Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter 12
Allen glanced at Kanda, and was surprised to see the exhaustion that was displayed over his face. Usually, he was as hard to read as a closed book left upside down and smeared with stains. Now, however, she could see a flurry of emotions prance through his eyes, and she hoped that she hadn't been the one to trigger them.
Maybe Kanda was turned on by the sight of Lavi's ass.
Maybe. With a last curious look, Allen said her goodnights and went off to her room.
In the semi-darkness below, Kanda snuffed the lights out and trudged alone to his dark room, pausing only to stare the petals in his hourglass as he stepped through the threshold of his room. They glowed slightly in the night, and Kanda felt an ache in his heart that he thought he had buried for ever.
From his pocket, he drew Allen's gift out, fingering it with his long fingers, wondering what lay within.
Finally he opened it, and found a warmth stealing up his fingers like a passing gust in the night. His eyes turned to the gift that lay within as he discarded the wrapping paper into the dustbin that sat at the foot of his bed.
He gaped for a second.
:::
He hadn't expected to see a silver four-leaf clover inside. It wasn't a gift that he thought he needed; he got by quite well as it was, and Allen of all people should know that.
Fumbling with the slim token, his fingers brushed against a slip of paper pinned to the bottom of the box.
Kanda moved closer to the window to read the note in the dim light that filtered from the flickering street lamps.
Dear BaKanda, it read,
I hope you like this gift. We are not very different, you and I – we've had plenty of sorrow and more than our proper share of trouble. You mayn't think so, but you need some luck, perhaps to get over the shadows that haunt your soul.
Here's wishing you a very good year ahead! Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!
Allen's words were slightly on the cursive side, with a distinctive flourish that he didn't expect of her. Her words were neat and well-spaced, and he glanced again at the four leaf clover that came from a silver mould.
Where should he put it? Beside his bed? No – he would put it before the mirror, so that the good luck would be reflected many times over.
Then Kanda shook himself. What was he thinking, exactly? He had never been the superstitious sort, and here he was, all ready to turn into the kind of person he hated just because an insignificant girl had given him a four-leaf clover simply because she was his Secret Santa.
I'm going insane, Kanda thought, and then one look at the words at the bottom of the note – Your loving friend, Allen Walker – brought on yet another rush of warmness. He thought he might be blushing, and was glad that the darkness hid his face.
What did it all mean?
The warmth he felt whenever she looked his way, life dancing in her metal-grey eyes, the tingling in his arms whenever their fingers brushed, the subconscious desire to help her and protect her – what did they mean?
Kanda groaned and fell onto his bed, rubbing at his aching eyes and closing them. He sounded like some foolish lovesick hero in a badly-written, clichéd love story. Why was he, Kanda Yu, thinking such thoughts? It was entirely ridiculous.
"This is shit," he said aloud.
Had he fallen in love with the Moyashi? It was quite unlikely, he thought to himself. It couldn't be, could it? He had fallen in love once before, and it had been a heady experience, filled with joy and painful, frightful twists of the heart.
This thing he had with Allen Walker – the shared glances, the easy banter, the flow of insults that neither really meant, the pulse that beat through him when he caught her smile – it was so different from what had happened before.
He was younger then, frequenting nightspots with Lavi and Lenalee, and he'd seen her and fallen irrevocably in love with her.
Love at first sight, Lavi had told Tiedoll, earning a good kick for that.
But it was true, in a way.
That girl had been his first love, and she had been beautiful, a full fairy's child. Glossy hair woven from threads of night, lips painted into a red bow, and eyes lined with long lashes; she was the stuff of dreams, and men turned their heads to whistle at the graceful swing of her hips and the elegant dance of her feet.
He had been infatuated, at that time, and wholly unprepared for sorrow. Guarded man as he was, he opened up his heart to her, and for a while, knew something akin to joy.
Now he knew better, and grew wiser in his disillusionment. She had been an image straight out of his secret dreams and desires, and his world almost shattered when her beautiful, porcelain body was broken beneath the screeching wheels of a careening car, skidding on puddles as the drunk driver lost control of the brakes.
He'd spent that awful night kneeling by her body in the mortuary, eyes bulging and cheeks caved in, her white bones protruding from the torn fabric of her skin.
