Mogi slumped in place. He had been awake all night on the computer, a machine he had never been especially comfortable using, trying to please the people he worked with. Mogi was a man of simple pleasures; he liked warm food, pretty girls, and the strong taste of a beer with his friends. He enjoyed working out in the sunlight, and he liked the warm feeling in his chest that he gathered every time he helped somebody out. So how he ended up stuck inside cold, echoing buildings, herding petulant teenage girls around, he still wasn't sure.
Mogi had considered quitting this job, had considered allowing the squad to place him on some lower-level street job. Traffic cop, maybe; at least then he'd be outside some of the time. But… there was something about this work. Something that drew him in, a strong tug on his heart. A part of him felt as if this were his journey; the hobbits from the books his older siblings had once read to him had Mount Doom, George Washington had the Civil War, and Kanzo Mogi? He had the Kira Case. Old childhood dreams of glory resurged as he worked on this case, and while it was never the 'carrying lovely women out of burning buildings over his extremely muscular shoulder' that his teenaged brain had conjured, there was a certain pleasure in looking at his stack of files resting snugly in his briefcase, in examining his false I.D. In knowing that he was "in the know". For Kanzo Mogi's most basic desire was to be a hero, and to be loved for it.
Mogi would stare at L during the young genius' explanations, more often baffled than not. This kid has to be six… seven… years younger than I am, and yet he knows things I'll never understand. He grew to trust the young man, to follow him without question, to consider him as some considered a deity. L was never wrong.
And so, Mogi had no complaints. Even when Misa's loud voice felt as if it would rupture his eardrums, and even when he felt he would burst if he didn't get out of the confinement of the large building that was reserved for this case, he plugged through. This is real work, he would remind himself. Real work, with real results. Money doesn't matter; justice is what matters.
Still, as Jesus had once said, "no man can live on bread alone." Mogi, though without complaint, could feel himself wearing as time wore on and no solution to this impossible mystery was present. Slipping his large feet out of a bed that wasn't his own, day after day, facing another day of work that he questioned was really having an impact on catching Kira, was starting to drag. He wanted glory, he wanted acknowledgement, and would a little appreciation be such a bad thing? For heaven's sake, he had to put up with a teenaged model yammering silly nonsense in his ear constantly; that alone should have won him a medal of honor. Mogi, it seemed, was getting Cabin Fever.
It was with a heavy heart that Mogi dressed himself that morning, slipping on his socks and tying the laces in his shoes with monotonous boredom. His breakfast cereal was eaten without enjoyment, his multivitamin that L insisted they all took daily washed down with an orange juice that would have been delicious were he not so tired of the routine. He left his bedroom and approached that of Misa Amane, raising a fist to tap a quick succession of knocks on the wood.
"Go away, Mogi!" came the whining, sleepy voice of the teenager. "Give me a few minutes!" Just as she did every morning. And, as in every morning, Mogi waited for exactly three minutes before inserting his card key into the lock of the door, pushing it open, approaching the bed, and hefting the skinny girl out from her warm blankets underneath his meaty arm. Ignoring her complaints and struggles, he went up the building's elevator and, after twisting through some snake-like hallways, finally arrived in his work area. Sticking Misa on the sofa with a dark look that clearly read as "Stay there," he approached the growing gaggle of his sleepy-eyed coworkers.
L was there, of course, trafficking tiny pieces of his cake into his eager mouth. Several dirty plates stacked underneath his current one suggested that it wasn't the first he had had that day. Mogi resisted the urge to roll his eyes and chuckle; his leader's quirkiness really was something to marvel at. They got into a discussion and soon Mogi found himself slumping where he stood, totally in a daze. He felt completely out of it while L and Light exchanged barbs, when L offered the younger man cake to gauge his reaction. I want cake…
He was shaken out of his slumping pout when he heard the young man admit to being the three greatest detectives in the world. This widened the thirty-year-olds brown eyes considerably. Ryuzaki is L, Eraldo Coil, and Deneuve? This was the most interesting news he had heard in a long, long time. Heck, he had studied those detectives in college! His normally quiet personality was quickly being overcome by a strong desire to ask the young detective a thousand and one questions. How did you know that the rapist of Cassel actually had multiple personality disorder? And how did you ever guess that the serial killer of Estado de Goias was a transvestite? Was it intuition? There wasn't any evidence…
Mogi felt the detective's dark eyes on him and shook himself out of his besotted stupor. One didn't act "impressed" in the task force. In some ways, it was much like high school; you didn't show enthusiasm, you were calm, cool, and collected or you didn't fit in. And yet, Mogi felt as if L knew exactly what he was thinking; the eyes crinkled, ever so slightly, in the barest hint of a smile. This surprised the tall man; L was generally stoic and calm- he had never smiled at him before.
"I'll give you this strawberry if you keep it a secret, ok?" the detective asked him, pale fingers holding out the large, red berry. Mogi's eyebrows shot up on his forehead. What? With a little "oh," of acceptance, he accepted the berry from the detective and, feeling confused and awkward, slipped it into his coat pocket. He felt it against his right leg, a small bump that marked how today was different. Although not particularly fond of berries, it was more than just a sweet treat to him; it was a mark of L's understanding and acceptance—L knew, better than anyone, the restlessness that plagued Mogi day and night now. And Mogi felt a strong sense of relief that L—the impassive and detached L, recognized and sympathized with his feelings. Mogi didn't show it, but on the inside he was smiling.
Although nobody in the room was aware of it, a tall figure stood in the room, watching the proceedings, intrigued. Although Ryuk was no longer visible to Light, he had been unable to leave the human world due to the Death Note still being amongst the humans. He had chosen to stay with Light despite the teenager's oblivious state, simply because these particular humans were very interesting. He had never met a human as worthy of the Death Note as Light Yagami was before.
The berry-passing particularly intrigued him. Hmm; they don't have strawberries in the shinigami world. Sure, they had sandy apples, but really that was amongst the only food their world contained. The colors attracted his attention; it was red, like his favorite color on an apple, yet sized and textured somewhat different. He curiously edged his way to the large human who stood behind the man known as Ryuzaki, completely engrossed in the man's exciting attempts to capture Kira. Slipping his hand into the wide coat pocket, the shinigami carefully extracted the berry, vigilant in his effort not to touch the man and somehow draw his attention. Keeping the fruit concealed in his palm so as to make sure it was invisible to the task force, he retreated into another room where he examined it with interest. He brought it to his nasal cavity and sniffed for a good long time, memorizing the interesting scent, before finally placing the entire thing on his black tongue.
His eyes widened. Once again, the humans surprised him. This was good! He crushed it underneath his pointy teeth. It was no apple, but it certainly had its appeal. The grainy texture of the tiny seeds fascinated him. The human world was so intricate, with all the types of delicious foods; all of the shinigami foods tasted of sand, but in this world, everything had its own distinct taste. Ryuk smiled. He, like Mogi, had gotten bored. The strawberry, it seemed, had relieved the boredom of the two males at the same time.
~.~.~.~.~.
It was evening before Mogi checked his pockets once again as he changed into his flannel pajama bottoms. He hoped he hadn't crushed it; that would be a difficult stain to remove in the laundry. To his surprise, each pocket was completely empty, the threads sticking up as always. He rooted through again, curious. Nope; empty. But wait! He discovered a tiny scrap of lined notebook paper at the bottom of one pocket. He studied the spiky kanji very carefully, stunned.
"Do shinigami like strawberries"?