Disclaimer: I do not own –Man.

Warnings: Unbeta'ed. Awkward grammar.

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"People or stars
Regard me sadly,

I disappoint them."

— Sylvia Plath, "Sheep in Fog"

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"Two cappuccinos."

Lenalee couldn't help but stare to the man in front of her.

He had a long hair that was almost touching his unbelievably thin waist line. Despite the lanky physical appearance of the man, he was quite beautiful. Lenalee heard that models had lanky bodies. Well, this one sure was gorgeous and there was no doubt about it.

He was an Asian, Lenalee instantly recognized. She was an Asian, too. The mad had a beautiful Asian feature that looked quite stubborn. He was arguing with his companion, aloud-mouth, and energetic red-haired man with an eye-patch. She could almost see a few veins popping on his head. Lenalee blinked a few times before bowing her head and taking the order of the two peculiar men.

"Will you shut your goddamn mouth, Lavi?" The long-haired deadpanned as he looked menacingly at his companion. "I swear I'll kill you myself one day."

Lenalee winced at the rough baritone voice of the man. Funny how a beautiful man could could sound so unbelievably mannish.

"But Yuu-chan, you are not getting any younger. You have to get yourself a girlfriend pronto or else, you'll wither."

Lenalee could see the tremulous anger that the man in front of him was trying to contain.

The man was that old? He looked pretty young to her…

"SHUT UP, BAKA-USAGI."

"But Yuu-chan!"

"Do not call me 'Yuu-chan!'"

Lenalee decided to cut off their conversation for the sake of the customers at the back of the line.

"Sir, I've already placed your order. You can sit while waiting for it," she smiled as bowed to them. The Asian just 'che'd' and walked away from the counter.

The red-haired man smiled to her, said "Thanks", and followed the man.

She bowed again, smiling.

She sighed. This would be a very long day…

A new costumer popped in front of her.

"Welcome!"

"You know that man, Miss?" It was teenage girl who was wearing too much make-up on her face. "He looks gorgeous."

Too bad. Lenalee bet that the girl was already beautiful even without those eye shadow, artificial blush, and overly pinkish lipstick that just made her looked like a trying-hard clown.

Lenalee smiled and shook her head. "No, I didn't know him," she politely said, smiling inwardly to herself.

The girl giggled, "Oh... Too bad, then. Do you have a strawberry cake?"

"Yes."

"Please give me one. Then, a brewed coffee."

"Right away."

Lenalee smiled as she wrote down her order.

From there, she couldn't help but hear the man cussing in the air like a sailorman.

The female customers seemed not to mind though. They were all staring at the Asian with dreamy, half-lidded eyes while some of their male companions were all gritting their teeth in annoyance.

Yep. This would be a long, long day.

It was a good thing that Nell agreed to help them out today. Well, if the boy seriously said no, Lenalee knew that she wouldn't really press him to do something he clearly didn't want to do. But since he said yes... Lenalee smiled as she looked at the back of the shop where she left Allen a while ago.

One step at a time.

Lenalee nodded to herself as she took another order from a customer.

One step at a time.

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Nell couldn't stop his knees in shaking.

There were a lot of things that was making him scared and nervous today.

Daisya was hovering on him too closely. The boy's eyebrows are arching perfectly. He was about to push the teenager and run screaming in fright when he remembered Lenalee.

He was supposed to help Daisya.

He was not supposed to push him and run screaming from so much fright.

Right.

He was supposed to help this boy at receiving orders from the customers and that would mean taking his hat off and showing his face to other people and start talking to them.

Oh, GOD.

He was totally freaking out. Really.

But he couldn't just run away. It was Lenalee who personally requested this. And there was no in way in hell he would let her down.

But that, ladies and gentlemen, didn't stop his knees from shaking and his heart from beating so fast like it was going to burst from his chest.

No. For Lenalee, he would do anything.

The woman saved her when he was almost thinking of just killing himself and ending his suffering.

At that time, he just wanted to vanish for good so that he would never have to deal with painful memories and problems anymore. He was a coward and Nell knew that.

But the kind woman who found him offered her warm hands to him and gave him a job, shelter, and everything that he needed. And never once did she ask about his past. And for that, he was bloody thankful.

Doing his job properly was the only thing he could do to show her how grateful he was for the help she extended to him.

"Hey, buddy. Are you seriously alright?"

Nell looked at Daisya and nodded.

"You're paler than before. I know you're pale but this is ridiculous. You have to go out more, you know. Bask in the sun and all that. It'll help your complexion. You look like shit like that, seriously."

Nell fixed his eyeglass on his nose. "I'm okay. T-this is just how I really look since I was a kid." He swallowed hard. I'm okay. Nothing's gonna happen. Everything will be alright.

"You mean, you are always this pale? I seriously thought you have a skin problem or something..."

