Good lord, I'm stressed to my limits…stupid exams, stupid school, stupid mental capacity…
Anyway, here is the long awaited twenty-first chapter! Lots of flashbacks ensue…
I don't own Death Note.
When the clocks of the orphanage would chime nine at night and the shadows would fall outside the windows, L would find himself scuttling into the library before the final peal rang.
His corner of the world consisted of a small stack of books that he never got around to finishing before being swept away to bed by the maids. After enduring countless times of having to relocate his selections, he had taken up the custom of stowing the books away beneath the bookshelves for safekeeping. The maids were fooled, and L was pleased.
The girl had taken the same liking to late night reading as well, and he was mixed on his feelings towards it. Did he mind having the strange, mahogany-haired child sharing the same respite as him? Was it a bother to him that they may just cross paths when reaching for a book in the same isle?
It was the same girl that defended him without request. She was just as pale as he was, three years younger and sharp-eyed. She fascinated him, distracted him from his reading, and had not spoken to him since the incident with the group of troubled children when the snow came. It did not bother him. He enjoyed the silence that came with these nights in the library, tucked away into the works of Doyle.
The library became cold at night, and she would normally scramble through the door bundled in the new coat that the orphanage had provided her with in place of the rugged garment that she had arrived in. L found this amusing; he was never cold.
The strange six-year-old would catch his eye every visit, and give him something between a curious stare and a defiant smirk. Was she embarrassed that she had defended him for reasons unknown, or was she simply brash? Even at nine years old, L was quite certain that she was, at the very least, strange. He continued studying her long after she had looked away, and followed her with his eyes as she went in search of her books.
Much to his confusion, a rare emotion for L, the girl sat in the same row of bookshelves as he did one particularly chilly night, wrapped in a brown coat and woolen green scarf, and spoke.
"What are you reading?"
She had a peculiar accent, a bizarre mixture of English and Scottish in which neither blended nor clashed. Her eyes were too blue. Her hair was either brown or red, L could not decide which it leaned towards more, but it brushed towards her face sloppily and fell down her back in an array of curls, waves, and impossible frizz. L cocked his head at her and sheepishly held up his book for her to see. Her narrow cobalt eyes flit across the cover and she nodded. "I've heard of Doyle," she said quietly, "but Dorothy Parker is my favorite."
When L merely stared and did not respond, she continued.
"She's a poet, you know. I really like her. She's very witty." She held out her book to him and he warily accepted it between two fingers. "You should read some of her stuff."
L was silent for a moment. This girl was strange, no doubt, but he was willing to return her challenge. He outstretched his arm to give her his book, studying her facial expression carefully. Her bright eyes narrowed as she studied the cover and she held the book close to her chest. "Bet I can read this before you can read mine," she said with a blunt pride that L widened his eyes at. "By tommorow. Bet you."
L idly flipped through the pages of the book she had given him. "Yes," he said with a small smile. He turned to look at her and drew back when he realized how close she was to him. She was leering at him, smirking as if she had already won the battle, and whipped a piece of hair out of her eyes. "We can meet in here again tomorrow," she suggested, "and see who's finished first."
"What if we both are?"
"New books," she said with a sinister smirk. "We'll just keep going until one of us beats the other. It won't be too hard."
L caught onto the indirect jab at him and stared the six-year-old down with an acknowledged challenge. He gave her a little nod of his head and saw her smirk crease deeper on her pale face before she jumped up and scampered off out the door, her borrowed book tucked in the crook of her arm.
"I bet I can tie this cherry stem into a knot quicker than you can," Amelia said tiredly, sprawled out on her back on the floor of the surveillance room. She held a bowl of plump red cherries in her palm, outstretched to L.
Four in the morning. Three days of coffee, irritation, and whittling patience, and the china doll had not spoken a word.
With a quick glance at the screen, the motionless girl on the plank, and back at Amelia, L plucked a cherry from the scarlet cluster and gave her a nod of his head. "Challenge accepted," he said, "but I'm afraid that you are quite wrong on your guess."
