Chapter 2: Philosophy and Freefalling
How often to you stop and take the time to consider the term "skyscraper"? Humans, since the beginning of time, have wanted to go above beyond. They tried to build the Tower of Babel. They go into space. They seek new places for their feet.
I love skyscrapers. The higher, the better. Someday I want to visit the tallest one in Dubai, if I get the opportunity. For now, the man I'm traveling with—he brought me to the Taipei 101. I've been here before as a teenager, with my brother and with Kanda. I remember it well, pressing my face to the glass and looking down, and wondering what it would be like to jump.
Heights, as you can tell, have never bothered me. Jumping, falling, diving—it feels very freeing. Unless someone pushed me, it's always of my own volition and I love doing it. I'm jealous of flying animals and how they unfold their wings, and let the wind take them wherever they want it to take them.
Maybe it's foolish. Everyone knows the Greek myth about Icarus and how his wings melted. But just think—before they melted, he was in euphoria. He was going higher and higher, uncaring.
Humans love the sky, where they don't belong.
Skyscrapers are one of the closest ways to touch the heavens. I firmly believe that.
*:*:*:*:*:*:*
SUNDAY NIGHT
"Twenty-seven?"
"Almost there…"
"Twenty-eight."
A wink. "Yep."
"…I think you look younger than me." But it could be his personality playing it off. So far, in the past ten hours or so, they had been on a plane eating curry (no joke, some airlines had really good meals) while watching a dumb b-rated zombie movie, then gotten off and squeezed in a crowded but clean subway train they took them to the Taipei 101. Currently they were sitting one of the restaurants in the lower shopping level. You couldn't get a good view of the city, but the food—the food was to die for.
She watched as Lavi put another dumpling in his mouth and closed his eyes, obviously very pleased. Someday, she needed to bring Allen here…because he would love it even more. "That's one doesn't have any meat in it," she told him.
"I usually won't eat stuff like this, but this place—" He inhaled another dumpling. "—is marvellous and does away with all my dislikes."
Lena laughed and sipped her tea. "Heaven?" she teased him.
"Yeah." He poured himself more vinegar and soy sauce. "We got lucky too, arriving this early."
"The lines can get pretty bad, I've heard. People have waited for two hours."
"It's understandable though. Fuckin' awesome dim sum and service."
"Mm-hm." She traced a non-existent pattern on the table. "However, I don't think you just brought me here for dumplings."
"Well, there's the view…"
"But that's not all, is it?" Maybe he did have some ulterior move. "We're not just staying in Taiwan."
"Like I said before—I wanted to travel, and I found someone to do it with. That's all."
She searched his face, and found it candid enough in that reply. Lavi had his chin resting in his hand, his right eye covered with that eyepatch and his hair falling over that cheek, with his other eye—a brilliant shade of green—half-closed. "So, whereto after this?"
"Find our hotel, settle for the night…maybe wander in the night market because I promised my the old panda some souvenirs. And then…after that, it's up to us."
"What do you mean?"
Seemingly out of nowhere, Lavi produced a notepad and ripped out a piece for her. "We write down five places we want to go to, and then we compare them."
"To anywhere?"
"Anywhere. My budget covers it."
Are you rich or something… She, of course, did not say that out loud. However, his proposal sounded fair enough. She dug in her backpack for a pen and scribbled down some places. Two she had been to, and three others she hadn't.
They switched papers, and Lavi grinned. "You put down New Zealand, Iceland, Egypt, Singapore, and…Spain."
"And you put down New Zealand, Egypt, Iceland, Singapore, and…Italy." They were close. Must be similar tastes or something.
"So we'll go New Zealand, Singapore, Egypt…and then I guess we part after Iceland?" As if he had read her mind, he had ordered the countries in an easy-to-travel sort of way.
"Guess so." She shrugged; that was okay with her. There was only so much you can do in week.
They finished the dumplings and split the check; she thankfully remembered to bring her international credit card and phone. Even more thankfully she paid her own bills so her brother wouldn't see them and freak out about her being in a different country.
Lavi wandered a bit through the streets, Lena next to him. Taiwan felt like home, but not quite like home. A little more humid, a little quieter and cleaner in some areas. He found the hotel without asking for directions, which she was envious of. For a moment she wondered if he would pull a fast one on her with the beds, but there were two rooms in his name when they got there.
'I don't think he's a bad person,' she thought to herself as she dropped off her things and then they went to find one of the night markets. 'A little…odd, but not the bad kind of odd.'
