Exception

By: Aviantei

82. Contact and Questions

After screaming for an extensive amount of time to vent her feelings (during which Kanda and Link both sat by without complaint and giving affirmative responses as needed), Ivy knew it was time to make a game plan. Sure, it would be easy to sit around and wait for the day she had to get the heck out of her apartment, but that was a pile of stress she was not going to invite onto herself, no, sir. Kanda and Link had also both declared their willingness to assist, but Ivy knew that in her situation, it wasn't a good idea to just make decisions on her own, which meant there was an essential step to take next:

Calling Klaud Nine.

When it came down to it, Ivy didn't have any hard feelings against her guardian, but she wasn't attached to the woman, either. They both served a functional purpose in each other's lives, and it wasn't much more than that. In fact, most of their communications were over text. So long as Ivy wasn't causing trouble and violating her probation, Klaud Nine was content to leave her be, and it had been Ivy's plan to maintain that simple stability until she'd graduated high school, after which she hoped to attend college and live some sort of quiet life without bothering Klaud Nine again.

Which she'd been close to doing, but Landlady's proclamation was throwing wrenches all up in that plan. While Ivy took kept the apartment clean on her own, things like paying rent were far out of her reach, and Klaud Nine had also handled all the paperwork things involved in leasing the place in the first place. Sure, it was things her guardian was used to doing, as Ivy hadn't been her first foster kid nor would she be her last, but that didn't change the fact that the tight deadline was about to make things a giant mess.

"Still, it's not like putting off contacting her is going to make things any easier…" Ivy griped from where she'd flopped on the couch in her frustration. Kanda was serving as a pseudo-pillow, whilst Link had settled down in a nearby chair that was more stiffness than comfort, but Ivy loved all the same. They'd long since finished breakfast, all the takeout containers tidied up by Kanda while Link had made an extra pot of tea, which sat on the coffee table. Determined to do it, Ivy pulled out her phone, then groaned when she saw the unusually early hour for her on a Sunday, and groaned. "Fuck, there's no way she's gonna be available."

Kanda pinched Ivy's nose. "You're procrastinating."

"Can you blame me?" Link couldn't, as he knew Klaud Nine could be intimidating when the situation called for it, but Kanda had yet to meet the woman, so he didn't know. Still, no matter what the circumstances were, it didn't change the fact that calling her was something that needed to get done, so he gave her a deadpan look. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Ugh, I'm gonna do it."

Picking up her phone again, Ivy selected Klaud Nine's option in her speed dial, pressing it to her ear as the line rang. Sure enough, Klaud Nine's voicemail started playing, which was both a blessing and a curse. While it would've been simple to just say she couldn't reach Klaud Nine, Kanda would never let her live it down, so Ivy toughed it out, waiting for the message to end.

Beep.

Showtime.

"Klaud Nine, its Ivy," she said, just in case it wasn't obvious enough. "My landlady came by this morning and said something about needing to do emergency renovations or whatever, so I'm going to need to stay somewhere else for a bit. I…wasn't sure what we wanted to do, since graduation is coming up in a couple of months. I'll keep my phone on, so please call me when you have the chance. Talk to you soon." With that spiel rambled off, Ivy wasted no time at all in ending the call before flopping over again. "There, it's done!"

"I'm impressed," Link said, meaning it, "you learned how to be polite."

"Fuck off," Ivy said, adding a middle finger to accentuate it. Link smiled, as if to say that was more like it. "Shit, though, I hate waiting for other people to get back to me. This is going to suck." Whenever Ivy could control what was going on in a situation, she was fine, but when she had to leave that up to someone else? Yeah, no, that was the worst. "Starting a new lease somewhere else seems stupid whenever I was planning on getting into the college dorms once that started…"

"That is why you reached out to her in the first place, you know." There Ivy went, trying to solve all her problems on her own again. Nothing had changed in the slightest. "You're not going to fix things by sitting around and worrying about them. You should try and do something to keep your mind occupied. Whenever Klaud Nine calls, you can figure things out then."

It was a solid plan, Ivy could admit, and it was also the one course of action that would keep her from losing her mind any more than she'd already been. "Good point." With great reluctance, she pulled herself off of Kanda's lap, though not without him giving her an encouraging squeeze on the shoulder first. "Alright, if that's the game plan for the day, first things first."

She needed to get out of her pjs and into some real clothes.

After several hands of cards (in which Tyki managed to win, as usual, but the competition was rather close), Tyki decided the best course of action for him was to settle down for an afternoon nap to stave off the party night drowsiness. Lucky for him, the janky couch at his friends' place was long broken-in for such perfect naps that several hours of his Sunday melted away. Upon arising to Clark's offering of cheap burgers and fries, they all enjoyed themselves before Tyki was forced to admit that he would have to return to his day to day life at MPHS. In a perfect world, he would've had a little bit more time to himself, but that was asking for a bit too much, anyways.

