L stumbled to the sink and threw up. How repulsive. I'm never doing this again. He righted himself dazedly and gulped down some water.

"Well well well, what have we here?" came a derisive voice from behind him.

"Hello Daniel," he mustered, and started to leave the toilets. Daniel followed behind.

"Just like I thought. Can't even take a drink. Probably don't get out much, do you," he snorted.

"No, I don't."

"Probably a virgin too, eh?"

"Daniel is rude to ask such information of me."

"Turn and face me when you're talking to me!" Daniel cried, and L turned round slowly, still feeling somewhat woozy from the vomiting experience. The tall blond man was backing him up against the beige wall of the corridor.

"What's your game, eh? I bring Fen here so that I can make that beautiful woman mine, and every move I make you're there, saying something smart or stealing her off. Are you deliberately trying to get in my way?"

"Yes," L replied honestly, knowing exactly how well Daniel would take that. He saw the man's shoulders tense, his fists ball, his eyes narrow to fiery slits.

"You're not her boyfriend are you?"

"No." L tried to move back away from the man's angry red face, but the wall was in the way.

"Then what thinks you have the right to get in my way like this?"

"If you recall, Fen simply asked me to-"

"Yeah yeah yeah," Daniel cut him off, "and I bet she asked you to dance with her too, didn't she?" He sneered sarcastically. "Come off it, you're pathetic following her round like this trying to get her attention, why don't you just leave her to someone in her own league?"

L stared hard into the man's face. He couldn't remain polite to this guy anymore. He was beginning to feel destructive. How far could he push the guy? "Just out of curiosity, why is it logical that an intelligent woman like her would prefer a boring, jumped-up, overbearing narcissist like yourself?"

"You little-" Daniel seized him by the throat and pressed him against the wall. "Give me one reason that I shouldn't punch your brains out you cocky little weirdo?" Interesting. It seems he can be pushed quite far. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Rose coming round the corner into the corridor. This was going to be very interesting.

"Well, you could do that," L said, as evenly as he could with his throat being constricted, a humorous glint in his eye, "but there's about a 90% chance you'll regret it."

"OH YEAH? You're gonna hurt me, are ya?" Daniel let go of his throat, and swung a punch at L's face. L could've easily blocked it, but he didn't, and let the broad fist collide with his cheek and nose. As expected, Rose leaped immediately over to Daniel, fuming, and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. As he turned round, Rose punched him so hard that he was knocked clean out. The large blond man toppled to the floor in a heap.

"What a fucking idiot!"

"I told him he'd regret it."

Rose turned, as dangerous as a lioness, to see Ryuzaki leaning against the wall, a mischievous light glowing in his onyx eyes, one hand trying to stem the flow of glistening blood from his nose.

"Shit! Are you okay?"

"It's nothing."

"Don't be stupid." She gave him some tissues from her handbag. "We should probably get out of here."

"That's an excellent diagnosis of the situation."

As swiftly as they could casually walk they left the bar, and quickly crossed a street out of sight of the entrance, before collapsing against some railings and heaving with laughter.

"You got yourself punched deliberately, didn't you?! Just so you could see me knock him out!?"

Rose saw Ryuzaki turn to her with fake solemnity. "Correct."

"Haha hah HAAAAA...!" The tidal waves of laughter submerged them again, and they didn't surface for a good couple of minutes.

"Hey," Rose said when she got her breath back, "dya wanna go to a park for a bit? I definitely couldn't sleep yet."

"If you like."

They dropped into an off license, so Ryuzaki could buy a packet of bourbons and some fruit pastels to re-fill his empty stomach. It wasn't difficult to find a park. A narrow tarmac path lit by amber streetlights led them through areas of grass and dotted trees, yellow black and grey in the false illumination. They soon found a bench on a higher patch of ground that afforded a fairly pleasant view of the city's lights, and sat down. Ryuzaki crouched as usual, hungrily destroying the biscuits and sweets. Both stared out ahead of them at the dark manmade landscape before them, quiet for a moment. It was a peaceful evening. Gone were the heady, intense feelings of their drunkenness earlier. Both were now filled with a quieter, cooler, more serene feeling. It wasn't precisely happy or sad, but neither was it neutral. It was a vast feeling, both full and empty, like the starry night sky above them.

Rose felt too natural to be Fen. She let down Fen's bun into Rose's drooping chestnut curls and sat cross legged on the bench, jacket over her exposed legs, and sighed with relief. She knew she shouldn't break character in front of someone, but it felt too late for that. It felt like Ryuzaki already knew who she was. What did he make of her? Did he only see Fen, or was he astute enough to notice the Rose underneath? I have to know.

