Word count: 5,804
The Quiet Earth
Chapter 2.2
The day began like any other.
Before seven in the morning, Kanda made his way across the field to the armoury, located close to the district's inner side gate that led out to the rest of the city. The shiny goods were locked away behind several layers of security – thick stone walls, guards, and a large metal gate that required an ID to activate.
The guard on duty looked up as Kanda made an appearance. It took no time for them to realise who else occupied the room and suddenly find great interest in a nearby stack of newspapers.
Kanda swept past, up to the metal gate and held his ID card against the electric-powered device – a card reader, Komui had called it. It confirmed his identity and unlocked the gate with a little click.
The armoury stretched out, long and spacious, the length of each wall lined with a variety of weapons and shields. He walked up to where rows of standard issue sabres rested in their scabbards, individually slotted into holes on a thick, wooden stand, giving the appearance of lopsided fences.
Every sabre assigned to a military recruit had a leather knot with a tassel securely looped around its grip, with the owner's name embroidered onto the flat side of the cord. His said: Yu Kanda.
He wrapped his fingers around its scabbard and lifted it, then secured it at his belt loop, blade up. Its weight pulled lightly but comfortingly at his hip, buoying him a sense of strength and security.
Nobody, except a few, understood why Kanda religiously went for his sabre first thing in the morning – even before his meditation session. Feeling secure offered no actual deterrence to violence and loss. Anywhere could transform into a fierce battlefield in a matter of minutes. He had vowed to never be caught off-guard again if he could help it.
Once accepted into the sage program, a cadet would be granted custom-fitted sabres in recognition of their efforts and skill. Of these, they were allowed to store in their own room or home. Even if these looked and handled different from the blades typically used in Kanda's homeland, he understood the indispensability of a well-crafted weapon.
That milestone would complete itself with the end of their holidays – a mere two weeks away. Meanwhile, Kanda attempted to pass that time as peacefully as possible.
He typically spent an hour in the meditation room, and that period of time hardly went interrupted. The exception being annoying redheads who popped out of thin air. Most people only needed to peek around artfully slanted partitions that hid the room from view at the entrance, to recognise that high ponytail and realise who occupied it. Then they would scatter like pests.
Therefore, Kanda was mildly surprised when, an hour later, he pulled the door aside only for it to reveal Lenalee – and Allen skulking behind her, a few sweet smiles away from truly becoming her shadow. Which certainly could prove true with how often he saw Allen hanging around her since the holidays began.
"Yu!" Lenalee's face lit up in relief as she stepped away from the wall. "I'm glad I found you before you disappeared again."
Kanda looked past her to Allen with a sneer. "Moonlighting as a lost puppy again?"
"I would ask how your career as an insufferable asshole is going but I can see you're working overtime as usual."
They stood there glowering at the other until Lenalee intervened, stepping into the room and pushing the door shut, ending their line of sight.
"Yu, be nice."
"I'll consider it once the beansprout is tall enough to be classified as human."
Lenalee pinched his cheek hard enough to make him wince. Worth.
"What's this about?" He asked a little impatiently, ignoring the ache in his cheek. It was about time for his daily training.
"It won't take long," she promised, appearing edgy all of a sudden. "So. Reception received a call from one of the inns in Port Haven. Bookman checked out recently with, uh, his apprentice. Head apprentice. And—"
"You can say his name, Lena, I'm not going to start bawling like a baby," Kanda interrupted dryly, leaning against the wall with arms crossed.
"—with Lavi, and it's very possible they will arrive today. We've prepared a small welcoming party with cake and—"
"Count me out."
Lenalee's expression suggested that he might as well have spat on said cake. "Yu, it's been a whole year since we last saw him."
"I don't like cake."
"It's not really the sweet kind of cake. It's lemony and tangy, with raspberries—" Lenalee cut herself off, folding her arms across her chest. Her eyes turned flinty, indicative of her growing ire. "You know that's not what I'm talking about."
"We all live in the same building; I can see that idiot around anytime."
Kanda watched Lenalee close her eyes and take a deep breath. He didn't enjoy this anymore than she did, but she simply didn't understand. Not that he blamed her – she had no idea of what had happened between him and Lavi. Nothing, that's what.
