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How to Save a Life	By : saxonjesus Category: +. to F > D. Gray Man Views: 4511 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
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Chapter List
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Chapter Four�Perfect Disguise

Peace,
if one defines that concept as a state of tranquility or mutual accord, is not
likely to break out in this world.

�� ---
John Mearsheimer

-

Lavi tried not to stare. "Say what?" He asked.
He had known that something had happened to separate Kanda from his parents,
but he hadn't expected murder to be the cause.

"He was our gardener�took the shears and murdered my
parents in their sleep. I was in the room while it happened," Kanda
explained. Something about his tone bothered Lavi, like the Japanese boy was
purposefully blocking his emotions. There should have been something. Anger, grief, anything. But there was nothing, a void that
made Lavi's chest feel hollow as it made a little throbbing flip.

"Then why didn't he...?" Lavi asked, gesturing
helplessly with a hand as he tried to speak the last two words. Kill you?

Kanda made a shrugging motion, his fisted hand holding
the material of Lavi's shirt tighter. "I don't know. He looked at me,
right after he plunged the shears through my mother's chest and opened them,
and he gave me a strange look. And then he dropped the shears and ran. I was
there, he heard me scream, but I wasn't killed." His voice was still so
empty, though Lavi thought he heard a hint of bitterness when he spoke of his
mother and something akin to confusion at the end. He felt a movement from
Kanda's forehead�still against his shoulder�and assumed it was the boy lowering
his eyebrows, though he couldn't be completely sure. It would fit with the
scene currently playing out, though.

"You don't know why," Lavi stated, wrapping his
arms around Yuu's back. The boy shuddered into him, and for some reason, Lavi's
stomach felt light, buoyant. When Kanda shook his head, Lavi held the boy
tighter, letting him get all the tremors of long-repressed memory out of his
body.

"He just... left me alive," Kanda finally
murmured a few minutes later, his voice stronger and wavering less than it had
before.

"I'm glad you're alive," Lavi said quietly,
surprising himself with how genuine those words were.
The Japanese boy tensed slightly in his arms before relaxing once more, and
Lavi was starting to feel that he understood the boy's automatic reactions a
bit better. The tension that had just run through the dark-haired boy's body
probably had nothing to do with what he had lived through. It was more like he
was trying to show that he had heard Lavi. But there was something underneath
it, something dark that Lavi couldn't quite understand.

Kanda didn't respond, but he didn't move, either, and
Lavi took that as a good sign. A few minutes passed in silence until Kanda sat
up and inched away from Lavi. The Japanese boy did not meet his gaze.

"Your wrist looks swollen,
you should put ice on it. The same goes for your eye." With that, Kanda
stood up, grabbed his towel and shower caddy, and left the room. Lavi tried not
to stare at the blood still running down the boy's loose-fitting pants and
tight, blue shirt. He left a few stains on his way out, and Lavi quickly
grabbed out a few towels and the large popcorn bowl he'd brought. Running into
the bathroom after his roommate, Lavi filled the bowl with water and returned
to the room, where he began to scrub at the floor, rubbing it clean. He
stripped Kanda's bed and sanitized his mattress. By the time the boy had
returned, Lavi himself was covered in blood, but the mattress was drying off
and a clean pair of bed sheets was on one of Kanda's bookshelves.

"Go bathe�you look hideous," Kanda said,
reaching into his closet and producing a worn tee-shirt and a baggy pair of
pants. Lavi recognized them as the articles Yuu often wore to bed, though the
redhead had yet to see his roommate actually sleep. His roommate was
always awake when he fell asleep and was always awake when Lavi awoke at seven
every morning. Perhaps he suffered nightmares, ones that only complete
exhaustion would keep at bay. It wouldn't surprise him. After all, Lavi
suffered from nightmares as well. He looked down absently, deep in thought.
Realizing just how much blood he had on him, Lavi decided to take Kanda's
advice.

