Thank you SOOO much for your reviews! I'm so happy! :D And this fiction is a bit like an alternate time-line...in a way. :D

Thank you for reading! :)

This chapter is kind of short, but it was necessary for it to be just in one chapter. Sorry! But please enjoy! :D

Chapter 2

"Kira? No."

The next days for Light had its ups and downs. Namely, many ups and one big down.

When Light had first come back, he said to his family that the psychology session had gone well, and that he had no need to go anymore. His father had seemed surprised and a little doubtful of Light's vague answers (After all, Light wasn't so sure himself) but decided to test if L's theory was true, and Light's dreams really would magically stop.

And Light was feeling rather blissful, although he had no idea why. It was as if a huge weight that Light had not been aware of was lifted off his shoulders, and the auburn haired boy could not help but revel in it

Why Light was feeling this, he could not fathom, but he had noticed that he had felt this feeling of ecstasy gradually escalate as soon as had walked out of L's room.

Weird, was what Light thought. It had been nice to talk to L for sure, and Light felt a little rueful that someone whom he was intellect matched with was now out of his life. It wasn't a big feeling, more like a 'I should have bought this while it was on sale,' kind of feeling, and Light brushed it off. It had been great playing chess with him and all, but that had been it.

At least, that was what Light thought, until his hand had absentmindedly slipped into his pocket and pulled out the damn chess piece.

Light must have had stared at the black glass figure for five minutes before shaking it out of it and realizing that he had to return it.

If it had been any other plain chess piece, Light would have shrugged it off and forgot about it, but L's game pieces looked painfully expensive and custom-made. And then Light had wanted to bang his head on his desk when he realized that the stupid chess set was actually from a museum in England.

How had Light taken the king anyway? His hands had not been in his pockets for the entire duration of the psychologist session. Nor did he so much as lifted any chess pieces four inches above the board. Which meant…

L, that bastard. He must have slipped it into Light's pocket. For what reason, Light didn't know, but if this was L's way of handing someone his phone number…That was just sad. Really. Especially because when Light had called the clinic where L worked, the receptionist had informed him that Dr. Lawliet had resigned, and no one knew where he went.

L had freaking quit. As soon as Light had left, L had apparently walked out the door as well.

So why did L give Light that chess piece anyway? If he was just going to quit, then why bother? Euurgh, how infuriating. Light rubbed his temples with his fingers. L must be extremely rich if he could afford to just casually give Light a chess piece from a set worth about $100,000 in UK currency.

The auburn-haired boy had researched it on the internet to see its worth. The exact date of origin was unknown, but it had belonged to a nameless noble family. It was locked away in a vault apparently untouched, until it was found and sold to the museum. The museum's website that an L Lawliet had bought it sixteen years ago.

Light certainly had to return the piece now. But how… The auburn-haired boy could not help but feel guilty, even if it wasn't his fault. Way for L to ruin Light's happy feeling, intentional or not. At least he had been correct that Light would not have the dreams anymore. Light liked that he could peacefully sleep now.

The auburn haired boy pushed L out of his mind as the weekend progressed, reassuring himself that if he got the chance, he would return L the glass figure. But honestly, Light was expecting to never see L again.

So Light got a very big surprise come Monday morning…

"…You'll fall in love with me!"

L's eye twitched as he listened to the same song for about the millionth time. To be precise it was forty-seven times, but who's counting? As much as L liked Misa Amane, no one could listen to her song forty-seven times and not find it plain annoying after.

In the hotel room he was staying at, L had not bothered to turn on the lights, so the glow of the computer screens were the only sources of illumination in the dark room. The windows had poured out sunshine when L first sat down, but now the moon shone from the windows.

L pushed the laptop with Misa Amane's song blasting repeatedly and turn to another laptop which was as equally boring. Pushing his thumb between his lips, he pulled off his headphones with his other hand. He was doing two jobs at once, editing a game he was programming, while editing an anime opening theme.

The anime was a "magical girl" one, with annoyingly optimistic main characters that had long pink hair and a magic wand. The theme song was sung by none other than the celebrity Misa Amane. Hence why L had been listening to her for the past hour and a half.

The work L had to do for the opening theme wasn't hard, but it wasn't interesting at all. The black-haired man had worked on countless magical girl anime and this was no different.

Actually, the most fun L ever had doing a job like this was when a company hired him to fix up a yaoi anime. L had been pretty amused. It wasn't something you worked in every day. He even got a two action figure set of the two main characters (Boys, of course) for free, which you could bend into twelve different screwing positions. He still had them somewhere. And despite what Mello said, L was not a closet yaoi fan. After all, the black-haired man didn't even open up the box yet.

