Sitting in one place for too long made Mello uneasy. He shifted, finding comfort in his chocolate only long enough to wait out the rest of Matt's sleep, which lasted for a rather long time. Again and again the blonde considered waking him up (not gently, either), but expelled the thought and dwelled only on getting answers to assuage his restive mind. And yet, long intervals of nothingness made him feel like he could be doing something more important, something worth his time.
So, with a minimal amount of movement, Mello reached for one of the many laptops he had been working on before and dragged it onto his lap to begin something that would at least make him feel like he was doing something useful.
It contented him for the rest of the time until, finally, the redhead on the couch stirred and yawned, as though waking from the most peaceful sleep. He didn't appear disconcerted in the slightest that he was keeping something—something potentially important—from the older one.
Matt caught sight of this expression, and though it was nothing new for Mello to be unhappy, he figured that it must have had something to do with him. The male winced, not only from a pang that sung indignantly from his collarbone, but by the thought that he was still doing something to piss the other off.
"What?" he asked innocently.
"I think you know what," Mello replied, his tone rather nonchalant. That meant nothing good, not when he was deviating from his usual methods of expressing anger: being loud and livid. Now, though, you wouldn't even know he was angry, not if you didn't know him.
This boded ill for not only Matt, but his apartment also if the blonde decided to take out his gun for a third time, and with that look on his face, it was likely that he would use it.
"How about we pretend that I don't?" offered Matt, putting a diminishing grin out there as well.
"You weren't in that taxi crash," he stated.
"What're you talking about?"
Mello shifted, shoving the laptop off of his lap impatiently. The redhead made a face at the loud thump the technology made when it hit the carpeted floor.
"It is physically impossible for you to have been in one of those taxis," he said firmly. "Your bruises…they don't match the scene. Now tell me what really happened, moron, before I blast your head off."
Matt didn't answer at first. He stared, thin-lipped, as though trying to fathom a maneuverable way out of this question.
There was none.
If Mello had found physical evidence that he hadn't been in the car crash, then there was no way he could convince him otherwise; he was caught.
"No wonder you were so close to succeeding L," he said meekly. "You're damn observant."
The blonde snarled. "Just tell me what you were doing."
Back in Wammy's, when there was no place to go but up, and the only tangible place you could reside in was your own room or the many hallways that made up the house, you couldn't keep very many secrets that someone else wouldn't figure out. The secrets you could keep, however, you always wanted to confide with someone, because keeping secrets only made you feel lonelier.
The secrets Matt had, he always told to Mello. Mostly because he was the only one who would listen, whether the feedback was positive or not. Somehow, though, this wasn't the same. It had just been so long; telling secrets to Mello now was like giving up something precious that you had been holding onto forever.
But hell did it feel good to let it go.
"You know, calls to Japan are expensive," he said, starting the conversation off indifferently, gazing not at the opposite wall, but through it. "It was a good thing that I wasn't paying for them." Damn, he needed a cigarette. "She contacted me first, on my cell phone. The first thing she said was…hello, Mail."
Mello stared. "Who are you talking about?"
"Takada," Matt said dryly. "She knew my name. I don't know how she did it, but she knew everything about me. That's bad, Mello. Kira could kill me now without any second thought."
The blonde looked as if he was about to say something, but the redhead proceeded to cut him off.
"She wanted to know everything about N—Near—and Wammy's House. Apparently Kira wasn't aware of me yet, but if I didn't cooperate…that could change." He let out a humourless snicker. "She's pretty badass for such a sheltered woman."
"And why did you keep this from me?" demanded Mello, finally finding his place to push in.
"Because we met in person," sighed the other. "Two days after the first contact. She flew over here on account of a private 'business meeting', and interrogated me about Wammy's. I told her bullshit, of course, and I thought she was going to leave me alone after I gave her what she wanted. It turns out, that bitch is insatiable.
"She kept calling. Each time she called with a different number, a different alias. Somehow, each new conversation with her branched farther and farther away from the topic of Near and Wammy's. We started talking about Kira, television, everything. One time we even had a heated discussion about clothes. It was wild. Finally…she wanted to meet me again. And so we met, but this time she didn't talk to me about Wammy's. She didn't say anything at all. She just started…well, crying. Crying about Kira. Crying about how she was both scared of him and scared for him, but she wouldn't tell me who he was. She pretty much cut herself off from me completely except for when she called me herself; apparently, she knew I was looking for him."
