Title: Shattered Innocence

Author: DnKS-giRLs

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Kanda-Allen

Disclaimers: ooh, Hoshino Katsura is sneezing!

Warning: shounen-ai, angst, depressed chapter again, OOCness

Chapter 9 – Missing You

In his life up until that time, Allen had always tried never to tell a lie. But now as he reflected on himself alone in his room, he realized that he had fallen miserably. He became conscious that he had told an obvious lie to none other than his own spouse before his leaving. He had told Kanda that it was okay for the other to leave him for his mission, but actually he did not really feel like that. Well, he still thought of himself to be somewhat okay at first, but his worsened temperament each day showed the people in the headquarters that he was far from okay. Maybe he himself thought that he was still fine, but people near him surely had the contradictory opinion about that matter. His mood swings made him shout at someone so loudly and then he could cuddle that same person within a second flat. And all of his shouting and whining was bad enough to make the finders that were taking care of him almost cry.

There was also the absence of his best friends—other than Komui and River—for their mission that did not help Allen dealing with his temperament at all. The only thing that could save the people in the headquarters was a piece of information about Kanda that was unknown yet to Allen to give to him, and it was getting lesser and lesser as the passing of days. No news meant Allen would have his temperament worsened, and having Allen in his bad temper was something that would cause a major understatement if it were to be described as 'chaos'. The headquarters had suffered enough things out of Allen's bad mood when at one point the people in the said place could have it no more.

Being the one who understood Allen's problem better than anyone present at that moment, Komui then decided to have a discussion with the said boy. Or to put it in a simpler way, Komui straightforwardly implored Allen to stop putting the headquarters along with its entire inhabitant in constant mayhem.

Just when after Komui had practically begged him to stop his 'evil scheme' for the headquarters did Allen find that his being in such a bad temper was not good for him, and especially for other people near him. Allen retorted Komui's entreating by a reason that if he did not project his excess energy to something, it would be killing him and other people eventually. Komui didn't have a counter for that, so he just fumed at a dark corner, muttering his prayer so that Rinali could go home soon from her mission and help in handling Allen's seemingly-more-irrational-self.

Allen, being his nice and sweet self, finally decided that he would think to settle his excess energy consumption to something else other than to terrorize the headquarters with his mood swings and countless questions as what Kanda's attitude that he did not know. He realized that it was doing him no good but he needed something to distract him from the fact that Kanda was not there with him. Yet he had no idea of what he should and could do. Ever since they knew that he was with a child, Allen found himself literally had no work else than merely living. It was boring in one way or another thus he decided to change it by plainly speak to his beloved supervisor who cringed a little upon seeing Allen's arrival to his office.

"Komui," he said as soon as he was seated in front of the man, "Could you give me some work?"

Komui raised an eyebrow and turned his gaze from his bunny pictured mug to face Allen. "But Allen, you're pregnant, right?"

"Yes, so?"

"I don't think pregnant people should work. You could overstrain yourself!"

"Oh, please, Komui… pregnant people are not that weak. Well, at least I'm not. I think that I could still do jobs like cleaning, cooking, or washing…" Allen said slowly. He knew that doing those jobs would surely kill any of the masculine side he still possessed in him but he cared less. He just wanted to do something and if he were allowed to do those jobs he had bravely suggested, he would do it with pleasure. After all, those years of living with his master had taught him things that could make him pass the test to be a perfect housewife in flying colors.

Thinking about his master, Allen suddenly felt a familiar fear creeping inside him. Shaking the thought, he tried to focus his sight and mind back to Komui who in time being was trying not to let his mind wonder to the daydream land thinking about Allen doing those jobs like a sweet loving housewife. Kanda would kill him if he knew.

And just like what Allen felt in his remembering of his master, Komui too felt a familiar fear creeping inside him as he remembered that coldhearted man named Kanda Yuu. He shouted in fright, "But what if you hurt yourself while doing those jobs? Kanda would surely not let me alive if I do that!"

"Komui… Do. Not. Treat me like I am a fragile porcelain doll!" Allen shouted back. Then he lowered his voice when he said his next words, "Besides, I could get crazy if I didn't do anything… The people in this headquarters are all trying so hard to help fighting the Noah's family. But here I am, doing nothing and just throwing tantrums now and then. You think that I could stand it? I am used to do something for other people and yet I'm not right now…"

"But Allen…You are aiding us now by conceiving an innocent-compatible child…" Komui said as-a-matter-of-factly.

"Well yes, but it's my responsibility anyway," Allen smiled bitterly, "I am just lucky that the headquarters didn't abort this child."

