Kanda pulled his head from the fridge and turned to glare at Cassia.
"You don't have any soba."
She was lying with her head down on the counter, hands wrapped around a massive cup of coffee. Her words were muffled as she replied, "Why would I have soba? Why would even be asking for soba? It's breakfast time."
"Soba is edible."
"Funny," she replied. "I find most of the food in this room to be fairly edible."
"Che. Well it's not." He put his head back in the fridge and pulled out a jar of Nutella. "This is edible? Really? Cause it fucking looks like shit."
"You refrigerate your Nutella?" Lavi's voice came from the doorway, which he was leaning against. He still looked like he was in pain, but he was nonetheless able to hold himself up, which was certainly an improvement from the day before.
"You look better," she remarked as he limped his way over to sit on one of the bar stools.
"You look worse," he replied, grabbing her coffee and taking a massive gulp. She feebly tried to fend him off, but soon gave up, lying her back down on the counter and groaning slightly at the loud noise made by Kanda as he angrily slammed the fridge door shut. "I have a headache the size of Texas." She directed her attention back to Kanda. "So, what, you're just not going to eat?"
"I'm sure as hell not eating any of the shit in that thing," he said stubbornly, gesturing to the fridge.
"Fine," she groused, feeling rather unwilling to deal with his frustrating manner. She pushed away from the counter and grabbed the coffee back from Lavi.
"Where're you going?" Lavi asked.
"I've got homework."
"I still haven't got any soba," Kanda pointed out.
"Fuck," she rolled her eyes. "Fine. We'll go to the store. Later. After I finish my homework. You can suck it up till then." She made her way out, then poked her head back in. "Do either of you know if Frida's still here?"
"Che, why would I care?"
"I dunno…I fell asleep before she left."
As she walked upstairs, she peeked into the spare bedroom. Sure enough, Frida lay curled on the bed, still sleeping soundly. Cassia sighed. She knew that Frida didn't like going home, especially on weekends when both of her parents and her myriad of siblings were all around. She seemed specifically unwilling to return this weekend, however, coming up with excuses to avoid going home that went beyond the norm.
Sighing, she decided it was better not to wake her. Instead, she headed to her own room, intent on curling up in her bed and doing her homework there instead of at her desk.
After Cassia left, the kitchen remained silent, awkwardly so, as though neither of the boys could think of what to say to one another, despite the fact that they had once been comrades. After a moment, Lavi reached over to pluck the jar of Nutella from Kanda's hands and opened it. Heaving himself from his stood and groaning as he did so, he moved over to the other counter where a bag of sandwich bread lay open.
"It's good spread on bread," he explained to Kanda, shaking the jar. He spread a copious amount on a piece of bread, then poured a cup of coffee for himself.
"Aww, Yuu," he said. "You really not gonna eat? Not even a cup of coffee?"
"No," came the short answer. Lavi shrugged and leaned heavily against the counter as he chewed. Pushing away a different cup so he could make room for his own, he felt something crawl onto his fingers. He turned quickly.
A black and purple butterfly with a visible mouth was perched on his fingers. He yelped, immediately dropping both the coffee and the bread and shaking his hand wildly, trying to dislodge the thing. His efforts were rewarded only with a sharp pain as the butterfly bit deeply into his skin.
"What?" asked Kanda, moving towards him as he cried out in pain.
Holes. All over his body. Blood, his blood, pouring down to the ground already slick with it, his and others'. The smile of his enemy as he swung and summoned, never able to get in a hit…
"Please!" he yelled, falling to his knees, voice cracking pitifully in his own ears. He held his hand up entreatingly to Kanda. "Get it off me. Please."
Kanda looked puzzled, but grasped the thing's body firmly, jerking it away from Lavi. It brought a chunk of his flesh with it, eliciting another cry of pain as he slumped back to the floor.
Kanda held the thing close to his face, careful not to let the snapping sharp teeth anywhere near his flesh. "This…this is…?"
"A Tease," Lavi gasped from his position on the floor, trying to staunch the flow of blood from his hand. "Tyki Mikk's weapon. He was here, somehow. He must have been…"
"Mikk…that's a Noah."
"Yes."
"A Noah was here. In this house. With us."
"Apparently."
Cassia came crashing into the room, taking in the blood and coffee and butterfly with wide eyes. "What the bloody fuck happened? God, Lavi, you got coffee all over the goddamn floor. Do you think you could help mop this up?" The last question was directed at Kanda.
"Che. Slightly busy." He held out the butterfly for her to see.
"Oh, sorry. I should've realized that that little butterfly would be keeping you pretty damn occupied."
"It is, actually."
