Helloooooo whoever's reading this I totally forgot to put any sort of A/N…you know…ANYWHERE in the last chapter (roflcopterdinosaur) so here it is. But it's for this one. Oh well. As is (hopefully) pretty obvious when and whereish the last one is, this is Matt (or Mello, whichever, I mean, it's third person) remembering (or something…?) the night Mello left before Matt found Mello all blown-up and whatnot (and don't you just love how he has this big-ass scar on his face, and yet his hair is just as epically awesome as before? I love it. A lot. lol.)

Anyway. I'd been writing and rewriting and rewriting (and so on) a one-shot or something of when Mello leaves, but never actually finishing it. So I finally get this thing published (yay!) and I'm all like I WILL CONQUER YOU! so I wrote it XP also cause I saw this awesome fanart by ~tokiyoh (.com/art/DEATH-NOTE-MNM-Kurai-M-23668356. You should go see it. It rocks my stripy socks.) and I was like…yeah…I'm definitely gonna add that. Anyway again. Here you go.

Oh. Right. By the way–it starts out when the first chapter ended, and then there'll be a space or whatever, and it goes back to when Mello left, so whenever there's a big space, it changes, just if it's not obvious at a particular spot.

I also don't own DN. Or any of the characters. If I did, L, Matt, and Mello wouldn't be dead and they'd all be in it a lot more. goes and sobs in a bathroom

Mello had fallen asleep (and Matt had freaked out thinking he'd died or something for a second, but he hadn't, of course) and was in the same position he had been when Matt had climbed onto the couch just before, because moving hurt too much. Way too much.

He didn't feel like he was on fire all over, only where he'd gotten actually burned, and where he'd gotten scrapes and cuts from bits of building. But where it did hurt, it hurt a lot. There was no middle ground for this; only to extremes, rather like Mello could be.

How cruel.

"Mello?" Matt asked at the slammed door (that poor door…) and Mello storming in, looking like a monster that was about to eat someone (who was probably Near, little albino bastard). "You okay?"

"Of course I'm not o-fucking-kay!" he shouted. "Do I look okay?"

Matt glanced up from his video game and looked Mello up and down. He actually looked pretty adorable, in a I'm-gonna-shoot-you kind of way that only Matt could see the adorableness in. If Mello knew Matt thought this, he would probably be dead within seconds. "Nope. What happened now?"

"Goddamn albino sheep crap Near!"

Matt wasn't surprised. "What'd he do now?"

"L's dead and he didn't pick a successor and they're all like 'Oh, why don't you work together or some shit?' and I'm all facepalm extreme and he's fucking annoying!"

Matt blinked. L was dead? He'd only ever talked to him through a computer, but still…

And the rest of what Mello had just said hit him in the face.

"So what did you do?"

Mello wasn't listening. He was, instead, flying around the room (he was going so fast, it looked like he maybe actually was) with a black backpack in his hand, shoving in chocolate and clothes and money, and then more chocolate.

"Mello…" Matt said slowly, nervously. "What are you doing?"

"What's it look like I'm doing?" he mumbled. "I'm leaving. What else can I do? I can't just sit here and let Near go all…whatever. I can't do that." He almost took one of Matt's videogames in his hurry before realizing that it wasn't his and that he never played games anyway.

Matt dropped his DS onto the bed and stood up so quickly he almost tripped over his boots. "You can't do that!"

Mello gave him a blank stare. "That's why I'm leaving."

"No, Mels, I mean you can't leave. Please." Matt didn't know what he'd do without Mello. He was, quite possibly, the most antisocial person at Wammy's except for Near (but he might as well be a really smart sheep, so he didn't count). Matt didn't have any friends at all except for Mello.

Matt would be lost.

"Well I can't just stay here, and as far as I know I can't disappear into thin air. If you have any brains at all you can see it's my only option."

"Mello." Matt stepped closer and grabbed hold of Mello's arm. "No. Please."

The resolve in Mello's eyes wavered for just a second before he shook off Matt's hand and turned around, fumbling through the bag.

