Disclaimer: I DON'T OWN.

(A/N): Is this all moving too fast? Well, she wasn't in that place very long. But she does seem to start to get a little….well, I'll let you decide.

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Chapter IV

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"Umm, it's Matt. If you must know."

What was with this girl?

"Oh." She seemed to have nothing further to say.

Matt took that as a sign to go back to his game. New one now—and Bowser was currently owning him.

He didn't catch Sayu's alert and widening eyes as he was about to press 'resume.'

"No!" she blurted.

He froze mid-presss.

Great. Now he looks even more confused, she scolded herself. If she kept up the strange theatrics…well, she'd rather not think about it. Either something bad like that or he'd keep playing that annoying game. No. None of that.

Staring at the distressed young woman across the room who randomly shouted at him, Matt began to question her sanity. Reminder: warn Mello of the Yagami girl's mental well-being. Drugs may be in need to issue.

"I-I mean…Don't you ever—you know—stop…playing… video games?" the question came out sounding meek in a desperate attempt at distraction.

Raising an eyebrow, he sighed composedly, "When I'm not committing espionage or killing people."

Sayu's heart stopped for a second. Was he serious? Taking another look at his expression, (which didn't change enough to show much of anything, by the way) she nearly came threateningly frightened of his response.

"I'm kidding, you know."

A small ounce of relief warmed her mind. Wait, she told herself, why do you care anyways? She convinced herself that it was because she disliked the idea of being stuck in a room with a psycho-game-playing-slash-killing-machine-slash-spying daunt of a boy.

"I just wanted to see your reaction—hey! Don't look so freaked—that's not what I—well…actually," Matt paused and realized that there was some truth to his answer (not enough to categorize him as someone like that). He wasn't really like that at all. Just a little. And he has Mello as a best buddy and a hatred for boredom to thank for that. However, the Yagami girl still looked like a ghost came in the room. "No. I'm joking."

"I see…" Sayu replied, relieved. The whole idea got her blood jumping five directions out of her head. Scary thought. Being locked up in a room with that. Somewhere in the back of her mind, however, there was no doubt that he had committed either of those he had listed at some point in his life. You just couldn't be in the mafia if you didn't.

She understood. It was part of what he had chosen as a job. Not part of who he was. Or, at least, that's what it seemed like. It's not like she knew him.

"It's hard to think of you as a killer," she said.

He set the Game Boy down slowly. "Oh yeah?"

"You just look too small." She hadn't meant that in a demeaning way. Matt wasn't short and frail. He was just not bulky like those people with the tattoos and shaved heads you see on TV killing people.

"Oh. Thanks a lot."

"No! I—I didn't mean it like that."

Granted, he wasn't exactly living the healthiest of lifestyles—staying up all night, eating junk food, and then sitting in the dark with a computer or TV or game system the rest of the time. Not to mention smoking like it was breathing oxygen. He wouldn't be surprised if his heart was all fucked up by now.

Still, to have a girl tell you that you look small, it stings a guy's self-esteem—even if the guy was like Matt (who cared less about the world outside the borders of his virtual universe) and the girl was a kidnapped cop's daughter. Even in a weird situation like that, basic rules applied to Matt sometimes, too.

People always thought he was heartless and—if he wasn't so smart—they'd think he was mindless as well. Deep down, being heartless couldn't be true. He couldn't allow it to be. If it was true, he'd be like the rest of the drones all over the place, and he knew that wasn't right. Just because the world meant little to him, why was it supposed to mean anything more? It's full of lies and idiots. Why would I care? It didn't mean he was a cold.

"Anyways, I think," he gets up and saunters over to her spot on the floor and squats down again, "you shouldn't be staring at my body."

"Oh, as if," she scoffed. "I wasn't staring at your body. Get a life."

"Right, then," he grins.

"Don't look at me like that."

For some reason, her irritation made him grin even more. "You're an easily annoyed girl, I've noticed." He blew a puff of smoke into the ceiling.

She takes in the image. Not once does she remember (in the time he's been in here) a moment when a cigarette wasn't in his mouth.

"That's stuff's bad for you."

"I know."

"Cancer and all that."

"Yeah—all that."

"When's the last time you went more than five minutes without lighting one?"

He thought for a second. She had a point. "When I sleep."

"I had an uncle who never stopped smoking," she says, remembering back to home. "Ever. He died at thirty."

"Good to know." He tries to remind himself exactly why he kept responding.

"That's too young of an age to die, by the way," she added, agitated, noting the indifference in his tone.

Another puff of smoke—"Sounds pretty old to me—" he keeps the cigarette sitting at the rim of his lips.

"You've got to be kidding me. What's the matter with you?"

Matt took the stick out of his mouth and turned his head to give Sayu the most serious face she'd seen him wear since he walked into the room. No boredom, no grins, to irritation. "Sayu Yagami, it may surprise you to be informed that not everyone is supposed to die old. I'm striving to about twenty-four—and let me tell you, that's reaching for the sky."

There was a somewhat darkness that washed over her perspective. She'd never thought about it that way. Sure, she knew there were people that were untimely taken from this world, but that was all in television and books and newspaper headlines.

"You—you don't think you'll make it past twenty-four?" the idea of it got her voice to quiver and lower its forcefulness.

"Nope." Absolute and apathetic.

"That's so….sad."

He shrugged. "If I make it to twenty-five, I'll pay you a visit in your nice little ideal Japanese town."

She ignored the sarcasm in his voice. "How old are you now?"

"Nineteen," he said, pulling out his Game Boy once again. Nineteen and not worth a damn, he thought.

"So you are an adult."

"Well that depends. What defines adult?"

She thought for a moment. "I guess it isn't really always age….its…" she paused. What did it really mean? It's not like she pondered on these types of questions of a daily basis. Life was like this: wake up, go to school, come home, leave home, and stumble back into the bedroom at the latest possible hour. Was she still a kid by any means? I think on my own, I date, I drink, I swear. Isn't that what adults did? I'm only seventeen. So what? "It's…the ability to take care of yourself."

"I've been an adult for a long time, then, if that's the case."

Memories came as an instantaneous downpour. Sayu remembered nights when she'd have to walk home by herself, days when her parents would discuss Light's future, Light's accomplishments, Light's friends. Always so focused on "…well, your brother…" Nowadays, her parents didn't even know her.

She was beginning to think getting kidnapped wasn't the most ridiculous of events. If anything, it made her realize certain aspects in a little more detail.

Or maybe this place had driven her mad.

The question is Do I care?

Her head was facing the floor—it hung over like a wilted flower in the dry heat of summer. "An adult?" she says, so quietly, it's almost to herself. She can't see the consternation in his face. To him, she looked defeated right now. Did he say something wrong? Did women usually get this moody and unpredictable?

"Hey," he says shakily. "Are you okay?" he thinks to himself, Why do you care Matt?

She's looking up at him again. "No. I've just realized some things. That's all." He nodded apprehensively and went back to his game and his cigarette—the only two thing that Sayu saw that seemed to matter to him.

"Good. We can't have you going crazy down here, can we? No one wants to save a save a girl driven to lunacy."

She found this funny. Maybe it was wrong, but she did. Then again, there were so many things wrong with her that she didn't care to fix. "I guess you're right," for the first time down here, she smiles. "I guess I'll have to try to keep my sanity so long as I'm here. It's hard, though. I don't know how anyone can keep sane with someone like you in the room."

"You'd be surprised."

"Sounds like you've got stories."

"What's it to you?"

"Tell me."

"No."

"Why not?"

"No."

"Come on," she goaded.

"You wouldn't be so interested once I start talking."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," he tries to focus back to his game, but this damn girl…why doesn't he just stop talking to her? She speaks again, challenging him.

"Try me."

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Thanks for reading. Share your thoughts and predictions. I have all the time in the world. Haha. I have no life.