Title: Playing the Game
Working Title: "Nuances" or "How the hell do L and Raito act around each other? Argargarg."
Warnings: Slight spoilers for things past chapter 19. Use of Japanese honorifics. Some authorial discomfort with the characters.
Summary: Neither of them dared to let the other out of their sight, each knowing that behind the hours spent studying together, were hours alone, scrabbling for a weakness to pull the other down.
Notes: I decided that L/Raito would never actually happen, so I tried again. And it ended up being a lot more character sketchy than I'd planned. So the ending is a total copout and the whole thing goes absolutely no where. ....I sense a trend. --;;; Oh-- and on the honorifics, I just used surname-kun because they're both so Japanese it felt strange not to have them. And I'm probably using it wrong, but I see -kun in the scanslation and I figure it works well enough. My apologies if it's wrong. I'm not a big fan of using Japanese in fics, but as I said, it just felt strange without it. ...And I just like the image of both of them using honorifics when what they really want is to be rid of all formalities and ask the other's real identity. Of course, all the names in the exposition are up for grabs. .
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Yamagi Raito and Ryuuga Hideki were the top two students, and as such, they were obligated to go to study groups and mingle.
Raito did this perfectly, he smiled, flashing even white teeth, making friends and teaching better than any professor could. He spoke gently, pointing with slender fingers at the text books, flipping between encyclopedias and lecture notes. Girls like him, he was the man that their mothers wanted them to bring home. He made sure not to alienate his male classmates either. He went to parties with them, buying drinks and drinking none. He would watch them make fools of themselves, but when they slapped him on the back with drunken palms, he smiled and laughed just like the others.
Hideki shared the name with a pop idol and the score with Yamagi Raito, and in both cases, the differences couldn't have been more severe. Where Ryuuga Hideki the idol smiled with dimples and perfect hair, Ryuuga Hideki the student stared with wide eyes and rumpled clothing. When girls introduced himself to the smart boy and extended their hands for a shake, he would barely touch hands before his fingers slithered away. When they would bump into him, he wouldn't respond, just stare at them until they would move, his back hunched like a gargoyle, but countless times more limber. He made no effort to be liked, and as a result, very few people did. His classmates thought he was condescending, because he would never talk, but when called on, would explain in laymen's terms the perfect solution. He never fell asleep in class, but his posture was so relaxed that he might have been, and they resented his ability to wear pajamas when they wore suits and pressed shirts. His bare toes were a slap in the face.
Hideki and Raito were, as most people saw it, friends only because they were the infamous freshmen who succeeded where so few had before. They were brothers of a perfect score, and each breath they took was an insult, a compliment to the other. Had they been one year apart, they would have been rivals, one usurping the other's position. Had they been ten years apart, they would have just been distant related, connected by a reference in an introductory speech. But fate had conspired to bring them together, and so they stayed.
That's what the students thought.
But in small library cubicles where so many university couples spent time studying and kissing, either at the same time or in succession, they would engage in a ritual that neither of them could stop.
"Yamagi-kun," Hideki would say, flashing him the same half-cocked smile that he gave birds and trees outside classroom windows.
"Ryuuga-kun," Raito would respond, pressing his hands flat against his chest, unconsiously smoothing down invisible wrinkles.
"I hear that Kira killed five victims in the past two days." Hideki leaned forward until his chin was on his knees and he had to look up through his hair to see Raito.
Raito was used to this. He nodded, "As did I." He leaned to the side, pulling open his bag and taking out two textbooks, hiding the cover of the Death Note. "But shall we study? I have an exam coming up. I don't think our classmates would be able to help me as much as you can."
Hideki would dip his head in affirmation, and out of his shirt sleeve, he would pull out a pencil and flip it through his fingers. He never used textbooks, instead he shut his eyes halfway, answering questions when Raito asked them and elaborating when Raito did not. On particularly hard questions, he would squint to the right, making out the fake grain of the cubicle plastic, chewing his thumb until the skin by the nail was loosened and shredded. He would work the skin, then chew the other side of the his thumb, occasionally bringing the pencil up with the other hand to twirl absently in the other hand. Raito would write in his notebook, handwriting small and neat, outlines and charts crawling out of his pen like spiderwebs. He would reference textbooks confirm that what Hideki was saying was right, and then write it down to make sure he remembered.
