Author's Note: The random music references in this chapter include one of about seven Depeche Mode songs, "Bigmouth Strikes Again" by The Smiths, and "Lilian" by Depeche Mode.

That is all. Review and I will be very happy and write faster.

Soft light streaming through the windows, the faint scent of chocolate, white cotton against her cheek, and the particle motion-stopping sound of an alarm no one had dismantled in spite of her day off.

As she gently pressed down on the off button on the clock by her ear, she lifted her head to scan the room and realized, much to her disappointment, that she was in her own hotel room, lying in her bed. It wasn't that this was an unlikely place to find her early in the morning, even though for the past few weeks she had been falling asleep in his room. Somehow, he could clear her superfluously running mind and calm her, bestowing the freedom to sleep upon her; ironic, considering his limited need for it.

She never awakened with him, a fact that was not hard to wrap her mind around since she had never woken up with anyone near her before. Even when she was at the Wammy House, she always slept in the linen closets or living rooms to avoid her roommates. She understood that she needed more sleep than he did and that he always had work to do. Usually she simply woke up in her own bed, saddened that he had brought her back there. There were some days, however, when she would wake up on his couch to the sound of softly clicking computer keys, trying desperately not to wake her but always failing. Those very rare days came about when neither of them had to work so he would let her stay in his room since no one would catch her. She would sit up on his couch, pulling the blanket he put on her around her shoulders and watch him type until he would turn around and they would share a smile. No words required.

Along with the newfound deep sleep, she had started to dream. In truth, she could never remember having a dream before, not even a vague fragment of one but now that she was properly accessing her REM cycle, she would remember having a dream most nights. She could not recall locations, characters, or even plots but she would wake up with a distinct feeling. So far every feeling had been near euphonious finally giving her a basis of understanding as to why someone would actually enjoy sleeping aside from the obvious reason of being tired. These feelings did, however, make her wonder what was so astounding about the actual dream that caused her to feel this way. She couldn't imagine.

He didn't turn off my alarm, she thought to herself, trying to roll over and go back to sleep even though she knew she wouldn't be able to. It shouldn't be his responsibility to know my schedule anyway, she thought, mentally scolding herself for putting a job that should be hers into his hands.

She glanced at the clock to see that it was six thirty in the morning and after tossing and turning for what felt like centuries but was actually mere minutes, she gave up and got out of bed

--

Outside her hotel door he could hear the throbbing beat of music, more comparable to a night club than a jazz lounge or a pop station on the radio. He had forgotten that it was her day off and he had been kicking himself for not remembering to turn off her alarm last night once it occurred to him in the middle of a task force meeting. Because of him, she logically has been awake for hours with nothing to do so he sent the task force home early to go see her.

Even though she didn't know what time he was coming, the door was unlocked so he walked in without calling her first. The music sounded even stranger now that he was submersed in the noise. He had recalled hearing something like it before but not during his time in Japan. He heard a muffled, "Mm?" and turned around to see her sitting cross-legged on the kitchen countertop with a bowl in her hands.

Still chewing her food, she motioned for him to come and sit next to her so he awkwardly climbed up on the counter and curled into his signature position. She held the bowl out to him so he could see the pear slices inside and he took one.

"What music is this?" he asked curiously, furrowing his brows as he tried to hear the lyrics.

"British bands from the 80s. New wave-ish stuff. I know we were only kids when it was popular and it's kind of strange but I still like it. Most of these bands are still making new music to this day." she said, bobbing her head. He wasn't quite sure what construed this music as 'new wave' especially since, if it's been being composed since the 80s it can't be very new. He listened closely to find that the lyrics were blatantly sexual but with using religion as a metaphor. Strange.

Suddenly she made an exaggerated movement like she had just been shocked by a bolt of lightning and proclaimed, "It's my theme song!" in an uncharacteristically perky voice.

They both got quiet, listening intently to the lyrics. It appeared to be about someone named 'Bigmouth' who was making a comeback of sorts. She must think of herself as being a bigmouth, he thought. Well, she does talk a lot sometimes but I haven't seen any problem with it.

"Do you really believe you 'have no right to take your place with the human race?'" he asked gravely.

She shrugged, more unsure of her reasoning than whether or not she was right. "Don't you feel that way? Every time you look down on the world, don't you see how everyone has a place? Everyone has someone. Everyone has a life built up that involves more than just themselves. But then there are people like us, independents by choice and not exclusion until our self-induced lack of social skills cause us to be excluded. To be human is to need other humans. Therefore, are we human? We aren't exactly part of that community."

He put his thumb up to his mouth and nibbled the nail in thought. "I guess I can connect. You make an interesting point." he said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye to see her face soften.

