Our conversations lately are like some form of chaotic artwork. And I know how much he loves these sort of angry shit- abstract, Gothic, macabre, graffiti, or whatever.
He was talking, and I was talking. He was trying to tell me something about himself, and I was trying to tell him something about myself. We are both so caught up on this concept so called 'self' and our own selfishness that it has ended up developing into a lying contest. Each and every pretty 'fact' spurting out of his mouth is a lie, trying to obstruct me from seeing reality. I lie with silence instead- cold, callous, and biting silence- when the reality is quite contradictory. And I quote him on this matter, 'reality's a bitch'. We don't like reality; that is something that has not changed.
So instead, we fill our lives up with worlds of lies and selfishness. He babbled on about himself with that angry cross hung around your neck, and I made a statement about myself by ignoring him and playing my video games. All the lies and deceits doesn't matter anyway. Neither of us were paying attention. Neither of us were listening, absorbed in our cool lil' facade of self-indulgence.
And I quote the classic storybook that he used to like in order to explain this, since creativity has never been my best field.
There is once a time where 'I've believed as many as [what I thought to be] six impossible things before breakfast.'
That time is not right now, by the way. I hate him, and I know better than to believe anything he says nowadays.
6 Impossible Things
1. Things change.
He lived in a town off the countryside. It was tiny and scarce in population- the type that would miraculously disappear on the world map and everybody would say 'coolio' to the magic trick. Time went by slowly, and people came and went slowly. If a wolf had come to devour the people here, they would run for their lives slowly because the wolf would be slow too. That had been an ongoing joke amongst kids at that time, but he didn't like it much. It had hit too close to home for his comfort.
Things didn't, wouldn't, and couldn't change.
Mail Jeevas was the perfect name for a country kid living in the rural areas. He always had an inherent ability to fade into the crowd with remarkable ease, and his dark and dirty hair were by far flamboyant and eye-catching. Appearance didn't matter; the boy always wore whatever his parents bought him, and those pieces of clothes were hardly ever fashionable. But this was the countryside, and nobody cared.
Adults called him 'apathetic', being a kid showing no explicit interest in anything. Mail thought 'apathetic' was just an euphemism for 'pathetic', thus he said nothing back. It didn't matter if other people thought he was pathetic because he was apathetic- if that made sense- and nothing mattered when everything was bleak. It was just one of these strange brain teaser of a conundrum that he got used to having. He heard other kids of his age talking about impossible dreams of becoming a famous rock star and owning 365 mansions, one for every day of the year, and he thought it was funny. Only it wasn't funny because he didn't understand it, and that just made it funnier. Not that it made sense or anything.
He went to the local grade school that every kid he knew went to. There were few classrooms, and each class was a mix of ages because there weren't enough students for anything else. Mail sat in the back of the room, bored of school, doodling on the desk because the teacher was boring too. Life was boring; only it wasn't boring because everything else was boring, and he had nothing not-boring to compare life to.
The teacher generally droned on about things that Mail wasn't interested in, repetitively, and that made him want to fall asleep. He liked how all the teachers thought all students were stupid and all the students thought all teachers were stupid. In the end, everybody in the school were stupid. Of course when the boy tried to explain such a concept to his so-called friends, they stared at him as if he had grown another head and called him 'stupid'.
Today, it was no different. The sky hadn't turned fluorescent pink as their local psychic had dictated, and no bolt appeared out of the blues (or pinks) and struck any cattle dead. The teacher was droning on about something that Mail never heard and never intended to hear; it was much more than usual because the sky didn't turn pink, and Mail was disappointed. He thought it would be pretty cool, and if the sky could be blue, he really didn't see why it couldn't be pink. His 'friends' once again proclaimed him to be an 'idiot' for even believing 'that crazy lunatic's crazy rambling', and again, stared at him as if he had two heads. (The boy double-checked to make sure that really only one head was attached to his body.)
And then right about when he should have fallen asleep, something altered in the daily routine. It was miniscule at best, but he noticed it anyway because he didn't fall asleep. The teacher was talking about something different this time (he tried to listen, but it really wasn't working), and another kid was beckoned to step forward. Mail paused when he didn't recognize the blond; it was a new face. It was something new. In this town of perpetual sameness, something new was rare. Something new was good. Nevertheless, something new never last, so Mail didn't care.
