CHAPTER THIRTEEN: And He Replied With a Shrug
It is difficult to mull over what you did with a certain someone on a drunken night, when you are being stared at by every person you pass by because you are carrying the mall-purchased stuff of the said someone, who just happens to be one of the most good-looking effeminate Asian boys you've ever met in your entire forsaken life. We certainly cannot blame Allen Walker for not being able to let his mind wander onto what he deems as an important reconnaissance activity (which should have been taking place in his brain right now), for he is in such predicament as the aforementioned difficult situation.
In fact, he is so bothered, by what can only be thousands of eyes staring in their wake, that he is beginning to think of the entire situation in the most intellectual way possible (and by that he means he is using difficult words whilst thinking to himself, and sentences which might not technically have incorrect grammar, but are still otherwise confusing). The said someone however (whom we all know is Kanda Yuu), seems to not care in the least about the looks (which are obviously more directed towards him than to poor unnerved Allen Walker). He exudes the air of Kanda Yuu branded nonchalance (which is indifference with a slight tinge of irritation towards his immediate company). He walks on, brisk in his steps, peculiarly more fazed by the mere fact that he is late for some 'shitty event' (as he called it), than by the alarming fact that all eyes were on him.
Woefully, the Englishman mutters to himself if the people in the darn mall had not seen a Japanese pretty boy before, because he finds those sort Japanese boys to be common (on the other hand, when he says that he finds them common, he of course, means that they are common on TV, because he has not really met anyone of the said nationality, with the obvious unfortunate exception of Kanda). He tightens his hold on the handles of the paper bags (containing the clothes which would be the gifts for Kanda's 'friend'), because his hands are honestly starting to grow sore. He picks up his pace, telling himself that the sooner they got out of that place, the better. And when he saw, those rotating doors at the main entrance, he felt relief washing over him. He followed Kanda's example, when the Japanese all but ran towards the said door. But just when Allen thinks that he's gained freedom from all the stares, he finds that the people from outside have also caught the 'stare at Kanda' disease. The journey home, Walker thinks, will be long and torturous.
"It's gotten pretty dark hasn't it?" Allen says, in a feeble attempt to brighten up the mood
"Sure bean, rub it in, we're late enough as it is" trying to make small talk had apparently been a bad idea
"Oh come on Kanda, they always expect me to be at least an hour late for the party, so if you think about it, we aren't actually late"
Ignoring the fact that Allen seemed to already know why they made this little trip (a fact he was supposed to keep 'secret'), Kanda says "You might not have the decency to be punctual, but I DO"
The Englishman sighs "Hey, it's never my fault I get late, my companion usually just gets carried away, besides, calm down, we aren't late"
"But we WILL be if you don't stop yapping and start WALKING" the Japanese hisses thereafter
"Alright already…" the snow haired boy rolls his eyes "Geez Kanda you're so uptight"
The taller man chooses not to answer than, and swiftly walks on in silence. Allen decides to pick up the pace as well. It doesn't take them too long to get to the bus stop. Suspiciously, there weren't very many people there. Kanda doesn't seem to mind how alone they are, so Allen just stands there silent too as they waited. Eventually the bus comes and they board it. After a two minute squabble, Allen ends up paying for them both.
About fifteen minutes later they get down at the bus stop that was just a few blocks away from the Black Order Apartment Building. Kanda wastes no time and begins to walk. Allen silently follows him. Just when they were about one block away from the apartment build, they hear someone calling for them.
"Hey!" says the voice. It was masculine, coarse, and haughty. And to Allen's ears it sounded very suspicious, and that is why he chooses to ignore it.
"Hey you!" the voice shouts again. The Englishman bites his lower lip, thinks 'ignore' repeatedly in his head like a mantra.
"Hey when someone's talkin' to you, you answ—"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP" and right after Kanda says that Allen's eyes become impossibly wide. They'd both stopped walking, and atmosphere became tense (or maybe that was just the Englishman being tense).
Allen turns to the direction the voice to see the reaction of whoever it was that owned it. He sees that it's a shady looking man with a poorly groomed mustache and thinning hair, he was taller than both of them and he seemed to be a tad muscular. Definitely someone they should have ignored.
"Kanda" Allen whispers "Calm down… please…" the shady man was still staring at them in surprise. The look eventually turns into one of amusement however, Allen cannot decide if that is a good or bad thing.