As he scrubbed the dried blood from his arms, Lavi began
to consider the new information he had received. Kanda's parents had been
murdered, he had watched, he was traumatized by those events. But something
just didn't add up in this strange equation. Yuu seemed like a strong person;
would his parents' murders have possibly been enough to send him over the edge
into the depression he was suffering? Something didn't seem right. There were
too many unknowns remaining, like the faces in the mist, the chains, the dark
colored pages, and most importantly, the lotus. There was something else that
Yuu wasn't telling him; something far darker lay in the black-haired boy's
past, something that had truly scarred him beyond repair. There had to be more
to this story, the missing piece of the puzzle had to be somewhere, had to be
explained in the way the boy acted. Lavi would have to be much more observant.
Deep inside his mind, somewhere between his persona and Bookman, a presence
shifted uncomfortably. His true personality was becoming too hard to control,
and Lavi didn't like it, and it felt like his true self had similar feelings.
Lavi grimaced as he felt his control slip away to be replaced with its
too-caring counterpart.

Lavi stared at the white tile of the shower. He couldn't
believe what his persona wanted him to do.

"No," he told himself, "I will not be
writing that in my logs. I'm keeping that from Bookman because he doesn't need
to know. I promised. I promised Yuu that I wouldn't tell. So I
won't." He felt like the inside of his skull had been kicked, and
after a slight moment of dizziness, he felt objectivity try to gain control,
but Lavi wasn't going to let it. He didn't want his persona here,
not now, he was in control, like he was supposed to be. He felt
"Lavi" rebel again. This time the dizziness didn't hit nearly as
hard. That was a good sign.

Upon his return to the room, Lavi noticed that Yuu was,
as he always was at night, drawing. He wondered if Yuu would show him his
drawings willingly now that Lavi knew a little bit about the boy's past.

"What'cha
drawin', Yuu-chan?" Lavi asked, trying
not to sound like his persona, but not trying to sound too somber.

Yuu looked up from his sketchpad, and much to Lavi's
surprise, he turned the book towards the redhead.

Lavi couldn't think. It was perhaps the most surprising
thing he had ever seen. He had expected a dark, twisted scene, but instead, he
got rabbits. Or rabbit, in this case. It was as detailed as any photograph; the
little orange-furred creature was sitting up on its hind legs, being all...
what was the word? Ah, yes, adorable. But just the fact that
Yuu had drawn a rabbit, of all things, confused Lavi to no end.

"Yuu, why a rabbit? I don't
get it. Were you attacked by some huge rabbit at some point in your
childhood?"

Yuu looked at Lavi with an expression that mirrored
Lavi's inner confusion. "No, I just... like rabbits."

That did squat for Lavi's comprehension. During the few
weeks they'd known each other, Kanda had never mentioned�or drawn�anything
about rabbits.

There was a tearing sound and Lavi looked at the Japanese
boy, who was sitting on the floor rather than his soaked bed. He was holding
out a piece of paper, and when Lavi took it, he saw it was the picture of the
rabbit. Now he was even more confused.

"Why are you giving me this?" He asked,
confusion burning a hole in his mind and beckoning for "Lavi" to
return. He fought it off, feeling another sharp, mental kick somewhere at his
right temple.

Yuu simply shrugged and went back to whatever new image
he was drawing. Lavi leaned over the mattress, stretching his neck so he could
see what the Japanese boy was drawing. It was only a few vague lines at the
moment, but a few minutes later, Lavi was watching a swirling pattern being
formed on the page. He tore his head away as he remembered that that pattern
matched the one on the sidewalk that night. Lavi remembered everything,
regardless of who was in charge of his mind, and his eye was so sharp, so
strong, that it was impossible to miss such an obvious detail. That was why
Bookman had chosen him, after all. Or that was what the old man had said when
Lavi, young and na�ve and called Thomas at the time, had asked. He couldn't
help but think that there was more to it, more criteria that Bookman would
teach him about later, before the old panda finally croaked it.

Lavi went back to his dresser, his hair dripping down on
his clothes as he located a pair of boxers and his battered old tee-shirt that
he used at night. Pulling them on quickly, he reached for his towel again and
dried his hair while trying not to dislodge his eye patch, just as he did every
night. Sighing, Lavi grabbed his toothbrush and made to head back to the
bathroom. In truth, he was still fighting his persona's bucking presence in his
head, trying to prevail over the urges the hyperactive idiot was sending to
him. Do your logs, his persona said, do them now. Screw hygiene, just
do your logs. Write about Yuu-chan. You know you want to. Bookman will be�

With a great force of will, Lavi shut the thoughts off,
glaring into his reflection in the mirror. When he returned to do his logs, he
wrote only that he had gone to dinner with Yuu's family. He listed the expected
details but made no mention of Kanda's little "episode."

