into a straight line. Shoulders back. Chin up. No one intimidates her, not even the warden, with her witch-like blood-colored hair or long sharp nails. "It's Albarn."

Shaula Gorgon offers a sweet smile, the sadistic kind that someone would give right before pulling the trigger on their lifelong best friend. "Okay then, Maka, I'll get right to the point. Here at Camp Shibusen, we don't tolerate violence."

Sometimes Maka doesn't think before she acts, and it never bodes well. "Then you should have been supervising the campers and stopped that bully before I had to step in."

"As a matter of fact, I was on my way over there to break those two apart with my bare hands. I see everything that goes on around here."

"Oh," Maka breathes, feeling like a balloon that's been popped by a needle.

"Soul is in the wrong for entertaining Jackie's antics, of course, and so are you." Shaula smirks, tapping her nails on the notepad. "Because of your actions, I'll add three more months to your sentence."

Maka's face practically falls on the floor, her stomach dropping to her toes. The shock must throw her into a delusional state because she can shake neither the mental image nor the sensation of a snake wrapping itself around her ankles, crawling its way up her body, aiming for her neck. Locking eyes with Shaula only intensifies the feeling, the woman's canines unusually pointy - how had Maka not noticed before? She pats Maka on the head on the way out, cutting off the terrible hallucination. "Don't tell me how to run my facility again."

X

"Did I get anything on, uh, my clothes?" Soul pulls on the front of his jumpsuit, scanning the khaki for any unusual smudges. "I don't see anything, do you?"

Jackie, pale and slightly shaky, wrings her hands and barely manages to nod. "...Think you're ok, yeah. Um… even if you were still bleeding, it's fine? That's why we're going to the clinic…"

So she hadn't noticed his weird blood, only his abnormal ability to shapeshift. Great, at least one good thing came out of that fiasco besides luring the warden out of her ice house to pull them by the ear and verbally tear them a new one. Six more months for each of them, Shaula had said, scowling. Instead of basking in his triumph, Soul had bitten down an ugly ball of unknown terror at locking eyes with Shaula Gorgon and torn himself away to seek medical attention. Doing so isn't such a great idea, what with the tension mounting between him and an uncharacteristically speechless Jackie, and the fact that the facility doctor is a creepy nutjob missing a few crucial screws.

Soul and Jackie turn the corner into the empty infirmary hall and head to Dr. Stein's office. Knocking on the door causes it to creak open, revealing the room inside to be darker than the night and far more unknown. The two stand there, numb, in silence disturbed only by the occasional shout or sounds of footfalls outside traveling through the walls.

Jackie turns to face him for the first time since that new girl broke up the fight. She motions to her face. "How do my brows look?"

He nods his approval, careful to act normal, like she didn't hit a nerve by calling him a freak. "Like perfection."

"Good." She grins hesitantly, tucking her bangs behind her ears. "For a second there I thought you cut my face, my brows, and I almost lost it."

"You mean… You freaking out like that wasn't losing it?"

She shoves him into the bookcase, first chuckling, then apologizing a mile a minute when he rubs his shoulder. "Sorry! Gah - I'm stronger than I realize. My bad." He finds himself being led into a examination room, directed to sit on the table. "I'll be right back," she says before popping out of the door again.

Soul sighs, swinging his legs, hitting the heel of his boot against the metal frame. It reminds him of the second day of kindergarten, when he had been hanging out on the swing, kicking his feet in the air in an attempt to gain momentum. The stress and effort had triggered his lower limb to morph into a polished, hook-handled knife. Later, his father would enlighten him about the Evans family curse: uncontrollable weapon powers and blood as black as the abyss, brought on by a deal with a witch generations ago. It had sounded like something out of a fantasy children's book. To Soul, the watered-down explanation had lacked splendor and solace in the face of his classmates' ridicule and pestering.

It still does.