The two glared at each other until Lavi gave a weak laugh. He felt a strong sense of Déjà vu, remembering how he used to have to break up fights between Yuu and the Moyashi. Cassia really was like Allen.
"Calm down, guys…everything'll be fine."
"No, you fucking rabbit, everything is not fine. You just told me that a Noah's been in this house. I don't call that fine."
Cassia looked scared now. "A…Noah?"
"Fucking Tyki Mikk."
"I said it was no big deal."
"Dude…wasn't Tyki the one who almost killed you…twice?"
Lavi wilted slightly. "Yes…but I wasn't prepared then. I am now." He hauled himself up, wincing again as his body complained. He wished he had the healing capacities of Yuu. As much as the swordsman obviously hated them, they had to come in handy. He stuck his bleeding hand under the faucet and yelped as the stream of water assaulted it. "Ahh…fuck…"
Sighing, Cassia pulled a rag from a drawer and applied pressure to Lavi's wound. "So you're telling me that there was a Noah in my house and some point, and I didn't…none of us knew it?"
He nodded rather guiltily. "Mikk can phase through walls and stuff, though, and if the Noah are still using the Ark, it's not very surprising that he could have gotten in and out of here without us noticing. What's weird is that he didn't attack us. He just left us this…present."
"Did that…thing…do this?" she asked, horror coloring her tone as she returned her gaze to his hand. "It's a butterfly, isn't it?"
He nodded grimly. "It's a Tease. It can bite through just about anything."
"That's disgusting," she said. Keeping a firm pressure on his hand, she tore a paper towel off the rack with her teeth and wrapped it around the wound. "Hold that there," she ordered. "I'll go get a bandage." She left the room, leaving Kanda and Lavi alone together once more.
Lavi gave a short little laugh, attempting to alleviate the seriousness of the situation. It didn't work.
"This isn't good, Usagi."
"I know. I didn't think it would happen quite so quickly. I shouldn't have expected it not to, but still…I mean, we need more people! Three of us can't save the world. I suppose there might be more, in other places around the world, but we can't know for sure, and I haven't observed any…"
Kanda frowned at the Tease and dropped it on the floor, grinding it under the heel of his boot before it could move. It made a sickening crunching sound, and Lavi winced. "Listen," Kanda said, seemingly in deep thought. "If I'm back…"
"Others could be, too," Lavi interrupted. "I've already thought of that. But, Yuu, you're, uh, special. You know, with the curse and everything…"
Kanda's brow furrowed in confusion. "What the hell are you talking about, Usagi?"
Lavi dropped the bloody paper towel in surprise. "You don't…you don't remember the lotus curse?"
"No…well, I remember lotuses. All over. They're supposed to be here now, but they aren't."
"Take off your shirt."
Kanda regarded him coolly. "Fuck no."
"Yuu, I'm fucking serious. Take your shirt off right now."
"That's awkward," said Cassia, re-entering the kitchen with a roll of gauze in her hands. "Dammit, Lavi, why'd you drop the towel? Now there's even more blood on the floor."
Lavi brushed past her impatiently, in front of Kanda before either of them could react. With one hand, he tore off the front of Kanda's shirt to stare at his chest. As he suspected, there was no tattoo. Not even a hint of it remained, just smooth, muscled skin."
"Well," he gulped. "This complicates things a bit."
Kanda punched him.
Abruptly, he was pressed against a wall. His jaw stung, and a very angry Kanda stood above him. He got nose to nose with Lavi and then hissed in a low, dangerous voice, "Do. Not. Touch. Me. You. Fucking. Usagi. That was my only damn shirt." Kanda's hands let him go and he slid rather pathetically down the wall to rest on the floor. He raised a bloody hand to his jaw and felt tender, already swelling skin. That was going to be a spectacular bruise.
"Well," said Cassia, coming to kneel in front of him and taking his hand to gently wrap it in the gauze. "That was quite forward of you. I wouldn't've thought you swung that way, Lavi, but I guess you are a little too well-dressed to be straight."
He snatched his hand back from her. "I don't swing that way!"
"Sure," she said, an almost predatory grin spreading across her face. "Keep denying yourself. But know that I'll be there for you once you step your other foot out of the closet—"
Abruptly, Kanda was in her face, too. "He is not fucking homo for me, baka, because, if he was, he would already be dead."
She put her hands up in gesture of surrender. "Whatever you say, boys." She stood and moved to the sink to wash the blood from her hands. "Listen. Since my productive day of homework-doing has officially been damaged beyond salvaging, why don't we just go to the store now? I'm craving goat cheese for lunch, anyway, and we haven't got any."
"Okay!" Lavi jumped up, immediately over his previous anger. Cassia regarded him critically.
