The Hidden Artist
Part Eleven: The Secrets of the Artist
Just eight or nine minutes before his art class ended, Allen finished his piece. It was the portrait that he had painted of Kanda. He had long since become used to the idea that Kanda was the object of the painting, since he had to look at the image for hours on end for the past few days, but that didn't stop his heart from pounding every time he did look at it. With every look at the pale, serious face reminded him of that mornings events.
Had that really happened? Did Kanda really kiss him? And claim him with harsh, deep-feeling words?
Allen shook his head and picked out a box to send his painting in. Since he had to walk to and from the university, he couldn't very well carry the portrait home. After his professor had graded the portrait, giving the Brit an odd look for it, Professor Leverrier had permitted Allen to take it home. Therefore, Allen was readying the portrait to have it sent home.
Carefully placing the artwork in it's box, Allen's mind went back to Kanda.
He could still feel Kanda's lips on his. He could still feel the hardness of Kanda's well-toned body pressing him up against the wall. The brush of air across his cheek as Kanda slapped his hand down against the wall by Allen's head. The bruising force of Kanda's lips and the frustration that backed them. Though Kanda had basically attacked Allen, it still set his heart pounding in his chest.
He didn't understand Kanda's strained words, though.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!"
"I refuse! After all that I- After what Lavi-!"
"You must be blind, Moyashi. Get your head out of your ass."
"And realize this: You're mine!"
Of course, the last thing said was easy enough to understand. Kanda -by no means- ever did anything in halves. So for his act of possessiveness, it was obvious. He would never "share" and he would never let go. In a way, that was very...heart-warming. To know that Kanda wanted him that much.
But what in the world had set him off? Allen hadn't said anything...hadn't done anything to have triggered such a violent explosion.....Had he?
Allen tried to remember what he had said that morning after his rude awakening by Kanda.
"Aagh-! Kanda! What the hell are you doing in my room??"
"I'm wondering what the hell I'm doing in your apartment, Moyashi."
"Oh! You fell asleep on my recliner! I didn't want to wake you up…well, because you probably would be pissed off at me. So I decided to wait to receive your wrath for the morning. Seems, though, that a night's sleep didn't do much to prepare me for it."
"What the fuck is with that scar, Moyashi?"
"It's nothing. Don't worry about it."
"Che. Would that have something to do with that accident with your father?"
"Adoptive father, and no; it's none of your business, Kanda."
"Teme, Moyashi."
"Speak English, Kanda, we do live in Canada."
"Che, you're not being very hospitable, Moyashi."
"I just woke up to one on the most unpleasant faces in all of Canada and you expect me to be cheerful and joyous?"
"Look, Kanda, I have a class in about an hour, so if you would please?"
After that....Kanda had snapped.
Admittedly, Allen had not been the most...hospitable of hosts, considering that Kanda had been in his apartment. He could have offered Kanda breakfast....coffee....early morning conversation. Anything would have been better than the way that he had brushed Kanda off.
Allen felt a guilty pang in his chest. He would have to apologize to Kanda for that.
Sighing, he sealed up the box the rest of the way. The timer on the professor's desk had just rang, alerting the students that the class was over. Allen sneaked a peek at his watch before heading to his main desk to grab his book bag. It was only a few minutes before three, so he had time to send off his portrait, get home, take a shower, and then walk to the Hidden Artist gallery.
"Hidden Artist..." he mused aloud. Truthfully, he hadn't given much thought to who the Hidden Artist was the past few days. Not that the last few days had been anything but hectic and insane -as if this morning were any clue, he thought miserably-, prohibiting any thought that didn't center around Kanda -oh god is he going to kill me?- and Mana -oh god why does it hurt so much?- or Cross' random and nerve-wracking appearance.
But really; who was the Hidden Artist? Logically, it could be anyone. If they had any desire to keep their secret hidden, then no one would know that they had any artistic inclination....But then again they could be hidden in plain sight and no one would know.
Allen's head spun a little at the excessive thoughts. He shook his head in dismissal.
For all he knew, Komui could have hired the guy -or girl?- from some other country. Maybe the person sends his or her work from over seas. It wasn't as if it was overly important, though. The Hidden Artist gallery still had a lot of income, the Hidden Artist aside.
"Still bothers at my nerves, though. I want to meet the guy." Allen mumbled to himself, shaking his head once again.
"Allen-chan!!!" an obnoxiously familiar voice called from behind the Brit. Allen turned around to face his caller.
"Hay, Lavi. What's up?"
