Author's Note: Hello there. I was in the mood for some angst, so this story just popped into my head. I hope you like it.
Warnings: Mature Content, Sexual Content (not explicit), Angst.
"Kanda?"
He ignores the pining voice that comes from his doorway; if he pretends that she isn't there, maybe she'll leave. He can only hope, despite the fact that optimism has never been his forte.
Kanda prefers to think of himself as a realist, though he is certain that Lenalee would disagree—loudly, and probably with much more volatile enthusiasm than he can bear. He knows for sure that the Moyashi disagrees; she has told him on multiple occasions.
And, much to his chagrin, she has yet to leave.
"Kanda, are you ignoring me?"
"Tch."
A weary sigh answers him, but instead of leaving, the white-haired girl steps further into his room.
"Baka," she chastises him, her tone somehow full of both good humor and sorrow for his emotional ineptitude. "The least you could do is invite me in, you know. That's what you're supposed to say to someone you're with."
"With?" he repeats, cursing himself for giving in to her bait. "Who said anything about us being together?" It's too late; he may as well address the issue right now, since she seems so keen on discussing it. If he knows her at all, then nothing aside from death or an attack by the Noah Clan will keep her from weaseling an answer out of him.
"Really, Kanda? We've been sneaking around for months now, and you're saying that there's nothing between us? The torn sheets from last week beg to differ—"
"Shut up!" he snaps, his cheeks burning furiously at her insinuation. "Someone could overhear."
"Is that what you're worried about? Someone else finding out that Kanda Yuu isn't so stoic and infallible after all?"
"It's none of your business why," he growls, his cobalt eyes glaring fiercely at her. She matches his stare with one of her own, refusing to back down in the face of his characteristic anger. She's more than used to dealing with him by now, he thinks with mild annoyance. "As long as I want it to be a secret, you won't tell anyone. Because you know that if you did, what's going on would be over. Period."
Allen pouts at him, her fists clenching at her sides as she processes the stark truth of his words. It may be unfair, but he isn't a saint. He knows what he wants, and right now he isn't willing to compromise just to make her happy. With everything that's going on in the war, he doesn't need any more distractions. He doesn't need to put a label on whatever it is that he has with the Moyashi; doing so would only attract attention to them, and that is the last thing he wants.
Of course, telling her all of this would probably help to clear up some of the tension between them, as well as alleviate the white-haired girl's anger, but Kanda isn't good with words or expressing his finer emotions in a healthy way. He thinks that he would only end up misrepresenting his feelings, which he considers to be even worse than outing their…relationship of sorts.
So he doesn't say anything else, and that night, she storms out of his room quietly—leaving him alone with nothing but his thoughts and the cold pillow beneath him.
A rainy night affords them an opportunity to sneak away together, but it's obvious in the way Allen walks—back straight, limbs rigid as she leads him to her room—that she has not forgotten what he said to her the week before.
It's obvious in the way she grabs him, shoving him onto the bed and kissing him desperately, as though it is the last time she ever will.
It's obvious in the way she turns his name into a curse, totally dominating him as their clothes are discarded and they proceed to explore every inch of each other's body.
It's obvious in the way she continuously makes eye contact with him, searching his face and dark orbs for any sign that he regrets the harsh words he had spoken to her.
He doesn't know what she sees in his eyes as she climaxes, but it can't be anything good, because that night she sleeps away from him, facing the other direction and not even allowing their skin to touch. She doesn't kick him out, but Kanda seriously considers leaving after her breathing falls into a rhythmic pattern.
That night, it feels far too similar to all the times he has slept alone.
Then, one day, everything changes—and Kanda will forever question whether or not it had been the best thing or the worst.
Lavi comes up to him in the cafeteria, his uncovered green eye swimming with concern and the usual brand of mischief the redhead possesses.
"Hey, Yuu," he says, an undertone of restraint causing the stoic man to wonder just what he has up his sleeve this time.
"What do you want, baka usagi?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing…but I did see you leaving Allen-chan's room this morning."
Kanda nearly chokes on his soba, his eyes wide with disbelief and an unfathomable degree of wrath as he stares across the table at the current bane of his existence.
The future Bookman looks about ready to make a break for it, but he holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Hold on, Yuu! Before you kill me, just hear me out! I'm not going to rat on you or anything—well, I might've told Lenalee already, but—"
"You what?" Oh, he's going to get it now. By the time the Japanese man is through with him, he's going to need another eye-patch.
"It's not like we're going to judge you guys for it. It's common for members of the Order to have relationships, exorcists in particular. I was just wondering why you even bothered to keep it a secret in the first place—unless you're ashamed of her, or something. I mean, I can't tell anyone about Lenalee and I because I'm a Bookman, but you should get off scot-free—"
"Shut up, idiot."