It was then that he knew sorrow again, that he realised that to be human was to grief.
And now he had come to a crossroads again and confusion reigned in his mind.
What of the Moyashi?
Kanda sighed and reached out for his blanket, mind trying to grasp reason through the fog of possibilities that danced heedlessly in his head.
And when had it begun?
:::
"Good morning!" Allen said, entering the kitchen with a spring in her step. "It's Christmas!"
"Morning, yo," Lavi said, munching on toast. "It snowed late last night!"
Allen glanced out the kitchen window, beaming as she saw the white sheets that still covered the land without. "It's beautiful."
"It's annoying," Kanda growled, appearing from beyond the counter, tea cup in his hand.
"Happy birthday," Lavi said. "I nearly forgot."
"Me too!" Lenalee said, covering her mouth in shock. "Happy birthday, my dear friend!"
"Thanks," Allen said, smiling, but not quite. Kanda merely inclined his head in her direction, not bothering with small talk or birthday wishes.
"I need coffee," Lavi said.
"Coffee tastes like hell," Kanda remarked, sitting and reaching for his miso soup.
"But I need it," Lavi wheedled, sweeping the remains of his toast onto the floor.
"I saw that!" Kanda said, glaring.
"I'll sweep it out later," Lavi promised, knowing that he would not. "Now, coffee please?"
Allen sighed and pointed to the shelf where the coffee packets were kept.
"Three-in-one," Lavi said, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
"Drink it or shut up."
"You're cruel, Yu," Lavi whined, but made his coffee anyway.
"Are you two leaving yet?" Kanda asked, glaring daggers at the cup of coffee.
Lavi breathed deeply, enjoying the rich smell of the coffee fill the room, tingling his senses. "Want us to leave now to give Allen and you more privacy, hmm?"
"No," Kanda growled, his eyes ferocious.
"Boys," Lenalee intervened, "stop fighting. It's too early to fight."
"Lenalee," Lavi said, turning to his wife with a glimmer in his eye, "our friend wants to kick us out of his house!"
"So he does," she said. "We'll leave after Lavi finishes his drink."
"Fine," Lavi said, pouting.
Lenalee beamed at Lavi and Kanda made a choking noise.
"We're really intruding on his company, huh," Lenalee said. "Okay, then we'll go now, seeing as Lavi doesn't seem interested in the rest of the coffee."
Lenalee dragged Lavi away with her, and the two left in the kitchen soon heard the faint purr of a car's engine and then the slight whizz of wheels on snow-clogged roads.
Allen finished her breakfast in silence, before standing to clean up. As she stepped away from the dining table, she was stopped by fingers curling around her wrist.
"Pardon?" she said, glancing down at Kanda's fingers.
Kanda's lips moved, but she heard nothing. Apparently he was mumbling under his breath.
Allen sighed. "You said something?"
"I said," Kanda muttered, more loudly this time, "thank you."
"You're welcome. I ought to do the dishes every now and then, too. The duty can't fall to you all the time, can it?"
"I don't mean that." His grip on her wrist slackened, and she pulled her hand away. It tingled slightly, as if it had received a tiny jolt of electricity through its veins. "Thank you," he said gruffly, "for the gift."
"Oh. The gift."
"Yeah. It was one hell of a useless thing, but thanks."
"Nice of you to say that," Allen said, grinning. "Useless but appreciated, huh? Better than nothing, I suppose.'"
"Pfft," Kanda answered, before sweeping the plates and cups from Allen's skinny arms. "Go sit down or something. I'll wash up."
"Thanks," she said, watching in amazement as Kanda marched to the sink, head held high.
Had he just expressed his gratitude? Was the world coming to an end? Her reverie came to an end when Kanda spoke again, and she found herself very aware of his words and his tone, even the slight sing-song Asian accent that coloured his words even after all this while.
"I'm going to court next month," Kanda said, no feeling in his voice. He had turned around to face her, and his hands were covered in soap.
"When?"
"You don't need to know," he said tartly.
"I bloody well need to know."
Kanda lifted a dark eyebrow, and returned to the soapsuds in the sink.
"Aren't we friends?" Allen asked a plaintive note in her voice.
