It's another tedious, chained afternoon in a high-security skyscraper in Tokyo, and one of the many tea breaks that the world's greatest detective can't work without. There is delicate, fluted china; there is, as ever, cake. Light is unhappy, though he has no intention of showing it.
The tea is black, and everything is top quality - except, oddly, for those plastic cups of milk, the ones L plays with, stacks up before peeling back the foil with the edges of bitten fingernails, taking them by the base and inverting them into the cup. Light had asked him about them, just once. "You know, you can get fresh milk in Tokyo. We aren't a developing country."
"I could have Watari bring some. But Japanese milk is disgusting, Light-kun. It's to do with the homogenisation process..." And L had gone on to tell Light about it in detail - not too much detail, since Light is inveterately curious himself, even when his country's national prowess in dairy is being insulted. So, antique crockery, and silver spoons, and handmade cakes that might grace the Queen of England's table - and tiny plastic cups of heat-treated milk that look as though they belong in some sub-par teashop. It's another typical L eccentricity; Light is learning to live with them. He has little choice, after all. And it isn't the foreign tea ceremony that displeases him: the unfamiliar precision of everything, the sideways glimpses into another culture he'd occasionally caught from his English tutor. Not at all. It's just ... the cake.
Light is irked by it. Even with how pervasive dairy products are these days, Japan still has a higher incidence of lactose intolerance than the west. Watari could have asked; no, he should have asked, before inflicting creamy dessert-based badness on the entirety of the taskforce. Then again, it's L. He has to have Light's medical records. He's probably doing this just to make Light crack, so down goes another small forkful. Today, it's soft vanilla sponge and strawberries and far too much cream; it's like Christmas, which Light also has no time for. He can manage, as long as he doesn't overdo it. There will be no cracking today.
"You don't have to eat it if you don't like it, Light-kun." It's L, of course, staring beetle-eyed at Light from the far end of the chain.
As Light lowers the plate to the table, the shackle clatters at his wrist. "Not at all, Ryuuzaki. I'm enjoying it." It's not a lie, not exactly; it's one of those things you do to be polite. It should go without saying; it would go without saying, if he weren't dealing with The World's Least Socially Ept Man.
L peers down at his own plate, scraping the tines of his fork across it as if he thinks the blue stripe and the tracery of gold might secretly be more dessert. "Peculiar. You know you're suspected, and yet you insist on lying, even when it's obvious. Most people would be too afraid." He licks the fork. "Or is that the idea? To offer some obvious untruths, so that the ones you hide will go unnoticed?"
With an annoyed clink!, Light puts his own fork down against the edge of the plate. "That's ordinary politeness, not being Kira."
There's a thoughtful hum from the man in the other chair. "No, but Kira, I think, is preoccupied with the way he is perceived by others. You don't agree?"
L is watching Light now, unblinking, with the same curious blankness he'd offered his plate. That stare that's impolite without being impertinent, searing without being sharp, as if L wants to insinuate himself beneath Light's skin and read his mind. "Honestly, Ryuuzaki. Going by that alone, the whole population of Japan could be Kira."
"Yes, indeed, Light-kun. If that was the only indicator we had, this case would be in trouble. But ... " L's eyes drift upwards, and he doesn't complete his sentence: everything we know leads us to one central point. Everything we know leads us to you, Light Yagami.
Light hates the tentative arguments L comes out with. Every instance, every word; they close around his neck like a noose. His eyes squint closed, reluctant. "It does follow. Kira can't risk exposure, so he presents a facade of normality. Of harmlessness." Then the flaw hits him; something that doesn't fit L's argument that Light Yagami is Kira. "Really, Ryuuzaki. I wouldn't be here at all if you thought I was harmless."
"No," says L, blunt as ever, "you wouldn't be."
Later that night, Light can't sleep.
The pattern that's quickly established itself is that one of them sleeps when the other is tired - or at least, occupies themself in the bed, while the other half-heartedly tries to drop off. Light, for all that he ignores it, is (terrified) borderline depressed, and threatened with malnutrition at the very least, and invariably it's him who tosses and turns on one side of the bed, while L rattles at his powerbook on the other, ka-chi, ka-cha. The man types as well as you'd expect, for someone who lives their life over TCP/IP; the quiet clatter of keys, the soft scrape of the touchpad, they're almost, almost soothing. And, as is usually the case, Light's thoughts remain on the Kira case. Kira, with his preoccupation with appearances and his need to be perfect—
Kira wouldn't eat Watari's stupid cakes. No, he'd find some sort of excuse. Any excuse not to risk puncturing his precious mask, because it's when you're most shaken up that others can see most clearly what you really - are—
And it's that realisation that forms the plan, that flips him over beneath the quilt as if he's been spun by invisible hands, one hand resting on the dakimakura that separates them, eyes peeping over the top beneath scruffy pillow-hair. Out of the foxhole, perhaps? A tug on the chain, to make sure he has L's attention - though as the top suspect in the Kira case, he's as sure as he can be that he always has L's attention. "Ryuuzaki. Kitchen run."
It's indicative of L's level of shock at the suggestion - or that Light would suggest it - that all he says is "What?"
"I'm hungry. Watari is sleeping; there's no need to disturb him."
"Light-kun, it is the middle of the night, and you are not twelve years old."
Light's stare is disbelieving, as if running to the kitchen in the middle of the night is something he does all the time, a routine event in his humdrum existence. As if. "Are you telling me we can't go to the kitchen? It wouldn't exactly be a neat end to the Kira case if you starved me to death, you know. My father would object."
Eventually L breaks the stare first, and puts aside the powerbook as if risking a concession. "Perhaps it will be interesting."