Amelia snorted out a chuckle and dangled a cherry above her face like an ornament. "Try me," she said with a snicker. "One, two, three."
Both snapped the stem of the cherry off and hurriedly placed it into their mouths, skillfully crafting it into a secure knot and pulling it out at the exact same second as the other. Both held out their stems to the other to look at with wide eyes, in disbelief.
Amelia was the first to speak, and brashly so. "You…how did that…did you-"
"Cheat?" L finished for her. "Oh, of course not. I don't even see it as possible, since we started at the same time." He gave her an innocent smile and cocked his head to the right, playing with her fury at neither losing or winning. "Are you troubled? You look like you're on the limit of homicide."
She breathed out a harsh sigh and collected two more cherries, tossing one to him. L caught it smoothly in his palm and kept the ironic smile on his face. "I'll beat you, dammit, I swear to you," Amelia muttered beneath her breath. "One, two, three."
She had a bad habit of speaking out at the worst times, L soon learned.
He had watched her as she had been sent out of the room for talking incongruously, moreover her less than appropriate language that would slip out occasionally, and although his eyes had widened slightly when she had accidentally cursed when her pencil broke, he saw no reason to ban her from learning for the next hour. The teacher was threatening detention. The girl had threatened crying.
L had deduced that she must have learned the colorful word from her family before she arrived at the orphanage. Surely it was not the girl's fault for allowing her manners to slip, whether or not she had been taught them at all, and he turned to stare at the door that she was most likely moping behind.
Ten minutes left of class. He would talk to her, he had decided, but about what? He was uncertain. All he knew was that something was tugging at his conscience to ask her who exactly she was. He still did not know her name. The teacher had addressed her as "young lady" instead of any name that he could commit to memory.
The remaining class time dragged by as his eyes remained on the door. When the children were dismissed, he scuttled out of the room just as the girl would always scuttle into the library at nine o'clock at night.
Just as L had expected, she sat against the wall a few feet down from the door, cross-legged and sour-faced. She did not look up as the students filed out of the room cleanly, and continued glaring down at the floor until L cautiously approached her. "Hi," he said softly, shifting his weight awkwardly and scratching the back of his wild hair. Even at nine, he managed to be a disheveled bundle of black and magnolia pale and absent eyes.
The girl did not look up at him. "What do you want?" she muttered. She rested her chin bitterly against her fist.
"Where did you learn that word?"
She looked up at him now, sharply, furiously. Her eyes flashed with wrath as she stood up abruptly, standing on the tips of her toes to reach his height. "None of your business," she spat. "Just leave me alone!"
L shook his head blandly and continued with his questioning. "I don't think it was your fault. They shouldn't give you detention."
"It's just a word," the girl said with agitation. She began tugging at her earlobe and averted her blue eyes away from him. "My daddy used to say it a lot."
"To your mother?" L asked innocently, peering closer at her.
Almost immediately, she jerked her head back to him and reached her fist back, as if to punch him, but when L remained unfliching, she dropped the fist back to her side and collected her books on the floor quickly into her arms. The last thing she said to him before walking away sourly was, "Why do you care?"
If there was to be any sort of competition worth battling, it would be who would manage to consume the most coffee. Amelia immediately ruled this possibility out of her mind; she was not willing to drink another droplet of coffee after having lived on it for the past three days.
Wouldn't have to if fucking Misa would talk…but that would be too easy…that would be too convenient for
us…fucking kidneys are probably in shambles now…
She blamed her own obsession for information on refusing to sleep, unlike the remainder of the task force whom took up the eventless opportunity to crash on the couches and armchairs of the makeshift surveillance room. L, awake and somehow alert as ever, tapped her lightly stop her head and stole her attention away from her inward complaints of the world.
"Yes?" she muttered. She looked up from her position on the floor and saw that he was smiling softly at her, and she returned his look of endearment with a confused furrowing of her brow. "What was that for?"
As if his smile had been set with a timer, his face shifted back to its blissful blank and he cocked his head. Clearing his throat, he looked back up at the laptop as if nothing had occurred to question. "My apologies," he said quietly, "I failed in fighting back that urge quite miserably."
