well! i don't know how it happened, but i ended up writing 26k of a soma au. i'll be publishing it in three parts, and each one's a bit longer than the last. here is the first bit! it's sort of my strange fic child, so i hope you all like it!

It's after two, and the last of the twenty-somethings have lurched their way out of the pub and into the fresh night air; Soul's locked up the front and wiped down the bar, and with his coworkers ducked outside for a smoke break, he's alone for the first time all night. There's a strangeness to the silence of a space that's usually ringing with sound, and he stands still for a moment to listen, working his knuckles back and forth against the damp washcloth still lying on the bar. His legs ache. There's a bruise on his hip from running into the edge of a stool. The garbage needs to be taken out.

He shoves the side door open with his shoulder, arms full, and the cold outside air slaps his face like a friend trying to wake him up.

"Heard he failed out of some sort of music college and that's why he's here. Trying to get his mojo back or something."

Soul stops moving. The garbage bag in his hands slips.

"Yeah, he had some sort of breakdown. Poor guy. I know his brother's a really awesome musician."

The weight of the bag pushes him through the door and his foot crunches on the gravel, loud and obvious. The conversation cuts off abruptly, and Soul sets his jaw and pushes the door open fully. Patti and Liz are at the other end of the alley, faces barely visible in the coal bright glow of Patti's cigarette. Liz, from what he can see, looks embarrassed, but Patti is expressionless.

"You okay there?" she calls.

"Yeah, I got it," Soul says, shuffling over to the dumpster. "Just, if one of you could—?"

Liz bustles over and lifts up the top of the dumpster so he can hoist the garbage in. She keeps flicking quick glances at him, rodent-like, and Soul can almost feel her apology working its way up her throat. He backs away as fast as he can, smiling.

"I'm about to head out," he says. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Sure thing," Liz says. "Yup. It'll be good. We will see you then. For sure."

Patti thumps Liz on the arm and she cuts off. Soul waves and ducks back into the pub, closing the door behind him. He remains there in the back room, breathing in and out, just long enough for the warmth of the indoors to seep back into his bones. Then he gathers up his things, punches out on the machine by the back door, and heads off down the empty street.

It's early days in the summer, and the tourist rush he's been promised hasn't hit yet. He's glad for it; he's been here only a month and a half, but Shibusen Island is incredibly insular, and he can't imagine any more people. He'd basically picked this island off of the vague description of a classmate who said she'd been here once and that "it was musical and stormy and cool", but even though he hadn't really had any expectations, the island had still shattered them. The mayor's kid—who actually goes by "Kid"—came to greet him personally on his first day and show him around. He knows the names of all of the regulars at the pub already, and they all know him. Soul grew up in a house with more empty corners and silent rooms than open windows and conversation—he can't imagine what it would have been like to be a child here, where there's constant music and talking. He can't really blame everyone for wanting to know more about him—it's just how they are.

They're not so far off anyway.

Soul's cottage is down by the water, on the east side of the island, away from all of the main ports and docks for the fishing boats and ferries. It's about a seven minute walk away from the pub. He's got a short dock of his own that goes just far enough out that he can dive into the water off of it and not brain his head on the seafloor. The cottage itself—which he's technically only renting—consists of a tiny bathroom and one main room, which is sort of just a big kitchen with a bed and a dresser shoved in the corner. He rigged up some hooks to the ceiling a couple weeks ago and hung up a curtain to separate the kitchen and the "bedroom" on the off-chance that he might have some visitors someday. He hasn't yet, but Black*Star, his favourite regular and probable friend, willlikely insist on coming over at some point.

The cottage is cold when he gets in, colder somehow than the air outside, as if his absence has sucked all the heat out. His guitar is propped against the wall in full view when he opens the door—he likes to put it there in the hopes that seeing it when he comes back in will make him work on something—but he's tired, and he ignores it in favour of the bed. He doesn't brush his teeth, and when he falls asleep he dreams of golden fish that look like Liz and Patti, their mouths opening and closing, the sound of Wes' violin pouring out and cutting off.