Nell blushed as he tried to cover his face with his hat. His hands were trembling slightly from Daisya's prying eyes.

Daisya sighed. "Don't worry. I know you don't like people that much. And besides the witch's gonna chop off my head if something actually happened to you. So, listen. All you have to do is to ask what was their order and I'm the one who's gonna go and get it to the kitchen. So that you'll not trip on your feet or something remotely close to that. 'Kay?"

Nell slightly smiled and meekly nodded.

This caught Daisya off guard.

He scratched his head as he looked away from Nell.

"And one more thing, don't smile at me like that. God knows I might jump on you. Even though I'm not swinging that way," he irritably said.

A tiny voice inside his head couldn't help add, well, not yet.

This not-so-innocent remark earned a year's worth of flush from Nell.

Dasiya's eyes widened in disbelief. Really, he was just kidding! Did he take it seriously?

Gah! Damn this boy and his androgynous face!

"Stop blushing! I was just kidding!"

Nell looked like a blushing drenched cat. "I am certainly n-not b-blushing!"

Diaya decided to stop teasing the boy. It was beginning to feel like a double-edge sword!

He decided to play it cool. "Yeah. Yeah. And I'm a Jew."

Nell's eyes widened. "You are? I thought you're from Turkey?"

Daisya stopped. This kid really had some naiveté problems… And he was so slow, too. Where did that witch get this boy?

"Yes. I'm from Turkey. And the last time I checked, I'm still Turkish. So ,yeah." He sighed again.

"But y-you said–"

He cut him off, "ANYWAY. Let's go back to our original conversation."

Nell nodded.

The smaller boy blinked a few times. Daisya almost groaned loudly. And now he's displaying his freakin' long eyelashes. I might really gonna swing that way if this will keep on happening. I have to stay away from this kid! He thought, completely forgetting that Nell was actually two years older than him.

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"You need to take off your hat kid. It's inappropriate to wear a hat while serving the customers." Daisya said while rummaging through his locker searching for a spare waiter uniform for Nell. "And come to think of it, I haven't seen your head even once. What, you have an egg at the top of it or something?" He laughed at his own joke.

"Of c-course not! It's just that I don't like taking i-it off." He heard the boy said.

Daisya pondered on the voice of the kid. Now that he was not facing him and couldn't see his face, hearing him talk kind of felt like he was talking to a girl. The voice was so soft, velvety – like a chocolate – and it really sounded like a female. Well, not really that really soft but it was clearly undeveloped. He wondered if it would still change as Nell aged. Daisya's voice certainly did these last few years.

Nell seldom talked to them – except from Lenalee and Miranda. Krory was always busy and Daisya was always outside basking in the attention of the customer, which he loved very much, so he really didn't know if his voice had always been like that.

"Why? Are you bald? Do you have a serious case of hair loss?

"No."

"Then what?"

"I have a v-very long hair…"

"…."

"…."

"Wha?"

"I have a very long hair."

"…."

"…."

"Are you kidding me or something?"

"No."

Daisya sighed again. This time, much, much harder. Like he was trying to blow off some invisible irritating termites on his nose.

"Okay… Let me get this straight; You have a very long hair that's why you don't like taking your hat off. Am I correct?"

"Y-yeah."

"Okay. So what if you have a long hair? You can cut it anytime you want. It's your hair anyway."

"I can't."

Daisya felt like banging his head on his locker.

"Why?"

"I promised my sister I won't cut it and… she liked it this way."

He found it. Daisya found his old pair of uniform from two years ago. Well, it's a bit big for Nell because, he's not that small when he was 15 years old. But, oh well.

"Here." He faced the boy and let him see the uniform. "It's kinda big but I think you'll manage."

The boy just nodded.

"Alright, let's see what we can do about your hair problem. Why don't we start by taking off your hat and let me see how huge and serious this problem of yours is." Daisya said, arching his eyebrows.

The boy was obviously reluctant, but he removed it anyway.

And Daisya, for the nineteen years of his life has never been shocked.

Now, he knew that Nell had always been a beautiful boy. He had a beautiful face, he had a procelain complexion and it didn't really help that he had such fragile-looking body. And he was small.

As a matter of fact, when he first saw her, Daisya really thought she was a girl even if she was always wearing an odd-looking hat that hid her hair. He never doubted it until that fateful day when he accidentally saw Nell changing her clothes in the men's locker room. He thought she just mistaken the girl's locker room for the boy's locker room. He was about to reprimand her and tell her she got the wrong room when he saw her taking off her clothes. This stopped Daisya from moving. Well, he didn't mean to peak, really. His body just froze there and he couldn't move, promise. Nell just looked so ethereal and sinfully beautiful at that moment that he couldn't tear his eyes away from her.

