Ficlet Three: Devil's Chess
Warning: Extremely mild shonen-ai. Vague spoilers for the existence of the heirs.
Disclaimer: The only thing in this story that I own is the game and rules of devil's chess. I actually invented devil's chess one insomnia-ridden night (like that narrows it down, huh?) for the Yu Yu Hakusho fandom, because I'd read a handful of stories where Hiei and Kurama play chess. The series is all about overdoing it, so I invented a game of super-chess for them. The story was never written. Go. Figure. (N.B. I will never, in a million years, be smart enough to play devil's chess.)
Author's Note: Promises, procrastination, promises, procrastination…yet another story that isn't either of the Le'letha-official 'denial-fics', but is an AU past book 7. See, my problem is that to write the denial-fics, I'm going to have to reread book 7. I'll have to admit it to deny it. (frustration!) Also, this is much longer than my last two stories, moving from drabble-land into full-length oneshot, to the point where it should almost be posted separately. But it's not.
ON WITH THE SHOW!
In the end, it all came down to sheer bloody-minded paranoia.
Specifically, L's intimate familiarity with crime scenes and the corruption of evidence, and his insistence that all the members of the task force—himself and Raito Yagami included—wear gloves.
Gloves meant no skin contact with the black Death Note found in Higuchi's car; no skin contact meant no restored memories or shinigami sightings; and no memories meant that Rem was left confused and without orders.
It also meant that Raito Yagami returned to headquarters still chained to the wide-eyed, thoughtful detective, and with absolutely no awareness of how close he'd come to destroying his worst enemy and subsequently ruling the world mostly uncontested for several years.
L hated to close a case so clumsily, but he really wanted the Kira murders stopped…and some sixth sense made him more cautious than ever, perhaps telling him how closely he had escaped defeat.
He kept silent about his theories regarding Raito and Misa Amane, not wanting to provoke either into defending themselves.
With no one controlling her, Misa panicked. She pleaded with Rem to remove her memories of the notebooks, confident that she would keep her love for Raito. Misa returned to her obsessive actress persona, again with no memories of being Kira. The Death Note that Kira had buried remained buried, far off the beaten track and unlikely to ever be found again.
L noted the change, and concluded that it was for the best, if only because it removed the possibility of the second Kira reemerging. He did not welcome the continuance of her obsession with Raito, if only because she was loud and intrusive.
The little detective had read the instructions engraved on the front and back inside covers, and had eventually announced that they didn't really need the notebook to convict Higuchi. Because of the curious natures of some of the recorded Kira murders, L didn't believe the rule about destroying the notebook. The Death Note burned. Raito watched, hours before the chains were to be removed, with L at his side and only the faintest feeling of disquiet in him. It manifested as curiosity about the notebook, and disgust at both Higuchi and whoever the second Kira had been.
Rem and Ryuk, confused, agreed as to what to do, but had different reasons. Rem frankly didn't care. With Misa safe, she could return to the shinigami realm knowing that the little model she was so fond of was in no danger. Ryuk opted to return as well, but only because one of the extra notebooks had been destroyed and the other one lost. He added that if Raito ever did regain his memories, he wanted to be on a whole separate plane rather than deal with an angry Raito Yagami whose plan had gotten screwed up.
Finally, as the dust began to settle, Soichiro Yagami asked what was going to happen to Raito.
"I still believe," L said, curled in a chair comfortably, "that Raito-kun was, at some point, the original Kira."
"Ryuzaki!" both Yagami men shouted at him simultaneously.
"However," stressed L, holding up one long finger for silence, "I do not believe that he is Kira now."
This mollified his audience somewhat.
"But I would like to keep an eye on him."
"What," Raito said flatly, knowing he wasn't going to like the next few words out of the detective's mouth.
"Raito-kun wants to be a detective. He can work with me," L said sunnily.
Raito thought that over for a second, and then came out with "What the HELL?"
What L was actually proposing was a form of protective custody. He did want to keep watch on Raito; he had also, to his great surprise, enjoyed the teen's company (despite the handcuffs that made it a twenty-four/seven demand). At least, the first was the excuse he gave—the latter went unspoken.
Raito told Misa that he'd be back soon, and hoped to hell that her time sense was as far gone as her dignity.
