"Two medium cappuccinos?" The barista called and I stood, walking to the counter and getting the two coffees for Kidd and I. I smiled at the woman behind the counter, and she returned it, before turning back to her work. I walked back to the table Kidd was sitting at in the corner of the shop by the window. He was adjusting everything on the table and organizing it all. Liz had mentioned Kidd's obsessive behavior.

"Here you go." I said, setting his coffee down in front of him.

"Ah. Thank you." He said, turning the cup in a half circle in front of himself.

I sat down and sipped the coffee. It wasn't sweet or anything, but it was still good. I looked out the window. It was getting darker because of the fall months, November in Death City actually rather nice. I looked across the table at Kidd who was adjusting the salt shaker. "So," I said, getting his attention, "if we're going to be friends, we should probably know each other before we do."

He looked up from his salt shaker and nodded. "Right. Sorry." He said. I looked at his long sweater the black fabric looking warm. I knew that for a while all he wore was a specific suit, his signature "reaper look", but Liz had told me that more recently, after they had killed Ashura, he'd gone to more simple things. "Start simple." He said, leaning back with his coffee in his hands. "What's your favorite color?" he asked.

I laughed, smiling. "My favorite color?" I asked, and he nodded, smiling. "(F/c)." I said. "What's your lucky number?" I asked.

His eyes lit up. "The number eight." He said quickly. "It's a perfectly symmetrical number. The only one."

I tough about it for a moment, going through each number. "What about zero?" I asked. He opened his mouth to reply, and then closed it, seeming to think about it. I chuckled. "And what about numbers with eight in them, like eighty-eight, or eight-hundred eighty-eight, and so on?" I continued to think. "And then you could do numbers like eight-hundred eight, with a zero in the middle and it would still be symmetrical. And then as long as you kept the pattern, there could be thousands of symmetrical numbers."

He spent a minute thinking about this, his eyes flitting about the top of the table. "Crap. You're right." He said. He grabbed his face. "I was wrong all this time! And no one told me!" he said. I laughed as he dropped he hands and smiled at me. "Okay. Moving on." He said with a grin.

We asked questions back and forth for a little while. As they progressed they got to more things about ourselves beside the silly questions that we'd started with. "What about your parents?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I only have my dad. Death." He said. I opened my mouth to ask about his mother, but he beat me to it. "I don't have a mother. No one can really explain it, but my dad said one time he was simply thinking extremely hard about something that had to do with organizing, and then suddenly I was there, a baby, screaming and kicking in his hands." He said.

I blinked, not realizing that I had been staring for a moment. "Oh. Okay. Well that makes sense." I said. I crossed my arms. "Shinigamis..." I grumbled, and we both laughed.

"What about your parents?" he asked me, turning his now almost empty coffee cup.

Ouch. That was a sore spot. I took in a breath, thinking of the messy story that was my family. There were things that had happened that only Mei had known about, and my mother, but I didn't really think of her as my mother anymore. I'd tell Kidd more later. "My dad wasn't a great dad, or husband for that matter, so my mother left him, taking my sister and I. That was when I was about nine or so. Mei was eleven." I said. I thought about how to navigate the story, leaving most of it out. "After a year, my mother met another man, and she left my sister and I with our aunt so she could travel with him around."

"That's horrible." Kidd said, watching my face.

I shrugged. "I think she just wanted to be twenty again. She had my sister when she and my father were young." I said answer. "When my sister was fourteen and enrolled in the Academy, my aunt kicked us out. She said that my sister was old enough to get a job. We also didn't need to live with her because the Academy would provide something for the two of us. That was a year after my mother left."

Kidd nodded, not saying anything. "I "homeschooled"," I said, making little air quotes around the word, "Mei just taught me. She was really smart—is." I had to correct myself. "And I read a lot of things in books and on the internet. I was twelve and I wasn't old enough to enroll in the Academy yet. I'm not really sure how Mei helped me with learning and kept up her studies. Not to mention she also tried to help me the best she could with learning how to use my weapon abilities. I think she almost killed herself by pulling all-nighters constantly..." I said, and Kidd cut in.

"You're a weapon?" he asked.

I blinked. "Yeah. Mei was a meister." I said.

He seemed to be thinking. "You don't have a meister, though. And I don't think you ever used your weapon form in class or training before..." he said.

I nodded. "I don't have a meister because Mei said she was waiting to have a weapon for me to enroll in the Academy, so I'm waiting for her."

I realized how sad I sounded. My words sounded like the helpless wishes of a kid. In a way, when we'd made the promise to be each other's partners, I had only been twelve. A kid. I started talking quickly, saying anything that came to mind to cover up my childish words. "I don't use my weapon form. It's dangerous. That's how Mei got hurt. I haven't used it for two years. None of the abilities either—"

Kidd reached across the table, touching the tips of my fingers. I stopped talking, swallowing. "You haven't used anything to do with your weapon in two years?" he asked. "And that's how—"

"No I haven't." I said. Interrupting him on accident. "Because..." I trialed off, closing my mouth slowly.

"That's how Mei got hurt?" He said.

I swallowed. "Yeah," I said. He was a good listener.

There was silence for a little while, during which I could feel my body telling me to run. That's what I always did when a situation got to be like this. Well my confident persona fell. I cleared my throat as one of the waitresses came over.

"Hey. It's just about six. We have to start closing up." She said, smiling.

I jumped, unconsciously pulling my hand away from Kidd a little too fast. "Oh! I'm sorry. We'll be out in just a second." I said.

