Roger glanced up at the hesitant knock and found Matt standing sullenly in the doorway of his office. "Come in," he said quickly. "Have a seat."
Matt crossed the room slowly and seated himself on the other side of Roger's desk. His face was wearing its characteristically blank, bored expression, and was partially obscured by his bangs. His gaze seemed to be fixed on the floorboards at the left corner of the room, but it was difficult to be certain behind those sunglasses of his. They had been practically glued to his head lately, even during classes.
Roger hesitated for several seconds as he tried to decide where to begin, then settled on the tried and true. "Matt, do you know why I called you to my office today?" The redhead shrugged with one shoulder. "Your rankings have been fluctuating wildly as of late." He paused to allow Matt to react, but the boy didn't. "I'm told that you were twelfth in the last Math exam—bottom of the Elite Class."
Matt just shrugged noncommittally again. Roger sighed in exasperation. He was a difficult one, Matt. It was virtually impossible to pin him down on anything. He was as slippery as a fish, and he shut down more tightly than a clam when pushed.
He tried again. "Matt, I know that L has dropped you from official Successorship, but that does not give you license to give up on your studies. You are still third in line in the rankings of this House. L could choose to reinstate your Successorship at any time."
"Nah," said Matt. "L won't change his mind about me."
"You don't know that—"
"Yeah I do."
Roger sighed. "Even if that is the case, there is still the possibility that something could happen to Mello or Near. You need to be prepared to step into their shoes, if—"
"Nothing's going to happen to Mello." Matt's tone was like ice.
On the heels of the surprise at getting a reaction out of the boy came the chagrined realization that he had said something very insensitive. Of course it would bother Matt to hear about his best friend's potential demise; how could it not? Roger cleared his throat and studied the redhead as he considered his options. Between his long hair and his reflective sunglasses, more than half of Matt's face was hidden. It was impossible to read his expressions. "Matt, could you take off your glasses, please?"
"No."
Roger didn't order him to take them off. Matt would snub a command just as easily as he blew off a request, and Roger absolutely hated losing direct confrontations with students. It just reminded all involved that he had absolutely no authority over them anymore. Mello had made Roger's greatest fear a reality on the day that he had gone into open rebellion, and by now most of the House had gone with him. The children all called him Roger, and the staff alone doggedly persisted in calling him Mr. Ruvie. All it accomplished was to draw attention to their ineffectuality and highlight the absurdity of the whole situation. It would be funny, if it weren't his life.
So he chose a different approach. He pushed his high-backed chair away from the desk and dragged it out next to Matt. Matt watched him with nonplussed indifference, and he felt idiotic the moment he sat down. He had hoped that removing the large expanse of mahogany from between them would make Matt feel more comfortable talking to him, but all he had succeeded in doing was making himself feel ten times more exposed and awkward. Somehow he couldn't shake the feeling that the genius mind hidden behind those sunglasses was analytically dissecting his actions and arriving at the same conclusion that Roger himself had: that he was an ineffectual old man who was desperately trying to keep everyone from figuring out that he could no more control these students than he could sprout extra arms.
"Matt," he began. "I have allowed you to have the sunglasses of your choice since the day you came to Wammy's House. I allow you to wear them indoors, during meals and even in class. But please. Right now…" Matt's indifference was amazingly disheartening. Roger almost gave up midsentence and just stopped speaking. But then he had a different idea. He continued. "Right now, you are sitting in my office, having a one-on-one conversation with—" He lunged forward and snatched the glasses off of Matt's face.
Matt recoiled with an exclamation of surprise, and Roger felt a moment of triumph. At least he could get the better of one of his charges every once in awhile. That thought was immediately followed by a rush of shame as he realized what he had been reduced to.
Matt turned his face away from Roger, eyes downcast. "Why did you do that?" he asked. His voice was soft, but full of accusation. "I'm not allowed to take them off without his permission. I'm going to be in so much trouble, now."
Roger narrowed his eyes. The person Matt was talking about was obviously Mello, but there was something wrong. When kids fought, they said things like, "He's going to be so pissed off at me," or "He's going to kill me!" The phrases "get in trouble," and "I'm not allowed" were reserved for referring to teachers and staff members, people who were actually in a position of authority over the speaker. "How can you get in trouble with him?" Roger asked slowly. "He's your classmate. He can't discipline or punish you."
"He can." Matt's eyes met Roger's for only a fraction of a second, but it was long enough for him to see a flash of…something. Something alive. For an instant, he was anything but the dull stoic he had been up until now.