Except for that night before the redhead left.
It had thrown Kanda's world into a tailspin. Brought two contrary beliefs crashing into each other like waves against the shore. Parallels that he never thought could touch but that bastard Lavi managed it, and then abandoned him to deal with the aftermath alone.
"I don't know what happened between you two," she said at last. "I'm worried, but I'm not going to pry. You're both old enough to sort it out yourselves. But this is about the principles of friendship. I know you don't hate him... so at least show up for a minute. I'm sure it'd make him happy to see you."
"Friends?" He let out a contemptuous snort, a dark glint in his eyes. "With those kinds of people?"
An angry Lenalee was a force to be reckoned with, but he held her burning gaze squarely. Probably he fared as one of the few who could.
"You insist on acting like that but is it really what you think of Lavi? And Krory? Miranda? I could go on listing our friends, but I think I've made my point."
Kanda neither responded nor looked away. Their glares locked horns, but Lenalee eventually folded with a resigned sigh.
"I know how you feel, Yu. It's been frustrating and difficult to stay here after everything they've done to us. The truth is, we don't know who exactly masterminded those incursions back then. But we both know our friends aren't them. You know them – you live with them, train with them. So why act as though they're also to blame?"
Lenalee's words could be gospel and Kanda couldn't give a flying fuck.
What could those people know? They hadn't the slightest inkling of his pain – of his people's pain. At the end of the day, they could return to a family, chat with neighbours at a marketplace that hadn't been torched to the ground and kick up sand at a beach unsullied by blood and corpses.
This fact accumulated beneath his nails like stubborn dirt or a scab to itch. Staining his view of them through blood-tinted lenses and constantly reminding him of the past. Kanda wanted every last one of them culpable and on their knees at the judging end of his sword. And if he wanted it then so it shall be.
The world belonged to the strong, did it not?
His hand tightened around the stippled leather grip of his sabre as he envisioned eventual redemption.
Lenalee's anger had simmered to a low heat, distracted by Kanda's silence and the blank look in his eyes. Her fingers brushed his in concern, "Yu?"
Kanda mentally shook himself, then his head, as he turned away.
A few moments passed before he heard a sigh. "Just think about it, okay?" She didn't linger for a reply. The door chuffed hollowly as she slid it open and exited, leaving him alone in the room with his sombre thoughts.
"Kanda."
Or not.
The universe intended to test Kanda's patience today, it seemed. He inhaled deeply and gritted out. "The fuck you want, beansprout?"
"I overheard your conversation with Lenalee."
Of course, he did.
"...Come on, join us later."
Kanda wondered how many slashes the white-haired nuisance would be able to avoid if he struck with his sabre without warning.
"Lenalee doesn't need a mediator," he bit out, already lacking the patience to not commit homicide.
"Believe it or not, I'm not here because of her."
"That's even better." Kanda turned to leave, but Allen swiftly stepped forth to block his path, earning himself a bloodthirsty glare. Lenalee evidently had committed a great oversight by leaving the two of them alone with each other. He growled. "Do you have a fucking death wish?"
"This isn't just about you," Allen continued, unphased. "Lavi's my friend too."
"Congratulations. You two can go be friends and leave me the fuck alone."
"No, you stubborn oaf," Allen grumbled. "I meant that you're both my friends."
Kanda stared, wondering if his ears had malfunctioned. "...Fuck off."
Oh, this definitely had caught him off-guard. At least Allen had the decency to look away, face scrunched in embarrassment. Neither had imagined uttering such words to the other, even in their wildest dreams. But then the fucker kept talking.
"You've been acting odd, okay? Especially recently. I mean, look – you've stayed around to argue with me for longer than five seconds instead of immediately stabbing me and leaving me to die in a pool of my own blood. Nobody really sees you around anymore since the holidays started, it's like you've been trying to hide. Lenalee's getting increasingly worried, and I'm not going to lie about this. It's starting to worry me too... I figured it's to do with Lavi coming home soon, and you two obviously have some... unresolved issues."
What a bleeding heart and just as meddlesome, but surprisingly perceptive.
"For fuck's sake, is this lecture-Kanda day?" Kanda snarled, sorely tempted to go through with the whole stabbing business if it meant he could be done with this. "Move."
