Disclaimer: I do not own DGM.
Warnings: Use of drugs. Bad grammar.
A/N: I'll edit this later. I'll include the reply to your comments and some queries. Thanks for reviewing. Hope you'll give some of your thoughts after reading this.
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We do not remember days; we remember moments.
Cesare Pavese
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He's not talking. He was just staring at the nothingness in front of him as Kanda shook him. The boy's lips were quivering and he looked much paler than before.
Sickly looking.
Too pale.
Too thin.
"It's me, Allen... A-Allen?" Kanda tried to make those gray orbs look at him.
He would do anything for this boy to look at him.
He kneeled down; his face was now almost an inch away to that small face.
They were looking at each other's eyes now. He gently held those soft cheeks, afraid to be rejected by a flinch, but the body remained motionless.
Kanda seriously felt like crying.
His hands were trembling so hard as his hands felt that warm skin.
He was here.
Right here.
Kanda brushed a strand of white hair on his face and he faintly smiled.
Allen was here.
Finally.
A flinch stirred Kanda to his stupor. Then he heard a soundless cry.
"A-Allen?"
He watched the boy's face twisted to what it seemed like vacillation and... fear?
Kanda felt something cold washed over him. The happiness he was feeling a while ago seemed like so far away now.
It was fear. He knew that face.
Kanda perfectly knew.
It was the face that Allen always wore whenever Kanda was shouting at him when Allen was still a child.
Hesitation and fright.
Suddenly, the world before Kanda slowly crumbled to dust.
Then he felt his hands getting smacked away and then he lost it.
Scream.
Kanda heard a silent scream.
A heartbreaking scream.
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A boy throwing a bunny toy in the ground.
A boy slapping a smaller boy's hands.
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Kanda always wondered about death.
How would it feel to die now?
Where would he go?
Would fate allow him to be with Allen when the right time comes?
If only he could turn back time.
Maybe...
Just... maybe, he could make things right again.
Just like before all these batshit insane things happened.
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Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven.
Igor Stravinsky
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Kanda bolted awake, sweating and panting. His long dark blue hair was sticking to his face like a veil. He could feel his whole body trembled in apprehension as he watched his hands shook uncontrollably before him.
It was raining outside.
Cold.
Unbearably cold.
His eyes were still misty and his heart was pounding frenziedly inside his chest. Kanda bit his lips as he watched the clock in front of him ate the remaining hours of the chilly twilight. After a few minutes of willfully trying to regain his breath, Kanda relaxed his shoulders a bit as he leaned to the bed's headrest. He closed his eyes and tried to clamp the raging long strands of his hair that was now coiling to his sweaty face and naked torso like vines.
He bit his thumbs as he banged his head to the wall on his back. A hushed pounding could be heard inside room. Kanda was so close and yet...
"Shit..."
He was almost fucking there.
Bang. Bang.
Kanda clenched his fist.
He almost got him. Or so he thought. It was a fucking dream. Just a dream. Nothing more. But it was so real...
"Where the hell are you, Allen?" He gritted his teeth as he squeezed the bed's covers on his palm.
Pain.
Kanda dreamt of a very peculiar dream. As if he was inside another man's thoughts. Someone who was close to Allen and... and...
"I'm okay, don't worry. It's just that... It feels so weird. It's weird not seeing this place, when I was always here before. It feels so weird... and I feel kind of... sad, you know... of not being able to see the world I'm used seeing before..."
A pained expression contorted Kanda's face.
It's him.
He was there. He heard Allen's voice and then suddenly, he was fucking cut off.
Kanda opened his eyes and stared at the closed glass window of the resort's room. He could feel the coldness of the sea from inside the room, swirling in the air like a poisonous fragrance – a huge reminder of a huge black hole in his life and the never-ending dreams of Allen's ambiguous whereabouts.
The pounding continued.
It hurt.
It fucking hurt.
But right now, Kanda couldn't really feel the numbing sensation on his head. All he could feel was the taut hammering on his chest and a painful beating on his heart.
Because no matter how hard Kanda tried to mete out pain to himself, the pain that Allen left inside him would never be surpassed by a petty self-infliced harm.
Pain.
It was he could feel right now.
It was all he could understand.
Don't fucking do this to me, Allen...
Pain.
It fucking hurt.
This was the reason why Kanda didn't particularly like sleeping early.
His dreams fucking hurt.
