BTW, new cannon: The Order has people from all around the world, right? So everybody has accents. I usually don't think of them that way, because all anime people look like white people and the voice acting usually doesn't allow for accents, but I think it's cute and under-addressed. From now on, Kanda has a silly Japanese accent and his 'l's and 'r's sort of blur together. Everybody has an accent, except Lavi and Allen. Lavi has no accent because he's highly trained, speaks like every major human language and has been several people over the course of his lifetime. Allen doesn't have one because he's augmented through magic, not upbringing. I might mention it in-story later, but that kind of thing just isn't something one thinks about when they've either known the other person for years, or are distracted by the fact that the other one has fins.
Also, holy fucking shit the word count for this chapter is going to be almost ALL review replies...you guys reviewed like crazy last chapter...keep that up! It's what inspired me to get this out so fast! (And trust me, this was fast, considering I forced myself to write a rather long chapter of my FMA story before I even started on this one.)
This chapter will talk a lot of auras and chi and weird Asian-sounding stuff that I'm not going to bother looking up because I am a lazy American. Being a stereotypical Japanese warrior dude is Kanda's superpower, okay?
That.
Little.
Bastard.
What had Kanda ever done to deserve this? He had saved that ungrateful little shit. And now the Japanese man was on probation-and unable to take missions-for a whole month. That asinine blond from Central HQ had even had the gall to say he'd gotten off easy. 'Learn to control yourself, Yuu Kanda,' he'd said.
Control.
Around the Beansprout, he had none.
Why? What was setting him off so much about this kid?
Everyone he passed in the hall gave him as much room as was possible, and for good reason. He was seething.
It had already been a couple of days, and he was still just as angry as when that white-headed twit had started egging him on. He was simply stalking blindly through the Order, trying not to strangle every person he saw.
"You're not doing a very good job."
Kanda snarled and whirled, planting his fist into the first thing unlucky enough to be in the way. That turned out to be a stone wall, which now had several new cracks in the rock and a nice spatter of blood from the Japanese man's freshly split knuckles.
"Fuck!"
He was vaguely aware of the only person there, an orderly that had happened to be down the hall, squeaking in terror and running for his life.
He grit his teeth and examined his hand. There was a lot of blood, but the cuts weren't that deep. There wasn't even any bone showing. If he didn't think it needed stitches, Kanda didn't worry about minor wounds. He'd had worse. He would just have to remember to wash it off later.
He was thankful for the pain though. It helped clear his head. Kanda stood there in thought, eyes tracing the rivulets of crimson down his calloused fingers and following the droplets as they fell to the floor.
'What's wrong with me lately?'
He completely lost his cool every time he saw the Beansprout. Now that he thought about it, that probably had a lot to do with the fact that the little brat was a compulsive liar. He was all smiles and sunshine until he let down an internal wall of some sort, then his chi seemed to almost shift and he became someone else. Almost like he had split personalities. The polite one, he disliked. He wasn't quite sure what to think of the other one yet. What he did know was that he despised the swap. The juxtaposition really bothered him.
What also bothered him was that he couldn't tell which one was the real one. People always had a face that they showed the public that was different than their real one, but their chi always stayed basically the same. But both his faces seemed to have a life of their own. Kanda had thought this boy was relatively normal when he'd carried his passed out form from the beach a month ago, but now...he didn't think that was the case.
Lavi had been avoiding Kanda like the plague for the past few days, so he guessed the other man was upset about him kicking the shit out of that kid. Which was a bit strange, because the Beansprout really seemed to bother the red head.
There was obviously something going on that Kanda didn't yet understand. Normally, he wouldn't care about such things, but this particular mystery seemed to keep tripping him up; he was fucking sick of it.
Tomorrow, Kanda would find that brat. He didn't know what he'd do when he saw him, but dammit, something was going to change.
The swordsman kept his eye on the kid throughout a lunch that Lavi was conspicuously absent from.
Finally, he got up to leave (presumably to use the facilities) and Kanda knew it was now or never. He waited a minute or two, so it wouldn't be so obvious that he was following the Beansprout, then got up and disposed of his dishes and left the cafeteria.
The bathroom was located pretty close to the mess hall, so he saw the kid right away. He was just standing there. Literally, just gawking at his feet like he'd never seen them before. Kanda made a note to pay very close attention to his aura this time. It was turbulent right now-he was obviously struggling with something.
Kanda stood in front of the Beansprout for a full thirty seconds before he got fed up with waiting and snapped his fingers in front of that stupid scarred face. The kid jumped about a foot in the air and looked like he was going to say something in that overly sweet way of his, until he finally seemed to register exactly who was standing there. Kanda watched closely as the boy straightened up, his whole being seeming to shift as he did. His eyes were sharper now, the grey orbs narrowed into a glare. Surprisingly, his body seemed to relax, muscles less tense. The energy he emitted swirled restlessly, like it couldn't quite figure out what form it was meant to take.
'Interesting. Maybe if I push him a bit more, I can figure this out.'
Kanda took a step forward, and he didn't move. So the Japanese man tried to close the distance between them, only to find the white haired boy retreating, matching him step for step. Until his back hit the wall, of course. Finally bringing himself within mere centimeters, the long haired man could see the kid's pupils begin to dilate. At this angle, the Beansprout's neck below his collar was clearly visible and his pulse point was beating fast and hard.
'Who are you? Are you a man, or a mask?'
