There follows a period of learning during which time Mello and Matt are instructed as to the specifics of how they are to carry out the murder of Kira.

Misora is not the only one who wants this; there is a structured group, an organization almost, among those special agents who know that he is kept alive and who feel he should be dead.

Mello and Matt's close relations with L without any ties to actual investigative forces put them in a unique position to take on the job: there is about as little scrutiny or curiosity about who they are as there is about their real names.

It's supposed to look like suicide, a turn at the IV dial to a lethal dose, and back-wiring of the transducer should lose trace that a connection was initiated.

They are given time to familiarize themselves with the means of operation of the plate-operated transducer, with how to turn it on and how to recognize the brief interval that the connection can be dually cut, and it isn't as easy as it sounded, and neither is memorizing the floor plan and check points of the facility or learning to use fake prints or practice giving intravenous injection.

"L will know for sure," Mello whispers to Matt; and it's what he thinks about, and it's what he wonders about, and what he feels so much regret about when he gazes at L across the table; and when L pats him on the head, and when L asks him for the analysis he wrote— which, in a hopeless display of anxiety, falls right out of Mello's hand and scatters on the floor. He thinks the tension in him must be ridiculously obvious, because, when he kneels to collect the scattered sheets, he finds to his horror that among them is also an unpaid phone bill and a sheet or two of scrap paper.

There comes L's white hand on Mello's when he begins to assemble them, and, biting down his own aggravation, Mello gazes back, frustrated and sorry— and it's heartbreaking that even then L smiles kindly at him, long fingers taking the sheets from his hands and assembling them back together without a word.

But he has to know, and, for Mello, this is torment— because he knows that even now he won't change his mind about the job. Even as he suffers beneath L's warm gaze, his curiosity comes far too great to give this up.

How much would this hurt L, and could it really hurt more than it does already, and would it hurt more than the fact that

I don't think Light ever loved anyone—

Was this really true, did Light really never love L, and what did he think of, locked and tied and restrained and drugged, what did he think of in that great mind of his, and was it really never about L, was it really never about—

No, he gave it up, he forgot everything,

It comes almost like a real voice echoing through the dreaming recesses of his mind late after he thinks he has fallen asleep, and Mello is aware this episode has taken its toll.

Also quite fascinating is the issue of the Death Note. The device came equipped with an intricate series of rules meticulously constructed for the sole purpose of teaching people to use it. It was L who ultimately obtained it from Kira, and then there followed an almost world-wide controversy about what should be done with it.

Something almost as monstrous as a nuclear weapon, the Death Note stirred an ethical debate between scientists and national leaders as to whether it should be destroyed or kept for research as to better understand it. Still others claimed that L should decide what should be done because he, after all, successfully extracted it from Kira.

The decision was ultimately to keep the thing over a limited period of time for the purpose of investigation as monitored by high inspection and security, after which point it was destroyed. This is what Mello had come to understand, and it's what he kept in mind when, researching the topic years ago, he all but memorized the various rules with which it was associated.

XXX

Mello and Matt were never really ones to learn cooking, and even more so following the later-addressed "kitchen incident," so, in rather a commendable culinary effort, Mello had set up an intricate network of sockets and wires connecting the television power bar to a toaster and parts of a hot plate in the living room.

It worked wonders, that is, when it didn't short the electricity in the left half of the apartment, or when it resulted in a higher current than the hot plate really could handle, so it was a good thing Matt was usually around, and it was a good thing he was around that Tuesday evening when—

"Maaaaaaaaatt!"

Following the recently-familiar flash of Matt's computer monitor to dark, there comes the blackout of the lights, and finally Mello's cry of despair—in that reassuring, regular order.

Half-dressed and irritated, Matt walks into the living room, wondering if really they should get to cleaning the kitchen once and for all. Without so much as a word, he passes Mello's casually naked figure and unlocks the front door to their apartment, stepping out into the hall to begin work on the electrical board for what may be the third time that week. Mello waits, eyes large and dilated as he gazes at the strip of light coming in from outside the door; he doesn't get mad this time. A lot can be said of his friend, but one thing he has always known and silently respected in Matt is his fascinating talent with machinery. The guy really was good with his hands. Mello remembers with astonishment having watched Matt kneel over hardware for hours, cigarette hanging between his lips and quietly engaged behind his goggles as he tinkered and fiddled with the wires and parts inside, until, some long time later, he had flawlessly deciphered a code or disabled an explosive or hacked a password.

And he almost seemed to enjoy it, and he almost seemed to enjoy working on the electrical board now, so when, smiling at Mello, he bites down on the cigarette between his teeth and all but glows with contentment as he walks back in through the front door, Mello suddenly wants to fuck him real bad, and he's just about to do it, too, when again the stupid phone begins to ring.

"God damn it, Misora!" Mello yells into after picking up, "Why have you always got to call when I'm about to screw Matt!"

And Matt smirks, but soon his face grows serious when he hears her voice from the receiver in Mello's hand—

It's time.

To be continued…