"Some lethal weapon," Soul mutters to himself now, squinting at his hands with derision. "First an imaginary demon beats me up every day, and now I can't even win a fake fight…"

He can't do anything right, according to his father. Soul's fingers are too heavy on the piano keys, his shoulders too rounded at dinner, his chin too lowered in public, his grades not high enough, his presence not memorable enough. And his attitude? Atrocious. Where Soul Evans lacks, he makes up for by being too much. Too weird. Too sarcastic. Too quiet. Too lazy.

But at Shibusen - well, here he's like an unsettling painting, something dark and unusual to look at but not for too long, because the other art exhibits are much more pleasant. His childhood reputation for spontaneously combusting into a scythe didn't follow him here, thank goodness, so at least he's not miserable. And he's grown into his abilities a little, though high emotional situations still trigger unwanted transformations. He's at point where no human is bullying him at least, and that's bearable.

Except… If Jackie runs her mouth…

"Speak of the devil," he says as she materializes with an ice pack, wet and dry towels, and a first aid kit.

"I appear when I'm summoned," is her sing songy reply. She holds his face in place by gripping the back of his head, wiping an alcohol pad over his lip roughly. "I feel so bad for beating the emo out of you. Felt like kicking a baby."

"Yeah, well…" He takes a chance, catching her wrist to gain her undivided attention. "You don't have to be nice to me, Jackie. Don't make this awkward or pity me. Just - act normal, you didn't see anything."

The brief look of rejection she gives him hurts more than all the taunting he endured as a kid. She recovers quicker than he does, though, blinking her emotions away and putting on a poker face. "I'm pretty sure I just saw your arm turn into metal. Why haven't you ever told me?"

Soul snatches the towel out of her hands more forcefully than he had intended. Maybe if he rubs his lips raw he won't have to answer her. "Because it didn't happen, and it doesn't matter."

"You're not normal, are you? I mean, everyone thinks so because of your eyes and hair, but - oh, that's how you dig holes so fast, isn't it? You've been holding out on me."

He clenches his jaw, ashamed of himself for trusting her for the past eight months he's been at Shibusen. So, she thinks he's a freak too… fine, then. He'll bring his walls up. Pushing away the first friend he's made isn't his best idea, but preserving his secret, his dignity, comes first. "Shut up, Jackie. If you bring this up again, I'll test the scythe out on you."

Jackie isn't the type of person to break down into tears and drown in a pool of pity. No, she's layers upon layers of steel and absolute savagery. Her exasperated scoff echoes around the room as she crosses her arms, unimpressed with his threat but clearly aware she crossed a line. "Mhm, sure, I bet you can't even control those powers. It's not big deal, though, I'll forget about it."

Ouch. Is his uselessness so obvious? It's his turn to lapse into dumbstruck muteness. An eye for an eye, he guesses: he shut her down, and she shut him up. In their newfound silence, Jackie reaches into her jumpsuit pocket and extends a rock to him, probably as a peace offering since neither of them know how to apologize using words. The fragmented outline of a baby snake decorates the dusty surface, the creature curled into a perfect, hypnotizing circle.

"I found this cool thingy when I was digging my hole today. Want it?"

Accepting it would complete their unspoken truce. Life would go back to normal: roasting each other, muttering sarcastic, pessimistic commentary about the food in the cafeteria, and exchanging glances when they overhear a particularly stupid conversation. That's all Soul ever wanted in grade school - a friend, someone who had his back no matter what he looks like, despite all his oddities. But he waves the rock away, shaking his head.

Jackie drops it back into her pocket, confused and thrown off, the ensuing moment clumsy and too quiet. Wheels rolling their way from the hallway provide a welcomed interruption, the door slamming open to reveal a man riding a rolly chair, slumped over the back support and lazily puffing on a cigarette. The glare of the overhead light bounces off his glasses. "Are you here for the scalpel treatment?"

"No…" Soul wants nothing more than to get out of here ASAP. "To get my face checked out, I guess."

"That's irreparably damaged," Dr. Stein sighs as though he's giving condolences. "I can't treat that, but I can give you a face transplant."

