L had to be reminded of his birthday every year, a fact that Watari mentioned, with affectionate tolerance, every time he did so. L measured the significance of time in terms of cases, not of how many years he had spent alive. There was a gravity to the reminder this year, though, that L had not felt before. Another year had gone. He realized it was nearly the anniversary of the Kira case, which was... not annoying, no, but sobering. And yet he was so close to seeing the whole shape of it, so close.
Just a little more work to be done, he thought, lifting the shinigami notebook from the desk again. It had no further information to impart to him, but he kept returning to it, trying to feel, perhaps, the sway it held over Kira. It did not feel any more or less imbued with significance than any other piece of evidence.
He heard a step, and did not have to look to know who it was. L couldn't decide if Light were staying here for show, out of genuine dedication, or for some purpose of his own. His façade was almost always so flawless that L felt it had to be faked: no one was that perfect all the time. He thought of the months they'd spent handcuffed together, and realized he wanted to believe Light stayed out of a desire to see the case through to the end. This was sentimentality. L quashed it with his customary ruthlessness, and greeted Light with a deliberate lack of inflection.
"I shouldn't be surprised you're still working," Light said, in that knowing tone of his, skirting the edge of mockery. He came over and sat in the closest chair, and blatantly looked at the monitor and the notebook.
Light had become different during his confinement, and since Higuchi's death, he seemed different still. If this were related to Amane's more obvious memory loss, it suggested that one could take on or relinquish being Kira at will. But how was it done, what were the parameters? L could not close the case until he had those answers.
Light held out a hand, eyebrows lifted in question, and L relinquished the notebook. He scrutinized Light's expression for any reaction to it, even now trying to quantify the change, which had surely started in the helicopter. Light's face betrayed nothing.
"You'd think it would feel heavier," Light said, holding it balanced on his palm. "But it's not evil by itself, is it?"
L wondered, not for the first time, if their thought processes were really so similar, or if Light were simply a staggeringly good mimic. "Neither is a gun," he pointed out, "but I would not hand a gun to a murderer."
Light looked at the lettering on the cover. "Does your giving this to me mean you've finally admitted I can't be Kira?"
L simply blinked at him, and Light chuckled and set the notebook back on the desk.
"No one should have it," Light said.
L again felt as if he were saying what he thought people would expect: what the perfect son, the keen future policeman, would say. He wondered if Light had ever expressed an emotion genuinely in his life. He put the notebook in the desk drawer, and said, "It's my birthday today." It was a calculated confidence, like telling Light he was L's first friend, but this had the advantage of being true.
"Feeling introspective?" Light said.
"Perhaps a little."
"You should be proud. Not many people have accomplished so much in—Hm, I don't know how old you are."
"Twenty-five." L didn't see any reason to lie.
"And just think how much you have yet to do."
Unsubtle, L thought. "I fully expect to one day surpass Kira in pure numbers." He tapped his thumb against his teeth and allowed himself a thin smile. "Of course, I am quite satisfied that everyone I have sent to their punishment has been guilty."
Light laughed again. "If you slept, I'm sure you'd sleep very well."
"You should not attribute superhuman abilities to me," L said, matching his arch tone.
"Believe me, Ryuuzaki," Light said, with the faintest emphasis on the alias, "I don't." He stood, and L was unsurprised. He would have made that his parting shot, too. "Happy birthday."
Maybe L had not entirely shaken off that sentimentality, he thought, when Light and his smirk had gone. He wished it were possible simply to converse with Light, without one ear tuned to any possible false notes, without analyzing every word for hidden barbs. Was he so attached to the one theory that had seemed viable for a time that he had become blind to other possibilities?
No. His instincts had proved themselves many times over. The answers, the rising percentage of certainty: these would come in due time.
But maybe it was because he was another year older, and the case almost a year old, that he couldn't help but feel that the silence of headquarters tonight, the silence outside, of a world unsure it was safe to release the breath it had been holding, was only the eye of the hurricane. That there was no longer anything he could do to speed things along. It was the one feeling he hated.
Then he thought of how Halloween was also Samhain, when the old year died. He decided being one-fourth English was close enough to get away with appropriating the holiday for himself. A new mental beginning just when things were growing darker. They were not truly dying; they were gathering their strength for the coming year. I'll see that year, Kira, L thought. But your days are numbered.