Chapter twenty-three – NOAH
Allen had never been so glad to see a free dinner end in all his life. Even the dessert – which consisted of a delightful strawberry icecream over apple pie – could do little to ease his frazzled nerves.
Anita declaration had left him feeling not enthralled but rather anxious. While it was a relief to have finally located his elusive master he wasn't particularly thrilled at seeing that smug smirk again and he was starting to wonder is the information Tyki had promised him was even worth what was sure to be a traumatic encounter.
Far to say that Allen was feeling kind of out of it, and the whole matter with Kanda didn't help either.
For some completely incomprehensible reason, Kanda seemed to be thoroughly ignoring him, not even looking Allen in the eye. Why was that? Really, thinking about it was enough to give him a headache. Or, worse still, bring Anita's smiling words back to his mind which made him unable to look at Kanda. It was a mess, truly it was, a bloody big mess.
Allen supposed that sometime in the future he should take the time to sit down and sort through all these strange emotions that had been clogging up his mind and taking headspace for far too long. Sometime waaay in the future, for now he was happy procrastinating this matter.
So it was with great relief that Allen and the others trudged back towards the school following the meal, the street lights flicking ominously as Lavi chattered away happily, oblivious to the fact that no one was even listening as he rubbed his contentedly full stomach.
Allen gave it a few minutes before he fell into step beside Kanda, the pair of them lagging just that little bit behind the others. A slight glance upwards with annoyed silver eyes showed that Kanda recognized his presence and an annoyed grimace showed that he was less than pleased with it.
Ignoring this Allen said softly, "Are you able to come with me later?"
Kanda blinked and followed that up with a frown, "Where?"
Sometimes Kanda could be truly thick.
Allen rolled his eyes, "To see Cross of course," he said slowly as if speaking to a small and particularly slow-witted child, "Unless you no longer want to come?"
Kanda shot him a nasty look. "Fuck you. Of course I want to come. I just meant, so soon?"
Allen pondered this for a second as if seeking for a way to best phrase his answer. Finding none he simply said, "Because if he finds out I'm looking for him the bastard will flee."
"Why?"
"Because he doesn't want to talk with me?"
"But why doesn't he want to talk with you?"
"… Because he doesn't?"
Talking with Allen was, Kanda decided as he stomped away angrily, immensely frustrating and unrewarding.
oOo_oOo_oOo
The arrived at the school mere seconds before the gates were due to shut and the quartet crossed the yard in a flourish of hurried limbs, desperate to escape from the rapidly chilling weather and immerse themselves in the warmth of the approaching building.
Lenalee and Lavi bid their farewell to their – now arguing – friends and escaped before the disagreement could take a violent turn and catch them in the crossfire. Cowards, Allen scoffed inwards as he waited impatiently for Kanda to unlock the door.
As soon as it swung open Allen shoved past the moody man and into the room, earning a scowl from the young Japanese teen. Kanda edged into the room after his friend and waited impatiently by the door as Allen scurried around, grabbing a jacket, pulling his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and after a moment of fumbling pulled a small slip of paper from it.
He shoved the scrap into Kanda's hands as he passed with a distracted, "hold this," before continuing on searching for something while Kanda grew steadily more frustrated with each irritatingly loud sound of a draw slamming shut. Finally he couldn't take just standing there anymore and snapped angrily, "What the fuck is it your after Moyashi?"
Allen shot him a glare and muttered, "I'm not a beansprout. And don't swear," he added as an afterthought although telling Kanda not to cuss was roughly the same as telling a kleptomaniac not to steal from that completely unguarded store right in front of them. "And if you must know," he snapped, "I'm looking for Tim."
"Your retarded snitch?"
"Oh, for fuck sake! He's a golem, and he's NOT retarded!"
"He bit me, I'll call him whatever I want," Kanda asserted before smirking and saying, "And don't swear."
"Don't patronize me," Allen muttered distractedly in response as he resumed his frantic searching – now looking under Kanda's bed – without any visible results. "Timcanpy!" He called out loudly but the room remained silent in response.
"He's not fucking here; now let's go before my feet fall asleep."
Allen shot him a nasty look for that completely unnecessary statement but conceded the elder did have a point and rose reluctantly to his feet, dusting his pants free of fluff as he did so looking before trudging over to Kanda, looking miserable all the way.
"Why do you even need it?" The other inquired half curious half annoyed and received a disheartened shrug from his white haired companion.
"Tim belongs to Master," he said simply, "And he'll kill me if something happens to him."
Kanda snorted before handing the slip of paper containing an address back to its original owner and proceeded to crack his stiff neck, "Whatever," he murmured in response, "let's just go so I can meet this fucking nutjob."
"He's not a nutjob!" Allen snapped irately as he stepped out of the room.
