Last time on No Matter What...
To calm her down further, the interviewer had asked, "Can we know the name of this splendid fellow?"
Sunny's eyes widened in shock as she stared down at the paper. 'I-it can't be...'
There on the paper transcript, typed up in clear cut, pristine black ink was the name "Light Yagami."
She didn't know why it shocked her. After all, he was a normal teenager, and normal teenagers went on dates all the time. And it certainly made sense as to why he was so reluctant to trust the FBI agent; he was the son of the police chief.
Sunny sighed. Somehow, something about this case was bothering her. There was the FBI agent, yes, and there was absolutely no doubt that he was one of the agents that were sent by L. Why else would an FBI agent be in Japan? Now, unless someone else from the police force had been on the bus that day, the FBI agent had been there to spy on Light Yagami.
It all came down to him then. Light Yagami. No, that was wrong; it all came down to Light Yagami and the FBI. Sunny felt that something was going on with Light Yagami; however, unless she had proof of any sort to back up this feeling, that's all it would ever be: just a feeling.
She grumbled slightly but made up her mind; she would introduce her suspicions about this case and the FBI and Light's involvement to L tonight and wait for his opinion. Surely he would come to the same conclusion she did: if something happened to the FBI now, they would know that Light Yagami played a role in it, no matter how big or small. It would be proof based entirely on assumptions and rough analyzation, but it would be something to start on.
However, right now, she still had to finish this damn report, and after that, she had to work on the Kira case a bit more. She could worry about Light Yagami and the involvement of the FBI later.
Though, as Sunny organized her pile of evidence that was now slightly strewn across her desk, she couldn't help but wonder: who was the FBI agent on that bus?
10 HOURS LATER
Sunny stretched her sore limbs and glanced down at her watch. It was 11 pm. Huh, no wonder she was so tired; she would've usually left the headquarters 2 hours earlier. However, because of the report...
For the umpteenth time that day, she cursed the laziness of her fellow officers, or at least, the goons who had dumped her with the all the extra work. Huffing, she started packing up all her materials. It took a good 5 minutes to organize herself because all of her papers were scattered across the small desk she used to work on.
Ziiiiiiip. The sound the zipper made was sort of satisfying, for it made her think of the work she had done today being cleaned up and put aside for tomorrow. Yawning, she checked her watch again and started out of the building.
When she arrived in the lobby, she looked around for a man in a black trench coat; however, the lobby was totally empty, and all she heard was the low hum of electricity.
'Watari must've gone home without me, meaning Ryuu told him that I'd be staying back later than usual.' Looks like she'd have to walk home. She shrugged. Ah well, there's really nothing that could be done about that.
She headed outside and was instantly hit with a blast of frigid air. A soft smile slowly spread across her face. She never really got why most people hated the cold because to her, the cold was spicy and refreshing, like the small peppermint candies she loved. The cold also held some of the best memories for her.
Her smile turned slightly goofy. It had been a cold, snowy day like this when she had met Ryuu for the first time...
FLASHBACK- 12 YEARS AGO
Faces and buildings flashed by the little girl's window, and she looked out with brief, mild interest before turning back to her own extremely morbid thoughts.
She was a little slip of a girl who had barely turned 11; however, even in her young age, she had seen horrors that no child should've seen...
After that day when her parents died in a fire (almost a year ago, although it seemed more like centuries ago), she had spent the better portion of a week recuperating in a hospital. Although there were not external burns on her, she had a mild case of asthma which had been greatly irritated by the flames and so had to stay a tad bit longer in the hospital than if she hadn't had asthma.
When her time at the hospital was over, a cheerful young lady with mouse brown hair and chocolate eyes had gently taken her hand and led her into a car. She was a nice lady; all the way to the orphanage, she had tried to cheer the little girl up by taking out a pair of bells and ringing them constantly. The girl recalled now that they were pretty bells, even if they failed to cheer her up.
The orphanage she had been in for the past year wasn't a bad orphanage, but it wasn't a good one either. It was exceedingly normal, but that's not why she was bored every day. She was bored because the orphanage had kept on giving her such boring courses to learn. She had already learned most of them, and all she had to do for the other courses was to read the textbooks. It was easy and oh so mind-numbingly BORING!
Test after test had been given to her, and she had passed each of them with flying colors.That was why she was here today; she was heading to a 'special' orphanage. All the adults at her old orphanage had tried to get her pumped up for this orphanage- they said things like, "It's for people like you." or "Now you'll really fit in!"- but none of their strategies worked. The past year had left her drained, apathetic, bored, and sad, a combination of lethargic emotions that stirred so strongly within her that it felt like the too-thick soups at the orphanage. If anyone had ever asked her what she wanted, she would've replied with, "I want to just sleep and never wake up."