Having plenty of spare cash to call for an Uber, Tyki did just that, taking a bit of time during the ride to slick back his hair just to save any strange looks he might get once he returned to the forms. From there, though, he had plenty of time to kill, as well as plenty of questions floating around in his mind, and he knew the perfect way to handle both those situations.

When in doubt: call Lavi.

Dialing the number, Tyki propped the phone between his ear and the shoulder, waiting for the results. It wasn't super late, so he suspected Lavi was still awake, but he also wasn't holding out any hope that he'd receive an automatic pickup, either. Using his own life as a reference, people had plenty of things going on with their time, so anything could be catching Lavi's attention, all the way from outside influences to his own mind dragging done a rabbit (heh) hole.

With all that in mind, it took about four rings for the line to connect, and then, sounding out of breath, Lavi answered, "H-hey!"

"Hey, there, Red. I catch you at a bad time?"

"N-no! I was just cooking up a snack and had to get back to my phone, so I kinda ran a bit." And Lavi was in no way about to admit that he might've set a special ringtone for Tyki so he knew was calling, thus leading to his rush. Now, to be fair, Lavi set custom ringtones for everyone, so that in itself wasn't embarrassing, but his rushing to pick up was, so that was a secret just for him. Good thing Ari wasn't home yet for the evening so she couldn't tease him about that detail yet! "What's up, though? Feeling lonely without me?"

Well, well, well, look who's getting more confident with flirting. Never one to back down from a challenge in that arena, Tyki grinned to himself. "Would you believe me if I said I missed you?" he asked. Stuff like that was cheesy, but it seemed to be the most effective for Lavi, so Tyki had no qualms about going that route. "I've just had a lot on my mind, and you just happened to come up. Care if I bend your ear a bit, Red?"

"Go for it." As far as Lavi was concerned, there were way worse ways to spend an evening than listening to a guy with a hot voice and munching on some fresh bagel bites. They were all the enjoyment of pizza in a compact, munchies format! Keeping the phone to his ear, Lavi went to recover said munchies from the kitchen.

"Have you ever had someone mistake you for someone you've never heard of?"

"That's a pretty specific question." In particular, it was the sort of question people asked whenever they had just experienced it. "Should I be keeping an eye out? If there's someone out there that's just as attractive as you, then I wouldn't mind meeting them."

A much lesser person might've felt threatened by such a prospect, but Tyki knew his own charms well, so there was no need to worry. "Oho? If I'd known you were interested in playing with threesomes, I would've brought it up sooner."

Good thing Lavi hadn't gotten to eating just yet, since that would've been enough to make him choke. And yet, the idea of having two Tyki-tiered people showering him with attention didn't sound so bad, either. "I should've known you'd be into that," Lavi said.

"I'm not hearing you tell me your opinion on the matter."

"I mean, I'm not against the idea, but I've also never tried it." Polyamory was one of those nebulous things that Lavi understood on a technical level—plenty of cultures had it in their histories after all—but trying it for himself had never come up. Part of that was because most of his prior relationships had been more whirlwinds, that didn't change the fact that it had never been on the table. "Wait, wait, wait, aren't we getting off topic here? You said someone compared you to someone you haven't heard of before?"

Right, Tyki had been hoping to get some information out of Lavi, not dissect whether or not additional people could be involved in their future flirtations. That sort of talk could wait until Tyki was done with being fucking clueless about everything that was going on around him. "Yup, that happened just earlier today." Explaining the full context just seemed like an absolute nightmare, so Tyki brushed that right off the side, too. Not to mention he didn't trust he'd make it out alive if he mentioned to Lavi that Ari had been along for the ride. "They mentioned someone called Nea, and I can't help but feel like I've heard the name somewhere before, but I can't figure it out…"

"And I'm supposed to know what's going on in that head of yours?"

"Oi, oi."

"Sorry. Will it help if I tell you it's a very attractive head?" It did, in fact, help, though Tyki would pout for a bit anyways, for what little good that did while over the phone. Still, a request had been made of Lavi, and he wasn't one to brush such things off, and so he stuffed a bagel bite into his mouth and got to thinking. He was pretty much a walking encyclopedia of everything he'd ever absorbed, sure, but sometimes it took him a minute to recall whatever was relevant, and all the more so whenever it was something that he'd learned a while ago. But, sure enough, the name Nea was scratchingly familiar; now he just had to find the memory… "Oh!"

"Oh?" Tyki asked, not having expected such a quick result. He'd expected Lavi to use his Bookman skills to do some research or something. "You actually know something?"

"Yeah! I mean, nothing super concrete, but I have heard the name before. The Old Panda was talking about it one time on the phone, but I didn't catch much else in the conversation that made sense." He'd been pretty smol at the time, and that meant he processed things way different. Even when he replayed the details in his mind, it didn't connect together, but that was the sort of cryptic shit he loved. "I mean, there's no guarantee that he wasn't talking about a different Nea, but that doesn't mean I can't go through our records and see what we've got!"

