Exception

By: Aviantei

88. (In)actions Have Consequences

"I love you."

Just like the last time those words had been spoken in that very hospital room (albeit as a more homonymic counterpart), there was a moment of silence that followed as both parties processed what had just happened. Kanda, of course, was in the situation of being confessed to (while he had a girlfriend) by his best friend of all people, while Alma was in hypervigilance mode of trying to figure out just how much they might've managed to mess up their longest-running friendship. After a while, the silence stretched on for much longer than they'd expected, even with Kanda as their conversational partner, and so they made the decision to change course, immediately! "Haha, just kidding. I mean, yeah, I love you, but I don't love you—"

"Don't fucking do that." Alma grew still at the words, and then even more still whenever they realized that Kanda was outright glaring at him. Yeah, he played tough a good chunk of the time, but he hadn't been angry at Alma in a long-ass time, so it was just a bit strange to see again. "You always do that—play things off like they're some joke. But if you're serious, that's not something to joke around with!"

"Yū—"

"How long?" As established in other parts of the narrative, it wasn't the first time he'd heard those words from Alma, but they'd been saying those sorts of things since the two of them were kids. Back then, it had sounded like playful nonsense of the variety that Kanda wasn't willing to put up with, and he'd kept that assessment for years, but now Alma was telling him it was different? How long have you been meaning it like that and I haven't noticed?

Any and all words got caught in Alma's throat, and the fiddled their thumbs, as if that was going to make it any easier. They sure did wish that Kanda had taken the joke out, but that wasn't going to happen, and Kanda wasn't going to budge until he got answers or hospital visiting hours were over, and it was kinda doubtful even that would be enough to stop him.

The one way out was through.

"I…I don't know," Alma said, which just made Kanda's glare all the worse. "I mean it! It's not like it hit me in some dramatic movie moment or anything! All I know is that one day, after you went home, I realized that when I said I love you, it felt different. And the more and more I thought about it, it had felt different for a long time. Maybe that was some time in early high school for you?" That meant it had been a couple of years, at minimum.

"And then you just—didn't say anything?" The idea was just as incomprehensible as it was frustrating. "You, of all people, didn't fucking say anything." Kanda had never considered Alma capable of lying, and he wasn't sure that was what he'd call the whole situation, but the concept of Alma never being one-hundred percent genuine and honest about how they felt or what they thought seemed wrong.

Alma grit their teeth, sharing in the feeling of frustration even if their reasons were a bit different. "It's not like it changed anything. I still told you I loved you. I still enjoyed you visiting. And, quite frankly, whether or not I tell anyone anything about my personal feelings is my business, even if it is to you!" It was time for a classic case of now that one bottled up emotion had been let out, that made it a lot easier for a whole bunch of others to come with it. "Besides, it's not like it matters now. I just thought I'd say it to get it off my chest so I can move on already."

Everything that Alma was saying made perfect sense, which had the unique effect of pissing Kanda off even more. "I just don't get why you thought you needed to keep a secret about something like that."

Oh, buddy, that was the wrong question to ask. Alma's head shot up, any of their earlier hesitation gone as the words came spilling out. "What do you mean, why? Was I just supposed to drag you back to the hospital with me? I know you hated it here!" Alma didn't like it much, either, but they were much more capable of accepting the situation. Kanda had been miserable whenever he was stuck in his own long hospital stay, and Alma had wished every day that, if just one of them could get better, they hoped it would be their friend. "Besides, I had no idea how you'd take it! It took me ages to get you to let me hug you, for you to even be friends with me. Do you think I wanted to ruin that?!"

"Well, I guess we'll never know since you waited until now to say it!" Kanda was a proponent hater of getting too lost in thinking about what-ifs, but everything about the idea of Alma being in love with him for years and keeping their mouth shut invited way too many possibilities into his mind. "And what the hell do you mean 'drag me back to the hospital with you'? Do you think if I hated the idea of being here that much I would bother to come visit you?! You're such a dumbass sometimes!"

"I'm the dumbass?! You're the one that's stupid. Must be nice to have it so easy to do whatever you want with your feelings without worrying about other people!" By nature of their personalities alone, Kanda was the type to not give a fuck about what others thought so long as he was honest with himself, while Alma was honest while also making sure they did whatever they could to make the people around them happy. It was natural they'd handle things in different ways, and that had caused friction between the two as kids, but they'd never outright had a fight about their different approaches before. "You're so busy being offended by the fact that I didn't tell you something for once that you can't see anything else. How immature, Yū!"