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A fact:
The waking of the sun continued like before. It slowly rose from its deep slumber cooing the night to rest and let it take over the day.
It didn't care about anything.
It didn't care about anyone.
The sun would still rise with or without Kanda.
Or you.
That's a fact.
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"This is the pantry. If you want something to cook, you can get the ingredients here. And whoah, man... You can almost find all kinds of ingredients here... I thought Sakura was juts kidding when she said it's perfect..." Kojie trailed as he momentarily forgotten that Kanda was with him. The pantry was awesomely huge and there were a lot of prized vegetables and raw meats inside. Live fish, crabs, squids, and many others. It was quite a sight. Kojie blinked when he suddenly realized that there was someone behind him and that someone was Kanda, the most impatient person he had ever met. Kojie faked a cough, suppressing the fast gliding of the cursed blush on his face. Damn, Kanda was just too over the top. Couldn't he be nicer? All these stiff conversations were definitely not good to his heart and brain.
"O-of course there are live-in chefs in the resort, and as I've said, you can just politely ask them to cook for you but if, you know, just in case the food here will not suit your taste and –"
"I can cook. I can manage myself."
Kojie's face fell down.
Kanda was definitely not one of the nicest man in the earth.
"By the way Kanda, I think Kagakura-sama was calling you a while ago. She said she have something to tell yo –"
"We've already talked about it."
Kojie blinked. "You sure?"
"Yeah."
He waited for more details but it didn't come.
Kojie sighed as he stared at the stoic face of Kanda. Really, was there anything in this world that could smoothen those forever creased eyebrows? It made Kanda looked like an angry, lifeless doll...
"I-is that so..." Kojir tried to salvage the little conversation they were having but seeing Kanda like this was always a hindrance to a smooth tête-à-tête.
Kanda, who was observing his reaction, tche'd.
"You don't have to keep talking to me. Don't fucking force yourself. You look stupid and you're stupid enough as it is. One more thing; Tell the old man I'll be staying here for a while. No need to wait for me."
Without even looking at him, Kanda turned around and left a still flabbergasted Kojie.
He couldn't help but be awed at the loneliness embracing Kanda like a long lost friend... and that ever smart assed mouth. He so wanted to crushed that mouth to stop the young man from spouting horrible nonsense just to spite others. After a while, Kojie's face softened. Those eyes were screaming for help. Those eyes that seemed like forever drenched by tears. He could see it. Kojie could feel it. He learned from Tiedoll-sama that Kanda's only brother died two years ago from a car accident.
His only brother.
He wouldn't dare pretend he knew everything about Tiedoll's adopted son, but Kojie could tell that somewhere on those scruffy attitude and cold wall that Kanda was showing, a lonely soul was suffering... and yet Kanda wouldn't let go.
Or maybe... he couldn't.
After you lost something important to you, I guess that's the only thing that you can do; to grip to the excruciating sadness like a friend. It was the only thing that was left to you after all. It serves as powerful reminder of what you had lost and how much of it was your fault.
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Days passed.
Kanda had finished the three painting in less than a month and Kagakura had no complaints on the output. They were breathtakingly beautiful. Each painting was screaming of reality and veracity you couldn't see in other paintings. They were unique in their own way and Kagakura was captivated yet again after so many years. The woman couldn't help but rain praises on the paintings that Kanda just ignored. His job was done. It was time to let himself work on the real reason he was here.
"Can I stay for another month, Kagakura-san?" He asked two days before their contract ends. Kojie, who was drinking coffee, coughed when he heard the unexpected inquiry. His eyes were bulging on their sockets and Kanda almost sighed in pity and shame.
Kagakura just smiled, asking no question in return. "Of course, dear. You can always stay." She happily said as she patted the cat that was peacefully resting on her lap. "For free," she added as she looked outside window.
"I can pay –"
"Nonsense," the old of woman lightheartedly laughed, "Think of it as my token of gratitude for the handsome paintings you've given to me."
Kanda didn't say anything after that. He just stared outside too; his eyes were already journeying to the many possibilities of his overstaying.
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Kanda hated going to the grocery.
The place was strident and annoyingly full of nosy women with equally annoying mouths. But he had no choice but to buy things for himself. Deodorant, toothpaste, shampoo, soba. He didn't want to use the resort's soap for crying out loud and he was missing eating his damn soba and he was abstaining for already two fucking whole months.
In short, he was at his limit.
