This is far from stellar, but bear with me. There's a small chance it could get better. Also, misspellings when talking about the mugs are intentional, and Daisya and Kanda's OOC moments are as well, to account for the awkwardness of having to put up with a stranger.
Marie neatly laid the ace of clubs on the two previous ones, before play passed to Kanda. The kids had four tricks, and they had three. One more trick, and the game would tip permanently in the favour of the adults.
Kanda, for his part, made quite a show of staring at his cards.
He looked up at Daisya, who was employing a carefully blank expression, and then back down at his cards.
Let's see…
He selected the five of hearts, and played it.
General Tiedoll couldn't help but sigh dramatically. He was not, as a rule, competitive, but it was always good to put on a show.
Also, he'd been certain that Kanda had at least one club left.
Daisya gleefully collected the trick, stacking it with the others, and waited as the cards were played. The queen of hearts was Kanda's offering.
The old man topped it with the jack, but that was nothing to worry about.
Showtime, as it were.
He selected the card he'd been saving. The picture looked a bit like him, with bells and painted-on tears.
Funny. He looked the part, even though he didn't act like it. It was worth a try.
He placed the joker on the trick, relished the impressed look on the old man's face, and waited until the trick ran out. Hah, looks like Kanda was pretty good at guessing what he had.
Or maybe he just took a risk, but he didn't seem like he'd do that.
He played the ten of diamonds. If he was correct, Kanda had either really low cards or the ace, and Marie would have the king.
King, ace, queen.
Another trick won, and then another, and then another. Game over.
Tiedoll smiled in mock chagrin.
"I must say I was sure that Marie had the joker."
Kanda shrugged a reply, and narrowed his eyes in Daisya's direction.
"It was obvious. Daisya can't hide his cards."
"To each their own," said Marie diplomatically, cutting of Daisya, "My favourite method is to draw out the higher cards, and then use trumps."
Daisya's face had by then lost its brief flash of anger, but a hint of annoyancewas still threaded into his voice when he laughed, and said:
"Well, I don't really care what I do. If I'm bored, I'll just change it."
He collected the cards together, and started to shuffle them, grinning at the uniform noise as they hit the table, and then collapsed back into place. He carefully laid a card down at each place, leaving three in the middle.
The quartet picked up their cards, and examined them again.
"Pass."
"Six clubs."
Daisya and Marie had a quick time deciding what to do, but Kanda took longer, staring intently at his hand.
"Looks like your hand isn't that boring," said Daisya after a few seconds, "You going to bid?"
Kanda managed to give the impression of eye rolling without moving a muscle.
"Yes, if you'd shut up. 'Boring' is subjective. Which means most of what you say is bu– nonsense."
He bit down on the syllable after he remembered his company, but he was sure Daisya had gotten the message.
"Six no trump."
Daisya glanced over at Tiedoll as he made his decision, then back at his own hand.
"Actually, you're pretty wrong about that. Boring things are boring because I think they're boring. You don't care about boring or not boring, and no one else here does, so what I say is 'boring' is the only definition that counts, because it's the only one that exists."
There was a clacking noise as Tiedoll straightened his cards on the table.
"Seven clubs, I think."
A few passes later, the kitty was Tiedoll's.
…
The game went on for a few hours, until Marie suggested that the game could also be ended by one team having -500 points, and thus losing. Daisya and Kanda, for all their gritted teeth and enmity, lost only by a hand or two.
"Two hours left."
Kanda's expression had already frozen.
Daisya stuck a closed fist out in front of him, and started at his fingers.
"So all we've got left is this train ride…"
He extended a finger.
"…the ferry, another train, then we have to walk for a bit, then another train…"
He stuck out another fist.
"…another ferry, then a train, then some walking, and then we're there. Plenty of time to get to know each other."
"Joy."
Kanda didn't even move his eyes, keeping them fixed on the wall.
"I think we may have the opportunity to play more card games in the future," said Marie, with the hint of a smile.
"It's either that or word games," added Tiedoll.
"Or we could just shut up and wait."
"Yeah, but that gets boring."
"So do card games."
"Yeah, but are a lot of card games. There aren't any things you can change about being quiet."
"Let me guess: it's boring."
Daisya grinned glassily, but there wasn't much humour in his expression. He tried sarcasm.
"Gosh, I'm amazed you can tell. You should be a psychic."
"Shut up."
Surprisingly, Daisya did so, but his look of annoyance didn't vanish.
A few minutes later, he piped up again.
"Say, Marie, are there any games you know?"
Marie head the almost inaudible sigh from Kanda, and decided to answer the question despite his down dislike of chatter.
"Well, there's always 'think pink,' but I remember my music teacher used to play a guessing game to see how well we knew the notes."
Daisya leaned forward in his seat, balancing the extra weight on his hands.
"Oh, so, you hum a note, and then you guess which one it is?"
"Yes, essentially."
"That's cool."
He grinned slightly, and chuckled. He seemed to do that quite a bit, Marie had noted. Though, whether there was any meaning to it was a different question. Kanda sighed quietly in exasperation as much as he talked, but that was just a filler noise in his vocabulary.
The rest of the train ride was, oddly, filled with mostly silence. There was the occasional chuckle from Daisya, presumably because he'd just thought of something funny, and the constant counterpoint of exasperated noises. Marie had no concept of a visual glare, but he could sense that Kanda would probably be employing one along with its auditory equivalent.
...