L typed on the game he was editing, abandoning the anime theme. Stupid game-testers. The complained that the game L programmed was 'too hard' and that they couldn't even get past the tutorial. L had purposely made the game easy, and Matt had been able to finish it in an hour and a half. Well, Matt was a genius like L and the game was for 'normal people,' so perhaps that was a bad comparison.

L wondered why he even bother making the game if he was going to make it so easy. He mentally winced at it and thought a child could finish it with his eyes closed. But when L was a child, he was smarter than most adults, so that wasn't a good comparison either.

For a moment there was silence in the luxury hotel suite except for the tap tap tap of the keyboards. This was so boring that L was beginning to wonder why he came to Japan. Being a prosecutor was fun…It was that L got paranoid of being around criminals. Although it was fun watching a grown man cry when the judge declared that the defendant was guilty. But being around criminals and possibly making enemies made L paranoid. Better safe than sorry. Which was why L had quit being a criminologist.

The silence was broken when there was footsteps and L looked over his shoulder to see Quillsh Wammy with another cart of sweets. L widened his eyes and took a cake eagerly.

As soon as the black-haired man dug into the strawberry shortcake, Wammy, or Watari was he was sometimes called, gave a small cough. This caused L to look up, who had cream all over his face.

"You've been in a good mood lately, L," the old man remarked. "Anything good happened?" Although L had been acting pretty much the same, Watari had noticed that L had been acting more light and like he had dropped a huge burden. L had not expressed this in anyway, but the old man just knew.

Wammy had been with L since the black-haired man was eight, and being with someone for that long had allowed Wammy to be more empathetic towards the now twenty-four year old man.

L blinked, and in the darkness with only the soft glow from the computer screens, his hair looked stark black against his pale skin, the dark bags under his eyes looking even darker. However, with this…vibe Watari was getting from the dark-eyed boy, Watari could not say that L looked tired or eerie. L looked more carefree than he had in years.

"No, nothing in particular," L said, turning his attention back to typing, while scooping more cake into his mouth.

Watari smiled fondly. "I see." The old man peered down at the computer screens. "Is it all going well?"

The black-haired man sighed. "I suppose you can say that."

Watari pushed his glasses up, readjusting them to the bridge of his nose. "You seem rather unenthusiastic about it," he noted. "I thought we came to Japan because of the anime."

"Yes, I did. Working with two dimensional fictional characters is a nice change of pace. That was why I quit being a psychologist here. I could go to America if I wanted to do that."

It was a plausible enough answer as to why L had resigned. L had really quit because after meeting Light, he realized that he had finished his purpose in that field, as corny as that sound. And to solidify that belief, he gave Light the chess piece.

Watari didn't really seem to believe L's excuse, but after seeing L's emotionless face for two minutes, he accepted it. L was a good liar. Not really anything to be proud of, but it came in handy most of the time.

"But L…" Watari said, slightly hesitant. "About your newest career…Are you sure? You had many occupations, but you never wanted to do something like this."

L could tell the truth this time. "I want to try. Even as a temporary replacement. In fact, it is exactly because it is temporary that I want the job." L finished the cake and began attacking the jelly beans. "This isn't the kind of job where you can resign after you finished what you were hired for. You must do it all year. And suppose I couldn't handle it," L widened his dark-rimmed eyes. "That is why I should take advantage of this job being temporary."

Watari smiled. "Well, I wish for the best, L."

Miheal Keehl was expecting an answer, the Kira-eyed child noted. Well, this boy introduced himself as Mello, despite that the letters 'Miheal Keehl' floated above his head. So the Kira-child better start calling him that to not arouse suspicion.

Roger Ruvie, Mail Jeevas, and Nate Rivers were also staring at him curiously. Well, except for the Nate boy, or as he called himself, 'Near.' Near had no emotion on his face as he looked at the Kira-child while playing with a Rubik's Cube.

"So who are you?" Mihe-Mello asked again. He looked like a girl, the Kira-child thought, his red eyes flashing in amusement. His eyes were what make everyone wary of him in the first place so he looked down.

Mello made a small noise of irritation at the back of his throat at the child's frustrating lack of response, and Mail, no Matt, intervened.

"Come on, Mello," the redhead said. "Maybe he's just confused. I mean, he just woke up and all." Matt seemed less interested in him now and pulled out a game console.

"Yes, I agree," Roger, who was the only one honest about his name, said. The old man smiled at the unknown child "If you'd like, you can stay here until we locate your parents," he said kindly and asked, "Where are they?"

The child squirmed uncomfortably. "…I don't have…" he mumbled quietly. His black hair covering his red eyes. He shifted his weight on the bed he was sitting up on, crossing his ankles tightly.