"What urge? To tap my head and stare at me?" Amelia asked, amused.
"Not quite the case, it was just how the urge was released." He stroked his lip thoughtfully with his pointer finger. "I have a fondness for your hair, I realize."
Idly, Amelia took a red strand of her hair between her fingers and studied it up close. The sight of her split ends made her cringe. "I don't see why," she said, "it's quite insufferable most of the time."
"However you wish to take it," L said with a casual shrug of his shoulders. "Although I disgree. Greatly, in fact."
Amelia rolled her eyes, masking a smile that threatened her lips. "Of course my hair would be topic for debate, of all things."
"I thought you liked to debate."
"Oh, I do," she said, nodding. "I just find your mentality of my hair to be…interesting. Worth questioning." She stifled a yawn that swirled around her mouth, fighting off her burning desire to collapse onto the carpet and sleep away another year.
"And I find you interesting, Lise-san," L replied softly. His eyes were still focused on the laptop, but Amelia could see the manner in which he smiled beneath himself, as if he had realized at that moment that he desired her, or that he was playing an enjoyable ruse with her impatience. It was no secret between them that she lacked the calm that he possessed that held him together. It was her failure, her tragic flaw, and for that, she would pay with the sight of his coy smile.
Nevertheless, she scowled and did not speak again until Watari's voice came from the laptop.
"Ryuzaki!"
Intuitively, L perked up and leaned forward in his chair. "Yes, Watari. What is it?"
"Ms. Amane is speaking!"
Whether Amelia gasped or not, it was unknown to her as she whipped her attention to the screen. "W-what?" she uttered. "She's-"
"Visuals and audio, Watari! Now!" L ordered, nearly toppling over in his chair from looming in to the screen. Amelia bounded up from the floor and began shaking the other task force members awake, hollering the news to them to snap them out of their sleepy trance. Matsuda, naturally, took the longest to return to reality, but with Aizawa muttering complaints and Soichiro quickly wiping the fatigue from his eyes, the room turned its bleary attention onto the screen.
Not giving the extra second to glance up at L's reaction, Amelia scooted closer to the laptop and held her breath. This is it…she's going to give us a clue, anything to lead us closer to catching him…come on, Misa, don't fuck up on us now…
"She's really talking?" Matsuda mumbled sleepily, rubbing his eyes. "M-Misa's really-"
An angry chorus of "Matsuda!" erupted from the throats of every task force member before the tinny voice of Misa came from the laptop.
Her words were not what Amelia had her hopes set upon.
"K-kill me."
Her stage name, her pseudonym that she had been given by Roger Ruvie himself the day she stepped into the orphanage, was the center of detestation in her mind.
Cait. Nothing more than a one-syllable utterance of four letters, lacking the flow of her birth name or her own admiration. Cait. She hated it.
She told her name to no one, but mainly because no one asked.
But this boy…he was staring at her with round black eyes that expected an answer from her as quickly as possible so that he could continue with his day and forget about her again. She assumed so, at least.
He was strange, but not strange enough to turn her away. Then again, Amelia had never been all too conventional to begin with anyway.
"Who are you?"
It was a good question. Who was she? She had been abandoned, as well as her true name in which was left to linger in the back of her mind until forgotten. She was Cait. She was a girl whom had been dropped off in a careless heap of soiled cotton clothing and tattered mittens until the front doors opened, as well as the arms of an eldery man that had given her a strange test of aptitude. She had sailed through it in under a half hour, questioned why she was made to work when all she needed was sleep and perhaps a warm bowl of soup to ease her chills.
She was deemed worthy. She was accordingly "brilliant". She was a genius. The poor girl had never known any of this before; she had always assumed that others were merely more impatient than she was, and therefore failed to consider a more intelligent outing to a conflict.
So who exactly was she? Amelia Lasswell, without a doubt, not this Cait person that she was expected to live as.
He was still staring at her, awaiting her response. She did not even know who he was, let alone herself.