Although, sleep itself did very little to help her. Most nights, she stayed awake, and when she fell asleep on the other few nights, she always woke up either screaming or gasping for air. Huh. Interesting.
"We're here, little miss," the driver called from up front. The girl jerked violently out of her thoughts and saw that they had indeed arrived at the orphanage. She stepped out on cramped legs and walked over to the driver, who was carrying her bag out to the sidewalk. When she reached the sidewalk, she fumbled through her purse and tried to pull out the correct amount of fare for a ride this long.
"Little miss?"
The girl looked up and saw a twinkle of kindness and pity in the man's eyes. She waited for him to go on.
"Little miss, it's okay. Yer fare has already been paid fer." Saying that, he went back to his cab. Before he climbed in, he turned around and tipped his cap.
"Have a jolly good day, little miss. Happy Holidays!" He drove off, leaving the girl on the sidewalk with wide, disbelieving eyes. She was still standing there like that when she heard the gates creaking open.
When she turned to her right, she saw an old man walking towards her. As he reached her, he offered his right hand and said, "Good afternoon, my dear. My name is Quillish Wammy, and I am the director and founder of this orphanage."
The girl stared at his hand before tentatively extending her own hand to meet his. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Wammy," her voice came out as a whisper, "My name is-"
"Ah, my dear, there's no need to tell me your real name. I already know it. I trust you've read the rule book for this orphanage before you arrived?" She nodded. "Well then, you should know about our custom of giving nicknames to the children who enter, plus a letter to go along with it."
The girl nodded again and bit her lower lip before timidly asking, "Why?"
It wasn't the most detailed question that had ever been asked; however, Quillish Wammy instinctively knew what the child was asking about. He gave a mysterious smile and said, "For security reasons, my dear. A genius will always have enemies who might try to use, harm, or pass off as him or her. Therefore, the custom of nicknames." He stooped down to pick up her bag. "You will get your own nickname later. For now, please come with me, and we shall get you settled in."
As they passed under the gate, the girl looked up at the snow-covered sign above the gates. 'Wammy's House... rather strange name for an orphanage. And yet somehow... it's much more like home...'
When she came back from her reverie, she noticed that Mr. Wammy was already far down along the road. She let out a small cry of surprise before running to catch up.
As she caught up to him, Mr. Wammy turned to her with a warm, close-eyed smile. "I realize that there is a lot to see, but please do try to keep up. If you'd like, you can have a tour later."
The girl was about to apologize when she realized she was not being chastised, so instead she dipped her head and murmured, "Yes, that would be lovely, thank you."
They continued down the road, which was bordered by what she took to be apple trees, judging by their size. She couldn't really tell however seeing as it was winter and all the trees were bare. It was still beautiful though. The girl occasionally lifted her head to look at her surroundings but put most of her attention on keeping up with Mr. Wammy. For such an old person, he was quite sprightly.
They passed through the front courtyard. The first thing she noticed about it was that it was covered in snow just like everything else. The second thing she noticed was the laughter. As she turned to look more carefully at the courtyard, she saw children having a snowball fight. She stopped for a second to observe them.
Each side hurled playful jeers and insults, as well as snowballs, at each other. There were forts, yes, but the forts did very little to defend their adventurous and competitive owners, who went out of their way to throw snowballs at the other team, only to get hit in the face, chest, arm, or any other bodily part with a cold ball of snow. All in all, they looked like they were having a lot of fun playing with their friends.
Friends...
As she stared at the happy children in front of her, she crouched into herself. There was no way she'd ever be able to be as happy-go-lucky as the kids in front of her, meaning there was no way they'd ever be friends with her. After all, who would want to be around someone who rarely smiles and even more rarely laughs?
A hand came down on her shoulder, gently rousing her out of her bout of loneliness. She looked up and into the warm gray eyes of Mr. Wammy."Shall we go inside, my dear?" She nodded mutely, and he led her into the building.
If the building looked huge from the outside, then it was even bigger on the inside. As the doors opened, she could see the elegant, wooden staircase and the mint green carpet that complimented it beautifully. As they walked in, she craned her neck upwards to see the flying buttresses, and her eyes widened in amazement. After a while, her neck started to ache, so she slowly tilted her head down and looked around at the furniture in front of the stairs.
