"Kanda's tearing up your nice paper, General," Daisya whispered out of the side of his mouth as he walked in a comically deliberate way past his teacher's desk with his 'I'm just warning you' expression plastered across every inch of his youthfully round features.
Tiedoll looked up, adjusting his glasses to see the once casual stroll transform into a scurry, one of Daisya's many protective measures against reprimands and time-outs. He turned slowly to the studio portion of his room, chair going from four to two legs as he leaned forward to see if the object of Daisya's poorly disguised tattling was within his scope of vision through the door.
Nothing.
Tiedoll sighed, dropping his chair back to all fours and then sliding out. He really disliked having to stop working. Really. The spirit to do something in his free time besides doodle gripped him so very rarely that he was almost prepared to let his newest acquisition go on doing whatever it was he was doing in favor of completing the troublesome paperwork exorcists were supposed to fill out upon their return from a mission that he, for all his decades of service to the Order and 100 percent synchronization, could never understand. Also, 'tearing up your good paper' could mean many things coming from Daisya and he was not feeling particularly up to dealing with any of the possibilities.
He reached the door much more quickly than he would have liked to.
Amongst the stacks of used and unused sketchbooks that normally filled his studio desk's surface, Kanda had caved a space (he saw the debris of the unceremonious excavation littering the floor) and was, seemingly, busily working on something from his elevated position atop four or five sketch books. Just as he was about to navigate his approach, the young exorcist turned slightly to the side to flip open a sketchbook and, with a lack of emotion that, despite Tiedoll's attempt to remain calm, made his skin crawl, rip out a page to place on the workspace. Thin legs that were long for their age but still preciously minute to the general beat against the chair in a steady rhythm as they swung out and back, alternating.
Where other teacher's would have barked, Tiedoll remained as silent as possible.
With the utmost care and practice he began to move towards the desk, staying aware of the mountains of paper and, more often than not, creaky valleys of floor in between them. Twice he had to pause at the sounds of paper being insensitively divided and once because he discovered a fresh notebook atop one of the many piles that, upon flipping open the front, revealed itself to be last year's birthday present from Daisya (Tiedoll had refused to give his birth date to his students in the hopes that they'd save their time and pocket change for nobler things but the whole thing had backfired and the duo had selected a random date that they always celebrated in spite of his protests) but, in the course of minutes, managed to reach a safe zone directly behind the industrious child and peered over the iridescent black head.
As any teacher will tell, if asked, the thousands of stressful hours spent toiling over a student can be easily outshone by a solitary second in which the pair reaches some sort of understanding that has no equivalent in any other type of human relationship. Such was this moment for Tiedoll.
Kanda, legs still steadily beating and oversized lefty scissors in hand, was carefully snipping off strips of rectangles to form perfect squares which he put aside in a stack. This task complete and four squares made, the Japanese boy proceeded to discard the scissors and select, with some contemplation, a square from the pile. Then, with a nimbleness Tiedoll knew his own fingers did not and had never possessed, he began to fold the paper at a steady and rather fast pace until the folds and creases formed themselves, at the placid and perhaps even bored promptings of his student of two weeks, into a crane. Taking only one beat of his feet to consider his handiwork, Kanda picked up another square and began the process anew.
Tiedoll found the activity intriguing on many levels, the first and initial attraction being one that fluttered on the very edge of his subconscious; the whole of the movements necessary and the folding itself had instantly captured his artistic heart whether he recognized this or not. Foremost in his mind, however, and just as close to the source of his ever-flowing emotional waterfall, was Kanda himself.
Two weeks hard travel from Japan was not the reason his currently lax shoulders were usually tense or his momentary neutral expression was more often twisted into a scowl. Tiedoll knew that the steely dark eyes had seen atrocities no one should have to witness, least of all a ten-year old, (his own undecided green-vs.-brown eyes had taken in more than he could bear, and all that through the sanctuary of thick lenses) and had known it from the moment the innocence in his pocket had began to beat the night before it had led him to it's user.
It was a wonder that they were both here now, in the comfort and safety of Headquarters.