The train eventually pulled up to the station, and the disembarking unfolded with a normality one might not expect of exorcists. A family of four — father, older brother, and younger twins — shuffled along, one of the twins skipping gleefully ahead, the other crossing his arms and shadowing his older sibling.
They shuffled through the port with their baggage, and boarded the ferry in fairly short order. Hungary was quite a trip away, so the more time that could be saved, the better.
The ferry ride passed in the same silence, punctuated again by twin sound effects, and eventually the family ended up in a town called Calais.
"Marie and I are just going to find somewhere to stay," said the father to the twins, "So would you two mind staying with the bags for now?"
The skipping twin opened his mouth to speak, but was forestalled by a defense from the father.
"We'll move more quickly without the bags, and the sooner we find someplace, the sooner we can rest. You know that. Just don't wander off, Daisya."
"Yep," said the twin in a bored voice.
The two children sat down on a bench, an array of backpacks forming a barrier between them. In parallel, they stared out at the square, watching the cross-eyed pigeons waddling over the paving stones.
...
"I was going to say that I could go with them," said Daisya dryly, "But I'm sure you're happy I got to say."
He glanced over at Kanda, whose omnipresent glare contrasted with his wry grin.
"Shut up."
Daisya swayed forwards and backwards, pushing off from his hands.
"You know, you've gotta get a bit more creative with the words you use. I mean, it's so boring saying shut up all the time. You could tell me to stuff a sock in it, to see my lips shut, to cease conversation, but you always say shut up."
"Shut up."
"See? It's boring when it's always the same."
"Then shut up before I cut your tongue off and feed it to the pigeons."
Daisya smiled brightly.
"See? That's better! If you keep doing that, I might actually listen."
In front of them, a squabble broke out over the discarded corner of a sausage roll.
Daisya turned to the bags beside him, and rummaged through one of the smaller backpacks, sticking his arm up to the elbow in it. A few seconds passed before his face lit up, and he pulled out a small cylinder, about a centimetre and a half thick and twenty centimetres long.
He carefully untied the twine around it, and rolled out the piece of paper and pencil.
Kanda, in equal parts disdain and confusion, watched as he began to cover the paper with a series of clumsy sketches and abstract shapes, barely visible because of the thinness of the lines.
"Like my drawings?" asked Daisya after a few seconds. He didn't take his eyes off the paper, but Kanda got the feeling he had shifted his focus to him.
"If I said they're bad it would be a compliment."
"In which case, thanks bunches."
"It's 'thanks a bunch'."
"No, I said what I meant."
"Whatever."
Kanda recrossed his arms, and swept his eyes around the square. Nothing much. A bakery — the source of the sausage roll — a couple of souvenir shops, a fruit stand. Typical of a port town, with plenty of people passing through and desperately in need of a cracked mug with 'wordl's best mum' on them.
He doubted they made 'world's best excorsist' mugs. There was too small a market.
Speaking of which…
Exorcists were always in short supply. There was no logic to sending four on a run-of-the-mill mission.
Sure, the finders had lost contact, but even then, he and Marie could have handled it. Or the General, regardless of Daisya's presence. He himself, even. Exorcists started early.
Daisya probably would have been with him anyway. He was like a whining puppy, trailing after the General and biting the hem of his robe. Pathetic. He had never been like that.
He had been more angry.
And now he was angry, that here was another useless brat without any concept of the magnitude of being an exorcist. A load for them all to bear.
He had never been like that.
There was the dry sound of rustling paper as Daisya presumably rolled the pencil back up in its blanket, tying it neatly.
Kanda stole a glance, and saw him sitting straight, and staring blankly ahead. Occasionally, he would sway, or let a flash of an expression cross his face.
"How much does it take to kill an akuma?"
The question hung in the air for a moment before Kanda snapped out of his own reverie.
"How should I know? You just kill it."
"That's interesting. Well, I guess it probably depends on the akuma."
There was an irritated noise from Kanda.
"Does it even matter?"
"Dunno. So I know what to do when I need to kill one."
"You've really never killed one before?"
Kanda turned again to face Daisya, and Daisya shrugged, returning the gaze.
"A few, but I don't know how strong the old man is compared to other exorcists, it doesn't help."
Kanda's glare slid from disbelieving back to exasperated.
"So you've spent the past five minutes making up a fight?"
"Yep," said Daisya, grinning.
Kanda had only noticed now, but there was always an edge to Daisya's smiles. Something hungry, as if he was trying to be in control.
He turned back to the pigeons, and slouched against the stack of backpacks.
"Let me guess: you're bored."
"Y–"
"Don't bother answering."
"Didn't know I was that depressing to be around," said Daisya, in tones of mock wonder.
"You're exhausting."
"Well, you haven't told me to shut up yet, so it looks like you're warming up to me."
"If that ever happens, it'll be the day Hell freezes over."
"Well, then, looks like we'll both be headed for a nice, frosty afterlife."
Kanda analyzed the sentence for a minute, then turned to Daisya in a cold rage.
"What the hell–"
"Boys! There you are."
General Tiedoll, accompanied by the soft footsteps of Marie, materialized from an alley behind them.
"We've found someplace with quite a lovely view of the harbour. I think I might even have to paint it, once we get there. What do you say we go over there and have some dinner? Tomorrow will be rather long."
Kanda mellowed his expression significantly before answering.
"So long as it's someplace quiet."
"Very well."
Daisya had already hopped up with his own pack, so passed Marie's and Tiedoll's to them as Kanda shouldered his.
Hear ye, hear ye, a new chapter will be on its way, but reviews and/or follows and/or feedback of some sort will expedite it.