Light awoke shortly after dawn. He dressed into his suit and tied his shiny shoes with utter repetition. He left his inviting, secluding bedroom behind him reluctantly and made his way towards the main control room of the Kira Task Force Headquarters where he'd start yet another day tricking and conniving his co-workers out of suspecting him.
As long as Misa has not failed to continue writing names in her death note, therefore keeping the rate of criminal deaths the same while my notebook is in the hands of the Task Force, Light thought, I shouldn't have to worry about them starting to suspect me. Even if they do begin to question Misa, I can have her give up ownership of the notebook like last time, therefore hiding any evidence. I'm completely safe from everyone… except Ryuzaki, who may or may not suspect me. Damn, if I could only figure out what he's thinking… But nothing he says ever makes any sense! If I could somehow figure out what Ryuzaki may know about me, maybe then I could find a way to counter his assumptions, without having to kill him…
A pang of panic shot through Light's chest as the thought of seeing Ryuzaki killed flashed into his mind in it's familiar explosive force, coursing a kind of guilt through his veins in which he was unfamiliar to.
What am I thinking? Light chided himself. Where is all of this coming from? Why do I feel so reluctant to just kill him already?
Another image of Ryuzaki entered Light's brain. His shaded eyes, his pale face filled with vacancy of the detective's presence that wandered upon Light's mind ceaselessly. The absence of motivation.
That was it; Light knew it to be true at this point. Ryuzaki had taken Kira's nerve with his utter dejection and emptiness, and there was no way of knocking on his door and asking for it back.
Light wondered irritably when Kira, the god of the new world, had become so susceptible to the contagious misery of others, especially that of people in which he needed to eliminate. You'd think he'd be stronger than that.
At this time, Light decided to accept the fact that Ryuzaki was too intelligent to be completely clueless to not only his oncoming death, but Light's secret identity as the murderer who will inflict the death.
He remembered awfully how Ryuzaki considered Light his one and only friend. He tasted the delicious cake on his tongue, the cake that they had shared in a college cafeteria what seemed like eons ago. He heard the clash of a tennis ball on a racket, bringing him back kicking and screaming to the tennis court in which they had shared a game. The interesting conversations they shared and the days they spent together on the Task Force crashed around on the walls of Light's sanity and sheared away at them in their sharp edges and unforgiving planes.
Did all of that really mean nothing to Light?
He pushed the thought away angrily.
I can't suddenly decide that Ryuzaki matters. He's L. He's against me. He is Kira's enemy. He must die. And I must become god.
Light entered the control room and found Matsuda, Aizowa, Mogi, and his own father sifting through a clutter of papers covering a small coffee table. Light's red eyes then picked out Ryuzaki, who sat with his knees up in a chair watching the surveillance camera monitors. His thumb pressed onto his lower lip, he moved the mouse around slowly. The same sadness as before was there, enlaced in his slumped posture, his burdened, lanky hands. It made Light want to scream and cry at the same time.
"Hey, Light, Come here!" Matsuda cried with a Cheshire-cat grin, holding the death note in his hands. "You're gonna be really happy about this!"
Ryuzaki side-glanced Light, and appeared as if there was something he wanted to say. Light awaited his words with enthusiasm, but L apparently changed his mind and returned to the computer monitors.
Light tore his eyes from Ryuzaki and focused on Matsuda.
"What is it?"
"We've been studying the rules written in the death notebook," Mogi said, looking over Matsuda's shoulder at the note.
Light joined the men, sitting down slowly on one of the couches. Matusda continued.
"We found a rule saying that if you don't continuously write names in the notebook after using it once, you'll die within 13 days!"
Yagami grinned to himself. Yes. They've found the fake rule.
"This rule clear's your name, as well as Misa's," Mogi said, smiling. "You were held in confinement for well over 13 days with no access to the death notebook. There's no way that you could be Kira."
"Although he has no reason to suspect you of being Kira anymore," Aizowa said, "Ryuzaki claims that the chance of you being Kira is now 3%. Lower, but existent."