Matt shifted, eliciting a loud cry of pain when collarbone was disturbed. That seemed to be less unsettling than Mello's expression at that moment, however, which was a mix between rage, interest, and alarm.
He went on. "And then from there…" A sigh. "She hugged me. For a long time, we just stood there. I don't know how to comfort girls, Mello; I used to be fucking terrified of them when I was in Wammy's. She just kept crying and telling me about how she was about to lose it, because she loved Kira and she didn't want to see him die, and how he was asking her to do things that she just couldn't do. She was scared, that's all I knew. So I…I kissed her."
If there ever was an icy silence, this would be it. Mello watched him incredulously, while Matt merely sat, feeling bereft because of his cigarette lack and ashamed, because hearing his exploits were a lot more different than actually doing them, since he could euthanise them any way he wanted to in his mind, making him sleep easier at night with the burden of hiding something from Mello.
"I know it was a stupid idea," he said, trying to shake his head. It didn't work so well, so returned to his stationary position scrunched against the back of the couch. "But I didn't know what to do. And then I remembered you. I'm a stupid fuck, I know. I couldn't help it. She's a hot girl, and she was crying. What would you have done?"
Not the smartest question.
"You know bloody well what I would have done!" exploded Mello, leaping to his feet. His hand twitched over his hip, but he was past the point of drawing a gun. He just stood, almost too angry to see the dry bloodstained mass in front of him, who appeared all but apathetic behind his goggles. That wasn't the case.
"All right, all right," sighed Matt. "But when she asked me to meet her again…I was really anxious. I got in my car in a hurry today, turned the ignition, and…the next thing I know, I was half-conscious and bent around a lamppost. And then I came back."
"You douche. Why didn't you tell me this sooner?"
The younger one exhaled lethargically, pretending like he was expelling not only carbon dioxide, but nicotine as well. And it was wonderful for a split second, because for that split second, he thought he could taste the toxic flavour of smoke. Almost.
"Because, Mello," he said, his tone ringing with a vexation that sounded as though he had been telling this same story over and over. Which, in essence, he was; he had been repeating the same thing to himself over and over, and still he wasn't convinced that it was happening to him. To Mello, maybe, because everything seemed to happen with Mello. He was exactly the sort of anomaly that Matt had spent his life trying to avoid, ever since the elder one had left Wammy's all those years ago.
But he always came back, didn't he?
He couldn't stay away.
"Because I think I love her."
Mello shook his head profusely, now pacing the soiled carpet dedicatedly, clenching his hands into fists and releasing them with a practised intensity.
"No, you don't," he contradicted smoothly, stopping on the spot to whirl around yet again and stare like he had been, casting an aura of obvious discontent. "You don't love her. You may think you do, but she's trying to get to you. What exactly have you been telling her about Near? About me? You're a moron, Matt. Do you think for an instant that she'll reciprocate those feelings? If Kira asked her to kill you, she'd do it in a heartbeat."
"I don't doubt that," he replied tersely. "I know that she doesn't feel the same way, because she loves Kira. But when I kissed her, she kissed me back. And she was the one that contacted me all those times. She was the one that arranged to see me. Maybe..."
"Maybe what? She'll fall in love with you and you'll live happily ever after? Wake up, idiot! She's using you, just the way Near is using me. Except she's toying with your gullibility, and using sexuality as a weapon. I thought you were smarter than that."
Matt had nothing witty to retort with.
"Then why don't you just leave, Mello? Get out of my apartment…I'll get my ass killed and you can catch Kira. You don't care about me, after all. You just want to win. That's all you've ever wanted."
"Since when did this start being about me?"
"Since the day you moved in."
"Fine!" Mello threw up his hands and stormed away, his voice disintegrating with the distance. "I'll leave. Go flirt with Takada. When your selfish, worthless ass is dead, then you'll finally be doing the world a favour."
He disappeared into the bedroom, emerging minutes later to find a seething Matt still where he was left on the couch. They glowered at each other for a while, perhaps sizing each other up in preparation to throw a few more insults around. Mello had even drawn a breath, ready to let something else fly.
He never got the chance.
The phone rang, breaking the silence without so much as an ounce of discretion. It was Matt's ring tone, and since he was too lazy to change the factory settings, the ring was reminiscent of a loud, obnoxious alarm, which clashed horribly with the metronome that the vibrate made.
Mechanically, the redhead picked up the phone. The hum of voices on the other line stopped the steady slow of breath escaping Matt's throat, and he froze, pursing his lips irrevocably.
It took a moment before he managed the words that were already forming on his silent mouth:
"Hello, Kiyomi."