Title: One More Time, One More Chance
Fandom: DGM
Character/Pairings: LaviYuu; Yullen broship
Genre: Light angst? I don't think it's that sad.
Summary: Oneshot. It takes him four years of searching. LaviYuu.
A/N: So I had some time today because I got stuck in a room without wifi for five hours. This is something I had planned to write years ago based on the song One More Time, Once More Chance by Masayoshi Yamazaki that is in 5 Centimetres Per Second. It was meant to be really angsty but it turned out more general/light angst or something. Well, since it's written, here it is.
I'm always searching, for your figure to appear somewhere
It had been a fluke.
It had been a fluke that they won. It was not strategy nor strength, both of which had been exhausted way before the finale, but sheer dumb luck—or maybe in the church's view, god's grace. Everyone believed that god loved Allen Walker too much to let him die, but clearly he didn't love the exorcist enough, not when Kanda stands in the distance and watches the sixteen year old boy cradle the girl he loved in his arms, bleeding over his innocence that wrapped them both up in an embrace.
The loud sobs are ugly and desperate, and Allen screams his voice so hoarse in denial, Kanda turns away and stiffens his posture.
Lenalee is just one more loss in addition to the growing pile of dead bodies that began ever since the war begun—but she will be the last. On the blood soaked battle field, Kanda casts his gaze around for any remaining survivors. He doesn't flinch when he sees Marie's decapitated head, nor when he spots Tiedoll's limp figure against a blood splattered cracked stone wall.
He looks and looks—Miranda bent over Cloud Nyne crying and apologizing, innocence still whirling. Cross Marian lights a cigarette and breathes out slowly into the rank air, exhausted with the dead body of Tyki Mikk at his feet.
And then Kanda whips around when a pained cough sounds from behind him.
"Well," Lavi groans leaning on his hammer as he hobbles closer. "At least Komui isn't here to see this."
The supervisor had met his end in the invasion of the headquarters prior to the final battle—trying too hard to protect the ones that he loved to see his end coming.
"So what now?" the redhead asks, pressing the gash on his thigh.
"We won," Kanda says simply, sheathing his sword. "It's over."
The metal weapon clicks heavy, dead weight resting on his hip.
"Stating the obvious here, Yuu," Lavi grins. "I meant, what are you going to do? No more innocence to hunt, no more akumas to kill, no more Noahs, nor the creepy Earl. What are you gonna do?"
Kanda presses his lips together. "You're going to become Bookman, aren't you?"
"With gramps dead and all, yeah," Lavi shrugs nonchalantly, but his gaze is cast far off. "It was his dying wish and my duty."
The swordsman looks at him one final time before turning on his heel, striding away.
It is the last time he sees Lavi.
It's the worst thing that he regrets.
On the opposite platform, in the windows along the lane
Even though I know you couldn't be at such a place
He travels with Allen for a while. No one ever thought they'd willingly leave together, but Kanda has no idea where to go and neither does Allen. Both of them had the Order as their home too long to consider any other place 'home', and after a month they realise that the headquarters is nearly empty. Almost everyone had already packed up and returned to their native places, leaving it as cold and empty as the battlefield.
Lavi never followed them back to the Order. Kanda gets thrown the chore of clearing out his room. When he enters, he expects to find it littered with papers and stinking of old books and ink, like every time that he's pressed the other down on the sheets, groaning and grunting till the air smelt like sex. Instead it's empty, except for a wrapped package on the bed. There is a small tag that says 'from Lavi', and inside is the orange scarf that Lavi always wears—now Kanda remembers that it was missing when they fought last.
The colour is so vivid that Kanda thinks he sees it in clothing stores when Allen drags him along to stock up on normal clothing, since their uniforms mean nothing now.
It's been three months and they're in Spain, him, sitting the corner as Allen laughs and mixes with the locals trying to teach him the native dance, bright smile to hide the dark pain that lingers underneath. Kanda can see it all but he doesn't call the younger out on it, because he looks at the burning campfire in the middle and remembers the shout of 'Hiban!'; the roaring monstrous snake shooting into the sky and colouring it red.