Then it was gone, and Roger was more baffled than ever. Neither Matt's words nor his behavior made any sense. He had gone back to staring fixedly at the floor.
He could give Near a run for his money in the arena of weird right now.
"Matt, look at me," commanded Roger.
Matt appeared to debate this internally for a moment before he shrugged and faced forward.
Roger froze.
He had a black eye.
He did a double take, so stunned he could hardly believe it. But he wasn't mistaken; Matt's left eye was bruised and swollen. How had that happened? Matt was Mello's best friend. Mello was an unstoppable terror of a bully these days—it was hard to believe that someone had punched Matt in the face and not found themselves in the infirmary within the hour.
Then Roger connected the words "discipline or punish" with the statement "He can." Things began falling into place, and he didn't like the picture it was forming at all. There was exactly one person in the House who could pick on Matt without fear of reprisal from Mello, and that was Mello himself.
When Roger spoke again, it was with extreme care. No longer was he trying to get around Matt's exasperating behavior. Now he needed to get vital information out of him, and he needed to get it before he shut down again.
"Why aren't you allowed to take your sunglasses off in front of people?"
"It's a rule. I'm not allowed to take them off unless he says so." A slight smile played about Matt's lips. "My eyes belong to him," he added, his voice taking on an unmistakable note of pride. "He says that."
Roger stared. There was no resentment in his demeanor, no fear or sadness or frustration. Just pride, pure and simple.
It was unnerving as hell.
There were more questions that needed to be asked, Roger reminded himself sternly. Gain information now; analyze and judge later. "How will Mello punish you for this?" he inquired, forcing his voice to remain dispassionate.
"I dunno." Matt shrugged flippantly, his tone almost cheerful. "Punch me, probably. He does that."
"Is there no way you can avert it?" Roger asked. Matt shook his head. "Then…perhaps you should not tell him."
"What?"
"Tell him you kept the glasses on the entire time. He won't know otherwise unless you or I inform him, and I assure you that I won't." Part of Roger's mind shouted that this was madness, the principal of a school full of geniuses urging one of his students to lie. And yet, he couldn't in good conscience tell Matt to speak the truth. It was so upside-down and backwards that he wondered wildly how things had ever managed to get this twisted.
Matt's mouth hung open slightly as he stared at Roger with glazed eyes. "I can't do that," he said.
"Why not?"
"Because," said Matt, staring at him like he was saying something strange and incomprehensible. "I'm not allowed to lie to him."
Right. Of course. He probably should have guessed. Roger pursed his lips. He didn't know what it was with Matt. He had seen the boy's aptitude test scores. His IQ was through the roof. He held onto rank three in a school full of the world's brightest children without even applying himself. He could probably defeat the combined forces of Mello and Near if he ever put his mind to it. Yet at times he could act so incredibly dull. Right now Roger felt like he ought to be speaking to him in single-syllable word so as to avoid bewildering him.
His gaze moved back to Matt's bruised eye. "And what rule did you break in order to earn that?"
"I fell," said Matt. "I couldn't keep my balance anymore." He winced in remembered pain. "My legs were so cramped…and I fell."
Roger hesitated, and ultimately decided to let that one go. There were more important questions to ask. "How long has he been doing this?"
Matt blinked. "Like…forever," he said, staring at Roger in blank confusion. "Mello's always had a temper."
He didn't even understand which part Roger was asking about. He considered trying to explain, but concluded that it probably wasn't worth it. Instead, he studied the boy closely. He had been fixated on the left eye until now, but there were other details about his appearance that were off. His right eye had a dark circle underneath it almost worthy of L, and his hair was even more erratic than usual. His complexion was pale, almost ashen. He had gone from lanky to verging on painfully thin, his collarbones jutting sharply out of his chest. The bright green of his eyes seemed to have lost some of its metallic luster, and even his hair lacked its usual shine. He looked downright haggard.
This had been going on for some time. How had they missed it? How had he, Roger, missed it? But he knew the answer to that. Matt rarely drew attention to himself. The opposite, in fact; he was so disengaged that he hardly bothered to speak or act at all. He only caused problems if the staff tangled with him, and so for months now they had tacitly practiced a policy of leaving him well enough alone. Mello, in contrast, drew so much attention to himself with his constant acting up that Matt tended to fade into the background.
Roger, for his part, had been doing his best to avoidpaying attention to Matt for the simple reason that the redhead gave him the willies. Having the exact wrong reaction in every situation, trailing after Mello in the hallways like a ghost, doing his bidding when prompted—it was downright creepy.
