November fifth dawns too early, too subdued on this critical gray morning. Outside, rain whispers its gentle suspicions against the high-rise windows. L wonders if the world is weeping for him.
An almost scowl, the idea too whimsical for as logical a man as L.
"You'll get used to it." Light's words. L remembers them well.
As well as he remembers the night they were voiced; hoarse, needy into the disarray of his hair, Light breathing fleshy reassurances, moist against the blade of L's shoulder; the dramatic height their shadows cast on the wall nearby where he bore witness to the heaves and arching of their bodies, their writhing, staccato demands for more. The tactility of the memory chills and L shivers despite the present warmth of Light's back pressing flush against his hip and ankle.
A faint smile curves the lips of L's unconscious enemyfriend. L catches sight of it, glancing down to appreciate the aesthetic of the youth, as Kira dreams the dreams of a God, and irregardless of the lack of the chain sleeps next to him still.
With him, L corrects himself and returns the smile, the act equally unconscious.
It's a deliberate thing when the detective reaches out a tentative hand to brush back stray tendrils from Light's temple, a deliberate move to awaken him, softly now, closing his eyes so he needn't acknowledge the lie of Light's conscious face. L's lips seek, mouthing skin in their all-too-yearning search for Light's.
They fall into each other with the ease of familiarity, in tandem here also. The potency of their hunger for one other, unlike anything L has ever experienced; it's corrosive. Always that. These moments when their limbs entangle, flushing faces and straining musculature; L loathes and savors equally because, well, because their exchanges are as close to truth as they will ever come. Because it's irresistible, and together they should be better than their individual selves, but their union, as powerful as it is, nonetheless lacks the power to resolve their mutual distrust. Because as much as L may care for Light, they are only two, and logic demands the well being of billions are to be considered of higher value.
The afterglow, as it's called, rarely fails to disappoint - yet it does - because he should never have allowed their mind melding to evolve into the physical, should never have allowed his emotions into the equation. L is no god, unable to page backward in the textbook of their history, but infinitely able to compartmentalize his feelings, should the necessity arise.
Today, as exceptional as it is, is no exception in this.
The human known as Light, when he rises from L's bed, showers and dresses and dons his faux smile, L's certainty redoubles.
Light Yagami is Kira.
In the beginning, all it'd taken was a mere glimpse to arouse L's suspicion. It's Light's designer suit smile, too much a smile that L is intimate with, and an odd one; picture-perfect, it sits uneasily on his face. Always has.
L's parents wore smiles like that when they strapped him into the car back then, exactly nineteen years and three-hundred sixty-one days earlier.
Something was wrong.
L knew the truth of it in the way he'd always ever known things to be, and smothering his fear, reassured with a mirror-smile of his own. Blizzard flakes kamikazed the windows, smattering them in their water guts, even as his mum's promise of candy when they arrived in town ghosted a tang throughout his mouth. Memorized the streets as they flew by, the ride silent as the tombs of the Pharaohs. He'd studied them all by himself.
It was a long drive, he remembers.
Mum frequently bragged to her friends about his intellectual prowess. At his age, she usually said.
L, four years old and cognizant of the povertydysfunction dominating the family would, when shadows slanted silver into the night and dad frequenting the pub, fist his mum's threadbare sweater, pierce her with fierce eyes and swear to her that someday, someday soon, he would be rich. Rich enough to whisk her away from the slums. Someday soon.
He swore to her.
The strawberry stick was a scrumptious sweet-sour. The possibility of opening his own shop, only grander, rolled through L's awareness in cotton candy waves. He turned away, not reluctant now, from the pane crystal shine that separated him from the glitter of sweets so as to share the news, but...
But -
- his belly smacked the ice tiles of the floor because mum and dad were gone he couldn't find his parents. L searched everywhere through a haze of crimson frenzy and, suppressing his rising panic, checked inside the store before leaving to retrace their bootprints in the snow. Out to where the car was no longer parked and following his own zombie path, opened the door to the flood of warmth and comfort, the bright, incandescent sweets.
He just needed to catch his breath and staggered to rest his back against a wall of ceramic. There he slid, slow and with silent dignity, easing to a balanced crouch. For all of his precociousness, L had never been a beautiful child, and his over-sized features slackened, studying the blueprint of the past hours through internal, eternally shell-shocked eyes.
No!
Except yes, because he'd known something was wrong.
Outside, snowdrifts rose steadily, the sun descending to paint the sky an icy cerise. Just as he'd known something bad would be happening, he was equally certain that further searching was futile. Instead of wasting his energy on such an effort, L went, dragging his feet to the shop keeper for assistance.
And he waited, grateful for help in the dank of the storage room, curled on the cot with his chin planted on his knees, thighs flattened to feel the rhythmic movement of his breath, staring at the wooden planks of the wall which were not so different from those at the home he belonged in hours ago.
L swore once more, but -
It was different this time, not the affirmation to his mum. Lashes moist and lids lowered, he vowed never to trust another.
L swore.
