'We haven't really changed at all, huh?' Matt mumbled to Mello in the lonely pre-dawn of a morning after. He was feeling with his fingers along Mello's pectoral muscles, looking for scars to trace. 'I mean, you at least changed your shirt, but other than that...'

Mello was not wearing a shirt. He was half burnt and half living flesh, bare. He was undead. He had buried the boy from Wammy's and risen as this gory new creature. He felt like an open wound. He bled all over. His heart had been bleeding on Matt for the week and half they'd been together, and his body had been literally bleeding on the sheets. He was very offended by Matt's insinuation. 'Speak for yourself.' he snapped.

'I just mean... you still sort of self-sabotage.' Matt persisted, breathing audibly, brushing his thumb along the fiery seam where Mello's skin was split in two. 'It's hard to watch. It was hard to hear about, too, but like... it's worse to watch.'

Mello grimaced. 'I fuckin' don't, Matt, I do my best -'

'Eh. Sometimes I think you like feeling like you got screwed, and nothing's your fault. Like, you're all pissed because, uh, Near won in the end, but... you actually gave up. I'm just telling you how you look from over here.'

'I didn't let Near become L because I had given up, Matt.' Mello twitched his shoulder out from under Matt's head so it thunked down on the pillow.

'No, I just mean, it seems like you gave up willingly so no one could actually say you lost, you know? Like, "I didn't even want it anyway", you know? You just nuke everything when your back's up against the wall.'

Mello sat up against the headboard. It was cool and shadowy in the bedroom. He didn't like the conversation, but he could never muster the same anger against Matt that he could for anyone else. He leant up on an elbow and looked down at Matt's tired freckled face pressed into the black pillowcases, red and white like a bad joke. 'Should I cook?'

Matt nodded and sat up, too. He reached into the darkness for the plate of ketamine lines he'd abandoned the night before. He was shaggy and covered in bruises from the wrists to the junction of his collarbones to his soft stomach, wrapped in a sheet. His outline in front of the window was grey and vague, slouching and sniffing. Keeping him at Wammy's for all those long years had been important, but now Mello couldn't remember how he'd slept alone. Peacefully, probably. With pride intact. Mello started to press his knuckles into Matt's back, shifting the skin. 'Ouch.' Matt said. He stayed hunched forward, curled like a question mark over his outstretched legs.

'You're tense. What do you even have to be tense about?'

Matt's shoulders rolled in a lazy shrug. 'Could you make pancakes?'

'Sure.'

Mello was spinning out of control, again. He needed a change. He had scheduled a move to Japan, planning to drag Matt with him, this time. They left tomorrow, early. He couldn't scratch an itch that was under his skin, but he could move to Japan and hope it didn't follow. So maybe Matt was right about this one thing; that he restarted when it started to look like he was losing.

Mello untangled himself from the twisted duvet and wandered through the house turning lights on. The microwave clock was flashing 04.29. Mello often sacrificed sleep for time with Matt. He was pulled taut between the major motivations of his life – a minor obsession with the thought of marrying Matt the way his parents had once been married, the way Dmitri and Darling had been married; and the pit he'd fallen into with Kira. Kira had to die - so that Mello could live out his criminal fantasy, could recapture the feeling that had so charmed him when he'd briefly tasted domesticity in Prague. He could deprive himself until then.

Matt kissed Mello on the jaw when he came into the kitchen, grabbing his hips from behind and burying his face in Mello's shoulder. He was warm and naked except for his mismatched socks. He smelt of cigarette smoke, coconut water, and old dust.

'Can you handle boiling a cup of water?' Mello asked.

'I guess.' Matt yawned and stepped away to crouch in front of the stove and riffle noisily in the drawer for a pot. He lit the stove and then meandered out of the kitchen again, flicking his lighter. He came back with a pair of loose pajama pants on, an ashtray in one hand and his Gameboy in the other. He settled at the little two-seater table that was pushed against one of the kitchen walls and started to play Tetris, slowly smoking while the water boiled.

Mello enjoyed cooking. It was a small accomplishment to cook something, and he liked starting the day with an accomplishment.

When he put a plate of plain, flat pancakes in front of Matt, he liked that he was looking after Matt's body. Also for Matt, a hot mug of water. For himself, black coffee.

'Thank you.' Matt drawled.