That night, his persona and objective self attacked him
mercilessly. He didn't sleep well. Not that he did usually. But it was
different this time, and when Lavi finally awoke from his uneasy sleep the next
morning, it was to a pounding headache and slight photosensitivity. Even his
roommate's soft, even breathing�it was the first time Lavi had ever seen him asleep�sounded
like a raging storm. It felt like he had a mild hangover.

---

If Lavi had thought his day was bad when he first woke
up, he was badly mistaken. His day was a nightmare. It had started with him
tripping loudly over his large pile of textbooks in an inattentive moment.
"Lavi" had yelled at him mercilessly, increasing his headache. The
whole situation wouldn't have been so bad had Lavi not instinctively shot his
arms out, further injuring his already sprained wrist and waking Yuu with his
loud yell of agony. The boy had shot him a glare that clearly stated he was on
Kanda's shit list. Limping from the room�his ankle had been hurt in the fall,
too�Lavi had gone on to breakfast, only to discover that it was closed that
morning due to several cockroaches that had been unearthed behind one of the
many stoves. With a frustrated sigh, Lavi had gone to his first class, his
stomach protesting its lack of nourishment.

Still limping, he entered his third class of the day.
Normally, he would have shouted some sort of greeting in German to his
professor, since this was his German class, but today his heart�make that his
persona�just wasn't into it. He sat himself in his usual seat next to the
window and waited for class to start.

"Lavi!" A high, sweet
voice called.

He looked up from the desk in time to see the girl who
normally sat next to him walk in, her hand in the air like she was waving. He
smiled pleasantly at her as she sat down next to him, taking out a notebook.

"So Lavi, the girls and I are going
to this party this weekend. It's at Tyki Mikk's
house. You know, the Senior Frat President at Alpha Omega Upsilon�he invited me
'cause I hang with his sister, Road. So, you wanna
come? I could hook you up with one my friends!"

Lavi thought about it, it would be the perfect
opportunity to record the college party scene. That was one of the things
Bookman had told him to record, so he should go, but somewhere in the back of
his brain he knew he really didn't want to go. Lizzie was nice, but her friends
were always hitting on him.

"Sure, Lizzie, I'd love to go! What time?" He
plastered on his "Lavi" grin and tried to sound like his usual
over-enthusiastic self, but it came out slightly off, but only slightly�no one
except he and Bookman would have noticed.

"We'll be over at nine tomorrow. This is gonna be
great!" Lizzie exclaimed, her eyes tensing for just a moment as if she had
noticed that Lavi's comment was just a little bit different but then dismissing
it as something insignificant.

Or it could have been because the pervert from down the
hall that she'd been complaining about walked into the room and shot her an
openly lusty look. Lavi rolled his eye and turned back to Lizzie, sending her
another smile, one he wasn't sure if he meant or not.

"You know the room number," he said easily,
falling right back into his persona. The headache disappeared immediately. The
girl nodded, her smile returning, and she gazed down at her notebook.

Bookman had been on his case about actually learning
about college life. As partying was a huge part, Lavi had to attend several and
learn the social dynamics of them all. So far, he'd been in his room, writing
his logs and studying. Bookman had been berating him, so Lavi supposed that it
was high time he actually went out and started observing again. After all, he
was only going to be young and useless once.

By lunchtime, though, Lavi was convinced his day was
miserable. His headache had come and gone, announcing when he was slipping. Which was surprisingly often. The fact that he couldn't stay
in this one persona grated at his nerves at the same time that it made him feel
free and something very warm and explosive in the pit of his chest.

And for some reason, he couldn't stop thinking about damn
rabbits.

He ate slowly, trying to soothe his raging thoughts, tame
them so that he could continue through his day in a tiny bubble of objectivity.
He supposed that he was meditating, in a way. Just like Kanda�

And there he was, back to the beginning, his objectivity
completely shattered. Something about Kanda just made him... care. The
boy's eyes, always staring through any disguise he threw up to shield himself;
the boy's hair, swiftly floating behind him as it moved with his smooth gait;
the boy's lips, eternally pulled down into a sardonic frown; the boy's
accumulated muscle, wiry and almost dancing under the smooth, soft flesh. Lavi
thought of them all, imagined ways to accidentally-on-purpose brush up against
Yuu so that he could feel just how creamy smooth his skin was, to have that
gaze focused solely on him.