They were elegant and old. The designs on the furniture were faded, and though they all seemed to be in one piece, with a closer look, the girl saw that all of them had at least one tear or rip. They were worn down, true, but they were worn down in the way sneakers were broken in; they were comfortable, and they added to the homelike atmosphere she'd been getting from the orphanage ever since the driver refused her fare. Still, she wasn't about to relax just yet...
Mr. Wammy led her up the stairs and paused in front of a pair of standard wooden doors. He turned to her and asked, "I hear you like to read. If that's so, then you're going to love this room." He gestured to the doors behind him and continued, "Through these doors, you'll find our library. Kindly wait here while I go to your room to drop off your belongings, and then we'll head over to my office to sort out some final matters. Feel free to look through the books. I only ask that you not take any books out of the library, not for this first week at least."
She nodded in understanding. While she might have a reputation for good behavior, Mr. Wammy and the others would not be so inclined to trust her so easily. It was to be expected in any orphanage, let alone an orphanage that gave children nicknames and letters to hide behind.
"Well then my dear," he held open the door as she walked through, "I shall come back for you as soon as possible." And with that, he closed the door he had been holding open silently. The girl waited until she could no longer hear his footsteps before she decided to move.
The library was huge; not as huge as the front room, but it held its own against that room fairly. However, its size was not the thing that impressed the girl, nor was it the giant windows in the back; it was the books.
Books everywhere. Rows and rows of books went down the full length of the room, and the shelves were so high they almost touched the ceiling! Really, she didn't know where to start!
She walked down the aisles of books, running her hands over rough leather, crinkly plastic, and smooth paper. Though she saw many familiar titles, more often than not, she saw a lot of books that she didn't know about. Occasionally, she even saw books of other languages too!
She kept on walking down the aisles, and she was about to give up and turn back when she saw him.
It was another orphan like her and the rest outside (she assumed that because he was in the library); however, he was rather... odd, so to speak.
For one thing, he sat weirdly. Since there were no tables at the end of this particular aisle, he sat on the floor by the window. Any other person would've sprawled out on the floor or perhaps hunched so that they could read comfortably. He did neither. While he did hunch up, instead of sitting on his bottom like everyone else, he sat on the balls of his feet, so he looked like he was crouching.
For another thing, he had a different way of holding his book. Most people held books in either one hand or two hands; he held the book between his thumbs and forefingers and didn't even put it down when he had to turn the page! He deftly turned it while still in that position, and the girl could see that this way of reading books was a habit for him, not something he'd just decided to try.
Lastly, there was his appearance; although, when she thought about it, his appearance wasn't really that odd. He had shaggy black hair that contrasted greatly with the falling snow outside the window. Some of it fell into his eyes, which were just as black as his hair and glazed with sleep. She could see that he had bags under his eyes; they were so thick that for a second she had almost thought they had been done with black eye shadow. However, his eyes were alert as they'd darted across the pages, and now, she got a good look into those blank eyes as he looked up to see the person who was currently towering over him.
She immediately dropped to the ground to make herself seem friendlier; she knew what it was like to have people look down on you. This didn't seem to affect the boy in any way, shape, or form; he just kept looking at her with his blank eyes, which, if she looked closer now, she could see that there was a confused glimmer in it.
She shifted awkwardly and stuck out a hand toward the boy, who by this time had put his book down beside to focus his whole attention on her. When he didn't shake her hand, she put it down gently, cleared her throat, and whispered, "Hi, my name is-" She stopped suddenly and shook her head. "No, that's wrong, isn't it? I'm not supposed to give you my name."
The boy sat silently for a while before whispering back, "Do you not have a nickname yet?"
She shook her head again. "No, I'm new and just got here."
"Ah. I see." They sat in silence before the boy asked her, "Why don't you choose your name?"
The girl's eyebrows furrowed. "I thought the orphanage chooses your nickname and letter."
"They do, but it's only if you can't come up with a nickname yourself. And the letter can either be the first letter of your real name or the first letter of your nickname."
"Hmm, in that case," the girl thought for a while, chewing on her bottom lip before continuing, "Let's try this again, shall we?" She stuck out her hand again, this time with confidence. "Hi, my name is Sunny!" She smiled warmly and tilted her head to the side, "What's yours?"
The boy looked at the proffered hand before tentatively shaking it. "L. My name is L."
BACK TO THE PRESENT
Sunny was still smiling that obnoxiously goofy grin when she was attacked.
Well, surrounded would be more like it.
She had been so caught up in her memories that she had taken a wrong turn; as a result, she was now in a part of town that she didn't recognize. And as if that wasn't enough, she was now surrounded by a gang of teenage boys.
