A/N It might not seem that way from the start (don't listen to Light), but prepare for fluff. As fluffy as this can get anyway, and apparently that's quite fluffy. I must have heatstroke. I thought that you might deserve this because it's all serious plot now, like really serious events and stuff, and there's only a few chapters left and I've nearly finished them; it's just tinkering about and filler now. Thank you for the reviews and for reading, but if you leave a review then I'm massively grateful. Not begging (yes, I'm begging), but after a story's finished, I think that people are less likely to leave reviews? I don't know. I love reviews though, and I've met some really fantastic people through this story so far AND RECS FOR BOOKS YAY! Thank you so much anyway, whether you leave a review or not, just thank you for reading. *gushing cheese alert* P.S. I'll post a disclaimer on my tumblr because some of the political things in this chapter are based on or just stolen from Callaghan's or Thatcher's time in office. I think you might know now that I'm obsessed with UK politics from 1960-now even though I've tried to dampen it down a lot for the sake of L and Light, but this chapter has a lot of references which I've crammed in.
Chapter Twenty Five
The Pearl Fishers
Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.
~ Edmund Burke
"It's a shame. He would have loved this."
"All these sycophants campaigning for his job. People like me, who have better things to do but have to be here. And people like you, who came to his funeral when you'd never even met him, but you have to help represent your department because Health can't be bothered to stop knobbing his secretary for one fucking minute. Oh, and there's a buffet and a free bar. Yes, he would have loved this."
"Sorry. I only meant -"
"How's Kiyomi, Yagami?" Mikami asks me. Mikami is one of the pallbearers because someone pulled out at the last minute, protesting a bad back, and Mikami's dressed like a pallbearer and vaguely knew Finance on a friendly level. We stand under the marquee, but far over the the side by a slit in the tent so that we can watch the drizzling rain over the perfectly mown lawn. My security took over this entire funeral, so the occasion is now considered safe. Everyone has been groped at least once, apart from me.
"Doing pelvic floor exercises," I answer moodily.
"What's that when it's at home?"
"I don't want to know, so I haven't asked. Is my jacket creased at the back?"
"No, it looks great. What's that, linen?"
"Silk and linen. Sixty/forty."
"Nice. Pelvic floor... What could that be? Must be code for something. Pelvis on the floor? Maybe it's putting a pillow underneath their arse when they're lying down, y'know. I've heard of that. Works a charm, seriously. Have you tried it?"
"It's the oldest trick in the book, Mikami."
"Is it? Maybe it's that then. Maybe it's been rebranded. I'll text Naomi, she'll know. It must be something to do with sex. I heard that some women go mad, proper nympho after they have a baby because of the abstaining and hormones and stuff. Did you abstain? Are you missing out right now?"
I find this conversation hard to stomach. I feel myself look at him like I've just discovered a confusing new species of deep sea creature which defies the laws of nature.
"She's just had a caesarian."
"No sex then? Nothing at all?"
"You guys are so funny," Touta giggles to himself. "Hey, is that the caterer coming back? I was worried. I thought they'd gone."
"Nothing like a funeral to make you appreciate what you've got, eh?" Mikami smirks. "I always feel kind of renewed after a funeral. I never want to go to them because they're such a waste of time, but I'm always glad that I did afterwards."
"Free lunch."
"Not exactly for that reason, no."
"The only people who like funerals are old people," Touta says. "Have you noticed?"
"Ha, yeah. I think it becomes a competition at the end. 'Who'll live the longest? You decide.' That sort of thing. Did you see that old woman in the back row? The one with the pugs, and she cried all the way through? I asked, and she's some crazy from the village. Didn't even know him; just goes to every funeral to cry."
"I don't get people sometimes."
"You'll be like her one day, Touta. Crying in the back row with your pugs."
"Lay off, Teru. I don't know what there is to like about funerals. They depress me. What do you think, Light?"
"Death is an aphrodisiac," I say, looking at the rolling expanse of grass which is so intensely green after the terrible weather lately that it almost hurts my eyes. It's only after I've spoken and it's met by silence that I realise that perhaps it wasn't the right thing to say.
"Come again?"
"It makes you want to have sex. No? Ok. What's with the Pavarotti?" I ask. A seamless change in topic. We're being treated to a dose of opera over the sound system which is blaring all over the grounds. This is a very exclusive funeral location and I can't understand why our ears are being assaulted.
"Sato liked opera, apparently," Mikami tells me. "His cousin was going to sing, but she shattered a couple of glasses so they decided against it. I know what you mean about the sex thing though. Sex and death. It makes you evaluate your life and, I don't know, funerals make me want to book a holiday or do something stupid, like propose, but they do make you think. I don't know where I'd be without you lot. If I hadn't gone into politics, I'd probably still be some boring, second-rate lawyer harping on about justice. Politics saved my life, it really did. You ok? You look tired."
"I'm bored." I do not look tired. I slept better than Sato did in his coffin, probably.
"Thinking about Nakamura, I bet."
Nakamura was in the Cabinet Office and died yesterday afternoon. She died in the House, but since no one is allowed to die in the House, she officially died at hospital. She was completely useless, being in favour of devolution, which is crackpot, but she was one of the recognisable female faces of the cabinet because she'd been here so fucking long, so she was good to keep around. Since I became Prime Minister, I've increased the representation of women in my government. One of the major criticisms of The Lady was that she did nothing for her gender. I have taken the tax off sanitary towels and tampons because Kiyomi was moaning about it and Kiyomi represents women's interests, I suppose. Not that she can't afford the pay the tax, but I realise that it's a small concession for women on lower incomes. It says that I'm not penalising women for being women, and it's amazing what loyalty that inspired. The Lady inadvertently did a lot for women in getting the position that she did because it gave them hope of equality, but she preferred the company of men, had no time for feminism, constantly referred to women as homemakers, and did nothing to further other women's careers in the House.
Oh, I know what you're thinking. What about L? Dead, I'm afraid. I left him on the bed in the hotel and sent him a message five minutes after to act as a sort of alibi, which chastised him for interrupting an official meeting (in rooms provided by the state) for a shag with some man he pulled in off the street. L put me in a very difficult position and we would have to talk about it at a later date. Security picked me up and I reiterated what had happened and: 'L is very unprofessional and will get himself killed one of these days.' I haven't been contacted by the NPA yet and I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised - the chief is a friend of mine.
But the problem now is Nakamura dying. Yet another blow to my cabinet, because now her seat is empty and her death exacerbates the danger of her extracurricular activities being leaked to the press. I only heard about it a few days ago, and then she upped and died. Innocent until proven guilty, but still dead either way.
"Yagami?" Mikami prods me.
"Oh. Yes. Rotten luck."
"I heard about that! You were on the radio, Teru!" Touta says cheerfully. I heard him on a news report too. At first I thought that it was a bit early for him to be launched back into the spotlight, but on second thoughts, it's probably worked out for the best.
"Was I? Oh yeah, I was interviewed."
"I keep thinking about when I was asked about that article she wrote. 'Prime Minister, what do you think of your honourable colleague's paper promoting radical new policy: This Happy Land Free of Strife?' This Happy Land Full of Shite, more like. A complete waste of paper."
"Ha! God, yeah, that was shit. You handled it like a pro. What did you say again?" he asks. I am a pro. I couldn't be more pro. What the fuck does he mean by that?
"That the policies she was advocating would lead to a sustained state of systematic decline, and at best she was suggesting that the government's role was to oversee an orderly management of that decline. She missed out on the keyword of government, and basically, she wanted us to distrust wealth and capitalism, tend crops and sheep, and live in the fucking Shire like those hobbity people instead. Of course, I couldn't say it in those terms; it wouldn't look good to point out the deficiencies of my own MPs. I said something about how our anti-volacity mechanisms will maintain stability after the property boom, so there's no need for defeatism. We have a wealth of usable political history to refer to in creating policies - what works, what doesn't - but still people think that they've thought of something new which will revolutionise the world. They should leave that to people who are more able, because nine times out of ten it's a load of shit."
"Thought the same myself."