"You sure you can, you know, walk around alright?"
"Sure! If not, I can always ride in the cart!"
"Che. I'm not going. Women are supposed to do the shopping."
Immediately, it was Cassia's turn to be in his face. "Welcome to the 21st century, baka. Women don't do all the shit anymore. You're coming, because I don't even know what the hell soba is."
Kanda looked slightly taken aback by the forwardness of Cassia, but he managed to recover. "You don't even know what baka means."
"Given the fact that you call him that every few minutes," she said, gesturing to Lavi, "I think I've got a pretty good idea."
She walked out of the room, grabbing the car keys as she went. Lavi made to follow her, grinning at Kanda as he passed.
"She's a smart one, isn't she?"
"Che."
Kanda was not fazed by much. He had dealt with memory loss, a new century, and a fucking idiotic rabbit without blinking an eye. But this…this was something different.
The building was massive and bright. People streamed in and out constantly, most pushing contraptions that sort of reminded him of baby carriages, but were obviously not, because they were holding food, ridiculous amounts of food in weird packages and cartons. When Cassia had said "the store" he had imagined a small sort of general store like the town outside of the Order had, or perhaps a market like those in the large cities of Europe and Asia. This…this was like nothing he had ever seen or imagined. And, despite his greatest efforts to let nothing show on his face, he knew that his eyes were wide (not that wide) and his mouth was hanging slightly open (not gaping…no, Kanda Yuu did not gape) as Cassia led them through the doors (they were moving on their own?) and into the interior of the store (why was it warmer inside the store than it was outside? Come to think of it, Cassia's house had also been like that….)
Lavi appeared to be thoroughly enjoying his amazement, stealing glances toward him and even giggling every now and then, the little fucker. Kanda Yuu did not like people giggling at him, but the glares he shot at Lavi every time it happened didn't seem to phase the damn Usagi in the slightest.
Cassia, at least, was paying no attention to him. She seemed to have a mission, and she moved from area to area quickly, picking up what she needed and speedily walking to the next, leaving Kanda and Lavi trailing in her wake. They eventually caught up with her in the produce department as she scrutinized several cucumbers. Eventually picking the best and throwing it into her own baby carriage contraption, she looked up at Kanda.
"Right. All we need is the soba now. So…go find it."
"I don't know where the fuck to find it in this place."
"Oh! Right! You wouldn't have been to a supermarket like this before. Well, let's see…it's Japanese, right?"
He glared at her obvious lack of knowledge toward this most sacred of foods, but answered with a low growl. "Right."
"So…it'd probably be in the ethnic foods place…okay, follow me!" She took off again, with Lavi bouncing along behind. Grumbling he followed, nearly crashing into several people who were rolling along the baby carriages while talking loudly into things held up to their ears. Come to think of it, he'd seen a bunch of people doing that on his walk to Cassia's house. That was weird. It was like they were talking into wireless golems, but the things weren't flying…they were thick and metallic looking. When people weren't talking into them, they seemed to be overly interested in the fronts of the things, poking and prodding at them constantly.
He wasn't sure if he liked this century all that much.
But then, none of that mattered, because suddenly he was reading food labels in Japanese and they said そば, soba noodles. They probably weren't nearly as good as Jerry's, but still…at last, here was something normal, familiar. He grasped the package and held it tight, unwilling to let it go.
"Found it?" asked Cassia. She looked at what he held, and then grabbed a few more of the packages to throw in the baby carriage. "That isn't very much. You'll need more."
He nodded silently, and, keeping a tight hold on the package, turned to survey the rest of the aisle.
Immediately, another package jumped out at him, blaring the word: もやし.
Bean sprouts.
His hand became suddenly nerveless, and the package of soba fell with a muffled thump to the dirty linoleum.
Lavi turned. "Yuu? What is it?"
He didn't even bother to call Lavi out on the use of his first name. He was too busy staring, hands shaking slightly as memories assaulted him. He had remembered the basics. The Noah. The Akuma. The innocence. The fucking idiot rabbit. But everything else had been fuzzy…dim flickering of something white and annoying, of something else with long, long, legs, and someone who drank too much coffee. But now…
The fucking white-haired brat walking into the Order like he owned the place, too short to be allowed.
"The name's ALLEN, BaKanda…"
The fucking martyr complex that had caused Kanda to save him more times than he could count; why, he didn't know. Why hadn't he just let the stupid Moyashi die?
Bean sprouts had always tasted particularly good in his soba…
White, white, white, masked, cloak, sword…
…until he turned dark…
had that been his fault?
…stabbed.
And it was with him, yes, him…the Moyashi fighting and disobeying and…
Crying for him?