Matt stared at him silently the entire time he was processing his thoughts. He didn't fidget even once during the whole awkward silence.
"Have you been sleeping?" Roger inquired.
"When he tells me to," answered Matt. He smiled far too brightly for Roger's liking.
"How often is that?"
"Sometimes," answered Matt. "Most nights I get to sleep some."
Roger closed his eyes briefly. No wonder his exam scores had been erratic. "Have you been eating?" Matt opened his mouth, and Roger quickly held up a hand and rephrased his question. "What I meant to ask was, when was the last time he told you to eat something?"
"Today," answered Matt. "This morning."
This morning? It was four o'clock in the afternoon. Roger asked his next question carefully. "When was the last time Mello hit you?"
Matt's disturbingly nonchalant expression finally showed a crack, and he looked away and started fidgeting with the loose thread again. "Today," he answered quietly. "I interrupted him when he was thinking."
Well, Roger had called him to this meeting to figure out what was behind the drop in his scores. And he certainly had.
What could the staff do? Mello ran roughshod over everyone and everything. Roger was completely at a loss as to how to go about correcting his behavior. The measures they had tried thus far were about as effective as building a picket fence in the path of an oncoming tornado. And it would be even harder this time, when the person getting picked on was ostensibly his best friend.
"Matt…" began Roger hesitantly. "I'm sorry. It must hurt you, getting hit by Mello."
Matt considered this. "Yeah, sometimes. He's pretty strong for his size."
Roger winced. "I wasn't just talking about your body. I meant your feelings."
"My feelings?" Matt blinked at him. "My feelings…are fine," he said slowly. "He says so."
"He can't tell you how you feel," said Roger gently.
Matt cocked his head at him. "Why not?"
"Because it's—well—it's how you feel. They're your feelings!" he spluttered. It was hardly an erudite response, but he didn't know how to give a good answer to that question. It was so basic, so fundamental that he'd never expected to have to explain it. Matt's skeptical expression informed him that he hadn't gotten the point across. He sighed. "Matt, if Mello didn't tell you that you were fine, how would you feel?"
Matt frowned. "You mean like…if Mello said that I was sad?"
"No, no," said Roger, trying to ignore the pang in his heart that that question produced. "If Mello didn't help you at all to figure out how you feel. If you decided all by yourself, how would you feel?"
Matt opened his mouth, then hesitated and closed it again, then repeated the entire sequence a second time before he actually spoke. "But why would I do that?" he demanded.
"Pretend that it was an exam, and you had to answer by yourself. Then how would you feel?"
Matt chewed on his lip. "I don't…I don't know…" He shrank into himself. "I don't know! Without him, I—" He looked up, and his eyes were wild, haunted. Roger was amazed at how open and expressive his features were today. His eyes alone conveyed volumes. Roger honestly hadn't known that Matt was capable of such feeling until now. It was like he had stripped off his entire outer persona with his sunglasses and revealed a completely different person.
Matt shook his head rapidly. "Without him I'd—" His face crumpled and he broke off in a sob. His hand immediately flew up to cover his mouth as his eyes widened in shock. "N—no—I don't—" Tears spilled down his cheeks, and he turned away from Roger and hid his face with his hands. "I don't know why I'm—crying—" He rubbed his right eye with one balled fist. "This is…really embarrassing…Mello's going to be furious…"
Roger stared at him helplessly as he hugged himself and sniffled and tried futilely to contain his tears. He wished Quillsh was here, he would know how to handle this. He had a true gift for working around the quirks of the brilliant, and he loved children. Those were two personality traits that Roger had long since stopped trying to convince himself that he possessed. He would much rather be adding to his collection of insects, which were beautiful and serene, predictable and undemanding. Quillsh was the man for this job. He wished he'd never let his old friend talk him into taking charge of the House. Times like this reminded him of the ugly truth of what they were doing here. Taking in gifted orphans, giving them a home and a comfortable life, educating them—it only sounded laudable from the outside. The reality was that the students at Wammy's House were put under enormous amounts of pressure. They were told from day one that they needed to measure up to the world-famous L, the most brilliant deductive mind of his generation. They crammed algebra down the throats of six year olds, calculus at nine, and the equivalent to a Cambridge Ph.D. degree in mathematics by age fourteen. Competition was cutthroat and constant, with children who didn't even know their classmate's real names being pitted fiercely against one another by the daily posting of exam scores. They were pushed to and beyond their limits time and time again, relentlessly, without mercy or reprieve.
