Mello is staring at Matsuda. Under his mask there could be rage or there could be icy calm and Ide's not sure which would be worse. If something happens to Matsuda, then – then –

I need to decide what to do with you, Mello says at last. I mean... I really want to shoot you in the head, but... it's not every day Kira's Eyes shows up right in front of you. He turns, sharply. Matt. Move it.

Ide is watching them walk away. The door closing behind them. The rattle of keys in a lock and the memory of settling down, of being sensible, of swallowing blood and tears and trying to tell himself it's all right – it doesn't matter – you're all right –

Sometimes he would find himself thinking you're all right, Matsuda will come back soon, you're all right, he'll help you and it worked, that's the worst thing, he actually believed it –

And now he's remembering that he can yell all he wants and nothing will change. He should have understood this by now, but he didn't, just like he should have realised about Matsuda.

Who is barely three foot away from him and has lied about everything.

"Ide?"

Matsuda sounds hoarse, choked. He still speaks through his fingers.

Ide wants to say something pithy like go to hell but he's pretty sure if he speaks it will turn into a tirade and he'll collapse into a mass of idiotic feelings and nothing else.

"I didn't want you to get hurt," Matsuda says, but it's worn out, as if he's barely putting any effort into the lie. "I... I get why you're angry but... but I didn't... if you hate me because of that, you need to know I didn't want –"

Don't patronise me. "I don't believe you."

"But... but it's true."

"Explain why I should... why I should believe anything you tell me?" He begged Matsuda to get him out. He begged Matsuda for so much. He let Matsuda say love – "You're... you helped him lock us up. You knew he was Kira and you did nothing. No, that's not true, you killed one of the few people who might have had a hope in hell of stopping all this. You killed..." It's, what, twenty, thirty victims on an average day, more if there's been a high-profile crime or a nest of terrorists uncovered. This has been going on for weeks. Matsuda's made his way into the top ten of serial killers and Ide didn't even notice.

He's cold suddenly. Matsuda can't come back from this. Some things can't be forgiven.

He hears Matsuda's breathing shake. Doesn't matter. He deserves to be miserable, doesn't he? He, he deserves to be executed. Ide has never for one moment bought into the delusion that Kira is a good thing for the world. And it would be the height of hypocrisy to paint Raito as a sociopathic killer while choosing to believe Matsuda was just easily led.

"Kira's making the world better," Matsuda says, at last.

All that time Ide assumed the message had been beaten in, and no, all that time Matsuda has believed it – he really is that stupid –

"Better –" he tries to say and realises he's too angry to speak. A breath of air. His throat feels like stone. "Better for who, exactly? Me? Aizawa and Mogi? Those poor bastards whose photographs – and it's you who writes them down, isn't it, he probably doesn't even look at them –" His stomach is lurching and he draws his knees close to his chest. He can't be sick, he can't – it's not like he didn't know about these deaths – but handing over a folder of faces to Matsuda every night...

"They," Matsuda is saying, voice trembling, "They, they did bad things, they have to – they deserve..."

Ide is across the space between them and grabbing the front of Matsuda's shirt with his free hand, yanking him closer to yell into his face, "I know how they get those photos!" Matsuda gasping for breath. "You know as well as I do no one bothers to check the details – and some of them, remember, some of them are just people who can't keep their mouths shut about Kira not being the best thing ever – you know, people like me – but that doesn't matter, just – keep killing them, just do what you're told –"

Matsuda shrinks away from him and Ide wants to be glad about it but he just feels sick again. He lets go, slumps back against the radiator.

"And you don't even know what most of them did," he says. "At least Raito would've seen his victims on the news."

Matsuda doesn't answer. He stays still, huddled into the corner between the wall and the radiator. Not looking at Ide now. Staring straight ahead again. He's crying, but it's as if that's happening without him noticing. As if he's just waiting for Ide to burn himself out yelling.

And Ide feels as if that's pretty much happened. He can call Matsuda every name under the sun and Matsuda will just curl up and wait for it to be over and maybe trot out a few more platitudes about Kira. He'll – he'll keep up this act and – maybe it won't be an act –

Some things you can't come back from. Sometimes you have to accept – sometimes you have to learn to be alone because, because you can't just carry on as if nothing happened –

But he can hear the screaming in the back of his mind over and over but I can't do it without you, I can't do any of this on my own – and everything is going to come apart, he can feel it, and this is, he can't fall to bits here, now, he'll get himself killed...