If my wish were to come true, I would be at your side right away
There would be nothing I couldn't do
"Ever thought about getting an education, Kanda?" Allen asks one day.
They find a small place to settle in Amsterdam. It's not the first time they've got their own place, nor will it be the last. They usually end up in a community doing odd jobs, earning enough to support themselves and to pass the day. They linger until the look in Allen's eyes start to harden from the weariness of keeping up his smile, or when Kanda's grip on his sword tightens too much whenever a redhead walks past.
One of them will say, "Shall we go?" and they do, no questions asked.
"Not interested," Kanda says, lifting his axe with a grunt to slice the chunk of firewood in half.
Allen leans on his palm as he watches Kanda, bare bodied in autumn, sweat tricking down his back.
The younger scratches his cheek lazily. "We might get better jobs."
"Don't need it."
"I suppose not," Allen concludes. "Shall we go?"
"Took you long enough, beansprout," Kanda snorts. "I'm sick of this place."
"My name is Allen, you idiot."
I would put everything on the line and hold you tight
There is once, he thinks he sees Lavi.
They're in China, working at an inn that pays them in food and lodging. The owner hires them even if neither speak a whit of the language, because they double as bodyguards from the mafia that bullies them from time to time.
Kanda hates it when he gets put on waiter duty for the patrons—he can go by enough with the smattering of Mandarin phrases he's picked up, and the customers tend to forgive his lack of understanding for the eye candy—but he doesn't like to pretend to be polite when he's really not.
He's taking an order from a family of four when his gaze flickers unconsciously to the door when someone steps in, hair flaming red. He isn't close enough to see who it is but he thinks thinks thinks thinks—and when he hears Allen's horrified yelp, he closes his eyes and grips the pen he's holding so tight, it snaps.
Blood trickles to the ground.
"Yo, brat."
"—S-sh—shishou!"
I'm always searching, for your figure to appear somewhere
That was just the beginning of the times he thinks he sees Lavi.
They move across the border into Nepal, heading to India. Kanda remembers Lavi telling him about this place—the heat, the smell of spices, the swirl of culture. They get paid for providing manual labour at the market. Allen has filled out enough to carry five sacks of beans on his own, and Kanda has always been unnaturally strong.
Kanda grimaces at how tanned his skin becomes. His hair grows much too long but he doesn't cut it.
He hates it, because he think hears Lavi murmuring in his ear, telling him the same.
They meet Lou Fa by chance on a hot summer's day. She's much taller than Allen remembers; older, more mature, but her girlish smile hasn't changed. Allen takes the day off to spend it with her. When he comes back, the smile on his face is wide but the haunted look in his eyes has darkened.
Kanda punches him in the face—the first time since…he can't remember, and walks away, leaving Allen to cry quietly in their room.
When Lou Fa appears the next day, Allen brings her aside to talk. He comes back alone.
It's only at night when he punches Kanda back in the face, grinning genuinely for the first time.
At a street crossing, in the midst of dreams
Even though I know you couldn't be at such a place
"Beansprout," he says one day. "I'm going to go."
They're in Thailand, and Kanda hates elephants. They somehow get stuck in a banana plantation. Allen swats a mosquito and ends up slapping his own arm. Kanda has a small backpack and the sword around his hip—usual attire when they move to another place.
Allen stares, just for a short moment before snorting. "Make sure you call, you prick."
Kanda doesn't bother with goodbyes nor explanations, because he knows the other understands, but he does say one thing.
"I won't miss you."
But as always, Allen has to have the last say. "You wish."
If a miracle were to happen here, I would show you right away
The new morning, who I'll be from now on
Several months later, Kanda find himself in Indonesia. He doesn't know what the fuck or where the fuck he's going really, and Allen affirms that much to him when his golem rings.
"You're pathetic," Allen says, chewing on something on his side. "Do you even have a picture of him?"