The House records reflected it. In three and a half alphabets' worth of candidates, there had been three suicides, twelve nervous breakdowns and four proven instances of former House members becoming violent, psychopathic criminals. Attrition was steady at about 7% per year.
But Roger didn't need to consult records or statistics to know what this environment did to the children. He saw it every day—he lived it. He was reminded each time he saw Mello's smile, which had slowly transformed from an expression of carefree joy to a cruel, calculating smirk of manic rage. He was reminded each time he saw Near sitting by himself and playing with his toys, looking more like a robot than a human.
And now it was Matt that was reminding him. Barely fourteen years old, and he was being forced to cope with issues that destroyed many adults. He was scrubbing at his face and covering his mouth with one hand, trying to muffle his sobs. Roger felt like an impotent old fool just sitting there and watching him. Running this orphanage always left him feeling this way. The House was a runaway truck on a mountainside, and all he could do was continue stepping ineffectually on brakes that had long since blown out. It made him feel completely useless.
No. Roger shook himself. Not this time. I won't just sit here like an idiot and watch him cry. He stood next to Matt and hesitated for a moment, then leaned over awkwardly to put his arms around him.
And that was the end of Matt's faltering self-control. He burst into tears, his thin frame shaking with the force of the sobs that wracked him. He didn't cling to Roger, but he made no move to push him away either. Roger remained in his uncomfortable half-crouch and held Matt as he cried himself out.
A solid twenty minutes passed before the boy's tears started to slow. Roger's back was aching something awful, but he wasn't willing to let go of a child who was clearly in dire straits. Part of it was guilt, he knew, because he had had a hand in creating this situation. He remained there patiently until Matt's shuddered breaths returned almost to normal and he wiped his nose on his sleeve. "I d—don't know why I just did that," he murmured hollowly.
Roger was finally able to let go of him and kneel, bringing some relief to his protesting muscles. "You don't know why you cried?" he asked. Matt shook his head, and Roger gazed at him in bemusement. "Matt. You cried because you are sad."
Matt met his gaze with wide eyes. "I'm sad?" he repeated with genuine innocence. "Why am I sad?"
Roger closed his eyes briefly, and then reopened them. Fourteen years old. These children were so brilliant that it was easy to forget how young they were. "You're sad because of Mello," he said gently.
Matt's brows contracted slightly in a frown. Then he shook his head. "No…no, that doesn't make sense." The haunted expression hadn't left his features. "Mello's my best friend. He can't make me sad, that's impossible!"
"Matt…" Roger shook his head, momentarily overwhelmed by a feeling of sorrow that had nothing to do with his own circumstances. "It's because he's your best friend. It's normal for you to feel sad if he hurts you." He waited for Matt to react, but the redhead only shook his head in growing bewilderment. Roger's heart ached for him. "Oh…Matt…you may be academically brilliant, but you don't have any grasp at all over your own feelings, do you?"
"I don't?" Matt blinked thoughtfully, considering this assertion honestly. "That's…that's not true. I know how I feel. Mello sorts it out for me. I'm not sad!" He pinned Roger with an accusatory stare. "This is all your fault! You made me take those off—" He snatched his sunglasses from Roger's grip and clutched them tightly. "You made me cry! I don't—I don't do that!" He scooted to the far edge of his seat and watched Roger suspiciously, as if he expected him to attack. "You're the one making weird things happen. Mello and I are best friends. No one else in Wammy's House is friends the way we are!"
Because "friends" isn't the proper term for what you two are, he thought silently. Aloud, he said,"Matt, listen. It's wrong for best friends to hurt each other."
"Yeah, well, we don't!" snapped Matt. "I never hit Mello! And he only does it to me if I break a rule, which I should know better than to do anyway, and if I'm really his best friend, I won't complain when I make him lose his temper! He says that, and—and that's how friends are!" He had hopped out of his seat in agitation. Roger held his hands up in his most placating gesture and tried to say something soothing, but Matt started backing away. "Don't you have any?" he demanded. "You're old, you should know this stuff by now!"
"Matt. Matt, okay. Okay." The boy stopped backing away, but still eyed him distrustfully. "Okay," said Roger one more time for good measure. He pulled his chair back behind his desk to give Matt some space and gestured to his seat. "Just…please sit down." Matt returned to the chair, very slowly and cautiously.