The woman from the Attorney General's Office who's fancied me for years is wandering around with no clear destination in mind and says: "Prime Minister," to me softly as she passes by, like she's trying to imitate Marilyn Monroe after a fuckload of crystal meth. She always looks hurt when she sees me now, and I'm sure that she thought that I harboured some secret longing for her, and that in my despair about the House rules against romantic inter-work relationships, married Kiyomi instead. As it is, I can't even remember her name. I bow my head and thank God that she didn't stop.
"So she just died?" Touta asks once she's out of earshot. Mikami nods slowly. Some would say wisely, but I'm not one of those people.
"Dead before she hit the ground, the paramedic said."
"She was one of the only women The Lady allowed into the big leagues, wasn't she?"
"Yeah," I sigh. "The only one she promoted. And her seat was so safe that I never had to worry about it. It's a real pain."
"I wish I'd seen it."
"Touta, that's a very morbid and disrespectful thing to say. Rephrase."
"Um... I always miss these things?"
"Better, but you shouldn't express so much joy that someone's died. It's just not very polite. Try to keep it to yourself."
"What are you wearing for the funeral, Yagami?" Mikami asks me, giving me the once over again and taking a step away from me.
"I haven't thought about it much yet. She was from Himeji, so I thought I'd wear Kenzo."
"Why?"
"He's from Himeji. He's related to Kiyomi, actually. He's a Takada."
"Really?"
"Hmmm. Distantly related. He sold the business, but I have a suit from his final collection somewhere. It's not 'out there' or anything, I just haven't had an opportunity to wear it."
"Out there is good. News just in: the husband's setting a bright dress code."
"Shit. Really?"
"Only 'happy colours because she loved them so much'. What a fucking knob."
"I did mistake her for a parrot in a yurt once. No, that's ok. I have a turquoise mohair blend Kenzo two piece."
"Turquoise? Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"It was marketed as turquoise but the pantone colour is something more like... I don't know, a vivid navy." Accent stitching in grey throughout, notched lapel collar with buttonhole, two-button closure at front, slightly padded shoulders, welt pocket and flap pockets at front, vent at back seam, four-button sleeve cuffs, welt pockets at interior, fully lined, tonal stitching, slim-fit trousers, four-pocket styling, tapered at unhemmed ankle cuffs (a pig of a thing to get your feet through, actually, but worth it), partially lined, zip fly, 73% wool, 27% mohair. The lining is viscose and acetate though. You win some, you lose some. "Kiyomi said that I should wear blue, isn't that funny? Because blue -"
"Isn't a funeral colour."
"No, not at all. I have it in green too but I think that's too much. I don't want to go mad. And they were both made in France so I don't think that's appropriate, considering."
"Why? Will you look like the Moulin Rouge?"
"Mikami, don't try to be funny, it doesn't suit you. I just think that for a funeral I should wear Japanese, unless I can think of a reason to make it sound like there's some meaning in me wearing something French-made."
"She used to holiday in France."
"Oh! Perfect," I say, but my happiness is short-lived because Mihael's rolling up. "Fuck. Hell's angel is here."
"And he's bringing... what's his name. From Culture."
"Oshiro. He only wants Finance," I laugh, and Touta and Mikami share in it. "You should read the application he sent me. It had a fucking cover letter."
"Oh my God."
"I know. Two pages. I was thinking: 'Hello, 1995!' because you should see the typeface and the layout – fuck! Home office job, y'know? Windows Stone Age or something and a Packard Bell printer. It was really funny until I realised that he expected me to read it," I say increasingly under my breath as Mihael and Oshiro draw closer. "Oh, hi, Mihael! How are you doing? And why are you here?"
"PR," he answers, the monosyllabic pretty boy twat. Looks like he's lost his visual kei bandmates and now he's just lost.
"Of course," I smile, then accept Oshiro's desperate yet still repulsively arrogant bow. "Oshiro, thanks for coming."
"Prime Minister. I thought you'd be too busy with Mrs Yagami and your new baby to be here. What have you called him again? Shiny?"
"Kira, with the character for light. It was my wife's choice."
"Women, eh?" he nudges me. "I can't stand babies. Get a nanny, send him to boarding school as soon as you can and good luck, that's all the advice I can give you. I'd say that it gets easier but it doesn't, they just cost more."
You know what I can't fucking stand? People who think they're amazing and that their opinions and advice are wanted, but they can't even manage to form a good skincare regime. Almond oil is an excellent cleanser. It's a great all-rounder, actually, so there's no excuse. I noticed a difference after two weeks, but then, I use organic. People make mistakes with exfoliants and alkaline products which completely unbalance the natural Ph of the skin and act as a breeding ground for bacteria. There's cleansing dead cells away and there's ripping your face off with apricot hulls, and who thinks that that's a good idea? Oshiro obviously does. Broken capillaries, the works. I'm not holy in my skincare routine, because, frankly, life's too short and I was naturally endowed with skin which doesn't need much upkeep beyond the most basic. I only do what I do now for the anti-ageing benefits so that one day I'll thank myself. It's too easy to get complacent. The list is to cleanse twice a day, do not smoke, get a source of vitamin D from natural sunlight in moderation, SPF, sugar is evil, don't eat shit, take supplements, avoid dairy, avoid alcohol, and use quality skincare which doesn't foam (you get what you pay for) – then you'll be fine. I do most of those things but I won't let it rule my life. This man has no idea and doesn't do one thing right, I can tell that just from looking at him. His wife doesn't care enough about him, obviously, but judging by her, she smothers herself in 'warm beige' masonry paint every morning, so what can you expect? Kiyomi has made snide comments about her brutal eyeliner before, but I like to try to think the best of people until they prove themselves to be idiots. I don't normally have to wait too long.
"Ha, yeah," I say. "He's only a week old but I'll keep your advice in mind. Nice suit. Those budget brands are really pulling out all the stops lately, aren't they." Hole in one!
"I'll leave the fashion parade to you young ones. This one's a classic. Seen me right through from my first House funeral in '87." He pulls open the jacket to demonstrate that it was crap in 1987 and still is today.
"It's in fine condition. You might like to get that lining looked at though. I could pass on my tailor's number on to you, if you want. I'm sure that he could do... something with it."
"That'd be great," he says. A muscle twangs in his jaw like a shamisen and I've never felt as perfect as I do now. I want to kettle moments like this and dip into them like books. "Thank you, Prime Minister."
"Not a problem. It's just nice to see that Sato's funeral is so well attended."
"Oh yeah, I mean, he was a terrible minister, but a good laugh. He said to me once that the only people who say 'no comment' are murderers and politicians. Isn't that hilarious? Completely deadpan, y'know? One of those quirky buggers. Hahahahaha!"
"Hahahahahahahhahaha!" He's an absolute dickhead shitting royal cunt.
"Anyway, I just wanted to say hello before I leave. Don't suppose that you've had time to read my application for old Sato's post, have you?"
"I'm afraid not, but you will be considered."
"Brilliant. I'm a people person, you wouldn't regret it. I work best on my own and as part of a team. I'm just really the best man for the job, ask anyone, but I think my record speaks for itself. You have my number. Got to go now. I'd stay, but I have lunch booked at The Blue Note. Nice to see you though, Prime Minister."
"And you. Thanks, Oshiro."
"What a dick," Mikami whispers to me, leaning in towards my ear just as Oshiro waddles away and the stick-on smile is ripped off my face.
"Doesn't have a cat in hell's chance. I'd rather promote a cat than him."
"I'm worried about this dress code for Nakamura's funeral now," Touta says, stroking the back of his neck. "I never know what to wear to these things anyway and I only own black suits."
"No one will take any notice of you, Touta. You wear your black suit."
"I'm wearing black," Mihael informs us all. What a surprise.
"You're invited?" Touta exclaims. "But you're just a PA!"
"Fuck you, Matsuda. I'm representing PR."
"I better send a memo to make sure that nobody clashes," I decide. At least I should warn people not to treat this bizarre dress code as an excuse for fancy dress and play right into the press' hands. "But she clashed with herself all the time. Maybe everyone should clash as a loving tribute?"
"Polka dots," Mikami says. "She wore a lot of dot things."
"Who was she again?" Touta asks.
