A/N: Thanks again to Meiyl for being willing to help out with editing whenever I need her.

Disclaimer: The story and characters of Death Note were created by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata.

4. Monochrome

It's been another mind-numbing day of sitting around the apartment waiting for something to happen. I sigh and light up my fifth cigarette of the hour. The whole apartment is getting stuffy and full of stale smoke at this point, even though I cracked open all the windows. I'm supposed to be watching Takada's residence on a TV monitor, like I've been doing every day for almost a month now, but instead I'm watching dust float in a bright beam of sunlight in front of me. I want to play Nintendo, but I swear Mello will have kittens if he comes home and sees that I'm gaming instead of watching the camera feed.

I don't even look up when I hear the front door slam. All I'd see is Mello scowling at me, anyway—even the goddamn video feed is less unpleasant than that image. Mello's been out following Takada and her mob of worshipers, an activity that never fails to put him in a black mood, and he obviously doesn't give a crap that my day has been just as shitty as his. If he hates scouting so much, why does he do it and leave me stuck at home watching nothing happen for hours on end? I guess I'm pretty sedentary, but even I get restless sitting on a couch for this long, if I'm not playing video games.

"Matt," Mello calls out after he's stomped into the kitchen. "I need a fucking chocolate bar. We got any left?" I can hear him raiding the cabinets—he sounds pretty agitated. "Matt!"

"I think I left some in the fridge," I yell back, absentmindedly staring at the monitor and feeling my vision blur. I don't know if it's from fatigue, or if I'm actually bored to tears. God, I need a break. "Mello..."

"What?" He reenters the sitting room, and I hear him tear open the wrapper of a chocolate bar and snap a bite off. It's always much louder than usual when the chocolate is cold.

"I'm sick of this," I grumble, waving my hand at the screen. "Why do I always have to do the boring stuff?" Do I detect a hint of whining in my own voice? Whatever.

"What's the problem, Matt? I thought you liked sitting in front of the TV all day." He breaks off another chocolate piece with his teeth.

"Shut up." I finally turn my head to look at him through the orange lenses of my goggles. "This was not in my job description! I'm a hacker, not some damn security monitor."

"I'm not paying you anyway, so what difference does it make?" Mello says frostily. "I thought you said you'd do whatever you can to help me bring down Kira."

"That's because I thought that bringing down Kira would involve doing something exciting," I point out, running my hand through my uncombed hair.

"Well, then you're in luck." Walking around to the front of the couch, he finishes the chocolate bar, crumples up the foil wrapper, and chucks it on the coffee table. "I've got a plan that'll spice up our lives a bit. You can turn off the video feed now; it's irrelevant." His tone is sardonic, but his mouth is set in a thin line, almost a grimace.

My interest is piqued immediately. I grab the remote from the coffee table and switch off the TV. "Want to tell me this thrilling plan of yours?"

"Take off your goggles first." He looks down at me sternly, as if he's my mother and he's ordering me to take off my shoes while I'm in the house.

I frown, fingering the strap defensively. "Why?"

"Because I want to look at your goddamn eyes when I'm talking to you!" he snaps. It seems best not to argue with him when he's like this, but I don't know what his fucking problem is. It's not like the lenses are mirrored or opaque or something. He's never had an issue with seeing my eyes before. "Shit, Matt, just take them off! This is important."

After hesitating for another couple of seconds, I slowly pull them away from my eyes and over my nose and chin, leaving them dangling around my neck. The skin around my eyes is smarting a bit from wearing them for so long, and the sunlight from the window is too bright. I squint and blink, and my eyes water just a little. "Happy now?"

Mello doesn't say anything. I finally manage to keep my eyes open without squinting, and I see that he's staring at me. He doesn't look angry, or even mildly annoyed; he's just gazing with a totally blank expression straight down into my eyes. "What?" I say, exasperated.

He still doesn't speak. Then he mutters, "I almost forgot what color your eyes really are. God, why do you have to wear those damn things all the time?"

As I meet his gaze, I realize that I'd almost forgotten the color of his eyes as well. I've hardly ever looked at him while not wearing my goggles. Without them, his eyes are intensely blue. The wine-dark scar on his face looks more jagged now; his shaggy hair is every shade of yellow and dark gold. His pale skin and the red and white rosary around his neck stand out starkly against his black leather vest.

"Okay, I'm looking at you. So tell me the plan," I prompt him.

Without dropping his gaze, he calmly tells me, "I'm going to abduct Kiyomi Takada."

After blinking in shocked silence for quite a while, I voice the only possible response to Mello's declaration. "Are you out of your fucking mind?" I can't believe someone who's supposed to be a genius could come up with something like this. "Do you want your identity to be exposed? I don't pretend to understand everything about the killer notebook, but it's pretty obvious to me that if anyone finds out your name or sees your face, it's all over. Call me stupid, but I think kidnapping the supposed goddess of a bunch of crackpots would be pretty bad publicity, if you know what I mean."

