Sorry for the late update, had some family stuff going on that might go completely off the rails after today! Chapters won't be any less frequent than monthly. They may end up being monthly depending on how things are. As usual, please let me know whatever you think of the chapter or the work! Hope you all are enjoying the winter.

The cushions and hangings absorbed most of the sound around Lenalee's room. She knew by now that most people thought the decorations were Komui doting on her. A lot of people, mostly the older Finders or exorcists with kids of their own, had pulled her aside at one time or another to tell her that they would talk to him for her if she ever felt like he was overreaching. It took a while for her to understand why they seemed worried.

The Black Order where she was inducted wasn't one that many of her friends knew. She'd asked for the stacks of frilly pillows herself when she first got her own room, because without Komui there and without the long experience she had now, she couldn't control her own crying. The humiliation she felt knowing that everyone else could hear her was one more thing she hated here.

A side effect of that insulation was that it was warm here even on the draughty days, and another was that the morning bell didn't always wake her up like everyone else. They got around that by having someone come along to knock on the door. The one today rattled her door around just like usual. It could have been her brother or Kanda, or one of her other friends who went for early training. They knew she needed time before she started. Whoever was on the other side, who had woken her just now, would be moving straight on to the dojo or the offices.

Lenalee stretched in bed before she could reconsider waking up, pushing off the duvet so that she wouldn't be comfortable just turning over and going back to sleep. The growth spurts she was having made it so much more important not to let sleep get to her. Then, like she did every morning, she stood straight up. No sitting on the edge of the bed and moaning over the day ahead. A long drink of water and half an hour of stretches would get her warmed up for training.

She breathed in full enough and stretch tall enough to crack her spine. All right. Time to go!

The light was grey today. Cutting across her pillow, it made the room feel larger as it shone off all her decorations. There was nothing else to notice about the weather on the other side of the window. Lenalee just planted her feet on the reed mat Komui had brought from home, a long time ago, and focused on her breath.

Most days she wasn't on mission, Lenalee tried to split her time between her friends. There were too many people at the Order to get to know all of them. She needed people in her world who wouldn't break her heart. It took a while to learn that lesson. Only Komui, who would never go out in the field, would stay with her until there wasn't any her to stay with anymore.

Bringing her hands overhead, Lenalee lunged forward in a stance she could hold for hours without a twitch.

Some of the Finders who had already lasted a year would last a little longer. The exorcists her own age, and the ones she trusted with their own lives, as well as the research department. Each of them gave something to her world she could rely on: a life to imagine that wasn't her own. These minutes were the only ones she spent with herself each day.

Lenalee pivoted on one foot. There was a small cramp in her left calf from chasing too hard after a football yesterday that would need more time to work on.

She knew it was good to think with yourself to figure out any problems that you didn't want to solve quickly. Kanda loved to be alone. For her, though, being alone meant that there was time to think about where she was in the world. There wasn't anything she did or anything she could do outside the Order, and in the Order the only happiness she could have was in other people.

Lenalee leaned the final few centimetres into a deeper version of the same stretch. The knots weren't giving her too much trouble today.

Maybe Marie got some satisfaction from his music lessons, but her Innocence didn't even need her to think to use it. It was dumb and unfeeling as a fish or a bug. She'd seen the way even the Charity Bell leapt and sang, though it weren't Parasitic-type. The Dark Boots just chained her. What was there to like in that?

She jumped quickly back to standing and took the pose again to try and clear her head. See, there she was doing it again!

Whenever she had time alone to think, she got nowhere. It wasn't any comfort to know her own thoughts. They weren't very complicated. She hated this life and this place; whatever happiness someone like Dris used to find in the archives he'd told her were as deep and old as the ones in the cities of his home, that wasn't something that she could understand. There wasn't any choice to staying here. There was just one alternative. People, who had their own lives and brothers, died without exorcists.

The routine ended as fast as she'd designed it to, standing in the window's light where it sliced across the room.

She took a moment to rock from heel to toe across the mat. Now that her blood was flowing she could almost feel the reeds through her calluses. It might be nice to have soft skin again. For now it was nice not to have blisters.

Without another thought, Lenalee stowed the mat and dressed in her training gear as quickly as any soldier. Undershirt, uniform jacket, a pair of Kanda's old pants that Nurse had hemmed for her, three pairs of cotton stockings, laced leather-soled boots. It wasn't any use training if she didn't have the choking feel of the Dark Boots on. It was amazing how much her movements changed if she even used sandals or slippers. She picked each piece from a pair of duplicates in her chest of drawers that Komui kept organized. There was nothing better than waking up from a tired faint to find that everything she threw on the ground was washed and folded. He really was the best!

There was nothing more for Lenalee to turn over in her head before the day started. She'd escape the moment she got out of here. Then the day unfolded like she'd planned. Training with Kanda—and Daisya now, for some reason he was getting up early to join them-breakfast with the new exorcists, then Reever would take her up to the office to spend time with the Science Department. Komui told her that they counted the days she wasn't there to help out with records. Truth be told it was a lot nicer to just spend hours chatting in the stacks with them than to try and talk with some of the jaded exorcists.

Lenalee breathed in, breathed out, tucked her shirt in, and opened the door—

"What were you doing in there, shaving?"

—into Daisya's face. Huh?

"Daisya?" she squeaked. "Were you waiting for me?"

He glanced back and forth at the stairs warily before he answered her. Daisya reminded her of an animal sometimes, he and Kanda both. In different ways. Daisya was like a magpie or a fox, always hopping around. Kanda was as sullen as a bull.

Well, whatever he was watching for, it wasn't coming. The residential tower just looked like it did any day at 5 in the morning. The pale sun coming down from the skylight wasn't enough to make the colours vivid yet.

"Marie said you need your own alarm, I didn't think it was because it took you that long to wake up," he grumbled.

"I just like to do my own stretches," she said. He'd get to his point soon enough. Daisya liked to start off conversations with a few jabs, like it was a fight, so you had to wait through that before you scored your point.

"Come on, so I could've just knocked again?" Daisya groaned.

She laughed. "I'm surprised you didn't think of that."

The noise they were making bounced right up the stone spiral of the tower. It didn't worry her; most people were awake by now even if they didn't start training until later. It did seem to worry Daisya. They were still standing in her doorway while he shifted from foot to foot.

"Me too. Uh, here."

He held out a used-looking envelope. This wasn't a prank, was it? The first two or three he'd tried to pull on her, with giving the wrong directions or messing with her room, she had just thought it was an honest mistake. After all, nobody knew HQ as well as she did. A while later he told her that when she didn't react, he thought it was her way of making fun of him.

"Oh, thank you! Can I open it here?"

Daisya just grimaced. "I guess. Just don't go around showing everyone else. "

While he backed off awkwardly, Lenalee did just that. If he wasn't trying to run away then it had to be a real present.

The envelope wasn't even glued. There were a few pieces of loose, folded-up paper inside and a postcard with mice drawn on that she remembered him buying in Hull. Well, she should read the card first.

Happy Birthday!

You're already the best exorcist out of all of the kids except Kanda, so I shouldn't tell you to get stronger and grow faster, because then you're just going to get ahead of me.

Since you said you were worried that all of us are going to get hurt, I thought that you want to keep having me around. The drawings in the envelope are for if something happens to me or Kanda or Marie or the old man that means you forget what we look like. I tried to draw Yeager and Komui too, but I don't practice on them so they looked weird.

I'm really happy that you stayed here. It's always fun hanging out with you, since you can keep up with us but you also don't do what anyone expects you to do. If you need to talk about stuff and you don't want to talk to Yeager or Komui or Kanda (because he never says anything useful back) then I can listen to you.

I hope you can eat lots of cake today. Komui has some great presents for you (I checked his office when we were waiting for debrief). See you next year! Maybe you'll be taller than me.

