And so we move on. I might add another chapter between this one and the last one, but I haven't written it yet, so I'll go with this for now. I theorize that the Order tries to make exorcists more manageable by regulating who they go with, so Kanda gets all the new kids, the rowdy ones, the ones they think will break him down. That's why he gets paired up with Allen and Lavi despite threatening endless harm on them on several occasions. Or maybe not. Maybe, he's just really unlucky.
The cart lurched, Daisya remained asleep, and Kanda clenched his fists.
It was September again, and the most recent fall rain had been a day or so before, leaving this back-country road full of dried ruts. To make matters worse, Daisya's mysterious circadian rhythm had insisted that a cart that jumped every few metres was the perfect place for a nap. Take that, Kanda's usual attitude towards just about anything, and put that together with Daisya's unfortunate habit of sleeping on whatever surface was available, and you had the full picture.
Kanda's various elbows and pushes never had an effect; firstly, because Daisya could sleep through a thunderstorm and probably an artillery battle, and secondly, because the lurching of the cart and the body's automatic balancing system meant that Daisya would always come to rest at the point of least discomfort, i.e. Kanda. Even a bony thirteen-year-old was softer than splintered wood.
During the day the sun still had the warmth of summer, but the wind that blew in through the window of the carriage gave off a little chill that made Kanda's human blanket less annoying than usual. Autumn was here.
As if on cue, it encountered another bump, and Kanda felt his teeth clack together.
For some reason, the director had make sure he was stuck with either Daisya or Lenalee for just about every single mission he'd run these past four months. And sometimes both. Joy. Marie would've been better than those two brats.
Kanda elbowed Daisya again, to no avail. The sun had already set, and it was going to be dark soon, so the driver would be switching off. And Kanda wasn't about to stay awake another twelve hours, not with this idiot drooling the time away. He'd have to pull his own weight. For once in his life.
He tried to ignore the weight that was on his shoulder, not being pulled, and ran over the mission specifics again. Location: Congress Poland. Part of the Russian Empire. Climate: cold. Town: middle of nowhere. Innocence activity spotted, but no akuma yet. Good for kids.
Like they cared about that shit.
The cart lurched again, and after a moment kept trundling on through the forest. The trees were spruce, mixed with fiery deciduous. They outlined themselves against the changing sky.
This was going to be a long trip, with no adults there to explain that they were to be taken seriously. And with Daisya's habits, they were just going to be treated like a couple of average idiots. Never mind that they'd been through more than any of these knock-kneed rural twerps.
Then again, this was part of the Russian Empire. They'd been through as much.
He grimaced. The higher-ups never seemed to get that the kids there couldn't count as kids. They weren't adults or children, but stuck somewhere in between. Pretending that they were normal children was just patronizing and annoying. But treating them like tools was just—
Cruel.
They could never be normal.
Except for maybe Daisya.
He hadn't been locked up like Lenalee, he wasn't paranoid like Isaac, never stopped talking for days at a time like Jeanne. Hah, if only he did. Even Kiki, Helle, and Idris couldn't fit the mould of all the cackling village brats they passed sometimes. Helle smiled and smiled, and never fucking stopped, and Idris and Kiki got angry. And Antonina, to put it bluntly, didn't even count as human, now.
So, of them all, Daisya was the only one that laughed and complained whenever he felt like it, and complained about just usual stuff. He was the jack of all talents, and annoying as hell.
Kanda felt something boil in his chest. That bastard laughed too much.
It was so wrong.
And it was painful.
The feeling was just a patina on the surface of a lake of God-knew-what, but it was there.
He elbowed Daisya viciously.
"Ow! Hey, what was that for?"
Daisya rocked back to upright, rubbing his eyes. Kanda shot a customary glare at him.
"You've been sleeping for hours," he muttered, managing to turn a statement of fact into an insult.
"Oh, that," Daisya answered bluntly, already refastening his bandages with a safety pin, "Did you want a turn, or something?"
He heard a sigh from beside him.
"Then why'd you–"
"Just be quiet."
Daisya straightened his hood, tossing the bell around and over his shoulder.
"Suit yourself. I'm going back to sleep."
Kanda's muscles tensed involuntarily.
"No."
"Why not?"
"You snore."
Daisya made a face. He had a talent for them.
"Aw, shut up. I do not."
"How would you know?" asked Kanda shortly, irritable as ever.
"I'd hear it."
"No, you'd be asleep."
Daisya shook his head. "I'm still going to sleep. You'd be actually yelling if you were annoyed. Am I right?"
Kanda made a face. He didn't have as many of them as Daisya's, but they did the trick.
"No."
Daisya grinned.
"Yep."
He slumped down in his seat, and pulled his hood down and collar up. Kanda knew that gravity would do its work, and he'd end up leaning one way or the other eventually.
