making love to you was never second best
Title: Not A Date
Author: veterization
Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater.
Rating: PG-13
Warning: N/A
Genre and/or Pairing: Soul/Kidd
Word Count: ~3,100
Summary: If there was one thing Soul wasn't, it's symmetrical. Which is why it surprised him that Kid had taken an interest in him. Not that they're dating. It's all the mistletoe's fault, New Year's fault, and symmetry's fault.
If there is one thing Soul Eater Evan wasn't, and never would be, it was symmetrical.
He never bothered parting his hair equally, let alone even combing it in the first place. It didn't irk him when his clothing didn't match or when he missed a button on his pockets on his jeans. In his room, paintings hung off their nails at awkward angles, swinging like pendulums. He never bothered finding corresponding socks. And some people even told him that his smile was crooked.
So it seemed almost questionable when a boy so fixated on his addictive need to have everything on his body and in the vicinity be symmetrical took an interest in him.
Although he didn't like to admit it, Soul expected Kid to scream and wither every single time his eyes fell upon the muddle of an asymmetric mess Soul was.
Even his personality didn't mesh well. Soul was young enough to have contradicting sections of his brain clashing at all times, as though he had two polarized behaviors in his sleeve, not alike in the least.
Symmetry, Soul was convinced, was invented by a man who combed his mustache twice a day and made his own bed. Symmetry was created for the pure sake of those who needed things orderly and unspeakably meticulous, and Soul couldn't care less about arranging his furniture and school books in methodical fashions.
Kid did.
He remembered the first day he had witnessed Kid in class, not being able to concentrate on the lesson in the least bit simply because a painting was a few unnoticeable centimeters off its center of balance on the wall. After Patti and Liz had efficiently calmed and bullied Kid back to tranquility, he had spent practically the whole remaining class writing the letters of his name in infallible symmetry.
Soul couldn't concentrate in that class either.
In all candor, Death the Kid pissed Soul off. Probably more than Black Star and his constant need for competition and triumph, and Maka's fussing. Almost everything Kid did, it made the pulse points on Soul's head twitch.
He was a very laid back boy, composed in the most chaotic of situations with what was either well-feigned nonchalance or an impenetrable coolness that flowed through his blood. Kid was freakishly uptight. He sat straight, he wrote neatly, and even his daily wardrobe was chosen with the utmost of precision.
It drove Soul mad. Perhaps it was his temper, perhaps it was his rage, or perhaps Kid was just that annoying, but Soul couldn't stand to be in the boy's presence for longer than an hour.
He had only assumed that Kid shared the mutual but unspoken infuriation for him as well. His recklessness, his sloppiness, and best of all, his asymmetry, were all things that would easily send Kid into an early grave.
Which is why it was more than astonishing that Death the Kid himself had asked Soul if he wanted to drink coffee after school without the copious company of their other friends tagging along.
And Soul had agreed.
It was stretching it to say that every single time two people were alone they were experiencing a date, but there was coffee. Coffee in cups. On saucers. After school. They had never exactly exclusively spent time with one another without the company of others following as well.
There had been a surprising lack of awkward silences. There had been a surprising lack of overactive OCD on Kid's part. A surprising lack of uncomfortable twitching on Soul's part.
Still, Soul was convinced that his evidence still wasn't grounds for calling their meet a date. Pretty girls and boisterous boys went on dates, where girls wore skirts that were too short and boys wore ties. And no one was wearing ties, and there was certainly no one wearing skirts.
But there had been biscuits. Freshly baked. There had been enjoyable conversation. There had been actual laughter. And of course, there had been kisses. Good kisses.
Soul still didn't consider it a date.
He simply didn't consider Death the Kid quite as annoying anymore.
--
By the second occurrence, there had been suspicion in Soul's head about his and Kid's intentions. Mostly because it was him who had initiated the whole thing this time.
He blamed the intense bore of Stein's class that day on it, of course.
He walked out his with eyes half-lidded and a yawn escaping his lips, which had prompted Kid to reach out from beside him and grab his chin with a firm thumb.
"Hey," he said sharply, "don't fall asleep."
Soul blinked wearily in Kid's direction, a lazy smile forming on his lips.
"You wanna wake me up?"
The second after the proposition had slipped from Soul's tongue, he felt his teeth practically biting it off. It had been Kid who had shown the obvious interest, initiated friendly meetings and provided coffee while the two of them were frighteningly alone, not Soul. It had been Kid who had always grabbed Soul's shirt in his fingers and pressed their lips together tongue first, not Soul. Or so he thought.
Both Soul and Kid had blinked at the comment, Kid in contemplation, and Soul in utter shock. But it was too late for regret when he felt Kid shrug and smile at the offer.
