Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note nor any of the characters contained therein.
Summary: L is almost 17, investigating a serial murder case near Toronto University. Undercover as a student prodigy, L will have to find a balance between education, investigation, and (ye gods) a social life. Rated M for language/nudity/sex/gore. Some spoilers for Death Note: Another Note.
NOTE: This fic was previously rated T but has changed to an M rating due to upcoming content. The focus of this fic is on character development and it does have an actual plot, so by definition it's not PWP. For anyone who has been reading this as a T-rated fic who wants to avoid most of the M-rated stuff, that will be possible, and I will give a clear warning when the transition occurs. Thank you to everyone who voted in my poll, and thanks to everyone reading now!
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"Yes, all is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most . . . . But I am talking too much. It's because I chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps it is that I chatter because I do nothing. I've learned to chatter this last month, lying for days together in my den thinking . . . of Jack the Giant-killer. Why am I going there now? Am I capable of that? Is that serious? It is not serious at all. It's simply a fantasy to amuse myself; a plaything! Yes, maybe it is a plaything."
– excerpt from Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
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The Worst Feeling Ever
Chapter 1: Toes, Dipping
The surface was cool, soothing almost. He was unconcerned. He knew no prison could hold him for long – his reach far exceeded his grasp. Confining him, even in so macabre a manner, would not prevent him from learning everything. Too many people underestimated him, underestimated in particular how much information he could absorb, how much punishment he could take – too many, except for a spare few, though he wondered if even they truly understood. Everything was worth learning, everything was worth knowing at whatever price, whether it was spoon-fed to him like cream on scones or clawed out, broken and bloody, to writhe in the spotlight of his gaze.
He would win – oh, he would win. He was sure of it. Patience, virtue or not, was the tool he would use to dig his way down to the truth. He would prevail where the others could not. Murder had merely provided the opportunity.
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His sneakers scuffed along the sidewalk, bright sunlight slanting across, throwing his shadow sharply to his left, a long-limbed accomplice, stretched taffy-thin, stalking alongside him. The meeting had gone well – too well for his liking. He did not suspect pulled strings or foul play, not on behalf of himself or the Dean of the Toronto University's Faculty of Medicine. He simply preferred a challenge.
Moving resolutely to the curb, he approached the waiting limousine, stepping past the gentleman holding the door and entering the vehicle without really looking at either one. The door was shut firmly behind him, and he perched on the seat, waiting. The driver's side door opened and shut, and the thrum of the engine started, the slight vibration soothing on his bare feet. He found himself breathing more deeply as the car edged away from the curb.
"I trust everything went well."
"Disgustingly so."
"Really. And what did you find disgusting?"
He rolled his eyes. "The man was falling all over himself to offer me a spot in the graduate program that had no doubt already been reserved for another student, all for the prospect of our paying full out-of-province tuition."
"I rather suspect that your test scores had a bit more to do with it."
"They played their role, yes, but his greed was palpable."
"Are you certain that he was not envisioning the boost to his school's reputation that would occur with the addition of a prodigy to the program?"
"Hm. You have a point. He is likely a status-monger as well."
The driver chuckled, his voice warm. "Must you take such a dim view of things?"
He narrowed his eyes, slumping a bit more. "I see what is there. There is no dimness to my vision."
"Indeed. Such wisdom – I can scarcely believe I'm speaking to a 16 year old."
"I will be 17 in just over two months' time, as you well know," he bit out, regretting it immediately as the driver chuckled again. Letting his gaze drift to the side window as they passed through the city, he hoped that his courses wouldn't distract from his true purpose in attending university here. A series of unpleasant discoveries had been made near the university's hospital, and there was enough of a pattern to suggest that an actual serial killer was at work, rather than a "med school prankster" as local news media seemed to have been suggesting. Who knows, he thought, perhaps I can solve the case and get the equivalent of a medical degree while I am here.
"How long do you expect it will take for them to confirm my living arrangements, Watari?"
"Not long, I'd wager. Are you certain that residing on campus is the best choice?"
"Yes. If I am to solve this case, I must immerse myself and observe directly."
"As you wish, L."
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The room was small and spare, with bare wooden floors, minimal furnishings, and one window, all of which suited his needs well enough. Though he had sought "immersion," he had not wanted to go so far as to have a roommate, so his was one of the rare single rooms. He was lucky to have obtained it, a scant nine days after enrolling. There was a sink, a mini-fridge, a bureau, a closet, and a bed, and the bathroom wasn't too far down the hall. The outside view was not perfect, but it would suffice – he could see the hospital and two of the paths leading to it from the university through trees and streetlamps. Several of the bodies – or, more accurately, body parts – had been found along these paths. Eleven different body parts from eleven different people had been found so far in total, though the police had been unable to identify any of the remains. L had every intention of identifying all of the victims and catching the culprit. Anything less than that he would consider a complete failure.