'Uhuh.' Mello scooped raspberry jam onto his pancake. Their kitchen light penetrated the darkness only as far as the table and the edge of the doorway into the living room. Beyond their space of light, nothing. Nothing else existed.

The pancakes were so good. Mello's best yet, maybe. He'd added lemon juice. He watched Matt cut his stack into eights and slowly lift a forkful to his mouth, gently chew, swallow his Adam's apple, and tap ash into the ashtray. Matt moved like a dream underwater, all his limbs dragged by some otherworldly friction. No one else on Earth was like Matt. Mello loved him so fiercely it ripped his heart raw, and he was numb with the terror of love's enormity and power.

When the dishes were cleared, Matt wandered into the livingroom and flicked the Saturday morning cartoons on. Round and childish noises distracted from the ambiance they'd been nursing over breakfast. Matt was such a contradictory man, so overgrown in his criminality and his habits and so stunted in his tastes and his emotional range. He had some remnants of a baby's face on his cheeks, weird sitting on the bird-like frailty of his shoulders.

Matt liked to work with the AC blasting, the fridge humming, the TV mumbling, and the CD player on. He was still doing a lot of his own scammy odd jobs, since Mello was so jealous of the Kira case and only threw Matt the scraps, keeping the meat and the bones and the future glory for himself.

Matt filled the house with smoke and noise all morning and napped in the afternoon, leaving Mello alone with a blue silence.

Mello had never managed to recreate the warm atmsophere of Prague in his own home, despite the red carpets and orange lamps and gold plated religious knicknacks he'd scattered around. He didn't have busyness here the way they had busyness there; he had work to grind on and news to keep informed of, not housework to putter with and newspapers to browse. He hoped he wouldn't have to spend his whole life chasing someone else's way of living: L's job, Near's grades, Evzan's aesthetic. The whole point of leaving Wammy's had been to figure out how to be an original.

Matt slipped out of the apartment when he woke up to go meet his dealer downstairs, and Mello gave him a hundred dollar bill. Matt's dealer refused to meet Mello: he always had to go through Matt. This, too, made him feel like a copycat and a poseur, in so many ways.

'She's a single mother.' Matt had bragged, once. He thought that was really altruistic of him, to buy drugs from a single mother.

Mello watched Matt shuffle his jacket on with an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth. This was Matt in all his glory.

'Ok, last night, no work.' Matt said when he returned.

'No – not no work.' Mello grumbled, looking up from his laptop at Matt's wincing grin.

'What are you planning to accomplish between now and 6am?' Matt asked.

'More than you, less than necessary to catch Kira.' Mello muttered pessimistically.

Matt snorted. 'Doesn't seem worth it to me.' he said. He put the bag he'd bought Mello next to him on the table and started to bustle around the kitchen, making toast. 'Is there jam?' he asked.

'Don't think so.'

'Butter?'

'No.'

'What is there?'

'You're the one with your head in the cupboards, you tell me.'

Matt's complaining died down when he was seated with two pieces of plain burnt toast and a cider. He started to zone out looking out the window, just holding his meal in two hands like a statue and watching the sky turn pink. Mello cut lines for himself and intended to stay up all night listening to tapes from a Pro-Kira network in Japan, staring at the back of Matt's messy, candy-apple red bedhead.

For dinner, he got up and made canned vegetable soup. Matt drifted into the kitchen after him and started to talk about cat fishing, which was his new money making scheme. For some reason, Matt was really good at making men fall in love with him online.

'Do you have a type?' Mello asked him when Matt shoved his phone in Mello's face, showing him an admittedly funny conversation he'd had with a balding gas station attendant about beaches – for which the man had apparently payed Matt 40$.

'Hmm...' Matt reached out and flattened his palms against Mello's bare stomach. They both liked it when Mello went without a shirt at home. 'Blondes.'

'I meant for men to target with your little scams.'

'Nah. Oh – pathetic people.'

Mello couldn't hold in a barking laugh. 'How can you tell, just lookin' at 'em?'

'I can smell it on them like a bloodhound.'

Mello shook his head in disbelief. While he was stirring his soup with one hand, Matt took the other and lifted it to his thin lips. 'Yeah, I have a type.' he mumbled against the knuckle of Mello's trigger finger, and then kissed it.