For the first time, Kanda thinks back on his words to Allen, factoring in Lavi's reassurances. If he really has nothing to worry about regarding people's opinions—which, if he's being honest, he had never really cared about to begin with—then why exactly had he said those things to the white-haired girl? All he had done is piss her off, make her upset, and though she had not said anything about that night since, it's clear that she is still affected by it. She still smiles at him, but the gesture seems much more forced; the sex is even more wild than before—it's even borderline violent in certain instances, mostly after she hasn't seen him for an extended period of time.
Maybe, he realizes, the problem had never been about anyone else, or even about the war.
Maybe the problem had been himself, his own qualms and fears—and though he is far from changing his ways, Kanda will readily acknowledge that this is an insufficient reason for keeping their trysts a secret. After all, it's not as though he would be exposing all the gritty details of his sex life if they were to stop hiding their excursions.
"I'm telling you, Yuu, you need to go talk to her. Get it all out in the open. It'll be better for both of you."
Kanda pauses, his eyes narrowing at Lavi's Cheshire grin. "You're only saying that because everyone else knows, don't they?"
The redhead's flustered grin says it all.
He finds her in the library, sleeping (for some reason) with half of her body on the floor and the other half on a dingy old couch. A book lies face down on the ground beside her hand, some of the pages bent and peeking out from behind the well-worn cover.
Kanda sighs, going over and softly poking at her with the toe of his boot.
"Huh?" She wakes up immediately, her eyelids swollen and mouth half-open with surprise. Her expression changes to one of panic when she catches sight of the samurai, and Allen springs to life faster than he had ever seen her. "Kanda! What's wrong?" She's on her feet in mere seconds, casually wiping the drool off her chin and meeting his eyes with a hollow gaze.
"I don't care anymore," he says, cringing internally at how bad that sounds. This is why he hates heart-to-heart talks—he's appallingly shit at them.
"What?"
"I mean…about people knowing. About us. I don't care. If that's what you want, it's fine."
She stares at him in puzzlement for a moment, unsurprisingly confused by the choppy manner in which he speaks. But then, her silver eyes light up with pure happiness when she realizes what it is he's saying.
"Kanda…are you serious? You don't mind, not even a little bit?"
He shakes his head, both unwilling and unable to form a verbal response that would sound genuine.
Allen doesn't care; his blessing is more than enough for her, and though on some level he finds relief from this, on another, he feels uncomfortable with the fact that this is the most she expects from him.
Time goes by, and on several occasions Kanda notices a pattern emerging in their relationship.
One of the most prominent signs of it is when, one day, while the two of them are walking down one of the hallways of Headquarters, Allen tries to hold his hand.
He stiffens upon feeling her touch in such an affectionate, non-sexual way, and on reflex he tugs his hand away.
Immediately, he senses the shift in her mood.
"Uh…sorry," she mumbles, her cheeks visibly reddening even beneath the hair she flicks into her face. "I caught you off guard, didn't I?"
"Yeah." That's all he says; there is no reassurance, no apology of his own for reacting in such a brusque manner to a simple display of physical affection—nothing.
The proper thing to do would have been to apologize for his accidental mishap, and to grab her hand in his own in a sign of reciprocation—but he doesn't. Not because the idea of holding her hand is unappealing—as a matter of fact, the thought does hold some degree of appeal—but because the thought of initiating it himself seems to him to be a near-impossible task.
So he does nothing, and keeps his eyes straight ahead of him as they walk down the hall. He doesn't see the disappointment on her face, or the sadness in her silver eyes.
And, of course, he doesn't see the solitary tear running down her cheek.
"Kanda…do you ever think about what will happen when the war's over?"
The stoic man is pulled from the brink of sleep by Allen's question, and he opens his eyes to see her staring up at him from where her head rests on his bare chest.
And he had been so close to sleep, too; their entwined legs and enmeshed bodies are providing just the right amount of warmth for a good night's rest, but it looks as though that will be going by the wayside for tonight.
"You mean if the war ends," he mutters, turning his slanted eyes toward the ceiling.
"I prefer to think of it as when," she says, giving a sad laugh, "though I guess you could say it either way. In any case, there has to be something you think of when you think of after. I know that fighting Akuma isn't what you would have chosen for yourself. What do you see yourself doing for the rest of your life if we make it through?"
In all honesty, he doesn't know. At this moment in time, he is only capable of seeing himself doing what he is doing now—that is, fighting Akuma, training, and spending all of his spare time with her. That's all—nothing that she would find particularly interesting or ambitious.