Kanda frowned, recalling the note he had found within the gift box the night before. Your loving friend, Allen, it had said. Your loving friend. He found his blood racing, and his heart pumped furiously. Annoyed with his traitorous heart and body, Kanda bent further over the dishes, silky hair swinging over his shoulders and hiding his face.
"You don't seem like you want to talk," Allen said, "so I'll just go off to my room."
"Wait."
"Mmm?"
"Sit down."
There was no response.
"Please," he tried again, in the silence between his heartbeats.
"I'm waiting," Allen said, and she tapped her foot on the ground.
"I don't want to tell you about it," Kanda said, "because I don't want you to be worried."
"What are friends for?"
"Che. The summons said that my court appearance is scheduled three weeks from now."
"Have you told Lavi?"
"I told him a week ago."
"Nice to know I'm appreciated as a friend," Allen grumbled. "But at least you told Lavi."
"Yeah. He's working with Bookman to craft a defence or some other shit."
Allen nodded. "And then?"
"And then what?"
"So, what will you do?"
"Do? I can't do anything."
"That's defeatist," Allen commented. "Quite unlike you."
Kanda shrugged, causing the hair cascading down his shoulders to ripple gently across his broad back.
"I wish you much luck," Allen said, smiling. "I'll go to court with you on that day."
"You have to," Kanda said. He finished the last mug and dumped it into the tray. "Lavi said you're a witness."
"Right. I nearly forgot!" Allen smiled. "I'm really sorry for dragging you into all this trouble."
Kanda nodded, then left the room, leaving Allen alone with her thoughts, some of which were decidedly unpleasant.
:::
Later that day, Kanda stopped Allen just before she retired to sleep.
Stopping her at the threshold of the kitchen, he looked down at her. He was taller than she was, and she could smell the clean, no-fuss fragrance of his hair soap.
"Happy birthday," he said, then walked past her into the main room.
Allen looked at his back in shock, not quite able to believe that kanda Yu of all people had actually wished her a happy birthday.
She smiled.
:::
The nightmares started exactly three nights after that.
On the first night, Allen's dreams were filled with her the dancing, shadow-dark images of grey eyes and scaly skin, and an unknown infant catapulted through her dreams, its long fingers reaching out for her.
On the second night, she feared to sleep, but sleep overtook her anyway, and this time round she found herself in a white room, stark as a laboratory, and machines whizzed away beside her. Then she saw it again – its devious claws and wide grin with sharpsharpsharp teeth exposed, tiny skull thatched with little patches of soft hair – and it swam amid a foul-looking solution alongside many others of its ilk.
The only thing that differentiated it was its wide grey eyes, fathomless as a sea caught in the furious nets of a winter storm.
She stumbled out of the room as fast as she could, only to see its grinning visage reflected all about her.
That night, she lay awake and counted sheep.
When morning came her eyes were swollen with tears and the knowledge of things lost, and Kanda saw the shadows clouding her eyes and the pallor of her skin, and was worried.
On the third night she took coffee before bedtime, and struggled to stay awake. Again, she slipped into the world of nightmares and paced an isolated plateau with a grinning shred of moon overhead.
There was nothing there – just the tired howl of a far-away wind; just the scuttle of a family of mice; just the mumblings of someone contemplating sin; just the sound of waves breaking ice.
She stood there all alone, the last vestige of humanity in that entire dreary moor, tethered to the ground by a sickening anchor of fear.
Then she heard it, a mere patter of tiny feet behind her, and she turned, but found only the sickly pools of sleepy moonlight dancing around her. Then the patter of feet came again, and there was a cold wind about her unshod feet –
An infant giggled before her, lying on the ground, swaddled in blood and what looked like entrails. It grinned, mouth stretching from a tiny bow into a wispy shadow of a guillotine, and its little teeth gleamed red. Beside the infant stood a man in a great coat threaded with tendrils of crimson, and he wore a top hat. She'd seen that top hat before…
And she cried out for him, for the man who had saved her, for the man who had loved her. She cried out for Mana, knowing that it was him from the shape of his back and the slope of his bent shoulders.
The man did not turn, but the baby slithered across the ground like a train in winter, now visible and now hidden in the creeping white mist.
Then it reached her.
With sharp nails it reached for the hems of her gauzy skirt, and Allen felt a thrill of fear run through her, rooting her further to the ground.
She thought to scream.