He dreams of drowning.

Soul feels better when he wakes up the next morning, which is strange because he hadn't really been aware of feeling particularly bad. He always ends up waking at an ungodly hour with the sunrise because the window across from his bed is on the east wall of the house, but today somehow he sleeps in later than usual, only opening his eyes when the sunlight moves off of his face and starts sliding down the floor. It's warm. There are birds singing somewhere, and if he strains he can hear the waves on the shoreline, though he's too far away from the centre of town to hear the morning songs. The island is obsessed with music of all kinds and it's piped out through speakers along the main road for the whole day; soft and bright as the sun rises; faster and louder at the peak of the day; petering out gently with nightfall. It's his favourite part of the island, and what made him sure he wanted to stay. He gets to have music all around, but also a bubble of quiet at the cottage, good for focusing.

Moving here was a good idea, he tells himself. This is good.

He gets up and makes himself breakfast, and then noodles around on the guitar for an hour or so, just getting himself used to the feel of it again. He hasn't really been playing much since he got here. He doesn't have the time to really start on anything now, but he's feeling optimistic that he could try after work. He's got a day shift at the pub today—he's usually on nights because he's good at dealing with the drunken crew, but Tsugumi's girlfriend (girlfriends? Soul isn't sure he heard right on that) is in town to visit, so she has the day off and needs someone to cover her shift. It'll be a nice change, he figures.

As he's heading up the path to the main road, there's a flash of something in the corner of his eye—movement—and he stops, glancing back at the ocean. There's nothing there, obviously, except for the glassy white spread of sunlit water, but he hesitates for a long moment, waiting, before he can make himself turn away.

By the end of the day, his optimism has taken a sick, strung-out twist. At 7pm, when he was supposed to get off, Liz came running in, babbling about Patti being sick, and them having no one else to cover her shift that night. And because Soul is a sucker, he somehow ends up staying till 11pm before Liz assures him that she can close up alone and kicks him out the door.

The moon is heavy and round in the sky, and it looks too bright to belong in the blackness. Soul stands on the steps outside the back door of the pub and stares up at it, wondering hazily if it will plunge down out of the sky and flatten him if he tries to walk home. It's hot out—the first wave of summer heat had started to crawl up around midday, and it still hasn't dispersed into the evening air. The atmosphere of the whole town feels like something out of a song, even with the music silent for the night, and frustration threatens to choke Soul.

When he makes it home, he doesn't even bother turning on the light; he finds his guitar in the dark because he knows where it'll be, and he stumbles back outside. Follows the pull of the moon down the steps to the sand, toeing his shoes off as he goes. Makes his way down the dock until he reaches the end.

For a crazy second, standing there, he thinks about diving off, sinking down to the bottom of the sea and making music there. His toes are sticking out over the edge; he curls them in to press against the uneven, sturdy wood, and he takes a deep breath. He holds it until his lungs feel like they're going to explode; the pressure unlocks something in his chest, and he sits down heavily on the dock, exhaling.

He settles his guitar on his lap and starts playing.

He warms up with a rendition of "Blackbird"—it gives his fingers a decent workout, and he likes how it sounds over the water. He sings along, and even though he definitely sucks, there's something about the stillness of the night that makes him sound better. Makes him brave.

Three songs in, he throws caution to the wind and starts playing his own stuff. There's no one to hear him, and he feels like there's a song in his chest that he has to get out. The moon washes everything a deathly sort of white. His bare feet are dangling in the water, feeling cool and strangely free. His fingers are buzzing, the strings burning where weeks ago it would have taken him hours to feel any pain.

He's just feeling like he's onto something, working out the final chord progression at the end of a song he's been fiddling with for ages—something his brother and teachers would call "weird", something that's not "real music"—when his finger slips and the whole sound goes sideways.