Light doesn't need to dress before leaving the room; the short-sleeved shirt and thin, loose trousers he wears to sleep in are outerwear. If he has to sleep in the same bed as another man, one he barely knows, he's at least going to be decent about it. Armoured.
He's out of the room before he realises the chances are good that neither of them know where the kitchen is; Watari materialises food from it as if he has one of those replicators from Star Trek down there. It's L who saunters out behind him with a jingle of titanium links, and says, "Turn left. The kitchens are at the back of the second floor." In response to Light's how-do-you-even-know-that stare, he elaborates. "I paid for this building, Light-kun. Of course I read the blueprint. And kitchens are very important."
"I wasn't going to ask," Light retorts, not quite stomping to the elevators with a determination like unto an ant trying to knock down a dam.
As it turns out, the kitchen isn't hard to find. Most of the building is unused, still pristine; on the industrial carpeting, Watari's footprints, the tracks of the cake trolley, are faint, but still visible to an observant eye. And Light is more than observant - not to mention what L is capable of. Especially in pursuit of cake. With a furious tug, Light opens one door of the gigantic fridge, then the other. It's a horror; he stares inside as if he's found his father's dismembered corpse in there. "Why - don't - you - have - any - real - food?"
L's answer is nothing but a shrug, because he's staring into the fridge with an expression of unmitigated rapture.
"Ryuuzaki!" There's no response. Light snaps his fingers in the other man's face - once, twice.
L peers sideways. "That's a lot of cake, Light-kun."
"This - is - ridiculous! I'm not Kira! I wasn't even - you should just check my family records, to confirm it. I'm reasonably sure there are no Kiras there in living memory. Besides, 'Kira' is a girl's name!"
"Light-kun, that is a ridiculous idea in itself. You can't claim innocence on the grounds that - is that black forest cake?"
"Yes. Take it. Eat the whole thing. No, wait" - because L is about to make good on his word; Light's exasperation with L, cream, cake and the world creeps over him like a beard of bees - "give me a couple of slices."
"Two slices?" L is perturbed. "You have no appreciation for cake or for waste, Light-kun. This isn't like you."
Light growls his frustration, catching a glimpse of himself in the absurd rhomboid cake knife as he does so. "Just give me the cake." How did this happen to him? The brightest student in Japan, accepted into its top university at the head of the year, with absolutely no competition worth speaking of. His future, his destiny should have been assured. And now he's in an overelaborate office kitchen at midnight, chained to a scruffy hikikomori troll with a sweet tooth that would shock ants, and about to make himself as sick as a mining canary. It's a change, he supposes, from staring into the dark, and wishing he had someone to pray to - because then he'd at least know someone was hearing his mind whispering. That he's terrified of hanging for someone else's crimes, for Kira's crimes. As it stands, there's nobody to hear but himself. He just has to trust that L, who is somehow the greatest detective on earth, will accept the evidence that will clear Light once and for all. That Light will be able to find it - because it has to be out there.
Unfortunately, L is insane, or pretending to be, and currently staring into three-quarters of a black forest cake as if he wants it to make out with him. Light stares at his own quarter: the dark sponge, the rich cherries, the pillows of lovingly hand-whipped cream; he feels ill. Getting up from the table - the chain clatters at his wrist, as always, and the shackle chafes - he pours a glass of milk. The stuff disgusts him. Taking a deep breath, he knocks back a third of the glass, wiping himself clean on a napkin. "I really hate you, Ryuuzaki."
Settling into a crouch at the far side of the huge butcher-block table, L is now looking not at the chocolate cake, but at Light, as if all his Christmases have just come at once.
Light doesn't, as a rule, have much to do with food; he's always been well-behaved enough to eat what he's given. So it's a surprise to find that not only can he get through the two slices of the cloying cake, but he can also down three glasses of milk with it, before moving on to a tub of vanilla ice-cream - expensive stuff, of course, thick with cream, but at least cold enough for the texture not to revolt him too badly.
L, by this time, has given up eating - has possibly managed to satiate himself for once, after having the liberty to put away as much cake as he likes? Light's pale green pallor floats over the bowl; it must be fascinating to watch. "What is the point of this exercise, Light-kun?"
"Cake," is the only reply Light will give. Down goes another spoonful of the ice cream; it's like swallowing a white slug, bleached from missing out on sunlight for too long. "I hate it. I hate the way you never offer me anything sensible to eat." What he manages to bite back is I hate this headquarters, and I hate Kira, and I hate you.
It's at that point that going back to their room starts to seem a profoundly good plan. The nausea is threatening to get away from him; it's sarin creeping up around the legs of his chair.
The loud, fermented noises from the bathroom are impressive, to say the least - and then there are the smells. And the narrow chain is still enough to wedge the door ajar. "You can take the handcuffs off any time you like, Ryuuzaki."
Sounding - well, sickeningly composed, L calls back, "Does that strike you as a good idea, Light-kun? The idea of the handcuffs is, of course, to prove your innocence."
As his stomach cramps up again, Light squeezes his lips closed, and doubles over and twitches, and tries so hard not to moan that his reply to L comes out as a shriek. "No, the idea is to prove my guilt. Do you think I don't know that?"
It's a good hour and a half before he finally emerges, weak and refusing to tremble, flushing through his grey pallor in a pattern of pinpricks, mouth rinsed, teeth polished, and the rest of him defiantly, obsessively steam-cleaned. L is crouching on the floor nearby, powerbook in hand. Looking up, he blandly says, "No cake. I see. You know, such a dramatic display is very like Kira." And he slips the tip of his thumb into his mouth, as if he isn't bothered at all.
Light hates him. So much.