Chapter 2: The Catalyst

"Allennnnnnn!" Allen Walker heard his voice being sung across the cafeteria and knew it could only be one person.

"Hi, Lavi," Allen yawned. "What homework do you need now?"

Lavi sat down at the table across from Allen and pouted. "You're so mean to me! You still think of me as some sort of common, ordinary mooch after all these years?"

"Nearly four years isn't that long, Lavi. And you're far from an ordinary mooch; you are the very definition of the word."

Lavi waved the comment aside and stood up. "Come with me to buy my lunch?"

"But I already got mine!" Allen whined.

"So?"

Allen deliberated for a minute as Lavi continued to stand expectantly at the end of the table. "Fine," he sighed. "But only if you buy me a piece of cake."

"What? Why? You already have two whole trays of food!"

"But I don't have any cake. Either I get the cake or I'm staying here."

"Ugh, fine. Fatty."

Allen stood up and playfully pushed Lavi as they made their way up to the food.

By the time Allen and Lavi returned with their food, two more people had sat down at the table. Next to Lavi's spot sat a young, asain man with long, jet black hair that fell down his back in a graceful low ponytail. Next to Allen's seat and across from the black-haired boy sat an man that looked at least three years older than either Allen or Lavi. He wore headphones on his ears and his tan head was shaved except for one patch on the top of his head, which had been corn-rowed and tied into a neat little bun.

As Allen and Lavi approached, he turned to face them and grinned, squinting his colorless, blind eyes. Allen smiled back and sat down.

"Hey, Marie."

"Hello, Allen," Marie answered as he turned to his own lunch. "I see you got cake."

"Yeah, that was the deal. If I went up to get Lavi's lunch with him I would get cake. How did you know it was cake?"

Marie chuckled, "I heard Lavi complaining about the price and how fat you are on your way over here."

"Oh," Allen said, slightly disappointed.

The group sat in silence for a few minutes as everyone dug into their food, absorbed in fitting as much into their mouths as humanly possible.

Allen was just finishing off his first tray of food when Lavi spoke up.

"I still think we should do it," he announced.

"No," the black haired boy answered right away.

"Aw, come on, Yu! It could be great!"

"My name," he hissed, "is Kanda. And I cannot and will not be a part of another one of your insane schemes."

"But this one isn't insane!"

"It's not happening. Let it go."

"I will not let it go!" Lavi slammed his had down on the table and locked eyes with Kanda. "It's our senior year of high school. After this, we'll all be going our own separate ways and who knows what will happen then? I want to do something memorable for our last year. Go out with a bang, you know? I just can't keep doing the same thing over and over again. I don't expect it to be a big hit with everyone or anything, but I want to be able to look back at this and say that at least I did something different for a change. And who knows? It could turn out to be a lot of fun."

Kanda said nothing, but continued to hold eye contact with Lavi. Marie cleared his throat after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.

"Um," he began, "which idea are we talking about again?"

"His hair-brained idea that we should make a band and sing songs and shit," Kanda snapped, turning his eyes away from Lavi to glare at Marie.

"And why is that such a bad idea?" Lavi demanded.

"Because! Who the hell would want to listen to a bunch of misfits like us? Who would want to go see us? Can any of us even sing?" Kanda hissed.

"I can," Allen interjected and all three heads turned to stare at him. "Sing…I mean. I can sing."

"See? And so can I," Lavi quickly added. "So why not? It doesn't matter if no one wants to specifically come and see us play."

"And play what? Exactly what would we play, Lavi? Would we cover other artists and songs like every other half-assed band in this town?"

"No. We would sing our own music."

"But, Lavi," Allen said, "we don't have any of our own music."

"I've already written some stuff. And I think with some help, I could easily write more," Lavi said confidently.

Before anyone else could say anything, Kanda snapped. He slammed both of his hands down onto the table and stood up. Grabbing his black backpack, he snatched up the remainder of his lunch and stalked out of the lunchroom, glaring at teachers along the way.

Lavi frowned before turning to Allen and Marie. "Well, what do you guys think?"

"I don't know, Lavi…would we even be able to fit it into our schedules?" Allen asked.

"We'd make it work."

After a pause, Marie spoke up.

"I think it's a good idea," he said. "I'm in."

Allen sighed, "I'm in too."

