"Follow your dreams, they know the way." (Kanda)
"Don't fear the enemy that attacks you, but the fake friend that hugs you." (Allen)
"Expectation is the root of all heartache." (Both)
A small Japanese boy sat on a swing, moving back and forth at a slow, steady pace. His silky, long black hair fell down his back and past his shoulders unencumbered by the ponytail he usually wore. The little boy seemed to be around six or seven years old, he wasn't sure which he was.
All of a sudden, the boy stopped swinging and wondered what he was doing wherever he was. Before, his mind hadn't seemed to wonder about that. Looking around languidly with a calm that he didn't think he should have, the boy found that he appeared to be in a playground. Well, that did explain the presence of the swingset, now, didn't it?
The ground beneath his feet and for about a yard out was pale and a little grainy, as if it were covered in sand like many playgrounds probably were. The (sand?) ground didn't shift or dent under his feet when he touched it, but it seemed sand-like enough for him. However, there seemed to not be an area beyond the playground.
Perhaps there was a world outside the haze that enclosed his small, safe one. Perhaps there was, but Kanda felt no desire to venture outside to see. Though he came to the decision that he would not be going anywhere any time soon, the blue eyed boy did not resume swinging. Instead, he sat with both hands clutching the chains holding the swing aloft and staring at the ground with no energy placed anywhere, even towards thinking.
The light sound of small feet walking on sand drew Kanda's attention upwards. There, his eyes met those of a boy who he was certain had not been standing there before. The boy was short, very short, even for the young age he resembled. Truthfully, he appeared to be the same age as Kanda (although it was possible he was a little younger).
Yet, in comparison, the boy was much shorter with a thinner frame, making him look drastically smaller. Peculiar gray eyes stared back at him from the small figure. The color wasn't the only strange thing about them. Kanda could have sworn he'd seen them before or, at least, their strange color.
They were also contradicting in what they expressed. The eyes, like his stance, were dull and seemed to be the barest amounts of interest and calculation. The boy kind of scared Kanda, but the young boy was not sure if it was the other boy's eyes that did that or something else.
Finally, and without the near lifeless look in the other boy's eyes changing even a bit, the silver eyed boy slowly opened his mouth. It seemed as if the boy was trying to say something for a moment, his mouth opening and closing languidly and his tongue flicking. Then, he finally spoke and asked a question.
"What are you doing here?" The silver haired boy asked. His voice was soft and emotionally deprived.
Kanda stopped and thought about the question for a moment, although he was not sure what he was really thinking about, at all. "I don't know." He eventually came up with, lifting his gaze back up to the boy from where it had drifted to the ground.
Without missing a beat, the other boy replied with, "I think you do." This caused a shocked pause to overtake Kanda. He looked to the boy, a panic he was unsure why he was feeling rising within him. The other boy never looked away from him once.
"You don't know what you're feeling. The world and the people in it, or even this town, frighten you and make you uncomfortable. You don't want to have someone in harming distance of you and be hurt again, so you closed off your mind to others. Using your lack of sight to help you along with this mental adjustment, you created a dark little world where only you and your father exist.
Anyone else who may or may not exist; they're in the darkness. Unseeable and untouchable, it's easy enough to pretend they aren't there. All this done so you can avoid being hurt." The boy's voice finally drew off after this.
"Why are you telling me this?" Kanda asked, quietly and sullenly. The words the other had said were whirling painfully around in his head.
"Because it doesn't stop you from being hurt. It just leaves you more unprepared for when something painful comes along. This is especially important now that one of those invisible, untouchable people have crossed through from the darkness into your little realm of existence."
"I don't want him there." Kanda whispered, softly. He felt like he knew who they were talking about although he could think of no one specific at the moment.
"Maybe not, but you do need him there." A small pause and then the small figure continued. "You tried finding happiness your way and that didn't work. Now, we will try it my way."
"Your way?" Kanda asked, hesitantly.
"If he's going to try to weasel his way into your life, then let him' it's the least you can do now. After your latest episode, though, you may have to put more of an effort into getting him back."
The two figures stood, letting the silence pervade the area. "What are you, exactly?" Kanda found himself asking, breaking the silence.
The young body shrugged its shoulders in a noncommittal manner. "Your conscious mind? Your unconscious mind? Maybe something else entirely? Any of the above; all of the above?" His jarring eyes pierced into Kanda's own blue ones. "Does it actually matter? I'm still just telling you what you need to hear."