"You can call it whatever you want, I've said my piece. Whatever it is, I'm confident you can figure it out..." Allen hesitated for a second but went on. "And if you're unable to, then Lenalee and I are here to help however we can."
Kanda repressed the urge to cringe or throw up. Or both.
"Whatever. Have fun jerking off to your hero complex."
At last Kanda could escape this improbable situation – but not before bumping roughly against Allen's shoulder as he passed by, causing the other to stumble and almost fall.
"What the—! You unreasonable, ungrateful girly-face!" Allen indignantly yelled after his retreating back. "I hope Jerry runs out of soba! Forever!"
Kanda responded by raising a middle finger.
⁂
The morning had flown past eight by the time Kanda reached the training rooms. Training would have to begin later than usual today, but what could one do after being blindsided by the two most persistent do-gooders?
Two other recruits were sparring together in the room he picked, but upon noticing him, they paled and quickly shifted to another. A phenomena which perfectly suited him. He put his sabre and its harness aside.
Unwinding the long bands of cloth around his chest, he repositioned them around his wrists and ankles properly. He flexed his hands, adopted a pose and dealt a couple experimental jabs and kicks to a punching bag. Once satisfied that the wraps were secure, he persisted for another half hour or so until he worked up a good sweat and felt ready for the next phase.
One of Kanda's favourite past-times involved slicing and slashing away at the poor straw dummies. He drew his sabre and set the scabbard aside, relishing its weight. After taking it for a few wrist spins on each hand as he walked back into position, he assumed a jōdan pose.
Imagining the first dummy to be Lavi, he twisted his wrist and swung – his blade passed clean through its neck in a heavy, horizontal cut. How's that for a 'strike!' , he thought savagely.
Next was Allen, of which quick diagonal slashes removed all that ugly white hair. The last was a lesser used move for a sabre, on account of its long, sharp end being more suited for slashing. But it would be just as fatal – a thrust straight through the heart. The best way a heart should bleed.
The Daisya-dummy received a firm elbow to the ribs, then Kanda lifted off, spinning and delivering a hard kick in mid-air, almost destabilising the structure. Upon landing he immediately righted himself, before rushing back in to thrust the tip of his sabre at its throat for a second before withdrawing.
Finally, the ones who truly set his blood aflame. Faceless and cruel, sitting upon their throne of lies. Dictating the lives of tens of thousands without deigning to ever meet a single soul.
Kanda tapped into the deep well of his past, allowing the memories to spur him on. He didn't hold back. Face twisting into an enraged snarl and eyes igniting with hate, he entered a state of murderous frenzy. In his hands the sabre sluiced through the air in a blur, precise and backed with the force of a tsunami.
A thousand cuts... One for every moment stolen from his family's future.
Minutes passed, maybe hours.
"Yu."
Too many fucking people had dared approach him today.
Without missing a beat, he whirled around, his long hair and blade chasing the movement like a leaf swept up by a hurricane. The sabre's edge swooped to a flawless stop against the side of the intruder's neck, poised to break skin at the slightest pressure.
Marie blinked, unruffled despite the mortal danger. Next to him stood Daisya, Allen and Lenalee. The look in their eyes wrenched him back to the present.
Exhaling, he withdrew and slowly dropped the sword to his side. Sweat dripped from his chin and his hands trembled minutely, as though he had just fought a great battle. Marie's gaze slid past him. Compelled, Kanda turned to look.
On the floor, next to three mostly intact dummies, lay a haphazard pile of straw-bundled limbs at his feet. Kanda stood there alone, surrounded by the carnage.
His breath stuttered.
The sight struck him with the nagging feeling that something felt amiss, discordant. That he should heed the off-tune warning bells. But his mind reacted quicker and louder, reminding him of how much everything hurt. How the fire had raged and reached far beyond that day, burning the rest of his life into ash.
In a practiced motion – borne from his infinite struggle with desperation – he yanked the thoughts back to his safe corner. Here, breathing came easier and purpose outlined itself more starkly.
