a/n: I assure you I do not own Deathnote.
This fic is (obviously) about Mello. I find him to be just as intruiging as Light, personality wise, but I'm disgruntled because the reason for his paranoia isn't developed. I mean, yes, he's playing a game with Near, ok, but that doesn't really explain anything. So here's a fic about Mello's state of mind. I wrote it very quickly, so please don't be too picky, but I would very much appreciate it if you left a review! I hope you enjoy it.
Mello, he pauses, if only for a half a second, to take a bite of chocolate.
It was a convenient system of buying time.
As a child, Mello knew instinctively that he had only one rival. He also knew that in a fair fight, pure intellect to pure intellect, minus the petty issues of resources and addictions, there could be no winner.
As a child he'd hated this.
Snap.
So he'd spent massive amounts of time coming up with a plan, a plan years in the making.
What Mello had done was devise a false personality.
The plan had seemed perfect to the child that he was, watching Near through unclouded blue eyes.
Mello remembered devouring college level books on psychology, on mental disorders. He read late into the night, took notes, and proceeded to punctiliously alter himself.
Acting crazy was much easier than he'd thought--- he developed the irritability over a period of six months. Within a year, his smiles were cut by half in number.
Within two, these smiles were provoked by unnatural things.
He made sure to act as if this came from a logical but idiotic hatred of Near.
But that's all it was: an act. The paranoia. The madness. The fear and the hatred. And the irrationality. That was key.
Why?
Well, that was the easy part. Unchanged, with his intellect pure, he could cast sharp, logical thoughts with a cool demeanor. But so could Near. Just as well, not better, not worse. No matter what anybody thought, on equal ground they were just that.
Equal.
And that wasn't enough. Mello had to be better. Mello had to win.
Unpredictability. Crazy reckonings and sparks of brilliance. Grand leaps of reasoning.
Thinking logically to arrive at a correct solution was a gift.
Thinking illogically to arrive at a correct solution, that was genius.
In order to be L's successor, in order to break up that ridiculously even playing field, Mello had to play a part, constantly.
Of course, the plan evolved. When given the chance to work with Near, he had to refuse---that was another step to being equal, another step towards an imminent tie.
(And he'd rather die than face that.)
Snap.
…..It was so difficult. He spent hours studying himself in the mirror, widening his eyes till he looked raving mad. He'd went so far as to discard his plain simple clothes for grandiose garments: fur coats and provocative boots and flashy shirts. Then he'd had to get over his adolescent shyness and learn to strut in these clothes.
Sometimes, when no one was around, when Mello was himself, he looked in the mirror and he howled in laughter. He howled until tears ran down his cheeks, mingling with his extravagant hair.
Nobody knew Mello was acting and it was all too perfect.
Except it wasn't, really, because---nobody knew Mello was acting.
Snap.
And he found that hilarious, sometimes, especially since Mello knew that nothing was perfect.
In truth, it was a mistake; and Mello knew that if anybody knew, they'd think he'd kill himself.
And that was the point, wasn't it? Because he wouldn't. Mello knew that he was the calm one, the collected one, the careful one.
But he was in too deep now, what with the mafia and the notebook. It was enough to make him twist his face into a sharp smile. (More acting. Mello hated to think what he was doing to the muscles in his face.)
Of course, nobody was harder to fool than Near.
During those dreams that Mello never thought of when the sunlight reached his features, Mello suspected that Near saw completely through him.
It was Near's glassy gaze that made Mello feel exposed. And, yes, ashamed: you'd go this far just to avoid being my equal?
A passive question. If Mello dared reveal himself he'd have an equally passive answer. And so when he actually saw Near, he played the craziness up until Mello almost believed his own acting.
Until Mello started wondering if he was actually crazy.
Snap.
And when Mello asks himself this, he takes a bite of chocolate. It was a convenient system of buying time.
a/n: well, what did you think? I know some parts are blah, but how about the concept? I kind of took the idea that with the assumption Mello is crazy, Mello doesn't know he's crazy. Plus, I really wanted to make the chocolate a neurotic thing, because it seems like it is, and tie back to the beginning...