Full Circle
Thank you for reading!
Trigger warning for self harm, blood, gore, character death, swearing, and homophobic slurs.
Mello's hand darted across the paper as he sketched. His latest sketch was of a man with a scar. His hair obscured part of the scar, which covered half his face. Mello enjoyed coming up with stories as to how he got the scar. The various other students at Wammy's were in the common room as well, as they usually were after dinner. Each was doing what he or she usually did, from Matt playing video games with some others to Near stacking blocks by himself. Mello tried to ignore the other kids, as they were slowing down his creative process. Despite his heightened sensitivity to the giggling and talking of the other orphans, Mello failed to notice Matt walking up to him.
"Hey! Watcha drawing?" Matt peered over Mello's shoulder, trying to sneak a peak at his unfinished work. This vexed Mello to no end.
"Stop! Go away," he said, smacking Matt's hand.
"Do you want to play video games?" Matt asked in his usual perky voice when he spoke of his favorite thing. Any other time, however, Matt spoke in lazy yawns.
"Nah, not today. Thanks though." Normally, he would have given in to such a request. But on this particular day, Mello was feeling somber, not wanting to do anything but be in solitude.
"Come on," Matt pleaded, "you never play video games with us anymore. It's like we don't exist!" At this point anger was boiling up inside Matt. His best friend was turning into a recluse.
"I just don't want to, end of story!" Mello replied, getting irritated at Matt. "I don't understand why anyone would play those stupid video games anyway," he said, under his breath. Immediately he regretted it.
"Fuck off, it's not my fault you can't get along with the other kids! It's like I don't know you anymore," Matt said loudly—not quite yelling, but not exactly calmly, either. He ran to the bedroom the two boys shared. Fuck him, Mello thought. He doesn't know anything about me.
It was dark by this time, and everyone had left the common room. The only ones left were Mello and Near, who was still stacking blocks in the corner. Mello swore that kid hadn't moved an inch all day. His tower was almost tall as him now. Mello couldn't stand to be in the same room alone with him, so he got up and left.
Matt was curled up under the covers of his bed, probably playing his GameBoy. Shit, Mello thought. Forgot he'd be in here. Oblivious to his entrance, Matt began humming the Super Mario theme along with his game. Mello let out a long sigh, removing his shirt. As he attempted to get into bed as quietly as possible, the rickety brass bed let out a long creaking sound. Matt immediately pushed off his covers and turned around. It was difficult to tell, but his eyes narrowed under his orange goggles when he saw Mello. He promptly turned to face the other direction.
"Come on, Matt, we're roommates. We can't keep up this bickering married couple act forever," Mello said, hating to be ignored by his best friend. Matt huffed in acknowledgement, then returned to his game.
"C'mon Matt, you know it's stupid to be mad for something as insignificant as that. I hate it when you ignore me like this," Mello sighed. Giving up, he balled up under the blankets and attempted to sleep. Just as he felt his consciousness fleeting, he heard a noise from across the room. Matt had finally turned around, a pout on his face.
"You know, it's really hard to be your friend when you're constantly taking out your frustrations on me," he muttered. Mello was shocked.
"What are you talking about? I was just pissed that you were looking at my drawing." Mello responded.
"No, that's not it. You always are irritable after the class ranks are published, but this is different. It's like you're not even trying anymore. And then when I try to be a good friend and get you to have some fun, you won't have anything to do with me. I know you're jealous of him and all, but you don't need to drag me into it," Matt snapped.
"I'm not jealous!" Mello cried, "That stupid sheep is just too full of himself! Look at the way he walks around, like he owns the place!"
"No, Mello. You're wrong. He doesn't walk around like he owns the place. You're just making that up. Anyway, he practically will when L dies and he takes over." Matt retorted. Across the room, Mello gasped. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. The one person he cared about, the one person he felt totally secure with, was turning on him.
"You just fuckin' wait," Mello spat, before throwing on some leather, grabbing a bar of chocolate, and stomping out.
Wammy's orphanage had a small squad of security officers that monitored the hall during night hours. They weren't very attentive, and they didn't need to be. Anyone at Wammy's who actually wanted to leave was smart enough to get past them. Mello was no exception. He quickly snuck out a window in a matter of three minutes.
