There's definitely a contrarian sort of thing going on when people tell me "this pairing could never happen." Naturally I want to imagine a scenario where that was completely proved wrong. This is how this happened. Looks like I'm alternating chapters of my SoMa piece with KiMa oneshots lately. To make them work I have to pretend that Maka has never met Soul, basically. That poses other quandaries.

This is the kind of thing that felt like it had a pretty active world behind it, but I'm happy with it being a oneshot.

PS. The Piketty book is real. And interesting.

Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater's characters. Fanfic is, as it has always been, for the lulz.

He was staring again.

Maka pretended to read her book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, while at the same time keep close tabs on the man from across the subway car. It wasn't too hard to spot him as he sat in the same spot every day, or stood in the general vicinity of said spot until it opened up. Impossible to miss due to his distinctive hair and impeccably tailored suits, she had only truly started noticing him a month or so ago when she had looked up and met his eyes briefly. The jolt she had felt had nothing to do with the sudden stop they experienced shortly after.

Methodical to a fault she had sat in different seats to test the hypothesis that he was looking at her, slightly annoyed that this was taking away from her morning reading time on the way to work. Casually, from her new vantage point she would sweep the car with her eyes so that he wouldn't suspect she was looking for him in specific and sure enough those amber eyes would be shamelessly focused in her direction nearly every time.

Now that she knew she was being observed Maka found she was spending more time in the mornings on her appearance. The hair she put up in pigtails—for the ride to work, as she would rewind it into a serviceable bun in the bathroom at work before heading to her desk—was carefully blown dry and combed following her shower. The plain black suit jacket and knee length pencil skirt sets she wore, of which she had many, were lint rolled to perfection. The pale pastel dress shirts she bought were pressed and the collars tightly folded. The only thing that deserved a second glance were the shoes she wore to make the walk from home to subway and subway to work, as she well knew her buckled combat boots didn't fit with the image she projected. Sadly, she had even polished those to a high shine despite having been fond of their scuffed and worn look. Her science textbooks told her observation changed the way atoms behaved, and she could believe it now that she was the one at the bottom of a stranger's microscope.

Fall faded to winter and everyone on the subway car took on a look of chilly sameness in their dark pea coats and trenches, but furtive glances from her ever changing perches confirmed new details about the man: suits in charcoal, white shirts, black ties, silver tie clip, fashionable silver and onyx rings (but none on the left ring finger), elaborate watch, polished black shoes, dour expression. Some white patches of hair on the front left side of his head told her he might have a youthful face but it was possible he wasn't as young as she suspected. Plenty of people went grey early, so it was hard to guess age reliably. Besides, there were weird treatments out there that could mask all sorts of indicators of age. Maka thought about her value sized bottle of generic lotion, and a sad tube of mauve lipstick she had thrown into a drawer somewhere and wondered if maybe Liz was right and she needed to revamp her beauty regimen.

When Maka had told Liz, Patti, and Tsubaki about her subway almost-stalker a couple weeks ago the reactions for the women had been extremely varied:

"Is he cute? Go talk to him!" Patti, the artist.

"You're being careful right? Maybe you should take a different way to work." Tsubaki, the police officer.

"Does he look like he has money? Wait, scratch that, if he's taking the subway obviously not." Liz, the esthetician.

Over drinks her friends had a merry time of conjecturing how this situation would play out, but they were all absolutely sure that so long as Maka wasn't really feeling threatened then it was a good thing hot guys were noticing her. She hadn't mentioned he was handsome, but they inferred it without her input. It was not the way she had wanted that conversation to go, with the sisterhood of the travelling cocktails deciding she needed a more robust romantic life. Work was absorbing enough as it was, trying to claw her way past the tigers in the Finance department.

There were a couple days the man hadn't been there, just last week, and Maka had felt unaccountably disappointed. Familiarity was comfort, she realized, and interruption in the routine had left her feeling off balance. Work had gone much slower, her formulas in her spreadsheets had had mistakes in them that she only caught on her second edit, and Maka's normally checked temper had flared as the copier ran out of staples halfway through her job and she kicked it so hard there was still a chip in the bottom of the plastic casing. The copier was the winner in that battle, as she iced swollen toes that night under the light of the TV in her condo. Not even the gym had evened her out like it normally did, but it did provide an edge of exhaustion to her bad mood.

