Do I Want Friendship or Do I Want Your Love?

Chapter 25: Confidential meetings we Listened in on

It was a week since Matsuda had broken into Yotsuba Headquarters and had managed to go without dying. I had grown a little nervous and wanted to write in my Death Note to give him some more lifespan, but all of it was with Kira 3. I missed Vincent when I realized he was gone to, but it upset me when I saw no Rem or Vincent with anyone in Yotsuba. To keep me sane, I had to tell myself that Kira 3 had made them hide. I nodded at my explanation, pausing in what I was doing. I should tell L about my eyes and how I think Kira 2 used them. But then, he might suspect me of being Kira 2 or even Kira, having passed my eye sight to Kira 2.

I groaned in annoyance and pushed my seat away. "Is everything alright, Nightana?" I looked over at L and hesitantly nodded. Everyone was looking at me.

"I'm just getting frustrated with this case. I want to be able to figure this out so we can catch Kira and the Second Kira." They all nodded and began working again, though L was watching me closely now. As I began looking in on the deaths that contributed to Yotsuba, my phone went off. "Hello?"

"Night," Namikawa greeted.

"Oh, hey, how's today?" I glanced at L, who was looking at me questioningly. Namikawa, I mouthed and he nodded, though a jealous look entered his eyes. A small smile crept on my face.

"Fine. I was wondering if you wanted to go out for dinner tonight." Dinner? That was unexpected.

"I can't tonight. I'm being held late at work."

"Are you a detective already?"

"I finished my schooling. Yeah, I'm already a detective."

"I see. Do you want to try some other time?" I hesitated.

"I don't know… is this like a date?" L's spoon he had in his hand dropped. I was looking over at him sympathetically.

"No, just to catch up on old times."

"Maybe later. I don't know how my boyfriend will react with this."

"Oh? Boyfriend?"

"Yeah. I didn't tell you about that either, did I?"

"No, you hadn't. Well, please talk to him. I'd like to catch up."

"Sure. See you around?"

"Bye."

"Bye." I hung up the phone and saw everyone was looking at me again, most in shock, except L was clearly angered by this, though he tried to put on a different face. I saw through it though. "What?"

"Who was that?" Soichiro demanded.

"Namikawa wanted to catch up on old times, but I'm not going to." I shivered. "He likes me more than he should."

"You shouldn't talk to him anymore," L said after a moment, beginning to eat sweets again.

I frowned at him. "I'm just trying to get information out of him. He isn't Kira, but if he knows Kira personally and I can get close to Kira, even if I am risking being killed-"

"We're not going to do that," L interrupted, not looking at me. I frowned at him, not happy that he was arguing with me. I folded my arms in front of me. I would be stubborn this time.

"We're going to. It'll work real well and I can do something more for this case." At the time, L and I were have the argument, no one else daring to get involved.

"You're not going to. If Kira figured out, he would kill you."

"He might kill you so-"

"Nightana, if we are going to begin discussing that, then we'll talk about that later." His face had shadowed over scarily and it made me wince.

"Fine. We'll talk about it later." There wasn't much point arguing with him when he looked like that. I got down in my seat again and looked in on my computer, not wanting to work any longer, but I found I wanted to talk to L. "Ryu-kun, can we talk now? Without my brother?" L looked up at me with confusion written on his face.

"That's fine. Mr. Yagami, Mr. Matsuda, please keep an eye on Light." He removed the handcuffs and got up, walking past me. I followed behind him up the glass stairs. We walked past Misa and she seemed to sense neither of us wanted to talk so she simply said hi and then ran down the hall, calling out Light's name as she reached the stairs. L held open a door for me that lead to a room I had never been in before and I walked in, him following. "This room is completely free of cameras. We won't be watched this way."

"What was there to discuss we couldn't discuss in front of everyone else?"

"Do you remember what we agreed on when I told you how I felt?" I hesitated.

"Yes, I do."

