Part 11 - Compassion

Published 2.11.13

A/N: I've decided to put these things at the beginning instead of the end, since I feel like they can take away from my writing. Not much to say about this, actually, except I don't think there will be too many more chapters after this - just one or two, I think. I hope you all enjoy it and let me know what you think!

-bahari


After speaking to Matt briefly, Light decided to head out and explore the grounds and the small wooded area behind the house in search of Mello while Matt and Wammy headed into town, where Mello was much more likely to be. Light didn't bother to resist the urge to kick at the colorful leaves and small rocks that adorned the trail in the woods outside Wammy's. He didn't even pretend to resist.

"Fuck," he muttered, his gaze unfocused and irritable as he glared down at his feet.

Fucking L. Fucking L and his pragmatism and his sexy body and his hair and god, those eyes

Light stopped himself, angrily, as he realized simultaneously that a) his crush on L was all kinds of out of control and that b) if he was going to be out here searching for Mello, he should at least actually look, instead of staring at his feet. With a sigh, he raised his head and began to walk, realizing as he went that he had completely wandered off the trail. Of-fucking-course.

Of course, as soon as he wasn't looking at his feet, he tripped over a goddamn tree root.

"Damn it," he snarled, sitting up and tugging his foot from where it had become wedged in the space between a root and the ground. The ground was obviously not doing its job, as it was supposed to be hiding roots and other unpleasantries that had taken it upon themselves to fuck up his day.

Muttering to himself, brushing dirt and leaves and god-knew what else off his clothing, Light dragged himself to his feet again. He was about to storm off in the opposite direction, in hopes of finding the trail again, when suddenly he heard something rustling behind him. He froze.

Here's the thing.

Raito Yagami had grown up in Tokyo. And not even the nice, suburban areas of Tokyo, with parks and open space and landscaping. His family could afford it, of course, with his father's job, but his parents had wanted to live closer to the precinct to limit his father's commute. So. Urban living at its finest, with absolutely no reason to interact with anything organic. That was Light's background. (He had actually been somewhat ill-at-ease, living in the English countryside. It was just . . . all the plants, and grass, and unsolicited foliage, and the unreasonable amount of trees. They were suspicious.)

So there he was, in what could have been the middle of nowhere for all he had access to any technology or help or society, and he heard . . . a noise. Something rustling behind him. So of course that began a perfectly reasonable train of thought, one that any normal, rational human being would have in that situation.

Does England still have wolves? Light wondering, mind racing. Or bears? I don't think they have snakes, there's some kind of legend – no, wait, that's Ireland. Fuck. Fuck me. It's probably a snake. I'm going to die. I came all the way to England to teach a bunch of junior league geniuses computer science, fall in love with the one person on the planet more naturally emotionally inaccessible than me, and get attacked by a snake-bear-wolf (snearolf? wolbearake?) and die.

Light forced his breathing to stay even (can all predators sense fear? Is a snake even considered a predator? Can they smell it, or see it in my eyes, or . . .?) as he turned, slowly. Once he'd turned his body 180 degrees, he froze in place and looked around.

Nothing. He sighed and brought his hands up to his temples and rubbed there, trying to force back the panic headache that had begun when they noticed Mello was gone and had been getting steadily worse since.

Just as he'd decided that the heat of the moment had gotten to him, that the stress of being around L, and losing a student, and having no clue what to do about either when he usually had all the answers; just then, there was a loud snap, and a muffled curse that sounded almost directly above his head.

Flinching, Light craned his head back and peered through the thick branches and plenteous leaves of the huge maple (oak? elm? birch? . . . fuck it) tree above him. He saw a flash of black and gold moving, and when he ducked around a branch to get a better view, he finally spotted –

"Mello."

The spot didn't move, and Light sighed, stepping back so he didn't have to tilt his head back quite so far.

"Mello," he said again, louder. Still nothing. "Mello, I know you're up there," he called. "And I'll pull out my cell phone right now and let L know where you are if you don't answer me." It was a bluff. In classic idiot-savant form, Light had forgotten his phone inside. Who needed a phone while on a semi-urgent search for a missing person? Why would Light want any sort of communication device while he was getting lost in the woods?