Three Months Later:
Raito knew they were in the U.S; beyond that it could be anywhere, as the house was extremely remote. L had made it very clear that if he started to get too nosy, they would pack up and go somewhere else. (He was glad that he spoke English, although L seemed perfectly fluent in either language. Depending on random factors, they spoke a mixture of the two.)
"You're not seriously going to move all this stuff," Raito had fired back, sweeping a descriptive arm around the comfortably furnished, four-story house the two prodigies and Watari were currently inhabiting.
"No," L agreed mildly. "Just the computers, really, and we could leave those behind too if we had to. This is just one of several safe houses."
And Raito had to be content with that. L was the king of secrets.
Seeing as they'd spent the last few months in enforced companionship, the next three weren't so bad, seeing as they could now retreat to opposite ends of the house when they got into fights, which they inevitably did.
Raito spent plenty of time on the computer keeping up with college—he continued to make smart remarks to L, who mainly ignored him, about some people having a life—and collaborating with L on more cases, none of them approaching the lurid scale of the Kira case.
"Good," said L when Raito mentioned this.
Watari and Raito spent the first month avoiding each other out of mutual dislike. Then L did something wacky, as he was prone to doing, and Raito looked over at the elderly man and rolled his eyes. Looking like it was against his will, Watari smirked agreement. Common ground meant a truce, but they'd never really like each other, partly because Raito kept leaving bruises all over his childish employer.
"And you know everything about me!" Raito shouted during one of their fights, following the statement up with a mean right hook. L dodged it, failed to completely evade his left fist, and rolled with it, snapping Raito's feet out from under him. Clambering off the floor before the older man could press his advantage, he yelled, "I hate that!"
Watari let them fight for a few minutes before rapping on the door and telling them to break it up. Through unspoken agreement, that was the signal for them to shoot furious glares at each other and spend the rest of the week cautiously planning daily schedules that wouldn't intersect.
Because of this, Raito was extremely surprised to hear a knock on his bedroom door that evening. He considered not answering, but his curiosity got the better of him.
It improved his mood a little bit to see that L was sporting a black eye, making him look even more like a lopsided raccoon than usual.
"What?" he asked curtly, ready to close the door.
"Raito-kun is mad at me," L told the air.
"Yes, I am. You know everything about me; I know nothing about you. It's extremely annoying."
"I worked for your secrets, Raito-kun," L pointed out. "But I'll play you for mine."
"Are you going to make sense, or is this not one of those days?"
L presented him with a box, which Raito accepted more out of surprise than anything. The detective used that moment of confusion to slip past his companion—by the time the teen caught up with him, L was crouched on his bed watching him.
"Hey! —what is this?"
"It's a game," L explained. "I invented it one day when I was bored, but no one's been able to play it with me because it's complicated and takes a lot of patience."
He accepted the box back from Raito to prevent being hit with it and started to unpack its contents before looking around and moving to the floor. Interest piqued, Raito joined him somewhat reluctantly.
Laying a regular chessboard out, L proceeded to set up a board four times the size. The 64-square area of the typical board was outlined by a darker line in the center of it. In only a few seconds, he had the larger board attached to the normal one, supported a few inches up in the air by slim stands. To this, he added three four-by-four boards that hovered adjacent to the largest board.
"Three-dimensional chess," said Raito.
"Yes, but by my own rules. The first level has the same rules as any game of chess; however, pieces can move not only forward but upward to their corresponding positions on the second level as well. When pawns are put on the second level, then they can move in all directions; however, they are still limited to taking pieces diagonally."
"And these smaller boards…can any pieces move up there?"
"Any piece from the second level," L qualified. "Pieces can also move down from any level, and can take opponents vertically as well."
Raito was forced to admit that the game was, "Tricky. What are those?"
L examined a red piece, holding it gingerly. "Neutral players. Either player can use them for any purpose; their functions and abilities remain the same." He passed one to Raito to examine while placing the remaining red pieces on second-level squares marked, as Raito now saw, with a small red shape.
"I think I understand," Raito said finally, depositing the piece he still had on the empty spot. "One question though. Why are we playing this, and how does it relate to that black eye you're sporting?"
One of L's hands twitched, as if fighting not to poke the tender bruise. He settled, as expected, for putting it in his mouth instead. "If you win, I'll tell you one of my secrets."