"You agreed you wouldn't do anything to get you killed. I won't allow you to do this." I frowned at him.

"It's not going to kill me, I promise you it won't."

"We aren't going to do this, Nightana, I need you to stay here on this earth with me."

"I won't get killed, Lawliet." I could see a small smile appear on his face as I said his name.

"I like it when you say my name, Nightana." I smiled and nuzzled close to him in the small room.

"It's lovely when you say my name." I stood on my tiptoes and placed a small kiss on his lips. When I pulled away, he captured my lips with his in such a way, it left me breathless. As I began moving my lips with his more, he pressed me against the wall closest to us. It was different to feel him doing this, as if some other man had taken his cold detective place and it was wonderful. He leaned his head towards my neck and as his lips lightly brushed my neck, it made me shiver and close my eyes, leaning my head back against the wall. As he lightly trailed my neck with kisses, I found my breath coming out in almost short gasps. His hands moved lightly down my arms as he moved back up to my face.

"We should probably head back to the others now. Please don't go after the idea you have. I can't imagine anything without you by my side any longer."

"Promise me then, Lawliet, that you won't die if I die. If Light or Misa is Kira, they know that I would gladly have them kill me over you. I would do that for you so I want you to promise that you won't die because I did." I was still against the wall, but I liked having his body so close to me. It felt right.

"I promise." But I could see the pain in his eyes as he promised this. I kissed him again.

"Don't worry. I shouldn't die, but it's just a precaution."

"Then promise me the same." I swallowed, but I nodded.

"I promise." He nodded, but didn't move. I was happy he hadn't. For a moment, a silence fell over us. "I love you Lawliet Ryuzaki and I'm never going to leave you."

"And I love you Nightana Anderson. We'll never be parted." He looped his pinky with mine and lifted up our hands. A smile appeared on my face.

"Just like the old days, right?"

"Yes." I intertwined my fingers with his and lightly kissed the back of his hand. He smiled and put a hand on my cheek, lightly kissing my lips. His other hand intertwined my other hand and he moved closer again, but then L pulled away before a whole lot could happen between us. "We should head back down."

"I don't want to yet," I said, my voice shaking from all the emotions swirling through my head.

"We need to." I sighed, but finally agreed. We untangled each other. I was surprised at how tangled we had gotten.

"I'm going to my room for a little while, okay?" He nodded and walked on alone, his hands shoved into his pockets and his back hunched over. I looked at him sadly when I saw a shadow fall over me and looked up. Vincent floated above me. "Vincent!"

A smile crept over his face, his sharp teeth showing. "It's nice to know you recognize me, Nightana."

"Of course I would. Why wouldn't I?" A shadow fell over his face.

"The third Kira… he took the Death Note for himself and you don't own it anymore. Can you still see people's names and faces?"

"Yes, I can."

"You were born with those eyes weren't you?"

"Yes. I've had them all my life."

"And you can see Shinigami without touching a Death Note? Rem told me you could see her and Ryuk knows you can see him without a Death Note."

"Yes. I can." I smiled sadly. "I need to go back to work. We can talk later, right?"

"No, I have to go now." He kissed my forehead once before taking off, going through the ceiling. That is so not cool! They can go through ceilings! I want to go through ceilings! As this went through my head, I realized I was supposed to be heading downstairs again. I sighed and went down there, no one asking me where I was. The meeting had begun. I settled down beside L, taking some of the sugar cubes he had in front of him and putting them in my mouth.

"What's been happening?" I asked in a whisper at Light and he looked at me.

"Ooi began the meeting," Light informed and I nodded.

"Okay." I glanced at L, but saw he was paying attention to the meeting. I sighed slightly before the group of seven men caught my attention.

"Before we decide who we want Kira to kill, we have something we a few things we need to discuss," Ooi continued, "first is Hatori's death."

"They killed Hatori?" I whispered, my hands tightening on my grip on my one leg.

"Yes, they have," L answered, not looking at me while he poured syrup on his bowl of sugar cubes.