"I can't tell you," she said with a shake of her head. "I don't like the name they gave me."She reopened the book that had been resting in her lap for the past minute as she surveyed her options of an answer.
The boy made no sign of a reaction, but stood back up and ruffled the back of his hair with his pale fingers. Why was he walking away? Had she offended him? She stared after hin, confused, and promptly snapped her book shut. She would have preferred a rebuttal or pressure to tell him, not this silent charade that he was playing for her.
She would make things easier for the both of them.
"Promise not to tell?" she called after him.
The boy stopped and looked over his shoulder at her. A small smile touched his pale lips and he made a few steps back to where she stood. As he opened his mouth to speak, Amelia scurried closer to him and took a brief survey of her surroundings. "You should tell me who you are first. Deal?"
"L," he said without a moment's hesitation. He leered closer at her face and cocked his head as she took a step back, suddenly outraged at his response. He was lying to her, she knew it; and she would not tolerate it!
"That's not your name! That's a letter!" Amelia whispered harshly, pointing her finger in his face. She saw his eyes cross when he stared at her fingertip up close and stifled a giggle. No, she would most certainly not giggle at a time when she was making her debut of anger! He would not hold that power over her when she was attempting to make a point.
"You asked for my name, didn't you?"
"Yes, but that's not it! You're lying!"
"Why would I lie about my name? I wouldn't do that."
While it was true that Amelia did not see what the boy would gain from lying to her, she was already on a rampage of interrogation for him to tell her his true name. L? What a laugh. No common parent would ever name their child such a joke of a name, and she refused to believe that he was a rare case. With a grand huff of exasperation, she crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. "Because. And I don't want to tell you my name now."
His expression remained unchanging as he began to walk away again. "That's ok. I wasn't going to make you."
"Well, good! Because I'm not going to." Amelia turned her back on the boy and stared down a collection of dictionaries as if they had greatly offended her.
"That's fine."
Why was he so calm? Why would he use his alias in an attempt to sneak by her? Did he find her stupid? Was she?
No, of course she was not stupid. Her IQ was brilliant, according to her test, surpassing many of the others at the orphanage without any extra effort on her part.
So why was it that as she made a slow turn to watch the nine-year-old boy who called himself L walk away from her, that she felt truly, utterly stupid?
"Kill me! Please…just kill me…I know you can…"
"Kill her? What the hell is she playing at?"
"M-maybe we should let her out for a little while…um, hasn't it been a couple of days since she's-"
"Matsuda!"
"Please, just kill me!"
Deciphering voices was growing more and more of a task as L narrowed his eyes on Misa and attempted to make sense of her pleading. It was not a confession by any stretch of his hopes, but begging for death to take her was not to be understated…what possible motives would the girl have for wishing to be killed besides being overwhelmed with the guilt of knowing that her capture had been confirmed?
Either she cannot stand the confinement any longer and wishes for it to end under any circumstances, which does not seem likely…or the pressure of being caught as the second Kira overrides her will to live. How should we react…? Should I interrogate further on the latter…? All evidence points to her being the second Kira…but to beg for us to kill her, of all things…?
"Should I go down there, Ryuzaki? Question her on the chance that she's near a confession, or…?"
Amelia was beside him, gripping the arm of his chair until her knuckles were whitewashed. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and teased his bottom lip with a festering impatience. "I don't think that would be in your best interests, Lise-san."
"Then what should we do? If she truly is the second Kira-"
"Just do it already! Please! Kill me!"
L heard Amelia curse bitterly beneath her breath and vaguely saw her reach for her earlobe to tug at. She did not finish her earlier statement and began to pace.
"Ryuzaki," Matsuda piped nervously from behind the armchair, "a-are you sure that this is ok? I mean, she's so young and all-"
"Would you prefer me to have placed her in a five-star suite, Matsuda?" L hissed, frustrated with both Misa Amane's absurd pleadings and Matsuda's dronings. "She has been captured as the second Kira, don't you recall?"
When Matsuda mumbled an apology and shuffled away, L quickly pressed the button of the intercom into Misa's confinement room. He had to do something, anything, fast before things became out of control. "Amane-san," he addressed.
