A/N: it's my first time attempting smth like this so any feedback would be gr9 orz
Prologue
It was 3:48 am in an airport in Paris when he saw her- the most gorgeous girl he had ever laid eyes on. Which was probably a bad figure of speech, since he only had one.
She was waiting with the rest of the passengers of flight 217, talking softly on her phone. Her head was turned slightly away from him, but not far enough that he couldn't stare at her long eyelashes. Lavi kept stealing glances at her out of the corner of his eye. Everything about her seemed flawless: her long black hair tied into a ponytail, her elegantly slim figure, her bright blue eyes, her expensive clothes. It was blatantly obvious she was way out of his league, but like hell that was going to stop him.
Rain fell hard against the large glass windows facing the airfield, lit only by faintly twinkling lights in the distance. In about thirty minutes he'd be on a flight to Michigan (a very anticlimactic destination, in his opinion) and the girl silhouetted against the window would be going god knows where.
As Emilie-Claire Barlow played softly in the background, Lavi imagined what the girl was like. He would bet anything she was quiet, sweet, and shy. Being an expert at judging character, it wasn't really a far shot. She'd kept to herself the entire wait, unlike most everyone else who tried to spark up conversations every five minutes, and body language doesn't lie.
Lavi's phone buzzed and a notification lit up his screen. 'Flight 217 Estimated Departure: 05:00'. He groaned. Several others around him did as well as they stared at their screens. The girl stopped in the middle of her hushed conversation and frowned at her phone. She hung up and quickly turned on her heel, walking away.
Lavi acted completely on impulse and found himself walking after her. "Hey, you, stop for a second! Since we're going to be here for a bit, I think I can find time in my schedule to get coffee with a lovely lady. Whaddaya say?"
The girl turned around and grabbed his collar with an irritated expression. "The fuck did you just call me?"
Okay scratch quiet, sweet, and shy. Lavi backpedaled, "Lovely?" He tried. Now that he heard her voice and got a good look at her glaring face, he realized 'lady' may have been a bit off. Not that that discouraged him any, the guy standing before him glaring daggers was pretty as fuck and he was nothing if not determined.
His expression relaxed a bit, as well as his violent grip on Lavi's collar. "Don't talk to me again, or I'll slit your fucking throat." He hissed and walked off, roughly letting go of Lavi's shirt.
Now Lavi was hell bent on getting that coffee. Not that he particularly liked being verbally abused, but he did like a challenge. Sitting around an airport terminal for 6 hours wasn't exactly his idea of a good time and a change of pace was nice.
Since the boy had already disappeared into the crowd, Lavi headed to the Starbucks anyways. No one should be forced to stay awake over 12 hours, and it was getting close to 24 since he last had some shut-eye. The tiny coffee shop was practically deserted, since most people in the airport at this time were too exhausted to even over caffeinate themselves. The warm smell of freshly ground coffee beans and the soft sound of Autumn Leaves by Édith Piaf greeted him as he walked inside the shop. One person stood at the counter ordering from a very tired looking barista as he glanced around as before getting into line.
Two other people sat at a table near the entrance, one of them obviously asleep in her chair. Lavi checked his phone before glancing around again. 4:03, with a new estimated departure time of 5:45.
As he frowned a bit at his phone, someone else walked into the coffee shop- someone extremely pretty with a vaguely pissed off expression. When he saw Lavi he froze, scowled, and turned around to walk away. Lavi reacted quickly by walking in front of him to block his path.
"See, I knew you'd warm up to the idea!" Lavi grinned as he steered the boy to the now nonexistent line. The boy being forcefully directed to the counter was taken aback for a second- he was used to people thinking he was a girl and hitting on him, but never people still being this persistent after realizing he wasn't. But only for a second, though. His angry glare was back in no time.
Reluctantly, the obviously irritated boy ordered his coffee as Lavi smiled beside him. The second he was done, he stalked off to the other end of the counter and waited for his drink, a red eye with caramel, Lavi noted. Lavi ordered also and in a minute he was strolling over to him.
"Aren't ya glad you took me up on my offer now?" Lavi smirked.
The other boy just rolled his eyes. "Thrilled." He said dryly as he took his coffee and headed to a back table.
Flopping down on the chair across from Lavi stared at the man in front of him. Now that he paid close attention his gender should have been blatantly obvious. His features were distinctly Japanese, with thin lips and a strong jawbone, but somehow he still looked elegantly effeminate.