"Dude . . . Is that all you brought?"
L tore his gaze from the window to regard a thin young man with a short scruffy beard standing in the doorway. Chiding himself silently for failing to shut the door, he stepped from his perch on the bare mattress and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I brought what I needed. Nothing more."
The other man glanced at L's single suitcase, still unopened, and the plastic department store bag that contained new bedsheets and towels. "Well, that's cool, I guess."
Despite knowing that he was supposed to respond in some fashion, L obstinately remained silent, staring at the man, willing him to leave. It did work sometimes, but this was not one of them.
"I'm just checking out who's moving in, since we've got some newbies. My name's Geoff. I live down the hall." He gestured vaguely to his left, but made no move to shake L's hand, to L's relief. "So . . . what's your name?"
L stared for several more seconds before relenting. "Ezekiel."
"Well, good to meet you, Zeke. See you around."
Geoff had already meandered out of the doorframe before L had the chance to correct him. I suppose I have been called worse things than 'Zeke,' L thought, grimacing, and if a monosyllable is the best he can manage . . .
L turned toward the bed, displeased at the prospect of having to put sheets on it himself. He knew that he would have to stick to the role he'd chosen for the duration of his stay, but the variation from his routine already rankled. It cannot be much worse than being at the orphanage, he thought; these things will undoubtedly start to feel natural after some time here. L sighed and shook the fitted sheet out of its clear plastic pouch, which slipped to the floor. He disliked spending time to prepare a bed that he would rarely use but recognized the importance of blending in with other students to appear at least somewhat normal. Pulling and tucking, he fit the sheet to the mattress one corner at a time, crouching low to tug the fourth one taut to drop over the edge, at which point he heard giggling behind him. Straightening with an annoyed huff, he turned around.
"Um, hi." One of two young women in the doorway greeted him with a shy smile while the other looked him up and down, one eyebrow locked in the upright position.
"What is it?" L started to consider closing, locking, and possibly boarding up his door.
"We're just saying hi, and –"
"Your pants were riding pretty low." The other woman interrupted, with a smirk to match her still-raised eyebrow.
"I fail to see how that's relevant."
"Relevant? No. Drafty, maybe." Her eyebrow finally came down, though the smirk remained as she tossed her blonde ponytail back over her shoulder.
"Danielle!" The first woman's hushed exclamation accompanied a light punch to the other's arm before she turned back to face L. "We're just trying to get to know everyone who's moving in here so we'll know who belongs and who doesn't." She pushed her cat-eye glasses up the bridge of her nose with a knuckle. "I don't think it's hit the national news yet, but they've been finding body parts not far from here, and well . . ."
"That is perfectly understandable." L put his hands in his pockets, trying to surreptitiously hike up his jeans. He noticed the two women blinking at him as if in confusion. "It makes sense to meet each resident in order to discern them from any potential interlopers. My name is Ezekiel Penn." L hoped that this information would suffice, as he did not want to rattle off the entirety of his newly minted and memorized background for this persona.
"Oh, cool name! Do you go by Zeke?" She brushed a long strand of her chestnut hair from her face.
"I prefer Ezekiel, actually."
"That figures." Danielle continued to smirk at him, to his annoyance.
"Anyway . . ." The woman with the glasses glared briefly at her friend. "My name's Janine Noh, and this is my roommate, Danielle Thompson. We live on the girl's side of this floor – well, obviously, I guess."
"Hm. Segregated. Interesting."
Danielle laughed. "Oh, you're gonna be fun. I was actually just complaining about how not co-ed this co-ed dorm feels."
"It'd be different if they had individual bathrooms!" Janine frowned, another strand of hair swinging down, an errant parenthesis. "There's no way I'd walk into a giant communal bathroom to take a shower in front of a bunch of guys."
"You say that like it's not going to happen anyway." Danielle turned her smirk on Janine.
"Ugh – that's not even funny." Janine tucked her hair behind an ear.
"If it is any consolation, I have no intention of using anything other than the bathroom designated for males." L wondered why they weren't leaving.
"See Janine? We're perfectly safe from Ezekiel. One down, 61 to go."
"It remains to be seen if I am safe from you," L muttered, lids lowering.
Another throaty laugh from Danielle. "You're hilarious." She placed one hand on her hip. "How old are you, anyway? You look like a high school kid."
"I am 19," L said grudgingly.
"Huh. So you're a sophomore then – just a year behind us." Danielle was nodding.
"No. I am in the graduate program."
"At 19? Holy crap!"
"I test well." L's tone was dry.
She shook her head as if to clear it, shooting a look at Janine. "Alright, well, we've got to keep moving if we're gonna meet everyone. Catch you later!"