But this 'something-new-that-never-last' went and did something unexpected. It was especially surprising to Mail when the blond- eight years old at most- marched forward confidently, blue eyes daring anyone to challenge him, and then loudly declared to the class:
"Greetings, mother fuckers! Name's Mihael Keehl, but call me Mello and nothing else. Or else I'll kill you."
First, there was silent, and then the class was in an uproar.
And it was particular to Mail's amusement that the new kid had landed himself in the principal's office on the first day of school. Mail thought it was funny. Only, he realized once again that it wasn't funny because he didn't understand it, and once again that just made it funnier.
It was short, but for an infinitesimal time interval, this 'Mello' caught his interest. And this, the boy mused indifferently, meant that things could change after all.
But Mail was still the apathetic, pathetic, and callously indifferent boy who cared about nothing.
And people still didn't, wouldn't, and couldn't change.
2. Supernaturals/monsters exist.
Perhaps this may not have been the best example, but it was one of the most memorable, in Mail's opinion.
There was a time when Mello saw B and L, the local twin freaks, and declared one of them to be a doppelgänger. He bent two sticks into the shape of a cross and began dancing around the two (very confused) twins while muttering in some foreign language. L eventually managed to convince the blond that neither of them were demons in disguise, but Mail thought B had a maniacal grin there for a moment. The blond had always been fascinated with L in an idol-like sort of obsession, whereas he often threatened to prosecute B for homicide. The boy never understood why, but Mello was convinced that B was a mass murderer in his past life.
Of course he thought Light, the straight-A brunet that often hung out with L, was also a mass murderer, and that was just about close to impossible. Mail was beginning to think the blond was out to declare everyone that L interacted with as mass murderers. When he voiced this to the blond, he received a look that said: "Duh. What else do you think I'm doing?"
Another time, Mello dragged him into the woods, off searching for something the blond called the 'Erlkönig' that they apparently had to defeat in order to 'save poor, misguided travellers from impending doom'. That didn't end very well, and they somehow ended up stranded for a day on an island, in a pond that nobody knew existed until then. Mail only remembered that half way through, they changed priorities when Mello proclaimed that he 'definitely saw the osterhase going down that rabbit hole' and they ended up going rabbit hunting. Now how the transaction from rabbit hunting to being stuck on an island occurred, he didn't know.
But still, none of that over-exceeded this other time. It happened before Mello came and enforced friendship onto him, and the two became practically inseparable. (Because no, they didn't immediately become friends; what was this, a clichéd love story?) Until this event, neither of them paid much attention to the other.
He was talking about Mello's first meeting with Near here.
Now Near was and had always been a strange one. His real name was Something River, but nobody could remember it ever since the teacher had misrepresented it at the beginning of school. As a little kid, he looked like a cotton ball of fluff- a social recluse of a cotton ball of fluff. Mail once thought that the kid lived in a bucket of white paint and drank bleach as tea or something. He later found out that the white-haired boy was what people defined as an 'albino', not that he knew the implications behind such a fancy word back then, anyway. Near was a few grades below Mail and Mello, with the IQ of a genius. People called him a child prodigy even. But as far as Mail's kid mind went, prodigy sounded suspiciously like 'Pidgey' from the Pokemon Red game that Light had introduced to him.
Now, Mail had to be honest with himself. What would one expect to happen at Mello and Near's first meeting? -Radiating intensity of sheer hatred with explosions and thunder in the background? Oh, no. In fact, it was worse.
Hell, Mello loved Near.
He loved Near so much that the first time he landed eyes on the albino, he jumped up excitedly and shouted: "It's a ghost!"
This, of course, frightened the white-haired boy into curling into a tight ball because who wouldn't be afraid of ghosts? Certainly not Mello though. And the funny part was that nobody had ever seen Near curl into a ball before, and Near curled into a ball was just so frightening that it made a nearby girl scream. Some other kid screamed right after the first scream, and the screams just escalated there. The whole classroom was in chaos, and everything was so scary that it made Near cry. And Near crying, for some unfathomable reason, sounded horrible.
His curled up body shook first, and his eyes were red and puffy like a monster. Kids in the class all thought that he was going to eat them all, this being evident when someone shouted: "We're gonna get eaten!" Or at least, Mail thought he was going to be eaten; he couldn't really understand why some of the older kids were on the floor, laughing ridiculously in an apocalyptic situation as this. The kid who did the shouting was also laughing hysterically, and Mail couldn't understand why either.
But the fact remained that Mello loved Near at that time.
Mello loved Near so much that he ran all the way to his backpack and got his camera, one of those fascinating city things that Mail never really noticed until then.