"Thanks." she replied smiling as she held the pear bowl out to him again.

The song ended and a new one started. This one had a dance beat like the first one and it was about a man who had fallen in love with a girl named Lilian who broke his heart, in a most vicious way apparently as the singer kept mentioning pain and misery. This seems to happen to a lot of men, he observed, looking suspiciously over at his barefooted companion. Could she also be like the girl in the song? Heartless? Messing with my head? If she was wouldn't I be able to tell? Some of the most intelligent people have been brought to their knees by members of the opposite sex.

As he was contemplating this phenomenon, she shoved a whole pear slice into her mouth in a very undignified manner and then licked the juice off her finger tips. The spit-soaked fingers were then wiped on the sleeve of the shirt she had worn yesterday and never bothered to change out of. Somehow this made him feel better.

The jingling ring tone of his phone interrupted the beat of the song and caused them both to stare at his pant's pocket.

"Watari?" she asked, mouth full of pear.

He took out his phone and looked at the display screen to verify her hypothesis. "Correct." he said, opening the phone and holding the top half of it with just his index finger and thumb. "What is it, Watari?" he asked. After a short pause he replied with, "Keep him there for five minutes and then send him in. Goodbye." He closed the phone and looked over at her captivated face. "I have some work to do in my room. This shouldn't take more than twenty minutes at the most." he said, hopping off the counter.

"Wait, who are you seeing?" she asked zealously. She was not going to let him get away with being so cryptic.

"A . . . friend." he said, a little annoyed with himself that he hadn't chosen a different word. She would know who it was instantaneously and have some strong opinion regarding the meeting.

"You're seeing Kira?" she exclaimed in both fright and exuberance, jumping off the counter so spastically he was sure she would fall. "Can I come?" she asked.

He wasn't surprised that she asked considering her fascination with the case but he did not want to put her in such a dangerous situation. If I were to introduce her to Raito, he would suspect her of being a detective since I could only give her fake name and there would be no other logical reason for me to be spending time with a girl. And if he really is Kira and thus views her as a threat, he will set out to find out her real name so he can kill her. And now with this second Kira who doesn't even need a name to kill, she is in even more danger if either of the Kiras see her. The first one would attempt to convince the second to kill her to further their work and the second would kill her on the spot if word gets out that she was with L.

"How could I explain you to him so that we could discuss the case as we normally do? It would not be possible." he said convinced.

"I could hide in your bedroom and listen from there." she suggested, determined to not let the topic go.

"You don't speak Japanese. I don't know what use it would be to do that." he answered, his hand now on the doorknob counting the seconds in his head so as not to be late.

"Yes, but I could see him. I'd know who to avoid. It's a practical way for me to be safer. You know I will be quiet in there. He won't notice me. I promise." she said earnestly.

She would be safe as long as she doesn't decide to take the case into her own hands after knowing the most probable Kira's identity, he realized, warming up to the idea. She seems more interested in knowing the facts than actually wanting to work on the case anyway.

He also had a feeling that she would follow him regardless of the answer he gave so he would have no choice but to accept.

"Okay." he said, begrudgingly giving in. "But the information you get cannot leave the confines of your mind."

"Of course."

--

Hiding in the safety of his bedroom, she waited patiently for the right moment to open the door. She had been there for a few minutes and after looking around the room and finding a few pairs of handcuffs that she was sure no detective would need to be equipped with, she began listening in on them with her ear pressed against the door, hearing snippets of Japanese that meant nothing to her.

When they sounded so engrossed with the conversation that no mild sound could distract them, she grasped the door handle firmly and began to pull it down. At such a slow pace, no noise was produced. When she was met with resistance against pulling it any further down, she gave a gentle push on the door to open it a minuscule amount, just enough to see out. So rapidly she could not even process it, she lost her grip on the doorframe with her other hand and overestimated how much pressure was needed to open the door. Using a lifted knee against the door was evidently unnecessary. She didn't get a chance to see Kira's face before she went tumbling out of the bedroom and into the living room.

The two guys stared down at her, sprawled out of the floor. She looked up at the older of the two and realized that he had displayed no reaction to her fall. He was mentally forming a plan.

Standing up in spite of her rug-burned knees, she casually extended a hand to the boy next to him. Kira.

"Raito, I'd like to introduce you to Kit. Kit, this is Raito." he said, purposely not saying how he knew either of them and saying everything in English. He wanted Raito to know that she didn't speak Japanese in hopes that he would realize that she couldn't understand anything that they were saying while she was in the other room.

"Nice to me you, Raito." she said, shaking his hand and smiling like it was the most normal thing in the world to fall out of a room before meeting someone.

