"Get the posh prick!!"
L closed his eyes as he ran across the playground of the orphanage and not for the first time, wished he was dead.
He hated it here.
The schoolwork was fine, but so easy that he got headaches from the boredom when he finished his work before everyone else. And he never got a single answer wrong.
No-one in the orphanage liked him, he was sure of that. Even the adults stepped around him in the hallways, whispering to one another that he was the 'little rich boy whose parents were killed'.
The children were more obvious about it. They tormented him endlessly, about his matted black hair (he didn't see the point to brushing it) and his odd way of sitting (it helped him think) and the way he wouldn't eat normal food.
He wasn't sure where Oliver was. He was told his little brother had been taken to a different orphanage until he was old enough to join L, but in all honesty, L was at least 40 sure they just didn't want him around.
One bonus, he supposed, as he scrambled up the trunk of the nearest tree to avoid the beatings from the other kids, was that his legs were getting very strong from all this running.
He liked it in the tree. It gave him a place to think. Sometimes he did long division in his head until his eyes started to hurt. Other times he imagined up huge feasts of desserts, until it made his stomach rumble and his teeth ache for just one bite of cake.
"We'll get you when you come down!"
He bit his thumb and started counting how many triangles there were in the shape of the orphanage windows, then squares. When they ran out he started counting acorns in the tree. He got to four hundred and fifty before someone called up the tree to him.
"L! L, come on down from there this moment!"
L sighed and made his way back to earth.
The slap across his face hurt, but he didn't fall down. He vaguely heard the woman who called him down screeching about how he needn't think that just because he came from money it meant he could force people to worry about him like this.
He didn't take any of it in. Just stood there, one cheek turning crimson, eyes fixed on a point right in front of him, black and unblinking.
Only in the night, alone in his cold iron bed, did he cry.
Only one tear though, because his father always told him that crying never solved anything. And in any case, it stung when it ran down his sore cheek.
"Quillish, there's another report in on those exams you sent out."
The inventor looked up slightly from his desk, upon which neatly arranged cogs and springs and hundred of other little pieces of machinery were laid out.
"Oh yes? Another little candidate, Roger?"
Roger nodded and handed the sheaf of papers over to his partner. Initially he'd been against this idea, starting up an orphanage only for children who were gifted, but once explained, it made sense.
Orphans had a hard enough time, he reasoned, but the cleverest of them had it harder, because children can be so cruel to those who are different.
Why not bring them somewhere where they could flourish? Somewhere where there were no bullies, because they were all on equal levels of intelligence? Where the lessons could be challenging, rather than tediously easy?
"Impressive." Quillish said calmly. "First child to get every single question right." He sipped his tea, setting down the papers and going back to the little clockwork mechanism he was making.
"Sad story to this one, apparently." Roger spoke again, looking down at his file on the boy who got every question correct. "Oldest son of Lord and Lady Lawliet, saw his mother shot during a burglary, suffered mild amnesia from the shock. It says his name is Liam but he only responds to 'L'." he sighed, "Only relative, his little brother, Oliver Lawliet."
Quillish poked the little clockwork panda with the end of his pencil. It stood up and took a wobbling step forward. "What of him?"
Roger closed his eyes, "Poor little mite was born with albinism, succumbed to skin cancer a year ago." He sighed. "L was told that his brother was just in another orphanage. They say here they thought the shock of it might kill him."
Quillish blinked. "Then he is a genius, and an orphan who stands as sole heir to his family fortune, because he is alone in the world." He shook his head to himself, "I think the very least we can do is give him a home."
Quillish Wammy peered around the door of the classroom. There was the boy, as he had requested. He wasn't sure what he had expected, having travelled here to meet this boy-genius orphan who passed every test he was given with flying colours, who claimed to be 'bored' with the unchallenging work. He was prepared for the fact that the boy would look different to the last known photo of him, showing him as a child with his father.
But he didn't think he was expecting this.
A little boy of maybe six or seven, with a mass of black hair that clearly hadn't been combed for a long time, eyes as dark as pools of night, with dark circles forming beneath them from lack of sleep… and sitting so oddly too.
Still, he prided himself on being able to create anything, if the raw material was good enough.
"Mr, if you're looking for the teacher she said she was going to the staff room." The boy said suddenly, never once having turned away from his notebook.
Quillish blinked, then smiled and entered the room. "Oh, I wasn't looking for your teacher, I was looking for someone called L Lawliet."
The boy looked up. "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."
The man nodded his head and offered one hand to the boy, "Of course not. I'm Quillish Wammy, funny old name, isn't it?"
L stared at the hand being offered, then took it with his own tiny one, allowing it to be shaken.
"I'm L Lawliet." He mumbled, then brought his thumb to his mouth, biting on the nail.
Quillish nodded. "Yes. I understand you're bored with your school work? It's too easy for you?" for a moment he got no response, the boys eyes were back on his note book. "What is it you're writing?"
L bit his thumb harder. "I'm teaching myself long devision." He mumbled, then pointed at his notebook.
Quillish was impressed; the paper was covered in equations that great many college students wouldn't be able to cope with.
He nodded slowly, so he had been right to come here. The boy was clearly some sort of genius, though more… well, traumatised, than most of the children he had been gathering. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling of affinity for the boy that was blossoming in his chest. He was once like that, he reminded himself. He was once the boy who was too bright for his age, and he knew how difficult it could be to find a way to function.
"L, I won't sugar-coat this, because I believe you'd be insulted if I did." He started calmly, "I would very much like to take you to a new orphanage that I am opening. It's only for the very cleverest boys and girls to live in. Would you like to go there?"
L blinked owlishly. "…No-one'll push me down or call me names because I'm rich?"
Quillish smiled, so there was innocence there as well as the intelligence. The packaging could have used some work, he supposed, but he couldn't think of any way to make the raw material better.
He cleared his throat, "Not at all. The only thing you have to do is answer a question for me. It's not a trick, and it won't affect you coming with me, I just like to ask to find out how people's minds work."
L nodded, lowering his thumb from his mouth and hugging his knees tighter to his chest.
"Say there are 10 birds standing on a fence, and a hunter shoots three, how many are left?"
L blinked, then frowned a little, as though he was addressing an idiot, clearly he thought this question beneath him. "None."
Quillish smiled. "And why do you say that?"
L rolled his big black eyes, "All the others would fly away from the noise." He replied. "It's simple logic."
Quillish beamed and offered his hand once more, "I like the way you think, L."
L took the hand that was offered and mumbled quietly, "You have a packet of wine gums in your left pocket. May I have some?"
