Kid, Liz, and Patty were sitting on the floor in the middle of a random room at the school. They waited, some more patientently than others, as Professor Stein went around and lit candles.

"I couldn't find anybody in the school. Are they all sick or something?" Patty asked.

"No. Usually schools don't usually run on Sundays but Father thought it would be best for us to have a remedial lesson before actually starting school so we're an exception," Kid said. He started coughing, which caught his weapons off guard. He rarely ever coughed.

"You okay?" Liz asked.

"I'm fine. I guess I just don't like the scent of the candles," Kid mumbled.

Stein stood in front of the trio, catching their attention. "So this special lesson should strengthen your wavelength's bonds, but it could also cause irreversible damage. Do you still want to go through with it?"

Liz and Patty looked to Kid for the answer since they knew he already knew all of the risks beforehand. He nodded, so his weapons nodded too.

"Good," Stein nodded. "Liz, Patty, sit where I'm standing and we can begin."

They did as they were told and sat shoulder to shoulder where Stein used to be, which was right in front of Kid.

"Now you two talk about Kid's flaws, and Kid, you talk about theirs."

"Wait, so we just sit here and insult each other?" Liz asked.

"Essentially, yes."

With a thumbs up, Patty smiled. "We're great at that!" She looked at her meister. "You're suuuuuper crazy and don't let me eat popcorn around the house. That's pretty rude if you ask me. You also skateboard too slow."

"Um, yeah, you can be pretty annoying, and controlling. Your fashion sense isn't that great either," Liz said.

Stein watched Kid as his weapons berated him, and he wasn't reacting. That wasn't supposed to happen. "Kid, what do you think about that?" Stein probed.

"Oh, me?" Kid asked. Stein's blank expression seemed to answer for him. He looked back at his partners. "Um, I'm sorry, that does sound annoying. I thank you for seeing past my flaws and being my weapon partners regardless."

Liz and Patty were both hit with a wave of sheer confusion, then Liz with a wave of guilt. Knowing Kid, he shouldn't have responded like that. A big speech about how his annoying tendencies were actually making the world more perfect would have been a normal response, maybe even insulting them back, but apologizing?

"Why don't you list some of the things about Liz and Patty that make you angry," Stein suggested.

"Angry?" Kid thought for a second. "Umm, I can't think of anything…"

"Really?! But you always complain about us! What happened to 'Patty you're making a big mess', 'your stuffed animals aren't neat enough, Patty,' or 'your stance is off again Patty, the two of you aren't in a line'? That guy had a whole lotta stuff that made him angry."

Kid shrugged. "I-I don't-" He started coughing again.

The guilt Liz had became replaced with concern. She turned to her teacher. "What the hell did you do to our meister!"

Stein was silent for a second. "It seems like this specific lesson won't work. I can assign you a new one on Monday if you want."

Liz stood up. "No, we don't want. I need you to tell me what happened to Kid. He never acts like this!"

He tended not to tell students about his methods, but there was no point in denying the obvious. "These candles are supposed to heighten emotions. It seems like the opposite happened with Kid."

"Cause he's a reaper, right?" Patty asked.

"Yes, I think that's the reason. In any case, emotional blunting is the opposite of what this lesson needs, so you three should go back home." Said three exchanged looks.

Since the training was useless, Stein left, leaving the partners alone in the candle filled room.

Liz turned to Kid. "Emotional blunting? Does that mean you don't feel anything?" she asked.

"I-I guess"

"Nothing?" Patty reaffirmed. She jumped to her feet in excitement. "So you wouldn't mind if I use your money to buy a gallon of cheese puffs?"

Kid hesitated. "Um… my dad doesn't want me to lend out my money, so I would mind."

Patty burst into laughter. "You don't feel anything but you still listen to your daddy? That's pretty lame."

"But will you be okay like this?" Liz asked.

"I guess. I don't think Stein would make its effects permanent. We just need to wai-" Kid was interrupted by his own coughing.