Light expected this. He looked at Ryuzaki again, who swiveled around in his chair.
"I'm sorry Light," L said in his soft, quiet voice. "But my deduction skills restrict me from lowering the chance of you to being Kira to 0%. There is still a possibility."
Ryuzaki shrugged bashfully. "Perhaps I am merely unable to admit that I was wrong in my hypothesis about you."
Light knew that this wasn't how Ryuzaki really felt.
He then realized that Ryuzaki really wasn't up to something. He wasn't trying to rile Light up, therefore possibly exposing him as Kira. He just didn't want to lie about his suspicions.
Light appreciated this, a little more than he would have liked.
"Don't worry, Ryuzaki."
L looked at Light again quizzically. Light smiled.
"I'll convince you. I'll prove that I'm not Kira."
It's my only way to clear my name while keeping him alive. But how? If I don't find a way to find fake evidence stating that I'm not Kira soon, I'll have to kill him, and that's all there is too it.
Ryuzaki returned Light's smile with a small, awkward grin. Created with struggle, but genuine. And it vaguely suppressed the cloud of sadness around him for a split second.
"I'd like that, Light-kun."
Light turned to address the rest of the Task Force.
"I've been studying many of the criminal victims for days now," Light announced. "I have been searching for patterns, correlations that could lead us to Kira's location. Although this theory doesn't have much to go on, I believe that we can find Kira with a careful execution of traps, breadcrumbs for him to follow. Obviously, Kira will be looking for us by now. He knows who we are, the fact that we're looking for him. But he doesn't know where we are or what are names are, or our faces. We need to lure him in, drop carefully released hints and clues for him leading him straight to us. And when that happens, we capture him before he can kill us."
"Good plan, Light!" Matsuda said, smiling.
"It seems dangerous to me," Mogi warned. "Won't Kira suspect a trap?"
"Not if we're careful," Aizowa assured him. "As long as the clues we give him are small enough to look like accidents, Kira will presume that we have simply lost our ability to keep ourselves a secret. He'll find us. But Light, how can we capture him?"
"Well we could always just tackle him to the ground and punch him in the face!"
"Matsuda, you're not helping."
As the Task Force members continued to bicker, Light watched miserably as Ryuzaki rose from his chair, and exited the Control room, not leaving a single word for Light to cling on to when he was gone.
Light remembered that he had told Misa that he wasn't killing Ryuzaki because he was trying to get information out of him concerning the case.
She'll fall for just about anything, Light thought.
He knew very well that Ryuzaki held high walls up against him, ever since the suspicion of him being Kira started. Only recently did Light start banging on the hard, cold stone of the walls, longing to be let in, for reasons that he hadn't had before.
Why did Light want to be let inside?
He had been uncertain about far too much recently.
Light looked up from his list of criminals after a while, scanning the control room for Ryuzaki.
He had still not returned. This worried Light.
"Hey Matsuda," Light asked, "Where's Ryuzaki?"
The young man averted his eyes over to the computer monitors.
"He's up on the roof for some reason. He's been up there just standing by himself for like an hour now. He's really weird."
Light sighed, and stood up.
"I'll see if I can get him to come back down."
He didn't know what he wanted from this trip to the roof. He didn't know what he'd find there. Would he face the emptiness of Ryuzaki's eyes, darker and more dismal then ever?
His quick steps echoed around the stairwell that led all the way to the roof.
Ryuzaki was so brutally and achingly unreadable. Yet at the same time, Light knew exactly what he was thinking. He walked in the shadows, afraid to show what he really felt, yet it was so incredibly obvious to Light how much he was suffering. But no one else seemed to notice.
Maybe it was simply Light's guilty conscience.
Perhaps Ryuzaki's sadness was all in Light's mind.
No, it was too strong not to be real.
Light's steps increased in speed as his legs coaxed him on.
