Exception
By: Aviantei
44. Moving Forward
"Johnny, mon ami, you're wonderful! A full-blown delight!"
Monday had rolled around without too much of a fuss, thanks to everyone having worn themselves out at the dance. Even with a whole weekend to recover, a late night dance party with as much excitement as the one they'd gone through would have worn anyone out, and so most of Black Order High was in a subdued state.
Well, save for Ari.
It was her free period, which she shared with Johnny (as such, said time was most often spent in one of the science department's work rooms), and he'd just finished telling her all the details of his, ah… "involvement" in the sudden power outage that had broken up the dance off and made it possible for the collective cast assembly at the dramatic Allen vs.(?) Road showdown. Johnny had considered texting her the details, but anything that didn't leave evidence behind was for the best, even if no one had gotten hurt in the process.
Having captured Johnny in a hug, Ari nuzzled against his cheek while heaping him with praise. "You and your science network are the absolute best! Remind me to bake something and bring it over to club soon. What would you all like? Cake? Cookies would probably be easiest to share, but Jerry promised to teach me this new cake recipe I've been dying to try. Oh, but something like pudding would be fun to make, too…"
Blushing from all the attention, Johnny chuckled. "There's not a lot to thank me for. I just figured it would help a little since you all seemed worried…" He'd already heard about the altercation, and Johnny couldn't decide if it was better to have context or no context, all things considered. "If you want to thank someone, you should thank Tapp. He's the one who knows about all that stuff and pulled it off. He even fixed with no trouble at all."
Ari nodded, already delegating Tapp to receiving an extra special version of whatever treat she decided on—and maybe asking for tips on how to mess with power systems in the process. You could never have too much know-how about these sorts of things!
"But even if that went off well," Johnny said, and Ari tilted her head, "how are you feeling right now? Are you okay?"
As Ari's designated best friend, Johnny could easily tell the differences in her moods. Or, to be more accurate, the sliding scales in her moods. She was good at mustering up energy no matter what, but that didn't mean she was pushing down her sadness. It was just that she would be feeling things simultaneously, the different intensities shifting, and now was one of those times.
She had been turned down romantically, after all. Even for Ari, who understood there was no guarantee of coming out on top, it was a hard blow to endure.
Her smile having turned much more subdued, Ari pulled back and dropped back into her seat proper, wringing her hands together. "I'm okay," she said. Johnny immediately gave her a disbelieving look, which was impressive considering that his thick-lensed glasses concealed his eyes most of the time. Under such scrutiny, Ari couldn't help but squirm. "I'm serious, I'm serious! I mean, I'm a little disappointed, yeah, but I've delt with worse than this." She hadn't ever really known her parents, after all. Compared to something like that, losing out on a date wasn't worth worrying about.
Johnny frowned, catching onto her train of thought without much issue. "Ari. It's okay to be upset, you know. If it hurts, it hurts." He put his hands on her shoulders, giving them a reassuring squeeze. "No matter what, I'm always here for you, okay? Best friends."
"Best friends," Ari said in return. She flopped forward, her head bopping against Johnny's shoulders. "I already moped around the house all weekend and made Nii-chan buy me gallons of ice cream while I read everything in the immediate radius. I'll be okay."
"Well, at least you're letting yourself process in the best possible way." Ari snickered, and Johnny laughed with her. "Hey, if you want to get into something to keep your mind off things, I might have an idea."
Ari's curiosity spiked, there was only one response she could give. "Oh, mon ami, you know I can't say no to that."
"I can't believe this! How could anyone ever turn down my precious Lenalee? It's unacceptable! Unthinkable! Reever, can you believe this?!"
"What I believe is that even if Lenalee didn't get turned down, you'd still be pitching a fit."
You would think, as a teacher, Komui would have more important things to do than to rant and rave about his little sister's dating life during work hours, but Lee Komui's mind was an absolute enigma. And by enigma, we mean that he had a pretty unnecessary hyperfixation on Lenalee's wellbeing, and that meant things like work were the farthest thing from his mind.
All things considered, it was incredible he still had a job, but at the end of the day, he was still an effective teacher, so that seemed to have saved him.
None of that was present now, though. Lenalee had locked herself up in her room most of the weekend, and she hadn't even come out for the promises of her favorite foods. She'd at least eaten whenever Komui brought her food, but she'd insisted on being alone, which was her usual operation whenever something had gone wrong. And if Lenalee was locking herself up, that meant that someone had to pay, especially since it hadn't taken Komui all that long to put the pieces together.
And, thus, Reever was having to put up with all of this again.
I'd known it would be chaos whenever Lenalee made it to high school, but it's only her sophomore year! Can't you just tone things down for one second?
Reever's internal complaints went unanswered, though, because Komui operated on a policy of Maximum No Chill, unleashing the next round of his ongoing word vomit. "I mean, obviously, no one is good enough for my precious Lenalee—not a single person even comes close to being worthy of her! But if she at least chose someone and was happy, I could accept it. So who in their right mind would turn her down? No one! No one, that's who!"