"Allen…"

"Please give me a job Komui… I am feeling miserable not doing anything. And if I am given more time to rest, I will just make myself sad anyway because I think of Yuu even more…"

Allen could see Komui releasing a breath at his request. He knew maybe he was a bit demanding but he could not help it. He really needed to do something to keep him sane and he knew that Komui understood that perfectly. Therefore he was not really surprised when Komui did not argue against his words further and instead called River to come to his office. He saw those two men talking about his request and jobs that he might be able to do with his current condition. They discussed for some times before with a sigh River stared at Allen.

"I couldn't refuse this job application, can't I?" River said with a grin and Allen could not help but to reply it with a somewhat sheepish smile. "Okay Allen, I'll talk with the people in charge that you would help them. But remember, don't overstrain yourself. I will give you the freedom to start and quit on any hours. You could also help with any things that you want to do at that moment."

"You should not give me that handicap, River…"

"It's a handicap for all pregnant people in this headquarters, Allen. I am not giving you a special treatment. Either accept it, or leave it."

"Okay, then. I believe I'll start working tomorrow?" Allen asked hopefully.

River nodded with a warm smile and Allen found himself jumping from his seat to hug the man to show his gratitude. He noticed that River actually allowed himself to be squished like a loyal pillow and he laughed at it. He knew that by now they all had become somehow adapted to his displays of emotions. He felt Komui patting his shoulder and he smiled at the man. He saw them both smiling though he did not know whether they smiled because they saw his happiness or because they thought that finally chaos would leave the headquarters after they assigned works for him to do or maybe both.

They did not know that giving Allen a job meant plunging the headquarters into another unpredictable state.

Allen, who was finally having his permission, thus decided the kitchen to be his first new field of duty. The next day he came to the said place and upon seeing his coming, Jerry, the head chef, squealed in delight.

"Oh Allen, my pretty boy, you decided to work here for the first time, eh?" he said.

Allen nodded with a smile. "As much as I like eating, I also like cooking."

"Well… there is a condition for you to work here…" Jerry said with a smile that suggested nothing but evil.

Allen frowned. Knowing Jerry's smile, he was up to no good. He was a bit fretful when he said, "May I know what it is?"

He saw Jerry rummaging the kitchen's closet and then the said man brought forward… an apron. It would be no problem if the apron looked neutral, but that apron really looked girly with its soft pastel pink color and white frills on its edge. It looked so evil for Allen but the smile on Jerry's face was more than just evil when he said, "You must wear this!"

"What? I don't want to wear that!"

"Aw, come on Allen," Jerry stepped forward towards Allen with a predatory smirk upon his lips and Allen stepped backwards to avoid him. "You know you want to wear this…"

"And who said so?"

"Please, Allen?"

"No! I don't want to!" Allen stepped backwards again but found his back had already met the kitchen's wall.

"It will be a perfect thing for a perfect housewife. Kanda would surely appreciate it if he's here."

"Well, he is not here now! And that pink frilly apron looks so evil for me…" Allen shuddered. Was it just not enough for him to actually wear a dress and now that nutty man in front of him exhorted him to wear an apron.

"No, it's not. It would be radiating your motherly aura more… It would be a punishment for Kanda because he's not here to see you with this while I and the others are. He would really regret this."

Allen pondered about it for a while. A punishment for Kanda, he thought, would Kanda really feel sorry that he missed his chance to see Allen in that evil thing? "Well… if you put it that way… but no! I still don't want to!"

"Oh come on, Allen… pretty please? I'll cook your most favorite foods…"

"Food is not a match for my pride, you know…"

"How about if I teach you how to make soba and tempura?"

"Soba and tempura?" Allen perched up when he heard those words. He recalled the association between those words and his spouse and he cleared up his suspicion by asking, "You mean Yuu's favorite foods?"

Jerry nodded with a triumphant smile. Allen frowned with a sigh of defeat. "You really don't want to back up unless I wear that evil frilly pink apron did you?"

Jerry shook his head. He had the premonition that victory was already his. "Fine," Allen said, confirming his thought. "But you better teach me how to make the best soba and tempura."

Allen swallowed up all of his pride when he finally wore the apron. He could see that Jerry was purely overjoyed with the fact that he had succumbed into his request. He just blushed as Jerry commented on how cute he was and how he could almost forget that Allen was a boy. His blush deepened when Jerry teased him about what a lucky bastard his husband was. He felt that he could afford no more of Jerry's teasing so he plainly told the man to start working because if Jerry made another comment on his cuteness, Allen was sure he would beat the reddest tomato on earth by then.

Jerry grinned and he gave Allen some simple jobs such as cutting and frying things, but he never guessed that the boy with the monstrous appetite was very skilled at cooking. Jerry even dared to tell that if he was given the proper training, he could be a professional chef that could rival him. Allen smiled at Jerry and he said that it was all thanks to the torture that his master gave. But he stopped quickly at remembering his master and forced himself to work to shove out the nightmares of his master's tortures.

