11

The meditation room was not an area that I had ever entered before. It was a big room with an open bamboo floor. There was a pillar in each corner of the room. Toward the back of the room was a small fountain producing the sounds of a gurgling stream. It was surrounded by a small rock garden and sand. Skylights overhead and a few windows provided natural light for the room.

There were a few pans of liquid incense on the walls. Kanda brushed by them, not even bothering to light the incense. I sniffed the liquid and the juxtaposition of lavender and pomagranite assaulted my nose. I scrunched my nose and made a face.

"Oh yuck!" I sneezed.

"Someone's been mixing the incense this whole week," Kanda told me. He was already across the room, laying out two bamboo mats. "My guess is that it was Lavi." He frowned. I laughed nervously. I knew for a fact that it really was Lavi. He had confided in me only yesterday that he was trying to get Yuu to talk to him by playing pranks. I didn't tell him that it was an awful idea. I didn't want to be the one to crush his spirits.

"Why are you so hard on him all the time?" I asked. The look that Kanda gave me clearly said that I was stupid.

"He's always fooling around. He's been here for almost three months and still acts like everything is a joke," he fumed.

"But that's just the way he is," I said in a feeble attempt to defend my friend. Kanda rolled his eyes and glared at the wall.

"Yeah, but you would think that he would act a little more seriously after seeing all the death that comes to us." Kanda said the words quietly, but the anger behind them was apparent. His words were, however, not true, but I stayed silent anyways. Lavi was, aloof though he may appear, affected by the deaths of all those people.

*FLASHBACK!*

"Val, please relax. Stop crying," he said with his hands on my shoulders. He pushed me forward gently. I wanted to ask how I could stop crying over a fallen comrade. I had failed to protect him. I had lost an Innocence. It was all my fault.

The red-headed exorcist lead me from the room. We made our way down the hall. In a small alcove along the way Lavi made me sit down on a stone bench. I curled my knees to my chest, hugging them, and brought my feet to rest on the granite surface. He lifted my chin so that I was looking at him.

"Calm down, please," he begged me and wiped the tears from my face. His cold fingers were soothing against my flaming skin. I pulled back and rested my head against the chilly stone wall.

"But I lost the Innocence and he's dead," I cried. "How are you not upset? You got along well enough with him."

"I know," Lavi said, curling his hands together. "I am sad. I realize that you can't tell, but I am." He paused, collecting his thoughts. He stood up, glanced up and down the hallway, and then sat back down.

"As a future Bookman it is my job to record the proceedings of time," he started.

"You've told me this," I interrupted, my emotions getting the better of me. I was frustrated at being so weak. What good was being an exorcist if I couldn't even protect the people I loved? LAvi smiled at me and continued like he hadn't even been interrupted.

"In the time I've spent with Bookman it has mostly been just us recording wars. Death, at first, was sickening. I could barely stand it. The first time I saw someone die it made me sick. After I was done vomitting all I could do was sob. I was nine. I couldn't keep from crying."

He stood up again and looked down the hall. With his back to me he continued to talk. "Bookman just let me sob until finally I could cry no more. After he told me that I needed to get used to death, as it was inevitable and most of our records involve wars and death. I stopped crying in his presence. Bookman has seen so much more than I have, it's amazing that he can even stand it."

When he looked back at me I noticed a trail of tears on his cheeks. My own eyes were welling with tears at his words. Such pain in his life, I thought.

"Strictly speaking," he told me, "I'm not... well, as a future Bookman I can't...". He faltered in his speech. This time I stood up to comfort him. I reached up and rested a hand on his shoulder.

"Lavi?"

"I'm not supposed to get attached," he said shortly.

"Attached to what?" My eyebrows knit together in confusion.

"Anyone. It's my job to be an impartial observer of time. I can't let my desires or emotions get in the way."

"That's terrible!" I cried. Fresh tears poured down my face. Lavi smiled sadly and pulled me into a hug. He rested his cheek on the top of my head.

"Hey, hey," he soothed. "Just because those are the rules doesn't mean that I am going to listen. I make friends all the time. That's attachment, right?" I pulled away. His smile didn't reach his eyes. I stepped away and wiped my eyes with my sleeve.

"Gah! I'm so emotionally unstable. I cry all the time." The hem of my sleeve was soaked with tears. Lavi threw his head back and laughed. His bandana slipped down to cover his eyes and he impatiently pulled it around his neck.

"Well, it's certaintly working in your favor," he said. I was confused. His voice lowered to an inaudible mumble, though I distinctly heard him say Kanda's name.

"What? Kanda, what?" I asked.

"Oh nothing!" Lavi said cheerily. I looked at him skeptically and he continued to look as if nothing was wrong. I learned then that Lavi was definitely master of his emotions.

"Do you know why he doesn't like me?" he asked suddenly. I thought briefly of the Finder that I had left behind. Lavi was helping me to realize that I couldn't save every life. Death was, at times, unavoidable. Inevitable, as Bookman said. It loomed ever closer to us. It was through death, I thought, that an akuma was born. Even if I couln't keep them all alive, I would keep the Earl from adding to his army of tortured souls.

"No. I think you just come off a little too strongly sometimes. Kanda likes his peace and quiet."

"He meditates right?"

"Yes. All the time." Lavi folded his arms and looked up, thinking. When he lowered his head there was a mischievious grin in place.

"Excellent. I hope he likes incense."

"What did you do?"

"I mixed the incense. I'm trying to get him to talk to me. If he gets mad enough he'll come to me. I know it." I shook my head at his idea.

"You want him to yell?"

"If it gets him to loosen up a bit then, yes." I sat back down on the bench. Lavi lowered himself down next to me. He placed a hand lightly on my knee.

"It's not your fault you know," he said. "I could have saved him too." He squeezed my kneecap and then stood up. He entered into the hallway and looked back over his shoulder.

"Don't give up," he said and then walked away. I sat there for hours thinking over everything we had conversed about.

*END FLASHBACK*

Kanda's voice brought me back into reality.

"...and sit quietly. You're not even listening to me, are you?" he said, annoyance clear in his voice. His eyes were closed and his hands were folded in his lap.

"Sorry," I whispered. " I was thinking about some stuff."

"You're supposed to clear your mind. We've only just started and already you've failed."

"I'm sorry," I sighed, looking down at my hands, ashamed.

"Che. It's fine. Just pay attention this time." He started to tell me how to meditate.

In the hallway Lavi crept up to the open door. He observed as Kanda gently shoved Val and she laughed. He watched her struggle to do a lotus position and watched as Kanda demonstrated the correct way with a smile on his face. Lavi observed until he felt that he understood their relationship at least a little bit better. He couldn't tell for sure, but he knew that there was probably something more than friendship ahead for them. He smiled sadly and walked away, taking note that the incense had not been lit.

I'm so sorry that it took me so long to post. I was busy with the musical and as soon as that was over guess what happened. Both of the computers in my house decided that they wanted to get viruses. I lost everything. Even my story. So thankfully I was able to copy and paste from Fanfic, cause otherwise I would have to rewrite everything by hand.

I hope you liked this chapter. There wasn't much ValxKanda. I apologize for that. I'm sorry it isn't longer. I feel like I should have given you more to work with. I will post as soon as possible. I still don't have Word on my computer. I wrote this whole thing in the doc uploader.

Please review. Please. I would love feedback.

Again, I apologize for the wait.