Summary: They have been always like copies for the pilot product in a production line, a so-called plan B for the root. It has never bothered the dark haired youth, being a backup for someone else, if it has been about A. It hasn't counted, everything else beyond it, has been just a nuance detail then, a slight bay, a good opportunity and time to examine the main question in all its bearings: the identity and the whole mystery around L. Until that day, what should have been exceptional, a personal meeting for the successor with the greatness himself.
Beyond Alternate
- eight years earlier -
"How was the meeting with L?" asked the dark haired adolescent anon as the other stepped into theirs common room, but answer wasn't come and even the eye-contact was ignored. The dirty-blonde chamber-fellow just took off his bag on the desk and sat down in a complete silence.
B waited a little, at least until the chapter in the book was finished. The part about the human body has really taken an interest for the pale youth. Even the names of them. Those were fascinating. The anatomy book has been just started yesterday but the latin tallies of the members were already known. The younger kid's knowledge and interest have page after page been growing. B felt it as a luck coincidence that a day before, the bored mood had led that damn eyes and the book had been found in the library to somehow kill the time while A had been on his common private French lesson.
B quickly memorized the number of the chapter and then closed the circa sixhundred-page tome. And nyway, it has begun too heavy to be held only by one hand and four fingertips in the air more longer. However the literature has distracted the mind, the muscles were ached for a long while by the weird holding method. Thus put it off for a little time would have meant a far better way in both meaning, even to give a little rest to the limb and to try to figure out A's current state.
The dark haired youth shaked the numbed hand and fixed the croaching position on the coach what they have had in their room, beside the bunk bed, two desk and the wardrobes. Basically they should have had two single beds, because both of them have grown up since they have been here. But B sticked to the old furniture and when it had been asked ages earlier, the pale rather had sold an idea about a sofa. A hadn't cared with it. He hasn't been tall either to reach the bedframes during sleeping so it hadn't counted the issue to him as an inconvenience. It had concerned only the chamber's other occupant.
B had been already taller during that time, but since it hadn't bothered for the dark haired kid as the fetal position has been preferred in sleeping, the offer had been for both of them irrelevant. Thus they had got rather a coach at the left empty space. And it has become B's place, with the perfect angle whence everything else could have been monitored in the one hundred and thirty square foot area.
"Is everything okay?" took B the question after an or so ten minutes long break. The dirty-blonde boy didn't answer. He has just gazed to his just now opened book. The younger was sure he hasn't learned. The pale waited a bit, until A visibly forgot to flip a page for the better camouflage and then voiced the third question to the other.
"Do I see well, you are ignoring me?" still no answer was came, jut the contant gaze to the words what had no meanings this time. "At least look at me, Arthur." B begged, what was an unique occassion. The older seemingly hesitated for a moment, especially with the fact that the other sounded his real name – what should have been counted as an extreme case too - but then he continued the reading.
A's every moment was a lie, B knew that and the lies and the secrets have been what were hated by the dark haired teenager the most. Again other minutes were spent in dead, killing silence. It has hurt. For the younger it has caused almost a physical pain what ached more than the numbed hand, what now has started to be felt like hundreds of angry ants would have stucked under the flesh. The annoying, itchy sensation made the pale think and realise the other's current close mood. The thoughts – what were undoubtedly right – were shocking.
"It's about me, not about L." B voiced. The partner of the one-sided conversation stayed motionless, and lifeless, hasn't reacted at all, but the dark haired knew it. Even if the meeting with L – with the great L – had gone wrong, it wouldn't have caused a crush in the dirty-blonde's mind. Something had shocked him. Something what could have been connected to the meeting.
B has known that if A would meet with detective in fine, he wouldn't talk about it. A hasn't been much talkative since they have been here, maybe he could talk in his old time, but not in the past few years since he has decided to follow in the footsteps of L in every price as the next version of the greatness.