Today the man had reappeared, black trench over yet another charcoal suit. His reappearance had improved her mood so drastically she had already caught his eyes twice this trip alone when usually she pretended to ignore him. Maka was mortified that the second time their eyes met she blushed like a schoolgirl. An independent woman in the dusk of her twenties did not need regression of this sort complicating her life. The ride to work was all too short.

Getting up, this was where she usually left him to continue his path but he stood as she did and got in the crush of people escaping out of the humidity and unnatural warmth of the car. Just a few people behind her, she noticed he was taller up close than she had assumed from a distance. The stale air of the underground seemed more vivid somehow as Maka stuffed her book in her satchel and zipped it quickly. She was always a fast walker, but she might have put a little extra pep in her step today as she pushed through the exit turnstiles and climbed the stairs to the street.

The coat Maka had chosen was a little too thin for the weather that wasn't quite cold enough for snow but smelled of it on the wind. Pigtails whipping around, Maka put Tsubaki's instruction to good use and peeked behind her to see that same head of salt and pepper hair she half-hoped and half-feared would be there. Long legs had easily kept pace with her until now and instead of heading straight towards the tall glass and steel building that housed her office she deviated towards one of her favorite lunch places. They wouldn't be open now, but she didn't want to lead a stalker straight to her workplace!

Warming up from adrenaline, Maka slowed her pace to see if he caught up to her and passed. It only took a moment for her to note he matched her slower pace, and that was plenty enough to activate all the defensive instincts that she had cultivated in martial arts classes from grade school till college. This wasn't a match for points, this was for real! It was so disappointing, she had really thought he might be a person she would want to get to know until he decided to go actual stalker.

Being the kind of person who got to the office early, Maka knew the crowd on the sidewalk would thin out the closer she got to the tiny business district that provided lunch to all the professionals. There would be no reason for him to go there except to follow her, and she wanted to be actually sure he was coming for her before she did something drastic. Meanwhile, on their trip towards the shuttered businesses the amber eyed man had closed the gap as Maka had frantically tried to think of what the best course of action was.

"Excuse me," the words didn't alarm her, but the hand gripping her shoulder sure did.

Maka exhaled and reacted exactly as years of training dictated when she felt threatened and was attacked from the back. What proceeded was a fairly difficult to explain maneuver that started with her elbow in his gut and then a twirl to get her fist in his face.

"Fuck!" hunched over and clutching a very bloody nose, the man didn't look like he was any kind of threat to her now, if he ever had been. "Ow, sorry, I didn't mean to be vulgar… That's a solid punch you have, miss." He spoke the beautifully enunciated words to his shoes.

"You were following me!" Maka was still poised in a defensive fighting position, tilted slightly sideways with feet spread a tad and solidly balanced. "You grabbed me!"

"Technically true on both counts." He was uncurling slowly, backing up a step to emphasize his respect for her need for space between them. Opening up a few buttons on his coat he dug out his pocket square and proceeded to use it to stop the flow of blood from his nose. "Perhaps I didn't properly consider the implications of my actions in this case."

"I should call the cops on you," Maka always thought of Tsubaki when she thought of police officers, but the odds that her friend would be the one to answer a random call were infinitesimal.

"And risk me claiming assault? That doesn't seem like a very logical next step." He was clearly still in a lot of pain, and the handkerchief was muffling his words a bit, but he didn't seem angry. "I have a better suggestion."

Maka relaxed her fighting pose, realizing she looked ridiculous when he was the one who was injured and behaving in a non-aggressive fashion. "I'm listening."

"A block back we passed a coffee shop. I suspect you still have forty minutes prior to your workday, and I'd like a chance to explain." The near monotone he spoke in was doing as much to calm her as anything. Now that her blood was cooling she was feeling the chill again, and her now less frantic brain knew if she didn't at least give him the chance she'd always wonder what this was about.

"Fine, that seems reasonable. But I warn you I have excellent intuition and if I think you're lying or I don't like what you tell me, I reserve the right to demand you leave first so that I can get to work without the threat of being observed."

"I can agree to that." He gestured towards the shop. "Would you like to lead the way?" There was no indication from his expression or inflection that it was a joke, but something about the way he looked at her told Maka he was making a joke. It didn't seem very funny to her.

