Matt's cell vibrated in his pocket waking him up from his long nap on his first international flight that he was desperately trying to sleep away. Planes are just big flying macbooks going over millions of miles of water as opposed to dells that just went over populated land and took stops, he reminded himself. He switched his bluetooth on and headed to the bathroom cubicle of death as mello started talking.
"the japenese chief of police just died, Matt. Plans are getting moved up a day so i ordered another ride to be waiting for you when you arrive in twenty minutes or so. The boarding time for your flight back is in an hour and a half from then." Mello informed him in between munches of chocolate.
Matt lit up a cigarette in the little space after setting the lock to 'in use' and disabling the smoke detector. He moaned "not so soon, mello! I really cant stand this death trap you put me in for so long. You know i dont even want to do this."
"we are not talking about this, i need the yagami Child to get the murderer's notebook from her father and the fake L. You arent killing anybody so get over it."
"but im smuggling a girl across the sea, which is seriously illegal." he whined
"and smoking right now isnt? I can practically smell the cig over the phone. We cant have this arguement again"
Matt briefly recalled their arguement, that mostly consisted of mello yelling at him and him just taking it trying to change his mind about kidnapping a kid. She was even a pretty kid and was oblivious to her father's daily activities. It wasnt right. But mello had won in the end as he knew he would because in truth Matt would have given him what he wanted anyways.
"fine, ill go through with it again. Just how am i supposed to get her on a plane with me and ugly nose? Tell the security we're playing a kinky game?" he asked blowing out a puff of smoke.
"close but no. Zakk will be getting off this plane and staying at a hotel while you and jason al go find sayu yagami and bring her back into the plane. You will not let her see jason before he gets out of the far and goes on the plane first. Then you will untie her and enter together as a couple. There will even be a small bag of girl crap and her fake passport with your boarding passes in it. Threaten her or something to get her to be quiet and dont let her go ever while youre in the airport. I dont want you to be found over there, Matt. Dont slip up." with that mello gruffly hung up and Matt sighed flushing the cherry of his smoke down the toilet and putting the detector back in order.
A few groggy stares waited for him outside the door ready to swarm to their only hope of release. Matt quickly trudged back to his seat glancing around to affirm that big nose and zakk were still on the plane calmly doing something. The seatbelt sign flashed and he buckled up closing his eyes in anticipation of the drop.

As mello had promised, a gray honda was waiting for them in the lot with the keys under the tire. Zakk hailed a cab and sped away to his hotel as Matt pulled out onto the crowded streets heading towards the place that had been given as sayu's high school. Half an hour later they coasted to a stop in front of a large building teeming with teenagers of the area all letting out at once. It didnt take long for the dark haired girl to come out and walk off unaccompanied. Matt sighed, she made it too easy.
He waited a minute before taking off after her slowly untill she was a bit away from everyone else and pulled up next to her rolling down his window.
"hojimashitte gonzaimas. Wani'dis." he spoke to her in japenese"do you know how to get downtown?"
The girl smiled "hai, ari-" jason taped her mouth and threw a bag over her head before dragging her struggling little frame into the back seat of the car.
The hard looking mobster sat her in his lap holding her tightly against his chest. About half way there he shoved her down on the floor and set his feet on her back laughing as she started to cry and Matt nearly stopped the car if not for his nature of giving in. They passed the airport security and parked in the back of the large parking garage. Jason immediately got out and grabbed his stuff disappearing into the lot elevator with his pass. Th red head pinched the bridge of his nose and looked into the mirror. Sayu made no move untill a moment after when she reached up to take the bag off her head.
"yagami sayu, im not going to hurt you but if this goes wrong most of your family will die" at least he hoped mello wouldnt but the lie worked and he could see the fear in her tear streaked eyes when she looked back at him in the mirror "go ahead and take the strip of tape off your mouth but dont talk; only nod and follow my directions. Theres a bag on the seat next- er, above you. Grab it and take the papers out for me and put it on." she complied and handed him the passports and the boarding passes. "we're going in there together, sayu-kun, as a couple on a romantic trip to america. You will hold my hand and not speak the entire time. Am i clear?" she nodded and he got out to open the door for her and picked up his carry on.
Her face was a fading red from the crying she did on the way here but that caused no trouble when they checked in their bags or borded the plane together. She let him hold her hand the entire time quietly going about her thoughts untill Matt sat her down on the inside next to the window and buckled her in and stowed their bags. He'd mostly sat her there because the aisle was a direct exit and he could see james sitting about three rows up but also for security purposes, right? So she couldnt sign for police or.. Lets face it, he wasnt hot about his second long flight either. Which reminded him, he needed to call the blonde responsible.
He picked up "do you have her?"
" yeah, susan and i are on the plane already, mom... Yes, we're fine. It hasent even taken off yet."
"mom? Quit acting stupid and just watch her. Baka" Matt laughed at the sudden japenese in the english conversation and sayu twitched. Matt hung up and smiled fakely at her.
"its going to be okay, i promise. Just relax for now"
She got the point and turned her head to look out the window and watch the plane take off as Matt breathed deeply seriously wishing he had a video game or cigarette handy for the second flight of his day. The first five hours sayu fought to stay awake until finally laying her head on matt's shoulder and going out like a light for the rest of the flight. If had actually surprised him enough that he threw a blanket over her and rested his head on her's. Strangely it seemed to calm him enough to where when he opened his eyes again they were on the ground.
He looked down at sayu still asleep on him and woke her up gently calling her name like a boy friend should. Maybe he was taking this to seriously and treating it like some crappy rpg game set inthe mob.. But he was working with the real mob so, what the hell. For a moment her dark eyes opened and she nearly flipped out before she remembered her situation.
"ready, sayu-kun?" he whispered. She nodded and unloaded the plane with all the other passengers that told them in english how cute it was to see them all cuddly on the plane. Matt smiled and thanked them each trying to get out of there faster.
Customs was a breeze as they blew them off as another tourist couple. They headed out to the back of the garage where Matt knew a car would be waiting for them. Squeezing her hand to tell her to watch it he let go and lit up his last cigarette in the pack and took a long happy drag from it as the smoke drifted up to his goggles.
"sir," sayu said tentatively "where are we?" she kept her gaze downcast moving obediently beside him.
"california, home of los angeles." he replied thinking it couldnt hurt.
"america?" she wondered incredulously.
"hai." a car sped towards them "close your eyes, sayu."
The kia pulled up next to him and he led her to the door and set her in blindly. Jason handed Matt a role of duct tape and he set it aside for later. They still had to get out.
"sayu-kun, lay your head on me again and sleep some more." she did so and jason sent a confused look his way at the easy way it happened. Matt knew he was probably wondering about his and mello's connection. There wasnt much to say, sadly, since mello thought of him as a Childhood friend come to help him out. The exit wasnt a problem and pretty soon they were headed to angeles national forest and sayu was bound hand and mouth with the bag over her head again. They got onto a back road in the park called eddison and off into the dirt when they reached an open desert space. Jason led them down into an underground bunker where they left the car in the special exit and walked deeper into a hallway that led to what looked like a makeshift bedroom with a tv, safe, and a few couches. He set her down on one and jason left to call mello and Matt removed the bag long enough to take a picture in front of the tv that was playing some ghetto cartoon with terrible graphics and sent it to mello for whatever he might need proof for.

The next day was quiet as they waited for mello to call Matt.
"put her in the exchange hold and tell jason to put on that gasmask and grab the gun in the safe. Then send a picture to me of her" he was extremly excited sounding.
"yeah, just stop eating chocolate in the phone. Itll give you away" Matt snickered.
"shut up and get to work, mail." he hung up.
"get out the gun and gas mask, its time to play call of duty" he said over his shoulder to ugly nose jason.
"hells yeah!" he ran to the safe.
Matt went over to help sayu up and take her out to the ingenious bullet-proof glass exchange doors. He took off the bag and her bindings before turning the door around to her little personal chamber and nudged her in kindly but firmly. She looked scared again as Matt pulled out his cell to take a picture of her wide eyes as she pressed her hand against the glass. He reached into the chamber through the gun hole and patted her cheek.
"your otou-san will be here soon, sayu-kun. Promise."
The rest was business. He delivered a message from her father and replied back via camera and she calmed down a bit. Not long after, subdirector yagami arrived and the exchange went flawlessly from matt's perspective at the end of jason's side of the hall where yagami couldnt see him. Sayu and her cop father left quickly as jason turned to him to hand over the deathnote and get on the awaiting helicopter alone while Matt loaded the notebook onto the rocket and set the coordinates for the area off the coast of new york where men would be waiting to retrieve it.
By the time the helicopter blew up in the sky Matt was pressing the launch button. Man, mello could be really mean to everyone, Matt thought. Not once did it cross his mind that his best friend would kill him as he hopped into the car and drove quickly back to eddison road and out of the national forest/desert/thing. He was about to call up mello about an hour's drive later when his phone rang and he picked it up thinking it could only be mello.
"hey mello-"
"Matt. Its near" damn was he wrong. All hail the kefka of reality
"where are you?"

"are you with mello, Matt?" he asked calmly and tonelessly
"no, mello is not here. What do you want?" not him, not now after he's found mello
"just to know why i just saw you leave an underground bunker in a californian national forest where an illegal exchange happened. Do you have the notebook, Matt? Or did you personally load it onto that rocket for mello to retrieve later?" he was fast.
"near, i dont have the notebook and i dont know anything else.. How did you know it was mells? Dont tell me it was.."
"the crunching of candy bars during the talk with soichiro yagami."
"i told him to stop that" Matt huffed
"so you found him after all" near stated flatly
"yes, i found him, Im helping him, and Im not letting him go again, near. Never"
" Matt. Why did he let you find him? You dont think he wanted you back as much as your technical help to get closer to kira and reaching his ambition of being number one. He's just-"
"stop it! Dont you ever say that to me! Mello wants me back and you just dont want to admit that he won that little thing" Matt burst out loudly getting angry at the albino over the phone. Hearing his very thoughts out loud by the number one had given it a solid standing in his mind. He didnt want to believe it. Matt bit his bottom lip and wished for a smoke. He could feel tears comming and the lack of nicotine was egging it on.
"Matt, i didnt let even my own men see you. I still remember your promise, im here for you at any time you decide to call. I havnt forgotten" near spoke low with a hint of emotion colouring his usual flat tone.
"well i have" he clicked end and slammed the phone into the back window over his head and sent the bluetooth flying right after it.
No matter what he did wrong for mello or what near said about it, he couldnt let himself give up hope on having the blonde man return his feelings that he'd had since becomming roommates at wammy's. He couldnt.