Disclaimer: Soul Eater doesn't belong to me, and sadly never will. Dude, if it did the anime would've had as many episodes as Bleach or D. Gray-man. -rabid fan gleam- 8D

Author's Note: This is my first venture into the Soul Eater fandom on this site. I had the idea for this oneshot in my head for quite a while now, and it took about three to four days for me to type it out. This is seriously the longest oneshot I've ever written. o.o

I chose the university-type AU because I'm about to go to college in about 18 days. ^^ Plus having them in a college environment didn't seem so bad.

However, before you readers view this, I must warn you: I had to compromise Soul and Maka's characters a bit here. I am terribly sorry for that, because I have no real love for compromisition of characters, and...well, guess I just turned hypocrite, huh? -_-

Also, the last bit may need editing. As well as some other stuff. I'll get back to it later today (it's 2:12 A.M. over here), but I just wanted to post it up right now to see if anyone would like it. That, and I am tired. X.X

So...out with my blabbing, and on with the story! Enjoy! b^^d

The first trigger was him dumping her best friend. The second was her knocking on his door at six the next morning.

Nothing save for an act of God could wake his roommate earlier than 8 a.m., so he had been the unfortunate bloke who had tried to drown out the persistent, annoying sound of knuckles rapping on wood. Eventually he had to cave in, so he had gotten up to shoo away whatever stalker was disturbing his rest.

The door opened, the curtain rose- congratulations, it was a girl. And while he, Soul Evans, was no stranger to girls asking for entrance into his humble abode (and getting flat-out rejected), he was getting fed up real fast. He got jerked out of his sleep for this?

And the girl wasn't even pretty. Her hair was the most dull color he had ever seen, and her face was super plain. The bedhead and stern gaze didn't help improve her image much either. Whatever she wanted, she had better come out with it before he shut the door in her face.

Come to think of it, she had looked familiar…

"I'm Maka Albarn." She didn't even give him time to open his mouth and tell her to piss off. "We have Business Management together."

He remembered a couple of glances of her here and there when the class bored him out of his mind, but nothing more than that. "And you're here because…"

"Remember Tsubaki Nakatsukasa? You know, the girl you dumped before her last class yesterday? Well, I'm her best friend."

And all he could remember thinking after that was, Oh. As if everything else was glued to the sides of his brain and just wouldn't come out. He, the epitome of the coolness factor of their little Spartoi University, had been reduced to nothing more than a gaping mouth and sound that went something like, "Um…"

She obviously didn't have the time for 'Um.' With strength he had definitely not thought possible with those skinny arms, she had grabbed his collar and pulled his head down until it was level with hers. "You got exactly sixty seconds to tell me why before I kick your ass."

Strange, he didn't have a hard time believing that statement. "Oi, it's none of your business. What happened happened, and none of us can take it back." That's right, he had told himself. Keep your cool. "And if you're really her friend, shouldn't you be comforting her instead of trying to beat the crap out of me?"

For at least one second it looked like he had won himself a reprieve- then her green eyes had darkened into something that made him wonder where he went wrong. "It's all your fault she needs comforting in the first place!"

Then she had punched his lights out, and whatever rest he had been missing was no longer a problem as he (uncoolly) passed out on the floor.

For weeks after he had sported a black eye, avoided a few of his classes, and been downright miserable.

It wasn't that Tsubaki Nakatsukasa was lacking- she was a nice girl, probably the sweetest he had ever met and ever will meet in his entire life. Her looks weren't lacking either; with her long, raven-black hair and shapely figure, she was every man's Ideal Woman. He cherished her, and he knew she cherished him just as much. They would always go on dates by the lake or in the downtown area, whether to gaze at the stars or catch a movie. (Horrors were his favorites- they always gave him an excuse to hold her closer than usual.)

But for some reason, he just…got tired of her. It didn't mean that he wanted to part from her, he just didn't want them to be together as a couple anymore. Just being friends would've been fine with him.

Of course, that's not what happened. When he had tried as gently as he could to break the news to her, she ran off crying. He felt like such an asshole; he had never seen her cry so much during the time they were together. All during that night he had stayed up going over the scenario again and again and wondering what he could have done differently.