"Moving into the unknown isn't so bad." He added, in the same tone. "And it's time for you to go." Automatically, Kanda glanced over at the blurry, blank area beyond the playground.
"Will I like it?" Kanda asked, feeling, for the first time since the conversation started, like a child. The child he appeared to be.
"No way of knowing." The child's figure next to him spoke, cryptically. "There's only one way you will be able to find out. With that, the white haired one gestured towards the haze that seemingly symbolized the world outside Kanda's mental one.
At this realization, Kanda steeled himself, then stood and strode towards the edge of the vision. Glancing behind himself, he glimpsed the figure that was still watching him. Then, for the first time in a long time, he didn't run away from his problem but faced it head on and crossed the line into the unknown.
He woke up a moment later, the unnatural (for him) calm that he experienced in the dream still lingering like a slowly fading veil over his mind. He had fallen asleep in a sitting position and reclined against something hard. The feel of the hard structure he was sitting on helped Kanda to recall where he was.
After he'd exploded at Allen Walker, he had headed back over to the park from the day before and collapsed on a park bench. It seemed so stupid, now that he thought about it. As he sat and thought back to what he had said and done. He didn't even remember now why he had been so upset. He'd been so angry and panicked that he really could not pinpoint where his thought process had been, at the time.
What his did know was that he would have to find Walker. Lifting himself up off the bench, Kanda wandered back the way he came. He was so caught up in his speculations and planning that he forgot to focus on trying to sense the people around him and consequently bumped into several people on his way out. Probably several structures, as well, since he couldn't really tell just by bumping into them what were people or not unless they cussed at him.
But Kanda couldn't care about that at the moment. All he cared about was finding a way to fix the problem he had he was to get the other man back at his side, he would have to apologize. Another first for him, Kanda didn't think that he would have a hard time really meaning it when he did.
(Allen)
I can't do it anymore! Allen thought, as he paced around his living room. I can't keep chasing after him if all he's going to do is either run away or fight me.
The young man paused in his pacing and stared at the wand and pondered his predicament. Then, he let out a weary sigh as he let his head sag back down. "But I don't want to leave him, either." Allen said to himself, the words barely above a whisper. A loud, rapid knocking caused him to snap to attention; the noise so abrupt that it made Allen jump in surprise.
Company? Allen wondered, confused. I never have company. Well, except for-
His thoughts drew off as he opened the door, immediately catching sight of a widely smiling Tokusa; a truly unnerving sight. It wasn't that seeing such a wide smile on this particular man's face was unusual or even aesthetically unpleasant. Tokusa often walked around wearing a pleasantly wide smile that would have been reminiscent of chucky, had it been anyone else. Someone who was worse at pretending to be perfect at all times.
What was unnerving about it was that Tokusa rarely donned that congenial smile when he was alone with anyone in their group because he didn't feel the obvious need to hide his more conniving and controlling side with them. The group actually seemed to need those traits from him. So saying, whenever he did look like that, he was usually trying to hide that he was aggravated by something one of the members was doing.
He was alone with Allen. Allen had done something wrong. Something wrong enough to warrant a home visit from just Tokusa, without the group, and that foreboding smile. Scary thing, that.
Clearing his throat to make sure none of his nervousness shone through in his voice, Allen addressed his friend. "Hey." One short, awkward pause later and Allen decided he needed to say more. "What are you doing here? Where are the others?" For emphasis on his last question, Allen peered out of the doorway at the area over Tokusa's shoulder as if expecting to find their friends hiding somewhere behind him. Oh, Allen hoped so.
No such comfort was forthcoming, however, and Tokusa's smile only brightened. "I hope you don't mind that I didn't bring them along. You and I haven't spent much time alone together in such a long time."
Tokusa walked into Allen's home, not bothering to ask for permission. Already too nervous and unsure to risk riling Tokusa up by refusing him entrance, Allen merely stayed silent and closed the door behind him. He unhappily turned around to face his friend only to see the man staring at him. Awkward beyond measure would be an understatement.
"So what do you want to do?" Allen asked, trying to slip into his most common role; the peacemaker, the one that defuses situations. "Watch a movie?" And occasionally avoided problems.
"Actually, I wanted something else." Tokusa said, seriously.
An outright serious Tokusa was also something he did not feel comfortable with. His piercing eyes became trained on Allen. Despite knowing this person for years, Allen couldn't help the disturbed shiver that ran down his spine. The eyes stabbing into his gray ones were hard and cold.
"We need to talk."