Lowood Institution, Mello mused. What the place lacks in safety, the campus alone makes up for.

He walked at a brisk pace behind his tour guide, forcing himself to listen to everything that she was saying. Although he had spent the past month studying the case and learning about the school, he knew that it was possible that she could say something useful. Besides, he had to act like he hadn't already memorized the school's layout.

"You're room is in the building to your left," she told him as they walked through an overly green courtyard.

That's the west dorm, Mello thought. The previous residence of the second and fifth victims.

"Okay," he said out loud. "Where was the dining hall again?"

The death tole was currently seven. Two of these taken lives had been added to the grand total since Mello had agreed to the case. Roger and Wammy had wanted him to do more research from the orphanage before getting directly involved. After the death of the second boy, Mello had demanded to transfer to Lowood with the start of the school year.

There isn't going to be an eighth, he told himself. If L or Near had taken the case, there probably wouldn't have been a seventh or sixth.

Mello pushed these thoughts away. The best thing about taking this case was supposed to be that he wouldn't have to deal with Near or their competition for a week or two. Frankly, he wouldn't have to deal with any academic competition here. Before applying he had created fake test scores and grades good enough to get him into the school, but poor enough for him not to stand out. Being seen as exceedingly intelligent was not going to help his cover. He needed to come off as normal as possible, even if this meant sacrificing some of his pride.

Lowood Institution. Mello had never attended a real school in his life, much less an all boys boarding school. This would be interesting to say the least.

Seven deaths, he mentally rehearsed the details of the case. Two at the end of the last semester.

Suicide. It didn't seem like an unlikely idea coming from the residence of this school. Sure, the campus was lovely, but Mello had found out early on that the staff where some of the strictest in the area. Not to mention the alleged work load and the fact that 'mommy and daddy' had sent the boys to live far away and practically in the middle of no where.

Yeah, Mello concluded. It wouldn't be hard to believe that these kids actually offed themselves.

There first two deaths were certainly the most convincing, aside from the fact that they had happened with in three days of each other. The first boy, Hadley Jenson, had hung himself with a leather belt that his parents had given him for his birthday. Mello didn't doubt that the choice of weapon was still horrifying the couple. Jenson hadn't left a note or any indication as to why he wanted to end it all. His roommate had found him an hour later. Luckily for the school instead of screaming and alerting the entire building, he had gone to his dean first. The less people who knew, the easier it was for the school to keep what had happened from the other students and their parents. Eventually the information was given out, the school portraying Jenson as depressed and saying that many of the students had seen it coming. At the moment, all of the deaths had been made public. The fact that they were all murder was not.

Adam Smith was found dead by a teacher during nightly rounds. Apparently Smith's roommate was pulling an all-nighter at the library and he hadn't expected him to return to the room until the next afternoon. Smith had slit his wrist with a pocket knife. It was later found out that the knife didn't belong to him, despite baring the faded initials A.S. His roommate had explained that the boy hated weapons of any sort and would never own anything remotely violent. This information was only discovered after the third death raised a suspicion. Originally Smith offing himself hadn't incited questions. This was largely due to the fact that the boy had left a note with his death. That is, if the words "There's just no point anymore. I'm sorry. A." scrawled on a crumpled piece of paper counted as a note.

With the third death came the suspicion. This lead to a very secretive amateur investigation (that had been disbanded after "L" took on the case), where unknown prints of a thumb and forefinger where found of the noose he had used to kill himself. The school had so many students, that it was nearly impossible to see if the prints matched one of them That is, until the fourth victim bleed to death while making sure to keep his thumb and forefinger clean for the detectives to test. The rest of the deaths followed the pattern. One boy would hang himself and the next would slit his wrists.

"And here is your room," the tour guide's voice broke through Mello's thoughts.

Shit, I zoned out. He kept his irritation carefully masked.

"Thanks," he told her.

He waited until she was walking away to open the door. The room was small and bare. The only furniture being an inexpensive looking wooden desk and two small beds. Mello's attention was instantly drawn to a redheaded boy unpacking a suitcase.

"Hello," the boy greeted him with a smile. "You must be Michael."

Stupid cover name, Mello thought bitterly.

"Yeah," Mello held out his hand for the redhead to shake.

"I'm Matt," he introduced himself as he shook Mello's hand.

"Nice to meet you," Mello said politely before throwing his suitcase onto his bed. "Is this your first year here?"

"Yeah," Matt went back to unpacking. "You?"

"Same," Mello told him.

Because it would be all too convenient if my roommate was someone who knew one of the victims, Mello couldn't help thinking.

