A/N: Hi! *bright smile* So it's that time again - chapter 221 is coming up, and lenaleelee17 agreed to coordinate another countdown, with the same themes. Today's submission is a little late - I have a MAJOR project/presentation due tomorrow (like, graduation requirement level) and tomorrow's probably will be too. But still. *shrug*

Title: Mandala

Author: liketolaugh

Rating: T

Pairings: None

Genre: Friendship/Family

Warnings: None

Summary: For the 221st night countdown run by lenaleelee17 on Tumblr. Day 1: Favorite character (Allen Walker)

Disclaimer: I only wish I owned D. Gray-man.

The air was humid and stifling, with the smell of sweat heavy in the air, magnified by the press of body heat. Overtop of that, the stench of alcohol was enough to make Allen dizzy. The lighting was poor, but the laughter of drunken men and the giggling of the girls painted a vivid enough picture.

Another day, another dive.

Allen sighed, tucked neatly away in a corner of the bar, out of sight and out of mind, head resting on his folded arms. He was done working for the day, and he felt tired and sore.

He was waiting for Cross to finish flirting with the barmaid and get them a room, but that could take hours, especially if she gave in. (And she would, he could already tell. She was giving Cross that look.)

Allen might need to find a room of his own tonight, unless Cross passed out drunk, which he looked to be well on his way to doing. In which case Allen would have to stay up and make sure he didn't choke on his own vomit.

The eleven-year-old exorcist apprentice sighed again, the familiar ache of loneliness settling deep in his chest.

Abruptly, Allen decided that no one would miss him if he slipped out for a few minutes, and he stood up. Using his small body and a very short lifetime of practice, he passed through the crowd and went outside.

Out of the run-down bar, it wasn't so suffocating, but in the middle of summer, it was still uncomfortably warm, even at night. The ground was wet with the same rain that colored the scent of the air outside, and Allen took a deep breath, tipping his head back to try and enjoy it.

A few minutes passed, and eventually, Allen moved from the front step and picked up a stick lying nearby before returning to his place.

He paused, considering the stick and the slick ground in front of him, and then, finally, scratched one long, firm, straight line in the thick mud.

Allen contemplated that, too, expression pensive, and then he started to draw - circles and lines of varying sizes and lengths, all across the one long line. In a quiet, emotion-cracked voice, he started to speak.

"Once upon a time, there was a man. This man had a woman he loved very, very much-"

It was a story, one Mana had told him many times before. A silly, stupid story - Mana used to tell it just to laugh at the nasty faces Allen would make in reply.

Allen's eyes burned.

"But one day, something happened. The man sat under a tree, and when the woman returned, he was gone. In his place were two tiny babies."

A silly, stupid story.

Allen kept telling himself the familiar story, ignoring the way his voice cracked around the words. Several times, Allen had to draw a new line to accommodate extra words, but he never so much as wavered.

Allen had been with Cross for nearly a year now, and he still wasn't completely used to him. Cross was strange, and volatile in a different way from Mana, one that Allen was pretty sure was far more dangerous. Allen didn't understand him.

Also unlike Mana, Cross spent money like a rich man, even though they couldn't afford it. He'd made it clear from the start that Allen was expected to make a portion of it himself, and Allen was fine with that - he'd been earning his keep for as long as he could remember. In the streets, his own efforts were all that was keeping him alive. In the circus, he'd done chores, and with Mana, he'd taken care of the insane man on his bad days.

So Allen, he was perfectly fine with earning his keep.

Except, things had changed.

Cross demanded a lot of money, almost more than Allen could make. He also needed a lot more food than he used to, and that amount was almost equal to what Cross demanded, and he hadn't yet worked out a way to make enough to both get enough food for himself and get what Cross demanded.

That meant that he either got hit by Cross, or he went hungry. Most days, Allen chose to go hungry, because he was used to that, but he was tired of being hit, even if Cross was more gentle about it than, say, Cosimo. (Cosimo was an asshole. Not to say that Cross wasn't, but Cosimo was worse.)

"And so the woman raised the two boys for the rest of their lives," Allen continued softly, shifting to one side as he heard the creak of the door behind him. Some of the men must have run out of luck and decided to leave.

"Brat, what the fuck do you think you're doing out here?"

Allen started and half-turned to look up at Cross, who was swaying drunkenly and glaring at him, with wide eyes. "Master!"

Cross scowled at him accusingly and made as if to speak, and then looked past him, gaze landing on the code. Instinctively, Allen made as if to hide it - that code was his and Mana's, and it was none of Cross' business - but when he caught a hint of something fiery and dangerous in Cross' eyes, he froze.

"What the fuck is that?" Cross hissed. Timcanpy fluttered out of wherever he'd been hiding and landed on Allen's head as the white-haired boy leaned back, eyes widening in alarm as his mind screamed predator!

"It's nothing!" Allen tried to snap, but it came out too frightened. "It doesn't matter!"

Cross almost seemed to blow up at that, inflating dangerously, and Allen instinctively tried to make himself look as small as possible.

But a moment later, Cross visibly forced himself to calm down, and growled, low and frightening in a way only truly dangerous people could manage, "Never let me see you drawing that again."

"Okay!" Allen agreed quickly, voice a little higher-pitched than he would have liked. "Okay!"

Timcanpy, seemingly in agreement, flew down from Allen's head and swept the code away with a few swipes of his tail, as if it were something secret and deadly that they were better off pretending to have never seen at all.

Allen didn't understand.

Cross took a few deep breaths, and then turned around roughly, crossing his arms and scowling blackly at the inside of the bar. "The barmaid agreed to feed you, brat, so get your butt in here before she changes her mind."

"O-okay," Allen whispered, and Cross swept inside. Shakily, Allen got up and hurried after him, knowing how impatient he tended to get.

Allen didn't ever use that code again, didn't even let himself think about it, and in the end, he forgot it - until he saw it again, four years later.

I tried to make it as different from last time's as I could - don't want things to get stale, y'know? *shrug* See you tomorrow! Thanks for reading, and please review!