acceptance

Lawliet was arranging pebbles in the ash.

Light was watching him. 'Are we friends now, L?'

Lawliet carefully set another pebble. 'We were always friends, Kira.'

Light stared hard at the side of Lawliet's face. 'I hated you.'

Lawliet didn't look at him. 'I know.'

'And yet you still considered someone who hated you a friend,' said Light, watching the pebbles line up beneath cagey fingers.

A pebble paused in the air. 'I never hated you.' The pebble lowered, the ash cratering around it.

'Not even when I beat you?' asked Light.

Lawliet's eyes, when they met his, were too dark for anything to be seen within them. 'I always thought I'd die alone, you know.' The inkwells turned away, and another pebble joined the line. 'It was nice not to.'

'You died in the arms of your enemy,"' said Light.

'There are worse ways to die,' said Lawliet, placing another pebble in the ash. 'Like alone in a cell, abandoned even by your own sanity.'

'But I won,' said Light.

'No,' said Lawliet, pausing with a pebble between thumb and forefinger. 'You made sure that everybody lost.' The pebble stacked on top of another.

'It's the same thing,' said Light.

Another pebble was placed. 'No, it's not.'

Light tilted his head, watching the pebbles stack up, slowly building a wall.

'I hurt you, didn't I.' It wasn't a question.

The next pebble took a beat too long to find its place. 'The dead can't feel pain, Kira.'

'They can't eat cake, either,' said Light.

A pebble was misplaced, scattering the ash into which it fell. Light waited.

Lawliet stared at the gray residue smudged on his fingers. 'It's nice to know that solitary confinement did not damage Kira's psyche permanently.'

Pale fingers rubbed together, but the gray stayed, embedded in the lines of his fingerprints.

'You thought you'd be alone,' realized Light. 'Even when I died.'

The ash drifted slowly towards the ground, stirred only by a gentle, unnecessary exhalation. 'Kira was my first-ever—and only—friend.'

Light closed his eyes, and seemed to find something in the darkness there. 'L was my only friend, also.'

'Yes,' came Lawliet's voice, lowly. 'I know.'

The ash settled over them softly, and neither of them moved to brush it off.