"And if I lose? You already know all of mine."
"I invented the game; it's to be expected," L said without a trace of irony, even to Raito's experienced powers of observation. "When you lose then you just have to play again when I challenge you to another game. If you get bored, or don't like what I tell you, you can stop—but only if you win."
There had to be a catch, but Raito was intrigued enough by the strategy involved in the game that he agreed.
He lost the first game he played.
He also lost the next three in a row. L wasn't one to let him win out of sympathy, and if he did, it would mean nothing.
They played on and off, sometimes leaving a game in progress for days when L's cases took up their attention or they wanted to think about moves in advance. It was weeks before Raito finally triumphantly called, "Checkmate!"
"Hm," L admitted, fingers to mouth. "Correct. I owe you a secret."
Clearing the remaining pieces off the board, Raito watched the scruffy young man from the corner of his eye curiously.
"My first secret," L announced as Raito separated the three miniature boards, "is this."
It took a second for the teen to realize what his companion was getting at, but when he did, he jumped, dropping the board.
L was sitting across from him…but he was, in fact, sitting, one leg crossed in front of him, the other casually supporting his right wrist.
"You said that made your reasoning ability drop by…" he tried to recall the exact number L had quoted to him in that coffee shop so long ago.
"Forty percent," the detective finished for him. "When out in the open or around other people, it does, because that forty percent would otherwise be focused on crippling paranoia and defensiveness. However, I don't feel threatened here and now."
Raito wasn't sure if he felt complimented or not.
Weeks later, after mixing devil's chess and a white slavery smuggling case in brain-frying combinations, L admitted to Raito that "My second secret is that Watari mixes crushed vitamin supplements in with almost everything I eat, and we both pretend that I don't know."
Raito lost several games in quick succession for a while, but he appreciated the fact that L hadn't gotten bored with the whole thing and called it off.
"Where did you get this?" he asked after finally winning a match. "And that doesn't count as a secret."
"I know someone who is very good at making things like this," L told him. "I doubt you will ever meet. As for my third secret, it is that I refused to speak to another living soul until I was almost five years old, although I was perfectly fluent in two languages by then. I made up for silence by being inscrutable or obnoxious in turns."
"I believe it," Raito told him.
They got the man in the end, but not before he sabotaged several government databases, sending various systems and agencies into chaos. Raito enjoyed the double strategy of hacking into government systems from one side while L waltzed in with full permission from another.
However, it put L into a bad mood for some reason—perhaps not even he could explain why.
"I don't know how to laugh," L contributed as his 'secret' when Raito successfully got past his half-hearted defense.
Surprised, Raito objected, "Sure you do. I've seen you laugh."
"You've seen actions you interpret as a laugh, and they are my version of laughter, but I don't know how to laugh like other people do," L corrected him glumly.
"Surely you don't expect me to believe that. Even babies laugh, L!"
"I don't," said L, and the subject was closed.
"Checkmate. Finally—that took what, four weeks?"
"Three weeks, five days…you don't want the rest, do you?"
"Some days, L, I hate that internal clock of yours," Raito told him, examining a knight closely. "How you keep track across time zones is beyond me."
"That's not a secret," L said grumpily, curled back into his regular knees-to-chest posture. "I can't explain it myself. It just works."
Raito gave the older detective a critical once-over. "Judging by your body language…which mumbles half the time, for crying out loud…you really don't like this secret, do you?"
"Mm." L put a thumb to his lips and chewed on it for a second. "This secret—don't ask for details—is that there was once another person who looked extremely similar to me."
"You had a twin?"
"NO. He just looked like me, and was a very capable mimic." L paused to further abuse his thumb. "I got the name Ryuzaki from him," he admitted.
L had asked him not to probe for details, but as he was volunteering details on his own, Raito decided that it couldn't hurt to ask. The worst L would probably do was spend the next three days hiding. "What happened to him?"
With his free hand, the detective brushed the question away. "It was long ago, and in another country…sort of."
It took Raito a few evenings to remember that the quote L had paraphrased ended with, 'and, besides, the wench is dead.'
L left the house in the middle of December—on his own—leaving Raito finishing a hefty paper and Watari resenting the fact that someone had to stay behind to keep an eye on the teen.
