Me: 'It took a bit longer than I had hoped, but here's a new chapter.'

Lavi: 'Better late than never I guess.'

Allen: *looks grumpily* 'Never sounds like music in my ears.'

Me: 'I wonder if Allen is ever going to get over it... Though I mostly wish Kanda would finally stop trying to kill me.'

Lavi: 'I don't think Yu will ever forgive someone.'

Me: 'I think I'm out of here before he shows up. So have fun reading and leave some reviews please - again thanks for the ones I already received - while I am off to escape from Kanda.'


It was two hours later when Allen and Kanda went back inside again. However, the boy halted in front of the entrance, making the man turn around in surprise.

'I'll stay here for ten minutes,' Allen declared while he pulled Kanda's coat off. They hadn't been able to wear it together while walking and the man had thrown it over the other male's shoulders. Even though the boy protested, he wouldn't take it back and in the end Allen had accepted the friendly gesture and snuggled himself deep in it.

'You'd better take this back as well, before anyone sees me wearing it.' He threw the coat in the man's hands and suppressed a shiver when the cold air cut right through his clothes again.

'You go, I'll wait.' Kanda stuck his arms through the sleeves. 'A Moyashi without a coat like you will freeze to death.'

'I'm not a Moyashi,' Allen snapped. Seriously, what was wrong with this jerk? He thought Kanda liked him, but the man just kept using that horrible nickname.

'Just go, idiot. You'll get hypothermic if you keep bickering here.'

That was the limit. 'And whose fault is that?! I'm not the one who drags somebody outside without warning him to get a coat!'

'That's why I stay here, you stupid idiot!' Kanda yelled back.

Allen fell silent, not knowing what to say to that. Instead he glared grumpily at the man for a few seconds before looking away and walked straight past him. 'Why do you always have to be such a jerk?' He mumbled.

'You're the sensitive Moyashi, stupid Allen,' Kanda growled back.

The boy let that slip for once, because his name had been used too, but he felt outraged when he walked through the empty corridors. He rubbed his hands over his arms and shivered. The training hall was just two more corners away.

However, when Allen arrived and opened the door, the warm air that met him didn't do anything to make him feel better. Instead, his anger had vanished and just a dull depressed feeling was left in his chest.

Maybe he should have talked things out with Kanda. But at the same time he protested to himself. There is no talking out with that jerk.

He shook his head to get rid of those thoughts and took place on a couch which was still unoccupied.

'Allen, you're back. Where have you been?' He should have known Lenalee would notice his absence.

The boy forced himself to send her a smile. 'Oh, I just took a little walk.'

'Little?' Lavi dropped himself on the couch next to him and grinned. 'You call two hours a little walk? Or did you meet Yu and get into a fight again?'

Well, no-one was surprised with that man's absence.

'I might have kind of met him,' Allen declared with a sour expression, feeling relieved that he had a reason now to not act like he was entirely happy.

'That's a long fight even for you!' Lavi grinned. 'You guys are horrible together, really.'

Lenalee just seemed worried, but didn't say anything.

It was then that the door opened and Kanda came in. Ignoring everyone around him, the man sat down on another couch. He sent a deathglare around to warn people not to come too close before staring into the distance with a grumpy expression on his face.

'Even Yu seems to be in a worse mood than usual. What did you do to each other?'

'I don't want to talk about it,' Allen hissed in between clenched teeth.


The tense, unhappy feeling slowly receded during the day. Especially when a big delicious lunch was brought to them in the afternoon and the dinner was even better. They followed through with a bunch of icecream and Allen stuffed himself full with everything that was offered to him. It was only half an hour after that, that he realized Kanda was gone again and that nobody seemed to pay attention to him either. So he went to Jerry, asked for a bowl of soba to take with him and snuck out before anyone would notice him.

He made his way through the corridors quick, so he wouldn't freeze and knocked without a second thought on the man's door. The cold was already settling in his bones and he might never warm up again if he stayed out for too long. The sky outside was already pitch black and the coldness of the evening was setting in.

Kanda opened his door and took him in for a moment, then he simply walked back into his room, leaving it open for Allen to enter.

The boy did so and closed the door behind him. He trembled and cursed when it was even colder here than in the hallways. Right, broken window, he had forgotten that for a moment.

'I thought it would be nice to meditate, after all that excitement from before.' He suppressed a shiver. 'And I brought us something to eat.'

Kanda looked at him with a pulled up eyebrow. 'We've just had dinner, idiot.'

'So what?' Allen grumbled back, while he sat down on the man's bed, determined to eat the food before it would get cold from the icy wind that howled through the window. 'Food always tastes good.'

'Tssk, bottomless pit.'

'What did you say?' Allen poked his new chopsticks angrily in the soba.

Kanda averted his gaze grumpily. 'Nothing.'

'Well, if you don't want it, then I'll eat it myself. More for me,' the boy declared before he treated himself with a mouthful of noodles.

Kanda sat down on the ground in a meditating position and closed his eyes for a few minutes.

'You sure you don't want any?' Allen asked, almost done with eating his meal.

The man looked up and narrowed his eyes for a moment, then he got up and took place next to Allen.

'Okay then, give it.'

The boy grinned satisfactory and picked up a bunch of noodles with his chopsticks, then offered them to the other in front of his face.

The man leaned forward, grabbed Allen's hand and led the food into his mouth, then let go of the boy's arm again. He swallowed and looked at the boy with an approving glance in his eyes.

