Infatuation
They said it was infatuation, something that all normal teenagers go through. No one found it really odd that Near had a large collection of pictures of Mello. Not that many people knew. It was not a secret; Near merely didn't interact much with people.
He kept the photos in a simple cardboard box under his bed, together with a set of Jacks, a few incomplete decks of poker cards and toothpicks. Every once in awhile, he would take them out and reorganise them, by pose, in chronological order, by mood, by the size of Mello's face in the photo or whatever his whim was that day.
They called it infatuation, postulating that some sort of bond had formed between the two most intelligent boys in the institute, amongst all the competition. It was something straight out of a romance novel: improbable, convenient and utterly delusional.
He didn't care. The opinion of others had never meant much to him. Let them believe it was some schoolboy crush, that Near would even entertain such trivial and pointless emotions.
The two of them were never even close. Some said that they had a love-hate relationship but the truth was that the relationship was entirely one-sided. Near didn't care about Mello. Mello as a person never interested him.
He cared about the expressions on the boy's face, the way sunlight glinted off the golden hair, the way he moved, the way he spoke, the excesses of emotion that Mello was so prone to; those were the things he cared about.
Just as he cared about solving every puzzle put in front of him, just as he cared about winning every game, just as he cared about the sensations of things on his fingertips, he cared about Mello in that same abstract, distant way.
Sometimes he had dreams, on the occasions when he did sleep. He would dream of Mello, the Mello he was obsessed about, a collage of gold, ivory and black, of smiles and tears, of gestures and expressions. It was the only way he knew how to love, yet even that word was too strong for what he felt.
Only obsession.
Now Mello was challenging him in this game that started with L's death. It would only be a matter of time before Mello ended up like L, perhaps even sooner. If it was possible, his body would be shipped back to the institute for burial. No, Near would make sure of it.
In a way, he could not wait. Mello dead meant that the only Mello in existence would be the flawless memory in his own head and a collection of photographs, each preserving a little aspect of the boy. Mello in parts; what a wonderful way to decorate.
Near almost smiled as he put away his collection. Time to file away this one obsession and tackle another.