So he says possibly the last thing she wants to hear, even though it is woefully inaccurate compared to how he actually feels.
"I don't know," he mumbles, the tip of his finger tracing the curve of her spine. "I might die before I even get a chance to figure it out."
She doesn't pull away; as a matter of fact, she somehow manages to get even closer to him, pressing herself up against his side as though afraid that he will disappear.
"Kanda…" The white-haired girl hesitates, her mouth quivering as she tries to force herself to say whatever it is she is keeping bottled up.
"What?"
"I…I love you, Kanda."
Shock freezes his limbs, causing his body to go stiff and rigid beneath her. His eyes widen, growing to the size of saucers as he digests her words. He almost can't believe his ears; he is sure that he is dreaming as he turns his gaze back to her face.
Allen is staring at him with a shy expression, her insecurity written plainly on her features as she waits for his answer—or lack thereof.
"What?" He knows that he sounds dumb when he repeats himself, but he cannot possibly sound any dumber than she must feel when he does so.
"You don't have to say it back," she says, smiling that same broken smile that he had become accustomed to. "I know how you are. I just wanted to let you know that I do."
Momentary relief washes over him, and he takes the opportunity to pull her face back into his chest, burying his nose in her hair. He takes a deep breath, allowing the lulling waves of sleep to pull him back beneath the tide.
And, once again, he never sees the tears that flow from her eyes, nor does he feel them as they pool on his chest.
He is already fast asleep.
Their courtship—if it can even be called that—is a whirlwind of uncertainty and heavy emotional baggage. Kanda doesn't know exactly how long it lasts, but he definitely knows what the key turning point is.
It arrives the day Allen suggests they get married.
"I know that you said you weren't sure what you wanted to do, but this could be a great start," she says defensively, right after she makes the pitch. "I didn't want to bring it up before, but we've been together for almost two years, Kanda. We've made a lot of gains in the war against the Earl, but I know that there's still a lot of danger out there. I just wanted to make sure I don't have any regrets. I'm ready, and I just want to know…are you?"
Truth be told, he had never given the idea of marriage a second thought or even a passing glance. He had always assumed that he would be dead before the opportunity presented itself. He isn't averted to the concept of binding himself to her legally, and even thinks that it might be easier this way. He enjoys her company far more than anyone else's, he is physically attracted to her, and she doesn't push him beyond his comfort zone—not like she used to in the beginning. Allen Walker is the closest person to him by far, and for a moment, he even considers finally responding to the declaration of love she had made so long ago.
But before he can even open his mouth, she is already speaking again.
"If you don't want to, I can go tell Komui—I already talked to him about being the minister, just in case you said yes."
Even if he had planned on saying no, Kanda thinks that the look in her eyes would have stopped him dead in his tracks. Her silver orbs are practically pleading with him to agree, though her mouth tells a different story. He knows which one to trust, however.
"It sounds like you're the one who needs to make up her mind, Moyashi. You set the date."
Allen gapes at him, her face clearly showing her disbelief—and then, a large grin breaks out on her face.
"Really?"
"Really."
Her lips purse as though she is trying to hold in her excitement, and before he can brace himself, she throws her arms around him, squeezing him hard enough to draw a choked gasp from the samurai's lips.
"Sorry," she giggles, backing off and brushing a strand of white hair behind her ear. "I'll go let everyone know!"
And, as she dashes away from him—presumably to go tell Lenalee—Kanda swells with pride at the fact that he has finally done something right.
But, at the same time, he cannot help but wonder cynically if he is only going to end up hurting her again.
The day is like any other, but at the same time, it's the opposite of that. Bright light filters in through the stained glass windows of the chapel, filling Kanda with a surreal realization that he is actually getting married. After today, he will be someone's husband—the husband of the only woman he can remember feeling anything close to love for.
"Are you ready, Kanda?" Komui says from beside him, taking the last available opportunity to straighten out the groom's clothing. "This is it!"
"Tch."
"I'm so excited! I haven't had the chance to use the Order's private chapel yet—there hasn't been a wedding between two exorcists in years. If I remember correctly, the last recorded one dates back to almost forty-three years ago."
"Is this really the time for a history lesson, Komui?"
While Lenalee's overbearing brother proceeds to rant about the beauties of young love, then devolves into a subsequent mess of incoherent sobbing, Kanda once again marvels at the notion that Allen will be here any minute. He wonders what she will look like, if she will wear something special, or if she will also be wearing an Order uniform. That's what he is wearing—an Order uniform with fancy trimming around the edges, coupled with a red rose in the breast pocket and a pair of fancy dress shoes.
Nothing special.
As it turns out, the design of her outfit is much the same—although with a few notable differences.