"Well now aren't you a feisty one" he walks to stand in front of Kanda "What do you say I buy you a drink girly boy?"
Kanda doesn't answer him.
"Playin' hard to get huh" the man says after a minute or two, he leans in so his face is only about two inches away from Kanda. "I like that"
Not a second later, the dark-haired man shoves him away and moves for a punch; much to his annoyance Allen grabs his wrist to stop him. "Kanda calm down!" the Englishman shouts, relieved that somehow he'd prevented the contact between nose and fist.
"Tsch, so you want a fight huh?" to Allen's horror he spots a few people moving out of the shadows. Tightening his grip on both Kanda wrist and Kanda's mall-purchased items (which were all conveniently in paper bags), he takes a deep breath and makes a run for it.
……………………………
Lenalee Lee has not held a single 'bad party' in her life. Even the mere suggestion that she might fail, is taboo (if you so ever attempt to do so, the tenants will tell you about the unfortunate event of two years ago involving Komui and the poor ignorant (unsuspecting) former tenant of what is now Kanda's apartment). However, nobody is ever forced to say her parties are good, because they ARE in fact good. Stupendous even. She appropriates each party to the tenant's personality and/or mood. And for Allen Walker, it is always a pool party. Everybody loves Allen Walker Pool Parties arranged by Lenalee Lee. Lavi loves them because he gets to see girls in their bikinis, Lenalee loves them because she actually gets to wear a bikini (other days, her brother would have been vehemently against it), everyone else loves them because the booze in Allen Walker Pool Parties are usually the BEST among the booze ever served at Black Order Apartment Building parties. Better than Christmas booze, better than New Year booze, better than the Komui arranged Lenalee Lee Super Special Birthday Party booze. In short it was damn good booze.
Allen Walker Pool Parties often begin without the celebrant. In fact, by the time the celebrant comes back, one or two people might be drunk already. This is because whoever is tasked to distract Allen is told to arrive with him AT LEAST 30 minutes late. Usually this is extended to an hour. Lavi and Lenalee are usually the ones who stay back at Allen's apartment to greet the celebrant 'surprise!'. This day is no exception.
"What do you suppose held them up?" Lavi strangely says this question like he's talking to an audience rather than to someone in particular "It's kinda unlike Yuu to NOT be early… Didn't take him for the tardy type…"
Lenalee replies "I suppose they've taken their affair to whole new level" and she smiles thereafter
"Nah, can't be that. I mean, what can happen on a trip to a mall that'd initiate THAT?" Lavi replies
"The same can be said for a dinner out with Kanda's FAMILY, who'd expect they'd initiate something from THAT?"
"Well…" Lavi scratches his head "… I imagine that many things can happen beneath the dinner table, especially if they had been sitting beside or across each other."
Lenalee lets out a low whistle "Shameless thoughts Lavi, but very insightful. That might have well been what happened"
"And then they raced up into Allen's room and consummated the passion they've been containing for so long!" Lavi exclaims with much emotion
But before Lenalee can give another cleverly constructed reply, the door goes 'click!' and Allen and Kanda enter the room (looking suspiciously spent).
"SURPRISE!" Lavi and Lenalee yell, Lavi adding "Wow Lenalee, you were so right" right after
"Wow...Thank…you…" Allen struggles to say, in between pants and wheezes
"She's right?" Kanda says, and then he wheezes "Right about what?"
"About why you two are late" Lavi replies
"She saw them?" Allen's eyes widen in surprise, as do Kanda's but less so
The doorman knits his eyebrows together in confusion "Them who?"
And the Englishman replies, matter-of-factly, "The thugs who were chasing after us"
"There were thugs chasing after you?"
"Yes, we ran around the block ten fuckin' times, which is why we are LATE" Kanda exclaims
"Don't mind him he's just angry I grabbed him and ran before he punched the first guy" which probably meant that Allen knew there were others aside from this first guy, and that he saved their behinds, much to Kanda's annoyance
"Well aren't YOUR lives exciting" Lenalee says, then quickly adds "But no need to mull over that now, get into your swim wear and head onto the roof, the party's already begun"
"See you guys there!" Lavi exclaims "And Happy sort-of Birthday Allen" and he waits till Lenalee leaves the room, before he slams the door shut
Allen looks at Kanda.
"…"
Kanda looks at Allen.
"…"
The Englishman decides to talk first "Well I—"
"Why the fuck did you stop me from punching him?"