"Fuck you!" Mello shouted back. Light supposed that he meant to sound fearsome and angry, but the way his voice cracked just made him sound very sad and very small.

Light sighed again and continued in a softer voice, "Come on, Mello, get down. You're going to fall and crush something important and God knows I'm not performing CPR on you."

Mello was just close enough that Light could see him grimace. "No," he said. "Bugger off!"

"What are you going to do, then," Light asked, still trying to appeal to reason, "just stay up there forever?"

"Maybe!"

Light backed up a few more steps and then stopped, surprised. There was . . . a structure up there. Mello was sitting, not on a branch like Light had originally assumed, but a plywood floor built on top of some supporting branches. There were even little walls and windows. Holy shit, was this what a tree house looked like?

Mello must have noticed how startled he looked, because he sneered, "What's the matter, Light, never seen a tree house before?"

"Uh . . . no," Light said, distracted enough to answer honestly. He began to circle the tree, taking in the impressive architectural features of the place. It looked like it had multiple rooms with – were those stairs!? – a multi-level ceiling and a balcony that stretched out on some of the highest branches of the tree. The whole thing was a good 40 feet off the ground.

"No?" Mello scoffed. "Who's never seen a tree house before?"

"I grew up in a big city," Light said, blinking a few times and then stepping a bit closer so he could see Mello better. He paused. "Mello, did you build this?" he asked incredulously.

Light was relieved to see a small smile on Mello's face. "Some of it," he said. "The balcony was my idea, and the stairs."

"How? When did you have time to build this?" Light wondered aloud.

Mello shrugged. "Someone had already built the platform when we got here. We just added on."

"'We'?"

"Me and . . . a couple of other kids."

"Matt?"

Mello scowled. "Don't talk about that traitor to me," he snapped, disappearing into the structure.

"Damn," Light muttered under his breath. He circled the tree again, trying to find Mello, and then ducked when a rock was thrown right at his head from one of the windows. "Mello!" he cried. "That almost hit me!"

"Well, at least my aim isn't second-rate!" Mello snapped back, and Light sighed.

"Look, Mello, will you just talk to me?" Light asked.

"I don't want to talk to you!" Mello shouted at him.

"Well, who do you want to talk to?" Light called back.

There was silence.

"Please, Mello?" Light asked, and was rewarded with another flying rock attempting to blind and/or decapitate him.

"Why don't you just call L and have him deal with it!" Mello shouted. "After all, he knows everything! He's in charge of everything!"

"L's an asshole," Light snapped back. "He doesn't deserve to be in charge."

Mello was quiet again, and this time the silence wasn't quite as uncomfortable.

"Mello, I'm not gonna call L," Light reassured him. "I'm not gonna force you to go back to the house. I just want to talk."

"So talk."

"Will you come down here, then?"

"No!" Mello shouted, and Light grimaced. Great. He put him on the defensive again.

"Well, what do you want me to do, then, just have a shouting match with you for a while?" he called up the tree.

"Why don't you climb up here?" Mello suggested, gesturing to wood planks nailed into the trunk, ascending up to the tree house.

Light's mouth was very dry all of a sudden. "Mello come on, that's dangerous!" he said.

"No it's not!" Mello snapped back. "I climb it all the time!"
"I meant for me," Light said. "I don't know if it'll even hold my weight—"

"Lots of kids can be up here at once, it's fine," Mello called. "Besides, you're not that fat, Light."

Light gritted his teeth. "Can't you just come down here to talk?" he asked. "It's not like I have a trap set or anything. I just found you by accident!"

Mello peered over the edge of the platform, and although Light fought to keep his expression blank, Mello grinned at what he saw.

"What's the matter, Light?" Mello taunted. "You're not scare of heights, are you?"

"No," Light snapped back. "I'm afraid of falling 40 feet and cracking my head open with no one but an emotionally compromised twelve-year-old here to administer emergency care."

Mello looked smug. "You come up here, or I'm not talking to you at all," he said, pulling his head back inside and disappearing altogether from Light's view.

"Damn it," Light muttered. "Mello," he called, but Mello was silent.

Light approached the tree, hesitantly putting one hand on the planks of wood leading up to the tree house. "Mello, come on!" he shouted. Still nothing. "I've never even climbed a tree before, Mello!" Laughter from Mello, but nothing else. "Fine," Light finally sighed. He put his hands on the highest planks he could reach and tested them; they could hold his weight fine, although that wasn't really all that comforting. It wasn't the planks he could reach that worried him; it was the ones twenty, or thirty, or forty feet up that he was a little concerned about.

Light looked over his shoulder, back in the direction that he'd come, wondering if he should just take a chance and run for help . . . but he wasn't actually sure how to get back, and what if Mello disappeared in the time he was gone?

Nope, it looked like he was gonna have to do this.

With a sigh, and a wistful look at the wonderfully solid ground, he gritted his teeth and began to climb.

It wasn't so bad, actually, as long as he didn't think about how, if he fell, he almost certainly would die, and if not that, then he at least would be in excruciating pain. And . . . now he was thinking about that. Awesome.

By the time he finally pulled himself into the tree house and laid down on the dusty floor, he was dirty, sweaty, pale-faced, and a little shaky. But overall, so, so glad to be alive.

Mello looked over at him and snorted. "You're such a lightweight," he said snidely. "How do you even get ready in the mornings? Aren't you afraid the water will be too hot? Or that you might poke yourself in the eye with your guyliner?"

"What the hell is—" Light stopped. Worked it out. "I don't wear guyliner!" he said, giving Mello a withering look.

Mello laughed, spitefully. "Not right now, anyway," he muttered. Light decided to ignore that.

Pushing himself up into a sitting position, he looked around the tree house curiously. It was an impressive structure, and could easily fit another ten people. He noticed a duffel bag flung into a corner (so that's where all Mello's chocolate went) and nearly shrieked when he noticed a spider crawling up his arm. Flinching and brushing it off violently, he finally turned his gaze to Mello.

Mello was . . . well, he looked much the same, except perhaps a bit paler. Not that Light had expected him to look much different, although Matt had definitely lost weight in the past few days. His eyes were a little red, a fact that Light decided he should definitely not bring up. Instead, he asked the first thing that came to mind, which was, "So . . . you and Matt built this?"

Mello shrugged, not looking at him, and scraping at some of the splintered wood with his nail. "Some," he said. "Some of the older kids helped us get started. They built the platform and the walls and helped us get the materials."
"'The older kids'?" Light quoted. He thought it would be best to follow whatever flow of conversation Mello chose. It would be best if he could just keep him talking. "I thought you were the oldest one here."

"I am, right now," Mello said. "There used to be a few others, but they . . . moved on. Graduated, most of them."
Light paused. He wanted to brush past this topic, try to twist it towards the current emergency, but the way Mello said it made him pause. "What happened to the others?" he asked.

Mello looked at him sideways. "Where are you from, Light?" he asked.

Light turned to face him, startled at this new direction the conversation was taking. "What do you mean?"

"Where are you from?" Mello asked. "Where did you grow up? I'm not telling you information if I'm not getting anything out of it."

Light gave him a wry smile. "Suppose I should have expected as much," he said. "Why do you care where I grew up?"

"I don't," Mello said. "Not really. I just know you don't want to tell me."

That surprised a laugh out of Light. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm from Tokyo," he finally told him.

Mello turned his head to the side a little. "But you said you didn't speak any Japanese."

Light's wry smile returned. "I lied," he said.

Mello blinked, then turned to face him. Damn. Now he'd interested the little fiend. "Why?"

Light shrugged, turning his head to watch the tree's branches move almost soundlessly in the light breeze. "I didn't want anyone to guess where I was from. Or, I guess, who I was."

Mello didn't say anything, just looked at him curiously.

"I think I've said enough to earn an answer to my earlier question," Light reminded him, and Mello frowned.

"I guess so," he acceded. "Most of the older students graduated. They were the single-letter class, kind of the first generation of students."

Now it was Light's turn to be curious. "There was another class before you?" he asked.