All three of the Bookmen stored things in their minds, but the same didn't go for other people, so there were, in fact, paper records out there. They were kinda a disaster and mixed in with the other various reading materials in the house, but that was part of the super-secret security protocol! Or something to that effect; it was at least a good excuse for whenever the Panda came to visit!

Not knowing the messy state of the Bookman home, Tyki was intrigued. "I'm sure if anyone has something that's relevant, it would be you. Besides, it's not as if I have any other leads." That I'm willing to use, Tyki added in his mind. "I know it's out of nowhere, but if you could look into it, I'd appreciate it. I could even come over and help if you—"

"No, no, that's fine!" Alright. Frantic yelling it was. Tyki assumed it was due to that maybe sounding like he was coming on too strong, but in reality Lavi just didn't want to show off his disaster of a house—a fact that had never bothered him before. "The Old Panda—ah, that's my guardian, right?—just has all sorts of stuff around the house that is sensitive, so we're not supposed to let other people around it." And that wasn't even a lie! Look at Lavi go, twisting the truth to suit his needs. "As fun as archival studies with you sounds, my hands are tied here. Heheh…"

"I get you. My family's the same way." Yes; crisis averted! Lavi took a well-deserved Fist Pump of Victory. "We'll have to have that date another time."

"Careful, you joke about that, and I just might take you up on the offer." For as much as Lavi was an active person, once the hyperfixation kicked in, he could sit around reading for hours. Having company for that just sounded like a good time.

"Come now. Do I seem like I was just joking?" Lavi let out a sound that he wanted to believe was eh?, but it was much closer to kwek? "Part of the fun of seeing someone is getting to learn more about their interests. I'm sure you can make being in a library quite interesting."

"I'll have you know libraries are super interesting on their own."

"See? Proving my point. What could be cuter than watching you be a nerd?" Lavi's enthusiasm for life was infectious; watching him do something he enjoyed would be just as enjoyable. Besides, it wasn't like Tyki had anything against libraries. It would be a grand old time. "I'll add it to the list of places I want to go out with you, then."

"Oh? There's a list?" Lavi's curiosity had gone into overdrive, and it was gonna take a hell of a lot to put it back down. "What's on it? Wait, don't tell me. It's way more fun to guess. Oh, maybe I should make a list, too, and then we can see whenever we cross something off the other's. Whoever empties the other's list off first wins!" Just hearing Lavi chatter with such excitement was enough to help Tyki relax again, which was almost a miracle after returning to his dorm, to be honest. Besides, who was he to turn down that many upcoming dates? "Ah, sorry, none of this is what you called about. Let's see; Nea, Nea… Right, that's it!"

Tyki had just been on the verge of claiming half the point of calling had just been to flirt with Lavi, but the sudden interjection had his mind refocusing in an instant. "You remember something good, Red?"

"Heck yeah, I did! Campbell! The Nea that the Old Panda was talking about. I'll go ahead and doublecheck, but if memory serves me right—" and it did, given Lavi's impeccable memory "—then their full name was Nea D. Campbell. Now, am I amazing, or am I amazing? Go ahead; no need to hold back your applause."

"You are, in so many ways, amazing for sure." A first name was one thing, but a full name, ominous inclusion of a middle initial involved? Tyki could get some mileage out of that. "I tell ya what. Give me a few days to look into stuff on my side, and you look into stuff on yours, then we'll meet up at one of my top secret date idea spots to trade notes?"

"Sounds like a plan. Oh, should we make a date prediction bingo card? I'm so gonna do that." His bagel bites consumed in full, Lavi thus had nothing is distract his energy. "Okay. Okay, okay. Hate to cut this short, but my brain is so in the zone right now. I'll message you if I find anything cool. See you in a few days!"

"Good night, Red." Tyki said, and it was once again a miracle that he was able to get the words out before Lavi said his farewell and hung up. Still, just imagining Lavi bounding around with plenty of energy was a good enough mood booster, leaving Tyki with the feeling that maybe going back to school the next morning wouldn't be so bad after all. Except…

Not even bothering to turn the lights on once he got to his room, Tyki flopped onto the bed and stared up at the dark ceiling, as if that had any answers.

Campbell is the Chairman's last name, isn't it?

[Author's Notes]

Making Nea work in a non-supernatural AU is a fucking time, have I mentioned that?

This is the month where I prepare to do a bunch of updates for my fanfiction anniversary (which I'm actually prepared for this year!), so I don't have too much extra to say. That means we'll have the next chapter out on the 21st, and then a bonus update on the 23rd!

Next Time: "83. Monday Morning: An Update or Two." Please look forward to it!

-Avi

[7 December 2024]