Take this doodle of Alma Karma from the first chapter as my late apology.
kingnue . tumblr /post/143336171570/eyes-narrowed-as-he-studied-almas-appearance-a
Four plastic prongs stabbed a poorly dice cube of melon, and Kanda zoned out as he lazily brought the fruit to his chapped lips. Eight days had passed since his morning check-in to this purgatory, and finding out that he was the lucky soul to get saddled with the most annoying welcoming committee to date. Kanda's face still contorted at the thought of his first day. He impaled the next cube of melon in his fruit cup with a little more force than necessary. Across the small circular table Alma gazed wide-eyed and curious at Kanda's display, then leaned in and stole the plastic fork from Kanda's hand, eating the cubed fruit stuck on the end with a childish smile.
"Yuu, you really need to relax or your face is gonna get stuck like that forever," stated Alma as he playfully bit the tips of the plastic between his front teeth before reaching over to thieve another melon cube. Kanda rolled his eyes and yanked the fruit cup away from the incoming fork, receiving a whine from Alma. "C'mon Yuu! Share! Share!"
In a bout of defiance Kanda tipped the fruit cup back and ate the remaining two cubes of melon, chewing them and watching Alma's dismayed face. Then, calmly, Kanda stood and threw away the plastic cup in the mostly empty recycling bin. Returning to his seat, Kanda was met with puppy dog eyes and a protruding lip.
"It was my fruit cup. Go get your own if you're so upset over it!" huffed Kanda as he crossed his arms and gave a soft glare.
A whine escaped Alma's lips as he deflated onto the table, stretching his long arms all the way till they brushed against Kanda's own arms. "It's not the saaame, Yuu!"
Glancing at the slight invasion of his personal bubble, Kanda scooted back in his chair, face scrunching up with the skidding sound of metal chair legs against marble. He let out a sigh and lifted up his backpack by a single strap, throwing it over his shoulder.
"Not. My. Problem." Kanda pushed in his chair, careful this time not to make that horrible screeching sound. "I have class," he said, intending it as a goodbye.
Before he even took three steps Kanda felt a tug on his backpack, and glanced back. Alma was still lying face down on the table, arms outstretched, hands grabbing onto the loose black canvas fabric of Kanda's backpack. He glanced up, big eyes meeting Kanda's impatient expression. "Can we hangout later, Yuu?"
In response Kanda yanked himself free from Alma's grasp, and muttered, "Sure."
The walk to class was quick, ending with Kanda taking a seat in a blue plastic seat that he had come to hate after only a few times sitting in them. Actually it wasn't the seat he hated―though they weren't what he'd call comfortable by a long shot―it was the person he sat by in said seat. Two minutes till class started, and just like on cue Lavi showed up, plopping down next to Kanda. "'Sup, buddy!"
Kanda did his best to ignore the redhead, which would have worked if they weren't classwork partners for the next semester, though to Kanda it felt like an eternity. By no means was Lavi dumb, or bad at the work; it was just that Kanda couldn't deal with his irritating personality, and penchant for finding and pushing each and every last one of Kanda's buttons like it was some game of whack-a-mole.
"So...would you be so kind as to share your textbook with your best friend, who, by some unfortunate event, forgot his textbook?" At those words Kanda's head snapped to the side so fast he almost got whiplash.
"Who are you calling best friend?"
"Okay. Self-proclaimed...best friend! How's that?" When the only response Lavi got was a good long, hard glare, he dropped the antics and cleared his throat. "Anyway, so how 'bout you share your textbook with little ol' me?"
Kanda just shoved the paperback textbook to the edge of his desk. Next time Lavi would have to either bring his textbook or make a new friend in class to share with because Kanda, for sure, wasn't going to allow this to become a regular occurrence.
The professor chattered on about particles and different verb conjugations. Kanda had read through the chapter already, so he let his mind wander. After this class he would have English, then he'd be free to spend his evening reading assigned textbook sections and doing homework. Then sometime later he'd be visited by Alma―a slot of time where, no matter how much he tried, he wouldn't get any work done. School work had his free time in a vice grip, so Kanda couldn't figure out what had possessed him to agree to spending said limited free time with Alma. He'd much rather use it to rest and relax, not be at the mercy to whatever hair brained ideas Alma wanted the pair to partake in.
The class moved onto speaking practice in pairs, and Kanda was tapped back into reality by Lavi. He played it off as him ignoring the redhead, so he wouldn't be playfully mocked for spacing out.
The activity was to read off questions to a partner and let said partner reply with a certain sentence structure―easy enough. Lavi started, asking Kanda what his favorite food was. Without any pause, Kanda replied smoothly and evenly, then asked the next question about favorite pastime.
The answer Lavi gave wasn't expected.
