Title: The Thirty-Seventh Symbol
Fandom: D. Gray-man
Pairing/Character(s): Kanda, mentions of characters in the most recent arc
Genre: General
Rating: PG
Summary: There is some sort of poetic injustice in him being named 'Yu'.
Warnings: Spoilers up till Chapter 193.
Disclaimer: I do not own D. Gray-man and will never presume that I do.
Notes: Tenses, where strange, are probably deliberate. My brain broke when thinking of the tenses.
There is some sort of poetic injustice in him being named 'Yu'.
He is well aware that 'Yu' does not mean anything at all. That's why he hates it. Not because it's girly, not because it means something girly, it just doesn't mean anything.
'Yu' is the thirty-seventh symbol in the Japanese alphabet. The thirty-seventh out of forty-six, which makes it close to the end, but not quite.
Now, 'Alma'. 'Alma' had been a different case altogether. He was some sort of crappy symbolic beginning of the English and the Japanese alphabet. Probably the Chinese one too, and hadn't that made 'Yu' all so pathetic?
'Alma' had been the first one to awaken; fine, maybe he could have been that first blooming messiah Edgar and those sentimental fools must have thought of him, name symbolism and all. Then there must be some sort of pathetic irony going on when Yu was the second to awaken. Couldn't they have had the foresight to name him something starting with 'B', something that would make some sense? God must have been having a field day, laughing at 'Yu' who wasn't the twenty-fifth but the second. Second of Seconds.
They didn't even give Kanda the decency to name him something starting with 'Z'. Wouldn't that have been pretty and all symbolic? 'Zackery' or 'Zeus' or whatever their clever clever minds could come up with, and Bookman would be stuck till the end of time analyzing how the birth of 'Z' heralded the end of 'A' and the end of all the alphabets in the world.
But no, they had to give him 'Y', which is near the end but not quite, so he can never really belong anywhere.
Lenalee once tried to tell him 'Yu' can mean so many things in the Chinese dictionary. She had said it means to be clever, to be elegant, or to be kind (he had scoffed at that and she wilted a little, smile straining). He told her he isn't either of those and she fell silent. She forgot to tell him that it can mean arrogance, sadness, depression, because it had hit far too close to home for her. He didn't realize her omission, he told her even his surname wasn't given to him when he was born, so he literally is nothing.
He didn't tell her, but he did think that having so many meanings in the Chinese dictionary is worse, because it means he could be everything and nothing all at once.
He hates that 'Yu' sounds like 'you', which must be the biggest joke in the century. 'You', not even 'me', so his name doesn't even refer to him – if he ever tries to introduce himself it'll be pretty epic. And stupid. Because if he says "I'm you" it just means he's a reflection of everyone else and never himself.
He's not even himself. He's a reflection and an embodiment of an Exorcist who had a promise to live up to.
'Yu' is a sound. 'Yu' doesn't mean anything by itself, not like 'yo', or 'wa', or 'sa', all of which have the dignity of being sound words and inflections. Things that make people the way they are, the way they speak and laugh. 'Yu', colourless, nothing by itself, an accessory to everything else.
'Y' is the twenty-fifth letter out of a list of twenty-six.
'Yu' is the thirty-seventh symbol in a list of forty-six.
'Yu' is cleverness, kindness, sadness.
'Yu' is 'you', reflecting what one can become, what one is not.
'Yu' isn't 'Kanda', and 'Kanda' is not him either. 'Kanda Yu' is a nameless entity.