Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater nor the quote taken from the book One Day by David Nicholls.

Just Kidding
by. Poisoned Scarlett

This is what happens when he's kept to himself and there is no one in the room and Maka is in her bedroom, curling her hair and slipping into a black cocktail dress and wiggling her cute little feet into heels that will bring out her ass and, in turn, bring in all the boys like honey does to bees.

He thinks.

The amount of thinking he does when he's alone is too damn high sometimes.

And all he can really think about right now is just how naturally, simply, effortlessly beautiful she really is. By she, he means Maka – Maka Albarn, top of her class, never lost a sparing match since she turned fifteen, the girl who likes trance music and guiltily indulges in sappy romance novels when she thinks he isn't looking. Who likes her tea mildly sweet, who likes her milk warm, who likes to stretch until her bones crack and who utters the softest of moans when she does.

She has an awkward charm, the type that's both endearing and laughable. She has the type of gravitational pull that lures you in slowly, without warning, before pulling you in all at once. And even then, as it begins to dawn to you that you have, indeed, been sucked out of what has once been you and only you and thrown into the harsh environment of her and only her, you can't find it in yourself to back away from it.

She's beautiful but not in the most conventional of ways. She does not have a perfect personality that shines through above all else – nor is she perfection in a quaint box. She does not have a laugh comparable to the chorus of angles nor does she have a buxom body that is more than qualified to be on the cover of a playboy magazine. But she does have a smile that can light up an entire room and long legs that can turn heads. She does have hair that, when loose, falls softly down her slim shoulders, the tips curling with the humidity in the air, and when up in their twin pigtails, carry gently in the exhausting hot air of Nevada. She does have a laugh that can brighten his most darkest days and she does have this awkward, dorky, nerdy, absolutely charming sense of humor that involves her messing up the punch line and being unable to get the joke out because she's laughing too hard.

She does have skin that's pale and soft despite the harsh climate; skin that, when it touches his own, elicits an abnormal reaction that involves the hard thumping of his heart and staccato breathing. It's skin that, if she's not careful, he may love over and over again because at this point he's too far in that vortex of love, unrequited. He's too far in to even think about getting out, to even hope of escaping.

Then there are her eyes – eyes green like jade, so vibrant in their shade that sometimes he thinks they're not real. She has doll eyes, pretty and glimmering with an internal light. He would tell you she's a doll herself, if you had the chance to ask him when he's very, very drunk. She doesn't like them, though, her eyes. She says they're too big on her face and the color is too strange to be normal – much less moderately attractive. It's not a conventional type of green, the translucent green that many of the other girls in their school have. Her green is more intense, the color of grass on a lawn or the pigment of leaves when they're at their prime.

But he calls her stupid when she brings up her issues with her eye color.

His are red.

Enough said.

Then there's her temper problems. If there is one thing to know about Maka Albarn, it is her uncontrollable, often scorching, temper when she's pissed. Sometimes you can't tell what it is that's set her off but just know that when she has been set off, she's unstoppable. No force in hell can stop her rampage and he is often at the brunt of it. Most people - men especially - would not stay for longer than a week after experiencing her temper. In fact, most people would avoid her if he wasn't there to absorb the denting impact of her rage because no one wants to deal with anger. It's one of the few things that can successfully excommunicate you from the world. The next being a murderer and the next being a drug addict.

But he doesn't mind.

He actually finds it incredibly sexy.

Don't ask him why.

He's not so sure himself but he thinks it has to do with the fact that her face when she's about to murder him eerily resembles her face when she's fucking him in his dreams. Eyes dark and cloudy, her cheeks flushed, her chest heaving, and her teeth sinking into her bottom lip hard enough to make them red; swollen.

Yeah. That might be why.

And she has so much baggage for a girl whose only just become a woman. She has so much weight on her shoulders – from being a vital asset to DWMA to her flawed father – that someone with enough sense would not stick around. They would not go for her, damaged little girl Maka Albarn. In fact, if you looked carefully to any one whose tried, you would be able to see their hand snaking behind them to grab the metaphorical door handle and make a run for it because, honestly, who wants to be stuck for the rest of forever with a girl whose bitter and sweet and all the complications that come with having trust issues wrapped into one tiny package?

He does.

