Chapter 2: Reaping Day
L wasn't emotionally ready for today.
Sure, he may look like some sort of emotionless robot 99% of the time, but he wasn't, okay? He was human and alive and he didn't want to deal with his siblings weeping all over his clothes, even if it meant they were crying because of the idea of losing him.
With a loud, aggravated sigh, the black-haired man shoved the lanky blond teenager away from him and grabbed the albino child wrapped around his feet by the scruff of his neck. "Look, Mello, Near. I get it, you don't want me to die. But please, keep your grief to yourself. I have enough to deal with feeding you every day, I do not need this. Besides, there are several teenagers in District Five, perhaps one of them will be chosen and I will be relieved of the burden of the Reaping for the rest of my life. How about you focus on that?"
Near nodded quietly, folding into himself, but Mello burst into angry tears in response.
"L, you have 24 entries in the Reaping, how the fuck can I focus on that? We can't lose you!"
The older man shrugged. "Deal with it how you were before Watari came in and reminded us. Please, now, Mello, stop crying and eat your food. We will have to be in the Main Square in ten minutes."
L had always found Reaping Day to be a tedious affair. So much drama, and for what, really? Two children were going to be plucked out of the Districts and put in an arena to fight and kill each other for no reason whatsoever. The whole idea of the Hunger Games was a stupid one, there were several better ways to keep the Districts in line (such as a better social structure, for one), if only President Coriolanus Snow was open-minded enough to see it (he wasn't).
L wished he wasn't a factory worker in the slums of District Five. Working with mechanics was hell on his back, he had always been a more cognitive person. As a child, he had dreamed of being a Peacekeeper, but a special Peacekeeper, one who found out how people committed crimes and predicted the criminals' next moves.
He had said as much to a friend years ago, the son of a Peacekeeper. L had never had many friends…but that one, Light Yagami, had been a true one. He had proved as much when, the minute he'd heard L's dream, he had proceeded to plan out a detailed scheme by which the two of them would become crime-fighting Peacekeepers independent of the Capitol, with all the sugar and apples they could eat (what? They were fourteen!).
Luckily, L didn't have to bother missing him (he did anyway) because his face was plastered over the Main Square, graffitied onto abandoned buildings and fraying from random old posters inside the factories. Trust L to have been friends with Kira, the Capitol's Ultimate Weapon and Death Sentence to the Rebellion.
He didn't know what had happened in the two years since Light Yagami had moved away to District One, but in that time he had achieved a damn lot more than L had. While L had been struggling to get a job in the factory to support his two leeches, Light had somehow managed to not only gain the godlike powers over death, use it to mass-murder Capitol (and District) criminals escaping punishment, but also got himself captured by the Capitol and used to smother the flames of the rebellion of the Districts (or so the Capitol thought).
The rumours surrounding Kira were mixed. Some called him a Capitol lapdog, a traitor to the Districts, and others called him the Districts' only hope. After all, a District-born boy with the power to control the circumstances of anybody's death with the flick of a pen, how could he not be their only hope?
In the first few months since the dramatic assassination of all the heads of the Rebellion in one shot, there had been whispers in the factories about freeing Kira and having him murder their way to victory. The slogan Kill the Capitol had spread through District Five like wildfire, and after months of defeat, the people felt the fire in their bones again.
Until the first Kira-organised Hunger Games, of course.
L had to admit that was a genius move on Snow's part. The Hunger Games were bad enough, did he have to make it so they used the powers of the man they were counting on to humiliate them as much as possible?
That was the problem of the Districts. They were the losing side, they lost everything to the Capitol every time, all because they weren't privileged enough to have an education, to put their minds to strategy rather than mere survival.
L missed Light. He missed him terribly. The four years they had been friends for had been the best years of his life. For the first time ever, he had had someone snarky enough, clever enough and brilliant enough to keep up with him, to think beyond the shallow trials of everyday life to dream about another world. He had a partner, someone to bounce ideas off of and to confide in.