You could tell a lot about a man from their watch, or lack of one, these days. Maka had spent enough time observing CEOs in boardrooms to get a bead on what people wore as symbols of status from designer clothes to fancy scarves and jewelry. The watch this man was currently cleaning blood off the face of was obscenely expensive. This wasn't the kind of watch someone bought to show they were climbing the corporate ladder, that was the kind of watch someone had when they were already at the top of said ladder. It was not electronic in any way, so it spoke to a certain conservativism or traditional bent. There weren't a lot of dials, so he appreciated simplicity. No gemstones or flashy parts to stick out and catch on clothes, so he must be practical.

But none of this mattered if he was a creepy stalker, and Maka tried to reserve her judgment and stop this inclination to give him the benefit of the doubt. His words should stand alone, and something inconvenient like attraction to him wasn't relevant.

"I'm not used to explaining myself." He stared at the lopsided coffee heart drawn on his cappuccino with a frown and used the spoon on the table in front of him to stir it into generic swirls before he looked at Maka with what might have been a smile. "Several months ago my position in the family business changed when my brother was judged unfit to continue."

"Sorry."

"No need to apologize. Restructuring is part of business. I assure you it was not personal." It was the first lie she could identify, but she didn't call him on it because it was about family. If he had asked her a straight question about how she felt about her mama and papa she couldn't say she'd be perfectly honest either. More than a decade later the pain of their divorce made her sick to her stomach if she dwelled on the memories.

He took a sip of his coffee, poised even with blood drying around the edge of his nostrils. The handkerchief had gone straight into the garbage when they entered the shop. "Upon his exit from the company he took a number of staff with him, including my driver Justin. I don't feel like staff is so easily replaceable, yet I also wasn't going to drive myself. The subway seemed an acceptable compromise."

Maka took a sip of her mocha, disliking how sweet it was but unwilling to throw away money either. "Surely you could have taken a taxi in the interim."

"I made my decision." The man said it gently, but with finality. So he wasn't the kind of person who changed his mind easily, she could respect that being cut of the same cloth. "When I began using public transit, I noticed you immediately due to our similar esthetic."

"Which is?" Maka had heard it all: boring, monochrome, plain, masculine… and she braced for the inevitable.

"Classic." At his response she couldn't stop the smile that spread across her face, but she sure as hell could clamp down on it before it got out of control. He was like a snake charmer, with his steady voice and powerful aura of self-confidence.

Maka cleared her throat and schooled her mind to focus on the issue at hand. "Continue."

"I'm not adept at… pursuing women. Up until this point in my life it has largely been me declining the advances of others. I don't say this to brag, I would understand if you think it sounds like that, but I've long accepted the fact that money blinds people." He sighed, and Maka knew she was feeling pity for him despite herself. Poor little rich boy, she tried to viciously point out in her mind, but how often had people tried to make friends with her to get a promotion or get her to do the extra work on a group report or big presentation. There were always people looking to better themselves without actually putting in the effort.

"So what made today different? Why couldn't you just say hello to me on the train like a normal person would? You have to understand following a girl the way you did is basically asking for quick personalized instruction in modern self-defense practices." Absently she cracked a knuckle, then guiltily stopped and forced her hands into a ball in her lap.

He drank his coffee and thought about her question. Maka was surprised at how much she appreciated his style of interaction, that he was deliberate and precise. She was chagrined with how much she liked him already, despite getting off on the wrong foot.

"I was out of town last week for a meeting and I realized that the interruption in my routine was…"

"Affecting your work?" She finished for him, secretly glad she wasn't totally off her rocker and that they really did have some sort of mutual connection.

"That's right." He narrowed his eyes at her, disliking that she could finish his sentence but then seemingly coming to accept it. "I didn't realize how little time I had to plan a course of action until you were already getting up to leave. My new driver starts this week."

He took a long sip of his coffee and watched her for her reaction. Following his train of logic wasn't hard. Maka had become part of his routine and he hadn't felt right without seeing her and knowing that he wouldn't have a chance to see her again he had to take some sort of action today. While he wouldn't say what caused his hesitation, it was easy for her to imagine having some because asking people out had never been her cup of tea.