There were not words to describe how he'd felt when the pulsing had increased into a never-ending pressure in his hand and the only person there was nothing more than a scrap of human. A wisp of a swiftly crumbling country that looked as fit to flap away as the cherry blossoms the wind plucked with every passing gust or a little paper crane. Somewhere in a cold corner of his insides there was still a little knot of disappointment from the moment he'd realized who the innocence belonged to, a little knot that grew bigger every time another one formed, like seamstresses' knots; big enough to keep the thread from following the needle through the hole it made.
Another child.
The words he'd heard passed behind hands when it seemed he wasn't listening still resonated.
Another child.
Is that all he's good for: bringing back children?
This is a war we're fighting-
Tiedoll shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment and forcing them to open to the scene before him and not to those behind him. Tiny fingers ducked the top of a slim triangle sliver down to form the fourth head and then sat the creature down next to it's three companions. Five beats passed this time for admiration before Kanda turned to flip open the empty sketchbook again.
He paused.
It took Tiedoll a moment to realize that now was the time to act (better he make the first move than Kanda).
"Kanda," one large hand fell over a small shoulder, "those are beautiful…"
The tiny head swiveled back and up and the sharp eyes glared, cutting into him, with a fury he could not yet articulate in the language he had been thrust into.
But two weeks hard travel from Japan had taught him enough to say what he needed to.
"No! Go!" The tiny shoulder tensed and jerked back and forth, side to side, trying to escape at all costs. "Go away!" Thin fingers clenched Tiedoll's sturdy wrist and attempted to remove the ill-taken-to hand but the thirty-some year old general paid his effort little attention, choosing instead to take his time placing the sketchbook down and scooting aside a pile of miscellaneous things he had no desire to sort in order to clear a spot for himself on the floor.
Almond eyes as sharp as the katana they had reflected in the night they'd met stared the man down as he kneeled next to the chair, hand sliding to elbow gently.
Tiedoll adjusted his glasses so they could see each other clearly. A ferocious growl escaped the petite snarl and the rice-white fingers relinquished their hold in favor of opening and rearing back, prepared to come rushing forward in a smack, but Kanda stopped them- Tiedoll saw the tiny muscles tense and twitch as the hand was restrained by an iron will- before contact was made with the familiar and hated face he was only too glad to finally have on his level.
"Go ahead. Hit me, if that's what you want, go on!" He smiled kindly (the only way he was capable of smiling) and led the small palm to his cheek with his own hand, pressing the captured appendage there softly before moving it back and releasing it. "I won't stop you."
The student and teacher stared at each other for what felt like a long time.
At last, both face and hand dropped as Kanda turned to the desk, expression still sour but no longer riddled with the anger of confusion. Now there was only fear.
"Hm. I tore your paper," he smiled in the way that apprehended murderers smile, an ironic smile given the feelings Tiedoll could see in his eyes. "Are you mad?"
"Not at all," the little dark-centered orbs widened incredulously. "You made something beautiful with my paper, something a lot more beautiful than the things I can make with it in any case," he chuckled (though Kanda was clearly unamused) and gestured to the cranes. "Can you teach me?"
"What?"
It donned on Tiedoll that, though dangerous, the young exorcist was positively adorable in his vexation. His grin deepened at the same pace Kanda's scowl did.
"I'd like to learn how to make those cranes. You do a very good job."
"Che!"
Ah. The favorite mystery word. Tiedoll had yet to glean the meaning of 'che', as it could seemingly be used in a myriad of ways, but he did not for a minute believe it had a positive connotation. The bespectacled general was settling in for the surely long wait necessary to get an answer he understood from his pupil when the boy said abruptly and quietly,
"No room for work there. You sit. Chair here," sliding down from seat as he did so.
"But where will you-"
"You wait. I," he paused, trying to think of a way around the 'l's in 'will'. Solution found, he continued, "Seat comes when you sit."
"Ah." From the nod, one would imagine that Tiedoll understood this statement but in reality it, like many of Kanda's statements, was beyond his full comprehension. It was best to trust what he had understood and hope Kanda did the rest.
He was not disappointed, only slightly surprised. The instant he sat down, the temporary teacher clambered up into his seldom student's lap and made himself comfortable, bony rear occasionally digging not-so-pleasantly into Tiedoll's thighs.