Ten hours, and she felt she knew enough about him. He was a single child whose grandfather (whom he called a panda) travelled a lot. His nationality, he cheerfully told her, was "all over the place. I'm a happy mongrel who fits in anywhere," and he had Chinese, Romani, Armenian, Irish, Jewish and probably some more different bloods in him. He had double majored in linguistics and anthropology and dabbled in journalism until he claimed he got bored of it all.
"I don't think I'm suited to be a professor or teacher. I'm a wanderer and I'm interested in crap that most people don't care about, yeah?" He was chewing on something made out of a squid as they pushed through the crowds of the market. "Like this one time me and this one poor friend I dragged to Turkey, because he dared me to climb up Mt. Ararat…except we got caught pretty quickly."
"…"
He laughed a little nervously. "I have more than one passport—?"
Her look was still admonishing. "I think you're slightly insane."
"Just crazy about shit that people like to forget. It's fun, you know?"
Lena shook her head and hid her smile. He was a daredevil like her, but in a different way. It was hard to not like him as a person, really. This idiot, still sampling food even though he claimed he wasn't hungry, stopping to buy a fake leather wallet, and splitting bubble tea and a tofu snack with her, with voice that took people aback because he spoke pretty good Chinese…
She couldn't stop herself from looking him.
Lavi was apparently a mindreader, or at least a reader of something, because he chose that perfect timing to look at her, and wink.
But Lena Li was someone who wasn't easily flustered. No, she lifted her camera and snapped a picture, with crumbs sticking to the side of his mouth and tousled hair from the humidity of the country.
"I deserved that, didn't I?"
"What do you think?" she replied calmly.
"…yeah." A pause, and then he offered her his tofu. "Want the rest?"
Her laughter nearly bent her in double as she tried to catch her breath. "Why are you so ridiculous?"
"I don't know, I was raised by wild wolves, and they taught me no manners, and then I was sold to some rowdy pirates…"
"Oh, quit that." She smacked his arm and yanked him in a different direction. "I smell onion pancakes. We're going that way."
Her watch showed half past midnight by the time they got back to the hotel and booked their tickets to New Zealand and Singapore. She texted her brother to let him know she was all right, and poked Allen on Facebook to congratulate him again on his role. After a shower and the usual before-sleep routines that people did, she tucked herself into bed around two a.m.
*:*:*:*:*:*:*
MONDAY
New Zealand was literally Paradise. Last night, they had to decide whether to go to North or South island, but she was glad they chose the South. From the moment she could see it through the tiny, smudged airplane window to the instant they landed, she had the urge to throw her head back and just breathe. As soon as they were out of the airport, she really did. She spun even though her backpack and duffel bag were throwing her off balance, her hair whirling around her face and her arms out. When she staggered, Lavi caught her.
"Excited?" he asked. "You practically jumped off."
"What do you think? I love this place." Yes, she had been here to document something, and this would make it her fourth time around. "Have you been here before?"
"I actually lived in Queenstown for half a year," he admitted, "A very good half year. I even tried to sneak visits to one of the Lord of the Rings set while they were filming."
She giggled (dear Lord, she was giggling and she usually didn't). "I'd be more surprised if you didn't."
He put a hand to his heart in mock indignation. "You already know me too well. I was hoping to pass for a hobbit, but you can tell I didn't fit the height requirements."
"You'd make a nice Rider of Rohan, maybe, if you dyed your hair."
"Anything but the hair," he said, jokingly in a horrified voice.
"Oh, please." She elbowed him. "So…you didn't book a hotel or anything that."
"Yup."
"And…" Lena stopped. "…no, that's not what you're thinking."
"Uh-huh." The smile on his face showed off his teeth, even as the wind whipped hair into his face.
They must've made a sight, with her shoving him in her impatience. Why?
Because they were renting tents and other camping equipment.
And because they were renting motorcycles.
It didn't get better than that. Lena hated driving; driving in China was fairly useless to her because of the congestion. Motorcycles simply made more sense for her. As for Lavi, she wasn't surprised that he had a license for a motorcycle. Unless he pulled something crazy and dangerous like jumping off a cliff, she was taking in stride everything about him.
She did say no to racing; it would eat up their fuel and distract them from the sights. But she did agree to him going in the front; while she had a good sense of maps and directions, Lavi had a photographic memory (they played Twenty Questions on the plane) and at this point, she trusted him that much.