God, why am I so stupid? Mello thought. He was sitting outside in a tree, his usual spot of seclusion. He's right, I am jealous. I'm jealous and angry and I take it out on everyone around me. Maybe that's why Matt is my only friend. Was my only friend. Mello took a bite of his chocolate bar. I'll always be second best. Never as smart, as calm, as good. I'm a failure, I'm useless. If L dies during the Kira investigation, Near wil take over and have Kira's head in three days. There's no point anymore.
Hours passed like seconds. Mello looked up at the sky, noticing the position of the moon. He estimated it was about two AM. After reciting a quick prayer in Russian, he started to return to his bedroom.
Mello snuck back into his shared room and went straight to the bathroom. He opened the drawer on his side and examined the three razorblades lying next to his cologne. Dull. Not good enough. Opening Matt's drawer, Mello took his razor, which was gathering dust anyway. Matt never bothered to shave. He popped the three blades out of the plastic frame, and began to slit his wrist.
One,
Two,
Three.
Mello began to lose count. Not deep enough to cause severe damage, but deep enough to bleed for a while, the cuts felt good. The guilt of hurting Matt, the pain of being so close—so god damn close—to Near, all dissipated when he sliced his own skin. He loved watching the blood form beads on the thin lines of red right after the cut—it reminded him of his rosary. Then the blood formed stripes, pouring down his arm and onto the bathroom tile. It mesmerized him.
After the blood began to coagulate, Mello began to clean up after himself. He wiped his arm clean of the blood, and counted seventeen different cuts, all varying in length and depth. He covered them with an Ace bandage and some gauze before slipping into his bed.
The next morning, Mello awoke to Matt shaking him violently.
"Dude! You overslept. Breakfast is in ten minutes," he said. Mello mumbled and "ok, I'll be down" and waited until Matt departed. After the door closed, Mello got out of bed and made a beeline for the bathroom. He removed his bandages and noticed the cuts were almost completely scabbed over. He ruffled his hair, threw on a long sleeve black shirt, and headed for breakfast.
Although he again wanted only solitude, Mello felt it was his duty to socialize. After getting some food, he reluctantly sat down at his usual spot next to Matt. He avoided eye contact and tried his best to look uninviting, but Matt's questions were inevitable.
"So, how did you sleep last night?" He asked, sounding quite bored. Mello used this to his advantage.
"Huh?" He said gruffly.
"I mean, you were there at lights out, so like eleven, when we…" he paused, "talked. And then I woke up at two, and you were gone. Then again I woke up at around four, and you were back. I can't imagine you had a good night's sleep, not even being in your bed," Matt cocked his head, and then raised his eyebrows. "Or maybe you went to bed in… someone else's bed?"
Mello punched Matt in the shoulder playfully. "It's not my fault I'm… promiscuous," he replied, avoiding the unnecessary interrogation. Matt laughed.
"Yeah, just don't come near my bed, fag." Matt giggled, making fun of Mello's not-so-hidden queerness.
"Is that a GameBoy Color in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" Mello countered, joining in his game. Matt nearly chocked on his milk.
"You wish, pretty boy."
"Your vocabulary of insulting phrases is limitless." Mello continued to joke with him, just playing the game. He wanted everything to seem normal, just to avoid the confrontation. Matt could believe it in his head, but Mello knew. The voices, the pleasant sting of the cuts, the constant weight on his shoulders—it wasn't normal. It wasn't fine.
Literacy was Mello's favorite subject. He loved making up his own characters and telling storied about them, and then sketching them in his sketchbook. It was his own world outside of Wammy's, outside of the competition, outside of Near. Today, though, he was out of it. After the discussion with Matt, Mello became increasingly critical of the Wammy's house system. Being raised for the sole purpose of being a proxy for a single person disheartened his will to learn.
"Mello? Mello?" Mr. Ruvie asked. He taught all classes (except for language classes) at Wammy's House.
"Hm? Oh, sorry. Could you repeat the question?" Mello finally uttered, with effort.
"Could you define anathema, please?"
"Oh, yeah. Anathema: um, noun—" Mello began, half trying.
Mr. Ruvie interrupted Mello to call on Near, who had raised his hand before Mello even responded.
"Anathema: adjective meaning a cursed, detested person." Near, Mello thought, that showoff. He wanted to run to the back of the classroom where Near sat and punch him square in the jaw. He wanted to show Near how it felt—how it felt to be second best in a world where first is everything.
"Nicely done, Near. Pay more attention next time, Mello." Mr. Ruvie said. Mello nodded, seeing a familiar smirk in his peripheral vision. Mello fought tears the rest of the class.
