There is a constant trickle. It is outside, trailing down the windows and it is here, pooling at the place where my elbow meets the kitchen bench. Perhaps the blood ought to be staunched. Light certainly thought so; the fuss he made. But when endorphins were scarcely available, this is the only measure to allow me reprieve from my unrest. Granted, a rather martyred measure to take, but nevertheless, it is effective and sometimes allows me decent sleep.
I let out a sigh that ghosts my wounded arm pleasantly. The sugar was never quite enough to stem the venom that crawls back up my throat after labouring through cruel cases like the Kira case. A blade or two must accompany me on nights like this; nights when the darkness bears down on my back too harshly; nights when I couldn't possibly lay my head down without that bell chiming inside my head. May that bell be damned for the anguish it gives me.
It was last week that Light found this mess. The reality of knowing reality. And how endearing it was to find concern for me in his cold heart. Such a strange sentiment. Why might a murderer of thousands care for a few hours of blood crusted to my arms? Why might he wipe them clean so tenderly? In viewing the situation in a metaphorical light, I might say that the spilt blood was the pain I had torn from myself. And yet there he was – my one true rival and undoubtedly, at least 65% of the reason I needed this release – cleaning and dressing the cuts I had made to my skin.
Now, I ponder, where might Light be at this early hour? I imagine his journey in the city's waking light. A cappuccino from the next block will satisfy him once he reaches his desk. Do you want your change, mister? But he just continues on, head ducked from the misting rain. The homeless woman on the Seventh Avenue will rattle her jar at his knees but he will ignore her again. The rain becomes a little lighter. The incandescence of the beams of light hitting the millions of falling water droplets created quite a scene. A wonder, it is.
And I can also see it. The spread of glass walls provided the perfect cinematic view. If only Light were here to see it. Could I see his path through the Tokyo cityscape from the tenth storey?
The door clicks open, and with bags in hand, Light steps forward. I suspect that he knew it before he saw the blood – though I haven't turned around, only assessed the situation by sound. Would he expect this again? I question myself. But then, why might it matter?
He is at my side, shifting my arm slightly so he can assess the damage I have done. How proactive of him. This is already eerily similar to the incident that transpired a week previous. Still, my eyes remain on the golden scenery outside. His voice isn't really there, I know it. Neither is that bell.
"L, please," he murmurs.
Jolting up, I notice his gentle fingers prying my chosen inflictor – a pocket knife I once received as a gift from Watari – from my clenched hand. My surprise makes his brow fall further. I open my stiffened hand for him and let my eyes glaze. Light is dropping the blade into the sink, collecting medical supplies.
Once again, I am vaguely startled to see this benevolent side of Light. I know this isn't part of his act; this is true and real and Light. I can see the person I spent months chained to, which only leads me to wonder, where did Kira go?
"Kira..." I mutter with weak intent. Light is unaffected, though I am certain he heard me. A diluted frustration filters through me. The storm is coming and Light is dabbing at my cuts. Only the bittersweet sting of alcohol draws my eyes to Light's face. And what do I find there but despair?
I do not speak and neither does the rain; this silence hanging over us unduly, except – of course – for the faintest toll of the bell. Light knows he's under scrutiny but he cannot prevent the tell-tale twitch of his lips as he works. I could almost smile. I can see Light.
Mask firmly back in place, Light briefly meets my gaze. "You shouldn't need me to take care of you, why…" He pauses and swallows, a little uncomfortable. Most unlike Light, even less like Kira. It doesn't matter; it's nothing that I am particularly concerned with replying to.
Light pauses in his ministrations and looks as though he intends to speak again. I interrupt as I see him formulating questions to ask me.
"Light-kun wishes to understand my actions."
He responds with only a curt nod, eyes fixed and searing into my arm.
"A depression consumes me, Light-kun. Not of the clinical kind, but a result of –" I cut myself off and leave the obvious sentiment unsaid. The Kira case – you.
His jaw clenches a little and I know he says to himself that I am wounding myself for his sake. I will not incarcerate him without sufficient evidence to have Kira executed. And for this, I kill myself in Kira's place. Oh, a martyr would be proud.
So Light sits back, eyes drifting to the cityscape and begins to speak.
"I won't say that I understand you. Even as your intellect matches mine, I can't seem to place the real L. What are you beneath your mask? Certainly not Ryuuzaki and not L. I just can't –" he shakes his head. "For so long you've created a confirmation bias against me and it's destroyed you. You don't live; you don't even really know life. I can see it. You've lost yourself. Your morals have left you. Your justifications have weakened beyond the world's grasp.
"Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad;
And even with such-like valour men hang and drown
Their proper selves.
You've become a nihilist."
And he stood. And he looked at me.
"So why? Why do you live? Why bother with humanity without a sense of morality?!" And speech turned to sour whispers. "Why don't you kill me?! Why bother with this mutilation when you could browse a million ways to die in an instant? You're so far gone; you don't even know you're still alive!"
I regarded Light's gritting figure for only a moment before drawing a second pocketknife from my pocket and holding it out for him.
"It seems that Light-kun does indeed understand me."
There is an inadequacy. It resides within only two bodies that I am aware of. Light is one of those bodies and I am the other. Only a heaven could fix us and only a mutation of us could ever survive this Earth. Perhaps that is why we sleep.
Light's body curves around mine as though we could ever be closer and he breathes a rhythm of sleep into my neck. Uncomfortable as I am in the arms of another, the warmth is settling and tells me to concede. And so it goes.
"Whatever Light-kun wants me to be, I will not be if I am not already."
Light isn't impressed by a sage; a sneer is his reply.
"What I am saying, is that Light-kun cannot diagnose me and he cannot prescribe me and –"
"I won't try to fix you, L."
I quirk my head and place my tea down. "What does Light-kun intend, then?"
