So, hello again. It's been a while, almost a year since I last wrote something in F.F, but now I'm back! Not for long, though. Times are difficult, you see, and my free time's limited, but I have a few days to do something new with this story. From this chapter on we don't care about the dates, this is almost the center of it. I hope I can make it in time and complete "Easy", I don't like leaving things like this at all!

Anyway, this is the next chapter, and it's for you! Enjoy!

Together again

Matt POV

February 1 , 2011

I was going to die...

The gun pointing at my forehead and the slight pressure of another gun on my back told me that I didn't have much time to spend in this world anymore. But I didn't care. Oh, no...enough with the crybaby. If I were to die, I would die with a smile on my face and the last thought of him in my mind.

'Mello...I wonder where you are now...'

I bet somewhere with his friends, happy, bossing them around as he always used to do...I smiled at that last thought and I felt my eyes ready to spill the tears I was trying to keep inside.

'Well...I didn't get to find you, Mels...I'm sorry.'

Ironically, I was going to die the same date my mom gave birth to me, hoping I would survive to be someone special, as she used to tell me when I was a little kid.

'How typical...Sorry I let you down mom.' And I closed my eyes tightly, ready to die. For real this time.

-Flashback-

"So, Josh, you are leaving..." Chris' mom stated, glaring at the bag I was holding. I nodded once and feign a smile at her.

"Thank you for everything, miss Jean. Now I'm able to go to Japan, thanks to you!" I cheered, and the woman smiled.

"'Bout time..." a muffled voice was heard and Chris popped her head out of the Pet Shop's door. Her eyes fixed on my face, she walked closer and waved. "Take care of yourself, or I'll find you and give you a hard time. Capeeshe?"

I nodded and waved back at her, the bitter taste of losing a friend -again - getting stronger on my tongue. "I will." I said and turned my back to her and Jean, hoping they would get inside soon. They had a home, and a life to live. Me, on the other hand, had nothing but a suppressed dream in my bag and a combat in my mind pointing straight to Japan. I would start my investigation and I would search for Mello. Oh, he was so dead if our paths met...

Who am I kidding? I was dying to see him again, and I found him I wouldn't hurt him for anything.

Well...not much, at least.

The years I had spent in the pet shop - instead of the moths I had planned at the beginning - had provided me the money for a ticket to Japan and, if I was lucky, a small room somewhere in the huge city of Tokyo. So, when I got on the plane, the only thing I had in mind was my poor Japanese.

'So much for going to Japan. What are you going to do if you don't know to speak, huh?' I wondered and instantly opened my laptop and clicked the first Japanese dictionary my eyes feel on.

'Oh, man...that's too much!'. A million pages, with another million words each? How am I supposed to learn all these in five hours?'. I sighed and clicked a random page. I had work to do...

Some pages later...

'No way...' I knew nothing! And the plane was... two hours to Japan, damn it!

"Mello...how did you get there?" I mumbled through my teeth and turned the pc off. I let my body relax and fall back on the plane seat.

And that is the point where everything starts to get really hard to remember, because I suddenly I couldn't breathe, see or hear anything! Something in my mind was screaming that this was no good, but I already knew.

When I woke up, I was tied, and a very familiar gun was pointing at my temple...

-End of flashback-

"Stay still." a harsh voice ordered me. Yeah, like I would move! With this finger ready to pull the trigger? I don't think so!

"Ok, ok man, chill out..." I mumbled. As I moved my eyes, a dull pain started to expand at the back of my head. Possibly from a hit...

The man in frond of me, tall, with shaved head and tattoos, huffed and spoke to somebody I couldn't see. "So, you think this is him?"

"Pretty sure he is...Red hair, green eyes..." the unseen man said, sounding sure. The tattoo freak smiled.

"Oh yeah, this time we made it! Wha?" he turned to me "what are you staring at?" he angrily asked and I gulped.

"Ah...yeah...ehm...who are you guys?" I asked and tried to turn my head to the side, but I found I couldn't move.

"You don't need to know, Mr. Alister Tenoski!" he ironically answered and spat the name at my face.

"What? Wow, wow, wait a minute!" I started to panic for real. Who were these gyus anyway? "How did you call me?"

"What, you don't know your own name now, pretty?" the tattooed man mocked.

"Well, not this name! That's not my name!" I yelled.

"...Moka..." the unseen man lightly said "don't get mad at him. The Boss said he is clever and he might try to trick us...Stay calm."