"Why not." There was a glint in Kid's eyes - definitely a trait he inherited from his father - that vaguely frightened Soul. He mentally prayed he hadn't sealed his own doom with his suggestive question, but before his prayers could be properly answered he had been hauled off and spent the next half hour with Kid in the nearest bathroom stall.
He wanted to be sorry for the inhabitants of the other toilet stalls, but he was too convinced that nothing happened in the first place to show sympathy.
--
The third occurrence, he blamed entirely on the mistletoe.
That damned mistletoe.
He had been caught underneath it more than once, usually managing to slip away from the crisis with a capricious lie or by repelling the other victim that had been locked under the greenery with him.
It had happened with Maka, Liz, and even one very unfortunate incident with Black Star, even though they were all situations that he had successfully evaded. Mistletoes, in short, didn't weren't on very good terms with Soul, and he despised their pointless purpose.
But for some unknown reason, he didn't evade the osculation when Kid had been found underneath it with him.
Perhaps it had been because they had accumulated a crowd, and couldn't disappoint the students of Shibusen by backing out. Perhaps it had been a frisson, seeing as he hadn't pressed his lips against someone's in quite a while and missed the sensation. Or perhaps it had been simply the pressure of the mistletoe that caused him to fold to the heinous evil that was the holiday decoration itself.
"There's something over your head."
"I believe it's over your head as well, Kid."
"…that's only because you dragged me over here."
Silence. Soul felt the color drain out of his face.
"I did?"
"You did." Kid confirmed. More blood rushed to Soul's feet, paling his already pallid face.
It would be much less embarrassing if a group of students hadn't encircled them by now, buzzing like bees and giggling at the sight they had fallen upon. Somewhere in between the clouds of people, Soul detected Maka and Tsubaki watching with their mouths agape.
"Go on!" A voice in the crowd shouted, and Soul was horrified to find that it was Black Star's, who was currently attempting to climb onto Ox's shoulder to get a better view of the holiday-induced act of intimacy.
"Soul," Kid began and placed his hands on his hips, "if you're uncomfortable with the audience you don't-"
Soul shushed him hastily. Almost too hastily, Soul thought with a cringe.
"Don't want to disappoint the crowd," And he shrugged his shoulders carelessly.
Kid cocked his eyebrows in Soul's exhibitionism, but before Soul could blabber on helplessly defending the reasons behind his answer, not one of them being the pure desire of it, Kid had smiled faintly.
"Good. Because that red bow up there on the mistletoe isn't symmetrical."
Soul felt a smile tug at his lips. He tried fruitlessly to tug it back down, without success. "Then maybe we should teach the mistletoe a lesson."
He didn't exactly remember who had been first to grab hair and hips in a fist and attach lips, a movement that was all too familiar to the two boys by then, but all that he did remember was the assorted impressed claps of in the audience that had developed. And it wasn't until someone whistled in the corner that Soul was alerted to the fact that he certainly wasn't alone. He jerked away from Kid, wiping his slightly bruised lips off on his sleeve and waving gregariously to the students watching as though he had done nothing but perform in a persuading two-man show.
"Very convincing," Kirikou applauded from the front of the crowd, and Kid chuckled. Soul was mortified to find the two boys exchanging knowing glances.
"It was the mistletoe."
Kirikou winked in his direction, "Sure."
"Hey, don't you see it?" Soul pointed up at the ceiling almost as if he was a dictator proclaiming freedom. And he felt that it simply couldn't have been a good sign when Kid's chortles escalated to full-on laughter, and Kirikou joined.
--
Soul blamed it all on New Year's Eve.
There was possibly nothing more embarrassing than standing eclipsed in a corner as the seconds to midnight ticked down, both his arms void of girls and the spaces in front of him empty of possible candidates to swap spit with for the start of the New Year.
He was even wearing a suit.
Soul grumbled. It was truly a horrifyingly terrible night, and the positive atmosphere of the party wasn't lightening his spirit in the slightest. There was chatter, giggles, music, and the sort of hustle and bustle that would excite even the most nostalgic of all souls, but Soul was thoroughly depressed to be stuck ostracized and forgotten.
"I was looking for you."
Soul turned, peering over his shoulder at the one person who had sought out Soul's abandoned presence.
"Oh. It's you."
Death the Kid smiled. He cocked a ringed finger toward the clock ticking away on the wall, smirking. A crowd had now surrounding the clock, barely even a minute scraping by before the whole room would erupt in shouts and cheers and simultaneous lip-locks.
"It's almost midnight."
"Right," Soul muttered, a little miffed, and turned to Kid with furrowed eyebrows, "…wanna kiss?"
Kid glanced at the clock again, "For the sake of the New Year?"
Soul shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets, a gloom settling itself in his stomach as he began to wonder if even Kid had another partner's throat to stick his tongue down, ending in inevitable rejection. Soul internally grumbled.
"All right." Kid leant his shoulders against the wall, eyeing the clock once more.
