04 → [audio]

[fallforthesky]

[It's been a while since Lenalee has addressed the network. For lack of anything to say that wouldn't be a rehash of what everyone else has already long gone over, maybe. Something like that. There's only so much she can bring up with a group of people she doesn't know or understand, after all

Comments

[voice]

[fallforthesky]

[Yes, he did. And going by the suddenly sharp silence coming from Lenalee's end, that little slip was the verbal equivalent of setting the OT3 down in front of her dressed in uniform with a mission outline in hand (and perhaps a map in Allen's). Of something close to (but not- never- quite the same as) seeing Komui open his arms for her that first step back inside the Order's halls after the mission outline becomes a mission statement. And from Kanda, of all people. The person who's been holding her at an arm's length for months for God knows what reason and has sent her into more anxiety attacks in that timespan than she's had in a year of fighting a rapidly slipping war.

She exhales- it catches on something tight in her throat- and as she starts a reply to his feed, that something gives, and she finds herself laughing, the sound bubbling and then all but streaming over. Really, honestly... laughing. The kind that's bone-numbing and comes from needing to for too long, but never quite getting to the point of actually managing it. She keeps laughing until her stomach hurts and there are tears running down her cheeks, and this much laughter must honestly be unsettling to hear over the network with so little warning, but she can't make herself stop short of having no breath left to laugh with.

And once that happens, and she's left wheezing for breath over a public broadcast, Lenalee wipes her eyes with the back of her wrist and nods, lips in such a violently real smile that it hurts. Forgetting, only for a moment, that she isn't, in fact, at home and Kanda can't see these things himself.]

...Yeah. Just a little one, but big enough.

[voice]

[promisedlotus]

[-wait WHAT HAPPENED did he miss something? Or did he just go and say something really really stupid again HE IS CONFUSED.

He doesn't get girls, seriously.

Uh........ Should he. say something? Or-

-or wait no she's done. He thinks.]

R-Right. [CAN YOU HERE THE CONFUSION? CAN YOU? CAN YOU?]

[voice]

[fallforthesky]

[You know what sucks, Kanda? The fact that you're the one to finally make her laugh long and loud for the first time in nearly four months, and you think you've done something wrong. Maybe because you didn't see her break down on Allen after Rhode left, or because you haven't really seen her in person since the fog settled in. But God, she'd been beginning to think she was losing you.]

So-sorry. I just never thought I would hear you say something like that.

[voice]

[promisedlotus]

[You know he realizes none of this, right?]

It's just something to expect from you.

[voice]

[fallforthesky]

[Which probably has a lot to do with their minimal interaction since the fog set in. Sobering up a little now.]

I know. But I suppose I just needed to hear someone else [you] say it for once.

[voice]

[promisedlotus]

[Who knows. Kanda's kept himself at a bigger distance than usual, compared to at home at least.]

Maybe.

[voice]

[fallforthesky]

[SHE'S NOTICED. :T

For his sake:] Y-Yeah. Maybe.

[-because there really isn't a 'maybe' about it at all, but she knows not to expect for Kanda to completely understand.]

[voice]

[promisedlotus]

It'll work out.

[voice]

[fallforthesky]

...I know it will. We're all doing all right, after all, aren't we?

[S...ort of...]

[voice]

[promisedlotus]

Yeah, we are. Somehow. [Just like always.]

[voice]

[fallforthesky]

Even without anything physical to fight, we're strong after all.

[voice]

[promisedlotus]

We wouldn't be us - [Or Exorcists.] - if we weren't.

[voice]

[fallforthesky]

That's right.

[voice]

[promisedlotus]

[Just a soft hum. That's probably all you'll hear from Kanda on the subject.]