Mello nodded. He leaned forward and rested his chin on his forearms, which were crossed over the balcony's railing. He stretched out his feet so they could dangle off the edge, giving Light a look of amused irritation when Light made to protest. "They were the first. I think there were only a half-dozen or so. The beta group."

Light frowned. "That's sounds a little . . . callous?" he said uncertainly.

Mello shrugged, not looking at him. "We're not really supposed to talk about them."

"Why not?"

"Why don't you want anyone to know you're Japanese?" Mello countered.

Light's frown deepened. He liked Mello, and he wanted him to trust him, but . . . no one knew these things about him. He squirmed for a moment before deciding. If he could earn Mello's trust, maybe he could convince him to go back to the house. "I . . . it was hard for me to get away from Tokyo. I didn't want anyone telling me I needed to go back."

"Why would you need to go back?"

"In Tokyo, the age of majority is 20, not 18," Light said simply.

"What's tha- Wait, you're only 18?" Mello demanded.

"Yep."

"Why the hell are you in charge of me? That's only, like, 6 years!"

Light grinned, and shrugged. "It's my infinite maturity and authoritative personality."

Mello grimaced as he thought about that. "Stupid," he muttered. "18 . . ."

"The beta group of students?" Light reminded him. "The, uh, 'alphabet group'?"

"I called them the single-letter class, dumbass," Mello corrected, and Light gritted his teeth to keep himself from snapping back. At least Mello was talking to him. He tried to convince himself anew that this was a good thing. It was hard.

"Sure, that," he finally agreed.

Mello looked suspicious at his amicable tone, but continued. "They were the first group of students Wammy's trained. I guess it turned out kinda shitty, so they restarted with my group."

"How shitty?" Light asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Two of them are dead and one of them is in prison for murderin' a bunch of people."

"Well . . . shit. Yeah, that is shitty."

"Told you."

"What happened?"

"Why does it matter that you're not the age of majority?"

"Damn it, Mello," Light muttered. Mello smiled brightly at him, and after seeing him so broken and miserable for the last few days, Light didn't have the heart to be angry. "I . . . I'm not of the age of majority, so if someone reported it, I'd have to go back home."

Mello was quiet for a moment, processing that, and then his eyes widened. "You're not an orphan?" he asked. Light shook his head. "You ran away from home to come teach here?"

Light sort of . . . grimaced. "I guess that's the simplest way of looking at it, yeah," he said.

"Well . . . fuck, Light, who are you to tell me I can't run away?"

"Because it's different."

"What's different?"

Light sighed in frustration. "The reasons, the situations. They're not the same. I didn't really have much of a choice—"

"You think I do?" Mello interrupted angrily. Light was startled at the sudden change in Mello's mood, although he really shouldn't be after knowing him for more than a few hours. Mello got up and began to pace, ignoring Light's cringing as he got close to the edge of the platform. "You don't get it, Light, this whole place is about teaching us to be as good as L. We're all supposed to be working to be his successor, that's what the classes are about, and the statuses, and the rankings. That's why all the grades are posted publicly, and why everybody works so hard. We're all trying to become the next L. And when he just . . . fucking . . . picks someone, not even picks Near, who almost always beats me in the tests, but someone else, someone who I didn't even think I had to worry about—"

"Your best friend," Light interjects softly.

Mello looks like he's about to attack him over that, but then he just sort of wilts and chews at the inside of his cheek. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Not anymore, though."

"Mello, Matt will always want to be your best friend—"

"That's not the point," Mello exploded, angry again. "He lied to me, and . . . and even if he hadn't, L still wouldn't've picked me, he still would've picked Near over me, because no matter what I do, he still manages to beat me at nearly everything, almost every test, even when I know I'm studying longer and working harder—" Mello cut himself off, sitting down with his back to Light, brushing angry tears out of his eyes and taking deep breaths.

Light didn't say I'm sorry to Mello, he didn't say It'll be okay, and he didn't try to lie. He just said, quietly, "I ran away because I was scared, mostly."

Mello looks over his shoulder at him, and Light finds that he can't even meet a twelve-year-old's gaze.

Light took a deep breath and forced himself to look at Mello, trying to smile and failing. "I was scared," he repeated. "When I first left, I was angry, and that carried me through for a while. Now, I'm mostly just sad about it."