B has hated the guy. The whole stuff around the mysterious being has been incomprehensible. The pale has never felt the pressure of living in someone great's shadows, until A hasn't started to live according to the expectations and it has started to eat him up – what he couldn't see, but B all the more.
The dark haired has hoped that the meeting with L would change him. It would give him courage and self-confidence – like he has been felt by himself always as someone who is still not enough. But that wasn't the current state. Something had gone wrong, terrible wrong. It wasn't just about L. If the detective's true form would have been disappointing, B could have swore that wouldn't have caused more harm. As L's follower A wouldn't have reacted suprised even if the reality has stayed far away from his expectations and imagine. No, it has been more.
Something has shocked the dirty-blonde guy. B has seen it, not with those damn eyes, it was just visible, even for a dumbass. A was terrified. He has tried to distract his mind with reading and ignoring his chamber fellow, but the lie could have been felt in the air.
He is terrified by me – B realised suddenly and started to bite the nail on the thumb nervously. If L spoke to him through a screen and with that damn mechanic voice, it after all should have been unique. A private talk. A private conversation within the Root and the successor. If it had happened in person, well, that's an other case, but… no, that would have been more unique then. An exceptional occassion. A should have felt him chosen. But this…
B fixed the croaching position again and continued the thinking, gazing to the space and biting the nail. A stepped into the room. He has been already shuttered. Why? He should have been enough. He is the next L, there is no doubt. He has learning and studying everything since we have been here. Damn place. Damn L. Damn… me?
The last question has echoed in the dark haired's mind. The whole thing clogged together. Shit, it's me. He freezed. Beyond doubt, it's me. The whole is about me. I have thought it right, during the whole time. The conclusions during the years… the small mimicries… the reactions for the appearence… the whole thing, the thought about it... everything was right. It's L. It's… me.
The years what B has spent with examinations about the reactions and to follow them, now, have ached, burn the soul out in the weak, teenager body. B could recall the memory when they had met with the old, English man: the momentary shock in his face and eyes as he had got the vision to the successor's friend; the slight silence and hesitation in the mechanical voice as the man had told the little change in the well-organised plan, and the breathly short shock in L's watch through the camera, what had been switched on to check the subject of the alteration.
B hasn't been just a backup for A, it has been more behind it. The dark haired kid has been L's echo, an unexpected wraith or younger version from the other part of the world. It had seemed firstly as an accidental coincidence and beside A's attachment, the similar appearence had triggered the pale's fate.
Then after a few weeks in the Wammy's, B has found a new hobby: to find out L's identity. The same time as A has started to be addicted to follow the great detective's step as the mysterious man's only and first successor. B has wanted to know the guy, the whole secretive behaviour around the faceless and voiceless legendary and the person itself – for A too.
B has been the legend's reflection what echoed the examined small details, such as the observation for each movements or lookout. B has been the exact living picture of L. The reactions for the dark haired kid's positions, walking methods have shown in the English man's and the second director's eyes a kind of shock in every single time. B has recognized those moments and formed the role according to them. Even, based on the old man's and L's first impact on the pale youth.
B has looked like as L, and day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, the successor or the backup for A has become L's identical. This has made the dirty-blonde guy be in shock and terrified after the personal meeting with the greatness himself.
"Why are you here?" took the elder the question unexpectedly. It needed a few secs to the other to notice the sounded ask.
"How do you mean?" B got the chewed fingertip off from the hungry teeth wonderingly.
The knitted, beige uppered stayed in silence, just like someone who wanted to reconsider, if his question had been appropriate or not. "I mean as your attendance here is not relevant. I know that I asked to come with me and to stay here, but years are gone, B. Your presence now, here, is not necessary any more. We are grown." he elaborated.
The chameleon kid couldn't know at all once how to react to it at all. B has exactly known that the sourness in the blonde's words has been just caused by the painful truth, the eerie similarity what both of them just now have recognized.
