Author: shirosunday
Pairing: LxLight
Rating: T … shounen-ai/yaoi implications… ONLY implications
Title: The Nothingness
Summary: Light is in Mu… watching his life, every moment good or bad as reward or punishment. Then L pops up from nowhere! And he remembers Light killed him… Isn't reliving that moment over and over again enough? Why does he have to face him again?!
Author's Note:
Thanks for the reviews from my last fic! I'm so glad people found it convincing! Haha I blush at the thought! And last time I checked I got around 400 hits and 2 faved it! Yehey!
Anyhoo… this is my second fic… it's a little serious compared to the other one. The premise more or less explains how I came to this. It's been nagging at my brain for a while… of course, I'm not expecting everyone to agree with my version… and there may just be holes in the plot… but then I thought it'd be interesting to write something like this, so if there's anything you'd like to say and if there are any more mistakes… please just review. Again thanks for those who reviewed me before! Love y'all!
Please take note: this is NOT Yaoi… well not explicitly so like the last one… :)
Sunday
Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN DEATH NOTE, but I worship Ohba- and Obata-sensei!
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Premise: 'There is no heaven or hell. When you die, you will go to the same place. Death is equal" – Ryuk
This is what Ryuk said in the manga translation… some fics say that only death note users go to mu, but please indulge me in this one. Let's just say that everyone goes to Mu and Mu is… well, you'll see…
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Light watched as images of his life played before him like a movie… or rather like many, many flat paper-thin TV screens showing different channels at the same time. They hung on a back drop of stark whiteness, some larger than others, some small as if they were far away; some straight, some askew, some upside-down… They were jumbled about, drifting along, surrounding Light like cherry blossom petals falling during spring in slow motion.
Light leaned back on his palms, stretching his legs in front of him, his expression unreadable. He had his attention on one particular frame at the moment where he saw a piece of paper with little circles in rows with numbers before them. A booklet was to the left and he saw a hand flipping the pages. He remembered feeling quite bored at that time. The right hand just to the corner was about to get the freshly sharpened pencil to when he heard a voice from out of the frame suddenly say: 'Student 162! Please sit properly!' The vision then scanned past rows of heads bowed and stopped at a particularly black head of hair sticking out to every which way. Large dark eyes looked directly at him from the 'screen' and again he remembered thinking, 'what a sloppy-looking kid.'
"That was when we first met," a voice behind him said.
Light thought it was just one of the many memories drifting near his ear, making him hear the comment, and out of curiosity as to which memory it was, he turned his head to the source and came face to face with the same black eyes he had just been looking at. Light blinked.
"Hello, Light-kun."
"Uwaaaa!!" Light exclaimed as he jumped and crawled backwards to distance himself out of surprise.
The figure was crouching down on the ground, still looking at him with the same black expression with its head tilted to one side. "Did I scare you?" it asked.
"R…Ryu…Ryuuzaki?!" Light stammered.
The figure nodded, acknowledging the name and calmly straightened up and walked towards the trembling man. He reached out his hand indicating Light should take it and stand up from his undignified position on the ground. Light stared at it, then looked up where the eyes widened a little as if to say, 'well, what are you waiting for?'
Although hesitant, Light grasped the hand as it hauled him up and soon black eyes met golden brown ones… as it had many, many times before.
"Ryuuzaki?" Light breathed.
"I believe we have already established that yes, I am Ryuuzaki, Light-kun."
"But… B-But how? What are you doing here?!"
L shrugged and released Light's hand from his grip. "I guess we were watching the same memory."
"Sorry…?"
L turned back and faced the same 'screen' that Light had been watching mere seconds ago. It was now repeating the same story all over again.
"I was watching the same thing on my side… the day we first met…" L murmured, almost to himself.
Light turned and looked at the same 'screen' which was now slowly floating sideways to the their left. "Your side?"
L cocked his back and looked at Light, pursing his lips and rolling his eyes up a bit. "hmm… I found that if you have the same memory as someone and both of you were thinking or rather watching the same
thing at the same time, somehow the two of you would meet each other on either one of your planes. Watari ended up in mine a couple of times before."
Light's brow furrowed. "Planes?"
