Chapter 2: A White Christmas?!
Maka and Soul
Bbrrrriiing!
“Hello?” Maka answered the phone half asleep from her bed, this time not bothering to look at the caller ID. Besides, even if it was her father or someone else she didn’t want to talk to, it’s Christmas. She figured she could at least give the courtesy of giving a response on this one day of the year. She didn’t all too much like the fact that it was barely six in the morning, but she figured she’d fall back asleep as soon as the call was over.
“Maka! You didn’t hang up this time!”
Oh. Of course, it was her father.
“Merry Christmas, Papa,” Maka replied, rolling her eyes as she did so. “What else do you want?”
“Is that all?” Spirit asked from the other line. “No plans on coming to see me for Christmas? I have a present for you! And there’s even snow outside right now!”
“I’ll pick up the present later unless you’re planning on bringing it h – wait, say that again?” Maka wasn’t sure if she could believe her ears. Did he just say there’s snow? HERE?! Maka sat up in bed with a jolt, hanging up the phone in the process (much to Spirit’s dejection) and ran to the window in her room. Surely enough, a sight she never thought she’d see in her entire life lay beyond the glass barrier: the surrounding scenery was covered in a white, frozen blanket of snow. Sure, the weather station predicted a “wet Christmas,” with showers akin to a week ago. But she doubted anyone expected this, even Shinigami-sama.
"You saw it too?"
Maka turned to her bedroom door. No one was in sight. But what was it then? She knew it was Soul – she’d been living under the same roof with him too long to not recognize his voice. Shaking it off, or assuming he was hiding somewhere in the room while she was gazing at the winter wonderland out her window so as to scare her, she returned to her previous activity.
"Boo."
“ACK!” Maka nearly jumped out of her skin to see a pair of bright red eyes on a head topped with silver-white hair and a face adorned with Soul’s same old sharp-toothed grin. That grin, however, soon broke into laughter. Soul’s attempt to scare her worked brilliantly. “It’s not funny,” Maka protested. “You scared the crap out of me!”
“I know,” Soul replied. “That was the intent, dummy. Still, you should’ve seen the look on your face when you were looking outside the window. You were just sitting there gawking like you’ve never had a white Christmas before.”
"That's exactly the case. I grew up here, mind."
“Meh, it’s not that big of a deal when you live where I grew up,” Soul remarked. “Every year, without fail, more than a foot of this stuff covered the ground everywhere you look.” Suddenly his smirk from earlier returned, this time with a hint of mischief twinkling in his eyes.
"What?"
“After you open your present, get some very warm clothing on. This’ll probably be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you; better make the best of it.”
“Present?” This was news to her. As far as she knew Soul had either forgotten or was too broke to buy her anything. Or by his “Why Christmas” question last week he implied one of the former two options. She had still bought a present for him – a new headband so he wouldn’t always have to wear the one he had before – but without expecting much of anything in return. It’s better to give than receive, she figured. Less even than the prospect of any form of material gift did she expect Soul to pull out a clump of mistletoe hanging from a red ribbon and hang it over them from his finger. “Uh, Soul, what’re you do –“ she was interrupted by his lips pressing softly against hers, at least for a brief moment, before he pulled away again. Maka couldn’t see her own face, but she was positive her cheeks were glowing a bright red after that. As it was she could already feel that part of her face warming up. Soul broke the silence that lingered afterwards with a low chuckle.
“That’s not even the actual present. Look in your pocket.” Maka complied and put her hand in her pocket to find just what it was he was talking about. After a few moments of fishing through the thing, she pulled out a small red box with green ribbon tied about it. She untied the ribbon and opened the box to find… a choker? The strip of black cloth had a silver latch and bore a matching pendant in the shape of a soul.
“… Okay. It looks nice, I suppose,” she said slowly as she began to put it on, only for Soul to take her hands in his, remove them from the latch, and put the choker on her himself. “First you kiss me and now this?” Soul simply shrugged in response.
“What can I say? Thought I’d be cool about it –“
“Normally kissing a girl is considered more ‘romantic’ than ‘cool.’”
“Whatever, I thought it up at the last minute,” he quickly retorted so as to justify his actions. “Still, if anyone asks that never happened.” He turned around and began to walk toward the door. “Now hurry up and get changed; I’ll take care of breakfast this morning, if you don’t mind microwave oatmeal.”
Kid, Liz and Patty
“You… got new outfits for us?” Liz asked questioningly as she looked dumbfounded into an open box, which contained an outfit just about identical to what she and her sister commonly wore now, except the top was now in black leather and the hat was matching in color.