"It was nice to meet you," Janine said, tentatively raising her hand in a wave as they drifted away from the door.
L considered finally shutting the door but opted to leave it open. If this method of introduction is a common practice, I am likely to meet more students by remaining here, L thought. It would be best to get that over with. Despite his resolution, however, L decided that he would not bend over with his back to the door again as he continued to make his bed.
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Moonlight reflected dully on the surface of his new desk, which had been delivered just before sunset, two days after he'd moved in. The large box containing the desk had also enclosed his computer, which looked like a normal PC but was considerably different and more advanced inside, having been made to his specifications by Watari himself. There were also some special buttons hidden on the underside of the keyboard – one to access L's remote computer, one to send an untraceable automated message from L to local police and the ICPO, one to upload all data to the remote computer and erase this one, and one to send a distress call to Watari. He hoped that it would be enough.
L had concluded that Watari would need to stay elsewhere rather than try to infiltrate the university's faculty or staff. "It would be better if we did not both have to contend with such interpersonal entanglements," L had told him, and Watari had reluctantly agreed, with the caveat that he would keep an eye on L from afar. After so much time under a certain kind of scrutiny, L did not mind that his own room had cameras and bugs, particularly if it helped keep him safer and saved him the trouble of explaining his situation if Watari could see it directly. As his computer finished booting up, L entered a password and pulled up a program. Watari's been busy, he thought, scrolling through images fed by several cameras now arrayed around the university and hospital grounds. We're bound to catch something useful, I think.
Watari had objected to his strategy of not declaring publicly that L was on the case, just as he had objected to L not sending a proxy to investigate in his place. L had reasoned that a student would be privy to more unofficial information regarding on-campus activity than a faculty member and that he did not know any college-age proxies who would be as capable of making real-time assessments as himself. In retrospect, L supposed that he should have matriculated as an undergraduate in order to align himself most effectively with the student body, but given that the murders were occurring within the immediate environs of the graduate school and the hospital, he knew that he would need to have a reason for remaining in the vicinity of those places. As to his lack of a declaration to the media and law enforcement, L had chosen to wait for two reasons: 1. he wanted to gather more information first, and 2. he did not want his announcement to coincide with his arrival on campus. In his estimation, two weeks would be enough time to gain insights before contacting authorities.
The video feeds he was viewing, one camera angle at a time, were not being saved on his computer – that, among other things, was what the remote computer was for – but he could save a still image from the active feed by pressing Enter if he saw something worth preserving. L was suddenly glad to have such a feature as he changed feeds to see someone crossing a path and shaking an object out of a bag onto the grass. Eyes wide, L pressed Enter twice and paused, waiting to see if the person would turn to face the camera. As the person crumpled the bag and glanced around, L pressed Enter twice more. Not quite a full profile, he thought, but better than nothing. The person was already dashing between trees, avoiding the stone-lined paths. L scrolled through feed after feed but did not see the person again.
Going back to the original feed, he squinted, trying to determine what the dropped object could be, but it had fallen into an area between the pools of light spilling from streetlamps along the pathway. Every mote of his being was crying out for him to go there at once and investigate the object firsthand, but he knew that he had to refrain from being so impulsive. Drawing attention to himself would be bad enough, but since the murderer clearly wanted the parts to be found, it seemed likely that he would have a scenario in mind for their discovery. L did not want to interfere with the murderer's modus operandi because that would ultimately compromise the evidence. Physical evidence was absolutely critical. To L's mind, a lifetime's worth of conjecture was not worth a single piece of solid proof. So L waited, and watched, the moon slipping away across the dark sky as he hunched at the foot of his bed in anticipation of the object's discovery.
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Author's Note: This is chapter one of a probably medium-sized prequel fic centered around L. I will not be jumping PoVs very often, sticking to 3rd person limited with L for most of it, with possibly two or three other PoVs on occasion. I apologize in advance for the OCs, because there will be a bunch, but none of them are Mary Sues/Gary Stus, and hopefully none of them will make you want to stab me.
Translations of fiction, whether they be novels or poems or manga or movies or anime, can be very tricky, as different languages excel at different things. With anime specifically, though many people prefer subs to dubs, both are translations and they each leave things out or change them, whether due to space or pacing. Why mention this? Well, there is a line in the Death Note anime that inspired me to write this fic, but the exact phrasing only appears in the English dubbed version – the subs and the translated manga have it slightly different, slightly less . . . evocative. Though part of the line appears as my title for this, it is the implication and the context in which the line appears that formed my ideas. This fic could be considered connected to my longer fic, Turn of the 8th Day, though it is not necessary to read it to understand this one. Knowledge of the entire Death Note series (or at least the first half) as well as Another Note will help, though. ^_^
Thanks for reading!