As Allen walks between the crowd of people—which consists of all the other exorcists, the scientists, and Jerry, of course—Kanda does a double take. While the white-haired girl is also wearing an outfit emblazoned with the Order's insignia and design, Johnny had clearly gone all out with hers. The dress is long and elegant, sporting the purest shade of white that he has ever seen. Its design is similar to Komui's coat, as it has the white Rose Cross sewn over her breast and darker trim around the edges. The train is smooth and mellow yet still far more elegant than anything the Japanese man has seen in the windows of bridal shops.
He swallows dryly, feeling uncomfortable with the sudden lump he finds in his throat.
The ceremony is short and sweet, and Kanda spends the entirety of it staring at his bride's veiled face rather than listening to Komui's inane rambling—that is, until he is instructed to lift the veil and kiss her.
"Really?" he covertly whispers to Komui, hoping—even though he had known there would be no chance—that he will somehow succeed in getting out of this predicament. Having a public relationship is one thing, but kissing her in front of everyone makes him inwardly cringe. The idea of a wedding ceremony itself doesn't even appeal to him, but he had gone along with it at the behest of both Allen and Lenalee—and Lavi, of course.
And, in his frustration, Kanda doesn't take note of the pained grimace on Allen's face. It is mostly obscured by the veil, anyway.
Komui nods at him, encouraging him without words to get on with it.
His face burns with embarrassment, but he is miraculously able to follow through, to the sharp relief of the crowd—all of whom then proceed to explode with cheers and whistles. (The whistling comes mostly from Lavi, he notices.) Yet, it is not the actual ceremony that affects him the most that day, nor is it the way in which the white-haired girl's lips stiffen against his when he kisses her.
It's what comes after.
"That was a lot of fun," she says, smiling gently as she leads him by the hand into her room.
There had been no reception, seeing as Kanda is such a cold fish; he had glowered so much at the thought that Allen had quickly abandoned the idea. So he has no idea what she's talking about when she refers to the wedding as having been fun—going through that ceremony had been more akin to his definition of painful.
"If you say so," he replies.
Before he can make a move, the white-haired girl turns around, stands on the tips of her toes, and plants a tender kiss on his lips. Kanda instantly goes rigid, unprepared for the kiss and caught off guard by the subtle feelings of love she expresses in it. Her arms reach up to wrap around him, drawing him in closer as the kiss becomes more heated.
Though he had been shaken in the beginning, he soon gives in to her advances, allowing her to lead him to the bed for their first union as husband and wife.
For some reason, though they move slower and with more gentle touches than he is comfortable with—and it shows, in his hesitant movements and occasional rough handling—Allen seems more wistful and sad than ever before.
He knows she'll be fine, though.
She always is.
The one-year mark sees relatively few changes in their relationship—on the surface, at least. Kanda is more than aware of the fact that something has changed. He is all but being bludgeoned to death by the blatantly obvious differences.
For one thing, Allen herself has changed. Not in such a direct way, however. Her personality remains the same. She still possesses the uncanny ability to light up a room with her smile and to cause his heart to race in a way that no one else has ever accomplished. That much hasn't changed, at least—his feelings for her are as clear and inconvenient as ever.
What has changed, he notices with a degree of concern, is the way she reacts towards him. It's evident that she still loves him, far more than anyone else thinks he deserves, but she acts as though she is standing on thin ice whenever he's in the room. She talks to him about her day, asks questions about his own, and above all else, simply enjoys being in his presence.
But at the same time, it is painfully clear that she doesn't.
She doesn't try to hold his hand anymore, for one thing. She wants to, he can see it in her eyes, but she holds herself back for the reason that she believes he doesn't want to. She doesn't hug him, not that she had done so much to begin with. He will not reject it if she does, but he does not—and will not—say that to her.
Because that is not who he is; it's outside of his comfort zone.
When they have sex, she is desperate, as though worried he will disappear beneath her fingers. She claws at him, wrapping herself around his body with all the intensity of a cobra, and kisses him until his lips are swollen and red. He rather likes the rough play, so he actually prefers this change.
So he doesn't say anything—and, over and over, he continues to make the same mistake: staying silent.
"Hey, Kanda…can I talk to you?"
"Sure," he agrees, not looking up from his bowl of soba noodles.
Allen sits down across from him, the small grin on her face clueing him in to the fact that something's up. Her silver eyes dart around the cafeteria as though she is looking for someone, and upon not finding them, her gaze returns to his.
"So, I was wondering...how do you feel about kids?"
His eyes almost pop out of his skull. Does she really need an answer to that question? "Do I seem like the type of person who likes kids?"
