Finding Two Souls: Part 4

"Hmph", snorted Soul as he grimaced, "fine."

Maka giggled, "You have my forgiveness." She turned to give Soul hurried hand gestures. "Come on, Soul, let's go, we have kept them waiting long enough."

Soul scowled, "I'm comin, I'm comin! Ugh, I can't believe that she is so excited just to go out to breakfast." He mumbled as he followed Maka as she sprinted excitedly and enterprisingly out of the office door.

On the outside, the tenements streached around as a square, the balconies on both sides could be seen from the opposite sides. There were long, rectangular windows in the front, which had long, beige curtains that hang from the inside sill of the window. The doors had white frames whose paint was chipping, leaving behind speckled spots of the many variations of browns. And that was what Maka and Soul could see, just on the outside of the apartments.

Just then, a small child came running around the corner towards the very spot Maka and Soul were standing. This said child crashed into Maka.

"Ouch!" Maka wailed as she began to fall backwards.

"M-Maka!" Soul began to lunge forward to catch her.

"Ah-" Maka gasped as she realized that the child was also falling with her. At the very instant she noticed this fact, she wrapped the child's head and body with hers, as to protect it from recieving any wounds.

"Uuuuu...." cried the child as he felt Maka's tight embrace engulf him in her arms.

Just as Maka and the child were about to hit the cold, paved ground-

"Erg!"

Maka, not feeling the sensation of hitting cold, hard earth, slowly opened her eyes. "N-nnn?" She looked at the little boy, still in a tight hold in her arms, and saw that he was crying.

"Hey now," Maka said as she began to loosen her grip on the boy, "what's wrong? You're safe now." Even after asking this, she could still hear the little boy's whimpering, even though it was muffled due to him being buried in her chest.

"Th-thank you, miss" mumbled the boy as he began to seperate himself from Maka.

"Sure~" Maka sang as he began to stand up.

"Hey!"

"Hnn?" Maka looked around to see to see who it was that was shouting, and realized that Soul had disappeared. "Hmph" Maka pouted as the boy was still trying to remove himself from her lap. "that is so like him, to magically vanish when I really need him.

"Would you mind getting off of me?" asked a irritated voice. "This is getting really uncomfortable." Maka looked down with suprise.

"Hah!? Soul, w-when did you?" she said as started to stand up.

After Maka got up from him, he also rose from the ground. "When I saw you fall, I just..." he fell silent.

Maka turned her attention back to the boy, disregarding Soul's suddenly dropped reply. "Are you alright, honey?" Maka asked in a concerned tone.

"Y-yes, mam, I'm fine, thank you." The boy looked up to Maka, now wiping away the tears that had continued to redden his face.

At that moment, two other children ran up to him. "Sho!" a little girl yelled in anger, "you were SUPPOSED to come straight back to the room after getting the ice!" The other little boy stood stagnant, silently watching, giving a reassuring look to Sho.

"Oh, that's right. The ice!" The little boy ran off.

"Dang it!" shouted the girl. "Sho......SHO!" the girl ran off as well with the other boy, trying to catch up to Sho.

"That sure was weird." Maka said as she and Soul watched the kids run off into the distance.

When they finally disappeared from view, Soul turned to Maka. "Maka."

"Hmmm? What is it, Soul?" she asked, giving him a half-hearted smile.

He moved in closer to her, his body just nearly brushing into hers. A slight blush had spread onto her face, which Soul had noticed. Looking deeply into her eyes, her blush reddend even further.

"Maka, are" he paused. "are you alright?" he looked at her with grave concern.

"S-soul" she stepped in closer and hugged him. "Heheh, I'm fine."

Now Soul was the one was the one who was blushing. They stood there hugging each other in an awkward silence for what seemed like eternity.

"Maka."

"Hmmm?"

"....Let go."

"HAH!?"

Maka quickly let go as her blush deepened to the darkest color of red possible.

"Alright, I think enough fooling around has been accomplished. Please, let's just go get Black Star and Tsubaki." Soul huffed as he continued to look at Maka.

"Yeah, you're right, this is getting annoying." Maka agreed in unison with Soul's testimony.