"Fuck," he mutters, clapping the flat of his hand to the strings to cut the noise off.

There's a splash off to his left, and then—

"Hey, don't stop! I liked that!"

Soul almost drops his guitar in the ocean.

"Holy shit," he blurts. There's something—someone—in the water, a few metres or so away, only a shadowy head and shoulder showing above the surface. Soul yanks his feet up onto the dock, almost kneeing his guitar.

"Hey, don't be scared," the person says, drifting closer. Their wet hair gleams, but their entire face is in darkness. Soul thinks they're a girl? "I just wanted to listen. That was good."

"That was me," Soul says stupidly. "And you obviously know nothing about music." God, he thinks. When his piano teacher had first heard something he'd written, she'd told his parents that he was probably insane and needed counselling.

His visitor makes a strange, high-pitched noise—a snort?—and then disappears underwater as abruptly as a whack-a-mole retracting to avoid the hammer. There's a split second of calm, tiny ripples moving gently out from where they had been, and then something bursts out of the water a foot away from Soul. He crab walks backwards, clutching his guitar for dear life.

"Play it again!"

There are hands clinging to the edge of the dock and a chin propped on them, face tilted up into the light. Soul feels a little like he's swallowed his tongue because the person in front of him is definitely a girl, but she's...more at the same time. She has bony hands and strange, supernaturally green eyes, bright against the washed out landscape around them both. She looks like she's around his age, but it's hard to tell since she also looks kind of inhuman. Otherworldly.

"What are you?" he asks. Maybe it's rude, but he knows that "who" wouldn't be the right question.

"I'm a water spirit," she says, looking confused. "Lived here since I was as big as a tadpole. I've never seen you around; are you new?"

"Yes," Soul says. "Moved here a month or so back. No one told me about any water spirits!"

The girl shrugs, and Soul realizes abruptly that her slick shoulders are bare—there's no straps to show that she's wearing anything.

"We've always been here, so it's not really news. Don't show ourselves to tourists, but I liked your song so much I had to say hi. Besides, you're not a tourist, right? Said you moved here."

"I—yeah," Soul stammers. "I don't—god, sorry, this is weird. Are you sure you're not playing a trick on me? You don't look very much like a water spirit."

"What are we supposed to look like then?" she asks indignantly.

"I don't know. Have...fins?"

"You're thinking of mermaids, stupid."

"Sorry I'm not an expert on supernatural creatures!" Soul retorts.

She laughs, a weird, rattling sort of sound that should probably be scary, but instead is kind of cute.

"I'm Maka," she says, and holds out a hand.

He stares at it for a second, and then shifts his grip on his guitar so he can shake her hand. "Soul."

"Soul?" she says. "Seriously? You don't believe I'm a spirit, and your name is Soul?"

"I didn't choose that name," Soul grumbles. People are always making fun of him for his stupid name. "My parents did. It's not my fault."

"Hey, I didn't say it was a bad name," Maka says. There are water droplets on her eyelashes, catching the light when she blinks, and it's very distracting. "Seriously, what were you playing? I haven't heard that song before."

"Hear a lot of songs underwater?" Soul blusters, trying to stall. "Through your underwater...spirit...radio?" He cringes internally as soon as he says it—so uncool.

Maka arches an eyebrow, unimpressed. At least they're on the same wavelength.

"I can come on land whenever I want," she says. "I've got legs. I can breathe water or air, depending on what I feel like. I get frozen yogurt at the corner store and I go to the library. When I'm dryside, I hear music. You know...through the open air...human...radio."

She's making fun of him, and he's kind of stupidly into it, adrenaline and tiny amount of terror aside. "Really?"

"I like hearing music," she says. "The soundwaves, they—they're soothing for water spirits, no matter what kind of music it is, though hearing it performed live is always better. I like the really rhythmic stuff usually."

