Hey guys! This is the beta-ed version, beta-ed by the lovely seiyuurabu, who graciously offered to correct my laziness. So…enjoy the lack of mistakes. 8D

Blurry

Chapter 4: A Serious Case of Déjà-vu

"Oh?" Lenalee shifted her weight onto one foot. She gave off a sort of motherly aura that made her seem a bit older than she was. At times it was hard to remember she was sixteen, not thirty, especially with the maturity she showed.

"Yeah… He's gotta stick up his ass or somethin', but he's doesn' seem all tha' bad once ya spend a few minutes with 'im. I think he just don' like ta talk much. He's a bit of a clean freak, though. Ge's angry 'cause 'm not so good at keepin' things clean, ya know?" he explained in a gossipy, teenager sort of way.

This was another example of how he generally acted far more immature than he actually was. Why? For the same reason he did most anything. It was entertaining. The worst part of it was that somewhere deep inside him, the literature freak was cringing in disgust every single time he opened his mouth. He'd learned to block that out unless he was reading or writing though. Sacrifices must be made for the sake of entertainment.

"So… Let me get this straight. You actually enjoy the fact that he's uptight?" she asked slowly as if he wouldn't be able to understand it at a faster tone.

"C'mon, Lena. Tha's totally not what I jus' said. What 'm sayin' is tha' I think he needs ta loosen up a bit."

She rolled her eyes. Oh, she knew enough of Lavi's plans to make people loosen up already. It seemed to be his way of saying he was going to try to hook up with someone. Hook up in Lavi terms was an awkward one night stand that usually ended in Lavi getting physically harmed in some way. Of course, this had only happened a few times since Lenalee had known him (which was a good two years, actually), but he always seemed to phrase it the same way.

"Leeenaaaaa. Wha's tha' look fer, huh? I dun plan to seduce my roommate, thank youuu. I do have some morals." It was true, actually. Kanda seemed like the type to succumb to such urges only under the assistance of a lot of alcohol and some strong drugs. Both, of course, weren't something that he would take willingly, and Lavi would feel like a rapist if he did anything to him under that sort of circumstance anyways.

This time 'loosen up' was a completely innocent term. The look on Lenalee's face showed that she did not believe him in the least. He gave her his best kicked puppy look before being hit over the head and getting his coffee mug refilled by her.

They conversed for another hour or so. Mostly they talked about superficial things. They told each other about school. Lavi told Lenalee horror stories about college that she only half believed, and Lenalee told Lavi about the horrors of womanhood, which he always overreacted to.

Lavi finally left at six. At that point, his bill for the coffee had already climbed up to about twenty dollars. He complained about how Lenalee kept refilling his mug without asking, and she told him he should object if he didn't want anymore. As usual, he left her a good tip before walking out.

Overall, he sensed it would be a good day. Hopefully Kanda would be in a good mood when he got back. Then he had a chance of coercing him on getting out of the house. Being holed up in his room all the time had to get boring at some point. It was the least he could do for him getting the house cleaned, anyways.

He stopped walking for a moment, shaking his head and grinning. What? Now he was planning on taking Kanda out? He normally didn't bother taking people out unless he was on a date, which only happened once in a good five months. Now he was suddenly showing appreciation to his new roommate through spending his own money on him?

It was around this time that Lavi realized he had it bad for Kanda.

Kanda at that moment wasn't really feeling similar sentiments. Actually, Lavi was the last thing on his mind. What he was currently doing was thinking over ways to completely mutilate his textbook. He had the strong, strong urge to rip the things into pieces, douse it in lighter fluid, and watch the mother fucker burn.

Wasn't that from a song…? Whatever. It didn't matter. The book needed to burn. It needed to burn and suffer. He really wished books could feel pain because he would inflict a lot of it on the poor, helpless, papery bitch.

Needless to say, math had never been Kanda's strong point. On the contrary, it was his worst subject. No matter how it was explained, it still seemed like meaningless lines on a paper to him. Unfortunately, this wasn't a good enough excuse for not getting his homework done, and a zero was hardly appealing.

However, in the end, he lost control due to his violent nature and the book went flying into the adjacent wall. The poor book fell in an open position against the linoleum in a way that definitely was not good for either the pages or the spine.

"Ya know, Yuu. Tha's not nice to do that to the poor book. It didn' do anythin' ta you."

"When the fuck did you get in here?"

Either Kanda was so wrapped up in his rage toward that book and didn't hear him come in, or he hadn't made a noise doing so. The latter was more likely because Kanda was generally aware of what was going on around him even when he was raging at textbooks. Lavi really was a sneaky little bastard.

"Nooot important." He walked over and pulled Kanda out of the chair by his arm. He started walking to the door immediately so as to avoid any instant injury. Kanda was rather surprised about being dragged along and managed to sputter, "The fuck are you doing?"