And if Allen turned out to be really a girl, Lenalee would surely have his balls. Not his head, mind you. She knew that crunching his balls and taking it off away from his handsome body would kill him faster that taking off his head.

As it turned out, Nell was a boy and he, unfortunately didn't have tits.

Daisya couldn't really believe what he saw.

He was... fantasizing a man... all these times.

He didn't know what happen next because he fainted, as pathetic as it sounded.

And now, it was about to happen again.

Daisya thought that Nell was already too beautiful to be included in the male horde, but his hair was the last straw that broke the camel's back.

He already had an asexual countenance and having a long, flowing straight white hair didn't really help his case.

Nell was ruggedly breathing, obviously afraid of someone, other than himself, seeing his hair. And why not? He could get rape by flaunting that thing to other people, really. (Or men, for that matter.)

(Even though that probably wasn't what scaring Nell the most. Daisya doubted that Nell was even capable of thinking that way.)

They wouldn't mind jumping on Nell.

Dasiya wouldn't mind jumping on him, you know.

He wouldn't mind to be called a homo if that would mean he could have him.

Daisya trembled.

His thoughts were now starting to scare him.

But Lenalee chopping off his future scared him the most.

That woman was a devil in disguise. She could really do it if she wanted to.

Nell was off limits, that he perfectly knew.

And besides, what the fuck was he thinking? He was straight, for crying out loud. He couldn't be swayed just like that. He loved chasing skirts and panties and whatnots.

For sure, he couldn't bear sucking somebody's dick. If that would be the case, he would rather suck his, thank you very much.

He gulped before faking a smile. "You look normal. What are you so scared about? Just secure your hair at your back with a rubber band or something. We don't want our customers to think we are unhygienic, right?"

Nell surprisingly relaxed when he saw that Daisya wasn't making fun of him and what he just saw. The boy nodded and grasped the uniform in his hands tightly, silently saying to himself that he would do his best to do the job that was given to him.

Daisya smacked Nell on the back and the smaller boy almost banged his face on his locker's door. He coughed as he tried to regain his footing and stared at Daisya who was now grinning from ear to ear.

Nell thought that he was just punched.

"Iyi şanşlar," Dasiya said before he disappeared from kitchen. "Good luck."

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Kanda Yuu was clearly seething in aggravation.

He was angry and frustrated.

Lavi was being his usual stupid self again and the main target object of that stupidity was none other him. Fuck. If only he could really kill the bastard. If only he could kill his own cousin then the world–particularly his world–would be such a bliss. But he couldn't. His world couldn't never be peaceful and be Lavi-free. Her father would kill him. And that's the last thing he wanted. A world that was Kanda-free.

Lavi was telling him that he should already get a girl.

A steady one, on top of that.

He couldn't even bear walking side by side by any girl.

They were whiny, annoying, attention whores.

Okay, that was exaggeration. He actually knew a few women who were not like that, but they were all just colleagues. He always denied it, but he truly respected them for what they were.

However, Kanda just couldn't see them any more than a respected colleague no matter how hard he squint his eyes and see a flowery background lacing around them.

They were friends.

Period.

And it wasn't because they all lack sex appeal, too.

In fact, few of them were models respected in their chosen careers. Some of them would drop a hint every now and then, but when Kanda didn't even budge at their innocent and sophisticated hints, they all quietly backed down.

He knew that there was something wrong with him.

But it was something that didn't bother him even in a slightest.

He would probably be like this for the rest of his life.

"Nee, Yuu-chan, I'll introduce you to a friend tomorrow. I'll be sending her pictures –"

Kanda snarled, "Stop doing that, Baka-Usagi. I'm beginning to get seriously irritated. I am warning you."

Lavi softened his gaze on his cousin. "She's dead, Yuu. You can never bring her back again. Stop living in the past."

There were a lot of things you could say and do to piss Kanda Yuu. But if there was something that would gravely and officially earn his wrath, it was to mention her name in front of him.

Nobody mentioned her in front of Kanda.

Without a word, Kanda lifted his fist. He knew he was going to cause a commotion in the middle of the day but right now, he just didn't fucking care. He was furious. He was fucking furious. Sure, Lavi and Kanda were cousins. They were a family. But right now, all he could understand was the fact that Lavi stepped on a sleeping landmine inside of him.

The people inside the coffee shop all screamed like in the movies where a protagonist was going to be hit by the bastard antagonist.

He didn't care.

He didn't fucking care –

But instead of hitting Lavi's face, Kanda Yuu hit something entirely different.

He heard the ugly sound his right elbow connecting with something soft and the repulsive sound of plates and cups shattering at his right side where his fist was currently suspended in the air.

He immediately turned around to see who he hit and his jaw almost dropped when he saw a pale girl lying unconscious on the floor.

All he could hear was the loud and erratic beatings of his heart and Lavi gaping at him, saying,

"You hit a girl, Yuu."

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TBC