"I didn't see them last year, or the year before that," Raito overheard L explaining to his guardian in the most irritating voice of pure reason in the world, "but there's absolutely nothing stopping me now."
Watari obviously wasn't happy about letting L, who couldn't be trusted to walk into a grocery store, travel alone, but L had stopped listening at about that point, and did as he pleased anyway, as he always did.
Without L as common ground between the two, Raito didn't really want to interact with the elderly man. He stayed in his room working on his paper, punctuated by periodic excursions to the kitchen.
On the twenty-fifth, the phone rang unexpectedly, and when Raito peeked out of his room, he found Watari listening to the speaker as if he hadn't moved in a while, a fond grin on his face.
Catching sight of Raito lurking in the doorway, Watari interrupted the inaudible flow of words on the other end with, "Could you give L the phone again, please? Thank you…" After a brief pause, he said, "Yeah, L, one second—" and extended the phone to Raito, who accepted it in surprise.
"Hello?"
"Raito-kun is on the phone," L announced. L had explained that he made remarks like that because he was used to correlating evidence on his own, but still, L, duh! "Hello, Raito-kun." The teen couldn't swear to it, but the background non-noise seemed to be that of quite a lot of people eavesdropping. L's statement may not have been as random as it had seemed.
"Hey. Where on earth did you go off to?"
"Secret," L said happily. "Tell you when I get back. Which will be," he preempted Raito's next question, "whenever I feel like it."
"Oh, I dread that sentence; I never know what's going to come of it."
"Raito-kun is always perceptive. Give the phone back to Watari again now—we interrupted."
"See you soon," Raito told him, and returned the phone, wondering absently why he'd said something so banal.
L called again a week later, this time to ask Watari to pick him up.
"Thanks to Watari," he told Raito, not unhappily, "I've heard more theories about who you are than I ever wanted to hear."
"Did they—whoever they are—figure it out in the end?"
"Sort of. And I will tell you where I went when you earn it."
That was clearly a challenge, so Raito dragged L (and a heavy blanket and a mug of hot chocolate and three bags of marshmallows and a chocolate bar) upstairs to start a new game (and L still insisted on turning the thermostat up).
"It's cold," he explained through a concoction that could have been hot chocolate if it hadn't been reduced to sludge. L's idea of a beverage was something you could stand a spoon up in.
Raito was really curious, so he played harder than ever, beating L on the first game.
"Raito-kun is good at devil's chess," L said happily.
"And you went where?" Raito reminded him, not to be deterred, even by rare compliments.
"Mmph," said L through a marshmallow. "To see the children."
"The what?" He couldn't help but suspect that L was enjoying the face he'd made.
"The idea was that we'd put the brightest children we could find together, because trust me, being all on your own in the midst of children that you are a thousand times brighter than is a horrible way to be. I grew up there—when I wasn't busy—as the first group was collected just to give me some sort of socialization. It didn't work," the detective added matter-of-factly.
Raito thought about it—processing L and children and genius children together—and came up with, "Backups?"
"Raito-kun is clever," L told the remains of his hot chocolate. "When I—and I quote—'pull some damn-fool stunt' and get myself killed, one of them will replace me as L."
When I get killed, not if, Raito noted, and why did that bother him so much? "So why did you ask me to take over during the Kira case?" he asked.
"Because you were there, of course," L shrugged, "and they are young."
"Younger than you were?" Raito asked slyly.
"No."
"They must be incredible. Do I ever get to meet these kids?"
L chewed on a finger for lack of another marshmallow. "I'll think about it."
"Don't tell me you're sulking over losing, L," Raito chided him several weeks later. "It happens."
"I thought you'd be bored by now," L muttered into his knees. Drat, Raito thought, defensive again. We're never going to get completely past that, are we?
"We're getting to secrets I don't want to tell…"
It was true, Raito realized—each progressive secret that he'd earned had been more and more personal.
"You started this, L, and you can end it whenever you please," Raito reminded him. "But only when you win a game, and this time I won. That means you owe me a secret."
Unhappily, L said, "I know," but stayed silent.
Seeing as he wasn't going to get anything else out of him, either secret or help, Raito packed up the rest of the game board by himself. Spontaneously, he shoved the box to one side and bridged the distance between them with a tentative hand, risking L's dislike of touch.