"Cabinet Office," I reply.
"She should never have worn red," Mikami continues, though we're not listening to him.
"She was one of those eccentric types," I tell Touta.
"Just made her look like a beef tomato," Mikami concludes. "Oh hell, look who it is."
It's L. Yes, I might have exaggerated. I haven't heard from him since yesterday, so I almost convinced myself that he was dead - he might as well have been. Anyone else would have done the decent thing and died, but L absolutely refused. And I might have changed my mind about that kind of emotional outburst, because although effective, killing someone isn't the best way of resolving conflict. I left immediately, leaving him pushing the pillow off his face, gasping for air on the bed like a dying fish and tentatively touching his neck. That was the last I saw of him while I took steps back like a murderer, staring at what I'd nearly done. He still looks a mess twenty-four hours later, I can see his split lip from here. Back to the loose, hardly-worth-mentioning suits of yore just to piss me off, and he slouches over to us, smiling at the floor like the shit that he is. I try to remind myself of why I liked him enough to waste four years on him, liked him enough to want to kill him and that I actually felt betrayed and hurt by him, but it's difficult. When he looks like he's been pulled out of bed by a crane and dressed by a two year old, it really is hard to remember. Temporary loss of sanity, I think. Utter desperation for a confidant on my wavelength and perhaps some ill-placed gratitude. And he's a really good fuck - that might count for something. I am but human.
"Yo," Mihael says to L as he joins our party, holding his hand up to be smacked, I presume. Mihael still thinks that we're in the early '90s, clearly. If someone did that to me, I'd probably punch them in the face, but sadly we can't always act as we would wish to. I've never understood this father/son showmance thing they have, but I'm 99.9% sure that if I wasn't around, L would be all over Mihael like a rash.
"Good afternoon, Mihael," L replies, ignoring his waiting hand to pat him on the shoulder instead like he's dealing with a mentally-ill patient who must be softly appeased. "Gentlemen," he nods to everyone. "Prime Minister, may I possibly cadge a fag?"
After a second of silence, Touta laughs sharply, cutting himself off by slapping his hand over his mouth. Everyone sighs.
"A cigarette, I should say," L continues. "For the benefit of some of our more immature colleagues."
"You're not allowed to smoke inside," Touta tells him almost smugly. I am silently horrified by how raspy L's voice sounds. I did that; I must have. After noticing my thumbprint on his throat, I pull out my cigarette case in a daze.
"Technically, I'm outside," he says, all good humour and fingers, touching my hand more than the lighter which I'm offering him out of politeness. I end up throwing it at his chest and roll my eyes back inside the marquee. "Lovely having a bit of 'Nessun Dorma', isn't it. Shame that the CD keeps skipping. 'Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me; il nome mio nessun saprà! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!' for about five minutes," he laughs, shaking his head with each 'no' and wrapping one arm around his chest to support his cigarette hand. In L's universe, this inane babble is the equivalent of starstruck blushing, tripping over a bucket and walking into a door. Is he actually awkward? Is he nervous because of me? Good. "Hasn't anyone noticed?" he continues. "Oh no, we're stuck on 'Die! Die! Die! Die!' now. No such luck with that Monty Python song they played before."
"God, what happened to you?" Mikami asks, pointing at the thumbprint clearly seen above L's collar. A split lip is acceptable if it's an isolated injury and could be caused by anything from your everyday accident to dry lips, but the whiteness of his shirt acts like a frame and a white wall to emphasise the bruising on his neck so that he looks like one of those beaten and mugged old people you see in the papers. Of course he'd show it off. I'm only surprised that he didn't wear a mandarin collar so he could display the whole thing. He immediately smiles and attempts to pull up his collar, but he's loving this - humiliating me privately by showing off his war wounds. Part of me is proud of it, because he has to live with that and give various lies to everyone who asks him about it, and everyone should know what a bastard he is. In retrospect, I could easily have knocked him out and strangled him in peace if I pressed on his carotid artery, but I forgot about that trick at the time. I'm so disappointed in myself. I made a complete hash of it.
"Oh, nothing," he says. "You should have seen the other guy, as they say. I've never seen someone leave a room so fast."
"Fucking hell," Mihael gasps, pulling down L's collar to reveal the ring of deep red and purplish bruising around his throat. Suddenly I regret nothing again as I glance over his throat passively; only that I didn't finish the job. L swats Mihael's hand away and pulls up the collar again.
"It looks impressive, doesn't it?" he says, turning to Touta and his horrified, open-mouthed face, "I play rough," he offers in explanation to shock him further, blowing out a cloud of smoke. "Have you ever seen something and knew that it was bad for you and that it would probably kill you, but you had to tap it anyway because that's half the reason you like it in the first place? That's me. I'm sorry, Prime Minister. I'm every nasty homosexual stereotype going. People are burning effigies of me all along the Bible Belt. Do you really want someone like me working for your government?"
No, I don't. I shouldn't. I'm trying to eradicate corruption in the House and I idolise the most corrupt person in the building. What the fuck is wrong with me? I'm kneecapping myself.
"You should get a shirt with a taller collar," I say. "I've got one in my office that you can borrow."
"How kind of you to offer, but I was getting fond of the myriad of colours. I saw a scarf just like it once."
"Missoni?"
"Possibly," L replies before dragging on his cigarette as some woman wails over the sound system. "Oh, Maria Callas. Christ, pass me the razor blades. So, abuse is ok as long as it's hidden from sight? Typical politician."
"Who was it this time?" Mikami asks, losing interest quickly.
"Some temperamental nut," he says. I've now completely detached myself from any involvement in L's weird and no doubt well-deserved assault. "I thought about reporting him, but I'd quite like to see him again."
"Why?"
L puffs on his cigarette like it's a remedy for the affliction, appears to ponder the question and decides on the most insubstantial of answers. "Nothing means more to me," he explains. Like that's supposed to make me forgive everything and fall into the nearest bed.
"I don't understand," Touta confesses. He must be permanently confused, like someone in the most severe and foggy stages of senility. "After he did that to you?"
"You'll get yourself killed one of these days," I say to L lazily. I could hardly care if he did. It's a strange position to be in, knowing that if someone called me to say that he'd been killed in a sexually motivated crime, I wouldn't be surprised at all. Not a bit.
"So you said in your text message yesterday. Oh, but I do hope so," he tells me, looking for all the world like the bruises are only proof of a good time being had. "I won't be happy unless I die in suspicious circumstances and an inquiry into my death is held and splashed all over the papers. I'm just sad that my father won't be around to see it."
"Yes, I'm sure that he would have loved it. Well, you're on the right track, if that's what you're after."
"You should go to the police, Lawliet," Mikami says. Under normal circumstances, I'd agree, but this is L and he deserved it. L takes another laugh-ridden intake on his cigarette, looks at the floor briefly, and my hands ball into fists, so I stuff them into my trouser pockets. I expect that that this action makes it look like I don't condone his behaviour but I'm concerned about him, when in fact I'm itching to press on his carotid artery.
"Yes," he smiles, looking at me. His eyes are pornographic and dying for round two as the smoke dances around him, but I am unaffected. "But, as I said, I'd quite like to see him again. He's a bit like really good crack. Sometimes you wonder why you like it, but you can't face a day without it. He's a good-looking motherfucker and not without his virtues. I don't know, I can't explain it," he says, giving up with a shake of the head. "So, I hear that that mad woman in the Cabinet Office has died. What was it this time? Stroke?"
"Yeah," Touta nods excitedly. "In the House, just outside the Chamber. Mikami saw it."
"Really? Was it gruesome?"
"Nah," Mikami says with a laugh. "Actually, a bit. She cracked her head on the base of that statue of The Lady as she went down."
"How fitting."
"Shit," Touta gasps. No, that aspect of her death is not common knowledge, nor will it ever be.
"Yeah. Couldn't stand her," Mikami confesses, and L turns to him like the louche bastard he is.
"Oh, you heard the rumours?"
"What rumours?" Touta asks.
"Ah. Sorry," L smiles. "That's confidential."
"Kiddy fiddler, I heard," Mikami says. God, everyone knows. "Weird for a woman, isn't it? What would she get out of it?"