Allen continued and he found himself thinking about Kanda again. Would he like it if he cooked something for him? What would he think if he saw Allen with the 'evil-frilly-pink' apron? He shook his head to clear his mind of Kanda, but he found himself far from doing so. Fortunately for him, his mind could stop thinking about Kanda when it was lunch time, the rush hours for the chefs and their assistant in the headquarters.

The rush hours brought him to another state of discomfort, though. The males who were coming to the headquarters' canteen saw him with the apron when Allen was shifted to the front clerk position. They stared at him, particularly drooled at him. He rolled his eyes and he really wished at that moment for Kanda to come and protect him from those eyes. It seemed to him that those males really had nothing in their mind but to jump him senseless. It terrified him to no end and thus he walked out from the kitchen not long after, and decided that maybe there was something he could do with the laundry.

He forgot that he was still wearing the apron when he escaped from the canteen.

And so, he really had to be thankful for his oblivion when he washed the clothes. Most of the male population in the headquarters was astonished in seeing Allen. How could they not when they saw a beautiful pregnant wom… person with his seemingly soft long white hair, wearing a red flowing dress with a frilly pink apron above it, humming a nursery song while carrying a large basket full of washed clothes underneath the sunlight? Some of them thought that it was sin for a male to look that beautiful, the smaller part of them stifled their laughter in seeing Allen who usually looked like a brave young man could drastically change into a perfect model of a housewife, while some others were thinking, "Damn, he's already taken!"

It was not a surprise if most of the male population in the headquarters found themselves despising and loathing Kanda even more. If jealousy that was directed at him were acid, Kanda Yuu would surely have been dead that very time. And too add their detestation up, those men saw how Allen seemed to be so lonely in his waiting for his certain spouse to come back from his mission.

Their observation was indeed true. Even though Allen had assigned himself to various jobs by helping the finders in the headquarters, he could not make himself stop thinking about Kanda. He could shove the thoughts of his beloved husband away by day but his nights were terrible. He felt cold and so lonely without Kanda's usual warmth beside him. He wanted to be at his side, he wanted to be held by him, or at least, to see him or hear his voice and his mood-swing just made it harder for him.

Allen felt that his patience of neither seeing nor hearing Kanda grew thin everyday, especially when one month had already passed and there was no sign of Kanda and Rabi's arrival. When he asked Komui when Kanda would come back, he was always answered with a sigh and a look of regret from Komui. Even Komui did not know when Kanda would arrive. It depended on how he and Rabi handled the mission and how much their superiors were satisfied with their mission, Komui said to him one day.

They could not make contact with Kanda and Rabi too much because it was a discreet mission, Komui had said to Allen, so he could not give Allen much information about Kanda's condition and their mission progress everyday. As the mission progressed, Kanda and Rabi's communication to the headquarters was getting lesser. The communication was also as short as possible so Allen could not even say a thing to Kanda.

With his patience growing thin, Allen could not help himself to be as rational as the first time when he said that he would be okay to Kanda. His mind kept thinking about negative possibilities of why Kanda cannot handle his mission well. First he thought that Kanda might be thinking of him so he could not concentrate on his mission. But he dumped that thought because it was ridiculous for Kanda to do that. He could always concentrate at what he should do at that time, unlike Allen. He could be so focused when he was engaged at some things that he should be prioritizing.

Next, he was thinking that Kanda's mission might be really hard. But Komui had said that Kanda knew the surrounding of his location as the mission was located in his home town. Plus, he had Rabi with him. It would not take longer than one month by that fact given, right?

Then, after pondering at many possible factors that could slow down Kanda and Rabi from completing his mission for more than a month, Allen came at his depressive and irrational self again. It was because he had somehow arrived at the thinking that Kanda might be too caught up with his mission and so he forgot that Allen was waiting for him at the headquarters. He would never think that it was possible at first, but his thinking became more irrational and more delusional than before. And beside, he could come up to no other possibility he thought would be able to hold someone like Kanda Yuu back. He concluded to himself that their forgetfulness might be the fact behind the reason of why Kanda did not finish his mission quickly after all.

But why he forgot, Allen thought bitterly. Did Kanda not love him enough or had he done something that made the other not love him as much as necessary. It made Allen wondered about how deep Kanda's love to him was. Allen thought that he would not have to wait for more than one month if Kanda wanted to see him like he did. Was Kanda's love for him not deep enough?

Allen tried to convince himself that Kanda really did love him so much by replaying those happy peaceful days they shared together after they reconciled. But when he thought about how they reconciled, Allen realized that Kanda never said that he loves him. He did say to Allen that the feeling was mutual, but what would he do if Kanda thought wrongly at that time? What if Kanda's love for him turned out to be a simple crush that would soon fade away with time?