"Has being here for too long impaired your reasoning skills, Light-kun, that you parrot everything I say?"
Light scoffed. Even in death L could still annoy him. Damn the bastard to hell… but then… "Like I said to Ryuk before, there is no heaven or hell. So I'm guessing everyone ends up in the same place, relatively speaking."
L nodded quietly.
"When you say on 'watching the same memory on your side' and 'planes,' this leads me to conclude that everyone is condemned to the same fate as I am – to relive your life and you can't do anything about it. All the memories. You have to relive them all here. There is no escape."
"Correct."
"So the afterlife is basically heaven or hell depending on the person. I could see all the good things in my life and watch them like old home movies… or see all the humiliations and failures and grind myself to the ground with regret."
"Good."
"Which means… you remember…"
". . . ?"
A memory looms over the two figures where a teaspoon clinks to the ground as a crash, thump and shuffling follow. A shout. "Ryuuzaki!?"
"Don't you want to kill me for what I did to you?"
"What would be the point? You are already dead."
"Aren't you angry at me?! YOU SHOULD WANT TO FUCKING CHOP MY HEAD OFF RIGHT NOW?!" Light screamed.
"… It was the game. I lost to Kira. I admit defeat." A ghost of a smile appears. "Amazing how death could humble us and make us mature… Anyway, I had my… back up plan, so I did win in a small way."
"But I killed you, Ryuuzaki!"
L stared into Light's wide imploring eyes. ". . . Did you really kill me, Light-kun?"
The memory of Ryuuzaki's death slowly drifts away over their heads…
Light is speechless. Confused…
"Because as I see it, it was Kira who killed me, not you."
"But… I AM Kira…"
"You WERE Kira," L corrected. "Do you really see yourself as Kira now?"
"I…"
"Right now, you are Light-kun," L began as he walked forward, reaching out his hand to cup Light's cheek. "The same Light-kun who I chained to myself and punched me and kicked me because he was frustrated that I thought he was Kira when he was convinced he was not."
Light was frozen. What was Ryuuzaki saying?!
"You are the Light-kun that kept insisting on me being a pervert, but was the first one to even kiss me."
"Wha..?!" Light stiffened.
"Do you rememeber that?"
A memory drifts along…
(Punch. Scuffle. Kick. Grab. Twist. Fall.Thud. Kiss… staring into wide black eyes… tick tock tick tock…
Scramble! clink clink clink.
Heavy breathing.
"Light-kun kissed me." Blink. Blink.
"Wha..?! It was an accident Ryuuzaki!")
"You are the Light-kun that I held when we first slept together."
Another memory drifts along…
("Ah Ryuuzaki!"
"Hush Light-kun… the pain will be over in a moment."
"Ah!")
"You are the Light-kun that always smiled at me when he woke up."
(Blink. Look around. L's face watching him from closely. He could see himself reflected in L's eyes. He sighed and smiled. 'Good morning Ryuuzaki' L's face moves closer and the vision goes dark. He was being kissed. The vision clears up again. 'Good morning, Light-kun.")
"You are the Light-kun who was always there for me. Fought with me. Argued with me. Laughed with me. Held me… Aren't you? Do you remember?"
Light's limp hands twitched at his sides and slowly one came up and took L's hand, cupping it. Without taking his eyes off Ryuuzaki's, he turned his head and kissed the pale palm and quietly whispered, 'yes…'
L then smiled gathered Light into his arms.
'I'm sorry…' Light whispered into L's neck.
'Hush… I'm just glad to see you again…'
Light nodded without raising his head, indicating that he felt the same way.
…………………………..
"I have to ask…" L finally muttered into Light's auburn hair. "Where is Kira now?"
Light pulled away from the embrace slightly to look at L's face. He then cocked his head to the far corner of the whiteness, where memories of a writing in a notebook, blood, shinigami's, guns, mafia, SPK… kept playing quietly. All huddled together as if they were magnetized to one another.
"It's safe to say that I was still insane when I first came here…"
L tightened his hold.
"But as my memories kept playing and replaying over and over… somehow I realized what I had done and… Kira… I didn't want to be Kira anymore." Light bowed his head and leaned on L's shoulder.