"O'course," said Daisya, voice muffled by the fabric, "If you want a break, I can stay awake for a while."
Kanda's face twisted in distaste, and he crossed his legs, staying silent.
"So? Gonna take me up on my offer?"
Daisya had sprung back into an upright position, but his hood still shaded his eyes. A grin was still plastered on his face.
"If it's going to stop me," Kanda snapped, giving off the impression of threads snapping in a rope, "From having to listen to you."
"It might."
Kanda didn't know it, but dark circles were beginning to show beneath his thin skin.
"Deal."
A sniggering noise emanated from the depths of the hood, and Daisya shook his head, pushing it back on to his shoulders.
"Sure thing," he said. "I'll stop talking, you stop elbowing me."
"You fucking—"
...
Kanda slept more peacefully than you'd imagine. From where he'd laid his head on Daisya's shoulder, he hadn't moved in hours. He didn't even snore; he breathed as softly as always, and Daisya could barely hear it over the creaking of the cart.
It was funny. Kanda always looked like some hero in a book: beautiful (Daisya was still pretty cheesed that there were no cool, ugly characters) and emotionally constipated. It had taken him ages to figure out that complaining = being happy and showing any kind of weakness or smiling or whatever = being very unhappy indeed. Most of the time, he just guessed that Kanda would feel just the same as him — if he were in Kanda's shoes — and vice versa.
But when he was asleep, his face scrunched up, his mouth hung open a bit, his neck was bent at a weird angle, and he was drooling a bit. He looked like just another dumb kid, too bored to stay awake and too proud to admit he was tired.
Speaking of which, now seemed to be the perfect time to see if his hair was as soft as it looked. Lenalee's was really smooth and shiny when she let him braid it, or at least really soft for someone who probably didn't wash it much, and Kanda's looked even softer. And there was no chance in hell he was going to get off with touching it while Kanda was awake.
Well, maybe not no chance, but not a huge chance either. Daisya was never sure when it came to Kanda.
Gingerly, he hovered a hand over Kanda's head, and gently placed it down—
—and froze. Kanda seemed to stir, eyelids fluttering. After a moment, he shifted his head to a different position, and fell back into his coma.
Daisya counted five seconds — one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand, five one thousand — and stroked sideways. Kanda's hair really was soft, and fine.
He let his hand slip down the ends, which weren't brittle and frayed, unlike his own or his siblings'.
Huh. He'd never have guessed that Kanda was the type, but the guy seemed to know a bit about hair.
Just to confirm his findings, Daisya replaced his hand on the top of Kanda's head, and repeated the movement.
And decided it would be best to be absolutely sure about it.
Kanda always stared at dogs along the road and sometimes pet them, but Daisya decided that he was definitely more like a cat.
...
When Kanda woke up, blurry-eyed, stiff, and warm, his brain kicked him back to upright.
"What time is it?"
He combed his fingers through his hair busily. Hair tie — yes, it was there. Maybe Daisya did spare a thought for his own survival, for all that he tried to steal it when they were both awake.
"Just about dawn, and not a moment sooner. Geez, you're heavy."
Kanda said nothing, retying his ponytail and trying to ward off the rising embarrassment.
"Shut up. We need to get going soon."
"Yeah, yeah. How many miles is it from the town?"
Kanda had let out his hair, and kept combing it. Tangles were not fun to have.
"How the hell should I know?"
"I'm testing you. It's thirteen."
He put up his hands and retied his ponytail, deftly kicking Daisya in the shins as the latter tried to snatch his hair tie.
"Dammit."
Daisya's fingernails bit into his thumb, as they did when he was frustrated.
"I'm not going to hold back the next time you do that," growled Kanda, shooting him a dark look.
"It doesn't exactly hurt," murmured Daisya "Which reminds me…"
Daisya reached into a pocket, and fished out three crumpled, sketch-covered scraps of paper; the stub of a pencil; a bag of lozenges; a worn, snot-covered handkerchief; and finally a small flask of liquid and a glass vial.
"…I nearly forgot to take this."
Kanda shot a more disdainful look at him, which was comparatively worried. Even contempt could be expressed with so many different nuances, Daisya had noticed.
"You shouldn't need to take it anymore."
"Yeah, but it's better if I do. 'S easier to fight when you don't hurt all the time, you know?"
He spilled a tiny bit it into the vial, and downed it. Kanda made a face of disgust. That bastard, with his pain and his stupid medicine. Marie had told him what pain was for, when he'd asked why there was so much of it. It kept you alive. After that stunt in Budapest, and in the forest, and after everything since, he knew Daisya needed it more than most.
"You're going die," he said, "If you make everything stop hurting."
God knew that even the possibility of losing an exorcist meant that they'd try more and more to build them. Antonina wasn't too good at it, so she wasn't a big loss. But Daisya—
"Yeah, but at least I'll be having fun."