"Hi, Allen! Nothing much. I'm glad to see you are feeling in a better mood." Lavi said, smiling widely -and somewhat creepily- at Allen.
"Better mood? Oh yes, that's right. You caught me in a bloody awful mood yesterday. Forgive me for that." Allen admitted, smiling and wincing in apology.
"Heh. Allen, your British is showing."
"Huh? Oh, Lavi you-!" Allen lightly punched the red-head in the shoulder.
"Hehehehe...Sorry Allen, I had to."
"Right. Anyway. What do you want, Lavi?"
"Well, I heard you mumbling earlier. I'm just curious to see what it was you were talking about." the red-head admitted happily, leaning against Allen. Allen took a step to the side, away from Lavi's encroaching presence, and smiled back.
"I was just wondering about the Hidden Artist."
"You mean the Hidden Artist's Hidden Artist?"
Allen gave Lavi a look of slight annoyance.
"Ohh, yeah. Okay, so you're wondering who the guy-" ("-Or girl-" Allen corrected) "-is? Well, there's only one way to find out!"
"And what would that be?" Allen asked in spite of himself. He really wasn't quite sure about the slightly -or entirely- insane red-head's plan, but he was curious.
"All we have to do is check Komui's records of employee payment. Because technically, the Hidden Artist is an employee, and for each one of his-" ("-Or her-") "-paintings that gets sold, the Hidden Artist is paid some percentage of the profit. So, we just need to get into Komui's office and check his records and find out where this guy-" ("-or girl-") "-lives. Then it is a simple matter of going there and checking him-" ("-Do I really need to continue correcting you?-" Lavi frowned, but continued) "-out."
Allen was a little surprised by the idea. It was so simple-
Wait.
"Komui's office is a mess!! What makes you think that he keeps records of those kinds of things?! And how are we to get those, anyway??" Allen demanded, creasing his brow in disapproval.
"Well, you know that Lenalee assigns one of us to clean Komui's office and pay bills, organize, whatever needs to be done. So the next time one of us is assigned, then we can both check it out and look around." Lavi explained. Allen still looked skeptical.
"Do you really want to spend hours and hours searching through that hell??"
"It wouldn't be any different from any other day of having to clean. We just have something particular in mind while we work, right?"
Indeed, Lenalee did assign Allen to office-duties that night when Allen and Lavi came into work together. Allen went straight to work, dealing with all the bills as quickly as he could before Lavi came in to join him in his search.
"This is ridiculous! We've been searching for so long..I am sure that it is past closing time!" Allen sighed, rubbing the back of his sore neck. Lavi said nothing, so absorbed was he in his search.
"Lavi..."
Nothing.
"Lavi."
….Still nothing.
"LAVI."
"LAVI!!"
"Ehh...huh? Did you say somethin' Allen-chan?" Lavi asked, but he didn't even sound as if he realized he was talking. Allen sighed.
"It's late, Lavi. I'm tired. I'm sure you are tired. Let's call this off and come back tomorrow." he said, dropping the files he had been searching through onto a waist-high pile. Dust flew out and up, carried by some mysterious breeze, tickling Allen's sensitive nose. He sneezed and then rubbed at his nose. Looking down at Lavi, he waited for a response -or even a 'Bless you'.
Lavi said nothing, again.
"La-vi!!"
"Hey, Allen." Lavi said, as if he was the one trying to get Allen's attention, and not the other way around.
Allen was immediately annoyed, ready to slap some sense into the red-head, but then froze at the tone in Lavi's voice, narrowing his eyes.
"What?" he asked.
"I found something. It's a file labeled 'HA profits and paycheck info'." Lavi said, leaning back on his feet, resting his weight on his heels.
"Seriously? Something so openly labeled?" Allen asked, a little disappointed and disgusted. Disgusted because it had been in one of the files closest to the desk, which was where most of the action happened. As one got further away from the desk, the files became dustier and less used, until eventually, one came to files five-six or seven years old. The closest files to the desk had been disturbed only a few days previous, when the last victim had come into the land of Komui and his insanity.
Disappointed because...well, he had expected a bit more of a challenge, in spite of his lack of energy. Komui's office was the epitome of chaos, so to find it so...easily....
Lavi stood up and made his way over to the desk, sitting at the chair. Allen followed to look over Lavi's shoulder at the file. Lavi stared at the yellow folder for a moment, as if thinking. Allen was a little surprised at the thickness of it, especially since -if this was indeed the file they desired- there was only one employee to be paid that had anything to do with the 'HA' part of the title of the folder. But there was also the 'profit' part to consider. Perhaps there were a lot of profits gained from the Hidden Artist's art.
