Author's Notes- So I decided I needed a place to collect my random-ass SoMa ficlets that don't really belong anywhere else and don't quite work as standalones. Probably a lot of it will be requests (the first few I'm uploading here are prompts I got on Tumblr that were supposed to be three sentences long and kinda got out of hand, for instance), but it's just sort of... whatever. AU, UA, canon-verse, whatever.

So let's kick if off with a little college AU, shall we? There may be more of this AU forthcoming, we shall see...

Roommates

Soul scanned the numbers on the doors, counting up to the apartment number circled in the classified ad. Number 64, Floor 5. It wasn't the nicest apartment complex in town, but 4200 Forty-Second Street wasn't exactly a dump, either. He wouldn't mind living here in the slightest.

He'd spotted the ad in the paper yesterday: female, 20, seeks roommate, must be quiet and tidy. Well, he wouldn't describe himself as tidy so much, but he wasn't a slob either, and he was definitely quiet. And it wasn't like he had a whole lot of other options going for him. Having a female roommate hadn't been his ideal choice, but he could make it work if she was up for it. He needed to get out of the dorms, stat.

Soul had been planning on living with Black Star but then the idiot had to go and get engaged and move in with his fiancee, which was something Soul honestly couldn't understand. Black Star had never struck him as the domestic type but now here he was picking out matching potholders for his and Tsubaki's kitchen. It seemed crazy. But then, as 'Star had told him (repeatedly), he'd never exactly been in love so he wasn't in a position to judge. If being with her made the little guy happy, then Tsubaki could have all the embroidered tea cozies she wanted, Soul supposed.

He could've lived with some of his other guy friends, but Kilik and Harvar and their weird friend with the haircut were already in a three-bedroom apartment. Sure, they offered to move into a four-bedroom in the same building, but they'd been living in their apartment for a year by the time he decided dorm life was not his thing, and he didn't want to uproot them just to do him a favor. He could have hypothetically gotten a place of his own, but that would have meant asking his parents for money and he wasn't going to do that unless his life literally depended on it.

Hence his current adventures, running all over town trying to find a roommate who'd be willing to put up with his useless ass.

Finding the right apartment at last, he knocked. The door swung open promptly.

"Hey, sorry to just drop by, but, uh, I'm here about the room-" he began to explain, but when he got clear look at the blonde in the doorway, he did a double take. "Hang on, I know you," he said. "Maka, right?"

She squinted at him. "Yeah, how did you…? Wait, you're friends with Blake and Kilik, right?"

Soul nodded, grinning. This had suddenly taken a turn for the better. They had mutual friends, had been dragged along on mutual group outings, and although they'd never spent much time together, he knew enough of her to think well of her.

"Name's Soul," he told her. "We also had a few classes together freshman year, too, I think."

"Biology. And Intro to Statistics."

Soul made a face and, to his surprise, so did she.

"I hated stats," she confided.

"Same," he said.

He took a moment to look her over. She didn't seem to care that it was early spring and still chilly (either that or the heating in this building was way better than dorms), because she was in tiny little short-shorts and a tank top that didn't leave much to the imagination. Not that there was much there to begin with, but Soul had always been more of a leg man and speaking of her legs…

Danger, Will Robinson, do not ogle your potential future roommate.

Since his eyes were already halfway through the trip down those mile-long legs of hers, he figured he might as well go the rest of the way, and found himself staring at a pair of black and purple striped fuzzy socks with little sparkly purple pom-poms on the bands. They were an unlikely contrast to the aura of sexy the rest of her exuded, and Soul found it strangely cute. She scrunched up her toes and cleared her throat loudly.

"Any reason you're staring at my feet?" she asked.

Aw shit, she was gonna think he was some kind of weird foot-fetish guy. Not cool. Time to salvage the situation. "Nice socks," he said, giving her a cheeky smirk.

She colored and glared at him. "The floor is cold," she informed him tartly.

"So I see." He ran a hand through his hair, not sure why he felt so nervous all of a sudden. "Anyway, like I was saying, I saw you were advertising for a roommate, and… uh… I'm kinda in the market for a place to live myself, so…"

She bit her lip, looking him over thoughtfully. Then she sighed. "Come in," she said, opening the door wider.

It was a nice place. The floors were all broad ceramic tile, the nice kind with pretty-colored grout in between and not the gross speckled kind that they always put in schools and public bathrooms. Certainly much better than the linoleum in his old dorm. It was an open floor plan, with three doors leading off into what he assumed were bedrooms and a bathroom. Recessed lighting gave the whole place a bright, homey feel, and from what he could see, her furniture looked comfortable. Soul found himself hoping he'd end up living here, and not just because he'd get to have a hot roommate but because it actually was a pretty nice apartment, even if it wasn't in the best neighborhood (not terrible, but not really walk-alone-at-night territory either).

"So this is the place. I'd show you the room, but my current roommate isn't here right now and her bedroom's usually a disaster zone," she informed him.

He shrugged. "I've probably seen worse."

"No, I mean… Blair's great, but just trust me when I say you don't want to see some of the things she leaves lying around. She has… um… interesting appetites."

The way she said it made Soul think she might not be talking about food.

Maka rolled her eyes, then sobered and, with a serious look, told him: "Listen, I don't mean to offend you, but I wasn't really looking to live with a guy."

"Yeah, I wasn't thinking about living with a girl, either," he said. "But I'm running out of options."

"Black Star said he was gonna live with you, wasn't he?" Maka asked.

Soul nodded. "But then he went and got engaged, so there goes that plan."

Maka rolled her eyes. "Poor Tsubaki, I'm still trying to figure out what she sees in him, and I've known him forever!"

"You guys went to high school together, right?"

She nodded, then stared at the floor for a second, apparently deliberating. "Look, like I said, I really wasn't looking to live with a guy, but… Black Star thinks you're great, and he might be an idiot but he's a good judge of character. So if you really want the spare room… we could maybe spend the next couple of months getting to know each other, and if we think we could live together by the time Blair moves out in May, the room's yours."

Soul resisted the urge to jump for joy.