You all are so wonderful to me! Thank you! That's why you all get relatively fast up date. (Fast when it comes to me…) unfortunately this will be the only chapter (that's not the prolog or epilog) with out a personality, sorry. It is also a pretty short chapter but an important one nother the less. I've been waiting so long to write chapter 7. you guys have no idea! I hope it comes out as good as I hope it will be. Things are starting to heat up.
It seems like I can't holed down a stable beta... but that's ok. As long as I have these wonderful people who acutely ask me to be my beta I think I'll be ok. A round of apples for my new beta zchocolatebunniesrulezworld… …. I can't even say that name but ok!
On with the next chapter! REVIEW!!!!
White
Sleeping beauty
The first thing that happened to Raito when he reached the great oak doors, was get tackled to the ground. It hurt quiet a bit and he had to try and not squash Child-ness who still was clinging to his neck.
This resulted in him falling on his ass, a child in his arms and Happiness trying to squeeze the life out of him.
"Oh Raito, I told you not to stay behind! What were you thinking! You shouldn't stay around Logic and Reason alone! They'll tear your head off! Metaphorically of course… are you okay?" Happiness babbled on, still crushing his ribs.
"I would feel much better if I could breathe." The teen choked out. Happiness unraveled his arms from around with a sheepish grin and a "sorry" before getting up and offering a hand to help him up.
"But seriously, they didn't harm you or something right? They are really keen on the idea that you're a mass murderer. I thought they might, you know, use this opportunity to… do something…" Happiness murmured as he helped Raito up.
"Wait! What do you mean, 'do something'!" His father asked indignantly.
Raito ignored him, rubbing at his poor sore ribs. "And you don't think I'm a mass murderer?" The teen asked, lifting an eyebrow. This was new. But then again, this was proof that what Logic said was right. Maybe he would get out of this mess without it having to be in a body bag.
The yellow-eyed man scratched the back of his neck. "You might be, you might not. Who am I to judge? I'm not exactly the 'brains' around here. You may have a serious case of double personality and a really mean ego, but… you know, no one is perfect, right?" Happiness laughed nervously at the unbelieving looks he was getting from the team and Raito himself.
"You don't control what you feel towards someone. It controls you." Love said quietly from behind them, a small smile on his face.
The situation suddenly became awkward to Raito. He shifted mini-L in his arms and looked away. He didn't know how he should take that statement. Happiness' nervous laugh suddenly became a little louder and more forced.
"Yeah… well we should be going now! What do you say! Places to go, people to find! We won't do any of that if we hang around here like a hangnail! Let's go!" Happiness started marching off to the staircase briskly.
"Shouldn't we wait for the other two banes of my existence to come out first?" Aizawa said, not amused.
Happiness stopped short of the stairs, turning his head with an impish grin plastered on his face. He then turned completely around. "Damn, I was hoping you would forget that little detail and we could just run along on our merry way and forget we ever met them." He did a running-along movement with his fingers, grin still in place.
Aizawa made a displeased face. "It was your idea to come here, you know."
"Yeah well, I told you I didn't know how to get you out and they did. Now we know what we have to do and they don't have to (and probably don't want to) come along." Happiness huffed.
"Maybe, but they said we needed all of you, and that includes them." Aizawa huffed back.
"We can pick them up when we come back. It's not like they will be going anywhere any time soon. I don't remember the last time they even got out of that damn building" Happiness answered back. This was quickly turning into a fight. Raito could feel it. However, surprisingly, it was Matsuda who cut in before Raito could even open his mouth.
"Hey, I was thinking. Wouldn't it be easier if we called everyone here instead of hunting them around one by one for who knows how long?" Matsuda asked loudly over the fighting pair.
"And how do you suggest we do that?" Aizawa snapped, annoyed and showing it.
"Well, when the buildings moved earlier wasn't there a warning bell?
Why don't we just tap into that line and call out to them? They would come, wouldn't they?" Matsuda asked. Everyone blinked at him and went very quiet. That… could actually work. It wasn't a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all. Raito was suddenly kicking himself for not thinking of that. You knew things were seriously wrong when Matsuda outsmarted you.
"A wonderful idea indeed--if it could actually work." A monotone voice was heard. The men turned around only to see Logic and Reason standing at the open door.
"Unfortunately, there is no way to 'tap' into the alarms here. They are not connected to any system. It's a completely independent and automatic system." Reason said (or Logic, either way).
"Oh." Matsuda said.