The boy glared again at the redhead. "What?" He demanded, meeting Lavi's warm green gaze with an icy blue glare.
Lavi bit his cheek, "Kanda, that's an, uh, unusual surname," he rambled looking at the name scrawled on his coffee cup, "I'm guessing you aren't French?"
The Japanese boy's frown deepened as he shot down Lavi's attempt at making conversation. "No, I'm not."
Little did Kanda know, Lavi was one persistent son of a bitch.
"I feel terribly rude!" Lavi remarked with an exaggerated apologetic look. "I'm Bookman, Lavi Bookman, nice you meet ya." He held out his hand genially.
The boy gingerly shook his extended hand. "Kanda."
Lavi pouted. "You've gotta have a first name, come on- you know mine, fair's fair."
Kanda frowned even more, something Lavi didn't even think was humanly possible. As much as he didn't want this obnoxious redhead to know anything about him, he did have a point. "Yuu Kanda." He muttered, so quietly Lavi almost didn't hear- almost.
"Yuu... that's such a pretty name" Lavi grinned sleepily.
Kanda took a sip of his coffee. "Call me that and I'll cut out your fucking tongue."
"Yuu or pretty?" He asked innocently.
"Both."
They sat in silence for a bit. It wasn't particularly uncomfortable, both of them were preoccupied with their own thoughts.
Lavi was extremely interested in the boy sitting in front of him. It was just the sort of aura he gave off, he guessed. Whatever it was, this was a complete stranger he'd probably never see again, so he had nothing to lose, really.
Kanda on the other hand was vaguely annoyed by Lavi. He was especially irritable since he'd been waiting for a plane since 11:30 and was downright exhausted. Honestly, he was too damn tired to fully process half the things that came out of the redhead's mouth. Which was good for Lavi, because under normal circumstances, Kanda probably would have just left by now.
"So," Lavi ventured, "Paris to Detroit seems a bit anticlimactic."
Kanda responded with a blank expression. "You're on the exact same flight."
"I'm flying from Cairo, this is just the last leg of my flight." Lavi quickly explained, happy that Kanda wasn't shooting down his attempts at conversation immediately and trying to keep it going.
The Japanese boy's expression didn't change. "Isn't that even more anticlimactic then?"
Lavi shrugged. "I'm going to a new university in the states and it's my first time being completely alone in a new country, so I guess it's not that bad. Kind of exciting, really."
Kanda paused a bit. "Where are you from, then?" It wasn't like him to ask questions about others, but he was absolutely baffled by the redhead sitting across from him. His Eurasian features didn't exactly narrow down his country of origin and he didn't look like a native Egyptian.
Pursing his lips, Lavi thought about that for a second before smiling. "I'm from a lot of places, I guess. I never stay anywhere for too long, so it's hard to really give ya a straight answer. I was born around Turkey, maybe? Greece? That area. What about you, Yuu?"
"Don't fucking call me that, dammit." He frowned as he took another sip of coffee. "I'm from Paris."
Lavi also frowned. Did this guy think he was a complete idiot? "No offence, but you don't exactly look like the typical Parisian. Plus you've got a bit of an accent there." Also he had told him earlier he wasn't French.
Kanda felt his face heat up a bit at the mention of his practically unnoticeable Japanese accent. "I'm adopted, but I grew up here." He quickly bit out.
"So you're here visiting family?"
Kanda nodded.
"Why're you flying to America, then? It's not what I'd call a must-visit vacation destination." Hurried Lavi, trying to change the subject a bit. It wasn't like him to worry this much about people not liking him.
"Same as you."
"Huh?"
Kanda rolls his eyes. "College. I go to school there."
"For what?" Lavi asks, stifling a large yawn. His replies may be short and mildly irritated, but hey, conversation was conversation, and Lavi was determined to keep it going.
"Botany."
The redhead laughed a bit and Kanda's vaguely calm expression turned into a glare. "What?" He angrily demanded.
"No, nothing." Lavi smiled. "I've just been sitting here for the past hour trying to figure you out and I haven't even come close to scratching the surface. It's pretty offsetting, really- I'm great at figuring people out."
The glare remained. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean."
"It's nothing, honestly. I guess it's just I think you're pretty amazing."
Kanda didn't respond, but instead choked on his coffee.