And now he was late to class, Lavi realized as he noticed
the tide of the dining hall had changed. Most of the students were gone. Out of
curiosity, the apprentice Bookman had stayed out of classes for a day and had
instead observed the dining hall. He had concluded that it was very empty�and
closed�at three o'clock. Hastily checking his watch, Lavi nearly choked on the
bite of sandwich he'd been working on. It was almost half after the hour. His
class ended in twenty minutes, and it took fifteen to get there. Sighing, Lavi
stood up, taking his sandwich with him, and strode lazily toward his four
o'clock history class.

---

September 12

He wasn't really sure what to wear, and Kanda stared at
him with increasing impatience as he paced about the room, weighing the pros
and cons of each outfit under his breath.

"You sound like Lenalee�shut up," Kanda
growled, fingering the hilt of his sword as Lavi once again passed by the
dark-haired boy's bed.

He heard what sounded like an extremely annoyed scoff and
the sound of a mattress being depressed as he stared at the clothes lying on
his unmade bed.

"I just can't figure out what to wear!" Lavi
exclaimed, throwing his arms up into the air in exasperation.

Hearing a small sigh that just barely tickled the hairs
at the nape of his neck, the redhead realized that there was another body
rather close to his, and he turned quickly to see that his black-haired
roommate had stood and walked over to him. He was even more startled to see the
boy select his green button-up shirt and a pair of jeans. He then shoved the
articles into the surprised boy's chest.

"Wear this, it matches." That was what Yuu said
before walking back to his side of the room, still glaring at Lavi.

"It matches what?" Lavi asked, pulling on his
shirt and stepping into his pants. Looking up, he received another glare from
Yuu, one that told him it was best not to dwell on such trivialities. It also
meant that "Lavi" would want to pursue the topic. His head ached as
he repressed the urge.

"You look constipated," Yuu observed dryly at
the other side of the room. It was Lavi's turn to scowl.

"Are you saying it matches my feces?" The
redhead asked sarcastically, his headache lessening slightly. He breathed in a
small sigh of relief and ignored the dark-haired boy's bewildered expression.

"If you're constipated, how does feces relate?"
Kanda replied, his voice light, though it still held a gruff undertone, like he
was both disturbed and confused at the direction the conversation had taken.
Lavi hoped he hadn't inadvertently triggered a bad memory in the boy, but his
persona put a halt to that feeling, crashing down over his psyche and taking
his feeble place as the dominant personality.

"Well, thank ya, Yuu-chan.
And to answer your question, no clue." There was
a knock at the door, and Lavi couldn't help but be glad he was escaping from
the room. The atmosphere was descending into the pits of awkwardness, and he
didn't want to stay for that. It would invariably lead to something a lot
deeper. That wasn't what he wanted or needed at the moment. Right now, he
needed to record the college party scene, to learn more about drinking,
inebriation, and being a stupid college student. Opening the door, he plastered
a huge, plastic grin on his face. "Good to see ya,
ladies. My, my, you're looking fabulous tonight. And I get to have you both on
my arms. Strike!"

Without so much as a backward glance at his disgruntled
roommate�his real personality would peek out of the tiny corner where he had
taken up residence, and Yuu would invariably see the pleading look he gave,
which would in turn force a reaction out of the dark-haired boy, resulting in
Lavi's inevitable choice to stay�Lavi shut the door behind him, linking elbows
with the two girls in a pompous manner. The look in his eye had never been
faker.

---

Flashing lights, booming music,
and the stench of booze surrounded him in a cornucopia of bass and sweat and
chatter. People all around him were dancing, grinding up on one another like
one big, music-induced orgy. The cups of cheap ale in
their hands made Lavi's head light and fuzzy, and he wasn't surprised to find
one shoved into his hands. Paranoia and basic safety forced Lavi to place it on
the nearest surface he could find. In this case, it was a beer pong table. A
nearby frat boy picked it up and, without regard for who
it had previously belonged to, downed it. Inside his mind, the redhead scoffed
at the idiot. It could have been poisoned or laced with any number of date rape
drugs.

