He sees her as she walks through the gates escorted by Mr. Wammy. The first thought in his mind is she's dressed like a doll; A pretty blue dress with lace trimming and a silk blue ribbon tied at her collar, white stockings and polished Mary-Jane's. She's dressed like one of those porcelain dolls he sometimes sees in store windows. Cherry red hair is tied back into a neat little braid, her bangs brushed off to the side allowed him to see her eyes.
Foggy aquamarine eyes.
Mr. Wammy took her inside and he let his curiosity push him into following. There were admittedly not that many girls in The House, and those who were there did not dress like her. Like this little doll with a walking cane. She sits outside Mr. Wammy's office after he asks her to. She doesn't say much, just nods and lets him help her up into the chair. With her cane in her lap she reminds him even more of a doll. Blank eyes stare ahead at nothing, nose and cheeks rosy from the slight Autumn chill that was coming in.
He does nothing but stand behind the corner and watch. She doesn't move from her spot for a total of eleven minutes and twenty-seven seconds until Mr. Wammy comes back out of his office. He has a file folder tucked under his arm. He asks her some questions in a hushed voice, to which she nods yes or no to. When he is done, Wammy stands and helps her down and smiles.
"I think you'll like it here, Akane. Some of the children are very nice."
The girl-Akane-nods again and waits for Wammy to take her hand. When he does he gently leads her along back down the hall towards the bedrooms. He paused just outside the door to the girls' room when he turns his head.
"It's rude to follow people, young man. Come. Introduce yourself to Miss Akane here. No need to be shy."
He moves slowly until he was next to Akane. Neither say anything for a moment, just stand there staring until finally he breaks the silence.
"Hi."
She does not immediately respond. She continues watching him through ghost-like eyes for a moment longer.
"Hello."
The little doll did not like to speak, it seemed. Much like how he did not either.
"The kitchen and bathroom are two doors down the hall to the left," He told her as he carried her bags into the room. Her bed was the one in the corner, near the large pane window that looked out over the courtyard. Most of the children were out there playing.
"There is a 'W' engraved on the brass doorknob. The floorboard in front of it should also squeak when you step there." Mr. Wammy looked over to where they still stood out in the hall and smiled when he realized just what the child was doing. He was giving a blind girl directions only really she could follow.
A door burst open at the end of the hall and two more children came running through, both getting chased by a remote control car and screaming in laughter while doing so. The controller of the car came running after them soon after. They ran past Akane and the other boy, and Mr. Wammy followed them close behind.
"Matthew! Matthew, I thought I warned you against chasing the other children! Matthew!"
Akane blinked and large clouded eyes stared into his where he had pushed her out of the way of the stampede. She had dropped her cane when he shoved her. He slowly pulled back to pick it up off the ground and place it back in her hands. She glanced down to it, blinking before slipping the strap around her wrist and tapping the end on the ground with a small sound.
"Thank you."
"It was no trouble... Matt never learns."
"He likes altering or putting computer chips into toy cars so he may chase the other children with them?" She asked.
"Yes. I think one time he may have even had a water gun attached."
L paused as he stared at Matsuda, who was resting his chin on his hands and smiling.
"Matsuda, what is with that face?" The Task Force officer blinked and sat up with a nervous chuckle.
"S-Sorry! It's just-it's kinda cute that you and Akane are childhood friends. I can only imagine how excited you were to see her again."
Owlish eyes rose to the ceiling as L hummed, thumbing at his bottom lip and murmuring more to himself than to Matsuda, "Yes. Yes, I would say I was indeed very happy to see her again. Especially after what happened..."
Touta tilted his head. "After...'what' happened?" He watched the ex(?)-detective blink and lower his hand back to his knee before speaking.
"Oh. You heard that. You see, Matsuda, Akane and I had a bit of a disagreement just before she left Wammy's House."
"What was it about?" Matsuda leaned forward in his chair, brows up to his hairline in distress at hearing that somehow L and Akane could have ever disagreed on anything.
"Ironically enough it was about me."
"L, if I told you a secret would you keep it?"
He stopped his typing and looked over his shoulder where the girl was leaning with her back against his. They had taken solace in the library where he had confiscated one of the computer for his own use and she had been his welcomed company.
"I suppose. Though it really does depend on the severity of it." He heard her hum and watched as she traced on polished red nail over the floor boards, drawing different patterns and equations into the wood that only she could see.
"You're going to hurt your knees if you keep sitting like that," She mused, a small smile playing at her lips. The summer sun poured in through the window and cast it's glow on her, making her appear to be made of gold with flaming hair draping over her shoulders.
"So you have told me. You're stalling, Akane." He resumed his typing, feeling more at ease. He figured that her secret was something she had heard while walking the halls of the house. Perhaps Wammy was going off again because he had stumbled across another child? Or maybe she would just fill the silence with more banter about how he sat or what he ate like she usually did. She was really the only one who he could tolerate the badgering and even reply with his own remarks. He figured that was how that afternoon would go; much like how many others had gone and even evenings and early mornings.
That afternoon however was different. He knew it in an instant.
She sighed, tilted her head back until he felt her hair brushing against the back of his neck and her shoulders sagged against his own. Then she spoke.
"I want to leave Wammy House."
His typing stopped once again, fingers hung frozen in the air as he stared at the screen that was now filled with meaningless chicken scratch. All warmth in the room seemed to have left as the silence between them grew heavy. For the first time, L felt a sort of dread come over him.
"Why? You will be much more successful in life if you stay here." I don't want you to leave.
"I will only be successful in becoming a detective that would evidently have to go into hiding. No one really knows we exist as it is, but why spend our whole lives living like that?" She asked as she sat up and he turned. Her hair fell over her left shoulder, her bare legs folded under her with the hem of her dress pooling around her in a snow-colored puddle. She still looked like a doll. Even after all this time.