Gradually the lines shifted and bled back into the fantasy of mutilated, broken corpses of his enemies. Annihilated by his hand. It felt right, as though each body part fit perfectly into the macabre puzzle of his aspirations. Akin to sheathing his sword for the thousandth time, without need for ascertainment. And within the very action hummed promises that made his blood sing.
⁂
Kanda, Daisya and Marie shared an adoptive father – Froi Tiedoll, a General-sage of Vistenarum.
Tiedoll acted outwardly goofy, but passionate and wise when required of him. Perhaps the only thing Kanda could appreciate was their common love for nature. Everything else about Tiedoll annoyed the fuck out of Kanda, especially his – for lack of better word – fatherly obsession with his youngest son.
In Kanda's perspective, Tiedoll was overly emotional and clingy, who coddled him excessively and kept pushing his buttons about socialising.
After the first few traumatising encounters, Kanda had taken to avoiding his adoptive father at every opportunity. At times he could be found diving into a nearby hiding spot, or even climbing walls to get out of sight, if necessary, to wait out the bone-chilling cries of "Oh Yuuu, has anyone seen my Yuuu?" till the man had left the area and he was free to escape. A shiver zipped down his spine at the memories, cold and forbidding.
Unfortunately for him, Tiedoll never got discouraged and merely escalated his attempts at affection the more Kanda tried to pull away.
A less terrifying experience that Tiedoll gave him was that of his residential home.
The first time Kanda saw his new home for the next four years, he was stunned at the size and opulence of the mansion and its grounds. Nothing back home could contend with such luxury, except the decrepit royal palaces to the north.
After a week of hiding in his room, Kanda had decided that nobody would attack him here and it was safe to explore. He spent a few hours walking around, taking in his new abode.
Most of the furniture were made of solid wood, shiny and oaky, endlessly smooth beneath fingertips. The rooms and corridors stretched out like the coast, if sand were perfectly set marble. Flowers and plants had been artfully stuffed in corners and wall gaps, and sometimes they featured as the centrepiece.
As for house staff, they had someone for nearly everything, and that was how he found out one could simply ask and receive. Should it be a specific drink or edible, clothing, contraption or service... the list seemed endless. Anything he wanted, someone would run to obtain for him.
Kanda rarely relied on others beyond family members when it came to house chores – and even then, it was a matter of shared responsibility. As such, he found it to be a rather novel experience. Even now he remained undecided on whether it had been a welcome one. Till today, he preferred to handle most, if not all, of his own matters.
Although the staff were simply part of the working class and not immediately dangerous, some still hailed from this land, their lineage unmistakable in the form of colourful hair and eyes. Thus, Kanda diligently avoided contact with them as much as possible.
So far, a scant amount of individuals had obtained the hard-won privilege to be intimately involved with him; namely Lenalee and his adopted family. Even then, Tiedoll and Daisya were a constant regret of his with how often they made his forehead veins pop. They contributed heavily to the reason he allowed only Lenalee or Marie to meditate with him, but was more lenient about who he sparred with – admittedly for the opportunity to thoroughly whoop Daisya's or Allen's ass.
After the others inadvertently ended his destructive bout in the training rooms, Kanda had left without a word and taken another shower. He scrubbed at his skin, as though soap and fingernails could rid the emotions crawling underneath. Only then did he return to his room with sword in hand.
Currently Kanda lingered by the bow window, perched on a little cushioned strip built into the alcove like a bird sheltering from rain. From here, he was provided with uninterrupted view of the world outside, which made it his favourite spot in his room. He rested against a cushion with arms wrapped tight around his knees, staring out the window and beyond the district walls.
The taller trees in Rose Park rippled almost imperceptibly from higher altitude wind, branches destitute under the lingering effects of winter. From this distance, they appeared as spidery cracks embossed into the glass pane. A slight scent of frost wafted through the open windows, carried on a breeze. Pale green curtains fluttered around him in the wind, a fixture that came about by Lenalee's insistence.
It was quiet. Peaceful. His soft breathing spelled a little patch of condensation against the cold glass and the hold around his knees relaxed.
Not for the first time, Kanda mused about his places of residence. They proved materially comfortable and safe. Being one of Tiedoll's cherished children, anything he wanted he would receive without the need to ask twice. As a future sage, he would inherit privileges that ordinary citizens and most government personnel would never have.