"Okay, first… get paper there. Then, make four from one and squares from four." Kanda leaned forward with Tiedoll as he complied to the instructions, slim ponytail brushing the francophone's nose.
It smelled clean, soapy.
Fresh.
"Okay, now, use these to make squares right," Tiedoll took the offered scissors, amused at the use of a pronoun in place of their proper but admittedly hard to pronounce name (he himself had once battled the beast of the English language, after all, and had yet to forget it's crueler parts). "Fine. Now watch very good so you can do very good job like me…"
Another child…
"Like this?"
"No… I said watch very good! You watch okay, not very good!"
Is that all he's good for? Is that all he can do? Bring back children?
"Sorry! I'll go back and start… What next?"
How'd a fool like that become a General?
"You better watch very good this time…"
I've never seen him do a useful thing in all his years here… Just an idle dreamer.
"I am, I promise… oh! I see, like this?"
"Maybe…"
"What does that mean?"
How'd a fool like him become an exorcist? Surely God wouldn't choose an apostle like that.
"Maybe…" The little beat of feet against the chair began again like a butterfly released from a box (or the wings of a little paper crane).
"Kanda!" Tiedoll looked down to see him smirking devilishly. "Are you teasing me?"
"Maaaybe!"
Another child.
"Okay, this is what you do next… See?"
This is a war we're fighting, we're not running an orphanage!
"I see…"
"Drat!" Daisya sat up, frowning hopelessly at the red and black checkered board that now held no red circles, no red string, no red paper, and no pink erasers; overall, none of his pieces. The diced licorice, ink pots, poorly painted shillings, and single black circle that made up the other side of General Froi Tiedoll's severely lacking but thrifty checkers set were all that remained in play. Marie put a dash beneath the neatly drawn 'M' on the inside of the box and announced solemnly,
"47 to 3."
"Man…" Daisya watched with a slight air of depression as Marie slid his pieces into the container and folded up the board. "Let's see what new kid is up to."
"Kanda."
"Yeah, yeah. I'm not calling him his name until he calls me my name. So far all I've gotten him to say is 'Baka', whatever that means."
The pair stood and meandered towards the studio. Marie stopped at the base of his teacher's bed to stash the checkerboard and Daisya took advantage of this pause to brighten the boring-looking papers on Tiedoll's desk with a quick caricature of it's owner.
"Heh," Daisya jumped down from the desk and proudly recounted, "I told General Geezer that new kid was ripping up his good paper this morning. I bet he got in big trouble."
Marie, as ever, said nothing as they reached the studio door.
"What- Old man!" Daisya plowed through the piles of this and that to reach the slumped form of their instructor, Marie close behind but not as frenzied, trying nobly to shove the toppled stacks back into some kind of order. "Old man, are you- Hey…" Daisya turned to Marie, oblivious to the fact that he was cleaning his mess, "He's asleep! And new kid's here too!" He turned back to his teacher and newest peer, glaring thoughtfully. "Stupid old man… Got me all worried for nothing… Hey! What are-"
"Shush!" Marie commanded, finally catching up. They both cast fervent glances at the dozing pair. Daisya swallowed and whispered much more quietly but still rather loudly,
"What are these th- AH!"
A small pale hand shot out and caught his wrist in a vice grip.
"Not for touch!"
Tiedoll jerked into awareness, arms tightening from their relaxed flop in Kanda's lap to a protective cling around his tiny torso.
"Hm?"
Kanda was unmoved and kept his grip steady and death glare even steadier as his teacher slowly woke up.
"Leggo of my hand, new kid!"
"Not for touch!"
"Oh! Hello there, Dai-"
"Leggo, stupid!"
"-sya." Tiedoll straightened his sleep skewed glasses, stern. Daisya and Marie knew what was coming. "Daisya, let's go-"
" 'Have a talk in my room', I know, I know," muttered the most consistent offender of "the great list of no's". "But I can't go if," he shrugged, casting about for a name that wouldn't get him into more trouble, "Kanda doesn't let go."
