In the beginning, there were the Ohba and the Obata, and they created the Notebooks and the Death.
And the manga was without form, and void, and without pictures or words to fill them; and the darkness of ink was on the face of the paper; and the spirit of Yaoi moved on the face of the waters.
But soon after, the creators saw something missing; they needed a ruler, a protagonist, one for the reader to love or hate at whim. A bishonen, yes, but a tortured soul, one that would make the masses sympathize or squee.
And the Gods said: Let there be Light. And there was Light.
The manga was created, and published, and it was good. But soon after, the masses saw something missing; they needed an antagonist, a sort of hero-antihero, to make the God of this fiction connive and plot. The masses decreed he would be a bishonen in his own right, but quirky and flawed, to prove that this world's Caesar, this Adonis, too, was mortal.
And the Masses said: Let there be L. And there was L.
The manga deepened, its plot raced, and it was good. The masses ate it all up like strawberries. But soon after, the fangirls saw something missing; there were bishonen, yes, but they didn't really do much. The plot started to bore them. It was too wordy, they whined. And so the fangirls decreed there would be a catalyst, a six-foot-long clinking mystery to bind these two together, and create endless fanfiction possibilities.
And the Fangirls said: Let there be Handcuffs. And there were Handcuffs.
And the readers saw the Light, and the L, and the Handcuffs, and they saw that it was very good.
Amen. And amen.
~Fin~