letters in b major;
Title: letters in b major
Rating: PG
Length: 2000+
Characters/Pairings: Lavi/Kanda
Summary: "What if we were just regular people, you and me? We would've never met, this I know, me in my who-knows-where-I-come-from-world, and you in Japan, but what if we were happier? And I know we're not the saddest people in the world, but would you give up your life in exchange for something that doesn't taste like blood and rust?"
Notes: so back in the day, when i actually kept up with d.gray-man (because i am absolutely terrible at keeping up mangas that go on hiatus a lot, i always forget to check back), i was an extremely adamant shipper of kanda/lavi. i've published two or three of these fics officially, but trust me when i say i have toooons of stuff written for this pairing somewhere on my computer. (interestingly enough, the only other two pairings that rival kanda/lavi in written material is sasunaru and 1859. sasunaru because it's my otp, obviously, and 1859 because i had so many plot bunnies for it that took many incarnations but never reached fruition.) anyway, this is a epistolary fic, in all italics for some reason i cannot fathom, and the single line of prose at the end borrows heavily from fall out boy. my favorite kanda/lavi i've written, but far from perfect, i'd say.
Dear Yuu,
I am composing a song in my head in B major. This reminds me of you because although you may not know it, you used to hum incessantly in that key. You'd sit by the windowsill, flick your hair, and start humming some goddamned song until all it could do was be caught by my ears and get stuck in my head. Then I'd tell you, "Shut up, goddammit," and you'd say, "What?"
It's been 3 months since I came to Berlin, and even longer since I've left our tiny island off the coast of England. I am sick of hearing German and German-accented English - it burns my ears and you know what, sometimes I long for English riffed with Japanese and the smell of soba noodles when I step into a dining hall.
Yes, goddammit, I miss you. I hate the air and food and Akuma make terrible company. I miss the Order. I miss everything on the other side of the sea.
Lavi.
-
Yuu,
I am writing this to you sitting in front of the Berlin State Opera, which I plan on visiting at some point, but unfortunately tonight calls for the regular rounds of night guard. It's a stately building, and I like watching the women and the men in their glamorous-looking furs and suits come and go. Sometimes it makes me wonder what my life would be like if I wasn't Exorcist-Bookman-to-be, you know?
Yesterday a man came up to me as I was sitting here. He said in German, "Taking in the breath of our beautiful city?"
In my less-than-fluent tongue, I answered, "Yes."
"You know, forty or some years ago, this place burned to the ground."
"I know."
"The first performance in the new opera house was Meyerbeer's Ein Feldlager in Schlesien."
"I know." And you have to trust me, Yuu, I really did know, Yuu. I've read it all before, the stories, the architect, the arias. But then he said this:
"That performance was so haunting to our ears, like bringing back the dead. It felt like that, you know?"
And then I realized I couldn't say "I know" to this, because I didn't.
What am I writing? I wanted to write something silly, like an anecdote, and it turned out something like existentialism. Like, why do I have to be an Exorcist-Bookman-to-be? What if we were just regular people, you and me? We would've never met, this I know, me in my who-knows-where-I-come-from-world, and you in Japan, but what if we were happier? And I know we're not the saddest people in the world, but would you give up your life in exchange for something that doesn't taste like blood and rust?
If you want a silly anecdote, I'll tell you about my experience with German meatballs when I get back.
Lavi.
-
Yuu,
Continuing the wild goose chase to Saxony-Anhult, so I'm on the train over, and it looks like a long ride. Is the Innocence hiding between the wheats and grass?
I take your silence to mean that you're actually reading my inane letters, because I know that you don't like to write letters, whereas I just can't help it. Let me explain, and I'm hoping this flood of mail isn't annoying the hell out of you - I just need someone to hear of me, listen to my travels. Because when I'm not there and you hear no word of me, it's like I'm really not there, you know?
Not to mention there are slow moments, surprisingly, in our line of work, and you know how easily I get bored.
I've been complaining a lot, but there's some merit to this place, Germany. It's always covered in an overcast of philosophy and mystery. Nietzsche is all the rage here in the underground, intellectual circles, and I know you'd like him. There's a scent of nihilism about him, this unrestrained beast. It feels like the thing sometimes all of us are carrying inside. Here's something he said:
"Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn't."