Mello's stomach shriveled. Matt was good at making men fall in love with him, period.

'You should take a break.' Matt said, pulling on the hand he was holding so he could put Mello's fingers around the back of his neck, and sidling up close. 'Man, we're going to be on a plane for days tomorrow.'

Mello kneaded Matt's skin, scratched with his long painted nails. 'I'm taking a dinner break.' he said coldly, with the knife's edge of a smile.

'So eat me.' Matt said ridiculously, and then cackled.

'That's how you talk to your johns, Matt?'

'That's right.'

Matt's mouth attached to Mello's throat, sucking, and he was silent.

'Ok,' Mello said, turning the burner off and wrapping his arms around Matt's shoulders. 'Fine. You're the horniest bastard...'

'Nuhuh.' Matt said, putting his hand on Mello's hard crotch. 'I'm tied with some other bitch.'

Mello rolled his eyes. He grabbed a handful of Matt's hair and yanked on him, dipped his head down to kiss him with his tongue out. Matt was stale, hard like chicken bones, but his sweat smelt good, somehow. He made Mello want to hump him while they stood in front of the stove, or slam him into something and bite him like an animal. 'Get over here.' he said instead, taking a handful of his flat ass and pulling him into the hallway.

'Can I fuck you?' Matt asked with his eyes closed.

'Yeah, yeah...' Mello said, 'and then you're gonna do some real work.'

Matt's face soured. He let Mello shove him onto the mattress in their messy dark bedroom, submitted to being kissed as he lay on his back with his legs open while Mello ground down on him.

'Here,' Mello said after a long wet moment, swinging one knee off Matt's hips and lying next to him with his head on the pillow. He shucked his pants. Already without underwear or shirt, that was the extent of the necessary undressing.

'You're fucking hot,' Matt panted while he felt behind Mello for his ass. 'That's my type, too.'

'That's everyone's type.' Mello said shortly. Matt was a very bad kisser when he was distracted, as he quickly became by fumbling lube onto his fingers and putting them inside Mello one by one, so Mello held the back of his head and let him breath hotly on his throat, flattered by Matt's desperation.

Mello turned around so Matt could spoon him and guide his cock in, holding one of Matt's hands. Matt liked to hear him talk, so he talked non-stop: commands, mostly. Go faster, tell me you're mine, don't come yet.

'Ok, ok,' Mello said while Matt was still shallowly thrusting, twisting his torso to swat at his freckled chest. 'Get on your back.'

Matt did as he was told. His cheeks were hot and red, ears too. Mello climbed back on top of him, missing the view from above, and sat down on him so he could ride him, instead. He liked watching Matt's face get blotchy, and he liked shoving his weight onto Matt's hipbones, wanted to bruise them with his ass if he could.

Matt's hands trailed up Mello's thighs, one of them stopping at the base of his cock and the other grabbing his waist.

'Don't tickle me.' Mello snapped, and Matt moved it again so he was touching the hardness of Mello's hard won abs, instead.

'Jesus.' Matt sighed.

'No, no – say it, say Mihael.'

'Mihael.'

Mello nodded furiously, speeding up his movements, grabbing Matt's wrist to hold him steady. He came before Matt did, looking piercingly into Matt's eyes like they were having a staring contest. He came saying, 'yes, Matt.'

'Let's not do anything else tonight.' Matt whispered when they'd finised. 'Just drugs and sex.'

Mello rolled his eyes. 'I've got soup on.' For the next five minutes, at most, he would pet Matt's soft head and let Matt press kisses along his jaw.

'Yeah, I guess have dudes to scam.' Matt sniggered into Mello's neck. 'I'm a busy man.'

'Hm.'

Mello extracted himself from Matt's arms, leaving him lying like a starfish on the sheets to get back to his work. He sat at the table with the pot and a spoon, eating while his eyes stared at the white walls, voices in his ears through the headphones raving about the New World.

Matt didn't reappear until after he'd given up yelling Mello's name, yelling "Fire!", giggling "Help!" and then he drifted back into the room wearing a goofy disappointed smile, split a line with Mello, and went to work like Mello had told him to. For all his whinging, he was diligent enough when it counted.

They stayed up typing until it was time to load the few bags they were bringing into the hired car and head out for the airport.

'Think you'll miss this place?' Matt asked Mello in the stairwell. 'Like, the city and whatever?'

