An Epic Tale of Love, Hate, Betrayal, Closet Perverts, and Paperclips

*Italics are Raito's thoughts

Enjoy~

OoOoO

Raito was an unusual boy in many ways, but perhaps the thing that set him apart as most unusual from the rest of the world was his insistence on making stupid plans that were overly complicated and never worked as opposed to clean, simple plans. One might argue that his ridiculously competitive spirit was also a unique feature, but that is really more of a fault, as we shall soon see.

Raito had just come home from his surprise meeting with L at his graduation and he was more than a little concerned about what sort of action he should take towards his newly found friend. Raito logged onto his computer and pulled up a fresh sheet of computerized Microsoft word paper. He frowned and let his face fall into his hands, where the cool darkness provided some comfort and allowed him to think more clearly. Silly thoughts dashed his mind.

So I've met L. Or someone who calls himself L. There are a few possibilities.

1. He is L, in which case I should kill him immediately
2. He is not L, but is another member of the investigation team, in which case I should not kill him because it would tell the real L who I am
3. He is L, but he has already told others about his plan to reveal himself to me, so I should not kill him because that will alert others to the fact that I am Kira
4. He is some random psychotic loser who thinks that he is L, in which case I should kill him because he's annoying
5. I want Udon for dinner tonight

Raito removed his hands from his face, eyes stinging a little as they were re-exposed to the weak afternoon sun trailing in through his window.

"So that's two votes for killing him and two for not killing him," Raito said aloud. "How very helpful."

Since his thinking had gotten him nowhere, Raito decided to make a list on his computer of all the pros and cons of killing this "L". That was likely to get him somewhere. So Raito turned back to the computer screen. He was in the process of writing out point number one when an annoying paperclip popped out of nowhere into the right hand bottom corner of his page. A speech bubble came out of its head reading,

"It looks like you're trying to kill an arch enemy. Would you like help?"

It followed by listing a few options of services that the paperclip could provide, concluding with the option "just kill enemy without help".

"Oh, shut up, Paperclip!" Raito snapped at the offender. "Just go away! Everyone hates you!"

When the paperclip just stared at him blankly, Raito finally sighed, and clicked, "do not show me this tip again". The paperclip disappeared.

Raito sighed and cracked his neck on both sides before proceeding. This was how he always operated. He would write out a scenario in which he succeeded at everything, and then he would try to follow it perfectly, and make the scenario a reality. He had loads of little fictions written out. There was an entire folder on his computer labeled, "Important and Serious Schoolwork" in which he stored these scenarios, along with his porn collection. It was the perfect hiding place from the rest of his family.

Raito tried to brainstorm. Assuming the worst, that is to say, that Hideki was indeed L, he would need to get close to him. But how? Raito pondered. As he thought, his eyes rolled lazily toward corner of the room where Ryuk was watching television. Naruto was just ending and Prince of Tennis was up next.

"Prince of Tennis! That's it!" Raito exclaimed, sitting up straight.

"What's it?" Ryuk turned around. "That show sucks, I'm turning it off now." He made a move to do so, but Raito hardly noticed.

"That's is!" he cried again. "I'll challenge Hideki to a game of tennis for no apparent reason! It's brilliant! There's no possible way this plan could fail!"

"How.......will that help......anything?" Ryuk asked incredulously, but Raito wasn't listening. He had eagerly pulled up the Microsoft document again, and began typing out his brilliant plan.

"Yes…yeeeesssss…" he said crazily as he typed, "We'll play a game of tennis and then I'll invite him to a café afterward, and he'll order a sticky cake with pink frosting, and by that time he'll have put his complete trust in me, and then..."

Suddenly the paperclip bounced back into the screen. A new speech bubble was forming over its head. It read,

"Your speech is a little wordy; consider revising to make your meaning more clear."

Raito saw red. He was the God of this world—and this paperclip thought it could tell him what to do?!

"I thought I told you to stay out of it!" he snapped.

The paperclip stared at him expressionlessly, but said nothing more.

Raito narrowed his eyes and minimized his paper.

The document vanished; however, the paper clip remained in the bottom corner of his computer screen.

…Odd. Thought Raito. I was sure that the paperclip was only allowed to be present while writing a Microsoft document. How is it still here? Raito pulled up his document and stared as the paperclip idly scratched its head with its metal tail. Raito didn't know why he felt so bothered by the paperclip. It wasn't like it was really doing anything. It was just standing on a sheet of notebook paper and staring at him. But whenever he started typing, the paperclip would glance sideways and up at his progress with its bulbous eyes and disembodied eyebrows.

Eventually, it occurred to Raito that he could just click "hide." So he did that. The paperclip disappeared.

Raito finished writing out evil plan #1. He was just about to click "print" when the document suddenly closed. A gray box popped up, reading:

"Microsoft Word has performed an illegal task and had to shut down. We're sorry for the inconvenience."