After going to the grocery, he maneuvered his Isuzu Rodeo, a compact SUV that he requested to Kagakura-san last week, to the nearest church in the vicinity that he found last week in his 'search'. He was planning to ask about the orphanages in the area and their contact numbers. Kanda clenched the stirring wheel as he focused his eyes on the road. He would take his chance. He'll give himself one month to find Allen here.
Suddenly, it started to rain.
Then what? What if he's not here? What if he had never been here?
Kanda listened to the small pitter-pattering of light rain on the car.
"Kanda!" Lenalee banged the door of his room. It seemed like Krory let the woman inside the mansion. "Allen is missing! I went to the hospital to check him but he's no longer there!" She kept on pounding and pounding on the door but Kanda didn't make any movement; he just laid there unmoving. His face was devoid of any emotion and he was just staring blankly ahead.
"Kanda! Please! Allen is missing! We have to find him! We have to find the kid!"
'Then what? Would Lavi come back if he found Allen?' Kanda would often ask himself that.
He would clench his teeth in fury then the next thing he knew, he was fucking crying.
Lavi was dead. Allen was alive.
"Kanda!"
His brother was dead, but their friend was alive – unscathed.
"Kanda please! Don't do this to Allen... He didn't want Lavi to die! Don't do this to him! You gotta find him!"
Kanda, who was looking pale as ever closed his eyes and bit his already chapped and bleeding lips.
He didn't want to see Allen.
He hated him.
Lenalee kept on banging his door for almost an hour and in sobbing voice, she shouted; "You'll gonna regret this!"
Inside his mind, the question kept on repeating on him like an undying mantra;
Would Lavi come back if he found Allen?
Then after a while, he would answer his own question like a mad man. He would laugh in the middle of the night while looking at Lavi's smilling picture. The bitter truth would slowly drown him.
Of course not.
The dead don't come back just because you wished them to.
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Months and months had passed
It has been half a year since Lavi died and Allen went on missing. The world just kept on spinning and spinning; morning, afternoon, night.
Everyday's just fucking the same.
It didn't care.
No one cared.
Kanda thought about taking them.
It seemed like a beautiful thing to do.
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Then he got hooked.
At first, Kanda was only thinking of taking them for a whole week. He just wanted to try. Then it offered him great peace. It was like he was floating in the air. He became lost at the effects of it until one day, he thought that he could no longer stop taking them.
He tried many of them.
Bennies, nose candy, skittles, downers, XTC...
He was unstoppable.
He didn't know if he had a death wish back then. But one thing's for sure; he was feeling tired of getting up every day.
But startlingly, memories of Allen kept on flooding his mind.
The day he met the boy.
The day he started hating him for what he was feeling for him.
The day Allen went missing.
His face.
He kept on seeing it.
Then one day, he passed out. He thought he wouldn't be able to wake up again.
But he did.
Tiedoll made him.
He was in the hospital and he was asleep for almost a week.
Drug overdose.
And he stayed. He had no choice.
He spent the next three days of life staring outside his room's window while listening to the gentle chirping of the birds.
Then he remembered Allen...
The boy loved birds. Especially those noisy ones. He once told them that he would love to have a baby parrot one day.
It was almost a year after the incident.
Time surely flew so fast.
At the hospital, memories of Allen still kept on pouring like mad on his mind.
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After a month that he was discharge, he was obliged to visit the hospital every week for drug counseling and such. He was beyond pissed but Tiedoll was adamant about it.
And Kanda already caused too much trouble for the old man.
That's why he yielded.
Even if it was against his will.
Weeks and weeks passed. He was on his way to the last week of his counseling when he learned about it.
The nurses were talking about it.
"Poor kid. I heard he was blamed."
"The white haired boy?"
"Yeah."
"I've heard it was an accident."
"Yeah. But he survived unscathed right? And the other one died. It must be awful.
Another nurse came.
"Hey, what's happening here? Some sort of gossip ritual of yours, ladies?"
"Shut up, Riley."
"Were just talking about that freak accident two years ago. You remember?"
"Ah. The one who died protecting a certain kid inside the car?"
"Yes. The brother of the victim is coming here for drug counseling. Or so I've heard from Doctor Riki."
"I see. But you said unscathed?"
"The white haired boy. We're talking about the white haired boy."
There's a pause.
"Are you talking about the boy who survived in the accident last two years ago?"
"Yeah."
"Not totally unscathed."
"What do you mean?"
"He must be already blind by now."
TBC