After hours of the same chewed and rechewed material of the classroom, Hideki would open his eyes wide, giving his full attention to Raito, and say, "Are you prepared?"
Raito knew that it was the only warning Hideki would ever give him for the barrage of questions that was to follow, and he knew that anyone else would take it as a question of whether or not Raito was ready for the exam. He would nod curtly, and pack his books. Pulling the bag over his shoulder, he would say, "Come on, Ryuuga-kun, I know a good place down the street. I think we need a break from all this."
And Hideki would flip the pencil around in his hands, until it disappeared again, down his shirt sleeve or in his pocket. He would reach one bare foot down to the floor, toes wiggling until it reached it sneaker, and he slipped it in, not caring that the laces were still untied or that the tongue of the shoe was bunched up. After a moment, he would reach down, pull up the tongue absently, tap his toe to the ground to make sure his foot was in, then would slouch off after Raito.
"Good night, Raito-kun!" the girls at the tables would say, waving and smiling, and Raito would wave and smile back. He'd even add things like, "Nihaya, I hope you've been working on your history, I hear that it's going to be on the exam and I know you've been having some trouble. Call me if you need help." The girl in question would blush and say something just as trivial, maybe more so.
Only very occasionally would a girl say, "Good night, Ryuuga-kun!" And it was usually the same, round-faced girl with glasses. Hideki knew her by face, knew her first name was Kyouko, and he would dip his head in response, scratching one ankle with the toes of the other, forgetting that he was wearing shoes. Unlike Raito, he didn't need to work on his reputation, so he never did anything as personal. Instead, he would watch Raito interact, seeing every angle of his body set to be the perfect, attentive listener.
Hideki smiled when he watched Raito. It wasn't the same absent smile that he gave people and inanimate objects, but the smile of L, the detective. Raito knew how to play people, and he did it expertly. He did it so well that sometimes, Kira shone out of his eyes, looking for the smallest details to make the other person as absolutely comfortable as possible. Hideki loved to watch it, feeling the charcoal embers of interest being fanned to life with each manipulative smile and word. Here was where the fun was, a meter from Raito as he wooed his girls to study and do well. And here, was where the battle would begin.
"I'm sorry, I have to go now," Raito would say, looking apologetic for breaking off what would clearly become an engaging conversation. "I've kidnapped Hideki-kun to study and he hasn't had dinner yet. And I promised him that he wouldn't have to break away from his computer for nothing."
The moment after those words were how Raito would set his relationship with Hideki to the public. If he gave a small sigh, then the girls would gossip about how Raito and Hideki were not friends, not really, not in the same way that they and Raito were friends. He knew that some girls expected it, to see that Raito resented the time and effort Hideki took from his own life. But Raito knew that it wasn't what he needed. He knew that rivalry would be detrimental to their reputation, bring more attention than was necessary. Rivalry was constant and flared in the attentions of anyone watching. On the other hand, friendship, no matter how quirky, would always fade into the background. So instead of pulling a face, Raito winked at the girls, then grinned. They giggled, thinking that Yamagi-kun was such a nice boy, each dreaming of bringing him home to their mothers. There must be something to Ryuuga-kun, they thought, to have such a nice boy as Yamagi- kun be his friend.
And Raito and Hideki would leave. Raito still with a bag slung over his shoulder, notebooks curled in his other hand. Hideki, scratching his head and shuffling his feet, occasionally opening his mouth in a jawsplitting yawn.
But as they kept walking, Hideki would settle in the familiar slouched walk, eyes wide and intent on Raito.
"Yamagi-kun," he'd begin, "The deaths occurred during the exam yesterday."
And Raito would respond and they would play the game.
The walks between the library to the café or between the study area to the bar brought an electric warning down both their spines, filling them with more life than studying ever could. When they walked down the street, Raito and Hideki both analyzed the other, hoping to find the one flaw that would bring their plan to completion. It was the five minute walk, the ten minute walk, that kept them tangled together. Neither of them dared to let the other out of their sight, each knowing that behind the hours spent studying together, were hours alone, scrabbling for a weakness to pull the other down.