She woke to the sound of someone's breath hot against her brow, and she groaned, feeling a deep ache inside of her, working its way to her heart.
"Don't cry," that someone said, holding her tight, warm breath tickling her temples.
She caught the next sob before it escaped her, biting her lips in confusion. What had happened? Hadn't she been trapped in the moonlit moor, away from everything that kept her safe and secure?
She shook her head, and the someone relaxed his hold on her, allowing her to ease gently back into the pillows.
"Kanda?" Allen said, her voice still unsteady. Her throat felt like it had been scrapped dry. "What happened? Why are you here?"
"You cried out."
"I cried out…"
"You okay?" Kanda asked, releasing her, and Allen wanted to cry out, to tell him that she wanted him to hold her until everything felt better. But she bit her lip and stared the other way.
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess I'm fine."
"Liar." His breath was raspy and his voice hoarse, as if he'd just woken from sleep. "Tell the truth."
"I'm fine." Then Allen realised that there was a stale smell in the room, as if something rotten had just been strewn across the floor, removed from the hidden recesses of a decaying world. "What's that smell?"
"It's you, you idiot. What, you thought I had stale breath?" Kanda reached out and held out a bunch of Allen's hair before her nose, smiling wryly as she recoiled.
Then she realised that the back of her throat felt constricted as if a python sat coiled around it, and a sour taste zigzagged across her tongue.
"You retched."
"Bloody hell!"
"So tell me what's wrong."
"I stink, that's what."
"You aren't going to tell me?" Kanda asked. His voice was strangely jovial, not grumpy as he might be from being woken at such an ungodly hour. "Fine. We'll get you clean first."
He helped her out of bed; it was cold, and the floor bit at her exposed ankles, the cold wind swirling at their feet.
"Wash your hair, Moyashi. That's where the damned stench comes from."
Allen rinsed her mouth with tap water, trying to get rid of the awful taste in her mouth. When she finally succeeded, she turned to the showerhead.
"Aren't you getting out?" Allen asked.
"Do you think you can wash your own hair in this state?" he asked, with his dark eyebrows raised.
"Yes-no."
"Yes or no?"
"No," Allen admitted, fidgeting slightly.
"So I'll wash it for you."
"But – "
"You're annoyingly noisy, Moyashi." Kanda indicated a stool located at the side. "Sit there."
Allen wasn't quite sure what was going on, but she ventured to lower her weight onto the stool, glad not to stand on her swollen feet. Kanda held a towel out to her.
The towel was thick, and it was soft; it felt like she was holding a cloud in her hands.
"What are you doing? Put it on."
Allen grumbled under her breath, and slipped the towel around her slim shoulders. The towel, weightless as it was, felt like a thick shawl.
"Finally," Kanda complained. "Took you long enough."
"Don't be such a grouch, Bakanda."
"Lean back."
"Yes milady."
Kanda made a non-committal noise in his throat, but stepped behind the stool. Switching on the showerhead, he tested the temperature of the water, holding his hand under the stream of water until he felt that it was sufficiently warm. Then he doused Allen's hair with the water, doing it so carefully that her clothes did not become wet.
"Don't move," he warned, moving off to get the shampoo.
The smell of her shampoo calmed Allen down. The tangy whiff of the orange and green tea herbal infusion soothed her frazzled nerves, and then she felt Kanda spread the lather over her hair, massaging her scalp skilfully with his strong, dynamic fingers.
She breathed. She loved the scent of her shampoo; it always reminded her of lazy holidays in resorts built to maximise one's exposure to golden beaches and sleepy seas. She'd worked in such a resort before when Cross still lived in Bali, and she'd envied the tourists their time in the sun while she slaved at cleaning their rooms and shaking out their sheets.
Until now, the fragrance of the citrus fruit and the traditional tea still brought to mind the picture of a picturesque environment, with herself sprawled on a deck chair, an emblem of joy and contentment.
With strong fingers smoothening out her worries with every rub of her scalp, she did feel slightly contented at the moment.
"You're good at this," Allen said. "Why? Don't you wash your hair with soap?"
"Che, don't be stupid. Soap and shampoo are the same."
"Hmm."
"You just need to know how to massage the scalp."
"And you know that?"
