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The wind was unusually ferocious that night; it was dusted with the memories of hurt, dousing the night sky with cold tears. Allen wrapped herself up in a blanket and closed her eyes, though flashes of green eyes and then dark eyes routinely flitted under her eyelids. She was determined not to think about Lavi or Kanda or any other person that night. She needed a good night's rest in order to think properly the next day.

She awoke to a dark dawn. The morning passed in a blur, and it was with a heavy heart that she made her way to the cafeteria for lunch, dreading the thought of seeing Lavi's face as she remembered it – contorted with the untouchable weight of painful emotions. Lenalee and Kanda met her at their usual seat, but Lavi was nowhere to be seen.

"Lenalee, where's Lavi?" Allen asked worriedly. She hoped he hadn't done anything silly like suiciding just because she had refused his affections.

"He left last night, Allen. You told him last night, didn't you?" Lenalee replied.

Allen's eyes opened wide. "How did you know?"

"Kanda found a note this morning on their desk. Lavi said he would be going off for a while because his heart needed healing. And I know that he took you out to dinner yesterday. I can put one and one together to get two, Allen." Lenalee answered.

"Oh. I hope he's okay…" Allen sighed regretfully.

"He'll be okay. It happened before, a couple of times too, but he hasn't died yet. He just needs some quiet." Lenalee tried to reassure Allen.

"You sure?" Allen asked.

"Che, Moyashi, he'll be fine. Now stop babbling!" Kanda glared at Allen. Why was the Moyashi so concerned about Lavi? Surely she couldn't have fallen for him in one night? Kanda felt his heart beating erratically. His irritation was growing.

Allen's only response was to return a glare to Kanda.

After a relatively peaceful lunch without much conversation (Lenalee had tried to keep the conversation going, but Kanda was naturally reticent and Allen was still a little worried about Lavi, so she didn't succeed), the trio headed out to the park to enjoy one of the last days of autumn. Nearly all the trees were bare now, and most of the brightly coloured leaves were gone, lying in desolate heaps of similar dead leaves. Allen saw the empty branches and wanted to cry. Lavi had really been a most wonderful friend to her. And now… she had put a whole distance between herself and him because of a silly thing known as romantic love. The leaves were like their friendship – beautiful and promising, but now slowly dying in the face of a horrible twist of fate.

Kanda heard the tiny sigh that rose from the chest of his white-haired friend. He flinched at the thought that she might be sad about Lavi's departure. She's mine. And then he stopped walking and shook his head, as if he were trying to clear his thoughts and chase their airy feet out of the recesses of his mind. What am I thinking?!

Unfortunately for Allen, Kanda's sudden movement caught her unawares. Eyes still raking the ground aimlessly, she ended up with her face pressed into Kanda's back. Both stiffened. Kanda's heart almost stopped for a second, and his eyes popped wide open, veins seen in detail beneath the thin skin. Meanwhile, Allen realised that she had not, in fact, smashed into a tree. Rather, she realised, her face was now ensconced in the warm coat that Kanda was wearing. She was touching Kanda!

All too soon, they moved apart; Allen took a step back, while Kanda stepped forward and turned.

"What was that for, Moyashi?" His voice had a threatening quality to it; Allen shivered at the menace it possessed.

"Tsk, Bakanda. You should know better than to stop without warning!" Allen shot back.

Lenalee sighed and shook her head. A migraine was coming on. Why were they always arguing? With another sigh she slipped away to enjoy a cool peaceful afternoon by herself, leaving her arguing friends behind.

"Well, where are your eyes? A normal person wouldn't have her eyes on the floor all the time!"

"Ohh?"

"White-haired freak of a Moyashi." Kanda said in a cutting tone. He regretted his words the instance they left his mouth. The few words seemed to spiral through time and space, first creating an empty void between them, with hurt hanging palpable in the cold autumn air, before they broke the painful, fragile silence with a loud clash.

Allen couldn't believe her ears. Had Kanda just called her a white-haired freak? She turned and ran from him, wiping the shadows of tears off her face with the back of her hand. Had she looked back, she would have seen Kanda looking at her fading figure with a regretful and puzzled expression on his face. He had seen those tear-flecks in the gray islands of her eyes, and had wanted to reach out and apologise, which was something he rarely did. But she had turned and ran away in a matter of seconds, and the hand he was about to extend to pat her shoulder fell limply to his side.

*

The day came to an end in the same fashion that it started. Allen curled up in her armchair, with only her table lamp switched on. On her lap was a book of translated poems. Her fingers traced the words as her eyes took them in.

Did he appear

because I fell asleep

thinking of him?

If only I'd known I was dreaming,

I'd never have wakened.

I dreamt of Kanda last night. He came up to me and swept me into his strong arms, and told me that he loved me a thousand times. He promised to go with me into the deeps of the world, and to help me in my mission to heal the hurts of the world. I should have realised that it was all a dream, a pretty nightmare shrouded in the hurts of day. Why did I not shake myself awake? Why did I even dream of such a heartless jerk? Maybe he appeared because I thought a tad too much about him yesterday afternoon, just before Lavi came along. But it was a pleasant dream. My dream Kanda is so much more agreeable than the real one. If only I'd known that I was dreaming, I would never have wakened to face this tiresome world.

Night deepens

with the sound

of a calling deer,

and I hear

my own one-sided love.

I wonder how Lavi is doing now. Where is he? I hope he's not walking out there in the storm and the thunder. Wherever he is now, is he looking up at the sky, thinking about his one-sided love? Perhaps he's sitting by a clock, watching the minutes tick by as he tries to reinstall his sanity. And here, in the heart of the storm, I sit and listen to the echoes of ill-fated love. Kanda feels nothing for me. I have a clock here too, and the minute hand flies by with all the haste of the living. Night deepens, and I know that Kanda does not care for me, as surely as the fact that there are no deer here.

This entangling wind

is just like

last autumn's gust.

Only the dew of tears

on my sleeve is new.

This autumn wind brings nothing new. Last autumn there were similar gusts too. Only, now my tears fall again, but for entirely different reasons. Last year I cried for my non-existent family, for the debts I had to repay. This year, I cry for my misfortune in love, for the people whose feelings I have hurt and for my own hurt feelings too.

The wind howled loudly, her piercing screech rattling the glass windowpanes. Allen looked up. Lightning flashed, and she saw the entire campus lit in a harsh florescent light, like the backdrop of an old, faded photograph. Fingers of rain tapped against her windows, and she thought she saw the eyes of night peering into her dim room. And Lavi was out there, dancing in the sky with Lady Love in the lightning-lit sky.

Allen shivered. Her mind was playing tricks on her. Guilt and resentment and sleepiness – sleep would be a panacea. She leaned back in her chair, white hair flowing, while the wind and the rain danced outside and mocked the hapless world.

A/N: It's finally friday again! I've had a horrible day today - I can't decide if I should drop my extra lessons. If I do, I might not be able to read medicine in the future... but I don't like the lessons. Dilemna! D:

Okay that's not the point haha. I apologise if you think this chapter is crappy. The poems were a little extra, perhaps. I don't know, when I wrote this around the end of November I was into Japanese poems. The first two poems were written by Ono no Komachi, while the last was written by Izumi Shikibu. I think the poems are really very pretty haha, so yeahh.

Heh, and of course, thank you to my reviewers! (:

Last of all, thanks for reading! Reviews are much appreciated, and constructive criticism is welcome (: