Exception
By: Aviantei
81. Hey, Look, New Plot Movements
And now, back to our regularly scheduled awkward moment rife with the potential for drama: AKA Kanda showing up at Ivy's while Link was over! That's right—this is what we call an arc transition. It's not like real life slows down just because of some fancy bold text or anything, so it's time to roll full steam ahead!
Given the situation that Ivy now found herself in, she could be forgiven for panicking about the potential misunderstanding of having a friend Kanda didn't recognize over so early. Further, given the events of the past twenty-four hours, she could also be forgiven for giving everything up, saying fuck it, and going back to bed to ignore everything until Monday morning, when school would start again. It sounded like an incredible fantasy, yes, but Ivy knew it wouldn't solve anything, so she did the most logical thing she could:
She opened the door.
"'Morning, Yū-kun," she said, giving him a hug that was just as much there to give herself a treat as it was to greet him. "What're you doing over here so early?" It wasn't surprising to see him up already, seeing as he was way more of a morning person than Ivy was, but showing up on her doorstep wasn't all that usual.
"I just thought you could use some company since we were talking about being stressed lately." He held up a bag of takeout as an offering. "I brought breakfast. I figured I should have a good reason to make it worth getting out of bed for."
"You say that like seeing you isn't enough." Despite the fact that Ivy had just been mid conversation about her concerns with her relationship with Kanda thanks to the whole Alma Situation, seeing her boyfriend still felt nice. "Still, a thousand points for you. Though, I did already have company over…"
Kanda blinked, doing a quick survey of the fact that Ivy was still in her pajamas, then scanning the apartment. Link, curious, had come to check what was going on, and the two locked eyes. Kanda, more than ready to assert dominance, made sure he didn't look impressed, but he also did his best not to jump to any conclusions, despite all the possibilities floating around in his head. Meanwhile, having completed his own assessment, Link concluded that he could see the appeal, and was glad Ivy had snagged someone good looking on top of being just someone that made her happy.
"Yū-kun, this is Howard Link, an old friend of mine. He ran into some trouble last night and needed a place to stay, so I had him sleep on the couch. Howard, this is Kanda Yū, the boyfriend we've discussed. Both of you: play nice or I'm kicking you out." Yup, neither Kanda nor Link doubted that. Ivy was making concessions enough by being up so early and dealing with people, even if they were the two she was closest with. No need to tempt fate by aggravating her temper. "We already have tea ready, so why don't we sit down and eat?"
All things considered, it was much more of a command than it was a suggestion by any stretch of the imagination, and both boys knew it. Thus, without any further delay, Ivy went to grab some plates and utensils, Kanda distributed the food, and then all three of them were at the table without much to say. Because Kanda had picked up enough for just the two of them, the portion sizes were a little small, but that didn't diminish the general quality, so that was fine. With an extra teacup procured, it was like such a meal had been prepared from the beginning.
You know, except the dead silence. If it had been just Ivy and Kanda or Ivy and Link, that wouldn't have been anything too bad, seeing as that was the usual comfortable modus operandi. But whenever the number had increased to three, the atmosphere had turned awkward, and the fact that Link and Kanda kept assessing each other across the table added to it.
A tension which Ivy soon interrupted by bonking both of them on the head.
"Don't make it weird," she said, scowling all the while. "You're both capable of talking to each other like decent human beings. Jesus." Kanda and Link then proceeded to avert their gazes, as if that would do anything to avert the evidence. It was frustrating, sure, but in other ways it was kind of endearing, and Ivy couldn't keep her smile from forming. "What am I gonna do with you two? Like if you're not gonna talk, at least stop acting like you're enemies or something."
They were both important people to her, after all. She wasn't going to force them to talk to each other or anything, but still.
"Sorry," Link said just as Kanda muttered, "My bad." Well, at least they avoided the whole talking in unison thing, since that wouldn't have helped any of the vibes whatsoever. Yeah, Ivy was kind of realizing she kind of had a type of person that she hung out with. Still, the boys had to admit that Ivy had a point—but asking Kanda to start a pleasant conversation was just requesting the impossible.
On the other hand, Link was nowhere near as much of a recluse, so it looked like there was a clear batter up and ready to go. Seeing he was about to speak, Ivy allowed herself to relax back into her take-out pancakes—
"So I assume you're serious about Ivy?"
—and choked in the process, coughing. Link, prepared, passed Ivy her orange juice but didn't look away from Kanda. With Ivy indisposed for the moment, she couldn't divert the conversation, and Kanda, having been issued a challenge, wasn't about to let that slide without a fight. "I am. What's it to you?"
What the fuck did I just say to you two?! But even if Ivy could manage to say so through her coughing fit, the floodgates had been opened. The best thing to do would be to let the chips fall and hope there wasn't too much destruction in the aftermath. Thank fuck for maple syrup to get you through stressful times. So long as they don't kill each other, it'll be fine…
"I just thought I'd check," Link said, not easing up in the slightest. Was some of that antagonism fueled by the vague knowledge of the whole Alma situation that Kanda was clueless about? Sure, and he didn't quite care how unfair that might be. "Ivy deserves at least that much, that's all. So long as she's happy and you're serious, I'm not gonna complain, but I figured I'd check." It didn't matter how long it had been since they'd seen each other or the fact that Ivy had lowkey ghosted him for a while; he would still look out for her, no matter what. "So, if someone else came alo—shit!"
In all fairness, Link had that kick under the table coming, as did he have the glare that Ivy shot him. Sure, she could admit she had been wimping out about the whole Alma thing, but that didn't mean she needed someone else to do it for her! And while in most situations, Kanda would've been observant enough to notice the exchange, but that was a character setting that demanded his pride wasn't under attack and he wasn't about to pop a vein as a result.
"You wanna try saying that again?" Kanda asked, clenching onto his fork. If Ivy had to replace her silverware because of him, she was going to riot. Maybe she should also be concerned about him also attacking with the thing, but worrying about Link in a fight was kinda pointless, so #priorities. "I don't care if you're Ivy's old friend or not; you keep talking shit and I'll—"
And then, of all things, another knock.
There was a beat of silence as Kanda and Link both fell silent, deferring to Ivy's judgement on the matter—and she was running through her list of possibilities all over again. The main difference was that the one person she would've guessed to arrive unannounced—Kanda—was already in her apartment, so she was out of ideas. I swear, she thought as she went to check the door anyways, if this is Ari whining because our adventure didn't go the way she wanted to, I'm gonna strangle—
A train of thought which disappeared right away upon realizing it was her landlady waiting outside the door.
In an instant, Ivy shuffled into Polite Consumption for the Outside World mode, putting on the most well-behaved expression that she could muster. Ideally, she would've swung her jacket on to save a bit of face, but it seemed she'd dragged it into her room last night, and it seemed rude to keep her landlady waiting any longer just to go get it, so she'd deal. Two people had already seen her in her pajamas that morning; what was one more?
"Oh, good, you're in, Ivy-chan. I hope I didn't wake you," said Landlady with all the politeness you'd expect from someone who was the epitome of the kind grandmother trope.
"No, don't worry. I was already awake. Just enjoying a lazy Sunday, you know?" Oh, if that were true, but it was as good enough of a cover as any, so a little white lie was fine. Fuck, Ivy sure hoped it wasn't obvious that she had company over, because she so didn't want to explain any of that, nope. "What did you come up all the way here for, ma'am?"
Landlady nodded, the simple motion almost seeming like it would totter her over any second. "Yes, yes. Sorry to bother you with this, but it looks like we're going to be having some renovations coming in soon. It seems one of the tenants' son likes to make his own toys, you see, and one of them managed to make a mess of things next door. We finally got a group to look into things, and they said they're going to need to take down the wall—" a nod to the left side of the living room "—and the process will take a while to finish."
The pieces were almost clicked together, but Ivy could still hold onto some vague hope that her life wasn't about to become an awful and atrocious mess. "Well, if there's another apartment I could shuffle into, I don't mind—"
"Ah, but that's the thing," continued Landlady, and Ivy thought she deserved a goddamn medal for keeping all the cursing inside her mind. "If I could, I'd just let you use another room, but I don't have any others available right now. We've all booked up, and no one's moving out any time soon." All things considered, it was a pretty small apartment complex, but the sheer coincidence of it all sure felt like the universe had geared up to drop a giant middle finger at the worst time. "I'm sorry, sweetie, since you've been such a good tenant, but you'll at least need to find a new place to stay in a couple weeks." Landlady kept talking out logistics, things about not charging rent and keeping the apartment for Ivy when she came back, but Ivy was too busy focusing on her breathing to process a word of it, let's be real.
"Thanks for letting me know," she said, her smile so strained she could feel it cramping her cheeks. "I'll have to call my guardian to see what we want to do from here, but I'll be sure to let you know by the end of the week, alright?"
Landlady nodded and, after exchanging a few more pleasantries, left to shuffle back down the hallway. Ivy let the door fall shut and just kinda stared at it, waiting for the sound of Landlady's footsteps to get far away enough not to hear whenever she at last snapped and screamed:
"Jesus fucking Christ!"
RIP, Stability. We knew thee well.
Tyki wasn't certain of very much in the world, but he knew one thing for sure on that day, and that one thing was that he was getting tired of not knowing what the fuck was going on.
Before, with managing to not have any clue who Wiseley was when they were (distantly) related—Tyki could handle that. Sure, he still owed Road some hecking favors for that, which was never a good position to be in, but he could accept that he just avoided as much of his family as possible and that was on him. But when it came down to some random stranger he'd never seen before—AKA Elizabeth—ask him if he was related to a very specific individual whose name he hadn't heard before but also swore sounded kinda familiar?
Yeah, it was just enough to piss a guy off.
I'm not going to ask Road unless things get desperate, though. She has too much dirt on me already, Tyki thought, lounging on the couch at Clark's place. While Road had opted to go back to school after their little party at Anita's had broken up, Tyki went to make up for suddenly bailing after getting dragged to the party. Considering how caught up in thought he was, he wasn't quite doing a good job at that, but he'd showed up so that kinda helped? Sheesh, it's not like I don't have my own info network. I can ask around there, not to mention I'm sure someone would be willing to look into that Elizabeth person for me too. Given Tyki's level of attractiveness, he had more than enough people who would do him favors if he asked, so that was always something he had at his advantage.
Then again, Red Jr. seems to be involved now, so maybe I can just ask Red if he knows who Elizabeth is, too. And if all else failed, Lavi and Ari were Bookman; even Tyki knew that name involved a pretty decent information network, too. Yeah, that sounds like a good plan; hang out with Red and do a little bit of investigation work…
"Are you thinking about the Eyepatch Big Bro again?"
The question was accompanied by one Eeez jumping right onto his stomach, and the resulting weight of an eleven-year-old was enough for Tyki to lose all rational thought. Even through the aesthetic surgical mask he wore, Tyki could tell Eeez was smiling, and he ruffled the boy's already messy blonde hair in retaliation. "And what makes you think I was thinking about Red?"
"Hmm…" Eeez tilted his head, making no move to free Tyki from his weight whatsoever. "'Cause you looked all serious, then you ended up smiling to yourself like you do whenever you when you have a date, and Eyepatch Big Bro is who you brought over last, so I figured it was him." You know, maybe Tyki should've been more careful around the more impressionable child, but that technically wasn't his job now was it. "So? Am I right?"
"Yeah, yeah, you're right." Aaand Eeez had just earned a noogie for his troubles. That turned out to be a bad idea, seeing as Eeez flailed and caused more pain in the process, but sometimes you gotta make sacrifices for the greater good of teasing the kiddos in your life. "'Eyepatch Big Bro,' huh, though? You don't get attached to people I bring over that often." Then again, Tyki didn't bring too many people over, since most of them weren't interested in his non-rich lifestyle, but it had happened once or twice.
"That's 'cause he's fun." At least, Eeez had enjoyed playing with him. Lavi wasn't as skilled at tricky plays as Momo, Clark, and Tyki were, but his memory meant he had a good sense of what cards were in play at all times, and that led to interesting situations—including being able to call out cheating plays. And he'd been willing to give Eeez a piggyback ride! That was always a bonus. "Are you gonna invite him over again sometime soon?"
Tyki shrugged. "If he's free." Which, come to think of it, there was a high chance of that, wasn't there? Lenalee had gone home, so that meant that Lavi wouldn't be occupied with a crisis, right? (Ha.) "You just want someone around who will throw card games to let you win."
"Do not." And there was the pout. Funny how cute kids could be when they weren't raising hell all the time, unlike someone he knew (cough, cough, Road). "Besides, I've gotten better. Momo says so!" Tyki couldn't disagree with that, but teasing was a lot more fun. One day, Eeez would no doubt refine his skills and start kicking all their asses, but Tyki was willing to face that future. "Come on, Tyki, let's play a game and I'll show you."
Eeez made it his mission to hop off of Tyki and start dragging him to the table. More than glad for an opportunity to relax, Tyki let himself be pulled along, especially since it was an ample distraction from being grilled about Lavi. I came here to unwind and relax, after all. Some questions about weird guys dropping weird names in weird conversations could wait for another day. Besides, it can't be that big of a deal, now can it?
(Spoiler: nothing was ever going to be that simple, but let Tyki dream.)
[Author's Notes]
Hello, and welcome back to the next set of Exception updates! This time, we're getting into the final arc, starting with this Ivy apartment sub arc that's I've been looking forward to writing! I had fun putting it together, so I hope you all enjoy reading it!
We also have a lil bit of Tyki floating around. I don't have time to have dig into the whole hobo crew, but I like having them cameo here and there. Plus having Kanda and Link in the same place is a lot of fun. I love making all these AU scenarios and interactions.
Next Time: "82. Contact and Questions." Please look forward to it!
-Avi
[23 November 2024]