Ch 4

Soul and Maka sat across from each other eating their breakfast in silence. Maka was calm on the inside but was dying of mortification on the inside. What was worse was the white-haired idiot had a permanent smirk on his face like he couldn't be more pleased with life. She felt anger well up in her chest again but felt it disappear when he caught her staring, again. She looked away quickly and hated herself for not being strong enough to stop the pink from forming in her cheeks. To her fury, instead of ignoring it like he should have, his smirk widened further and screamed self satisfaction then he returned to devouring his meal. The red in her cheeks quickly changed representation from embarrassment to rage. Rage towards her partner but more towards herself. Despite her anger being mostly directed at herself she would take the opportunity to chop Soul again for it, if it didn't mean destroying both their breakfast and the room to get to him.

How could this have happened? How did she not see it happening? She wasn't sure how but it had to be his fault. She had come to the academy to be the strongest meister ever! Her sole purpose in life for years had been to make the strongest death scythe ever known. Fate had even smiled on her (or so she had thought) by giving her an actual and literal 'scythe' to work with. For years she had focused only on her work and making Soul stronger. Now fate had shown her how cruel it could be. Somehow, she had fallen in love with her loyal partner.

Maka sighed heavily. After all her hard work and determination she had still followed perfectly in her mother's footsteps and made the same mistake which filled her with both terror and an odd mixture of empathy and sympathy for her mother. Again, however, there was no way she could let Soul know. The last thing she wanted was for her relationship with him to end up the same as her parents' had. Soul had always reassured her that he wasn't like her father and she did trust him but she just couldn't bring herself to indulge. Soul would always be her best friend and ridiculously loyal weapon and nothing more. This ultimatum to herself saddened her more than she thought it would and she took a deep breath steadying breath to help strengthen her resolve.

"What's up Maka? You've been sighing into your breakfast every minute for the last fifteen."

The sound of Soul's voice shocked Maka back from her thoughts of self loathing.

"N-Nothing… Just… still tired I guess." She lied, stuttering from surprise. Soul raised an eyebrow at her in clear suspicion. For a moment they just stared at each other in silence. Then Soul broke his gaze with a shrug before standing with his empty plate and lazily strolled into the kitchen.

"Better hurry and finish or we'll be late." He drawled, disappearing into his room to finish preparing for class. Maka just watched as she sat stiffly. Since when did he care about being late? Usually he carried the attitude of 'we'll get there when we get there'. She had half a mind to ask who this man was and what he had done with her beloved weapon. She watched him disappear from view then realized she had been staring with her mouth open. She regained her senses and hurried to the kitchen to drop off her dishes and the remains of her meal and to finish her morning preparations.