I don't even know what Mello's real name is—hopefully, no one does. We only went by our aliases at the institution. Mr. Wammy himself probably knew our names at one point, but of course he's dead now—that was Kira's fault, too.

"The Japanese police already have my name," Mello says in a low voice. I gape at him, but he goes on without pause. "The night I blew up the hideout... The deputy director had the Shinigami eyes, and he saw my face. He almost wrote my name in the notebook before José shot him." He absentmindedly trails his fingers along the edges of his scar. "He said it out loud. I'm sure his helmet was wired, so the rest of the NPA must have heard him, even if he died before he could tell them in person... Poor bastard. He didn't have the guts to kill me quick enough."

I'm so shocked by this report that I can only blink for a few seconds. "What the fuck, Mello..." So, he had nearly died twice that night, and now he's gunning for a third time. What the hell is wrong with him? "You're telling me your plan is to just hand your head to Kira on a goddamn platter?" My voice is rising in pitch and volume, but I can't stop it. "How the hell will you catch him when you're dead? You're just going to roll over and let Near win?"

"Just calm the fuck down, okay?" he says through gritted teeth.

I don't know how, but suddenly I'm standing up and nearly in Mello's face. "Don't you fucking tell me to calm down!"

"Matt, I'm warning you—" He's on the brink of exploding, I can tell, but I can't stop.

"You're giving up your lifelong ambition just so you can get yourself killed for no reason! I thought this was fucking important to you—"

"Don't you get it?" he bellows. "This isn't about Near any more! It's Kira, it was always Kira!" His livid face is literally inches from mine; flecks of his spittle fly at me as he rages on. "This is the only way to beat him, and I'm the only one who can do it!"

"Will you stop talking like you're some goddamn martyr! What the hell do you think you're—"

"If you would just shut the fuck up and listen—"

He staggers backward, abruptly cut off by a punch to the jaw. It takes me half a second to realize that I'm the one who threw it. I hit him.

I just punched one of the world's most dangerous ex-mobsters in the face.

Knuckles stinging and chest heaving, I stare at him, waiting for his fury to break over me like every natural disaster happening all at once. The horrible silence lengthens as we stand suspended in space, my left fist hovering near my chest, Mello's hand at his bruised jaw. His eyes are two chips of blue ice.

I'm expecting him to tackle me to the floor with a murderous howl, or pull a gun on me or something, but he doesn't. He just slowly turns around and starts to walk, zombielike, toward his room. I'm not stupid enough to try to follow him. He slams the door loud enough to rattle the cobwebs from the ceiling, but I don't flinch.

After standing there stupefied for God knows how long, my anger slowly recedes, to be replaced by a cold, creeping dread. There are three things I could do now: retreat to my own room, flee the apartment, or pull on my goggles and curl up in the fetal position. I eventually opt for the last choice.

Sinking into the couch and hugging my knees to my chest, I wonder dully if Mello's going to come back out here and kill me. But really, I know that he won't, no matter how pissed off he is. I'm all he has left.

At least an hour later, I jolt out of a doze at the sound of Mello's bedroom door creaking open. I hear his soft footsteps approaching the couch. My whole body tenses up when I sense him looming over me, but I keep on staring resolutely at my knees. The dark denim of my ragged jeans is tinted a dirty ocher color by my goggles.

Mello extends his hand into my peripheral vision, and I hold my breath, squeezing my eyes shut. But all he does is grab hold of my goggles and pull them slowly over my head, with surprising gentleness. When they're off, I reluctantly open my eyes and look up at him. He's removed his gloves and his boots, and though he looks stern, at least he doesn't seem to be simmering with suppressed rage.

I swallow the lump of apprehension in my throat and choke out my best attempt at "I'm sorry." Maybe it's my imagination, but I think Mello's eyes soften a little. He tosses my goggles to the coffee table and sits down one cushion over from me, like he did when I first saw him all those weeks ago in New York.

He rubs his face, sighing, and says nothing for at least a minute. Then he mutters, "I guess I shouldn't have yelled at you." Mello would never admit fault, but I can tell he feels the smallest bit responsible for my outburst. "This plan isn't just stupid, you know. I wanted to tell you the reason, before you..." He trails off, shaking his head. "Will you just listen now?" After a moment of hesitation, I give a tiny nod, not trusting my voice, even though my guilt and edginess over the fight are beginning to ebb.

"Okay," Mello says. Our soft breathing punctuates the silence for a while before he goes on. "I was going to tell you... I've realized a possibility that Near didn't see."

I stretch out my cramped limbs, watching him warily. "Really?"

His lip quirks upward almost imperceptibly. "Yeah... Maybe I'm smarter than the little bastard after all."

"What is it?" I can't help but feel a little flare of pride for Mello, despite all my misgivings over what's going on in his head. He's crazy, but there's no doubt he's also astoundingly brilliant.

He begins to explain stiffly. "Halle called me and said that Near's going to force Kira's right-hand man to write the SPK's and NPA's names. I assume the SPK is going to replace the notebook with a fake." I raise my eyebrows, surprised to hear that Near would orchestrate such a bold move, but when I consider it, it makes sense. It would be the only way to catch the guy in the act and obtain hard evidence. "But I realized from what she told me... the notebook that this X-Kira guy is using now could already be a fake."

