Chapter 7.
Click Three Times.
"God, woman! It was an accident!"
Lenalee hissed and turned around in her seat, clearly planning on ignoring the other man for as long as it took to get to their destination - maybe longer, if she found it necessary.
Allen found himself questioning their current situation, while Lenalee started plucking carrot off her pants and made a mental note to never again eat anything while Kanda was driving.
The whole discussion had been kind of fishy, Allen thought. Especially when Kanda offered to help Lenalee search for bits of vegetables that had forever disappeared down the valley that was her shirt.
A useless act, Allen knew, because once something had fallen down the valley, it was doomed to return nevermore.
He closed his eyes and shortly mourned for the lost souls that had found themselves in Lenalee's healthy diet salad.
Not to mention it was Kanda's fault in the first place. He had found it necessary to speed their car into a large group of the Illinois local gang of protesters trying to give WWII a hand, laughing maniacally as they all tried to save their arses by jumping into the freezing cold Illinois river, making it look like an oversized, one-feet-deep kiddy pool.
He quickly drove on, mumbling something about, dare Allen think it, 'fucking Illinois nazis', being fuelled by the cheering of the opposing group of protesters, mostly consisting of hippies and gypsies.
For a moment, that moment consisting of several minutes and sideway glances, Allen had truly thought Kanda had gone barmy - or, in different words that strangely all meant the same which could elaborate how he thought of Kanda's mental state: wacky, completely bonkers, fruity, loopy, haywire or just downright mad, - when he started laughing and just did. not. stop.
After she stopped paying excessive attention to getting the salad dressing and lettuce out of her low décolleté, even Lenalee really had nothing to do but stare. Allen decided to get him to stop by drastic measures and his manly charm: yelling from the backseat.
"Yo, HOMO!"
Kanda's mood changed so drastically it made him seem like a schizophrenic. When hysterically creepy Kanda shut the Hell up, the Kanda with anger-management problems came to sudden life, breathing fire all over the bloody place. "Shut the fuck up, you fucking tight-assed faggot." His hair slapped Lenalee in the face when he whipped it back to stare out of the front window to not bleeding kill them all.
"Kanda. You have one-and-a-half feet of hair," Allen deadpanned in his defence as he managed to completely destroy his defiant attack of the only manly hormones in the entirety of his male - I repeat: male - body, by just sitting back down, folding his arms and pouting like a chick who just found out the guy was never even going to show up, nor pay for her movie ticket.
"Whatever, Alfred."
"It's Allen!"
"Shut up, Alfonse."
Lenalee seemed to just realise something, her expression suddenly changing to one where she seemed to not think about her words before flapping them out of her lipsticked lips. "You hit me!"
Kanda just turned around and managed to do the same thing twice. "Shut the fuck up, you Mexican!"
Lenalee gasped and made to shout a witty reply. Allen decided to join in with the fun.
If there was anything Lenalee and Allen had in common, it was their mutual hate for walking. For one, it ruined expensive shoes they had spent hours of carefully selecting and fitting.
Second, it was tiring, ruined their hair and made them smell like sweat. None of those were actual pluses.
It did help you lose weight, but if they had intended on doing that, they would have worn another carefully selected outfit that flattered their figure and would have gone to the gym just to be able to hear people tell them they were gorgeous as they were and therefore did not need to lose any weight, which in turn – though Allen hated to admit it – made them giggle like schoolgirls and made them remember the time when they were both still fourteen and complimented themselves for still being able to pull it off.
Kanda, however, simply hated whining, and therefore spent most of the time walking way ahead while brooding as the other two cursed him from somewhere way behind.
In short, Lenalee blamed the car, Allen blamed Kanda and Kanda blamed the tree for the inconvenient loss of said car; righteously so, he found, while desperately clutching his wallet through his right pocket.
It's not that he was racist – it was just that he had certain experience with these kinds of things, which made him, obviously out of instinct, protect his money.
No racism intended. Experience? Very much so.
In the back, Allen even had trouble keeping up with Lenalee, who was still angry at Kanda for simply selling the old car (she kept repeating the good ol' Dodge would have easily been able to handle a crash like this), since, and he hated to admit it, his legs were simply shorter.
He didn't mind walking a bit slower than the long strides the both others felt necessary to take, even if he did feel the instinctive need to clutch the wallet in his backpocket, making it seem like he was constantly squeezing his own arse (as if anyone would have been able to remove the wallet from the tight jeans, clinging to Allen's buttocks like its life depended on it, without first having to make him stop walking and deftly cut them open with scissors, being careful not to hit the skin underneath.)
Around him were girls, shopping while animatedly mobile conversing with their girlfraaans, musicians, earning their daily bread by playing the guitar while loudly singing about their love and life and of course the people who provided the musicians with that money by neatly dropping coins into their open guitarcases or turned hats.
Kanda sighed, the irony cutting him in the skull and making him scratch his head. He remembered himself playing in exactly these streets (he bet the bastard had moved here to figuratively stab him in the gut for his fun), receiving his daily bread in the empty case of his trusted--
Oh, there it was.