Why could only Light see L's pain, his sworn enemy's pain? How was Ryuzaki so capable of corrupting Kira's plan for victory not in any form of scheming or outwitting him, but simply conveying to him his shroud of misery? He felt Ryuzaki's aura of grayness in its tremors, in it's every movement. It reverberated in Ryuzaki's words which seemed to flow into Light's ears much more easily than those of the others. It was everywhere now. It spun around Light's head like a top, it invaded his every waking thought and inserted itself even into the better moments and greater of times. He had to know. Light had to know why.
He burst out of the roof door and was greeted by a wave of cool, fresh wind. Light spotted Ryuzaki sitting alone on one of the ledges of the roof, looking up towards the clouds.
"Come, sit, Light," Ryuzaki said, not turning around. "If you're brave."
Light cautiously approached Ryuzaki and sat by him, right in front of a 60-story drop to the bustling traffic below.
"Well this is dangerous," Light commented, looking out at the far-stretching city.
"I find it quite invigorating, yes," Ryuzaki agreed. "It puts a barrier between myself and my thoughts."
After a long pause, Light sighed.
"I don't know why you've been acting so dejected recently," Light said gently to Ryuzaki. "But it's better to get it out than to keep it all bottled up inside."
L cast his eyes down.
"Will you hold my hand, Light?"
Yagami felt the adrenaline of his body increase by over 1000%. His eyes nearly bulged from their sockets.
"Human interaction decreases rate of distraction by over 30%," Ryuzaki explained. "I can't think straight right now. The bells are unusually loud today."
Light was flustered, to say the least.
"Well, uhm, A-alright Ryuzaki, if that's what you want."
Light carefully laced his fingers through Ryuzaki's.
Part of Light's mind protested, the Kira part. It lectured him; telling him not to offer a speck of consolation to his enemy. But another part of his mind, however small that part was, encouraged him. It told him to embrace Ryuzaki, to offer the comfort that L could use to let the pain flow out of his body, to make it gone, to destroy it.
But what was giving Light those insane thoughts? He wanted to carry out Ryuzaki's death as planned. He wanted to want to kill him. But sitting there on the edge of oblivion, feeling Ryuzaki's elegant, soft fingers clasped in his own, something drove Light far away from his bloodlust. And Light wondered if he'd ever find his way back to it.
Suddenly, Light felt tight hands gripping his arm.
"Ryuzaki?" Light asked.
Ryuzaki buried his head into Light's shoulder.
"Nothing makes sense," L mumbled, his voice rich with sorrow. "I can't think anymore. I could never say it, Light. I could never say why. But I…I…"
Ryuzaki's struggling voice stopped when Light's mind, which was so often plagued by raging thoughts and confused assumptions, went completely blank for the first time. He pulled Ryuzaki into his arms.
"I don't need to know what it is, Ryuzaki. I'm sorry for asking. What matters is that it's affected you so much. And Ryuzaki, it's affecting me too. You're not alone in this.
For a moment, Light thought he could hear the bells, in their boisterous chiming, banging in their minor tunes. But silence resonated as L clung to Light, drinking in his words. But then, Ryuzaki slid out of his arms, letting go.
"Thank you for your kindness, Light," Ryuzaki said, a shadow cast into his eyes. "But I can gain no comfort from you regarding this. I'm not certain what I was thinking. I apologize."
Light had never felt more sorrow. As he watched with a speechless voice as Ryuzaki stood and exited the rooftop without another glance, he felt more empty than he ever had. He'd never felt so useless, so crestfallen.
The ghost of Ryuzaki's touch remained in his hand, in his arms. His soft, black hair still brushed against Light's cheek, regardless of his absence. The scent of strawberries, permeating from his clothes.
Ryuzaki. The name sounded in Light's mind, it pulsed through his veins. The name was written in permanent ink across Light's sanity. What it meant. What the name felt.
And Light could hear the sound. The sound of everything falling apart.
The clashing noise of everything he had worked for shattering because of one man.
The way in which this man made him feel.
But what was it?
And the second tear that Light shed for Ryuzaki rolled down his cheek, and it was carried by the wind over the ledge of the building.
And by the time Light's tear hit the ground an eternity below, Light knew what it was.
It was love.