Hey Mells,

There's something I've been meaning to tell you. It's weighed down a lot on my mind lately. Hell, it's weighed down on my mind for months, maybe even a few years.

And God damn it, it's so stupid it makes me want to scream.

Fuck you, Mello. Fuck you and your dandelion hair, your cold eyes, your tight leather pants that make me want to push you up against a brick wall and well, I'm getting beside the point.

When I tell you this, it's gonna make you want to shoot me in the face.

And honestly, I'm not sure I would mind it. I've had that dream often enough anyway. It's better than sitting in the hallway outside with my ear pressed against the door while you bang whatever girl you picked up at the bar. Better than knowing no motherfucker with a motorcycle and enough cash to buy a small country would ever do anything other than pity a sad loser like me. You could never, ever look at me as anything other than the friend you go to when you're kind of upset and need a couple beers, when you've got no one else to talk to and need to take a load off your shoulders.

How many girlfriends has it been since I've met you? Eleven? Twelve? Twelve bitches in two years. All sluts, whores, I could go on. Let's flip that. How many girls have you set me up with? Four?

Four poor girls that didn't know what they were getting into. Nice girls, patient girls that also regret getting involved with you. Because meeting me was the last thing they wanted. We'd end up heading to a club, I'd get drunk as hell and end up telling them my life story. The one you've never heard. That's why I can't get drunk around you, Mells… I can't tell you my real story.

You know how my parents were killed in a car accident? I was in the backseat, they were killed instantly, I ended up with a scar up my back. Yeah, that's what I've told you. Not true. Mello, my whole life's been a lie. Everything you thought you knew about me. Complete bullshit.

Which makes me all the guiltier for lying to you. Because you think you know me so well. Which you do. You know my speech patterns, my quirks, my interests like the back of your own hand. In fact, you could probably navigate my mind better than I can.

I know that your father was one of the Bratva, one of the men most hunted in the whole country. I know that he was excellent at what he did – and that's why he didn't get caught until the last moment.

Hell, I know more about your father than you ever did. We never discussed our parents, so you wouldn't know. But let me tell you, only a hell of a car crash could kill my old man. He was the best of the best at his job, too. That's what killed your father, actually… my dad's intensity.

He was my dad's assignment, really. Your father, I mean. The infamous Abram Keehl, ah, he spent hours upon hours researching him, figuring out how he could be found. He was going to be my dad's last job, you know. Making him disappear. My dad was gonna retire, we were gonna go live with my mom and my little brother as soon as he was done.

I lived with my dad, helped him with research by working as the local paperboy and making innocent smalltalk with people in the town where Keehl was hiding. I lived right under your nose, saw you all the time, and you didn't even say so much as hello to me until we met at Wammy's. I passed your house every morning, pet your dog every so often, even gave your little sister a band-aid once when she skinned her knee. See, the thing is, my dad really was the best. When everyone thought he was hiding in some brothel in a huge city, no one bothered to check the small town where he surrounded himself with innocents. My dad sold him milk every day, I delivered your newspapers. It was a nice system.

I've known you since you were little. I was even in your class in first grade. I, of course, didn't speak the language – I grew up Scottish, moved to Russia at five or six – so I failed out by February. But I remembered your voice. The way you spoke, even as a kid… man, you spoke with meaning, you know? Like it pained you to keep your feelings in, but you did anyway. Your fluency, the way every letter, every syllable bled into the next. It was a voice I looked forward to hearing because it made me wonder about the personality behind it. I wondered about you, Mello. Didn't know I'd end up your friend. I knew, of course, that we would eventually meet – at your father's funeral, perhaps.

Because I had to live knowing that my father would be responsible for you once your father was dead. He'd have to pay to send you somewhere, since you didn't have a mother to look after you. It's hard for a little kid to understand that. I never approached you – not once – because the guilt killed me before anything even happened. It kills me to this day.

I know you remember the day your father died. The police coming to your door, telling the housekeeper the news. Consoling your four-year-old sister when you told her daddy was dead. Crying yourself to sleep for the last time. Deciding to grow out your hair in honor of your father's legendary locks. Reading the will and receiving not only a few million dollars, but also a blood red rosary because God knows you were the most Catholic family in the Eastern hemisphere.

I remember that day, too. My father coming home, grabbing my shoulders and pushing me behind the kitchen counter. He had guilt on his lips, but also pride. It sickens me now, to remember what exactly he told me. He said that he had finished, that we had finished, but that everything had not gone as planned. He told me to hang out in the cellar until he gave a signal to leave. I obeyed, of course, not realizing the gravity of the situation… and later that evening, I was hurried out by one of my father's friends. A week later, they told me that he was dead, my house was gone, and my mother and little brother were missing. I still haven't heard from them. I was nine years old when that happened, being homeschooled by my father, and fairly proficient – it was decided that I would attend Wammy's School and live in the dorms there until they found my mother and started me on regular curriculum.

So the day I arrived at Wammy's House to unpack my bags, at ten years old, I had started on my first addiction – playing Pokemon until my eyes were bloodshot and my fingertips calloused. They stamped a name on me, Matt, and sorted me into a dorm with the next kid over in the alphabet. There you were, Mello, in all your eleven-year-old glory. Blonde hair snipped into a girlish bob, black shirt and pants made me recognize your eternal mourning for your father. I didn't recognize your face – people don't usually tell you this, but you looked oddly adult for an eleven-year-old boy – but once you spoke to me, I recognized your voice. Even though you spoke English to me, you had an accent, and the way your words bled together made me go pale. I thought about how we were linked, how fate had played a cruel trick on me… and I started to slink away from you any chance I could get.