"It's my first time attending a boarding school." Matt confessed, brushing a lock of that bright hair away from his eyes. "I've always lived at home."

"Same here," Mello lied. "But as soon as I got into this place my family shipped me off."

"You don't want to be here, do you?" Matt asked, his voice a mixture of concern and amusement.

Mello shrugged, stopping what he was doing and sitting down on his bed. He had been working on his cover story, and was enjoying acting the part.

"I don't know," he pretended to think things over. "I guess it'll be interesting."

"That's what I thought." Matt put down the shirt that he had been folding and sat on his bed, mirroring Mello.

Mello took this opportunity to look over his new roommate. He had initially noticed the bright red hair, mainly because it was impossible not to. Matt was wearing a black and red stripped t-shirt and jeans. Today counted as a weekend, meaning that the students were not required to be in uniform. Matt's clothing choice was rather normal, what struck Mello as odd was the fact that he had a pair of tinted goggles resting on the top of his head.

"Are you planning on going swimming or something?" Mello inquired, gesturing to the goggles.

"No," Matt laughed. "These are prescription. My eyes are sensitive to strong light. It's usually fine as long as I stay indoors, but my doctor said to keep them with me just in case."

"Oh." Mello wasn't sure how else to respond.

"What about you?" Matt asked. "Have any quirks that you want to share?"

"Not really," Mello lied.

"That's good," Matt told him. "I mean, it's good for me at least. I was hoping not the get stuck with a crazy roommate."

"I wouldn't count your chickens before they hatch," Mello decided to tell him.

"You're right, I'll wait a day before deciding if you're crazy or not."

"Good plan," Mello said blandly. "I will be doing the same."

"Oh, I can stop you there," Matt grinned. "I'm insane. You might want to request someone else while you still can."

"Really?" Mello smirked. "Or are you just saying that so you get the room to yourself?"

"If I let you in on my plan, then it's not going to work," Matt chuckled.

"There you go," Mello countered. "He's not crazy, he just wants his own room."

"Haha, you caught me," Matt shrugged. "Just don't be surprised when I go loopy."

"I'll be sure to be prepared for being strangled in my sleep," Mello said dryly.

"Naw," Matt grinned. "I'm to shy for that, I'll probably just paint your nails pink of something."

"You have pink nail polish?" Mello gave the kid a doubtful look.

"Yup." The boy beam, then added quickly. "Just for pranks. I don't wear it or anything like that."

"I wasn't judging," Mello laughed.

"So did they give you the tour?" Matt brought the conversation to some form of normalcy.

"Yeah," Mello answered.

"Good, then you can show me where the dining hall is," Matt stood up. "I haven't eaten since I got here."

"Wait," Mello didn't move. "Didn't they give you a tour as well?"

"Yes, but I'm a champion at getting lost." He looked slightly embarrassed when he added: "Also I wasn't really paying attention. Do you know if they're serving food today?"

"Might as well find out," Mello shrugged, standing up.

"Great," Matt beamed.

Mello led the way out of the room.

Well, I guess that's one friend. He tried to look on the bright side of being stuck with the talkative redhead. The better I am at socializing, the more normal I'll look.

On the way Mello purposely took a wrong turn. He didn't want to seem too familiar with the campus. After all, according to Matt and anyone else, the tour was the first that Mello had heard of any of the locations of the buildings.

"Are we lost?" Matt summoned the courage to ask.

"No," Mello stammered. His expression twisted into one of frustration, before sighing. "Yes."

"Oh."

"I should have printed out a map," Mello pretended to chide himself.

"No, it's fine," Matt assured him. "We'll just retrace our steps and figure out where we went wrong."

"Yeah," Mello tried to sound defeated.

"Really, it's not a problem," Matt assured him.

This is more fun than I thought it would be. Mello silently mused.

Mello wasn't a morning person, but he couldn't deny the rush of adrenaline that coursed through him on the first day of school. For once this had nothing do you with class work. The academic part of his day was something that he was not looking forward to. He knew that he would have to keep the "I'm not actually a genius" act going if he wanted to be successful in his cover. Yet this meant that he would have to go the majority of the school day without showing off. That definitely took the fun out of learning.

"What classes do you have?" Matt asked him during breakfast (this time they had no trouble finding the dining hall).

"English," Mello said after glancing at the schedule that he had memorized the day before. "What about you?"

"Let me check," Matt fished his out of his pocket. "Physics. Where was the science department again?"

"Here," Mello handed him the map that he had planned to pretend to refer to for the rest of the day. "I think you need this more than I do."

"Thanks," Matt said sheepishly.

"No problem," Mello shrugged. "It's not your fault that this place is a maze."

"A pretty maze," Matt added. "But a very confusing one. I can't believe the websites made it seem so perfect."

"You thought that a school with the same name as the institute from Jane Ere would be perfect?" Mello laughed. Yes, he knew that displaying literary knowledge was showing off a little, but if he had to spend the entire day dealing with people like Matt, he might as well let his roommate know that he was smart.

"Is it really?" Matt reacted more than Mello thought he would. "That's funny."

"Funny because that school is what most kids imagine when they think of hell, or funny because it was all girls and we're all boys?" Smart and witty, he'd stop there.

"Both," Matt answered. "I'm guessing you liked that book."

"It was okay," Mello shrugged. "I prefer harder classics."

He was aware that he was approaching overly-driven-student territory, and would have to watch what he said next. However, Matt didn't seem to find this odd or very impressive.

"I've never been much of an English person," Matt confessed.

I figured that much, Mello did not say out loud.

"What's your favorite subject, then?" he asked pleasantly.

"Maths," Matt surprised him.

"Oh? What are you taking?"

"A-level calculus."

"What?" Mello's face twisted in astonishment, making him want to slap himself for reacting so much. How was this boy taking such a high class in only his last year of secondary school? He quickly wiped the shock away from his face, not wanting to offend the person that he would be having to deal with for the entirety of his stay at Lowood.

"Yeah," Matt apparently didn't notice. "I know it sounds weird, but I've always liked with working numbers. Numbers and computers, that is, but Lowood doesn't have a tech class."

"You're good with computers?" Mello took this information in.

"Not to brag," Matt smiled. "But I did hack into my old school's website."

"Really?" Mello raised an eyebrow, currently in control of his reactions.

"Well, it's not that impressive, considering they didn't have the best system. But they used the site to tell students their homework and announcements. I was able to delete all of the assignments for the entire secondary school."

"Did you get caught?" Mello asked.

"No," Matt said pridefully. "They got rid of the bug, but they couldn't trace it back to me."

Maybe Matt was smarter than Mello had originally thought, he could work with that.

"I just remembered I told my mom I'd call her this morning," Mello lied, standing up. "I'll be just a second. Can you watch my stuff?"

"Okay," Matt nodded.

Mello was able to subtly glanced at Matt's schedule, which the boy had left on the table. He briskly walked out of the dining hall and into the hallway, making sure that it was empty before pulling out his phone.

"Roger," Mello said urgently as soon as the man picked up. "I need you to call the school and get me into period five A-level calculus right now."

"Mello, I thought that you had said—"

"I changed my mind," Mello interrupted. "I'm following a lead. I don't care what you tell the school, but I need this fixed with in the next hour. Have them email me my new schedule."

Mello didn't wait for another response before hanging up. Yes, scouting Matt out wasn't exactly case related. But, if the boy turned out to be as smart as he just said he was, Mello could definitely use that to his advantage. In order to gage Matt's intelligence, Mello needed to observe him in a work environment. If it turned out that Matt wasn't what he seemed, at least Mello would get to enjoy being in the advanced class.

Mello was emailed his new schedule an hour later. He was pleased that he was now in Matt's maths class, and slightly annoyed when his original elective was dropped and replaced by an art class. Art had never been something that he had waisted his time with. He left the job of painting and sketching to Linda, and refrained from mentioning to her how pointless he deemed her hobby.

"Hey, you didn't say you were in this class too?" Matt exclaimed when Mello sat down at the desk next to his.

"I didn't?" Mello feigned a perplexed expression, he quickly redirected the conversation. "That's probably because I was too busy being impressed with your hacking story."

"Thanks," Matt laughed modestly. "So you're a maths and an English person?"

"I guess," Mello shrugged. "Maybe I'm just a nerd."

"At least you can admit it," Matt smiled.

Class started before the two could make more conversation, and the entire class quickly learned that Ms. Seto, their teacher, did not tolerate talking out of turn. Out of all the teacher Mello had thus far, Ms. Seto stood out the most. She was about average hight with long black hair and expected the class to be paying attention to ever word that she said. That part wasn't odd, considering it was an A level class. As her last name suggested, Mello could tell that she was Japanese. What made her the most memorable was her sharp American accent. He assumed that she originated from Japan and must have learned English from an American. However, he found it odd that the school hired teachers from either countries.

