"Mr. Bookman," shrills Lisette's grandmother on the fifth day. Lavi very nearly upends the inkpot on the edge of the desk. She looks down her nose at him, quite a feat considering that Lavi has at least half a head on her seated. "I was hoping that you would be able to tell me where Mr. Walker has disappeared to; neither my granddaughter nor I have had sight or sound of him since breakfast. It is such a lovely day and we were hoping he would be able to accompany us on a walk of the gardens."

I'll bet, Lavi thinks wryly, remembering spying Allen's white head ducking through the gardens and back toward the hills through the library window just an hour ago. "I'm afraid not," he lies. "I would be more than willing to undertake the search for him on your behalf, however."

She sighs and snaps open a flowered fan, bringing her other hand to her chest dramatically. Lavi hides a smile. "Oh no, you're busy with your work; I wouldn't want to impose."

"Please," Lavi says. "Such a refined lady as yourself shouldn't be tromping all over the grounds looking for the wayward master of the house. Allow me."

It is a lovely day, Lavi notes as he makes his escape; in fact, it's been nothing but lovely days since Kanda and Lavi arrived, and Lavi can't help but be a little uneasy about it. The old Bookman used to talk about it in that cryptic way of his, making incomprehensible patterns in the red thread caught on his claw-tipped fingers. Storm is coming, he used to say. Storm is coming, when all Lavi could see for miles was a sky the delicate blue of a robin's egg. Don't let the look of it fool you, boy. You have to learn to read through these things. And later, finally, the air heavy and stifling with rain.

When he reaches the crest of the hill, Lavi finds Allen by nearly tripping over him. He follows Allen's line of vision and sees what he's looking at: Kanda, at the foot of the hill, inside a little circular enclosure, holding Cross's horse tied to the end of a long rope. Longeing; or, Lavi amends to himself as he watches the horse rear up on its hind legs, attempting to, anyway. Allen doesn't seem to have noticed Lavi yet.

"You know," Lavi says, and stifles a snicker when Allen jumps so hard he actually falls over, "I'm almost certain you don't actually have to hide behind the bushes. He's not going to be able to see you up here."

Allen rights himself, face red as a beet. "I wasn't hiding!" he protests. "I was just out for a walk! I dropped one of my gloves."

Both of which, Lavi notes with amusement, are on his hands. Come to think of it, Lavi hasn't seen Allen take them off even once since he's arrived here. Allen brings them up to his face now, dusty white skimming over flaming cheeks. His eyes drift back to where Kanda is again, so Lavi folds his legs up underneath himself and sits down next to him.

"I fired the groom," Allen tells Lavi, almost absently. "And this morning one of the other boys came up to me and said something like, 'thank you for getting rid of that lazy sack of shit.' How is it that Kanda is always so—" There Allen cuts himself off, clasping his hands around his knees. The silence stretches, but Lavi makes no move to break it. After a few moments, Allen speaks again. "I can't believe you told them he was an exotic Oriental prince. You ass."

Lavi laughs and shrugs. "It's not so far from the truth." Surprised, Allen turns to him, eyes wide. "You didn't correct me," Lavi observes.

"What was I going to say? That we were Exorcists together? That I was a fifteen-year-old soldier in a worldwide holy war against things that should have never existed?" Allen looks down on his left hand as he says this last part, another one of those strange details that Lavi will file away in his head to look at later. "It's as good a story as any other, I suppose. I'm already—" Allen makes an aborted gesture at his face. "I don't need everyone here thinking I'm insane on top of everything."

"You're just eccentric." Lavi reaches over to pat Allen on the shoulder. "All rich people are like that. Lisette doesn't seem to mind, does she?"

In answer, Allen makes a noise that isn't anything. A breeze picks up, ruffling his hair and exposing the mark on his forehead. Below them, Kanda's hair flies back and across his face, and he snaps the whip behind the horse to get it moving forward again. The blush still hasn't completely receded from Allen's cheeks. Lavi sighs.

"She's a . . . nice enough girl," he offers, recalling what could probably most generously be termed her 'enthusiastic' singing accompanying Allen's piano the night before. He lets a slow grin spread across his face and jostles Allen's shoulder. "So?"

Allen glances at him. "So what?"

"So have you kissed her yet?"

"What?" Allen says. "You're not supposed to ask about that sort of thing!"

"So you have!" Lavi says triumphantly, narrowing his eye. Allen has stiffened almost imperceptibly, blood draining from face.

"I—" Allen takes a deep breath and lets it out, hand coming up in one of those jerky, nervous movements Lavi has noticed more and more of lately. His shoulders also hunch in, making him look smaller than he is. "It wasn't really like that," he continues finally. "It happened a few weeks ago, on one of our walks in the rose gardens. Madame Bucher had to sit down because she was having problems with her heart, but she told us to go on. And then when Lisette and I rounded that bend, the one with the big tree, she just . . . she just turned around and did it. On my lips!"

It's misery, Lavi realizes slowly, watching him talk; the thing that is writ in every line of Allen's body, in each of his movements. A heavy, bone-deep misery, in the downturn of his mouth, the dullness of his eyes and the curve of his arms around his knees. He rocks a little, forward and back, under Lavi's eye.

At least, Lavi thinks, he's put his finger on why he can't seem to make himself like Lisette very much.

He didn't mean for the kissing question to turn out this way, but if he is honest with himself he isn't very surprised. It requires some kind of response, he knows, but words elude him and he is forced to add this to the growing list of moments he has experienced where language is revealed to be inadequate.

"Do you think there will be a storm?" Allen asks when the silence stretches again. Lavi follows his gaze to the northern horizon, where heavy grey clouds are made tiny by impossible distances. They seem to be creeping to the west. He swallows and looks back.

Another slow realization: he wants to kiss Allen.

It's wound itself through him insidiously and now it sits, a quiet ache in his limbs and his heart. Lavi wants to take the arms wrapped Allen’s knees and wrap them around his own neck, slide his hands around Allen's waist and pull Allen into him, press his lips against the sad curve of Allen's and see if he couldn't make it invert. But there is that, and there is Lisette, and then there is this prevailing inadequacy that Lavi still hasn't quite figured out what to do about.

"I think it will probably pass us by, this time," he answers lightly.

"Ah." Allen stands and dusts off his pants. "I should get going; Lisette is probably looking for me."

Lavi watches him go, suddenly finding it difficult to draw breath.