Light can see that Mello is unwillingly interested in this, and although he feels anxious and irritable at having to reveal this, he's mostly just relieved that Mello's still listening.

"What changed?" Mello asks.

Light had to think about that. What had changed? When he'd left, all that time he was preparing to leave, he'd been angry. He'd been furious and hurt and frustrated and stifled. And he'd been angry all the way over to England. But as he'd settled in and started teaching, and as he'd started helping his students, and . . . and, honestly, talking to L, and fighting with L and watching L and fuck, he was creepy, wasn't he?

But as all that had happened, and as the hurt had died down a little, he could look at everything that had happened back in Japan a little more objectively and realize that he wasn't really all that angry anymore.

Mello was still watching him, waiting for an answer, and now it was Light's turn to let his feet dangle off the edge and watch as they flashed in and out of the sunlight that sliced through the branches. Still thinking about L, he said quietly, "Your problems follow you."

Mello looked confused as he moved closer to sit next to Light and let his feet dangle over the edge as well.

"I thought my problem was with other people, back in Japan, but I guess . . . I guess not. My problem was with myself."

Mello rolled his eyes. "Could you sound anymore like a fucking primetime Disney channel special?" he demanded, and Light smiled ruefully.

"I'm just telling you the truth," he said. "And I think the same goes for you. You think you're running away because of Matt and L, but I think you're running away because you're scared, Mello. I think you're scared and you don't know what else to do."

For a moment, Light really thought Mello was about to strangle him, but then the red anger drained away and left Mello looking uncertain and very . . . alone.

"What else can I do?" Mello asked. "This is what we're all supposed to be working towards. This is what I've been doing since I was, like, 5."

"I don't know," Light said softly. "But I don't think it's worth throwing Matt away over."

"Fuck Matt," Mello muttered angrily.

"No, Mello, listen," Light suddenly said, knowing that he was pushing his luck, but willing to do it anyway. "Matt is your best friend and you've known him your whole life, so you probably don't realize how rare it is to find someone who actually likes you, even when they know what a terrible person you are."

There was a pause in which Mello raised his eyebrows and his expression flickered back and forth between amusement and irritation.

Light stopped. "Wait. That came out wrong," he said. Mello nodded. "I just mean, people lie about who they are all the time. And I don't know what you're supposed to do now, and I don't know how anyone can fix this, but I do know that Matt is your friend, even when you hate him."

Mello was quiet, then; they both were, actually. The wind was a little stronger now, rushing through the trees with a gentle susurration that gave Light the chills.

"So . . . who are you?" Mello asked.

"What?" Light asked. Out of everything Mello could have said right then, that was not something he'd considered a possibility.

"Who are you?" Mello repeated. "Really. How come you're here?"

"I needed a place to work after I left Japan—"

"No, Light, really. Why did you leave?"

Light was quiet, and then he laughed a little, bitterly. "You'll need to offer me something better than answers to questions for that one," he finally said, his voice a little hollow. "No one knows that about me."

"What if I said I'd come back to the house with you if you told me?" Mello prompted after a pause.

Light looked at him in surprise. "Why would you do that?"

Mello shrugged and watched his feet swing beneath him. Light waited, but it seemed that no explanation would be forthcoming. "Okay," he said simply.

Mello looked up expectantly.

"My real name's Raito Yagami," Light said. For one absurd moment, he wanted to follow it up with, 'and I'm an addict.' Shaking that off, he continued, "I left because . . . I fucked up."

Mello looked startled, but Light didn't take it back.

"I have a family," Light said, after a moment's thought. "A mom, and a dad, and a younger sister. I love them, mostly, but it made me stupid. And careless." He stopped and glanced at Mello, who was just staring at him with rapt attention. Light sighed. "Standards were very rigid, in my home. I suppose it'd be a bit like here, except with everything."

When he stopped and didn't continue, Mello prompted, "Everything?"

Light looked startled, as though he'd forgotten Mello was there. "Yes," he finally said. "Not just academics, although that's a big part of it; but extracurriculars, and religion, and social life, and behavior. There's an expectation for everything, and none of it was up for discussion."
"What if you didn't follow what they said you had to do?" Mello asked curiously.