Kanda would have at a glance pegged Lavi's favorite pastime to be partying or socializing, not reading novels and research papers or essays. Come to think of it Kanda didn't know much about Lavi at all, not that he had particularly wanted to, given their first couple meetings. His perception of the redhead hadn't totally been toppled to the ground, but he now had new insight on Lavi as more than an annoying and intrusive classmate.
Not missing a beat, Kanda answered the next question, and so on and so forth.
The class ended quickly after the pair work. Everyone filed out from the room, Kanda being one of the last. As he turned the corner he felt a quickly approaching presence, then a hand was patting his shoulder and Lavi was slowing down to his pace.
"Going to English, right?" He nodded, no longer phased by Lavi's exceptional, almost uncanny, ability to remember the smallest details, even if they were only mentioned in passing.
The redhead stretched his arms a bit before shoving his hands into the front pocket of his acid wash jeans. "...So...are you busy later? Wanna study a bit with me before our first quiz?" Lavi pause, analyzing Kanda's facial expressions. "...Or do ya have other plans?"
Kanda didn't think he could be read like an open book, but this was another one of Lavi's uncanny abilities. It was almost as if Lavi could see the inner workings of Kanda's mind and was deducing his thoughts from just the slightest change in his expression.
He sighed and adjusted the position of his backpack. "I'm busy."
The redhead scratched the back of his head and smiled, lightly slapping Kanda's shoulder then waving as the two parted ways. "Maybe next time then, Yuu-chan!"
He noticed Lavi dashing off after that comment. Part of him was glad that Lavi knew that giving Kanda that honorific spelled out a not-so-bright future, but part of him was also irritated that despite this knowledge Lavi had the gall to use said honorific anyway.
Kanda grumbled to himself all the way to his English class. Switching gears from verb conjugations in a foreign language to rhetoric analysis in English wasn't difficult, and English class went without a hitch.
Walking down the hallways of his residence hall, Kanda took note of the cloud shaped green construction paper with Alma's name written on it taped to a wooden door three rooms down from his own. Every time he walked past the door Kanda couldn't help but pause a moment and listen. Sometimes he'd hear the faint tune of a Fall Out Boy song or Alma's voice on the other side, but usually it was just silence. Today it was the predicted silence. He felt a little like a creep always waiting a moment outside Alma's door, like some smitten school girl who couldn't pluck up the courage to ask out her crush so she'd just dawdle outside his classroom before leaving without accomplishing anything.
The automatic lock clicked behind him and Kanda tossed his backpack to the side of his room before slumping down into the cushions of his desk chair. He flicked on a lamp, pulled out a pen and his notebook, and then opened the chemistry textbook. Note taking was tedious at the best of times, but today he just couldn't focus. After a solid twenty minutes Kanda leaned back, arms dropping to his sides, and heaved a sigh. Maybe it was a good thing that Alma would be coming over. He wasn't getting any work done anyway so he couldn't lose anything from the visit.
As if on cue Kanda's cell lit up with a message from Alma stating that he had just finished his political science class and was on his way over. Once he read over the message, Kanda locked his phone and tossed it onto his bed.
He must have dozed off for a moment because the loud pounding on his door jolted Kanda awake. Despite knowing exactly who was at his door, Kanda, out of habit, took a glance through the peephole before turning the door handle and letting in a smiling Alma.
"Yuu!" Of course the first thing in order was the obligatory pouncing hug. Alma leaped, wrapping his sweater clad arms around Kanda's neck. Being groggy from the unwarranted nap, Kanda couldn't retaliate fast enough and was caught in the hug. A few seconds passed and Kanda realized Alma might never let him go, so he slowly pried his childhood friend off him. The process was a lot harder than he realized; Alma had a stronger grip that Kanda had anticipated.
"Soooo? How was class, Yuu?" asked Alma as he hopped up onto Kanda's faux made bed―he had just pulled the blanket up to cover the entire bed instead of keeping them tangled up in a heap like usual. Alma was untying his shoes, kicking them off onto the floor along with his socks. If Kanda hadn't known Alma previously then he would have been a little taken aback, but to him this was just common practice. Back when Alma used to sneak into Kanda's room to surprise him, he'd always forget to hide his socks and shoes, which were the prime indicator that Alma was probably lurking in Kanda's closet or under his bed.
He shrugged, kicking back onto his desk chair, ignoring Alma's loud patting of the covers next to him. Kanda gave a short nod back at the other's direction as if to return the question. "My day was great!" exclaimed Alma with his hands shown to the ceiling and a huge smile on his face. "I finally got my quiz back from last week, and guess what? I got an A! Also today in Biology my professor did the oddest thing. He made bird calls into the microphone and they were so good! I wish I could whistle like that."
Kanda just sat back and listened to Alma chatter on excitedly about his day. He was half listening to the words that were being spouted, and half focusing on the tones and inflections in Alma's voice. Whenever Alma got excited he'd incorporate a lot of hand motions and the story would become more than just a listening experience, it would become like a play. It was mesmerizing to watch how fluidly Alma's body language matched the story and how each change in tone could pull Kanda deeper into the story. This had always been the case, even as a kid Alma had been very animated when recounting events, and Kanda had always been entranced by the performance.
