A/N: GAH! *dodges rotten fruit and cowers behind screen* I'm sorry I took such a ridiculously long time to work on this but I couldn't get the right sort of inspiration because bad stuff kept happening whenever I tried to work on it and I got upset and it was hard to keep the "fun" mood…and I've got all my high school registration stuff to fill out, too, and final exams, and all this end-of-year crap… Geez. I had no idea what was going to happen when I started writing this chapter, so bear with me…I had to research some stuff XD
Enjoy
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Foresight, thought Ryuzaki, would probably be a good thing to develop.
He poked his head out the bathroom door, looked down the hall, and froze. Smoke was coming out of the open doorway of the kitchen. It smelled a bit like rotten eggs. He whipped around, knocking Light (who had been planning to surprise him) over, then picked him up, hurriedly choking out "Stay here!" before dashing into the hallway and down the hall, feeling a bit like an out of place obstacle course runner. Or maybe one of those reality shows where you had to complete tasks or you'd lose and suffer some sort of punishment, emotional or physical. And in his case, probably both. He stopped the train of useless thoughts and burst into the kitchen, grabbing the doorframe to keep his face from becoming too acquainted with the hard tile floor. It wasn't as bad as he'd expected. At least the entire kitchenette wasn't in flames. Mello, hearing him, turned around, a gleeful expression on his face. He was wearing two mismatched oven mitts, and a small pot adorned his head. "Hey! I didn't like the spaghetti, so I'm making us lunch!" Ryuzaki examined the mess on the stove and figured his definition of lunch had to be a little warped. Or maybe Mello had some sort of disorder and just couldn't smell it.
Something brown and burned beyond recognition fizzled around the sides of the pot Mello was using, and tomato sauce bubbled inside of it. There was a smashed egg on the ground, lying next to an empty carton, and Ryuzaki strongly suspected that the rest of the eggs had been added to the pot, of which most of the contents were undetectable. Sticking out of the mess like a great, corrupted iceberg was the Straight-from-the-Underworld-removed-from-Hades'-armpit chicken. Ryuzaki racked his memory, wondering vaguely if the chicken had been green before Mello had tried to use it to cook. "Mello-kun?"He asked, sighing a little "What is that?" Mello looked at the pot, confused, like he wasn't quite sure what it was. He was silent for a moment before turning back up to Ryuzaki and replying solemnly with the air of a doctor diagnosing a dying patient "Well Ryuzaki, it appears to be a bad case of chocolate chicken."
So that's what the brown stuff was.
Ryuzaki stared at him, and Light poked his head around the doorway, wrinkling up his nose. "Eww. What's that nasty smell?"
"It's your lunch, pretty boy. And you better like it, because you're not getting anything else. And if you complain, I'll cook you too!" intoned Mello, waving a wooden ladle about threateningly.
"Pff! I'm not gonna eat that."
"You will! Tell him Ryuzaki!"
" Mello-kun…" Began Ryuzaki gently, not wanting to hurt the younger boy's feelings "I'm not quite sure how to say this, but this food doesn't look…." What could he say? "Doesn't look fit for human consumption" would be most accurate. "like…" He weighed his options of making it to the door before Mello could kick him in the crotch. Or cry. And then kick him in the crotch when he put his guard down. "…pizza!" He blurted out suddenly, on inspiration. The two younger boys brightened. "Nice save by Ryuzaki." He thought, silently congratulating himself.
No more than an hour, after putting out a near fire, disposing of the toxic waste on the stove, hiding from the janitors, directing a very confused pizza delivery man to the police headquarters and then proceeding to watch the boys in front of him devour the pizza before his eyes, Ryuzaki sat back contentedly, snacking on some chocolate cake he'd cleverly acquired from the snack shop on the way down to get the pizza and managed to keep safe from Mello ("Believe it or not Mello-kun, you wouldn't like this cake, it's completely tasteless.") For now, everything was under control. At least he got a day off from schoolwork, even if it wasn't much of a day off. He smiled, feeling smug, as if he'd completed a difficult case, even though he knew he'd done nothing of the sort. Ryuzaki and Light were nearly dry, so there wasn't really a reason to go all the way back to Ryuzaki's room and unpack (Although he'd been here for nearly three weeks, his suitcase was still half-full due to the fact that he didn't feel the need to wear new clothes every day). He started spacing out, thumb resting on his lower lip, when he was suddenly slammed unceremoniously back to Earth by the sound of his name
"Hey Mell, why does Reezaki sit like that?"
"It's Mello, not Mell, stupid. He sits like that because he's cool."
"Don't call me stupid." huffed Light indignantly "And that isn't a reason."
"Don't call each other names, please. And I sit like this because it helps me think." replied Ryuzaki complacently, now determinedly interested in the tabletop. For one wild, brief second, a thought flitted through his mind: "Maybe if I ignore them, they won't fight."
That was what Watari referred to as 'Hamster logic'
Thinking along the lines of "Maybe if I close my eyes, the predator won't see me."
Which was essentially as stupid as the thought that had died a second after it'd been born.
"Why do you call him Reezaki?"
"It's cooler than Ryuzaki. Obviously-"
"Wait…you can say my name?" frowned Ryuzaki, his fork sliding out of his mouth. "Why didn't you do it before?"
Light shrugged "I already said Reezaki was cooler."
Ryuzaki, thoroughly disconcerted due to this new development, merely shrugged it off and lay back in his chair a small amount and taking in the calming affects of the sugar, but looking a bit like it had put him into a semi-catatonic state. Still, the voices of the two boys penetrated his sugar haze.
