Hello! It's me again, yet with another piece of fanfiction. I was inspired by recent events in my life, so I felt the pulsing need of writing. And this story appeared in my head. Anyway, hope you like it, here introduccing a new OC.

Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note (sadly), also i write with typos, might or might not correct them later. Enjoy.

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"What makes a person's heart grow wild is the constant suspicion that they are going to be betrayed, or used, or made a fool of. If you have just one or two people that you are able to trust implicitly, the type who makes you feel that even if they did betray you or use you, you would forgive them... then you are saved from isolation."

— Rika Yokomori, Tokyo Tango.

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Chapter I

"Just a girl caught up in dreams"

The name's Hayashi, Nanako Hayashi and there's three things I've known for certain in this life: The first one is that it is easy to become a disappointment when you are a quiet person.

People fail to realise it ain't a mask that you wear to hide your true self from everybody, there's no mask. You don't lie to them, they just make wrong assumptions about you all the time, and you don't have the courage or the mood to correct them... until it is too late. Don't astray even once from whatever expectations they have on you, or you'll be judged for that the rest of your life. That's how it works. Life gets a lot more complicated when you can't help but be a disappointment.

I was eight years old when my mother left us, my father and I. My last memory of her is a yellow dress and a brown suitcase leaving through the front door of an old and cramped apartment. That's when my father picked the bottle up… and he never put it down again until he died.

Maybe if I was a different person, I could have been able to save him. Because it wasn't the drink that killed him, it was his broken heart. I remained distant and quiet as I grew up, just watching him suffer and cry for a woman who probably never loved him... or me. I wasn't the child my mother wanted to have, I was born imperfect, defective in her eyes. A child who was born sick, condemned to live her life sick, with an ill, strange mind, forever knowing that she wasn't like the other children. Maybe that's why she left me, she couldn't handle what it was like to raise a person like me. Dad didn't know either. He might had given up on himself, but he didn't give up on me.

Dad was a mechanic, you see. But after mother left, he was unable to keep a job for more than a few months. His drinking didn't help either. Most of the time during my childhood years, it would be our neighbour, Mrs. Dazai the one making sure I ate, washed my face, did my homework, take my medicine, etc. She would often let me stay over the nights my father didn't returned from his night escapades with his young goldigger girlfriends. He was unable to keep the same woman for longer than he did a job.

So our gentle neighbour took care of me in his behalf. She probably felt sorry for me, a child who saw things no one else did, and pity my dad's miserable existence. But Mrs. Dazai was an older woman, and soon she became ill. Dark shadows started to hover around her tiny body, she grew paler witch each passing day. I was fourteen when her sons came one day to pick her up for an appointment with the doctor, or so she said. Whatever it was, she never came back to the building after that. I made sure to knock on her door everyday, wondering is she'd returned already. But weeks later I heard the landlord over the phone saying something about Mrs. Dazai's apartment going to be sold. She was never coming back. I didn't cry, I kind of expected it. Mrs. Dazai was dying, the shadows had proven me right.

I was still on school, when my father's behaviour became more erratic. He would spend all his paycheck in alcohol and whores, and wouldn't show up at home for an entire week. I had to drop out a seek for a job myself, but the few yens I as able to save within a month of work were not enough to make our ends meet. I had barely enough to buy my meds. We were asked to leave the apartment several times. Until one day some tattoed and menacing looking men walked into our doorstep and took our stuff out on the street. Everything. The beds, the frigde, the crooked dinning table and the plastic chairs. They emptied the closets and tossed our clothes and belongings out of the window.

My dad tried to stop them, but there where three of them, and he was just… him. You can figure out how that ended. I had to call an ambulance at the verge of tears, and he got a few stitches on his head. But not everything was about about that incident. From that day on, his drinking subsided a little a made uo his mind about looking for help. I guess it was thanks to him assinting to AA meeting, that he reunited with a friend of his from school, and he agreed to take us in for a while. At least, until I finished highschool, said my Dad. His friend, however, told him not to worry.

He was a nice and generous man, Mr. Matsuda. His house was pretty and clean, and I was fifteen when we started to live with his family. He had a lovely wife, who would often insist on me calling her "mother". I never did, of course, since I never had a good experience with that word. And a son, Touta, who was about my age. When I'd finished with my homework, I would help Mrs. Matsuda with the house, cleaning here and there, washing the dished, watering the plants. Then Touta and I would sneak out to the roof and talk about how much we hated school and bullies. We discovered we had that in common, neither of us were the popular kind. Those were good days, even if they didn't last long.

My dad and I had been living with the Matsuda family for a month now, when he got a great job oportunity in Osaka. Something to do with transporting commodities from one place to another. He didn't go further in detail. He left me with Mr. Matsuda's family, took the train and never came back. I saw a shadow resting on his left shoulder, but I was too happy to acknowledge what that meant.

The day he died, it was my sixteenth birthday, and it had been once the happiest day of my life. Mrs. Matsuda and her husband had arranged a small party for me and a few friends from school. We weren't many, I could count them with one hand and I would still have fingers left. There were pink ribbons and glitter balloons decorating the living room, and Mrs. Matsuda'd bought me the fanciest dress I'd ever owed. A red chiffon dress with little black stars along the skirt. I truly felt like a princess... but princess usually had a happy ending. That's something I've never known until the current date. Illussions are always easy to cast, because we are always eager to lie to ourselves and believe those lies it offers.

We were eating cake and posing for pictures when the doorbell rang.

Mr. Matsuda went to open it, and at his return, a dark shadow had fallen on his face. His eyes looked for me among the kids, and when I met his gaze… I just knew. My stomach tied in knots, my knees grew weak, and tears welled up in my eyes. Mrs. Matsuda pulled me in a tight embrace as Touta and his father sought he guests to the door. The party was over, but it felt more like my life was over.

They told me had been in a crash after exiting a bar. He hadn't been the best father, but he was my dad. And now he'd left me too. I was alone. Of course Mrs. And Mr. Mastuda asked me to live with them, they wanted me in their family. What they didn't know was that the me back then didn't want a family. I had one once, and seeing it falling apart hurt like hell. I didn't want to risk it again, I didn't want to feel that kind of pain ever again.

If I told them I was planning on leaving, they would have probably stop me. That's why I didn't tell them. I left on a christmas eve, talk about being dramatic. But it was the only moment I could sneak out the house without being noticed since they were all busy with the dinner preparations. Out in the cold, seeing the warm lights inside the house made me have second thoughts. I wondered if my mother ever had those after parting.

I resisted the urge to run back inside and bury my head in Mrs. Matsuda's chest, and started walking with my small bag at one side. I took a bus that got me closer to downtown, and kept walking. I didn't stop until I reached a noodle's shop. There was a bright sign in red letters that said help wanted. That was my first oportunity, and old Mr. Inazumi and his son welcomed me in because I reminded them of someone they knew. That's what they said. They fed me and gave me a place to sleep in exchange for my work. They didn't ask questions, and I thanked them for it.

After managed to finish school, I enrolled without hesitation to the National Police Academy. Reasons? I would walk out with a secure job, and all the commodities it came with. Health, social security, pension… I kept living by myself, on the Inazumi's on small studio right above the noodle shop. And then I was assigned to the Criminal Investigation department at the very heart of the NPA headquarters and this changed.

That's when I learned lesson number two: destiny brings people together in the most unexpected way.

It was the year 2003, winter was just around the corner and I was twenty two years old. Freshly graduated from the Academy, I walked in to my first day at the precint without knowing I would came face to face with the boy who'd been once my brother a long time ago.

I had just been assigned my supervising officer: a hard boiled, experienced detective, Mr. Aizawa who at first was not very happy about having to babysit a rookie around and on the top of that handle his regular cases at the Police Station. So he would send me on stupid errands like getting him some coffee, retrieving old files from the archive, transcribing an recorded interrogation and so on. With the time, I guess he couldn't help but grow fond of me, since I never complained and completed every task efficiently. One day, he decided I would be joining him on a new arising case that was shaking the country to the ground.