The weapon looked over slowly at Kid's composed form, and nodded apprehensively, "…all right."
Their eyes locked for a fleeting second of mutual consent. And before he knew exactly what had happened, Kid had Soul pinned against the wall with his mouth ravishing his lips to the point of initiating arousal in the other boy, his hands buried in his hair and their thighs bumping.
"Oh," Soul managed out, and was almost humiliated to find how husky his voice sounded, "it's not midnight yet."
Kid pulled back from Soul's body ephemerally, a look of slight amusement etched on his features. He chuckled.
"Do you care?"
Soul blushed carmine, and bit the inside of his cheeks, "Not really."
And their lips connected once more, just as hungrily, just as greedily, and by the time everyone had exchanged gentle pecks on the mouth, Kid and Soul were discreetly hidden in the corner, already past second base.
--
This time, Soul blamed the symmetry.
Kid's constant presence keeping him company had rubbed off on his personality, and even though Soul was the epitome of maintaining a poorly-organized home, even with Maka to help most of the time, he had found himself arranging his toiletries in a symmetrical pyramid on the bathtub rim.
Kid watched from the doorway, his eyes as wide as tree trunks and his mouth slack in the shape of an 'o'. And the second Soul had finished his task, unaware of the pair of eyes watching him hungrily, Kid let out a strangled cry and fallen to his knees, crawling forward.
"It's so beautiful," he praised, and wrapped his arms around Soul's waist hard enough to crack a rib or two. Soul squeaked.
"W-what is?"
Kid beamed, positioning himself in front of the systematically-arranged toiletries in awe, leaning into the bathtub to ogle at them.
"It's so symmetric," he rambled, his voice breathless in awe. Soul blinked.
"I… didn't realize I was doing it."
"You must be finally learning from me."
Kid's eyes stayed fixated on the display, and remained sitting there, practically worshipping the various half-used bottles of shampoo and shaving cream for what had to be at least ten minutes before Soul believed he could shuffle off and leave Kid to be content with the symmetry he had found in the bathroom, as though he was a dying man who found his last breath in a bottle.
But right as Soul got up, dusting off his knees, Kid had grabbed his head by the hair and planted a firm, wet kiss on his temple, practically grinning from ear to ear. Soul wondered if he had ever seen Kid so elated, but before he could contemplate it, Kid had shushed his thoughts by effectively covering his mouth with his own, eliciting a moan from Soul that he didn't realize he had hiding in his throat.
"You just get better and better, Soul Eater!" Kid beamed, and Soul couldn't help but think that there wasn't an ounce of death in this boy, but that was before he was pushed roughly against a mattress and detached from the majority of his clothing.
"I try." He mumbled feebly, and a meek protest dying on his tongue, Soul lay obediently at Kid's mercy as the other boy once again connected their mouths in a frantic rush of lust, want, and symmetric toiletries.
It was practically hours later that he awoke, Kid draped over his chest and using his shoulder as a pillow, their skin startlingly void of all fabric. Soul blinked in revelation.
What's done is done, Soul, he mused, and a small smile starting to grow, he tugged on Kid's torso to pull the other boy closer, it's not like it's your fault anyway.
He blamed the symmetry.
--
This time, Soul blamed Valentine's Day.
There was something sickeningly contagious about paper hearts and serenading cupids, and although you wouldn't find Soul dead in a pink sweater to truly celebrate the holiday, he did let himself get tugged into the vortex of lovely nonsense.
Maka had found a mysteriously anonymous love letter stuffed in her bag, written neatly on scented paper. Black Star had festively color-coordinated to match the decorations at Shibusen. Stein and Spirit had walked around the school hand-in-hand, and whether it was a well-feigned façade for the holiday or not was nothing but an unanswered question.
"There's no signature." Maka waved an unsigned letter, mortifyingly rose colored, in Soul's face. He cocked an eyebrow at her.
"Oh, the mystery."
"I prefer to be mystery-less." Kid piped up, "It's much nicer to simply enjoy the holiday with the one you love."
Soul glanced edgily at the boy, his shifty eyeing quite cumbersome.
"You make me want to vomit little chocolate hearts." Soul drawled, his attention pulled away from Maka's urgency by Kid's comment.
"Hearts are symmetrical."
"You're ridiculous." Soul spat dryly.
"What's wrong with symmetry?"
"It's ridiculous."
"I don't think you mind."
"I don't like symmetry."
"You like me."
"No, I love you."
It would have been much more horrifying to have the consternation of his confession settle in Soul's mind in speechless silence, but Maka bursting out in uncontained laughter kept his dread at bay.
The fact that he found himself straddled and thoroughly kissed by one very awed Death the Kid a second later also kept Soul from having to suffer from the horror of his words.
"So," Soul clicked his tongue, "I guess we were dating this whole time, then?"