Hey Guys, sorry for the delay - life happened... Sometimes I wish I didn't have to do this adulting thing - that I could just hide away with my laptop and write fanfiction. Sigh.

Anyhow, here we are again. If you read, please review! You know how much it means to me.

Matsuda stood at the doorway of his old apartment, gripping the key in his fingers, the suitcase on the floor by his side.

The air was musty and thick, it smelled of old sake and dirty laundry, of dishes that had been left on the kitchen counter two weeks ago. They were probably growing mold by now, creating new life forms, he realized. He hadn't really paid attention to them when leaving with Fay, thinking only of her, of their future together, of the night they had just spent in the same bed, of the way he had spent himself in her, and how being with her was going to be all the light he needed to crawl out of the darkness.

It hadn't really worked out like that, though.

The dishes smelled like old feet and rotten cheese and it made him nauseous. And the darkness he had thought he'd leave behind, was still with him, it was a part of him now - a cruel beast living inside of his chest, clawing his heart into shreds.

Slowly, so tired that his bones ached, he turned on the lights and stepped in. Everything in him wished he wasn't here, here in this gloomy, deserted hole of an apartment. That instead he'd be where he belonged now - with Fay, in England. Not that he had any special love for England, but wherever Fay was, was home - that much he knew.

This place had never been much of a home to him anyways. It was just a place where he had slept and showered, where he had spent the pathetically few hours of the day he hadn't been at work. There weren't any warm or fuzzy memories of this place - if you didn't count the last night he had spent here. The night Fay had slept in his bed, her red hair a halo of flames against the white sheets, her slender form pressing against his body in her sleep.

"I love you. And I will love you forever, for what you did today, Touta Matsuda." she had said, and kissed him. Inside his chest something had shattered and he had felt like dying, for she had been praising him for the most horrible thing a man could ever do.

And just like that, he wasn't standing in his apartment anymore, but he was back on that day again, back on the damn warehouse and he was shooting Light, the trigger of his gun so easy to pull, and Light went down, he went down on a pool of blood and still he couldn't stop pulling the trigger.

Stop thinking. Just stop thinking about it, idiot!

As if it was that easy. The memory hit him like a wrecking ball, leaving him breathless, and he knew there was no going back home, not as long as things were like this.

With a trembling sigh, he entered the apartment, shut the door behind him and turned on the lights. It was 10pm, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep - to sleep, without dreaming, for once without waking up into a nightmare at the unholy hours of the morning, covered in sweat, his throat hoarse, the taste of iron on his dry, chapped lips.

If only.

He barely slept at all nowadays, and he hadn't had a night without nightmares, not since the day at the Yellow Box Warehouse.

It was really getting old fast, this insomnia thing.

As he walked inside, Matsuda removed his coat, kicked his shoes off and without even thinking he found himself in the kitchen, by the cupboard where he kept the sake. For a couple of heartbeats he stared at the empty bottle, cursing inwards, only then remembering how Fay had filled his glass again and again and again, how he had drowned his soul into sake and into her.

There was a lone beer in the fridge, though - the only thing there besides the light - and it just had to do. He sat down on his bed, opened the can and stared into the night. Outside of his window the city was as it had always been - an ocean of lights and sounds, of people, of life that never ceased, never stopped, and he knew none of that could touch him, could be his anymore.

Surely, killing his best friend, was something that could cut a man from the world - that should cut him away from it all. Living, laughing, loving, making friends, making mistakes, falling down, falling in love - weren't those things that people did, people who still had a soul, who still had a heart that beat, who still had a right to go on?

They weren't things a killer, a murderer, should yearn - and he had been a fool to think that just leaving the dishes in the sink, his dirty clothes on the floor and running away, could make him not a sinner.

The beer was cold, but it tasted of ashes, of blood on his lips, and it hardly offered the oblivion he needed - not that a full bottle of sake would've been enough for him to forget. He thought of the way Fay had downed her beers in the pub, her glasses of wine every single night, and how he had felt it really wasn't his place to say anything of it.

L had had his sweets, Fay had her bottles.

For now, Matsuda had found only one thing that really helped him to unwind, to forget, and that was Fay. When he buried himself in her, he could breath as if there was nothing weighing him down.

Only with her, anything made sense anymore.

So you decided to leave her. Well done, Matsuda. How soon, before she realizes that you didn't leave because of business? That you just as easily could have gotten rid of this apartment and your job by email? That you lied to her and you left her, and all because of-

He shook his head, emptied his beer and tossed the can to the trash.

It wasn't like going it over again and again in his head, would make it any better. He knew it didn't matter how much he missed her, how much he loved her, how much he needed her, as if she was the air he breathed… none of it mattered - not as long as he was the mess he was.

He lay down on the bed, still wearing the clothes he had traveled in, and closed his eyes, knowing there was no way he'd fall asleep tonight.