His teacher's strictness was something that Mello did not mind. It wasn't Matt's thought's he was trying to access, it was how he answered each equation that they were given. Every so often he would sneak a glance at Matt's paper, making sure not to be caught looking by either Matt or their teacher. By the end of the class he knew everything that he needed to. Matt was far from 'all talk and no talent', for he came to the correct answer for some of the problems faster than Mello was able to himself.

"I think I'm curse with always having teachers that I hate for subjects that I love," Matt informed Mello as they left the classroom, heading for lunch.

"She didn't seem that bad," Mello gave his opinion.

"Military strictness freaks me out," Matt confessed. "I feel like I make one mistake and she's going to start yelling at me or something."

"We should have sat in the back of the classroom," Mello said to this.

"I'll make sure to do that next time," Matt agreed.

"Hey, can I ask you a weird question?" Mello approached the subject with slight apprehension.

"Sure," Matt said slowly. "But if you're about to confess a deep, dark secret, remember that we've only known each other for a day and a half."

"No, it's not something like that," Mello added an uncomfortable laugh to his nervous facade.

"And, if you prove to be insane, I will take it as an opportunity to complain and get a new room," Matt added.

"I'm being serious," Mello crossed his arms.

"Sorry," Matt's laughter died. "Go on."

"It's just…" Mello let his voice trail off. "Did you hear about the suicides? The ones that have been happening here."

Matt stopped walking.

"Yeah," his voice was neutral, but his body language was tense. "What about them?"

"Doesn't it make you kind of uneasy to be staying here?" Mello asked.

"I guess," Matt's eyes were on the ground in front of him. "But they were suicides, not…you know."

"Seven people died," Mello pressed.

"It's a big school," Matt pointed out.

"Seven people in the past few months," Mello corrected.

"What are you getting at?" Matt's voice was wary.

"Doesn't that make you a little suspicious?" Mello asked.

Matt turned on his heels.

"Are you messing with me, or do you really believe this?" his eyes held Mello's with a death grip.

"I wouldn't joke about something so serious," Mello said, for once telling the truth.

"Good," Matt didn't break the eye contact, but lessened it's intensity. "Because that is exactly what I was thinking."

"You've been thinking about it?" Mello hadn't expected this, but he supposed it was only natural for some of the students to notice.

"Yeah."

"I know it sounds kind of crazy," Mello started. "But I want to find out what happened."

"You're right," Matt told him sharply. "It does sound crazy."

"Well, don't you?" Mello asked defensively. "Wouldn't you feel a lot better knowing that you were doing something to stop it from happening again?"

"You're saying that you want to catch the alleged killer?" Matt asked in a appalled voice.

"Yes," Mello admitted.

"You're insane," Matt looked slightly horrified. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that could be?"

"Of course I do!" Mello pretended to snap, then abruptly looked away. "Never mind. You're right, I'm crazy. Forget I brought it up. I'll see you later."

With that he walked away.

Mello had anticipated a reaction like this, but had a theory that Matt would come around with some time. He was more than surprised later that night, when he realized that "some time" actually meant a few short hours. After the school day had finished, Mello had made it back to their room first. He decided to do some homework before once again going over the case details. While he was doing his first assignment, Matt entered the room and closed the door behind him.

"I'm in," Matt stated.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Matt forced a laugh through his serious expression. It sounded dry. "Why not?"

Raito preferred to study in his bedroom. There was less noise to distract him, and the space provided the isolation that he required to finish the amount of work that he usually had to the best of his abilities. However, lately he was finding it hard for him to get into the zone while being in complete privacy. Originally Raito had dismissed his lack of focus as difficulty adjusting after a summer break spent entertaining himself with information that he found interesting. It was only after a week of enduring the intangible distraction that he realized what the problem really was.

It had been over a month since the wrap up of the case that he had help with. Raito hadn't been contacted by L in over a month, and this was beginning to bother him. He wasn't sure what he had expected, if anything L had indicated that it would be sometime until they talked again. Originally he hadn't even thought L would ever contact him again. Maybe it was the dim hope that L's final words had left him with that left him expecting something. Raito didn't really know, but found that he would rather push the problem from his mind than spend hours dwelling on something that he could not change.

Therefore, to distract from future dwelling, he had decided to finish his homework at the dining room table. He was usually done before his mother had dinner ready, so there was never the problem of his books being in the way. The catch to this plan, was that Raito was victim to hearing all of the distractions that his family could cause throughout the house. This wouldn't be so bad if he was completely indifferent, but the majority of the time Raito wanted to know what his mother or sister was doing that could be so loud. Sometimes this was out of irritation, but for the most part it was only intrigue. So, when he heard the front door slam harshly and quick angry footsteps ascending the stairs, it was hard to stop his curiosity from following.