'I knew you wouldn't be able to withstand it,' Allen teased, while he scrambled the last scraps together and picked them up. 'A pity it will be your only bite.' He lifted the sticks to his mouth, sending the man a challenging glare.

That was it. Suddenly they were on in a second. Kanda grabbed Allen's arm to pull the food his way, but the boy stuffed his feet in between them and pushed them right in the man's stomach. Kanda grunted, but didn't let go of his catch. Instead he planted his other hand over the boy's mouth and started to exert pressure to get the noodles closer to his and further away from Allen's face.

The boy struggled under him and considered biting the palm, but didn't feel like turning this in a real fight, so instead he brought a foot up and pushed against the man's nose with it, who groaned in disgust.

Allen mumbled something under the hand, but didn't manage to make himself understandable.

The man smirked. 'Do you give up, Moyashi?'

'Ifs Affen!' the boy shot back, muffled by the skin on his lips.

Allen wriggled his mouth free from the man's grasp for a moment. He gasped for air before warning: 'If you don't let go of me now, I'll put two feet in your face!'

Kanda immediately put his hand back on the boy's mouth again and threw his whole weight to the side.

Allen yelped from surprise when his own body got tossed to the side, with which the empty bowl flew to the other side of the bed. A few noodles slipped from his chopsticks and slid on the bed, but this wasn't really about the noodles themselves anymore.

Kanda brought his legs up now as well and started kicking in Allen's abdomen with them, causing the boy to huff from the air that got forced out of his lungs.

However, he wasn't done yet. Now that the bowl was gone, he had another hand left and with that one he started yanking at the hand that was holding his other. Fortunately, this was his left hand and that one was a lot stronger than Kanda's.

The man wasn't ready to give in yet though. He let go with both hands for a second. Then he brushed the innocence away, grabbed the chopsticks and punched against the other elbow, triggering Allen's ulnar nerve.

The boy yelped and his hand let go of the sticks in reflex. Which Kanda caught perfectly, without even spilling a noodle.

Without thinking Allen tried to snatch them back, pulling at the first thing he came in contact with. He felt a pang of satisfaction when a stick slid out of the man's hand and went for the other when he realized Kanda had stopped fighting. He followed the man's gaze to the blanket, where the last scraps had fallen. Each of them was holding a loose stick, which was useless on its own.

Kanda looked reproachfully at him and Allen laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.

'Oops…'

'You idiot,' Kanda commented. He pushed the stick he was holding back in Allen's hands and stood up from the bed.

Allen followed the example. 'I guess we'll have to clean up the mess now.' He said, reaching over to pull the empty bowl off the bed. 'Let's begin with getting those noodles to the trashcan.'

Kanda glared at him, but pulled the bowl out of the boys hands and shoved the noodles in it. He pushed it back into Allen's hands and ordered him to throw it away.

For a moment he felt like protesting, because Kanda just told him something like that so coldly, then realized this actually was his fault and went outside to toss the noodles with the trash.

When he came back, Kanda had changed the blanket to a clean one and was sitting on it.

He took place next to the man again and faced the ground. Kanda seemed grumpy. Maybe he had misinterpreted it and it had been a real fight after all. But it hadn't felt like one. Kanda hadn't really actually hurt him even once. The man could have hit him or pulled his hair, but instead he had punched against his elbow and pushed a hand in front of his face.

No it hadn't been a real fight, he was pretty sure about that.

'We really can't do anything else than fight can we?' he grinned at Kanda. 'Even if it's not serious, we're still fighting.'

Kanda's eyes shifted to him and he could see a glimpse of amusement in them.

'It was your fault. Stupid Moyashi's shouldn't be trying to keep soba away from me.'

'It's Allen,' he protested dryly, not feeling the need to be aggressive this time.

'That your name's Allen doesn't mean you're not a Moyashi.'

'I'm just Allen, nothing else.'

'Tsssk, stupid Allen.'

'Bakanda.'

However, there was no hostile undertone in their voices. Instead Allen scooted a little closer to the man, who wrapped an arm around his waist.

The boy felt his face starting to glow, still not being used to the intimate contact.

'Well, at least I'm not cold anymore.'

'Only stupid Allen's whine about the cold.'

'Say, Kanda, let's go to my room next time. At least that one doesn't have sub-zero temperatures,' Allen suggested with a voice thick with annoyance.

'Tssk, weak Allen.'

'Says the one who was obviously shivering on the way back when he didn't have a coat outside,' Allen shot back.

'Because you were whining about dying.'

'I wasn't…!'

There was a knock on the door and they both fell silent. Allen looked at the wood with wide eyes from shock. Would the person have heard he was here? He or she would probably wonder what he was doing here.

'Who's there?' Kanda shouted, sounding more irritated than usual.

'It's Lenalee,' a muffled voice answered through the door. 'We want to go in town to the Christmas market. They say it's beautiful in the night. I thought you could better come too.'

It was silent for a moment in which Kanda shared a quick glance with Allen.

The man sighed. 'Fine.'

'Great!' she sounded sincerely happy. 'We'll see you at the entrance in ten minutes. Oh and if you see Allen on the way, tell him about it too, okay? We can't find him anywhere.'

A few seconds later they heard the sound of footsteps distancing themselves.

Allen let out a sigh of relief. No-one had a clue he was here. They could just tell them he had met Kanda on the way and he indeed had passed on the message like he was told to.

He looked at the man and felt excitement flutter through his chest again. 'Seems like we're going outside again. This time I won't forget my coat.'

Kanda snorted. 'Good, because I'm not sharing mine again.'