Then One-Armed Wonder Girl showed up at his door the next morning and made everything ten times worse. Sitting alone in the food court at the moment wasn't helping much either.

"Hey, you. How's the eye doing?"

His karma was nothing but crap. He almost let loose a few strong words when his eyes lifted to meet with those of one Maka Albarn. She was seated at his table, an interrogator ready to cut down the criminal with a few strong words of her own.

She looked down her nose at him. "Apologize to Tsubaki."

As if he couldn't come up with that idea himself. How did someone so harsh and demanding end up as her best friend? "No, really?"

"It's the least you could do," she continued as if she hadn't heard his sarcastic remark. "For breaking her heart."

This girl pulled no punches. His own heart was ready to bleed again, right on the messy table before them. But no way was he letting her know that.

"Quit sticking your nose where it doesn't belong," he griped, pushing back his chair to stand and make his exit. "None of this concerns you." Even though she was her best friend.

He walked out of that place as fast as he could.

He had expected just about anything from that little confrontation. A tepeed dorm, or a bucket of water on his head- hell, even another unsuspecting black eye.

What he didn't expect were that girl's crazy attempts to get him and Tsubaki back together.

It started when he had been assigned to a four-person group consisting of her, two other guys, and himself. He wasn't thrilled about it, but when she had caught him after class and demanded that he be at the pizza place the next day for group collaboration, he had agreed.

Turned out to a be set-up: he caught sight of his ex-girlfriend before she caught sight of him, and he had high-tailed it out of there as fast as he could.

Sadly, that wasn't even the end of it. There were coincidental run-ins at one of their favorite ice cream parlors, close calls at the movies. He knew that this was all that girl's work. Tsubaki had always known to let sleeping dogs lie.

Eventually he gathered the courage to corner her after class one afternoon.

"Stop trying to set us up. We broke up for a reason and that reason still stands."

Maka had huffed like a little girl and turned her head to the side, folding her arms like she had been put on time out. "I get it already. You two actually don't want to get back together. But you guys don't have to rub it in my face like that!"

That's when things got confusing. "Uh, what?"

She glared at him. "Tsubaki somehow figured out what I was trying to do. And yeah," she added on seeing his shell-shocked expression, "About the black eye too. Now she won't even talk to me."

"Oh. Okay then." He had something smarter to say than that, but it had vanished along with the rest of his common sense.

Maka's frown deepened, but she made no comment. "So now…I need to apologize to her. If she would let me. And it's all your fault."

He had been indignant. "My fault? I'm not the one setting up all those blind dates, Little Miss Matchmaker!" Who knew this girl could be so irritating?!

And what was worse, she acted like she didn't even hear him. "It doesn't change the fact that now both of us have some apologizing to do."

"…" How did his life become so complicated?

"So that's what we should do. Apologize."

That turned out to be easier said than done. Much easier. If before it had been suddenly too easy to accidentally run into his ex, it was now twice as hard. They even took to teaming up together- him, who was out of the graces of both his ex and her crazy best friend, and her, the crazy best friend who was out of the graces of his ex. Funny how the world works.

Even funnier were the sorts of outrageous adventures they went through for the sake of delivering their apologies.

One time they had planned a campout by her dorm- tents and all- for an entire week and a half in hopes that one of them would catch her going in or out; five days into the camp session Maka found out she was doing International Study in Japan. Another time Maka suggested they work in the college greenhouse for a week, just to have an excuse to visit Tsubaki during Flower Arrangements. More than a couple of mosquito bites later made them both rethink that plan.

But the strangest thing was, even when every plan failed and they ended up depressed and beat on a bench somewhere, he always found himself trying to cheer her up. Even though all her plans were crazy, the confidence she had in each and every one of them lit up her eyes in such a way that he went along without complaint. It never ended well, but for some reason following through with her half-brained schemes became addicting.

And she…well, he didn't know how she felt about him. Often they would get exasperated with each other, especially when another failed plan came their way, but he could remember a few laughs shared between them. And she was more than just a little help when it came to studying for midterms. Really, it was a shame they shared only one class.