"Hah? You're the one that's immature—"

"Excuse me, but if you're not going to stop shouting, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." The voice of the doctor entering the room was quiet and firm, and even Kanda had to shut up at such authority. It helped that the doctor in question was none other than Tui Chang, who had been Kanda's attending physician when he was young and was still caring for Alma in the present. "Yū, I expected you to know better. Alma can't take this sort of thing right now."

Right now.

Implying that the current moment was even worse than usual to get Alma worked up.

Like you said, I'm not getting worse, but there hasn't been any breakthroughs on when I might get better, though.

Meaning that Alma had been hiding the truth whenever they'd said that.

And just looking at them—clutching at their chest and taking shallow breaths while their heart monitor showed a pulse that was just a bit too elevated for a mere shouting match—was enough to confirm all those suspicions into one damning conclusion.

They've been lying about this, too.

In any other situation, Kanda wouldn't be all that bothered by it. He'd scold Alma for hiding stuff just because they didn't want to worry anyone, and that would be that. Sure, Kanda would be a little miffed, but it would work out, and they could have a talk, Alma whining and pouting, but still able to laugh at the end of the day, the two saying their goodbyes under positive terms, Kanda promising to visit again soon.

But in the current moment, with everything else that Kanda had just learned and his emotions already running high?

Tui Chang was already at Alma's bedside, checking his condition over. "Lucky for us, this isn't too bad, but if we could have a couple of minutes before you two start to talk out whatever you were fighting about—"

"Don't even worry about me," Kanda said, no longer shouting but his voice still blunt and hard. He stood up, grabbing his backpack from where he'd left it by bottom of his seat, not even bothering to sling it on all the way as he went to leave. "Since I'm that much of a fucking nuisance, I'll just go."

"Yū—"

But Kanda was already out the door, and he stomped the entire way down the hall, to the elevator, out the entrance, and towards the parking lot, scattering any unfortunate souls that happened to cross his path from sheer rage alone. Tui Chang would have liked to follow after him—she'd taken care of the duo since they were small, and thus hated to see them fight like that—but her role as a doctor came first, and so making sure Alma was stable was the priority. Arguments and disagreements could be mended with time, but letting Alma's health tumble off the edge when they were already in a precarious spot was the sort of thing that couldn't be fixed with such ease.

In any event, it wasn't like Kanda was in any state of mind to start to see reason. The sense of betrayal and hurt were coalescing into nothing but anger which made an awful combination with the newfound information that Alma had had romantic feelings for him for ages, and they were just now bringing it up after Kanda already had a girlfriend. With that sort of commitment in his life, the answer to Alma's confession seemed obvious, though Kanda wasn't in any sort of position to even start to process that. And, on top of everything, he'd left Alma in shitty condition, so there was no telling when or if they'd be well enough to have visitors again—not that Kanda wanted to be anywhere near them at the present moment or anytime in the immediate future.

And then, as he was fumbling with the key fob to get his door unlocked, he remembered the worst possible thing he could remember, words spoken by none other than one Howard Link over the most awkward breakfast of Kanda's life:

So, if someone else came alo—

Slamming the car door, Kanda slumped into the driver's seat, his head falling to the steering wheel with enough force to make the horn honk.

"Fuck."

Ivy hadn't heard from Kanda for most of the week, which she supposed that wasn't all that unusual. For one, Lenalee and co. had been dragging Ivy off to pump her up for what Ari had dubbed the Alma Talk. For second, while they enjoyed each other's company, Ivy and Kanda just weren't the kind of couple to stay up late, texting or calling each other. They enjoyed time with each other, made plans after school when they needed more, but were also content to go and sit in their own bubbles when necessary. But, even with that in mind, Ivy could usually expect a response to a message she'd sent within a day, and that hadn't happened yet.

After much other time spent on Klaud Nine taking Ivy around and showing her how to handle the various things she would need to in order to make the move to Tiedoll's as smooth as possible, it was at last time to make a visit on Saturday to get a feel for what her upcoming lodgings would be like. A couple of days with minimal Kanda interaction beyond just the classes they had together had been enough for Ivy to miss him, and so she'd sent a message on Friday afternoon letting him know what was going on and mentioning she was looking forward to seeing him.

And yet, even whenever she was in the passenger seat of Klaud Nine's sports car, staring down her phone, Kanda still hadn't sent her a reply.

"What's got you so pouty over there?" Klaud Nine asked, a bit of light teasing in her tone. Now that she knew that Ivy had a boyfriend and that the girl wasn't outright opposed to such comments (even if she did get as embarrassed as one would expect a teen to be), Klaud Nine was going to fulfill her role as a guardian in flustering her charge. "You've been checking your phone ever since I came to pick you up this morning."