They made good time; the plane had arriveds in the afternoon after a flight of ten hours and they had left at six in the morning. Lavi said they'd stop somewhere once it was dark, and then in the morning enjoy the view before heading back towards the direction of the airport, stopping at a glacier, and then taking the plane to Singapore to experience the nightlife. So it was two hours of nonstop travel, with her eyes darting back and forth to get the most before it was too dark to see anything.
When they stopped and set up their tents, Lavi made a great show of staggering around in pretend pain from sitting too long until Lena pushed him over and told him she'd prepare dinner, because she was sure "he'd burn the food."
"What? I'm hurrrrrrt."
"I'm serious," she laughed. "I don't think I should trust you with cooking."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because while I've seen you eating, I've never heard you talk about stuff like making food…"
"You got me." He laid his head down in his arm and winked. "I'm terrible at cooking."
"Ever burned anything down?"
His expression changed ever-so-slightly.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly.
"No, no, it was more funny than serious, but it was…a long time ago." He waved a hand. "So, what're we having tonight?"
"Ah—" She was slightly taken aback, but she rummaged through their supplies. "There's eggs which I'll save for tomorrow, sausages, beans, celery…some spices…cheese…oh, and ramen." Hah, you could never escape ramen. This was the better kind, though. Not the kind that came in cups, but the kind that came in a package and little packets of seasonings.
"What kind of ramen?"
"Spicy beef. Looks like Korean." She squinted at the lettering. "Yeah, Korean."
"Ramen and maybe some of those spices. Any garlic?"
"Mm, yeah. I'll roast them. Can you start the fire and put the water in that pot for boiling?"
"Yeah. And don't worry," he flashed a grin that she could still see in the dimming light, "it's been years since I actually burned anything down."
"I trust you," she responded, tilting her head.
He held her gaze, a funny sort of look crossing his face before it returned to his usual grin. "Thanks."
"You're welcome." Thanks for trusting him? She put the thought in the back of her mind and started slicing the celery.
"What's your best dish?"
"What?"
"Well, what's the best thing you're good at making?"
"I'm not sure." Lena chewed on her lip. "It's not like I do gourmet or anything. Just home-cooking that my family loves…" A flash of inspiration struck her. "But they especially like the way I cook worms."
His sputtering and look of shock was worth the laugh. "I'm kidding! I don't eat worms."
"I have."
"…really."
"Yeah, once. It was a dare. They're, um, full of protein."
"You're something, aren't you." She checked the water and found it boiling. "What was the weirdest thing that you've ever eaten?"
Lavi flicked a stone with his shoe. "Trust me, Lenalady, you don't want to know."
"Lenalady?"
"…you don't like it?"
"No, no, it's fine." It was really cute, actually. A play on her internet name. "I don't mind." She shouldn't have pointed it out. It really was okay. "…How spicy do you want your ramen?"
"As hot as you can make it."
"I didn't take you for someone who can eat spicy."
"Bet I can eat it hotter than you."
"Really?" They had two containers of ramen, meaning four packets total of spices. She tore all the packets open, and slowly dropped them into the water. "Just try me," she said, with a smile. It was the sort of smile that made Allen stutter and Kanda go white, and made Komui excuse himself or bow in apology.
But Lavi didn't know that. Instead, he snapped his chopsticks. "Trust me, I can take any sort of spiciness, any day."
You have no idea…
*:*:*:*:*:*:*
She might not be Sichaunese, but she grew up on all sorts of spicy things.
So, of course she won.
And Lavi? He was rolling on the ground, hugging a thermos of cold tea to himself.
"I did warn you."
"Nngggth…my tngne…" Tears were in his eyes, but she only felt a little repentant. After all, he was the one who started it. "My poor tongue…"
Lena crouched next to him and patted his shoulder. "Drink more tea. I saved some unseasoned ramen for you."
He sat up slowly. "I dunno whether you're the devil or an angel, Lena."
"Can't I be both?"
"Yeah." He rubbed at his eyes. "But now I know. I'll never beat you."
"I guess I have a disadvantage, after eating mala for ten years or so."
"Correction—you're a goddess." Lavi got down on his knees. "I'm still having trouble feeling my tongue."
"Come on, drink more tea and help me clean up. You'll forget about it if you distract yourself." She gently nudged him.
She ended up telling him jokes to distract him; their mutual laughter bubbled up and seemed to fill the wide expanse around them. In the light of fire, she could make out mountains and the outlines of their bikes and tents. Stars blanketed everything else, and it struck her that she was really happy, travelling like this.