The pale stood up from the couch and after a quick thought, aimed the door. "I will be in the kitchen." B commented the movement looking to the chamber's companion, who still ignored the eye-contact and to react to the other somehow. The shapeshifter didn't respond the anewed negligence, opened the door, and then left the room, leaving the only and first friend in life to be alone until he has needed it. B has exactly known that the blonde currently just needed some time on his own.
A has every time hanged on to the visible facts and B's look was one of those reasons what have shown his beat in a game in which his fate was to be the next L, as his only purpose to existence. With B, with the seemingly perfect alternate, what has been he then? B rather left him alone with his thoughts and with the fact that the pale's presence in his eye-sight would only make it harder.
"You seriously have to eat that way?" heard the dark haired adolescent suddenly a voiced question. B looked around to find the owner of the sound. Firstly the situation wasn't obvious, but then as the unknown maroon guy – the only other being in the room – looked up from his game, it has become sure, the owner was him.
The striped uppered youth continued the clicking on his PSP, like the previously sounded question would have been just an accidental movement, but then said something again, not stopping the game and gazed only for a slight second to the other.
"Are you dumb or what?" asked the younger. The guy's accent was heard like as a North American one, like a Canadian – or as B could have told it. The pale has been good at it, to recognise them, even copying the accents and tones perfectly.
"No, I'm not." answered then with a common tone and licked the rest of the strawberry jam from the fingers, keeping the jar in the other hand.
"Then?" B slowly tasted the sweet, only after that replied to it, smiling widely.
"I seriously have to eat this way." said. The clicking continued without mimicry or a facial reaction. Almost five minutes have spent in a dead silence, when the maroon raised his head and checked the clock on the wall.
"Fuck it, he is late again." he noted. B looked up to the quietly ticking clock, it was five thirty-seven, almost forty-five minutes after A had had the meeting with L. Sixteen minutes and twenty seconds since B has started to eat the jam and ten minutes one second since the other voiced the question, and as an other being's attendance in the kitchen has become obvious.
Other minutes have elapsed while the gamer waited and B ate the crimson sweet and the clock on the wall ticked. The maroon's clicking has set about soon to be impatient, it has become slightly angry and louder as the time went and it has been started to be combined with some cursing words. He then rather switched off the appliance and tried to kill the time with something else.
"So what's your oddness?" he inquired, trying to fill the waiting minutes with something called communication. "Or you just simply the 'jam-guy'?"
"I guess I'm just simply the 'jam-guy'" the maroon murmured, concentrating to carefully slip in the hand to the jar to reach the rest of the sauce.
"Aham. Just like the parrot-one who repeat the other's thoughts." the youth seemed pissed off, but as B recognized it was just about the time and the unknown one's late.
The pale viewed to the younger, it wasn't a common habit. Except A, the dark haired has rather avoided to look to the others. The sight of the people has meant for the chameleon youth something else. It has been a curse. B has seen theirs fate, has been capable to see theirs end and name – what in this place, where the name has been the man's only and most hided fact beside theirs past, has meant everything, the power over the others.
The crimson letters and numbers now told to the pale everything about the maroon. His name was Mail Jeevas, and the numbers – what couldn't have any meaning to anyone else, but B – have shown: 509 46 12. B has exactly known what those numbers have presented: the other's life span.
While the gamer's man has arrived and they have served the change – for four blue boxes for the younger and some CD-ROMs for the taller brown guy, B again had to realize how much those numbers were abhored.
The tall one's name was Toby Dale. Except his end, B could have predicted for him a criminal life. It was visible on his face. Something illegal stuff, then prison, then some bad guy would kill him inside or something like that. His fate was on his eyes. But as B took a look to the brown guy's numbers, the reality almost felt as a painful slap on a face: 65 years 14 days and 23 minutes. He would live a normal life. He would get old. He would have a family, a daughter or a son or maybe even grandchildren too. He wouldn't deserve it. He wouldn't be caught be the police. Or maybe if he had been, he would be free soon after that.
