If I owned DGM, there would be more flashbacks to Allen's past, because he is the definition of cute!

Author Note: I have been getting several reviews asking for a long chapter, and I would like to answer those. The reason I do chapters shorter is that when I started, I swore I wouldn't take forever to update like most do. Thus, all chapters never are concluded before they get to 2,500 words, and I try to keep them from going over 3,000. This keeps the updates coming, and room for cliffhangers, which I know everyone just loves!

Bruise

Chapter 17: Admit

Sitting in the floor of the training room, I breathe heavily in my turtleneck and athletic pants, muscles aching from hours of flips and acrobatics. Another week had passed, and Lavi and Kanda were both on missions. Different ones, of course.

I didn't really have much to do lately. Most the time I trained, took five hour long baths, or had my daily meal, but nothing exciting had happened other than the outrageously short mission I had been sent on. Actually, nothing exciting had happened since I realized that Kanda was in love with me, though I was still in denial.

First off, why? Of all the beautiful, single, talented girls that he could easily make fall in love with him, he had to choose the guy that he was supposed to hate. Kanda could make girls sleep with him just by smirking that stupid, arrogant smirk he always wore, not to mention how much his hair could influence a decision. How on Earth could he find me attractive or even worth a glimpse? At some point, I'm pretty certain he told me I was hideous, though that was before the mirror thing happened. Speaking of, shouldn't I clean that?

Second, wasn't he supposed to be asexual? I can see him using girls for his own pleasure, but Kanda loving someone? Never. Again, why me? He could have at least chosen someone who would reciprocate the feeling! But then again, he was sweet and loving when he wanted to be. His touches were so soft when he had cleaned my wounds, like I would shatter if he was the slightest bit rough with my fragile body, and he could speak in a voice that made me wonder if he was an angel hiding behind the exterior of a heartless jerk.

Third, I had a boyfriend. Sure, sometimes Lavi made me feel worthless, but he doesn't mean to, and even when he hits me, he always makes up for it. I didn't deserve anymore with how pathetic I am, and nothing would change that. But I can't help but wonder: what would it be like to be Kanda's boyfriend?

I can imagine waking up in his arms every morning, warmth surrounding me before he gets up to get ready for the rest of the day. If I was lucky that day, he might, just maybe, let me brush his hair, snapping at me after ten minutes that I needed to hurry up, and then he would walk me to the cafeteria. He'd make sure I ate plenty, and afterwards, he wouldn't let me purge, telling me that my body was perfect the way it was and emphasizing it with a long, passionate kiss. We'd train for a few hours, and maybe it would start raining, but even though he wasn't keen on the idea, Kanda would allow me to drag him out into the downpour. Later on, he'd force me into the shower, because I got mud in my hair, and the door would be wide open while he read on the bed. When I look around in the shower, my razor is gone, probably buried somewhere behind the Order, and when I get out, I get dressed before flopping down on the bed next to him. Kanda would smirk, asking why I had gotten dressed, and I would be so confused, wondering if he didn't like my shirt, but the thought would be cut off when he pinned me down, claiming my lips with his own. At first I'd struggle, but my objections would die on my lips after a moment, and when we finally do go to sleep, we both had to take another shower.

Smiling, I blush at the thought. Maybe that was unrealistic, but it was worth a daydream. After all, it wouldn't happen anyways.

"Moyashi?"

Glancing up, I see Kanda standing in the doorway of the training room and holding Mugen on his shoulder. He was wearing his black and red exorcist uniform undone, a black muscle shirt underneath, and I quickly ask, "What are you doing here? I thought you were on a mission."

He nods, "I just got back an hour or so ago. As far as why I'm here, I was going to train, but there's a nuisance sitting in the room I always do that in."

Hastily standing, I protest, "I'm not a nuisance! I didn't realize that I was in the last room."

"You know, the brain generally will unconsciously tell one's body to go somewhere that that person feels close to another due to memories or fantasies," Kanda says nonchalantly, walking closer to me. To this, I begin backing up, "That's not the case! I just needed a place to train, and…um…all the others were full!"

"For someone who says he has the perfect poker face you're awful at lying," he says just as my back hits the wall, and he puts his hands on either side of my hips, Mugen laying on the floor a few meters away. Terrified of what he was going to do, I press myself as close to the wall as possible, trying to get away from the bluenette.

"Why do you look so scared?" he asked, cobalt eyes narrowing slightly.

Looking away from the intense gaze, I mutter, "Because."

"What are you? Two?"

"I don't care what you think, Kanda."

Tilting my head up to meet his eyes, he says, "Another lie. You told me that you respect my opinion."

"How do you know that wasn't the lie?" I fire back, staring back at him. Smirking, Kanda taps on my bottom lip lightly, "You didn't have a reason to lie to me then. Don't you know that I've noticed?"