He loved Near so much that he just had to snap a picture of the albino and spread it through the internet as 'ghost caught on camera' or something.
He loved Near so much that he snapped two shots on his fascinating city camera thing, with the flashes, clicking sounds, and everything else.
Least to say, it didn't help persuade the students that the Apocalypse wasn't coming. Most of the younger country kids (some as young as five) rarely came into contact with cameras (adults happily kept the lovely devices away from them), so Mello only brought more chaos. The older kids weren't fooled though, but they shouted and stampeded around anyway; they liked to cause trouble, the lot of them. It took the majority of the teachers in our school and promises of snacks (lies) to calm everyone down. It took three free toys given by the teacher as well as promises that his parents were coming to calm Near down. Or at least, he became relatively calmed down. The same thing couldn't be said for Mello though.
When Mello found out that Near wasn't a supernatural being made out of ectoplasm, he gave Near a look. And the Look was priceless. He looked at Near as if the albino had killed his most beloved puppy and disfigured it upon death. The blond then shouted at Near- poor and confused, wide and teary eyed Near- about how he was such a 'conniving and lying bastard, breaking a man's dream like that'. After the long and invigorating speech about how much of a bastard the albino was, the blond proceeded to declare Near as his 'eternal enemy' and stump away in anger.
(Near came to school every day with a toy as a security blanket from ghosts and Mello ever since.)
Little Mello certainly had a way with words that could make a grown man cry. Actually, Mail probably couldn't pronounce half of the high-sounding words that had spurted out of the kid's mouth. The class was still silent from Mello's outburst of highly sophisticated (and vulgar) language that no kid at the age of eight should possibly know. The teacher looked as if ready to interrupt, but stayed mute along with the class. Nobody stopped him.
Only something blocked the blond on his way out, and said obstacle, Mail Jeevas, was laughing too hard to care. Everyone stared at him as if he had two heads. Mello stood there appraising him with critical eyes, and he did something different from everyone else.
The blond stared at him as if he had seven heads.
Like a hydra. Something monstrous. Something supernatural.
Something interesting.
The boy scrunched up his nose arrogantly and said: "What are you?"
Mail fumbled with words, startled by the strange question, and said, "Uh. My name is Mail Jee-"
"You look like a Matt." And then the intense blue eyes were right in front of his face, narrowing with a calculating look. The dark-haired boy had to step back, unsettled by the intrusion. "All right! From now on, you are Matt." Mail tried to object, but his voice died when the blond shot him a scathing glare. "Come with me," Mello declared commandingly and dragged him roughly away by the shirt.
Mail- or Matt?- looked back half-heartedly at the flabbergasted classroom.
For a second there, Mello really had Mail thinking that ghosts existed, but the blond would soon see.
Mail was no seven-headed hydra, and Mail was no Matt. Mail was nothing interesting, but for now, he was content with playing the part of Matt.
It was something new.
(Something supernatural.)
3. Even small towns can be fun.
He heard plenty of stories about the City as a child, the most prominent of which came from Light Yagami- the boastful city kid extraordinaire. The brunet came from Tokyo, Japan. Apparently that place was full of the latest technology buzz. He always gave speeches to a crowd of mesmerized kids about the greatness of technology. Matt sat in said crowd often, being one of his most dedicated listener. Light, in return, proudly presented many unique devices to his 'acquaintance' (because they weren't friends; Mello made sure of that), and the brunet even gave the Gameboy that he no longer used to Matt. There was only one game- Pokemon Red- but the boy loved it. (Mello always attempted to toss it off the nearest bridge whenever he saw it, but that wasn't the point.)
Technology was one thing that fascinated the dark-haired boy to no end. No jealous blond was going to keep him away from any information that he could get, and that was why the two found themselves once again seated near the back of a crowd. Their attention fixated on the brunet standing in spotlight on a mock pedestal consisting of two old stacked up buckets. (They were very pretty buckets; Light would say so himself in defence.)
"Technology is amazing, and Tokyo is full of it," Light began another one of his speeches. "Everybody owns a PC or a laptop-"
"What does PC stand for?" One kid from the crowd called out.
Light paused, making a noise of irritation at being interrupted. "I don't know, but it's a computer of sort-"
"Try pompous cunt," Mello whispered loudly to Matt, earning a few snickers from the crowd. The dark-haired boy didn't know what that meant, but he deemed it to be offensive when Light huffed in indignation.
