There were times where he despised Quillish.

Where he despised what the man had done, the man who'd looked at him once and decided to take him off the streets and put him in a home that wasn't warm. Quillish had looked had him then, when he was young and scared and in need of help, and thought that he could be of use to him.

And L, for all his naivety, decided that the man who gave him food (food that was laced with doses of poison, made to 'help' him overcome his weaknesses and distance himself from the humanity he held dear) was to be trusted.

He hated his younger self for that, he spent days berating himself for placing his trust in a man who he'd barely met, for being fooled by a kind smile that felt to cold and a home that was filled with false warmth.

Now, as L looked at Soichiro dote on his son from the corner of his eye, a faint part of his mind told him that he didn't hate the man who had raised him. And L agreed, he couldn't hate Quillish, not when the man was at his side, giving him tea that had been laced with arsenic.

No, L didn't hate Quillish. But as he saw the fondness on Soichiro's face and love dancing in his eyes, he wished that he did.


There were times where he wanted to love Soichiro.

Where he longed to be where Light was, to be held and told that he did good. L wanted to be looked at with the same warmth and love as Light, he wanted to love Soichiro, and he wanted Soichiro to look at him and love him back.

L, for all that he had seen, and heard, and been forced to do, wanted a Dad.

And as Soichiro pulled him into a tight embrace, letting him wail into his shoulder as sputtered out nonsense and let his facade break, he wondered if that was what being loved felt like.

He nodded to himself then, eyes burning and body shaking, he would try and love Soichiro.

He wanted to give himself what Quillish never wanted him to have.


There were times where he hated Light.

Where he hated what the ignorance the boy feigned, how he pretended that L hadn't seen the glint to his eyes and barely suppressed smirk in the early days of the investigation. Light had changed, in his fake solitude.

But the change was just pretend.

L saw it, when Light had picked up the book, saw his cold glint return to his eyes and the sharpening of his mouth. L wasn't stupid, he wasn't oblivious to the boys' plan, he saw the recognition burn in Kira's eyes as he gazed upon a Shinigami once again.

And oh, L saw the hidden smirks, heard the silence of the guilty, and recognized a monster like him.

But L didn't want to hate him, because Light - the boy who had believed in justice for the innocent and was well aware of the faults of the corrupt system, wasn't Kira. Kira was a power hungry, wanna-be God that decided that to get where he wanted Chaos mustn't be an option.

He felt his brows furrow the slightest bit as he stared up at Light, looking at the sharp smile that marred his face as L closed his eyes. Without Chaos, Order devolves into nothing but cruelty, he had wanted to say to Light, but he couldn't.

L had first looked into Light's eyes in a hotel that he despised, and knew that his life wasn't meant to be long.

L had looked into Kira's eyes for the last time, and knew that he wanted to hate him.

But he didn't.

Kira had won, and had killed a monster.