“I figured since a new year’s coming up I’d mix things up a bit. The bottom’s the same, but the top matches better with my suit,” Kid replied matter-of-factly. It was a bit obvious his OCD affected his selection in gifts for his two partners. “Oh, and thank you for the leveler, Liz. Hopefully it’ll make next year’s decorating a bit easier on me.” Both Kid and Liz just sat there beneath the Christmas tree, the Menorah, surprisingly untouched, sitting on the mantle. Next to the Menorah now were two new gingerbread-scented candles, one on each side of the eight-candle stick: Patty’s gift to make up for the ones she had rendered out of synch. “Now we just have to take them down in an organized manner.”
“Will you relax for once? It’s Christmas, the decorations can be taken down tomorr –“
“FROSTY!”
Patty’s voice could be heard shouting through the open window. Apparently no one had noticed it had snowed except for her until then. Thus Patty was the only one outside actually enjoying it – by building a snowman that, surprisingly, actually did have somewhat of a resemblance to the typical image of Frosty the Snowman. Its eyes were made of two lumps of coal that Patty had found in an old fire pit, the nose was a button from a shirt that no longer fit her, and she had somehow managed to scrounge up a corn cop pipe. The only thing that was different was instead of a silk hat Patty had placed the hat she had just gotten from Kid with her new outfit on its icy head. Despite all this however, Kid was far from impressed when he and Liz ran out the door to see what caused such commotion.
“That’s a lame excuse for a snowman!” Kid exclaimed. “You need fresh coals that are perfectly even for his eyes, not old ones from the fireplace! And if the eyes are from black coals, the button nose should be red, not banana yellow. And the pipe needs to be positioned this way…” Kid continued to tell Patty all the reasons that the snowman was made all wrong, and to demonstrate proceeded in making two perfect spheres of snow to start from scratch.
Liz looked on at the scene for a while, but then her eyes began to wander across the rest of the area – the street, the buildings, all covered in snow. After hers and Patty’s first Christmas with Kid, she thought that the sisters’ white Christmases had ended in New York. Not that they had much to celebrate back in those days, not since they were living on the streets anyway. To be able to actually experience both snow and Christmas at one time in these far better circumstances must have been nothing short of those warm and fuzzy things known as Christmas miracles, the kind that Liz had stopped believing in long ago. Even now, she wasn’t sure she believed in such things, but this year certainly pushed her total denouncing of the thought to curious doubt.
Black Star and Tsubaki
Black Star was the first to wake up that morning, naturally, and forgetting the standing tradition of him and Tsubaki opening their gifts together, he hastily tore the wrapping paper off the small box with a name tag “to Black Star” on it, hoping it wasn’t a jewelry item. Just before he was about to thrust the lid of the box open, the sound of footsteps on the carpet behind him and a small yawn alerted him to Tsubaki’s presence in the room.
“You forgot about me again, didn’t you?” She asked, still half-asleep it sounded like. That morning, she had her jet-black hair down rather than in its usual pony tail, a rarity in and of itself next to seeing her out of her room before she had changed out of her pajamas. Despite her inquiry, however, she already seemed to have forgiven him. Or she was too tired to get upset, one or the other. Either way, she simply sat down next to him by the tree as he then opened the box to find a small, glossy sheet of paper with a black star-shaped figure on it.
“… What is it?” Black Star asked bluntly, looking at Tsubaki in utter confusion.
“Well,” Tsubaki started. “Honestly, I couldn’t think of anything you might like, so I got you a fake tattoo. But it’s the thought that counts, at least…” Black Star nodded and continued to look at the paper front and back, having no idea how to apply it. Tsubaki interpreted his confusion and gently took the paper. “Here, I’ll show you how to put it on.” She peeled off the plastic cover and went to the kitchen, coming back with a wet wash cloth. “Now if I remember how to do this right… Where do you want it?”
“I don’t know…”
“That doesn’t help,” she replied. Tsubaki then took the time to notice her own parcel underneath the tree. She took it in her hands and slowly began to untie the ribbon on it. After doing so, she removed the wrapping paper and found a box. “Please don’t tell me –“
THWACK!
All
“Watch this,” Soul beckoned Maka as he began to clump together a round mass of snow between his gloved hands. They now stood in front of where Black Star and Tsubaki lived; apparently Soul wanted to involve everyone in Maka’s first white Christmas, deciding first to strike upon the arrogant assassin and his quiet yet warm-hearted partner. Before Maka could object or attempt to stop her own partner from doing something stupid, Soul threw his newly formed snow ball at the front window. The snow hit the window with a strange “thwack” sound and slid down the window.
“Soul, what’re you doing?!”
The “thwack” brought both of their attentions to the window from which it came. One couldn’t quite tell which of the two was more shocked to see snow on the ground when they looked out into the landscape beyond their home. Standing there, obviously the culprit was a boy with blood-red eyes and stark, white hair that almost seemed to blend in with the snow. Standing beside him was a girl, more or less the same height, with dirty-blond hair and green eyes. Both were wearing jackets that otherwise would have little use regardless of what time of year it was where they lived. Both identified the two as their classmates, Soul Eater and Maka.
