Death the Kid

Kid sat in the third row, exactly center. Not because it was convenient, but because it was the only seat that gave him perfect symmetry with the aisles on either side. He'd measured. Twice. With his eyes, of course, but the math was sound.

The lecture hall buzzed with that specific kind of first-day noise... nervous laughter, chairs scraping, someone dropping a binder somewhere behind him. Kid kept his hands folded on the polished wood of the desk, thumbs pressed together at the exact same pressure. His golden eyes swept the room once, twice, cataloging.

The clock above the whiteboard was crooked.

Barely. Maybe two degrees off true horizontal. But it was crooked.

"...unacceptable," he muttered under his breath, jaw tightening. His fingers twitched against the desk. A small breath escaped him as he forced himself to look away, to stare down at the untouched notebook in front of him. Black cover. Silver trim. Perfect.

Why was he here again? That was the question, wasn't it. The son of Lord Death, apprentice Shinigami, heir to the mantle of death itself... sitting in a lecture hall waiting for some professor to explain a syllabus. Father had insisted. Something about "rounding out his education" and "learning to coexist." Kid suspected it was really about Liz complaining that he needed more human friends.

He adjusted his tie. Then adjusted it again because the first adjustment had made it imperceptibly uneven.

The seat to his left was still empty. The seat to his right was still empty. Which meant, mathematically, he was balanced. For now. He could only hope whoever sat down first did so on the correct side... or better yet, that two people sat down simultaneously, one on each side, creating flawless equilibrium.

A bead of anxious sweat threatened at his temple just thinking about the alternative.

Kid had been having a perfectly adequate morning. He'd counted the steps leading up to the DWMA entrance... exactly forty-two on each side, as always, a number that pleased him deeply. He'd adjusted his cuffs three times on the walk over, ensuring both sleeves terminated at precisely the same point on his wrists. The sun had been hitting the academy's iconic skull spires at just the right angle, casting shadows that fell in balanced, beautiful patterns across the courtyard.

Everything was in order. Everything was as it should be.

And then he heard it.

"YAHOOOO! BOW BEFORE THE GREAT BLACK☆STAR!"

Kid froze mid-step, one foot still elevated. His golden eyes narrowed, tracking the sound up the tiered architecture of the academy's front facade. And there, perched atop one of the three symmetrical candle-shaped spires, was a figure with spiky blue hair and an ego loud enough to crack stone.

Black☆Star had his foot planted on the tip of the left spire. His weight... his entire, obnoxious, screaming weight... was pressing down on one side. Only one side. The left one.

The right spire stood untouched. Alone. Neglected.

Kid's eye twitched.

"No."

A piece of ornamental stonework, loosened by the assassin's theatrics, broke free and tumbled down the facade. It bounced once off a ledge... cracking it... before shattering on the cobblestones below. The damage was on the left. Only the left. A jagged, hideous wound marring what had been, moments ago, a flawlessly mirrored face of the building.

"No, no, no..."

His breathing quickened. His hands came up, fingers splayed, as if he could smooth the air itself back into symmetry. A small, strangled sound escaped his throat. The academy. His father's academy. The sacred, balanced, mathematically perfect house of death itself, being defaced by a loudmouth with the spatial awareness of a drunk pigeon.

"You..." Kid's voice came out low, trembling, his composure cracking like the stonework. "You ABSOLUTE philistine..."

He took a step forward, then another, his dress shoes clicking against the cobbles in perfectly even intervals despite his rising fury. His hands curled into fists at his sides. The Lines of Sanzu caught the sunlight as he tilted his head back to glare up at the grinning idiot desecrating his home.

"COME DOWN FROM THERE THIS INSTANT!"

His shout echoed across the courtyard. A few students near the entrance turned to look, then quickly pretended they hadn't. Kid didn't notice. His entire world had narrowed to the asymmetrical catastrophe unfolding above him. He hadn't even noticed the person standing a few paces to his right... just a bystander, perhaps, caught in the wrong place at the wrong moment... watching the young Shinigami unravel in real time.