"When you look at me, what do you see?" Rose watched him turn to her in surprise at her unexpected question, eyebrows raised.

"Be honest. Be brutally honest. I really want to know. You're good at reading clues in puzzles, you're good at reading my movements in a fight, I want to know if you're good at reading me."

"Are you sure?" He asked dubiously, and a small wry smile pulled at his lips, "I might say something horribly offensive, you know."

"That's fine, I can handle it." Fen's determined jaw told L that she meant it.

"Okay. But I don't know you that well, so I might be very wrong." He wouldn't be wrong. But he had to say it.

Rose nodded to say that was fine, and watched Ryuzaki as his thumb came up to his mouth and played with his lip again. His deep black eyes gazed at her for a moment, his feet wiggling over each other, and Rose tried to hold his gaze, whilst feeling like her very soul was naked before him.

"I see... One of the strongest, most independent women I've ever met. I see it in the way you hold your mouth, the way you hold you head and neck. It makes me think that you've been looking after yourself for several years now, even though you can't be older than twenty three. I see a woman whose dedication to physical health is possibly a little over-zealous. I see a tenseness in your shoulders and around your eyebrows that speaks of constant striving for better, a constant drive for perfection that shapes everything you do. And with it, comes the fear of failure. Possibly also, the guilt of failure in the past. Yes, there's definitely some guilt in your eyes. But it's by no means the strongest communication there. They're filled with defiance. I see hatred and apathy in there, as if most of the world bores and disgusts you. That will be partly due to your impressive intelligence, but it's got to be more than that. Your eyes speak too of a deep hurt, an old pain that makes you tender inside. I wonder if it's that that fuels your anger. There's also much humour about you, and some gentleness too, in the flash of your smile, and the creases around your eyes. Your life hasn't beaten the joy out of you. And yet there's a loneliness in your fierce independence. And there's whole depths of you that I can't see, and I don't think anyone can, I think you keep yourself very private. It's really quite bewitching," he added.

Ryuzaki stopped, looking concerned. Rose knew why – it was because she was tense and shaking, if she hadn't been a highly controlled person, she might have been crying. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, yes, it's fine, really," she reassured him, feeling as fragile as a butterfly's wing in a storm. She turned from him, and stared out over the dark and twinkling city, clutching her hands together, trying to control her breathing. "I just didn't expect you to be quite that... well... accurate."

L didn't respond to her. He knew he shouldn't have analysed her properly, it would only make her more curious about him, and Fen wanting to know more about him could lead to his fake identity becoming apparent. But he didn't want to be fake. He didn't want to have to avoid trusting this person, just like every other he'd met before her. He didn't trust her of course, but he wanted to know her, and wanted her to know him, just a little. He swore at himself inside his mind, conflicted, and ate some fruit pastilles to cover up his thoughts.

After some quiet moments passed, Rose regained her composure, her breathing steadying.

"May I ask you the same question?" L asked Fen, when he thought she was ready.

Rose looked at him. Dark locks were falling into serious eyes. He meant it. Should I pretend to not see very much? No, I can't bear to read him badly and see his disappointment in me. Fuck it.

"I see... one of the most complex and unusual people I've ever met," she said, mirroring his opening sentence. "I see someone who is a conflict of boy and man. In your crouching posture I see a man who is crushed by bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders, crushed by responsibilities that no one should ever have to bear. In the very same posture I see a boy who must be as close to the foetal position as possible to try and recapture a youth that they never had. I see in your downturned mouth a darkness, a darkness of one who's seen too much. I see in your unconscious movements someone that doesn't realise how graceful they are, that never expects anyone to be looking, or to care. I see in the determination of your jaw a man that hates to fail as much as I do. Sometimes, when you smile and wiggle your toes, you glow with total purity - conflicted with the devilishness and world-weary sarcasm of your other smiles. I see someone that's been detached from the world and from others so much that they don't even remember what it's like to be connected, I see someone who is so alone that the word 'alone' has ceased to bear any meaning for them. And in those eyes... I see someone that is too intelligent for their own good. I see that your keep your much of your real self private from the world, just like I do, but probably because you see others so little, you're not as perfect and practised as hiding yourself as you think. And I see a wildness just waiting to escape, but not knowing how."

L looked away and hugged his knees tighter as Fen finished. "That was... reasonably close." He admitted. I wish I could tell you that it was absolutely perfect. I can't give that much away. He clenched his jaw to stop himself from shouting out, "That's me, that's me, I'm L! I'm the detective that can never have a friend! I'm the detective that nobody would want to be friends with, because I'd accidentally get them killed, or I'd push them away with my weirdness! I'm L, and I've always put my work over people, because that's what I've been trained to do!" Instead, he said nothing, and tried to relax the tension in his body.

