AN: HERE WE GO! (Excaliburrr~) The first one of the batch. I am absolutely in love with these three and the relationship they have with one another, so I've decided to publish an ongoing series of drabbles about when they first started their partnership and are just learning how to adapt to one another in this new environment. They'll all start with the little blurb at the beginning (sort of like how every episode opens with Maka's "sound-soul-sound-mind-sound-body" line), because that's the only way I felt I could tie the stories together in the manner I wanted to.

I should note that I was pretty sick when I wrote this, so please excuse any stupid mistakes.

Well, that being said, this is my first Soul Eater fic, and I hope you enjoy. Reading means the world to me, and reviews make me one happy ducky, but don't feel too pressured to review if you don't want to.

Here's to looking at you, Kid.

... ~hit in the face with a rotten tomato~

When they had first met, all three of them had doubted their ability to adapt to one another. Liz and Patty lie on one side of the spectrum in both class and personality; Kid sat on an island he had made for himself miles and miles away. It was impossible to close up a hole like that.

Instead, they would have to build a bridge.

Liz couldn't remember how the conversation had started. All she knew was that it was both shocking and embarrassing, and it evidently had no end in sight.

"Of course I think you're beautiful," Kid said, resting hands resting on his knees and tilting his head back to look at Patty, who stood behind the couch with a grin. "Your hair is perfect, your clothing is perfect, your features are perfect. You are symmetrical." He stared at her with his usual expression of absolute disinterest, his eyes narrowed and accompanied by a slight frown. "You already knew that, didn't you? You just wanted to hear me say it."

Liz rolled her eyes and rested her elbow on the arm of the couch, putting her chin on her fist. It hadn't been that long since they'd partnered up with this obsessive little twitch, and already Patty was draped over him like she'd known him her entire life. And he was calling her beautiful.

Patty laughed loudly.

"And what about Sis?" She demanded, running a brush through Kid's hair, much to his chagrin. "You think I'm pretty..."

"No, I think you're beautiful," he corrected, swatting at her in vain as the brush came down upon him again. "Get it right."

Liz felt herself grimace.

"Sowwy," she apologized, and Liz knew that she didn't mean it. "But, is Liz as beautiful as me?" She picked up a lock of his hair to examine it for split ends, humming thoughtfully. "I always thought Sis was more beautiful than me."

"Patty, Kid's opinion doesn't count for anything when it comes to beauty," Liz said, leaning back against the couch with a sigh and secretly dreading his answer. "He doesn't see the world the way other people do, you know that." It was pretty damn obvious in her mind. They'd only known him for a month or so, and already she was absolutely convinced that this kid, this kid who lived alone in a mansion and needed everything perfectly symmetrical, viewed the world through goggles of distortion. He couldn't possibly see things the way she saw them - she saw reality - and he most definitely didn't see Patty's sugar-coated wonderland, a place where everything was beautiful and everyone was safe.

But Kid wasn't hearing it. He turned his head to look at her, pursing his lips thoughtfully.

"She looks pretty symmetrical to me," he said decisively. "Beautiful. Not absolutely perfect, but... I suppose she's close enough." He sat upright, and his hair slipped out of Patty's relaxed grip. "Humans cannot be perfect. It's one of the many laws of nature. I'm sure, if given the chance, I could find something imperfect about the two of you, besides the way you hardly match at all in your human forms." He looked towards Patty again, then to Liz, and smirked harmlessly.

Liz was surprised to realize that she actually felt offended. "Oh, yeah?" She challenged, leaning forward to stare her meister right in the face. "I suppose a Shinigami can be perfect, then, huh?" She paused a moment to calm herself down, but it only served to let her anger grow. "Sorry we're not good enough for you, Mr. Perfect. Maybe you should just keep us in our weapon forms so you can show us off better. Then again, we may never be as beautiful and symmetrical as the half-striped Shinigami, so why even bother?"

Silence followed. Liz sat back and folded her arms, satisfied; but once she noted the look of confusion on Patty's face, and the stricken - hurt, even? - expression that Kid held, her self-importance melted away. Say something, she urged him mentally, but he was silent - she opened her mouth to gloat, then thought better of it, and the silence marched on.

Kid stood up.

"Kid, I'm sorry," she began, but he waved her off.

"It's alright," he said, and he began to walk off towards the adjacent room. "I'll be right back."

Liz bit her lip. And then Patty laughed.

"What's so funny, Patty?" Liz demanded, glaring at her sister. "I think I really hurt his feelings..."