They had been spending more time together lately, all built up on their pretense of cooking up some new plan to apologize to Tsubaki. They would brainstorm while killing time in the gym, or volunteering at a nearby park clean-up. He had to admit, seeing her fall face first into a pile of leaves that one time made his day.

And sometimes they wouldn't even talk about Tsubaki. Sometimes they would just sit at some fast food diner or a piece of grass on campus and talk about anything they thought up out of the blue- his love for Linkin Park songs, her stormy relationship with her dad, if peanut butter tasted better at morning or at night. This girl was about as weird as he was, almost.

He had no idea how their little chats started, but…it was a definite improvement from that black eye.

It was a sunny, unassuming Thursday afternoon when Maka told him of a party at a club near the lake. And that Tsubaki was going to be there.

Now, Soul Evans was a cool guy. So cool that the word 'cool' was invented just to describe his coolness.

But he did not attend parties.

"Forget it" was his first response to Maka's plan. "No way in hell" was the second. "Get away from me, tiny tits!" were his last words before a fist in his face and a freakin' large encyclopedia smashed on top of his head successfully persuaded him to change his decision.

His arrival at the party was grumpy, unannounced, and filled with thoughts of things he could have been doing instead. Then he looked around for his partner in crime, and…

Wow. That was the only thing he was capable of thinking. Because he was used to Maka being, well, just Maka. Not this- not this girl who was so beautiful.

While he had come in a pinstriped suit and red silk tie- meant to annoy her as revenge for her extortion earlier that day- she was dressed in a deep blue halter top, studded with so many fake diamonds that she seemed to be sparkling. Her hair was tied up in a high ponytail, her pants were black and smooth, and those black boots on her sure looked like they were made for walking.

Wow.

As opposed to his mouth dropping at her presence, she scrunched up her nose at his choice of clothes. "Soul, this is a party, not a luncheon. Now come on, let's go find Tsubaki."

The second she grabbed his hand he knew this wasn't a good idea. "We should split up. Cover more ground. It'll be easier to find her that way." He then took off before she could complain.

All night long he searched for the woman who was the cause of all this- his first black eye, those embarrassing set-ups, he and Maka somehow getting closer to each other. And the more he thought about it, the more uneasy he got about the whole thing. The sooner this was over with, the better.

But of course he didn't find her by the time the party (finally) got disbanded and everyone trickled out the club doors. What he did find, though, had drastically changed the events of his short life.

Maka was crying.

Not bawling like a baby, or spewing snot everywhere, but still, she was crying. Crying. He had never thought her capable of such a thing- she was so strong, so confident. How was she here, crying?

"She said that she never wants to see my face again," she quietly said, tears running down her face. Her back was against the outer wall of the club, her hands pressed behind her. "That I was inconsiderate and…" She sniffled.

What happened then he would never be able to explain later on. But seeing her there, crying over something he never thought his ex-girlfriend would ever say- it moved him, somehow. And somehow he was leaning over her, one hand on the wall behind them and the other on her face, tilting…

It was wet. Salty. Warm, especially warm.

And the thing was, she didn't even stop him. She just went along with it, her mouth stiffening then softening under his, her whole body relaxing. Her arms slowly came up to encircle his neck, and she was pressing in more, more…her mouth opened, his mouth opened, and they were doing something very interesting with their tongues…

It was coming up for air that had saved him from drowning. He just looked at her, thinking 'What the hell were we just doing' but definitely didn't have the breath to say it. But that was when the truth dawned on him.

He had kissed his ex-girlfriend's best friend.

By the widening of her eyes, she seemed to have just realized that, too. And she was just as scared, he could tell. So he did the smartest thing he could think of- walk away.

He knew his karma was nothing but crap.

Irony was a witch with a capital 'B'. Seriously.

Because that very next day, right when his mind was still pondering and panicking over that little event from the night before, was the day he ran smack into Tsubaki.

Books and paper flew everywhere, and he picked them up for her with as much enthusiasm as a sloth. He hadn't felt like talking to her, or anybody for that matter. Everything in side him felt queasy and messed up, like he had eaten some bad sausage.