The uneven stitches transversing the doctor's chin and forehead don't inspire confidence. Neither do his tattered white lab coat nor the nail sticking out of his hair like he'd been hammered through the skull. Soul edges toward the door, mumbling incoherently about feeling fine now and returning to dig his hole, Jackie following him like a shadow.

Dr. Stein blows smoke in their direction, removing his glasses and squinting at Soul. "You have... ink on your collar."

Soul curses mentally, the man's interest too piqued for his liking, his raised brows too knowing. Rumor amongst the campers slash prisoners has it that Stein isn't even a doctor but a scientist gone mad, and now that Soul has met him in person, the notion isn't too far-fetched.

Maybe Stein senses something inherently off about Soul because he asks, "What happened?"

"A shovel accident," Jackie replies, placing her hands on a stupified Soul's shoulder to guide him into the hallway.

"Hmm..."

"Crap," Jackie whispers when the doctor rolls after them seconds later.

"You'll be fine," he calls to Soul. "If you're not, I'll use your cadaver to do research on why you didn't make it, and you have your choice on what kind of piñata you want to be made into."

Soul and Jackie grimace at each other.

Stein rolls back into the room, expressionless as he throws a peace sign at them.

X

Hours later, Maka hears the shovel shed door open as the sky bleeds a blue ombre overhead. The colors signal the transition from day to night and cast a mystical hue on the boy's white hair, the one she decked with her right hook earlier. He looks different in this light, but she can't quite tell how.

So she stares.

He stares back, cool and calm. "Need help?"

Maka brings the shovel down into the earth harder than necessary. "No, leave me alone."

Whistling, he closes the distance between them in a few short steps. "Looks like you got a sunburn. If you dig faster you can find shade in your hole."

"I don't need your help," she snaps, not in any mood to make small talk or friends, not with fresh blisters on her hands, blood crusted under her nails and in her ears, and sweat stains under her armpits. A year and three months here literally sounds like hell. "Thanks to you, I have to stay in this godforsaken dump longer!"

The boy leans a shoulder on the tin wall, arms crossed, crooked smile quickening her pulse. "You wanted to help me."

Maka's mutinous cheeks redden for some reason. "No way!"

"Yeah you did. Because you're the nosy type, aren't you?" His winks at her, cocky and condescending. "Let me guess… Teacher's pet? Hallway monitor? A miss goody two shoes with straight A's and goes home and cries to her mommy when things don't go her way?"

She practically breathes fire through her nostrils as she draws herself up to her full height - five feet two inches, yes - pulls him down by the collar, and gets dangerously close to his face. "There's nothing wrong with wanting everyone to get along, or following the rules, okay? What are you even doing here, anyway? Are you following me?"

All the bravado in his eyes drains to surprise. It's not until he lets out a gasp that Maka realizes how close their noses are, how his eyes are colored a shade of ruby she had mistook for brown. Before she can analyze the thought, though, he regains his composure and gently removes her hand from his shirt, brushing himself off as if she'd contaminated him. "Whatever. You won't be saying that when you're breaking up four fights a day and trying not to get eaten by rattlesnakes at the same time."

"I can't NOT do anything when people are being hurt!" Then her brain catches up and processes the rest of his statement. "Snakes?"

He rolls his eyes as if the mere mention of them heightens his annoyance. "Yeah, they're everywhere. This kid got bit in the booty while he was on the toilet taking a shi-"

"That's not funny."

"Then why are you giggling?" He laughs too, his grin a vivid one that lights up his face and brings out a dimple.

Maka rubs her hands together to wipe off the grime, forcing a frown. "Because you're such a bad liar."

"I'm dead serious. Ox got bit and he had to be helicoptered to the hospital. It was the left cheek, I swear to God. Stein wrote the report when he got back from vacation and the warden got mad because he wrote the whole thing backwards. Every letter of it."

Standing there with specks of dirt in her eyelashes and her pigtails half pulled out isn't how she imagined spending the first evening at the detention center, but it's not too bad. Even this boy isn't as bad as she originally thought, taking her shovel and putting it away without Maka having to ask for help.

"Thanks!" Suddenly she's not as reluctant to open up, even though she wanted to be alone a few hours earlier. "I didn't exactly get an orientation."

