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"I'm going out for a bit. I'll probably be late, so dinner's on you."
Soul glanced up from his position, face very well buried into the cheap velvet couch cover to glance towards where his meister stood. Her back was turned to him, fiddling on her shoes with a supportive hand on the doorknob when he spoke. "Woah, so mysterious. Finally gonna find a new roommate who can tolerate your snoring, huh?"
When Maka didn't answer, he stirred, frowning before launching a throw pillow in her direction. She caught it expertly, and Soul braced himself for a counterattack with a coy, toothy grin, but the blonde simply tossed it back into his arms, her lips twitching into what he assumed was an effort to not smile. He groaned, finally sitting up fully as his gaze met hers, "Seriously not gonna tell me, Maks? Cold. My heart.. it- it's freezing over..." The shark-toothed weapon suddenly gasped, clutched his chest in feigned agony with a whimper, half-struggling to keep up the act as Maka erupted into a bout of giggles above him when he collapsed to the ground, weakly grasping toward her.
The meister leaned down to his level, and Soul's breath caught in his throat when he got a better glimpse at her face. Her cheeks glowed with mirth now, and the gentle scent of the strawberry lipgloss that framed her smile made him purse his lips; The same lipgloss that Spirit had gifted her for Christmas the year before, the same that he'd watched her fish out of the wastebasket after she loudly berated her father out of their apartment. It made Soul smirk.
"Not anything sneaky. I just.. might look a little bit different this afternoon, that's all." Maka offered with a tuft of his snowy locks between her fingers. The sound of her voice brought him back to earth, and Soul nodded absentmindedly before her words fully rendered in his brain. The hell does 'different' mean? He guessed the confusion showed on his face, because she frowned, only lacing her fingers through his hair once more. Soul silently applauded himself for coming up with a quip that would piss her off, and fast, because the shorter girl had risen from her spot beside him to reach the knob. She offhandedly gestured to the house phone sitting on the mantle, then to her own in her back pocket.
"Ohh, I get it now. You're takin' my advice and getting one of those fancy procedures so that you'll finally have some curves, huh? Am I right?" The words sounded more venomous when he said them out loud, but it was Maka, and he knew to immediately shield his head from the (well deserved) wrath that'd follow.
But it never came. She simply rolled her eyes good-naturedly and waved him off, murmuring an almost incoherent 'don't wait up' as she closed the door behind her.
Okay. That was weird. Maka would never give up the chance to split his skull open early in the morning, especially after making a comment about her appearance. He almost thought to chase her down the complex stairs and shake her upside down to find out what she did with the real Maka, but a hum from the breast pocket of his t-shirt stopped him.
A bright blue text from Black Star asking--no, demanding to meet him at the basketball court in five minutes, followed by a slew of seemingly unrelated emoticons was able to give the usually calm demon scythe an excuse to royally chill out. He sent a simple thumbs up in response and slid over to their surprisingly neat shoe rack, courtesy of Maka, deciding that worrying about his partner's personal affairs was totally uncool and filed it as a later-Soul-problem.
-
Later-Soul-problems had turned into now-Soul-problems. He could barely focus on the basketball game at all, earning well deserved complaints from his teammates as the ball was taken directly out of his hands, setting them back now 3 points. But his mind was still restless with thoughts of the meister's cryptic words.
What if all of his insults over the years had finally gotten to her and she returned with full facial reconstruction surgery? He couldn't let that happen, he liked her face the way it was, though he'd never admit it. What if she had gotten sick and tired of him calling her short and decided to wear stilts for the rest of her life? What if Black Star at long last convinced her to actually tattoo an image of his face onto her face?? The thought made Soul's head swim, and he declared a timeout with his hands, iliciting a cluster of groans from the players.
Black Star, on the other hand, had no complaints; the insanely proud assassin had apparently convinced himself that he'd conveniently gotten better, not noticing Soul's lack of attention in the slightest. "What's the matter, Soul, you chickenin' out?!" A plethora of bird noises erupted from the boy in between fits of laughter.
His friend's taunts hardly registered in Soul's brain, stepping off of the tarmac as he ripped his cellphone from his pocket.
His thumbs were drumming to the rhythm of each ring before he even registered pressing her contact. The boy didn't even know why it was stressing him out so much. It was just Maka, they live together for Death's sake, it's not like he wouldn't ever see her again. Just Maka. Always impulsive, never-planning-weeks-ahead-Maka.
Totally.
Reality sets in when he finally hears her voice on the other line, and Soul is dumbfounded. His tongue is limp in his mouth, he doesn't even remember why he called her.
"Whuh.. hey." He fumbles, and her laugh seems to ring out for minutes. "Whuhh... hi." She echoes. Smartass. "I was just, yeah, calling. You- um, you almost done? I'm out of the house, I can probably meet you halfway?" Dumbass. Black Star's shouts grow farther behind him. He can hear the smile in her voice still. "Mm, nah, it's fine. I already finished up over here." Soul's lips purse, and somewhere in his chest his soul pulses. When his eyes finally find her, she's half-leaning on the park bench, probably watching the not so subtle breakdown he's having.
If he doesn't notice it at first, the sarcastic wolf whistles that erupt from the makeshift basketball team surely help.
Maka's newly non-frizzy hair falls to her chin at a blunt cut, framing the glowy smile that she is biting back. Her bangs look as if someone went to them with a pair of scissors not meant for technicolor construction paper. She looks like a coconut. She looks pretty.
Soul tries to think of a clever remark when he makes his way to her, something about plain-janes, or the fact that in the 5 years he's known her, this is the most ambitious thing she's ever done. His body has other plans though, and its quiet as he brings his hand up to her hair, fingers surgically threading through a tuft of ash blonde. When he twists the strands against the pads of his index and thumb, it's soft. It's exactly the same. "This is it?" Maka looks at him, wide and shiny and green and he reminds himself to blink; She lifts calloused fingers to his and nods, "This is it."
Soul feels his muscles relax, dropping his head onto her shoulder exhaustedly. "Thank Death."