"Not so confidential then. Yes, she had some ring going. Her husband runs a children's home outside Himeji and she took photos and spread them around, enabled visitors for a fee, you know how these things work. Obviously, this is in confidence, though I couldn't help it if you felt the need to tell a journalist anonymously. Perhaps bear in mind though that the ring is made up of a lot of MPs from your party, and, with a local election there looming, we want to retain that seat and the PM's majority, don't we. That's my latest PR nightmare. We're having a whale of a time, aren't we, Mihael?"
"Yeah, it's great," Mihael says, looking like he's just been told that he has three weeks to live. Touta is probably the only civil servant who's fairly well informed on matters of state that don't concern him, but even after years of working for the government, he's always shocked at new revelations.
"God, you think you know someone."
"You never met her Touta," I remind him. She looked like the clown from that Stephen King novel. If they find children buried under that place, I wouldn't be surprised about that either. Unfortunately, this whole thing could lead to dissolution. I've thought of leaving it as a parting gift when I resign, citing my lack of faith in the government as a reason for me leaving. This reminds me that despite writing L off as dead to me, I'm still planning to resign and that hasn't wavered. When something like this is revealed, I despair of the whole institution. The best thing that could happen now is that someone destroys the House, the Kantei, and starts again from scratch, but it won't be me. All of my career, I've longed for a coup - a vote of no confidence - so that I can show my true colours, but history tells us that nothing really changes.
"Maybe that's why she wore all those bright colours: to attract them. Like an ice cream van," Touta muses to himself. I notice L staring at me, letting his cigarette waste down to a ashy Tower of Pisa between his fingers. I feel like I've been watched and seen, that my inner thoughts and my despondency is open for everyone but only L really sees, if he sees anything at all apart from a look on my face which he finds attractive or interesting, whatever. I'm a cattle market because of my damn face and his damn eyes.
"And what are your thoughts, Prime Minister?" he asks me. I wish he wouldn't speak to me. I wish he wouldn't look at me. I wish he'd fuck off.
"No loss."
"That's my boy," he smiles back at me, his voice suddenly soft with affection. You wouldn't think that I'd tried very hard to kill him yesterday. My mind flashes back to the last time he called me that, which wasn't exactly pleasant, and he's such a shit for disarming me in public. "The curse is back and rotten people are dropping like nine pins. Useful for you though, isn't it? Didn't you say that you wanted her out?"
"Yes, I did, but at the right time and without all this ring stuff being made common knowledge. Mikami, come to my office at nine on Monday."
"Sure."
And I leave the group with no fanfare and am nearly home and free until L calls after me so that I have no choice but to answer him or keep walking and therefore draw attention to myself. "What?" I ask. He says nothing. Now they're all looking at me. "What do you want, L?"
"A moment of your fucking time, por favor."
I have no verbal reply to that. I have nothing apart from a dream of my fist hitting his face until his eyes are swollen shut. A fist in his ribs so he can't breathe without being reminded of me. I want to break every bone in his body and delight in the cracking and splintering and until it becomes just ambient noise. But I walk away and hear his shoes crunch on the gravel behind me as I leave the marquee, roughly aiming for the tiny building where the coffin is kept, and where, after the coffin is buried, we'll all stand around and make speeches in between stuffing ourselves with bite-sized hors d'oeuvres.
"Don't talk to me," I say, not sure if he's still behind me as I walk across the lawn. I could be saying it to the whole world, the sentiment still applies. I keep my eyes down, but still see people turn to watch me move past them, and I wonder what they think in their little minds. When they see me, what do they think? I don't want to know. I present an image I've honed over a lifetime and they'll see what I present to them. It doesn't matter.
"I don't chase after anyone," L tells me loudly, contradicting his own statement by running up beside me. "Stop trying to make me look like an imbecile."
"You don't need any help with that. And before you start, I have to tell you that there's no point."
"Thanks, but I'll ignore you, if you don't mind. I think, all things considered, that I have more reason to be angry with you than you do with me."
"'That's my boy'?"
"Well, you are, aren't you? Don't worry, you're still safe because my lips are sealed. How's life in the closet treating you these days?" he asks. I walk more quickly, forcing him to rush to keep up with me. "Ok, I'll share some responsibility. I'm sorry, just... fucking stop, will you?" says, grabbing hold of my arm. I feel my eyes burning as I look at him and how he thinks he can manhandle me, but he soaks it up. "In here," he directs me, opening the door to the building like a warden during a bombing. "Get in here now, or do you want me to drag you in? I'll make a scene, and you wouldn't want a scene, would you?"
Only because, no, I never want a scene, my suit's getting damp, the rain plays havoc with my hair, and because there's nowhere else for me to go, I walk inside. He follows me, closes the door, and I realise that we're in the same room as the coffin. Open coffin. Bad decision. He wasn't much to look at when he was alive.
"What is it?"
"Don't you think that we should talk?" he asks.
"No."
"Well, bear with me. I don't think that we had a chance to speak of it yesterday because of the attempted murder, but a little bird told me that you're planning a merger of the security services."
"Who told you that?"
"Naomi via Mikami. You should be careful who you speak to."
Fucking Mikami and Naomi. Stephen will know then. In a way, I hope that he does, the little shit.
"Mikami's helping me look into it," I say.
"I wouldn't trust him to look into my letterbox, but each to their own. So, it's true then? Do you think that's wise?"
"I wouldn't propose it if I didn't. It's my belief that corruption is endemic, so I'm cleaning the stables."
"If this gets out, you'll be dead within a fortnight."
"I'm going to prosecute senior figures in the intelligence establishment for corruption. I'd be disappointed if they didn't try to kill me before my changes become irreversible."
"It's not funny. Are you trying to kill yourself? Don't fuck with Intelligence, Light. You leave them alone and they'll leave you alone."
"That's not the kind of superficial authority I want to have. Yes, I'm going to blow the whole thing open: our intelligence, foreign intelligence, our government, foreign governments. They won't like my policies, no, because I want integration, a truly united and honest nation, a stronger economy, a country which will not answer to anyone else."
"It sounds like you want to join NATO or something. You just want to join the club."
"There's a small problem of the North Atlantic standing in the way, but yes, I think that they should make me an exception. I want stronger international relations and respect. I have a lot to offer the alliance, my country has. You know why NATO was set up? To keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down, it's that fucking antiquated. But we're not even taken seriously. I want a say on security measures, defence and deployment which might affect my country's trade. I want a say on intervention, when and if it's necessary."
"You're the Prime Minister of Japan, you're an ally already."
"Ally means nothing. They'll turn on allies. I'm a world leader and I should be seen as such by those bastards. I'm not a lap dog who'll bow down to sheer numbers and fucking Western shit."
"Welcome to the world, Light."
"No, it's not fair."
"Again, welcome to the world. Enjoy your stay."
"Shut up. They won't pick on their own, nor will they nose around in our business. But first we have to be respected. Make them come to me. I have something to offer them and they should fucking see that, so a major reform is one stone, many birds to kill."
"Is this about Stephen?"
"Yes, L. The future of my country is all about Stephen."
"No, because the CIA were over here. That's what's set you off."
"It highlighted an issue which I was aware of anyway. I am not trusted when I should be."
"Light, this is all too much, too soon. You won't do it in time. These things take years and, you know, you could hammer your head against a closed door for years and no one will answer."
"Thanks for your vote in confidence. Well, it's not like I have a choice, do I? I'm fast tracking. Thank you, L. Do you think that anyone else will or could do it? No. Those in the best position are those who are so embedded that even if we're not heard, we're at least a step ahead. Why should my impact be limited to Japan? It's ridiculous. There are a lot of things I want to change. The longer I'm here, the more I find. I want to leave an impression. When my name is mentioned, I want it to be alongside reform and greatness."
"It's not just you though, Light. Don't test your cabinet and run stridently, expecting them to follow. Expecting to be protected by a shield of MPs and security who you know are not truly loyal to you is madness. You're not invincible. Waging war against your own secret services simply because you're an knobhead aggressor and determined to take all this on as a personal attack is madness and it will kill you."
"Bullshit."