Unfortunately, your extroverted self challenged this. You saw me as a chase, a puzzle to be figured out, and had me talking (and listening to you) until late at night. It was fine, I guess, as long as I could hide my eyes from you. I couldn't risk you detecting any sort of remorse. I fabricated a story about a tragic accident involving my father's drunk driving, and you went on for hours about the bastard that killed your father.

Was it betrayal that the longer I listened to you, the more I cursed my own father under my breath? It was a side effect of your friendship, I suppose. You made me question everything I was.

God, Mello, you were like a drug. The more we spoke, the hours at night when I'd just listen to your fluid voice raise and lower in pitch, the more I'd want to hear. I had started as a captive audience. I didn't want to hear you at all. I was too afraid my voice would crack or quaver to initiate a conversation. I slowly melted into the putty I am today – completely fascinated, completely obsessed with the person you've become.

The more we spoke, eventually, I realized that I had become a huge fan of yours. I could read your mind as soon as you opened your mouth. I knew the girls you liked, the ones that interested you intensely, and the ones you would roofie and fuck the first chance you could get. These were the girls that I would talk to, the dependable wingman I was, and lure to the dorm that we shared.

You dumped them like the trash they were weeks later, after you learned that they weren't as genuine as they had seemed. They used you to get to your inheritance, to cart you around like a trophy, or worse – to get to me. Why was that? Did they think my constant spacing out and incessant drug use "mysterious"? Anyone who couldn't appreciate you was dead to me. They didn't realize how lucky they were. You were the best thing that could ever happen to them.

Fortunately for us, I always had a nice-sized stash of alcohol on hand. I drank scotch, you drank it too. Looking back, it's rather upsetting that I could hold my whiskey better than Roger at the age of fourteen. It was the best I could do, I mean. Knowing that my best friend was miserable because of my own dad, and that I had helped by giving away your address. I drank myself silly every Saturday night. Which quickly became every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Then I was drunk more often than hung over.

You should know. You never picked up the habit, though. I have fond memories of holding your hair back while we scrambled to finish essays in the few hours we spent sober.

Then Near showed up. And made my life – not yours, mine – a living hell.

You watched that kid as intently as my dad watched yours. His every move, the way he effortlessly climbed to your status in the school's ranks, made you hate him. You drew up plans to sabotage him. Drugged his food, stole his books. And he was only twelve years old. You were a psycho, man.

If only you knew how he looked up to you. Every lunch period, while you were out "escaping" from him on the roof with the other stoners, he asked where you were. He emulated you, gazed at you whenever you had class together. The kid was completely in love with you. He studied all night to impress you with his scores. And again, you are completely blind to it.

The night you called him drunk… oh God. Fuck, were you drunk. You really let him have it. He spent four days crying afterward. It remains, to this day, the only time I have looked down on you. The poor guy hasn't made eye contact with you since then. But you wouldn't have it any other way, would you? You liked him upset. Because a Near that was dead inside was easier to hate than an innocent Near. He's still in love with you. As am I. You just hurt me less.

Intentionally, that is. You know that being with you every day kills me inside. Because since we ditched the hellhole of our childhood, gave up the books and found an apartment in LA instead, I've spent every waking moment with you and thinking about you. And I plan to do that until the day I'm found dead in a puddle of my own vomit. It's the most exhilarating and masochistic quest I've ever subjected myself to, but it's better than living without you.

I wanted to get this out of my system before it's too late.

But that's the thing, Mells, my last act of revenge. Revenge for becoming the only thing that mattered to me, ever. It is too late. Too late for me, too late for us. We can never be together. I can never hold you close, can never run my hands through your hair, can never apologize for making your little sister cry. I can never feel your soft lips on mine, feel the contours of your perfect body between mine and the bedsheets. I can never feel the rush of dominating you, or give in to the fact that you might dominate me. Because this is a suicide note, isn't it?

Isn't it, Mellsy? A last goodbye from the only person who loved you more than your father. The only person left who can feel regret for your father's death. The one person who understood you. He's dead now. You remember that guy, Mello? Matt? That kid who always looked kind of familiar? The one you spent hours talking to every night, who you ragged on girls with and smoked with on the roof during Biology class? The one whose liquor closet you raided every so often, but he didn't mind. He's gone now. Offed himself yesterday.

If I knew this would hurt you, trust me, I wouldn't have done it. But I know you better than that. Your father was the last person you would ever cry over. You promised yourself that. And my skills are nothing special – you'll find another hacker stat.

You're not the reason I'm doing this, Mihael. My own fault, my own father, is the reason.

Just know that you were the last person I thought about. You were, really, the only person I ever thought about.

This might not be a suicide note. Depends, actually, on what you consider a suicide.

I might be a martyr instead. In your eyes.

All I know is that I'm going to die later today. We're going out on a final mission to spit in Kira's eye for the last time. When you succeed, you're going to retire and live with your little sister and girlfriend in a house in northern California.

I was supposed to come, but I can't look at you. I can't look you in the eyes without crying, without screaming, without wanting to throw myself in front of a bus for what I haven't told you and what I didn't prevent.

I'm going to carry on like nothing's wrong, but when the police catch me, I'll give myself up to them. They'll ask a few questions, but in the end, I'll be shot dead. Even if I'm alive, I'll never see you again.

This way, it's a clean break. Matt, your fallen brother, the one you lost on that dangerous mission on a day in the past. Not suicidal Matt, but devoted Matt. Your childhood best friend. He will be missed.

Won't he?

Fuck, I love you Mells. Mello. If I ever did anything, I loved you a sickening amount.

Go reconcile with Near. Tell your sister I'm sorry. Forget me and move on. I couldn't. But you're stronger.

Mail Jeevas