See, that left corner of your mouth is lifting into a small smirk. I knew you'd like him.
Lavi.
-
Yuu,
It's terrible. Something terrible's happened. I let someone die. I know. You must hate me now.
It was a Level two, but you and I both know that's no excuse for anything. I don't know how I could've missed it. One minute a lovely girl was standing in front of me and she was about to dive into my arms and the next her skin is exploding and melding with black stars. I catch her and she turns to dust in my hands. Tears didn't fall from my eyes, I'm sure it was a light rain.
I am returning home now. The Innocence was saved, but do you understand? I killed that son of a bitch, I was so angry. I kept beating it up even after it had died, kept hitting it and pounding it until it turned into dust itself. Poetic justice. But the girl is still dead, and my anger was still there. I buried her clothes near the graves of her parents.
I shouldn't have, because I didn't even know her, but what if I had?
You'll see me in a few days.
Lavi.
-
(found slid under Lavi's door)
I'm sorry to hear. No, I don't hate you.
Yuu.
-
(found slid under Kanda's door)
I thought you hated writing letters or notes.
Lavi.
-
(found slid under Lavi's door)
I do.
-
(taped to Kanda's muugen)
You're leaving on a mission tomorrow? Did you ever think of telling me?
-
(found taped to Lavi's forehead)
You're lucky I didn't castrate you for entering my room.
-
(sent a few days later)
I didn't tell you because I knew you'd hate me for it.
Yuu.
-
I don't hate you. You should know better.
And stop wasting postage for such short messages.
Yours,
Lavi.
-
"As the pillars of mosques and sparkling seas rise before me, notes deftly picked out from a zither, I know I've arrived in someplace where I shouldn't. And the royalty of Casablanca welcomes me…"
Thought you'd enjoy that piece of prose.
Yuu.
-
My pernicious Yuu,
Lucky bastard, you're in Morocco? God knows I've never been dispatched to such a lavish place. Hope you're doing well there, relaxing, uncreasing those angry wrinkles, and saving the world one Innocence at a time.
Life at the Order is rarely this dull or exciting. I've accepted this sort of similar schedule every day, and the occasional quirks that make me smile. As always, Panda's making me memorize information at the pace of five tomes a day, and when I say tomes, I mean tomes. Yuu, you could seriously work out with these things, they're so thick and heavy. Not to mention the most soporific topics ever. Lend me your muugen, please, I want to tear these things apart.
As I thought, soba doesn't taste the same without a certain someone around. It's 3 PM and I'm the only one in the dining hall having lunch, so I secretly asked Jerry to make me Kanda-style soba. He gave me a look and wink and said, "Will do," because you know, I wouldn't be caught dead ordering your noodles normally with a fully occupied cafeteria.
Since you gave me a piece of prose in one of your first-ever letters (congratulations!), I will grace you with one of my own:
"Objects should not touch because they are not alive. You use them, put them back in place, you live among them. They are useful, nothing more. But when they touch me, it is unbearable. I am afraid of being in contact with them as though they were living beasts."
Yours,
Lavi.
-
Idiot,
I did not understand a word of your whining. Has ennui perhaps made you a bit touched in the head?
I did enjoy your piece of prose though. Send me more anachronisms.
And let me tell you, I hate it here.
Yuu.
-
Yuu,
Hey, what did I (or rather Nietzsche) say about idiots? I gave you that quote for many reasons, but I suppose I'll forgive you, because you're you.
Only a heartless, cold bastard would hate Morocco, no? What I wouldn't give to be bathing in the sun instead of being battered by the angry cold rains of England. But thanks for the lovely stamp, I'll add it to my small but growing collection of "Treasures Received from Yuu's Hands."
Ah, this is wishful thinking, but I'm into this kind of wishful thinking right now. After all this, after all the Exorcist business and we save the world and whatnot, what do you say we move right on out of England and into Japan? Let's be honest, it's the only place in the world you'll stand, and my Japanese isn't as bad as you think it is. I could pass for a verbally-challenged autistic native if I really wanted to.
