November 5th 2005.
It's early evening in a Yokohama cemetery. Asphalt paths lead between the rows of headstones. The place is deserted except for a single set of footsteps, brisk and inhumanly even, approaching one of the graves - not too fast, not too loud; like the little bear's porridge, they're just right. The owner of the footsteps can also hear the beat of wings.
It's not quite a year since they put L in the ground; not quite a year since Light rolled screaming on the grave with the man's memory, only to wake to a fresh infinity of boredom. Perhaps it's fitting that the sky isn't lurid as it was back then; despite the setting sun, it's grey, and the day has been drizzly. Each grave is a sea of mud, and Light is determined not to make a mess of himself today. If he does, it will be embarrassing, but something to remember, yes. Tucked down into his collar, there's a hint of a razor smile.
His suit is dark and elegant and perfect, eyecatching on such a young man; still not quite of age, still not formal for his - day job? evening job? - he's dressed for this occasion. Pinched between two fingers is a dark rose, so deep a red its warmth is imperceptible; in the fading light, it's black. Black for remembrance, for mourning - or for death, or betrayal, or some hardwon victory...
As he pauses before the grave, one of his fingers slips beneath his shirt cuff, to brush against the scars on his left wrist.
Monitoring, L had said. He hadn't wanted to leave the slightest room for uncertainty. If Light was going to do something, anything, L was going to be there. Light's memory of his time on the chain is fuzzy, but he understands most of what happened; like a dream, certain things stand out. Like the way L had kicked him across the room on multiple occasions; he's lucky to have a hand left. But somehow he'd got through those half-lobotomised months without degloving himself, and all he's left with now are the traces of a hundred days of chafing, of cuts and indents here and there - ridges and bumps that stood out in livid red at first, but which have faded to white over the past year.
The graveyard is still empty, except for Light, and the dead, and a lone death god as bored as the boy he follows - so the triumph spreads more clearly across Light's face, wanting to fly, to laugh at his preoccupations, to convince himself. Only scars? Really? Only those and the title of the world's greatest detective. Only that and the whole world spread open before him, and just a matter of time before he can crush it at will. Only that and the beginnings of power and glory most people would never imagine, would never dare imagine.
And it's all so easy, falling into his hand like an apple from a tree. He doesn't even need a stepladder. Doesn't even have to tug.
With L gone, and Misa writing the names, being the god of the new world is nothing but maintaining the layered masks he wants others to see - the continued struggle between L and Kira, and the dedicated, workaday pleasantries of Light Yagami, and the innocent segments of his vision he whispers into Misa's ear: We'll make a beautiful world, you and I, with only kind people in it. But when Kira's defined by his battle with L, what is he with L gone?
It's not the man he misses, but the icon before him.
As he crouches to place the rose in the empty flower cup, a stray thorn draws blood; indifference wells up with it. Knowing himself unseen, Light licks the blood away. Next year, he'll be sure to get every thorn. Next year, he'll be back, and L will still be waiting.