Rose watched him, satisfied that she'd got it right. He wouldn't have looked so perturbed otherwise. But she felt full of sorrow, too. We can never connect. I can't because he'll find out that I work for criminals and hate me, he can't because he doesn't know how. They both sat in silence for a while, struggling with their thoughts.

"Ryuzaki, what's your second name? I realised I still don't know."

"Idukame," L thought of quickly. Damn, I should've prepared for that question. Should've found a fake identity to use.

"That's pretty. Where did you learn to dance?"

"My grandfather. He thought I should know how to do it properly." Well, it was true that Wammy, the closest person he had to family had taught him, but he could hardly tell her that he'd needed to learn in order to understand the mindset of serial-killing dancer in a case a couple of years ago.

"Had you ever been out dancing before?"

"No," he replied, "I really wasn't sure of the point." Need to deflect these questions. "Do you?"

"Yeah a fair few times. I love dancing, but I dislike a lot of people. It's a tricky one."

L chuckled. "You could always dance on your own."

"Oh, I do," Rose answered honestly, "though not as much as I train martial arts."

They chatted for a while longer about little things that didn't matter, before deciding it was quite cold and late and they should probably return to the hotel. It had been weird but strangely comforting to Rose, to small-talk with Ryuzaki.

In the third floor corridor they said goodbye. Rose could see that the veil – that had been conspicuously absent for the last hour or so – had descended over his face again. Once more, Ryuzaki was inscrutable. Rose had put Fen's expressions back on her face, but she couldn't muster quite as good as mask as him at that moment.

"Good night Fen, thank you for the entertaining evening." He said politely in monotone, as if reciting from a book.

"Good night, Ryuzaki. Thank you for helping me avoid Daniel." And thank you for giving me the first physical human contact I've enjoyed since being a child, she wanted to add, but refrained. He had probably not known what he was doing to her, he was too innocent, it was probably nothing more than a first-drunken-experience to him.

Was that all it was to her? L wondered, just a ploy? "You're welcome" he replied stiffly, and turned to leave, but found that Fen had caught his arm.

"Ryuzaki, will we see each other again?" Rose saw that it took some effort for him to retain his blank veil at this question.

"I don't know. I can't make any promises."

"Me neither," she said, trying to hide her pain at the fact.

"Well, goodbye then."

"Bye."

Rose stumbled up the next flight of stairs and into her en suite. Kicking off her shoes, she grabbed a large glass of water and took it out onto the little Parisian balcony, and sat on the chair there. She sighed at the sky. How inconvenient to actually like another human being. After a moment, she heard the click of a door beneath her, and two pairs of footsteps emerge onto the balcony one floor below. That was surprising, it was 5am. She leant discreetly over the balcony edge, and saw the top of Ryuzaki's messy hair. Even more surprisingly, he was with an old man. He's not staying here alone? Rose questioned. That's weird. Maybe it's his grandfather? But then if he's seriously ill shouldn't he be in hospital or a care home or something?

"What's happened to your face?" She heard the old man ask Ryuzaki with concern. "Didn't run into trouble, did you?"

"Not in the way you're thinking," came Ryuzaki's faint, droning, voice, dripping with irony. Rose strained her ears to hear.

"Oh?"

"I got in a fight over a girl."

There was a pause, before the old man erupted into a wheezy chuckle. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Was it the girl who sent you the puzzle?"

"Correct. Wammy's deductive powers are almost as strong as mine tonight," Ryuzaki teased.

"You will be careful, though? You know the dangers."

Rose heard Ryuzaki sigh. What the hell is going on here? Is the old man some kind of uber-controlling grandfather that's taught him never to trust people?

"I know, Wammy. I've already gone too far. It's just, she's the first person I've ever wanted to be friends with."

Rose felt herself blush with pleasure.

"Okay. To be honest, I'm happy for you." Now the old man was sighing wistfully. "I feel very guilty you know, for taking your childhood away. Without a doubt, nobody else at the orphanage could have done it so well, it had to be you. But I regret what you've had to sacrifice."

"Don't be silly Wammy, I chose this life for myself as much as you did for me. Besides, I was hardly more sociable before you found me."

The old man chuckled. "That's true enough."

Rose's heart was beating hard, her mind buzzing with confusion. As Ryuzaki and the old man went back inside, she sat back down on the chair, brow furrowed, scratching her hair, totally nonplussed. Danger? Orphanage? Sacrifice? FOUND me? What the hell did any of this mean?

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