If fluency determined nationality, do you think I'd be English, French, Italian, or Russian?
Forever yours,
Lavi.
-
Lavi, stop writing such unbelievably cheesy things. You're turning this remarkably delectable couscous into potential upchuck. And yes, I did just praise Moroccan food. Although I believe it does more justice to the tongue than bratwurst and sauerkraut ever would.
Your Japanese wouldn't even pass for a Korean immigrant.
You'd be Russian because you like solyanka and pelmeni.
Yuu.
-
Yuu,
Is food all you really think about? That hurts me a bit, to think that it's a priority over me. I'll be sure to keep your bed cold from now on.
Lenalee just returned from the Asia Branch, and you missed out on the cha xiu bao and hua chuan she brought. She says she has somewhat minimal expertise in making both though, so she'll treat you when you get back.
Why do you never tell me how your missions are going? I'd love to hear about it.
"Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards."
Lavi.
-
Unlike you, I don't feel the need to endlessly report everything. It's going fine. I'll be back within the next few weeks. Tell Lenalee I'll be looking forward to it.
Didn't know you were a fan of John Keats.
Yuu.
-
Yuu,
Didn't know that you were enough of a fan of poetry to recognize it.
Got the flu so I'm confined to bed. Panda's not letting me do much, like walk around on my own or study anymore, not like I can move much anyway. So don't get mad if I don't send you a letter in a while, okay? But you're coming back soon anyway so I'll see you then.
Lavi.
-
Lavi,
Don't lie to me, I was sent a telegram about your condition. What were you thinking, training to the point your heart gave out and your arms had no strength left? I'm coming back in three days so excuse me if I beat you up, as injured as you are.
Yuu.
-
(never sent, found crossed out completely and crumpled in the wastebasket)
Yuu, I really want to tell you the truth, I do. But how can I? I'm trapped within my own soul, observing on the outside people like ink marks drowned and waterlogged, and I leave them hanging onto my ankles in slight remembrance. When I walk I carry the souls of men and women I watched die before my eyes. This is unacceptable. I slice and slice at their arms, pleading for them to let go, but the more they dig their fingernails into my skin, the more my cold eyes falter, the more my heart gives out, the more I feel unlike myself. Maybe it's because it's the first I've seen so many hundreds coughed up in coffins, maybe. Or maybe do you think number forty-nine could be different? Maybe forty-nine is a union, a love between inseparable seven and seven, an affair between selves, what is the same adheres to itself. Am I lying to you? Am I lying to myself? Even if I told you would you love me
-
(found slid under Kanda's door)
Sorry I didn't tell you about it in the end. But thanks for staying at my bedside anyway. You must be fuming but let me say this - you're cute when you sleep.
-
(found slid under Lavi's door)
If you're really that miserable, unlike the rest of us, you have the option to quit.
-
(taped to Kanda's lunch tray)
I'm not miserable.
(taped to Kanda's chopsticks)
I'm just lonely.
-
(taped to Lavi's hand)
I'm sorry.
-
(found slid under Kanda's door)
I am too.
-
(after a few knocks on Lavi's door, slid under the door)
Talk to me.
-
(slid back)
I can't.
-
(slid back)
Stop being a child. Even Lenalee's getting worried about you.
-
(slid back after some consideration)
Tell her I said sorry, I'm fine.
-
(Lavi murmured this through the door, barely audible)
"Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn."
You know why I like Keats, Yuu? Because sometimes I'm just sitting in that big old library, worrying about history, life and death, and like notes from a song, phrases from his poetry float in front of my eyes. It's like listening to that opera I've never heard, and never will, haunting and resurrecting this dead heart. It's like going to Japan and living a peaceful life with you. It's like going to Morocco to live, not to die.
It's like being loved.
(and they're sitting against each other, thick-as-souls wooden door between them. Lavi readjusts his eyepatch and wonders if he was heard. Kanda starts humming, in what he guesses in B major because that's the only scale that ever appears in his head, oh baby, when they made me, they broke the mold. Girls used to follow me around, then I got cold.)
-
(coffee's for closers)
fin.
Rating: PG
Length: 2000+
Characters/Pairings: Lavi/Kanda
Summary: "What if we were just regular people, you and me? We would've never met, this I know, me in my who-knows-where-I-come-from-world, and you in Japan, but what if we were happier? And I know we're not the saddest people in the world, but would you give up your life in exchange for something that doesn't taste like blood and rust?"
Notes: so back in the day, when i actually kept up with d.gray-man (because i am absolutely terrible at keeping up mangas that go on hiatus a lot, i always forget to check back), i was an extremely adamant shipper of kanda/lavi. i've published two or three of these fics officially, but trust me when i say i have toooons of stuff written for this pairing somewhere on my computer. (interestingly enough, the only other two pairings that rival kanda/lavi in written material is sasunaru and 1859. sasunaru because it's my otp, obviously, and 1859 because i had so many plot bunnies for it that took many incarnations but never reached fruition.) anyway, this is a epistolary fic, in all italics for some reason i cannot fathom, and the single line of prose at the end borrows heavily from fall out boy. my favorite kanda/lavi i've written, but far from perfect, i'd say.
Dear Yuu,
I am composing a song in my head in B major. This reminds me of you because although you may not know it, you used to hum incessantly in that key. You'd sit by the windowsill, flick your hair, and start humming some goddamned song until all it could do was be caught by my ears and get stuck in my head. Then I'd tell you, "Shut up, goddammit," and you'd say, "What?"
It's been 3 months since I came to Berlin, and even longer since I've left our tiny island off the coast of England. I am sick of hearing German and German-accented English - it burns my ears and you know what, sometimes I long for English riffed with Japanese and the smell of soba noodles when I step into a dining hall.
Yes, goddammit, I miss you. I hate the air and food and Akuma make terrible company. I miss the Order. I miss everything on the other side of the sea.
Lavi.
-
Yuu,
I am writing this to you sitting in front of the Berlin State Opera, which I plan on visiting at some point, but unfortunately tonight calls for the regular rounds of night guard. It's a stately building, and I like watching the women and the men in their glamorous-looking furs and suits come and go. Sometimes it makes me wonder what my life would be like if I wasn't Exorcist-Bookman-to-be, you know?
Yesterday a man came up to me as I was sitting here. He said in German, "Taking in the breath of our beautiful city?"
In my less-than-fluent tongue, I answered, "Yes."
"You know, forty or some years ago, this place burned to the ground."
"I know."
"The first performance in the new opera house was Meyerbeer's Ein Feldlager in Schlesien."
"I know." And you have to trust me, Yuu, I really did know, Yuu. I've read it all before, the stories, the architect, the arias. But then he said this:
"That performance was so haunting to our ears, like bringing back the dead. It felt like that, you know?"
And then I realized I couldn't say "I know" to this, because I didn't.
What am I writing? I wanted to write something silly, like an anecdote, and it turned out something like existentialism. Like, why do I have to be an Exorcist-Bookman-to-be? What if we were just regular people, you and me? We would've never met, this I know, me in my who-knows-where-I-come-from-world, and you in Japan, but what if we were happier? And I know we're not the saddest people in the world, but would you give up your life in exchange for something that doesn't taste like blood and rust?
If you want a silly anecdote, I'll tell you about my experience with German meatballs when I get back.
Lavi.
-
Yuu,
Continuing the wild goose chase to Saxony-Anhult, so I'm on the train over, and it looks like a long ride. Is the Innocence hiding between the wheats and grass?
I take your silence to mean that you're actually reading my inane letters, because I know that you don't like to write letters, whereas I just can't help it. Let me explain, and I'm hoping this flood of mail isn't annoying the hell out of you - I just need someone to hear of me, listen to my travels. Because when I'm not there and you hear no word of me, it's like I'm really not there, you know?
Not to mention there are slow moments, surprisingly, in our line of work, and you know how easily I get bored.
I've been complaining a lot, but there's some merit to this place, Germany. It's always covered in an overcast of philosophy and mystery. Nietzsche is all the rage here in the underground, intellectual circles, and I know you'd like him. There's a scent of nihilism about him, this unrestrained beast. It feels like the thing sometimes all of us are carrying inside. Here's something he said:
"Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn't."
See, that left corner of your mouth is lifting into a small smirk. I knew you'd like him.
Lavi.
-
Yuu,
It's terrible. Something terrible's happened. I let someone die. I know. You must hate me now.
It was a Level two, but you and I both know that's no excuse for anything. I don't know how I could've missed it. One minute a lovely girl was standing in front of me and she was about to dive into my arms and the next her skin is exploding and melding with black stars. I catch her and she turns to dust in my hands. Tears didn't fall from my eyes, I'm sure it was a light rain.
I am returning home now. The Innocence was saved, but do you understand? I killed that son of a bitch, I was so angry. I kept beating it up even after it had died, kept hitting it and pounding it until it turned into dust itself. Poetic justice. But the girl is still dead, and my anger was still there. I buried her clothes near the graves of her parents.
I shouldn't have, because I didn't even know her, but what if I had?
You'll see me in a few days.
Lavi.
-
(found slid under Lavi's door)
I'm sorry to hear. No, I don't hate you.
Yuu.
-
(found slid under Kanda's door)
I thought you hated writing letters or notes.
Lavi.
-
(found slid under Lavi's door)
I do.
-
(taped to Kanda's muugen)
You're leaving on a mission tomorrow? Did you ever think of telling me?
-
(found taped to Lavi's forehead)
You're lucky I didn't castrate you for entering my room.
-
(sent a few days later)
I didn't tell you because I knew you'd hate me for it.
Yuu.
-
I don't hate you. You should know better.
And stop wasting postage for such short messages.
Yours,
Lavi.
-
"As the pillars of mosques and sparkling seas rise before me, notes deftly picked out from a zither, I know I've arrived in someplace where I shouldn't. And the royalty of Casablanca welcomes me…"
Thought you'd enjoy that piece of prose.
Yuu.
-
My pernicious Yuu,
Lucky bastard, you're in Morocco? God knows I've never been dispatched to such a lavish place. Hope you're doing well there, relaxing, uncreasing those angry wrinkles, and saving the world one Innocence at a time.
Life at the Order is rarely this dull or exciting. I've accepted this sort of similar schedule every day, and the occasional quirks that make me smile. As always, Panda's making me memorize information at the pace of five tomes a day, and when I say tomes, I mean tomes. Yuu, you could seriously work out with these things, they're so thick and heavy. Not to mention the most soporific topics ever. Lend me your muugen, please, I want to tear these things apart.
As I thought, soba doesn't taste the same without a certain someone around. It's 3 PM and I'm the only one in the dining hall having lunch, so I secretly asked Jerry to make me Kanda-style soba. He gave me a look and wink and said, "Will do," because you know, I wouldn't be caught dead ordering your noodles normally with a fully occupied cafeteria.
Since you gave me a piece of prose in one of your first-ever letters (congratulations!), I will grace you with one of my own:
"Objects should not touch because they are not alive. You use them, put them back in place, you live among them. They are useful, nothing more. But when they touch me, it is unbearable. I am afraid of being in contact with them as though they were living beasts."
Yours,
Lavi.
-
Idiot,
I did not understand a word of your whining. Has ennui perhaps made you a bit touched in the head?
I did enjoy your piece of prose though. Send me more anachronisms.
And let me tell you, I hate it here.
Yuu.
-
Yuu,
Hey, what did I (or rather Nietzsche) say about idiots? I gave you that quote for many reasons, but I suppose I'll forgive you, because you're you.
Only a heartless, cold bastard would hate Morocco, no? What I wouldn't give to be bathing in the sun instead of being battered by the angry cold rains of England. But thanks for the lovely stamp, I'll add it to my small but growing collection of "Treasures Received from Yuu's Hands."
Ah, this is wishful thinking, but I'm into this kind of wishful thinking right now. After all this, after all the Exorcist business and we save the world and whatnot, what do you say we move right on out of England and into Japan? Let's be honest, it's the only place in the world you'll stand, and my Japanese isn't as bad as you think it is. I could pass for a verbally-challenged autistic native if I really wanted to.
If fluency determined nationality, do you think I'd be English, French, Italian, or Russian?
Forever yours,
Lavi.
-
Lavi, stop writing such unbelievably cheesy things. You're turning this remarkably delectable couscous into potential upchuck. And yes, I did just praise Moroccan food. Although I believe it does more justice to the tongue than bratwurst and sauerkraut ever would.
Your Japanese wouldn't even pass for a Korean immigrant.
You'd be Russian because you like solyanka and pelmeni.
Yuu.
-
Yuu,
Is food all you really think about? That hurts me a bit, to think that it's a priority over me. I'll be sure to keep your bed cold from now on.
Lenalee just returned from the Asia Branch, and you missed out on the cha xiu bao and hua chuan she brought. She says she has somewhat minimal expertise in making both though, so she'll treat you when you get back.
Why do you never tell me how your missions are going? I'd love to hear about it.
"Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards."
Lavi.
-
Unlike you, I don't feel the need to endlessly report everything. It's going fine. I'll be back within the next few weeks. Tell Lenalee I'll be looking forward to it.
Didn't know you were a fan of John Keats.
Yuu.
-
Yuu,
Didn't know that you were enough of a fan of poetry to recognize it.
Got the flu so I'm confined to bed. Panda's not letting me do much, like walk around on my own or study anymore, not like I can move much anyway. So don't get mad if I don't send you a letter in a while, okay? But you're coming back soon anyway so I'll see you then.
Lavi.
-
Lavi,
Don't lie to me, I was sent a telegram about your condition. What were you thinking, training to the point your heart gave out and your arms had no strength left? I'm coming back in three days so excuse me if I beat you up, as injured as you are.
Yuu.
-
(never sent, found crossed out completely and crumpled in the wastebasket)
Yuu, I really want to tell you the truth, I do. But how can I? I'm trapped within my own soul, observing on the outside people like ink marks drowned and waterlogged, and I leave them hanging onto my ankles in slight remembrance. When I walk I carry the souls of men and women I watched die before my eyes. This is unacceptable. I slice and slice at their arms, pleading for them to let go, but the more they dig their fingernails into my skin, the more my cold eyes falter, the more my heart gives out, the more I feel unlike myself. Maybe it's because it's the first I've seen so many hundreds coughed up in coffins, maybe. Or maybe do you think number forty-nine could be different? Maybe forty-nine is a union, a love between inseparable seven and seven, an affair between selves, what is the same adheres to itself. Am I lying to you? Am I lying to myself? Even if I told you would you love me
-
(found slid under Kanda's door)
Sorry I didn't tell you about it in the end. But thanks for staying at my bedside anyway. You must be fuming but let me say this - you're cute when you sleep.
-
(found slid under Lavi's door)
If you're really that miserable, unlike the rest of us, you have the option to quit.
-
(taped to Kanda's lunch tray)
I'm not miserable.
(taped to Kanda's chopsticks)
I'm just lonely.
-
(taped to Lavi's hand)
I'm sorry.
-
(found slid under Kanda's door)
I am too.
-
(after a few knocks on Lavi's door, slid under the door)
Talk to me.
-
(slid back)
I can't.
-
(slid back)
Stop being a child. Even Lenalee's getting worried about you.
-
(slid back after some consideration)
Tell her I said sorry, I'm fine.
-
(Lavi murmured this through the door, barely audible)
"Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn."
You know why I like Keats, Yuu? Because sometimes I'm just sitting in that big old library, worrying about history, life and death, and like notes from a song, phrases from his poetry float in front of my eyes. It's like listening to that opera I've never heard, and never will, haunting and resurrecting this dead heart. It's like going to Japan and living a peaceful life with you. It's like going to Morocco to live, not to die.
It's like being loved.
(and they're sitting against each other, thick-as-souls wooden door between them. Lavi readjusts his eyepatch and wonders if he was heard. Kanda starts humming, in what he guesses in B major because that's the only scale that ever appears in his head, oh baby, when they made me, they broke the mold. Girls used to follow me around, then I got cold.)
-
(coffee's for closers)
fin.