Misa paused in her pleading and straightened slightly against her metal lath. "Y-yes?" she whimpered.
L drummed his fingers against his upright knee and leaned in closer to the microphone. "What is your reason behind wishing for us to kill you? Is the evidence against you too much to handle to remain living?"
"P-please…I can't…j-just kill me already! Why aren't you doing it already?!"
"Oh, what the fuck…" Amelia muttered from beside him. "What the fuck is this…" She ran her fingers through her hair and retreated again to behind the chair that L was perched in.
L continued in his questioning, in spite of Misa's trembling and sniffling. "Is this your way of admitting that you are indeed the second Kira, Misa Amane?"
It took him a moment to realize how tightly he was gripping the flexible stem of the microphone until Amelia's fingers timidly wrapped around them and loosened them for him. The touch was unexpected, and he turned his head slightly to her only to see that she was staring at the laptop once more. He kept his grip of the microphone loose, although he was aware that he was gritting his teeth, a habit that only occurred when he felt just out of reach of good, solid evidence.
"Then I'll just do it myself if you won't!"
L inwardly thanked his quick reaction time and ordered into the microphone, "Watari! Make sure she doesn't-"
"Yes, Ryuzaki," the older man replied, understanding L's morbid thought process of what the blonde could commit with a rough bite of her tongue. With a quick flash of a rolled cloth hastily pulled over her mouth, Misa was silenced and saved against her own wishes. She thrashed for a few seconds before falling to an eerie calm, her limbs loose and her head bowed.
"This has to be it," Amelia said softly by his ear, her chin resting against the back of the chair. "This is the closest she's come to a confession."
L shivered slightly when her hair brushed against the side of his neck, but he cleared his throat and tapped against his knees to keep his hands occupied. "While it's not a confession," he said, "it's very curious for her to wish to die if she were innocent. You would think that we would have found a loophole in the evidence against her by now if she were not to be guilty." His voice trailed off as he studied Misa's still form and tried to ignore the tickling of Amelia's hair whenever she would shift her weight.
"I'd be overwhelmed either way, but I don't see a possibility of her innocence. And her relations with Light support the suspicions even more, don't you think?"
"That's exactly what I think," L said gravely, "but we cannot convict either of them until we
understand how Kira kills…"
He heard Amelia heave a sigh and shifted her weight once more. More brushing against his sensitive neck, more reminders of the kiss that he had not planned to happen, but nevertheless continued to haunt his concentration. How obscure his mind could become after one sensual touch, after just one recent kiss in which had sent his stomach skittering across slippery glass for him to trample and run after.
Now was not the time to think about such trivial touches. He needed to focus, focus, focus…
"Damn Kiras with their damn twisted ideals," Amelia bitterly whispered. She stood up, much to L's relief, and her soft assault of her hair left his skin. "Making things so difficult, like always."
Her statement brought an amused smirk to the corner of L's lips. "And I am sure that they say the exact same thing about us, Lise-san."
He pretended not to catch the knowing glance and the sly smile that Amelia shot in his direction. He could do without the added distraction for just one more hour.
Her clumsiness was the main provider of laughter for the other children, but her backlash upon them was nothing less than interesting.
L found it hard to believe that this six-year-old whom rarely spoke to anyone, let it be a rebuttal to a taunting session or a frustrated huff, had the ability to silence any child who took up the chance to tease her. She was flashing, bright, and just so endlessly angry, but L found it a struggle to stay away from her. She interested him. Not many people had such an effect of him, and he wished to relish it while it was present.
He found her in the corner of the library as opposed to her usual aisle, and much to his confusion, crying. She
seemed to sense his company within the same second that he spotted her, and she hastily snapped her head up to glare at him as if he were the cause of her upset. "Go away!"
L merely cocked his head at her order and took another step towards her. "You're crying," he stated quietly. It was the least he could do, seeing as he lacked the understanding to console her or the social stability to even grasp her own desire to be alone. He had not cried in years, and seeing the girl that he had become familiar with to an extent both confused and fascinated him. How else would he be able to see her better if he were not to move closer to her? It seemed logical enough in his mind.