Kidd rose and left a tip on the table as I lifted my bag onto my shoulder, checking my phone and seeing a text from Marie. "I should probably go home." I said, reading the text that asked when I'd be back for dinner.

Kidd nodded, something behind his eyes. "Okay. I'll walk with you." He said.

I took a step toward the door, facing him. "No. It's fine."

He shook his head, a smile on his face. "No. It's okay. It's what friends do, (Y/n)." he said.

I felt a smile creeping onto my lips, and I shrugged. "Okay." I said. We walked out of the coffee shop, in silence for a moment, and then Kidd started asking random questions again, about if I'd had any pets—no—or if I'd ever been out of the country—once when I was small to Canada—and other things.

We reached Stein and Marie's house, and I turned to Kidd. "Thanks for the coffee, friend." I said, emphasizing the word friend.

He grinned. "Yeah. Anytime, friend." He said. We looked at each other for a second, and then busted up laughing for no reason. I waved to him and walked into the house. I smiled, slipping out of my shoes. It had been a better day than I had thought it was going to be.

My phone buzzed and I looked down at it, seeing "Samuel" on the screen with a text. He was asking if I was free to go to a party. Excitement filled my chest at Samuel, the guy I liked and was "kind of" dating, texting me, and then disappointment at the fact that I couldn't hang with him.

'I can't. I promised Marie I'd eat with her tonight.' I responded with a frown face. Very teenager, yes, but I thought that was fine.

The animation that told me he was typing popped up. 'That's fine. Have a good night. I'll try not to miss you too much, bbyg.' I laughed out loud, smiling at the text and at the little heart he sent a moment later.

"(Y/n)? Are you home?" I heard Marie's voice call from the kitchen.

"Yeah! Sorry it's so late!" I called back, dropping my bag on the ground and walking to the kitchen after responding to Samuel with another text. I remember what Stein said right before I walked in. I turned to the coat closet and pulled out a sweater, pulling my shirt off and throwing it before replacing it with the sweater.

She was making something with rice and eggs, the smell of cheese filling the house too. I sat down at the counter pulling a glass of water over to myself. "No Stein tonight?" I asked, seeing two bowls.

She stopped stirring the rice for a moment, her shoulders looking tense. "Yeah. He had some things to do at the school." She said. She lifted the pan from the stove and served the food. I leaned over the counter and took the food from her, leaning back in my chair with my bowl balanced on my knees. She sat next to me as we started to eat. "How was your day?" she asked.

I mixed the eggs into the rice and cheese, steam brushing my cheeks. "It was okay." I said. "I went and got coffee with a friend." I said.

"Oh?" She said, smiling at me. "Who?"

I chuckled. "Kidd. He came and brought Mei flowers. Apparently they had been friends," I said. "How was your day though?" I asked.

She shrugged, letting out a sigh. "Tiring. Some of my students didn't do their work, but I'm too nice to fail them." She said, and we laughed for a moment. There was a pause of silence as we ate. The food was good. "How was Mei?" Marie asked. I caught the careful tone in her voice, and I wondered at it.

"She seemed like usual." I said, feeling something in the pit of my stomach. I took another bite, chewing a bit of cheese. "What did you say Stein was doing at the school?" I asked her, taking a sip of water.

Marie stopped eating, looking at the fridge. She leaned forward and set her bowl down, moving a strand of hair behind her ear. "There was something..." she said, biting her lip.

I felt the warmth from the food start to drain from my stomach. "What?"

Marie took in a breath. "After you left, Stein said that there were some... complications with Mei's machines." She said. I stared at the sink, watching a drop of water escape form the tap. I didn't move. "She's fine, he just had to... (Y/n)?" She said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

All the happy things that had happened all day seemed to straggle away as I felt the fear set into my chest. He had to what? What happened to Mei? Stein and Marie had said "She's fine" plenty of times, I had, but look at her? "What did he have to do?" I asked, leaning forward and setting my bowl on the counter.

"He had to..." Marie seemed to have some trouble finding the words. "Something happened with her heart. It stopped for a few seconds. Sid was in there and he caught it instantly and she's fine. Stein had to just—"

She was interrupted as I stood and my water glass crashed to the floor, glass and water going everywhere. I moved forward to get to the door, probably earning several pieces of glass in my socked feet, but Marie grabbed me before I would've been able to even get out of the kitchen. She pulled me to her, hugging me tightly as we sank to the floor, my whole body quivering.

"(Y/n), listen to me," she was saying while I gripped the back of her shirt so tight my fingertips hurt, "I know you're upset but she'll be fine. Stein said everything was alright again." She said. I couldn't speak. I was so scared to lose the last family that I had.

"She's the only family I have left! Marie... I can't lose her." I said and my voice broke. I buried my face in her chest, starting to cry in earnest now.

Marie held me, her hand moving over my hair. "You won't. And you'll always have me. And Stein." She was saying, but I couldn't hear her over my crying and forced breathing. I was falling back, losing the progress that I'd made to rebuild myself after everything that had happened. In just a few seconds.

"(Y/n). I promise it'll be okay." Marie was saying, whispering other things. But I was too smart to know that there were things she couldn't control, and couldn't promise. 

>>>>>

I know. Don't tell me. I know I said there would be a consistent updating schedule and it says that updates will be sundays, but I've been sick! {and I forgot, not going to lie there}

My new update day will hopefully be tuesdays from now on.

Thanks!