As he walked, Roger's brain began to belatedly process the things he had said during that outburst. The amount of wrong in Matt's statements was so high that Roger didn't even know how to begin discussing it with him. How had someone as young as Mello gotten so manipulative? It was almost too much. He wanted to give up in defeat, to accept that, like so much else that went on in the House, this thing would run its course outside of his control. He felt the weight of one more defeat at the hands of the Wammy's students settling on his shoulders.
Then some nearly-forgotten modicum of self respect reasserted itself, and he remembered that he was the headmaster of this House right now, and as such, it was his responsibility to handle this situation. He straightened his shoulders. "Matt, listen. That is not the way things should be. Mello shouldn't be taking out his temper on you. If he's truly your best friend, he should be nicer to you than he is to anyone else."
Matt had put his glasses back on, and his demeanor was once again cool and distant. He crossed his arms over his chest and smirked just the tiniest bit. "He is," he replied.
Roger couldn't stop staring. Gone was the vulnerable, lost little boy he had been only moments before. Now he was back to the aloof, withdrawn mystery he usually presented to the world. It was fascinating; it was like the mere act of putting on sunglasses had changed him into a completely different person.
"I'll try to be more consistent in classes. Can I go now?" He sounded utterly bored. "I have computer logic at five."
Roger consented. He didn't see any other choice. "But Matt," he added quickly. "You can come talk to me any time you want." The redhead managed the effect of staring at him blankly even through his mirrored sunglasses. "I mean—what I mean is, Matt…I want you to come back here and tell me the next time Mello hits you."
He immediately knew that had been the wrong thing to say as Matt jumped down from his chair and nodded distantly. "Sure," he answered in a voice that was anything but sincere.
Stupid, Roger thought, berating himself for at least the fifteenth time that day. He won't betray Mello, his "best friend." Not to me. Matt had turned and crossed half of the office before he managed to speak again. "Matt! Wait…"
The boy turned and faced his glasses towards Roger. He really was off-putting. He crammed so much ornery attitude into his small frame that it suggested anyone approaching him would save them both a lot of trouble if they just gave up and walked away. But Roger knew better than that now that had glimpsed a bit of what lay underneath. "I want you to come back here in a week. Same day, same time.
"Why?" Matt asked warily.
Roger smiled as genuinely as he could manage. "We're just going to talk again, that's all. All right? You're not in trouble."
Matt watched him for another several long seconds. Then he said, "Yeah…sure." He turned and left without another word.
Roger slouched forward on his desk and exhaled slowly. Part of him slumped in defeat, crushed under the weight of the responsibilities and troubles of this House. But the other half of his mind was racing, reeling from what he had seen. What was going on between those two? He had honestly believed that Matt was safe from Mello's depredations. Yes, he had driven Jury out of the House and put Near in the hospital, but Roger had still believed that Mello's friendship with Matt was pure.
Though "pure" was undoubtedly the wrong word to use. Mello and Matt were lovers, he was sure of it. What exactly that constituted for two boys was a bit of a fuzzy zone in his mind, but he had no desire to change that. They were lovers inasmuch as two young boys could be. His suspicions had crystallized into certainty on the day that the two of them had missed the beginning of his lecture on legal ethics and he had been forced to send Temper off to find them. Matt had come to class if Mello's clothes, and neither of them had been able to sit still for even five minutes. They were all giggles and furtive glances. All possibility of doubt had been banished by the end of that hour.
He had only recently managed to follow Quillsh's advice to simply accept that they were gay and not fret about it. Guilt prickled at Roger. He could have paid closer attention to them, perhaps even figured out that something was wrong. But instead, he had deliberately looked elsewhere because they made him uncomfortable. He had always been afraid that he might catch an intimate glance or a held hand or even a kiss. Now, left unchecked, the situation between them had devolved to its current state. Their relationship was deeply ill. Sick. Twisted.
Everyone on staff feared for Mello. They all spent a lot of energy worrying as he very publicly cracked under the pressure-cooker that was Wammy's House. It was common knowledge that he was the problem child of the current class. Nobody had bothered with Matt in ages, but now Roger could see what a grave error in judgment that had been. What was happening to Mello was happening to Matt, too. Mello passed it on to him directly; they were inextricably linked. It was possible that it was Matt, not Mello, who was the ultimate sink for all of the negative pressures in Wammy's House. Matt might not act out violently the way Mello did, but he was just as psychologically out of balance—if not more.