"Sorry for the inconvenience?!" Raito bellowed. "That took me an hour and a half to write and I hadn't saved it!" He suddenly realized something.

"Oh, I see how it is!" he breathed. "Paperclip is behind this, isn't he?! I got rid of him, so you got rid of my paper! Why, you canny little bastard!"

"Um, Raito, are you okay?"

Raito spun around to find his entire family standing in the doorway, with their mouths hanging open. His mother dropped the fresh load of laundry that she had been carrying.

"Erm...yeah! I'm fine!" said Raito hastily. "Just having some.....problems with my computer...."

"......"

"...right." said Raito's father. "I'll just call Matsuda over. He'll help you tomorrow."

"Thanks." said Raito resentfully. "That would be just grand."

XxX

Although Raito wanted to take his time to defeat the paperclip in a battle of skills and wit, he decided that to save time, he should just delete it from the computer. So the next day, Raito's right hand man, ol' Matsuda from the investigation team, came to take a look at the computer.

"I don't know, Raito-kun," said Matsuda apologetically, after examining the computer and attempting to get rid of the paper clip only to find that he could not remove it either. "It looks like someone has irrevocably installed this paperclip on your computer."

"Get RID of it!" Raito bellowed.

"Look Raito," said Matsuda uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his neck. "You're really being a little unreasonable here. It's just a paperclip and obviously someone has had it downloaded and stuck it irreversibly to your computer. You ought to live with it."

"But I hate it!" Raito shouted. "It never blinks and it's always staring at me when I'm trying to write! And I can never beat it at staring contests because it never blinks!"

Matsuda shrugged. "It's a computer embellishment. It's a great tool because it has perfect grammar, so it can help anyone write. Why would you want to get rid of that?"

"Perfect grammar, huh?" Raito seethed.

"Yes. It never makes a mistake when it comes to language usage."

"Damn it! Another thing the paperclip beats me at!" Raito howled in his supernatural rage, causing the sky to lightning and trees to get struck down. Matsuda hid under Raito's bed in terror.

"Look, I didn't mean…" Raito seemed to be trying to regain his composure. He took a deep breath. "Thank you for all your time, Matsuda," he said as calmly as he could manage. "I'll try to fix it up myself."

"N-no problem…" Matsuda said fearfully.

"Oh, and please don't mention this to anyone on the investigation team," Raito added, showing Matsuda the door. "Especially L."

"S-sure…" Matsuda got out the door as quickly as he could, without being impolite.

Raito sighed again after he had left, sinking onto his bed. In the back of his mind, Raito knew that he hadn't killed anyone in three days, and that if he continued on this obsessive streak, then people were going to start realizing that something was up with Kira.

"I need to relax," Raito said aloud. "Let's just forget about this paperclip thing and concentrate on L for a while. Now I'll go work on my computer."

Raito slumped over to his computer and turned it on. He opened up a Microsoft document just as a small gray figure entered lower right hand screen…

XxXxXxX

The following morning, Raito make a phone call to the Mac company. L be damned; Raito was going to defeat this paperclip!

"Yeah, hi, I'm having some troubles with my computer that I only bought a year ago so I'm calling for maintenance help," said Raito clearly into the phone.

A pause.

"Yeah, it's this paper clip. The Microsoft Word paperclip. I don't know why, but for some reason it's stuck on my computer. I really want it to go away."

Silence.

"Yes, I tried clicking hide!" Raito said. "I even had my friend who's good with computers come over to look at it, but he can't get rid of it either."

More silence.

"It's freaking annoying! And it always stares at me while I'm writing!"

A brief pause.

"Alright. Ten thirty."

Raito hung up the phone, rubbing his temples.

A computer programmer arrived at Raito's house at ten thirty to check out Raito's desktop. He frowned as he repeatedly tried to delete the Microsoft Word help device.

"Very strange computer you've got here," the man muttered, wiping the back of his sticky neck with his fingers, causing Raito to flinch. "I think I'm going to have to reprogram the entire computer."

"Do what you must," said Raito.

So the man reprogrammed the computer. It took about two hours, but he completely wiped all the help archives.

"That oughta do it." He said, wiping his brow. "I don't think you'll be seeing any paperclips around here anytime soon."

It was just a matter of pure irony that on his way out, the programmer noticed a box of metal paperclips on the kitchen table.

Raito smiled genuinely. Finally he was free from that paperclip. Now that his computer had been entirely reprogrammed, there was no way that it could still be there. NOW he could work on his ultimate plan to defeat L. The brilliant tennis plan. He went to his room and turned on the computer. He opened a Microsoft Word document.

Then he screamed.

OoOoO

First Death Note fic in a VERY long time.

End of Part One; Hope you liked it!