"Are you sure that we want to know?" Lavi asked suddenly. Allen nearly gave himself whiplash from looking sharply over at Lavi.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, what if we expose some huge secret...One that could damage someone's reputation..or something like that?"
"I...guess I never really thought about it that way. But, it's not like we will announce it to the world...right? We can keep it to ourselves. I don't think that anyone else among us really cares that much about who it is...." Allen said.
"Yeah...You're right. So we can look, huh? Look, but...not tell."
"Yeah."
Lavi's hand still didn't move to open it.
"Bloody hell, Lavi, just open it!" Allen exclaimed when the suspense got to him.
"I figured you're curiosity would have made you open it long ago!"
"Heheh...You're right. I was just trying to get at your nerves! Sorry, Allen. I couldn't help it." Lavi admitted, smiling somewhat wickedly up at Allen. He flipped the folder open and began reading through the first page.
"Receipts....pay stub copies...letters....Ah! Billing addresses! And bank accounts! This is useful, Allen. Okay...Names...Where are the names? N- What?" Lavi asked, finishing his mumbled sentence with an exclamation of surprise.
"What? What is it, Lavi?"
"N-Name unknown!"
"Oh, blast! And we were so close."
"This person is really thorough. I can't believe it. Well, if we can find the name of the bank...I can do some research. Maybe searching through these files a little bit more will reveal more....." Lavi slowed and then stopped, his expression distant and thoughtful.
"Lavi?" Allen questioned, even though he figured that Lavi wouldn't respond. The red-head surprised him by standing up and looking directly at Allen.
"I'm going to go home and read over these files and see what I can find. I'm sorry, but I will have to leave you here, Allen. I hope you don't mind." With that, Lavi left Komui's dusty office. Allen stared after him in shock.
"Well, bloody- I can't believe he just up and left." Allen muttered, rubbing at his hair. He drew his fingers through the long, white locks, ruffling it as he went. Sighing, he flopped down in the chair and stared at the files surrounding him.
"Blast, I suppose I've got to clean this up."
Indeed he did, muttering sourly about the abandonment caused by 'supposed' friends as he organized. One specific file met his hand and Allen could immediately tell it was a couple years old. When he flipped it open, all that was there were a dozen or so letters. Allen scanned the address written in a neat scrawl across the top.
"Froi Tiedoll, Frankenfurt, Germany...." Allen recited, cocking his head curiously.
"Tiedoll....isn't that Kanda's adoptive father?" he wondered aloud.
"Yeah, and what's it to you, Moyashi?" a sharp voice -two guesses as to who it is, Allen thought sourly, his heart hammering a little in his chest- queried from the door. Allen looked up.
"Hey, Kanda. You're still here?" the Brit asked, hand on the letter before him.
"Yeah, Lenalee asked me to close up. Some business with that psychotic brother of hers." Kanda sniffed, jingling keys in his left hand idly.
"Ohh...So I am supposing that you want me out? Yeah, yeah, hold on a minute. I just need this folder." Allen said. He closed the folder and slid it to the edge of the table to pick it up.
"Oi. Moyashi." Kanda said, his voice deep, husky....almost seductive. A wave of -something?- shot through Allen's body. His heart hammered again in his chest as he looked up.
"W-what?" Allen asked, trying to hide his breathlessness. He -of course- failed. Kanda smirked in his face, leaning across the desk, hands planted on the flat surface. His fingers brushed against Allen's with deceptive softness. Allen was well-aware what those hands could do. He had felt the force of a punch delivered, among other things that recent events had revealed to the Brit.
Allen could feel Kanda's warm breath travel over his mouth and down his neck, delivering a ghost of a touch that no skin could. The Brit swallowed thickly, eyes moving from Kanda's parted lips to his dark eyes.
"I'm taking you....home tonight, Moyashi." Kanda said, his voice full of timbre that made Allen's hands shake. He was pretty sure that the pause in the middle of that sentence was the definition of deliberate. Damn, was it working.
"F-Fine, Kanda. I'll help you close up." Allen said, swallowing once more against his rising emotion. Kanda leaned back, away from Allen, and headed towards the office door. He shot a look over his shoulder at Allen that made Allen want to forget his name.
"God-Goddamn, Kanda." Allen breathed, his hand pressed against his chest, behind which his heart was setting the record for five minute marathon. The Brit circled around the desk, headed for the door.
In the middle of the desk, the five year old folder lay, neglected.