Teardrop on the Fire
All his life, Mello remembers crying only once in his life. It happened in Whammy's House. Mello was a resident for two years at age seven, and his new roommate Matt was six.
The younger boy showed him a trick with a matchstick that he stole from the kitchen. He lit it and held the tip of the flame with two fingers. Just like that, yes—he touched the tip, as coolly and neutrally as one would touch the tip of a pencil. Matt didn't say anything when he showed Mello this trick, and he certainly showed no signs or sighs of pain after he finished the trick.
Mello demanded to see his hand afterward, and he saw no burn marks at the spot where Matt's hand contacted the flame. When he asked how he did it, Matt replied, "Some people get hurt by fire. I don't get hurt by fire," with a shrug and a sly smile not befitting of a six-year-old.
The young blond tried it out with another match stolen from the kitchen, and discovered that he is one of those people who get hurt by fire.
They both got in trouble after that. Luckily, Mello didn't get burned too harshly. He would remember the tears more than he would remember the stinging feeling at his fingertips.
"Remember that, Mels? Back then, I thought you were going to explode. You know, like dynamite. I thought that your fingers could have been the wicker, and that if I let you burn for much longer, you'd explode like Wile E. Coyote in those old cartoons. I thought it would be pretty cool if that happened. I honestly wished that you didn't scream bloody murder so soon, if only to see a live human being explode."
This is Matt now: twenty years old and still has the same, cool air about him. He smokes a cigarette, which dangles easily between his teeth. Its embers blink comically as he says these words to Mello.
"Supposedly, the trick there is to touch the tip quickly. Let the flame slide with the air between your fingers before it touches you. You got burned because you grasped it, dude. I guess you were too excited to touch fire. Well, you always were too excited when it comes to outdoing others, Mels, even before Near came to Whammy's. You know, that kind of attitude will kill you someday."
Through the camera, Matt's drone is muffled slightly by insignificant background noise: the clatter of plastic, cars passing underneath the window, trained fingers beating mercilessly on a muted PSP.
"Why did I show you that trick? Out of the blue, and all that shit? That's actually a good question." He participates in a rare moment, where he looks up from his gaming device with a look of pure clarity on his face. Three seconds and after that the moment is gone, and he proceeds to speak in his usual lazy way. "I guess I wanted to show off. That's how it is with kids, really. All of us wanted to be superheroes. Being able to do something that nobody else can do is one way to gain superhero status."
Superheroes, huh? A grainy clip of Whammy's House life plays itself in Mello's mind. With blankets tied around their necks and 'weapons' in their hands (pillows for Mello and Matt, and a plastic toy rocket ship for Near), they scream and run and growl and dodge blows from each other. All of them are in white shirts, and replicas of the gothic letter L are childishly scrawled in the middle.
Matt curses under his breath. He notices the blinking power light on the PSP. He turns it off and puts it down on the space of sofa next to him. The moment that his hands lose contact with the PSP, a clouded expression takes over his face and entire body. He runs his fingers through his hair and slumps forward, in sheer boredom.
"Damn it, I hate this job," he mutters. "I know, I know, I'm not doing a bloody good job at surveillance, but for the love of god, Mello. You're making me watch over a group of middle-aged Japanese men."
He groans and lies down on the sofa, hands behind his head. "That's all I'm good for, huh, Mello. Cursing and being all lazy. Sorry. That's a number three for you. Really, I know I should be taking this more seriously, but…"
He sighs. Give me understanding or at least something, Mels. You've no idea how tired I am from floating like this.
"Ultimately, I showed you that trick because I had to. Don't ask me how I know, or why I thought that way during the time. I don't know either. Or maybe I did at the time, but I suppose I forgot it when I grew up. I guess some things you just shouldn't explain, like awesome poetry. You know? Those artist types never want to explain what they write. They make the excuse of giving the reader the freedom to interpret it as they will, but really, they're just too lazy to explain themselves. Besides, explanations are not cool."
The camera from Matt's station dies for no apparent reason.
Mello, for one reason or another, imagines his death to involve water. His feet are tangled up in underwater vines, and he doesn't have the wits or energy to untangle himself from them. He screams, but only the sound of bubbles and that hollow sound of water come out of him.
In the end, he stares up at the surface, where the light, shaped like a refracted star, stays away and waves. This is the last thing he sees before he suffocates.
But that doesn't happen, of course. We all know that he dies in a cool, dry place. (Like where you keep your butter or your bread for the Holy Communion.)