A breath.

Stay calm. He will – he will find out the truth. That's what's been missing, after all. He will find out the truth and finally know all that went on and then he will know what to do. Maybe there'll be mitigating circumstances. Maybe it sounded worse than it is. That's pathetic and stupid but the hope of it is enough to make him start speaking.

"You and Raito," he begins, trying to keep his voice level. "You've been… you were… together."

Matsuda nods.

"Since...?"

"Since… since not long after Ryuzaki died. The… the first L."

"What – five years?" He stares, waiting to be told he's misunderstood, but Matsuda doesn't speak, just lets the information lie there. There's not even a comment like, Well, I wouldn't expect you to notice, you don't understand romance.

Ide grits his teeth and reminds himself there's no reason Matsuda should have told him about this before – not this part – and obsessively poring over the last five years for signs is pointless. As is feeling stupid and embarrassed for spending five years working practically twenty-four hours a day with the other two and not noticing.

"But... Raito was with Amane," he says at last.

"I didn't… I didn't want to hurt Misa-Misa."

"But you slept with her boyfriend anyway."

Matsuda shrugs, as if he hasn't got enough room left to feel guilty about this too.

"Well… how did it start? You didn't just go up to him and say that you… that you wanted..."

"The first time… you… I mean, you weren't there when… when L got – got killed." Matsuda speaks slowly, as if it's hard to remember. "I couldn't – I kept thinking it must be a trick. Like he was trying to draw Kira out. And then I kept thinking...if... if he couldn't survive, then what chance did any of us have? I was just… you know what it's like when you… when something happens and you realise you could just die. Like there's something under everything and you just can't… can't stop thinking about it."

"Yeah, I… I know what you mean." God, he is seizing on this as hope. Something that proves they're still the same. Raito has doubtless never been scared like that.

"I was pretty spaced out," Matsuda says. "I guess we all were but... I couldn't go to any of the others and say I'm really scared I'm going to die. They'd just think I was an idiot. And you know we really thought we… we really thought we might, like Kira was just waiting to…"

Deep breath. "Raito was… was… I thought he was in shock. I felt bad for him. I mean that was better than thinking about dying. I was trying to be nice to him and he was, he said he was grateful for it, that I still seemed to think so well of him when – when he hadn't been able to save Ryuzaki. We were talking a lot, and I…"

He turns slightly red. "I mean I guess I'd always kind of… but I'd never thought of… I mean I would never have even… the Chief would've killed me. We were talking and we were saying stuff we probably wouldn't have said if we hadn't –" He stops. "I was saying stuff I wouldn't have said if I'd not been scared. I said some of… that kind of stuff and… then I realised what I'd said and I was trying to take it back and he said…"

He swallows.

"He said I didn't have to."

He sounds wistful. Ide feels suddenly tired and old and awkward, as if he's invited himself somewhere he was never wanted. You can say hero-worships or is infatuated with or even is in awe of but it comes down to Matsuda loves Raito. Because Raito is perfect.

Matsuda's silent and Ide bites his lip hard enough to make his teeth ache before he can say, "So you started… being intimate. Even though he had a girlfriend."

"It wasn't like I expected him to break up with her," Matsuda says, and he looks like himself again for a moment, puzzled that Ide doesn't understand something so obvious, something that everyone else would just get. "He loved her too, he said. And he always... he knew the Chief wouldn't be happy if he found out about him, you know, with guys. Like he said it would be okay for other people, if they were discreet, but if his dad ever found out about him doing it, he'd just… So I kept thinking sooner or later he'd tell me it was over. Telling myself I was just lucky to have this at all, you know?"

He glances away for a moment, picks at a mark on the wall.

"He worried about people finding out but he always kept saying he didn't want to stop. He… he said he liked being with me. He said I… he used to say I made him feel like I'd like him even if he wasn't… perfect. Even if he wasn't who everyone thought he was."

Of course. Give Matsuda a role. Make him feel special.

"And? When did you find that part out?"

Matsuda closes his eyes for a few moments.

"You and the others, you'd all gone." He stops, swallows. "He. He thought I was asleep. He was looking at… trying to find a new Second Kira. Because you'd all be watching Misa-Misa. I saw some stuff he didn't want me to and…"

"And you knew who he was."

"I didn't really get it." Matsuda presses his fist to his mouth, speaks through fingers again. "Didn't… but he was rattled, you know? He was obviously… I'd seen something I shouldn't and I knew… I could tell what it was but I couldn't work it out. I couldn't believe it."