"Sayu? Is something wrong?" He asked after knocking gently on the door of her room.

"I don't want to talk about it," he heard her muffled voice exclaim.

Sighing, Raito opened the door.

"I said I didn't want to talk." Sayu sat in the middle of her bed with red and puffy eyes, her arms and torso engulfing her pillow.

"I'm supposed to take that as a 'come in brother, I'd love to tell you what's bothering me,' " he told her. "It's in my job description."

Sayu rolled her eyes. Raito closed the door and walked to the bed, he sat down next to her.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"Why are you crying?" he tried.

"I'm not."

"Yes, you are," he argued.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Talk anyway," he told her.

"You won't understand," she huffed.

Now he was getting somewhere.

"Why wouldn't I understand?" he asked. "Was it something at school?"

"This girl keeps teasing me," Sayu finally admitted.

"What is she teasing you about?"

"Everything!" Sayu was angry now. "It's not just her, it's her whole group. Every few weeks they find someone who they think they're better than and make that person's life miserable."

"Did they do something today?" Raito knew what the answer to this was, but needed her to elaborate on the obvious.

"She saw my score on the maths test we took yesterday," Sayu recounted. "I studied all last night for it, and finally got a good grade."

"Good for you." Ratio couldn't help being a little proud of this, after all he had helped her study that night.

"I was really happy, until she saw my grade. Apparently my score was higher than her's. She nearly threw a tantrum. She kept asking people how it was possible for someone who's 'mentally challenged' to do better than her." Sayu's voice broke in anger. "I'm not good at math, but I'm not an idiot."

"Of course you're not," Raito could feel his own anger burring inside of him to know that someone had told her otherwise. "Did you tell your teacher what she said?"

"Teachers can't help with this kind of stuff," she dismissed. "If I told them it would only make things worse. I wouldn't feel this bad about what happened if someone had stuck up for me, but everyone in the class pretended not to notice. It was like they agreed with what she was saying."

"Is there anything I can do?" Raito tried.

"No."

"Do you still think I don't understand?" he didn't really want to know the answer for this, but it would be better that she said it.

"How could you?" she didn't say this bitterly, but Ratio sensed some distain. "You're Mr. Perfect. You've always been the smartest guy in your class, and everyone who meets you loves you."

"I think you're giving me more credit than I deserve," he shrugged off her accusing tone. "The fact that people generally like me doesn't mean that I have friends at school."

"What about those guys you walk home with?" Sayu asked. "They're your friends, right?"

"Yeah, I guess," Raito shrugged. "But we only walk together because our houses are near each other's. It's not like I sit with them at lunch or anything. Well, I don't really sit with anyone at lunch."

"Yeah, but that's because you're always studying," Sayu pointed out.

"You could say that," Raito admitted. "Half of the reason I eat alone is because I'm driven and want to get my work done, but the other half is because I don't have anyone to talk to."

Sayu didn't say anything.

"Look," Raito collected his thoughts. "I'm not saying that your classmates were right to stay silent, but I doubt that this means they think you're dumb. If I were in that situation, I doubt anyone would have defended me either."

"You're top of your class, no one's going to call you stupid." Sayu was smiling now, and Ratio inwardly sighed in relief.

"Okay, maybe not that situation exactly," he amended. "But something like that."

"I know what you mean," she told him. "Thanks."

"If you want I can get Dad to call your principle," Raito suggested. "The school loves our family, so I'm sure they'd take your side."

"That's okay," she decided. "You know, it kind of makes sense that you're not popular."

"Should I be offended?"

"If you were you'd have a girlfriend by now," Sayu explained. "It's weird that someone as handsome and nice as you doesn't have one."

"Oh. Thanks…?"

"Although," she drew the word out. "I figured that the reason you didn't was because you're secretly gay."

"I think I'm going to leave now," he stood up.

Sayu giggled.

"Just know I love you no matter what you identify as," she called after him as he left the room.

"Well, she bounces back fast," he muttered to himself.

Thank you to Wizard-Party-Forever and Cinemas for reviewing!

Each time I write for Sayu she's little bit different. I feel like she was more savvy in my last fic with her, but that might just be me judging my writing. What do you guys think?

There was a lot of Mello this chapter, but in the future it will be more balanced between him and Raito narrating. Case number one has been explained, any predictions? Questions? Comment? Concerns? You guys know where I'm going with this: please review!