Death Note belongs to Tsugumi Ohba.
"Dead! Bu-but how!" Mello said, his voice detached.
There was a heavy pause. I snapped the last piece of the puzzle into place.
Mello's face was inches from Rogers', his eyes wide still. "Do you mean he was killed by Kira? Is that it?
Roger sighed and shut his eyes. "Most likely, yes."
The relative calm was shattered by Mello's shouting. He grabbed Roger by the shoulders, shaking him to get his point across, which was highly unnecessary. "You mean he was going to get Kira the death penalty and now... he's dead? Is that what you're telling me!?"
Roger couldn't even find the emotion in him to comfort the confused boy in front of him. All that could escape his lips was his name, which went unnoticed.
I took this chance to mediate the situation. "If we don't win the game, if we don't solve the puzzle, we're nothing more than failures."
Mello shot me a look of disgust and disbelief that normally accompanied anything I said. I simply started my puzzle again.
Mello backed off, his voice as soft as a whisper. "So, L, between Near and me, who did he...?"
Mello's stood rigid, his large green eyes fixated on Roger's tired face. The fate he had worked so hard for was dangling in front of him, but still so uncertain.
Roger answered with a patience that could only be developed by raising a spirit such as his. "I'm afraid he hadn't chosen yet Mello. And now he's dead, you see."
Mello's vacant stare gave no hint to what was going through his head, or maybe the news hadn't sunk in yet. That those years of disappointment and self induced torture were for nothing?
"Mello, Near... how about you both work together."
The bombshell. Mello's face distorted with disbelief and pure unadulterated loathing. I agreed without hesitation. Mello's own intuition and intelligence, though not as advanced as mine, would have done wonders to capture Kira. Still, there was a small part of me that just wanted to get to know him. To show him I was, in fact, human.
"Impossible, Roger!" came Mello's voice. This response was expected, but I still was saddened by it. "You know that Near and I don't get along. We've always been rivals. Always."
Memories of nursery school and hide-and-go-seek rushed back to me. The days when we didn't have a care in the world. The days when L was still here, in our own makeshift home. Now he was gone forever and such peace would never exist again. The first pains of grief struck me, of the man I had idolized disappearing from this world, and the death of a friendship I still remembered and held close to my heart all these years.
Mello was unusually calm as he said, "Roger, Near will be the one to succeed L. Unlike me, he'll do the job calmly, without emotion, like he solves a puzzle."
I had won. I had never fought for it, not near the extent that he did. But that wasn't what was going through my head at that moment. All I could think was, 'What's next, Mello?'.
"I'm leaving, from the institute too!"
"Mello!"
There it was. Not surprising in the least, and yet I didn't want to believe it. Don't you understand Mello? No matter how strong you believe you are, you don't belong on the streets. Your place is here. With... with me.
I didn't say those things, and I regret it to this day. I measured his footsteps as he walked. One. Two. It was like the ticking of a bomb.
Without looking up, I extended my arm and grasped at his sleeve. A small gasp escaped his lips. He paused for only a second and looked down at me. I looked up, begging, pleading with him to stay. Our eyes locked for only a second. He pulled his arm away from me and walked out the door.
The sound of the door shutting was deafening in the silence. Roger buried his face in his hands. I stood up and left quietly, but I still felt a heavy weight on my chest after leaving that room. I began to wander the halls, passing by the other children as they played. I climbed the flight of stairs, not paying attention to my surroundings. Walking down the hall I heard someone muttering. After taking a few more steps I peered into the room that the sounds were coming from, which, of course, was Mello's.
He was shoving various items into a small black bag. Clothes, the items cluttering his desk, a few wadded up bills. He opened the bottom leftmost drawer in his dresser and extracted a piece of paper. A photograph. There was a young boy, about seven, with blonde hair and a delicate face. He was hugging another boy pale as the snow. The former was laughing as the later stared vacantly into the camera. Me. Us. He held the picture for a long time before neatly folding it and placing it in his pocket. I slid into my room nearby and could only watch and he walked down the stairs. I followed behind, almost in a trance. As he passed by the other children they all stopped what they were doing and stared.
When he reached the bottom and laid his hand on the doorknob, he gave one last glance over his shoulder. I doubt he saw me hidden but he still look up expectantly. Then he was gone.
There were shocked chatter among the other children. A few that were close to Mello were frozen to the spot, mouths agape. Maybe that's why I kept moving.
My feet started moving faster, probably as close to running as I have ever been. Without hesitation I opened the great door with a crash.
Snow covered the ground as far as the eye could see. The cold seared my bare feet but I kept on. The iron gate was ajar so I only had to push before stepping onto the street. About forty feet away a dark figure was walking. I followed it, getting closer with each step. When I was about feet away he paused.
"Mello." I said breathlessly. He turned to me, his face flushed, cheeks stained by tears. I swallowed the lump in my throat. "Please, come back. You don't have to leave."
His eyes tightened. "Why should you care? You've won," he spat.
"It's over Mello. Things don't have to be like this anymore."
His eyes widened as the realization hit him. I could have laughed from the sheer joy of us both returning hand in hand. I lifted my arm, palm facing outward. A simple gesture that meant the world to me.
He simply stared and my hand with fear in his eyes. Seconds passed. I slowly curled my fingers into a fist and let my arm rest at my side once more. Mello clenched his teeth and turned on his heel.
He spoke so softly that the snow almost smothered his words. "I'm sorry... Near."
I stayed there for what seemed like hours as his figure became smaller and smaller until it was out of site. I finally collapsed, my knees hitting the hard pavement. My entire body shook as I stared blankly at the white landscape. One, two tears rolled down my cheeks and into my lap. I began to wimpier softly.
"It's so... cold."