"You…" You mean you didn't want to. No. Matsuda clearly did want to, in the end. Remember, you don't know him at all, so stop assuming anything. "This was… this was after the Chief died, right? After Near spoke to us. So you knew Raito was back under suspicion. You'd had…" You'd had time to think about it and decide you were all right if he was a mass murderer –

"I was so sure…" Matsuda says, sounding nothing more than slightly puzzled. "I was so sure he wasn't Kira."

"You evidently worked it out in the end."

"I…" Matsuda sounds tired now. "I didn't know what to do. I was yelling. I… I think I said it couldn't be true. Like, five times or something. I thought… I thought, he could kill me if he wanted. I said that out loud, I guess? And he was… he was angry with me. He was angry that I thought he'd hurt me."

Oh, for god's sake. "You fell for that?"

"There wasn't anything to fall for, okay?" Matsuda snaps, shifting round to glower at Ide. "He was scared. He was scared and I was scared and… he kept saying, they'll kill me, they'll kill me and I was… I was trying to convince him they wouldn't, that he might just… and he yelled at me that if he had to get locked up for life he'd rather die. He said…" He gulps, and his voice cracks. "He said I should just kill him myself if… and I couldn't, okay? I couldn't do it and I bet you couldn't have either, if someone you – you liked was standing there and they were frightened and they needed your help." Rubs a hand across his eyes. "He said, he said if I wasn't going to keep it secret then he wanted me to kill him now and I… I knew I wasn't going to do that."

Of course you weren't. Raito must have been able to see this path laid out in front of him, known all he had to do was follow it and Matsuda would be eating out of his hand.

No. Ide makes himself look away, at the dusty floor. Cigarette ends and chunks of brick. He has to stop giving Matsuda the benefit of the doubt. Giving Matsuda anything. He will get the truth – or a version of the truth, this could all be another lie – and then, and then –

He can't think about and then.

"So you agreed not to tell."

Matsuda nods. "He was… he was surprised. I think he thought I wouldn't… he thought I didn't care that much. He thought I was just being stupid and not taking things seriously, you know? But I... I promised I wouldn't tell. I promised and… uh…" He glances away, rubs the back of his head for a moment. "I promised and he… he was grateful."

"Of course he was."

"I was… I mean, he got it together after that," Matsuda says. He's staring at his fingers now, picking at the grime on his skin. "He… he was thinking, working out how to… He said he'd been going to… to contact someone to ask them to… to take on the…"

"The killings."

"He said how I should go, I was only getting myself more involved. He tried to get me to walk away." Matsuda says it fiercely, scowling at his hands. "He said it wasn't fair, that he'd made his choice and he didn't want me to… it was so obvious, he thought I was just this, this idiot. This stupid idiot who liked him because he was perfect and just... just wanted to get laid, you know, he kept saying he knew it wasn't anything, that I hadn't wanted anything serious and… Look, Ide, you don't get it. People wouldn't think that about you. They don't think you're a coward or stupid or…"

"No? I'm sure Raito doesn't have a very high opinion of my intelligence, given all of this." Raito didn't… Raito didn't even deny all of this to Ide's face. He was – he was just waiting for it all to come out, wasn't he? Because it's not like I could do anything even if I didn't like it…

"I thought he thought I was... different." Matsuda hasn't been listening. "I kept thinking I could bail on him and just keep my mouth shut and… everything would be just… flat and… you know, we could hardly go on being… being close if I knew he was Kira, could we? I kept thinking I was turning my back on… on everything if I walked away. And he needed help, he needed someone to help and…"

"You said let me do it."

"Yeah, and I knew what that meant, all right?" Matsuda scowls at him. "I knew it'd be – be killing. But it'd be killing bad people."

"It would be killing. Not to mention you're a police officer."

"And if I stopped being one no one would care, would they? Why shouldn't I be doing something that, that actually mattered? I took the Eyes and he set things up so the notebook would get sent to me, he reminded me about how it works, and I… and I…"

"You... started to use it." It still doesn't sound real. Matsuda glances at him, warily, like he's waiting for another argument. Ide quickly looks away. There isn't time to go into that dead end again. But Matsuda just started murdering people and didn't see even a bit of a problem with it –

"What happened then?" he demands.

He hears Matsuda sigh.

