The Little Things Give You Away
By AishiExcel
Lately I have no patience for author's notes, I'm not sure why XD I usually ramble a lot here, but instead I'll leave you with a simple message: enjoy my chapter! Thanks guys!
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Mello's heart thudded in his chest as he approached Nate- no, NEAR's room. The nurse opened the door and swept her arm out in an 'after you' gesture. He walked in, still clutching his chocolate bar.
Nate had always seemed too small, too frail for a boy his age, but now he seemed dwarfed by the whiteness of his hospital bed. It engulfed him, so that he seemed like a small pale ghost buried in the overwhelming folds of his blankets and pillows. His hair and skin were barely a shade darker than his bleached-white hospital pajamas, and his gray eyes seemed huge in his tiny face. He looked less like a thirteen-year-old boy, and more like the ghost of a much younger child.
"Hello… brother," he muttered quietly, twirling one pale curl around his finger. "How have you been?"
Mello's voice caught in his throat for a second before he hurriedly cleared it and replied. "…Decent. How about you?"
Near picked up a small object that had been on his lap. It was a toy soldier. Seeing it made Mello more aware of the décor of their surroundings. The entire hospital room was covered in… toys. Huge quantities of them- toy soldiers, robots, cars and model trains… The masses of playthings only succeeded in enhancing the image of him as a much younger child. Mello wondered where all the toys had come from. For that matter, what did Nate- that was, Near- think of them? Did he actually play with all of these?
"Decent," replied Near, his voice snapping Mello out of his thoughts.
A long silence blossomed between them and Lidner cleared her throat and spoke, breaking it.
"I'll go get you something to drink, Near. I'll be back shortly."
Near nodded at her and marched the army man slowly back and forth across his lap. "It's been a while since we've spoken, hasn't it, brother?" he asked quietly.
"Nearly a year," Mello murmured. "Ever since my album was released."
Near continued the soldier's endless march. Back and forth, back and forth. "Yes. A lot has changed since then, I suppose."
"A whole lot," Mello murmured, picking at a corner of his chocolate bar's wrapper. "I've been all over the magazines and stuff since then. I'm surprised you haven't seen any of it." The last sentence may have come out a bit bitter, but Mello felt justified. After all, it was thanks to his fame that Near was even treated at this hospital. Those no-good foster parents had no way to afford his treatment, and Mello was sure the only reason they wanted to keep the younger boy alive was so they could show him off. "Look at our 'son', the genius, the prodigy." They wanted to push him forwards and win all kinds of acclaim and praise through him, but they'd had no interest in adopting the older brother, the troubled one, the one that could never get them anywhere. Well, he'd proven them wrong. He'd ended up on every goddamn magazine cover this side of the country and he hoped they knew it.
Mello tore open the wrapper on his chocolate bar and sat down in the chair near Nate's bed, chewing idly on one corner of the sweet. "It's not like I expected you to know, anyways. If it weren't for me keeping contact, those people would've let you think you had no brother."
Near said nothing, simply twirled his hair.
Things had been like this for a long time, since before Nate had become Near and Mihael had become Mello. Maybe it had started when Mom died and Mihael and his brother had gone to that first orphanage. From that point onwards they had started taking two diverging paths. Mello grew more and more extroverted, putting on a loud and boisterous front to cover his insecurities, while his younger brother grew more and more introverted as he took shelter in his own mind. So when the parents started coming, wanting to find a special little child to take home with them, it was Mihael who caught their attention first, but it was Nate they lingered on. He was special, they said, he was a brilliant prodigy hiding inside himself. Nate was the one they wanted to baby and take care of. Nate was the one who they wanted to crack open like some kind of safe to reach the treasure inside. As time went one, Mihael got angrier and angrier, and it started to show. Soon they were calling him 'unadoptable.' Soon they were saying no one would want him. It was no surprise when Nate had finally gotten adopted- and Mihael hadn't. He bounced around for a while, between homes, and then finally he'd made his first band and started touring. The rest was history. The rift between the two was a deep one, but Mello had tried to bridge it ever since Near was first hospitalized. The only problem was, he was making the effort alone.