Kanda still wonders how the younger hasn't become obese from the amount of food that he consumes, but that is a mystery that would never be solved.
"…No."
"You're something special, Kanda."
"Shut up," Kanda huffs, kicking back onto the bed in the cheapest motel he found. "I can just describe him. The idiot's face is too stupid to forget."
"He could look different by now," Allen counters. "Different hair colour, length, getting more tanned, the works. In fact, I always thought his hair was too red to be natural."
"Like your stupid master?"
"Don't mention that man again!" Allen scowls immediately. "Seriously, the gall of that bastard—"
"Whatever, I don't care. And his hair colour is real."
"You know this because…?"
Kanda lets his silence sink in, and the implication finally hits Allen after a minute. "Oh god, I did not need to know that!"
"I didn't say anything, you fucking virgin," Kanda grumbles. "What did you think we were doing in his room anyway? Reading bed time stories?"
"I said I did not need to know that!"
And the words I never said: "I love you."
Six months later, it's the first time that Kanda calls Allen.
Allen is in Prague, eating ice cream when he has to search for a public telephone. The first thing that assaults his ears is Kanda's profanity, and he licks his melting cone calmly until the trail of words run out into heavy breathing.
"He's a bookman," Allen rolls his eyes, taking another bite of his dessert. "You give him too little credit."
"You give him too much," Kanda growls. "Fucking piece of shit."
"This reminds me a lot of the times I had to find where Shishou went," Allen grins, taking much more delight in Kanda's failure than anything.
"I know he's here," Kanda grumbles. "I know saw him at the train station. He left this inn two fucking days ago. He's definitely avoiding me or some shit, and if that's the case, I'm going to fucking his fucking—"
"Are you sure you aren't just imaging it?" Allen replies sweetly.
"Fuck you—at least I'm not finding a replacement."
"Yeah, because you still have the real thing."
Kanda doesn't say sorry for the low blow, but he does lower his voice. "He isn't."
"What?"
"He isn't 'Lavi' anymore."
I'm always searching, for your figure to appear somewhere
At dawn on the streets, at Sakuragi-cho
Even though I know you couldn't be at such a place
It's been three weeks since he last called Allen, and Kanda is still somewhere in Australia, in mid-winter. He has never really minded the cold and the people speak English, which is a godsend now that he's been to so many places that don't.
Being alone is much worse than he ever thought it would be.
He's always liked being alone, but he hasn't since the war ended. He's used to Allen's chatter and attempts to make conversation that mostly end up as argument matches, and he's used to Allen's cold depressing silence when the other thinks that no one is looking. Kanda used to tell himself that he's not as bad as Allen is—but when he faces the four walls alone at night, it feels much worse.
It is worse because he ends up gasping Lavi's name into his bitten palm, remembering how Lavi always touched him with care even though when they first started, it was nothing but tender.
If my wish were to come true, I would be at your side right away
There would be nothing I couldn't do
"I love you."
Lavi had breathed it into his ear when they both came, pleasure shooting tight. Kanda doesn't think much of it because his body starts to sink into the afterglow, head turning to let Lavi suck more kisses onto his neck. Lavi works his way slowly to his ear, wet noises getting louder.
"I love you," Lavi whispers again, and again. "I love you. I love you so fucking much."
Lavi's hand trembles when he cups Kanda face to kiss him on the mouth again, voice tearing into a broken hoarse.
But Kanda turns his head away to avoid it, body turning cold.
"Don't say things you don't mean."
"I do love you," Lavi insists quietly.
"You don't."
"I do—"
"You don't!" Kanda snaps suddenly, but it's hushed. "Bookmen don't have hearts," he states, tone ironic. "I'm just ink on paper, remember? We're just fucking, remember?"
Lavi looks the most tortured than he ever knew. "I…I know what I said, but I—as Lavi, I love you," he pleads. "Yuu, please believe me. I would do anything, anything—"
I would put everything on the line and hold you tight
Lavi is dead the moment that Bookman dies.
Lavi is a persona of Bookman Junior after all, and Bookman Junior needs to step up and take place as Bookman.