"He said you'd all be back soon. He said did I… did I really think I'd be able to keep cool when we were all working together twenty-four-seven? He was scared I'd… He kept saying, I can't see you punished in my place. I mean, I was scared too, when he... when he pointed that out. Ryuzaki did some pretty bad stuff to him and Misa-Misa, and we knew Mello had done… Raito was saying how Sayu-chan was… We both knew I wouldn't be able to, to hold out. If Near or someone… I'd break down and then I'd betray him too."

"Get to the point." Ide can feel his hands curling into fists. "He wanted us dead. But we aren't. Go on."

"I..."

"And don't, don't start trying to, to cover your back already." His voice is shaking. "Just. Just tell me what you did. What he did. Just get it over with."

Matsuda has his free arm across his chest, is digging his fingers into his shoulder. He takes another breath and then he starts to speak.

I didn't really believe he'd just kill all of you. I thought seeing as he'd let me live, he wouldn't really do it. But he kept talking like – like he had to and I... I didn't want... I knew you didn't deserve it.

He kept going over the – the reasons and I was... I was getting really freaked out. I don't know. I don't remember. It was... like in a dream, when you're saying stuff and no one understands you. You know? Like we were having completely different conversations.

I said... I said I'd understood, maybe you guys could too. I understood and it wasn't just because I – I liked him. I thought it was right. I thought it was the right thing to do. I'd had time to... to think about it now. I said maybe if we could just give you time to think... I was getting kind of... loud... and he... I guess he didn't want to have to deal with me being stupid on top of everything else so he said that... he said maybe we could work something out. For the three of you, because we knew you.

He got the... the sleeping stuff and –

"Stop it." The nausea is back. Do not. Do not think. Do not. Matsuda has gone quiet. You have to – you have to get the facts. Breath against his fingers. The smell of smoke on his skin. "He did all the set-up, right? He'd know what – what strings to pull –"

Matsuda nods.

"Demegawa had started going on about setting up a... a base of operations, so there were already people who were happy to... to help us. Raito – Raito killed him. You know what Demegawa was like. He was... he was asking for it. Raito knew Takada, they'd been at To-oh together, so he made contact with her, got her helping to... to get people onside. He talked me through how to..." Another deep breath. "How to stop Near. He said with... with the three of you, he could keep you sedated and you. You would be too... too out of it to..."

"Shut up. Shut up, I'm not stupid. I... I... So, did he tell you then we'll be beating the true path into them?"

"No," Matsuda cries out, scrambling round to face him properly, "No, I keep telling you, I never wanted any of that. I didn't know for a bit. He always said I couldn't save everyone, I needed to get that. He meant if you weren't... weren't going to – to cooperate then you'd have to... be... dead. I didn't want to see what he was saying to you or how you were acting because I was scared I'd see you doing something he couldn't forgive and. And I'd have to... So I kept away and I heard people saying about, about what they were doing. Some of them were just, like, it was a job to them, and some of them liked... and some of them it was a puzzle, they were trying to work out the best way to – to make you and –

"And then he asked me if I could try and convince you."

Ide hears himself say, from far away, through the singing in his ears, "All of us? Or me specifically?"

Matsuda whispers, "He meant any of you. Then he asked me who he thought I'd have the best hope of... of getting onto the – the right side. Aizawa thinks I'm an idiot and Mogi I knew I'd just end up babbling while he listened to me talk but... but you, I... I thought like I knew you, I could talk to you, so I... I said..."

ooo

Everything has broken. Everything looks whole but it's not real. The real things are broken like the world was a pane of glass.

Matsuda is still speaking but Ide can't hear what he's saying. He wants to hear. He wants to grasp the thread of the conversation and use it to pull himself back to somewhere safe and kind. Oh please. Please.

But it wouldn't work. Not now he knows. It would be listening and trying not to look at... at everything around him.

Matsuda is whispering, Ide. Ide, please say something.

He hears himself answer. One word in front of the other.

I don't

I don't have anything to say to you.

Matsuda starts stammering something like he's sorry. Like he never meant. Like he didn't want. The worst part is that Ide wants to believe him. He is this close to saying it's all right. But even if he tries to believe that, sooner or later the reality will rise up from underneath it.

I trusted you he's saying. Scrambling for the words that will hurt enough to keep Matsuda away from him. And you lied to me and... and I wish... No. Far too much he could actually wish for. You lied and... you're useless. A pathetic, stupid coward.

That makes Matsuda stop talking to him. Ide knew that it would. It doesn't make him feel any better.