"Anyway, why is your name Mello? That's a funny name."
"Light's a funny name."
"It doesn't seem that way to me."
"'Cause it's your name, duh!"
Light frowned, then shrugged it off. Ryuzaki wondered vaguely if he was suffering a crash from his sugar high. Would that be too much to ask?
"Hey Mell, you know what?"
"What? Don't say something stupid!"
"I'm not…anyway, have you ever been around this building?"
"Yeah…"
"I mean outside…"
"…."
"I can give you a tour, come-on-before-Reezaki-finds-us!"
Ryuzaki leapt out of his chair and made a grab for Light's shoulder, but his awkward sitting position caused him to bang his head on the table, and before he could say "Come back here or no chocolate for a month," Light had grabbed Mello's hand and high-tailed it out of the room. Ryuzaki pushed himself up but slid down again on something wet, and looked at his hand irritably.
Oh.
Apparently he'd hit his head harder than he thought, because blood covered his fingers, and he could feel more swelling beneath his hairline. He tried to get up again, but the world went out of focus, and the ground seemed inviting, indeed, it rose up to meet him…
……….
Funny, he felt woozy, and his head felt like it had been trampled on a herd of buffalo. He was also very thirsty, and had a headache. He reached up and started to feel his head, then winced, it was achy and caked with blood. The right side of his face was also sticky with drying blood, more adorned his shirt and spread out on the linoleum floor. He got up into a half-sitting position supported by the table leg, then pulled himself up, stumbling over to the faucet and, not finding a cup, proceeded to stick his entire head under. He hissed in pain as the water did its work, but didn't move, and some of the caked blood ran down the sides of his face, but as he'd been bloody there anyway it just helped to clean him. In actuality the cut was very small, but his head had swollen more than he thought was necessary. He tilted his head to the side and opened his mouth to catch some water. It tasted funny, but it was still cool, and it made him feel a little better immediately.
That damn Yagami kid…
Ryuzaki's eyes snapped open
That damn stupid Light-kun, and Mello too…
Running out the door while Ryuzaki banged his head on the table.
In horror, Ryuzaki wrenched himself out from underneath the cooling stream of water and looked at the clock.
It was three in the afternoon
Light and Mello had legged it at one
They'd been on their own for two hours
Ryuzaki ran out of the room without so much as a backward glance, knowing without consciously thinking that if anything happened, he might as well start digging his own grave here and now.
Outside the Building
Nowhere. Not to be seen, at all, no two boys, blonde and brunette, were to be found in all of Tokyo.
Or at least in this building.
Because he'd grilled every cop, executive and janitor he could find an given them a description of Light and Mello as best as he could remember, and the only thing he'd found out was that one of the janitors had seen two boys matching Light and Mello's description leaving the building.
Accompanied by a man he didn't recognize.
And so Ryuzaki sat on the curb, shell-shocked, because Tokyo was a big city and he had no idea where to start looking.
But he sat up, because he'd lost two young boys in his care, and anything could happen in a city this big…they could be hurt, or murdered, even-
On second thought he didn't want to think about it
"So, think of this as a practice case" He muttered to himself, trying not to panic "Two children missing, both under age ten (that gave him a broad spectrum, he couldn't recall exactly how old they were…), accompanied…by a man a janitor didn't recognize, so he probably wasn't in uniform. But it could be someone else, right?"
He didn't exactly have high hopes
He tried not to think about every horrible situation they could be in, and decided to do what he did in every other case, what Watari instructed him to do. He went inside and got his laptop. Although it didn't seem very heroic, it was the only thing he could think of to do next. It would be easy work to hack into the security cameras.
Ten minutes later, he wasn't feeling so good at all.
The security tapes all showed the same thing, from different angles: a surprised looking Light and an angry looking Mello being escorted out of the building, and a man in what looked like all black (he was having a difficult time getting all the angles right) and bowler hat was holding both their hands. To Ryuzaki's frustration, the man seemed to know where the cameras were, and was making sure his face wasn't shown. Hell, he couldn't even see the guy's hair color. But what made him almost laugh, hysterically, was that Mello was still holding a bar of chocolate with an unidentified origin in his hands.
You couldn't keep that kid from his chocolate.
But what'd made his heart stop (figuratively, of course) was that he'd found the bowler cap outside while investigating the surrounding area, and the small piece of paper tucked into the rim had been enough to make his blood freeze, the very words looked threatening, but at the same time he'd been aroused by it, eager to take the challenge. He looked at the note again:
"The game is on."
Oh, it was on alright.
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A/N: Oh gosh, did the plot bunny just lay an egg? I bet you didn't see that coming!
Sorry if I ruined your fun with the whole "Hey-it's-so-fun-here." With the whole "HOMYFRACKINGOSHTHEYJUSTGOTKIDNAPPED!!11ONE!!" vibe. But really, I know I was getting tired of Light and Mello making various messes, and of Ryuzaki just trying to clean up after them. And I never said this was a comedy story, now did I?
Oooh, what's going to happen to our little heroes?
Your only hope is that I'm a softie. Oh, and if I weren't me I'd totally hate myself right now for leaving me in the dark (wait, what?!) Anyway, please rate and review, feel free to give suggestions for the story, advice, criticism, anything (except flames, please. If you have a problem please tell me in a polite manner)…I just want some feedback, how'd you like this little twist? So, I will work on the next chapter as soon as I can, and remember, reviews motivate me! If I don't get any I assume nobody cares enough for me to write the next chapter XD
Anyway, I hope you all liked it, and I'll try my dandiest to make you all happy!
-Icemask12