"Putting aside the fact that you're clearly lying about accepting Lenalee dating someone—" Because Reever had known Komui for a while, and there was no possibility of that event ever going over well "—it's not up to you to 'deal' with whoever turned her down. If she's managing okay, you don't need to hurt anyone." Reever had just cause to be concerned about that possibility, considering that Komui was polishing a drill bit in his hands.
"Ah, but you don't get it, Reever! Lenalee isn't okay at all! Not only did she stay locked up all weekend, she said she had a cold, so she didn't even come to school today. She's become so emotionally overwhelmed that her immune system was compromised and she's sick. At the very least, I should find the person who broke her heart and make sure he suffers the same fate!"
"And how the hell are you going to accomplish that with a drill?!" It looked pretty damn sharp, too. Komui just gave Reever a look that indicated that he had ways, which had some unfortunate implications. Yeah, I don't think that telling him Lenalee probably is faking that cold won't help matters, either. Instead, Reever grabbed onto Komui's arm, lest his destructive mannerisms overwhelmed him, and he actually ran off and gutted some poor kid. "Listen, Lenalee obviously cares about this person if she's so upset about it. Don't you think that hurting whoever it was, even if they turned her down, would just upset her more. What if she ends up hating you for it?"
"Gghk!"
With just one little sentence, Komui had all but turned into stone, overwhelmed by the sheer potential of that outcome. He could do anything for Lenalee's sake, but the possibility of her hating him and never wanting anything to do with him again was too much to bear. As much as it pained him to do so, he lowered the drill in his hand to the table, saving it for another day. Besides, what I should be doing right now is taking care of Lenalee. I'll nurse her until she gets better!
Naturally, any and all thoughts of doing his job were nowhere to be found.
Reever, having talked Komui down from the point of no return, sighed in relief. Black Order High had seen some shit over the years, but setting off a bloodbath wasn't worth any of the struggles whatsoever. "See? It'll work out," Reeve said, hoping to change the subject. If he left Komui to wallow for too long, he'd become dejected, and then they'd have a less deadly but no less annoying situation on their hands. "Hey, why don't you help me and the Science Club kids out? We talked about trashing the Noah in the Robot Fight Club, and it's just about that time of year again."
Komui's ears perked up at the possibility of crushing their school's fated rivals into the ground. He sat up from his slouch, the light glinting off his glasses. "It is that time, isn't it," he said with an evil sounding chuckle. "Goodness, it's been so long since I've been able to help out. But so long as defeating those Noah brats and crushing Lulu Bell's dreams will help Lenalee recover, then I have no choice but to do it!" A fist clenched un determination, flames seemed to burn around Komui.
Yeah, I might've just unleashed a bigger monster here, Reever thought, observing the deadly energy that Komui was omitting. But at least this way he's more likely to murder some Noah kid instead of one of ours, so…?
Sometimes, the lesser of two evils was all you could really hope for.
"And so, we present—the next meeting of TRIangular!"
The scene: Lavi's garage. The cast: a very disjointed collection of Rabbit, Brit, and couple in the form of Ivy and Kanda. Unsurprisingly, the last of that list could have figured out a plethora of other things they would rather be doing than messing with this, and Lavi's enthusiastic introduction wasn't helping matters. On his part, after participating in Ari's Mope Around the House and Eat Ice Cream Party, Lavi was doing alright, considering he hadn't been all that invested in the idea of dating Allen anyways.
Hence: he had no problem hosting this meeting of a group whose core purpose was to supposedly get Allen a date.
"Though now that I'm thinking about it," Lavi said, holding a hand to his chin, "we've kind of long passed the point where TRIangular is appropriate. Should we go ahead and make the first order of business a new team name?"
Ivy responded with her best deadpan look. Kanda, not feeling as indulging, gave a look of pure disgust. Allen, from his spot on the couch, cleared his throat and raised his hand.
"About that," he said, "none of that is why I asked you all to come here." It made sense, considering his previous declaration that he wasn't ready to date, and Lavi even had the gall to nod like he'd suspected the idea all along. Feeling lighter than he had in a while, Allen smiled. "I mostly just wanted to thank you all for helping me. I know you didn't have to, but I don't think I would've gotten through this without you all, so…"
He dipped his head in thanks, feeling faintly embarrassed. And there was something a bit awkward about thanking a person who had a crush on you for helping you realize you weren't ready to date, but Lavi had gone above and beyond for Allen in so many ways, so he couldn't let that much go unsaid.
Lavi gave an exaggerated sniff, wiping an imaginary tear away from his eye. "Aw, Brit. You're gonna make me cry."
Kanda, on the other hand, wasn't feeling anywhere near as generous. "I think we deserve way more than a 'thank you,' after all the shit we ended up going through, Bean Sprout." That dance had been one of the single most exhausting moments of his life, and Kanda wasn't quite ready to forgive Allen for literally running back into danger after having a safe way out. Sure, things worked out in the end, but it was the principle of the matter!