"That's what's funny," Patty said matter-of-factly, waving the brush in Liz's face. "Sis broke her own rule. Sis said, 'watch what you say to him, Patty, 'cause we don't know him and we don't know how he'll react.' That's what Sis said to Patty."

Liz fell silent.

"And," Patty continued, draping her top half over the back of the couch with a giggle, "Sis knows that Kid doesn't like himself too much, doesn't she? Kid always says..." And she stood upright with her hands in their meister's signature 'finger quotes of symmetry' pose, deepening her voice as she let the brush drop to the floor. "'I'm trash, I don't deserve to live, please put me on the curb on garbage day.'" She clasped her hands in front of herself and grinned like it was all a big prank. "Right? Isn't that what Kid always says, Sis?"

"Oh, God." Liz smacked her palm against her forehead. "He's probably hanging himself or something... Come on, Patty. He could use some of your cheer." She hated it when Patty was right...

"Okie!" Patty agreed. She was always completely agreeable, always willing to help. Completely selfless...

That was what made Patty beautiful. And Kid was incapable of seeing it.

Liz found Kid sitting before a long full-body mirror, clenching the stripe-covered side of his hair tightly within his fist. She peered cautiously around the corner with Patty in tow, frowning at the sight - the poor kid was completely disheveled now, as if he'd given himself a thorough examination to pick out his every flaw.

"Hey," she said quietly, trying not to startle him. He looked up from where he crouched before his mirror image, looking a fair bit more distressed than before.

"Liz." There was no affection in his voice.

"Listen, I'm sorry about what I said to you - really," she said, stepping into the room fully. Patty peeked around the corner but didn't say a thing, smiling to herself. Some help she turned out to be... "... We don't know you that well. We don't have the right to judge you from what we've learned so far, and--"

"People are only bothered by things they think are true." Kid stood and unclenched his fist, his hair falling back into place. "Right?"

Liz nodded.

"I had no right to call you imperfect," he began. "I am in no place to talk... Look at me." His arms spread, and he stretched his elegant hands towards her, palms up, in a manner that reminded her of the first time they had met, when he had rescued them off of the streets of Brooklyn.

What a fantastic boy he was. His compassion, his love for them that was only birthed from a month's time, made him beautiful. And he was blind to it.

"I am the son of the Death God... And half of my hair is completely asymmetrical. A being like me..." He clenched his fists and glanced to the floor. "... Can never be beautiful." Tears filled his eyes, as they were apt to do in the time before one of his fits of self-hatred.

Patty giggled against the stab of guilt Liz felt in her gut.

"Kid," she said, pacing towards him as if approaching a frightened animal. He dropped his fists to his sides and looked up at her through his bangs. "Things can be beautiful without being symmetrical..."

This made him look up at her fully, his eyes uncharacteristically wide, as if he were in awe.

It was like that had never occurred to him before.

"Personally?" Liz flashed him a sincere grin. "I think you're very beautiful."

"Me, too," Patty offered from the doorway, giggling and clapping her hands together. "Kid is very handsome!"

Kid stared at them.

"In fact," she said, bending in order to put a finger under his chin and tilt his head upwards, "you're one of the closest things to perfect I've ever seen, even with those stripes."

His lip trembled.

"Liz, Patty..." He said quietly, looking up at Liz with a sudden expression of comprehension. Liz wondered for one brief and wonderful moment that perhaps he saw past her asymmetrical flaws - and his own - for the first time.

"... You don't have to pity me."

Or not.

"I know I'm trash," he said, pathetic and self-pitying, his tone wavering with tears. He pushed Liz's hand away and turned his back to her, then slowly sank to his knees, sobbing on all-fours into the plush carpeting. "Just... Just throw me away with the garbage in the kitchen. I'll go quietly. A being like me doesn't deserve last words!"

Liz paced over to the wall and hit her forehead against it.

"I thought I may have actually gotten through to him, Patty," she mumbled, disappointed. "I thought I may have helped him! It's been a month already, and he's still like this, even with our help..."

Patty laughed loudly and, scampering to kneel at Kid's side, beamed optimistically up at her older sibling. "Don't feel too sad yet, Sis!" She patted Kid on the back. "We still got a whole lotta time together. Forever, actually!"

Liz picked her head off of the wall.

... She hated it when Patty was right.

Still, they could make this work yet. Liz felt herself smiling. Surely, they could turn this into something beautiful.