But perhaps the tainted blood that runs through his veins has done its damage. Perhaps he really isn't mentally sane and perhaps he should take up Professor Stein on that offer about getting a therapy session or two with the school psychologist. But regardless of his mental health and his ability to make rational decisions, he cannot fathom a future without a tiny girl with too much strength in her arms and too much knowledge in her head not whacking him on the head whenever he makes an obscene comment.

There is no future if there is no Maka.

And it's so simple for him, really, it doesn't take any brain power at all. The sentence is so simple: no Maka, no life. It's quite easy to understand but when he does take that offer to see the school psychologist and this tiny little sentence slips from his mouth unbidden, the reaction is more uneasy concern than it is nonchalant acceptance. Because, apparently, it isn't healthy to be so focused on a single person.

It isn't healthy to want someone with such ardency.

Maka. Maka. Maka.

No Maka? No Life.

She thinks he has a co-dependency problem. She thinks that it is largely due to the fact that the black blood has affected his ability to perceive things as they really are; to determine right from wrong. Madness has a strange way of affecting the psych, she tells him soothingly, but there are ways to remedy the damage done.

But she also thinks it might have to do with something in his past that he cannot let go of and she pencils him in for another session. But first, she suggests he should try to do things on his own. The big punch line is: he has been doing everything on his own. He has been doing everything on his own for too long. He has always been on his own in his own way, from as far back as he can remember, and this time – this chapter in his life – is the only time when he hasn't been ( hasn't felt ) alone to brave through it all. She has been there, beside him, with him, the assuring weight of her palm in his palm, since he took that risk and partnered up with her when they were younger.

She has been there.

She has always been there.

So it is safe to assume she will always be there, right?

He doesn't go for that next appointment because that psychologist needs to get her head checked herself. He doesn't have a problem – he lacks one. He lacks a problem; his life is too easy, too flowing. That is not counting the missions, the near-death experiences, the fact that his shoes no longer fit well and his shirts are starting to seem a little too tight around his shoulders. He lacks a problem, however, he lacks a real problem and for once in his life he can sleep on the couch without worrying about that problem.

He doesn't have to worry about studying; about how his tutors will tell his parents how much lack of restraint he has and how he will never compare to his brother.

He doesn't have to worry about playing the right pieces; about how light the piece is, how his fingers move accordingly, how straight his posture is, how hard he's hitting the key, how in time the piano is to his brothers violin.

He doesn't have to worry about saying something to ruin the family image.

He doesn't have to worry about ruining the family image at all.

He doesn't have to worry about being like his brother, about trying to be like his brother, about trying to simply fit in to this hard-to-reach standard that his mother and father set up for him since birth. He doesn't have to worry about becoming a full-fledged Evans because he is no longer an Evans – he's Eater.

Soul Eater.

Evans is just an attachment now.

He doesn't have to worry about anything at all now except ensuring that his meister is always there, safe.

So that psychologist? She should pencil herself in for a session.

But, then, what does he know?

He's got madness in his veins, remember?

"You look fine, Maka," Soul drawls when he hears her stop a few steps away from him again. She's pacing, a thing she does when she's nervous. His arms are behind his head and his legs are crossed at the ankle, the epitome of cool. She tosses him a dark look over her shoulder, fixing the chopsticks in her hair for the fifth time that night. His eyes drift to the clock and he knows Black Star will be here soon to wreck havoc before the DWMA end-of-the-year party. He sent him a text saying so just a few minutes ago.

"I think I should've worn the other one," Maka mutters, self-consciously. She presses a hand on her thigh and his eyes follow the movement faithfully. He darts his eyes back up when she looks at him then back at the dress and then back at her reflection on the television screen. "This one's too tight…"

"Nah."

"It feels tight," Maka insists.

"Nah."

"I'm going to change!"

"...Nah."

"Ugh! What would you know about dresses?" Maka bristles.

"A lot more than you," he snorts. He sits up, a smirk starting to curl his lips. Her skin, her eyes, her hair. She'll have the boys panting again, like dogs in heat. "Keep it on. The dress actually looks good on you. You don't look like a stick and it looks like you have boobs, too. You… look beautiful, Maka."

She startles at the sincerity in the last few words and her eyes light up hopefully. There is a hue of red on her cheeks and he thinks this is why he's so stuck on everything she is. "R-really?"

"Nah," he smiles, slyly. He reclines on the couch as she growls and reaches behind her, to the book he already knows is there. He's ready to take his punishment for being a jackass like a champ.

"I'm just kidding."