Light opened and then closed his mouth. He thought for a moment. "It wasn't . . . it wasn't that anyone said anything to me. I just knew. No one ever had to give me orders, or direct me. It just seemed obvious."
"So what was the problem?"

Light smiled, but there was no humor in it. "I didn't want to keep lying," he admitted. "It was exhausting; and I was unhappy. It was driving me crazy. So . . . I slipped up."

There was a pause. "Oh my god, you snapped and fuckin' killed someone, didn't you?" Mello finally responded.

"What?" Light exclaimed. "No! God, no, Mello, I didn't kill anybody! I . . . I just . . . I dated somebody."

Mello looked at him blankly.

God, why was this so hard? "My friend, Teru, and I went on a few dates, and my parents found out about it."

Still nothing from Mello. Yeah, he wouldn't know that Teru was a boy's name, would he?

"Teru is a boy, Mello," Light finally said, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut.

"Holy shit you're gay," Mello finally realized, words tumbling out quickly.

Light sighed. "Yes," he confirmed.

There was the longest pause yet, and Light finally opened his eyes to see Mello looking at him expectantly. "What?" he asked.

"So . . . what?" Mello repeated. "Were you, like, dating an arsonist or kicking puppies on your dates, or something?"

"What?" Light asked. Mello had completely lost him. Maybe this was what other people felt like all the time.

"I bet you went to a strip club and your parents found out!" Mello exclaimed. He began to warm up to the idea. "No, I bet your boyfriend was a stripper and he was corrupting your younger sister with his insidious ways! And—and you were probably a cross dresser, donning your red heels and little black dress late at night and sneaking off to meet him where he worked to continue your sordid tryst—"

"No!" Light exclaimed. "No, Mello, none of those things happened. Teru wasn't my boyfriend, and he certainly isn't a stripper! And . . . and what was that last bit, with the transvestitism? Never mind, don't answer that!" He took a deep breath. "No," he repeated. "Just—no."

"Well, what, then?" Mello asked, looking disappointed.

Light breathed deeply, feeling overwhelmed. "What do you mean, 'what'?" he asked. "I just told you. We dated."

There was a beat, and then Mello frowned. "That's it?" he demanded. "Christ, Light, I thought you'd done something interesting for once."

Light felt vaguely offended, though he wasn't sure why.

"So . . . your parents just saw you two kissing or something?" Mello pressed, when Light didn't say anything.

Light, slightly flushed at this point, shook his head. "No," he said. "My mom just . . . uh, saw us together, on a date at a restaurant."

Mello was peering at him closely, as though trying to decide whether or not he was lying.

"It's . . . it's a big deal, in Japan!" Light said defensively.

Mello rolled his eyes. "Your parents sound crazy," he informed Light. "They saw you at a restaurant with this guy, and . . . what, disowned you?"

Light shrugged, resting his chin on his folded arms and watching the branches move.

"Wait, seriously?" Mello asked, and his voice was softer now. Light cringed. "I was joking, Light."

"They didn't . . . they didn't really disown me," Light said. "That's a little too strong. But I was . . . limited. No friends, no leaving the house. My mom drove me to and from school. Limited computer use, forced therapy. That kind of thing."

"You ran away because you got grounded?" Mello asked, expression twisting as he grinned.

"I already told you," Light said. "I ran away because I was scared."

Mello was quiet then, and his expression was unexpectedly serious.

"I couldn't fix any of it," Light said, starting off the explanation with a sigh. "Like I said, the age of majority was 20, and I had already accepted scholarships to a particular university, and said that I was going to live at home. I couldn't move out, because they could list me as a missing person, and my dad was the police chief, so it wasn't like I could hide very easily. I was stuck. Trapped." Light stops and swallows.

"It was hard, to live like that. I tried for a few months. And it wasn't so much that I couldn't have my blessed individuality or keep dating Teru. I wasn't all that interested in him anyway. I just knew that things wouldn't go back to normal, and that I would be miserable and stifled and scared for years if I stayed. For the next two years—maybe even longer—I would have been stuck living with people who didn't trust me, didn't know me, and didn't even really like me." Light paused, wondering if he should tell Mello all of it, and then deciding there was no reason to scare the kid. He stopped there.