"In a relief, I'm glad Hatori's dead." My mouth hung open as Namikawa said this. "It shows that we have to be totally committed to these meetings."

"Yes, well, let's not take it lightly," Ooi added, his hands folding in front of his face. "The next thing we need to discuss is Coil's report."

"Did we really pay 5 million dollars for this report?" Higuchi asked, hitting the paper with his hand. "I mean, he hasn't found anything useful for us like L's name or face."

"Yes, but in this report, it tells us we shouldn't take L's existence so lightly," Kida said as he scanned over the paper. "He also told us we shouldn't keep killing people over the weekend or else someone is going to catch on."

"This only proves we shouldn't keep doing this or else L might catch on as well since Coil already has," Takahashi included.

"Kira hasn't really been flexible all this time, has he?" Higuchi asked, leaning back in his chair. That's when I actually focused in on him and noticed the numbers above his head was missing. He was Kira. "It would be nice if he'd spread his killings throughout the whole week."

"Well, anyways, onto the next topic. Who should Kira kill?" Ooi asked and a silence fell over us. Even back in the Headquarters.

"I think," Midou said after a moment, "we should take out the people of E.L.F. If we don't, they'll take a lot of useful clients and business workers."Ooi asked.

"Okay, any objections to killing these men in E.L.F?"

"No objections," everyone answered.

"I also think we need to take out Zenziam. He does have a naturally high blood sugar so we could kill him with a stroke," Shimura involved.

"Okay, so any objects to killing Zenziam with a natural death of a stoke?" Ooi asked.

"No objections."

"Natural death? A time of death? This is all what we've been thinking," Light interrupted.

"Yes, it is," L agreed with him, beginning to collect up all his sugar cubes.

"We have enough proof to convict these men. We should arrest them now while we still have a chance," Soichiro said hopefully.

"I don't think we should," L said. "We need to see if these guys die as they agreed to."

"Ryuzaki!" my brother and father said in unison, making me jump while L lost most of his sugar cubes, catching one with his mouth. I took a few out of the bowl and put them in my mouth also.

"What is it? There's no need to yell in unison."

"I can't go on like this knowing those people are going to die!" Light said.

"Right!" Soichiro agreed. L's look on his face seemed to say what he was thinking. It looked a lot like. Here we go. It made me giggle.

"What are you laughing about, Night?" Light asked. "Can you honestly go on with these people dying?"

Without thinking, I said,"Yes, I can." The startled look on everyone's face made me realize what I said. "The thing is, I've been through most of my life, death everywhere around me. If someone's going to die, you can't usually stop it. I should have been dead thousands of times and I'm here still alive. What can I do to stop death, whether it's with this instrument of killing or natural?"

"I can't stand by though and let these others die," Soichiro argued, grabbing a phone. "Light, we have all these men's phone numbers, right? I want to contact one of these men, any of them and make them stop these deaths from happening."

"We can't do that," L said, pouring himself a glass of coffee. "If we do that, we'll be telling them that the investigation has caught up to them and will cause an uproar of panic." L began dropping sugar cubes into his cup of coffee, but only a few before he downed the whole cup. Light seemed to take in what L said before he spoke.

"Ryuzaki, let's say if we were to call one of these men. The probability of getting Kira is one is seven right?"

"No, I'd say there's at least two Kira's among them so two of seven at best."

"I think there's only one," I argued, much to everyone's surprise. Damn it, I should have kept my mouth shut! While I cursed myself mentally, I waited for they're response.

"Okay, we'll do one of seven," Light said, "but the point I'm trying to get across is that we should place our chances on this and contact one of them to let them know the case has caught up to them. I'm going to pose as L to get information out of them."

"That's fine," L said after a moment, handing him a phone. "Use this phone; it's set up so it can't be tapped with or channeled."

"Sure." He took the phone. "Who should we call?"

"It should be the least obvious one out of all of them." The next moment, we all called out a different name, except for L and I. We both called out Namikawa, which surprised me, but then again, L couldn't let his feelings get in the way of the case, which for a moment made me sad.

