The Little Things Give You Away

Chapter 10

I don't own anything. Half credit goes to Nikkiacat.

So, here it is! Chapter ten! Are you excited? I sure am. I know I haven't updated in a while, but I hope to change that. Don't get your hopes up too much, but there's a chance I may be updating once a week once things get rolling here. YAY! Anyways, I've just checked that super-awesome new features on - you know what I'm talking about, the Reader Traffic and Stats features. I spent a good twenty minutes that I could have been typing looking at what different countries my readers were from, what c2 communities I was part of (I had no idea Little Things was in any of them!!) and how many favs and alerts I had! It's crazy! Last i checked, I have 8,235 hits, 85 alerts, 42 favs, and 146 reviews. Thank you SOOOOO much guys! Keep those numbers comin'! I love y'all till the end of time! And so, without further ado, it's Little Things, Chapter 10!!

Light hauled his battered air mattress out of its hiding place in the closet and inflated it for Ryuzaki. The oddball and soon-to-be housemate sat awkwardly atop it and glanced at the shelves around him.

"You'll be alright for tonight then?" Light asked, twisting his hands together. He'd never really done this before; he hadn't the faintest idea how to handle it. All that Yagami confidence was gone and even his excuse for Ryuzaki staying had been transparent.

"I'll be fine," the faux-physician muttered around his thumb. "Light-kun must need sleep. Doesn't he have to work in the morning?"

"Oh! Um… Yes, I do." And awkward silence blossomed for a minute before Ryuzaki snipped it off.

"Goodnight, Yagami-kun."

Light cleared his throat. "Goodnight. And… um, in the morning or tomorrow while I'm at work, you can, um… get your stuff here and we'll find a place to put it." Damn it. Light Yagami, celebrity superstar and all-around god of television, was stumbling over his words. This had to stop. "Goodnight," Light repeated before hurrying out of the room.

He lay on his bed that night thinking like there was no tomorrow. That pale oddball had a profound effect on him that HE DIDN'T LIKE. Already, in the very short time that he'd known the weirdo, he'd declared him his friend, revealed to him a little more than he'd have revealed to an ordinary person, and now invited him to LIVE with him. It was preposterous! He wouldn't even invite Misa, his own sort-of-girlfriend, to live with him, and that would've been a media holiday!

It's just pity, a small voice in his head reassured. You just pity this awkward stranger with a hospital bed for a home. It was reassuring to put a label on his on erratic behavior, but pity didn't seem to be exactly the right word for it.

What the right word was, he didn't know, and when he finally fell asleep at nearly 3 a.m., he still didn't know.

Light woke up in the morning to his phone blaring "Lollipop" by Lil' Wayne. He groaned and snatched it off his bedside.

"Hnh?"

"Hello, Light Yagami? This is Yuri from Calendar Cleaning Services. I just wanted to remind you that your maid will be stopping by for your scheduled cleaning today."

"Mmk." Light murmured and snapped his phone shut. He rolled out of bed, yawned, and stumbled towards the bathroom, scratching.

He pushed the bathroom door ajar and froze in his tracks.

There was someone in his bathroom.

Naked.

Light's heart pounded in his chest. Who- why-!?

Ohhhhh… right, Ryuzaki.

Light let out a shaky breath. For a blissful minute, he'd forgotten all about his new housemate, but then the memory had come flooding back. The med-genius must have been about to get in the shower without knowing that light always took his showers in the morning.

Light hesitated for a minute and then peeked through the crack in the door. Should he let Ryuzaki shower first or ask him to wait until Light was done?

Without intending to he began to study Ryuzaki's body. He shouldn't be looking, but… there was some insatiable curiosity pulling him. And his new housemate was so…FRAIL. Ryuzaki's back was turned towards Light, but the teen star could still see outlines of ribs in his sides and back. His shoulder blades and vertebrae poked at his pale skin as though they would tear through at any minute. Light swallowed a lump in his throat. He felt something kind of like what he had felt when he found out Ryuzaki had no other friends. It was some kind of hollow ache in the pit of his stomach. He reassured himself again that it was just pity, but that felt like a transparent excuse.

Pity was something Light felt a lot, but it was a relatively haughty emotion. He pitied anyone who didn't have things as easy as he did, and he looked down on them. In fact, his feeling towards most 'mere mortals' was pity. This thing towards Ryuzaki… it didn't feel like that.

Ryuzaki turned around. Light darted away from the door, blushing, but not before he'd caught a glimpse of evidence that Ryuzaki wasn't frail ALL over. Damn! He took a deep breath, commanding this blush to leave his cheeks, and regained his composed face. First staring at another guy naked, and now blushing. The list of un-Light behavior was steadily growing out of control.

Suddenly he heard a buzzing noise. What in the hell was-

"Hello?" Ryuzaki's monotonous voice asked.

Light's heart skipped a beat. Had he been caught peeping? Oh, no. What was he going to-?

"Yes, N, it is I."

The teen star's brows knitted together. Wait, -Ohhhhh. The buzzing had been Ryuzaki's phone, and he'd answered it. All embarrassment immediately abandoned Light. He now had a reason to be here. There was a possibility he could gain some kind of info from this. Eavesdropping WAS a bit beneath a classy guy like himself, but he supposed it could be forgiven just this once.

"It really isn't your concern," the scrawny genius was muttering. "I told you before, this has nothing to do with L the doctor. This is personal."

Ryuzaki paused for a long moment, (listening, Light presumed) and then spoke again.

"Yes, yes, I know. But nevertheless, you shouldn't call asking after me if I've only been away for one night." He paused again. "… … … You won't give up until I tell you, will you? … Fine, I am at the residence of Light Yagami. He… invited me to live with him."

More pausing. Light wished he could hear the person on the other end of the line. Half a conversation wasn't the most informative thing.

"No, and I wish you wouldn't phrase it like that. I'm as surprised as you are." 'L' let out a long sigh. "And he figured that out relatively quickly. It isn't that hard to guess that I'm not a doctor."

Light raised his eyebrows. Whoever Ryuzaki was talking to must have also known his double identity. But he thought nobody else knew about the mysterious L's identity…? Who was this person L was conversing with?

"Yes," Ryuzaki murmured. "I shall continue doing it. Just because I'm not at the hospital doesn't mean L can't still solve cases. I do most of my work over the phone anyways." Another long pause. "Yes, and that's why you're not ready yet. I said most, not all."

Light raised an eyebrow. Somebody wasn't ready for something yet…? Who and what?

"It's not going to happen, I already told you. And even if I DID become incapable, L would continue. Or have you forgotten?"

Light was getting more and more confused by the second, but wheels were beginning to turn in his head. He just couldn't place exactly what direction they were turning in.

Light was caught off guard by Ryuzaki's next statement. His voice was almost… emotional. It was like someone else was speaking.

"You know this isn't about you. I promise… I promise, N, that you will see me while you still have time. But… I have no desire to remain at the hospital until then." He heard rustling and assumed that Ryuzaki was wrapping a towel around his waist. "Yes, I assure you, I haven't forgotten about your 'list' idea. Personally, I have no idea. … … … … … N, don't say that. I need you to persevere for me. I WILL see you before that day. Just continue what you're working on. I shall talk to you later." Light heard the faint snapping shut of a flip-phone and pulled his ear away from the door. He couldn't quite make sense of his thoughts, but he was able to organize a few into clear points:

-There was someone named N who L knew.

-N knew that Ryuzaki was actually L, and how L worked over the phone.

-N now knew that Ryuzaki lived with Light.

-N was either affiliated with the hospital or lived there, because he knew when L wasn't at the hospital and Ryuzaki had mentioned that he didn't want to remain at the hospital just to see N.-

-N had some sort of time limit, and he wanted to see L before that time ran out.

The rest didn't make any sense, but those little tidbits were interesting. Sure, they only raised more questions, but now Light had something to go by. There was someone out there who knew more of Ryuzaki's secrets, and Light now had something to call him. If he could track down N, maybe he could unravel this pale ball of mysteries.

"Have you been waiting for the shower, Yagami-kun?" a voice very close to his ear asked. He spun to see deeply shadowed eyes-only inches from his own.

He shot back, bumping into the wall in the condo's narrow hallway. "Shi! Ryuzaki!"

Ryuzaki blinked at him. He was only wearing a towel, and Light had been mistaken- he wasn't about to get in the shower, he was getting out. Beads of water dripped from his uneven hair into his dark eyes and ran in rivulets down his too-thin torso. His hipbones protruded just above the line of the towel, and a tiny line of hair ran from his bellybutton to disappear down into the space beneath it.

"Um, yeah!" Light hastily declared, zipping past his new housemate. "Don't worry about it, I got to get to the studio. Can you fend for yourself until dinner?"

"Huh?" Ryuzaki tilted his head, looking at Light's retreating back. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, for food. There's some microwave stuff in the freezer or you can order pizza if you want. The number's on the fridge. I'm going to change clothes and get to work." Light sped into his room so fast; he didn't hear Ryuzaki's next statement.

"Yagami-kun? How do you use a microwave...?

So there we have it! The fabled Chapter Ten! Ten is the most chapters I've EVER posted on a fic on ; so consider yourselves lucky my beloved readers!! In personal news, I've been at the art school for about two or three weeks now and I LOVE it. My roommates and suitemates are all awesome seniors, the classes actually challenge me and … hell, it's fun XD Anyways, learning to live with other people has given me lots of experience to use for Light and L, … but thankfully the whole walking-in-on-a-roommate-naked thing is NOT based on experience XD

At the same time, I'm sad. Remember that author, nikkiacatmeki, I mentioned? She's moving to Egypt, in a matter of only days. I'm excited for her, but…  I'm also sad. If anyone wants to pop by her profile and wish her a safe trip it'd make us both slightly happier. From now on she has to help me with little things from afar… and she's half the driving force behind this fic! : Anyways, I've decided that I'm being L for Halloween. Not very original, I know, but a whole group of people at my school wants to do Death note costumes and we need an L and I somehow got nicknamed L for chewing on my thumb. So far we have a Rem, a Ryuk, and me. I'm going to help make the Rem costume too! …. I make these notes way too long… I love ya, my readers! Keep on keepin' on!