I took one step into the room and stopped dead, frozen in my tracks. Not him. Anyone but him. I stared stupidly at the person in front of me, eyes wide, jaw unhinged in the gape-open position.
"Hello," he said bluntly. "I am L. Are you my peer counselor?"
"Y-yeah," I muttered, managing to break my eyes away from his slim figure. He was so skinny. I felt his obsidian-eyed gaze pierce the back of my skull as I shuffled to one of the empty chairs in the center of the room.
As he made his way to the opposing chair, I caught a scent of what smelled like sugar coming from him. It made my nose scrunch up, and I tugged at the collar of my jacket trying desperately not to sneeze.
He sat in the weirdest position. It made me wonder why he wasn't in some therapy instead of here in simple peer counseling. I managed to shrug it off. We sat in an awkward silence before he finally said, "So should you start, or do you want me to?" He commenced to chew on his thumbnail, still staring me down with those dull obsidian eyes.
My stomach started to tie into a nervous knot. Start. Where should I start? When our school psychologist started up the peer counseling program, she probably didn't even think that someone like L would sign up. There was no doubt that it was intended for people with minor problems, like divorced parents, relationship problems, I don't know. Not someone with L's problems. He was a freak, to say the least. He was hopeless. He never slept, only ate sweets, had too many publicized quirks about him. Peer counseling? Really? He needed something more like intense long-term professional psychotherapy. "In a lock-up facility," I murmured to myself.
"Hm?"
"Oh, nothing. Why don't you go ahead." This could get interesting. "Tell me why you're here." Dr. Honda suggested it as an icebreaker, you know, to open conversation.
"Well, it keeps me off the streets."
Figures, I almost said.
"I'm just kidding," he announced to my dismay. "Dr. Honda says I have to do fifteen hours of counseling this term." He drew up a baggy sleeve from the white t-shirt he was wearing to glace down at his wrist. "Ten minutes and counting," he announced with a smile.
I still couldn't get over how pale he looked in contrast with his tangled mass of jet black hair. I had to admit, it did look rather fashionable, but it was still messy. It matched his eyes almost perfectly. "Do you put any product in it?" I blurted out before I could stop myself.
"Huh? My hair?" he queried, self-consciously running his fingers through his raven-black locks. "No. It just gets that way on its own. I've never really cared for complex hairstyles."
"Oh," I muttered, not taking my eyes off the bruises under his eyes. Did he ever sleep? At all? Maybe that's what all the sugar he ingested all the time was for. My eyes traveled down to his torso. He definitely had one slim figure. Not the toned kind, the unhealthy kind. His stomach… he didn't even really have one. There was a possibility he could have been anorexic, but I doubted it. He probably just had high metabolism is all. He had virtually no muscles, so I knew he didn't exercise.
"Sixteen minutes," L announced abruptly, bringing me back to reality with a start. "This isn't really that bad. Do you want to talk about my abdominal area, as well? Because you keep staring at it."
My face flushed a bright, hot red. I stared down at my feet, pulled out the peer counselor folder, and opened it. My hands trembled. Why am I even here? I wondered. I can't do this.
"How about we just start with our names," he suggested. "My name is Lawliet, but everyone just calls me L. Don't ask me why." He grinned a small, broken grin in my direction.
It almost made me smile back. Almost. "I'm Light Yagami."
L held out a hand to shake. "Nice to meet you, Light-kun."
I flinched and scooted away involuntarily.
L returned hi hand back to his foreleg. "How about you tell me about yourself first. Then maybe I won't be so nervous."
He was nervous? My hands would probably register on the Richter scale by now. "All right. My name is Light Yagami. Everyone calls me Light." My eyes met his for a moment. He shrugged.
"Um… I'm seventeen and in eleventh grade. My favorite subject in school is algebra. I'm in honors and math club… well, used to. I had to quit. Oh, I also did soccer for a few months and—"
L yawned audibly and stretched his arms toward the ceiling. He glanced toward the clock set on the table. "How time does fly when you're having fun." He set his feet down to the floor and smiled in my direction. "And that's about all the fun I can stand for one day."
I stared as he padded across the room to the door. I noticed he walked with a slouch and that he kept his thumbs in his jeans pockets. As he opened the door, he gave me one final glance and said, "I'll see you Friday, Light-kun. I'm feeling better already." And with that, the door closed and L disappeared.
Great, I thought. I feel sick.
I dashed quickly down the halls of the school counseling center to catch Dr. Honda before she had a chance to leave. Perfect, she hadn't gone yet. "It won't work, Dr. Honda." I stood in front of her desk, panting. I added, "He's beyond help."
Dr. Honda sighed, pushed her papers aside and glanced at me. "Now, Yagami," she said. "No one is beyond help." She tipped the nose of her square-rimmed glasses down and studied me with her piercing green eyes. "Hm?"
"He's not my peer, Dr. Honda," I told her with a quivering tone. I nearly blurted out, He doesn't have a peer. But instead, what came out was, "I don't think I'm cut out to be a peer counselor."
"The first session is always a little rough. Believe me, I know. You probably felt as though nothing was accomplished, am I right? But you'd be surprise how much progress was made. Just knowing that someone cares is self-asserting, Yagami. Truly."
"Well, that's just it. I don't care." My cheeks flushed. There, I said it. Now she'd have to take me out of the program. I had no compassion whatsoever.
"Let's just say that with Lawliet, there is more than what meets the eye."
I arched my eyebrows. "That's a scary thought."
She chuckled. Rising to her high-heeled feet and clicking toward the door, she told me, "You only have to meet twice a week, Yagami. Give it another session."
What?!
She added, "See if you don't change your mind."
Oh, it'd take more than chains and bullwhips to change my mind.
She glanced at me and flashed her perfect white teeth at me. The sharp scent of her perfume bit at my nose. I managed to smile back, even though I felt like puking.
Me as L's peer counselor. This wouldn't be good at all.
Hey, gays! WHOOPS I MEAN GUYS. Seems you've found my newest story. Well, this baby here is VERY strongly based off the book Define "Normal"by Julie Anne Peters. I highly recommend reading it, it's a wonderful book, if a little short. There are lots of similarities from the book, but don't ever say I copied anything, because I would never in my days of fanfiction ever stoop that low.
I based this off the book because Antonia reminds me a LOT of Light, just without the God complex. I do kind of wonder what she would do with a Death Note, though. lol So LIght represents Antonia in the story. Now, Jazz... I love her, man. She's just awesome. Surprisingly Mello reminds me more of her than L. Then why does L represent Jazz in this, you might ask? Well, I was originally having Mello take the role of Jazz, so I was imagining scenes in my head of the two in parts from Define "Normal". But then, I was like, "melloxlight mmmm sexy... wait wut." So... yeah. Hence the reason L now takes over the roll of Jazz.
babbabshshja Enough of my rambling, remember to reveiw! ^w^
EDIT: Okay, I am annoyed. I've reached the document limit here, so I can't upload the second chapter. Can ANYONE, ANYONE please help me with this? I mean, what do you do when the document limit is reached? I know I seem like a n00b for saying this, but SERIOUSLY. Help is GREATLY appreciated.
~UltraVioletSpectrum (aka Mo)