The aforementioned blinked at the conclusion of this statement and, to everyone's surprise, released Daisya's limp hand.
"I'm sorry, Daidai. It was bad to hurt you." He benignly dismounted his perch and walked a few paces away from the assembly, looking around shyly all of a sudden.
"I… have busy things to do now…" he leaned to the side, hands behind his back, business-like. "But I… I come back soon tonight, I think." He nodded seriously.
Marie nodded back, just as seriously, and then set his permanent glare upon Tiedoll expectantly. Feeling it proper (and hiding a smile behind an austere fake cough) Tiedoll nodded too.
"Certainly, Kanda. We'll see you soon then?"
"Hai-oh… Yes." With that, Kanda retreated, backing up to the door and then quickly running out.
"Phoo," Daisya released a breath of brave resignation. "Let's go to the room , old man… I don't have all day. Are we going to talk about names again because, if so," the football fan put his pinky out while speaking the last two words. Apparently he found them fancy, "you shouldn't have let new kid go! He called me 'diedie'! That's a lot worse than stupid in my books!" He gave Tiedoll his 'adult concern' look.
"You have to learn to listen better, Daisya! He didn't say 'diedie'. He said 'daidai', like your name. If you say it slowly in the way he pronounces it, it's 'da-e, da-e'; 'daidai'."
The cogs were turning behind Daisya's vacant expression.
"He gave you a nickname. That must mean he likes you all right after all! And we're not going to chat about names again this time… Actually, I want to show you something I learned today,"
Another child, maybe…
"Grab my special birthday notebook: it has the best paper."
"You mean 'papier'- best paper or just paper-best paper?"
"Papier, bien sûr!"
Daisya grinned and hurriedly snatched the sketchbook off the desk before sprinting towards his mentor's room faster than he ever had before in all his history of being ordered to go there.
… but another one I think you'll be thankful for later.
Kanda's bare feet hit the stone methodically as he surveyed the world below- the sprawling town with tiny dot-ant people moving slowly down pencil-thin sidewalks- in silence. He'd never been so high before.
The wind blew hard against his head and across his face. He clung to the edge of the big, strange building's rooftop tightly out of reflex, not fear. Clouds brushed the ornate pillars along the edge, some so close they looked like he could touch them.
But he knew better than to try.
Having tired of looking around, he set to his task at last. He pulled the crane from his shirtfront and examined it with great care. The paper had been refolded so many times that it did not look as sleek and clean as his did but he could not fault that. After all, the man was not from his home. He could not be perfect. The wings came from the body at slightly different angles, only slightly though. He'd probably creased a fold a little off, that was all. It could be forgiven. The tail was nothing special but nothing terrible either, as was the neck.
The head was different though.
Folding the crane's head was the part Kanda had always found the most difficult to get right, the part he loved the most to admire and hated the most to make. It was a simple, precise crease in the thinnest part of the thinnest limb. He had worked many hours making not-cranes before he had finally created a head like the one he was looking at now. The old glasses man was definitely not perfect but he certainly had redeeming qualities. He turned the creature over and over in his hands, studying the feathers and tucked in feet and tiny, shiny dark eyes and-
An unexpected gust knocked into him and the bird, so real in his hands, became a scrap of white in a sea of white.
"Ah!" the breath was sucked out across the sky with the bird. That morning he would have reached out in pursuit.
But he knew better than to try.
There was some- what did he call it? 'Sketch'?- Yes, sketch, to the bird flying away. Sketch was what the- his- gensui called the pictures he was always making. Kanda had not liked the sketch at first, but this… this was good sketch, he thought. In this piece of sketch there was a crinkly white crane- all white except his tucked in back feet and shiny black eyes- it's feathers rippling in the big wind as it flew through white clouds that almost made it invisible, but not if you watched very good, and it was flying back to his home. And Kanda knew- as he knew his gensui knew- that one day he would follow the perfect-head crane back to his home and fix whatever was wrong there.
As any teacher will tell, if asked, the thousands of stressful hours spent toiling over a student can be easily outshone by a solitary second in which the pair reaches some sort of understanding that has no equivalent in any other type of human relationship. Such was this moment for Kanda.