Together in A Minor

_______Together in A Minor______


Widened red eyes stared at the second hand ticking away.

“3:00 a.m”, the stricken boy thought to himself.

Trying to find a solution to such a problem seemed nearly impossible. His conscious. His madness. His room with that grand piano.

His own personal demon in his music room of hell was haunting his dreams.

As the clock continued, Soul’s idea of falling back asleep and letting his guard down was diminished after his most recent nightmare. And he knew that demon would be waiting for him; that he is waiting for him.

He pulled his feet over to the side of the bed to stand up. To tired to sleep and scared to remain still, he wandered around the small apartment that he shared with Maka. He felt too disoriented to do anything productive. All he could think of was that damn dream. His fingers pounding the ivories. The tall glass wall. That torn dress....

“Shit.” Soul thought to himself. The idea of studying came into his mind. "That’ll keep my busy till morning”

He stumbled into Maka’s room, slowly opening the door. He figured that reading notes that he didn’t write would occupy him. Unfortunately, his weariness was the cause of his downfall. Soul noisily tripped over her school bearings, waking Maka up.

“Hmm..........Soul?” she asked rubbing her eyes. “What are you doing? Get out of my room.”

Souls eyes were still wide from his exhaustion. “Sorry. I was getting notes. Go back to sleep.”

Maka turned on her light that sat upon her desk. She looked at him skeptically. He seemed distraught and his red eyes seemed worn out. “Wait a sec. Notes? Soul its like,” she looked at the clock hanging on her wall. “3 in the morning. Why do want to study?"

“Just wanna”

“Couldn’t you just used your own notes?”

“Didn’t wanna”

Maka became frustrated from his inability to get to the point. Soul nervously started rummaging through Maka’s school bag as Maka watched him. Her stare was filled with anxiousness but the awkward sense between them took up most of the attention. There was something that needed to be said, and it wasn’t coming into the open. Finally reaching the climax of being uncomfortable, Soul cracked.

“Aggghhhhh.” he mumbled to himself in defeat. He turned to face her “I couldn’t sleep. And I don’t want to. So I’m reading your notes.” He grabbed some random papers and started for the door.

“See you later” he said, feeling very uncomfortable.

“Why don’t you want to sleep?” Maka asked just as he was about to exit, ignoring the fact that he was about to leave.

Soul sighed.

"I just don't want to. Okay? I just...Agh forget it. Night Maka" he said slightly annoyed with himself and shut Maka’s door as he left the room.

Soul leaned his back up against her door, out of both relief and fear.

"Cool guys like me should at least know how to lie"

He stared at the quiet loft and the opening to his room, where his cursed imagination was allowed to run free. He didn’t wanna go back, but he couldn’t go back to Maka. Soul stayed up against the door for another 5 minutes, trying to figure out what he could do.

“Did.....did you have a bad dream or something, Soul?” Maka asked from the other side of the door. She somehow knew he was still there.

Soul remained outside, not knowing how or even if he should respond. He stared at the papers he grabbed. He had crumbled some way along his lying to Maka. He sighed and realized that he had been defeated. Soul closed his eyes and turned around.

Staring at the floor, Soul grabbed the door handle, and pushed into Maka’s room with a completely different persona from when he left it.

Maka looked at him with a concerned expression. She asked again. “Is that is Soul? You had a bad dream?”

Almost resembling a 5 year old in his embarrassment, Soul nodded. “Yeah. That’s it”

Maka smiled.  She patted the spot on her bed next to were she was lying and beckoned him to come sit down. He obeyed her orders and sat crossed legged next to her, refusing to look at her in the face.

“Tell me about it.”

“Jesus, Maka. I’m not seven. It’s not gonna go away just because I talk about it.”

She glared at him and said, “Well do you have a better idea?”

He was silent for a few seconds. His pink face muttered “God. Fine. I guess I’ll tell you. It starts off with me in the music room. The black and red one with the demon”

Maka sat up to listen better. She hugged her knees, anxiously waiting to hear about this dream.

