Raito/L
Containing spoilers to anything after Chapter 57
Song by Darren Hayes
This is an amateur effort and does not intend to infringe on the rights of Obata Takeshi-sensei, Tsugumi Ohba-sensei, and their associates.
Misa always wonders if Raito dream sometimes. In the middle of the night, she will feel the mattress shift. She never makes a noise, careful not to let Raito notice her watching him. From his back, Misa can't tell if he is awake or simply sleepwalking. But his routine is the same, always.
Get out of bed, get out of the room, and then coming back with a cup of hot tea and a bowl of sugar cubes. He never drinks it, but just add sugar cubes absent-mindedly into the tea.
One, two, and stir.
Every so often, he will pause, and rub lightly at his wrist, as if remembering the cold metal that is no longer there.
At the beginning, Misa is afraid that ghosts exist after all, like death gods do. And that the ghost of Ryuuzaki had possessed the man she loves. But Raito never did crawl onto the chair and squat there, nibbling on his own thumb, so she supposes it's alright.
Soon, she just gets used to it. Sometimes she doesn't even wake up when Raito does, lost in her sleep as the man goes on with his routine.
Misa wonders if Raito ever dream about him, and that strange relationship they all shared.
Because she does. Sometimes.
The funeral is a quiet event. Just the investigation team, all dressed in black, mourning in silence as they lowered the black sarcophagus into the soil, six feet deep.
The world exists in black and white that day, just the way Raito prefers it to be. White cloudy sky, black mourning garb, black coffin, and the whiteness of the man who lie in it.
Somehow Raito wishes that Kira's world allows for perhaps just a little speck of grey to exist. That little speck of grey that got a little too close to God for comfort.
Slowly, systemically, Raito begins to destroy their relationship, friendship, however you'll like to define it, hoping that it will hurt less when the inevitable finally comes. In this zero-sum game, only one will win. And only one can survive. The world only needs one god, and they already have him. Raito has no doubt that were he the one who lost the game, L won't think twice about giving him what L decides to be his just desserts.
Or will he?
He remembers the faltering in L's voice when he said he wanted to meet Misa. The first time he'd heard the insecurity in L's voice. Pain, hurt, confusion, all mashed in that one moment when L let slip a mask he never knew he was keeping. Neither of them looked at each other then.
It's strange how Raito can lie to the entire world about anything and everything. Except this one little thing, to this one strange man.
This one little thing that is the dull ache in his chest that refuses to go away.
Did he write his own name down by mistake?
It is her third year working at this cafe. And she notices him all the time. A well-dressed young man with natural brown hair. He will always come at this day each year, at the same time, dressed in the same tennis suit. He will order the same thing every year - a cup of coffee for himself, and a strawberry sundae that he places on the table for the empty seat opposite him. He sits there for an hour, no more, no less, and looks out of the window with a sad smile on his face, waiting for someone who will never turn up. It is the same view outside the window for him every year.
She wonders who is the lucky girl who had snagged the heart of such a becoming young man.
None of them knew his real name. So they really had no idea what name to put on the stone. Raito made a suggestion though, giving them a name on the spot and they used it, since it doesn't matter what name they used as long as they know who it is that rest beneath the cold marble.
Lindsey Grayson.
Nobody thought about asking Raito where he had gotten the name from. Even if they did, Raito will probably not answer them anyway.
Not that anybody will believe that Ryuuzaki himself had traced the name onto his palm, signing off those two words of blind irrational faith with a kiss.
Raito himself refuses to believe that the name is real, refusing to try it out by writing it down immediately. Refusing to give voice to that one night.
For all he knows, L may just stand for "Liar".
As he lay himself to sleep at night, Raito can't help but wonder if it is L sitting behind those survilence cameras at this very momet, watching him dream. He wonders if that man even sleep. It is only until Raito meet L for himself that he realizes that he is right after all.
L doesn't sleep.
If things had been different. If they had not met in the situation that they did.
Sometimes, just occasionally, Raito gives in to that fantasy. Closing his eyes, he makes up the grand story, something like those soap operas that Misa weeps over. They will meet at the university, they will become fast friends. They will spend late nights together flipping through books that they don't really need because they knew everything already. The books are just an excuse for them to spend time together, careless fingers that will "accidentally" brush against each other as they turn the pages. Once in a while, one of them will make a joke and the other will laugh.
Too many ifs and wills, Raito is not the kind to indulge in petty possibilities that are not probabilities. But he does so now anyway.
Raito can't decide which is worse, waking up with nobody beside him or waking up with the knowledge that the person behind him is not the one he wants there. The body beside him is too small, to stretch out; the hair is too light...he is used to waking up with the nagging feeling of somebody watching him, and then opening his eyes to see that he is right. He is used to getting up to the sight of a dark-haired someone beside him, knees tucked close to a flat cotton-clad chest, not the feeling of someone soft, small and long haired curled up against him, invading his personal space in the most intrusive manner ever.
Sometimes he thinks that waking up to find the lack of warmth or dent in the spot of mattress beside him may be better than waking up to an armful of Her Blondness.
Sometimes he feels that it's better than not having anyone at all.
He really couldn't believe it when he saw the hand shake, and then the man falling from his seat. The spoon clattered against the floor the same time that he landed. Instinctively, Raito rushed forward to catch in his arms the one who could have been his nemesis.
Or his soulmate.
This can't be true.
But it is.
He wishes that he will see L's face in their eyes as they held out a gun at him, his fingers already crushed around an hour ago.
But there isn't a thing in their eyes. Nothing except for the shared love they have for that one man who called himself L, and the shared hatred they have for one Yagami Raito.
If I am God, why can't I have the one I want?