Tsubaki calls her midway through her three-hour studio, worried. Professor Marie is making her way slowly through the studio, reviewing their weekend work individually, so Maka figures she can spare the time to placate her roommate.
What Maka doesn’t realize is that an estimated 60 sleepless hours has rendered her usually orderly mind a muddle of surprisingly volatile emotions which, midway through the call, violently make themselves known by way of tears, which clog up her throat and speech. This, naturally, only serves to worry Tsubaki more, and Maka grudgingly acknowledges that pulling her first ever all-nighters consecutively was maybe not the best idea.
Still, Maka didn’t pull those all-nighters only to leave just before they’re due, so she flees to the restroom to wait out her tears, reassuring Tsubaki that she’ll go back to the house after studio.
Five minutes later, Tsubaki is still insisting, so Maka apologizes and quickly hangs up on her, silences the phone, and stuffs it into her pocket. She then checks over her face in the mirror. Blotchy, and her eyes are red, so Maka turns on the tap and rinses her face. There. It’s better, but not by much. Still, the sooner she gets through these last two hours, the sooner she can go and sleep and end the madness that was this project.
Except that when she steps back into studio, she immediately spots Soul’s shock of white hair. He looks a little lost, but is doing his best to hide it, slouched casually against the side of a cabinet.
Did Tsubaki send him? How did he get here so quickly? The arts building is on the edge of campus— it should’ve taken him at least five minutes to get here from any non-arts building, and Maka hasn’t seen him in any of her classes, which are shared between pretty much all of the art majors— and shit, he’s spotted her.
She ducks down, makes her way to her desk to plop at her seat, hopes beyond hope that he’ll go away, but—
“Black☆Star called, said Tsubaki had been calling you for like fifteen minutes,” Soul explains, stopping next to her. “Said he and Tsu hadn’t seen you in a while. Which was weird, because I also haven’t seen you in a while. Told me to come drag your ass back to the house, so. Here I am?”
Maka glares at him. “Go away,” she hisses.
Soul’s hands raise defensively. “Woah, no, pleasedon’thitme, I don’t need another nosebleed. Also, c’mon, ‘Star said you’re running on like. No sleep. Since we saw you. Which was what, Tuesday?”
“Go away, Soul.”
“Can’t, Black☆Star’ll eat me for not following orders. Also, Tsu’ll make sad eyes at me for like a month, and then I’ll skip breakfast, and that would suck. Also, also, I also happen to be kinda worried. How are you still awake?”
Maka seethes, which only brings tears to her eyes, which makes her embarrassed, which makes her want to cry more, which makes her upset at herself for this horrific lack of self control. What is she, insane? Can’t even tamp down a couple of tears! Not to mention how completely and utterly shitty her project is….
“Alright, fine, you win,” Maka strangles out from between clenched teeth, her voice strained. “J-just l-l-l—” She has to stop and take a deep, stuttering breath.
Thankfully, Soul doesn’t comment, and looks away from her, stuffing his hands into his jeans pockets.
“Let me pack my stuff,” Maka finishes weakly.
“Sure.”
She packs in silence. Laptop, sketchbook, pens— on second thought, she opens up her sketchbook to a blank page, scribbles a note— Prof. Marie, sorry I couldn’t stick around for the critique, please leave any comments you have on my projects here. Thanks, Maka.— and leans it against her project model.
“Alright, let’s go,” Maka says quietly. Soul straightens, pulls his hands out of his pockets, nods.
“Yeah,” he says, lamely, but for some reason the awkwardness doesn’t bother her. The silence continues all the way back to the house.
Maka is out the instant her head touches her pillow.
regular writings 