He could do that with Near and Mello, he guessed…but it wasn't the same.
Sometimes he found himself looking at those frayed posters in the factory, studying that strained smile, those sardonic, dismissive amber eyes, the impossibly shiny rust-brown hair that framed his attractive face…
"L, I thought we were supposed to be at the City Circle in ten minutes. It has been fifteen." A quiet, measured voice came from the dining table, where his two brothers sat in front of empty plates in their new clothes. Fifteen-year-old Mello still had on tears and a snarl, while twelve-year-old Near was blissfully blank.
L groaned, adjusting his new white sweatshirt over his raggedy jeans and gesturing for them to get up and follow him down. Being late for the Reaping would result in some stupid form of punishment, usually a wage-dock, which L couldn't afford (excuse the pun).
Today would not only be his last Reaping but Near's first, not that either of them particularly cared about that. He had one slip in that glass ball, the odds were as much in his favour as they could be. If he got picked despite all that, they would take it as a sign from God.
The three siblings sauntered down the gravel streets as casually as they could, trying their hardest to ignore the milling crowds and weeping children. Mello gripped his hand tightly, as if afraid that if he let go, L would stroll over to the Arena and hop happily in. He saw several of his classmates and colleagues from the factory standing uncertainly in the roped-off area closest to the stage.
L wrenched his hand out of Mello's grasp and squatted down right in the middle of the street to look them in the eyes. "Okay, Mello, Near, we part ways here. You have to go to the back, Near, you see Linda waving there? Do you need me to show you the way?"
Near shook his snowy head, his huge dark eyes boring into his. "I can tell the way myself, thank you."
"Mello? Need me to escort you?"
His blond sibling's lip wobbled, as if he did, in fact, need an escort, but seeing Near act self-sufficient was enough to force him to decline. He wouldn't be one-upped by that robotic albino, oh no. "I can see Matt over there, I can go." He stared for a minute at L's face. "L…if you get picked, I'm going to volunteer for you."
That caught L by surprise. "No. Absolutely not."
"You can't stop me." The blonde crossed his arms, obstinate. L felt a twist of worry in his stomach.
"Mello, you are fifteen years old. You cannot volunteer for me. I have a much greater chance of winning if I am chosen and you know it. I know Capoeira, I can handle myself. You must promise me that you will do no such thing."
Mello shook his head. "I will volunteer, and there's nothing you can do about it."
L growled, annoyed. "Mihael! You will not-" The Capitol anthem started to play loudly from the stage, a blast of French horns and heavy drums, and the Peacekeepers flooded into the Square, whacking around the people who were outside their respective pens. L quickly backed away from his siblings. "You will not volunteer, Mello, or I will confiscate all the chocolate in your collection for the rest of your life, do you understand me? Behave yourself."
Quickly, avoiding the swinging batons of the Peacekeepers, L slipped into the pen for the eighteen-year-olds and stood up straight beside one of his factory colleagues, a rough heavily built man he wished with all his heart would be chosen instead of him. This guy looked like he had the potential to win the games, his arm muscles were the size of L's face.
In no time, the escort of District Five, a scarily green-painted woman in a loud looping purple wig named Cornelia, had flounced onstage. "Hello, hello, hello, District Five!" She called cheerily, grabbing the mic and twirling it in her taloned hands. "Are you all having a brilliant day? I sure am! Shall we play the live feed from the Capitol now or are you all yet to settle?"
The Peacekeepers unanimously brandished their batons, ready to beat up anyone who was still 'yet to settle'. L looked away with a smirk on his lips. What a joke.
"Wonderful! Let's hear President Snow's speech, then!"
L hated to admit it…but if there was anything to look forward to in the Reaping, it would be this. Not because President Snow was some sort of magnificent orator or anything, just the opposite in fact. Snow did not stir any feelings of patriotism with this stupid speech, it was mostly just an arm-flexing moment to show off his power over the Districts. No, it wasn't the speech he cared about.