The anger has slowly started to crawl through B's limbs. The pale has hated the people, hated that damn ability to see theirs destiny and hated the ones who didn't deserve their life and hated the unfairness of the life. The look of the others' time after time has made B to remember to the mortality, the briefness of the left time.
The tall went away with his pirate records and after a minute the maroon broke open one of the blue boxes and pulled out a slice from it. He opened the window beside him widely, like an already common habit and lightened the well-deserved cigarette. B came back to real life as the other sniffed from the fag and exhaled.
"Cancer." the pale noted as the numbers of the younger and the compulsive habit clogged together. The maroon would die obviously in cancer, then why the hell would he die like twenty-one? The gamer was momentary somewhere between eight or nine and the smoking seemed to him as a used behavior for a quite long time not as a new picked up action.
"Aham. Like I'd cared." reacted the other and sniffed again from the fatal addiction. "Anyway, who are you? The police? My parents? 'cause I think neither of 'em, so shut your mouth, creepy."
B laughed, had to laugh. Although the maroon would have liked to play a mature one, he has just succeeded with it the complete opposite. He has been just a kid with a damn tongue and with undoubtedly a cursed background what was responsible for the smoking.
"I won't tell it to anyone, don't worry." B smirked.
"Like I'd cared." said again the striped uppered. They stayed in silence for a long minute, then the maroon voiced. "Matt, by the way." Of course…
"B." the maroon grinned to the pale.
"B? Your name is a single character? Like L's?" Exactly – B thought, but rather sounded the truth, than to be a copy of the great detective's imagine in other's eyes too. A was far enough for it.
"It's Beyond. Beyond Birthday." the gamer looked to the dark haired for a really long second, then smiled.
"Of course you are." he cracked up, but as B didn't show any reaction or betraying mime, he frozen. "Seriously? This is your name?"
"Yapp." the pale said indifferently and nursed the last amount of jam from the fingers.
The maroon suddenly didn't know what to tell. "I have never heard about anyone who has- who has two names or a complete name as a camouflage." he commented then, but both of them known that wasn't the truth, or the real weirdness in the dark haired adolescent's name.
"At least my name isn't Mail, Jeevas." B reflected slightly petulantly. The maroon coughed.
"W-what?" the pale didn't react, the last drops of jam were much more interesting in the certain moment. After the first shock, the other stepped over his sounded secret what somehow was revealed, and moaned. "It's pronounced as 'mile'."
B noted the difference then put the empty jam jar on the kitchen-bar and washed the glass from its bottom to the top, like it has happened with everything else after that in the room, with the bar, the dishes what were near, the selves and the refrigerator, inside and outside, the whole place, except where the maroon has stayed.
"Have you finished with your smoking break?" the question was heard by the dark haired, keeping a sink sponge within two fingertips, watered.
"Are you the party at cleaning or what the hell?" the younger started stunnedly.
"No, I'm just cleaning after myself."
"The jar would have been enough, you didn't touch anything else than that…" he wondered and sniffed the last millimeters from the fag and stubbed it on its box, throwing the end of it to the rose bush below the window. The pale didn't react to it, neither for the previously added note. "So you have a cleaning stuff." voiced the maroon in a cold voice.
"Shut up or I will tell when you will die." B retorted. The shapeshifter has hated when anyone sounded the oddnesses what have been obviously ticks and echoes from the past and the curse what was born simultaneously with dark haired adolescent.
The gamer snorted. "You won't surprise me. I won't live longer than my thirties." he said calmly with a shrug. Well, that's true. "But if you want to surprise my at all costs, tell me, when you will die." got he the pale.
B stayed in silence for a minute, then put the sponge near to the maroon and left the kitchen without a word. The next hiding spot was commonly aimed without a second thought, the library, where the words in the books have always distracted the mind and the absence in the damn ability.
Even if the eyes made the chameleon youth incapable to see the own details, B has always hoped that the time, the invisible numbers haven't meant a later date than three years, one months and two days counted from the present day.