"What, like...percussion stuff?" Soul asks.

"No, more electronic," she says. "Called trance, I think? Maybe."

"Maybe?" Soul says. "I hope you're wrong, because that stuff's terrible."

"Hey!" She barks out a laugh and flicks her fingers at him, drops of water speckling cool across his cheek. "I can have diverse tastes."

"You better, because if you're comparing my stuff to that, there's no way I can take you liking it as a compliment."

She laughs again, closing her eyes, and he can't help but laugh with her until they trickle off into silence. She looks expectant, aware he's been deflecting. Soul feels kind of sick, in an odd, out of body way. He doesn't really like talking about his music, especially unfinished stuff, and he wants desperately to impress her, caught out and confused by the strangeness of her existence.

"It's me," he blurts. "The song, my song. Like I said before. It's a song I'm writing. It's shit, but it's me."

She looks him over carefully.

"You don't look like shit to me."

Soul's breath catches a little in his chest; he coughs, feeling hot under the light of her eyes.

"I meant the song," he says.

"If it's something you've poured yourself into, it can't be shit."

"Shut up," he mutters. A prickle of uncomfortableness is making its way up his back.

"I mean it."

She's there, in front of him on the edge of the dock, shining in the moonlight like some crazy, beautiful thing he's dreamed up for himself, but abruptly he feels like he's the unreal one, almost transparent next to her. She has no idea what she's talking about, no idea what makes real music, and her unfounded advice and encouragement feel like being prodded right in the sore spots of his heart.

"What would you know?" he says sharply. "You're probably just some sort of weird illusion anyways."

It comes out harsher than he meant. She narrows her eyes, rearing back slightly from the dock, clearly stung. Soul becomes aware of a strange, distant bubbling sound, like a restless pot of water on a stove.

"I don't know much, apparently," she mumbles. "Have fun playing sad music alone."

"Wait," he says, "Wait, I—"

It's flashier this time when she goes underwater—she flips backwards away from the dock, kicking up a wave of water that almost hits Soul. He recoils back from the edge, trying to protect his guitar as best he can, and when he looks back she's gone, leaving only an echoing flurry of restless, angry ripples.

"Maka?" he says softly.

There's nothing.

For a long moment he sits there, staring blankly up at the sky, trying to comprehend what just happened—trying to figure out if she was ever here or if he truly did dream her up in some messed up way to boost his own confidence. The slap of a wave against the front of the dock shakes him out of it, and he looks down to see the water churning, glass surface broken up into sharp, curling waves. He jerks to his feet and runs back down the dock to the shore, clinging tight to his guitar. Behind him, the ocean roars, chasing him all the way up the slope of the hill to his cottage.

He puts his guitar safely back inside before he remembers his shoes left on the sand.

When he goes back outside, they're gone. The beach is empty, and the water beyond is still as glass.

At ten years old, in the middle of the Evans' annual Christmas party, Soul realizes two important things. The first: his brother, Wes, is everything their parents want in a child. The second: Soul is not, and will never be. Soul with his family is a tomato in a bowl of apples—close in shape and colour and classification, but wrong in some undeniable way. He stands in the corner of the ballroom, wearing one of Wes' old suits, which doesn't fit him and pinches at the groin and armpits, and watches his teenage brother play the piano for their parents' guests. Wes is spectacular, classically precise, and Soul can't follow it up. He sneaks away to the bathroom, prepared to pretend to be ill if his parents come to ask him to perform. Luckily, they don't—they don't remember him for the rest of the evening, caught up in playing hosts. Soul sits on the closed toilet lid for hours, dreaming of escape, of sailing far away and never returning until he can be what they all want.

He's twenty-two now. He still dreams of escape sometimes, of water spread wide and endless, but he doesn't dream of return anymore. He lost that idea somewhere along the way.

The next few days, Soul avoids the dock and his guitar in equal measure. He serves food and beer at the pub and listens to the street piped music. Tourists start trickling in, clogging up the streets and inns, chattering in small, excited groups about lightning and adventure. Liz rolls her eyes. Patti kicks the men who get too fresh with her. Black*Star makes friends and enemies as fast as the population swells. The ocean is still, and Soul's mind is racing constantly, composing and imagining things faster than he can keep up with.

Maka seems to hover behind every streetlamp, just out of the corner of his eye, and he's going mad with it. Soul keeps finding himself in the yogurt shop, trance music pulsing softly in his ears, unsure as to how he got there. On Tuesday he swears he sees her through the library window, her face in a book, swaying to some unheard rhythm, but she's gone by the time he crosses the street.

"Storm soon!" says Sid when Soul stumbles back out of the library. Sid runs the funeral parlor down on the west side of the island, and right now his mouth is stretched in that wide, unnerving smile he has, a hammer hanging heavy and incongruous in his hand. "It'll be great!"

"Yes," Soul says, because he has nothing else. He's not even sure Sid is talking to him.

Sid laughs and claps a huge hand on Soul's shoulder.

"You'll see," he says. "I wouldn't lie to you; that's the kind of man I am!"

He backs away down the street, pointing the hammer reassuringly at Soul.

"Storm!" he says.

This island is nuts, Soul thinks. It's too hot, and Maka probably exists, and everybody is always saying strange things. Maybe he's going mad. Maybe that's what he needs to be to stay here.

For Soul, moving to Shibusen is the latest in a long line of desperate attempts to find somewhere of his own. He's always been the square peg who can't see that he doesn't fit until he's already put down roots. It hurts every time he leaves and sets up somewhere else. They say three times is lucky. They say third is the charm. He hopes they're right—he thinks if he gets attached to this island and has to leave, his roots are going to rip clean off.

There is a peal of laughter from the other side of the road, high and clear and pretty. It sounds nothing like what Soul remembers of Maka's voice, but he turns anyway, stupidly disappointed when he sees it's nothing more than a group of tourists gathering in front of the tea shop to exchange tea-related stories or something. He watches them for a moment longer, half-heartedly willing one of them to just magically become the girl he's looking for, until some teenagers come out of the library and force him to move away from the door to let them through.

He starts heading to the pub to meet Black*Star, baking under the sun. The air is thick and muggy, charged with the hint of something inevitable: the edge of a threatening storm.

"What do you know about water spirits?"

Black*Star drops his fistful of fries back into the basket and stares up at Soul. "What?"

Soul shifts his weight uncomfortably and glances around the pub—he feels weird about coming to his workplace on his day off, but it's Black*Star's favourite spot on the entire island, and he had said he'd wanted to "chill". Soul's reached some sort of breaking point; he can't let a little uncomfortableness at the idea of his coworkers overhearing him stop him from getting his answers.

"Water spirits," he repeats. "Are they...a thing?"

Black*Star squints at him, measuring him up. There's ketchup on his upper lip, smeared ridiculously like a mustache. Depending on how much Black*Star's willing to talk, Soul might tell him about it.

"Why are you asking me," Black*Star says, "when you've already met one?"

Soul blinks. Black*Star shrugs and takes a sip of his pint.

"How do you know that?" Soul asks. "They don't like...leave a mark on you or something, do they?" He hadn't seen anything off in the mirror these past few days, and he doesn't remember her touching him directly, but clearly he can't rule anything out.

"No!" Black*Star laughs. "Don't be an idiot. Maka's my best friend—she told me a couple days back that she met some asshole with a guitar by the east side of the island. Figured it was you, and you pretty much just confirmed it."

"What, and you just didn't tell me any of this?" Soul says, gaping. "I've been thinking I'm going crazy for days, and you knew about this?"

"She said you called her an illusion," Black*Star says, as if that settles anything.

"Well, yeah," Soul blusters. "She said she was a water spirit, come on, it was kind of a shock. Also, she was going on about my music and stuff—"

Black*Star snapped his fingers in Soul's face, and Soul reared back.

"See, that's your real problem, obviously!" Black*Star says. "You get real touchy about music. I asked you what kind of music you play last week and you almost bit my head off."

Black*Star's favourite types of music are country and hardcore metal—it isn't Soul's fault that he doesn't want to share his stuff with someone who won't get it.

"Forget the music!" Soul exclaims. "Water spirits?"

"I don't know what you want here," Black*Star says. "They exist. They live in the water around here and listen to the music and protect the island. They age just like us, so Maka's like...a year younger than me I think."

Soul squints at him over the salt shaker. Black*Star stuffs a few more fries in his mouth.

"And you're not fucking with me?" he asks. "They for sure are a thing?"

"Jesus, if you don't believe me, go to the library: they've got a whole section on water spirits. Or, better yet, go down to the docks tonight," Black*Star says. "Maka hangs out around there, and if you are as good at playing the guitar as she seems to think, she'll show up again, asshole or not. Then you'll see she ain't an illusion."

"You're an asshole," Soul says, flicking a fry at Black*Star's forehead.

"No," says Black*Star. "I'm a god."

"Don't throw food in my pub," Patti yells from across the room, a stack of dirty plates in her hands. "I'll fire your ass, Soul!"

It's the thirty-second time she's threatened to fire him for no reason, so Soul isn't exactly concerned. He flips her off, and she tries to return it before Tsugumi grabs her hand, pleading something about "language" and "daytime means family-friendly establishment".

"The only one who puts up with that 'I'm a god' stuff is Tsubaki," Soul says, returning to Black*Star. "And that's 'cause she's your girlfriend." Usually they're inseparable—the night Soul met Black*Star, Tsubaki was there to cart him out of the pub when he got too drunk, all apologetic smiles and bizarrely fond looks thrown in Black*Star's direction.

"It's 'cause I am a god," Black*Star says. "In bed."

Soul groans, and puts his face in his hands.

"Hey, if you're feeling backed-up, Maka's single, and you're not hideous. She'd consider you, as long as you stop acting like an asshole."

"Shut up," Soul mutters. He can still picture her bare shoulders, shining with water. Had she been naked? Were water spirits just always naked while swimming?

"And don't worry about anything not fitting—Tsubaki's half water-spirit. They have all the same stuff we do."

"Oh my god."

"Just don't tell Maka I told you she was free and looking, because she always goes on these 'I don't need your help getting dates, Black*Star, your hair looks stupid, Black*Star' type of rants—"

"Do you ever stop talking?" Soul says, lifting his head again.

Black*Star stares at him for a moment, and then bursts out laughing, half-chewed fries clearly visible in his open mouth.

"You sound like Kid," he says.

Soul steals a fry while Black*Star isn't looking. He thinks about how abrupt he was to Maka, thinks about the idea of "water spirits" and how everyone around here seems to accept it as completely normal. He thinks about her saying that they don't show themselves to tourists, thinks about homes and roots.

"You have ketchup on your face," he tells Black*Star.

"Where?"

Soul gestures vaguely, and Black*Star swipes under his nose.

"Did I get it?"

There's still half of it left.

"Yup," says Soul.

The moon is just a hazy silver slice in the sky that night. In the dim light there is no divide between the beach and the ocean; it's all one dark mass, and the dock is almost lost in it, showing up just as a smear of dark blue against the water. Soul hesitates in his kitchen for a long moment, looking out at the window, before he finally picks up his guitar.

He leaves his shoes in the cottage this time.

"Maka?"

He stands a couple feet back from the edge, wary of waves if she does appear. The dock is cool against his bare feet; it's forgotten the sun-warmth of the day. Coldness creeps up his body from the wood, and he shivers hard, once, twice, 'till something settles in him.

"Maka?"

There's no sign of her anywhere, and he feels stupid for yelling out at the ocean. She may be real, but that doesn't mean she's going to show up for some crazy boy she talked to once for five minutes. She probably has better things to be doing—magical creature things.

Soul sits down on the dock, cross-legged, and sets his guitar in his lap. He flexes his fingers, one by one, working up the courage, and then starts playing his song, the one he was figuring out when Maka first showed up.

It comes easy this time—it's been boiling in his mind for days, gaining edges and flesh and magic it didn't have earlier. He told her before that the song was him, but he feels a little like she's taken over it. The music's all tied up in the shape of her head and shoulders silhouetted against the water, and he can't seem to separateit.

The song doesn't have a proper end yet, so he moves into just noodling around, testing riffs and rippling chords out as the mesh clouds shift slowly across the sky. The moon gets covered, piece by piece, and the silence around him swells until it's a physical presence, pressing in on his fingers, turning them fumbling and weak. He switches to other songs: popular music, chord exercises, melodies Wes used to play, but his drive is gone, and he fades out slowly until he's just plucking at random strings.

The quiet is peaceful when he's not trying to compete with it. He sits, guitar familiar and warm against his legs, and tries not to think.

"You stopped."

She's there at the edge of the docksuddenly, and Soul focuses everything in him on not reacting like a startled squirrel. His heart is abruptly racing towards an early heart attack.

"Hello, again," he says. "Took you long enough."

"What, were you waiting?" she says, arching an eyebrow. Black*Star's words are too fresh in his mind, and he can't look away from the brightness of her wet skin. The dock hides everything below her collarbone; for a crazy second he imagines her hoisting herself onto the dock and doing the dramatic "Ariel from The Little Mermaid" pose, chest thrust out to the sky.

"No," he says, belatedly, realizing he's been silent a weirdly long time. "I wasn't."

"Okay," she says, clearly not believing him. "Are you going to play anymore, or should I go?"

He's reaching out a hand in a "stop" motion before he has any idea what he's going to say.

"Don't—I—you don't need to go yet," he stammers. "I mean, I—I'm probably done playing for the night, but we could talk...for a little. If you want."

He sounds stupid, but she hasn't left yet, so he counts it as a win.

"Have you been here the whole time?" he asks.

She shrugs. "Last time when I said hi early on, you stopped playing. Figured if I wanted to actually hear any music, I should stay silent."

"Do you live around this part of the island? Could you hear when I started playing?"

"Nah, I live a little farther down the coast," she says, pointing. "Where the cliffs and caves are. But I patrol the whole island around this time, so I heard your music when I was passing by."

"Patrol? Like...military?"

She doesn't look like military, but he knows better than to assume anything. For night shifts at the pub, Patti is the real muscle, not him.

"Kind of," Maka says, propping her arms on the edge of the dock and resting her head on them. "Different than human military stuff for sure. But I am in charge of protection for the island." She smiles, self-consciously pleased. "I got promoted this year when I turned twenty."

Promoted in some sort of underwater spirit military. Soul feels like he's going to explode with the idea of it, this otherworldly existence Maka has and speaks of so casually.

"What do you protect us from?" he says. Something in his own sentence trips him up, and he realizes he said "us" without even thinking about it, placing himself firmly with the island. The thought makes him warm.

"Oh, you know," Maka says, looking flustered for the first time since he met her. "Things. And stuff. Tidal waves, riptides, shark attacks. Water and weather related stuff. Things."

"Sounds important," Soul says. "What are you doing messing around talking to me?"

Maka pulls back from the dock and cocks her head, cat-like and confused.

"That's a good point," she says. "See you later!"

And she disappears below the edge of the dock with a tiny splash.

Soul stares at the spot where she used to be, thrown off completely by the suddenness of her departure. He pulls the guitar off of his lap and sets it aside, scuttling forward to curl his fingers around the lip of dock and peer out at the water. She can't have just left like that, can she?

