Situation

Chapter 21: Ultrasounds are Ultra Scary

       "Are you sure you want to come? You don't have to," I say, running my brush through my hair. Kanda was beside me brushing his teeth, and was purposely still naked to annoy me. I had gotten dressed first thing, but he knows how much it aggravates me when he walks around in his birthday suit so whenever he gets the chance to show off his body, he takes it. He spits and says, "Allen, I'm coming. Why do you keep insisting I not?"

"I'm not, just making sure," I lie. The real reason was the abnormality of it, and I didn't want him there to see the real freak I was. I mean, he knew I was pregnant, but at least without a picture, it could still just be an ethereal dream, a dream where men have the children and there were no woman. It wouldn't bother me as much then because it would be normal. But this wasn't a dream. This was real, even if I wish it wasn't. If this was my imagination, my whole living experience, then it was an inexorable nightmare, never leaving me in peace. It wasn't funny anymore.

"Well, I'm going however much you try to stop me," Kanda says, walking back into the bedroom. I wasn't sure if I should follow him because he obviously knew I was lying, and after he said he despised liars, I didn't like that I could let it leave my tongue so nonchalantly. Though, I couldn't hide in the bathroom forever so I quietly crept out of the bathroom, and then I leaped onto the top bunk. I hadn't slept in it for so long that it didn't seem right to consider it as my bed.

Kanda had found something to wear and was putting it on, his pants already covering his bottom half thankfully. He didn't even spare me a glance as he slipped on a white button-up, leaving it open. We still had a good hour before we needed to leave, and I was not looking forward to it since I couldn't eat. Silently, I take the pillow from under the blanket, and cuddle it, my arms wrapped around it like a butterfly's chrysalis and my head resting on an open space. I don't know why the despondency I'd felt for years returned full force on me today of all days, but I knew that I wasn't going to have a good day.

Felicity had never been my best quality, but today my tendency to curl up into a ball and wait it out was exceptionally bad. Would Kanda notice? Definitely. Would Kanda ask me about it? Absolutely. Would I lie about it? Of course.

It didn't help that I knew he hated liars now, especially when I was stuck in my old mind-set. My boyfriend walked over to the bunk bed, buttoning his shirt, and to my dismay, asked, "Why are you acting like this, and don't lie to me, Allen."

He was a mind-reader. It was that easy. How else would he be able to know what I was thinking, plotting, or conspiring? I think that he had caught on to how to tell if I was lying or not, and he was the first. Mana always told me that lying was for the devil, that it was his trait. After Cross took me in as his apprentice, it didn't matter since half the time, deceiving people was the only thing that kept me alive in the bar fights, debts, and poker games.

Kanda's gaze seemed to pierce my soul, sending shivers through me as I replied, "I just feel different."

I look away from his eyes, staring at his arms he had moved to cross on the edge of the bed. He rested his chin on the muscular limbs, forcing eye contact in the one visible orb because the other was closed from being on the fluffy pillow. He says, "I don't know what's different or normal for you. Care to clarify?"

His midnight pools were flooded with worry and love, assuring me that I could be honest, but I wasn't even sure what I was feeling. All I knew was that I felt like I was sinking deeper into a void that exists only in a surreal fairytale. It wasn't a feeling I could describe, and on top of that, I wasn't sure where it came from. I admit, "I don't know what it is, but I felt different this morning."

"Are you depressed?" he asks, reaching out a hand to take one of mine. Was I? I didn't think so, but the old me was beyond depressed, and that's what I feel like. Despondency was a shadow that loomed over me, pointing and laughing at every mistake I made, convincing me that I didn't deserve life, and now, I think it was saying I didn't deserve Kanda. It was right, too. I wasn't anywhere near worthy of such a loving boyfriend and yet here the bluenette stood, asking me if I was okay. I whisper, "Maybe. I don't know why though. I shouldn't be."