"Noticed what?"

"You've been avoiding me lately. What, are you afraid I'll rape you or something?"

Shaking my head to remove his hand from my face, I grumble, "No, I don't. And I haven't been avoiding you; I just haven't wanted to be around you."

"Because you think I'll try to kiss you again?"

I don't reply, looking away for the second time, and I hear him chuckle, "You really think I'm going to do that? Just because I want to doesn't mean I will."

A strawberry flush spreads over my face as he speaks, and I try to escape from the position he had me in, resulting with my hands held above my head. Great, now I really felt exposed.

"Does the idea of me wanting to kiss you turn you on?" he whispered in my ear seductively. "Or are you just trying to forget about it?"

"I-I-I…" I can't seem to get my words, and I close my eyes, breathing steadily as I try to calm my racing heart. Kanda seems to notice this, and uses his free hand to massage my hip soothingly, continuing, "What would you do if I kissed you right now?"

"I would push you off of me and possibly punch you," I growl lowly, trying to cover up how much my body heated up at the question.

"Your body disagrees with that statement, Moyashi," he presses, running the hand on my hip under my shirt, and I shiver at his cold flesh setting mine ablaze.

"S-Stop, Kanda," I whimper, trying to get away from his icily steaming touch, and he does, removing the hand immediately. Returning it to my hip, he says, "That felt good though, didn't it?"

"N-No. Only L-Lavi makes me fee-feel good like t-that," I stutter, still breathing slightly unevenly even though it had been hardly thirty seconds.

"He hasn't been making you feel that good, has he? He makes you feel different than I do," Kanda says in my ear, his breath ghosting the skin.

Unfortunately, I take that statement and run with it. Sure, Lavi makes me feel good sometimes when he's not being rough, but that's almost never. When he has sex with me, all I remember is the pain and agony. His touch is too forceful to be enjoyable, and I find that I don't like it at all. My body reacts to it, but the rest of me cringes.

Kanda's hands make me feel like I was in an inferno though and it makes me want to push my body closer to him, want to feel his lips on the places his hands wander. Moans of pleasure break through my lips instead of ones of pain, and now that I realize just how much better I could feel with another person, I wonder whether Lavi's hands should be the ones that touch me.

"How do I make you feel?" he huskily asks in my ear, and I can detect the waves of testosterone emanating from his body due to his jealousy. Not moving, I murmur, "Different."

"Why is that? How does he treat you?"

"Rough. It hurts really badly sometimes, but I―"

Eye widening, I snap my mouth shut, apprehending what I just said, and Kanda says, "But you what?"

"Nothing," I mutter, staring off to the side, and I hope that he wasn't really listening. That's when the anger flared. "Jerk, you set me up!"

"Why would I do that?" he asks, releasing me and taking a step back, and from the look in his eyes, I can tell that he doesn't know just how furious this made me. Clenching my fists until they were shaking, I spit, "You've been trying to make me admit that Lavi's abusing me! You wanted me to say that!"

Raising an eyebrow, the samurai repeats, "Admit?"

"He isn't! Lavi loves me, and I don't care what you think about it! He doesn't hurt me!" I yell. Piercing me with his cobalt gaze, he says calmly, "You just said that when the two of you are intimate that it can hurt very badly."

"Sex hurts sometimes!"

"Most people don't only remember the pain. Anyone else would say that it feels great, because it's supposed to," he says seriously.

"Why won't you drop it?!"

"How about this:" he says, "you tell me honestly if Lavi has ever intentionally hurt you, and I'll drop it."

Sighing, I sit in the fetal position with my back to the wall, head dropping to rest on my crossed arms that were perched on my knees, and I don't reply, hearing him sit beside me. If this had happened a month ago, I would have launched myself into his arms, crying until my heart's content, but I couldn't. Not anymore. Not after what had happened, and now I only had my razor to run to.

Tears slipped down my cheeks as I shuddered, unhappy about being so open right now, but I couldn't help it, crying harder than I thought I could. After a minute of this, Kanda finally reached over and pulled me to him, surprising me slightly, but I don't care as I uncurl in his arms, clinging to him as if he was my lifeline.

"Shh, I didn't mean to upset you," he whispered quietly, wrapping his arms around my shaking form while I lean against him, sitting in his lap.

oO_Oo_oO_Oo

Karou could only assume that Luke had hurt Ally. Well, he always has thought that since the mission to Rhone, but now it was obvious. The worst part was that he couldn't do anything for the girl he loved so much, and he was trying as hard as he could. Ally had even started to admit how much sex hurts with the redhead, which Karou knew meant that on top of emotional and physical abuse, she was also being sexual abused, and he didn't think that the whitette realized it.

"Aren?" he asked, stroking her hair softly as the crying girl looked up at him, tears still flowing down her cheeks. Wiping the drops away, Karou continued, "Do you know what sexual abuse is?"

