• Lavi finished putting his clothes back on and smiled. “Hey, can I check my hair for a minute?”
    Mel smiled and, after fastening her gloves back on, scooped him up, holding him to the mirror in the bathroom. He walked out to the edge of her fingertips, almost able to touch the mirror itself. After playing with his bangs a little bit, he adjusted his eye patch and stepped back.
    “Am I really that short?” he asked jokingly, chuckling at how funny it really looked all of a sudden. From a first person view, he saw everything as extremely giant, but, when given a mirror, he seemed just the same and he could laugh at himself.
    “Nah, you’re just perfect, no matter what,” Mel complimented. “Now, where is Allen and why is he taking so long?” She grabbed Lavi by his shirt again and set him up on her shoulder. “Let’s go find him, shall we?”
    Lavi sighed. “Yeah, we should probably make sure he isn’t scarfing down all of the food without us…”
    Lavi realized how bad of a decision he had made by saying that when Mel suddenly took off like a wild, hungry animal. He flipped backwards a little and felt himself falling. His instincts forced his hands to shoot out, locking around thick bundles of brunette hair. Holding on for dear life, he watched as everything blurred by.
    Mel ran down countless flights of stairs, not caring to look at the pretty pictures. She thought she saw someone with an empty tray in their hands, and the thought that food may have been on that tray was enough to make her run with even more speed.
    She ran down twenty-seven more flights of stairs before reaching the dining hall, panting as she stopped in the archway. “L-Lavi? You still there?”
    Lavi climbed up onto her shoulder carefully. “I’m a little shaken, thank to you, but otherwise I’m alright.”
    “Good, because I see Allen talking to Kanda over there in the corner. Just hang on and keep quiet.”
    Before Lavi could object, Melanie brushed her hair down in front of him like a curtain, concealing him from view. He watched as the giantess poked Allen’s shoulder.
    “Hello, Allen…” she said, looking a little peeved. “Where’s the food you said you were going to bring up?”
    “Well, Jeryy’s been taking a long time with it. Feeding me is hard enough for the guy, but both of us? He might as well recreate last night’s dinner.”
    “Heh, and go through torture and salad duty again?” Kanda replied. “I’d rather go through whatever the hell Lavi’s going through.”
    “By the way,” Allen asked, turning his head towards the Italian Exorcist in curiosity, “where is Lavi? You didn’t leave him in that big empty room by himself, did you?”
    “N-no, nothing of the sort. I wouldn’t put him into that much danger.” Mel sighed, and then suddenly heard a few whispers from Lavi. She clasped her hands over her mouth when she heard him, the sudden urge to scream nearly overcoming her as he abruptly spoke up.
    Kanda saw Mel’s pupils narrow and watched her hands go up to her mouth. “What’s wrong with her, Allen?”
    “N-nothing...” Mel replied for him. “J-just a mild case of Schizophrenia. It h-happens quite often after you live in a church with the Pope for many y-years. You start hearing ghosts and-“
    “KANDA!!!!!” Lavi yelled in a deep voice. “I AM THE SPIRIT OF THE SOBA NOODLES!!!”
    Kanda twitched. “What…the…hell?”
    Allen just stared out in front of him, shocked. “What do you want, Mr. Spirit?”
    “NOTHING FROM YOOOOU, ALLEN WALKER.”
    Kanda looked around for the source of the voice. “Where the hell are you, demon? I’ll cut you navel to nose!”
    “YOU HAVE BEEN EATING MY CHILDREN, YUU, AND NOW YOU’LL PAY FOR IT!!!” Lavi said, stifling his snickering.
    Kanda’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute, there’s only one person who uses my first name… and that’s…”
    Allen sighed. “Mel, where is he hiding now?”
    Kanda looked back at her, a dark glare on his face. “Yeah, where did the rabbit hop off to?” He slowly drew out his sword.
    “Nowhere,” Lavi replied, laughing and lying down on Mel’s shoulder, kicking around because he was in so much comedic pain. “I can believe you fell for-“
    He winced as the blade of Kanda’s sword fell within an inch of his head, and felt exposed as the sword’s point pushed back the curtain of brunette locks surrounding him. He stared at Kanda who at first, was REALLY ticked. “H-hi, Yuu…”
    Kanda’s pupils narrowed in surprise as he saw a tiny Lavi perched upon Mel’s shoulder. “Huh?” he thought aloud, sheathing his blade again and reaching for the puny exorcist, thinking that he must be dreaming.
