Chapter Text
Soul reclined in the kitchen chair, his heels pressed to the side of the table, pushing his chair onto two precarious legs. He sat with his hands in his pockets and a hunch in his back, and stared at the popcorn ceiling above him.
“Hey Blackstar.”
“What?” Blackstar said, his head halfway in the fridge.
“I wanna make a bet with you.”
Blackstar peaked above the door and leveled an interested look at his friend. “I’m listening.”
Soul removed his heels from the table and let his chair drop. “I bet you to go on a date with every person in our class.”
Blackstar stood upright and closed the fridge. He plopped himself in the seat across from Soul and leaned back against the wall.
“Oh yeah? What’s with this all of a sudden?”
Soul shrugged. “We’re going into our senior year. Figured I’d make you do something stupid.” He smirked. “And hey, maybe you’ll find your sweetheart along the way. You do a lot of flirting for a guy with no game.”
Blackstar scoffed. “Yeah right. A big guy like me is a lot for people to handle. I can’t let it out all at once, it would be too much for the masses.”
Soul puffed a small laugh. “Yeah, sure.”
“So what about this bet? What do I get if I win?”
Soul put one heel on the edge of the table and pushed his chair onto two legs again, crossing one ankle over the other. “If I win, I get $500, and you have to go on stage at Prom, and tell everyone what a little man you are. But if you win, you get to dress me up in whatever stupid outfit you want for Prom, and you get $500.”
A wicked smirk stretched across Blackstar’s face. He released a big, mocking laugh. “Oh yeah? I’ll get the chance to embarrass a fake cool guy like you that badly? Sign me up, I’ll take that bet.”
Soul chuckled to himself. “Good. But we’re gonna have to lay down some ground rules.”
Blackstar turned right in his seat, leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest. “Okay, like what?”
“Should we write them down or something? Do you have paper?”
Blackstar sneered. “Do I have paper? Who am I, Maka?”
“People have paper, dude.” Soul stood up and wandered out of the kitchen to get his bag from the front hall. He returned with a notebook and threw himself back into his chair. He opened the book to the back and tore out one page. “Okay, rules.” He wrote ‘Rules’ on the top. “One date with every person in our graduating class. And I mean person, dudes, chicks, whatever Crona’s got going on, everyone.”
Blackstar leaned forward with his elbows on the table and watched Soul write. He nodded along. “Easy, I’m irresistible to everything that moves.”
“In order to count as a date, it needs to last at least one hour.”
“A whole hour? I know guys who had dates that lasted 20 minutes.”
Soul crossed out ‘hour’ and replaced it. “Alright, fine, 45 minutes, but that's as low as I’ll go.”
Blackstar frowned. “Fine.”
“The person has to agree to, and know, that it's a date. You can’t just ask someone to hang out or something, and then spring it on them later that this is a date.”
Blackstar nodded. “Okay, okay.”
Soul sat there with the pen hovering over the next line. “How about you have to get a selfie with everyone while you’re on the date? You know, like proof.”
Blackstar smiled wide. “I can do that, easy. Who wouldn’t want to take a selfie with a big star like me?”
Soul tapped the pen on the table. “Anything else?”
“What if someone’s already dating someone else?”
“You’re just gonna have to figure that one out on your own.” Soul scribbled one last note down. “The bet ends Prom night of our senior year. So you’ve got until May of next year.”
Blackstar reclined in his chair with a smile. “Sweet. This is gonna be a piece of cake. Can I start now?”
Soul glanced around, taking a second to think about that. “Summer just started. You can start in July.”
Blackstar shrugged. “Late off the line, but I accept that.” He leaned over the table with one elbow and threw a cheeky grin at his friend. “So, Soul, July 1st, you and me, how about it?”
Soul drew back, one brow furrowed. “Is this you trying to ask me on a date? For two weeks from now?”
“Is that a yes?”
“Dude, you seriously need to work on your game.”
“Is it a yes or no?”
After a few seconds, Soul laughed. “Sure. But you’re paying.”