She guffaws, playing idly with her fingers. "Well…not really. But you've only ever interacted with other people's kids. It might be different when they're your own."
"Might be," he says—and then, he freezes with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. "Wait, what?"
The white-haired girl's grin becomes a shy one, replete with the pure satisfaction he has come to expect only when she succeeds in tricking him. "I was going to wait until I started showing, so that you would figure it out on your own, but I got impatient."
He almost cannot believe his ears. The Moyashi is pregnant? How the hell had that happened? They had been very careful to ensure that nothing like this happened—maybe he had made a mistake, or perhaps the clerk at that shady store he went to gave him condoms that were already expired. It's possible, he supposes—but that's not the point.
The point is that now, they have a problem.
"Well, what are you going to do about it?" he asks, his eyebrow rising in curiosity when her face suddenly falls.
"What do you mean, Kanda? I'm pregnant—I thought you'd be at least a little happy about it…aren't you?"
He's supposed to be happy about this? What has she been smoking? Nothing about this situation is positive, the way he sees it. He dislikes children; he's already made that perfectly clear. It would be inconvenient, not to mention come with a host of problems from having to raise it in this world.
It's better for everyone if she gets rid of it.
"No," he says. "It's a problem. What were you thinking, wanting to raise a kid in this environment? You do realize that you're an exorcist, right?"
"I know that! What do you take me for?" She glares at him, looking both angry and morose. "I already talked to both Komui and the Nurse about it, and they said it should be fine as long as I don't go on missions and take care of myself. I know it's not a good time, but—"
"You're damn right! I can't believe you're putting us through this."
"…I didn't do it on purpose, Kanda. We both did it."
"Yeah, but you're the one making a big deal about it."
She says nothing, staring at him with wide eyes and a look of sheer disbelief. He almost flinches at her torn expression, caught between abstract horror and absolute misery from his verbal onslaught.
Well, that's reality. It isn't his fault that she's too blind and hopeful to see it. "I've said my piece. I'll talk to you later."
Without another word, he gets up and leaves. Just as he passes through the doors of the cafeteria, he sees her hand move out of the corner of his eye, dropping to her stomach as a tear rolls down her face.
His pride keeps him from turning back.
A few days later, she catches him just as he is opening the door to his room.
"Hey," she whispers, her voice cracking.
Kanda does a double take when he sees her. The white-haired girl's eyes are red and swollen, much like all the other times he had upset her. But this couldn't have been from anything he had done, could it? He hadn't even spoken to her properly since yesterday, and he could barely even remember the conversation; it had been about some inane nonsense, he is certain. Nothing important.
It has to be something else that has distressed her.
"What's wrong, Moyashi? You look paler than usual."
She doesn't smile like he expects her to, like she always does in response to his jabs. Her eyes continue to stare at the ground, her hands balled up into nervous fists at her sides.
She bites her lip, the lower one quivering as she struggles to say what's on her mind. "I…I got rid of it," she says, her voice choked with unshed tears.
"Got rid of what?"
Allen closes her eyes, taking a deep breath before continuing. "The baby. It's gone."
His eyes widen; he resists the urge to sigh in relief, certain that doing so would only dismay her more than she already is. This much, at least, he can do for her. "Oh. When?"
"Last night."
"…How?"
The young woman bites back a sob. "The Head Nurse…she performed it for me. Said she didn't want me to hurt myself, that a lot of women end up dying from failed abortions…"
She cannot go on. Her voice fails her, and she wipes her runny nose as tears roll down her cheeks in thick sheets.
Kanda steps toward her, for once trying to offer her some form of comfort in her time of need, but to his surprise, she steps back. Puzzled, he steps forward again, gathering her in his arms by force.
She only cries harder, balling her fists against his chest as she buries her face in his exorcist coat.
"It's okay, Moyashi," he tells her, cupping the back of her head in his hand. "It'll be fine. You'll see—it's easier this way. There won't be anything to worry about from now on."
Kanda can tell from the way her sobs intensify that she doesn't believe him, that she is too lost in her sorrow to bother taking his words to heart. Hell, even he doesn't truly believe what he's saying, and he hadn't even wanted the kid in the first place. He can't imagine what she's feeling, having lost something that she had cared so much for despite the fact that it hadn't even been around that long.
And, he selfishly realizes, he doesn't want to.
One day, everything goes to shit.
His world is literally crumbling around him, chunks of marble and plaster falling like rain from the ceiling as the Japanese man sprints through the halls of the Black Order.
None of them had expected this—that, even with all the exorcists and the Heart alive and well, the Earl would dare to attack Headquarters. Though, Kanda supposes, it doesn't really matter to the fat man what happens at this point.
