This is set in the same universe as "Shinigami Eyes". It's not really a sequel, though it could be seen and read that way. It doesn't give away very much from the Part II of my Shinigami stories, but everything in here is factual for the universe.
Not necessarily factual as far as the real-life Death Note, however. I don't own the real Death Note. :(
A full year passed. L stares at the calendar, eyes wide, his gaze unwavering.
The teenager would be an adult, now. Twenty years old, legal in just about every country.
He bites harshly on his thumbnail, not wincing when the nail tears to the quick and wells up with blood.
He spins in his chair and opens up a Word document, holding his hands over the keyboard. He pauses. Hesitates. He lowers his hands into his lap.
"What're you thinkin' about, Lollipop?"
The cool, smooth voice does not surprise him. He doesn't turn to the other man as he says blandly, "A young adult in Japan."
The other is quick to catch on. "The Yagami boy." It isn't a question.
"Yes."
The conversation lulls, and during the pause L closes the Word document and turns off his monitor. He remains seated, knees up to his chest, thumbnail back in his mouth, facing his computer. He ignores the movement behind him, the rustle of clothing and click of shoes on hardwood floors.
"The boy is like me, isn't he?" the other man asks.
L knows it's more for confirmation- more to get him talking again- than anything. He remembers explaining the boy in great detail to the man when he returned from the Kira case. How they had marveled over the boy with red eyes and supernatural sight.
Red eyes and a gifted sight they thought had belonged to one man only.
He answers anyway. "Yes."
"Lawliet."
L turns to face his twin brother.
The man is standing in front of the couch, a closed parasol in hand. The black silk matches the mid-thigh length fifties-style black and white polka dot dress he is wearing. Red heels increase his height, and the fishnet stockings go underneath the skirt of the dress. He has on matching blood-red lipstick and the color is dusted very, very lightly over his eyelids. He looks like a classic fifties young woman.
It doesn't surprise L in the least. "What, Beyond?"
Beyond cocks his head to the side, his wild black hair falling into a natural part on the far right that they'd inherited from their mother. "If you like the boy that much, go after him," Beyond says.
But L is already shaking his head. "Raito has a long life ahead of him. He could surpass me someday. I won't string him along."
"But you already are."
Surprised, L blinks dubiously at his twin. "Excuse me?"
Beyond grins, and it's not the feral smile he usually has on display. It's the same smile their mother used to give them when she was indulging them in something. L doesn't like it, but he likes the feral grin less, so he supposes, distantly, that this is better. "You strung him along when you kissed him, Lollipop. You gave him hope, and you aren't even nice enough to follow up?"
L considers this for all of one moment. "I suppose not, then," is his conclusion.
Beyond rolls his eyes- red, just like Ratio's… or is it Raito's eyes that are like Beyond's? – and scoffs. "For a genius, you're sure stupid sometimes, Lollipop," he says, shaking his head. He turns and begins walking out the door, pausing in the doorway. "I've known you to have some sort of unprofessional relationship with most of your suspects, brother." Beyond looks unusually serious when he says this, and some part of L dreads the next sentence, "But I've never seen you like this. You've never brought your relationships back home, in this metaphorical way." Beyond stops, looking wistful for a second as he finishes with, "It's reminding me of Avery."
The door shuts behind him with a quiet click that might as well have been a gunshot.
L remembers Avery very well. He, Beyond, and L himself had been among the first to enter the brand new orphanage. They had been as thick as thieves; the three of them, until Avery and Beyond had gotten together. After that, L had felt like a third wheel.
That was about the same time that some competition had begun arriving, and so L gave up and threw in the towel. He stopped holding back. Within two weeks, he had soared from fifteenth place to first, and Avery was knocked from the top three. It tore a rift between L and his brother, and then, Avery committed suicide when they were all fifteen, after L solved his hundredth case.
Beyond ran away, and L didn't see or hear from him until four years before the Kira case when he started committing murders. L paid the bail sum.
But Beyond, as far as L knew, had never gotten over his deceased lover, not really.
It was within that fact where L found the reason for Beyond's recent persistence over Yagami Ratio.
Beyond doesn't know about the unsent, burned letters in the fireplace downstairs, addressed to a young, new detective in Japan, signed in his brother's name.