Mello had left the apartment to "go to the store" and hadn't returned in three days. He would often do this. Leave for stretches of time, claiming to be "going for a walk" or "going out" but actually going to do something that he knew Matt wouldn't want to know about. He would sometimes return covered in blood, sick and vomiting everywhere, or with cuts and scratches all over his body. Once he returned with a gun shot wound. Matt would always take care of him and nurse him back to health when he did this, but he wasn't worried. Mello obviously wasn't, so why should Matt be?
These absences would always leave Matt with a gaping hole in his mind. Without Mello he was always bored, with nothing to do and nothing to occupy his thoughts other than the white hallways of his childhood dreams.
The loneliness would get to him sometimes. When he wasn't watching himself, he would sometimes call for Mello, thinking him in another room in the house. He would then realize that there wasn't anything there only just right after shouting his name. "Mello! Hey!" he would call. Then after a moment he would laugh at himself. "What a fool I am," he'd think to himself.
This hollow feeling was nothing to what he felt after Mello had left Wammy House. He could handle it easy. Comparing the two pains was like comparing a splinter to getting a stake hammered into your chest, like in those old vampire movies. One hurt and could be fixed with about five minutes of work. One killed you in the spot.
Age 13
Right after Mello had left, Matt went and sat in Near's room waiting for the albino to return. He was sitting in the middle of the room on a carpet with his knees pulled up to him, hugging them to his thin frame. His face was buried in his arms.
Near entered the room and he put his toy on the shelf in it's place. He eyed Matt with his usual hollow, emotionless gaze.
"It's your fault. It's all your fault he's gone," he choked out at Near, holding back sobs.
"It is his fault he let his emotions control him. I offered to work with-"Near started.
"Shut up! SHUT UP! You don't know! You don't know ANYTHING about Mello!" Matt screamed at him, his voice cracking. "It's your fault. It's your fault..." he whispered after his outburst.
Near flinched and looked away from the sobbing teenager. He chose his next toy, a plastic plane with red lettering on the side, and lifted it off the shelf. Clutching it to his chest, he began walking out of the room.
"Why did he leave?" Matt said in a voice barely loud enough for the leaving boy to hear. Near was smart. He would know. Matt was sure he would.
"I don't know. I miss him too," Near said walking back and standing by the older boy. staring down at him with his constantly unwavering liquid eyes.
Matt started crying without holding back anymore, unable to comprehend anything anymore. He reached up and grabbed the sleeve of Near's pajama top. "Stay with me. Please…" he whispered.
Near sat down, placing his toy next to him.
Matt, still clutching the sleeve, held onto it for dear life. "I hate you..." he whispered.
"I know," the albino said back emotionlessly.
That was the first time Matt had ever searched for comfort in someone other than Mello.
Mello had been gone for three months, but his bed still smelled like chocolate. Now that he was gone, Matt had no one to lie next to until the feelings after the dreams slipped away. He would lie on Mello's bed and cry until the dawn, and he had taken to sitting alone.
He had once been the most sociable of all of L's successors, but now he just sat around. Sometimes he would hold bars of chocolate and stare at them while they melted in his hands, getting all sticky but not caring as the creamy candy covered his hand. He'd taken up smoking. Roger allowed it as long as he only did it outside and there weren't any cigarette butts left anywhere.
"Why do you smoke?" Near asked one evening while the two of them sat on the back porch.
"It reminds me of him."