Beyond Birthday had always looked older than he was. That and the caked-on makeup had given the impression that he was aged somewhere between nineteen and twenty-one years old.
Which was probably why Naomi Misora was so surprised to learn that the famous serial killer, who was seemingly obsessed with the number thirteen, had not even been that age at the time of the case. In fact, he had only been about twelve and a half.
She had asked Ryuzaki, "What if the killer is a child?"
She saw now why he didn't seem to care. It made the entire case even more absurd, and, although she would never admit it out loud, it made the killer even more impressive.
Looking back, she should have noticed it - even if she hadn't even noticed that the 'un-private detective' Rue Ryuzaki was in fact the murderer himself. She felt quite stupid, having played his game up until the very end.
And the most unbelievable part of the whole situation was the fact that Beyond Birthday had now escaped prison, and could be halfway to Australia by now.
The blond boy ignored the icy December air. It didn't matter that the temperature was a negative number, he felt like he was burning. His companion didn't seem to be affected by the cold weather either; not that A gave a shit what happened to Beyond.
"You know this is the worst place you could have come, right?" he asked suddenly, breaking the silence.
"How so?" the redhead replied. "I get to see my partner in crime again! Aren't you happy that we're reunited?"
"Yeah... I guess. But there's a few flaws to your plan." A didn't try to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
"Really? I didn't think so. Sure, L knows that Beyond Birthday is B, thanks to a minor miscalculation. But now that I have a new identity and a new hair colour, how could he figure out that B is also Matt?"
"God, BB, at least I tried to cover my fucking tracks." A said, half jokingly, half serious.
"Well, asshole, aside from the fire part, name one thing you did better than me."
"For starters, as far as L's concerned, A's dead. Second, as far as L's concerned, A isn't a wanted criminal who all of America wants locked up."
"That's... fair." Beyond admitted, rolling his eyes - not that one could tell, since he had recently started covering them with orange-tinted goggles.
"Oh, and third, I wasn't in jail for my best and only friend's last two birthdays."
"... A, you do realise that if our plan had worked I would have been dead long before your birthday, right?"
"Being dead is a valid excuse for missing my birthday. Fucking up so bad I have to break your ass out of a nasty prison cell is not."
To anyone on the outside, it would seem as if the two boys couldn't stand each other, and sometimes that was true. Usually, though, they got on like a house on fire.
A and B hated L for everything he'd done - and in some cases, everything he'd not done. One of the things he had not done was treat his successors like people, rather than like letters of the alphabet.
They weren't just letters. A stood for Another and B stood for Backup... at least that's how it was before Los Angeles, before the BB murders, and before Backup had lit himself on fire.
After that they were Above and Beyond, perfect opposites with a comforting sameness.
Beyond was supposed to die, leaving behind an unsolvable crime. It had always come down to that - one would fake his death and one would die for real.
Only now they had both survived, and that meant Beyond would have to hide from L for the rest of his life. And how had the genius boy with the eyes of a death god planned to keep himself safe?
By coming back to the place he had run away from to commit his crimes.
It had not been his wisest idea, but there was a possibility that it was one of his best.
Near didn't understand Mello. One second he'd be joking with everyone else, the next he'd stand up and yell about how he hated every single one of them and wished they were dead. Naturally, he got in a hell of a lot of trouble.
Near often wondered which side of Mello was true - carefree and relaxed Mello, or out of control and hateful Mello.
The reality was, both were acts. A had created Mello's persona as a perfect copy of B. Mello was, in every sense, a mockery of B's temper.
B, on the other hand, had become everything A was. Matt was a sarcastic, lazy, annoying, somehow lovable asshole. Whether the 'lovable' part was just Beyond's nature A wasn't sure, but he decided that it must be part of the charade. B, lovable? It wasn't possible.
People feared Mello, and he could see why - B was terrifying. And since Mello was an exaggeration of B - Christ, what a concept.
It had gotten to the point where A didn't know what was him and what was Mello anymore. The angry outbursts used to be fake, but now every little thing seemed to set him off. Especially that one kid, Near. That stupid little shit had gotten in his way. If he wasn't L's successor, how could he meet L in person? And if he couldn't meet L in person, how could he kill him?
The day Mello found out that L had been killed by Kira, he was furious. He had wanted the joy of ending L's life all to himself. How dare Kira take that away from him? How fucking dare Kira do that?
That was the day he left the orphanage for good. Like Hell he was going to work with that piece of shit Near. He may not have the eyes of a death god, but he was smart, and he knew how to survive on his own. He was almost fifteen, after all.
That was the day Matt realised how much Mello meant to him. His wit, his charm, everything about him made Matt want more. Mello was like the smoke he craved; he surrounded him and clouded his judgement, beautiful in the most disgusting way.
And to Mello, Matt was like fire. Unpredictable, intense, mesmerising and deadly. Mello had always loved fire, watching calmly as it danced, the smell of burning filling his head with fantasies of falling asleep and never waking up. Because who needed to wake up anyway?
So how ironic that the human flame, Beyond Birthday, died surrounded by the smoke that reminded him of his only friend.
And the irony of Above Always, the man who seemed to have a soul made of smoke, being killed in a fire.
Mihael Keehl and Mail Jeevas, and the many aliases that they had used, were gone.
Well, there was that rule about Shinigami and bullets, but Mail was born with the eyes and nothing else, so that rule wouldn't apply to him.
... Right?