Matt dropped the tinfoil wrapped square on the desk. He was careful to maintain a neutral expression.
"Is that a bribe," Mello's eyes were glued to the candy.
"Depends," Matt sat down with an air of confidence.
Mello picked up the chocolate bar.
"And if I eat it and don't tell you anything?" Mello asked warily.
"It was three dollars," Matt informed him. "Hardly a dear expense."
Mello chuckled. Smoothly he picked up the rectangle and unwrapped the foil on the top end. Matt leaned back in his seat.
"But you want to tell me," he casually voiced what he had theorized the night prior.
Mello sharply snapped the top row of chocolate in half with his teeth. His eyes lit up with delight. Matt doubted he'd had anything remotely sweet since his arrest.
"What makes you say that?" Mello's voice was as even as if had been before, but the fire in his eyes had not diminished.
"You like the power information gives you," Matt put his cards on the table. Playing cool had lasted long enough. "But it only works if you give me a little of it."
"I'd argue," Mello started. "But you've triggered a good mood."
"Glad to hear it," Matt chimed.
"Ask away," Mello offered.
"Well that was easy," Matt voiced.
"I didn't say I'd answer everything," Mello added.
"Sure."
"I don't like it when you say that word."
"Good to know," Matt pulled his notepad from his pocket, not even trying to contain his own smirk.
—
"Motivation stems from competition."
Mihael Keehl was raised on this principle. He wasn't given the choice on whether or not he wanted to believe it.
At the age of six he left the comfort of innocence behind, and was launched into an endless contest. Today he doesn't remember much of the family he had before. He was told this was due to the traumatic event that claimed his birth family, and has had little desire to doubt this.
Even from that young age it was clear to most adults who interacted with him that Keehl was different. Some deemed this as a high intelligence, while others analyzed him as "off." It was a combination of the two that ended him in Wammy's House, an orphanage for children who were intelligent in an off way.
This was where he met his rival.
—
"Rival isn't the right word," Mello's eye squinted as he searched for the right way to coin the relationship.
"If the two of you have been fighting—"
"Competing," Mello interjected.
"Competing," Matt allowed, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "Then rival is exactly the right word."
"It's not that I hate him," Mello mused, he seemed farther away now.
"Right," Matt encouraged.
"I mean I do," Mello laughed. "But it's not real hate. I wouldn't want him to die."
"Just because you hate someone doesn't mean you need to want them dead," Matt needed to voice.
Mello looked at him critically. Matt decided he didn't like that look. It made him feel like he had to justify something he found obvious.
"In high school," Matt started.
Mello scoffed.
"I had to sit next to this boy," Matt continued, ignoring the attitude. "It was in my Latin class, so I don't even know what his real name was, but his Latin name was Sextus—"
Mello scoffed again, but it felt less spiteful this time.
"Anyway, he would always say how he knew everything about the subject, and laugh at me—laugh at everyone—whenever we butchered a word." Matt could still remember this person clearer than the subject he was supposed to have been learning. "Annoying stuff like that, so most of my class didn't really care. But I really liked the subject, and just wanted to focus on my work."
"That's everyone at Wammy's," Mello murmured.
"What I'm saying," Matt attempted a conclusion. "Is that I hated this kid's guts. But if one day I got to class and found out he'd been stabbed I wouldn't rejoice."
"I would," Mello said blandly.
"You're not hearing me," Matt informed him.
"You hated this kid because he poked fun at you and was a braggart, right?" Mello summed up.
"More or less, yeah," Matt admitted.
"And you never once wished that he'd just drop off the face of the Earth?"
"No." Matt thought about it. "Okay, maybe, but that doesn't mean—"
"It doesn't mean you'd kill him," Mello finished. "But if he died, you would have been a little bit happy that you wouldn't have to deal with him anymore."
"I…" Matt was at a loss.
"Or maybe I'm just putting words in your mouth," Mello shrugged.
"So you don't think this about your rival—competitor," Matt corrected himself.
"No," Mello shook his head. "Near is annoying as fuck, but it'd be kinda boring without him."
"Near?"
"Not his real name, obviously," Mello smirked. "But you might as well call him that. If you publish this it'll be my last pester."
"Do you think he hates you?" Matt asked.
"Near doesn't hate anything," Mello answered. "Or like anything. He's just a blank slate."
"Did you," Matt wasn't sure how to phrase this. "You know, like, have a thing for him?"
"God no," Mello laughed very loudly. "Blank slate in every single sense."
"Okay," Matt backed off. "Just wondering."
Mello was giving him an odd look, that Matt decided it was better not to address.
"So Near had the same mentor as you?" Matt asked.
"Yeah," the look was replaced with something more somber. "He couldn't decide which one of us was smarter."
"He couldn't just teach both of you?" Matt didn't understand.
"It's complicated," Mello brushed off.
"I'm listening," Matt pressed.
"Ask me tomorrow," Mello decided.
"Seriously?" Matt exclaimed.
"Hey, I talked a lot today," Mello defended. "Plus, I'm tired."
"Fine," Matt sighed.
—
"So you have no idea when you're coming back?" Linda sounded far too amused by this.
"Yeah," Matt groaned into his cell phone.
If Mello was tired he was exhausted. After getting home he had done his best to put the clustered information he'd been given into a written format. At this point he didn't know what his boss was expecting him to turn in once he returned, but he doubted what Mello was giving him to work with would be able to form it.
"He keeps telling me to come back," Matt explained.
"Is that aloud?" Linda wondered.
"I don't know," Matt didn't care. "The problem is, each time I feel like I'm close to getting something, he stops talking."
"It's like that fairytale," Linda commented.
"I don't even care about what I'm turning in anymore," Matt admitted out loud. "I just want a straight answer for once."
"I read it in middle school, what was the name?" Linda murmured.
"I think he's just bored and likes to mess with me," Matt sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day. "It's my fault that I keep coming back, but how can I not?"
"A Thousand Arabian Nights or something like that," Linda said.
Matt paused his rambling.
"I'm sorry, what are you talking about?" he asked.
"It's about a sultan who kills all his brides after the wedding night," she explained.
"That's not how most people do one night stands," he snarked dryly.
"Your humor is bad when you're tired," she said curtly. "But one of them outsmarts him and tells him a story before he falls asleep. Only the story ends in a cliff hanger so he decides to let her live another night."
"And she does the same thing?" Matt assumed.
"For a thousand nights she does the same thing," Linda confirmed. "Or some big number like that, I don't really remember. But once she reaches the end of the last story, he's fallen in love with her and doesn't kill her."
"Nice grounds for a relationship," Matt voiced flatly.
"Shut up, it's beautiful," she chided.
"But that would make me the sultan," Matt pointed out the flaw in her comparison. "And I have absolutely no power here."
"I'm not sure he did either," Linda said dreamily. "Men always think they do, when they really don't."
"Still," Matt wasn't going to argue that with her on that one. "I can't stop Mello from dying."
"Mello?"
"Keehl," Matt quickly corrected. "Mello's his, um, well it's what he likes to be called."
"That's kinda weird," she informed him.
"This whole situation is 'kinda weird'," Matt responded. "Look, I need to get some sleep."
"Same here," she didn't sound fatigued at all. "I was just calling to make sure everything was alright."
More like to quench her own curiosity.
"Thanks," Matt said anyway.
"Good luck."
"Yeah," he muttered. "I think I need it."