"Have you done the chem homework yet?" asked Alma sheepishly with a side glance. Kanda side eyed his notebook and nodded. "Can ya help me with it?"
He sighed and tossed Alma his notebook, moving to sit closer to the other. Flipping through the first couple pages, Kanda stopped on his chemistry notes for tomorrow. "What do you need help with?"
"Hmmm..." A frown crossed Alma's face as he scanned the notes, going page after page till he reached out and pointed to a section. "That!"
Turning the notebook around, Kanda read over the identified section before reaching for a pencil from his desk. He flipped to an empty page and scribbled out a problem he had remembered from the back of the textbook. "It's just balancing equations. Try this problem." He handed off the pencil.
For a moment Kanda wondered why he was being so cooperative with Alma. If it had been anyone but Alma he would have shoved the textbook their way and told them to figure it out. Something about Alma hit his soft spot and Kanda, out of habit or not, couldn't resist giving help. He wanted to think of it as doing charity work, to depersonalize it, but really it all had to do with his feelings towards Alma, which he had vehemently pushed to the back of his mind for the past week plus.
Kanda couldn't help curl the ends of his mouth into a slight smile as he watched Alma ponder the question, brow furrowed and lips pursed. Alma had a habit of tapping the pencil against his lips when he was thinking, before bringing down the graphite tip to scribble out some numbers onto the paper, then rinse and repeat till the entire problem was solved. The notebook page was handed back for Kanda to review and the corners of his eyes crinkled as he read Alma's soft, round handwriting. There was such a striking difference from his own hard and jagged chicken scratch, that it was jarring to see the two scripts on the same page as if the two handwritings weren't meant to be near each other lest the beauty be lost in the practically illegible writing.
The answer was right, so Kanda quickly scratched down another problem, suspicious that Alma didn't actually have an issue with the new section. Even so often Alma would glance up at Kanda, doe eyes giving him the once over before a huge grin would spread across his face that made Kanda look away―Alma was probably amused by the reaction.
"Done!" Again Kanda checked over the answer, finding no mistakes and no hint of confusion. Flipping closed his notebook, Kanda placed it back on his desk then turned back to end up with a face full of smiles. "So, Yuu, what'cha wanna do now? Play a game? Go on an adventure? Watch a movie?"
Alma probably knew that Kanda wouldn't choose any of the options so, without giving even a moment for an answer, Alma stated, "Let's go on an adventure!" He hopped of the bed, and quickly went to work shoving his shoes and socks back on. While Kanda stayed put, giving a looks that said "as if."
"C'mon! It'll be fun! I already told my friends that you'd be coming!" At the mention of contact with another human being, and one that was friends with Alma, he raised an eyebrow.
Alma tugged at Kanda, trying to get him to move. It was evidently a futile action so Alma switched gears to laying out Kanda's shoes, which again went ignored. Finally in a last ditch effort Alma swiped Kanda's cell and room keys, and ran out the door. Now that had Kanda hopping to his feet, sloppily shoving on his boots and running after the other.
Kanda had forgotten how fast a runner Alma was. He panted and stopped just outside their residence hall, bending over to catch his breath, eyeing Alma who stood six paces ahead, jingling Kanda's keys right in front of him like fish bait. Kanda regretted ever letting that childish mayo-lover into his room. "Out of breath already, Yuu?" asked Alma as he brought out his own cellphone, typing away a message that Kanda could only guess said something about being on the way to earlier mentioned friends.
A low grown signified his second wind and again Kanda shot after Alma. The duo zigzagged through the sparse crowd of people on the sidewalk before taking a sharp right towards the upperclassmen apartment buildings. He didn't dare fathom that Alma had made friends with upperclassmen, but really right now just wasn't the time for thinking―Alma was a likable guy, though he often got on others' nerves, but who knows, Alma could have just found a really tolerant group of upperclassmen.
Kanda watched Alma dash into a stairwell for one of the apartment complexes, and charged after him. Two angry flights of stairs and a slammed door later Kanda had caught Alma, but was also in the midst of a small get together. With a sheepish smile Alma returned his keys and cell, then like soap, slipped through Kanda's grip, taking a spot on an ugly patterned couch. He pocketed his cell and keys before turning to leave.
"Where do ya think you're goin', Yuu-chan?" sang a voice. A vein burst and Kanda whipped around so fast his hair came full circle to slap him in the face. There, sitting on a stool at a messy counter was none other than Lavi.
"Yeah. Where do you think you're going?" chimed in another voice from next to him. He glanced down to see a small girl with dark skin and spikey hair that was dyed purple. She smiled back at Kanda before tugging him deeper into the apartment.