When he crouched in front of her, she retreated deeper into the corner and turned her face away from his, sniffling violently and wiping her eyes. "I said go away!"
"I know," L said with a little nod. "But you're crying. It would be rude for me to leave you here."
"Not rude," she huffed out. Her words were broken into breathy syllables due to her gasping sobs, and she seemed to be all the more upset because of her lack of control over her crying. "It's not rude to go away when I tell you to!"
"While that may be true," L remarked thoughtfully, thumb against lip, "I don't want you to leave you here
when you're crying. That's what would be rude." He intuitively dipped his thumb into his mouth and stared at her with
round, black eyes. She was a mighty interesting one, this girl with no name.
"You're annoying," she whimpered with another harsh sniff.
"I'm sorry."
An inaudible buzz of awkwardness fell upon the two as the girl's weeping died down into short gasps and diluted whimpers. She wiped her runny nose with the back of the oversized sleeve of her olive-green sweater and looked up at him. "Is L really your name?"
L gave her a mute nod.
The girl gave him a sad little smile and allowed a lone tear that clung to her chin to fall to its death to the floor. "Amelia," she whispered.
She did not have to explain further to him. L caught on silently, and returned the smile that she gave him.
"Promise not to tell?" she asked him.
As the girl, Amelia, stared up at him with an unsure smile on her tear-stained face, L nodded without a word. He would never break a promise.
"Misa's passed out."
Amelia felt as though she could do the same. Both the stress that was mounting within her temples and the dreadful heaviness in her limbs was reaching a maddening level; but would she show it? She refused to. Moreover, her own desire that was parallel to L's in capturing Kira or snapping Misa out of her trance was more irresistible than the warm hands of rest.
"Has she eaten anything since we've had her in confinement, Ryuzaki?" Amelia asked L as she leaned tiredly against the wall.
L turned to look at her. "Why do you ask?" he replied.
"I'm just saying, it would be wise to keep the girl alive if we plan on questioning her once she returns to a cognizant state." It amused her that even in the midst of her weariness, her language remained dramatically embroidered. Still, she could not bring forth the energy to smile and slumped lower against the wall.
"I suppose that once she comes to we can take care of that matter," L said dryly. "Satisfied, Lise-san?"
The subtle eccentuation on "satisfied" caused Amelia to bow her head and smirk wickedly. "In time, Ryuzaki, yes."
She saw his shoulders stiffen slightly, much to her delight, and her smirk deepened. Oh, the lovely power of innuendo…this is a fun game that we play, L…
"Looks like Misa's coming to, Ryuzaki," Aizawa said with an edge of remorse. "Have to deal with that voice again…"
"No," Amelia said, shaking her head and bounding over to the laptop once more, "it means it's another chance at information!" She wiped her palms off on her thighs with a burning anticipation. "Come on, Misa, don't let us down again…"
"I wouldn't get your hopes up," Aizawa said. "She's been nothing but annoying lately, if you ask me."
"I wasn't." Amelia heard a soft chuckle come from the back of the room, belonging to Matsuda. While Aizawa shot him a negation, Amelia tuned the two men out of her mind and waited for Misa to speak into the cold room where she had been for three days.
"M-Mr. Stalker? Can you tell me where I am? P-please, this isn't right…"
Amelia watched in disbelief as the girl tried to squirm, but was restrained with her ties and straps. She was whimpering again, a teeth-grittingly bothering sound, and clenched her little white fists into tight knots.
"Um…do you want something from me, Mr. Stalker? C-can't you just let me go already? I mean, i-it's felt like so long…Mr. Stalker?"
With an irate glance over her shoulder to L, she saw that he appeared just as dumbstruck as she was. He caught her eyes, if only for a fraction of a confusion-fueled second, and quickly looked back to the screen. "Lise-san, when you and the others apprehended Misa Amane, did you catch whether or not Mogi made sure to tell her why she was being captured?"