He looked at her, a bit annoyed. She shouldn’t be this excited to hear about this fearful occurrence  -_-;. He began.
“I’m standing in the music room with the piano. This small demon puts on this record track that keeps skipping and pushes my legs towards the piano. I know that if I go to it, I’m gonna play it so I try to resist but he still gets me there. There’s this glass wall separating the front and the back of the piano. Standing on the back half and on the other side of the wall is a figure that keeps telling me to play, so I start.
As soon I start getting into it, the figure starts screaming and thrashing around and there’s blood all over the glass. I get this feeling that its from my playing, so I try to stop but I can’t. I started to scream at the figure, telling it to escape, but it won’t listen. It and the demon tell me to keep going. Next thing I know, pieces from a dress are scattered all over the place and-”

Soul stopped.

Maka had already caught on though.

“It was me? Your playing killed me?”

“....Yeah”

Maka stared out window for a few minutes.

"That's a little cliche, don't ya think?" she said with a slight smile.

"Not cool Maka." he said, pissed off.

“Hehe sorry Soul, just trying to lighten the mood. It’s just a dream. I mean, I'm right here, not dead" she said again with a slight giggle, trying to make him feel better.

“I know that.” he said, still not sounding to much like himself. “But it was the loss of control that scared me. That and the fact that I couldn’t get to you. Being away from you when you needed someone, and being the cause of that.” He paused. "Its really uncool."

His eyes widened. “Maka....What are you doing?”

On her knees, Maka had started to hug Soul. “I’m hugging you.”

“Well, stop it. It’s weird.”

“I’m trying to provide support!” she announced.

“Believe me, It’s NOT working. And its NOT cool. Lemme go” Soul broke free from her embrace.

“JEEZ! I’m just trying to be a good friend! I was just gonna tell you that you don’t have to worry about it so much! Didn’t we promise to always bring each other back if it ever got that far?”

“Yeah, and?”

“Well, before it ever gets thats far, I’ll bring you back. And you’ll bring me back too. We’ll be fine.”

Maka and Soul remained in silence, looking at each other. Then like a sneak attack, she forced him into another hug.

“AGGGGH! Let me go, you BITCH!” Soul shouted. He started to thrash around.

Maka just started to giggle as she said “You know, I really love you Soul”

Soul stopped thrashing and pulled back to look at her. He stared in disbelief. Not knowing quite what to say, he finally found the perfect expression to express himself in full.

“Buuuuuuuuulllllllshhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttt”

The infamous blue book of the Maka-Chop made another imprint on Souls head.

“Jerk!”

“It’s the truth. You don’t love me.” he said as-a-matter-a-factly.

Maka attempted to explain herself. She sat up and said “What I mean is that I don’t want us to ever be apart, like how we were in your dream. I always want you to know that I’ve got your back”

They both sat in silence for a minute or two. It was roughly 3:45 by this point. They were both exhausted. Maka turned off the light, figuring that Soul would be too freaked to sleep alone but too dumb to ask if he could stay.

Then the silence broke.

“Love you too, Maka. In that sense, I mean.”

Maka smiled in the darkness.

“Yeah I know” she said casually, like it was nothing at all.

Because it was nothing. It was nothing that neither of them didn’t already know. But at the same time it was everything. It was the secret to their success, their grip on their sanity, and the truest statement that will ever cross their lips.

It was their definition of home. Those 3 silly little words that so many people toss around so casually was the one phrase would hold them together.

“You’ll be okay sleeping now?” she asked him, clutching onto her pillow.

“Yeah I should fine. Thanks.” he said, holding onto the other end of the pillow.

“Oh Maka. I forgot to tell you something else.”

“What is it?” At this point, she just wanted to go back to sleep.

“I crushed your notes”

“...You’re an asshole”

“Thanks. Night Maka.”

“Night, you jerk.”

They both drifted into dreams while holding each others hand as the light of the blood toothed moon broke its way through the shutters. They dreamed of cats and Blackstar and Shibusen, but most of all they dreamed of a brightly lit music room with no demons, not threats, no glass walls, just a single piano as they both played the duet of Together in A minor.