I never once considered that I was gay. No male had ever turned me on. Then again, I never considered the fact that I wasn't interested in females either. I always blamed it on my adolescence; I was too young to have the urge to fall in love. No, neither sex had ever caught my attention.

But then, Kanda Yu seemed to be neither of the two.

The Japanese swordsman was so very feminine looking with his slim hips and long silky hair. However, he was undoubtedly a man. I didn't understand what turned me on so much; he was only ever rude to me. He never made me mad; I just yelled back for a chance to be with him.

What I didn't know was that Kanda Yu was doing the same exact thing. If it hadn't been for Lavi, neither of us would have realized that we were alike. And that didn't happen until around a year after the Earl's defeat.

The survivors of the ordeal stayed at the order's Headquarters. We were the ones who had dedicated our entire lives to our cause. We didn't know how to be anything except for Exorcists. I myself wished sometimes that the war had never ended. Then we would have had a purpose for living.

Then all of our friends would still be alive.

Myself. Kanda Yu. Lavi. Komui Lee. Miranda. Arystar Krory. General Froi Teidoll. We were the only survivors of the final battle. Komui was never the same after Lenalee's death. He was so much more serious. She died in vain for an innocence heart that wasn't there. Bookman, shot through by an Akuma as he protected the only person he had ever truly cared for.

They all died gruesome deaths. We honored their deaths by not staying sad. They died so that we could be happy.

Lavi's innocence had been destroyed. Kanda's was still safe; as if he would ever allow it to be destroyed again after the Ark fiasco. Miranda's had protected us to its very last limits. And my innocence, the true heart, stayed with me. I couldn't picture myself without it by my side . . . or, well, attached to me.

We were all Exorcists, though. Innocence or not.

"Allen."

"Hmm?" I propped myself upright on my bed to stare at Lavi. The red head no longer wore an eye patch to cover his right eye. With the war done, he had no need to. Both eyes stared firmly back at me.

"Did you love Lenalee?"

I sighed. "She was a dear, dear sister to me. I loved her, yeah. But not the way you're talking about."

"Good. Because I think I may have loved her."

"Strange time to finally realize that." I sat up fully, wondering if the reason Lavi had asked was because he knew what I was thinking about. So I changed the subject. "Have you made your decision yet?"

"Yeah." Lavi stared up at me firmly. "I'm ending the Bookman line. I think . . . as weird as it sounds, Gramps wanted me to. After all . . . I sure don't want to be known as Bookman all my life!"

"Yeah," I laughed.

"Hey! Moyashi, Lavi, time for dinner!"

Kanda. Even the sound of his voice had my heart pounding, and for reasons even I had no idea about. Lavi must have seen my reaction, because he grinned in that embarrassing way that he had and said, "Aw, Allen, your face is all red."

"I'm hungry!" I protested, in an attempt to defend myself.

"Let's go eat, then! With Kan-da."

Childishly I stuck my tongue out at the twenty year old before following.

Dinner, as usual, was a quiet affair. It was no longer the same as it used to be. The finders had returned to their families, no longer gracing the tables of our gargantuan dining hall. There was no one you could choose to sit with. We all sat together, at one small table right in the center of the cafeteria. And, now, I always felt self conscious about taking all of the food over and over again. It was almost contradicting the fact that the war was over. My innocence still wanted all of the energy.

I sat down tentatively in between Lavi and Kanda, across from our one remaining general. Froi Teidoll smiled at me, but he seemed engrossed in a piece of artwork. He was the one that had changed the least with the ending of the war. I believed it was because he conveyed his sadness in the art he became obsessed with. His pieces were never happy anymore.

"So, Yu, what did you do all day?" Lavi demanded.

"Tch. What do you think I did? There's nothing to do except for practice now." Kanda had long since stopped trying to get Lavi to call him by his last name. After a year, there was no point. Lavi simply would not stop. "At least I'm not being lazy, like you."

"I'm not lazy! I just don't feel like doing stuff sometimes . . . well, most of the time."

I rolled my eyes; Lavi was about to get in deep. Deciding not to get involved for once, I turned back to my meal, only to catch someone staring at me. I glanced up as Miranda and Krory sat down. "Hey."

"Allen, you've hardly touched your food tonight," Miranda said.

"Ah, it's alright. I was just listening to those two for a minute. But there's really no point."

"My teeth are aching again," Krory muttered gloomily.

"Krory, if you would just allow me to operate, I could help your problem—" Komui tried.

"No!"

I grinned. No matter how sober Komui had become, his idea of surgery was still as wacked as before. Still . . . there were no more Akuma. Which meant that Krory's innocence was no longer receiving blood. And lately, the teeth had been acting up for the older Exorcist. I wondered—no, dreaded—that the Innocence might be trying to destroy him since he wasn't helping it.

"Moyashi," Kanda said suddenly.

I turned quickly, trying not to show too much enthusiasm in replying to his acknowledgement. Lavi knowing was one thing, but if Kanda ever found out . . . "What is it?"

"Tomorrow morning," he said gruffly. Obviously—and to my amusement—he was trying to ask me to do something with him. But, since it was Kanda, he had no idea how to ask anyone anything. "Training rooms. You'll . . . um. Practice with me? You haven't been in there in awhile."

That was the closest I was going to get to an actual question by Kanda, so I didn't push it. "Sure," I agreed, with a laugh.

I didn't find out until much later that Lavi had already known about Kanda's feelings towards me. He had pushed Kanda into asking, just so that we might finally admit to each other what we were feeling.

"A-llen!" Lavi hollered, locking me into a sort of noose with his arm. "Hurry up and eat! I want to go into town!"

"But it's already getting dark!"

"So? The best time to go is at night. Besides, you've been tense for the last few days. You could use some relaxation."

"Oh? And going into town with you is going to help me relax?" I ducked easily out from under his grasp.

"Well . . . I'll be calm, I promise! But please come with me?"

"Fine, Lavi," I laughed. "Since when do I ever say no to your weird excursions anyway?"

"Never!" he nearly sang. "Kanda, do you want to come?"

"Tch. Why would I ever want to go with you two lunatics? I'm going to bed." The Japanese slammed his chopsticks on the table and stormed out of the room.

"Wow," Lavi sighed dramatically. "Talk about bipolar. Anyone else want to come?"

"My teeth hurt," Krory mumbled again, as Miranda said, "I'm quite tired out for the day."

"I'll have to pass, Lavi," Komui admitted.

Teidoll didn't even hear.

It was always this way. Every time we went into town, everyone refused to go with us. I had no idea why; perhaps it was because they wanted us to have fun by ourselves. Everyone knew Lavi and I were best friends.

But the real reason, I was sure, was because no one trusted the outside world anymore. Not after the Millennium Earl nearly destroyed it, made it something barbaric. Not after our loved ones had been killed in that wide space. Lavi, Kanda, and I were the only ones who had truly come to terms with what had happened last year, on my sixteenth birthday. The rest of them had never stepped a foot outside of headquarters since that day.

And the worst part? I could see the fear in their eyes whenever we even mentioned leaving our safe haven. It didn't matter if all of the akuma were gone, or if all of the Noah had been destroyed. To them, there was still something horrific about the place we called home.

And I pitied them.