Author's Notes: This is an experimental piece of work and I really refuse to be sued for wasting your time with what may possibly be complete garbage.

"Kidd has been gone for quite a while now, hasn't he...?"

Tsubaki's unsure but concerned tone caused the attention of the others to turn to her. Upon hearing this, it occurred to Maka that it had been almost an hour since Kidd had excused himself to use the restroom.

"He's been eating...pretty much anything with chocolate almost obsessively today, so I'm sure he's just paying for it," Liz stated with a careless shrug. "It's his own fault anyway, so I wouldn't be too worried about it."

Maka pushed herself forward from her position with her back against the wall, and began heading off to the bathrooms. "I'll go check on him."

When she got to the bathroom, she ignored the fact she was going straight into the boys' restroom, and pushed the door open. She was about to say something, but was rendered speechless by the state Kidd was in. One trembling hand was clutching the side of one of the sinks as support, while the other was at his stomach with a fistful of his shirt. His eyes were tear-stained and his bangs were soaked in sweat and were plastered against his forehead.

"...Go away..."

The reaper was obviously trying to sound authoritative and commanding, but with how quiet and shaky his voice was, that was impossible.

"Kidd..." Maka murmured, putting an arm around him. "It's okay. I'm here to help you. Liz said you've been eating a lot of chocolate lately, so maybe—"

"No, that's—You don't understand the situation, so there's no point in worrying for no reason."

Had the circumstances been any different, Maka probably would have snapped at him. He had no right to call himself unworthy of being worried about! He was always looking down on himself, but she feared what he said meant it was possibly getting worse.

"I couldn't just stop worrying about you..."

Not knowing what else to say, she breathed on the glass of the mirror a few times and began tracing out numbers, quietly chanting as she did so. "Forty-two, forty-two—"

"Don't," Kidd hissed, grabbing Maka's wrist and pulling it away from the mirror. "I can't have my father knowing about that."

That hit a nerve. The girl knew very well how to control her anger when a situation called for it, but she in no way had the patience to continue swallowing back her intensifying fury. "Listen to me, Kidd! I'm trying to help you! If you want to explain first, that's fine, and even if you just don't want Lord Death knowing, I can respect your wish to keep this from him! But that doesn't make it okay to treat me like that when I'm trying to help! There's obviously something wrong with you, now tell me what it is!"

"I..." The reaper let out a soft sigh and forced himself to straighten up, the look on his face clearly displaying traces of guilt. He winced noticeably, and Maka's anger instantly dissolved when he did. "I acted out and I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."

He turned immediately and began to leave, but Maka grabbed his shoulder before he could.

"I acted out, too, and I'm really sorry. I really only want to help, so please tell me what's wrong."

In turn, she received a painful blow from Kidd and he shoved her away, causing her to painfully hit one of the sinks. "I'm pathetic and worthless—there's nothing more to talk about."

Maka stayed down as her friend left. What had gotten into him? Why was he acting like this? This wasn't like him at all, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it. The only one of her friends she ever would have imagined would hurt her like that was Blackstar. But Kidd? What reason was there for him to treat Maka like that?

Eventually, she got back to her feet and went back out to go looking for Kidd. There was definitely something up and she was determined to figure out every detail of it.

Her two hours of searching proved to be fruitless. Kidd must have found a perfect place to tuck himself away to keep himself from being found by Maka, which not only peaked her curiosity, but her worry and concern for his health and safety. However, she reluctantly accepted her loss—for the time being, at least—and started on her way back home.

"I was starting to think you weren't coming home tonight." That was the greeting she received from Soul when she walked through the front door. "What were you out doing?"

The meister pulled her hair-ties out and let her ponytails fall as she headed back to her room. "I was looking for Kidd. I'm really worried about him. When I found him in the bathroom, he looked terrible..."

"Liz said he was paying for eating so much junk, so I don't think you worrying about it is going to help."

"It isn't like that." Maka spat those words venomously, irritated heavily by the fact that Soul didn't even seem to care at all about how someone who was supposed to be his friend was doing. "I think there's something seriously wrong with him. He didn't just look sick, he wasn't quite acting like himself, either. That's something I should be concerned about and so should you!"

"Like what?"

Now the scythe decided to sound like he cared. Now. When Maka had reached her last nerve and didn't want to talk to her partner, now was when he chose to start caring? It didn't matter if now he genuinely felt the way she had initially wanted him to in the first place—her patience had been eaten up by both the past events and all the things she thought could have possibly happened to Kidd.

"Forget I said anything," she muttered, grabbing a book, heading off the the bathroom, and slamming the door shut. Hopefully a bubble bath and some reading could calm her down. She could sort everything out in the morning, but without winding down to get her proper rest, she would have a lower chance of that.

Whatever happened, she was going to fix it—and she was going to do just that.

Author's Note: I don't know what I think of this, but I'll give it another chapter and see. I'll either keep it or tear it down, but eh...I dunno yet.