"Aaaaand you don't listen."
"Who should I listen to, L? My advisors, my cabinet, the people, or you? I don't need to listen to anyone. The people put me here to make decisions on their behalf, and that is what I have done and it's what I'll continue to do."
"Consensus isn't even a word for you, is it. You're a one man band."
"Consensus doesn't lead to decision making. Someone has to make clear decisions. Offer them up with yes and no answers and steer things so the right decision is made."
"Decisions which are unwise and unpopular."
"Which are best for the country - for the people. They need a strong leader."
"Well, they've certainly got that. You don't even like people. I don't understand you. But I suppose that's it then. I never could beat any sense into you, could I. You've always done exactly what you wanted."
"I didn't expect to be harangued about my policies and ministerial style. I thought you'd want to talk about..."
"Oh, this?" he asks, pulling down his collar and clicking his tongue. "There didn't seem like much point. You made your position clear as glass when you strangled me. Oh, and tried to smother me for good measure. Speaks volumes, that. I take my life in my hands every time I talk to you."
"You slept with Stephen, L. The fucking enemy. I thought that maybe you would show some loyalty. Who knows why I thought that."
"For your information, I didn't sleep with Stephen. The only thing I had from him was some bloody awful coffee, and if you weren't such a cunt then I wouldn't have said that I did sleep with him, but it was what you wanted to hear."
"I don't care if you did or you didn't."
"Liar. It's been eating you up inside."
"There's very little sustenance to be had. You were phoning Kiyomi and you have no reason or right to blackmail me."
"Yes I do. Never forget who you're playing with here, Light. Call me fire. I'm sure that you think that you can string me along in exchange for the occasional fuck in a hotel, and that might have worked for you with some people, but not me. I don't even think that you care about that. You just want to keep me on side."
"It's not like that at all," I say, my face downturned. I'm misunderstood again. No understanding, no attempt to see things from my perspective, just a judging, cowardly bastard. Said bastard leans right in towards my face and crosses his arms.
"I don't see this last bill coming any time soon. You haven't even passed the last one, and I don't hear your whips drumming up business, so it probably won't. Then you'll say that it doesn't count, you still have two goes, and in five years time you'll still be promising me the world and delivering nothing. Now you're talking about reforming this and that and I'd rather cut all of it out so, y'know, I can do other things. Meanwhile, you're playing happy families with your wife. You can't knob her, surely? Not right after a baby – it must be all ground beef down there. Are you using the back door? Because that's disgusting."
"Oh my God, how can you say it's disgusting? You're fucking gay and your back door's always open with a free pass for subscribers."
"But... it's Kiyomi."
"So? Anyway, what Kiyomi says to Naomi isn't reality, and we're too old for this jealousy shit."
"Nevertheless, I better see some progress soon," he tells me, but stops when I laugh in amazement, because I'm sure that he'd continue and lay down the law to me otherwise. Fucking unbelievable. "Fine, laugh at me. I just wanted to make sure that you know that Stephen and me... no."
"Maybe I can act as some consolation to you then? Is that what you're thinking?" I ask, feeling my mouth sneer and curl.
"You're not a consolation prize to me. I don't want anyone else, but, well, we're a mess."
"Nothing new there."
"I know that, dipshit. I just want to sort it out because it shouldn't be like this. Don't you see the shift in things though? Overnight. It wasn't brilliant, but for a few weeks, we were ok. Now Kiyomi's out of hospital, you're over there, you won't talk about anything to me, and we're right back where we were. I shouldn't feel like I come second or wherever you can fit me in with your schedule. I knew it'd be like this. I'm not surprised, just disappointed."
"I thought that you'd know. It's difficult. I can't split myself in two, L. I have to be there. It's not where I would choose to be. I'd be with you, obviously," I say, shrugging my shoulders, more because of my disappointment in myself.
"No, not 'obviously'."
"L, we're not going to do this 'I love you' shit again, are we?"
"No, but there's a breakdown in communication and it's all your fault, I have to tell you. I, yes, I could not be more supportive of you - fucking wonder, I am – but you should make sure that I know where I stand with you because... I don't know!" He throws his hands in the air and lets them drop to his sides in defeat. "I've never known. I should know without being told, shouldn't I? I don't, Light. I don't. To me, it just feels like you got what you wanted, you ruined my life, so now I'm being pushed out again so you can be all pally with Kiyomi and Light Yagami mk.2. Especially when I heard about this secret service reform, which is fucking mad. Why didn't you talk to me about it or at least ask my opinion?"
"Because that's my business, not yours. Me - politician. You - arsehole. And you should know where you stand, yes, but it's not my fault if you don't know. I could tell you twenty times a day and you'd find some other reason not to believe me. I'm not your dad, L."
"You think this is about my father?" he asks, apparently shocked.
"I think that you never knew where you were with him and now that he's gone you're passing it onto me."
"That's some godawful Freudian shite you've got going there. My father might have been a lot of things, but he never tried to kill me. That's a seriously mixed message. What am I supposed to think? Because I'm lost, really. After you left, I thought: 'Why am I letting him do this to me.' If you were anyone else, I'd kill you -"
"You pushed me, L. If you were anyone else and my thumbs were working properly at the time, I would have killed you. Look, I... I think that if we talk at the moment, we should talk on the phone or keep it to work. What about Nakamura?"
"Fuck Nakamura, she's dead. You know, I don't expect this to make any difference to you, but I had a dream the other night. I was on a plane, the engines failed and the plane was falling. I knew that I was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it. Some man was telling me to stand over the wings of the plane because that's the strongest part, but I was saying: 'No, that's also where the fuel tank is, you idiot. I have to get to the tail and push some people out of the way!' Everyone around me was phoning people and crying and saying how much they loved them. I phoned you. You didn't answer."
"That's a really shit story. I don't even believe that you had that dream, and even if you did, that's a fucking awful thing to say."
"Yeah," he sighs, like I've burst his balloon. "I thought you'd think that."
"What is that supposed to mean anyway?"
"I was dying, I phoned you and you didn't answer. I don't know, we might need a dream interpreter for this one. Maybe not. When I needed you, you didn't answer. I was thinking of you looking at your phone knowing that it was me and sending me to voicemail because you were in a meeting talking to some twat from Transport."
"In your dream, L."
"Dream you is a dick. Real life you is a dick. That's what I'm trying to say."
"That's completely unfair. When have I not answered your calls? This isn't about your dreams and whatever you're trying to say. Am I supposed to apologise because in your dream I didn't answer the phone, or am I supposed to accept this as an excuse for why you spoke to fucking Stephen?"
"You told me to speak to him."
"Speak, yes, in a crowded place. YOU!" I shout, jabbing my finger in his chest. "You were laughing with him."
"No, I -"
"Hawhawhawww, Stephen you're so funny!" I laugh as a fairly good impression of L, I must say. "But you'll come running back, 'Oh, Light, he's so boring but he cooks, what am I to do? Blah blah.' I don't know how you can bear to look at him. His eyes are all... blue."
"I'm not even slightly interested in fucking him. Or you right now for that matter, because you try to kill me after I do. You're such a baby, spitting your dummy out and knocking your cot over and throwing up on my shoulder because - oh my God - I actually spoke to another person. For you, I might add. So, what's your reaction? You stalk me and try to kill me. Back to old favourites. I can't be trusted because no one can be trusted. You against the world and you're fucking furious about it, but it's what you know, it's what you're comfortable with. You like thinking that everyone's lying to you and you're underestimated and undervalued, but not by me, Light. I know what you are and I love you like no one else does, to the point where I start to think that I don't mind if I'm the one who's undervalued by you. I'm bloody used to it, everyone does that to me, I've made it useful, but you undervaluing me and not believing me is... I don't like it. I can't stand it. Just listen to me. I'll always be on your side, no matter what you do. Isn't that obvious? You should trust me, whatever I say. You should value me, like you did, but that was only when I wasn't speaking to you, because you don't know what you have until it's not there anymore. Do you think that I'd put up with all your shit if there wasn't something really wrong with me? Because there is something really wrong with me - I love you, you stupid fuck."
Oh.