Roger steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them. How in the world had Quillsh managed to do this job for so many years? And during the House's truly awful days, too! Quillsh had lived through Annabel's and Dorian's suicides, Greylian's meltdown that left four classmates in the emergency room, and Prethius's cold-blooded and calculated murder of Ophast. He had watched Beyond Birthday and Castor and Treiz go out into the world and commit violent, criminal acts. He had seen dozens of students crack and fall apart in the face of the demands placed on them here.
But those were during the House's early days. The educational system had since been modified so that they didn't destroy the very children they were trying to teach…or so went the party line. But Mello and Near—and now Matt, in Roger's mind—were the eternal question marks at the end of that sentence. Mello's determination to beat Near had turned into a compulsion, then an obsession. It consumed more and more of his being every day, and there was no end in sight. Near, meanwhile, had withdrawn completely into himself. He spent his days sitting alone in his favorite play room and winding his hair around his finger as he studied. His only company was the profusion of toys and puzzles he surrounded himself with. He hadn't braided a single strand of hair since his return from the hospital.
It bordered on heartbreaking. Near had been making so much progress when Mello and Matt had been his friends. He had socialized, and he had occasionally talked about subjects other than the puzzles that fascinated him so. He had even been showing signs of outgrowing the toys and dolls he had clung to for far longer than other children of his age. Roger had begun to think that he might be able to develop, albeit slowly, and one day lead a reasonably normal life.
But that was no more than a distant memory now. Near's path was set. He was the eternal child, wearing oversized pajamas and playing with finger puppets while his incredible mind steadily broke down the world's most complex mysteries. Roger wondered what it was like inside of Near's head. To have a brain that could calculate the fourth root of any number out to eight decimal places on the spot, yet was completely stumped by the task of interpreting a frown on someone's face—he couldn't imagine it. Near had a mind unlike any other. That had been apparent from the day he arrived, cadged by Watari at age four from an overwhelmed single mother.
Ironically, the very same qualities that had ultimately caused her to give Near up had once endeared him to her and others. Near used to be the rubix cube baby. He had been barely five months old when his mother accidentally left the colored block within his reach. Little Nate's fingers barely had the strength or the coordination to move the pieces, but nevertheless, he solved it.
His parents thought it was a fluke, until he repeated the feat time and time again. His fingers quickly grew nimble, soon he could finish the task in mere minutes. Other puzzles were soon added to his repertoire. Neighbors used to come over and watch him piece them together. Nate was proudly shown off to the world, eliciting amazed gasps everywhere he went.
Time passed, and the world turned. Difficulties started to appear. Nate wouldn't make eye contact with his parents. He pulled away or started crying when they tried to hug him. But most noticeably of all, he didn't speak. All of the other kids were using complete sentences, and he hadn't yet uttered a single word.
He was old enough to wield a pencil now, but he didn't draw his family or his house like the other children did. Near drew the Koch snowflake, the Hilbert curve, the Cantor set. He illustrated the Fibonacci sequence in geometrically perfect squares. His first crude sketch of the Mandelbrot set, done in crayon, was still on file in the Wammy's archive. He developed his own notation system to express what was in his mind. Roger had seen the papers. Pages and pages of strange markings broken by the occasional familiar shape, like a circle bisected by a diameter or a sequence of right triangles drawn to the proportions of Pythagorean triples. It always gave him the feeling that he was on the verge of comprehension, but in the end understanding eluded him, hovering just out of reach. Quillsh had managed to translate bits and pieces of it over the years, but much of it was beyond him. Roger didn't doubt that those pages contained mathematical truths that could alter humanity's understanding of the universe, but they would remain locked in Near's mysterious head forever.
Nate's parents didn't understand what he was doing anymore. There were problems in the marriage, exacerbated by the difficult child. Nate's father finally walked out.
His mother had shown up at Wammy's House, alone, desperate and at her wits' end. She had heard that this orphanage handled frighteningly smart children, and she didn't know what else to do. She was half convinced that her white-haired child was possessed by the devil.
Quillsh had welcomed her and listened to her story somberly. No mention was made of developmental disorders. The word "autism" was not so much as breathed. He quietly pushed the paperwork through on the very same day, and Near became his.
It took a year of intense tutoring with a special therapist before Near could speak well enough to communicate. He possessed no innate language skills. He learned to talk through sheer power of intellect alone.