Water. Sometimes, Mello doesn't feel like himself, and he stares at water and gets lost.
Matt is out of the apartment, and Mello finds himself staring at a glass of water. It is a cold glass of water, and the glass begins to sweat out drops, which slowly slide and make a perfect circle on the smooth surface of the table.
Water is my eye
Most faithful mirror
Feathers on my breath
Mello looks up from this glass eye, and naturally he sees L standing at a space where he wasn't before.
L, who stands at the centre of the apartment, stares back at him. He is drenched. His white shirt, slightly transparent, clings messily to his emaciated frame. His jeans are dark from all the water it absorbed. His bare feet are wrinkled; they wiggle uneasily on the carpeted floor. His skin is snow white, possibly from the cold of the storm. Some of his messy, ebony black hair sticks to his face.
His eyes are large, yes, and as their gaze fell on Mello, they disappear behind the shadows of his face.
He tilts his head and opens his mouth. And closes it again. And then he starts to speak, precisely and rapidly. But there are no sounds from his mouth.
Mello doesn't know what to say, what to do. He wants to speak with L, wants to listen to him, but he doesn't understand what he's doing. How can he possibly do that? How can he possibly follow in his perfect circle when he doesn't understand anything?
L's lips stop moving. He tilts his head again. Being the specter that he is, it is surprising that he seems to notice what is happening to Mello. He grins and moves his hands in a weird way.
The living person watches this movement. "Mero-kun. Remember your senpai?" his hands seem to say—a simple, pure message, untainted by voice or expression.
Mello blinks. The hands keep on moving. He does not understand most of the message, but he does understand the part where L stops moving, looks at him intently, and finally puts his thumb in between his teeth.
"In the end, do not be afraid. In the end, I will be watching. Waiting."
And then L, much like a housecat, easily walks on all fours and stops at the door. He stands up like an L and he leaves the room.
Mello watches this vision and finally realizes that it is only a vision. He rubs his eyes. He can't believe how strained his optic nerves felt.
Mero-kun. Senpai. He's been in Japan for too long. Far too long. The fragments of the headstrong boy that he was must have separated from him and died in that American desert.
Who was Mero-kun's senpai? Was L talking about himself?
No, of course not. In my dream, he was talking about B.
Remember B? Mello does. After all, he takes it upon himself to tell B's story to anybody who would listen. To say all the things he did would result to a story as thick as a black novel. What was important about B, Mello thinks, was that he found fragments of himself that fit into B, and vice versa.
It gives Mello the creeps to think of such things, because B was, and so on and so forth, but he doesn't stop himself from sympathizing with this particular sempai of his.
He waits in the dark, again, for another vision to appear in front of him. He tries to keep his mind blank, but he can't help that feeling of expectation.
In his mind, B appears in front of him, flames coating his arms and legs and head like wings—or the shapes and shadows of wings, at least. I wanted to die in the fire, kouhai, but alas. It is a dream unfulfilled. Perhaps you—
But it is only in his mind. Mello decides wisely that he ought to stop imagining morbid things. It is an unnecessary step towards insanity, after all. And even then, he was so close to it he can taste it.
In his mouth is the taste of chocolate, and on the ground is Near, bruised and covered in mud. Big sets of clumsy footprints lead away from the spot where Mello stands.
How these two instances tie together is unsaid. There is no need for such explanations, really. It's like awesome poetry.
Near narrows his eyes in annoyance at the older boy and stands up. His two wobbly legs make him shake ungracefully, but his voice is steady like a rock. "Do not tell Roger or anybody else what happened here," he says. He adjusts his shirt to cover up an exposed, blue shoulder.
Mello frowns at first. This little prick has the gall to order me around just like that. But rather than retort, or snap, or something, he decides to shrug coolly. "It's none of my business."
Besides, Near is the one with bruises, not him. That has to count for something. Matt would say that Mello has higher HP than Near, because if you consider the bruises, Near badly needed a Hi-Potion, or at least a piece of cake, to recover. And therefore Mello wins this battle. Kind of.
They start walking back to the dorms. It is a long walk through the forest, and Mello has plenty of time for observations and rude remarks. "Your mouth is bleeding. Did you lose a tooth or something?"
Near doesn't reply. Even though he is only wearing caked-with-mud socks, he is walking faster than Mello.
"You are going to become one ugly weasel, Near. But you don't have to cry about it or anything. All you have are wussy baby teeth, anyways."