In what the blond would consider to be an arrogant manner, Light folded his arms and said venomously: "Be quiet, Keehl." He turned back to the crowd. "In the City, late at night, everything lights up prettier than the day, and there are lots of things to do even then! Tokyo is never asleep. Small towns can never compare to the big cities!"
Matt could find himself wholeheartedly agreeing with what Light said, but he was growing more and more concerned about what that rather intimidating piece of tree branch was doing in Mello's hand.
...
Later after Mello and Light were pried away from their intense Battle to the Death, Matt walked with the blond back to their house, the latter spouting bruises and scars from the fight.
"That evil spotlight-hogging reincarnation of a mass murdering-megalomaniac of a complete fucking bitch!" Mello swore for the umpteenth time. The other boy regarded him with a bored look, used his friend's vulgarity. (Sometimes Matt wondered whether the blond himself knew the meaning to half of the big words he say.) Neither said anything to the other as they walked home, but quite a few curses were emaciating from the blond. Matt was in deep thought about something, and Mello seemed too distraught to say anything of value.
Matt had expected the rest of the trip to happen in the exact same manner, but-
"It isn't true."
The dark-haired boy blinked and turned to his friend. "What?" The blond was silent for a while, so Matt thought he had returned to his reverie.
"It isn't true," Mello reiterated. Seeing the confused look, he elaborated, "what Light said isn't true."
Matt focused back on the road. "Of course it isn't."
"I'm serious here, Matt," he insisted vehemently. "Big cities ain't what it all jazzed out to be."
"I never said it is," was the response. Apparently Mello didn't like it, for he grabbed the other boy's arm and twisted it in a rather painful manner. "Ow, ow, ow! Let go!"
"Quit the sarcasm," the blond snarled, eyes burning with blue flame. "I'll show you."
Matt stared at him.
"I'll show you that small towns can be fun too!" Mello stumped away in a huff of fury, leaving the other boy behind.
The next day, Mello crashed by like a hurricane and dragged Matt off to some bizarre 'haunted' mansion that the other boy didn't know had existed. ("Every small town has their own local ghost house, of course!" Mello sneered.) Least to say, they got into a heap of trouble, equivalent to catastrophe of the biggest size. He thought he had seen everything his parents' faces could conjure up from the numerous other times he got in trouble. ("Guilty by association," he would say; because anyone associated with Mello generally ended up screwed sky-high.)
But when his and Mello's parents had to pick them up at the police station and were greeted by a very disgruntled officer along with an old landowner lady glaring menacingly at them...
...
Later, he found himself regretting it.
(Maybe if he hadn't laughed so hard, his parents wouldn't have taken away his Gameboy.)
(But then again, Matt wondered if technology could ever make him laugh half as hard as he did that day.)
(...)
4. This bizarre thing called a dream.
For a portion of the years together, they started to hang out with Sayu and Misa, the ditzy girl duo of crazy fanaticism. Being thirteen and all generally meant that girls and boys started mingling together. Mello wasn't much of a tradition conservationist, but even he was not immune to this strange phenomenon. And like always, Matt followed after.
Mello had a crush on Sayu, Light's precious younger sister, but he'd strangle anyone who said so. Matt liked Misa more. She was this cute and bubbly blond girl who believed in romance, love, fantasies, and dreams. Similar to a lot of girls that grew up in the countryside, the girl had a common ("shallow," that was Mello's word) dream of becoming an idolized pop star. Not like the other girls though, she sang every day and recorded it, asking other people for their opinion. Buying a recording machine spent all of her saved up allowance. She tried her best to follow through with everything, and she dressed herself up prettily. ("Shallow," Mello said.) There was a time when she'd refuse to eat anything, all for her beloved dream of becoming an idol. ("Shallow," Mello chanted.) Apparently idols were some sort of superhuman, according to Misa's descriptions, because they didn't eat. ("Shallow!") That phase eventually passed though. ("See? Shallow.")
Matt thought Misa was funny. Mello thought her as shallow.
Mello thought Sayu was smart and pretty. Matt thought she was dreadfully boring.
So one day they were hanging out in Mello's house (behind Light's back because Light had a sister complex the size of Pangaea, and he didn't like Mello at all). Sayu and Misa were fussing over a Japanese rock star- Ryūga Hideki. Matt remembered something from a long time ago, and had to ask about it. Pausing his Gameboy Advance (Christmas gift from Mello), he turned to the girls.
