The fine line. Yullen

http://anime.adultfanfiction.net/story.php?no=600043571

Predawn light filtered through the gray curtains feebly, rain patted on the windowpane like a thousand tiny snare drums, rumbling with the wind. The pair of green eyes that watched the rain as it fell were red from lack of sleep, sunken for similar reasons.

“Oh Hell, Sabe, you might as well just get up.” The sleepless figure groaned to herself. Sable Adair had been watching the sky since the sun had gone down on the Black Order’s headquarters and she had at long last grown bored of it. Nerves were to blame mostly. It was her first full day as an Exorcist of the Black Order and she didn’t want to screw it up in the slightest – which meant spending the entire night thinking about all of the things that could go wrong and all of the impossible ways to fix them. She never planned it that way, but that was how it always turned out. She sighed and rolled out of bed, her long golden hair following her like a cape. She went through her morning routine stoically, habit winning out over sleepiness, need beating the desire to just curl up in a ball and wait until the day was done. When at last she was clean and her hair brushed, she took her coat – her Exorcist’s greatcoat – and pulled it on in front of the mirror; shaking horribly at the image that looked back at her.

A small pointed nose, large green eyes, a generous mouth, high cheek bones, and a scar that marred her forehead her left eyebrow to just below her hairline, as straight as a nail. She could hide that small blemish with her bangs if she wanted, but she never really tried to conceal it more than her natural part allowed. She thought it gave her face character, being it was boring without it.

So with one last sigh and a hurried smile, she darted into the still dark hallway of her new home.

Silence greeted her. Silence and then the chirping of a cricket.

Her heavy boots sounded loudly as she made her way, glancing occasionally at a painting in the hope of finding something that she had seen on the way in the day before. She usually memorized layouts quite well, but it had been brighter then, and she hadn’t been running on zero hours of sleep. The corridors faded one into another in her mind, melting until at last she came to the conclusion that, despite her talents, she had managed to get herself hopelessly lost. And, on top of it all, her stomach was starting to growl.

I stay up all night so that my day will end up perfect and instead I end up doing the one thing that never came to mind; I get lost. She turned another corner; saw a never ending line of rooms that were exactly identical to the ones she had just passed. So hungry… I’m going to die if I don’t find the cafeteria soon… Her thoughts wandered helplessly with her feet, willing her to find the one place that she had not been shown before. Blearily she tromped on, the growing light of day no longer reaching her eyes.

And then she hit something.

“Oh, sorry!” The something chimed before she could even bring it into focus. The white haired young man that stared up at her gave an apologetic bow before continuing. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

She smiled and inclined her head, the way she thought might have been fitting. “No, I wasn’t watching either. Um… Could you…erm… point me in the direction of the cafeteria?” She awkwardly squawked, but it was the boy’s stomach that rumbled.

He blushed. “I was going there myself. It’s right this way.” He started off again and she took up pace behind him, glad that her little guide didn’t think it ridiculous of her to be lost so easily.

As they went she studied him, trying to guess who he was. Gloved hands, a red line on his left eye, an aura of fluffy adorableness that seemed more fitting for a young child than a young man – he was a ball of contradictions to her eyes. He wore the same style of pants and shirt that she did under her coat, but his coat was missing. She figured he was an Exorcist enjoying some leisurely time.

“I’m Sable, by the way.”

“Allen Walker.” He grinned from over his shoulder. She had heard that name before.

The two of them came upon the cafeteria just as another man did, his long dark hair swirling behind him in a thick curtain, his soft face drawn into a scowl even before Allen had rang out an obviously unhappy good morning.

“Che,” He droned, turning his head away while Sable opened the door. Allen walked in before her unthinkingly while the dark haired man remained outside.

“Should I hold it for you, or are you not hungry?” She asked when he did not move.

“Kanda is a tad antisocial. He’ll just—”

“Shut it, Moyashi.” Kanda seethed before sidling into the room, glaring all the while. “It isn’t proper for a woman to hold a door for a man.”

Sable cocked an eyebrow at him as they made their way across to the window where Jerry waited. The cafeteria was nearly empty so early in the morning. “I guess chivalry is not dead after all.” Neither Allen nor Kanda answered.

Kanda leaned in the window to speak when he was presented with a plate of soba and tempura, a small dish of wasabi on the side. The oddest thing happened then, though Sable didn’t know that it was odd, he smiled from the side of his mouth before walking to a table in the farthest corner of the room. Sable watched him go, psychoanalyzing him the entire way.

She was just about to comment on his cold demeanor when Allen rattled off the paragraph of food he wanted, Jerry nodding gleefully all the while. When he was finished he looked at her with something like pride on his angelic features.

“Comes with being a parasitic type,” He attempted to explain.

Sable laughed, the sound was bell-like and soft. “Between the two if us he’s going to cook himself to death.”

“What?”

As if in response to Allen’s question she recited his paragraph exactly, only backward, with an added order of tempura on the end. Allen gapped in shock when their plates came out with equally large mountains of food on them, Jerry cooing sweet lovies at the two of them and blessing their appetites.

He led her to a table that was occupied by Lavi and Lenalee, the two who had directed her around the building the previous evening.