Then he was thrust into the regular House routine with no special dispensations made. Since his legs were weak, he spent most of his time in the play rooms and study rooms on the first floor. Staff members took turns carrying him up and down the stairs first thing in the morning and before bed. No one wanted to challenge his stubborn dislike of getting dressed, so he remained in pajamas all day. Nobody wanted to get stuck with the uncomfortable and time-consuming task of bathing him, and so he often went without. Plans were in the works to hire someone to help take care of him, but they somehow never materialized into reality. It was difficult to bring new people into Wammy's House. Employees had to be thoroughly background checked, and had to sign contracts and non-disclosure agreements. Every step of the process faced bureaucratic red tape and had to be approved by both Watari and L. It kept getting pushed back further and further. The speech therapist declared this cruel neglect of a child who clearly had special needs, and walked out.
So Near persisted in getting along the best he could with what assistance people offered him. Mello had assisted for awhile, back when the two boys had still been friends. He had carried Near from place to place, fed him, and even helped him shower and wash his hair. Roger winced at that memory. He had looked the other way because he didn't want to do it himself. He had told himself that it was innocent; Mello was only ten years old. But if he had known then what he knew about Mello now—
--but that was no excuse. One young boy bathing another? It was wildly inappropriate. By allowing it to happen unchallenged, Roger had given it his tacit approval. In retrospect, he was ashamed of the part he had played in letting it continue. Twisted, unhealthy situations like that could only exist in an environment as isolated as this one.
Social services would probably be interested in what went on here. Roger was almost certain that Quillsh had some special arrangement worked out with them so that they didn't sniff around too much. Otherwise, the number of deaths and serious injuries that Wammy's House sustained each year would have attracted their attention long ago. He shuddered to think what would happen if they ever did choose to investigate Wammy's. Mello's antics alone would probably be enough for them to shut the whole place down.
Looking at him now, it was hard to believe that he had once been the most well-adjusted orphan who had ever graced the halls of Wammy's House. He had been a joyful, charming, friendly little boy, always bubbling with energy and quick to laugh. He had been dangerously likeable, actually—or so the nuns at his previous orphanage believed. Roger had met with two of them when the boy was being relocated. It seemed that Mihael had been friends with everyone at their institution, and many idolized him for his genius. Roger had gathered by reading between the lines that his transfer had as much to do with a certain tendency on Mihael's part to end up with painted nails or girls' panties in his hamper as it did with any inability on the nuns' part to educate a mind of his caliber. The head nuns had decided that their institution—"Which is, after all, in the house of God," one of them had reminded him primly—was not the proper place for someone like Mello to hold that kind of influence over his peers.
Mello had been an instant hit at Wammy's. He had cracked through even Matt's and Near's tough exteriors. For the first year or two, he had been a moderating, normalizing influence on a student body that consisted largely of…well, to put a fine point on it, neurotic genius children with troubled pasts. But the falling-out with Near had changed him. Mello felt the pressure of being Successor more than anyone else. Part of it was because of his personality; he couldn't stand to be edged out of the spotlight. He was a diva.
But part of it was because he was M. There was a certain mystique about the letter M in Wammy's House. It followed L. People believed, on some deep level, that the true Successor of L had to be M. It was pure superstition, and every one of them knew better, but they couldn't quite shake the notion. Students whispered that Mello should be solidly ahead of Near because M preceded N. They said that he was failing in his duty because he wasn't. Matt had always responded to that pressure by disengaging and ignoring it, but it ate at Mello.
It made Roger regret the whim that had started the alphabet game. L's single-letter name was remarkable enough in and of itself, but then it just so happened that the first three potential successors were Amy, Brian and Caitlin. The alphabet had taken root before any of them thought twice.
Perhaps ironically, all three of those initial students had come to terrible ends. Annabel had slit her wrists after listening to Beyond Birthday whisper for two years that she would die on that very day. Roger had suspected foul play, and had become certain of when B went on his murdering spree in L.A, but there had never been any forensic evidence to back that up. And Cethe…the last he had heard, she could function on her own as long as she kept taking her medication.
Those had been primarily Watari's battles to fight. Roger, a mere teacher at the time, had just assisted. It was only in the past year that he had finally begun to appreciate what his friend had really gone through while dealing with it. Mello was by far the worst discipline problem that Roger had had to face. Calling him by his first name was only the tip of the iceberg; Mello had all of the students intimidated into doing his bidding. The staff didn't know details. Those who crossed him had an alarming tendency to blame their black eyes and bloody noses on tripping into door knobs or banisters.
