Holiday fever

Chapter 3 - A Book is a Book, Right?

Maka’s eyes fluttered open to a bright screen with the dramatic violins from the menu screen playing. She looked up and saw a genuine soft smile on her still sleeping partner. He looked peaceful, not grumpy or sullen like he normally did when he was awake. It was a nice, but rare sight. Noticing the clock that read 9:31, she was going to go and start on breakfast so she could head out to her father’s house to break the news to him that he won’t be allowed to attend Thanksgiving dinner.

As she hazily tried to get up, she was stopped by a pair of arms trapping her. She looked down and saw Soul’s arm wrapped around her waist, his hands clasped at her side, and she could just barely feel his other arm wrapped around her back.

“Soooouuuuullll! Geeettt uuuuupppp!!!” She whined, still half asleep herself. “Sooouullll!” She kept nudging him and jabbing him with her elbow, but he remained fast asleep, not budging an inch. She gave up her pursuit and, now fully awake, looked around for something to occupy her time while Soul slept.

As she scanned her eyes over the room she caught glimpse of a book lying on the coffee table in front of the couch. She couldn’t see what book it was, but Maka --being the booklover she was-- figured it couldn’t be too bad. A book is a book, right? Besides, anything would beat just sitting here doing nothing. No matter how warm and cozy it may have felt.

She reached her legs out and very carefully gripped the book between her feet and brought her legs up within arms’ reach so she could grab it. Once it was in her grasp, she read the title: Star Wars: Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn.

Maka mulled it over a bit, wondering whether or not she was desperate enough to read a Star Wars novel. The franchise had never interested her, and science fiction never really caught her attention the way most other genres did.

Well it is a book. Plus, it’ll be a long while before Soul will wake up… Maka opened it up, deciding to read the first chapter just to see how it was.

She got through the eleven page chapter which only introduced the bad guys, showed them having a brief encounter with their enemy, and then showed them planning to head to a planet that Jedi have seldom gone to. The few that have, didn’t stay long, thus making it a perfect headquarters type thing for the Empire.

Well, that didn’t establish much plot. I can’t really decide if I like it or not just from that. Maybe I should read some more. Maka snuggled up a smidge closer to Soul and continued reading until her eyes couldn’t stay open any longer.

~*~*~

She woke up lying flat on the couch, the book sitting on her chest with a bookmark sticking out of it.

She heard the fridge door close in the other room. Knowing it had to be Soul, she stood up, stretching her arms high, and made her way into the kitchen to see what he was up to.

“Soul?” her voice came out as no more than a tired squeak.

“Hey, sleepy head, you finally decide to join the land of the living?” he asked as he stuffed a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth.

“Soul, you can’t eat ice cream for breakfast. It’s not good for you. You need protein.” Maka may have been tired, but she was never too tired to act like a mother and scold Soul. (Or anyone for that matter.)

“Hey, there’s some protein in ice cream. Look at the nutrition facts,” he spoke, spewing ice cream out of his full mouth, pointing to the freezer with his spoon.

Maka opened the door and looked at the listing of how many grams/milligrams of various things were in the frozen desert.

“Soul, 2 grams of protein per serving is not good enough.”