"Likewise, Kit." he said, smiling back. She could see the insincerity and extravagantly pompous confidence behind the sparkling white teeth. She took in his eyes that were clearly hiding everything they could hold, his immaculate clothing and hair that pointed to meticulous attention to detail and a financially well-situated upbringing, and the fact that he was exactly the age and social status she was expecting of Kira.

She didn't like him at all.

She must be another detective, Raito thought, trying to dazzle his way into trust. Her suspicious smile back at him proved that his charm wasn't working. She looks a little like that Naomi Misora, only European. If she's as smart as her than I may have another problem on my hands, he concluded, examining her appearance.

She was wearing a white, button-down shirt that was wrinkled and much too big for her, as if she had taken it from a boy after he had worn it for a week straight without washing or ironing it. A loosened black tie was around her neck serving no purpose in looking professional. She also wore a dark blue skirt that fell to her knees and was not wearing socks, shoes, or slippers. Her hair, essentially black in color at present even though it was probably lighter when it was cleaner, was a total mess to the point that it even concealed one of her eyes. She is wearing the same colors as L, Raito noticed, finding it to be quite bizarre. Actually, there seemed to be a lot of similarities between them. Could she be his girlfriend, he wondered. He nearly burst out laughing at the thought.

"Well, I have to go now, Ryuzaki." Raito announced in English so as not to raise the curiosity of the potential detective.

"Okay. I will see you around campus, Raito." he replied.

"Nice to meet you, Kit." Raito added, giving her a slight wave, intentionally being irritatingly friendly.

"Same here." she answered mimicking his cheerful tone.

The second Raito was out the door, she turned to the detective next to her and declared unequivocally, "He's Kira. No doubts in my mind."

He raised an eyebrow and stuck his thumbnail in his mouth. "What evidence have you gathered from this brief meeting that makes you so confident?" he asked, not willing to dismiss someone who agrees with him so deeply but wanting to know if she could see something he couldn't.

"It's the look in his eyes. He was judging me, searching to see if I was taking notes on him for an investigation, trying to cover up any clue that might leak through his expression or his posture."

"You're saying that you knew because of his eyes?" he summarized disbelievingly.

"Well, they are menacing looking, you have to admit." she said with a straight face.

He stared at the floor, pondering what she had gathered for a minute and then looked up at her again. "How could you make such a deduction based on just his eyes? That's hardly an accurate way of telling someone's intentions."

"Well, then call it women's intuition." she said with her hands up, tiring from his interrogation.

"That's not an accurate form of measurement either." he riposted.

"Of course it is!" she said, defensively.

"Prove your theory then." he challenged. "Why is there no man's intuition?"

"The brain of a women functions differently than the brain of a man. The corpus callosum, which is the part of the brain that allows one to alternate between your left and right brain, is more defined in women than in men. This means they can easily think both logically and creatively and combine those two thinking methods into a more precise deduction. Men, in contrast, are more focused and can sometimes overlook the finer points of whatever aspect they are less concerned with."

He thought about this for a second, his vague memories of learning about parts of the brain coming back to him and he nodded. "Well if that's the case maybe I should have more women detectives working with me on this case, since I currently have none. Have you ever thought of forsaking neurology for detective work . . . again?"

"Not until recently. I'd really enjoying working with you and honestly I don't think I could tolerate having you out of my life." she said like she was idealistically working it out in her mind as she was speaking.

"Then why not?" he said encouragingly, not noticing, or simply disregarding, the uncertainty in her voice.

She looked at him, struck profoundly with grief. "Oh L, I couldn't." she murmured pitifully.

He was shocked that she had referred to him by a name, his real one at that. "Well, maybe you could still do your work and I could do mine but that we'd go to the same places. You travel everywhere alone and I travel everywhere alone so we could travel alone together."

Her heavy eyes lowered further until they were practically slits, threatening to spawn tears from his determined tone. But she forced an asymmetrical smile anyway, since it was the best she could achieve, as she wrapped her arms around his neck in a tight hug. He placed his hands on her waist, confused by her response. Was she agreeing to the proposal? Was she politely declining?

She loosened her hold on his neck as she tilted her head towards his face, kissing him in a powerful way that was almost chilling. She resonated a sense of gloom as her hands moved onto his face, not wanting to release him, not willing to give up what they had built up in her time there.

But, in her mind, the odds were against them. How could she convince her superordinate to let her move her entire practice to Japan? And how long would he even be here before he would have to move onto another case? They be back to where they started with her stuck in this hotel, half a world away from him. The kind of luck that would be required to make such a living situation manageable is hardly ever given to people like me, she thought. I am not human.

She pulled her face away but left her hands where they were, delicately stroking his soft, pale cheeks as she murmured in a haunting chant, "If only, if only."