"It's all right. Half of them wouldn't have come anyway." The twins said in unison, passing the group and heading down the stairs. They walked just like L, however it was a much more stiff and robotic stride then the smooth glide the detective walked in (even with his hunch). The team followed, now used to just going along in whatever direction they were told to go without asking questions.
"Do we have a plan? A way to search for the other, uh, personalities?" Soichiro asked as they began their descent to the marble ground.
"No," came the simple answer. "There is no way to know where any of the other personalities are. They move around the mind too much. Never staying in one place for too long," one of the twins said. "And there is no way to try moving in a coordinated pattern since the warning bells can go off at any minute and we'll just have to start from scratch." The other said." And splitting up is out of question. So, to answer your original inquiry, we will be searching blindly every corner we go and leaving the rest to luck." Both answered in signal monotone voice.
That… was not a very good plan. Raito rubbed at his forehead with his free hand. But of course, L just loved to make everything so hard for him, didn't he?
They finally got to the ground and as they walked Raito once again tried to get Child-ness off him (gently of course) but the boy only made a displeased sound and buried his face deeper into the teen's shoulder. Raito sighed and patted the boy's back, unconsciously he starting to play with the boys hair.
"Good to see that you two finally hit it off." Happiness' voice called from behind his back, startling him so much he almost dropped mini-L.
"Sorry. But for a while there I thought I would have to put up with the constant bickering of two of the most childish people I know." Happiness said, then winked at him. Raito cleared his throat, lifting the boy up a bit trying to get more comfortable. They continued walking towards People's Plaza.
"It must be really difficult for all of you to be constantly, uh, 'locked away' by those two, isn't it?" The teen asked after the silence began to become too uncomfortable to bear. Raito couldn't help but glare at the backs of said personalities, who were at the head of the group, in the lead.
"Yes. But there's not much we can do about that. We can't change who we are, and unfortunately this is the person L is, cold and logical. So they're not going anywhere any time soon." The yellow-eyed man sighed, shoving a hand through his hair. "But neither are we. Still, the problem was never the fact that they are in command. The problem is that they don't accept suggestions from anyone because we are 'useless, implosive and will get us all killed'." Happiness said, his voice going dull and monotonous at the end as he quoted the other personalities.
The man looked sadly at Love, Raito followed suit. The scared man was walking next to Matsuda, quietly listening as the man chatted on. Raito felt a pain at the sight for some reason. He wasn't sure what it was but the sound of the personalities' ball and chain dragging on the floor pulled at his heart strings.
"Don't get me wrong, Raito-kun. There is nothing in life I love more then being a detective. Really. Life was never that appealing, so dull and easy. Working on cases is what keeps our mind sharp and us from dying of boredom. You understand that feeling, don't you Raito-kun?" Happiness asked, peering at him from the corner of his eye.
Yes. Raito knew the feeling all to well, having spent his whole life looking for something, anything, to alleviate his boredom; to prevent his brain from melting inside his head. He tried everything: video games, books, going out with friends, going out with girls, taking up hobbies. You had to see some of the things he tried before deciding on tennis. Chess, card games, watching TV, photoset, music (he tried singing, he sucked) painting and art in general (he sucked at that too. Really badly. He couldn't even get his stick fingers to look… well, stick-like.), he even tried stamp collecting for god's sake! It came to the point where he would give anything, do anything, to alleviate his boredom.
Anything.
Soon he just gave up and studied himself to death. Creating someone so perfect that no one could see how he utterly hated everyone around him and how much he really didn't care. The world was a rotten place, and slowly, Raito felt like he was rotting with it. Unable to escape the monotonous circle that was his life. All he could do was watch, powerless, and rot with it. That's why Kira's ideals didn't seem as cruel as the world made them out to be. He was trying to make things better, that counted for something, didn't it?
Happiness continued. "It doesn't matter though. Having all of this means nothing if you don't let yourself feel. A man in the desert, with all the water he can drink, will still die of hunger. How can you go through life with your feelings in a bottle? Look at him, Raito. How can you say you have really been happy when Love looks like that? I'm worried that if our job doesn't kill us the stress and loneliness will. It's a lose-lose situation, Raito-kun, and I hate losing. It drives me insane. It's like I'm fighting this alone." As he said that he never once looked away from Love, sounding very tired.
The teen stared at the man next to him. L. He didn't know what to say. What could he say? 'Sorry your life is miserable, and you can't do a thing about it because no one will let you'? Yeah, no. Raito turned his attention back to Love. That feeling twisted in his gut again.