The girls on his arms split from him, claiming to want
drinks and that they would return momentarily. Ignoring the heavy beat of the
bass as much as he could�it was wreaking havoc with his oversensitive
Bookman-trained ears�he walked into the adjacent room. People in here weren't
dancing, but there was another beer pong table. Circles of college students
laughed uproariously at a joke that Lavi hadn't heard, and in one of them,
several people took a shot of what could only be straight vodka, judging by the
bottle in the middle. On the couch, a boy and a girl were making out, her skirt
lifted up and his hand obviously doing more than just caressing her ass. The
redhead felt a ripple of disgust. He didn't want to see that, but the image,
like so many, was forever engraved on the permanent, unending slate that was
his memory.

Lizzie and her friend returned, looking slightly harassed.
Lizzie looked a bit rumpled, her chestnut-red hair a
bit askew from what had been an immaculate style. Lavi wasn't sure whether
she'd been bothered by anyone or not, but the broad smile on her face as well
as the sparkle in her eye hinted that she'd just had a hard time getting
through the crowd. For some reason, he felt his chest lighten, as if a tight
knot had just relaxed away and melted into nothing. Relieved, his inner mind
told him, you feel relieved. He didn't know why that was, so he shrugged
it off and accepted a green drink from her.

"I saw it mixed myself, so
you don't have to worry," the girl said, her smile flashing brighter for a
moment. Not wanting to be rude, Lavi smiled back. Bookman had told him not to
become inebriated�it clouded both judgment and perception, and Lavi needed both
of those to be very, very clear�but part of being at a party was drinking, and
even if he didn't record more than his own personal experiences this time, this
was a definite necessity of college life. So he sipped on his drink, grimacing
as the alcohol�he didn't know what it was, for a change�burned its way down his
throat, where it pooled warmly in his stomach. He choked a bit when he tried to
take his next breath, spluttering as the drink finished its path through his
gullet.

Another girl who had joined their group and who Lavi
recognized as Alyssa from his Russian Literature class smiled, stifling a
giggle behind a hand. "First time drinking?" She
asked, her tone amused. With slightly watering eye, Lavi nodded
shamefully.

"Don't worry, hon," Lizzie's friend said, patting him on the arm,
"just take another drink. Isn't it delicious?"

The redhead nodded, feeling slightly out of place as he
laughed along with them, pretending to become more and more
tipsy, even though all the sips he took were small. He knew people
tended to have a lower tolerance when they first began drinking, and if he was
a lightweight to begin with, he was sure he was being quite realistic in his
acting skills. Perhaps he should have just put the drink down, because while
observing the goings-on of the group of girls that seemed to have formed around
him, he took a rather too large drink and, realizing that he kind of liked it,
took another. It was probably the biggest mistake of his life.

Things went a little fast from then on. First he was
talking with some of Lizzie's friends. Karla from his Sociology class was
there. She was clinging onto his arm like a needy child, leaning over, exposing flesh that he would have preferred stayed hidden,
standing on her tip-toes and pulling his face closer to hers.... Lavi had never
kissed anyone before�scratch that, none of his personas had kissed before�and
from what he had heard from people it was supposed to feel good, but this was
sloppy and wet and smelled like strong perfume and cheap vodka. Pushing the
offending body away, he fell back onto the couch that had luckily stayed in
place while he had been away. Lizzie handed him another drink, one of the same
variety he had had before, and he drank it, not wanting to offend the girl.

Things started to skip around then, which he probably
should have been worried about, but he couldn't quite bring himself to care at
the moment because now there was someone sitting in his lap, their lips sealed
to his. Somewhere in the hazy, strobe-lit living room, he recognized the girl
as Amy from his World History class. It was perhaps the most awkward moment of
his life, having the girl's tongue attacking his tonsils, so he delicately, or
as delicately as he could, extracted himself from the couch and pressed against
the wall. How had this room become so crowded? Wait. He wasn't in the same room
he had been. That was not good, he needed to gather his thoughts, sober up as
it were.

There was an arm around his shoulder, he realized.
Looking over, a tall, dark-haired man stood smiling at him. Lavi recognized him
as the senior football star Tyki Mikk, the person
who was supposedly hosting this event. He didn't understand why the
curly-haired man was looking at him like that. It made him kind of
uncomfortable.

"Hi, you must be Lavi. Lizzie's told me a lot about
you. Having a good time?" Tyki's voice was a little too smooth not to
arouse suspicion in the back of Lavi's Bookman-trained mind.

"Yeah, great party. I've
heard a lot about you, too. Tyki, right?" That
was not a normal "Lavi" thing to say, but right now he wasn't sure
who he was. Tyki's smile widened at his seeming insecurity.

"That's me. Hey, how about I get you a drink,
something better than what you've got there?" Warning bells were going off
everywhere in his mind, but they were muted, like he had cotton in his ears. So
the warnings were easily ignored, or blasted over,
seeing as the music had just been turned up.

"Er, no, I think I'm good.
Thanks." Lavi was beginning to feel a bit light-headed.

Leaning against the wall a bit more, he tried to think of
a way out of this mess. A way to get away from the pounding
bass and drunk women.

"You feeling okay? Here,
follow me, let's get away from the DJ."

That seemed like a good idea so Lavi followed the
dark-haired man into a smaller room away from the music. It was much quieter
here, fewer people too, but it still didn't manage to clear his jumbled
thoughts. Just how many drinks had Lizzie given him? Too many, that was for
sure, because he couldn't get his mind and mouth to connect as Tyki started
running his hands through his red hair.

"You know, you're kind of cute for guy. I mean, I
normally don't go for this kind of thing, but hey, if you're willing to try new
things, I may be, too." Lavi recognized the innuendo immediately. Why
wouldn't his brain work, dammit!?

"I... er.
Thanks, but... er... I don't think..." Great job, Lavi, real coherent, now say something that makes sense
and stop this guy from leaning that close.

But his brain-mouth connection was severed as Tyki
decided to take that opportunity to kiss the redhead. Tyki tasted like
cigarettes and rum. Maybe the alcohol was finally starting to wear off, because
Lavi could tell this kiss was different from the ones Karla and Amy had decided
to force on him. It was better, but also a million times worse, because the
curly-haired man's hand had begun to drift dangerously low. Lavi felt himself
be pulled farther down into the couch, a strange sensation filling his stomach,
and suddenly it all clicked together.

He needed out. Now. This was not
one of the rules he was going to break. Pushing Tyki away, Lavi very nearly ran
from the room. Finding Lizzie, who, thankfully, was still in the room he had
left her in, he ran up to her, his face an obvious picture of panic.

"L-Lavi? Wha'
happened?" She was really drunk and so were all her friends.

"I... need to go. Now. Sorry." He really
didn't want to have to explain why. Not in public, not with so many people
listening.

Lizzie didn't look too upset, but then again, she probably wasn't too aware of
her surroundings. Soon enough, she had gathered her friend and they were
walking back across campus to the dorm. Thankfully, neither one of the girl's
noticed his distress. Because he was on the edge of freaking
out and needed to get back to the dorm where he could do it in peace.

Making sure that the two girls made it back safely, though he didn't understand
why it mattered, he rushed back to his room, threw the door open, and as it
slammed closed, leaned against it like a lifeline. Vaguely, in his drunken
state, he noticed Yuu look up from whatever he was doing. Lavi was still too
drunk to make out anything he was perceiving, but he
knew the Japanese boy could see what a mess he was. Without understanding why
or how, as if he had just mysteriously teleported, he was on Kanda's bed,
holding onto the boy despite the tension on his face. He heard strange,
hyperventilating-esque noises that edged on plaintive
whimpers. They were long and loud and very, very strange. It took him a moment
before he realized they were coming from him.

Time skipped again, and he was in Yuu's lap, his eye staring up the long-haired
boy's nose. Yuu himself looked strange, warped, which the redhead immediately
blamed on his obvious drunkenness. Yuu had a strange expression on his face,
too, and if Lavi were to guess, he would say it was concern mixed with general
disgust, but that couldn't be right, especially since hands were running
through his hair again, and it felt even better than it had when Tyki had done
it. Something hard hit his face, and he stared up, royally confused, at the
dark-haired boy's face. Kanda's hand was upraised. Lavi didn't understand why.

"What happened, idiot?" The boy was saying, though his voice sounded
like a badly tuned radio, switching in pitch as it slipped in and out of Lavi's
ears.

He could only let out a string of vowels and other weird sounds as he tried to
calm his heartbeat. There was another smarting smack on his cheek, but he
blinked, not knowing how to react. He let out another round of noise.

"In English," Yuu ordered, a scowl on his
alcohol-bent face.

"Neeehhh.... Party... andthe
ned leth...
the the Tyki and the girls and the... the Tyki! And the drinking and the appletinis and
the Tyki!" He exclaimed in a rush, his words slurring together
worse than his persona's usually did.

"English, idiot," Yuu reiterated. Lavi shook
his head, which made his world spin around, and suddenly, he was in the air and
the ground was flying toward his face and�

"Aaaoooww!" Blood ran from his nose, which
was throbbing painfully, even through the alcohol-induced stupor. He felt
strong arms around his chest, pulling him up and back onto something
comfortable. His head was against something more solid, though it was soft and
warm, and he could hear a faint noise that sounded really nice and kept coming
at an exact interval. He began to count it, and the pulsing in his nose began
to synch with it until it was matched exactly. Hands pushed him back until
Yuu's face swam into his blurry view.

"Now tell me what happened."

"Tyki... at the party, and all the drinking.
Kissing... and... and he with the hands and... I'm an
idiot." And for some reason, beyond the comprehension powers of his
alcohol-induced confusion, he began to cry. It may have been all the strange
emotions floating around his head and making his body react in strange ways. He
could still feel a tingling sensation in his slightly swollen lips, left over
from Tyki, and the fluttery feeling was still sweeping around his lower
stomach, making him jittery and hot and sweaty. Yuu's hands on his arms forced
a blush to his face, because all he could think of was how warm he was
right now and how good it felt to be in the other boy's grip. His heart
was beating a mile a minute again, and even drunk, Lavi knew it wasn't just
because of how freaked out he was.

Kanda tensed up beneath him, but his arms were still firm and strong as they
gripped the redhead. "What did he do to you?" He asked,
his voice soft and gritty, strained, as if he was holding back a thousand
emotions, none of which he wanted his roommate to know. Lavi explained, as
coherently as he could, what had happened. Kanda rolled his eyes, though his
facial expression was off a little bit. Pushing Lavi away, the boy reached
under his blanket and produced a small, red whistle. Lavi took hold of it,
staring at it uncomprehendingly.

"Whattis't?" He asked, his words slurring
together again as he sniffed. His tears had dried just as suddenly as they
began.

"Rape whistle," Kanda replied. "Tiedoll gave it to me, as if it
would help." His words were bitter, but with a small scoffing noise, he
added, "as if the sword wouldn't deter even the dullest person from
trying."

There was something very wrong with his voice, something dark and hollow, but
Lavi felt a heat creeping up his spine, and he knew he needed to get to the
toilet as fast as possible. He made it to the bathroom in time, and as he puked
whatever was left in his stomach into the round, porcelain bowl, he was
surprised to note Kanda had followed him and was rubbing his back in a
consoling manner, offering him quiet support as he hacked.

---

September 13

Yuu awoke to the frantic scribbling of pencil on paper, and when he looked up,
he saw his idiot roommate, looking for all the world
as if he hadn't slept at all, scrawling away at one of his Bookman notebooks.
To be honest, he still looked a bit woozy, the frown he was wearing giving away
the fact that he probably had a pounding headache. The squeaking of the bed
springs as Yuu sat up confirmed his suspicion. Lavi flinched and brought his
left hand up to his head, his frown more pronounced. The boy seemed more
composed than he had been when Yuu had finally gone to sleep at around four. He
wasn't shaking, for one, and his breathing finally seemed to have calmed.

The Japanese boy wasn't exactly sure what had happened the previous night, only
that there had been kissing and possible groping, most likely against Lavi's
will. It should have scared him, the simple thought of such activities, but
instead, all he could feel was concern for his roommate's well-being. And for
the life of him, Yuu could not think of why that would be. The redhead was
infuriatingly annoying, the fact that he had all but thrown himself onto the
dark-haired boy when he had returned the previous night should have appalled
him, but somehow it didn't. All he could think about was his concern for the
sniveling idiot who had been in his lap. He found it strange that he was
capable of such an emotion, that out of everything broken about him, he could
still feel concern. He could overcome all the barriers between himself and
others to reach out and run a hand through the redhead's hair,
could pat him on the back as he cried and threw up.