Although obviously surprised, L turned one hand upward, gripping Raito's firmly. Raito was equally startled—L seemed almost reassured by the contact.
"I told you my name when first we met," L eventually whispered shyly. "My name is L."
He volunteered neither family name nor any explanation, and Raito, knowing when he had pushed the detective to his limits, let it lie.
…however, he did test him just a little bit further by laying a gentle hand on his wild, scruffy hair before leaving.
The tension in the air between them was unbearable, and Raito started a new round in the hopes of relieving it.
L fought him harder than ever, beating him soundly with stubbornness and cunning born, Raito was sure, of fear.
Damn! Raito swore silently. Whatever's eating him, we'll never solve it this way!
To his immense surprise, however, L not only agreed to play again the next day, but challenged him directly, looking like even he didn't understand why he did so.
And repeatedly so, when he continued to win matches, until Raito wondered whether L's greatest battle was with Raito or himself.
Finally, fed up of the tension and taking shameless advantage of the fact that L was clearly very, very distracted over something, he managed to corner L's king and declare the game over.
Protectively, L curled up into a ball again, visibly distressed.
Well, it had worked last time, so there was no reason it shouldn't work again, right? Raito reached out to him again, linking their hands.
"I didn't think you'd get this far," L whimpered. "I thought you'd get bored…"
Raito's heart clenched with a combination of pity and anger. He gritted his teeth, but decided to take pity on his friend.
"You know what, L? I'm irritated as all hell that you want to renege on this, but damn it, you're my friend, and I hate seeing you like this. So if you don't want to tell me, fine, don't tell me. Or make up something trivial and leave it at that, and I'll never know the difference, will I? As far as I know you've made up everything you've told me, but I don't think you've done that, and that's wonderful. I realize you don't want to tell me your secrets, and I'm touched that you've done what you've done so far. Forget it. It's all right."
L's hands tightened on his—Raito was reminded again that he was much stronger than he looked—and it was a long time before he spoke.
"This is my last secret," he whispered, "and I'll never speak of it again if you don't want me to. I find myself hopelessly attracted to you, Raito-kun, but I won't ever act on it because you are my friend and I can't lose that, I just can't."
He was silent again—Raito was processing what he'd just heard—and then added in a lower voice than ever, "Please let go."
Raito released his hands automatically, and L pulled away from him, clambering off the ground awkwardly and retreating towards the door.
"L, wait!" he cried suddenly.
Shoulders hunched more in misery than defensiveness, L stopped at the door, but didn't turn around.
Cautiously, Raito rose too and followed him. He rested his hand very gingerly on L's shoulder; he flinched away nonetheless. Irked, Raito shifted his grip to the man's bicep, keeping him in place (unless he chose to make a fight of it).
"You think I'm mad at you, don't you?"
Defiantly, L turned his face away as far as it would go.
"L, look at me."
Black hair flew in a vehement no.
Raito stubbornly reached around him, pressing his free hand against L's cheek and attempting to pull him back around. L shoved him—not hard enough to make him let go, but enough to communicate don't.
Fine, if he was going to be that way, Raito would get his point across nonetheless. Before L could react, he shifted position slightly and pulled the detective into a hug.
He could feel the other man's surprise and confusion—he tensed even further and long fingers fluttered at his side, as if not sure if he should push him away or embrace him.
Not speaking, not moving, Raito held him until he settled down somewhat, letting his head fall onto Raito's shoulder.
You really don't know how to deal with emotions, attraction least of all, do you, L? Raito thought. Now, to scare him further or not…
What settled it was that L had said he wouldn't speak of it again, and although he'd probably figured out, genius that he was, that Raito didn't mind, the younger really didn't want to have to start this conversation over again from scratch.
So instead, he simply moved one hand to L's cheek and kissed him.
L reacted as Raito had expected he would—the combination of surprise and delight froze him solid.
Pulling away before he scared the detective too much, Raito tilted his chin up with the conveniently placed hand and whispered to him, "I don't mind at all."
Oh, this was going to make life much more interesting.
Author's Note: I don't write straight pairings well because there's no common ground. This turned a bit more personal than I intended, as I sympathize with L here.
Next: (and it will be next, because it's already written) Le'letha takes on the notorious Fifty-Sentence Challenge.