No one really knows when Bookman dies, because the battlefield was so messy that anyone could hardly keep track of anything but their own enemy.
But when Kanda saw Lavi alone with the glint in his eye fading standing over Bookman's broken body, he had known it was over.
I'm always searching, for fragments of you to appear somewhere
It still doesn't answer why he's still looking, three years since the war ended. Three years since he left Lavi on the battlefield to do his duty. His features have roughened, but people still mistake him for a girl. It pisses him off.
He ends up traveling across Japan, spending the longest amount of time in the country than any other he's been to.
It's because of the soba.
Even when he eats, he thinks he hears Lavi teasing, neh, Yuu-chan, you're gonna become a soba noodle if you eat too much; all long and boring!
The waiter startles when Kanda suddenly shoots out to grab his wrist. "Lavi—!"
"Ano, daijobu desu ka?"
Kanda blinks at the confused gaze shot at him, and releases his grip immediately when the person blinks back with two eyes. He doesn't understand Japanese at all considering he's a lab rat, but everyone assumes he's a native from his appearance.
"Okyaku-sama?"
Kanda shakes his head in response—sign language, the universal language—and the waiter bows politely and leaves.
For the first time, he leaves his soba untouched.
At a traveller's store, in the corner of newspaper
Even though I know you couldn't be at such a place
Kanda nearly kills Allen, but that is all okay.
It's the younger boy's fault for sitting on Kanda's futon when Kanda comes home—he had eventually bought a tiny place in Edo, off the corner from the main market, convenient yet peaceful enough. It's a base ground for Kanda to keep the things he doesn't want to lug around when he travels, and he really likes the soba stall about two streets away.
He's just returned from a trip to Korea, and it was understandable that he thought his place got broken into by some dumb thief.
Allen meets his sword with his own dagger, rolling his eyes. "I missed you too, baKanda."
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"Visiting, what else?" Allen snorts, slotting his weapon back to its proper place. "I haven't seen you in two bloody years."
"How did you know about this place?"
"Paranoid bastard," Allen sniffs. "You told me you bought a place in Edo, and everyone here knows your pretty face. They cried in disbelief when I told them I was your friend."
The look on Kanda's face sours, but he just sets Mugen at the side and works out his hair tie, freeing the tangles from his hair before tying it back into a low ponytail.
"It's been four years, Kanda," Allen says very quietly.
"What's your point?"
"You know what my point is."
"I don't," Kanda retorts. "Spell it out, beansprout."
"I tell you to visit me, you hang up on me. I try to meet up with you when we're in the same country, you keep running away! You don't want to see me because you know what I'm going to tell you when I do," Allen says, breathing even. "If Lavi wanted to be found, you would've already—"
"I see him everywhere," Kanda interrupts him forcefully.
Allen's tone is gentle. "Maybe you miss him too much."
"No. He's there. I know he is. He's playing a fucking game, like he always does!"
"Kanda—"
"Fuck—I'm so fucking tired of this hide and seek shit—"
"Kanda, Kanda!" Allen shouts, gripping the other by the shoulders. "It's okay. It's okay."
"Fuck," Kanda swears, pushing the younger away, turning to face the wall. He sounds more tired than Allen has ever heard. "I was the one who left him there. I walked away. Because I didn't want to know if he wouldn't have chosen me."
If a miracle were to happen here, I would show you right away
The new morning, who I'll be from now on
Kanda grudgingly takes Allen to the soba stall the next day. He knows Allen just wants to get mitarashi dango but hey, he isn't complaining about the soba.
He walks face first into a customer that was walking out, much to Allen's amusement.
"Sorry about that, it was a total accident—" Allen begins when he holds out a palm for the other, since Kanda won't accept help even if it stabbed him in the eye.
"Ah—"
Allen stares, because there's a redhead with an eyepatch holding on to his hand, with the same shell-shocked look on his face. The redhead's features cling on to a faint tint of boyish charm, but it's still there, familiar.
