Reward
Over time, Allen had grown used to the cheerful greetings and small-scale parties that the Order threw whenever someone came back from a mission, be they Finder or Exorcist. Of course, the Exorcists got the better parties, but Allen truly appreciated the Finders and everything they did, so it was perhaps not surprising that his parties were better than, say, Kanda’s.
Especially this one.
Overall, it had been a standard mission, but things had gotten messy towards the end. Allen sometimes wondered why Komui liked to pair him up with Kanda on missions. Perhaps it had something to do with how efficiently they accomplished their tasks. Or perhaps it had something to do with Komui’s sick sense of humor.
Either way, this mission had gotten out of hand, several Finders had been killed, and Kanda had finally slain the Akuma just before it managed to kill Allen with its power to turn everything near it into molten slag.
Allen was honestly grateful and had thanked Kanda, which, by the twitch in the other man’s jaw, had only irritated him more. And now they were home and the others were throwing them a party and Allen, inexplicably, found himself getting cheered on for slaying such a troublesome Akuma.
“But it wasn’t me, it was Kan – ” he tried to say, but the Finders wanted to hear none of that. They loved Allen and hated Kanda and that was more than reason enough, in their opinion, to celebrate his return like the hero that he obviously was.
Which was great, except that the twitch in Kanda’s jaw was growing by the minute, and Allen was pretty sure that if they heard one more ‘great job, Allen-kun!’, he was going to be chewing on Mugen.
“Ah, but it wasn’t – ”
“Shut up, bean sprout,” Kanda growled. “I don’t care. Those sheep can think whatever they want.”
“No,” Allen said, exasperated. “I’m not taking credit for something I didn’t do.”
Kanda scoffed at him. Allen wondered for perhaps the hundredth time if anything he said or did would ever make the older Exorcist do anything else. Here he was trying to be honorable, trying to give Kanda his due, trying to stand up for the other man – and he got scoffing. As usual.
“Good job, Kanda,” a cheerful voice said. “I heard it was a tough one.”
“It wasn’t – ” Allen began, and then realized belatedly that Lenalee was actually congratulating the correct person. “Oh, yeah, he was great,” he said, lamely.
Kanda scowled at both of them. “I don’t need praise from either of you,” he said, and stormed off without another word.
Allen looked at Lenalee. “Has he ever been happy about anything?”
Lenalee grinned. “He’s happy right now,” she said. “You just have to know him a long time before you can tell the difference.”
Now it was Allen’s jaw that twitched. “Great,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it.”