The feed blinked on and zoomed in to focus on an aged, distinguished silver-haired man in front of a podium, red rose in his white suit…and a slender brunet boy by his side in a cream-coloured suit, standing with his gaze burning a hole in the ground.
"Dear citizens of Panem! Capitol and Districts, united as one!" The President's speech washed over him, running through one ear and escaping from the other, completely meaningless. L's entire focus was on the boy beside him, Kira, Raito Yagami.
Every time L had seen him on television, he had had two bodyguards dressed in all black standing behind him with their arms crossed obstinately. He looked healthy enough, though the dark circles around his honey eyes could have rivalled L's own. His expression, that ferocity that the Capitol had not beaten down, L revelled in it. Perhaps his friend was still out there, somewhere. Perhaps someday, he could meet his Raito-kun again.
The silver-haired President finished whatever nonsense he had just spewed out, but this time, rather than pan away with the Capitol anthem playing at full volume, the camera zoomed in on the pair onstage. The old man was putting a gentle hand on Light's back, snapping the boy's attention from the ground in front of his feet to Snow's poisonous blue eyes.
"Any words for the public, Kira?"
The glare the brunet gave the old man sent a shiver down L's spine. Did he even realise what he was doing to the Districts with every act of defiance? How he was filling everyone with the idea that he didn't want to be on the side he was?
L fully expected the teenager to shake his head, refuse to speak, but once again he surprised him. The boy came forward, tilting the mic up with a brush of his fingers and giving the cameras a good look at his charming toothy grin, caramel eyes sparkling.
"Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favour!" He said cheerily, but with his smile dropping abruptly halfway through his sentence, it sounded sarcastic enough to make Snow look like he had sucked on a lemon. He turned away from the podium without being dismissed and trudged off-screen, his bodyguards hurrying to tail him.
Snow was giving the boy an ominous look, but cut himself off to throw his warm smile at the audience. "Well said. May the Reaping begin!"
The Capitol anthem blared. The crest took over the screen. The District escort Cornelia twitted back to the middle of the stage, assisted by the former Victors Beetee and Wiress as she lugged two glass balls with her, one filled with the names of all the adolescent boys in District Five and the other with the girls. 24 of those chits had his name scrawled onto them. L Lawliet. He wondered if Kira would humiliate him if he got picked, as he did the others. He wondered if Light would even recognise him.
"Ladies first!" The infuriatingly merry woman declared, her hand diving into the slot of the bowl and rummaging about for the perfect slip. The eyes of every girl in the reaping pens followed her hand, as if they could somehow ward it away from their chits. The girl closest to him was clasping her hands to her chest with her eyes closed, praying frantically at the sky.
"Naomi Misora!"
L sighed. Misora was in his year, she had been a good friend of Light's back when he had been around, mostly due to their shared Japanese ancestry than any actual similarities. She and L had grown closer after he left, especially after she started working at the factory, they sat next to each other at lunch and everything.
Misora marched up the stage in her black boots and grubby jacket, her dark hair loose around her pale face, stopping beside Cornelia, who let out a squeal.
"Well, we have one beautiful tribute! Time for the gentlemen!"
L crossed his fingers. It couldn't be him, or else Mello would volunteer and damn it, he would have to challenge his volunteer claim and kick his ass in front of all the cameras to force him to get the fuck out of there.
The woman rummaged in the glass bowl for an infuriatingly long time. L's face started to burn, and the atmosphere around him turned tense.
Finally, Cornelia whipped out a slightly yellowed chit and smoothed it out on the flat of her hand. L wanted to take one of his old tennis shoes and smack her across the face with it.
The woman looked up, her golden teeth gleaming in her green face.
"Mihael Keehl!"
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A/N: I love L POV's, they're the best :D give me some of those reviews, this is a work in progress so any feedback is really valuable :)