Chapter 8
Insight
"Thank you Watari." Yuki smiled pleasantly as she took the Popsicle from the old man, he smiled and went to hand out the rest. Yuki leaned forward over her laptop. "You've been sitting here getting pampered by old men!" She whispered playfully.
Llana looked at Yuki through her bangs, then she brushed them to the side with her fingers so she could see better, "No." She chuckled, "I've been working. But thanks to you we both get a little break."
Yuki rolled her eyes; "I'm always on break. The house is so boring now without you there. The president isn't as funny anymore and poor Ryan…"
Llana had forgotten about her precious intern, "Aw. How is he doing, I did kind of dump my job on him."
"Ya think?" Yuki licked her Popsicle, "Well, he's actually handling it pretty well. He was crazy for the first couple days but he got used to it."
"That's good."
"How are your projects coming ladies?" Llana recognized the bored tone and licked her Popsicle, "Fine Ryuzaki. Want to see it?" L shuffled over next to Llana and peered at her laptop screen, the skeleton of a building etched itself slowly onto the screen, "My father designed it but never finished, do you like it?"
L's eyes grew wide, "Very much." He turned to Yuki, "Miss Yuki? How is your half coming?"
Yuki smirked, "This place is going to have state of the art everything, retina scans, x-ray, hand scans…" (Ha! I typed hand stands like three times here ^_^)
L smiled, "Keep up the good work."
"No problem." They replied at the same time.
"So…"
Llana clicked her tongue, "So what?"
"Has your doctor called?"
There was a silence for a minute then Llana took a breath, "Yes."
"What did she say? Is it progressing?"
"No. It's at a standstill at the moment." Llana said sadly, "But only for the moment, she doesn't know how long that moment will be."
Yuki looked at her friend sadly and then looked at the taskforce, "They don't know do they?"
Llana chuckled dryly; "They've never even seen them, save Matsuda. And Ryuzaki and Watari already know."
Yuki got interested when she said that Matsuda had seen them, "Matsuda? The cute one? You showed him your eyes?"
Llana blushed ever so slightly, "He asked, Yuki."
"So! A lot of people have asked. What did he say about them?"
"I don't know I never got to hear his response. He did gasp though." Llana said remembering Matsuda's small sharp intake of breath when he first saw her eyes.
Yuki squealed and Llana started to laugh and shake her head, "You know what, shut up. I do not." She said already knowing what Yuki was getting at.
"Yes you do."
"Do not."
"Do too."
"Not."
"Do."
"Not."
"Do!"
"Not! Argh, stop it! We sound like two teenage girls." Llana said giving up and laughing.
Yuki giggled at her victory, she had so won that, "You could just get colored contacts like you had back home."
"I could. But I haven't had the time to go out and get some. I don't know my way around Japan anyway." Llana said biting the tip of her Popsicle and slapping her hand over her mouth. Her teeth were not happy with that move.
Yuki snorted at her friend, "You should ask Matsuda."
"No."
"Yes."
"We are not starting this again." Llana said, pointing her Popsicle at Yuki. Yuki rose her brow at the frozen treat then looked at Llana. It ended in both women giggling like teens again.
L reached over into his bowl of strawberries, he pouted when he didn't feel the succulent wet fruit under his fingertips. "Watari." L waited about two seconds then the man didn't come, "Where is Watari?"
Light came over and sat next to L, "He said he was going to see if the girls needed anything."
L pouted, "It seems Llana is having fun with Miss Yuki…." He said as he heard laughing coming from across the hall as their door opened.
Watari stepped in smiling, "I apologize L, I just wanted to see if the ladies needed anything."
"It's fine." He said to his old friend, "No need to apologize. Are they ok?"
"They are quite alright, having fun while doing their assignment, I think Miss Yuki's visit is good for Ideal."
L bit his thumb lightly, maybe that was true. But now, there was someone else trying to steal his friend. "Watari, please send them in, they can continue tomorrow, I think it's time they rejoined the group."
Watari bowed shortly and left to retrieve Yuki and Llana. Light rose his brows at L, "Ryuzaki, are you-"
L rose from his chair, cutting Light off, "Ideal, Miss Yuki, if you wouldn't mind. I want the two of you to rejoin the group for now. You can continue your project tomorrow."
The two women were still smiling from their little girl talk in the other room. Llana turned her smile from Yuki to L, "Sure Ryuzaki."
"Ideal, could you please look over these files with Aizawa?" Llana looked at Yuki then stood, "Sure Ryuzaki."
Llana took the files from him and walked over to Aizawa, playfully hitting Matsuda in the head with the files as she passed. "Gah! Ideal!" He said chuckling.
L clenched his toes, "Matsuda! Come here, I have a job for you."
Yuki looked at Llana worriedly as Matsuda scurried over to L to receive his orders. Llana just sort of shrugged with her expression, L seemed so hostile whenever she said something or did anything at all to Matsuda.
Llana sat down and crossed her legs with practiced grace in her suit skirt and smiled at Aizawa. He smiled back with little enthusiasm, Llana groaned in her head, this was gonna be a long night.