After classes, Mello skipped the common room and went straight to his shared room. Matt noticed this, but didn't follow him.
Once in his room, Mello headed for the bathroom and locked the door. Near's smirk haunted him. It sliced at his insides, cutting holes in his chest. It hollowed him out, and Mello couldn't take it anymore. Tears welled up in his eyes and began to flow down his cheeks. He was crying.
Mello cried for everything. He cried for his dead parents, he cried for Matt, he cried for the stupid American police that took him from Russian in the first place. He cried for all the kids of the orphanage, and he cried for himself. He cried because he knew he would never be good enough, that he would always be second place. He cried because second didn't matter. He didn't matter. Nothing mattered.
Mello felt his rosary, and started praying.
"Dear God, I just wanted you know I—" He paused. Anger spread over his face and rippled through his entire body.
"This is pointless!" He screamed, ripping the rosary off his neck. The red beads unraveled, and he left them strewn all over the floor.
"God doesn't exist!" Mello shouted, sitting on the side of the bathtub.
"If He existed, my parents wouldn't be dead. If He existed, I wouldn't be at this wretched place. If He existed, I might still have a reason to live," Mello whimpered, burying his face in his hands. He waited for a moment, silent, listening. Looking for a sign, a sign from God that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't all over. There was nothing.
Mello retrieved his razorblades from their hiding spot and unwrapped them. Their shiny silver glistened, captivating him. He picked a particularly nice looking one and began to slice.
He cut twenty-four horizontal lines on his wrist, many of them deep enough to need stitches. He watched the dots of blood form, and then drip down his wrist in thick red stripes. A puddle of dark red liquid was forming, but Mello needed more.
Ripping off his shirt, Mello began to cut along his chest. He cut in the middle and down, from his collarbone to his navel. These cuts hurt more, all the more satisfying. After twenty-six cuts on his abdomen, Mello stood back and admired his work. He could see the fat and muscle under all the blood, and it brought a sense of accomplishment.
Now he was beginning to feel lightheaded. Mello gripped the granite countertop, and slowly lowered his body to the floor. It comforted him to know that, wherever he was going, he needn't worry about Near. No one's number one when you're dead.
Mello was slowly falling into an everlasting rest. His eyes were almost closed, and his body felt ethereal. Suddenly, he heard a frantic Matt picking the lock. It was too late; as so much blood had been lost that there was no hope. Mello was going to die, but would Matt stay by his side?
"Mello! Mello! Mello, answer me!" Matt shrieked, "Please Mello! Please!" Matt was begging for him to open the door, but Mello could not hear him. He was too far-gone. Finally Matt picked the lock, and burst through the door.
"Mel—" He began, but was too shocked to finish. His scream sounded through the hallways like a siren, but he could not hear it. Matt suddenly felt a dizziness unlike any he had felt before. The room spun, but his eyes locked on Mello.
"I'm so sorry Mello," Matt whispered. Tears fell from his eyes, salt on Mello's wounds. Mello just barely opened his eyes; just enough to let Matt know that he was alive.
Mello heard Matt's pleas, but could not respond. Although he felt no pain, the wounds on his chest forestalled his speech.
"It's all my fucking fault. Please Mel, stay alive, please," Matt begged through his sobs.
Mello smiled a faint, broken smile. Matt buried his face in Mello's bloody chest.
"No, no, no! Please Mel, please," Matt kept repeating. Mello reached out to grab Matt's hand, their fingers entwining.
Matt saw Mello's eyes close slowly, ever so slowly, until they closed completely and Mello's hand went limp.
"No!" Matt screamed. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. Mello's eyes closing, his hand going limp. All Matt could do was scream. Scream and cry and wish it was all a bad dream, and wish he had never mentioned Near or L or jealousy or any of those things, because those were the reasons Mello was lying next to him dead in a pool of blood. When Mello's eyes closed, all Matt could do was sit there and watch this nightmare play out in front of him.
When Watari came in, time sped up into a blurry whirlwind of tears and longing. Matt didn't know what was going on; all he knew was that someone was taking him away from Mello, and that was the only place he wanted to be. He opened his mouth, but no scream came out. What Matt yearned for the most was to rip Mello out of the hands of the paramedics, but the man holding him back was too strong. Why were they touching him? Where were they taking him on that stretcher? He was already gone. They didn't need to poke and prod him to make sure he wasn't going to wake up at his funeral. Now the paramedics had gone away, and all that was left was the pool of blood and tears on the bathroom tile. Matt was standing up now, and someone's hand was on his shoulder. As he stared at Mello's final resting place, he noticed something through his tears. It was a message, written on the mirror. In sharpie ink, in Mello's handwriting, the message said two words.