Mello knew he would. He was nostalgic, a little bit of a romantic. He would probably look fondly back on the nights he spent in his underground bunker with his arms on the back of a big couch, feet on the table. He would reminisce about heat waves warping his bare arms when he walked from the apartment to the liquor store for gin. He could already conjure a wistful image of Matt tucked away on the balcony with smoke curling around his slumped shoulders, gazing out over the city lights. 'It doesn't matter.' he said.

'Maybe we'll come back.' Matt said, hearing the bitterness.

Maybe Mello would go back to England, and surprise himself with how small and unimportant Wammy's front gate looked to his 20 year old eyes. Maybe he would go to Prague, and find the streets unfamiliar, the kitchens dim. It really didn't matter. The places he'd known only existed in his memory, now.

It wasn't for another handful of hours that he and Matt felt ready to sleep on the plane, at first still too buzzed and anticipatory to nod off. Finally, Matt shuffled until his head was resting on Mello's arm and his knees were pressed hard into the back of the seat in front of them, and he dozzed. Mello tipped his own head back and slept dreamfully right through the on-flight meal.

When he awakened, Matt was sipping on a plastic cup of ginger ale and playing on his Gameboy, still squashed against Mello's side. Mello reached into the bag at his feet and pulled out his book, opening it to read.

The flight might have been boring, instead of annoying, if Matt hadn't spent the hours that followed shifting, complaining, drinking, and twitching. It was a relief to land in Japan.

They clambered into a taxi. Matt seemed more subdued now that he could alit his eyes on something new, keeping his nose pressed to the window. Outside, it was dark and neon. There were no stars.

'Bet our place is small.' Matt said.

'It's a small country.' Mello agreed. He was exhausted from their all-nighter and the discomfort of napping in the plane seat. Anything with a bed would satisfy him.

'It seems peaceful.' Matt said insanely. They were cradled by traffic, by vibrant signs and swinging restaurant doors.

'It seems busy as shit.'

'Yeah, but like...' Matt shrugged. 'I don't know. We should go out for a drink.'

'You can't be fucking serious.' Mello groaned. 'We have unpacking to do, systems to set up, we have to put sheets on the futon, you have to brush your teeth as soon as we're in the door.'

'Jeez, I get it.' Matt shook his head. 'We'll set up your futon, I'll brush my teeth, I want to some warm sake.'

'No.'

'Come on, Mello, compromise.'

Matt's fingers travelled across the middle seat like a spreading leak, and then trickled over the back of Mello's hand. He closed them around Mello's wrist and squeezed.

'One drink.' Mello said.

Matt shut up after that, a knowing little smile on his mouth. It was so hard for Mello to focus with him around.

Their new flat was smaller than the old one, but it was cozy instead of cramped. Mello had brought only one of his jackets, and Matt had left a lot of old pizza boxes behind, so there was space for them enough. Matt didn't help Mello with the futon, opting instead to smoke in the middle of the living room floor, using an empty water bottle as an ashtray. The smell of new home was already being layered over with Matt's signature musk. Maybe dragging him from place to place was the key to beating nostalgia, because Mello already felt like he'd been dipped in the same colours they'd worn back in LA, surrounded as he was by the same foul smells.

By the time they left the aparment, it was drizzling. Matt shielded his cigarette from the weather with a protective hand, and Mello shielded them both with a little umbrella, favouring his own hair. They walked in a weekend bustle, through clumps of young people and past groups of men in ties.

The closest bar was not far from their apartment block, and Mello was actually grateful for the short walk after such a long period sitting down. He cracked his neck when he sat on a stool next to Matt and purused the menu.

There was some small talk with a bartender about where they'd come from, how they'd ended up speaking such fluent Japanese, if they liked it so far, and then they were left alone to hold steaming drinks in their cupped hands and talk lazily between themselves.

'Weird that Kira's, like, right here.' Matt said. His jitters had faded and now he looked rosy and a little shocked. He usually looked shocked when he was out in public, like he'd forgotten what it would be like to be among his fellow human beings.

'We're so close.' Mello agreed. He mimed grabbing something in his fist, leather glove crinkling.

'Cheers.' Matt said. 'To you. Getting Kira's head.'

Mello clinked glasses with him. 'To winning.'