Allen flashed one of his polite smiles with just the right amount of edge playing under it. "Well, if a certain Bakanda hadn't ran away before the end of the dance, he would've known that I promised to take everyone out for pizza later. Oh, but since he wasn't there, I guess that means he doesn't want—"
"Yes, yes, you two can't resist taking pot shots at each other, we get it," Ivy said. She gently patted at Kanda's arm, hoping to soothe him. While she defaulted to being on his side, not even a weekend of resting could help her recharge from what had happened, and she didn't want to waste any more time than necessary. If I had my way, I'd be home, curled up on the couch right now, but alas…
Noticing his friend's exhaustion, Allen resisted his continued needling and cleared his throat. "Right. The real point of this is, even though it should be obvious, I'm disbanding this whole TRIangular thing. I found my answer, so job well done. No more secret meetings anymore."
Considering that Kanda hadn't even meant to get involved with this mess in the first place, it was a wonder he had even shown up, but Allen's news was good news. And while Ivy had volunteered, she was way out of spoons; she slumped in relief enough for Kanda to notice beside her. Lavi, meanwhile, was still on the dramatic crying angle, though at least he hadn't broken into all-out sobs or anything.
"What a beautiful moment," he said, his overwhelming emotion only half built up for effect. "Having a secret group fulfil its purpose and graduate. To think that we'd ever see the day."
I mean, if you stopped building secret groups, we wouldn't have that issue, Ivy and Kanda thought in unison. For the sake of getting this mess over with, though, neither of them voiced the thought.
"Ah, well!" Grinning, Lavi started clapping in a one man show of applause. "We had a good run, guys. As long as you're happy, Allen, I can't complain about that. Yu-pon, Ivy-chan, thank you for your excellent service." He gave them all a salute. Allen, feeling bad that the others wouldn't, offered Lavi a salute in return. "Should we cash in on that pizza, then? Just because TRIangular is over doesn't mean that we can't still hang out."
Ivy found it in her to muster up a smile. "I appreciate the offer, but I'll pass. I think I'll need like a week to restore my energy from what all happened." Maybe a month, if she were being honest. I thought when I moved, things wouldn't be as exhausting, but here we are…
"Oh, yeah, you went through the most of all of us, huh?" Allen asked, disregarding his own experience. Sure, he'd taken on a huge emotional burden, but in interfering with Road, Ivy had been in the most physical danger. "I didn't mean to drag you into so much trouble, but thank you for willing to be there."
"Of course, Allen. That's what friends do. Just put me down for a rain check whenever I feel like a real person again."
"If Ivy's out, I'll need to give her a ride home," Kanda said. Sure, it wasn't that far by public transportation back to Ivy's place, but he'd feel better if he could see her home safe. Ivy flashed him a look of appreciation, making a mental note to give him a kiss later in thanks. Too bad exhibiting PDA in front of Lavi would just turn into a giant pain in the ass, or she'd do it now. Kanda tucked an arm around her shoulder, giving a comforting squeeze. "I have homework to take care of anyways."
Allen didn't have any problem with letting everyone else go their separate ways. Even as a more sociable person, he knew that there wasn't any point in hanging out if it was draining to other people. "Yeah, go ahead and rest up, Ivy," he said (at this point, leaving Kanda out was just a force of habit).
"We'll see you tomorrow," Lavi added, giving his own wave. Hey, as much as he liked nudging people to hang around, even he could tell when not to push it! Sometimes. Occasionally.
Hey, miracles had to happen sometimes.
"Yeah, see you tomorrow," Ivy said, shrugging on her jacket and going to make her exit, Kanda right on her heels. And while he didn't give a verbal goodbye, he at least raised a hand in a sort of wave—a fact which Lavi latched onto immediately.
"Did you see that, Brit, did you see that?" he asked, bouncing in place. If Allen had been in arm's reach, Lavi might have shaken him in the excitement. "Yu-pon's never waved like that before! You think Ivy's helping him warm up? That's the most precious thing I've ever seen!"
Allen chuckled at his friend's antics, though maybe the definition of precious was a little but up to debate. "Please tell me that you're not going to start some other secret group to observe the process of their relationship." Because Allen could see that coming, just as much as he could see Ivy and Kanda murdering Lavi in the process.
Apparently having some sense of self-preservation this time, Lavi shook his head. "Nah, Ivy-chan already told me not to. I'm not gonna force my way through that. Besides, this is fun just watching on the sidelines." Not to mention that Lavi had other things to worry about outside of interfering with other people's lives at the moment, so any such potential new secret organization projects could be put on the back burner. "Still, if you're up to dinner, I am."
"Oh, sure!" Allen was always ready for food. "You wanna invite Ari along? I don't wanna leave her out if she's interested in coming…"
Lavi snapped into dual finger guns. "Good plan, Brit! Gimme a sec. Oi, Lil' Sis—"
Except, as Lavi would discover, Ari wasn't home.
[Author's Notes]
I've had such an exhausting week that I don't have any brain power to leave clever notes. The point is: falling action.
Thanks to Demon Shadow5000 for the fav and follow! You make my heart warm for giving this old project of mine attention.
The next chapter will release next month, so please look forward to it!
-Avi
[10.15.2022]