Even in the state she was in, Ally rolled her eyes, "Moron, of course I do! It's rape."

Shaking his head, the bluenette couldn't believe how naïve she was, and how right he had been, "No, it's not."

"What is it then?"

"Sexual abuse by a partner can include derogatory name calling, refusal to use contraception, deliberately causing unwanted physical pain during sex, and to cause pain or humiliation" (Definition altered from ), he explains, watching as Ally's eyes widen in understanding, and then she looks down quickly, more tears falling.

"Is Lavi doing that to you?" Karou asked.

Oo_oO_Oo_oO

"Is Lavi doing that to you? Kanda asked me as I stared as his stomach.

Yes, I think, knowing that what he just said was exactly what my boyfriend did. My cluelessness had led to me not understanding what had happened to me so many times. Shaking my head, I lie after a moment, "No, he doesn't. I-I like it rough."

"That's right. Moan like the little ho you are, because you like the pain. You like me owning you. You like it when you're bleeding. You like feeling like you're worthless, because you are," Lavi growled in my ear as tears streamed down my cheeks, and I let out another scream of pain. A hard slap to my face made me yelp before he yelled, "Say it!"

"I-I like it!" I cry in misery.

The memory brings fresh tears to my eyes, and I try to push myself closer to Kanda's warmth, his arms' grip tightening. When I think back to all the times we've had sex other than the first time, all I can remember is the excruciating pain pulsating through me, and I've never had any other experience with it. Lavi has my virginity, and that doesn't bother me, but it also means that I've never felt what it's like to be with another guy, or girl, before.

Just the mere thought of sex with Lavi makes me cringe and clamp my legs together, but even though I don't want to think about it, it does turn to pleasure at some point.

"There is a difference between being rough and causing pain," Kanda says, stroking my hair. Nodding, I lie, "I like pain. I'm a cutter, Kanda, and you think that I don't?"

The stare he has affixed on me makes my blood run cold even though I can't see it, but I could feel it setting my hair on fire, and he asks, "When's the last time you've cut?"

"I haven―"

Cutting me off with a cold voice, Kanda stops everything he was doing, dropping his arms to his side, "Don't you dare lie to me."

Whimpering at the loss, I shiver at the coolness in the room and in his voice, fisting my hands in his shirt and uniform, and I nuzzle closer to him, suddenly feeling extremely insecure. Muffled by his uniform slightly, I reply softly, "Last night."

"I just don't understand why you would want to do something like that," he whispers into my hair, but he doesn't move his arms. Sniffling to keep the tears back, I reach out and grab his arm, slinging it around me, and the other follows on its own.

"It's an addiction," I say, another shiver surging through me, because it was really cold in here. Seeing this, Kanda asks, "Are you cold?"

"No!" I reply too quickly, blushing slightly, and the arms around me retract. I didn't even have time to whine about it, because the next thing I knew, the bluenette had draped his uniform over my shoulders, and I pull it tightly around me.

"Thank you," I murmur, the arms returning silently.

"I want to understand," he says abruptly.

"Understand what?"

"I want to understand why you want to cut," Kanda explains, tightening his hold on me as I freeze. Really? Of all the things he could have asked me to tell him about, why did he choose cutting?

Taking a breath, I ask, "What do you want to know?"

"Why."

Shaking my head, I say, "I already told you, and anything else I don't think you'd understand."

"I didn't mean that. I meant why did you start?"

I don't reply. There's no way I'm telling him about Lavi. Well, he already knows, but I'm not going to confess what was going on. What's the point? All that would happen would be a fist fight, bloody noses, curses, and that's just what would happen before Lavi got me alone. After a moment, I say, "Pressure from being an exorcist."

"Hm, I thought you'd come up with a better lie."

Rolling my eyes, I mutter, "I thought you'd leave it."

"I want to help, Aren, but I can only do that if you stop lying."

"I don't want help."

"Keep telling yourself that. One day, something's going to happen and I won't be there to help you because of a mission or something," Kanda says, removing me from his lap, and after setting me on the floor, he walks away and out of the training room. I sit there, pulling his jacket closer around me, and another tear falls.

Screaming on the inside, I am forever withered. Cover up the wounds that I can't hide. Walls that lie between us. The saint within the sinner. I have lost the nerve, but it's alright. Carry the wounded, and shut your eyes. All will be forgiven, none will rise. Bury the fallen, and lead the blind. I will find the lost, dead inside.

Into the nothing, faded and weary. I won't leave and let you fall behind. Live for the dying. Heaven hear me. I know we can make it all alive.

Author Note: Sorry about the late update! I had a ton of stuff happening, but please, Please, PLEASE R/R! Into the Nothing-Breaking Benjamin.