A/N- So unfortunately none of my chapters from this one on are going to be betaed do to my friend who's been doing it for me going off to college and unable to continue soooooooooooooo yeah please ignore my mistakes and if any of you are interested in betaing let me know or if anyone has questions about the story feel free to PM me I know some people don't like when stranger do that but it's fine with me. Anyway I really liked how this turned out and hope you do too.

The Black King's Ace

Chapter 10: painting of life

Lenalee showed Allen and I to our rooms. The hallway looked the same as all the others. The floor we were on was a circular shape like the rest of the floors I had been on and in the middle was the seemingly endless hole. The outside walls were lined with identical plain brown doors. Mine and Allen's rooms were right next to each other. All the way up to the floor we were staying on Lenalee talked incessantly about how everyone in the order looked at this place as home no matter how little they were actually here and how we should too and all that crap. It's not as if we can just automatically think of this strange building as a home right away in any case and in my case I doubt I could think of anywhere in this dimension as home.

I waved half-heartedly to Allen and Lenalee before heading into my new room. The room was small with only a twin bed on the right side of the room and a small brown dresser on the left side. The floor was bare dark wood that I knew would be cold in the mornings and the walls were covered in a light brown wallpaper which on closer inspection seemed to be covered in little faded red roses. The bed sheets and quilt was also a matching light brown color. In all honesty it was kind of drab and boring, especially in comparison to Ashford academy.

I set my bag on the floor by my bed and lay down with my hands behind my head and my eyes closed. There was far too much truth spoken today. I hadn't told anyone this much truth in my whole life and honestly I was exhausted from it. It felt like my soul was drained.

Something compelled me to open my eyes though and the first thing I saw was a painting over my dresser. I wondered how I could have missed it for a moment before realizing that the painting being flat I had to be at an angle to it to see it and if I hadn't been so tired I would have slapped myself for being so idiotic.

It was a painting of a chess set. It was painted so the set was at a tilted up sideways angle so that you could clearly see all the pieces. The set was painted with a background of black tinged with an ominous red hue. All the white pieces looked battered and only the king still stood, barely, painted in the process of falling. All of the pieces in the squares they'd have started in had the game just started. All the black pieces were still standing and looked pristine, but their side of the board was covered in wet marks like rain, or tears. Only the black king stood out of its starting position. The black king stood in the middle of no-man's land on the board. It was still standing tall but it was covered from top to bottom with blood that formed a shining pool around its base.

I felt myself stare fixedly at the black king without blinking. I sat up as if to get closer to the painting against my will. I felt as if I was staring at a perfect painting of my life. Just as I felt my vision becoming unfocused there was a loud obnoxious knock on my bedroom door.

I shock myself out of my daze and went to open the door. It was Allen with a huge grin on his face. I almost slammed the door in his face for looking so happy. I did not feel like dealing with anymore idiots at this time. But I decided to be the good boy like usual when dealing with most people and greeted him while donning an extremely forced happy smile. As if I was really happy to see him after all that, I just wanted to sleep.

"Hi Lelouch! I was just headed down to the cafeteria and wanted to know if you wanted to join me. Neither of us has eaten since this morning."

I agreed. Kicking myself the whole time, but my stomach had been complaining for the last little while and I felt it would get to the point where I couldn't just ignore it like I had been.

The walk down was mostly silent much to my surprise. Allen seemed to have finally picked up on the fact that I really didn't want human company at the moment and was keeping silent. Do to this the cafeteria came as a bit of a shock to the senses. The whole area was a lot better lit than most of the order and the lights stung my eyes. There was also a constant chattering undertone to the whole place and I could already feel a headache coming on.

Allen and I got in line behind Kanda who I heard order soba from whoever was working the counter before walking off. I got a good look at who was running the counter when it was Allen's turn. It was some hyper looking black guy with pinkish-purple cornrows. As soon as he talked to tell Allen that he could order anything I could tell he was extremely gay and chuckled on the inside. This could be fun.

I was so preoccupied with analyzing the chef that I didn't actually hear what Allen ordered and felt my eyes widen at the amount of food Allen was carrying on his tray. I was sure that if the tray were on the floor at my feet the pile of food would reach well above my head. Allen continued to stand next to me as I approached the counter to give my order, obviously meaning he was going to wait for me and the smirk that had returned to my face after my shock wore off widened further.

By the time I was facing the counter my devious smirk had been replaced with the most flirtatious smile I could come up with. The man was still so excited over Allen's order that he barely noticed me until I leaned in and rested my armed on the counter.

I stared directly in his sunglasses and said, "Hello, and who might you be?"

He jumped a bit before donning a brilliant smile and replying, "Well hello to you too darling, you must be new. You can call me Jerry."

During this I could sense him appraising me behind his sunglasses and when he was done I watched as his smile turned flirtatious to match mine. Ah, so he got the game.

"I see they roped in a cute one this time darling."

"Not as good looking as the ones they already have."

By this time I could see how confused Allen was becoming out of the corner of my eye and how he just looked back and forth between the two of us ass if his brain were imploding.

At this point Jerry took my hands and I had to fight to keep the flirty look on and not smirk evilly at how much this was freaking out Allen.