They don't stand a chance in hell, anyway.
The Noah had broken through the barriers the scientists had put up flawlessly, sparing them barely a second glance before slaying them in a variety of horrifying ways.
Or so Kanda had been told; he had been in his room when Komui contacted him via golem, not that the scientist had needed to. The samurai could hear the alarm blaring already, warning everyone of an enemy breach in all levels. Road Camelot, the sneaky girl, had used her door to appear directly inside the cafeteria, and none of the Finders who had been there stood a chance.
Right now, the Japanese man is moving as fast as his legs can carry him, dashing towards the place where all the commotion is coming from. His hand is already gripping Mugen, ready to tear into anything that comes near him or anything he values. The whole time, a certain white-haired girl is lingering at the back of his mind. He isn't worried about her, though; he knows she can take care of herself. If anyone is going to survive this, it will be her.
She'll be fine.
Suddenly, a piercing caterwaul reaches his ears, accompanied by a flash of bright light that nearly incapacitates him. He collapses to his knees, his hands flying to his ears so as to stem the awful sound. Kanda cannot see or hear, his vision obscured by white and his ears ringing with the overwhelming noise of two people who sound as though they are screaming their throats raw. Even in the midst of his confused stupor, Kanda recognizes one of them as being the Earl's deep tenor, and the other as being…
…Allen?
"Moyashi!" He can hear her voice, even with his palms clamped down over his ears to block out the horrible noise. He struggles to get to his feet, forcing his eyes open as he stumbles onwards towards the doorway ahead of him.
Just before he gets there, everything falls silent.
Utter nothingness greets the samurai, and he freezes in momentary shock as everything goes back to normal. The bright light vanishes, along with the terrible cries and the distant sounds of battle taking place all over the castle. There is nothing—pure, total silence, and if it weren't for his aching eardrums Kanda would have believed that he had hallucinated the entire experience.
Except for the the fact that, he realizes, there are still very audible sounds of moaning issuing from the room in front of him. A sinking feeling washes through him, and he resumes his sprint, bursting through the doors—and what he sees leaves no doubt in the samurai's mind that the Noah had attacked.
The entire hall is in disarray, with piles of collapsed rubble and large holes in all the walls surrounding the area. Spidery cracks have formed on any objects that aren't broken, filling Kanda with the sardonic thought that the whole place would fall down if it weren't for the superior architectural design of the castle.
On top of the destruction of the building, there are countless bodies strewn across the floor, some of them unmoving and soaked in blood, while others—equally bloody—are writhing in agony. Some people have been spared injury entirely, and are starting to go around and help others with their own now that the immediate danger has passed.
Kanda stares in wide-eyed shock at the chaos he sees around him, caught up in disbelief that all of this had managed to happen in the few minutes it had taken him to get down here.
"Kanda?"
He whips around at the sound of his name, fully expecting to see the Moyashi—and frowns heavily upon seeing Lenalee, who is leaning on Lavi as though he is her lifeline. She has blood dripping down the side of her face, landing with quiet plips on the ground as she struggles to keep half of her body standing.
"What's going on?" he demands, furrowing his brows at her. "Where did the Noah and the Earl go?"
Both Lenalee and Lavi look shocked, casting sideways glances at each other as simultaneously wistful and relieved smiles take over their expressions.
"They're dead, Kanda," the Chinese girl tells him. "They're dead. The war's finally over. Allen…Allen-chan did it…" Tears pool in her eyes, rolling down her cheeks in rapid succession as she struggles to force the words out of her mouth.
Panic takes ahold of the organ in his chest, but he forces it down for the sake of retaining his calm demeanor. "Allen? Where is she, then?"
Neither Lenalee nor the redhead say anything at first, and without him realizing it, Kanda's hands begin to shake.
"Where is she?"
"I…" Lenalee starts, her sobs taking over her voice. She covers her mouth with her free hand, her shoulders shaking in Lavi's grip.
"She's…she's gone, Kanda," Lavi finishes for the Chinese girl, his features both stoic and despondent at the same time; it must be a Bookman thing, the samurai thinks. "As soon as she killed the Earl with her Innocence, they and the other Noah disappeared. It was amazing…her Innocence transformed itself, as though it knew what was happening and wanted to stop it. It turned into a sword, just like the Earl's."
Time seems to freeze in that instant, as soon as Lavi says those two dreaded words: She's gone. It can't be real—it simply can't. She had always been the one to survive, even when the odds were stacked against her. Now that she's finally become stronger, now that she's finally done the very thing she had pledged her life to do, she's just…gone?