"Okay!" Lavi grinned cheerfully. "Well then now we have drums," he pointed at Marie, "and a lead singer," he pointed to Allen. "I'll be the bassist and backup singer. Now all that's left is to convince Yu to be our guitarist."

"Why bother?" Allen asked, starting on his second tray. "He obviously doesn't want to. I bet he isn't all that good anyway."

"Bzzt! Wrong! Yu is the best guitarist I know! He's a natural. And besides, even if he wasn't, he's still our friend and I'd want him in the band anyway."

Allen shrugged. "Well, good luck convincing him then."

Lavi chuckled and took a swig of his water. "Thanks, but I don't need luck. I know he'll join."

Kanda was pissed off. No, scratch that, severely pissed off. He had work to do and Lavi just had to keep bringing up the damn band idea.

Kanda stalked down the hallway and outside, down Rose Cross Academy's front steps. At the bottom of the steps he turned and strode across the lawn to take a seat beneath a tree. It wasn't the most comfortable of seats, but it was in the shade and away from Lavi, so it suited Kanda just fine.

Kanda slung his book bag off his shoulder and took a bite of his sandwich, scanning the school grounds.

Rose Cross Academy was a quiet private school that had its own, distinct campus. A main road ran past the campus and into the nearby city, but the road itself was half a mile away from any of the school buildings. Between the road and the school itself was a flat plain of grass with trees spotting the landscape here and there. Nearer to the school there were more trees and even some benches. Students sometimes spent their open periods outside on these benches, enjoying the weather.

Or, if you were Kanda, you spent your time outside alone under a tree, avoiding annoying people.

As of right now, the only other people outside were a couple on a bench, making out. Kanda rolled his eyes. Did they really have to be that obnoxious with their relationship? Luckily for him, though, he was far enough away that they wouldn't annoy him while he worked.

Even though he was in the shade, it was still hot outside, and Kanda rolled up the sleeves of his collared, school uniform shirt before grabbing a textbook and notebook out of his bag along with a pencil. He quickly wrote down the first problem from his book and began the long process of solving the equation. His math homework had only been assigned one class period ago, but Kanda knew he needed to start on it now. He had history test coming up in a few days and he knew from experience that he would need all the time he could get tonight to study for it.

He munched on his sandwich as he slowly progressed through the math problems laid out in front of him. If only his problem with Lavi was as easy to solve as some of these math problems were. Kanda had thought that Lavi would just drop the whole band idea after a bit like he did with half of his other insane ideas, but Lavi was refusing to let this go for some reason. Kanda understood wanting to do something memorable for their senior year but a band? Did Lavi want to make them all social outcasts? Kanda wasn't particularly well liked within the school to start with (which may have had something to do with his short temper and reluctance to talk to people) and he was perfectly fine with how things were. He didn't want to remember his last year of high school as the year everyone hated him.

Kanda didn't much fancy the idea of getting up in front of crowds of people and performing either. He hated the attention. And even if he did do the band for some reason, he didn't exactly have an abundance of time to go around practicing or playing shows. He had a job for crying out loud, even if it only was part time. And on top of that, the only reason he was able to afford the academy was because he had gotten a scholarship. And said scholarship required that he keep his grades up, which meant more time studying. Even when he got his homework done in school, he still had a difficult time balancing his schoolwork and job.

He knew he could do the band if he really wanted to, but he wasn't sure that he really wanted to add that extra load on himself.

Kanda sighed as he finished the last of his math problems and put his books away. He ate the last of his sandwich and leaned back against the tree, legs stretched out in front of him. Life is far too complicated, he mused and closed his eyes. He was exhausted. Maybe he could catch a quick nap before—the school bell rang just as he had the thought to sleep. Kanda groaned and pulled himself up off the ground, brushing off his pants. So much for sleeping; but maybe he could get away with ignoring Lavi and his idea. He swung his book bag up off the ground and onto his shoulder as he started back into the main school building.

He groaned again when he realized his next class was history, with Lavi.

So much for ignoring that problem for the rest of the day.

Kanda sighed as he stepped off of the bus and onto the city sidewalk. Today had been a long day. Even though Lavi had (quite suspiciously) let the band idea drop, Kanda had barely made it through the rest of the day. The teachers had just kept piling on the work, and though he had been sorely tempted to get some much needed sleep in his history class, he had forced himself to stay awake, if only to make tonight's studying easier.

Now, all he wanted to do was go home and sleep.

As he wove in between people, he shifted his bag off of one of his shoulders and closer to his body. He was starting to enter a shady neighborhood, and he had no intention of getting pick pocketed.

Soon, the number of people on the street had dwindled down to only a few groups of shady characters in passing alleys. Kanda hated where he lived, but honestly, he was lucky to have the home he had. At least he had a roof over his head and food to eat.

Once as he was walking, a group of men in an alley had started towards him, but they had quickly backed off when Kanda had glowered at them. He had been living in the same apartment for around two years now, and in that time he had been jumped by nearly every group of lowlifes in the area.

Needless to say, he had beaten the shit out of them and had sent them back to give their criminal friends a message: do not fuck with Yu Kanda.

He passed an abandoned playground and made his way yup to a tall, dirty brick building. The bottom two floors were caged in and Kanda saw no light through the curtains as he pulled out his keys. Three different keys and locks later, he stepped into his apartment building and shut the door, locking all of the bolts behind him.

Finally inside, he lit himself relax. His backpack dropped from his shoulder and he just barely caught it by the strap before it hit the ground. His shoulders slumped and he gripped the railing as he began to ascend the stairs to his apartment.

After half trudging, half dragging himself up two flights of stairs, Kanda unlocked one last deadbolt and let himself into the apartment.

The apartment itself was rather small. A tiny kitchen sported the stove, sink, refrigerator, and about three solid feet of counter space. In the middle of the kitchen was a small, round table with a few beaten up chairs. Directly across from the kitchen was a tiny family room with an old couch, a TV, and a water-stained coffee table.

Kanda longed to walk down the hallway in between the kitchen and the family room, go to his room, and sleep the night away. But, of course, that wasn't an option. He had studying to do first. He sank down onto a chair and dragged his bag onto the kitchen table. He knew if he tried to study anywhere else he would surely fall asleep within ten minutes and then nothing would get done.

He stifled a yawn and pulled out his biology textbook. As he began to skim over the chapter, his mind started to wander back to the band.

It bothered him that Lavi hadn't brought up the issue at all during their history class, and hadn't mentioned it throughout the rest of the day. Kanda highly doubted that Lavi had actually let the idea go. That just wasn't Lavi. No…knowing him, Lavi had already come up with some sort of elaborate blackmailing scheme to force Kanda to join the band.

Kanda snorted. Yeah, like that would ever work. Lavi had nothing to blackmail with.

Kanda flipped his textbook shut and pushed it to the side, pulling out his notebook. He scanned through the pages until he found the notes for the chapter he needed. Pushing the thoughts of the band aside, he focused instead on the page in front of him.

He had barely made it past plant cell anatomy before he heard someone unlocking the door.

Kanda didn't even bother to look up as he heard the door open and then close. After the locks had been clicked back into place, a figure made its way into the kitchen.

Kanda raised his eyes to the tall, black-haired man in front of him.

"You're back early," he noted.

The man shrugged and dropped into the seat across from Kanda. He ran his fingers through his short hair as he leaned back in his seat.

"Yeah, we closed up early. Something about 'working too hard with cars instead of women,'" he snorted.

"The boss is right though. I mean, you are getting pretty old. You should find a girlfriend."

Red eyes narrowed and glared at Kanda.

"Twenty-four is not old. And you have no room to talk about girlfriends."

"Mhm. Whatever. You just keep telling yourself that, Kurogane."

Kanda winced in pain as Kurogane kicked him from under the table. As he leaned down to massage his sore shin, Kurogane pulled himself to his feet.

"Cup ramen okay for dinner?"

"Always," Kanda answered, turning back to his notes.

Out of the corner of his eye Kanda could see Kurogane prepare the cups and put them into the microwave. As the cups began to slowly rotate in the microwave, Kurogane pulled out his cell phone. Kanda continued to focus on his notes, even as the delicious aroma from the microwave made his mouth water.

Kanda knew that Kurogane felt bad for only being able to provide cheap meals for the two of them, which was bullshit, in Kanda's opinion. Kanda would have been living out on the streets a long time ago if it hadn't been for Kurogane and his family. They had taken Kanda in without a second thought and Kurogane had treated him like a long-lost brother ever since. Even when his parents had relocated two years ago due to his father's job, Kurogane had offered to let Kanda stay with him. That way, Kanda didn't have to change high schools or find a new job. And even though it made Kurogane's life harder, he had practically forced Kanda to take him up on the offer.