"A lot of this I blame on our childhood." Happiness said off handedly. This got Raito's attention instantly. He felt Child-like's hands fist his shirt but he did not move. If there was any thing he wanted to hear, it would be about L's childhood. What happened then would have molded the detective into the man he saw today.
"Why?" Raito asked, mouth going dry with excitement.
"Well, its just that--" Happiness cut himself off when two hands landed on each of his shoulders and Logic and Reason's faces appeared next to him. The man went very stiff.
"Oh, I'm sure our guests won't be the least bit interested in such tedious sob stories. There is no reason for you to bore them, now is there, my dear Happiness?" Reason (or Logic) said dully next to Happiness' ear.
"Speak for yourself!" the yellow-eyed man yelled, glaring and yanking himself free from the other two's grip. All three stared at each other for awhile.
"So rude. Yagami-san, I'm sure you are not interested in such a thing? Are you?" Logic asked, a tone of warning in his monotone.
"Uh, I--" thankfully Raito was interrupted by Love's answer.
"Leave the poor kid alone. We should start looking instead of fighting over such trivial things." Love said softly, putting his own hand on one of the twin's shoulders. The twins stared him down with cold, half-lidded eyes. Love just offered them his terminal illness smile. Finally, both just walked off without saying a word.
Love looked over to Raito, smiling, then walked after them. All Raito could do was swallow thickly and trail along after them. At some point everyone had stopped walking to watch things unfold. It seemed like Raito wasn't the only one interested in discovering L's childhood.
Silence overcame the group once more. It was a heavy silence, the type people are afraid to break. As the men almost reached the plaza Child-ness finally lifted his head off Raito's shoulder and spoke for the first time since living the Hall.
"Shouldn't we show them where to go after we find everyone?" He asked.
Logic and Reason stopped once more, causing the others to stop with them. They then turned their heads in unison to look at them. "Why? It will just take up more time." They said together.
"In case something happens. Wouldn't it be a good idea if everyone knew where to go?" mini-L answered.
"I think that would be a good idea. It's good to have a backup plan and a place where everyone can find to meet if something happens." Soichiro mused out loud. The rest of the team murmured in agreement. The twins looked on for a few moments before sighing as one. "Very well then. If it pleases you." They then turned and started walking to the little Greek-style building in front of the Hall. The men followed behind. It was a short while before they reached the building. Then the men climbed the three steps to the entrance and passed the rectangular hole to go in.
The inside of the small building was so white it hurt Raito's eyes. All was marble, the floor, the ceiling and the walls. The walls, however, did have patterns carved into them and the pillars holding the ceiling up were the same inside as outside. The room was incredibly small, only half a courtyard long. At the end of it was a staircase of about twelve steps with a large marble thorn at its top. At the foot of the steps was a rectangular marble block. On its sides it had the same pattern as the walls and on top of it was the only thing with any color in whole room (other than them). L.
"This is the location we shall be returning to at the end of our journey." The twins said, but Raito ignored them. He walked over to the marble block. On the block was L. Honest-to-god L. No differently colored shirt, no differences in appearance, no anything. It was just L in his white shirt, blue jeans and black hair. He lay stretched out on the block perfectly still. The only thing moving was his chest as he breathed. Really, the only different thing was that his eyes were closed.
"It's L." Matsuda said next to him. The group had gathered around the sleeping detective.
"Not quite." Logic said. (err, it was Logic right?)
"What do you mean?" Aizawa sighed. The answer 'not quite' was starting to get on his nerves.
"That's not L. we are L. That is just an empty shell. It's just a
puppet to demonstrate what is happening to L in the 'real' world." The twins replied, pointing to themselves, Love, Happiness and Child-ness as 'we'.
"It may not seem, but together (unfortunately) we complete each other. Together we are L." Happiness cut in.
"Oh," was the only reply. The team then just continued to watch the detective, I mean, the detective's 'shell'. Raito especially couldn't keep his eyes off the man.
This only made him want to see the original again. The man's body was so still. His skin almost blended in with the marble he lay on. Raito had the urge to touch him. To run his fingers over that skin to see if it really was as smooth as the marble it was on…to see if the skin was as soft as Love was.