"You think?" Kanda scoffed, his fingers continuing their gentle dance across her scalp. "What do you think I'm doing right now? Baking?"
"Did you just try to crack a joke?"
"No."
"Right. I knew you wouldn't ever do something like that."
"Done insulting me?"
"I'm not insulting you. Stop being so bloody sensitive!"
Kanda removed his fingers from Allen's be-shampooed hair.
"Are you angry?" she asked.
"No," he said, reaching behind him. "I'm getting the showerhead."
The shower was switched on, and Allen felt the warm water flow between the strands of her hair, removing the dirt and leaving behind the faintest smell of something calming, as if it were washing away the nightmares that still clung to her hair, knotted within the keratin fibres.
"Washing your hair is a good way to relieve tension," Kanda said. His words cut through the silence that hung between them, and Allen blanched.
"I never expected you to ever say something like that."
"Derision."
"No, that's not it, Bakanda. It's just not in your nature to say this."
Kanda did not deign to reply, opting to remain silent as he rinsed the shampoo out of Allen's hair.
"Done," he said at last, wrapping another white towel around her hair.
"Did you ever work at a salon?"
"No."
"Strange. I could swear that your hands are as skilful as my hairstylist."
"Che. I'm just a normal guy."
"You?" Allen laughed. "Normal?"
"I'm better than average."
"You're deluded, my friend!" Allen stood up and felt her legs freeze under the sudden weight. "Bloody legs."
"The perks of being pregnant," Kanda commented, helping Allen out of the bathroom, leading her toward the bed.
Allen sat heavily, feeling large and awkward. "I don't quite like being this big."
"You should have thought of that before you agreed to carry the baby."
"Thanks for the advice and concern," Allen said, trying to cross her legs and failing miserably.
"Now you're clean and dry," Kanda said, "I'll change the bed sheets."
"I'm sitting on the bed."
"So get off it."
Allen rolled her eyes but got off the bed, holding onto the bedside cabinet to support the bulk at her middle. She watched as Kanda pulled the sheet off the bed in one fluid motion, the sheet flying off in a sweeping arc, landing softly on the fall where it splayed outwards to form a flowing pattern.
Then Kanda stuck another sheet on top of the bed, wrapping it around the mattress with remarkable efficiency.
"You're good," she said.
"I do this all the time." His tone was acerbic, and Allen frowned. "I'm done. You can sit again."
"Don't switch off the light, please," Allen said as Kanda picked up the sheet and prepared to leave the room.
Kanda turned to face her, and she could see the surprise lurking behind the empty screens of his eyes.
"I don't want to be left alone in the dark. So please leave the lights on!" Allen shivered involuntarily.
"The nightmares?"
"Yes."
"Fine," Kanda said. He walked out of the room, leaving Allen alone, once again, with her thoughts and memories of things lost.
It'd happened so long ago, so long ago… when she made her decision she did not think that it would haunt her all her life. It had not been an easy decision, but she knew it was the right one.
But then the aftermath shook her.
Mana left that very day, and sometimes she wondered if maybe the one led to the other. Did it? That question was not one that could ever be answered, but still she pondered, dragging her fears and her regrets through her dreams night after night.
She could still remember that dreadful evening – leaving the clinic to a crimson sky, winds howling in her ears, and then the screech of cars as they fought to beat the traffic lights. Then, a cry as sudden as a summer squall rent her heart.
She recognised that beloved voice, even though, at that instant, it was little more than the sound of nails pulled across a wall of cement.
The cry wrenched at her heart, and she turned toward the source of the commotion. It lay some streets back, but she could see the gathering crowds from where she stood. Heedless of her condition, she started to run, clutching at her abdomen when the cramps came.
The streets were short, but she started to pant, her heart racing beyond belief even as she struggled to push her way through the people at the scene. It seemed to take an eternity, almost as if she were swimming through a sea of jelly that pushed and shoved back at her every time she tried to cut a way through, but at long last she emerged and stood before the sidewalk.
"Mana!" she cried, and collapsed beside the man.
"Allen," he said, and his face was as white as the setting moon. His jaw was set in a firm line, but there was an underlying quiver to them that caused Allen no little anxiety.
"What happened?" she asked, wanting to keep him with her, to keep him talking, to keep him awake with air in his lungs.