"When I.. When Kira killed you. That was the point of no return. When I … allowed myself to kill you… I truly became Kira. So… all the memories I had after that point is kept there in the corner. I don't know why. Perhaps it's because they're Kira's memories more than my own. I still watch some of the memories I had of Kira before… you died. I guess I still had some sense of myself then. In any case though… It cannot be denied. I AM KIRA. I chose to be Kira. I deserved what happened to me…"
L's hands came upon Light's shoulders and pulled him away so they could face each other.
"Light-kun..." L began.
Light hesitated, but eventually looked up and saw L smiling softly at him.
"It doesn't matter who you were now. You are Light-kun… and I daresay, MY Light-kun. Even if you were Kira, it doesn't really matter now. To me, Kira is a different person and you believe so as well. Maybe he is your dark side, your opposite, your other self. But the point is, the real you is the one standing on front of me now. And because we are dead, that fact is not really relevant either… except to me… I'm glad to have you back, Light… even if it is rather late."
Light smiled slightly. "I really did miss you."
…………………………..
"How long can you stay?" Light asked as they held each other as they lay on the floor.
L rolled his eyes and thought a bit. "I'm not sure… there isn't really a sense of time here, but when Watari ended up in my plane we talked for a long while before he disappeared."
"Are you just going to suddenly… vanish?"
"Hmm… I think I'd know before it happens… Watari mentioned that he felt a pulling sensation when he left the first time and he was able to tell when he was going the second."
"Oh… I wish you could stay forever. It gets a little lonely here."
L smiled. "I'm sure we'll see each other again soon."
Light smiled as well and was quiet for a while, then he said, "Ryuuzaki, do you believe in reincarnation?"
"hmm?"
"It's just that… are we really to stay here in Mu for all eternity?"
". . . I don't know. . . But right now, I really want to stay as myself. As L and not be anyone else. Why Light-kun, do you regret living that much?"
"I just wish I wasn't Kira"
L was quiet for a while, gathering his thoughts. "But had you not been Kira, we never would have met."
"I beg to differ. We definitely would have met."
"You sound sure of yourself."
"I am."
"Enlighten me."
"Had I not been Kira, I would've gone off to a career in the police, probably ending up as a detective like you. Eventually I'll find out about you or you'll find out about me. either way, we'll know about each other sooner or later and we'd be curious about each other considering that I'll end up being the best in the force here and you'd be 'L'. Maybe we'd work together in a case or we'd compete for one... one way or another, I KNOW that'd we'd eventually meet each other."
"That sounds a little arrogant doesn't it - Ending up as the best in the force?"
"Do you doubt it?"
". . . No. it's extremely plausible."
"And if you heard there was someone out there who was as good as you, wouldn't you be curious?"
"... you may be right... had you not been Kira... If you never found that notebook... we would've met, nonetheless."
"... If only huh?"
"... We cannot live on 'what if's' though, Light-kun."
"We're both dead. What was and what ifs are all we have left... at least... all I have left."
"… Light-kun…"
"Hmm…?" Light hummed. He was getting sleepy, but he didn't want to doze off even for a second.
"I … think I'm almost gone…"
Light's head shot up… his eyes begging… "Are you sure?"
L slowly nodded his head.
Light tried to blink back the tears as he stood up and turned away. L stood as well and stared at Light's back. A hand went up to Light's face as if wiping away something, then his shoulders squared and he straightened up, and finally turned to face L.
Light smiled. "I will love you forever..." he whispered, though quite forlornly.
For a moment, those dark, dark eyes seemed to glaze over, but after a few silent moments, they blinked and returned to their blank stare.
"And I will also with you..." came the almost inaudible reply.
They stood facing each other quietly then, unmoving... they couldn't move. It was as if the very air they breathed was engulfing them in lead.
"I..."
"I love you, Raito."
And with that... L faded into nothingness, leaving Raito amidst his memories overlapping with each other and meshing together, until all he could see was L's face in every single frame.
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Author's Final Note: I hope the story wasn't too sloppy… and I hope you guys liked it despite its imperfections… It was just write, one run-through and post… I'm just soo busy with school work… anyway, please review! :)