“Morning Sable-san! Morning Moyashi-chan!” Lavi bounced from behind his coffee.

“It’s Allen…”

“Morning,” Sable said blankly. Lavi watched as she and Allen consumed their inhumanly sized meals, not bothering to make conversation with people like them around. What was the point, really? They’d either not hear him or answer in fifteen minutes time, which would cause him to rethink what he had asked in the first place. So he and Lenalee just watched in half-repressed disgust as Sable and Allen packed themselves with more food than either of them ate in a week.

When at long last the plates were cleared Lenalee leapt into the conversation – she was always one to make the new feel welcome.

“Did you sleep well last night, Sable-chan?”

Sable smiled but shook her head honestly. “No, I was too nervous. And because of that I got lost this morning. Good think Allen found me, or I’d be wandering the halls still.”

Lavi gave Allen a look of complete stupefaction. The sweat drop on Allen’s head was nearly visible. “Allen Ihavenosenseofdirection Walker showed you how to get here?” He blinked as Sable nodded, her braid waving behind her. “I’m logging this away for the records…”

“Shush! Be nice, Lavi. Even if he has no sense of direction, you don’t have to say it so plainly...”

“That was even plainer, Lenalee…” Allen groaned.

“He could have called you Moyashi Ihavenosenseofdirection Walker.” Sable attempted to help. Allen’s head just sagged onto the table.

As silent as death Kanda approached the table of Allen mockers before he spoke in an even, controlled voice. “Baka Aka.”

“Yes Yuu-chan?” When Lavi smiled as he turned to the older man, his one visible green eye sparkled a thousand times brighter, contrasting with his flame colored hair like an emerald before a fire. He might have been Sable’s age, but his attitude and coloration made him seem much younger. His face was made longer by the band around his head – which furthered the illusion that he was nothing but a boy. There was something else though, something darker behind his brightness.

“Bookman is looking for you.” Kanda said flatly. “And Komui wants to see the Moyashi.”

Allen’s eyes narrowed. “It’s an all new low for you to address me by addressing someone else.”

“Che, I didn’t even see you there, you’re so short.”

Allen was standing a moment later. “Maybe if you weren’t so busy looking at your feminine reflection in Lavi’s eye you’d see more.”

“Che, what’s the point in seeing you? You pose no threat to me.” Kanda shift his weight to his foremost foot, and beneath his focused scowl Sable could almost see him smiling.

Allen made a sound of disagreement that might have been a growl.

Sable saw an opening and took it just as Lavi purposely stood up under the pretense of finding Bookman. “Well, how about you two duke it out later. Otherwise Allen will be late.” The two death stares redirected themselves at her; neither Allen nor Kanda cared if he was late. They care only for the pain and suffering of each other.

Lenalee burst into action in order to save the less experienced girl. “Allen! Walk me to my brother’s office!” She demanded, standing hurriedly. “I forgot… to get him coffee this morning.” It was obvious that she was lying, but Allen was oblivious to this fact, as he was to most anything that wasn’t calling him names or threatening his existence. But his response was surprising.

“You don’t think I have time to kill Kanda first?” The fangs he smiled with were reminiscent of the ones he displayed when challenged to play poker, but with a twinge of murderous intent. The look was so completely unlike Allen that Lenalee had to take his hand and drag him away, shaking him back to himself as she went.

“Kill me? Baka. I hate stupid people like you.” Kanda said the words under his breath by Allen still heard them. Sable’s brow furrowed as she watched the two of them interact – the hate was palpable, the auras of loathing were not the kind that came from siblings nor the kind that came from sworn enemies; it was something altogether indefinable that made them treat each other like garbage. She had an idea. She waited until Lavi and the others were gone before she spoke to the ill-mannered man before her.

“Kanda-san,” Her curious voice pulled his dark eyes to here like magnets even as he had started to walk away, demanding his attention. “Has it ever occurred to you that you might be able to…well… fight Allen?”

He looked down at the shorter woman with an expression of deepest boredom. “Che, it would be more entertaining to fight a rabbit.”

Sable smiled broadly at him, standing up so that she lean closer to his face, better to see the pupils hidden with those dark irises. “Entertaining, maybe, but satisfying? Oh no. Just take him out in the woods one day and give him a nice pummeling – or get pummeled – and you’ll both be better because of it.”

“You sorely underestimate the likelihood of his death.”

“You horribly misunderstand his intentions.”

“I understand them perfectly. He’s the friendly, naïve type. People like him kill themselves to save others.”

“And? Do you have no one you would give yourself up for?” Her tone was biting so he started to grow defensive.

“I wouldn’t die for just anyone, thanks.”

“Then kill him.”

“What?”

“Take him out to the woods and tell him why you hate him so much. Beat it into his skull until he understands or he dies. Isn’t that what you want to do?”

Kanda blinked at her a moment. Her seriousness was almost creepy; her dark green eyes were filled with the kind of malicious thoughts that he reprimanded himself for having. And yet, he felt that she knew something about him that he did not, that she could read him like a Bookman. What would he gain by killing that damn moyashi and why couldn’t he see it there for himself? And why was he hesitating? No, He thought with finality. Killing him is not what I want at all.

“Fine. When you see him, tell him I’m looking for him.”