Title: Memorial
Genre: Family/Tragedy
Rating: T
Summary: Kanda tries to find some closure and Tiedoll can only laugh.
Disclaimer: I only wish I owned Kanda and Allen...
Notes: Nothing much. Continue reading.
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at the end
who really loses?
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Frowning down at the tombstone, Kanda said bluntly, "I'm here, old man."
Tiedoll didn't respond for once and Kanda twitched. The silence was almost unsettling coming from the once chatty and fatherly man who had adopted him from so long ago.
"You had to kick the bucket before Daisya's graduation," the long-haired Japanese continued, his eyebrows still furrowed together in displeasure. "You know how much the brat whined and cried because you said that you would be there and instead, you're six fucking feet under the ground? You said that you would be at all of our graduations—Marie's, mine, Daisya's, Chaoji's. Daisya's pissed off at you for leaving him out, you know? Chaoji too. And now they won't stop whining down my back like crybabies."
Maybe Kanda was hallucinating, but he could have sworn he heard a heartfelt chuckle come from the grave. He wouldn't put it past Tiedoll to somehow manage to haunt him as a ghost or something stupid like that. That man was too attached to his foster children for his own good.
Scowling, he sat down on the grass, his posture stiff and uncomfortable as his white dress shirt pressed the dirt ground.
"Lavi said I had to come and pay my respects or some shit like that."
More silence. Kanda took the opportunity to fish several wilted and droopy carnations from his breast pocket.
"Allen gave me these," he muttered gruffly. "Took them out of his graduation flower bouquet. He said that I should visit you too."
The inaudible chuckle rang out again.
"You never got to know, did you, old man? Allen Walker? The short sprout from next door?"
A very slow and soft smile curved Kanda's mouth. It rounded his normally sharp and severe features.
"Yeah. It happened just like you said it would. We're...you know."
And suddenly, the smile dropped. "But that doesn't mean you're always right, stupid old man! You said that you would always be there. And I always told you not to be so fucking cliché and that you were going to..."
Kanda's voice fell into a whisper. "...die..."
His lips tightened and his voice barely quivered when he asked almost desperately, "How sick were you? How sick were you really?"
Tiedoll's laughter filled the air, soft and sad.
"Said nothing," Kanda grumbled to himself under his breath. "Nothing. Not one fucking word. I had to find you dead. I had to. I just had to. Coughing up blood for days, eating nothing, not one grain of rice. Nothing. And you still smiled like the damn idiot you are and said everything was okay. Small cold, little fever, only a few days at most. And what, you're dead now? It came to nothing."
His voice, which had still been at a whispering volume, rose.
"It came to nothing! You're dead. What's the use of that? Huh? Answer me!"
A deep sigh seemed to emit from the grave.
"I know, I know," Kanda snorted, suddenly straightening up and resuming his disapproving glare directed at the tombstone. "Everyone dies, even a senile old man like you. But still..."
He paused, trying to find the right words.
"Still..."
He sat in silence, staring at the tombstone, eyes roving over the words etched in stone:
FROI TEIDOLL
Loyal friend and loving father.
The last one who laughs wins.
"Che," Kanda muttered, breaking his gaze. "I never did understand you. Not even when you're dead and not hanging around my back anymore. Now it's Moyashi doing all of the hanging.
And then Kanda blinked and tilted his head back to laugh. It was a surprised, breathy kind of laugh, the kind that expressed incredulous wonder. It felt uncharacteristic of Kanda, and the tombstone seemed to agree as it faced the Japanese with a severe air.
"Moyashi would have liked you. You two both have old geezer hair." Smirking, Kanda added, "There. Now I've won."
He left the carnations on the ground and didn't look back when he walked away.
Behind him, an old man laughed from the sky.
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