"Hey." Lavi nudged her side as they sat side-by-side, looking up at stars. "I'm just wondering—are you religious?"
"Me? No." She burrowed deeper into her sweatshirt and tucked her hands more firmly into the pockets. "Things happened, and I can't see myself believing in anything…except being a good person."
"What do you mean?"
"People aren't born good. That's fact. But I think life is meant looking for the good people, and remembering them. I hope I'm a good person, by what I've done. As for those who are cruel, well—" She found herself tightening one hand into a fist. "They deserve to be put away."
"Then do you believe in a black and white world?"
"I don't think so. What with everything happening, the news you see, stuff in America and Europe…and even China itself." Lena shrugged. "I don't think anyone can just pick a side and claim they're the best or the most correct. Or…the most…" She wrinkled her nose. "I'm blanking out and I can't think of the right word in English."
"You don't think that any person is completely righteous?"
"Yeah, something like that. The moment someone claims they're righteous and better than anyone else, I know that they're a liar. However, I do want justice for the world."
"It's not bad to want it, or to fight for it."
"It's…tough." Her shoe squeaked against the grass. "What about you?"
His chuckle was dry. "I think mostly the same, but I have less faith in people. They keep messin' up and until the world ends, they'll continue to mess up. Not much hope in believing in people like that."
"What about exceptions? Everyone has those."
"I'd like to think there's some exceptions, or why else are we still here?" His shoulder brushed against hers. "I think you're exception, for one."
"I'm hardly good." She found herself replying. "You don't know anything about my past…"
"So? Not like you know anything about mine."
That was true; they hadn't gone really deep in their conversations yet. And she wasn't sure if she wanted to. "Pasts are complicated," she offered.
"Tell me about it." Lavi shifted and then laid back on his arms. "But enough of that. I was here for the travelling and companionship, and I'm enjoying it. You?"
"Quite a bit." She shivered as a gust of wind seemed to pierce right through her clothes. "I love making memories."
"Is that why you're a photographer?"
"Part of reason."
"What about the memories you can't capture?"
"Well, I try to remembered them."
"I see." Lena heard him turn over. "I actually hate my memory."
"What?" She turned to look at him, but he had turned away and his back was to her. "Really?" A photographic memory? She'd give an arm and leg for that.
When he sighed, it made him sound older. "I remember the death of my first pet, the name of the kid down the street who tried to beat me up, my first kiss…vividly. Like it happened only hours ago."
She didn't have a good reply to that.
"I travel because it helps me make new memories. And then they'll be in the front of my mind, and not the old ones. Shoving them further and further away."
"I think that's…sad."
"It's how it's always been."
Lena cleared her throat, but couldn't say anything. Silence fell and lingered, and it pushed into the space between them. "I think I'm going to turn in for the night," she finally said as one of the logs in the fire cracked and crumbled. "We're getting up at six, right?"
"Six and no later. I want those fried eggs you promised." He rolled back to give her a smile. "Sleep tight, and watch out for the ghosts."
"What ghosts? Have you been watching too much Supernatural?"
"Oh, who knows? When was the last time there was an episode with ghosts? But I'm serious—there could be anything out here."
"Ha, ha." She waved a hand at him. "Good night."
"Night!"
She fell asleep quickly enough, even though their conversation, fresh in her mind, bothered her. But it didn't impede her sleep. Rather, the crunching noises and odd shifting outside her tent did. At first, she thought it was a wild animal or maybe the wind, but then she heard moaning and something being dragged.
…what the hell. She did not believe in ghosts.
Feeling somewhat peeved, she pulled out a torch and clicked it on and unzipped her tent window—
Only to see a gauzy shape of a face right before her eyes, and something or someone tried to grapple at her through the layer of the tent.
"What—" She stifled a scream and did what she always did when grabbed by an unknown assailant—she punched.
…one did not mess with Lena's punches. Or kicks. She had very, very vicious kick that even Kanda was afraid of, and a powerful punch that Allen had received once, and only once.
It would hardly work against something not of this world, but her punch had connected with a solid cheekbone.
"Fuck." She heard someone hiss and then there was the sound of something falling.
"…Lavi?" Brushing her hair out of her face, she unzipped the rest of the tent and stepped out. "…"
By the light of her torch, there was Lavi, curled up on the ground again, holding his face and whimpering in curses of a different language that she didn't recognise.
"Oh my god," he moaned. "Fuck, that hurt."