"So," Kurogane began, breaking Kanda's train of thought. "What's this I hear about you joining a band?"

"What?" Kanda whipped his head around to stare at Kurogane, who was holding up his phone.

"Lavi sent me a message. He said that he's putting together a band with you and some of your other friends."

"Why the hell does that damn rabbit have your number?"

Kurogane shrugged. "You've been friends with Lavi for years. Does it really surprise you that he somehow got a hold of my number?"

Kanda snorted. "I suppose not. Doesn't he have keys to this apartment too or something?"

"Nothing would surprise me with that kid anymore. I have no idea how he would have gotten them though…." Kurogane sighed and pulled the cups out of the microwave as the timer went off. "But seriously, are you actually doing this band thing?"

"No, it's just some stupid idea-"

"Well, I think you should," Kurogane cut him off.

Kanda stared incredulously at Kurogane for a minute, unsure of whether or not he could believe his ears. Kurogane placed a cup down in front of Kanda and sat down.

"What's that look for?" he asked.

"What do you mean by 'I think you should'? It's just another one of Lavi's stupid ideas. I'm not doing it."

"I don't think it's a stupid idea," Kurogane sighed. "Kanda, all you do is work and school. I understand that you need to keep your grades up to keep your scholarship and to keep going to Rose Cross. And I understand that you feel the obligation to help pay for those bills and for some of the food, but you never do anything else. You never have any fun or go out. I mean, when I was seventeen I partied my fair share."

"Oh, I know. I had to cover for you a bunch of times, remember?"

Kurogane chuckled. "I only remember some of it. But that's what I'm talking about, Kanda. You're always so…serious. You never really seem to have any fun."

"I have plenty of fun," Kanda said defensively.

"You never smile, you don't have a girlfriend, and I can't even remember the last time I actually saw you laugh. So, I'm not entirely sure what your definition of 'fun' is here."

Kanda rolled his eyes but didn't answer.

Kurogane sighed again and leaned back in his chair, massaging his temples. "Kanda…I just don't see what the problem is with this band thing. And before you start yelling," He held up his hand to cut Kanda off, "just hear me out. Do the band thing. Just do it, and then see where it goes from there. If you truly hate it after a few months, then fine. Quit. But at least try it."

Kanda remained silent as he picked at his noodles. After a moment, he finally spoke.

"Tch. Fine. I'll do it. But I sure as hell won't enjoy it. And I have some conditions for that damn rabbit before I officially join."

A small smile tugged at Kurogane's lips and he leaned forward to eat his dinner. "Whatever. Just shut up and do it already."

"Yeah, yeah." Kanda yawned and retuned to his ramen as well. "And if Lavi turns up dead in a few days, you're my alibi."

Kurogane rolled his eyes. "I'm always your alibi."

Kanda smirked and they fell into an easy silence. He turned back to his notes and sighed. Lavi was sure to hear about this by tomorrow morning…at the latest.

Tomorrow was going to suck.

A/N: Hey guys! So I finally finished chapter two amidst the hours upon hours of homework and essays. Somehow I managed.

Some notes about the story:

1. No actual songs this chapter, but the title of the chapter comes from the song The Catalyst by Linkin Park. I thought the song title fit, and the lyrics kinda fit Kanda as well.

2. I'm a very uncreative person. I couldn't think of my own big brother figure for Kanda, so I borrowed Kurogane from Tsubasa: Resevior Chronicles. THIS IS NOT A CROSSOVER FIC. I've always had the nagging suspicion that Kurogane and Kanda are brothers from parallel dimensions...but that's just my theory. But Kuro-puu seemed to fit the role of big brother well so he's staying.

3. My inner Kanda is very sassy...and curses. A lot. We (inner Kanda and I) apologize if we offended anyone.

4. I'm posting my illustrations (some are for this story) on my DeviantArt account if anyone wants to check it out. the link is:

.com/

So...please leave a review? Thanks everyone!

EDIT: Thank you to my Anonymous reviewer for the pointer about Marie! (The D. Gray-Man Grey Ark character book isn't available in American bookstores and I was taking a shot in the dark at his ethnicity). Also, I knew Marie was way too old to be in high school, but I needed a character and he fit. Soooo I took a few liberties with his age ^^;