There had been a series of inexplicable deaths, criminals all over the world were dying of heart attacks. After the international police consulted with a private detective who when by the criptict name of "L", and who apparently was something big, he decided the investigation was going to be quarteled in Japan, more precisely at the very heart of the NPA.

We left the precint, and arrived to the investigation room. There were at least four dozen officers in there, and a big screen was set on with a proyector and everyone looked like they were waiting for something to happen. Aizawa asked me to find a place to sit down and get ready. I didn't even bother with asking for what. Something told me I was going to find out very soon.

That was when I was greeted by a pair of brown eyes, that seemed awfully familiar and which looked at me like I was a ghosts. I didn't know from were I knew him, until he spoke.

The bemused look was soon replaced by a smile. Wide and spread across his youthfull face when he recognized me. 'Nana!', he exclaimed. His smile only grew wider when he walked over to meet me.

I couldn't believe my eyes either. From all the places on earth… it had to be here.

'Touta?' I mumbled to myself, bewildered.

He nodded effusively and I noticed he was restraining himself from hugging me, I guess. He was standing on the tips of his toes and gestured broadly everytime he spoke. He'd told me how much Mr. and Mrs. Matsuda missed me, and how terrified they were to knew I left just like that. He also said they try to look for me for a while, but with no results. I didn't blame them for giving up on me, it was for the best, and I was not a part of their family.

They didn't have to care.

Touta would have probably keep talking and talking, if Aizawa hadn't asked him to shut it. I mentally thanked him, since I wasn't in the mood to talk about the past right now. We went back to our seats as the detective in charge of the case, Mr. Yagami, gave a speech about justice and police duty. Touta kept eyeeing me from his seat, and it was starting to give me the creeps. I didn't wanted to talk about the past… I didn't care about the past anymore. Or at least, that was the lie I was telling myself.

The investigation kept going, and all I did was checkihg calls of lunatics that claimed to be Kira. A few weeks had passed when L announced there was a leak in the task force. Somehow, our killer "Kira", with whom he had had a public confrontation on national TV, (killing a man in the process), had access to police information. That raised an alarm among the detectives and there was a massive walk-out. "We have families", they said. "If Kira knows our names and faces he will kill us, sorry Chief. We can't do this". One by one they left their resignation letter on Yagami's desk, and walked out. In the end, there were only seven of us, including the chief.

The me back didn't have any expectations of life. I was still very young and didn't like doing much thinking. That meant I was able to feel cool about everything, even death. On the other hand, it made me a rather shallow person. Since my supervising officer was staying in the team, I too decided to stay. Touta did too… We were seven, and later just six, when Mr. Ide walked away too saying that he had no interest in working with L.

It was New Year's eve and we left the precint to go and meet the mysterious man behind the curtain… screen in this case. It didn't bother me to welcome the new year working, it wasn't like I had someone special waiting at home to spend it with anyway. And my dying bonsai did not count. The closer I would get to a party that day were this men with stern-looks with whom I was walking along side in that cold winter night.

Despite of everything that had happened in my life, the me back then, lived in a extremely sheltered world. Never did I realize how sheltered it was until it was to late. It felt like I was living with my utmost effort, when I wasn't even trying. I always thought that was the real me. Back then I really thought… I wouldn't change. But that's just the third thing I've learned the hard way in this life. It doesn't matter how hard we try to stay unencumbered. You meet a thousand people and none of them matters, then you meet one person… and your entire life's changed.

He changed mine. The faceless man, the world's greatest detective, the famous, the mysterious, the best, the one and only, the mighty "L", or how he introduced himself to us later that night...Ryuzaki.

Just Ryuzaki.

XxX

And that's as far as my inspiration goes tonight. Would you like to read more of this story? If so, please let me know :3 It's nice to write something people actually can relate to. I still haven't figured out how this is going to play out at the end anyway. XD