"I'm not pouty!" Ivy protested, right on cue, and Klaud Nine did a valiant job at holding back her chuckle—for the most part. Even Lau Shimin released a chitter. Ivy harrumphed, doing a rather poor job at convincing anyone she wasn't pouting. "I'm just worried. I'm not trying to be clingy, but Yū-kun hasn't texted me back, though he normally would by now…" Ivy had done a lot of work with her friends to get herself feeling better about the whole Alma affair and the general stress of her upcoming move, but still not hearing back from her boyfriend was plenty to disrupt her sense of ease.

Look at her, having normal concerns for her age. Feeling proud, Klaud Nine smiled, which just came across to Ivy as more teasing, increasing her overall tsun factor. "Sometimes people forget things, no matter how well put-together they are. That boyfriend of yours is human, too." If everything went perfect all the time, a lot of things—including the plot of this silly fic—would be very different. "Besides, you're going to see him in a handful of minutes, anyways, so you can be sure he's okay then."

"Yeah, I know, which is why I don't like worrying about it." Ivy put in a lot of work to not being super clingy, and she didn't want to mess that up, since she knew Kanda wouldn't appreciate it. That was part of why she was staring down her text inbox and not just up and calling him. "Getting all bent out a shape over something like that is just stupid."

The corner of Klaud Nine's lips twitched in amusement. Ivy had always been like that, trying to talk herself in a logical way around otherwise normal feelings. Once upon a time, Klaud Nine had been concerned; now her guardian could see the way that Ivy was using that sort of talk to calm herself down, even when she was bothered. To know that she was worried about her boyfriend of all things did make Klaud Nine's heart warm.

As did the way that Ivy almost jumped out of the car once they make it to the Kanda/Tiedoll household's driveway, speeding towards the entrance and Lau Shimin skittering after her. In comparison, Klaud Nine took her time, and she called after her ward, "Don't forget we have boxes to bring inside, too!"

"I know!" Ivy called back over her shoulder. "I'm gonna have Yū-kun help out with them!"

It wasn't like Ivy had a lot of belongings, but somethings like spare clothes and school items could be brought over without any problem. If all went well, the plan for Saturday was to check out the room she'd be using, make notes to bring over any extra furniture, then spend the rest of the day packing up anything else she needed to make an official move-in on Sunday, assuming nothing drastic was missing. There wasn't much of a rush, since they still had a week of buffer time, but, with everything else going on, Ivy, Klaud Nine, and Tiedoll had all agreed it was better to act sooner, just in case Ivy realized she left something important in the apartment and to give her time to be settled as the end of the school year kept approaching, bringing all the busywork that involved along with it.

Having rung the doorbell already, Ivy waited on the doorstep, humming as she rocked back and forth on her feet in sheer anticipation. It didn't take more than a minute for the door to open, though it was Tiedoll who did so. "Ah, Ivy-kun. Good to see you." Ivy's smile had slipped from excited down to polite, and Tiedoll chuckled. "Though I'm sure you would've been happier to see Yū first?"

"…Sorry, but yeah," Ivy said, the snark coming out on pure instinct. For a moment, she expected Tiedoll to get upset—but he just chuckled instead. Years of raising Kanda (and some of his other foster kids, too) had given him a pretty thick skin to such things.

"Don't worry about it, Ivy-kun. I'm not going to take it personally. Though if you don't mind checking on Yū for me?" Ivy raised an eyebrow, and Klaud Nine, who'd at last made it to the front door, also felt some curiosity. "He came home yesterday afternoon in a bad mood and locked himself up in his room. He didn't even react whenever I told him you were coming over today. Him being sulky—" (Ivy had never thought she'd hear such a word used to describe Kanda in her life) "—is nothing new, but I am getting worried, and I'm sure he'd rather have you poking around in his business instead of me."

Well, Ivy wasn't sure about that. But what she was sure of was the fact that she cared about Kanda. And if something was worrisome enough that he wasn't even coming out of his room, then she sure as hell wasn't going to stand by. They'd agreed to figure things out together, and she was going to hold true to that.

"Alright," she said, and Tiedoll stepped aside to let Ivy inside the front door, "I make no promises, but I'll do my best."

[Author's Notes]

It's a con action for me! I love writing drama. People can be messy sometimes, whoo. Though this is a funny chapter to time after Valentine's Day (it was not intentional).

Next Time: "89. Saturday + Sunday." Please look forward to it!

-Avi

[15 February 2025]