"La—La—La—"
Kanda doesn't even manage to make a sound unlike Allen's stuttering of the syllable. His eyes go huge in surprise, mouth falling open unattractively.
The man quickly jumps to his feet and snatches his hand out of Allen's hold. "Er—sorry about that! I'm in a rush, now if you'll excuse me—"
Lavi fucking sounds the same—there's nothing like that fucking irritating curl he pronounces with his words.
"Y-YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!" Kanda yells, fast reflexes grabbing the redhead's scarf—also orange, what the fuck—and chokes his neck. "YOU GODDAMN PIECE OF SHIT, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU—"
"Gahhh—" the other gasps, pawing at his throat. "I c-can't breathe—I-I can't—"
It takes Allen to wrestle Kanda down, fury biting and snapping.
"I'm sorry but I don't know what you're talking about!" the other insists.
Kanda isn't buying it, not for a second. He unsheathes Mugen, pointing the blade threateningly. "I will run this blade through you, rabbit," he glares. "Don't think I won't. And I will avoid all your fucking vital organs. And then I will dig it around, and push it deeper—"
The redhead winces at the bloodlust present in Kanda's expression. "Okay—okay, okay! Sheesh, way to paint such gory picture, Yuu."
This time, Allen grabs Lavi. "YOU BLOODY PRICK!"
"HEY—WHAT DID I DO TO YOU?"
And the words I never said: "I love you."
"I got kicked out of the clan," Lavi explains, flicking his hair. "They said I was too emotional. Too attached," he flicks his gaze over to Kanda, who eats his soba and ignores him.
It's odd, but Lavi has kept his hair long enough—not as long as Kanda, but it hangs around his shoulders in a loose ponytail.
"There's no penalty?" Allen asks. "I mean, I don't really know about the nature of your job, but Lenalee once told me that you keep a lot of secrets."
"Well, yeah, I don't remember them anymore," Lavi shrugs. "My memory got wiped."
"…What?"
"They don't really need me, since gramps and I were in charge of documenting the war, and now that it's over…well. It was either wiping my memory or death, and I'm not too fond of being a corpse," the redhead replied. "They left Lavi's memories intact though, and a bit here and there so I don't go too insane about the things I don't remember. I'm not too hung up about it—or at least, Lavi isn't hung up about it. The only thing that really bugs me is that I'll never know what happened to my eye," he muses. "But I'll live."
"So what have you been doing?"
"Traveling," Lavi shrugs. "Avoiding Yuu. I tried my hardest to shake him off my trail, and that time in Germany I thought he was going to find out I was in that rabbit mascot suit—"
"You? That creepy shit was you? You fucking bitch—"
"You would've killed me!"
"Of course I would've killed you!"
"Leave the domestics at home, you two," Allen rolls his eyes. "We're in a public area."
I always end up looking for your smile, to appear somewhere
At the railroad crossing, waiting for the express to pass
Even though I know you couldn't be at such a place
"You knew I was trying to find you," Kanda snarls harshly when Allen leaves them alone after lunch, exploring the city since he had just been waiting in the house until Kanda turned up. "Why were you avoiding me?"
Both of them stand a distance apart in a quiet park next to a tiny stream.
"Speak up, rabbit, or I will stab you."
Lavi knows Kanda has a right to his anger, but it doesn't change the one fact that he was the one left behind.
"Why did try to find me?" he asks instead. "You left me. You left me standing there without a word of goodbye," he says evenly. "Even after you knew I loved you."
And that's the problem of it all, isn't it? Kanda didn't believe him then. Lavi doesn't know if he believes it now.
"I would've chosen you," Lavi says. "If you had asked me."
Kanda swallows, grip tightening over the hilt of Mugen. It isn't something that he wants to hear after four years of searching. Four hard years of desperate longing, four hard years of a lesson in love that would never leave him the same.
"So what now, Yuu?"
"Stay," Kanda says this time. "Stay with me."
If our lives could be repeated, I would be at your side every time
I would want nothing else
Besides you, nothing else matters
Fin.