I enjoyed writing their dialog, pretty hard, but fun :D

Enjoy!


A whisper.

"I'm sorry."

Kanda blinks, eyes fixed on the ceiling. "Did Lavi just apologise?"

"A-hem. I'm sorry." A bit louder now, to be sure Kanda heard.

Kanda turns his face to look at Lavi standing in the middle of his room with his head lowered and his eye trying to peek at him from under his brow.

"I heard you the first time."

Lavi's head shoots up with an outraged pout drawing his lower lip first open, then closed and sticking out.

"You meany, why did you make me apologise twice?!"

"I didn't make you!"

"Well you didn't say anything! I thought you hadn't heard!"

"Tch." And Kanda goes back to staring at the ceiling.

"And here I thought I was the mean one… tch." Lavi talks to himself, but loud enough so that Kanda hears it, and of course the Japanese snaps at it.
"Oh no, don't you tch me!"

"Well it's not like you invented it, so sue me."

"Is that how you usually apologise to people?! Get outta here then."

Lavi virtually smacks himself. "Good job of making up with him."

"No Yuu-chan, I'm sorry, I truly am. I'd like to help you."

"Well, there is something you could do to make me feel better."

Lavi brightens up immediately: "Yeah, everything you want, I can bring you food, change your bandages, give you a foot massage, I could even kiss you again! Anything for you Yuu-chan, anything!"

"Stop calling me Yuu-chan."

"Yeah, ok sorry. So, what is it I can do for you?" Eager Lavi hasn't really caught up on Kanda's request, and Kanda almost snaps at his stupid friend.

"I said: stop calling me Yuu-chan. This will make me feel better."

"Oh…" Lavi is sincerely saddened by this. He truly was ready to help Kanda feel better, and the boy just wanted him gone and far. He looses his cheerful mask, his lonely heart showing through his act and very softly speaks:

"Ok… Kanda… if this is what you want. I'm going back to my room."

This reaction is so not Lavi-like that it hurts Kanda and even if he should feel happiness overwhelm him since it is the first time he actually got Lavi to drop the nickname and leave him alone, he instead feels something he hates, guilt, and as Lavi opens the door to leave, his shoulders hunched over, he snaps:

"Oh fine. Stay here with me for a while, just don't be too much of an asshole."
And while Lavi turns around, eyes wide as teacups and the widest grin he can manage spread across his face he adds, trying to regain some of his scary attitude:

"I'm warning you, if you make me angry I will make you pay for it as soon as I can stand up."

But the threat just washes over Lavi, just like a mother's warning would not impress a boy that is finally getting to go play football, and his happiness makes him almost shine as he hurries back inside and nods frantically: "Yes of course, Yuu-chan. I'll be careful!"

The fact that he has started again to call him by that much hated nickname proves to Kanda that he has just given up on the only victory he would ever manage against Lavi and he sighs, almost paternally.

But Lavi surprises him once more taking the nickname back and apologising:

"Sorry Kanda, no more Yuu-chan… for a while at least."

And as he sits on the floor resting his back against Kanda's bed a timid smile stretches Lavi's lips, a true, sincere, timid smile. A smile that slightly upsets Kanda, like something very important just happened and that it was not just about keeping him company. He feels he has inadvertently touched something very deep in Lavi with a small sentence, and it feels so awkward to have such a serious looking Lavi casting a warm smile at him that he almost wishes for the stupid Lavi to surface back:

"Don't make a big deal out of this. I just can't sleep on this fucking mattress."

And at this Lavi indeed snaps back to his cheerful self, the instantaneous effort to switch personality not missed by Kanda's perceptive eyes.

"Oh come on Kanda don't lie to yourself, everyone needs warmth and cuddles during a hard mission! It's called a stress reliever!"

"Don't you try anything like that on me horny rabbit! I don't need any stress reliever!"

"Oh and here I thought I could snuggle up with you in your bed tonight…"

"All right, I take it back, go back to your room and don't come in here ever again."

Lavi laughs, wholeheartedly. It always feel good to be with Kanda, somehow his threats and rude behaviour don't intimidate him. It's like they aren't for real, just a game, just an act Kanda plays. Well, some threats are quite scary, especially the ones supported by Mugen… but all in all it feels like they are acting out on fixed roles, as if Kanda's behaviour too was just a mask he needs to wear. It's like they both know that they are just acting according to the character of their role, but what's behind the mask, the actor, is different.

Well, yeah, what is it that bonds them behind the mask?

Friendship, for sure. They couldn't be around each other at all if they didn't know that behind their fake acts was a totally different person. One they can stand, one they would call friend.

Trust, too. Hell, he acts as a stupid clown most of the time, but even Kanda knows he can rely on him when the time comes, and he knows that even if Kanda doesn't give a crap about him normally, he would let an Akuma chop him up just to save him.

Affection. Although he is sure this is one thing that Kanda would never admit. But they've been fighting so long together and gone through both hard and happy times that Lavi is sure this feeling has surfaced in Kanda's heart.

Woah, Kanda's heart. That's a thought that makes him laugh. All Kanda's act is based on the fact that he is an heartless bastard and instead there he was, feeling guilty for having treated Lavi with coldness.

So he chuckles, head comfortably laying on Kanda's mattress and Kanda, who has been thinking about how Lavi can make him go from the verge of homicidal frenzy to care about him, tilts his head and asks, not as rudely as he would have done earlier on:

"What's so funny rabbit head?"

"Nothing Kanda, it just feels good to share a room."

"Mmm…"

"Woah, Kanda has just admitted he likes having me here? Holy crap!" And he tries to shred the awkward silence that Kanda's admission has caused: "Ehy, why can you call me names and I can't call you Yuu-chan?"

"Because you don't hate it."

"Oh so you would stop if I told you I hate being called rabbit head?"

Silence.

"You would?!" More of an astounded statement than a question.

"Of course not, rabbit head!"

"He hesitated… God, would he really stop if I hated it? Ooh I really want to hug him now! He's just too cute to act cold!"

"Say, why do I have to sit on the floor again?"

"Because this is my bed and I don't want you here. Besides, I'm injured and you thrash about too much when you sleep."

"Oh."

A pout.

A sudden grin.

"Then I won't sleep!"

And he jerks himself up, crawling into Kanda's bed, against all of the boy's cries and growls.

Kanda isn't really fighting that much, he could bite and pinch and head blow at Lavi but instead he just tries not to be squished by scooting left a bit and grumbling softly. He's far too consenting and Lavi smiles snuggling up to him, resting his head on the boy's shoulder. A thousand Bookman questions come up to his mind but get quite easily pushed aside not to taint this moment.

Kanda too is quite surprised and can't really understand why he is giving in so easily to Lavi, blaming it on none other than God himself, for making him so weakened he can't even put up a decent fight for his own body.


comments? :)

I love it when you talk with a friend like they do here, intimate, trustfull, quite in semi-darkness... close, close, souls touching :)