"We're goin' out! It's a nice night, and ya spend too much time inside!" He stopped at the door and let go of Kanda's arm, motioning for him to get his shoes on. Kanda just glared at him with about as much intensity as the textbook at earned only moments ago. Well, it was nice to know he wasn't any more annoying than a textbook… he guessed?

"Why the hell would I want to go out with you? Besides, I have class tomarrow." Actually, he'd finished the homework for the class tomarrow, and the homework he'd been working on was for Friday, but Lavi didn't need to know that. He had a habit of finishing his work a day early. This wasn't because he was particularly smart. Oh, no. It was because he was an overachiever with a syllabus.

"Dun care. Ya have no say. We're goin' ta grab some real food. Ya need it, anyways. I can see yer bones, 'n frankly, Yuu, it's not all tha' pretty on ya. C'mon. I'm payin'."

"Stop over exaggerating, idiot. I'm not that skinny."

"Nuh-uh. Any moron with eyes can see yer malnourished. 'Sides. I'm offierin' ya a free meal, Yuu."

Kanda opened his mouth to protest, but just as he did, his stomach made a loud, unpleasant growling noise. Lavi raised an eyebrow at him and got an eye roll in return. However, Kanda didn't put up further protest. He slipped his shoes on before pointing his finger dangerously at Lavi.

"Talk my ear off, and I will break your jaw."

"Alrigh', alrigh', Yuu. I'll try ta be quiet."

He grinned at Kanda and motioned for him to go out first. He knew he would eventually win anyways for two reasons. One, he was damn persistent. Two, any college student that turned down a free meal needed to be sent to a mental institute right away. Turning a meal down would be pure blasphemy.

Kanda let out a small displeased noise – a sort of 'tch'ing sound – that reminded him a little of an annoyed cat. He tilted his head and tried to see if he could find anymore traits similar to a cat. He found about three before Kanda noticed he was staring at him, which earned him another glare.

He just grinned and took lead. He technically had a car that he could use, but that was more for out of town use. Gas prices were a bitch lately, so he preferred to keep it on a need-to-use basis. Consequently, Kanda seemed a little more pleased that they were walking. Lavi had pegged him as the type that preferred physical activity, and per usual, he was correct.

They kept walking till they found themselves in a downtown area filled with old buildings occupied by restaurants, pubs, and various craft stores. With the look on Lavi's face, it was obvious that he preferred areas of towns and cities that had history to it. Kanda was slightly surprised, actually. People like Lavi generally scoffed on anything that wasn't made in the last twenty years. It was actually the first redeemable quality he'd seen in the redhead.

"It's no' too much further," he informed as he weaved between people. Kanda was having a hard time keeping up. He was slow by no means but working his way through a crowd wasn't one of his biggest talents. He probably would have been better at navigating through them had he not always avoided them like the plague.

Thankfully, he'd managed to get through it without losing Lavi. Under normal circumstances, he would have taken it as an excuse to leave, but he kind of didn't know where the hell he was at the moment. He honestly couldn't recall ever having been here before, which was weird since he spent most of his time downtown when out of the house.

Lavi lead him to a particularly small restaurant that was sandwiched between an Irish pub and a larger Italian restaurant. Kanda followed him fairly reluctantly. He wasn't particularly fond of going to new places. He wasn't too incredibly picky about food, but there was no telling what kind of place he was being dragged into.

Inside was decorated in an Oriental theme. The various patterns and styled paintings on the walls identified it as Chinese. It was a rather elegant place despite being so small, but that probably had more to do with the lack of a buffet and a smoking section. A woman in a red cheongsam showed them to a table and gave them menus.

"It's got the real stuff. Not many places these days have quality Chinese food, ya know? Anyways, I come here whenever I have extra money. Hope ya like this sort of stuff."

"What happened to not talking my ear off?" He did like Chinese food, actually. Lenalee, being the cooking enthusiast she was, had made him quite a few traditional plates and had Kanda and her brother taste test them. Most of it was actually very good seeing as though she was particularly good at cooking.

Lavi grinned sheepishly and turned his attention to the menu. Kanda did the same, minus the grin. Kanda didn't grin nor did he have the desire to. However, the atmosphere was almost calm enough for a very small desire to smile. Almost.

It was around that time that Kanda realized that Lavi had a very manipulative personality. Some would just call it people skills, but it was just two different ways of saying the same thing.

Later that night, Kanda was back in his room working on the hated math. The pages of the book had managed not to be too bent at least. This could be taken as a miracle or a sign of the devil. He was betting on the latter and used it as proof that math was indeed work of evil on Earth.

He nearly jumped when the cell phone he forgot he put in his back pocket went off. He took it out and answered it right away. The only one that really ever called him was either his boss or Lenalee. This time it was Lenalee.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Kanda! You have yet to tell me about your new roommate, you know! What's he like?"

"Well," he started, tossing his pencil to the side and closing the book of evil, "he's weird. Really, really weird."