Chapter 13: Regret and Forget

She knew Kanda well enough to know his footsteps when she heard them. He had a slow, almost lazy, stride. Almost like a snow leopard prowling through the cold snows of Siberia. Lenalee never made the comparison out loud, feeling it was too silly to mention, no matter its accuracy.

The young woman sat waiting on the stairs leading up toward the exorcists' quarters. There were other ways to reach their rooms, but was the most direct route from the Ark or the training hall, and Kanda preferred expediency if nothing else. So Lenalee waited, her knees pulled into her chest and her arms wrapped snugly around her legs. She could hear her friends footsteps in the darkness, drawing closer to her location. Apprehension filled her gut and she took a deep breath to calm herself. The footsteps paused…and as he rounded the corner, Kanda pulled up short at the sight of her on the stairs, his hand tightening on Mugen for the briefest moment before he recognized the dark shape was her. She watched him tilt his head to the side and imagined him raising an eyebrow in annoyance. It was hard to see each others' faces in the dim light, but that didn't matter. He always knew.

"What happened?"

He always asked in that irritated way that made it seem like he didn't care. That was always the way with them, no matter what it was or how hard she was crying. Without waiting for an answer, her oldest friend stepped forward, turning slowly on his heel and taking a seat beside her, hand cradling his chin as he stared off into the darkness, waiting. He was good at waiting. And listening. Few people knew that about Kanda. He wasn't the best at comforting an ally, but he always listened to their troubles, and he always remembered.

Lenalee explained, drying her tears long enough to speak clearly. Kanda hated uncontrolled sobbing. She watched him as she spoke, studying his movements and what little facial expressions she could make out in the darkness. The fact this was about the Inspector startled him. Her crying over a Crow? The fact Link had said some…insensitive words on the way back from an assignment wasn't an oddity. Crows were Crows. What she whispered next triggered an actual response.

"You hit him?" Kanda's dark head swiveled about to look at her.

Lenalee sniffled and nodded. Her friend's silhouette turned away again, looking down at the stairs in thought, occasionally glancing at her in…what? Confusion? Newfound respect? Possibly both. The young woman sighed and lowered her head in defeat. "He deserved it, right? I mean, those awful things he was saying about Cloud Nyne and…" She paused to scrape tears from her eyes. "I know I shouldn't have hit him, but…"

Kanda said nothing, staring off into the darkness of the corridor.

"Why can't they understand we're humans, too? That we laugh and love and cry and feel hate the same as anyone else. We're not cannon fodder, and our comrades who've already passed on were our family. We miss them. Why is that so hard to—"

"They forget."

In all the time she'd known him, Kanda never had much to say about anything. Always watching the world with an angry face, as though it were worthless and annoying. Rarely smiling, almost never happy. Yet on those twisted occasions when he opened his mouth to answer her concerns, his means of truth was so blatant Lenalee almost felt foolish for having to ask in the first place.

"They forget," Kanda repeated. "That we're just children. Just as we forget how afraid and desperate they are. It's not that they don't care what happens to us; they just have no other way of fighting."

They're only trying to protect the world. Lenalee crossed her arms and buried her head in her knees. Isn't that the truth of this mess? After all, hadn't he been born from that same fear and despair?

"The Crow doesn't know any better. You can't expect him to understand because that's how he was taught. The exorcists are just weapons in their eyes, nothing else. He's the same as any other man, woman, and child behind the crimson robes. Central's guard." She heard him shift and felt his eyes as he looked at her. "What is it that you want from him exactly?"

I don't know. She sniffled. "I just don't want to be regarded as just a weapon. I…"

Kanda wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. "And just like that, you know a difficult road when you see one, and you take it anyway." A snort escaped him. "Really? Why that one?"

"I'm still trying to figure that out." She couldn't help but smile as she leaned into her friend. "When did we grow up and start thinking about that sort of thing?" More like when had she stopped viewing a kiss between two comrades as 'Yucky!' and replaced it with something that felt suspiciously similar to envy? Or longing? And why did she think she could find a connection like that with a Crow?

Yet she thought of that small incident in the library, when her courteous nature had won out over her bigoted feelings as she wished Link a 'Good morning' along with Allen.

She remembered the moment the two of them shared, watching the sun rise from the window.

Did this two isolated points in time mean nothing in the face of their separate views and upbringings? I don't think so. "What do you think?" She asked Kanda.

The elder exorcist snorted again. "I think if Daisya was alive, he'd be pissing himself with laughter right about now."

Lenalee smiled. "I meant about Link."

This time, he sighed, rising to his feet and yawning, "I think if you regret clocking the bastard, you ought to do the obvious thing and apologize. Then forget it ever happened."

Regret, then forget. Lenalee rose to her feet and followed him up the stairs. "You make it sound so easy."

"I keep things simple, you know that."

Kanda always did prefer expediency if nothing else.

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Author's Notes: Bit of a short one to follow up Chapter 3.

D. Gray Man belongs to Katsura Hoshino