It doesn't make any sense. He can't accept it—he won't, because if he does, that would mean acknowledging the fact that he will not see her again. It would mean accepting that she is dead—or if not dead, gone—and that she had never even given him a proper goodbye.
And this…he cannot accept.
This must be a dream, he thinks. Just a nightmare. An especially realistic one, but a nightmare nonetheless.
He waits for himself to wake up, a cold dread washing through him when it doesn't happen.
Never has being a realist hurt so much.
"Kanda?"
He shivers at how familiar this situation is; how merely a few years ago, the same exact thing had happened, only on a different day and with a girl with white hair instead of green.
Indeed, he himself feels much like another person has taken his place.
"Kanda, are you coming?" the Chinese girl repeats, lingering awkwardly in the doorway. "It's about to start."
Irritation burns through his veins, filling him with contempt for the girl who is trying to cheer him up. Can't she see that she isn't wanted here? He doesn't need anyone to watch over him; he is perfectly capable of taking care of himself. He knows what he needs, and he doesn't need to go to a memorial ceremony for the Moyashi. It'll only be full of people sharing their condolences, telling him how sorry they are, how she was such a lovely person who filled everyone's lives with rays of light, and how he had been so lucky to have a wife like her for as long as he had.
But she isn't his wife anymore, he reminds himself.
She isn't anything.
Lenalee sighs, fiddling with her hands when Kanda staunchly refuses to answer her. He watches her with narrowed eyes as she digs around in her pocket, the sounds of crumpling paper accompanying her movement. He raises an eyebrow, watching her curiously as she pulls out a folded piece of parchment, holding it out to him as she comes closer.
"Here," she insists, shoving it towards him when he merely stares at her. "It's for you."
He eyes the paper warily. "What is it?"
"A letter. Allen-chan…she told me to give it to you if she ever died before you. She didn't have a will, so I think this is it."
His eyes widen. She had left a letter for him? After all this time—after everything she had told him, about how she wanted to do something with her life when she made it through the war…and she had been prepared to die anyway?
What else had he not known about her?
With a scoff, Kanda takes the letter from the Chinese girl, staring at the yellowing pages with an intense gaze.
"Thanks," he mumbles, refusing to make eye contact with her again.
Even so, he can practically feel her smile. "You're welcome, Kanda. When you're done reading it, if you want to come join us…we'd be happy if you did."
"Tch."
There is a resounding silence when she leaves; it seems to settle over him like a smothering blanket, pressing down on his lungs when he tries to breathe.
Without another thought regarding the wisdom of his decision, Kanda opens the letter, and begins to read.
Kanda,
I hate to be one of those cliché people who writes wills like this, but if you're reading this, then that means I'm dead. (You're probably scoffing right now. That's okay—I wanted to make you do it one more time.)
I was hoping that you would never have to read this. That's because I had planned on writing another will one day if anything in our lives were to change. If they had, then I'm sure what I'm writing would be a lot different. But, as it is, I want to let you know a few things—my feelings, my wishes, and my regrets. Are you ready? I suppose that's redundant, isn't it? Oh, well.
First of all, I just want to let you know that I love you. I always have, and I always will. Even when we fought, I never took anything you said personally. I know what kind of person you are, and I know that I should have never expected you to be the perfect husband. If anything about our time together makes me sad, then it's my fault. You were what you needed to be for yourself, and I should have realized that a long time ago. And that's where my regrets come in, because had I known in the beginning what I know now, things would have been different. I don't regret that we had time together, but I regret how it turned out.
More than anything, I wish that I'd shown my love for you more often. Maybe if I had, you wouldn't have reacted in the ways that you did—maybe you would have learned to express yourself better. I'm sorry for that. For every time I cried after you wouldn't hold my hand, and every time I laid awake at night thinking about how you didn't want to kiss me at our wedding…I couldn't help but wonder if, on some level, it was partially my fault. And then I thought that maybe you had noticed my change in behavior, and that you thought I was angry at you. I should have said something instead of retreating into myself. Maybe then I could have fixed what was broken…and that was when I made the worst mistake of our relationship.
I thought that having a child would fix things. Don't get me wrong—I didn't get pregnant on purpose, but I tried to see the bright side of the situation once I found out. I was so excited…I dreamed of having a child with you, Kanda. For the few days before I told you, I was actually smiling at night instead of being stressed. I thought that maybe we could be happy, that we would finally have our own family…I wanted it so badly…
But of course, caught up in my own selfish desires, I forgot about what you wanted. I don't blame you for reacting the way you did, though at the time I probably did, to some degree. Having a child would have been difficult, but I think we could have pulled it off. If we had given it our all, I believe we would have raised a wonderful son or daughter.