"I didn't stalk you," I mumble. "I was driving and pulled over to make a few calls. "
"Right where my car was parked. I thought you had a meeting with Watari, but evidently nothing gets in the way of your stalking. You don't need to drive anymore. Why do you insist on driving? It's a security hazard. Big fucking security hazard!" he says, waving his hands. "'Hello, I'm the person who's taxing you to death. Shoot me.' That's what you're saying when you're driving around the way you do. You're asking to get killed."
"If you'd told me what you were doing instead of just pissing off for clandestine meetings and coffee and fuck knows what you were doing, none of this would have happened. And I'm going insane because I don't get a minute to myself. This is hard. Fuckwits at work want my time, journalists want my time, Kiyomi wants my time, my parents want my time, you want my time, and my security guards want to follow me around all the time. Somewhere in there I have to be a prime minister and - ah - wonderful - I'm a father now, so there's another drain on my resources and time."
"You give him your time?"
"No, but he costs a shitload in nappies and formula and do you know how much live-in nannies cost? Fucking extortionate. How hard can it be to look after a baby? She drawing a surgeon's wage off me. And even she follows me, by the way. Either she fancies me or she wants my autograph, I can't tell which. Even when I go to have a fucking piss, people follow me."
"Oh boo hoo."
"You don't know what it's like, L."
"Excuse me, I've only been spending a great deal of my time dodging your security and paparazzi to get the little bit of time with you that I do get. But you asked for this, Light. You wanted it, I helped you. And now that you've got it, you're still not happy. Out of the way."
He pushes me away to grabs the chair which was next to me and wedges the back of it under the door handle. I watch him, completely mystified as to why he'd barricade us both in with a dead man.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"We're having an argument," he says. "Do really think I'm going to let someone interrupt when we're not finished?"
"They're going to want to take him soon, you know. To bury him."
"Well, they can wait. He can. At least if you kill me here it saves time for the funeral. You could just chuck me in with him."
He walks over to the coffin and gazes down into it - at Finance's plastic, bloated, orange, rosy-cheeked face. Soleil Tan de Chanel, I think. Kiyomi uses it sometimes. A little goes a long way and whoever's made Sato up must be colourblind or he's been left out in the sun, because I don't remember him having a tan like that when he was alive. I join L out of morbid curiosity and we both look at the terrible job the mortician has made of what was once Finance and wonder why they bothered. Why did any of us bother? L starts unwrapping a sweet in our silence, pops it in his mouth and chucks the wrapper between Finance's legs.
"Don't put wrappers in the coffin, L."
"That fucking dick? This is a waste of a good coffin. Nakamura next week though, God. I'm clearing up her legacy of shit and finding out some pretty awful things and paying people off and it makes me sick. Everyone should know what that woman was involved in, but no, we'll all turn up for her funeral, saying what a good person she was. And you're going to make a speech to that effect, because you're completely spineless."
"She's dead; that's enough for me. I don't need another scandal and inquiry right now. You're just overreacting again."
"I don't think so. I don't trust you and I'm really angry with you," he tells me, practically pinning me to the side of the coffin, which is on an already rickety-looking table underneath a tablecloth - the sort I've seen people use to paste wallpaper. Suddenly L loses all his ferocity and looks at his shoes, and I feel like I'm on some really fucked up and realistic haunted house roller coaster ride. "And I love you," he says sulkily. "You need to know that bit, because it explains the rest."
"Ditto," I reply. "Ok then."
"Is that it?" he asks.
"Um hm."
"I thought that you'd want to finish what you started. Just carry on, I really don't care anymore. You'd be doing me a favour."
"I didn't kill you for a reason. What could it be? Think."
"Because you were doing such a shit job of it? You left your umbrella with 'Light Yagami' on the handle and everything. I despair of you sometimes."
"That wasn't the reason."
"Lucky me. Well, you show your love in strange ways, but I knew that," he tells me, but I'm still looking at Finance until L nudges me. "Hey. I'm sorry that I'm a dickhead."
"You are a dickhead, but you're my dickhead," I say, and I can't help but smile when he laughs, then I grasp him into something which seems more platonic than anything else. I'm not a hugging person. L's not a hugging person. It's very awkward until he kisses my shoulder and it feels less like I'm seeing off someone I vaguely know at an airport.
"Don't leave me, Light. I'd give up everything for you. I would. That's why I don't understand you... you should be the same as me. I can't think straight."
"If this was as easy as walking out the door then I'd do it." I twist to kiss the side of his neck where it looks angry and hurt, and I can't believe that I was so fucking stupid. I think of Finance watching this from where he is now, wherever that is, seeing me in some crystal ball and when he turns around to tell someone, he's alone in a small room which doesn't have any doors or windows. That's what hell is to me. "I'm sorry."
"It doesn't hurt," he says, pulling away to hitch up his collar again, but I lean over to inspect it more closely. It's even worse under the collar. "Oooh, unless you do that," he cringes, pulling out of my reach and pawing at his eye. "God, I'm so tired. It's annoying."
"Go home."
"No, that's not it. You don't know, do you? You still have no idea."
"Give me an hour. As soon as they bury this guy and I give my speech, I'll drive you. I'm free after this."
"No, Stephen's there," he says, fading away, regretful that he told me. I look back at Finance and the wreaths of white flowers on the table behind him. "To get the rest of his things." He rubs his eye again after explaining and slouches only slightly, but loses several inches of height in doing so.
"Yeah."
"I wish that you'd believe me. I wish I could believe you... Well, better let them bury this fucker, I guess," he sighs, and somehow I feel like nothing has been said, no peace has been made, nothing's changed; anger has just turned to this resigned sadness instead.
"Wait a minute," I say, grabbing his arm before he moves away.
"I'm losing you, aren't I," he whispers. No, no, we're losing each other but I don't know what to say. I just don't want us to leave this place with him thinking that I don't care and with me thinking that he's hiding things from me in some conspiracy with Stephen which involves a lot of sex and nice words and bad coffee. I hate the idea, but if I had to make a choice between who would be saved and who would die, I'd choose L's life over everyone else's. I wouldn't even have to think about it, whoever was put against him. I'd be grateful for being able to make such an easy decision for an exchange.
"No... look, come over here."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
"You love me more than anyone else."
"Yes, I do. I don't even like anyone else."
All these promises uttered on whispering breaths make them as ephemeral as they feel to me right now. I can imagine resigning, telling Kiyomi, telling my family, going to court, L hiding the papers and the TV remote from me to create some isolation booth and endless holiday for me to live in which is free from real criticism, but it's almost nightmarish and something I keep thinking that I could avoid. I think it may be even worse than I imagine when it actually happens. That's the worst thing about it. But L, who's been trying to read me - a closed book – in silence for nearly a minute, eventually drops the loose hold he has on my hand to palm his forehead instead.
"Fuck, I can't believe you."
"You can believe me." I say, suddenly desperate to be believed by someone for the truth and not for some presentation that I want them to believe.
"No, you don't love anyone. You just like me a bit."
"More than a bit. Listen. Three months, max, and then... well, I'll be unemployed. Is Stephen leaving the country?"
"I told him that he should go."
"Good. Don't give him any reason to stay."
"I wasn't going to... I wish you trusted me."
"Give me a reason to trust you and maybe I would."
"You mean that I haven't?" he asks, and I see the anger in his eyes surge and change him, almost like he's been possessed, but it passes as quickly as it came. "No, I suppose that I haven't. But you know, every time your mouth moves I think that you're lying to me."
"Do some self-introspection, L. Think how I feel. I know that it's difficult now, but we've been through it before. I think once we take all these incidentals out of the equation then we'll be fine."
"Incidentals? Yes, we'll either be ecstatically happy or we'll get bored with each other. I know you worry about that. I worry about that. I think sometimes: 'God, I wish he'd relax and wear a t-shirt or something,' but then I think: 'No, I don't want him to do that because that's not him.' What if you do that and you become one of those boring people who make boats out of matchsticks?"
"A prisoner with a life sentence?"
"No."
"Stephen?"