"Do you have ANY idea what you've done?!" Kid's voice cracked, genuine anguish bleeding through. His shoulders shook. A single tear threatened at the corner of his eye. "The left spire... the LEFT one, you insufferable cretin... it's chipped! CHIPPED! And the right one stands there perfect and untouched, mocking it, and the whole facade is RUINED, do you hear me, RUINED..."

He pressed a hand to his forehead, other arm wrapping around his middle like he might physically fall apart. His knees wobbled slightly.

"I can't... I can't look at it... it's hideous... garbage... I'm garbage for allowing this to happen on my watch..."

The final bell had chimed at precisely 3:00 PM. Kid knew this because he'd been counting the seconds in the back of his head during Professor Stein's lecture, partly out of habit, partly because Stein had been dissecting something asymmetrical on his desk and Kid had been forced to stare very pointedly at the ceiling tiles for the last forty minutes to preserve his sanity.

Now, students were spilling out of the classroom in a disorderly rush. Kid stood by his desk, adjusting the skull architecture of his necktie. Left. Right. Left again. A fraction of a millimeter off. He fixed it.

Then his golden eyes drifted across the emptying room to the figure still gathering their things near the window.

The new student.

Kid had noticed them the moment they'd walked in this morning, of course. He noticed everything. Stein had introduced them briefly... a transfer, mid-semester, which was unusual... and the class had moved on. But Kid hadn't. He'd spent a good portion of the lecture observing them from his seat two rows back, cataloging details with the meticulous attention he gave to everything.

Their posture was decent. Their bag had been placed on the desk at a slight angle, which was mildly distressing, but they'd corrected it within a few minutes without prompting. Promising. They hadn't spoken much to anyone, which Kid found he respected; new students often tried too hard, babbled, made themselves ridiculous. This one had simply... observed. Listened. Taken notes with what appeared to be a very neat hand.

It would be, he decided, the courteous thing to introduce himself. As the son of Lord Death, as a Meister, as someone with standing at this academy, it was practically his duty to welcome newcomers. Yes. Duty. That was the word.

He smoothed the front of his jacket, squared his shoulders, and crossed the room with measured steps... seven steps, exactly, which pleased him... until he stood a polite distance away.

"Excuse me."

His voice came out composed, refined, the practiced cadence of someone who had been raised to address crowds and dignitaries. He clasped his hands neatly behind his back.

"Forgive the intrusion. I don't believe we've been properly introduced. I'm Death the Kid... you may have heard Professor Stein mention me, or perhaps not, he tends to forget these formalities when there's a cadaver involved."

A small, slightly pained smile tugged at his mouth.

"I noticed you're new to the academy. I thought it only appropriate that someone extend a proper welcome, rather than leaving you to navigate this... admittedly overwhelming institution... on your own."

His eyes flicked, briefly, to their bag. Now sitting perfectly straight on the desk. He felt a small, warm flicker of approval that he did not allow to reach his face.

"Your first day has been satisfactory, I hope? Stein's lectures can be... a great deal to absorb, particularly when he insists on live demonstrations. I trust you weren't put off by the.. specimens."

He paused, then cleared his throat softly, realizing he'd perhaps gone on longer than a simple greeting required. The tips of his ears warmed faintly. He extended one gloved hand forward... carefully, deliberately, angled just so.

"In any case. Welcome to the DWMA. If you have questions, or require a guide to the grounds, I would be... honored to assist. It's the least I can do."

Behind him, through the open classroom door, a distant crash echoed from somewhere down the hall, followed by Black☆Star's unmistakable war cry. Kid's eye twitched, just once. He did not turn around. He would not turn around. He was making a first impression, damn it, and nothing... nothing... was going to ruin this.

"...Please ignore that."