A small amount of anger flared up in her. "I think you deserved that, trying to scare me in the middle of the night."
He paused, mid-complaint. They looked at each other. "Guess I did," he said, rubbing his face.
"You're not a teenager trapped in an adult's body, are you?"
"Last I checked, I was twenty-eight. But geez, Lena—you've taken classes or something, haven't you. That hurt worse than the last punch I got to the face."
She laughed, suddenly embarrassed. "I did, but…I didn't mean to hit you that hard. Are you okay? Do you want me to look at it?"
"No, 'sfine. I'll be fine in the morning." He got to his feet. It was too dark to properly make out his face because she had stopped shining her light directly at him, but now she saw that he had a scarf in his hand, which he had used to mask his features before. "I'm sorry I tried to scare you."
She shook her head and tried very hard not to smile. "Use one of the cold cans to ice that, or else tomorrow people will wonder what happened between us."
"Lover's spat?"
Lena waved her torch at him. "You only wish."
Oh, Lavi. As she heard him shuffle back to his tent, she buried her face in her sleeping bag and laughed until her shoulders shook and she was out of breath.
Nice to know after a couple of years of not practicing, her punches were still effective.
*:*:*:*:*:*:*
TUESDAY
The next morning, Lavi had a dark bruise on his cheek, right below his eyepatch. He let Lena fuss over it for maybe two minutes before they ate breakfast and cleaned up their site. Nothing of the conversation last night before they went to sleep was brought up.
But it stayed with her as they got on their motorcycles, even she stared the back of his helmet and his shoulders. When people go through tough shit, other people who've gone through things just as bad will take note of them. They're drawn to each other, like birds of a feather. She refused to ask anything in an outright manner; it wasn't her place. He hadn't pried into her past, so why should she?
At the glacier, they climbed a bit, feet slipping and skidding. The air was colder her and she kept rubbing her hands together for warmth, unless Lavi pulled out a pair of gloves and offered it to her.
"Aren't you cold?"
"I've got a scarf." He tugged on it. "And my favourite one. I'm good."
The scarf was bright orange and clashed badly with everything, from his green on his hikers to the bruise on his face. But he seemed to really love the scarf. She slipped the gloves on, and immediately felt better.
"You're pretty prepared," she noted.
"Too much time spent in the cold. You learn."
"Most of the time I go for the warm places."
"But New Zealand's the exception?"
"New Zealand is the exception, yes." She shook her head to free her hair from her mouth. "This glacier hasn't changed much from the last time I was here."
"It's one of the best views."
She had to agree. When she was on a glacier, it felt like she was suddenly part of a piece of history. Glaciers weren't just hunks of ice; they were long lasting and had seen a lot in their days.
Loud crunching took her away from her thoughts; Lavi was standing just a little too close to an incline that didn't look really safe. "You shouldn't stand there."
"I'm all right." He stretched out his arms. "I'm always all right." A tilt of his head towards her; his smile was as bright as smile he had showed her the first day they had met.
She lifted her camera to snap a picture of him.
"You like taking pictures of people."
"I do, yes." He had picked up on it. "People are my favourite things to take pictures of. One time I had a project…I followed a family around for ten days, taking pictures of them at my own discretion. I think I drove the mother slightly crazy because she claimed I shot all her 'derp faces,' but in the end they loved what I did."
"That's what you're after?"
She nodded. "Moments when people smile, or cry, or when they experience something…you did journalism for fun, right? What were you after?"
"Me?" Lavi sat down, dragging his feet. He didn't seem to care that his clothes were going to be soaked in a matter of minutes. "I just like going places, places that I like and places I haven't been to before…and writing about them. Understanding them."
"Have you ever done one of those immersion things that people talk about?"
"I hate those, actually."
Her eyes widened a little.
He looked only slightly apologetic. "I don't want to immerse myself in someone else's life. All I want to do is know about it, learn about it, and that's it. Sure, I like a little fun and danger, but I've never really been desperate to ingrain myself in someone else's troubles."
"That's…a really strong opinion." She slipped her camera back in its case. "I've done one or two of them…"
"Did you enjoy them?"
"The reason wasn't for enjoyment. It was…" She put her hands in her pockets. "It was for the better good."
"Hm." He looked thoughtful. "Say, have you experienced death?"
"I have…" Splintered thoughts pushed their way into her mind; she forced them down. "This one time…I was with a group in Turkey…" But Lavi didn't seem to hear, and she stopped. He was inched closer to the incline. "Hey, you should really be careful."
