Disclaimer: I have a cup of tea in a Buzz Lightyear mug. But I don't own Death Note.
Note: Meh. I originally wanted this to be more…short. Idea of L's funeral from Sonar. Idea of food at L's grave stolen from Dattebayo Girl. Lack of Matsu in the first part of this, then he comes back. The quotes, they're all I had written down near me (I've been collecting quotes on justice and law recently for my personal statement) and seemed appropriate.
Title explained in next chapter. Incidentally, gypsophila is my favourite flower.
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Living Dogs
Prompt: 21. Faith
They didn't know if it was their place.
They had known L for - what? Months? A year, at the most? And the life he had lived…the people he must have met, bonds he must have formed…they didn't know, no, they were sure it wasn't their place.
But reason won out, because what else could they do with his body?
The funeral was small, obscenely so, for this man who had protected so many. They buried him with a mostly blank tombstone because they didn't know his date of birth, and couldn't bring themselves to lay him to rest under 'Ryuzaki' or 'Ryuga'.
The only inscriptions on it were two quotes from Aristotle, because Light had said they were appropriate, and he couldn't be buried next to Watari because they'd found out who he was, and his family had claimed the body.
Each member of the task force had paid their respects quietly, and the priest had said some words, and the grave was closed.
When the trials over the next few years became too much, Matsuda would return to the grave, alone, and he would sit and talk to thin air for hours. He talked to the barely-scarred tombstone in ways he wouldn't have dared talk to Ryuzaki, but would have liked to. He asked him about his past and knew he wouldn't get an answer, and told him about his.
He asked him why he was so sure catching Kira was a good thing, and why he was so sure Light was Kira. He told him earnestly that he was wrong, and he couldn't help but feel, through the lines of the inscriptions and the sparse grass growing around them, that the marble was silently disagreeing.
Matsuda could never decide if he had looked up to Ryuzaki or not. His methods, his distrust, his distance…and his righteousness, his determination, his willingness to sacrifice himself for what he though was right…
Sometimes, Matsuda confessed to the gravestone that he was afraid of dying. He was twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven…he was only twenty eight, he was too young to die.
Ryuzaki had probably been younger.
Every time when he visited, he would talk, and he would leave a strawberry or piece of bean jelly instead of flowers. He knew that animals would probably eat the sweets away, and he knew Ryuzaki would probably appreciate it more than tulips or wispy bunches of gypsophila.
And before leaving, he would read the inscriptions on the grave. He would remind himself that if Ryuzaki was willing to die for this, and if the Chief, and Light, and Aizawa were all willing to die for this, he should be, too.
The law is reason, free from passion.
In justice is all virtues found in sum.