"He-y," he slurred the word slightly, something he copied from other boys whom often did this to capture girls' attention. Grinning, he nodded to the TV screen. "'s he famous?"
Sayu nodded earnestly. "Of course. Hideki-kun the most popular star in all of Japan! And he has fans across the globe too, from what I've heard in gossips."
"In the Arctic too?" Mello quipped, and he made another snapping sound with his chocolate bar. (Ever since the blond had discovered the snack, nobody had seen him without one.)
"Why not?" Matt shrugged. "Polar bears have ears too."
His friend snorted while the girls giggled. The TV was broadcasting a music video of the star singing, and it was weird. If this Ryūga's Japanese songs were playing in an English-speaking continent, then the star must be very popular. "Global, huh. Must be rich."
"Hideki is rich!" Misa chirped cheerfully, her eyes not leaving the screen.
Okay, now this was the part where he couldn't jump around the loop.
"Enough to own three hundred and sixty-five mansions, one for every day of the year?"
Misa was startled by the strange question. "What?" And she frowned. "Misa doesn't know." This was another habit that the girl picked up in order to make herself 'cuter'. ("Vain!" Mello laughed.) "But probably! If anyone can own that many mansions, then it's totally him!"
"Nobody can be rich enough for that," Sayu interjected, but she laughed and the other girl laughed.
"A year doesn't have three hundred sixty-five days." Mello interjected with his two cents, and he laughed too. (Matt felt hurt by this, but he laughed along.) "It has three hundred sixty-five point two five days. So you're gonna have to have point two five of a mansion too!"
That made absolutely no sense whatsoever, but nonsense was common ground while dealing with the blond. It was getting rare now though, since they were all growing up from the senseless kids they were. Matt still thought it was absolute bullshit.
"How do you have, like, point two five of a day?" Misa asked, perplexed.
"Instead, how do you have point two five of a mansion?" Sayu giggled.
There was a glint in the blond's eyes, and then his mouth twisted into a sneer. "Easy. I'll show you."
"Show?" Sayu looked sceptical.
And before anyone could blink, Mello dragged Matt away by the front of his shirt- very much like the day they became friends- and made a mad dash away from the house. He made some sort of excuse that didn't made sense (the girls stared at him weirdly) and cackled madly along the rest of the way. He said something about a secret base, eight-year-old kids' dreams, and plotting for the next greatest invention that the world would be seeing.
It turned out that there were many problems with logic that they would have to face in order to devise .25 of a mansion. The duo destroyed scraps of paper and argued more about what '.25 of a mansion' exactly meant than anything else.
Nevertheless, Matt thought that if he could have .25 of a mansion, as cool as that sounded, then maybe dreams weren't so hard to understand after all.
5. This other side of life.
Mello was losing all of his enemies. One would think it'd make him happier, but it only served to piss the blond further off.
Somewhere around the year when they were both fourteen, everyone they interacted with started to disappear. Near was acknowledged by some random person from a faraway prestigious college as a child prodigy (not Pidgey, Matt knew this now), and he was whisked off immediately after a few tests, expenses covered and all. Mello could have gone too, but he didn't leave a favourable impression when he out-rightly insulted Near in front of the interviewer. The Yagami family moved back to Tokyo, and Misa travelled with them, high on the notion of joining the entertainments industry. Several other kids who Mello received sadistic glee picking on was also packing for the big cities.
Everyone was leaving for the glorious high roads. Everyone was leaving for the future. Everyone was leaving for the city of sparkles and golds.
("Yeah. Well, we have the hay fields!" The blond argued angrily, and Matt just laughed.)
L moved too, but his reasons were null. It had something to do with cakes- there being not enough sweets to satisfy his daily quota of consumption, not enough variety to make him happy, and not enough sugar to sustain his sanity. Matt thought it was a fib, but the man looked dead serious. Mello, of course, wasn't pleased. He threw a huge tantrum and looked positively murderous.
"Mello, please." L said in his British accent. At least Matt could understand him now. A few years ago, he couldn't comprehend anything that came out of L's mouth. Mello naturally thought it was the coolest thing ever, and Matt suspect it may be a part of the reason why the blond worshipped him so much.
They never found out L's real name. An army of kids, drafted and lead by Mello, confronted him once, but to no avail. Rumours had it that Light was the first person to find out L's real name, but apparently the accomplishment took two years of so much effort that it seemed ridiculous. Rumours also said that a whole bunch of blackmailing, death threats, and bribery were involved. But then again, rumours even went as far as to say that L was a code name and that he was a secret agent sent here to collect information on government activities. Matt didn't really need L's confirmation to know that these rumours were all baseless bullshit.