"Light," he says, letting his head drop to one side as he rolls his eyes at me. "And I worry that you'll finish your career, break up your life and family and humiliate yourself in the press for nothing long term. Basically, I'm worried about you and I don't know why. I should worry about me."
"Well, I don't worry about any of that. I don't. If there's nothing for us to fight about and all the obstacles are gone, do you think we'll get bored? Do you really think that?"
"Maybe. I don't know. I'm not a steady relationship man, and I've never... I've never... well, kind of depended on anyone else. I mean, I usually hand the reins over to the other person and the only thing that changes is that I'll always have a plus one, you know? But you don't know how it's going to go and neither do I. I've been dumped in the Antarctic without a map here."
"Don't overcomplicate things before they've started. Anyway, we've been fucking around for a long time. I think we'll be ok."
"But it's never been steady," he says. "Steady as the fucking Titanic going down."
"I care more about you than I do about myself and I don't want to think that'll change," I admit, then push my hair off my forehead like I've just done twelves hours of hard labour in the blistering heat. "Ok, I worry about it, but somehow I think it'll be ok. I will make it ok. I'm not going to find anyone else like you, am I? You stay with me, or I'll fucking murder you. I won't be able to go back after this."
"You don't know how happy that makes me," he smiles. "Not the vision of my possible murder, since we did a rehearsal of that and it wasn't fun, but I believe you. I think it'll be ok. I'll just have to stop you from being bored, won't I. That should be easy enough. I'll hide your clothes so you'll have an Easter egg hunt every day."
"I won't need clothes then. Hide all my suits, I probably won't have any cause to leave the house for months."
"You'll find something else to do, Light. You're too special not to."
"There's always the backbenches again, until a local election and I lose my seat. Ever so slightly humiliating, but... I don't know."
"I don't think you'll lose it."
"Well, if I don't, I could be a foreign ambassador, maybe. They normally look after ex-PMs, even the ones who leave under a cloud."
"Yes! That's it. Optimism. Looking for alternatives. And there's always law. I've always thought that you'd be a great lawyer. I'd hire you like that," he tells me with a snap of his fingers for effect. "And it's not all nepotism, honestly. I'll phone Stephen and ask him to clear out by three. Can you swing it so you can stay at mine for the night?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"Good boy," he says, but his eyes lower to the floor until he's the epitome of sadness again.
"What's wrong now?"
"Nothing. I was just thinking that I look at things there and think how empty it is without you. I miss you when you're not there, because you're always here," he says, tapping his head. Oh God, this is getting a bit much for me. I think we're on the line of this becoming a scene in a film which Misa would star in. "When you're not there, it just makes me think of you more."
"You're not going to cry, are you?" I ask.
"I don't cry," he scowls. "I didn't cry when my father died or when the Berlin Wall fell, so I don't think that I'll cry over you now."
"Ok. As long as you don't. And I'm sorry for -"
"Not a word about it. I forgive you for trying to strangle me, but only because you looked like a centrefold while you were doing it."
"In Angry Men in Suits magazine?"
"Oh, you don't know the magazines I buy," he says, smiling as he leans in so our lips nearly touch as he speaks. I think about it, but no. I smile about it though and kiss him quickly. It's a nice idea.
"And I think it's time for me to go."
"You're leaving again?" he asks as I walk away. "Can we talk about the 'you always leaving' thing?"
"They're going to want to bury him soon." He needs a reminder, but he doesn't give up so easy. Nor does he see reason when reason doesn't compliment his agenda.
"Let's give him a send off then."
"And some men will be coming in here to get his body to bury him. Call Stephen and get him out of there because I'll be over there this afternoon and if he's there, there will be another funeral. And don't get needy. It's very unattractive," I tell him, pulling the chair from the door and opening it. The coast is still clear, thank God. I had visions of L and me hiding under that table.
"Are you really going to leave me like this?"
"L, you're always like this," I say tiredly, and close the door.
At four, I head over to L's using an unusual mode of transport. I'm prepared to peer through his window to find Stephen naked apart from a novelty apron, but thankfully that's not the case. I can't see L either though, so I call his phone, only to see him come out of his office inside the house. I'm in plain view standing outside the glass doors at the back of his house, but he wanders around, vacantly looking at his phone ring for a fairly long time before he answers it.
"Is he gone?"
"Yeah. Hello."
"I'm outside."
"What?" he asks and turns around to see me standing outside like a psycho in a horror film. "Oh. Hello."
"Could you... um," I say into the phone and point at the locked door. It takes him a moment, but he duly walks over and lets me inside.
"Sorry," he says, switching his phone off. "How did you explain this?"
"I just left. Borrowed Touta's car."
"You didn't have to, Light," he tells me, and watches me walk to his bedroom to check for signs of Stephen, or possibly Stephen himself. I don't find him there, but the bed isn't made.
"I know," I say, turning back to him with a smile. "I don't have to do anything. How are you feeling?"
"Like shit."
"Right. Early dinner?"
"Ok. I was going to order something in anyway."
"Yeah, do that."
"You're staying?"
"Kiyomi's spending the night at her mother's."
"Any particular reason?"
"She's ill. Her mother. She's dying, I hope. Her hips are fucked anyway. She'll be all titanium by the time she's finished."
"Many happy returns of the day."
"Thanks," I say. I wonder if I can keep my thoughts to myself, but then I find myself fighting against logic. L rarely makes his bed presentable in the morning or ever, unless someone does it for him. Me, probably Stephen did, or his housekeeper who sweeps up on Tuesdays. It doesn't mean that he's fucked anyone - it just means that he's a lazy, messy bastard. I decide to settle on this until I have more reason for suspicion, but then I go into L's bedroom and open the wardrobe to find a lot of Stephen's clothes still inside. I stare at them in amazement.
"He's coming back for those. His car was too full to take them today and he's short on storage space. They're things he doesn't wear anymore." L tells me. He sounds more weary than guilty and I want to believe him, though I have no cause to. Why doesn't Stephen hire a moving firm with storage like ordinary people? Does he have to do everything himself? He's probably whittling a house with lots of storage space at this very moment.
"He's still at Naomi's?"
"He hasn't decided whether he's going back to the US or not, but I've told him that he should. His grandmother isn't well. Can we not talk about him? What do you want to order?"
"I don't give a shit," I snap. My eyes drift over folded jeans. "Sorry. Anything."
"Don't make me choose, Light. You never like what I order."
"Is he taking his boat?" I ask.
"I don't know."
"You'd think that he'd want it. You gave it to him, didn't you?"
"Light -"
"I really fucking hate Stephen, L," I say, closing the wardrobe doors and force a smile when I turn back to him. "I'd like... yakitori, I think. Chicken."
"The swans are back. Can I interest you in one of those?" He smiles. I smile. "I'll order... something. Yakitori, I guess."
He leaves me in the bedroom, and after a few minutes, I follow the sound of his voice as he orders until I find him in the kitchen putting his phone on the counter.
"Thanks for coming over. This has been the worst day. The worst week, really," he says quietly and it slips easily into silence. I'm about to reply when my phone rings. I check it quickly and out of the corner of my eye I see him watching me while holding two plates in his hands, then I switch the phone off, putting it next to L's on the counter.
"Have you got any wine?" I ask.
"Who was that?"
"Security," I answer, then scan his empty wine rack before starting a grand-scale search. "L, you don't have any wine."
"Do they know where you are?"
"No. I'll call them in a while."
"It gets to you, doesn't it. Everyone needing to know where you are."
"It's not for much longer," I say, triumphantly holding up a bottle of champagne from the fridge. I'd say that he smiles but it's little more than one corner of his mouth lifting minutely. I find glasses, and though I don't normally drink on a empty stomach and yakitori won't mix well with it at all, champagne is a universal exception. Just as I pull the cork from the bottle with a resounding and celebratory pop, I notice some brochures on the counter and stare at them like I've never seen one before in my life. It obviously makes L anxious and need to explain himself.
"I was... I know we weren't talking, but I was looking at houses. I like houses."
"Ok."
"You did say to look at houses, so I did. This estate agent is a client of mine and dropped these off today. I got his daughter off a manslaughter char... sorry. He'd give us a good deal, so if you see anything you like the look of."
Jesus fuck, we're buying a house.
