Lavi took the usual route to Kanda's room, because he needed the normalcy. Up four flights of stairs and past Komui's office, across the level and up more stairs, fifth door to his right. His feet felt heavy but he urged them faster onto the path they already knew by instinct. He had something he needed to get done and it needed to be done now, before he could have a chance to doubt himself.

Kanda was sitting on the bed, waiting, like he always did. When Lavi entered the other was perched with his back to him, presumably borrowing the last few rays of daylight through the window to read a book.

The soft click as the door closed hung in the air between them, not particularly heavy but enough to alert them of each other's presence, as if they really needed it.

"You're early."

A quiet observation. Kanda was, and had always been, a man of quiet observations.

"I guess I am, huh?" Lavi didn't know what he was a man of, just that every second that passed in the company of the other made him despise himself more and more.

He felt the mattress creak a little under his weight as he sat down next to the long haired Japanese and, in doing so, brushed his arm accidentally against the other's long black locks, free from their usual severe ponytail. Lavi felt himself cringing away from the touch, feeling that he hardly deserved it.

Kanda turned his head toward the redhead and gave him a look; a look that asked no questions and told no lies. Lavi's chest almost ached at the sight of them. They had no idea, he had no idea, that everything was going to change.

"Yu." His name rolled easily off his tongue, like it had belonged there. Except that it hadn't. No part of Kanda could ever belong to anyone.

Of course there was no reply; he hadn't expected one.

The long silence that passed seemed to drain Lavi of all energy. He wanted to scream, but what came out instead was a soft "I can't do this."

Kanda had turned to look at him, and there was something that could have been amusement, surprise or anger on his face. Lavi couldn't remember when the other had become so hard to read.

"I'm selfish." He offered, his index finger tracing circles on the bedspread. "I'm selfish, and I can't do this."

"Selfish." Kanda repeated, and the unreadable thing on his face was in his voice, too.

His finger now drew jagged lines, crossing the circular pattern he created earlier, "I didn't-" He frowned, "I mean, I never-" The frown turned into a grimace, "The only reason I-"

The unreadable expression suddenly morphed into something akin to pity, if that was even possible for Kanda. "You love him."

"Who?" He wasn't aware that his voice had dropped to a whisper, like it always did when he waited for an answer he didn't want to hear.

"Don't play dumb. The sprout, of course." Kanda's tone was sharp, each word clawing its way deeper and deeper into the darkest corners of Lavi's mind. He hated this feeling.

Words tried and failed to form coherent sentences in his head, and he closed his eye for a moment to gather his thoughts. "How long?" He finally asked.

"Since the beginning."

Lavi wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at that. The word that finally forced itself out of his mouth tasted bitter. "Why?"

Kanda sighed and put down his book, as though he was annoyed with Lavi for interrupting him. "Sometimes I like to experiment. Surely you, of all people, understand that."

The redhead gave a dry chuckle. "What do you mean?"

"Didn't I tell you to stop playing dumb?" The swordsman got up from his position on the bed and walked over to the window. "You and Lenalee. You and the bean sprout. Us." He turned around to face Lavi, a blood red sunset behind him.

Part of Lavi wanted to stare numbly in shock at Kanda's words, and another part wanted to applaud the other, to give him the all the credit he had been denied in the past. The second part won, and the sound of his clapping was hollow and dead as it rang across the room.

"Well done, Yu-chan." He crossed his arms in front of his chest, "If you've got all of this figured out, you should understand that after all this, I've finally realized what I want."

Kanda simply nodded, as he turned his back on the other once more, taking in the breathless view outside his window. Lavi stood up to leave.

And got no further than a few steps.

"It's not going to happen."

The phrase was so quiet but carried such a note of finality that Lavi felt as if a gigantic rock had been dropped on top of his head, weighing him down until he could walk no further. "Really." He didn't bother to form it into a question.

"He loves Lenalee. And she loves him." The Japanese young man strode calmly to a small desk, and then Lavi could hear the scratchy sound of pen on paper. "Neither of us have the right to interfere."

Lavi said nothing as the other turned around to face him, and Kanda's mouth was on his before he could blink. The swordsman's hands felt unnaturally cold as one of them placed itself behind his neck and another grasped his leather jacket at his waist. His tongue slithered across Lavi's lower lip in an almost apologetic way.

The redhead had barely begun to come to his senses when Kanda pulled away of his own accord. In a blink of an eye the other had returned to the bed and picked up his book again. "If you want to leave, don't let me stop you."

Lavi bit back the annoyed retort on the tip of his tongue and walked away, shutting the door with none of the grace he came in with.

"Something wrong, Lavi?"

He looked up to see Allen's slightly worried face in front of his own, a spoonful of soup in his hand.

"No, nothing."

"You've been staring a lot lately."

Suddenly he felt like a child, caught dipping his hand into the cookie jar. Shaking his head slightly, he added, "Don't worry about it. I've just been a little tired."

"Yeah, Komui's been working us like dogs, huh?" A light, almost tinkling chuckle. "And our mission load's even heavier than they should be, all because the git refuses to overwork 'his darling Lenalee'."

He started to rack his brain for an answer before realizing he didn't need one, as the other had already dug into his tray of food without hesitation, because Allen was comfortable to be with like that. If it wasn't for his need to prove Kanda wrong, he would never drop a bomb like this on Allen; but such was life.

"Allen?"

"Hm?"

"I need to talk to you about some…" He felt his voice shrivel up and die as the white-haired exorcist's eyes shifted in their place, directing their attention to something behind him.

"Hey, Lenalee! Over here!"

"Oh, hey there, Allen, Lavi. Allen, I thought you guys were still in Russia?"

"Got back early. Here, why don't sit with us?"

"Thanks."

A little spark in his eyes, a tiny swing of her hips, and Lavi suddenly saw it. The way he stressed the syllables in her name that made it sound like a caress, the way she tilted her head a little when she spoke, holding herself a little differently, just for him.

They were in love. And it had taken him so long to notice it kind of hurt.

"Lavi?"

His eyes snapped back into focus and he realized that he had stood up rather abruptly. "I gotta go find the old panda. He told me to meet him in the library."

"Oh," A moment later and Lavi had already become invisible to them. "Alright, then. See you later."

His footsteps echoed loudly on the floor, and the door of his own room closed with a little more noise than necessary as he laid down on the bed, furious with himself. He took off his jacket and almost threw it onto the back of a chair, and he was about to lie back down when a little flutter of white out of a pocket and onto the floor caught his eye.

It was a scrap of paper. Lavi could see Kanda's slightly messy scrawl from his position on the bed. He bent forward and picked it up.

He was unbelievably exhausted as he read, feeling like a child again.

Rabbit,

I'm not going to say I told you so. If we're both outsiders, might as well be outsiders together. He doesn't love you and never will, whether you want it or not.

I'll be waiting once you come to your senses.

Lavi felt a shiver down his spine.

A/N: Um. Because in my head, Kanda would be the ultimate master at the fine art of mindfuckery. Yeah, don't ask. My mind works in very strange ways. I actually started this fic with a nice fluffy LaviYu fic in mind, and then it... kind of ran away from me.

So... review? If the weirdness of this little fic here isn't creeping you out too much?