"If anyone was capable of helping Alma, it'd be Kanda…"
Crying…
He was dying, and Kanda watched…
And then…
The Moyashi was no longer white…
But he tried…tried so hard to help…
And it had all ended anyway…
His last memory…watching a white and black hurricane. Moyashi and the fucking Earl…
And then…
Everything gone….
Other things too.
The girl's name was Lenalee, and god, she had been beautiful. She would have been more beautiful if she didn't have a fucking insane brother, but still.
Tiedoll, always stained with paint and insisting on calling him "Yuu-chan", his son. He wasn't his son. But his heart wrenched at the memory anyway.
Calm, cool, collected, quiet. That was…Marie? Yes. He had never minded Marie, even would have gone so far as to say he liked him. He was okay to be around. Didn't insist on talking.
And there was green light, and wounds healed, and the nervous voice of someone else annoying. And bright fangs. That one was also annoying, although he was all right to have in battle. Who…Miranda. Miranda and Krory.
And the little fucker who had way too big of an ego and a fucking egg stuck in his head. He'd had to save that one…right, that had been with Moyashi, too, and another. A blonde, with marks on his head and a massive stick up his ass. Blink. Dink? Link. Levallier, that fucker. And Master Zu…dying and crying…
"You're also going to hell, then."
Lotus blossoms. Lotus blossoms everywhere, coloring his world in pink and white, dying and blooming again and again. There had been something missing here, and that was it. He wasn't sure if he missed it or not. The world seemed less alive without them there.
Oh, God.
"Yuu? Yuu-chan!"
"Kanda? Oh, not you, too. I've already had to do this with that idiot."
"C'mon, Yuu! Wake up!"
But there was so much left to remember…
"Yuu, you're leagues stronger than I am. You don't need a mental breakdown like I did, right? You can handle it."
"At least until we get out of the fucking supermarket. Then you can break down all you want."
"It'd probably be better if he didn't…"
He didn't want to do the same thing the idiot rabbit had done.
Come to think of it, he didn't really want to remember anything else…
"Dammit, someone's coming over here…"
He forced his eyes open, finding himself in uncomfortably close proximity to the green of the rabbit's and the hazel of the girl's.
Why was he lying on the floor?
He forced himself up, wincing at the jarring pain in his head. Cassia let out a barely audible breath of relief and grabbed the soba package, lobbing it into the baby carriage and grabbing Kanda's hand to hoist him up as the salesperson approached. He swayed slightly as he stood, but managed, luckily for his pride and their excuse, to stay on his feet.
"Everything okay over here?" asked the salesperson in a suspicious tone of voice.
"Yup!" said the rabbit, too animated. "Yuu here just slipped a bit. He's pretty clumsy, ya know. He can trip himself on air." He threw a nonchalant arm around Kanda's shoulders and grinned winningly at the salesperson. The salesperson, obviously charmed, smiled back and played with a lock of her hair. "Okay, then. If you need any help, come find me!"
"Thanks," said Lavi, squinting his eye to read her nametag. "Marissa. Will do! Won't have to if Yuu-chan here'll stop being so clumsy!" Then he chucked. Chuckled.
Oh, the fucking idiot Usagi was so dead.
Unfortunately, he couldn't kill the rabbit immediately, because his head was spinning and his thoughts were too scattered. So he settled for shooting him death glares every few minutes, all of which the asshole studiously ignored. Driving home, he let his head sag against he window, the cool glass soothing the pounding headache as memories continued to swirl…
Marie, he remembered Marie the most. Marie had made him laugh, once…
Moyashi had never made him laugh, but he'd smiled at him once. Just once.
Lenalee. He kept remembering her, things she'd done with him and for him. Why was he remembering her so much? She was just another of the dead…but there was a strong feeling that he needed to remember her…
Lenalee had been the one who laughed for him…
"Stop the car!"
Usagi's voice wrenched him out of his memories. It was panicked, wild. "Stop!"
Cassia pulled to the side of the road and slammed on the breaks. "What the hell, Lavi?"
He was staring out the window, hand pressed to the glass. Kanda followed his gaze to a park bench under a tree…the same bench he'd found himself on when his consciousness had returned.
There was someone else there, now, with dark hair.
Dark hair and a very short skirt.
And red anklets.
"Oh, shit," he said out loud.
The predictability is predictable.
Do the pathetic attempts at humor in this chapter temper out the angst-fest? Tell me if I'm funny at all or if it just fails hard.
Also, sorry if the Japanese words didn't work out…google translate is not the most reliable source.
REVIEW, por favor. Son muy ayuda. (How to speak the spanishes.)