"L, why have you got a sales brochure for a castle?" is all I can say, pushing it aside to get to more sensible options and pour champagne with such little sense of luxury and occasion that I doubt that champagne has ever been so mistreated.
"Oh, I just requested that one because I was nosey. To see what the inside of a homely castle looks like, y'know."
"Hmmm... you like this one?" I ask. He's put a cross next to it, so that means one of two things.
"I thought you'd like it."
I do, actually, and I take hold of his hand without taking my eyes from the page. When he continues after a second, he sounds considerably less depressed, having taken on the persona of a soft-spoken salesman. "It's not too far out from the city and the security is good because it belongs to a filmstar or something. It has everything. We'd never have to leave the house."
"What about your old house?"
"I'd have to give my tenants notice. And the security there is shit, Light. You will need some safeguarding. All ex-PM's do."
"Fine," I say, push the brochure to one side to put my champagne in its place and draw out a cigarette which I tap on the counter for no real reason. "I'll buy it."
"No, I'll buy it."
"I thought we were splitting it?"
"We are. Transfer some money over to the firm. Actually, this would be a good opportunity to hide some of your assets, then we can limit what Kiyomi can claim. You'll have to give me the name of your accountant."
"Ok."
"Don't you want to see it first?"
"The house? No. It looks fine. It has a swimming pool." I sound like I'm not really interested but I'm more shocked at this whole thing.
"Yes, Light, you've finally made it. You'll have a swimming pool," he laughs, but reverts back to sounding thoughtful and shocked himself. "I've never bought a house with someone else before."
"Neither have I," I say, and after a moment I feel some delayed panic which is tainted with regret and makes my voice whispery. "L, I nearly killed you."
"It was provoked," he says and chinks my champagne glass with his own. "Crime passionnel."
"No. I lost my head. Don't make excuses for it."
He doesn't answer and I don't expect him to, but he takes a seat next to me, puts his hand on my back and bends down to look at my face, because I'm so busy staring at my unlit cigarette. "I think we can safely say that I had something to do with you losing your head. When I get upset, I tend to take everyone down, like I think you do, but I don't want to do that to you. You're a good man, Light. Don't think about it anymore."
"The thought of you with someone else makes me really -"
"Yeah, I know. I'm the same. It's a territorial thing and it's the ego. I was cruel, I'm sorry. I took all I could find at the time, which was your insecurity, and I used it against you."
"Maybe."
"Well, just so you know, you're irreplaceable to me. And I should know better than to get upset about Kiyomi, but Kira, he..."
"He's a baby, L."
"Yes, he's your baby. You have the pre-packed family and roses in the garden, and then there's me. I told you it was ego related."
"They don't mean anything to me compared to you," I tell him, turning to look at him.
"Thank you. I was thinking, I don't suppose that I could convince you to emigrate, could I?"
"Emigrate? I need to stay near Tokyo."
"Yeah, I knew that you'd say that."
"Why emigrate?"
"It's easier. But you never do easy, do you. I'm sick of this country, Light. You're the only good thing in it and I want to take you with me."
"I can't. I belong here." It's my instinctive reaction. Leaving the country never entered my mind. It'd be like running away, but it would be easier and I realise that. My voice breaks a little, so I must recognise that it'd be easier to run away and start again somewhere else.
"Ok," L tells me, and rubs my back. He must think that I'm going to cry because of how I must look, but he's just thrown this at me with no time to think.
"I can't ignore my responsibilities."
"I know. You shouldn't."
"L, if I could, I'd go anywhere you wanted to go. It must be nice to feel like you're not tied to anything."
He smiles blandly and stands up clear up the brochures from the counter. "I wouldn't know," he says.
A week later, L hasn't complained about our situation once, and as such he has become a sanctuary to me again. I presume that I must be a terrible husband on the surface, because I spend more and more time away because I have a book to write, for all intents and purposes. Everyone who needs to know is now aware that officially L's letting me use the boathouse (I bought him) so that I can write undisturbed. That's what we're telling people, but Kiyomi doesn't seem to mind anyway. We go to the opera, something which normally fills me with dread, but I am actually looking forward to this one because I'll be having a productive intermission. It's only the second time that Kiyomi's been out for an official engagement since her 'convalescence', as she keeps telling me. It's a bit of a greatest hits thing, fresh from La Scala in Milan, and I can't understand a word of it but the singers are terribly emotional and robust. Mikami pretends to know about opera since his mother apparently was very keen on it, but at one point I hear him tell Naomi that a particular aria is by someone named Tosca and that it's not one of his best. Kiyomi looked at me, chuckled discreetly into her hand, and I checked my watch. There was me thinking that I was clueless where opera is concerned. After twenty minutes, I sigh loudly and excuse myself, saying that I'm going to see a couple of guys from PR, which isn't a complete lie. There's a tense moment when Mikami, who's incredibly bored, is going to join me, but I put him off by saying that I'm going to be discussing a statement to go alongside Kira's first official photographs which are going to be released next week.
Security follow me along the narrow, curving corridors, and the brightness is such that when I enter the pitch black of box 102, I'm hit by a sense of vertigo which L takes full advantage of immediately. He booked this box to keep empty for the chance of a small indiscretion which I was fully intent of having if I had to go to the opera at all. The men on the stage sing so loudly that it's not even worth trying to speak, but L has drawn a heavy velvet curtain like a shield to hide us from the auditorium, and we stand behind it so we're close enough that L can whisper scrapes of a translation of the warbling to me in between lazy but still chaotically messy kisses. His synopsises of the operas are incredibly funny in their brevity and scathing tone, but with a touch of nostalgia. His favourite is The Pearl Fishers because he thinks that it has a homoerotic subplot, which I'm positive is a figment of his imagination. I can't hear a lot of what he says - just the odd disjointed word during quiet sections of the bawling on the stage - and I tell him so as my flat hand feels it's way down his trousers to make him shut up. I don't really give a shit about it until afterwards. Just once, when he's slowly blotting my jawline with kisses while I look through the threadbare curtains behind me to see only lights and movement through the weave, I wonder whether the earnest outpouring from the duo is just a recipe for mille-feulle, though L assures me that it's about us. Since it was written in the 1800s, I really doubt it, but he says so twice right into my ear so it couples with the sound from the orchestra in my mind.
I'm there for about fifteen minutes and I think of the wasted seats, the expense of booking a box at the opera just so we could do fairly innocent things to each other behind a curtain while two men sing in French, and with my wife and Naomi and Mikami sitting in the box next to us. The intermission comes and L joins my party in the so-called royal box, saying that the rest of PR didn't turn up, so he was sitting in a box by himself and was about to leave until I invited him to join us. This is accepted and he's welcomed into the fold. Half-way through the second act, he passes me a note from where he's sitting behind me, which I read somewhat covertly behind an opera programme from the light of my phone.
'You should try to fill these gaps within your education, Light. Your knowledge of music is severely lacking, as is your concentration, your soul, and possibly your sense of hearing.
'What unknown fire is destroying me? Your hand pushes mine away. Love takes our hearts by storm and turns us into enemies. No, let nothing part us. No, nothing. Let nothing part us. Let us swear to remain friends. Oh yes, let us swear to remain friends. And, faithful to my promise, I wish to cherish you like a brother. Yes, let us share the same fate, let us be united until death.
'Cheery, isn't it? Most men would have a pint at the pub and call it quits, but operatic people are so fond of drama.'
I'm nearly sick, but in the end I decide that it must be love or something like it. No, it definitely is; I know it now, I know its name. L doesn't cherish either of his brothers, but I'm pretty sure that he hasn't fucked either of them and that he holds me in higher esteem anyway. I fold the piece of paper, put it in my inside breast pocket and smile over my shoulder. And just like that, I'm back to being a fawning idiot, hanging on his every word over dinner in the private dining room behind the box, quietly hating myself. The alternative would be to hang on Kiyomi's every word while she regales us on the wonders of childbirth and taps her nails against her wine glass though, and I'd rather hang myself than become emotionally involved in that tale of woe. L asks if she was in any pain and is visibly saddened to hear that she wasn't, only minor discomfort.