All he had really done was touch her shoulder to get her attention, even if the setup to it had been creepy. It was time to decide if he was worth a chance, but as per usual she was more inclined to trust her gut quickly than to overthink what needed to be done.

"Maka Albarn." She held out a hand in introduction, able to meet his gaze without hesitation for the first time. "I'll give you my number too, but know that if you do anything else creepy I won't hesitate to both block and report you."

"Kidd Black." The name rang a bell but she wasn't sure why, and dismissed it to research later. He took her hand and the shake was as solid as a lifetime of training could make it. There were callouses in odd places on his hands, and Maka noted it silently. He didn't just push paper around. "Normally I don't give out my personal number, but I'd rather my professional contacts didn't hassle you yet. If it turns out I'm a good person after all, in your estimation, then you can evaluate the pros and cons yourself of say, meeting me for lunch at the office?" It was almost not a question, but the slightly unsure uptick at the last word was endearing.

Maka noted the time, and Kidd followed her glance towards the clock and nodded. He insisted on clearing the cups from the table and she waited for him to come back somewhat awkwardly. Perhaps the tale of how she had nearly broken his nose when they first met would be charming and hilarious, but he was correct that if this went sour he'd probably have a convincing battery charge.

"I am sorry about your nose, all things considered. Do you need anything for it? I've been punched more than a few times in the face so I know it smarts for a while afterwards."

A smile broke across his face slowly and then receded. "I've had some experience getting punched as well. Growing up I was pretty scrawny, and there's plenty of boys in boarding school that thought I'd be an easy target…." For the first time Maka saw something dangerous in his eyes, and a stray thought asked if the only reason he had a bloody nose was because he let her give him one. "I'm sure you could tell me a few stories over dinner this Friday."

"Cute." Liz stuffed another heap of salad in her face, while Maka knew she was really eyeing the hot roast beef sandwich that Maka had bought for lunch. "So you have a date. It's about damn time!"

"He might change his mind. There's a day or two of pain in front of him from that nose. Some people get weird about stuff like that, hold grudges."

Liz rolled her eyes. "You're already finding reasons why he shouldn't like you. You know you're super cute with killer legs and honest to God green eyes, and the whole idea that he'd ignore the prospect of getting in your pants because of a little thing like a nosebleed is silly."

With her eyebrows at full mast over the getting in her pants comment, Maka took a bite of sandwich and reflected on the morning. "Hey," she said around half chewed bread "Does Kidd Black ring a bell with you?"

Dropping her plastic fork into her greens, Liz dove into her bag and brought out her tablet. Her fingers flew over the screen like she was possessed until she found what she was looking for and turned it towards Maka with nearly trembling hands. It was a fairly serviceable side shot of Kidd walking into an office building in one of Liz's favorite gossip rags. Maka wouldn't touch the things because those publications were always full of people she never heard of getting in personal troubles she didn't care about. Bad enough she had to read the covers absently waiting in the grocery checkout.

"Liz, I already knew he came from money, what does this matter?"

"O. M. G. Maka you don't even understand. He's the kind of guy that CEOs won't even mess with. Currently being groomed to take over for his father, and I know you know the name Mortimer J. Black."

Richer than Croesus. More influential than a dozen Senators. Currently producing half the weaponry the modern military of every first world country used, and being investigated for corruption by a special government committee. That Black.

"You know they hauled away your sweetie's big brother for possibly selling missiles to terrorists?"

Maka swallowed another bite of her sandwich in a suddenly thick and dry throat. She had just full on assaulted the younger son of the most dangerous man in the free world.

"You can't really tell from this picture, but he looks like he might be pretty hot."

"Yeah, he's pretty hot alright." Grabbing her cup of water and downing it to force the sandwich to stop sticking in her throat, Maka felt her fear wash over her and imagined herself pushing it all into a tiny ball and swallowing it. This morning over coffee they had been Kidd and Maka, and that wouldn't change no matter what they were doing in the future. Maka was not about to demonize or worship someone for who they were to the media.

Liz continued to gush and wildly conjecture while Maka finished her lunch grimly. Dinner would be the real litmus test and in the meantime she'd be haunted by a vision of his face as they had parted in front of the coffee shop.

He had looked hungry.