Money. Authority. Influence. The building blocks of power.
But Kanda could never shake off a particular feeling that had plagued him since the Chang family first took him in. For all these privileges, he merely was the result of broken promises ensnared in an extravagant cage.
Tiedoll's mansion with its tall windows and minimalist design felt small and oppressive, its affluence nothing but a provocative reminder of how this great country had obtained its riches.
Kanda could venture further into its sprawling grounds and immerse himself in an abundant mural of oak and birch trees, in the beckoning glimpses of shy wildlife and the freshness of well-tended grass – but it never lasted. The illusion slipped away instantly whenever he caught sight of the estate.
Tiedoll never restrained him. In fact, the man often encouraged him to be out and about. But it hardly mattered. A lengthy chain by any other name felt just as restrictive.
When it came to the First District, Kanda could appreciate its modernist design that extended into the dormitory. He particularly didn't mind the pale grey stone walls and manhattan oak wood flooring. Its colour palette reminded him of sandy caves, like those he sometimes found along the beaches of his homeland.
The designs of this abode looked clean, neat, visually appealing. Yet for all its creature comforts, his room felt nothing more than a luxurious prison. A bird of prey dragging clipped wings and chained ankles, to guard and fight at its kidnapper's behest. He must look pathetic. Tethered to this strange land and its stranger people, fallen so far from the majestic bird that featured so divinely in his culture.
As a young boy, whenever year-end crept around, his mother would narrate the migration of the red-crowned cranes.
She told him of the times snowy curtains closed on autumn, chasing the cranes north to warmer and brighter lands beyond the numbing fingers of winter. Then, as spring began to sprout, they would embark on their return journey. The sky would fill with hundreds and thousands of gliding wings. Trailing clouds of pearl, onyx and ruby over the depthless oceans. A beautiful tale of survival and homecoming.
Kanda closed his eyes and centred himself, imagining his consciousness rising out of his body. An alabaster bird fringed with ebony and a crown of crimson, symbolic of its unchallenged reign in nature, swooped down and took him into its breast.
As one they floated up into the sky, hanging high above the city. Everything would be tiny and surmountable below them. Then they drifted south-west, along meandering train tracks to Port Haven.
And there it was.
Across the watery expanse of Pearlia Ocean loomed the vast lands of Easfrija, grey and shadowed by distance. Beyond its blurry mass, at the very end of the world's horizon, soared the great snow-draped mountains of the rising sun. A little knot of happiness formed in his chest at the sight.
With a great push of their elegantly angled wings, they launched forwards in its direction.
They hurtled through frost-tipped clouds like an arrow, straight and true towards its beloved target. The wind parted for them, whispering in their ears. Faster, faster – towards faded whispers of once-familiar smiles and voices, sun-sprinkled waves and cherry blossoms, a mother's touch unconditional and soft against his hair and skin, serendipity threaded into every beat of his heart.
Towards home.
But then – without warning, Kanda was alone and spinning in free-fall. Plummeting towards the ground as white feathers passed him by overhead. At a bewildering speed, time separated heaven from earth until a watery prison swallowed him.
The scavengers from a distant sea methodically worked and waned his innocence, tugging him back by the bones with his every attempt to reach the surface, until bubbles no longer clouded his vision.
When he opened his eyes, reality thundered back down and cracked his ribcage apart to reveal the void bleeding out from his chest. Here, no guileless yearning would find its resting place.
The days stretched on longer, greener and warmer. Winter gradually thawed to an end. But unlike the crane, he would never return home.
⁂
Four walls had never felt this confining. Thus, Kanda gathered his senses and his sabre, and headed for a more natural prison.
Rose Park.
Situated at the northern most point of the city and separated from the First District by a boulevard, Rose Park was Corterram's sole landmark that consisted of more flora than brick. It would be the closest one could get to nature without journeying beyond the city walls.
There existed a specific place within the park that he always gravitated to – the lookout tower at its centre, which also served as its highest point.
