Imperfect

standards.

"Kid has been gone for quite a while now, hasn't he...?"

Tsubaki's unsure but concerned tone caused the attention of the others to turn to her. Upon hearing this, it occurred to Maka that it had been almost an hour since Kid had excused himself to use the restroom.

"He's been eating...pretty much anything with chocolate almost obsessively today, so I'm sure he's just paying for it," Liz stated with a careless shrug. "It's his own fault anyway, so I wouldn't be too worried about it."

Maka pushed herself forward from her position with her back against the wall, and began heading off to the bathrooms. "I'll go check on him."

When she got to the bathroom, she ignored the fact she was going straight into the boys' restroom, and pushed the door open. She was about to say something, but was rendered speechless by the state Kid was in. One trembling hand was clutching the side of one of the sinks as support, while the other was at his stomach with a fistful of his shirt. His eyes were tear-stained and his bangs were soaked in sweat and were plastered against his forehead.

"...Go away..."

The reaper was obviously trying to sound authoritative and commanding, but with how quiet and shaky his voice was, that was impossible.

"Kid..." Maka murmured, putting an arm around him. "It's okay. I'm here to help you. Liz said you've been eating a lot of chocolate lately, so maybe-"

"No, that's-You don't understand the situation, so there's no point in worrying for no reason."

Had the circumstances been any different, Maka probably would have snapped at him. He had no right to call himself unworthy of being worried about! He was always looking down on himself, but she feared what he said meant it was possibly getting worse.

"I couldn't just stop worrying about you..."

Not knowing what else to say, she breathed on the glass of the mirror a few times and began tracing out numbers, quietly chanting as she did so. "Forty-two, forty-two-"

"Don't," Kid hissed, grabbing Maka's wrist and pulling it away from the mirror. "I can't have my father knowing about this."

That hit a nerve. The girl knew very well how to control her anger when a situation called for it, but she in no way had the patience to continue swallowing back her intensifying fury. "Listen to me, Kid! I'm trying to help you! If you want to explain first, that's fine, and even if you just don't want Lord Death knowing, I can respect your wish to keep this from him! But that doesn't make it okay to treat me like that when I'm trying to help! There's obviously something wrong with you, now tell me what it is!"

"I..." The reaper let out a soft sigh and forced himself to straighten up, the look on his face clearly displaying traces of guilt. He winced noticeably, and Maka's anger and growing frustion instantly dissolved when he did. "I acted out and I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."

He turned immediately and began to leave, but Maka grabbed his shoulder before he could.

"I ws out of line too, and I'm really sorry. I really only want to help, so please tell me what's wrong."

In turn, she received a painful blow from Kid and he shoved her away, causing her to painfully hit one of the sinks. "I'm pathetic and worthless-there's nothing more to talk about."

Maka stayed down as her friend left. What had gotten into him? Why was he acting like this? This wasn't like him at all, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it. The only one of her friends she ever would have imagined would hurt her like that was Black☆star. If she could even call him a friend. But Kid? What reason was there for him to treat Maka like that?