Allen's sort of surprised Kanda was asking him, he'd figured the man was just going to dismiss it as another one of Allen's 'irksome bean' moments. "He had company"
"I could have taken them" the Japanese seemed to have full confidence in this statement
The snow-haired boy begged to differ "No you couldn't have, not all of them. You and I would have come back with really bad bruises"
" Yeah? Well at least I would have given those bastards what they'd deserved. Besides, it's not as if I would have asked you to help me."
"That's not the point Kanda, we—" Allen pauses, really thinks about whether or not trying to explain himself had any point right now, decides it didn't, and so he says "Never mind"
Silence ensues for several moments.
"I'm gonna get dressed" the Japanese says finally, walking towards the door to his apartment
"You're actually going to the party?"
"The consequences of NOT going are worse than those of actually going" Kanda shrugs and Allen sees the act in slow motion. It's a ridiculous truth that for some reason or other, many of the turning points in the Englishman's life, he'd seen in slow motion. His first step father's death, his first kiss, the moment he learned he passed the entrance exam to his university, all of those had happened in slow motion. Lately Allen has been seeing Kanda do many things in slow motion, it was strange, he can't exactly pinpoint why exactly. This time though, he's pretty sure, that it's because there was something about the shrug which he found to be strangely familiar.
"Your shrug is…" Allen gulps, not quite sure of why he was actually saying this out loud "…familiar…" maybe it's the fact that they were in his apartment again, maybe it's the fact that they are really, officially, without at doubt, ALONE (without any real chance of someone interrupting then any time soon) that makes Allen think of this now.
"That's… a strange thing to say bean" but it doesn't really take long for Kanda to figure out why on earth Allen would say something like that about a shrug. "Does it make you… remember anything?" sure he'll remember something, technically a shrug was the beginning of—
"Kinda" Allen says and he walks a bit towards Kanda "Could you maybe… uh… Do one of the things you did after you shrugged?" so, Kanda concludes, that Allen has some vague idea of what happened that night already. But seeing as he was in some sort of daze, vague might have the adverb "really" preceding it.
"I only remember one of the things I did after that" Kanda announces, thinking Allen might take a hint
"Makes it easier for you then" but the Englishman just continued to look at him with a half-dazed and half-expectant face.
Kanda just KNOWS that the Englishman will regret not thinking about his requests later on. So he voices this opinion out loud "You're gonna regret this later on"
"Then at least I'd stop trying to remember everything else that happened" and that, the Japanese thinks, is actually a good point. So maybe the request wasn't so unwitting after all. MAYBE
Kanda mentally tells himself that he shouldn't really care about the bean's FEELING or whatever anyway, and so he says "Suit yourself" and closes the distance between them, roughly pulling Allen's hair to bring the shorter one close. His lips touches the Englishman's.
What's strange is the fact that it isn't strange. What's strange is the fact that Allen does remember this weird (but not horrible) taste. What's strange is he can now remember this. This, the feeling of Kanda's breath mingling with his, the feeling of a foreign object invading the inside of his mouth, the feeling of actually LOVING being utterly deprived of air. What was strange was, he remembered this, and he actually did not want to forget.
………………………….
(Original A/N: n_n Right, so I haven't had classes for an entire week now (which is why I managed to finish this up), because a typhoon struck the capital region, and many other Southern Tagalog regions of my country (which is the Philippines). Thankfully my city wasn't hit as bad as the rest. But since the other cities are pretty devastated, classes have been suspended here in the capital. Apparently another super typhoon is approaching the capital right now, and in light of that, I thought that I had to post this NOW because the typhoon might put the capital's electricity source out of commission for a while, and then I wouldn't be able to post this for at least another week. Uhm, also, my university's academic Calendar got a bit messed up SO my sem-break got pushed back a bit and that might mean that I won't post the next chapter till mid or late this month. MIGHT mean. But If all goes well I'll be posting something on my birthday 8D which is on the 17th . Anyway, Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, and please tell me if I missed anything in my attempt to self-edit)
A/N after edit: I changed this chapter up quite a lot. Quite a few added scenes. I'm not actually sure if it's better than the original, the original seemed to lack some important details which made it feel awkward, this has more details, but it might still be awkward, I dunno. Also, I was thinking that having Kanda and Allen unwittingly sleep together makes their attraction seem more like sexual tension than romance, so I was thinking I'd lay off making them do anything beyond kissing for chapters 17 and above