The cough reminded Liz that it probably wasn't best to stay with the candles. "We should probably get going." She extended a hand to help her meister stand up. "You can still walk, right?"

Kid nodded slowly, taking the hand. "Yeah, I can… yeah…" The way he talked seemed like he was distracted. It sounded like Patty when she was busy daydreaming. He just generally seemed kind of dazed, but that would be pretty expected if he really was somehow magically disconnected from his emotions.

With everybody back on their feet, Liz and Kid started leaving. "Patty, let's go," Liz said.

The younger Thompson was in the corner of the room, doing something. "I'll be there in a second~"

Whatever she was doing couldn't have been good, but Liz was more concerned with her meister than her sister. They left the candle room, and like she said, Patty caught up to them as they walked back to their house. "So you really don't care about symmetry anymore?" She asked as she rejoined them.

"Um… Yeah? I guess?"

"Do you like having no feeling?"

They walked in silence for a second as Kid thought. "It's not really good, but it's not bad either…"

"Hey Kid," Liz said quietly, "could you do me a favor and hold out one of your hands?"

He did. "Yeah."

"Thanks. I just want to see something." She flashed pink and went into his hand. Patty, still in human form, watched in awe as her meister didn't get a nosebleed and fall over unconscious like he did the last few times one of them accidentally transformed without the other. "So you still feel nothing, right?"

It took him a second to answer. He seemed distracted. "Um, yeah, nothing." Kid said eventually. "I can feel you in my hand if that's what you mean, but otherwise…" he shrugged. "I do feel pretty tired."

"Wow! You really don't care about symmetry anymore! That'll be soooo much funer! Good thing I grabbed this!" Patty pulled a newly unlit candle out of her pants. It was one of Stein's. "Now you can stop caring about symmetry all the time!"

"Patty!" Liz hissed. She turned back into a human to reprimand her sister. "We don't steal anymore! And we never stole from dissection-happy crazy scientists anyway! Go return that right now!"

Patty looked behind her at the far in the distance academy. "But siiis… it's so far away. Can I return it when we go back tomorrow?""

They were almost home after all, and having her little sister run around Death City by herself wasn't ideal. "Fine, but don't cry to me if you get dissected." She regretted saying that the second it came out of her mouth. The thought of it gave her shivers down her spine.

"Kay, I won't."

The walk back to the house was silent for the most part. Kid could walk fine, despite his condition. Liz thought he was about to run into a pole a few times, but he always avoided them at the last second. He really did seem lost in his own world, where he apparently really couldn't feel anything. Without conversation, the only noises were their footsteps and Kid when he coughed or yawned. He really did seem tired, even though it wasn't even getting dark.

It took a few seconds, but after walking into the house, Kid said "I'm going to bed…"

"Can you get there alright?" Liz asked.

Her meister shrugged, then nodded, which wasn't a great response but he did seem to be able to navigate fine. "Okay, just scream if you need anything."

Unlike Kid, both Liz and Patty didn't go to bed for a while. They put the special candle on the counter to be returned later and just started doing what they normally did while home alone, since they essentially were.

Liz couldn't focus on her magazine though. Sure Kid seemed fine, but something was seriously off. She shook off her worry. It would wear off eventually.

"Liz!"

Liz groaned as she opened her eyes. She hated being woken up, which wasn't a surprise, most people do. If it wasn't her meister, she would have ignored it, but since it was, she didn't have much of a choice. It was dark in her room, so it was still night time. All she could see was Kid's glowing yellow eyes, and he looked absolutely peeved.

"Do you have any idea what you did?" Kid asked.

"What?"

"Why'd you have me hold you without Patty!? Now every time I hold you two I'll have to think about how I once held you substantially longer!"

Liz rolled her eyes. "Kid, is this really why you woke me up?"

"Of course it is! What am I supposed to do now, Elizabeth!" Kid hissed. "The only way to make it even again is by holding only Patty for exactly as long as I held you, which was multiple seconds long, and I don't think I can stay conscious the full time."

"Can't we do this in the morning? What time is it anyway?"

"It's one:eleven, and no, we can't do this in the morning. If you didn't want me to wake you up this early you shouldn't have let me go to bed at four in the afternoon!"

Groaning again, Liz flopped her head into the pillow. Of course it was 1 am. When else would Kid wake her up? "Let you? You're my meister, when did I become in charge of you?"

"When I become clearly intoxicated and start making bad decisions, you're in charge. I thought that was obvious, but apparently not. If you chose to go into my hand unpaired while sober, I might have to make Patty in charge instead. Regardless, you got us into this mess, how do you want to get us out?"

"I don't know, have you tried being less of a freak?"

Kid started pacing around the room. "This isn't a joke! I can't battle effectively if the whole time I'm thinking about how uneven the holding time between my two weapons are!"

"If it really bothers you that much, how about you go back to Stein's emotion room, get un-uptight, and hold Patty without fainting?"

Kid shook his head. "No, the candle intoxication was a one time mistake, I can't willingly do that again." Liz was going to ask why not, but she knew from his tone of voice he'd explain it whether she asked or not. "First of all, if my reaction is anything to go by, it can't be good for my lungs. Secondly, the candle takes away my emotions, lowers my general concentration, and makes me not consider the consequences of my actions. All three of those hamper my ability to do what I need to! Battling against kishin eggs requires me to be fully attentive, fully- where are you going?"

Kid only stopped because Liz was getting out of her bed. "Bathroom. Apparently I was in charge a few hours ago, and now I'm not allowed to do that?"

"You can, but this talk isn't over."

Grabbing a flashlight, Liz headed out of her room, beyond happy to be away from her annoying meister. She didn't really have to use the bathroom, she just wanted to splash some water on her face, because, clearly, she wasn't going to be left to sleep in peace again, so might as well wake up and solve the problem before he keeps her awake tomorrow too. "Patty was right, he is 'funer' high…" she mumbled to herself before entering the bathroom. She stopped. Even if Kid did keep rambling about how bad the candle was, she still really didn't see the problem. Sure, she took issue with it earlier, but that was before she remembered how annoying Kid was without it. But, if anything, he should like its effects more than she does. Kid can't possibly enjoy getting worked up over tiny things.

She went to the living room then found and lit the candle, leaving the flashlight on the counter since she had a new light.

As she walked back, she felt more annoyed and exhausted than before. It must still work then.

The second she walked back into her room, she got questioned. "Why'd you change from your flashlight?"

"Its batteries died. Here, hold this." She put Stein's candle into one of Kid's hands, and as she thought he would, he quickly made it so both hands were holding it, making it be lit right under his face.

Luckily for Liz, he didn't really question the sudden candle further. It wasn't that big of a stretch, there were a lot of normal candles just around the house. "But I'm still waiting for your solution. Did you think of something reasonable while killing your flashlight's battery?"

"That depends. How do you feel?"

Under the candle light, Liz could see Kid's glare start to soften. "... Fine… why?"

"You're not angry?"

"... I am… you still…" he took one hand off the wax and started coughing into it. Liz smiled. Clearly it was going as planned. "Eh, I guess I'm not… Sorry for disturbing you. I'm going back to bed."

Liz passed him a candle dish. "Have fun."

Just like that, she could go to sleep again too. She couldn't believe how concerned she was before, Stein's weird candle was secretly a miracle. After all these years, Lord Death really should have thought about basically drugging his son; it works wonders! Without a meister droning on about nothing, Liz quickly fell asleep.

A/N: So, what do you think so far? I don't know how many chapters this'll be, maybe three or four, but don't expect the chapters too fast. I have the final chapter fully written, so I do expect to finish, just it won't be that fast. I'd love to hear your thoughts, good or bad! Comments are great to help motivate me to write the next chapter too, but I'll still probably write it anyway lol. Anyway, I hope you like chapter one!