Namikawa got a phone call the next moment and I knew it was from Light almost instantly. "Hello?"

"Is this Reiji Namikawa of Yotsuba?"

"Yes and who is this?"

"Do not attract attention to yourself… I am L." Namikawa's shock was barely visible so he did well. You could only tell for a moment and no one was looking at him that moment. "If you are not Kira or not someone who can speak to him directly, let's make a deal." Light paused again, sounding as if he'd done this all the time. "We've been monitoring what you've been doing. First thing you discussed is Hatori's death and now you're discussing who to kill. We don't want to cause an uproar with everyone in that room so we've contacted you to make this deal. I want you to delay the deaths of those men you are discussing by one month if you can do that. If you can, your crime… no everyone's crime with the exception of Kira's will be unacquainted for by saying you were black mailed. Do we have a deal?" Namikawa was disputing in his head what to do. It was quite fun to watch. "You are in no obligation to take sides in this matter. It's better to stay on the side lines for now."

"Uh, yes, well, then I'll speak to you on Monday then." With that he hung up. I nodded at Light, happy with how he handled that. The group liked Namikawa's decision and agreed with it before ending the meeting.

L seemed thoughtful for a moment. "That was quite impressive Light," he said after another moment. "It was like something I would do and you thought of it quicker than me."

"What are you getting at?" Light asked, already knowing L enough to tell he was up to something.

"What I'm saying is if I were to die somehow, would you take over for me as L." Everyone was shocked by what he said, especially me because I began choking on the sugar cube I had just started swallowing.

"Night!" Matsuda began hitting my back, until I got the sugar cube down very painfully.

"What do you mean? We're on the handcuffs together. If you do, then I'll die also. It would be better to make Night L…" He fell silent, glaring at L. "Ryuzaki, I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell everyone what you're thinking."

"Very impressive Light. You could already figure out what I was thinking." I said that aloud, not L. "It's what you're thinking Ryu-kun. You're a very open book." L looked over at me before nodding.

"It's not that I'm an open book, Nightana, you're just smart enough to be able to figure those things out."

"Okay, stop trying to flirt with each other, we need to concentrate on this," Light said, at which I glowered at him. "Ryuzaki's theory is two things. Either, I'm Kira pretending to be innocent or that I've somehow managed to pass my power to someone else. He figures if I agree to becoming L then I'm not innocent and I'm just putting on an act." He looked at L.

"Well, what if there's another being behind this?" I asked nervously, not quite sure if I was stepping somewhere that could get me killed.

"Another being?" both L and Light asked.

"A Shinigami," I breathed, sounding like my old six year old self when Vincent had given me the Death Note.

"Shinigami's most likely don't exist," Light argued.

"What if they do? Then it would theorize that if you were Kira, he had forced you to give up this killing instrument."

"I wasn't Kira though!" Light was furious now that I was suggesting it. "Do either of you honestly believe I could actually become a murderer? Kira?" L was silent for a moment.

"Yes, I've always thought so," he said. Light's face became unnaturally calm. Then he swung out. L's chair moved around and he caught Light in the face as Light's hand connected with L's.

"That's enough! Break it up!" Matsuda said angrily as he intervened them. "It was a draw so let's just call it an even match."

"Fine," Light agreed, turning away. "Anyway, Ryuzaki, you shouldn't have any complaints about this since I'm still on the handcuffs."

"You're right. We only have one month anyway to uncover who Kira really is anyway."

"We have to arrest these men while we still have some time!" I could've imagined L rolling his eyes at this. Did they have to start with that again?

L turned to begin dropping more sugar cubes in another cup of coffee. "I think we need to begin working on the Kira Case separate from each other. We're only going to keep getting into arguments if we don't split up. You can use the headquarters as you wish, but we won't be working with each other."

"I'm staying with you, Law-Ryu-kun." He had looked at me startled as I began saying his real name. "I agree with what you do."