("I may be British, but I am hardly James Bond." L sounded highly amused, which was amusing by itself since he hardly ever showed any emotion.)
"Is it because of Near and Light?" Mello spat. "They left, so you have no reason to stay anymore? Am I not good enough?"
It was almost like one of those shows that Sayu and Misa watched. Matt thought it looked like the dramatic scenes where the husband and the wife was about ready to go through divorce. There was shouting, certainly, and neither of them looked very cheerful. The older teenager kept sneaking sulky glances at the untouched chocolate cake and tea, abandoned by the side. He was itching for a quick escape.
It almost made Matt jealous, but he wasn't jealous because he didn't understand it at all.
L paused and regarded Mello with eyes, cold and aloof. "No, you are not." He said it in a way that ended the conversation.
It was like a slap on the face. The receiver of the blunt statement appeared stricken at first, then slowly the boy shook. He clenched his teeth, and hands gripped in a fist. Mouth opened to speak, but closed midway. He whirled around in a flash of blond hair and vanished behind the slammed door.
The rest was awkward silent, where Matt could no longer pretend he was reading a book ("Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Scarlet – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle", the title read) that he took from L's vast collection. Continue pretending to be oblivious wouldn't work well.
Damn. He wished he had his games with him.
The other person broke the silence first.
"I apologize. What I said was," L paused, sounding slightly guilty for once. "Rude. Even if I am known to be too direct and tactless when in a social situation, it's inexcusable behaviour on my part. I did not meant for Mello to get hurt. Please pass my apologies onto him."
"Don't worry," the boy chuckled awkwardly. "Will do."
The older of the two nodded, a ghost of a sad smile on his mouth. "Thank you, Matt. Perhaps it's in your best interest to go comfort your friend now. I was somewhat too harsh on him." He took one last reproachful glance at the delicious confectionery and handed it to the other boy. "And take this with you, please."
"That will definitely cheer him up. Mello loves chocolate," he laughed, except nothing was funny and he didn't understand anything.
(Or perhaps he did; he understood it all too well.)
"Good bye, Matt."
"Bye, L."
Matt took the cake and left, but he didn't find the recipient of the gift until the next day when L had already left for the roads. When he presented the confectionery to Mello the next day, it was no longer clad in the beautiful gold-rimmed British plate that came with L's expensive tea set. He gave the chocolate cake on a cheap plastic plate to the desolated blond, only offering an utterance of: "Cheer up." He didn't explain who it was from either. The other slowly chewed on the cake and didn't ask.
Matt hid the disgustingly beautiful plate under his bed and secretly loathed it. Sometimes the boy would take it out, look at it, and see another side of life.
This other side of life- so beautiful and ugly, full of lies and deceits which he loved and loathed- was very much like that intricate gold-rimmed and paradoxical mirror of a British plate, a concoction of sickly sweet and bitterness that made him want to puke.
This other side of life that Matt had seen for and because of Mello- he couldn't decide whether he like it or not.
...
Mello started to act different afterwards- colder, disillusioned, and his eyes were dull and empty where the glow of ambition should have been- but Matt ignored it. People couldn't change, and certainly not due to what he had done- or rather, what he didn't do. This one little act of deceit, never known to anyone else, would not change anything. What one didn't know could not hurt.
And then, the blond just suddenly stopped believing. Except it wasn't sudden, since Matt watched it happen over the span of a month. Instead, it was sudden because he suddenly had to accept it.
When the dark-haired boy saw Mello hanging around with a group of dark and meaner teenagers- laughing cruelly and jeering at everything the blond had once believed and once taught him, drugging themselves half dead and committing arson without a cause- Matt thought of this other side of life.
Sometimes the boy would take the gold-rimmed plate out again, and he would look at the reflection. He would look at the pretty abstract lights.
He would look at this other side of life.
The gift was cruel, even if the sender would never realize it.
(And in the end, they never really found out L's real name.)
6. People change.
I don't consider myself a guy of moral and I don't consider myself a guy of immoral because I'm amoral -if that makes any sense- and amoral isn't a form of moral. If darkness is the lack of light and darkness isn't a form of light, then amoral is the lack of moral and amoral isn't a form of moral.
But anyway. I am amoral. Amoral is me. Something. Something.
