THE CRY OF CICADAS

Chapter Six: Interesting Things

"You need to be more enthusiastic…"

L's words irritated me so much that I almost got up and punched him in the face. By that point in time, I'd had enough of people telling me what I needed to do but Misa caught him before I could.

"Don't be mean, Ryuuzaki-kun, Raito-kun is new!" she said, "This is his first time here, so please be nice, everybody."

Ryuuzaki?

I glanced over at L, who simply replied to Misa with a slight nod. I found myself wondering just how many different names he actually used. It almost seemed as though he had a different name for every person that he met but then I remembered that Namikawa and Near had referred to him as L. L, of course, was obviously the sort of person who enjoyed to confuse people.

Misa cleared her throat and brushed her long, bleached hair over her slim shoulders. "So, since Raito-kun is new, I thought we'd go around and tell a bit about ourselves," she explained, "I'll go first!!"

No one else had volunteered.

The others in the group shifted impatiently. They had all probably gone through this countless times before. That did not particularly bother me, though I had no interest in getting to know any of them, really.

"My name is Misa-Misa and I'm eighteen years old! I'm studying to be a psycho-therapist and I've been interning here now for about six months!" Misa exclaimed. An intern with only six months of experience was handling a group therapy session? While that hardly made sense to me, the others did not even give it a second thought. They were not bothered by her at all. At any rate, her lack of experience and her extreme perkiness were a welcome change from Namikawa's pompous attitude.

"Teru-kun, how about you go next?" she suggested, motioning to the dark haired young man, "Tell us your name and two interesting things about yourself."

He glanced over at Misa, a blank expression on his pale face. At first, I thought he was embarrassed but the truth was that he just did not care about any of this. "Mikami Teru," he said, his voice quiet and low, "I was a law student before I got arrested for possession of marijuana. I've been here for two weeks." After that, he was silent. Mikami cast his gaze to the floor, not looking at anyone. He was either ashamed of himself or just indifferent. For a law student, to do something so stupid, I hoped he was ashamed. Looking back, of course, I know now that it was hypocritical to think that. I was in a similar situation…though I did not regret anything at that point.

Misa gave Mikami a vaguely disappointed look, as though she had expected more. "Next…is Near-kun!" she decided, putting whatever disdain she had for Mikami aside. It was immature of her to display such emotions. She was the same age as I was, yet she acted younger. That was irritating to me, since she was the one who was supposed to be the professional.

Near looked over at me, as if he was just addressing me, which was strangely unnerving. I began to wonder just what he had done to wind up in this place. "My name is Near, although all of you already know that," he said, "I am sixteen." Satisfied with that, he turned away from me, still curling his hair around his thin fingers. The fact that he was so young struck me as odd, though I was not much older than he was.

"Hey! I said two things, Near-kun!" Misa said, a huffy tone in her voice. She was obviously getting annoyed by Mikami and Near's lack of enthusiasm. I was surprised L had not put his two cents in yet.

With a sigh, Near shook his head. "I did say two things, Amane-san. My name and my age," he said blandly. I did not like him but I had to agree. In this case, he was right.

Of course, Misa thought otherwise. "Fine! But not talking just means you have problems that you're not ready or willing to deal with," she said, as if she was quoting someone else. It was probably a line she had learned from her psychology 101 instructor.

"You're right," Near said simply, "But I did as you asked."

Misa chose to say no more on the subject, though I had a feeling she would press him about it later. "Ryuuzaki-kun, you're next," she said, adopting her cheerful demeanor once more. A smile graced her glossy lips. Nothing seemed to be bothering her at all now. Her range of emotions rivaled that of a chameleon's ability to change skin color.

L rocked forward on the chair he sat on. "I have a lot of names. Call me whatever you like," he said, "I used to live in Los Angeles. I moved here with a relative. A few months after that, I came here." I was not sure if he was just trying to be vague or if that was really all he wanted to say. Either way, his words left much open to interpretation. It was not very surprising that he chose to say so little. He did not seem to want to talk about himself.

"This is the beginning of my second year here," L went on, "I did a lot of things that I shouldn't have done but there's no point in saying I wish I could take it all back. Such a thing is impossible."

His words were followed by an awkward silence. Misa fumbled with the hem on her skirt, unsure of what to say to that. L, however, was not phased. I was beginning to wonder what had happened to him and why he had spent such a long time in the center but I quickly pushed those thoughts away. To become interested in L would be to give him what he wanted, I told myself.

Finally, the blond heroin addict decided that it was his turn. "I'm Mello," he said, brushing his hair behind his ear. A large, oddly shaped scar became visible. "I used to traffic drugs into Shibuya and Harajuku. I've used ecstasy, heroin, and all sorts of other shit. I spent five years in prison. Now I'm s'posed to get clean. But hell, I don't think that's gonna happen." He glared at me, his large eyes full of some sort of fierce emotion. To think that he had been in prison and was now here…It was an unimaginable torture. The center was practically just like a prison.

L sighed, obviously irritated by Mello's apparent lack of enthusiasm. Really, L struck me as a bit hypocritical; if he was going to harp to others…then why had he been there for so long? If he was so full of enthusiasm, he should have only been there for a month at the most.

The rest of the session went on in that manner. Misa asked us questions, we took turns answering, and she wrote things down on her note pad, though, sometimes it looked as though all she was doing was scribbling. It was difficult for me to take her seriously. While Namikawa had been extremely irritating, Misa was just too childish to be professional (hence why she was an intern).

I began to wonder just what good was going to come of this program. Mello blatantly had no faith in it…and L had been stuck there for quite a while. Near and Mikami seemed more or less indifferent. I had a feeling that Near and Mikami, at least, would get out fairly quickly without any real difficulties. If they could do it, then I knew I could as well. There was no reason to have any worries about it.

Yet, once again, while I thought about that, I remembered that L had told me cocaine addicts often had trouble. The fact that I was even taking L's words into consideration disgusted me. There was no way he knew, or could relate to, anything about me. He was just saying those things to annoy me.

…Or so I thought at the time.

(End chapter six! JEEZ. That took forever. College is sucking up a lot of my time but now that this chapter is done, it'll go faster, I believe. Thanks sooo much for all the reviews and such. You guys are so sweet! Next chapter…Matt makes his debut appearance and there is more L and Raito…oddness. Please stay tuned!)