She was expecting him to ask such a thing. "Yes, of course he did. Although I don't see why she would suddenly be this ignorant after regaining consciousness…"
"The stupid card," Aizawa grumbled irritably.
With a sigh, L pressed the intercom button once more and spoke into the microphone. "Misa Amane."
Misa made another squeak of a whimper as she raised her head slightly. "Y-yes, Mr. Stalker? Can I get out of here now, please?"
"Christ…" Amelia whispered as she pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Before you lost consciousness, you were begging for someone to take you out of your misery of being confined," L explained. "Is there any reason why you are suddenly think of me to be a stalker?"
"W-well, who else would you be besides my stalker? There wouldn't be any other reason for me to be here…can't you just let me go, please? I promise I won't run to the police…M-Mr. Stalker?"
With a swift tug of the microphone, Matsuda took force over the situation."Come on, Misa, snap out of it! This is just some stupid act!"
His sudden outburst caused Amelia to give a start, but she hurriedly yanked him back by the shoulder away from the microphone. "Matsuda, what the hell? Calm down!"
It was foolish of her, who happened to be the most high strung out of all of them, to tell the officer to simmer down, but she could do without causing a ruckus at such a crucial time in the investigation. If only she could breathe normally, even for just a minute or two, to soothe the dizzying fatigue swelling in her brain…
"Uh, sorry, Lise," Matsuda stuttered, "I don't know where that came from…"
"Well, just keep it under control for awhile, alright?" Amelia said. "Take a breather or something."
Matsuda nodded, clearly embarrassed, and shuffled off to stand with Aizawa and calm the blushing of his cheeks. Amelia took a deep breath before returning to the laptop beside L, whom had calmly taken hold of the microphone once more.
"P-please, I'm really scared…just let me out already! I can't take it in here anymore! I…I need to go to bathroom!"
Amelia saw L take a deep breath and close his eyes for a moment. "Misa-san, you used that excuse a mere five minutes ago. I suggest that you hold it in for the time being."
"B-but I have to go right now! I don't even care if you watch, that's what you want out of me, isn't it?! P-pervert!"
If the situation had been different, Amelia would have laughed at the perplexed blink and startled manner that L moved back in his chair. Slowly turning his head to her, his wide black eyes seemed to digress to a confused nine-year-old in search of an answer to a difficult question. "Am I a…?"
She did, however, laugh at his question, a sarcastic little snort that was her custom. "Why are you asking me, Ryuzaki?" she asked, playing with his question until it was directed back at him.
L's eyes narrowed for a second before a vague smirk teased his lips. "No reason, Lise-san," he said casually, "forgive my questioning."
Before Amelia could respond with something to battle his wits, the tinny sound of a cell phone ringing from L's pocket broke her train of thought. He reached into his jeans carefully and answered the phone, holding it a good distance from his ear in between two long fingers. "Yes?"
Who could possibly be calling at a time like this…? Unless it was-
"Yes, you know where we are. I'll see you momentarily."
With a quick snap, the phone was closed and returned to L's pocket. He must have seen Amelia's curious glance, for he beckoned her closer to him with a nod of his head. She obeyed.
"Light-kun is returning to headquarters," he murmured into her ear.
Amelia jumped back in shock, outraged. "W-what?" she whispered. "I thought he was forbidden from-"
"He has news on his part," L interrupted calmly. "Please do not appear as though I have told you this. He'll announce it when he-"
The door of the suite slowly opened and Amelia jerked her attention to it. Matching her dread, a bitterly sullen looking Light Yagami entered, head bowed. He looked up at the eyes upon him and took a deep breath, russet eyes gleaming with something unreadable. Guilt? Doubtful. Fear? Even more so.
She wished to reach out to L, touch his shoulder, anything to settle her raging bloodstream, but she stayed stationary in her stance by the chair.
Finally, Light spoke.
"Ryuzaki…as I said earlier on the phone…"
Come on, Light, out with it…!
"…I might be Kira."
Soooo, you know what that means…lots of confinement drama whatnots, which will be oodles of fun to write…and L and Amelia finally get some more alone time. ::smile::
Reviews, anything! They're all welcome.