Kill Kira.
Matt was suddenly in bed, and everything was white. He vaguely recognized it as the Wammy's infirmary. There was no one around, so Matt got up to walk around. He thought how strange it was that he was in the infirmary. Was he sick? What happened? His memories were faint.
Returning to his room, Matt noticed it had a "DO NOT ENTER" sign on it. He entered anyway. The room looked normal, everything was in its typical place. Matt felt a familiar urge, and began to make his way towards his shared bathroom. He opened the door and looked inside. Without warning, a flashback of the night before consumed his thoughts. It felt like he was having a heart attack, like the ones Kira gave to criminals. The familiar dizziness returned, and Matt gasped for air. He collapsed onto his knees, the pain of his memories consuming him. The bathroom was completely cleaned of all evidence, but Matt could only see the painful images of last night. The puddle of blood, Mello's rosary, his limp and bloody body, the message on the mirror.
Matt felt a hand on his shoulder. The touch broke him from his catatonia.
"Matt, you should be in the infirmary. What are you doing in here?" It was Watari. Matt shook off his hand and attempted to bolt, but Watari had a firm grip on Matt's wrist.
"Matt, please," Watari said soothingly, attempting to subdue Matt's despondency.
"Go away," Matt snarled.
"Now, Matt, there's no need to be that way. I want you to understand one thing, all right? It wasn't your fault. No matter what anyone tells you, it wasn't your fault. Now please, return to the infirmary. Let me take you, you need some rest," Watari said softly.
Matt had made himself a promise many years ago when his parents died, and that was to never cry in front of adults. But he just couldn't control himself, and broke down right in front of Watari.
"But it was my fault! It was!" Matt sobbed into Watari's well-groomed suit.
"Now, Matt, there's no need to worry. Just rest," Watari soothed, patting Matt's back and offering him his handkerchief.
Mello's funeral was held a few days after his death. It was a closed casket funeral, attended by all of Wammy's house. Mello liked to believe he was hated by the other students, but in truth they actually looked up to him. Not only was he smart, but he also had ten times the motivation and incentive anyone else at Wammy's had. All showed up except L, who Watari said was too busy working on the Kira case. Bullshit, thought Matt. He couldn't even show up to his successor's funeral? What a dipshit. It took all he could for Matt not to cry. Near never cried. He was always so calm, something Mello had always wished he was.
No one gave a eulogy. It just wasn't appropriate. No one had anything to say that would make it right. Silence was the only thing Matt could take. When the procession was over and Mello buried, Matt returned to Wammy's feeling slightly more relieved, but also slightly more haunted, than before.
All the kids at Wammy's were granted awhile off after Mello's death, to heal after the tragedy. Near usually was upset at hearing school being called off. Knowledge gave him power, power to overcome the emotions he felt. After Mello's death, however, Near couldn't shake the weight off his shoulders, the feeling that he was responsible. In fact, he knew he was responsible. It was the only plausible explanation for Mello's suicide. Mello was always second, never good enough. The world of Wammy's and L and Kira revolved around being first, being the best. Mello found no reason to remain in his position, and it was Near's fault.
The weight, the pain, the hollowness in his chest, it remained with Near for days. He just couldn't let go of it. Nothing helped him, not learning, reading, playing with his usual toys and games. It all made it worse, as it reminded him of how he would be the successor to L, and Mello wouldn't even get to see Kira defeated. He wouldn't see justice.
Later that night, Near was attempting to sleep. He could not clear his mind like he usually did when his thoughts became vexatious. It was ubearable. Near had never been this overcome with emotion before, not since—well, not since he arrived at Wammy's. Matt wasn't talking; he couldn't even describe the scene of Mello's death to anyone. It was far too lurid. Near's imagination was getting the best of him, and he couldn't stop himself from visualizing the ways the scene might have looked, all the things Mello could have done to himself. All because of Near. It made him sick.
Not knowing what else to do, and frankly unable to anchor himself to reality any longer, Near entered the bathroom. He opened his drawer and dug out an unused razor. After popping the blades out of the plastic frame, he stopped to admire the glossy silver color. Then, with the blade, he began to slash at his own wrist.