Kanda fixed his most penetrating glare on the boy, looking him straight in the eyes, willing either the man to show himself or the mask to crumble.
What he received was a defiant look and a darkening of stormy eyes. For just an instant, his aura righted itself, morphing into something strong, yet soft, with an underlying current of something that Kanda didn't quite recognize, but was strangely familiar.
This was definitely a real person, not a front. And a person with a will of iron, if he could stand up to that glare without shirking. That was good. Kanda could respect that kind of strength. This one had a hidden warrior's spirit.
He looked almost...beautiful, like this.
'I want him. I want him like this, strong and sure.'
The urge to take him in this instant, while he wasn't just a Moyashi was overwhelming, and Kanda readily gave in.
The taller man leaned down and kissed the boy without hesitation, releasing a pleased growl when he felt a pair of pale lips press back willingly against his own.
He felt more than heard someone moan beneath him. Hands fluttered at his sides, either too unsure or too unfocused to stay in any one place. Kanda snatched a narrow chin and forced the boy's mouth open so he could explore with his tongue. Fuck, he tasted like sweets. Kanda shrugged it off and was unsurprised by Beansprout's obvious lack of experience with this.
Kanda only let go and pulled back a bit when he was running out of oxygen. The kid was panting like he'd just run a marathon and flushed from head to toe. It was a satisfying thing, to see him that affected. Kanda liked this side of the Beansprout too. No, that wasn't right...he was more than a stupid little kid just now...
Kanda spoke, breaking the relative silence that had covered them thus far.
"That wasn't bad...Neah."
The name was supposed to serve as recognition, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. He seemed rather startled by it and looked sort of...hurt? He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again, along with everything else he'd shown so far. Grey eyes went flat, and his energies once again went into muted chaos.
He just nodded and mumbled something about getting back before people started to wonder where he was, then scurried off without looking back.
Fuck.
That kid was such a pain to figure out! Kanda's curiosity was piqued now though, and with a whole month of being stuck in this place before him, the man knew he would be unable to resist approaching the white haired boy again.
Goddammit, why couldn't things just go his way for once?
To My Reviewers:
Kuroki Katsumi- Oh, a new reader! How lovely! Hello there, dear, thanks for reading! I'm super happy you like it! Yeah, lots of people have told me they were a bit hesitant to start, I wonder why? I must just suck at summaries.
xx-Yuu-Chan-xx- You'll find out about Link soon!
wierdsquirrelgirl- Aww, but who wouldn't want to be harassed by Kanda? ;P
harajuku96- Ah, thank you! I support Laven and Yullen too, so this is a lot of fun for me. ^_^
PatchDolly- Yeah, you can have all of them. Just wait til we get to the really steamy scenes.
xenawp532- *runs from chainsaw of lurv*
anicraze009- Yeah, you were right about the last sentence. ^_^
Tintaglia In Flight- I adore long reviews, you have no idea. I'd rather have 20 long reviews than a hundred one sentence bits. (Though I immensely appreciate every single one I get.) I don't know if there will be an Allen war, more like a lot of angsty makeouts. Yeah, Kanda will me more gentle sometimes. Then again, Kanda's version of 'gentle' usually just involves not maiming whoever he's talking to, but hey, who cares? Kanda might hear Seaspeech at some point, idk. He's gonna slowly start figuring things out on his own, it will just take a while because he's kind of a moron. The thing with Link will come into play soon.
scrletfyre- Hehe, how did you like it?
Kichi Hisaki- I don't feel all that bad for Lavi. If Allen Walker started stripping in front of me, I break out the camera.
Conrii- What were you confused about?
DPchick- Neah and Kanda just don't mesh well.
Aki-chan26- Cliffhangers are a bitch, aren't they? (Mwahahahaha!)
silverskies87- Yes, you can have some more Yullen. A round of Yullen for everybody, on the house!
Oaken Wren- I'm glad you liked it! What did you think about this one?
EXO718- Oh well, at least I can't get skewered by a slingshot.
Kinkylittlewolf- *Squees back*
Lola- the mysterious entity- I'm glad you are so excited for this!
blackirishawk- Yeah, what will Lavi think? *giggle*
Kurazilssia- No, you two, keep Kussia from hyperventilating so she can keep reading! What did you guys think of the kiss from Kanda's side of things?
Hinata's Shadow1- Achievement Unlocked: Best Cliffhanger (Yay!)
AzureKurashin- Lol, you had a bit of a keyboard seizure in your last review. And Lavi is not pushing him away, per se, but he's more comfortable keeping people at arm's length. *blush* I-I'm not amazing at all...
lil fayri grrl- He does think that he's kissing Neah, kinda. That's mostly due to a lack of information though. And yeah, I'm totally going to put in 'the talk' for Allen, just because I want to try and describe Lavi's face during the event. Ohmygod, can you imagine?
Kyrstal Nite- There will be varying degrees of hot and cold in the relationships for a while, but as more the end result, go on Wikipedia and look up polyamory. That should explain it better than I have.
sammi117- I know. *evil smirk*
Hanashi o suru- Yeah, I seem to get getting a shitload of reviews lately. Not that I'm complaining, but I feel a little bad about driving my word count up so much by including replies in chapters. I'd start sending out PMs, but a bunch of people seem to read all the review replies because they've figured out that I drop hints and headcannons into this section and in my author's notes.
makeitamission- You think it's perfect? *faints* And yeah, you were totally right about that. XD