"I have to go," he said quietly. "I just came 'cause I need clothes. And to say bye."

"Mello, don't."

"I can't stay here!" Mello exploded, spinning around so his hair was a mess in his face until he brushed it furiously away with his hand.

"I'll come with–"

"NO!" Mello shouted. "You can't come with me! You'll…you'll get hurt."

"If you're gonna get hurt," Matt said, "then you should need some backup or something. Please."

"No. I–I'm sorry." It was the first time Matt had heard Mello apologize for anything. "I–" but he cut himself off, biting his lip, and turned to the window.

"Mello, don't you dare." Getting no response, Matt (completely accidentally, mind you) grabbed Mello's arm again, this time yanking him closer. The bag fell to the floor with a bang.

"Matt," he said, sounding dangerous. "Stop."

Matt shook his head, any hair that wasn't caught in his goggles swinging around his head in a red halo.

"Let. Go."

Matt looked up at Mello, staring at his icy blue eyes, almost white through the goggles (A/N at least I'm pretty sure they'd be; that's how pale blues look through my Matt goggles :P). Mello couldn't see his eyes, but he knew they were looking at his.

Matt took a breath. No one was saying anything, but Mello was slowly inching himself away from Matt and closer to the open window. The only thing Matt could think of…

He threw his other arm around Mello's shoulder, making him swear, but it stopped completely when Matt's mouth collided with Mello's. His eyes widened and he went perfectly still.

Matt wasn't a pushy person; he never had been, and kissing Mello wasn't different. After hesitantly touching his tongue to Mello's lips, still getting no response, he dropped his arms and stepped back, out of range of Mello's fists.

Mello just stood there, staring wide-eyed at Matt.

"Sorry," he mumbled, with no other explanation as he plopped back to the bed and picked up his game again. He was blushing a furious red, hoping that Mello wasn't paying attention to that. "I…um…sorry."

Mello blinked, and did nothing other than that for a few more seconds. He then walked quietly over to Matt's bed, but Matt could hear his feet against the floor and, terrified for his life, paused his game and put it in the safe-zone of under his pillow.

"You kissed me," Mello pointed out.

"Yeah," Matt mumbled, extremely embarrassed. "Sorry."

"Sorry?"

"Uh, yeah," Matt said, eyes glancing over Mello's face, but he was too scared to look at the blue ones now just a few inches in front of him. "Sorry."

"Sorry," Mello repeated with a scoff. He bent down, and Matt prepared for the worst; getting beaten up by Mello wasn't fun. It was a fact. Not even the most screwed-up masochist would think so.

But he didn't get a punch. Not even his hair yanked, or his goggles getting pulled back only to snap and hit him hard in the face.

Mello bent his head down and touched his lips to Matt's. This time it was green eyes that widened. But when Mello's tongue ghosted out to touch his lips, Matt's eyes closed again and he opened his mouth just enough for Mello's tongue to sneak inside.

Mello, without breaking the kiss that Matt (and, even more secretly, Mello) had only imagined having, climbed up on top of the bed and shifted Matt a bit so they were lying on their sides, front to front. It was very warm, and a bit sloppy, but…hmm. Mello tasted like chocolate. Matt tasted warm, like warm cookies without the cookie part.

"Mello…" Matt murmured when their lips parted, foreheads resting together and breath mingling. "What are you doing?"

"What's it look like I'm doing?" Mello whispered, with a completely different meaning than before. "Dumbass."

"Crap-face."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

Both of them closed their eyes and smiled before simultaneously tilting their chins up, mouths meeting in the middle.

Mello slid his arms around Matt's waist, pulling him even closer, and Matt put his arms around the back of Mello's neck, doing the same.

"Take these off," Mello mumbled, tugging lightly at the goggles still on Matt's head. Matt nodded, grabbing another quick kiss, before yanking the goggles off and expertly tossing them to a desk.