"I do know, though," Near finally murmured, twirling the toy soldier around so that it faced Mello. "About your career. I did a little research. My… parents helped."
Mello chewed on his chocolate a little more. "Oh. Well, um…" He swallowed the morsel in his mouth and sat the candy bar down. "What… made you decide to… suddenly take interest?" Mello's voice sounded more like good chocolate now… Slightly less bitter, and slightly more sweet. He fidgeted with the hem of his shirt and didn't look up at his brother.
Near sat down his toy soldier and took another long moment to consider. "Things change. Sometimes, one reaches a point where things suddenly fall into perspective and one realizes what's important, what one needs to do."
He sounded so much older than a 13-year old, and the gap between the hollowness in his voice and the childishness of his face was too vast to make any sense. Mello tried to remember what his voice had sounded like when they'd last spoken. That was, he finally realized, almost two years ago.
"Yeah? Did this point happen because of you becoming a teenager, or what?" he joked, trying to sound lighthearted.
Near twirled a piece of hair. "Maybe," he finally muttered. "I just thought… it was important for me to get back in touch with you. I've started to realize what… life is like."
"And what's it like?"
"Short."
"Oh." Mello looked awkwardly down at his boots. He never thought it would be this hard to talk to Nate- that was, Near- in all that time he'd hoped for his acknowledgement. They were brothers- they were supposed to be more alike.
"So, um… Did you hear I was going to start acting soon?" Mello asked, breaking the awkward silence.
"Acting?"
"Yeah. On TV. Actually, it's all because I was here! Did I tell you how I was invited to play at this hospital's benefit ball since, you know, you were here and stuff?"
Near actually turned his head to look at Mello, seeming like he was actually vaguely interested in this new set of events. "You told the nurse about it. She told me."
"Yeah, well… Since I got to play at that ball, I got to mingle with a lot of TV guys, since Light Yagami was at the ball and so was his manager…"
Near seemed more than just vaguely interested now; he actually looked straight at Mello with something like an expression of actual curiosity. "Light Yagami? You got to meet him?"
Mello's nose wrinkled up in disdain and he picked his chocolate back up. "Yeah. Don't tell me you're one of his fan boys. He's really kind of a snob."
"Actually," Near murmured, "it's because of him that someone very important to me isn't with me right now."
Someone very important to Nate… there was someone like that? Did he have friends at school, and did they ever come visit him anymore, now that he'd been in the hospital so long? Was this 'someone important' who'd given him these toys?
"Is that so? Well, then it'll please you to know…" Mello smirked a little bit. "…That I'm going to become more famous than him. I'm going to outshine him."
Near twirled a strand of hair around one finger and then let something akin to a smile creep across his small features. "Do you think you could do more than that, brother?"
"What do you mean?"
"Don't you think it's not enough to simply become more famous to him? The only way to go all the way about it… the only way to gain the public eye… You'd have to ruin his life wouldn't you?"
Mello let out a short, harsh laugh, looking at the small, frail boy in a new light. "You know, this whole time I was thinking how very different we are, but I was wrong. You're more like me than I realized, you devious little brat!"
Near shrugged and twirled a strand. "I'm simply saying. It's true. Do you think you could do that?"
"You know," Mello laughed, "I think I could. I could definitely ruin his life."
"I could help," Near offered simply, picking his toy soldier back up.
"How so?"
"I have my ways," was all he would say.
Finally Mello let out a short laugh and held his hand out to his younger brother. "Okay."
"Okay?" Nate looked at his hand, confused.
"Okay. It's a deal. Let's ruin him."
Nate's small, pale hand reached up and clasped Mihael's.
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No, I'm not going to write a long note here, either. Too impatient. Hope you liked! Next chap, Light and L are back. Review!