"…coming up after the break!"
The television blared in the background as Taro mindlessly cycled through his scales, fingers flying light and sure across faux-ivory piano keys.
"…for all your indoor and outdoor decorating needs!"
A major.
"Looking for a bargain? Lowest prices…"
F sharp minor.
"…"
E flat major.
"Be sure to tune in!"
G minor.
"…live broadcast from the ICPO…"
E major. Wait, what?
The piano fell silent as Taro turned to stare at the television. He saw a rather grim looking man, seated behind a sign which read 'LIND. L. TAILOR'. The man introduced himself as 'L'. The single-letter name was only vaguely familiar to Taro, who had always imagined it as some kind of shadowy organisation.
Despite the fact that Taro's school had only just been reopened, he had already heard all the playground gossip about the mysterious 'Kira': a dark vigilante who destroyed criminals by making, among other grotesque things, their eyeballs pop out of their heads. He hadn't believed a word of it. But now this?
Taro had never seen a detective talking to a criminal on television like this before. The police were apparently zeroing in on Kira's location. Were they going to televise that, too? He watched, dumbfounded, as Lind. L. Tailor began to address Kira directly.
And suddenly clutched at his chest.
"No way!"
Taro leapt to his feet as Lind. L. Tailor collapsed in his chair. A name, a face and a heart attack? There was no mistaking what had just happened: somebody had just used a death note to kill him.
"I need to hear that practice, Taro!" came his mother's shrill reminder from somewhere upstairs. Ignoring her, Taro knelt on the piano stool, lifted up the top of the piano and stuck his hand down into the dark space where he had hidden his death note. It was still there. He spun to look at the television and saw a single letter L appear onscreen, accompanied by a synthetic, yet surprised voice.
"Unbelievable… Kira, it seems you can kill – "
"Taro?"
" – even being there in person."
Taro carelessly let the lid of the piano slam and scooted to his knees in front of the television.
"I would never have believed it – "
"Taro, what are you doing? What was that noise?" Taro inched closer to the screen and turned the sound up. He could hear his mother's footsteps on the stairs.
" – was an inmate, whose execution was scheduled for this time today. That was not me."
"Taro! You should be doing your piano practice, not watching television." His mother marched into the sitting room and reached for the remote control.
"But I just want to see this broadcast! It's really important!"
"I, L, am real! I – "
The television screen went blank.
"No!" Taro punched the button on the front of the set, but it was on standby mode.
"Practice. Now." His mother pointed with the remote control in the direction of the piano and marched off upstairs, taking the remote with her. Taro waited for her to leave, then crawled behind the television set. Following the power cable, he removed and replaced the plug, then switched the set back on to see nothing but static.
"Shit!" The broadcast was over.
Taro switched the television off, returned to the piano and sat down. The room seemed strangely silent now: he could almost hear his own frantic heartbeat. Resting his fingers on the keys for a moment, he sighed shakily and began to play a piece of Bach which he'd studied to death two months ago. He had played it so many times that his fingers knew their way automatically, leaving him free to think about what he had just seen.
Someone out there had another death note. They were using it to make a name for themselves killing criminals: Taro felt a twinge of something akin to jealousy. It was what he'd imagined for himself, before he saw Miura driven crazy with too much killing. Kira must be a strong person. But Kira had made a mistake: from what he'd seen of the broadcast, Taro knew that the death of Lind. L. Tailor had been some sort of victory for the real L.
On live television, as some faceless overseer's mere pawn: what a humiliating way to die. The boy spent a second wondering what Lind. L. Tailor's crime had been.
But at present, Taro had more pressing things to worry about. He did not want to end up getting accused of being Kira.
There were exactly three other people who knew the truth behind the mysterious heart attacks at his school: police detective Takagi, police inspector Yamanaka and his classmate Miura. None of them knew that Taro still had a death note, but they would surely be reading the signs and thinking of him: the first among them to come across the deadly notebook. Would it be better to come clean now, or to stay silent?
Neither of these was really an option. Telling the police anything was as good as telling L, and if L ever found out about the notebook Taro was hiding, he would become an instant Kira suspect. But if he flatly denied knowing anything and L still found out, it would look even worse. To avoid suspicion, he needed to admit just enough to maintain his lie, and find a better hiding place for that notebook in case anyone came looking.
And what about the real Kira? This had to be the work of a shinigami: possibly Ryuk, although Taro had sent him back to the shinigami world, noteless, just a few weeks before. Taro had never been comfortable with the idea of anyone else owning a death note, but Kira had only ever killed criminals until L came along. What if he found out about Taro and his death note? Would Kira try to kill him? Try to frame him? Try to coerce him? It was too dangerous: better to avoid Kira's attention altogether. All he had to do was hide the notebook, act innocent, and hope that neither L nor Kira would find any reason to come after him.
"Telephone, Taro."
Bach fell silent as something tapped on Taro's shoulder. It was his mother, rapping him with the cordless while balancing an overflowing basket of laundry against her hip. He took the phone without thanking her.
"Hello?"
"Hey did you see the guy on TV just now?"
"Miura?"
"He was talking live on air and he just died! And I just found it again on the net, and guess what he died of?"
"A heart attack?"
"A heart attack! Yeah… um, so you were watching?"
"Sort of," Taro mumbled. He didn't really feel like talking to Miura right now (or ever), but couldn't bring himself to just hang up.
There was a pause before Miura spoke in an urgent whisper: "So… so do you think it's the death note again?"
"The police burned it, remember?" Taro rested his elbow on the piano keys so he could prop his chin up with one hand. The piano protested with a dull discord.
"Yeah… but what if it came back? I mean 'cause, we don't really know anything about it, right? Maybe you can't just get rid of it that easily."
Taro stared blankly while Miura rattled off several theories about how the death note might have survived burning and fallen into someone else's hands. For someone who did so well at school, Miura could sure be slow: he seemed completely convinced that there was only one death note in existence.
It occurred to Taro that if what he had told the police – that his and Miura's death notes were one and the same – were true, then maybe he would be thinking along the same lines as Miura. In which case, it would be a good idea to actually listen to Miura and copy whatever he said or did.
"So, I'll see you in about twenty minutes."
"Huh?" It seemed that while Taro was distracted, Miura had managed to invite himself over.
"We'll go and ask if we can talk to those two detectives again. Bye!"
Taro sighed in frustration as the line went dead.