And that was what raised the most questions in Roger's mind. Mello knew, just as they all did, what Wammy's House alumni had gone on to do. They were high-ranking politicians, diplomats, successful entrepreneurs, inventors, some of the most important movers and shakers of today's world. Even those that never had a prayer of becoming Successor were still highly intelligent individuals with world-class educations under their belts by graduation. Mello was too bright not to realize that his current classmates would someday be either a great help or a great hindrance to him as L, assuming he inherited the title. And yet, despite that, he continued to bully and terrorize his peers. It was reckless and illogical.
Roger shook his head wearily. It must make sense, in some strange way or another, because Mello wasn't stupid. He closed his eyes and tried to apply the kind of deductive reasoning that the students were taught here each day to the situation. One possibility was that Mello didn't understand the consequences of his actions, but given his intellect, it seemed unlikely. A second option was that Mello got such a rush out of seeing his peers cringe away from his glare and trip over themselves to appease his ire that it was worth the price of losing the help they would be able to provide him in the future. If that were the case, what did it say about him? Following in L's footsteps was ostensibly Mello's greatest desire, Roger had heard him say as much many a time. So what kind of person was he, truly, if inspiring fear was more important to him than having the tools to become a successful L in the future?
Perhaps he was the type of person who gave his best friend twin black eyes and then claimed it was said friend's fault for "making" him lose his temper.
Roger reached into his desk drawer and pulled out his favorite specimen, a six-centimeter Dinastes tityus enclosed in a class case. It always calmed him, and so he kept it here despite his fears that one of the students would discover his hobby and mock him for it. Things like that got said by middle-aged drunks to the women they'd been beating for a decade, not by one barely-pubescent schoolboy to another. Mello did things that boggled the mind. Roger couldn't get a bead on whether the boy comprehended the things he was doing or not. Did he calculate how many times he could hit Matt and get away with it, and what he would have to say to keep his "friend" from getting angry with him? Or was it reflexive, something out of Mello's control, a deep instinct toward violence that skipped the conscious mind entirely when expressing itself?
Either way, that Mello didn't modify his behavior in a manner that would clearly help him in the future suggested to Roger that something was…wrong. Mello's insight into the people around him was virtually unmatched, but he seemed unable to objectively weigh and judge his own actions. He had very little self-control. It got Roger wondering if it was possible for a person to be mad while still retaining all of his deductive reasoning faculties.
Roger chewed at his lip. What should he do? He was out of ideas. He didn't want to ask other staff members for fear that they would figure out that this House had jumped the tracks long ago. He didn't want to look like an incompetent old fool. What he needed was more authority. There were exactly two people that could give that to him, but thus far they had disappointed him in that regard. The last time he had asked for their help had been while Near was in the hospital. When L learned of the situation, he had said, "It is worth taking into consideration how easily Near was overcome." That he seemed to see eye-to-eye with Mello had been galling. "Tell him that he cannot win by murdering his competition," L had instructed him. "He will be disqualified if he does so." Roger had passed on those words, but they did little to reassure him. He wasn't convinced that Mello would recall such threats during a moment of overwhelming rage, and removing him from the Succession wouldn't bring Near back to life.
It made Roger wonder. How much of this had L seen, back then when he made the prediction of ultimate enmity between Mello and Near? Had he seen Mello's terrifying plummet from the roof? Did his mind's eye show him Near in the emergency room, bloodied and broken? Had he known that Mello would wind up this unhinged? What about Matt, had he realized that the redhead would be sucked into it as well? Was all of this just playing out according to what he had expected from the very beginning?
Then, abruptly, facts slid together in Roger's mind, and a third rationale behind Mello's behavior occurred to him. Yes, the blonde had alienated many of his peers—but he still got what he wanted from them. They were too scared to defy him. Perhaps he simply intended to continue getting his way through intimidation. After all, it had certainly worked well for him up to this point. Mello didn't follow the rules inside of Wammy's House; what was there to suggest that he would once he was out?
And that was when Roger realized it. Things were just as bad as they had been during the days of Beyond Birthday. Mello behaved just as terribly as Prethius ever had, and Annabel had nothing on Matt when it came to unbalanced behavior. Roger's calming mantra, that at least things were better than they had been in the House's really bad days, was a complete fiction. The rivalry between Mello and Near would spill out of Wammy's House, just as such things had in the past. It would be played out on the world stage, where the lives of countless innocent individuals would be pulled into the balance. Things had already reached that point; there was absolutely nothing Roger could do to stop it.
He wanted to disbelieve it, but he couldn't. The certainty settled into the pit of his stomach like a stone. He would make that prediction with one hundred percent confidence.
His hands were shaking as he turned to his computer and began composing an email to Watari.