"Do you not want to help put criminals away where they belong?" He asked. He watched her shake her head.
"No. I don't. I don't want to be a detective like you, L. I want to go and study."
"Study what?" He spoke too quickly, his movements and speech too rushed. He was scared. She waits for a moment, brows furrowing in concern as she looked in his vague direction. She had heard the catch in his voice.
"The mind," She says at last. "I want to study the human mind... Why are ours hard-wired so differently? What makes them like that? That is what I want to study."
"You can learn that all here," He says. "I'm sure Wammy will not mind in ordering audio books." You do not have to leave.
But Akane shook her head and stood, her cane gripped tight in her hand. "I don't want audio books," She retorted. "I want to learn so I may teach it. I want to teach people, L." She felt the rush of air as he stood with her, taking a step back but her gaze never wavering. "I cannot earn a teaching degree if I stay here."
He always has a comeback. He always knows what to say and how to have the last word. But now he was stuck frozen in silence. He did not know what to say.
"You can do better than teaching." He finally decides on. "Whomever you teach, they won't appreciate your knowledge. You'll never make it."
"How can you say such a thing?" She gasped, stricken with shock at his reaction. "You haven't a clue how anyone will react to my teaching! Just because you never liked any of your teachers does not mean everyone else won't!"
"Teachers are nothing but playthings for society," He grit.
"How dare you-"
"No one out there will ever believe that a blind woman can make it in the world of Education, Akane. Which is why you will be better off just staying here where you can learn how to do something meaningful like I-"
The slap came quick and unaccounted for, his left cheek stinging harshly and no doubt the skin would be left with a red tint. She stood there with tears rising and her bottom lip trembling in anger. He waited for her to scream at him and curse him out like she was surely going to do. He wanted her to yell. He wanted the emotional explosion that only she knew how to made beautiful even when covered in tears.
What he got was silence. Resentful infuriated silence.
Then she is storming towards the door, bare feet quiet against the wood all the way till she disappears into the hall. He watches her and slowly raises a hand to his cheek. It's warm to the touch and still throbbing with a dull ache. He deserved it.
Akane is gone the next morning. Her bags are packed and he watches from the window as she climbs into the waiting car, Wammy closing the door after she is in. The man glanced up and met his eyes for a moment before the contact was quickly broken as he ducked his head and climbed into the driver's seat.
Once again, he deserves it.
Matsuda sits in stunned silence as L plays with the puddle of condensation left on the desk from his water bottle.
"She was gone? Just like that?"
"Just like that." L almost seemed to sigh, using the edge of his coat to wipe away the puddle and return his gaze back to the younger man in front of him. "That was the last time I saw her for the next ten years."
"How old were you?" Touta asked quietly, his happier charm from earlier dissipating to make room for the wave of pity that came with the new story.
"Thirteen."
Touta whistled low as he slipped farther down in his chair, a frown tugging at his features as he avoiding the other man's eyes.
"I'm sorry," He murmured."
"There's no reason to apologize, Matsuda," L quipped. "What happened, happened. Much as I would like to change it, I cannot. So there is no point in dwelling on the past." Matsuda nodded slowly, eyes still fixed on noting before his brows furrowed and he looked up.
"Hang on... You said 'ten years'? That means you reunited with Akane..." His brows lifted once more as L nodded.
"During the Kira investigation. Indeed."
"Talk about a small world, huh?" He chuckled. The curve of a smile made itself known on L's face once more.
"Small world indeed, Matsuda."
"It's funny. I remember you always acting a bit different around her. You almost always seemed-nervous. I'm guessing you hadn't made up immediately off the bat?"
L shook his head. "No. Akane was, understandably, less than thrilled to see me again." He almost seemed to shrink in on himself, eyes down in memory. "I did not blame her then, and I do not now. I acted out of character and childishness."
Matsuda felt like reaching out and putting a hand on the other man's shoulder, but the last time something even close to that happened, L proved to the entire task force just how ready he was to start throwing his kicks. Still, he couldn't help but want to comfort him somehow.
"So.. when did you and Akane make up? I noticed you two began acting like-well, like old friends half way through the investigation." For a moment, the smile was back on L's face.
"Truthfully, there was no specific date or time that she evidently forgave me. It was really a collaboration of events that lead up to it. But..." He gazed up at the ceiling again, lolling his head a bit before exhaling slowly. "I believe it started... when I followed Light Yagami to this very Academy. I still remember it very clearly..."
The last of the students were beginning to file into the room, taking whatever empty seat they could find left over. It was almost endearing to watch so many young faces in one place ready to learn whatever the topic of the class was. Not that he cared really, he true focus was the man some rows ahead of him.
Kira.
He was absolutely certain that Light was behind the recent murder wave of criminals. He just needed some way to prove it. That was always the difficult part.
The cameras set up in his room proved nothing, He thought to himself just as the door slammed shut behind the last student. The teacher was still nowhere to be seen. The only course of action I need to take next is to get close to him. Light has to be stopped.
He was still musing to himself even when the teacher slipped into the room. But the tapping was what brought him out of his thoughts.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Went her cane against the floor as she walked. Tap. Tap. Tap. Everywhere she went.
Ryuzaki focused his eyes at the last second.
She was in a formal blouse and skirt, her heels clicked against the floor that kept in time with the tapping of her cane. Her hair was pulled up into a neat bun, bangs brushed aside so he may see her eyes.
Foggy aquamarine eyes.
"Good Morning, everyone," She chimed with a gentle smile that revealed a row of straight white teeth. "Welcome to Intro to Psychology. I will be your instructor." To everyone's surprise (aside from his own), she picked up a piece of chalk and wrote in neat cursive on the chalk board.
Professor Akane Himura.