The tower was a hexagonal, two-storey building constructed with smoothened stone and wood, complete with a two-tiered hip roof. The platforms stood upon tall, thick pillars and were fenced by waist-high wooden railings. After climbing the stairs that wound around the tower's core, anyone wishing for a seat could do so upon the few benches present. Placed back-side against the landing balustrades, the angle additionally provided them with a view of the forest's emergent layer.
The rest of Rose Park sprawled out in uninterrupted fields of short emerald grass, interspersed with trees of different shapes and sizes, and a simple web of concrete paver paths that eventually converged into its only entrance in the south.
Through that opening, Kanda made his way over to his favourite spot. He proceeded slowly, hand on hilt, observing the increased number of park-goers today. They gave the man with a sword a wide berth and wary looks.
He avoided interacting with most of the population, but that didn't mean he couldn't people-watch. And every so often he would.
Around the park strolled families, couples, groups of friends, and occasional loners like him; walking together or casually touching each other, smiling at each other or at the sights they came across. From time to time, carefree laughter or random squabbling reached his ears. Sometimes he overheard bits of conversations about work, relationships, and other aspects of everyday life. These people seemed so... normal and harmless. 'Relatable' was another term he would have used – if spoken by his younger self.
What would be the probability that some of them were soldiers or acquainted with one? Unlike a certain bleeding-heart beansprout, he refused to perceive these soldiers as people with hopes and dreams just like him and other citizens.
Soldiers trained to kill.
Lived and breathed through the motions for years to carry out precisely such acts. Before they had even stepped outside the classroom, the graphic ideas and expectations of war had imprinted on them. And war could never be deemed harmless or ordinary. Perhaps the only ordinary thing about it was the inevitability of getting one's hands dirty. People like Allen Walker would never stay innocent, and that idiot had to know it.
A drawn blade presented a specific message. Any future interactions doomed to be forever overcast by the unforgiving memorabilia of its intention. They say ideas outlived men. Time would never transcend the faith of those who remembered – people like Kanda who had lost everything.
How disgustingly naive of Allen to attempt exhorting a different type of message one could send as a soldier. Saving people with the sharp end of a sword sounded ridiculous no matter which way one squinted at it.
In Kanda's eyes, civilians additionally represented the possibility of a dangerous transition, especially if their masters engaged in conflict. And how could he not? Against his own will, he had become a living example of that.
He ascended the tower's stairs with ease, idly noticing people clearing out whenever he walked into view. It was an unusual but not unwelcome phenomenon.
By now his mind had mostly quieted, which he acknowledged as a small mercy. He settled on his favourite bench and crossed his legs into a lotus position, hands resting lightly on his knees and his sabre next to him.
This location overlooked the towering, snow-covered mountains in the west – Arneau Peaks. Staring at the mountains from this bench was another of his favourite past-times, a way of substituting for the ones back home.
At its expansive foundation rippled the gleaming surface of Lake Evergreen, fed by the streams and waterfalls from the mountains. The lake was an immense body of water stretching out for many kilometres, named after the variety of – mostly evergreen – conifer trees that hugged its perimeter and steadily marched up the mountain inclines.
During winter, Lake Evergreen appeared significantly more visible through the leafless branches and he could admire the incandescent field of water glittering under the sun or moonlight. Beyond that spread out the lake horizon like light along a blade's edge, flowing into Isfeltan territory through an outlet indecipherable by the naked eye.
Settled at the top level of the tower, Kanda found himself more intimate with the chill and scents of the breeze that had previously entered his room.
As the cusp of winter drew nearer, the frosty season began passing its icy crown over to spring's warmer embrace. The air retained some wintry crispness but carried a faint whiff of defrosting soil. Trees kept their branches barren for the most part, but tiny buds could be seen poking through like shy fawn peering from behind a woody lattice.
The ambience felt perfect for another meditation session. Thus, Kanda let his eyes fall shut and focused on breathing. He unhurriedly steered his mind towards nothing but the tangibility of his existence in time and space. His existence, reaching out and connecting with his surroundings. Here, he was suspended in all the pure sensations of nature, perfectly at peace.
An hour passed, maybe two, as the sun reached its zenith and sloughed away most of the air's frigidity.
It was then Kanda heard – no, sensed a disturbance. Someone approaching stealthily from behind, their steps shallow but not enough to escape his notice. If it was someone innocuous, they wouldn't be creeping. He tensed his muscles in preparation, opening his eyes, his gaze flying to his sabre.
