"Come on Near... There's a sixty six percent chance you can do it!"
L popped the strawberry into his mouth with an air of distraction, leaving Watari to deal with the other children in the Orphanage. Mihael, for one, was having somewhat of a sulk that L had come along specifically to deal with Nate and his lack of willing to walk more than a metre, although he had been easily satiated with the promise of a chocolate bar if he left L to his work, and there was a seventy four percent chance that he'd find melted chocolate fingerprints on his briefcase before the day was over. Mihael, or Mello as he preferred to be known, was a bright toddler, and had worked out long ago that anything sugary in L's possession could be found in or around his briefcase. He was running out of places to hide it. But the matter at hand today was Nate, or Near; by the age of two and a half, or rather he was closer to three by now, wasn't he, he really should have been walking across rooms, over things, up stairs and up trees like any other child. Whether or not he showed potential or not (and L figured there was an eighty two percent chance that he could succeed him) that potential had to leave the ground at some point.
The albino-haired child was sequestered inside what could have been called a mountain of toys, if it weren't for the surprisingly familiar shape that he had arranged them around himself in. L had had to carefully lift the toddler out from a replica of the Golden Gate bridge, from what he could tell, made out of dominoes, with the fear that if he knocked one single domino out of place there would be Hell to pay. They would never hear the end of it, at least until Near got his dominoes exactly back in the position they had been in when they started. And it would mean he still wouldn't be walking, anytime soon. Once he put Near down on the floor again just far enough from the models for the dominoes to be safe, L got down on one knee and opened his arms wide, offering the shy toddler a hug as reward for walking. There was a forty eight percent chance that it would work – L was not exactly known for giving cuddles.
"If you walk to me Near, I'll buy you some puppets? The ones you can decorate, for when you're bigger. Hmm?"
His bribes seemed to be having no effect, but it was interesting never the less; the boy had an intelligent glint in his eyes, and L had absolutely no doubt (maybe two percent doubt) that Near knew and understood every single word that L was saying to him. He was definitely one of the twenty six orphaned children that L would have to ask Watari to keep a particularly close eye on. Mello was another one, and then there was that one girl, but she was far too easily distracted to make a detective… So Mello and Near it was. M, and N. Mihael Keehl and Nate River. If the latter, of course… Would walk. Forty percent chance. The odds were going down.
Near looked up at L, an closed grin on his face. It was wide, and smiling, but L had to wonder, for the first time in quite some time, just what the youth was thinking. Was there a reason he didn't walk, or was it just that he couldn't be bothered moving unnecessarily? It interested him, certainly enough to keep him interested in his most recent plight, and L was well known for only ever taking the kinds of cases that got his interest. He wasn't in his line of work for the fame, fortune or glory, but for the sheer thrill of the mystery. And, of course, the sheer masses of candy that he could, in ninety percent of situations, claim on expenses of whichever police force he aligned himself with. He had a particular inkling for Japan's candy, Hello Panda in particular.
"…This strawberry is yours if you walk over here."
The detective drew back, planting himself on his haunches and surveying the situation. What had he proved? Very little. He knew that Watari had not exaggerated, and that Nate really did walk very little – he hadn't seen him move of his own accord once in this rare visit. He knew that he could walk, because he'd looked back on security footage, and he had seen him move when he'd had his one way video conferences with the older children in the Orphanage. And he knew that the child liked puzzles, ones far surpassing his age group, so he was clearly an intellectual and understood the benefits to movement. But he also knew that the child knew his limits – he was intelligent enough to know the puppets would be of no benefit to him for at least another three years. But from his antics with the toys, he knew that he was also a child a heart. He would have to appeal to that side of Nate, in the same way that he gave Mello chocolate.
Leaving Near to his dominoes, L walked out of the room and returned a few minutes later with an armful of brightly coloured building blocks. Settling himself down in his usual sitting position across the room, he began building the first thing that came to his mind, a replica of the Alcatraz Prison. Twenty metres across the room from Near, he was putting the finishing touches to his foundations, in silence, when a small pair of feet came into his line of sight. L rocked back on his heels to watch Nate sit down, completely uninterested in L, and proceed to correct L's subtle mistakes in structure. L smiled at him, then stood up, slipping his hands into his pockets and watching him before walking out of the room. He'd been eight five percent sure that last trick would work…