Again, Near does not answer. He seems determined to get back to the dorms. Mello wonders whether he would rush to his room or the infirmary. Those bruises didn't look good, after all, and people are going to ask questions if they see it. Well, whatever. They should just stay away from Mello, because he's not going to give any sort of satisfactory answer.
Eventually, they arrive at a patch of earth where they can see the red-roofed dorms in all its hidden glory. For one reason or another, Near stops when he sees the house.
"What's the matter with you, shrimp?" asks Mello.
Near doesn't say anything. Automatically, he slumps on the patch of earth, and remains there for a period of time. Mello half-expects him to raise his hand and start twirling a lock of hair, but Near does no such thing. He just sits there and stares at the unruly blades of grass.
The older boy feels some anxiety when he sees this. Near is the enemy, but at the same time, Mello has to be responsible for him. In annoyance, he tugs at the boy's white shirt and says, "Hey. Are you dizzy or something? Stand up, will you? We're almost there."
To his surprise, Near sighs. It was a simple sound—a small haay, and a pause. His white bangs, much like feathers, float with his breath.
Where did that come from?
"You go ahead if you like, Mello. I wish to stay here," the small boy replies.
"If you're afraid of them asking questions, Near, you can always lie. Just tell them you fell off a tree or something. Anyway, those bruises are not gonna go away if you just sit there…"
"Lie, huh…" Near seems to ponder this line seriously. However, he refuses to move from the patch of earth. "I am fine." He says this with power. He does not look at Mello when he says it. "I will be able to walk back on my own, Mello. Now, leave."
Mello stares at him in silence. He does not know what he is waiting for. The tension in the air makes one expect a massive explosion. This moment isn't natural in any way, at all.
He tosses a bar of chocolate to Near and says, "Blood sugar." Finally, Mello leaves.
On the way to the house, Mello cannot stop stumbling. He does not know why. He just does.
Somehow, Mello finds himself in the dark. His entire body feels numb and cold. His heart feels like a sharp rock, rolling and twisting and crushing and grinding against his rubs and lungs.
He is most likely dead.
He does not know how exactly he 'finds himself in the dark'. There is something very wrong with this sentence. He's dead, he shouldn't have the power to find himself, much less find himself in the dark.
But there he was. Death is not the death of his consciousness. Maybe… maybe he is a ghost, like L.
In the dark, he hears the laboured breathing of Takada Kiyomi. She is still naked, probably on the verge of freezing to death. He hears the sound of her clattering teeth, her sniffs and sobs, and the tapping of her long fingernail on the buttons of a cellular phone. He hears her words first—"Yagami-kun, something something something," and then the sounds fade. It is as if he were in a television set, and an omnipotent force subtracts the volume, out of sheer respect for the dead.
From this muteness, a strange sound emerges out of nowhere.
Teardrop on the fire of a confession
Feathers on my breath
Breath
Breeeeaaaath
Brea-ea-ea-ea-ea-eath
Breeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaathhhhhhhhhhhhhh
The disembodied voice of Matt, sounding very much like Brandon Boyd, mercilessly rings and echoes inside his head.
(Moments or hours ago, he saw that insignificant news story: unknown man involved in the Takada kidnapping is shot dead by Takada's guards. He had muttered an honest, sincere, and broken "I'm sorry, Matt" when he heard this.)
The voice is anything but calming. His eyes are wide open and unblinking, and he desperately searched the empty church for a source of comfort. No, he is facing away from the altar and the gigantic crucifix. He can't, 'for the life of him,' lift the cold, silver cross hanging from his neck. If only he can see it, if only he can turn his eyes away from the dead air inside the van…
From the stone floor outside, he sees it: a perfect circle of water forms, unhesitant, on the ground.
The cameras focus on the silent smile of L:
In the end, do not be afraid.
The haunting song of the disembodied Matt continues, and Mello follows L's command. Feathers float upwards and skywards and sideways and downwards when he separates that questionable fragment of his that just won't die, from the fragment of Mello that will burn and ultimately explode from the surface of the earth.
The fire starts shortly afterward.
- end –
Notes: I was listening to Incubus' version of Teardrop, and somehow Mello crawled in my mind and respectfully asked to be written. I listened to the original Massive Attack version when I wrote this, though, and I suppose that's why the entire thing is kind of creepy. Hm.
It's easy to associate Mello with fire—after all, according to the zodiac, he's born under a fire sign. (Meanwhile, Matt is air, L is water, and Near is earth. It's pretty cool!) I wrote this because at first I found it difficult to come to terms with Mello's death. Thanks for reading. :D