"The death of one is the existence of others," he stated. "Have you ever considered that?"
"Maybe." She stepped forward and yanked at his sleeve. "Let's go."
"Yeah." But he didn't move towards her; instead, he let his feet slide.
"Hey, what are you doing?" She tugged harder. "Stop, or we'll both fall."
"And?" Lavi suddenly swivelled on his toes. "Are we that close that you're willing to save me from my death, if I fell?"
"I—" She let go, her mind working for an answer.
Of course, fate chose for Lavi to lose his footing in that instant, and she screamed out his name.
His body rolled and slid for what felt like a long time, but was only seconds before he reached the bottom, lying still and motionless. Lena scurried down fast as she could without actually falling, fearing for the worst when she reached him. "Lavi," she called his name and shook his shoulder, "are you hurt?"
When he shuddered, she swallowed hard and reached for her phone, ready to call for help.
But then his hand stopped her, and she saw he was shaking from laughter.
"What, why are you laughing?"
He rolled away from her, brushing bits of dirt and ice out of his air.
"Not tellin' you," he quipped.
The feelings rising up were anger and frustration, but his mood was infectious, and after she thought about just how well he had pulled that off, she laughed with him, throwing snow and ice into his hair and down his coat. "Jerk."
"I was born this way, Lenalady~"
She got to her feet before the cold ground could seep into her clothes. "I don't doubt that…" she muttered under her breath. Now the question was, were they going to make it all the way through this trip without mishaps…
But for the rest of way back to the airport, Lavi didn't pull any other outrageous stunts. They got back by noon, returned their equipment, hopped on the plane and settled in for another ten-hour flight.
Lavi dozed in the window seat, and Lena picked through the music on her phone. Her mind was…full. One thought was stronger than the others, and it was the thought that Lavi wasn't normal. If she went through the list of all the crazy stuff he'd done, it was more than questionable. But he hadn't done anything like touch her inappropriately, or even hint at that. He didn't beg for money, steal from her, or force her to do anything. He was like a book offered to her for reading, though some pages were closed off.
He felt honest.
That was what made it so confusing. He was obviously a thinker like she was, asking tough questions and not actually expecting answers.
What did her heart think of him? She pressed a hand over her chest, and refused to think that far. It was too soon; only three days and not even halfway through their trip.
But she definitely liked him, as a person and as a fellow traveller. Before he had fallen asleep, she had made sure the blanket covered most of him before letting him drift into dreamland. She had told him to eat all the vegetables even though they were boiled and tasted like nothing. He had become someone she showed concern for, and wanted to know better.
Lena turned up her music, set an alert as a reminder to call her brother once they were in Singapore, and closed her eyes as well.
She already knew by the end of this week, this wouldn't be a vacation. But just exactly what it was, she had no idea.
TBC
A/N: First off, thank you to those reading and a specially thank you to those who reviewed :)
Since I suck at organising my notes, I'm just going to order them so that look vaguely proper…
1) I'm Taiwanese, so…a little bit of my second homeland got put into this chapter. Go visit it. You won't be disappointed, I promise. Awesome food. Awesome stuff to see. Din-Tai-Fun absolutely one of the best places to get dumplings, and yes sometimes you have to wait for two hours to get a table. The most I ever waited was an hour but it was worth the wait. So worth the wait.
2) Sichaun food is fucking spicy and I'm terrible at eating it. However I love it…it tastes ridiculously good. For a while I lived with this lady who was a pro at using the sauce to season things and I learned to love it. Mala pretty much means "numbing spiciness" and yes, it's so spicy your tongue goes a little numb and one time I've pretty much been Lavi, rolling on the ground trying to regain feeling. My dad laughed at me…
3) I will have to warn readers who haven't seen the movie that I've departed, in some ways, pretty far from the movie for sake of characterisation. Some lines are switched between characters, some deleted, and I've added a ton of stuff in between. This is to keep Lenalee as Lenalee and Lavi as Lavi, even in an AU. Hopefully the spirit/message of the movie still remains. Good thing this is a fanfic or else I'd be chin deep in legalistic problems XD
4) I understand a week is a little tough to get to all these places, but hey—creative license and I've done some gruelling traveling in my lifetime. But don't trust my directions to any place because I'm relying on memory.
5) There's some triggers in the next chapter, but I haven't written it yet so the warnings will be posted at the top of the chapter, and, when I get to it, there will be warnings in the first chapter. I plan to go back to edit the typos, anyway.