    Lavi tried to run as he was grasped firmly by Kanda’s large hand. He struggled and yelped as he was brought across the table for a closer look. He winced, waiting for the pain of being suffocated to come, but it never did. Instead, he watched in even more horror as something even more gruesome spread across the swordsman’s face.
    Kanda smiled a little bit and bit his lip, trying hard not to laugh. THIS is what happened to Lavi? God, he would totally take kitchen duty every day for the rest of the month instead of being stuck that way! What had he been thinking?
    Kanda failed to stifle his laughter, creating an outburst so loud that anyone else in the room- no, on the same floor- could hear him. “This is priceless!”
    “Gah! Yuu, you’re hurting my ears!” Lavi screamed, hitting his fists against one of Kanda’s fingers. “Let go of me!”
    Kanda playfully dropped him onto his plate of soba, not even caring if he had taken a shower or not. He couldn’t help it. Lavi was so weak now that even walking somewhere would be a chore. He wondered…
    Lavi yelled at him. “Why did you drop me here, you idiot! I just took a bath!”
    Kanda smiled a little more gruesomely down at him now. He held up his chopsticks and tapped them together a little bit. “Why don’t we play a game, little one? Like… cat and mouse?” Kanda replied with a dark, twisted tone in his voice.
    Mel looked at him. “Kanda, don’t you think you’re going a little too far?”
    Kanda ignored them, chasing Lavi around with the chopsticks as he tried to escape. Allen put his hand out, but Kanda took a metal spoon from down the table and smacked it on the back. “Touch me with that hand and you die. Same goes for you, Italian.”
    Lavi felt himself stopping, and the being slowly dragged backwards. He stuttered quickly at the swordsman as he was lifted up to his face. “What are you going to do now?”
    “I just…” Kanda said thoughtfully, “want a taste…”
    Allen heard those words and yelled at him. “Kanda, don’t you DARE!”
    Kanda continued ignoring him and smiled, suddenly sticking Lavi directly into his mouth. He sat there listening as Lavi struggled around, unable to see anything and panicking. He tasted like blood and wine, as well as musty clothing. Lavender… eucalyptus… was that a hint of green tea along with that?
    Mel reached over to grab at Kanda, getting a smack to the back of her hand. “Ouch! Let him go, Kanda! You’ve had your fun. If you even think about going any further…”
    Kanda tilted his head back playfully, watching as the Exorcists across the table became horrified. He rested his head back down, still listening to Lavi, who was now yelling at him in horrified anger at him. He felt a thump against the roof of his mouth and decided his fun was over. Opening his mouth, he held out his hand to catch the tiny Exorcist as he tumbled out, covered from head to toe in spit.
    “What the hell was that for, Yuu?” Lavi asked audaciously.
    “I’m not sure what got into me, but I almost let it stay there.”
    “You b*****d,” Lavi grumbled, “when I get back to normal I’m going to kick your-“
    Mel quickly grabbed him, cautious as even she sometimes believed that anything from Kanda was venomous. She took out a white handkerchief and helped clean him up. “Kanda, that was rude! Do you know how close I was to telling Komui to cut you open with a scalpel?!”
    Allen looked down at Lavi and smiled. “Well, at least he didn’t eat you, Lavi…”
    “HE WAS CLOSE TO!” Lavi screeched at him from beneath the white cloth. “It wasn’t funny!”
    Mel laughed. “Well, at least that nightmare is over.”
    Kanda went back to his serious self, still having his laughter locked away inside of him. “So, um… who did this to him, anyway?”
    “We think it was Komui,” Allen said.
    “Oh, right,” Kanda said, remembering when the last Order HQ was destroyed. Lavi and him had gotten their hand on some potions that turned them into little kids. “Yeah, Komui’s a nut-job when it comes to that.”
    “You’re telling me,” Lavi said, as the white cloth went back into Mel’s pocket. He flattened out his hair a little bit. “Everything’s a danger now.”
    Allen down at him. “But now you’re cuter than ever, Lavi!”
    Kanda laughed a little bit. “I don’t think that was the right word, Bean Sprout.”
    “I am not a Bean Sprout!”
    “He’s right, Kanda,” Lavi said. “I am shorter than him now…”