Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note.

A/N: Hey, I'm actually writing it now! Hopefully updates will be more frequent in the future now that I've gotten started. This chapter is kind of slow, but it should get better next chapter.

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Chapter Two

Dead Souls

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Light made his way across the street while the red hand flashed, his eyes never leaving the man who was walking on the sidewalk about ten meters ahead of him. It hadn't been as difficult as he'd expected to find L.

In fact, it was so easy that he was forced to conclude that Misa hadn't even been trying to hide her affair. He half suspected that the whole thing was merely a test she had implemented to see how much attention he paid her, which turned out not to be very much.

Early that morning, Light had searched the phone book and all of Misa's other letters to find some way of contacting L, only to be met with failure. In frustration, he had thrown the phone book across the room, arousing much audible disapproval from his downstairs neighbors.

The phonebook had landed on the floor next to his old laptop, which had given him the idea to visit Misa's Myspace page. There, to his surprise, he found that the majority of her comments were from L, whose only picture was of the letter 'L' written in a gothic font on a white background. His profile listed his current place of business.

Weirdly enough, L apparently worked at a nearby police station, the same place Light's father did. Light almost wished he was on better terms with said father, if only so he could call him up and get some inside information. However, they'd had a falling out about a year before and hadn't spoken to each other since. Still, at least Light had known where the building was, and that came in handy.

Light had been able to go to his work building and narrow it down to a handful of candidates from the men he'd seen entering said building. It wasn't a huge police station, so the pool of possible men had been fairly small.

He hadn't wanted to go inside and risk running into his father, so instead he ended up sitting at a table in front of the café across the street and surreptitiously watching the door.

Asking each of the employees if they were L wouldn't really fit in with his plans, vague though they were, so the only method he could think of was to pay attention each of them in turn until he heard someone say their names. He had already done this with two of them, who had taken a cigarette break together, and had called each other Matsuda and Aizawa.

He was presently following another one of these candidates on what he assumed was his lunch break. This man didn't give Light the impression of being a cop. He was younger than all of the other ones, perhaps close to Light's age, which would have made him the most obvious choice for Misa, except that he was not at all fashionable, with his scruffy hair and too-baggy clothes.

He was also pale and had bags under his eyes, which Misa normally found repulsive. Light really couldn't imagine someone like Misa wanting to be anywhere near him. Still, there was this quality about the man, something that drew eyes to him automatically even when he stood still. Light was interested. He kind of hoped this was L, even if it seemed unlikely.

Light followed the man until he entered a candy shop on his left. At this point, Light thought it would be a bit suspicious if he went inside, as there probably weren't enough people in there for him to blend in, so he kept walking until he was at the entrance to the next shop and then leaned against the wall casually.

A few minutes later, the man left the shop, carrying a large paper bag. Light immediately began to follow him, a little too closely perhaps, as he was unable to stop in time when the man stopped and turned around abruptly, thus causing a minor pedestrian accident. The two of them collided, almost causing the man to drop his bag.

"Oh, sorry." The man said before quickly reentering the candy shop and coming back out again with a second bag, all before Light had time to move. As the man left the shop for the second time, Light heard a good-natured voice shout out from inside.

"No problem, L! You're our favorite customer!" It said with a laugh. Light felt a strange feeling well up within him as he watched L brush past him and walk away. Well, he'd found him. He didn't feel the triumph he'd expected after all the effort he'd put into his search. Instead, he felt strangely lonely.

This feeling intensified sharply, exponentially, until he shook his head and forced it down again, where it continued to simmer under the surface. Although he'd suspected that this man might be L, and knew that Misa had slept with L, he hadn't thought about it much before he had a face to put with the letter.

Now, images flashed through his mind beyond his control; the two of them in bed together, that freak touching his wife, and Misa liking it, and the two of them being, for that brief amount of time, completely apathetic to Light's existence.

Light stood on the sidewalk motionlessly, gazing in the direction that L had gone, for a few minutes before he decided he'd had enough for the day and wanted to go home.

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L returned from his lunch break and dumped his fresh candy into his desk drawer, where it would be easy to reach while he was working. He had almost forgotten some of it at the store, which rather alarmed him because it suggested a level of absentmindedness on his part that he hadn't thought possible. He prided himself on his mental acuity, which happened to be necessary for his job.

He was formerly a private investigator by trade, but had recently begun detective work for the police department instead.

The pay wasn't as good, but he found the work more rewarding. He'd decided that catching criminals was more beneficial to society than spending his time stalking suspected adulterers or tracking down long-lost relatives.

He wasn't trying to be self-righteous with his career move, he had simply been thinking a lot about death recently. Thoughts of death usually had the effect of making him worry about his life's overall impact on the world. Perhaps he was depressed. Anyway, he had needed a change.

The phone on L's desk rang, which always startled him, but not enough for anyone else to notice. He answered it with his right hand while opening candy with his left, and was surprised to hear Misa's voice. They still kept in touch via the Internet, but she hadn't called him since they had stopped seeing each other.

"Hi L! It's Misa!" She sounded as if she was really excited to be Misa.

"Hello Misa. What is the occasion?" L said before carefully placing a jellybean in his mouth.

"Well, the thing is…while you and I were together, I was actually married." She said in a guilty sort of tone. L was not surprised. Catching adulterers had been his specialty for a good long time, and he had recognized the signs when he'd seen them.

"Hmm. I suppose you have a reason for telling me this now?" He said as he ate another jellybean.

"Yeah, well, I'm divorced now, and I accidentally left all your old love letters behind at his house, and he found them…" Misa said. L frowned. How embarrassing. Those were definitely not meant for anyone else to see them. In fact, looking back, it had been ridiculous to trust them to Misa, or anyone really, in the first place.

He supposed he'd been in love at the time, or something like that. It was amazing how it had impaired his judgment.

"Is that all?" L finally asked.

"Yeah, I just thought you should know. For some reason." Misa said.

"Fair enough." L replied, and hung up. It hardly mattered that Misa had been married, or that Misa's ex-husband had read his letters. It wasn't like L was ever going to meet him or anything.

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A/N: By the way, I know nothing about police departments and detective work, so don't expect any accuracy on that front. I suppose I could do research, but...nah. Reviews would be lovely.