"Shit," Mello said after a moment of contemplation. "That sucks."

Surprised, Light laughed. "It does," he agreed.

"What did you mean, though," Mello asked, "with what you said earlier – that your problems follow you? It's not like your family's lurking around here."

Light shook his head. "That's true," he agreed. "I meant . . . I left because I was angry with them for limiting my freedom and my autonomy. But I think I left more because I was sad, and because I thought that maybe things would play out differently, if I started over."

"But . . ." Mello prompted, waiting for the rest.

"You are an observant little bastard, aren't you?" Light said, almost fondly.

Mello grinned, proud of himself.

"But," Light continued, "I got here, and I'm still sad about the way things happened. I'm sad about it, because they're still my family. And . . . I'm no different here. I thought I might be. I'd hoped I would be."

Mello looked at him scornfully. "You mean you thought you'd be straight if you came here?" he asked, sounding torn between disdain and amusement.

"No!" Light protested, then paused. "Well . . . maybe. I don't know. It's not as though I wanted this, that I wanted . . . to be gay." He finally forced himself to say it, trying to hold back the scorn he felt and failing. "It's not as though it's made my life any better or any easier. I thought that maybe if I went somewhere new, I wouldn't have to really think about it. Or, maybe if I had something interesting to focus on, I wouldn't have time to be interested in anyone."

"That doesn't—" Mello started, and then stopped so suddenly Light had to glance over at him to make sure he wasn't having a seizure or something. "Wait," he said slowly, and Light skimmed over his last comment, looking for mistakes until he finally found one and he cringed as Mello finished, "you didn't think you would be interested in anyone?"

"Well, yeah," Light said casually. "That's not to say that—"

"Oh my God, who is it?" Mello demanded.

Despite himself, Light laughed. "You sound like a giddy fangirl," he told Mello, who was not dissuaded in the slightest.

"I bet it's—oh my God, it's L, isn't it?" Mello decided.

Light made a face, too invested in telling the truth in this conversation to lie directly.

"It is," Mello said in a near reverential whisper.

"It was," Light said, a little snippily. "He's made it quite clear that he's not interested in anybody, unless he can use them in some way."

"Yeah, well, L's kind of a fuckhead, isn't he?" Mello said casually, almost cheerfully.

"I don't think that's a real term," Light rejoined.

"Your native language isn't English, so you don't know," Mello said haughtily.

Light smiled at him, helplessly amused despite everything that was going wrong for him. For both of them.

They sat there for a while, watching as the sun got closer and closer to the green hills in the distance. Finally, when there wasn't much orange light left at all, Light turned to look at Mello. "Ready to go back in?" he asked.

Mello shrugged, looking at his hands. He muttered something, so softly that Light couldn't quite catch it.

"What was that?" he asked, leaning in.

"What am I gonna do?" Mello asked.

Light sighed and pulled back. "I don't know," he said. "I know that there are people at that school who do care about you and what you do, but I don't know if L is included. I wish I could tell you he was."

"I don't want to go back," Mello muttered petulantly.

"No, you just don't want to face it," Light said gently.

Mello looked at him through narrowed eyes.

"I'm not trying to make fun of you," Light said. "Facing shit is hard." He cringed internally at how much he was swearing in front of a twelve-year-old, but he'd discovered that when Mello thought he was being spoken to like an adult, he responded better. "But you have people to help you. That's not always that case . . ."

Left unsaid was the 'like with me' at the end of the sentence.

Slowly, like a man condemned and headed to his execution, Mello pulled himself up and headed to the opening. Light got up to follow. Before he could start climbing down the tree, Light touched his shoulder briefly.

"Don't . . . hate Matt, please," Light said. "It's not his fault."

Mello's expression was dark, but not so angry as before. "Maybe," he muttered, and Light knew that that tiny opening would be enough for Matt.

"Okay," Light said. "Ready?"

Mello looked up at him, looking unsure. He gazed out towards the orphanage, and then sighed and nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Let's go."