As they moved in on her, one of them said, "Oi, oi, look what we got here!"
Another one, this time in the opposite direction, cackled. "She's not pretty, but she'll do."
Sunny's eyebrows shot up in alarm. "You guys are like, what, 16, 17? Shouldn't you be at home studying for whatever exams you might have?"
"Hah! And what makes ya think we're the kind of guys who study? Your vision's bit off, old lady."
Sunny's brows furrowed in fake confusion. "If I'm an old lady, why do you guys want to bang me?"
They all stopped in their tracks, and Sunny could almost see their thoughts going, 'Huh?' However, she took advantage of the situation by stuffing her hand into her bag, and after a minute of quickly digging around, she pulled out the object of her search in triumph.
"Aha, found it!" It was a can of pepper spray. She put one finger on the trigger and widened her stance. A maniacal grin found its way onto her face. "Say hello to my little friend~," she sang. She pressed the trigger and...
...Nothing. "Eh?" She pressed the trigger again. Still nothing. She shook the can frantically and then pressed the trigger. Nada.
"Well, shit."
The teenager in front of her barked out a short laugh. "Oi, old lady, is that all your 'little friend' can do?" he taunted.
Before Sunny could think of a potentially snarky/dangerous reply, another boy piped up with, "Man, I'm booored! Hey Boss, hurry it up a little!"
In the darkness, she saw a boy grin as he started to step ever closer towards her. Sunny's eyes narrowed in concentration. 'So this must be the bo-'
THUD! Her back hit the alley wall; her eyes widened. The grinner closed in, teeth flashing like a shark's. Closer, closer, closer. And there was nothing Sunny could do about it. She was officially trapped, and it didn't look like anyone would be walking around this area at night.
AN: (sarcastic voice) Let's give it up for the new version of the final exams, shall we? Woot, woot. Though to be fair, they were easier than I thought they'd be...
Agh! I'm sorry this came so late everyone. I blame it on exams because EXAMS! It doesn't matter how easy they are; if they make you so tired that they disrupt your sleeping schedule (wake up at 1, screw around for a few hours before going back to sleep only to wake up at 7), then they suck!
This chapter is a bit longer than usual, if you notice, even though it's not as long as the last one. The reason the update was so late was because I was originally just going to do one huge chapter. However, I decided to cut it in half because it got too long. So after this, Imma get crackin' on the next chapter, which is mostly done except for the last few parts.
Also, this chapter is un-beta'ed, so please inform me if I made any mistakes. CJ is just as wrapped up in exams as I am, making it hard for eir to beta this fic. However, I asked her if she could beta the next chapter, and she said yes. Best get down to that crackin' I was talking about!
Also, I have been recently obsessed with Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji. Specifically obsessed with THE Black Butler himself: Sebastian Michaelis (love his name!). I'm thinking of making a SebbyxOC once summer rolls around. It'd be updated alongside "No Matter What", and I'd update both regularly. Here's a short summary: Korax (our Sebby right here!) knew he'd have to find a mate; all of Lucifer's sons did once they reached their 1,000th birthday. Faline (our OC) is the demon he chose. She is the cat demon, and she does not hold that much trust in him. She's heard he's a player, someone who likes to play with demon and human hearts alike, and nothing can convince her otherwise. In Korax's moment of need, a certain young earl calls for him, and once the contract is made, he takes Faline and goes to the world above, where they strike a deal: if he can prove to her that he's not a player in the time it took to finish the contract, then they would go back and be mates forever. If not, however...
This is basically something I want to try, so please look out for "Trust", coming this summer!
Dang, this is a loooooong author's note... ah well (shrugs). SCREW IT!
Hiatus is still on, but I'm still alive and updating, so don't worry.
Thank you to WildfireDreams for supporting this fanfic from the absolute start; I always look for your comment whenever I update. Thanks to honeydew-bubble-tea for making me feel better about Sunny. You're right when you said that Sunny and L have had a lot of off-screen development, and Sunny isn't looking to start a relationship with L in that way, not right now at least. Her thoughts go like this: it'd be nice if it happens, but I'd rather not make the first move because I don't want to mess up our friendship, which is important to me. And last but not least, I've teamed up with CakeOfMischief13, and we're the duo that'll take over the world with FLUFF! FLUFF FOR EVERYONE! (we haven't really decided on a name yet though... pooey).
As always, please review and comment. It's nice to know what you guys like and don't like about this story; remember, reviewing makes me become a better author, therefore making this fic better.
See ya around next chapter!
Rafa-chan!