Jerry pulled me back in the game by pulling my hands slightly to get my attention and starting up the dialog again, "So sweetie what can I get for such a handsome, charming boy?"

"Nothing that's on the menu I can assure you."

"I promise you can have some of that latter. For now you need to eat something my sweet, I wouldn't want your gorgeous body wasting away."

I suddenly pulled away and adverted my gaze while putting on a blush by thinking of something Suzaku did once. I put my hand to my mouth to hide my evil smirk that had finally broken free.

"I-I'm afraid I'm not familiar with your menu and I couldn't impose upon such kind good-looking man."

I think Allen's eyes just about fell out of his head at that one.

Jerry caught my chin and turned it to face him and I could of sworn our act had caused sparkles and flowers to pop out behind us as I made my eyes look like I was about to cry from 'imposing' on the chef.

"Nothing you ever do could impose on me my dear! You can just have some of my personal favorite "

He abruptly turned away to start cooking, shattering the illusion of flowers and sparkles. I turned a big smile on Allen who looked like he was about to drop his tray in shock at my totally different attitude. Jerry came and gave me my food with a wink to which I replied with a nod.

As I passed Allen I hit him in the shoulder to snap him out of it and lead him to an empty table in the back. I sat on the side of what was essentially a big picnic table that was facing Jerry and saw him wave at me. I waved back half-heartedly before turning my attention to Allen who had just plopped his tray down in the spot across from me, looking extremely dazed.

He turned to me and asked, "Are you gay?"

I smirked, "That remains to be seen doesn't it?"

He looked flabbergasted, "Well, you don't like Jerry do you? He's got to be at least forty!"

"No, I don't, do you?

"No of course not!...But, if you're not why were you flirting with him?"

"Two reasons" I held up one finger, "One; It was fun and I was stressed and I knew he would play along" I put up a second finger," And two; I just made a potentially useful ally. Someone like that doesn't get a lot of cute boys flirting with them which means he's thankful for my game and might help me out latter. Besides it's not as if he really believe that an 18 year old boy could be attracted to him for real, even if I was gay."

Allen's reply was cut off by the sound of Kanda yelling at someone from across the room. When I looked over I saw Kanda yelling at a guy wearing a long white coat like most of the people in the room and I realized that they weren't exorcists and I wondered who they were and what they were doing here if they weren't exorcists. From what I could hear Kanda was made because the guy he was yelling at and the rest of the group at the table behind him were crying over a fallen companion and disturbing his dinner.

I scoffed at this Kanda guy, who did he think he was to tell someone they couldn't mourn someone important to them. Apparently Allen was thinking along the same lines because when I looked to see how Allen was taking this h was already gone and I could see him holding Kanda's arm to keep him from hurting the guy he was arguing with.

I quickly got to my feet and stopped myself from falling as I hurried over to the scene. On closer inspection you could almost see flames roaring behind Allen and Kanda as their anger rolled off in waves.

I joined the conversation a bit late but I heard Kanda talking to Allen, "Get your hand off me. I hate cursed people. You have no say around here. You're just going to die like all the others come talk to me when you've been here six weeks without dying, moyashi."

"IT'S ALLEN!"

I put my hand on Allen's shoulder and glared at Kanda as hard as I could, "You do not have the right to say if someone does or does not mourn people they care about."

Kanda turned his attention to me and replied, "You have even less right to talk than he does, inpo. At least he comes from this dimension, your just cursed trash that's imposing on us. For you information Finders die off like bugs and are just as easy to replace. Anyone can be a Finder, only us exorcists really matter."

Allen dropped Kanda's arm as if disgusted as me and Kanda continued glaring at each other. Kanda abruptly turned away and I yelled after him, "Just so you know you're not the only one who speaks Japanese and I'm not a wimp nor is Allen a beansprout."

Kanda turned to face me and smirked, "You're not worthy of being from my noble country so excuse me if I forgot."

Allen had finally had enough and walked right up to Kanda to continue arguing while I slipped off to the side to watch. I happened to be standing next to Jerry's booth as I watched and noticed he was watching as well.

I heard Jerry make a comment, "Those two would make a cute couple wouldn't they hon.?"

I observed them for a moment before replying, "Well for hating cursed people Kanda seems to have no problem being near Allen." My observation was places as Kanda moved right into Allen's face to yell at him some more."

"hmm, oh I never got your actual name darling."

I turned to look at Jerry and held out my hand to shake his, "Lelouch, my names Lelouch vi Britannia."

Jerry accepted my handshake while saying, "That was quite an interesting little performance, and you're quite the actor. Although you should know I'm used to playing the submissive role in those sorts of games."

" Thank you, I kind of figured but I've never taken the lead like that so I hope you'll excuse me. I hope to do business with you again in the future. Now however I've had a long day and am headed up to bed."

Jerry dropped my hand before relying," I'll be looking forward to it, until then have a nice night Lulu."

I could hardly control my thought at that name but didn't say anything as I left Allen with Kanda and headed back up to my room. When I got to my room I didn't bother changing and just got into bed. I noticed Timcompy flying in circles above my bed and wondered vaguely if Allen would miss him latter. The last thing that crossed my mind before I drifted off was what it would be like to have Suzaku here with me in this world too. Would we fight like Kanda and Allen?