With his hood pulled back to reveal most of his face —and the grin accompanying it — Daisya looked as carefree and ignorant as ever Kanda would love and hate to be.
"Don't lie," Kanda said quietly, feeling his jaw clench.
Daisya hadn't seemed to notice, shoving the handful of scraps back into his pocket, and stretching, waiting perhaps for the anticipated bored reply. Ignorant.
"You're pathetic."
Kanda's voice was still soft, but it had an edge to it, like the stinging nettles that seemed so soft and harmless until you brushed against them, and felt it burn.
Daisya kicked back, and crossed one leg over the other. He'd had a while to learn about stinging nettles, and he still came out covered in welts every time they went near a patch. He always said they didn't hurt.
Bastard.
"Not lyin'. I am never going to be bored again. I'm going to do whatever I want."
For a moment, there was just the clatter of wood and wheels and the sound of hooves.
"And if I die," he added, "Well, it'll suck a bit, but if I'm still having fun when I kick it then I won't regret it."
You fucking moron.
"Don't you have anything better to live for?" Kanda asked, almost but not quite snapping.
He always kept his fury quiet, under control. At this point it had passed the sharpened peak of rage, and was heading towards the valley of lightheaded anger that laughed so as not to kill.
Daisya shrugged in the face of it all, and started to talk again.
"Not really."
He seemed to consider this for a moment.
"No, not really. My family's nice enough, but I write home, and I don't ever really want to go back there."
He stared up at the sky, as if watching the stars disappear.
"You've got no idea how boring it was. The only thing to do was play soccer. Half the time it was way too hot and the other half no one played with me because I was too good."
"Yeah, you sure had a tough life."
Sarcasm dropped off of Kanda's every word, and the cart trundled along. The trees were still green, but starting to fade. The sky's blue was just a few shades lighter than it had been. Funny, the things you notice.
"Eh, not really, but I've got to say if I'd been stuck there," Daisya started, speeding up, "I'd have been either be outta there or dead by the time I turned twenty. I promised that if I hadn't gone somewhere else by then, I was just going to start walking until I was out or dead of thirst or something because the only reason to stay alive is to have fun."
The words tumbled out with a breathless emphasis, ending in a hiss.
The cart hit another rut.
"So, anyway," he started again, catching a breath before Kanda retaliated, "It's not too fun to hurt all the time."
He smiled at Kanda, daring him to continue.
"Then you're useless," was the quiet reply.
Kanda had turned away, and Daisya could only guess as to his expression. He was acting weird — normally he would have yelled, or made some disapproving noise, or told him to shut up.
Daisya made another face.
"That's not nice."
"No, it's right."
There was an edge of thickness in Kanda's words. When he turned back to face Daisya, his face was covered with the smug grin of someone who was about to prove someone else wrong.
But with the way his eyes were wider than normal, the way his muscles from his face to his shoulders were tensed, he wasn't feeling happy or even self-satisfied right now.
"Either you ram it though your head that what you think doesn't matter, or I'll do it for you," said Kanda, voice low, "You're an exorcist. You have to fight."
For once he laid the words down simply, speaking them as if they were strips of ripped methodically, not roughly, from the fabric of the air. Daisya knew he probably shouldn't go on. But, of course, he remained himself.
"So what? 'S not like I'm going to quit all of a sudden. They can't–"
"They will."
The thin bite had returned to Kanda's voice.
"You–"
"It doesn't matter what it is. They'll do it. Shut up. Now."
Kanda's knuckles were white, and Daisya's reluctant sense of self-preservation finally kicked in.
This is entirely conjecture, but Kanda's completely weird behaviour here is because he knows the Order is short on exorcists, and he knows that he and Alma were made because they were losing exorcists. Enter Daisya, who's reckless but talented, and Kanda's not having a good time. The anger he directs at Daisya is the anger he feels about his and Alma's creation, the anger he feels for the Order that forces them to fight. And Kanda, at this point, still values life enough to fight Alma. So he also unconsciously believes that everyone should want to live, and when Daisya's like 'eehhhh i guess' he just snaps.
Speaking of which, the reason for such an Edgy characterization for such a light-hearted character is as follows: Daisya grew up in a small town, didn't really have friends, didn't really like his family much, and hated the same thing day after day. The cheery exorcist in Barcelona values his own life far more, but the kid who spent most of his day trying to escape his family and his town by wandering on the outskirts alone might have. My headcanon is that he's so happy as an exorcist that death doesn't seem too bad, because he still can't really understand the concept. Kids don't really have that good of a concept of death - I remember not really feeling it as having any impact, and it still feels like something far away, because I haven't seen it up close and personal. Killing akuma is just reducing them to dust, so I feel like Daisya is also like that. Tl;dr he's careless and fancy-free, but also just a lonely, arrogant kid who's had the chance of a lifetime.