He snorts, says she dodged a bullet. "Free isn't exactly the most eloquent tour guide. He shouldn't even be driving, I would bet my ration of water that he doesn't have a license. But anyway, the alarms wake us up every morning at four thirty to eat breakfast. We're supposed to be out digging at five." He points east, to the area she walked in from. "And if you value your life, try to be done by the time the sun comes up."

Maka crinkles her nose. "Why holes? Why does the warden make us dig holes?"

He shrugs. "Nothing else do to out here as a punishment, anyway. Besides ghost hunt," Soul yawns, throwing his hands over his head, stretching.

"Ghosts aren't real," is Maka's smarty-pants retort. She cringes inwardly at her know-it-all attitude, but then wills herself not to feel guilty for defending herself. "You're just trying to scare me."

"Not everything's about you, Pigtails." He mimics her hairstyle by putting his wrists on his head and flapping his hands around. "It's the truth. There's a reason they call it Death City."

Maka's hands immediately dart to her hair as if he had just physically tugged it. Though she's searching him over for something to use against him, words fail her, and not because he's a mystery she'd like to solve. It's just… She doesn't know, something about the shadows falling on his features, making him unreadable. She sticks her tongue out at him, contorting her face like she's smelled something rancid.

"Anyway, we're even now," he goes on, visibly pleased with himself for getting on her nerves. "You saved me, I saved you."

"Hmmph! And what did you save me from?"

When he laughs, his teeth glint in the light. "From the certain death waiting for you here. It's every person for themselves at Shibusen. Don't forget that."

It's not a lie - the circle of campers around him and that girl fighting earlier did nothing to mediate the fight. They would have watched the two pummel each other into raisins if she hadn't stepped in. "Let me guess… you're giving me pointers to survive Shibusen because I broke up the fight you were in?"

"Definitely. She was gonna kick my ass."

"Then I regret my choices." Maka turns on her heel - only to realize she can't stomp off. She has no clue where to even go. No one had given her a map or instructions besides to dig, dig, dig, and report any findings to the warden.

"You should, since you ended up in here." The boy pushes himself off the wall and stands in front of her, carefree. "What'd you do, jaywalk?"

"Hmph! I didn't do anything, for your information." How many times does she have to say this? "I'm innocent!"

He raises one skeptical, challenging brow. "That's why you're here at 'Camp' Shibusen, where all the model teenagers of society gather?"

"Bad luck, I guess," she grumbles, not in the mood for his jokes anymore, and heads off toward the largest building, the one that looks like it might be the dormitories. He follows like a puppy, yapping more advice, like don't go wandering around at night, don't try to run away because there's nothing around for hundred of miles, don't piss off the warden, always carry your canteen with you, and "Watch out for Liz and Patti. They like to prank."

Maka blinks up at him, trying to find signs that he's lying or playing a trick on her. "What about you? What's your deal?"

His reply is automatic: "I like to be alone. And I don't like rumors going around about me. I like digging my hole and minding my own business. No skin off my bones… or should I say, blood."

Oh! So that's the real reason for going out of his way. To threaten her. She bites her bottom lip before opening her mouth, ready to blow a fuse and defend her honor.

"Don't," he interrupts, shaking his head. Of course Maka doesn't know him well enough to say, but it comes off as more a plea than a request. He's...vulnerable. For a split second, raw emotion takes over. Fear gleams in his eyes, and Maka wishes he would close them - she hates to see people suffer.

"Okay," she promises, calmer. "I won't bring it up again…"

"It's just… A trick of light. It's red."

"Sure, yeah."

He coughs a little to clear his throat, and they both pretend he's not fighting off a spectrum of embarrassment and ill ease. Maka looks the other way, undoing her pigtails and taking her time redoing them. When she's tightening them, he walks away without a goodbye, which stings more than it should. Insanity is thinking, for a split second, that he purposely waited for her to show her the ropes, maybe befriend her. But people are selfish, and this stranger isn't better than the general public. He came to warn her: keep his secret, or else.