A while later (but, honestly, who pays any attention to the time when you're making out?), Matt and Mello were curled up to each other, Mello's chin on Matt's forehead getting tickled by his hair, and Matt with his fingers curled in Mello's loose shirt.

"Mello?"

"Uh-huh?"

"I love you."

Mello's eyes widened. So this hadn't just been a plan to get him to stay (well. It sort of was. But it wasn't like Matt was going to make out with Mello and say he loved him just to keep a friend with him).

"Are you awake?" Matt asked, turning his head up to try to look at Mello's face.

"I love you too," Mello said quietly, giving Matt a squeeze and smiling when he snuggled more into Mello's chest.

(Rightio. This isn't a spot where it goes back to the time it was in chapter 1. Just a little after the part everyone loves.)

Two hours later, Mello woke up to the sound of rain pounding on the windows. His arms were still wrapped around Matt, and Matt was still curled up on him in the same position as before. He tensed momentarily, but relaxed again a moment later.

Then he remembered what he'd come back to his room for in the first place.

The small smile that he hadn't noticed yet slipped from his face. Biting his lip, he pulled his arms back and untangled Matt's fingers from his shirt, careful not to wake him up. He glanced to the floor; his bag was still there, where he'd dropped it.

Mello picked up the backpack and slung it over one shoulder before turning back to Matt and carefully putting it back down. Matt looked so…young. Not in a weird way or whatever, just so…it was weird. He didn't want to leave.

But he couldn't stay.

Just like that bastard life to give him exactly what he wanted right when he wouldn't be able to have it.

Matt.

Mello let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and walked to the desk where Matt's goggles had been tossed, and searched for a pen and scrap of paper. He probably should go to his own desk, he realized, as it was so much neater.

On a piece of lined paper, with his favorite pen (it was wrapped in the tinfoil wrapper of the first chocolate bar Matt had given him, when he'd first gotten to Wammy's), he scribbled a note. He rewrote it seven times until it was finally right.

Mello put it on Matt's desk, next to his goggles, and gave Matt one last kiss on his forehead before climbing out the window into the thunder and pouring rain with one last whisper. "I'm sorry."

(Again, just a couple hours later, not, like, a bunch of years or anything.)

When Matt woke up, it was…colder than it probably should have been; not exactly cold, per se, but not warm, either. It had been very warm with Mello in the bed with him. Maybe he was getting more chocolate or something.

Matt sat up, running his fingers through his messier-than-usual hair and smiling to himself about last night.

He was ecstatic.

To say the very least.

He stumbled out of the bed and stretched, blinking a few times before trudging to his desk to get his goggles.

There was a piece of paper on top of them.

Huh.

Matt picked it up so he could read it–though it was probably just Mello telling him he was getting food.

But it wasn't.

Far from it.

Matt

I am so sorry. I really, really am. But I have to go. Please don't hate me, or at least for not too long. Don't look for me either. I might find you. I don't know.

But I'm sorry.

Beat up Near for me, if you feel like it.

I love you.

Mello.

Matt stared in disbelief. How could he have just left? Matt's eyes stung, but he wouldn't let it go further.

After staying unmoving for a while, much longer than usual, Matt pulled his goggled up and rubbed furiously at his eyes before folding the piece of paper carefully (OCD carefully, mind you) and put it in the pocket of the vest that was hanging on the back of his chair.

Matt's first urge was to sob under the blankets.

His first actually logical plan was to climb out the window and hope Mello hadn't gotten too far away.

"Mello!" he shouted, one foot out of the window. He hauled himself all the way and dropped to the ground, ignoring the pain in his ankle. "Mello!"

He ran for a few hours, but probably more. There was no sign of Mello anywhere.

"Mello," he finally croaked miserably, turning back in the direction of Wammy's. It didn't take as long this time, as he was going in a straight line, but it still took a while.

"Mello," he repeated, over and over again, like it would bring him back if he said it enough times.

He climbed back into the bed. He wasn't going to move for today, at least.

The pillow still smelled like Mello.

(Now it's back to blowyuppytime :P)