A/N: okay, so I'm completely nervous about posting this. I've just recently finished watching the genius that is Death Note for the first time a few days ago, but I've been a fan of this pairing for quite a while. I've never been crazy-confident about my writing, but I've had way too many creativity splurges for these two to ignore, no matter how bad XD. but anyway, I gathered up enough courage to finally post this thing, and depending on the response I get, I'll post up my other stories as well. So please please let me know what you think, ne? .
Disclaimer: 'Death Note' and all of its characters do not belong to me :D
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"In Silent Moments"
Chapitre I - "Chimes"
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He had always been confident in himself. Praised as a genius who could complete any task given to him, and he wasn't one to argue. All his life he'd never once felt what some people would probably call 'low self esteem'. It only slowed one down, so what was the point? L never indulged in things that had no point.
This time around, however, things were different. He'd done too many things in such a short amount of time that had no point, no merit, and only proved to lengthen his enemy's life.
His enemy. Kira.
Yagami Light.
Ring.
Had he done this investigation behind the scenes, in private like he always had, the outcome would have been different. The case would have been closed long ago, with the younger Yagami behind bars, maybe even before Amane was able to come into the picture. Had he gone it alone, without personal help, without his usual space invaded by others… without…
Without that aggravating voice that had come about in the back of his mind, constantly trying to convince him that…
Ring.
All the same, the fact remained that L knew he had been something he had never been before. Foolish. Idiotic. Just about any adjective in the human dictionary that described one who just continued to make one bad decision after another. He thought revealing his face for the first time had been a step toward progress. He thought admitting that he needed the help of the Japanese police had been a fine thing to do. And for a while, they had been. He knew he couldn't have undergone the investigation entirely alone. And even all this meant that he was having fun. He was being challenged, and he enjoyed it. This was the first case to actually provoke him so. But if only he'd been prepared for whom that challenger was.
No, he shouldn't have even needed to be prepared. No one, including Yagami Light, should have been able to affect the detective in such a way.
But the damage had long since been carried out.
Ring.
From the moment L told the younger male that he hoped he wasn't Kira, for the sole reason that he thought of him as a friend. His first friend. And while the statement had been made to see Light's reaction, and though Ryuuzaki had easily seen the hesitation before the casual answer, he still…
The fact that concerned him the most was that there had been more truth in those words than L himself felt safe with. He did wish that Light-kun wasn't Kira. He did think of him as his first, and only friend. Despite being a suspect, he was the first person L actually enjoyed the company of. Anyone else, as few as those numbers were, he'd always thought of as so much lower than him. He always pictured himself on some high perch, above everyone else, and so high up that no one had the intelligence to find a way up to his level.
But Yagami Light had very easily found his way up. From the first day he'd spent talking with the boy, he saw him making his trek upward, higher than anyone had been before. It wasn't too long before he'd made it up to L's level, and now…
Now he was slowly, but very surely, continuing his way up even higher.
Ring.
And L found that he had no idea how to stop him. Ever since he'd let the teenager free of their chains, he'd been at a total loss. He'd done nothing but watch him climb higher.
Something foreign inside of him, something he'd never known existed, yearned to call out to him. Reach him somehow. Maybe if he reached out a hand, Light would turn back far enough to see, and maybe…
Ring.
The rain began to fall then, as L expected. When he'd gone out onto the roof, he'd clearly seen the dark clouds, could very easily smell the dampness in the distilled air.
He saw the rains coming, but still he didn't retreat back inside where it was safe and warm.
And now he was in the middle of a storm. He had one last move against it, one last decision to make. He wished for its success, while that voice in his mind hoped for its failure. Either one could cost him his life, but he knew he had no choice.
That was when he heard a voice over the droning of the downpour. A voice he knew. He turned and saw the very person he'd expected to see standing under the overhang of the stairway that led back into the building.
And the bells began to ring even louder than before.