I woke up in Kanda's arms, my face buried in his chest. And I was instantly wide awake. We were in my room. But he wasn't here when I fell asleep, he'd left long before then. So why was he here now?

"Good morning, Moyashi."

I glared at him. "How long have you been in my room?"

"All night." He smirked. "I snuck in after you fell asleep."

I noticed his heartbeat change rhythm briefly. I knew Marie could detect lies by listening to heartbeats, and I wondered if that's what I'd just noticed.

I elbowed Kanda in the stomach. "You're lying."

"Did you have to use your left arm?" He gasped.

Yes, using my Innocence arm was probably overkill. I kept up my glare. "Fine. I came in to check on you just a moment ago. You looked so adorable that I couldn't resist climbing into bed with you."

I shook my head and rolled onto my back. "What time is it?"

"I just finished my morning meditation, so a little after six." That explained why the sun wasn't up yet. My boyfriend was a morning person.

I pulled the covers over my head. "Why'd you have to wake me up so early, bastard?"

"I didn't mean to wake you up, I wanted to watch you sleep." He pulled the covers off me. "But since you're up..."

I sat up and narrowed my eyes at him. "Don't you have better things to do?"

"Than have sex with you? Of course not." His cobalt eyes sparked with mischief.

I kicked him off the bed. Or I tried, he stood up before I could. "That's not what I meant, Bakanda. Don't you have general's duties to attend to?"

He gave me a quizzical look. "Last night you were all for sex. What happened?"

I looked down at my lap. "Komui wants me to go see Hevlaska today."

He grabbed my chin and made me look at him. "There's no reason to be afraid of Hevlaska, Moyashi."

"I know. I'm just a little nervous." I smiled hesitantly at him. "What if-"

I froze when I heard footsteps approaching my room. "Someone's coming."

"So?"

"Do you want to get caught in my bedroom?" I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Do you want me to leave or hide?" Kanda looked annoyed.

The footsteps were too close for him to leave without being noticed. But I knew who it was now. I smiled in relief. "You can hide if you want, but it's just Johnny." I pointed to the chair behind him. "Toss me my shirt."

He didn't toss it so much as drop it on my head. But I had the shirt on before Johnny knocked on the door, so I didn't bother complaining.

"Allen? Are you awake?"

"I am. You can come in, Johnny." I pulled the blanket over my legs. Kanda crossed his arms and glared at me.

The door opened slowly, and Johnny stuck his head in hesitantly. "Komui said you'd need my help this morning. What is it- Ah, Kanda. Good morning."

He stepped the rest of the way inside and closed the door. He smiled brightly. "So you finally got together! Congratulations!"

That was not what either of us were expecting him to say. Kanda turned his glare on Johnny. "How the fuck did you reach that conclusion?"

"Neah told me you like each other. The room gave away the rest." His bright smile faded. "Was that not right? Did I assume too much?"

Kanda growled something under his breath about killing Neah. I smiled gently at Johnny. "It's alright. We're just still trying to figure this out. It's only been a couple days."

Kanda glared at me. "Mo-ya-shii."

"Relax, Bakanda." I rolled my eyes at him.

"Che." He stormed out of the room.

Johnny didn't bat an eye at the outburst. "I see you still can't go five minutes without fighting."

I sighed. Forcing a smile, I changed the subject. "You said Komui sent you. Did he say why?"

"No, just that I'd need this." He held up his box of sewing supplies. "What is it you need fixed?"

I blinked at Johnny. It was easy to forget that Komui was actually smart. But so was Johnny. My ears were out in the open. Why hadn't he noticed them?

"Allen?"

"Yes?"

Johnny looked embarrassed. "Um... Kanda left. Maybe you want to take those off now."

"Huh?" What on earth was he talking about?

"The cat ears."

I turned bright red. He thought they were fake. And that Kanda had made me wear them.

I averted my gaze, reaching up to stroke one of my ears. "Umm. Actually that's why Komui sent you."

It was Johnny's turn to blush. "What do you mean?"

I climbed off the bed, very aware of my tail moving behind me. "I had a run in with a witch on that last mission." I watched Johnny watch my tail. "I'm going to need my pants fixed."

"Right!" Johnny forced his gaze away from my tail. He grabbed the pants that were on the back of the chair. And immediately freaked out. "What the hell happened to these?!"