He barely has time to register that there's something flying towards him before his vision is gone, water slapping over his whole face and soaking him instantly. He reels backwards, swiping a hand up to get it out of his eyes. He can hear that rattling, happy laugh of hers.

"Gotcha!" she chirps. He peels his eyes open, droplets of water stretching and streaking in front of his eyes, and she's there, a foot away, hazy and beautiful. "You didn't think I'd actually leave just like that, did you?"

"Fuck off," Soul says, grinning unwillingly. "I did not deserve that."

"Didn't you?" Maka says. "I seem to remember you telling me last time that I didn't exist, and didn't know anything."

Soul grimaces, slicking his wet hair off his forehead.

"Sorry about that," he says. "I—I've been told I get weird about my music. It's probably true."

"Probably?"

He shrugs. She's too close, all shining skin and questions. "After tons of people tell you it's shit, you get weird about it."

"I liked it though. Told you that."

"You—"

He stops, looking at her. She doesn't know anything about the world of music—of his famous brother and college and the walls and definitions of what "real music" are. She doesn't know anything about that, and suddenly he can see it as the freedom it is. Her eyes are glowing out through the dark, bright and waiting, and she can't point out how much of a failure he is because she has no idea what she's talking about.

"Yeah," he says slowly. "You did say that."

"So there's no need to get weird with me!" she exclaims triumphantly. "Play something else."

"I said I was probably done for the night, didn't I?"

She grins, all threatening, eager teeth.

"Probably?"

"I'm going to think you only like me for my music," Soul says, trying to flirt back. Is that what they're doing? Flirting? He wouldn't know; he's not "backed up" so much as "never fired".

"Who says I like you at all?" Maka ducks underwater for a second, like a diver snatching a moment of breath, before she appears again, freshly wet. "I don't even know you. Play me something."

"I—"

She's meeting his gaze head-on, curious and unafraid, only just visible through the screen of night. She right—she doesn't know him, and he doesn't know her, but music is the best bridge Soul's ever known. And he wants to know her.

He crawls back to his guitar, picks it up, and starts playing again. His fingers had only just gotten used to being away from the strings, and they burn, grounding lines of pain on his skin. The music is mindless; he focuses on her and makes it up as he goes along.

The night deepens; she watches him play and he turns her into music.

A month and a half ago, right before he catches the ferry to Shibusen, his brother calls him. Soul is on the walkway up onto the boat when his phone rings—he stops in the middle, suspended above the water and between his future and his past, with his phone vibrating like mad in his pocket. He plucks it out and stares at it. A bald man shuffles around him, coughing, a thick, wet sound that seems to come from deep inside his chest. Soul puts his phone back in his pocket and lets it vibrate for another minute until it stops.

Soul doesn't dislike Wes. Far from it. But he doesn't know what to say to him. Everything he might talk about always seems to already be in Wes' mouth. At the heart of it, Soul has never wanted to imitate Wes. He just wants to equal him.

On the ferry, Soul gets to talking to a woman who says she's heading to the island just to visit her family. She tells him about the junior soccer team she's coaching and her wife's garden—the perennials are doing nicely, apparently, and Soul doesn't tell her that he has no idea what that means.

"Shibusen's a lovely place," she tells him. "Famous for its music and its storms. There's always a big storm at the start of summer and it's something to see."

She tips her chin up, and her profile is a brief, tiny mountain range against the white sky.

"I expect it'll be as vicious as ever this year."

She smiles soothingly, suddenly.

"But it's perfectly safe there. Never fear. You say you're going to Shibusen for the first time? What are you hoping to get out of your trip?"

Soul can see the island in the distance, small and hopeful.

"I don't know," he says. "A job, I guess."

The ferry's horn lets out a long, mournful sound, announcing their approach.

"Well," the lady says. "You'll find more than that if you stay a little longer, I'm sure."