And so with those thoughts, Allen felt that he was really insecure without Kanda giving him a blatant confession. He knew that Kanda was not a really romantic person, so his hope of making Kanda said 'I love you' was slim. But he really needed Kanda's obvious affirmation because Kanda was the first person that Allen felt more important than anyone else after Mana and he felt a little bit possessive about the said person. He wanted Kanda to feel that way too about Allen, to see him like he was the most important person. He knew that it was a little bit selfish, but he had already been too unselfish too many times for his own good, right? Was it wrong for him to be a little bit selfish?

With that thought in his mind, Allen became more and more irritated and anxious with Kanda not being there by his side. Did Kanda not think about him and their child waiting for him? Without anyone to talk with since all his friends that he trusted was either gone away for a mission or too busy to listen to him, his accusation of Kanda's abandoning him deepened into a stage where he found himself torn with his depression.

He actually felt tired with his own accusation to Kanda, since he was his most important person at that time. But some part of him kept trying to convince him that what he had done was not wrong. Kanda was the one who should be considered guilty. He could not do anything anyway, so Kanda must be the one who came to him quickly. With his consciousness battling over which part of him was right, he felt more confused and depressed. He really needed Kanda or at least someone that he could talk to come to him.

It seemed his hope was answered. After nearly two month waiting with no clarity as to when Kanda would come back and after being confused for almost one month, somebody came to aid his mind. But he was not one that Allen would think about coming to the headquarters. That person arrived right after Rinali visited him on her way to file her report.

"Allen," Rinali said to him. He was in his room at that time even though it was still on the afternoon because River did not give him the permission to work full time again after seeing his depressed and exhausted condition, "There's someone here to visit you."

"Who is it?" Allen asked. "Did Yuu come back already?"

"I'm sorry to say this but he's not Kanda. The headquarters still haven't got any news from Kanda and Rabi about their arrival. It seemed that… the communication golem was crushed at their mission," Rinali said, making Allen looked crestfallen. "But I think that you would be happy to see him."

"And who might that be?"

Rinali beamed a smile at him. "He would soon visit you here. Well then, I should file this report quickly. My brother seemed to be anxious to see my report."

"I think that he was excited to see you, not the report," Allen said, feeling jealous at Komui because his sister had come back first before Kanda did.

Rinali chuckled and she said, "Well, I will be going then. You said that you would like to talk about something to me, could it be saved for later?"

Allen nodded. "Yes, don't worry about me."

"Are you sure? You look quite pale. Did you sleep right?" Rinali said with a scrutinizing gaze that left Allen feeling quite perturbed. He did not want the girl to see him broken like that.

"Well… It's a long story. You really should talk to Komui first," he said with an attempt of a smile.

"I see… Okay then Allen, I will see you tomorrow. I don't think that I would be able to escape from my brother after giving this report until tomorrow morning."

"I'll be waiting."

Rinali nodded to him and she took off to find her brother. Allen sighed and he looked outside his window. Who was the one that would visit him?

Not long after he thought about that, his door was pounded harshly. Allen frowned. Who would be that impolite in this headquarters? The finders that usually took care of him were very polite to him and they would not pound the door that harsh. Allen shouted, "Just a minute!" as he walked toward the door to open it.

Seeing who was behind the door, Allen thought it could be considered as something of a miracle that he did not get a heart attack instantly. He never thought that he would see that person standing in front of him here, giving the fact that he really hated the headquarters. He never thought that he would again face the one who had succeeded in giving him nightmares in his sleep and even in the daylight. But there he was, still standing proud and tall, and still giving bad vibes to Allen.

Standing in front of him was his very own personification of nightmares. The man who visited him was none other than his master, General Cross Marian.

-end chapter 9-

(A/N: We wrecked Allen's character, we wrecked it! And such a cliff-hanger too… but that's fine since we all love cliffhanger, right (get smacked) uh… okay, so you don't like it… (nervous laugh). Anyway… don't worry, that cliff won't hang for long (silence) okay, we admit that's not funny. Gah! Finally this chapter is done! Yay! And we swear to God that we had had that concept of seeing Allen in frilly apron before we read chapter 85 of D. Gray-Man manga where he is actually wearing that… seems that we have the same fetish as Hoshino-sensei… oh dear, is that a spoiler! Ahaha… so, review? Pretty direct, eh? But we cannot help it since we don't know any other way to ask for review… just see us now rambling like a bunch of idiots… better to stop now. So, dearest readers, hope you have a great time reading this, hope we'll meet again in the next chapters, and hope you'll give us your reviews (laugh) bye for now!)