Two more steps... one—
In a fluid motion, Kanda drew his sword and leapt up while spinning around. Using momentum to push off the railings behind him for support, he thrust the blade tip-first towards where he had last detected the trespasser. But at the last moment, he flicked his wrist to the side, narrowly avoiding their torso in favour of the space right next to them.
"Shit, Yu, didn't know you hated me that much."
Kanda dropped his stance and stepped back, glaring. "Fuck you, Daisya. If I hadn't been able to control my movement—"
Daisya smirked and moved to sit on the recently vacated bench, placing a bag down beside him. "But you did. I trust your superhuman instincts."
" I don't trust your intentions," Kanda grumbled, irritated as the last precious sighs of his tranquillity faded into obscurity. "The fuck you sneak up on me for?"
His adopted brother shrugged. "For fun?"
"You're not going to find any here so you can fuck off now."
Kanda retrieved the scabbard from where it had clattered onto the floor and sheathed his sword. His gaze shifted to the bag. "What's that?"
"This?" Daisya patted it, and muted hollow thumps could be heard. "Your lunch box."
Kanda eyed it with no small amount of suspicion. "From you ?"
"Pfft, no. From Jerry. I went to the cafeteria to look for you and he called me over. Said you didn't show up for lunch, so he packed it for you. Has tea and everything."
Kanda grunted noncommittally, crossing his arms over his chest with his sabre nestled in the crook of an elbow. He leaned back against the railings, ignoring the way Daisya appraised him. Impatiently waiting for his adopted brother to leave.
The slow sailing of clouds across the sky marked the passage of time, in which one person stared shamelessly while the other resolutely surveyed the surrounding tree tops.
"Sooo about earlier in the training room—"
"No."
They fell into silence again. Now and then, the wind picked up and sent locks of Kanda's hair swaying across his shoulders and face. His annoyance increased in tandem with the seconds ticking by.
"Why the fuck are you still here?" He finally spat out.
"I'm bored."
"I don't give a fuck. Go bother the others."
"The others are boring," Daisya replied carelessly, then smirked. "Watching you sulk is far more entertaining. When do you start crying?"
One of two things in total that Kanda could almost appreciate about his adopted brother was how the other never tried hiding who he was – a blunt-mannered bastard. The second being Daisya's role as a lightning rod for Lavi's aggravating energy, sparing Kanda from the worst of it. Birds of a feather and all that. However, it remained a fact that he was still encroaching on Kanda's peace – with the audacity to say Kanda was sulking ?
"When you drop dead," he answered coldly. "Now fuck off before I stab you."
Daisya had reclined on the bench with hands behind his head, the self-satisfied grin on his face an obvious answer. Clearly, he expected to get away with his current behaviour due to Kanda previously choosing not to kill him. All Kanda needed was one move to prove him wrong.
In one smooth manoeuvre, Kanda loosened his grip on the scabbard and unsheathed the sabre mid-fall, twirling it until the sharp end pressed ever so delicately against the other man's groin. His narrowed eyes met startled ones.
Daisya seemed to realise the predicament he was in. "C'mon Yu, not the family jewels."
"Not so ballsy anymore?" He sneered.
The other man grinned. "Look at you, making puns. Lavi must really—" He broke off with a yell as Kanda applied the slightest bit more pressure against cloth. "Okay, okay, I'm leaving! Leave them alone! Shit."
Satisfied, Kanda withdrew, only putting his weapon away once his target moved to the top of the stairs.
"Oh, one more thing," Daisya called back. "Your lover boy is back, and he's been asking around for you. He's in the dorm lobby right now. You should go and..." Exaggerated lip-smacking sounds floated up, followed by loud snickering as the man bounced noisily down the winding stairs in a hastened get-away.
Kanda turned to stare through the railings, glaring at the grass far below, briefly entertaining the idea of leaping straight down at the perfect moment and driving his sabre through Daisya's heart.
A/N: I've been having fun expanding on Daisya's character. My Daisya can be quite an exasperating little shit and I adore him. Canonically he got killed off so early, but he deserves more love, damnit!