"Kanda."

"I should have guessed. He's got no respect for my hard work."

"Don't be too hard on him. I needed pants and all we had was a table knife."

He set the pants back on the chair. "These will need some work. Where do you keep the others?"

I walked over to my dresser and opened the drawer my pants were in, thankful I'd cleaned my room recently. Johnny stood beside me, peering into the drawer. "Which ones do you want me to adjust?"

"All of them." I tried to push the sadness away. I was determined to make the best of this.

"Really?" Johnny sounded surprised, and I couldn't blame him. "But what about when you change back to normal?"

I sighed. "I'm not going back to normal."

"You don't know that Allen! Komui will come up with something!"

I couldn't help but smile at Johnny's optimism, but it faded quickly. "He's tried. My Innocence wants me to stay like this."

Johnny was silent for a moment, then his optimism kicked back in. "Then I've got a lot of work to do!" He pulled the whole stack of pants out of the drawer and set them on the bed. He smiled at me as he returned to the dresser. "You'll need your boxers fixed too."

He added those to the pile on my bed, then he turned to me. He smiled hesitantly. "Now I'm going to need to... measure you."

"Right. What do you need me to do?"

He placed his box on the chair and opened it up. "Take your shirt off. It's blocking the area I need to see."

I did as I was told, though it was a little ironic given that he was reason I'd put the shirt on in the first place.

"Kanda got ahold of these too, didn't he?" I heard Johnny sigh from behind me.

I held my breath as he took the measurements he needed. I may have been good friends with Johnny and trusted him to be professional, but that didn't make it any less embarrassing to have him examining my tail.

"I'm done. You can put your shirt back on now."

While I did that, or rather, while I tossed the shirt in the laundry and put on a fresh one, Johnny picked up a pair of boxers from the bed and went to work fixing them. Since I was stuck in my room until he finished, I sat on the bed and watched him work.

My stomach rumbled right as he finished. He smiled as he passed me the boxers. "Go put those on. And toss the ones you're wearing, they're not fixable. I'll fix a pair of pants so you can go to breakfast, and take the rest with me." He walked over to the pile. "Do you have a preference for which ones I do first?"

I pulled out a pair of basic black pants and handed them to him. "Thanks Johnny."

He smiled back at me, then went to work on the pants. I changed my boxers while he was otherwise occupied. He looked up at me when I sat down beside him. "So you and Kanda. Are you happy with him?"

I laughed. "We've only been together for a day and a half. At this point I'm just happy that he's made it that long without pointing Mugen at me."

"I suppose that's fair." He smiled and returned his attention to my pants.

"What exactly did Neah tell you?" I was scared of the answer. Neah knew all of my secrets.

"Just that you and Kanda like each other. He asked me to keep an eye on you two when he left." Johnny handed me my pants. The hole he had made for my tail was clean and neat; he had done a good job despite having to work so quickly.

As I ran my finger around the hole, Johnny placed a hand on my shoulder. "It'll be ok, Allen."

"Thanks."

He gathered up his tools and my other pants, and left with a smile.

I got dressed quickly and headed off to breakfast. But not before throwing on my jacket and hiding my ears and tail. I may have decided to accept them, but that didn't mean that I was ready to show them off yet.

.x.x.

I'd spent breakfast pestering Kanda for more information on what had happened to Allen. Lenalee joined me when she came in, but Kanda kept insisting that he'd already told us everything he knew.

It was about then that Allen came into the cafeteria. He was still wearing his hood, and he acted like he couldn't see us until Lenalee called him over.

He smiled when he sat down. "Good morning."

"You're up early Allen-kun." Lenalee smiled back at him.

"Some bastard barged into my room before the sunrise and woke me up." The direction of his glare made it clear that Kanda was the bastard in question.

"Che. You could have gone back to sleep."

"You didn't let me, Bakanda!"

They glared at each other in silence. Lenalee and I shared a look. Their fighting had calmed down after everything that had happened while they were off dealing with the Fourteenth. Most days it was no longer hard to believe that they might actually be friends. But apparently today was one of those days where they just couldn't stand each other.

Lenalee cleared her throat to get their attention. "So, are you feeling better today, Allen-kun?"

