A/N: Hey! *wave* Normally I'd say I have way too many stories atm to consider starting a new one, but countdowns are kind of a special case. *smile*
Title: Zephyr
Author: liketolaugh
Rating: T
Pairings: None
Genre: Angst
Warnings: None
Summary: DGM Hallow countdown: Sometimes the end just sneaks up on you, and you don't see it coming.
Disclaimer: I only wish I owned D. Gray-man.
Komui has a cabinet.
Okay, well, Komui has a lot of cabinets. Filing cabinets, specifically. As Chief, filing cabinets are kind of part of the job description. His office is walled with them, and so is his room.
This particular cabinet is hidden in a corner of his room. Komui doesn't often go to his room; he does most of his sleeping in his office or in the lab. Or not at all. The cabinet is dented on one side, and rust smatters the other; it's that old. The bottom drawer doesn't even open – he has to access it from the drawer above. By removing the above drawer entirely. On top of that, it was half blocked by his bed, and about six inches of scattered papers denied access to the floor anywhere within three feet of it.
This cabinet was, of course, the ideal place to keep documents he didn't want anyone else to see.
Before the Order, Komui had never had secrets. Well, almost never – his last secret, as he recalled, had been the engineering book he'd kept under his bed, until his father had found it and scolded him for not saying anything. There had never been a need.
There was a need now.
Before, there had been family and honesty and a rice field under a far-too-hot sun. Now, there are politics, Central moles, and people to look after. There is intrigue and conflict of interest and competition with higher stakes than Komui cared to think about.
Komui has a cabinet full of files no one needs to see, and he remembers every single one of them.
He keeps one drawer full of mission reports taking place in areas where members of the Order had family. One of these contains the report of the akumification (and subsequent destruction) of the town where Reever used to live, and Komui wishes he'd never read it.
Two contain reports of lapses – times when exorcists forgot themselves, forgot what they were doing or where they were, times when they 'endangered the mission' (endangered themselves) and became liabilities. Komui doesn't like to think about those either. He looks through them anyway, regularly, throwing out those that incriminate exorcists who are already dead. He needs the room, because new reports are always coming in.
Another has the discipline records of the exorcists and the scientists both. For some reason, they can never be found, so the higher-ups have to rely on anecdotes and memory to determine how often a given employee has been injudicious. Every time he is given a new disciplinary slip, he swears to keep track of it this time.
Komui feels sick when he thinks about it.
The very bottom drawer houses a variety of records detailing old experiments; Komui stored them there in the hopes that they would be forgotten. At least, forgotten to those who for some godforsaken reason thought they were good ideas.
He hides his Komurin blueprints, too, in the front of the top drawer.
Sometimes Komui thinks about burning the contents of that cabinet. (Except the blueprints, of course.) It would be safer that way, after all. But no. No, there was always a chance that he could need them, and he would not be reckless. Not here, not when so many were counting on him.
No one had counted on him, before. Not really.
Some days the responsibility pressed in on him, waking him up in a cold sweat, like so many others in Headquarters. Some days he didn't wake up, waking up at his normal time with a lingering feeling of despair and regret. Some days he didn't sleep, and sketched bad rabbits late into the night.
Coffee was his best friend. Really. And Lenalee was a godsend for learning how to make such wonderful, glorious coffee. (Lenalee was a godsend in general.)
Komui's office was piled high with papers – mission reports and bills and status updates – and that was a form of hiding, too, the compulsive sort that was disorganized and pointless, not the calm efficacy that compelled him to pick out what needed hiding the most. No one wanted to pick through a messy pile of papers that had been scattered on the floor for God knew how long.
(Including Komui. Sometimes paperwork that needed to be done ended up on the ground too. Oops.)
Komui learned to lie, learned to tell when others were lying – he knew exactly who the moles in each department were, and he knew to send them where they'd learn what was okay for them to learn and nothing more. Just enough to keep them from being suspicious. (He'd gotten good at learning what intel was important and what wasn't. Gotten good at fooling people.)
He learned to smile and sleep and sketch and dramatize, to keep the attention where they wanted it, to frustrate the Central agents (not the moles) to distraction until they forgot what they came for and just wanted out, and he learned to sleep at night with things no one else could know lurking in his head.
Komui never used to keep secrets. Now he has a filing cabinet full of them, half-hidden at the foot of his bed and surrounded in a carpet of meaningless paper debris.
*wince* Poor Komui. By the way, coming up with original ideas for oneshots on a consistent basis is freaking hard. And I almost forgot that this was today (except I found a really excellent oneshot earlier that made reference to the fact that it was part of a countdown). And! I do have intentions to finish Mandala. Eventually. Of course, intentions don't always translate into action... *sigh* Oh, well. Thanks for reading, and please review!