"You can arrest the men," L continued, "if you wish to, but I'm taking a different approach and I do not want to arrest them." L got out of his seat and began walking over to the stairs and I followed after him while Light forcefully went.

"Where are you going?"

"To Misa Amane's room. I'm sorry, I know you're on your father's side, but I will not remove these hand cuffs." I couldn't help myself (since I was behind him), but my eyes flickered down to his behind and a blush crept on my face. Light realized the blush and grew suspicious about what I was thinking about.

"Light! I didn't know we had a date! Oh, right I should have known," Misa grumbled as she noticed L. "Hey, Night!"

"Hi, Misa," I grinned while L walked over to her, getting oddly close so that I grew jealous. I couldn't help myself.

"Misa, you love Light to the bottom of your heart, right?"

"Uh… yeah, of course I do!"

"But you worship Kira, right?"

"Yeah…"

"But your precious Light is planning to go after Kira. You are, aren't you Light?"

"Of course."

"He's going to go after Kira. Now what will you do?"

"Well, of course I'll go to Light!" Misa said, getting off the couch and hugging Light by his arm. "I'm grateful of Kira and want to meet him, but that's not true love. I'd rather pick Light!"

"So," L said, getting close to Misa again, making her jump away more into Light, "if you'd have a chance to help Light on the investigation, what would you do? Would you take the offer?"

"Of course I would!"

"We're not involving her in this?" Light argued.

"Am I not even needed here?" I asked, folding my arms in front of me.

"You are to stay by my side so you can't leave," L said, making me pout and fall on the couch angrily.

"I know the idea of your plan so why are you doing this?" I asked.

"What plan?" Misa asked excitedly.

"Ryu-kun's planning to have Aiber-" As I said his name, I scowled. "to give information to Yotsuba about you being interrogated by L and during that time you were accused of being the Second Kira."

"That part is true," she muttered.

"Anyway, he wants them to try to hire you so they can take that chance to investigate what you know about L."

"That's not a good idea! Misa will get killed doing that!" Light argued.

"I don't like the idea because it puts Night's boyfriend in danger," Misa said instead of agreeing with Light. I glared at her while she smiled back sweetly. Just like old days before this got more serious.

"It's not too dangerous," L argued with both of them, but glanced at me to see if I'd argue. I would later tonight.

"It is! Misa could get killed doing this because if Yotsuba got enough information from her, he'd probably kill her to keep her silent!"

"Misa doesn't like the sound of that," she said, looking horrified almost.

"Yes, Light that may be the case, but you're forgetting something. Even if Misa may be killed, I'll die if Yotsuba figures out my name and face and so then you too would die." L held up the hand with the handcuffs. "As long as we have these on, we share the same fate and Misa would grieve most of all."

"So would Night," Misa piped up, which I glared at her again though I was beginning to feel sick. I didn't like the idea of L dying. I would never be able to wrap my mind around it.

"So which is it?" L asked Misa.

"We catch Kira! I could never dream of living in a world without Light."

"Yes," L agreed. "It would be dark." I burst into laughter.

"Would you cut it out? We don't have time for this! Misa can't do this!" Light yelled.

"I chose Misa for this for a very important reason," L interrupted. "I know her love for Light is boundless and that she'd help us for sure on this."

"Do you really?" Misa asked.

"Yes, I disputably know Misa is the perfect woman for Light."

"Oh, I think I totally misunderstood you from the beginning," Misa said. "I even called you a pervert, but you really do understand me don't you?"
"Yes, I do. I know you love him with your whole heart."

"Yay!" Much to my surprise and jealousy, Misa went over and gave L a kiss on the cheek. My face grew slightly warm and I glared off in the other direction. "Oh, sorry Night was that your cheek? I didn't mean to make you jealous," Misa said teasingly.

"I'm not," I tried to dismiss, but wasn't successful.

"Anyways, let's get this started!" Misa cheered at which I groaned.