“I never knew we could get snow here,” Black Star stated.
“Neither did I…”
No less, it didn’t take long for Black Star to respond to Soul’s challenge.
Meanwhile, Liz and Patty had accompanied Death the Kid to the only store that was open that day which carried coal and after that outing was through both walked down the road on their way home. Why the shinigami had insisted on using fresh, never-burned coal for making eyes on a snowman, one of the many things that are even more fragile than the human heart. On top of that, she was freezing her butt off!
“Might I ask,” Liz started, “Why we went to the store for an entire bag of coal when we only need two coals?!”
“Four if Patty decides to follow my example of a perfect snowman,” Kid corrected. “And if you make one too, that makes six. See, I’m investing for the future.”
“More like you just bought the whole bag because they don’t sell coals individually.” The three’s stroll was interrupted by yet another sight that doubtless would accompany something like a snowy Christmas day.
“Ya-Hoo! You’ll never defeat me!”
“Wanna bet?! I can throw a mean – “ thwack!
That was when they beheld the scene that altered their course altogether. Black Star and Soul were engaged in a snowball fight possibly to exceed all snowball fights. Both had built forts of snow-bricks behind which they hid behind as they launched snow balls at one another at a frightening speed. To speed production, Soul had enlisted the reluctant Maka to mass-produce snow balls for him to use as ammunition, while Tsubaki had luckily managed to stay out of the mess, standing on the sidelines as she made a small snowman of her own. The bag of coal fell to the snow as Patty, the one who had been carrying it back to their home, ran into the line of fire, hastily creating snow balls of her own and throwing them every which way. Unfortunately, one of the prices of this was the head of Tsubaki’s mini-snowman.
“Well, I guess we’re stuck participating in this now that Patty’s gotten involved,” Liz remarked. Before she could even finish her sentence, however, Kid was already carefully constructing his first snow-brick to make his team’s fort.
On and on the epic battle of snow dragged, until finally all three sides had grown tired of the activity (even Patty) and simultaneously collapsed backwards into the snow. Maka waved her arms back and forth, as though in a weak effort to create a snow angel.
“You use your legs too,” Soul corrected her in between deep breaths; aside from maybe Black Star, he was the most exhausted from the adrenaline rush of the snow war. Despite this however, he still managed a small laugh at Maka’s naivety. He demonstrated with his own arms and legs for extra emphasis.
“Oh,” she replied. Soon, everyone else was making their own snow angel of sorts. Kid’s by far took the longest, with him constantly sitting up to overlook his handiwork and ensure it was just right, then when seeing any portion was the slightest bit awry destroying and re-creating it. Though the others laughed at his OCD kicking in, he didn’t see it as a laughing matter at all. The rest of the day went in a similar manner, from making snowmen again (which Kid insisted on teaching each and every one of them how to make a perfect snow man with just coal as the pieces – ironically the whole bag was used up when all was said and done), to attempting to form an igloo from the remaining walls of the old snow-ball-war forts… and such didn’t quite work. But of one thing all were sure: this certainly would be a Christmas to remember.
Spirit
Tak, tak, tak
No matter how many times Spirit knocked on his daughter’s door, no one was there to answer. The man crawled into the fetal position in despair, blubbering about why his daughter wouldn’t acknowledge him.
“Honestly, where do I keep going wrong?” he asked himself – well, partially himself, and partially Blair, standing in human form beside him, dressed in an ever-so-revealing red and white two-piece dress, her stomach fully exposed. How had the voluptuous cat-woman not suffering from frost bite due to the cold weather? She changed into her cat form outdoors.
“Maybe they just aren’t home,” Blair replied. The man had to admit, she had a point. It was a bright, snowy day after all; the first time it’s ever snowed on Christmas day – the first time it’s snowed in general and stuck to the ground for more than a minute before melting into slushy rain – for a long as Maka could remember. Spirit knew full well that Soul grew up in a place where snow on Christmas was typical and must be showing Maka just what fun a “white” Christmas could be. It wasn’t until then however that he noticed at his feet the mistletoe that Soul had carelessly discarded as he dragged Maka out the door. The plant, most likely fake to begin with, sat forlorn and forgotten in the hallway. This was all it took for the father’s imagination to collide with instinct.
“SOUL EATER, YOU BETTER NOT BE DOING ANY FUNNY BUSINESS WITH MY DAUGHTER!!” Spirit shouted as he forcefully kicked the door down to find an empty house. The TV sat collecting dust, not even having been turned on that day. The sink was devoid of any dishes, all having been loaded into the dishwasher that had rung its “finished” bell hours ago. Spirit ran through the house, checked every room. Still, neither his daughter nor the demon scythe whom he at that particular moment absolutely hated, were to be found.
“I told you, they’re probably out in the snow,” Blair stated matter-of-factly, trotting behind him in her cat form.
~End~