And perhaps that's why when one day Mello suddenly shows up at my house, not having talked to me for months and asks me to help him bomb this place, I agree to it.
It doesn't have to do with the tiny little flare of blue childish determination that I haven't seen for a long time. It doesn't have to do with the fact that this time there isn't any hint of lie in his words. There's that concept of 'self' though- because there has always been. I just haven't understood selfishness back then. (Being a kid generally does that to you.) It doesn't have to do with the utter nonsensical action that I haven't seen coming from him for a while because I hate nonsense. It doesn't have to do with Mello, because I hate him too, so I contribute it to my lack of moral. He hasn't been coming up with much for a year or two, and blowing a place up sounds like something interesting for once.
Amoral is me.
He doesn't say the reason. Nowadays he never talks to me if he's not ranting about my stupidity, other people's stupidity, the world's stupidity, or his own so-very-selfish brilliance. I never ask why. It's not out of fears that he'll have some logical explanation for the most nonsensical action he has done for a while. It's because I'm lazy, callously indifferent, and so-damn-selfish that I can't ask.
It's pretty clear exactly what this place is, especially since one of Mello's buddy with six piercings and a mean scar greets us at the entrance.
("Who's this scum-fuck?" The man spits the words out. His breaths reeks of smoke and other substances.
"He's a nobody. Beat it, Rod. The fucker's here to fix our crappy electricity," Mello says.
Rod still looks dubious, but he shakes his head. "Whatever man. Yer the boss. Be yer fault if 'e fucking elevates our hideout.")
So we stand side by side, cooperating with an efficiency and ease that hasn't happened since we're fourteen, and we're sixteen now. Neither of us says anything. Neither of us asks the other how we both know how to deal with explosive. I have a good guess on my part, and it has something to do with those new buddies of Mello's; they hardly look like the best of people. For me, internet is my source of education and salvation. All information is free on the webs. Unauthorized or illegal cracking required or not, free stuff is still free.
We set up the explosives and the detonators, and I don't ask how he has gotten his hands on them either. Mello leaves me on my own during the parts with the remote and all the wires. He never likes technology, but he trusts me. The people inside here ignores me, and I look at the floor. There are red blots, powders, and liquids that I don't want to think about on the floor, so I concentrate on my task instead.
When we're all done, Mello kicks me out of the hideout. I want to watch the drama (because this is Mello, and Mello must always have the famous last words), but he gives me a restraining order of staying ten feet away.
I don't comply, of course, and sit down a short distance away to eavesdrop. Mello's standing on the sill of the open window like a pedestal, basking in the sunlight that makes him look glorious and ethereal with a golden halo glowing behind him. His gang looks at him as if he's insane. His gang looks at him as if he's grown six extra heads.
His gang looks at him as if he's the fucking antichrist.
Mello then begins laughing like a madman and talking about ambitions, dreams, .25 of a mansion, seven-headed hydras, mythical creatures, fluorescent skies, bolt from the pink or blue striking cattle dead, city of sparkles and golds, hay fields, this other side of life, forgotten things, things unforgotten, things thought to be forgotten but is not, and about so many damn things that doesn't even make an ounce of sense, and everyone's looking at him- looking at him as if he's fucking insane.
"I'll kill everyone who gets in my way. I'll be number one," he says and laughs. It's esoteric because nobody understands what he's talking about.
The blond has the remote controller in his palm. Detonation is just a click away.
"All that is lying are not dead. Remember that, bastards." He sounds smug- and so very sadistic and cruel and everyone looks at him as if he's crazy and a seven-headed hydra and the fucking antichrist and a world of nonsense that actually makes sense and a genius and a madman and, and, and, and a thousand words of 'and',and maybe he is insane.
"Good bye, mother fuckers!"
Because rather than jumping out of the open window, he detonates the bombs with he himself still inside.
...
I call our local police station.
...
They're all hospitalized with various degree of burns, but nobody has died. Everyone's surprised because the police has evidence that the bombs are all first-rate. Mello's covered with scars and burns, but he's still alive and I don't visit him.
"Why? Why, why, why, Matt, why the fuck, why?" He asks me during the short period where he's out, soon to be transferred to a juvenile prison in a bigger city- the city of sparkles and golds.
Mello's stupid. He has made a grave mistake. He has trusted me with his plans and left me alone without surveillance. He has thought I didn't know.
He has underestimated me.