"But I'm telling you I'm not this...Alister-whatever! I'm-"

"Oh, shut up...". A fist crushed against my head and I saw stars. Just by the time I was losing consciousness, I heard the man I didn't have the chance to see scolding the tattooed man, and I found the sense of justice almost euphoric...

"Now you call this 'right handling of the situation'? Mello will get really pissed now..."

Mello...Mello...The darkness within my head was blocking me from thinking straight, but that name ...it belled a ring somewhere inside me...

'Mello!'

I almost - almost got out of the bliss, so surprised I was to hear his name.

But then again, wasn't I searching for him all this time? Didn't I want to find him so desperately all those years? Wasn't he the reason why I left behind me a happy life at Wammy's and a nice two-year job in Winchester?

Finally, I was getting to him...

Some hours later...

SHOT...SHOT

"YOU IDIOTS! YOU BASTARDS! You-you ASSHOLES! USELESS, THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE!"

'Stop shouting...'

"I ONLY ASKED YOU TO BRINK ME THE LINK! WAS IT SO DIFFICULT TO REMEMER WHAT I TOLD YOU?"

'...damn...my head hurts...'

"Tall, skinny, redhead, green eyes, but OLD! Old, damn it! Over thirty years old! And you? You brought me here this teenager! He's barely eighteen!"

'...seventeen...I'm seventeen, damn it...'

"Boss, were sorry! We didn't mean to-"

"OUT! GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE! Because of you a total stranger is brought here, we've lost the Link and I have to kill this man!"

"Boss, pleas-"

"OUT!"

A door closed angrily, a train of shoots was heard, and something fell on the floor with a dull thud.

'Where am I...?'. Eyes still closed, I could only tell I was lying on something soft - a sofa, maybe? My heart started beating alarmingly fast, setting my body in a state of danger. Something was telling me that everything was fine, but I just couldn't remember...

I dared to crack an eye, just to cast the environment. I was in a sofa, indeed, inside an old room with peeled wallpaper. With his back turned to me, a slim frame - too familiar to be unknown - was sitting on a chair with his (or so I could tell) head in his hands in desperation.

In a heartbeat I recognized the frame. He was taller, thinner, dressed in black, but his hair was still this extraordinary golden blond color I knew so well, the shape of his shoulder blades was just like I remembered (right bone a little curvier than the left) and...it was him...It was Mello!

As if as he had heard my thoughts, Mello turned to me and pierced me with his eyes, icy blue as always, but more mature after all these years. He stood up slowly, like a hunter ready to capture a bewildered animal, and knelt to catch his gun. He encaged it and turned it to me slowly.

"They brought you here by mistake and I don't want to do this...But no one, and I mean no one, enters here without being one of us." he stated and slipped his finger in the trigger.

"Wait, what are you doing?" I mumbled. No, didn't he recognized me? Me? His friend? 'Oh no...'

"I told you, I have to do this. Please, forgive me..." he said and grabbed the rosary we wore, kissing the silver cross.

The rosary! He still had it! This scene, so familiar, brought tears in my eyes. He hadn't left it behind in Wammy's, but I never expected to see him wearing it again...

"You...you still have it..." I whispered. His expression was somewhere betwin confusion and fear.

"What do you mean?" he carefully asked, eyes narrowing.

"The rosary...You still have it. I never really thought you took it with you..." I said, and I saw his eyes widen, this time in surprise.

"What-what do you know about the rosary?" he lisped.

Wow...I made Mello lisp?

"You really don't remember, do you? I was the one who gave you this, Mels...". My voice sounded really sad even to my own ears. Damn, it was one my best memories...How come he had forgotten?

"It can't be..." he lowered the gun and stared at me. I understood he was searching for something in my face, and I remembered I was still wearing the goggles. The bastards had taken them off only to justify the color of my eyes and then let them on my eyes again.

But then again, it was my signature...He had forgotten me. With a slow move I took the goggles off and blinked as the light fell in my eyes.

Mello gasped and the gun fell on the floor again. "Matt?" he whispered. I smiled at my friend and stood up.

He was just a year older than me, nineteen, but we had the same height. Only he was thinner than me now. He always was thin, come to think of it, but now he was...well...almost bony. He still had the grace I remembered so well, though. I recalled the happy days we had passed and I longed to see Mello smile again. This careful, suspecting look upon his face wasn't him at all...

"Hi Mello...long time no see, huh?"

Next chapter's going to be longer, I hope, and more interesting. Hope there is something you like in here...

Till my next chapter

xxx