Illness

Kanda wondered if he'd gotten some sort of terminal disease. It was the only explanation, the only possibility. But then again he had perfect health his entire life and had never heard about his symptoms with an ill person before so there was the only possibility out of the window leaving him with an impossible to explain illness.

It was mainly his heart that hurt. It would skip beats and loudly thud and sometimes it would simply thunder away like a galloping horse. Though sometimes his stomach would hurt too, sometimes there'd be a hot liquid feeling at the bottom of it, or a fluttery ticklish sensation as if there were a bunch of butterflies trapped in there or he'd just feel queasy for no particular reason. And sometimes his blood pressure soared, blood rushing to his face making him dizzy and disoriented and feeling foolish and doing unreasonable things.

He hadn't noticed it at first. It had been a gradual thing, starting out as something invisible that slowly escalated until he was suddenly left with something that had seemingly popped out of nowhere but had really just been sneaking up on him slowly but surely.

He'd get up, do some pushups, take a quick shower, dress, eat breakfast and grab his bag and be out of there. He'd be totally okay and then he'd get to school. The idiot rabbit would hug him from behind and Kanda would snarl and twist around to rip him off his frame so that he could properly strangle him. No thundering heart and no butterflies yet. And then Lenalee would arrive and giggle at them and say hello and Kanda would grunt at her with disinterest. No signs of illness yet. And then Allen, the Bean Sprout, Moyashi, that annoying little Samaritan would walk up to them. He'd walk up with his stupid fake little smile and wave his gloved hand at them. It was then that the illness would finally kick in.

His heart would skip a beat; a hoard of butterflies would start fluttering madly in his stomach, his knees would go weak, his face would feel hot as all sounds faded out due to the thunderous rush of blood rushing through his veins, and worst of the entire world would freeze. For a moment everyone would stop moving, stop breathing, stop talking, stop making noise, stop distracting him, he'd see the frozen form of Allen in mid-wave and he'd notice every single detail. The way the passing breeze mussed up his bright white hair, the way there was a bit of jam at the corner of his mouth unnoticed, the way he held himself, every single one of his snowy eyelashes, the exact shade of cream his skin was, the way his barely noticeable dimples appeared when he smiled. And then the world would start up again just like that leaving Kanda feeling strange and confused with a hot face, a hoard of butterflies inside his body, and a malfunctioning heart.

He had no idea why his illness seemed to trigger around Allen. He'd briefly tried to avoid him but that had only seemed to make the illness worse. His heart had constantly ached, he had felt sick and tired and stressed, and he'd been unable to sleep, unable to stop thinking about Allen, worst week of his life. He'd quickly stopped trying that and when he'd grunted hello to Allen that Monday morning the way his silver eyes flashed with relief had made him feel more guilty than he'd ever been in his entire life.

Kanda glared at nothing in particular as he brooded over his peculiar Allen disease while the teacher blathered on about something that wasn't particularly interesting enough to grab his hard to get attention. He continued glaring at generally nothing as he hated generally everything until it was lunch. He wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for the screech of all the chairs in the room scraping across the floor at the same time. He scowled some more and retrieved his lunch from his bag. Allen and Lavi and Lenalee wordlessly stood up as well and followed him as they walked up to the roof. Not many people ate at the roof therefore Kanda liked it and since Kanda ate there so did the rest of the idiots that called themselves his friends.

They reached the roof and sat down, unpacked their lunch boxes and started eating. Lenalee and Lavi were locked in some sort of heated debate about whether or not The Hobbit and The Lords of the Rings trilogy were in the same category with Allen at the side throwing in occasional comments and opinions. Kanda ignored them and ate his soba.

It was a nice enough day, a bright blue sky, warm sunlight, an occasional cloud offering some much needed shade to accompany the rare breeze, there were even a few chirping birds. Kanda thought it was slightly disgusting how picturesque the day was, bad shit always happened on pretty days.

At some point Kanda tuned his friends out with ease coming from years of practice and he just enjoyed his soba.

And then suddenly…

"Hey, try this out Kanda. It's delicious!" said an oh-so familiar voice as a fancy looking pastry was shoved into his face.

The pastry was covered in whipped cream and sprinkles and something orange. There was a bite of it missing. Kanda shoved the hand holding the pastry out of his face to glare at Allen. There was a bit of cream at the corner of his mouth, a smile on his face (a smile he didn't mind seeing as it was genuine). Kanda immediately noticed how Allen was leaning horribly close, breaching his personal bubble without a thought. He could smell Allen from how close he was, he could smell the honey shampoo he'd used that morning, the pastry he'd just taken a bite of, his deodorant, and that odd impossible scent of fresh snow that always clung to him.