"What's wrong, Soul-kun?"

Her eyes were soft and gentle- not hard and unforgiving, like Maka had insinuated before. And her smile spoke so many volumes of understanding and serenity that he couldn't resist forcing out the words, "I'm sorry."

They were both silent, a breeze lifting her hair above her shoulders. She was always like that. Silence and peace and calm, all wrapped in one. "For what?"

For kissing your best friend. "For dumping you. It…the way I went about it just wasn't cool. I should've…" He stopped. Even now he had no clue on what he should've done differently.

A soft laugh. "It's alright, Soul-kun. I already forgave you a long time ago."

His head snapped so fast he was sure he almost broke it in half. "What?" After all he and Maka had gone through just to get a glimpse of her, they were already forgiven?

Wait. Something didn't add up. "If that's true," he said, frowning his eyes into confused slits, "Then why did you tell Maka those things last night? She was crying about it when she told me, Tsubaki. Crying."

Her smile shifted, and for the first time Soul could see that even through all her outer exterior of total control, there was some sadness mixed in there. "Because I knew that Maka-chan would confide in you if I made her sad."

"…" His head had an annoying habit of going blank when things got complex like this. Confide in him? Why would Tsubaki want her to do that? And the way she was saying all this, like it was all planned, like it was all a…

A set-up. Of course. It always was that when it came to Tsubaki these days. But the question now was-

"Why? Why would she need to confide in me?"

"Because," and here her smile was real, just like during those times when he bought her something on one of their dates or when he said something uncommonly sweet just to improve her mood, "There is something Maka-chan needed to realize about herself when it comes to you. She may not have known it, but even while we were dating…" She trailed off, but Soul didn't need to hear the rest. The pieces were already falling into place.

So that's what it was.

She was waiting for him at the lake that same afternoon. It was the first place he looked, and it didn't surprise him. Maka was the type who always faced her problems instead of running away, even if it killed her to do so.

And he wasn't going to run away either. When their eyes met, he shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his dark jacket and flat out asked, "Since when did you start liking me?"

She didn't even react; she probably expected that he knew just about everything by now. Her eyes fell away from his, and she took a deep breath.

He braced himself.

Then from her mouth she confessed that she really didn't know. That it had started so small that she never really noticed, and from stuff that he didn't really think were attention-grabbing, like how the light struck his fully white hair as he walked or how deep his voice sounded when he said the word, "Cool".

And when he had started dating her best friend, she didn't feel any regret or remorse. Maybe some small twinges, but that was it. But he only served to impress her even more when she saw how happy her friend was through being with him.

The rest was history- he then broke up with Tsubaki. She got pissed off and confronted him about the issue. And strangely enough, it was when she had socked him into the next century that she had realized her feelings for him.

"I…I think it was how you looked there on the floor when you got unconscious. You looked so helpless and peaceful and…kind of cool." A smidgen of pink flashed across her cheeks.

Any other guy would've freaked out, but Soul Evans…well, he had to admit that he kind of did freak out, but just let it pass with a roll of his eyes. There was no helping Maka's weirdness, after all. To be honest, he really wouldn't have it any other way.

"You know, you should've told me earlier," he commented, smirking. "Then we wouldn't have been wasting so much time doing- wait Maka no, not the encyclopedia!"

After that (not so) painless encounter, he and Maka became a couple. Simple as that.

Tsubaki was friends with Maka again, he was now friends with his ex. Lately he had been seeing her around with a rather obnoxious-lookin' fellow with blue hair and a loud mouth…eh, as long as she was happy.

And as for him? There were times when Maka was a pain in the ass, and there were times when he couldn't escape her presence without a brief concussion, but it was worth it. He was happy with her, she was happy with him, and their interest wasn't likely to fade any time soon if that jewelry box burning a hole in his pants pocket was any indication…

They were going to live happily ever after.

End of story.

A/N: I hope that everyone who read this enjoyed it. If you can, please review! Oh, and keep your eyes out for another SoMa installment from me coming out soon! b^^d