Allen, running behind the two, did not notice the sudden left turn in Lenalee's route until the very last moment. In an attempt to save himself by having to run more by having to turn and walk back, he swiftly swung his right foot over his left in a desperate endeavour to change directions, almost tripping, and stumbled through the door Kanda and Lenalee had disappeared through, almost immediately colliding with an old-school keyboard, which was conveniently placed almost right in front of the entrance.
To Allen's horror, the undoubtedly very expensive instrument all but forthwith toppled over, whereafter it hit the ground, a final key striking, filling the room with the loud and probably final sound of a dying thousand dollar keyboard.
A clank. A bang as the back door swung open and hit the wall, cracking the white ceiling above it. Heads all turned as a figure stepped from the back of the shop, mouths gaped as he walked towards Allen, red hair shining underneath the tube light.
Allen blinked as he looked up, only to stare right into the barrel of a shotgun. He blinked. He opened his mouth. He blinked again.
A click as the man cocked his gun. The other's finger moved slightly before--
"Hey Al! Long time no see!"
Allen knew that voice.
A bright smiled appeared as the loaded gun almost deep enough in Allen's nose to pick at his brain was carelessly thrown aside.
Red hair, the ever-present eyepatch surrounded by skin that had wrinkled by the constant upturn of the boy's lips as he took his friend's expression as a stroke to his ego.
Allen did not particularly find the situation funny, but he couldn't control a smile from slipping on his lips nonetheless when he took the hand his good friend Lavi reached out to pull him up.
He mentally slapped himself in the face; of course it would be him.
"Dude, you look like you just died!" He laughed at his own joke as Allen hit him over the shoulder. "I seemed to be pretty close a few seconds ago, you git!"
Lavi easily brushed the accusation off by the classic changing of the subject. "So, what're you doing here? Lookin' fer one of those?"
He smirked as he pointed at the keyboard on the floor, Allen noting to his greater shock that several famous artists had littered the thing with autographs, which made its taxation rise a fair amount. Allen winced guiltily.
"Actually," he started, expression sweet and slightly begging, like Kanda had told him to. "We're here for you."
Lavi frowned. "We?"
Kanda and Lenalee appeared, as if on cue, from the side, where they had been looking at the wide variety of first-class instruments. "Nice place," Kanda added, managing to actually make it sound like a compliment. Allen wondered how long he had had to practise that very sentence to pull that off.
"Yuu!" Lavi's eyes brightened as he noticed the two. Lenalee waved and smiled her greetings.
"No fuckin' time," kanda prompted, followed by a muttered 'nice as ever'.
"Shut the fuck up, Alucard." He stood in front of Lavi and glared. "You still got the Gibson?"
Lavi smirked and his eyes glinted. "Of course. How could I ever get rid of her?"
"We're bringing the band back together."
"I thought you'd never ask."
Allen's eyes widened as the two shared a very manly hug, which lasted briefly before an equally manly handshake sealed the deal.
"Welcome back, Dickweed."
"Thanks, Douchebag."
Lenalee watched the spectacle with folded arms and a clear frown, thinking she'd probably never understand guys as well as they did themselves.
Lavi retreated his hand, looking like something suddenly struck him, and disappeared into the back for what seemed like an entire era.
He then returned, on his back his trusty Gibson, in his hands, however, Kanda's good ol' saxophone.
Lavi knew Kanda was grateful. He'd known the pothead for longer than the other had liked – far longer, to be precise, for Kanda had never been one for any social behaviour – and he could read his face just as easily as he could read the morning comic in the morning newspaper he liked to read, while accompanied by a cup of tea.
It was just against his principles, pride, ego and image to utter even a simple thank you for the safekeeping of the sax Kanda had loved like the daughter they both knew he was never going to get.
His customers, however, had looked a lot less grateful when he kicked them out of his store and announced it to be closed until further notice.
"You'd better pay me this time," he told Kanda sternly. "This's gonna cost me a crapload."
Kanda nodded, apparently having passed his daily limit of words to vocalize.
"And, you know-"
Lavi halted.
"Wh-"
His eyes slowly widened.
"Dude-- where's the Bluesmobile?"
Allen joined in. "Don't worry. That's the first thing I wondered too."
"Shut the fuck up, Alinda. We're walking."
Besides Lenalee and Allen, who eagerly let their displeasure be obviously known to the masses, Lavi himself didn't seem so keen on that plan either.
"Well, as my dear old friend Oz used to say-" He seemed to think for a moment here. "Click your heels three times and think to yourself, 'there's no place like home'."
They did.
Nothing happened.
GUYS, I'm sorry for not updating and all that jizz blahblahblah true regret I swear. But hey, at least I /updated/ ;D Oh, and thought I noticed this will cost me reader(s), this story is quite obviously not AllenxLenalee, you silly girls.
I LOVE YOU ALLLLLL.
Reviews will earn you lovecookies.
~MARY-JANE.