He merely strained to reach out for her hands. "No matter what, Allen, my child, keep walking."
"Call an ambulance!" she shrieked, glancing at the passers-by. "Call the police!"
Some people whipped out their cell phones, but by then the buzz of their words seemed far away. She turned her attention back to Mana and the pool of dark blood beneath his head.
"Mana! Stay with me!"
"I'm sorry," he said, cheeks sunken. "Keep walking, Allen."
Then she started sobbing on the street, all composure lost, because she had lost two people on the very same day. One she had killed, and the other was taken away from her. Was it divine punishment, she wondered?
The police came in due time, took the statements of witnesses, but the rogue automobile that had knocked her beloved foster father down had long fled the scene. No one, it seemed, had caught the numbers on the car-plate, and hence the killer would be lost to justice forever.
That was her darkest night.
She went home to a dark apartment, windows shuttered and laced with shadows like the eyes of an old mansion with secrets to keep and ancient heresies to remember. She prepared dinner because she felt so weak she might faint, keeping her head down and the tears out of her eyes as she placed spoonful after forkful of the tasteless, bland food into her mouth.
When she looked up again, the tears came.
The realisation that Mana would never again comfort her through her sorrows, that he would never again sit in the chair opposite hers – the chair that he had carved himself out of a piece of oak he'd bought from the market – triggered the tears that had been building up ever since she had stopped sobbing earlier that day.
The empty chair at the dinner table, and the absence of the sound of shuffling feet that she associated with Mana's comforting presence grew heavy on her, the grief sitting like a rock on her chest, pressing down on her stomach. She succumbed to tears again, curling up in a ball beside the sofa, racked with sobs and trying to feel her way through the haze that now ensconced her being.
That night, she cried for those she had lost even as the darkness waxed and waned outside those shuttered windows. When morning came, she dried her tears and went about the necessary business.
"Why are you crying again?"
Allen looked up, her painful reverie broken. Kanda stood at the door, two cups in hand, the refreshing scent of green tea wafting toward her.
"I'm not crying," she said, touching her cheeks for good measure. To her horror, they were wet.
"Che," Kanda said, setting his cup down on her dresser and holding out the tissue box to her.
Allen took the tissue box from his hand, quickly wiping away the traces of tears from her cheeks.
"What's wrong with you today?"
"Nothing."
"The hell you think nothing's wrong? You're crying."
"Look, Kanda, just bloody leave me alone for a while."
Kanda shook his head, his eyes dark and empty, and he drew the stool from her dresser toward the bed. Allen watched the man calmly sip at his tea, and she knew that he would not leave her room till he got what he set out to achieve.
A part of her didn't want to tell him what was eating her; it wanted to bury the past and sever whatever links the past had to the present.
But another part of her wanted to tell him about Mana and the unborn child that she had carried for two months. It wanted him to know about her past, to accept her for whatever she had done in the past no matter the morality of it all.
Above all, that part of her wanted her to understand that the past could never be totally dissociated from the present, and that sometimes the echoes of the past would intertwine themselves into the fabric of the now and the thread of tomorrow, and that only outside help could untangle all the knots left in place.
So she made her decision.
"Do you know," Allen asked, reaching out for the other cup Kanda had brought in, "do you know what it's like to lose a child?"
"You asked me that before," Kanda said.
"I did? When?"
"When you came home drunk."
"Right," Allen said, shifting uncomfortably on the bed. She tucked her legs under her and drew the soft covers up to her chin.
"What is it like?" Kanda asked.
"Pardon?"
"What is it like to lose a child?"
"That depends," Allen said, "on whether losing the child is a conscious decision. It depends on who made the decision. Sometimes, fate makes the decision. Sometimes, you do."
"You aborted the child?"
Allen turned her head from him, and he could see the tears forming at the rim of her eyes, and the grief rising within those grey depths.
"Yes."
A/N: Salutations!
Hurray this chapter is done! It was pretty slow-going at first, and I got stuck at the Christmas part. But it proceeded well enough once I got to the nightmares part.
So… was Kanda OOC? Idk. Anyway – thanks for reading and reviewing, and watch out for the HTH talk between Kanda and Allen in the next chapter!
This was influenced in part by John Connolly's The White Road, which, believe me, is a really awesome book.
Reviews would be nice! (:
