THIRTY-THREE

Lenalee was planning the coup d’état of the century—in Kanda’s magically radical van, that is.

As a woman, she was already awesome and powered by righteous outrage for various completely reasonable reasons. Yet, as a highly attractive and admittedly smart diva with better fashion sense than all of China, she should’ve had her beloved ‘older brother’ figure by the metaphorical balls.

The girl glanced into the rearview mirror to observe his lazy lounge on top of the luggage in general, reading what looked like a harlequin novel and chewing gum as obnoxiously as ever. Allen, on the other hand, was fiddling with a Sony walkman on his pillow. Their legs touched at the knees ever-so-slightly.

Lenalee smiled with a devious quirk. For the record, she always suspected Kanda was gay—like, ever since that fateful day they met in her freshman year. Of course, that was a completely different story.

“Hey, Lavi,” she started with a smile. “Can I pop you a question?”

Lavi didn’t spare her a glance, instead staring ahead at the never ending expanse of road. “You could,” he replied, shrugging. “As long as it doesn’t hurt. Kidding!” He batted away her hand lightly, snickering. “Okay, okay, Lenalady. What’s cracking?”

She tittered a bit with her fingers, trying to find a reasonable way to word her question. “Do you think I’m hot?” So sue her for being blunt—it’s a valid question, right?

“Hot?” Lavi blinked the only eye he had, lips pursed into a small frown. “Uh. Uh. Um, well, uh.” He narrowed his eye, suspicious. “Wait, are you trying to test out some freaky-deak psychic PMS shit with your brother using my answer?”

Damn Komui once more for interceding with her boy-experiences! “Dude, no,” Lenalee insisted, crossing her tight-clad legs. “I just need an honest answer—this has nada to do with my brother.”

“Nein?” the redhead affirmed, moving a hand off the steering wheel to tap at his chin. “Then, that’s a different story.” He snorted. “Of course you’re hot, like duh.”

“But—“

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Lavi clicked his tongue in disdain, frowning. “I am not going farther than that—I don’t trust you or your freaky brother.”

Lenalee was admittedly disappointed. “Eh,” she shrugged. “I’ll take what I can get.” The girl sighed. “Okay, well, since obviously you have fantastic taste—what makes you want to bang Allen?”

The van swerved a little, the reason probably being how Lavi just about snapped his neck to really look at his female friend.

“Why are you asking these kinds of questions?” he demanded as calmly as he could without really freaking out. He twitched his lips into the semblance of a smile, and Lenalee had to frown. He looked creepy as hell when he wasn’t naturally smiling.

The young woman coughed lowly in her throat. “Well,” she replied with equal calm. “I need to get the 411 on gay men—I know, I know. You’re pansexual or whatever.” Which was a load of—and excuse her uncouth language—bullshit, because gay men are just gay men. If he likes Krory’s girlfriend and Allen’s backside, then he just needs to choose one instead of making up a lifestyle. “Anyway! I want to get Kanda to see my side of the dealio, so I need to understand him better. If it all goes smoothly, then I can probably or maybe get Kanda to let me drive for twenty minutes instead.”

Lavi rubbed his chin, his expression thoughtful. “You do know that Yuu and I are completely different people, yeah?” he asked with a grin.

“Well, duh. You’ve got a peni—oh, right, Kanda.” Lenalee decided that this was the proper time to look bashful. “Kanda. Wow, I really kind of hate his first name, you know?”

“You are juiced, my good lady,” the redhead replied with a sniff. “There is nothing as fucking beautiful as having a pronoun for a name. I wish my name was, like, Me or something. We could be fuckin’ awesome, Yuu and Me!”

“You sound like a retard when you talk about this kind of stuff,” the Chinese girl said seriously. “Like, okay, we’ve driven off topic. So! Even though you like girls and Kanda likes, uh. Life? No,” she waved her hands to negate her statement. “He likes his guitar. Regardless of that, what makes Allen attractive to you?” Lenalee smiled sweetly—it was all a part of her coup d’état. She just wasn’t sure how.

Lavi cocked an eyebrow. “Well, since you’re askin’ me,” he said, humming. He leaned in a little closer than usual, keeping his eye on the highway. “You have to fucking promise though, promise that you won’t tell a soul.”

Lenalee ran a finger across her chest, grinning. “Cross my heart and hope to die,” she assured him. She didn’t mean the ‘die’ part, though.

The older teenager nodded, pleased. “Well then,” he started, tapping an index finger against the steering wheel. “I’ll tell ya.” His voice lowered into a whisper, and his eye sparkled deviously. “I love his eyes.”

“His eyes?” Lenalee repeated, cocking an eyebrow.

“His eyes.” Lavi insisted, smiling. “Oh, yeah, his accent is an ultra-orgasm, and he’s got the figure of those glam rock stars who are, like, anorexic, but sexy at the same time. But, his eyes are just…just.”

“…Okay.” The girl furrowed her eyebrows, obviously perplexed. “This isn’t related to how he has two eyes and you have—“

“I will crash this goddamn van if you even finish that thought,” Lavi said with a wide smile. “And I will crash at the border between North Carolina and South Carolina. Now, if you really want that…”

Lenalee actually didn’t want that at all, to be honest. “Chill out, Yid,” she chided. “It’s just a statement, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lavi sniffed, unimpressed. Apparently he didn’t like those ‘one-eye’ jokes as much as someone would expect—then again, a hypocrite is what a hypocrite does. “So, what’s up with the whacky SAT? All the crazy questions you’re suddenly asking me, it’s kinda weird.”

“I want to mutinate Kanda,” the Chinese girl explained, fully aware that ‘mutinate’ was probably not even a word. She rolled her eyes at Lavi’s raised eyebrow, elaborating further. “You know, that thing that pirates do to their captains when the caps’ get bogus and junk. Where they find some totally radical island and then dump Cap’n Jerkface on the beach. Then they sail away with their booty or whatever pirates do.”

In all actuality, the plan was awesome. Lenalee knew it could be pulled off with only minor difficulties.

Yet, just leave it to Lavi to punch a freaking hole in her dreams.

Immediately, he laughed uproariously, like she just told the best black joke ever with a straight face. “Oh man,” he breathed, trying to tone down the size of his smile. “You are hilarious, Missus Lee. Comedy, it’s so your future career.” He sobered up a little, straightening his posture. “Okay, you want to know the first thing wrong with your dope plan? You are not a pirate.”

Lenalee frowned. “Well, che’duh,” she scoffed. “Of course I’m not a pirate.”

“Next!” Lavi continued with a snicker. “My secret lover-in-denial, Yuu, is not a pirate captain. He is—and, this may rock your socks—a grown man with a job, an apartment, and a glock in the glove compartment. There are several things that even I wouldn’t do—mutiny just so happens to be on that list!”

He was having way too much fun with this, Lenalee concluded.

But, she did eye the glove compartment a little suspiciously.

“And!” The One-Eyed Jewish Wonder wasn’t even done, the jackass. “Lastly, you’re just juiced. That plan wouldn’t work even if you had a calendar that went all the way into a million years from now.”

“You don’t know that!” the Chinese girl retorted, affronted.

Lavi winked—and Lenalee really did sympathize with Allen in their phone conversations with his complaints on telling a wink from a blink with the drummer—and steered the van onto a long-winded exit. “Actually,” he started. Coughing into a fist, he glanced at the rearview mirror. “Yuu Old Boy! Might I drop a question on you?”

Kanda didn’t glance at the redhead, yet Allen perked up in interest. “Yea’no,” the Japanese man replied rather calmly. “Don’t talk to me.” He turned the page in his book for emphasis.

“If I were’ta pull a trippy attempt of some shit like mutiny, what’ll happen?”

It was a valid question. “After I beat the living life out of you?” Kanda replied, looking up with an interested expression. “Hmm.” He raked his fingers through his dark hair, frowning. “I’ll probably throw your bloodied carcass to the side of the road after castrating you with my bare hands, leaving you to the vulcans and the pickaninnies.”

“Wait, what?” Allen demanded, shaking his head in befuddlement. He cocked an eyebrow. “Did you mean vultures?”

“What the hell’re you talking about, British bitch?”

“You said you were going to leave his bloodied carcass to the Vulcans,” the white-haired teenager explained with a smirk. “Now, there’s a slight chance in hell I’m a bit daft, but surely Leonard Nimoy wouldn’t be in the American South just to pick at the cadaver of a Jew.”

Kanda rolled his eyes, passionately. “This is why you and your faggot country lost the American Revolution. Because you are gay.”

“Oh, you want to talk about losing a war? Because we can always have a heated discussion about Japan in the the Second World War—“

“Waitaminute, wait-a-minute!” Lavi exclaimed, slamming his foot on the brakes in the middle of the highway. “Did, did Yuu seriously say pickaninnies?”

Kanda was unperturbed. “And?”

“Holy fucking Christ—“

“Don’t call him out like you know him!” Allen interjected in a rather bitchy tone. Lavi loved messing with Christians, sometimes. “Hmph!”

“—okay, fine. Holy fucking Jewish-Dude-Who-Is-Not -The-Messiah, you can’t just say pickaninny!” the one-eyed drummer insisted, gesticulating wildly with his hands. “On a scale of one to ten, that is a negative integer in fucking unawesome, dude!”

Lenalee blinked. “Oh, for real?” she asked curiously. “Why?”

“Am I cereally stuck in a car full of naïve, over-privileged Asians and a European?”

“Whoa,” Allen huffed, holding up his gloved hands in a sign of exclusion. “I know bloody well what…that word means. My uncle once initiated a fight with a rather, err, large African-American man by drunkenly making a comment somewhere along the lines of…uh, ‘go back to your Aunt Jemima and her pickaninnies, Tom’ and believe me when I say that my uncle almost died that day.”

Lavi wanted to shed a tear for that awesome, awesome man. “Like, for real, guys,” he said with a frown. “Pickaninnies is, like, the racist white people way of calling out little black kids.” He rubbed his chin. “It’s kind of like calling Yuu a Nip, calling Miss Lee a chink, and, uh, well.” He paused. “What the fuck do we call the British as an insult?”

“Scottish?” Kanda offered.

“No.”

“Irish?”

“Uh, no.”

“Canadian?”

“Dude. No.” Lavi waved a hand in dismissal, stepping on the gas again. “Well, the point is, don’t say that, or you’ll die.”

“Whatever,” the Japanese man snorted, thumbing to the next page. “They can do whatever they want—I don’t feel like changing my vocabulary.”

“Why is that word even in your whack vocab?” Lavi demanded slowly. “I mean, really.”

Before Kanda could take the time to even consider replying, Lenalee shot her hands in the air and cheered like there was a winning football game on the highway. She latched onto Lavi’s bicep with her long fingers and thankfully blunt nails, smiling so hard that there wasn’t an analogy in the world to compare it to.

“Look ahead, Red,” she said jovially. “It’s almost that time of the day!”

The green-eyed teenager gulped, focusing on the road ahead. There was a sign, like, a billion—okay, maybe three—miles away, and Lavi was a genius, so it was easy to guess what Lenalee was seeing here.

“I know I’m going to get hurt for saying this,” he started after clearing his throat. “But, I kind of maybe almost not really but somewhat wished you were talking ‘bout your…period.” That word was seriously disgusting when used in that context.

Lenalee stared at her older friend.

And then she slapped him.

“Are you calling me a bitch?” she scolded, ignoring his offended yelp. “I can’t tell, because suddenly you’re talking about my period and shit, so now I’m beginning to think you and I aren’t that cool anymore. Are we?”

“Whoa, is your vagina okay—ow!” Lavi sucked in a pained breath as he rubbed at his red cheek. “Jesus Christ, Lenalady! When’d you ever slap that hard?” He moved his jaw in circular motions, trying to ease the pain. “I mean yeesh.”

Lenalee winked, pinching his injured cheek. “When I started taking kick-boxing lessons seven years ago,” she replied easily.

“Ah.” Lavi nodded. Kick-boxing, it seemed pretty ace in theory. Of course, he still didn’t understand how she learned to slap the stubble off his face, but whatever. He stared ahead at the road, squinting his eye when the sun pulled some shit like reflecting off the metal.

And then, a sign happily welcomed them into South Carolina.

Lenalee bit her bottom lip in glee, turning around in her seat to open her mouth.

“Goddamn it Lenalee,” Kanda snapped, looking up with annoyed eyes. “Fine—you can drive your stupid fifteen minutes!” He pointed his book at the girl threateningly. “I’ll be counting, Joanie.”

“Not a problem, Diesel!” she replied happily. The young woman poked at Lavi’s bicep, smiling harder. “Come on, stop the van! It’s my turn to drive!”

“Oh good, because I’ve been waitin’ for this all day,” Lavi replied with a very wide grin. “It’s great that I left my will and my cat with Granddad—I’m probably not gonna survive this.”

“Oh, quit being a geek,” Lenalee scoffed in amusement. “This’ll be the best part of the entire trip, I swear!”

----

Allen wasn’t actually sure when he went to sleep.

But, really, his wake-up call? There was quite a bit of room for improvement.

“—the fuck Lenalee?!” and that was the shrill sound of Kanda’s ‘angrier-than-normal’ voice. “How the hell did we end up here when you only drove for, like, twenty minutes?”

He opened his eyes slowly, sluggishly registering his odd position over half the luggage and how his pillow was currently somewhere near where Kanda was sitting. Which meant that he had been snoozing on Mugen’s guitar case instead of something soft, and that the guitarist was probably living it up while chilling—he did not like how American his slang was getting—on his pillow.

That arse, he thought with only a little spite and a lot of endearment. The British boy sat up carefully, touching the small of his back for any undeserved aches.

“Don’t yell, Kanda,” Lenalee replied calmly. Allen patted down his messy hair, wondering what all the yelling and Kanda-like screaming was for. “It was kinda your fault too.”

“Kinda my fault?” Kanda demanded, and Allen could only imagine he crossed his arms at this point. “You must be mad whacked today—fuck, I let you have twenty minutes and you cost me, like, two hundred miles worth of gas! Does that sound like a mistake I would make, Lenalee?”

Allen nodded, tapping at the window. “It does!” he said loudly. Grinning, he pointed a gloved hand down at the door’s handle. “By the way, would you mind letting me out? I’m a bit stuffed in here, you must understand.”

Kanda stared at him, probably wondering what the bloody hell he was mumbling about. Lenalee actually took the initiative and opened the back of the van, smiling sheepishly.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” she apologized bashfully. “We didn’t mean to let you bake in the metal oven called Kanda’s Van.”

“Of which you will never touch the steering wheel again, you directionally-challenged space cadet! Get your head out of the clouds once in a while, lady!”

Allen waved his hand in dismissal, grinning. “Not a problem,” he replied, actively ignoring Kanda as per usual. He quirked an eyebrow in question. “Although, I do wonder why it feels like we are not where we should be. Kanda makes a blinding little girl that is angry, from what I heard.”

“Fuck you, kid. Just. Ugh.”

Lenalee snickered a little nervously, eyes darting around the semi-empty parking lot of what looked like a gas station that they were currently parked in. “So, I was driving, right?” she began, and Allen knew that he wasn’t going to be impressed by the end of this story. “Right, I was just rollin’ down the highway. So, like, Lavi was the navigator, and he was ace at that, by the way.”

“Get to the point,” Kanda snapped. “Tell your fag of a boytoy what happened, Lenalee.”

“Okay, Kanda.” The Chinese girl sniffed, affronted. “Anyway! So, here I was, just driving at a totally reasonable speed—“

“If by reasonable you mean a hundred on the gas. By the way, that shit wasn’t very reasonable at all, lady.”

“—shut up, burn-out. Let me tell the story, okay? Well, I was going a little over the speed limit, but whatev’. The faster to the Battle, the better—right?”

Allen crossed his arms. “Keep on with the story, Lenalee,” he said flatly.

Lenalee coughed into her fist. “So, like, I’m driving and stuff, and Kanda get’s all,” And this is the part where Allen really believed that she could make a great actor. “’Hey! It’s time to stop driving, Lenalee!’ And I was like, oh, okay, because why would I put up a fight?”

“Because you were high or some shit like that!” Kanda retorted, scowling. “You tried to scratch my arms out, Lenalee!”

“Accident, Kanda. Accident. Geez, guitarists are always so touchy about little things, am I right?”

“Keep on with the story you wanted to tell so badly, Lenalee.” The British teenager replied as he became steadily more unimpressed with every passing second. “I’m just dying to know why it feels like we’re not in Georgia despite the fact that a little more than seven hours have passed on the open bloody road.”

She was clearly nervous, and she played with the rainbow of bangles on her wrists for distraction. “Uhm,” she hummed in thought. “I—err—“

“Fuck it,” Kanda cursed, raking his fingers through his loosely strewn hair. Allen guessed that his hair band snapped with his temper. “Let me tell the story. Thanks to our very special, totally radical singer—which, like, might be the only thing she is choice at—we took a wrong turn at fucking Albuquerque and now we’re in Tennessee.”

Allen blinked.

He blinked again, although a little slower than his first try.

“We took a wrong turn in New Mexico?” he asked, his voice borderline shrill. “Dear Lord Lenalee is never allowed to drive again. Again!”

The Japanese man stared at him. “We are, like, two-fucking-thousand miles from New Mexico, loser,” he replied calmly. “The I-65 doesn’t even touch Texas, let alone Latino Land.” He frowned, a hand on his hip in question. “Kid, if you’re gonna be in America, you’ve gotta be an American—taking a wrong turn in Albuquerque is, like, a saying.”

“…” Allen vaguely remembered certain Jews telling him the same thing. “I knew that.”

“Right.” Kanda sighed heavily, shifting his weight to his right as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Cyclops is getting directions or some shit like that, so we’ll be back to the road. Wherever. At some point.” He threw more dirty looks at Lenalee, who replied with exceedingly mature flashes of her tongue.

Allen nodded, hopping out the back of the van and stretching his muscles. “Right,” he said, smiling. “I’ll be back in a moment, then.” His stomach gurgled rather violently, and his smile grew. “I’m a tad hungry.”

“I can tell,” Lenalee deadpanned.

The white-haired teenager laughed, walking around the side of the van towards the building some ways away.

“—You don’t give me love,” a car’s stereo crooned from a distance, and Allen turned around, trying to identify the sound.

“You give me pale shelter,” a town car pulled into the parking lot from the other side, steadily heading in his direction as he came to a standstill. Allen cocked an eyebrow—that music was really quite familiar, if he did say so himself. “You don’t give me love—you give me cold hands…”

“Looking for someone?”

Allen snapped out of his thoughts with a jump. “Oh!” he exclaimed, turning towards the Lincoln town car that was braked in front of him. The backseat’s tinted window was rolled down, and a lightly bearded man in the single most ridiculous top hat the teenager had even seen grinned at him, waving a gloved hand in greeting.

“Are you okay, boy?” the silly-looking stranger asked with a wide grin, which kind of made Allen feel uncomfortable.

“Err, uh,” the British boy mumbled, finding his usual eloquence at a loss for the moment. “Well, I’d suppose so…”

The man chuckled deeply, tipping the rim of his top hat over his eyes with a thumb. “It’s a little odd to see a van in an empty gas station parking lot with some teens hanging around it,” he replied, obviously amused. “I just thought that I could lend a hand before arriving to Lithonia, Georgia. You know, rack up some good points.”

Allen paused. “Lithonia?” he repeated. “Are you, by any chance, on your way to the Battle of the Bands?”

“Why, yes I am, dear boy!” the man said jovially, smiling wider—if that were even physically possible. Allen felt his own tentative twitch of the lips dim at the sight of this man’s abnormally wide grin. It did not help that his teeth had this bad habit of temporarily blinding the fifteen-year-old for seconds at a time when the sun reflected the right way. “Why, don’t tell me that you’re also on the road there?”

“Yes, we are, actually,” Allen replied with a small smile. “We just, uh, took a wrong turn at Albuquerque—not sure what that means, by the way—and ended up here on accident.”

The man cocked an eyebrow in question, his smile as large as ever. “From where, exactly?” he asked casually.

“Well, we came from Hampton, Virginia, actually—“

“Hampton?” he asked, leaning out the window a little closer. Allen had half a mind to take a step back, glare, and pose like a Kung-Fu star. “What’s your band’s name, boy?”

“Oh, uh, well.” This, this was quite possibly the most awkwardly innocent conversation he’s had since he moved to America with Cross. “We call ourselves the Black Order.”

“Then you must be Allen Walker.”

Allen froze, eyes wide. “How exactly do you know that, sir?” he asked cautiously. “I mean no disrespect, but, really.”

The man laughed, delighted. “Let me introduce myself,” he responded, holding out his white gloved hand. “I’m the Millennium Earl—CEO of Level Records. You can simply call me The Earl.” He smiled wider. “I’ve been keeping tabs on you, Mr. Walker.”

“On me?” This was really weird—and steadily getting odder. “That’s, err, that’s. Wonderful.”

“It very well should be,” The Earl replied with ease. “I don’t take an interest in just anyone, Mr. Walker. The last person I kept an eye on ended up being a smash hit in the 1975—you very well might know him, Mr. Walker.” He chuckled. “I can only assume that it runs in the family.”

“Excuse me—“

“Brit!” and thank the Good Lord for Lavi and his everlasting distractions. “Oh, Al, uh, God, how do I say this?” The redhead trotted up, scratching underneath his headband bashfully. “They don’t have directions in there.”

Allen turned to look at him, trying to ignore the way The Earl’s eyes followed his movements with more interest than necessary. “Why?” he demanded. “I mean, why could you not get directions?”

“Hmm?” Lavi rubbed his chin, frowning. “Man, that guy barely spoke English. I was all, ‘hey, I need to get to Lithonia,’ and he was like, ‘you want money on pump number six?’ and I was like, dude, ‘no, I need to get to Lithonia, A S A P,’ and he was all ‘oh, yes, I see. No, we do not have map here,’ and I was getting kinda pissed so I walked out.” He shrugged. “Guess we’ll have to play it by ear.”

The Earl raised his hand, grinning as the teenagers turned to look at him. “Well, since we are going to the same place—might I suggest that you follow me?” he suggested, overly pleased with the series of events. “You probably don’t have anything to lose, right?”

Lavi stared at the man, clearly suspicious. “Probably,” he demurely replied. “By the way, who are you?”

“The Earl,” the odd man answered. “I’m trustworthy—I would be getting nothing out of leading four teenagers to their demises. Do not worry, boy.”

“Uh huh.” The redhead’s eyebrow looked like it was stuck in its raised position—for which Allen couldn’t possibly blame it. “Let me, uh, let me go talk to Yuu and Lenalee. We’ll get back to you on that dealio, sir.” He walked past Allen, brushing shoulders as a way of warning him to follow.

The Earl watched the drummer’s departing back, and he turned back to the white-haired boy. “And, you, Mr. Walker,” he began. “Would you like to ride with me to Lithonia? We can converse over a glass of Port.”

“No!” Allen yelped, and then flushed in embarrassment. He said that with way too much obvious panic. “I mean, no, sir.” He smiled. “I believe that I’ll be just fine in the van. Surely we can talk another day?” And by ‘another day,’ he meant ‘never.’

“But of course!” And then the Earl pulled some shite where a card just about appeared between his index and middle fingers. He held it out to the boy. “I’ll keep in contact, Mr. Walker.”

“…” Allen took the card carefully, not even caring to glance at it. “Thank you, sir.”

“Not a problem. Now,” the odd man tipped his hat. “Follow me, Black Order, to the competition of your lives.”

----

The first thing Kanda cared to notice as he drove behind that flashy limo into a large expanse of land was that there was a fuckload of human beings here.

The second thing was that there were really a lot of people here.

“That’s, uh,” the one-eyed freak of a drummer coughed within his throat. “That’s a lot of people, guys. Just, wow.”

Lenalee furrowed her eyebrows in thought. “Geez Louise,” she whistled. “When they said America, they meant America. It’s like a whole cities’ worth of people, fer sure!”

The English brat was not very impressed. “There are no parking spaces remaining,” he complained like the bitch he was. “Where in the world are we going to sit this bloody van, huh?”

“I like the way you’re bitching about parking when you don’t even know how to drive,” Kanda replied, as acerbic as ever. He didn’t actually like performing in front of people—it was just something he had to do. This didn’t mean that he was afraid of crowds, per se, but he just didn’t enjoy being around a landfill of people at one time.

He could tell that he was not going to be pleased by the end of this event.

The Lincoln town car—he didn’t know who the hell this ‘The Earl’ was, but Cyclops made him seem like the creepiest thing since the brat’s smile on a Friday—maneuvered through the parking lot like this was a common thing for it, and Kanda followed just for the hell of doing that. Ahead of them, a gate was rolled open at the mere sight of the limousine.

“It looks like they’re going through some secret entrance gate stuff,” Lenalee commented with an air of intrigue. “Just like James Bond.”

“That guy’s a faggot,” Kanda retorted. “He sucks dick, man. I hate watching his movies, like for real.”

“He hates watching yours too,” because he forgot that Lenalee was a ‘007’ fan. Like every other teenager in the fucking world. “God, you’re such a downer, dork.”

Kanda rolled his eyes. “Sure, okay.” The Chevrolet van slowly rolled through the gate after the dark limo in front of them, and he braked the vehicle behind the admittedly much nicer car. “Shit, this patch of grass is kinda flashy, if I’ve gotta say,” he grumbled, unbuckling his seatbelt.

Lenalee followed suit, excitement trembling through her arms. “I know, right?” she said with a little too much happiness. “This ‘Earl’ guy must be R.V.S.P., or something swanky like that.”

“Oh bloody hell…” Kanda looked around at the sound of the brat’s voice, whom of which had that expression on his face like he knew he forgot some very crucial information. “Well,” he spoke up, brushing his white bangs out the way of his eyes like a homosexual. “He’s the CEO of, err, Level Records?”

The DJ called Easygoing Atmosphere screeched to a scratchy halt, and Kanda brought his hand to his temple in case of emergency.

“He’s what?” the Chinese singer demanded, borderline shrill. “He’s the CEO of who?”

“Wow,” Cyclops said flatly. “Then again, I’m not that surprised—Al runs into the most excellent people all the time. Bak Chan?”

“That guy kind of reminded me of a weirdo,” Lenalee grumbled, arms crossed. “He did some odd stuff, man.”

Kanda opened the driver’s side door a little rougher than usual—this was probably because he was a little more irritated than usual. But, a ten hour car ride with mishaps thrown around every which way can probably do that to even a saint. “Everyone, get out of the fucking car,” he snapped huffily. “We need to get this over with—I need to take a leak, and my hair is getting tangled from this stress.”

Lenalee stepped out the passenger side, muttering underneath her breath like that was going to change something. The Japanese man rolled his eyes as he jerked open the back of the van, mostly because it wasn’t going to change. The CEO of a record company? Big deal—if he really wanted to play the guitar for money, he’d stand on the streets of Manhattan or something.

Kanda shut the doors, turning around to bitch at the rest of the band. There were a few other people milling about, doing shit that was probably not productive. “A-A-Allen!” and then something was touching him.

“…” He looked down at the young girl that was currently latched to his midsection, and he really did not enjoy being touched by most people. “Who the fuck is this brat?” he demanded. “I don’t know if I should be pissed that she’s touching me or that she thinks I’m British.”

The girl froze, looking up. “Oh, God,” she grimaced, letting go of him slowly. “Just. Eww. I knew there was something suspicious about you. You’re too tall, too thick, and a Japanese guitarist. Ick.”

“I will cut you—“

“Rhode,” a painfully familiar voice chided gently. “He obviously doesn’t like to be called out on that.”

“Tyki Mikk?” the brat said immediately, eyes wide as though he hadn’t seen his gay Puerto Rican boyfriend in years. “Why, I haven’t seen you in quite some time!”

Mikk smiled at him, and Kanda felt his skin crawl. “Well, you know,” he replied, stepping closer to the right British punk. “After all of…that and whatever,” he snuck at look at Kanda himself, frowning. “I just had to, you know, give us some time apart. Your pitbull of a guitarist would’ve probably been madder than usual if I kept sending you flowers even though I…I messed up.”

Kanda sniffed. “Whatever you and the punk do isn’t my business—“

“Hmm?” Mikk grinned, wrapping an arm around the brat’s shoulders. The white-haired punk rolled his eyes and checked his more-than-likely-to-be-broken watch. “Even this?” He leaned in close, obviously for a kiss or the spreading of mononucleosis.

“—as long as it isn’t PDA,” the guitarist finished, holding out an arm and gripping the older man’s shoulder. He held tighter, eyes narrowed. “I’m not the biggest fan of PDA.”

“I could tell,” Mikk replied, amused. He took his filthy wetback arm from around the brat, tucking his hands in his jean pockets. “Calm down, Fido. I’m not going to do anything.”

In front of you, hung in the air ominously. Kanda sneered, loosening his grip.

“Whatever,” he grunted, bringing his arm back to his side.

The back of the limo opened with an overdramatic creak, catching the attention of the two bands and their members.

“Oh God,” Mikk groaned, rolling his eyes. “Now he wants to join in too.”

“The hell—“ Cyclops started, and Kanda was pretty close to finishing it for him. It just didn’t feel like the situation called for it.

----

The Millennium Earl was a chubby, round man of average height that wore a dark suit and still donned that ridiculous top hat.

This did not change the fact that he made Allen feel overly suspicious out this world.

“It must be great to be young,” The Earl mused as he sauntered towards them, a cane tapping against the grassy ground. He probably didn’t even need it, especially by how great his posture was and how his walk was without fault. “And, I must thank you, Mr. Kanda, for following me. I would’ve hated to’ve had to instruct you to.”

Kanda nodded stiffly. “Sure,” he replied gruffly.

“Now!” the man started, tapping the end of his cane on the ground, grinning. “It’s come to my attention that my precious children lost a bet to you, the Black Order, correct?”

“Was it about football?” Lavi asked, sneaking a dirty look at his Japanese best friend.

“I’m not aware of the details, but I can only assume.”

“Then, yes, we did destroy them in touch football.” The redhead shrugged. “It was pretty awesome.”

Skin was not amused. “I got tackled,” he snapped, pointing at Allen like it was the worst thing he’d ever had happen to him. “By’a runt who is, like, four foot two. I do believe there might’ve been some cheatin’ about, because that just ain’t natural.”

David snorted. “Sounds like you’sa just don’t want to admit you suck at rugby, Skinny,” he commented idly, observing his nails. “Right common of a Yank, right Jazzy?”

“Right-o,” Jasdero agreed. Allen suspected that they agreed on just about everything, from music to the color of their underwear. “’Sides, it cain’t just be your fault—we’re sure Tyki got a little out of it too when ol’ Allen started runnin’ in tight pants.”

Tyki shrugged. “I plead the fifth,” he replied blandly.

“Plead the fifth my ass,” Kanda sniped, sniffing.

Allen snorted. “More like my arse—“

The conversation was quick to escalate into a stupid argument, and The Earl looked like he wanted to roll his eyes. “Children!” he exclaimed, tapping his cane again. “Please, let me finish!” He began walking again, circling the two intermingling groups slowly. “As promised, you four will stay in a hotel of the high classed nature.”

“The Motel Six?” Lavi asked, intrigued.

“I did say fancy.”

“The Motel Eight?”

Lenalee smacked him upside the head. “God,” she scolded. “Stop sounding so ignorant.”

The Earl laughed delightedly. “This band is just lovable,” he said to Noah’s Ark, smiling. “It makes me feel a little bad, actually!”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Kanda demanded.

“Nothing.” The Earl snickered, waving the head of the cane about. “Now, would you like directions or should I simply lead you there?”

“Directi—“

“We’ll be led,” the guitarist interjected immediately, holding a hand over Lenalee’s mouth, but not quite touching her skin. “It’s, shit, it’s been a long enough day.”

----

“Dude, screw whatever I said before,” Lavi whistled, impressed. “This has gotta be, like, the Motel Forty.”

Allen quirked an eyebrow. “What that number?” he asked, even though he knew that the answer was probably going to be a horrible joke.

“Huh? Oh, because it’s five times better than the Motel Eight.” And Lavi knew it was a bad joke, but he said it anyway. Wonderful.

The British boy grimaced. “I despise being right. Sometimes.”

“You’re British—you’re, like, never wrong either way.”

The Millennium Earl laughed in delight, dabbing at his eyes with a gloved finger. “You children keep that up,” he said jovially. “It might happen so that I actually become fond of you.”

Allen grimaced a little more. “That’s uh, that’s wonderful. Just, blinding.”

The thick man just smiled—an extremely common occurance, Tyki told him with a sigh—and led them to the reception desk. “One room, two suites,” he stated merrily. “With a connected bathroom, if possible.”

The receptionist—an obviously muscular man with too much make-up for even a woman and a nametag that read ‘Bonnaire’—flipped through some pages in a thick book and hummed a popular Ska song.

“Found you one,” he announced with a deep voice and a smile. Bonnaire looked over the group of teenagers in boredom, but then he froze at the sight of Kanda. “Seems like I just hit the homerun of the century.” His smile widened. “What’s your name, Japanese Boy?”

To say that Kanda was disgusted would’ve been the understatement of the universe. “Not Interested,” he replied, eyes wide in horror.

“Oh c’mon now, Diesel!” Bonnaire scoffed, tapping a pen on a page in his book. “You really ain’t gonna give me your name or your number? Is that what you gonna do?”

“Oh hell no.”

It was only too clear that Lavi was struggling to specifically not laugh. His eye watered and he held a hand over his mouth tightly as his body shook—Allen could not possibly blame him.

“As wonderful as young love is,” The Earl interrupted, tapping his cane against the floor. “I’m loathe to say that there are more matters for me to attend to.” He grinned widely. “So, if you would please?”

The four teenagers were extremely hesitant—but, none were as reluctant as Kanda. “Err…” he coughed into a fist. “Shit.”

Lenalee shoved him forward, whistling as though she were innocent. “Oh, darn,” she said with false shock. “My arms slipped. Muchos sorry, dude.”

The guitarist probably could have destroyed her with his eyes alone, but he took a deep breath instead. “May…I…please…get…the…key?” he ground out, holding his hand out impatiently.

Bonnaire winked, his red lips stretching into a smirk. “With a body like that, you can have whatever you want,” he replied slyly.

Allen metaphorically exploded in laughter, his knees buckling in his loss of control. The fifteen-year-old grabbed at Lavi’s arm in an attempt to keep upright, yet he really just caused the older male to release his long-held hilarity.

“I am…so glad…I came on this trip!” the British boy breathed between fits of laughter.

“Best. Road trip. Ever.” Lavi agreed wholeheartedly.

Kanda looked ready to kill—hands out in choking action—but Bonnaire hummed in thought. “Your friend is a lil’ cute too,” he said with a grin.

Lavi choked on his amusement while Allen found it hard to breathe period. They both shared an expression of horror.

“Which friend?” Lenalee asked, a little scared herself. “He’s got, like, three of those things.”

Bonnaire cocked a thick eyebrow, holding out a small key. “Hmm? Oh, the one with the groovy tight pants. Cute.”

“Oh bloody hell my life is ruined,” Allen groaned, rubbing his temples in exasperation.

Kanda snorted, snatching the offered key from the receptionist’s waiting hand. “Your existence is ruined,” he grouched, pivoting around on his heel. Reaching out a calloused hand, the guitarist grabbed the back of Allen’s neck and pulled his along. “Let’s go, loser.”

“Oh Dear God you are touching me.”

The Earl chuckled, rubbing his bearded chin. “Make an effort to contact me tomorrow—preferably before your first show!”

Lenalee waved him off. “Will do, Mr. Clutch!”

----

“So, what have we learned today?” Lavi asked, sticking a lollipop in his mouth lazily.

Lenalee rolled her eyes. “Check the map before turning onto ace but mysterious highways,” she said blandly.

“Buy more track pants,” Allen deadpanned, rubbing the back of his neck with a disturbed expression. “Also—Kanda’s hands feel like some sort of violation. I feel dirty.”

“Take a bath, hoser,” Kanda replied haughtily.

Lavi nodded. “Now, that’s all cool and choice, but I think my life lesson is, like, the best.” He smiled at Kanda. “There’s someone for everyone.”

“That…that wasn’t even cool.” The Japanese man said, disgusted. “That freak had lipstick and a beard. You’ve gotta choose one, and even I’m sorry to say that.”

“Is it love?!”

“It’s actually you getting your arse kicked if you don’t stop yourself,” Allen interjected, smiling at the suicidal redhead. “Please, spare us the bloodshed.”

“But, Al—“

Lenalee coughed into a fist, leaning against the wall in their hotel room. “Guys, hey, quick question,” she started, looking oddly nervous. “But. Uh. How are we gonna sleep?” She held up the key and pointed to the suite on the adjacent side to her. “One suite, one bed. Another suite, another bed. That’s two suites and two beds.”

“But four teenagers,” Allen added, amazed. “I do say this might be a problem. It seems like some sharing might occur tonight.”

Kanda sneered, crossing his arms. “No way,” he declined. “I’m sleeping on that couch-shit-thing. Whatever it is—it’s got a cushion, and I can sleep on it. Cyclops can have the bed, the fag.”

“You have the worst habit of calling out kettles.” Lavi commented, rubbing his chin in thought. “Okay, I can do that. That leaves Al and Lenalady. What’re ya gonna do, ladies?”

“I will hurt you,” Allen said immediately, but sighed. “I was going to call couch, but the narc named Jackarse—I mean, Kanda—took it before I could.”

“Tough shit, kid,” Kanda replied with a shrug. “Life happens.”

“You arse.”

Lenalee had the expression of a resigned old woman, and she played with a pigtail for the sake of a distraction. “You can sleep with me, Allen,” she offered, rolling her eyes once more. “I mean, I don’t bite, and Komui wouldn’t get juiced at all.”

“…I’m truly apologetic, Lenalee,” the gentleman named Allen replied, raking his fingers through his white hair. “But, it would be terribly uncomfortable—“

“Or, you can sleep with Lavi.”

Allen looked at the drummer, who made a rude gesticulation towards his crotch and some odd hip gyration, and turned back to Lenalee. “—uncomfortable for Kanda because he wishes he could sleep with a girl as easily as I can.”

The Chinese girl laughed, poking him in the cheek. “You are too cute,” she replied.

Lavi looked a little disappointed, but Allen could summon no sympathy for him.

Kanda narrowed his eyes, tapping an index against his bicep. “It’s nice that you found a place to sleep—now, try using it for practice or some shit like that.” He curled his lip in disdain. “I’m tired as something I can’t even fucking say, and you all need to be asleep too. Otherwise, I’d never get any silence.”

Lenalee stuck her tongue out at the guitarist in a show of much maturity. “You’re just pissed because I’m sleeping with your boyfriend.”

---

A long wait, yes. D: I apologize greatly for the inconvenience, and can promise you a much earlier update for the next chapter. I’d forgotten to write down what I was originally going to write, so I had to sit down and think-think-think.

On the plus side, Emiggax has her Internet back, I am a high school senior, and the Battle of the Bands officially begins (with music) next chapter. We are taking suggestions for songs, even little ditties that you might’ve written yourself. :D Just, remember that Lenalee is the lead singer for the Black Order—but, since there are other bands, with male lead singers, you can find a song for them too.

(I love character development. :D Don’t you?) (This is a pretty short author’s note. It’s probably because I’m so tired.) (Oh, yeah, you all should know the drill by now: Bonnaire is a real character from the manga. Have stock characters, will recycle.)