"This place stole my identity," he says, daring the sky to answer him. To convince him of otherwise. Only silence reaches him.
Bare feet on the roof-top ledge, the boy is biting his lip and judging the distance from where he stands and the ground far, far below. He knows contemplating suicide at his age is so very disappointing and in the end decides against the foolishness of ending his own life. 'Matt' takes a step backward onto the roof's gravel surface. He sighs, exhaling hard. Next time, I'm gonna be just a little more brave.
Next time.
As a nameless orphan, he arrives at Wammy's House with no personal items. Nothing. You must have simply fallen out of the sky, old chap, says the amiable man who takes him away from the children's hospital in Blackpool. And maybe he is right. Since arriving, since being named 'Matt', the little boy tries to remember a life before all this—a time when he was someone's son. But there is a dark void that greets him and so he frustrates over this unsolvable puzzle.
Who am I?
When he is first introduced to his roommate 'Matt' stands quietly in the corridor, waiting to be acknowledged. His mouth forms a stiff line, small arms pinning themselves to his side in a soldier's poise. The other boy is hunched over a desk, writing quickly. He doesn't look up even when Mr. Wammy coughs.
"Mello, son," the old man says, "I would like you to meet your new roommate."
His head jerks upward, swiveling to look at the two other occupants as though just now discovering their presence. He cocks one eye at Matt and there is a streak of annoyance in his expression. He snarls, shaking a head of platinum blond hair as he turns back to his work, "he better stay out of my way."
Mr. Wammy winces subtly but tries to force a smile when he looks down at Matt, patting him on the head. "It'll be alright Matt, won't it?" When he leaves, he shuts the door behind him leaving Matt to the company of this very wretched boy.
With time, he grows to tolerate Mello's mood-swings as he would a change in weather. When the boy begins to scream, Matt turns on the walk-man he had stolen from another child. On a few occasions though, he was thrown out of his own room. According to the offended party, he was 'breathing too hard and making it difficult for Mello to think.'
On most days, Matt didn't hate him. On most days.
Matt can sense danger, he feels it like a spark igniting in the deep tissues of his cerebral cortex—expanding with the heat of electric-fire chemistry. Some call it intuition. Matt, disposed of apathy towards sentimental foresight and the concept of predestination, routinely ignores it.
Only in unusual situations does he heed this feeling. Only when Mello proposes such a reckless idea, so unfathomable, does Matt's inner mechanisms begin to churn. An inner alarm system sending in the National Guard. Only when the sensation occurs right after Mello announces their newest plans, does Matt show any sign of squirming.
It wasn't really a proposition, at least not technically. Mello doesn't ask him if he wants to go along, because that is the type of asshole he is. He just expects me to go along with everything. Like Stimpy to his bald and twitchy Ren. Let's go wage wars against supernatural terrorists is what he's saying. Except he doesn't that because they both know it would sound lame and too much like a script from some C+ action flick.
"It's suicide," Matt says, smoking a cigarette. One after another, he loses track and seems slightly surprised by the full ash tray in front of him.
Mello laughs and the sound echoes deep in throat. Matt doesn't know what's so funny and pauses, waiting for the punch line. And then he realizes, I am the punch line.
He runs a hand through his blonde hair, pushing blond strands away from his eyes, a flash of marred skin. 'Battle wounds' is what he tells Matt. But what he's really saying is: now I've got scars to tell the world that I'm a fucking fighter. Jeez M, it's always been this way. You have always lived like there was a gun to your head, a mob trying to break your legs. You've always had the scars, man. Long before now.
"Think of this as a video game. An all or nothing shot when you've got only one life left," Mello eventually says, leaning forward with an animated zeal. Absently he slams a gloved hand against the table to make his point. Matt gets it. But on the other side, he's sitting stiffly. He's feeling the pull of Mello's words, the proverbial game of Russian Roulette, but Matt tries to appear indifferent.
Why do you do this Mello? Step out of my life for three months and then reappear—expecting me to leap head long into danger like some kind of circus animal. Matt crosses his arms twice, taps his foot rapidly on the floor, fidgeting with the zipper of his vest while he collects his thoughts. Matt raises his gaze, leveling it with Mello in steady contemplation. He wants to ask Mello why he really decided to come back, but is secretly afraid of what kind of answer he will get. It's because you've burned your bridges with everyone else. I'm the bottom of the barrel.
This annoys Matt and he's almost ready to tell Mello off like he's always wished too but then it passes. Like it always does when he wants to lash out, retaliate. Everything seems insignificant to Matt, and he hates this about himself. He knows it's the only reason he succumbs to Mello's piecing relentless gaze and agrees to help.
That and, what he doesn't tell Mello, is that he wants to get the hell out of Chicago. He gets sick of these trendy hackers and their fucking $100 shoes. Pale punks knocking on his apartment door, asking for tips. He hates the ten-year-old freaks that enter his computer repair shop wanting free parts. Yesterday he almost punched one.
Mello would have almost been proud.
Matt stands up, with the intent to pace. He's already breaking down the firewalls of his hesitation, formulating plans of how they are going to move forward. "Okay, Mello," he's mumbling aloud. "Okay, okay, okay."
Because in the end, everything is insignificant, Matt realizes—even his own life.