Ennui would be the death of him.
Or, as he commonly found himself wondering at times like this, perhaps it already had been.
Huddled in a ball on a seat in the dark, the glow radiating from the network of monitors that illuminated the ghost of a figure hunched under a blanket was the only thing that made his slight form visible to the world. Each screen scrolled endlessly with new information; new posts and inquiries, but not one, it seemed, was able to catch the interest of the dull eyes that tirelessly scoured them.
He reflected, chewing fruitlessly at a long-bare lolly stick, that being selective about his 'cases' wasn't much of a tip in his favour when it came to getting anything done. Despite his rather infamous reputation among the community as L, an amateur so-called paranormal investigator, it only meant that more and more reports would be fabricated, each more over-the-top than the last, in an attempt to grab his attention.
Not that such a line of work was much of a profitable one, anyway – the cold winter draft that seeped in infectiously from the thin walls of the once-abandoned apartment he'd taken residence in, despite the windows being closed, was a constant reminder.
But it didn't matter.
Because, as someone who understood a great deal about a great many things, it seemed natural to be drawn eventually, towards what he, and the rest of the world, did not understand – what could not be explained. It was the only challenge his brain could find for itself, and so it had worked away quietly and tirelessly, ever since a certain encounter that had shaken his beliefs forever.
The only challenge, at least... until that ubiquitous other conundrum inevitably reared its head: understanding human stupidity.
L sighed as he scrolled down page after page of forums, each topic calling for help with a different paranormal problem. While it was usually easy to weed out the lies from the truth, the most interesting ones naturally had the highest percentages of being fake. He imagined them as he pored over each one –
Debatable, but unlikely. Seventy-nine percent.
Possible. Twenty percent.
Discarding his soggy, chewed-up lolly stick for any other brightly wrapped sweet his shivering cold fingers could find from the pile strewn about the desk, he glanced at one of many topic headings, displayed on the rightmost screen that had a Japanese board pulled up, by chance.
Oh, no, absolute bullshit. Ninety-nine percent.
The white face illuminated by the screens grinned in amusement. Sometimes it was fun to read something so obviously silly and fabricated, like the one he'd come across just now. The post, made by someone from Tokyo under the online handle 'M-ko', was titled:
Help. When I get angry, I imagine people near to me dying, and then it really happens! Am I some kind of messed-up ESPer?
Just from the contents of her post, it was easy to deduce that the girl was merely experiencing realistic hallucinations triggered by her emotions, and needed a mental professional's help, not a supernatural investigator's. Naturally, far too many people replying on the board were eager to believe her story and respond in kind, some even demanding that she kill people they personally hate. One particularly disturbing response declared that she should start killing all the bad people in the world, and become a hero. It was a childish idea, but many people on these boards really were just children, after all.
Placing numb fingers on the keyboard, the blanket over them doing little good, L began typing up his response, hoping it would set this girl straight. Perhaps he didn't quite understand the supernatural yet, but fear and delusion were another matter.
Having finished typing up his reply, he submitted it, and sat there for a few seconds in silence, feeling very disoriented all of a sudden. It was never nice to know you had forgotten something, but were presently unable to think of what it could possibly be.
Dark eyes darted downwards, and spidery fingers picked up the unwrapped strawberry daifuku that it seemed had been neglected when he'd begun writing.