But that doesn't matter now, does it? I'm sorry; I'm probably making you feel guilty. That isn't my intention. I just wanted to let you know why I made the choices I did, and that I understand your point of view as well. It's why I love you so much, even when you do things that make me cringe. I try to understand you, and I know that I failed in helping you understand me.
So, what I'm trying to say is that I don't regret the time we spent together. Far from it—it was the best time of my life, even if it didn't seem like it. Because of you, it was all worth it. Yet I still feel that I failed, because I caused you so much grief. In this way, I think of our relationship as a sort of half-mistake, because I know that it wasn't what you had envisioned your life to be. I loved being with you, but the joy of it was always somewhat tainted by the knowledge that I was holding you too tightly. You always did seem to get along better on your own; I'm sorry if you ever felt that I was holding you back. It's all much clearer in hindsight, isn't it?
Well, maybe this letter hasn't been a total waste of your time. Now that I think about it, the fact that you're reading this does have a silver lining. Even though I've left you before my time, before I was able to set things straight, I still have the chance to do so here, on paper. It may not be in person, but it's the best I can do now. It's more than I ever did when I was alive. And besides, maybe, with the time you have left, you can find out what it is that you want to do with your life. I don't know if the war is over yet by now, but I hope it is. I hope you get to do all the things you never got to do while we were together.
I hope, Kanda, that you can at least be a little bit happier one day. Even if it's just a tiny corner of your mouth, I hope that someone else will get the chance to see you smile.
And I hope that one day, someone else will hear the words "I love you" coming from your lips.
God knows I didn't deserve them.
—Allen, a.k.a. Moyashi
His knuckles are white by the time he finishes reading the letter, his hands shaking with the force he is applying to the thin sheets. They crumple in his fingers, the words becoming blurred as Kanda Yuu does something that he had not done in years.
He cries, allowing his tears to drip onto the aging paper; they join the old tearstains that had been left behind when the white-haired girl had first written on these pages, pouring her heart out to a man who had barely ever given it a second thought.
Kanda knows, deep within his heart—it's so obvious, really, how could she not have seen it?—that he is the one who had failed. He had failed her every time he had seen her crying and was too stupid and embarrassed to say anything; every time she had tried to show affection—if anything, she had shown just the right amount—and he had resisted it, retreating back into his cold, stoic outer shell.
"Is that what you're worried about? Someone else finding out that Kanda Yuu isn't so stoic and infallible after all?"
Yes. That is exactly what he had been afraid of—and the fact that he is realizing this now is ironic to the point of tragedy.
Because now, it is far too late.
It is too late for him to go back and correct her misconceptions, to tell her that she is wrong, wrong, wrong about everything that she had said in her letter. None of it had been her fault; she is every man's dream, the kind of person who will shoulder the blame for other's wrongdoings and take too much responsibility onto herself, only to wallow in guilt whenever something goes wrong. It is too late for him to tell her that what he wants for the rest of his life...is to be with her, to share the good times and the bad as they traverse the unknown land of normalcy.
Even though everything that had happened had been a product of his insecurities, his inability to function in the only relationship that had ever meant anything to him, she still loves him...and this is something that he will never be able to understand.
Neither of them are perfect, but she is—was—far closer to being so than he can ever hope to reach.
With another onslaught of tears, Kanda realizes that he had never even gotten the chance to tell her that he loves her.
He allows the tears to run down his face for a few more minutes, desperately trying to regain control of his sobbing and cursing himself when he fails. But finally, after a solid ten minutes of self-effacement and shame, Kanda manages to gather most of his wits. He straightens out the letter, folding the pages carefully so as not to ruin the words, and places them in the top drawer of his dresser for safekeeping. His eyes linger a bit too long on the cursive letters that spell her name, and a single tear squeezes out from the corner of his eye.
He dons his exorcist coat, straightening his hair and tying it back into a high ponytail—her favorite hairstyle, he remembers with a pang.
Just before he leaves the room, he recalls something else—something important.
On his nightstand, right beside his bed, sits a thin silver band that glitters in the scant candlelight. Kanda picks it up, rolling it around in his hand with a small smile before he slips it back on to his finger.
And then he leaves, wondering whether or not Lenalee will be surprised that he actually bothered to show up. She shouldn't be, though, if she has any degree of faith in him. It's the least he can do if he wants to redeem himself, though he knows that he will never be fully satisfied. But if there is a heaven, he reasons, though the chance is small, Allen will be happy that he is trying—and that's all that matters.
And, if he knows her at all, then she will forgive him—no matter what happens.
God knows he doesn't deserve it.
I'm sad now. I hope you liked it, and feel free to drop a review. It means a lot :)
-Vicious Ventriloquist