All the Ways
When they were first introduced to each other, he says it to the best of his knowledge on how it should be. He is slightly hurt that his effort is met with disdain and barely acknowledged. His offer of handshake ignored. Everytime he says it is met with threat of disembowelment and death. Initially he says it a lot to see if ever he would get it right. Just once, maybe?
Yu.
Yuu
Yu-u
Then it became a kind of game, just to see, how far he could push the envelope. Sometimes he says it accompanied by a little poke in that personal bubble of space. The pokes vary from a little push just barely touching on the surface tension, but sometimes more blatant and in your face. Although once it does take him almost to a full length braid before he does get a reaction. He's not sure if that was just luck or ninja skills or the other simply wanted to see how far he would go. Because ninja skills is something that is not really his forte.
He knows that it is just a name after all. It could mean nothing and everything … especially with his friend. Yes, in spite of it, or perhaps because of it - this non-thing - he considers him friend. It is a non-thing, because it isn't like he can reciprocate in kind if it was a thing. With his chosen calling. He also knows better than most that a name can be ephemeral things that are fleeting and forgotten … eventually. He himself is on number forty-nine.
He's had time to muse on all the ways the name fits. In a journal that he keeps separate from his own Bookman records and thus from the scrutiny of the old man. He does not really need to write them down, but reasons that is cathartic and perhaps once it is all written down he will not think more on the matter. He smiles to himself at the one that came to him first, 雄, "masculine". Kanda Yuu was definitely masculine. Not in the "Grr, Me Man" neanderthal way. Instead it is imbued in his stoicism, his almost unbending sense of duty, his confidence in who(what?) he is. Bookman Junior does not need to write down how grace seems to settle on the boy-to-the-man becoming like the Black Order coat that outlines his defined shoulder muscles, sitting on slim hips that is screaming "STRIKE" in capitals in his head. The legs lean and lithesome.
Then sometimes, very rarely seen that even he doubts his own Bookman sharps, but he knows is there is the 優, "tenderness", that exists for Lenalee Lee. Perhaps one day he might be shown it a little more. Again he knows it is unfair to want something that he himself cannot give out, he is supposed to be impartial after all. Gentleness is not something to indulge in, given the multifaceted persona he gives off. Easy, easy going, not much beyond the surface. He quite envies Yuu's position in that respect. To feel and to be sure and then not really give a damn about what the rest of the world thinks, That is courage. Something Yuu is all the time, the 勇, "courage" he wears like the crest on their chests, more often than not courage looks like stupidity in the face of danger and he's smirking at it. But hell bells, it is Yuu, after all. Wherefore art he 由, a reason, THE reason why his brain is running around in circles giving him a headache where he does not need one and if he is honest, the headache is really in his rapidly appearing non-heart.
Night comes and even then he cannot escape his musings for 夕, "evening" is when it is hardest not to think about Yuu, The midnight blue almost black hair that is soft, just so, never tangled, the eyes he imagines to be like a dark night glittering hard and in counterpoint so deep. That skin so porcelain pale like the moon peeking out of all the shades of cobalt and prussian. That face, countenance schooled, a flash of that neck, those firm hands, flying fast and deadly accurate. By this point he is groaning "why, WHY, why YUu? Of all people." Perhaps if he suffocates himself into his pillows all his musings will go away and leave him alone. But there is at the last that thing called悠, "permanence". He's got him under the skin and there is no denying it and for now … the games will continue.
Yu
Yuu
Yu-u
To ingratiate, to goad, to say it in all the ways that it can mean, to just say the name like it encompasses everything he probably should never think about or want, and hope that he is not as transparent as it really is. Because it really is just a shallow game. Really.
He could say that it merely is in retaliation to all the times he is called a stupid rabbit. Because really … of all things why … a rabbit, and a stupid one at that. He then thinks of all the ways "stupid rabbit' can be said. With malice and spite usually, but sometimes, just sometimes there is a small smirk of warmth. Just a hint of it in the tiniest upturn of the curled lips and the very slightest crinkle around the perfect skin around the eyes. Sometimes the glint is not as hard and when 'Stupid Rabbit' comes out it's just to hide the acknowledgement that Lavi is real. Not yet and it's an understanding of each other's boundaries. A respect for who the other really is.
So for now the sparring will continue because that is all they have, and can afford in this crazy world they live and fight in. All the ways. So far.
End