He turned away from Kanda to smile at her. "I am."

I gave Allen a pointed looked as he shoved a piece of toast into his mouth. "You ran off before I got an answer yesterday. And that guy," I pointed my fork at Kanda, "won't tell me anything. What exactly happened?"

Allen shoved more food in his mouth. I couldn't tell if he was lost in thought or if he was ignoring me. But maybe he simply hadn't heard me, it was his ears he'd hurt after all.

"Moyashi." When Allen looked up Kanda reached over and yanked off his hood.

"What'd you do that for? Bakanda!" Allen's hands immediately reached for his hood, but Kanda kept a firm grip on it so he couldn't pull it back on.

"Che. You were going to have to show them eventually, Moyashi."

I blinked. 'Show them'? Show us what? What were we supposed to see? I watched Allen critically as he sighed and dropped his hands to his lap. He smiled halfheartedly at us and that's when I saw it. Or rather, them. Sticking out of the mess of white hair on his head was a pair of cat ears. They were covered with short white fur and the insides were a soft pink. And from the way they occasionally twitched, they were very real. "Ok let's try this again: what the hell happened?"

Allen sighed and dropped his gaze to his plates. "We ran into a witch."

"Che. You ran into the witch. You're the one she cursed."

Someone probably should stop them from fighting, but it wouldn't be me. I couldn't tear my eye off those cat ears, the way they moved was fascinating.

"Right, you just watched it happen. Like you just watched those akuma nearly kill me."

"Boys!" Lenalee slammed her hands down on the table. "Stop fighting and tell the story!"

"Actually that pretty much is the story." Allen smiled sheepishly. "I got cursed by a witch, and then I nearly got killed by a group of akuma on the way home."

"Ran into a level four, eh?" It was a reasonable assumption, Allen was freakishly strong.

Allen glared at me, then shifted his gaze to Kanda, who was smirking like he knew a secret. "Don't say it."

Kanda's smirk grew wider. "Moyashi nearly got his ass handed to him by a handful of level ones."

I couldn't believe that, but Allen's expression said Kanda was telling the truth. Lenalee looked as horrified as I felt. "How is that possible?"

Allen had slammed his forehead down on the table in embarrassment. He pointed to his ears. "This isn't the only part of me that got changed."

"He also has a tail." Kanda was still smirking.

That was until Allen elbowed him in the stomach. "Bakanda!"

Allen with cat ears and a tail. There were going to be a whole lot more finders who wished they were gay after seeing that.

Something else occurred to me with that thought. "You went to see Komui. Is he trying to change you back?"

Allen laughed briefly, but didn't lift his head off the table. "That was the idea behind letting him use me as a pincushion."

"So what did Nii-san say? There must be something he can do."

"There isn't." It was rare to see Allen look that serious outside of battle. "That curse was supposed to turn me into a cat completely. It was my Innocence that made me turn out like this." He gave Lenalee a small smile. "There's nothing Komui can do because my Innocence won't let him."

"What did Hevlaska say?" If his Innocence was involved he must have gone to see her.

"I'm heading down there after breakfast." That would explain why he'd barely touched the food. He was trying to put off the visit.

"Then we'll leave you alone so you can finish." Lenalee must have caught on to that too. She stood up and gathered her plates, shooting me a look before she walked away.

Fearing Lenalee's wrath, I grabbed my tray and followed her. Looking back I saw Allen frowning at his food. Kanda was talking, but I couldn't make it out over the noise of the room.

.x.x.

"Moyashi. Eat and go see Hevlaska. It'll either be good news or she'll confirm what Komui told you. Either way things can't get worse. So just go and get it over with." He whispered quietly enough that I was the only one who could hear him.

I smiled hesitantly up at Kanda. "I know."

"Good. I've got things to do now, I'll come find you later-" His expression hardened suddenly. "Lavi's watching us. You should yell at me as I leave so he doesn't get suspicious."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Don't tell me what to do, Bakanda!" Then I shoved him off the bench. Keeping up the façade, I stabbed angrily at the food in front of me.

Once I was eating I was reminded of how hungry I was, so the food disappeared quickly. I fixed my hood before leaving the table.

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

AN: Thanks for the Reviews/Favorites/Follows!

Ryuakilover: Not in this story. Sorry. ;)