"Says you who talks shit about him all day," Kanda countered as he relocked the door and pocketed the key, glancing warily around to make sure Lenalee and Lavi weren't waiting just out of sight to jump them.
"That's not what I mean," Allen said seriously at Kanda shot him a puzzled look, "My Master isn't a nutjob. He's off the freggan scale of crazy. There isn't a term to describe people like him! You're making him sound saner than he is!"
Kanda gave a snort, "He can't be that bad. Now you're just exaggerating."
Allen gave him a sombre look.
"He's in the habit of hitting me with a mallet when he wants to run off and ditch me. When I turned fourteen he pitched me up against a whole crowd of debtsharks – his debtsharks, may I add – for his own entertainment. How can you call that sane?"
Kanda stared blankly at Allen but the younger boy seemed to be in the midst of a breakdown, eyes glazed over as he was tormented by visions of the past. "So… much… debt…" he whimpered, hands shaking.
"Oi, er… Moyashi?"
" – And then that time in China… Urgg… I feel sick suddenly… Maybe this isn't a good idea…" The boy gave a rather appropriate shiver.
Kanda stated at him, completely unsure what to do concerning this new development. The beansprout seemed to be quickly wilting and Kanda was harbouring a vague feeling he should probably do something. He settled for awkwardly patting him on the shoulder and saying uneasily, "Err… There there?"
Allen seemed to be suddenly drawn back to reality and peered up at Kanda though his hair looking utterly miserable. "I'm going to die, aren't I?"
oOo_oOo_oOo
Lenalee tapped her fingers impatiently on the desk before her as she scowled down at the laptop she was using, scrolling slowly through a non-filtered search on a simple search engine. She was no computer whiz like Lavi, but she knew how to use google.
"I keep telling you Lenalee," Lavi called out from where he was spread out on his bed, flipping idly through a comic book, "If I didn't find anything while being a genius, you won't find something on google."
Lenalee shot him an irritated look, "Would it kill you to help me look?"
Lavi rolled over onto his back and extended his arms so his issue of Marvin Mindblown was dangling high above his face. "When you asked if you could come over tonight," he muttered under his breath, "This wasn't what I imagined you'd have in mind." Louder this time he remarked, "No. I've already been all over the place looking. No information on this NOAH exists. I assure you."
"It might," Lenalee argued as she hit on something that looked vaguely interesting.
"It doesn't. Really if –."
" – Hey, I think I found something!"
Lavi was out of his perch in a moment shoving Lenalee's spinning chair away from the table and ignoring her mewls of protest as he moved the mouse and was greeted – after impatiently waiting – with an old newspaper article from quite a few years ago.
Fire engulfs all the caption read and Lenalee and Lavi exchanged looks. The article was short, barely a paragraph long and looked like it had been tossed at the bottom of a newspaper hurriedly so as to make as little deal about as possible.
Last Thursday a young couple out on a hike reported seeing flames rising from just out of town. It was later revealed to be an empty and unused research facility by the name of NOAH The police have cited the fire and accident and assured all that the building had been empty for some time. No deaths were recorded.
The article ended abruptly, as if the reporter has simply wanted to write down the bare bones of the incident for more of records sake than anything related to carers or otherwise. Lenalee and Lavi exchanged mystified looks before the elder redhead turned back to reread the article again.
"Are we sure this is the right NOAH we're looking at here?" He inquired of his younger friend who haplessly shrugged in a way that said, you're the genius here.
"But it's interested don't you think," the Chinese girl remarked absently as she stared at the screen, "that it burnt down? Doesn't that seem like something Allen would be involved in?"
"What?" Lavi asked, alarmed, "Is Allen secretly a pyromaniac?"
Lenalee shot him an irritated look, "That's not what I mean. I just meant that this whole thing just screams mysterious. It's definitely something I can see Allen involved in."
Lavi mulled this over, biting his lips as she did so. "The digger we dig into this," he confessed, "the more interesting but freakier it gets. I'm kind of half scared we'll eventually find out that he's from some kind of psychotic mass murdering family lineage."
"Don't' be ridiculous," Lenalee snapped, "He's probably just under witness protection or something."
Lavi shot her a patronizing look. "Yeah. Like your idea is any less ridiculous."
His female friend huffed indigently and opened her mouth in preparation to snappily retort but a soft ding cut over them and the surprised pair stoped squabbling to glance back over at the computer on which a popup had appeared.
Hello there boy…
Lenalee felt a sharp thrill of fear shot down her spine. "Lavi…" she said cautiously but her redheaded partner was already at the laptop, tapping away at the keyboard with lightning speed.
Who are you?
The pair waited with bated breath and was rewarded with a soft ding.
Me? I'm from NOAH of course.