There was a silence, with the four others looking at him knowingly. Not sympathetically, but knowing how the child was feeling all the same.

The three teenagers irked the Kira-child. He couldn't see the life-spans of any of them. He could only see their names. Who were those three? He could see Roger and the other kids' life-spans just fine, so what was wrong.

The three, the blond and redhead fifteen, and the white-haired boy thirteen, did sort of ring a bell, the Kira-child thought. Vaguely. Was it this strange faint familiarity that kept him from knowing the teens' life-spans?

Mello was the first one to break the silence. "Well, you came to the right place," he said, and despite how emotional he could get, the Kira-child could not tell if Mello was being sarcastic or not. "Welcome to Wammy's House."

"Mello," Roger chided. "Behave yourself and thing about his feelings." Addressing the unknown child again, he asked, "Do you have any relatives or foster parents?" The child shook his head no.

"Well, the kid's not helping at all," Mello said. Pulling out a chocolate bar from his pocket, he unwrapped it and bit off a chunk with a loud snap. "He won't even explain what he was doing passed out in the woods!"

Matt rolled his eyes, and then focused back to his game. "He said he wandered around and got lost, didn't he?"

Near spoke for the first time. "But Mello has a point." The Kira-child looked at him with mixed emotions. The child was surprised at the murderous fury he felt against the white-haired boy, but the feeling had gone away as quickly as it had appeared. Near twirled a strand of hair with his index finger while he talked. "Why were you out on Wammy's House grounds in the first place?"

The child was about to open his mouth to answer, but Roger beat him to it. "Don't make the poor boy uncomfortable. It's lucky he found this place," the old man said as he headed for the door. As he stepped out of the room, he called out over his shoulder, "I'm going to call the Wammy staff to prepare a room. Pleas keep him Company until then, Mello, Near, Matt." The door swung shut. Click.

As soon as the door closed, another awkward silence ensued. In an attempt to defuse the tension, Matt commented, "Doesn't he look a lot like L?" The redhead scrutinized the pale black-haired child closely.

Near nodded while playing with his Rubik's Cube again. "I noticed that as soon as I saw him."

"Oh, did you now?" Mello said, nearly growled, at Near. The hatred was evident on Mello's face. When the white-haired boy didn't respond, the blond teen turned to the Kira-child, who sat there stiffly. "Maybe he's related to L."

Matt snickered under his breath while mashing muttons on his PSP. "Maybe. The kid's not even telling us his name. For all we know, he could be."

Mello narrowed his eyes slightly. "Awfully convenient for you to come here of all places," he murmured suspiciously to the eight-year old child, who was slowly becoming more and more frozen at the mention of L. "Just who are you?" Mello asked for the third time.

The Kira-child hesitated before abruptly stand up, gaining all three orphans' attentions. The Kira-child looked to the side where a mirror hung from the wall, and stared at his reflection. Pale skin, black hair, lanky, with murderous red eyes, giving him the air of someone to be wary of. Squeezing his eyes shut, he concentrated for a moment, and his eyes changed color to a bright innocent brown, lifting up the 'evil' aura and gave the impression that the Kira-child was care free and innocent, how a child should be at eight years.

Eyes flickering back to red, he continued to stare at his reflection. The Kira-child couldn't see his own life-span, which was natural; it was against the rules for a human(Human? Was that what he was?) with Shinigami Eyes to be able to. But he couldn't see his own name either. He didn't have a name yet to call his own…

So what could be his name? Kira, was what first came to the child's mind as a memory that wasn't his sprang up, and suddenly L's black eyes were the only thing he could see as L had fallen out of his chair, while the black-eyed detective finally confirmed that he had been right all along-You are Kira…

But his name could also be L, as he watch Kira(? Yagami Raito?) closed his eyes, blood still seeping form the bullet wounds alone on the staircase. And suddenly, the thought to say that he was L was dangerously alluring to him. And that desire to that sudden temptation mad him realize that he was someone else entirely.

The Kira-child smiled, and he turned his face to Miheal Keehl, Mail Jeevas, and Nate Rivers, who were all still looking at him. The Kira-child could see out of death eyes for as long as he could remember, which was why-

"My name," The black-haired child said, still smiling, "is Beyond Birthday."

Beyond Birthday looked into the mirror again, and sure enough, the name, 'Beyond Birthday' were now floating above the eight-year old child's head.

A/N- Okay, I know a bunch of you is going like O.O right now, but stay with it for now! :) I know it's kinda weird, but I had already planned for an L-look alike with red eyes to appear in the story, and then I remembered B. So yeah...