P.S. please get me more paper for my birthday

P.P.S. I also have a real present for you, don't worry

Love,

Daisya

Lenalee wiped her eyes with her fingers before she went through the rest of the envelope. She could barely see the drawings anyway! Each of them was on pulp paper crisscrossed with fold lines, other doodles crowding around the main drawings Daisya had made. He had drawn over all of the spidery, messy pencil sketches with black ink. There weren't very many splotches or runs, though there were a few dark fingerprints or stains on the edges of the paper. He must have done and redone most of them twice or three times. Daisya was a lot of things, but neat wasn't one of them.

There was a page that was just sketches of Kanda and Marie, a traced copy of a photograph they had all taken at Christmas two years ago, and a few more simple drawings that showed them all as circle heads on line bodies making jokes. Probably ones he got from postcards that he gave to other people. She shouldn't be surprised that some of them actually looked...like them. Whenever Daisya had a free moment and he wasn't tapping out a beat on a table or singing, his fingers were scribbling in tiny movements. He would make little stars and circles in spilled beer on tabletops. It was still a surprise to see her own face looking out at her from the paper.

It was also a surprise that Daisya was there when she looked up. He had seemed reluctant enough to hand it over to her, but here he was, clinging to the railing and leaning way out over the drop. There was sometimes a current that you could feel running through the tower. All the heat from the fires in the main hall got sucked right up to the residences. That same breeze, full of smells from the bread baking, ruffled Daisya's hair as he stared at flagstones that were stories below. Not watching her. Letting her cry however she wanted without looking weak.

She ran up and hugged him without her usual flying leap. They were almost the same height now, she didn't want to send him over the edge! Instead she settled for squeezing him tightly.

"Take it easy!" Daisya croaked.

Lenalee ignored him. He knew a dozen ways to throw her off if he really wanted to.

"Thank you," she said. "You listened to me."

"Of course I listen, I've got ears."

Now he was just joking around. It was frustratingly hard to talk to Daisya sometimes, when he looked so serious and then messed around the next minute. This morning she thought he'd finally gone back to the boy who comforted her without thinking when she was small. Some people got sick of Kanda's stonewalling, but that was the simplest thing to get around, he was always sincere, always trying. Daisya slipped around her questions as quickly as an eel.

Suddenly she felt him go limp in her arms.

"Lena, are you mad that I've stayed here?"

Or maybe he really was serious. Instead of trying to escape he stayed there staring down. It was like he was the one who didn't want to be seen, not her.

Lenalee released him.

Leaning beside him on the rail, she tried to see for herself what he was looking at. There was nothing there. Apparently, the same old grey floor was just that interesting.

"I wasn't trying to make you give up. Do what makes you happy, as long as you're safe," she said.

"You don't care if I keep working for the people that busted your legs up like that," Daisya said slowly.

She flinched. It stung unexpectedly to hear him say it to her. They had gone so long without talking about what he saw, after her testing. Lenalee narrowed her eyes to focus on the bottom of the tower.

"I get to see you as long as you're still living here."

A hint of a smile sounded in Daisya's voice. "So you want me to stick around, even if I'm risking my neck."

Was that what she meant? Lenalee recoiled, gripping the railing. "No! I told you—"

"Yeah, yeah, I listened. I'll be careful." Daisya ruffled her hair with one hand. "Happy birthday. Race you downstairs!"

He launched himself off before she could react, landing in a sprint that took two stairs at a time. Darn it! There was no way she'd catch him with that sort of head start.

Was that what she meant, that Daisya's safety meant nothing to her? That he should be alone fighting akuma on a mission, as long as she got to play tag with him when she came back? That was wrong! The exorcists that were her friends, she prayed no matter what her hatred was that they could survive. That was what she wanted.

Lena's boots dug into the ground as she held the envelope tight in one hand. She would chase after him anyway. Maybe if she timed it right, she could vault right over the banister on the lowest level and come out in front!

"I wasn't done!" she called as an afterthought.

The only reply she got was the giggling that floated up the tower.

In case it's a bit vague, Daisya is trying to smooth over the little disagreements he and Lenalee had over how serious their situation was last arc! He knows now that he should have died out there in Road's trap and that he can't bring himself to regret it for his own sake.