Because Mail is no seven-headed hydra. Mail is a realist and not a romanticist. Matt understands this bizarre thing called a 'dream', and Mail doesn't. Matt won't betray Mello other than a simple mistake of a deceit. Mail would. Matt has earned his trust. Mail betrays it. Matt is his best friend, but Mail is a back-stabber and Mail is not Matt. He still calls me Matt. But I'm still the apathetic, pathetic, and callously indifferent boy who cares about nothing, and Mello is wrong.
I don't answer him. Instead, I lit myself a cigarette. I don't even watch as they take him away. I don't grief either- because I'm supposed to be apathetic, pathetic, callously indifferent, and the boy who cares about nothing. Amoral is me, and people don't change. I think it's funny- only it isn't because there isn't anything funny in this situation and I don't understand a single fucking thing, and that just makes it funnier. The sky is blue (so damn blue, a fucking world of blue, why the hell is it so damn blue?), the sun shines brightly, and it's too damn good of a day to feel depressed.
People don't change, except they do because Mello has changed. He's tried to kill himself.
So maybe one day, I can change as well. But not today- the weather is just too good for anything else.
Amoral is me.
I exhale the smoke, watching it twirl and disappear into the vast blue, and never pink, sky.
END.
...
...
...
7. And maybe just a little something else too.
Maybe some day in the future they will meet again in the city of sparkles and golds, at a convention where aliens and UFOs are said to be last sighted at. The sky might turn fluorescent pink or maybe it'll just stay blue, and somewhere, somehow, cattle gets struck dead by a lightning bolt in a clear sky. It's nonsense that makes sense.
One of them will be called Matt Jeevas and the other Mello Keehl because they never really use their old names anyway.
Matt will be wearing the oddest outfits- black and white stripes for shirt, baggy jeans, and a jacket that makes him stand out- and everyone will look at him weirdly as if he's a seven-headed hydra. He will dye his hair red, and he will wear orange goggles because someone once told him that 'the eyes are the window to the soul' and he believes the person. He will be smoking a cigarette and playing games because they're a part of him that he hasn't forgotten.
Mello will be wearing leather and a bright red coat. Everyone will cower under his glare and his blue eyes that shines with a reborn blue flame of determination. His blond hair will be messy, and everyone will think he's in the mafia from his confidence and the way he walks. The angry scars from the past will still remain, marring his face and morphs into himself. He will be biting and snapping chocolate bars, glaring at anyone and everyone who opposes him, and making idle remarks of nonsense that somehow makes sense.
And they will be together- a pair of seven-headed hydras that everyone looks weirdly upon, and a combination of nonsense that actually makes sense.
Maybe in the future, they will leave the city of sparkles and golds and move to a small town. It will be tiny and scarce in population- the type that miraculously disappears on the world map and Matt and Mello will both say 'coolio' to the magic trick. They will invent .25 of a mansion, as cool as that sounds, and live there. They'll both get into heaps of trouble sky-high (because it's always guilty by association with Matt), and they'll talk about supernaturals, monsters, magic, and ghost.
Mello will go, and like always, Matt will follow after.
Maybe they'll open the television one day and see the music video of the latest rising star, Misa Amane, being broadcasted on a random channel. They'll hear about a new detective that's confusing and outdoing everyone policemen, whom only goes by the single letter 'L'. With luck, they'll learn of an albino child prodigy (and not Pidgey) in England who beats everyone at chess or the youngest police chief in Japan. The television will show every other brilliance the city of sparkles and golds has to offer, but then Mello'll just turn it off in a haughty manner.
"Yeah. Well, we have the hay fields." The blond will say, and Matt will just laugh.
A/N: I feel depressed for writing such a happy ending. First contribution to the Death Note fandom, and I'm already jumping on the bandwagon of making Alice in Wonderland references. Damn.
Regardless, the inspiration for this fic came from the quote: "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." from Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll / Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.
Some captions:
The references that Mello made are of creatures from German folklore. Since adding the parallel with L, B, and the doppelgänger is absolutely irresistible, I want to keep it consistent. The doppelgänger is like a double of a person, typically thought to be evil and/or bad luck. The Erlkönig, to translate it to English, is the Erlking. Basically, it's a character depicted in poems and ballads as an evil creature that resides in forests and kills travellers. The Osterhase is the Easter Hare, the original Easter Bunny. See? I totally did my research. (Lies.)
Penny for your thoughts? ;] Reviews, criticisms, suggestions, etc are all welcomed and much appreciated. Thanks for reading.