Title: How To Win
Rating: PG
Warnings: Nothing much. No spoilers.
Notes: Okay, I apologize for the unwieldiness of it all, but I have a couple points that I think are important (feel free to skip them anyway). First off, this is supposed to take place between chapters 21 and 22, where Light and L are waiting to see Chief Yagami at the hospital. Second, as you may have noticed, I'm using Light rather than Raito. That's for several reasons, the main one being that Light is official and I don't see any reason to stay with Raito. It's aesthetics and I don't think that's a good enough reason. I don't think I'm going to go back and change my old fics, but my newer ones will probably stay with Light. Third, this was written in response to vvoltaire's request for a DN fic in the Light-as-Kira timeframe that somehow involves a game of cards. Fourth, the title is slightly different than what I had up on my LJ, and the change was done after much deliberation.
Right, and now that my notes have completely turned off any potential reader, onto the story.
--
"They said we're going to have to wait to before we can go see him," Light said, standing above L. "It might be a while." His face was white and L wondered what it would be like to be him. To be a suspect for Kira and to have to wait to see the man that led the investigation. To be the man's son, too.
L drew his legs up close. The maroon chair was considerably smaller than the couches L normally sat in, but he managed to settle into a position that approximated comfortable. He watched Light shuffle through the magazines, glossy covers ranging from politics to how to please your woman to KIRA: MAN OR GOD?
Light stared at that particular cover for a moment, his face impassive, then pulled it out of the stack. He stood in front of the rack with it in his hand, and L could see a certain tension in his shoulders.
How intriguing, he thought. The magazine company would have to be contacted about it, but at the moment, it could lead to something interesting. But he was disappointed when Light put it back and took a popular children's magazine instead. He settled in the chair two seats to L's left and began to page through it. "Do you ever read these things, Ryuuga?" He asked, not looking up at L.
"No." And he wouldn't.
"They are--," Light paused, searching for a word. "Easy. Something you do not have to think to read."
I can't imagine wanting to read it, L thought dispassionately.
"But sometimes," he continued, "they have these flashes of genius. Sometimes I'm amazed at what they put in them. But children don't notice them. It's just the pink rabbit and its chick friend, instead of..." Light waved his hand in the air. "Something bigger."
"They don't see it because they can't."
"Exactly." There was a moment of silence between the two, and L could hear the receptionist murmur to a middle-aged woman at the desk. This Light was different than the tennis player he had faced a few hours earlier, different than the investigator he had sat at a restaurant with, and different than the son who he had watched listen to the news about his father. He could almost count the facets to Light's personality, differentiating one subtle shift from one to the next, and he almost could see Kira's personality surfacing on Light's face. But not yet. It wasn't clear enough.
Light put the magazine on the chair between them. "You noticed I picked up the other magazine." He didn't specify which one.
"Yes."
Light sighed, a quivering exhale. "My father had a heart attack," he said. "He is leading the investigation to find Kira" He turned to face L. "Ryuuga, he may die at any moment. He might have died an hour ago. This is i not /i about Kira. I can't just read about him right now. It's not about whether or not I'm a suspect. It's my i father /i ." Some shade of anguish passed over his face, and L felt the percentage of suspicion falter, just a little bit.
He didn't answer.
Light's lips pressed together, and he turned in his seat and exhaled again. L lipped the skin around his thumb and thought. Yagami Light was one of the people investigated, and he was the prime suspect. L could not tell if Light was lying-- he would have believed Light, in fact, if it weren't for the voice in his back mind whispering that it was too good, that the act was too real, too real to be real-- and he pulled the issue apart in his mind. If Light was lying, then it would almost be enough to identify him as Kira. The acting would have been too good for innocence. But if Light wasn't, then, while he would not have Kira, he would have a brilliant mind to back him up.
"Do you play cards?" Light asked abruptly, looking at him sideways.
"I have."
"Do you want to? Now?" Light got up and walked to the rack with magazines. "They used to keep a deck here." He opened the drawer of the stand and pulled out a handful of tattered cards. He straightened them, then began to count them under his breath. When he finished, he said, "Forty eight cards. We could play something simple. War?" At L's lack of response, Light elaborated, "The game where the higher card wins. It's simple."
"I know how to play," L said. "I was wondering what difference it makes."
"Does it matter?"
Yes, L wanted to say. Yes it does. Instead, he unfolded himself from the chair to sit in front of Light on the floor, all gangly legs and elbows. "I guess not."
Light passed him half of the cards, and they both placed one card down.
"War," Light said. "Over the first card."
"It's an ace."
"Some people play it over a king, and others play it as a one." They put down three cards. "I think we should play it as the highest."
"Of course."
"When I was younger," Light said, straightening the cards, then turning over the last one, "I would refuse to do war over the smaller number. I didn't think it was worth it, because it meant I had bad cards in my deck, and I would give them to Sami. She kept playing with those bad cards, and she would always lose, except that I would keep giving them to her and the game never ended." He gave a short laugh. "Before long, I would stop playing because it was so pointless."
"I won this one," L said. He scooped up the cards and pushed them into a pile by his knee.
"And I don't think she ever won. But then I realized that I was losing good cards by not playing her for them."
"You always fight for the little things," L said. "That is how you win."
"Yes," Light said. "I realized that a long time ago."
They put more cards down.
The pile by L's knee grew and disappeared, occasionally picked up and straightened before being played again. Light took the cards he won, patted them into neat edges, and added them to the cards in his hands.
"Yagami Light?" The receptionist called over another war. "You can go see your father."
"Thank you," Light said, and then put down three cards. He smiled at L, a dark pull of the lips, and L felt the percentage increase again.
"I win," he said.
-------
A/N: Hmm. And does anyone know how are new fandom categories created here? DN is getting a sizeable fanbase and I can't imagine it'd stay in the misc category forever... (and if there is a DN category, good lord, someone point it out to me because I've completely missed it. XD)