Light wears his humble smile now, the one broadcasting to everyone (who isn't L) that he's a young, upstanding youth, an up and coming leader of the community, a young man to be trusted with your daughter (for what it's worth, L believes the last to be true enough). In it, L reads Light's confidence of the outcome, his delight in that they both acknowledge the approaching endgame. After all, Kira holds a sizable portion of aces in his hand: he is the architect of L's demise.
There are plans to be set into motion, plans of which L is certain will destroy Kira. Destroy Light. In war, there are sacrifices to be made.
L is an excellent player in his own right, more methodical than even Kira imagines. He holds the seed of sabotage in his palm, the highest card in the deck, conceived in a truth between them, he and Light.
It's L's duty to see it sown.
L glances out the bedroom window. Could it be Light for whom the world mourns? Ryuzaki? L? Kira?
An elaborate shrug, and he truly is allowing it all to get the best of him.
After a small upturning of lips given to the young man who will be killing him today, L departs the room, mute.
choking on his own resolve.
He arranges the final details in automaton moments. For all of his self-absorption, the laser mind behind his apparent trance calculates any and all trajectories the immediate future may take. The time for remorse is passed, should be passed. Should be, but its odor strangulates, and the desire to escape the Task Force, its blinders well intact, shifts into necessity.
Today, L will indulge his craving for solitude.
He finds it in the torrent, tattooing soothing white noise against his forehead. Alone here now, communing with the storm, L eases his iron grip on logic. Emotions, he understands, require outlet, too. Alone here, he can believe that the world grieves.
Not for, but because of L and Kira.
For the countless hearts, they've collectively broken.
Here, L can grieve with the world.
Pocketing his hands, L lifts his chin to face the storm.
The rain also cleanses.
Well, it seems Light seeks a sort of redemption as well.
No.
Light distances himself. It can only mean L's time is coming to a close. A swift analysis of his suspect's behavior, personality, their history, and yes, L sincerely doubts that the Kira who writes his name in the murder notebook will be Light.
Kira. If you keep feeding yourself falsehoods, you'll only fall that much farther.
So this is it. "Let's go in. We're soaked."
"Yeah."
As per his norm, L finds Light vigorous in his maintenance, fastidiously fluffing rain from his hair, and for the stretch of a minute hesitates, appalled by the profundity of his own complacency. What had he been thinking, sleeping with the most prolific mass murderer in history? No. The rationale underlying the affair had been sound enough at the time.
To grow closer to Kira.
As though to emphasize the weight of his error, a something deep inside, something L can't name collapses in the depth of his chest, an ache so poignant now that, for a moment, he believes death is at hand. It builds, rising to a crescendo, and L thinks through a haze of helpless frustration. Of all the problems he had ever encountered, why is this the singularity he cannot solve?
why can't I save us, Light?
"You'll get used to it," L echoes the long-remembered words, to Light or himself, he doesn't know.
What Light doesn't know, may never know, and never realize is when L apologizes, rain streaming tracks down his face to drop unintentionally onto Light, who he can't love must betray, he feels no remorse for having pursued justice. What he's doing now - forcing Light to view L, himself as a human and not only the world-renowned detective, not merely the enemy, to see the person who stood a chance at helping Light to find happiness, the happiness they shared in their nighttime ritual of murmur-touching and skin, in forcing Light to acknowledge it, acknowledge them, even if only in the most secluded recesses of his mind - is the most cutting of betrayals that L can deal.
Yes. Light is Kira, but Kira is fallible and, therefore... human.
This is the seed L plants alongside his apology.
Light averts his eyes, refusing to meet L's gaze, and while L can hardly fault his fear of exposing his anticipation (if L reads the expression correctly there, he can't be sure, not anymore ), he also knows that despite Light's intention to kill the single person he respects, L's own death will be the catalyst stretching taut the final string of reason anchoring Light to his sanity.
It's fraying right now.
And Light seems to have misplaced his smiles.
A cocktail of emotion, predominantly suspicion, and confusion rife with what-ifs scroll openly across the countenance of the god who's Kira, who's Light, exposing inklings of uncertainty. Doubt. L sees cracks in the mask of humility, beyond the pride and corruption. Perhaps a sliver of the Light Yagami who would have been without the notebook. The seed has taken root, and L apologizes because he is certain that, in time, the planting will metastasize, robbing Light of his sanity and with his, Kira's.
For Kira is also Light Yagami.
Light's confusion poses a question. It's answered easily enough.
L smiles ingenuously, the line of his shoulders dropping in defeat. He speaks, softly now, ruefully. "It will be lonely, won't it? You and I will be parting ways soon."
The ringing of his cellphone interrupts them in this, the finale of their time together, and L turns away. It's distressing now, at the precipice of this long and fruitless journey, saturated with anticipation and excitement, disappointment and death. If only he and Light could have wrung a little more joy from it all. If only, but -
They can't because it really is too late.
L leads the way, knowing Light will follow him to what little future they still share.
As for Light, he will merely take longer to reach L on a metaphysical plane if one believes in such things. L doesn't.
"Let's go, Light. It seems as if things have worked out."