Raito shook his head, trying to get rid of such thoughts (that were starting to pop up too often in his head for comfort.) Seeing the detective like this was scrambling his brain. He looked so venerable, so open to attacks when he wasn't scrunched up in his protective ball. Raito suddenly had the feeling he was looking into an open coffin: staring down at the dead body of the great L. That's what it felt like when the man laid there so still. He had never really seen the detective actually sleep. He sometimes saw the man nap in his seat after hours, but never lie down on a bed to sleep. To him, the detective never really rested, always awake, always active ( Justice never slept). His mind was forever on the run. He wasn't sure how he felt about the man's death. Most of him felt quite terrified of seeing him dead. Most of him wanted the man to live forever like anyone who cared for a loved one would, but… then there was that little voice. That small faint voice that told him he wanted to laugh and dance on the man's grave. That voice was starting to scare him. It scared him because it was getting louder and louder and he wasn't doing any thing to stop it. It was like his mind was splitting in two. So, to settle things, he went with 'not wanting L dead'. It was the one voice that screamed the loudest to him anyway.
He suddenly was overcome with a sense of want. He wanted to get out of here; as far away from Logic and Reason as possible. He wanted to be with Ryuzaki at HQ again. Where L was L and not 12 pieces of a puzzle that he had to hunt down and put back together again. He wanted L. the whole L.
He wanted L….
Raito jolted, startling mini-L who was still in his arms. Wait! That didn't come out right! He wanted to be with L… no! Wait, that didn't come out right either! Raito looked back down at L, and realized that… he did. He wanted L. He wanted to be with him. He did. That's why everything here was driving him up the walls. He liked L. That's why Love bothered him. That's why he didn't mind Child-like hanging off of him like jewelry. That's why… everything else! Because he wanted to be with L. Raito closed his eyes. Oh man, when did that happen? Now Raito really came to understand the word epiphany at a personal level. That electric shock must have really messed up his brain somewhere…
Oh, whom was he kidding? This probably had started months ago, and only now he came to actually notice what was happening. Some genius he was…
"Son? Are you feeling all right?" he heard his father ask, and openedhis eyes only to find everyone staring at him. Oh, great. Just great. Now he felt embarrassed as well.
"Yeah dad, I just had an epiphany. That's all." He replied.
"Oh… What was it about that it startled you so much?" Oh nothing dad. He just found out that maybe, just maybe, he could possibly be a homosexual. And that the man he had feelings for was the man who accuses him daily of heartlessly killing millions of people and had locked him up in a cell for 50 days. Nothing out of the ordinary, right? Nothing you should worry your little, old fashioned mind with.
"Nothing that important dad. We should really start heading out. I think we've spent enough time here." Raito replied.
"Agreed." Logic and Reason said, and started heading for the door. His father nodded, accepting his son's half-assed answer and followed the personalities. The others trailed behind their chief, that is, except for Matsuda. The man stayed behind, a worried look on his face.
"Are you sure you're all right Raito? You've been acting weird ever since we got here." Matsuda asked, real worry coloring his tone. Oh, not Matsuda. Why did it have to be Matsuda? He wasn't sure his pride could take such a blow. "Yes Matsuda, I'm sure. It's just this whole situation. It's beginning to catch up with me."
"If you say so." Matsuda said (not buying it for one second, but letting it go anyway), his lip curving down before he walked off to join the others. The teen gave a deep sigh (in relief or exasperation, he wasn't sure) Then looked back at the detective. He made sure everyone else had left and he was alone (well, not alone, mini-L was still there, but he was incredibly quiet and his face was back to being buried at the crook of his neck) he slowly took hold of L's hand. Light caressed his thumb over the top of it slowly. He smiled.
Smooth.
Ok, so maybe he liked L. Big deal. It was probably just a schoolboy crush. This was the first time he had ever met anyone that was so much like he himself; someone with so much in common. It was normal that he would be attracted to that, right? I mean, it was just so new to have someone he actually liked being around. (Other than his family, but they didn't count.). It was just so easy to be around the man (when they weren't fighting… or he was accusing him of being Kira… or when he was spitting out percentages…) of course he would have a silly little teenage crush. It's not like he loved the man or anything.
….
….
Right?
Of course not! He barely knew the man! Ha! Love? What a joke. He'd never loved before, why would he start now? Raito then noticed that he had been holding the man's hand the whole time and quickly let go. This was so stupid.
"We really should be going Raito. They're leaving without us." Came the boyish voice from his shoulder. Ratio's body tensed. Did the boy
see anything? He looked over at mini-L, who was peering up at him insolently, head to the side. Apparently not… The boy then hopped out of his arms, looking up at him before he grabbed his hand and started dragging him along behind him. "Come on Raitoooo." He whined, pulling at his hand harder. Raito followed behind silently. He couldn't help but look back at L's despairing form as they left. The man's chest slowly rose and fell in the distance.
It's not like it was love.