The headline story of Ukraine's ongoing conflicts with Russia is no longer of interest to him. With a hard-pressed sigh, Light is flipping the paper closed and tossing it aside. A story unfolds between two pairs of dead eyes. Light's say, I don't understand you. Mine say, you understand me. And for a forever, we sit in the graveyard of humanity until one of us walks away. This time, I stay. He leaves.
Light left yesterday too. I note that conversing with him will become tiresome if punctuated with continued absences, though it does show a tear in his resolve. In time, the mask of Kira may peel away from Light. Only, not so soon.
And yet he came back. Why does he bother about me? And again, why might it matter?
It is another forever before Light's return. And there is a forever of silence. His eyes mourn me, tearing themselves apart in my stead. Round and round the blade passes between our gazes.
"I still don't understand you, L."
It strikes me that the use of my formal alias has become common-spoken for Light. "Light is not referring to me as Ryuuzaki."
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don't like aliases."
"So Light-kun chooses the more obvious alias over Ryuuzaki?"
Light appears unsure of himself as he sits tensely on the couch with his back to me. Is it worth asking him how he knows my true name? it may be unfortunate for the both of us.
He hunches over his knees. "It's obvious isn't it?" And suddenly, Light is not Kira.
"Do you have the eyes or have you used Misa's?"
He ignores me and recites, "2-5-4-3-7-2 on the day I met you. 2-4-7-8-6-5 a fortnight ago." A pause. "3-5-2-0 now."
My life. He is talking about my life. What a shame. And here chimes the bell and here lays the dead, already embalmed and 6 feet beneath the ground. Light will mourn once again and Kira will fall silent until he can no longer see my eyes.
"What is the formula?"
Silence follows suit. I could work the formula myself but I sense a vague cue to approach Light. So I do and Light's figure becomes taut at my approach. Revelling in his proximity, I sit. I wait. I shift.
"Did you hear anything I've said?" burst from Light.
"I know that I will die. It might be an unfortunate event considering my proximity of the end of the Kira Case but it will not bother me once I am dead. I will die and I will be dead."
"L Lawliet, I am Kira."
"Thank you, Light-kun."
I wait again. Light does not understand me, but he understands me and for this I am reassured. Light is not only Kira and I am not only L.
It has hardly been six hours before:
"I am Kira."
"Yes, Light-kun."
"Your numbers are 2-7-8-5."
"Yes, Light-kun."
And finally he whispers against my neck, "I don't want you to die."
Oh.
I shudder and drift away.
The blood is trickling again. And I watch as Light slices. He doesn't stop when I settle against him; he stops when I kiss him. And our lips are parted and my hands are against his chest and here come the bells. The bells ring and Light tongues the inside of my lip. He's pulling me away to the graveyard again with his touches and the friction of hips. Why do we always go there? I wonder.
Blood stains us and in turn, we have stained the blood with our ripe humanity, moving about in its liquidity. The bells chime a scream over all else and why might it matter?
A mess of heat and saliva, our mouths can't be anything but together. Everything is skin, shimmering in a reflection of our desires. Eye to eye and locked in legs, we are nothing anymore. There is no Kira and there has never been an L and Ryuuzaki is false and Hideki Ryuga is famous. I shudder and the bells chime against my skin now.
It is slowly, slowly, gently creeping around me. Light is screaming but he's not. He's just kissing. And I scream but I don't. I am screaming and screaming, breathing is secondary for precious few moments.
Everything is changing and the bells are gone.
A crust is wiped from my eyes, and I don't hear the bells and I don't hear the trickle. Light is here and he whispers into my neck.
"3-6-4-2-5-7-2, L... 3-6-4-2-5-7-2, 3-6-4-2-5-7-2…" And so on and so on.
Am I immortal?
I wonder what this place is. It is my apartment but it is not, just as I am not L and Light is not Kira and none of us are really who we say we are.
"Don't."
"What is it that Light-kun wishes me not to do?"
"Just stop."
I don't reply this time because I've already died too many times to care. The bells chime about me amongst every minute and every second. They are all the same. And every healing cut is slashed open the same too.
Light's breath comes too heavy. It stifles the room with its overbearing noise and forces the bells into a faster rhythm. His teeth are shattering as his icy mouth traps a cold reply before it snaps L's own ice heart.
"I want to," he says.
I finally turn to him, curling my mouth into the hint of smile. And the bells chime more softly to allow me this moment. The gun changes hands. And I turn back to the wall of windows that have so encapsulated me these past weeks with their haunting display of storms brewing above and below.
The safety click back on.
"Only if you return the favour."
Oh.
How perfect, Light.
It becomes tedious to live with an expiry date. Light understands this. And Light breathes steady now, his breath barely teases a toll from the bells as he lunges. A slash this way and that leaves a gash in us both. And again we can tease the red from each other. So we relish in the opportunity, carving and jumping about in our last adrenaline. It is not a pity to ruin this body as such before it finishes, it is an honour. An honour to cut away at the instigator of those bells and to be cut away at in return. We will no longer walk about the graveyard of our minds but lie in it and bask in the nothingness of death that each of us crave.
Too far, the blade cuts – the second one – and I stagger, my own knife loose in my hand. Light knows it's over now.
So gently he can manoeuvre me to lay on the floor. The death that once filled Light's eyes has receded for the sake of a single moment where he can crouch over me for his own death.
I line my blade up with the base of his throat and he with my right breast.
The lingering of dead eyes ends with the gentle touch of lips and a brute force that engulfs me in warmth. And agony is nothing. The convulsing and chokes are muted by the bells and they clamour about us as we leave. No forever can trap us. We are retroceding into the darkness that we know must be a sanctuary. There is no way it could not be.
And finally we have left. But then, why might it matter?