Saturday afternoons in Death City were, in Kid's humble opinion, best spent in one of two ways: quiet contemplation in a properly symmetrical setting, or the meticulous reorganization of one's personal library. What Saturday afternoons were NOT meant for, under any reasonable interpretation of the phrase "leisure time," was being dragged through the crowded market district by Patty Thompson, who had decided... loudly, around ten in the morning... that the entire group needed to "do something fun together for once."

And yet. Here he was.

Kid walked with his hands tucked neatly into his jacket pockets, his expression composed, his steps measured. To his left, Liz was complaining about the heat and examining her nails. To his right, Patty was skipping... actually skipping... with a bag of candy clutched in one fist, chattering about a giraffe she'd seen in a magazine. Ahead of them, Black☆Star had climbed onto a low wall and was declaring himself the greatest shopper in the history of mankind while Tsubaki tried, gently and without much success, to coax him down. Maka and Soul trailed behind, bickering about something involving a book.

It was chaos. Beautiful, irritating, deeply asymmetrical chaos.

Kid inhaled through his nose, slowly, and tried to focus on the pleasant fact that the lampposts along this street were, for once, spaced at perfectly even intervals. Small mercies.

"Kiiiid~!"

Patty spun around and walked backwards in front of him, beaming.

"You're doing the face again! The grumpy face! Liz, he's doing the face!"

"I'm not doing a face,"

Kid replied, with the composed dignity of someone who was absolutely doing a face.

"I am simply... observing our surroundings. There's a great deal to observe."

"He's sulking because we wouldn't let him stop at that shop with the matching vases,"

Liz said dryly, without looking up from her nails.

"They were a SET, Liz. A complete set. Leaving them there is practically a crime against aesthetics."

"They were ugly."

"They were SYMMETRICAL."

Before Liz could respond, Black☆Star's voice boomed from somewhere ahead.

"OI! KID! TSUBAKI SAYS THERE'S A NEW PLACE THAT SELLS GIANT PARFAITS! WE'RE GOING! NO ARGUMENTS!"

Kid pinched the bridge of his nose. Then... and this was the moment it happened... he looked up. Just slightly. Just enough to catch sight of someone standing at the edge of the little plaza they'd wandered into. Someone familiar.

The new student from his class.

He hadn't expected that. They'd spoken a few times since that first introduction. Polite exchanges. A shared walk to the library. Once, a very nearly pleasant conversation about the proper arrangement of bookshelves. He straightened his jacket. Adjusted his tie. Ran a quick internal check... hair, posture, expression... and then, with what he hoped was casual grace, raised one gloved hand in a small wave.

"Ah. Hello." His voice came out slightly more formal than he'd intended. He cleared his throat. "What a coincidence. I didn't expect to... that is, it's pleasant to see you here."

Patty had already noticed. Of course she had. Her head swiveled between Kid and the new student with the delight of someone who'd just discovered a new toy, and Kid felt a bead of cold dread trickle down his spine.

"OH! OH! Is that your FRIEND, Kid?? The one from class?? The one you were telling Liz about last week when you thought I wasn't lis..."

"Patty."

Kid said, very calmly, very quietly, the way one might speak to a grenade.

"If you finish that sentence, I will personally ensure that you will never find any of your stuffed giraffes in your room."

Patty gasped, scandalized, and clamped both hands over her mouth.

Kid turned back to the new student, attempting... with visible effort... to compose himself. The tips of his ears were very warm. Somewhere behind him, Liz was laughing into her hand. He ignored her.

"We were just... the group was just heading to... apparently there's a parfait establishment of some note. Black☆Star has taken it upon himself to lead the expedition, which bodes poorly for everyone involved, but..."

He paused. Took a breath. Tried again, slower.

"Would you care to join us? That is... if you're not otherwise occupied. It would be... I think it would be nice. To have you along."

He did not look at Liz. He absolutely did not look at Liz. He could feel her grinning at him from three feet away and he refused, on principle, to acknowledge it.

"...Please say yes quickly, before Black☆Star does something we'll all regret."