And there was the galloping heartbeat and hot liquid at the bottom of his stomach.

Kanda stared for a moment at Allen, and then at the pastry. Allen had already taken a bite out of it. Kanda didn't know why that was so important, so hypnotically enticing. He didn't even like pastries. Kanda took the pastry without a word. He casually twisted it around so that the spot he was taking a big bite out of was exactly where Allen had taken a bite out of it as well.

(An indirect kiss…)

It was far too sweet for his tastes and was annoyingly creamy and soft. It tasted of peaches and whipped cream; he hated the texture as much as the taste. But there was something else. Kanda was sure he just imagined it but he swore he could just taste a bit of an aftertaste of Allen's saliva. He flushed but Allen didn't seem to notice.

He handed the pastry back to Allen, avoiding eye contact as he nodded jerkily.

"G-good…" he muttered despite not actually liking the pastry.

Allen beamed and took another bite out of his pastry. He bit where Kanda had taken a bite out of the pastry. His heart thumped and he felt flustered. Stupid illness…

And after that Kanda was unable to tune out again so he just silently watched Allen consume a horrifying amount of food. It was halfway through lunch break that the much awaited bad shit hit the fan. Fucking fairytale weather…

First there was giggling, annoying insistent giggling that was getting progressively closer. He looked up with annoyance to see a couple of girls urging on another girl. Her hair was short and spiky and slightly blueish. Her skin was the darkest Kanda had ever seen, her eyes flashing yellow in the rays of the bright sun. She looked to be a freshman, but she looked even younger than that, short and thin and little as she was. She walked over to them like she owned the place. Kanda instinctively hated her guts.

She wore a coy smirk on her face and walked with a confident cutesy gait. She stopped right in front of Allen who looked up from his food at her. Lenalee and Lavi stopped their movie argument that had somehow degenerated to an argument about short peoples eating habits to look as well.

"Hi, the name's Road." She said in a voice that grated on Kanda's ears.

"Um… I'm Allen." Allen said uncertainly.

Road nodded as if in confirmation and then turned around without another word. Silence. Kanda had a bad feeling about her.

The next day during lunch it was another ominously pretty day. Road walked up to Allen again while Kanda had been concentrating on his food.

"I like pumpkins." That grating voice had said out of nowhere and Kanda's eyes had snapped over to where she was standing in front of Allen from his soba.

Allen stared at her in response to her admittedly out of the blue comment. Road stood there, hands on her hips and feet spread wide as she looked at him expectantly with her odd gold eyes.

"I… like them too?" Allen said.

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say because she didn't make any indication that Allen had just spoken, remaining in her statue pose.

"I… don't like octopuses?" Allen tried instead.

That was new information to Kanda, why the Hell would he have anything against octopuses? Fuck, was that random.

Road nodded again, taking in the information. She then turned imperiously around, but not before doing something else. First she winked suggestively at Allen, his face turned bright red and he spluttered, and then she turned her gaze to Kanda. And there was another frozen moment now, when the world stood still. But this was different from when the world would freeze around Allen and he'd take in every single detail. Now it froze and Kanda was taken into her eyes, and he saw what look she was giving him. An arrogant challenging look. The bitch. And then the world started up again and she spun around and pranced off.

Lavi and Lenalee exchanged a look before breaking out into guffaws of laughter. Allen spluttered some more before turning back to his food. Kanda fumed.

That bitch. She challenged him! And with every expectation that he'd lose at that! He didn't really know what exactly she'd challenged him to except that it had something to do with Allen.

Kanda inched closer to Allen protectively and glared in Road's direction. She glanced at him and laughed derisively across the roof. He'd show her. He'd show her good.

Allen looked at him curiously when he inched close enough that their thighs were touching and knees bumping against each other's.

"What are you doing Kanda?" he'd asked.

"Cold," Kanda had grunted.

Allen had given him an odd look before turning back to his lunch.

Road smirked to herself. Some jealousy always pushed things along. She had simply seen an opportunity to bring together two sexy guys and taken it, it had been too easy. She laughed once more as she saw Kanda inch even closer to Allen, pressed up against him as they ate. She could even see the albinos blush from where she was sitting across the roof. Another good deed done, sorta.