She woke up to the sound of chewing.
It took her a moment to realize that it wasn't part of a dream. When she did stir, it was slowly, with the ease that came from hot Sunday mornings. Even the curious sound of chewing couldn't interrupt /that/ particular habit.
When she twisted off of her stomach and craned her neck to search out the source of the sound, she was startled all over again. All she could do was flop back down onto her front, fingers curling over the footboard as she peered over the top at him. Her eyes were wide, and the apparent fright on what little he could see of her face caused him pause.
L was seated on her desk chair, the tray of sweets from the night before balanced across his knees. It looked terribly uncomfortable to her, but that was the least of her worries.
"I thought you were a dream." Her voice sounded incredulous at best.
"You should trust your eyes." He nodded, swallowing back a cheekful of donut. "They'll never fool you then."
"Or they'll fool me all the time," she observed, brows raising slightly. It shouldn't have been so easy to respond to him-after all, he was only a delusion. She needed to see a doctor immediately.
L hummed thoughtfully as she questioned her sanity. He plucked up another small donut from the tray between his thumb and forefinger, raising it up for inspection.
"I suppose you're right."
It was a concession she hadn't expected. Except, without their argument coming to fruition she was left with nothing else to say. The silence that fell between them made her uncomfortable, though he seemed generally unaffected. What was she supposed to say to a figment of her imagination?
"You're wondering why I'm here."
"No, more like-" /How/ was more like it, but she gave up before it ever left her mouth. "Sure. Close enough." She paused, brows furrowed in confusion and-possibly-suspicion. "Why /are/ you here?"
"I don't know." He took up the last donut and chewed quietly, drowning the room in silence again.
For a long time she just lied there, watching him suspiciously and waiting for him to disappear. Or for her to wake up.
He didn't seem like he was going to speak, however, far too concerned by the sweets she had gathered for him.
"What /are/ you?" She questioned, finally. If he were a figment of her imagination, he might as well pity her and tell her as much.
"A shinigami, apparently," he said, in a tone that indicated he didn't quite believe it himself. Maki stared openly at him over the footboard, his odd words giving clear weight to her theory that she was imagining things.
"Shinigami don't really exist, L." Suddenly, she felt like she was talking to a child who couldn't grasp that there wasn't a boogie monster.
"You should read more Sherlock Holmes." He paused, though she gave no indication of understanding and he soon continued. "When all other explanations have been eliminated, the remaining scenario-no matter how improbable-must be the solution."
Maki stared blankly at him. Great. Now she was getting literature lectures from a manifestation of her subconscious.
"I died." It hurt her how calmly he could say something like that, but she hadn't time to investigate it.
"But I'm here now." Despite everything, she felt like he was explaining something painfully obvious that she had happened to miss.
"I'm sure you've already come to the conclusion that I'm a figment of your imagination, but I can assure you that isn't the case."
Her expression clearly showed just how ready she was to believe /that/.
He watched her for a moment before deciding it was a fight for another day. "You'll believe me eventually."
Silence fell between them for the third time, but she was afraid to move from the spot. Everything certainly /felt/ real enough...but that was the problem with crazy people, wasn't it? They didn't know they were crazy.
She wasn't sure how much time passed then, though she was certain it felt much longer than it truly was. If this was really happening, she was going to need a better explanation than the one he had given her.
"Then help me. Explain." It was a bit rude, to be honest, but she had grown short-tempered and headstrong a long time ago.
He didn't seem phased by her demand, though he /was/ reluctant to follow it. "It's a very long story."
"It's Sunday."
At least that was enough to draw him away from his sweets. He shed the tray and stepped down off of her desk chair, moving over to crouch in front of her on the other side of the footboard.
He started at the very beginning, detailing the unpublicized story behind a name she had come to learn quite well: Kira. There were films and books and all sorts of things based around the killer's memory. Even now, people idolized him. She had been too young to care for the sensationalized version in the press, however, and L's story was far more interesting than anything a tabloid could publish. Parts of it were very hard to consider truthful, but he spoke with such inflappable honesty that she felt compelled to listen without complaint. At the very least, she could tell that he wholeheartedly believed in what he was telling her.
But he was right: it was a /very/ long story. She dressed behind her closet door as he told her of his initial suspicions about Light Yagami, brushed her teeth while he spoke about the young man joining the team...and by the time they were at her small kitchen table over breakfast, his tale grew truly fantastic. Maki sipped at a bowl of thin soup as L perched across from her, nibbling on gummies from a spilled bag between clauses in his story.
After he described Light's death in his usual nonchalant manner-(a casual tone that only made the images he drew up all the more disturbing)-things fell silent once more. Maki watched him over the rip of her bowl as she sipped at the dregs, inspecting his face for any sign of regret. If he felt it, he wasn't letting her see as much.
"So you want me to believe that you're a death god now?" She sighed, returning her soup bowl to the table.
"I would like that, yes."
All she could do for a moment was watch him with incredulity in her expression. Eventually, however, something occurred to her.
"You mentioned that only people who have touched a shinigami's death note can see them. Then why can I see you?"
L watched her for a moment, clearly expecting her to figure it out on her own. When she didn't, he reached across the table and stuck his hand right into the opening of her purse. It was difficult not to jump at the gesture. She could have been angry, but before she could muster the emotion he had slipped out a tiny strip of paper.
There were many things that confused her then-his ability to pull something from her purse without looking chief among them-but the fact that he had suddenly turned a seemingly meaningless scrap of paper into something significant was the biggest. She stared at it with a mixture of confusion and astonishment.
"How did you know I wouldn't write down someone's name?" To her, it seemed too big of a risk to be entirely trustworthy.
"I didn't take that chance." He paused, brows raised slightly. It wasn't exactly an answer, but she imagined it was the best she would be getting. None of what he had told her made much sense, though the simple /fact/ that he was there made even less sense. If it was all true...why had he bothered in the first place? Why was he there, in /her/ kitchen, when he was supposed to be doing.../whatever/ it was that death gods did? No matter what angle she thought through, she couldn't come up with a rational answer.
"But why?"
He was silent for a long time, peering down at the empty bag in front of him that had once been full of candy. It was as if he were seeing something there that she couldn't.
"I was lonely.