What made Lavi special? What was so different about him? It had to be that perhaps
he felt a strange bond with him, that he was as broken as Yuu was and deserved
to have someone worry about him. It was obvious there was something wrong with
the Bookman. It seemed as though he was having trouble keeping up with his
persona. When he had returned last night, it had most definitely had not been
"Lavi" who had walked into the room. Yes, that had to be it, he felt
bad because Lavi was broken, just like him. There was nothing else to it. Nothing. Even if he didn't mind the contact all that much,
or actually missed the redhead's presence while the idiot was off at class or
out with his "friends." It was just that he pitied the boy, felt bad for what he was going through, right? There was no ulterior
motive. Right? All those thoughts about pulling the
redhead closer, talking with him, finding more out about his real self, the one
who he had begun to see more and more of, those were just him wanting to find
out what was wrong and fix it so that he could have a stable environment to
live in, without having to worry about the sanity of those who just happened to
live in the same room.

Oh, who was he kidding? He, Kanda Yuu, the person who had never wanted to be
around anyone or anything, had a crush on someone, and to make matters
worse, it was his roommate. No, scratch that�it didn't matter who it was, just
the fact that he was a Bookman had to be the worst thing about this whole mess.

What was he going to do? He couldn't go around ignoring these feelings, because
he'd been doing that for weeks and they still hadn't gone away. But the fact
that Lavi was a Bookman made the idea of telling the redhead a really bad idea,
so he was left with one option: deal with it.

Trying to be quiet so as not to exacerbate the redhead's headache�something
that "Lavi," if their positions were reversed, would never consider�Yuu
dug a change of clothes from his dresser. He sighed. It was stupid to change in
the showers, hiding scars that had long since faded away, and this morning, he
was too lazy. He was still tired from lack of sleep, something that usually
didn't bother him. But like so many things since he'd moved into this stupid
dorm, that had changed. He no longer needed the slight confusion and dizziness
that went along with extreme fatigue to get him through the day. Yuu wasn't
sure if he was getting stronger or if all the years lacking sleep had finally
started to catch up with him, but he had been sleeping more heavily lately, and
he was starting to sleep through Lavi's screams.

He changed into a comfortable pair of jeans and a tee-shirt before going off to
do the necessities. When he returned, Lavi didn't look up. He had discarded his
notebook and had his head in his hands. The boy still smelled vaguely of
alcohol and vomit, but Yuu ignored it, walking up to his roommate with soft
steps. Sitting on the bed, he took Lavi's hands in his own and lowered them.
The boy was crying again, though it was only one tear. His green eye was
darkened with misery, and he was shaking.

"My logs were a mess," Lavi finally admitted, his voice weak and too
high. He was obviously suppressing a lot of emotion, probably things that, as a
Bookman, he had never felt before. "I could barely keep my persona up to
do them, and my experiences were so scattered that I... I didn't know what to
write."

Releasing Lavi's hands, Yuu brought his own into Lavi's red hair, hoping to
soothe the headache somehow. He tried to ignore the slight rise in heartbeat.

Trying for once not to sound harsh, which was surprisingly easy, Yuu told the
shuddering fool to take a shower because he still smelled, tacking on to the
end something about how it may help him to remember more detail. It was
strange, actually caring if he hurt someone's feelings or not. The only people
he had ever done that for were Lenalee, and to a lesser extent, Tiedoll.

His attempt awarded him a weak smile from the redhead, who got up and took
Yuu's advice-slash-order, returning twenty minutes later, looking much more
put-together. Lavi then spent the next few hours rewriting his logs, which if
his facial expressions were anything to go by, was going much better than the
first draft had.

"Bookman'll know I tore some of the pages
out," Lavi said with a grimace, "but I'll just tell him I spilled
some coffee on it or something."

Yuu looked up from his sketchbook, which he had gotten out after his roommate
had gone to freshen up, and nodded. It wasn't as if he cared, even though he
did. But he was trying to ignore his feelings, so it wasn't like he had that
much choice.

"Ne, Yuu, remind me never to drink that much again, 'kay?" Lavi asked, sounding pitiful. The Japanese boy
nodded again, not knowing how else to respond. Just for good measure, he added
a "che."
Then he returned to his drawing. For once, he wasn't sketching a picture from
his haunted past. He didn't quite understand what significance cats besides
Muffins had, but just like the rabbits that reminded him of Lavi, he couldn't
stop drawing them.

---

A/N: Love is� whistles! 8D Yay, Bo
Burnham! Aaaanyway, Em2 learned that she has horrid
posture and doesn�t breathe correctly and Em1 might have swine flu! :D We�ll
find out tomorrow (er, about the swine flu. We
already know that Em2 can�t breathe right). But yeah, that�s all we have to
say. I think.
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