Llana reached into the bowl without looking up and put the marshmallow in her mouth, "Ok, run that by me again."
Aizawa huffed, "What if he's killing criminals in a pattern. Messages in what crime they committed?"
Llana nodded absentmindedly as she ate another marshmallow, Aizawa was really thinking about this, "Well, that could be one hundred percent true." Llana smiled in her mind, she was starting to sound like L, using percentages. "But, if there is a message, it'll be impossible to find. Some of their crimes aren't big enough to hold messages. Do we have a file of the crimes?"
Aizawa nodded, "Of course," he yawned, "There in that blue folder there."
Llana looked over at the table and stopped dead. This wasn't supposed to happen, she stared at the folders on the table. One of those orange folders, was blue, she just didn't know which one.
Aizawa glanced over, "Did you hear me? I said the blue one."
"I heard you Aizawa-san…" she said slowly. She reached out and hesitated then pulled her hand back.
Aizawa shook his head; he was too tired for this. Matsuda watched Llana in confusion, L just watched, his eyes wide, thumb in his mouth; he knew she couldn't hide forever. Yuki watched her friend with sadness on her face; she knew that Llana was petrified of telling people what was wrong with her.
Aizawa finally reached over Llana and grabbed the folder, "What's wrong Ideal. You blind or something?" he huffed a little agitated.
Llana gripped the couch, "Actually…" She trailed off, too afraid to continue.
L stepped closer to his friend; he placed a hand on her shoulder, "Ideal. I think you should tell them." He said in his normal bored tone.
Llana turned her face up and took a deep breath in and let it out. She reached under her bangs and laid a hand over her eyes, a few more deep breaths. She lifted her bangs and almost visibly cringed at the gasps that came from Aizawa, Mogi, Soichiro, and Light. L glared at Matsuda, he wasn't shocked, she let him see. L composed himself, getting angry over such petty things was not his concern right now.
"Actually, I'm colorblind. It's not normal colorblindness. As you can see, even the color of my eyes is affected. I have Dechromina. It's a special color blindness that progresses…" Llana trailed off not able to finish.
"It started when she was eleven." Watari calmly spoke as he sat next to the woman he still saw as a young girl, "Her eyes were dark violet at one time, still an odd color, but nothing to worry about, then they started to fade."
Llana was visibly shaking a little as she continued to speak, "I noticed it when I was looking at my friend, he has red hair and to me, it was green, though I knew his hair was supposed to be red."
She stopped to fiddle with her skirt, "I can't see primary colors, Red, Yellow, and Blue. I actually just learned from my doctor that soon I will only see shades of grey, then I won't be able to see at all."
The room fell dead silent, that shocked everyone, including Watari. When she was younger he had called every specialist in England, personally, to check on her. None of them concluded that it would progress so severely.
"Ideal…" she was like his daughter, knowing this, Watari felt her pain.
Llana smiled brightly at the glum task force, "I've learned to live with it. I can see shades of colors; I can see the blue in the sky, and the pink of a flower. Please, this wasn't supposed to depress everybody. I guess, I just thought I was good at hiding it. I actually feel better now that you all know."
L's monotonous voice broke the silence, "This won't hold us back. Knowing each other better is a step in solving this case. We can trust each other."
The entire force gained confident looks; it was true, becoming stronger as a group would aid them in the future.
Yuki cracked open one eye to see her friend sitting on the edge of the bed, "Llana? Llana you need to go to sleep."
Llana sighed, "I tried. Go back to sleep Yuki, I think I'm just gonna get some water."
Yuki watched Llana leave the room and laid back down, sometimes she wondered why that woman wouldn't let anyone in.
Llana tried to steady her shaking hands as she turned on the faucet and held her cup under the running water. She sighed as she turned the water off.
"Llana…."
Llana dropped her glass into the sink with a shatter, the sudden noise made L blink in surprise rather than jump physically. Llana grabbed the hand towel with still shaking hands. "I'm sorry Ryuzaki. I guess I'm a little jumpy."
Llana froze as L's cold hand covered her own, "Llana, you don't seem ok."
L's usually emotionless face was riddled with concern. He could feel Llana shaking in his hands. He took the towel from her and turned her to face him.
He didn't know what to do, comforting other people was foreign to him, and Llana was obviously feeling pain, and sadness, and probably fear. He wrapped his arms around her waist, taking in her scent. Her shaking slowed as she held him back. He was obviously doing something right. He started to feel warm. It was an uncomfortable, but nice kind of warm.
"L, I'm scared."
L took a breath, "Why?"
"I… I don't want to go blind L. It wont happen for a while but, it'll happen." She said as she squeezed his shirt in her fists.
L pulled her closer so their bodies were touching, the feeling confused him, but it calmed Llana. He kissed her cheek and she rested her head on his chest, content. L smiled and in the back of his mind, a voice said, "L two, Llana one."
A/N: Jeez, I is so sleepy right now. Well, I hope you enjoyed it, and if you noticed that there was no date in this one, or the one before it, that's because I decided to only put dates in chapters that go with the anime story line. ^_^ Until next time, bye.