My eyes widen as his words sink in. "Then that means—"

"Kira knows what Near's plan is," Mello nods grimly. "Really, Near should have seen it—whoever X-Kira is, he's just too obvious. I mean, Halle said that they actually saw him using the notebook and talking to himself in public... I'm sure that he's acting as a decoy. The real notebook is somewhere else, and Kira isn't going to let him use it again until Near does the fake notebook swap. Then, when X-Kira writes their names..." He swipes his hand across his throat in a violent gesture.

I mull over the possibility. It's hard to believe that Near could be guilty of this huge oversight, but I suppose the kid's overconfidence finally got to him. "So... what's kidnapping Takada supposed to accomplish, if that's the case?"

"What, you still don't see it?" He glances archly at me. "Takada seems to be the only way Kira and X-Kira can communicate. When she's out of the picture, it'll force Kira—or X-Kira, or both of them—to make a move. They'll panic when they can't contact each other. Not only that, but they'll have to kill the bitch to stop her from revealing anything, and in order to make sure she dies, X-Kira is going to get the real notebook. Then Near will see where it is."

I give him a hard look. "If the NPA knows your name, so does Kira, and he'll have told Takada and X-Kira," I point out. "If any of them see your face, they can kill you."

He turns his head away from me. "I'll need you to create a diversion, so I can get Takada away from her bodyguards," he says, as if he didn't hear me point out the distinct possibility of his death.

"Mello." I take a breath. "Don't be stupid. It's too fucking dangerous for you to go through with this." I'm glad that he's not looking at me right now, because I think my eyes might be starting to tear up just a little bit. Damn it. I want to reach for the goggles on the coffee table and put them back on, but Mello will probably get pissed off again if I do that. The feeling soon passes, anyway.

"I know," he says quietly. "I know I probably won't make it out alive. That's the point." His words sound clipped, staccato, almost unreal. "But you'll be okay. Nobody knows your name. Barely anyone's seen your face before. Any records of you at Wammy's were destroyed. Kira—and anyone else who has a notebook—can't touch you."

"Hello, aren't you forgetting something?" I scoff. "Takada's goons have guns, you know. My vest has survived a lot of beatings, but I'm pretty sure it isn't bulletproof."

Mello looks back at me, scowling. "You're not going to get shot," he insists. "You'll be able to get away. I'm the one who's doing the actual kidnapping."

Feeling annoyance bubble in my stomach again, I give him a small shove on the shoulder. "If you're so sure you're going to die, why the hell are you doing it? Do you understand what death actually means, for God's sake? And how can you be so damn sure I'm not going to die?"

His eyes glint at me. "If you don't want to go through with it, I'll find someone else to—"

"No, you idiot," I interrupt, before he can finish making his suggestion. "I'm not going to let you do it without me! You think I'd leave you to die after I've helped you this much?" I glare at him. "And who the fuck else would you get to help you pull this off? Lidner's busy playing bodyguard, and even if all the guys in your gang weren't dead, I bet none of them could drive a getaway car as well as I can."

Mello gives a little laugh. "You're right. You're really the only man for the job." He looks appraisingly at me. "Besides, you're the only one who's insane enough to keep on helping me, even when I keep on screwing up."

I cross my arms, torn between amusement and exasperation. I'm the insane one? If I'm insane, Mello's completely psychotic. He ran away nearly halfway across the world from Wammy's, joined the mob, did God-knows-what to rise through the ranks, kidnapped two people in order to get a supernatural killer notebook, and... oh yeah, he blew up a goddamn building—while he was still in it. And now he's planning a suicide mission.

But hey, maybe he has a point. It was pretty stupid of me to just drop everything, move to Japan, and rent an apartment with a former mobster who's trying to hunt down a serial killer. Still, doing crazy shit for the sake of my best friend has to be better than just doing crazy shit for the hell of it. Right?

"How could I ever turn you down?" I attempt a grin, but my throat feels tight. Without Mello, life is just dull. Boring, lonely, and safe... and yet, how safe are any of us in a world ruled by Kira? My eyes prickle again with the threat of tears, forcing me to take a deep, calming breath.

His smile has a tinge of sadness. "You've always stuck with me whenever I asked, haven't you..." He shakes his head. "God only knows why you bother. But you won't have to put up with me for much longer, eh?" That's just like Mello, to talk about his own life and death as though they're minor nuisances.

The image of Mello's face warps and blurs behind a layer of sudden tears. Shit, I thought I had gotten control of myself. "Hey. Don't say that," I whisper. I know that if I try to use my voice, it's going to crack. "Do you think I want you to die?"

I can't stand the way crying feels—the back of my throat hurts and my eyes are too hot in their sockets. I close my eyes, shut my mouth tightly, and swallow hard, feeling water clinging to my eyelashes. A single fat tear starts to roll down my cheek and I choke back a sob—oh, real smooth, Matt. I want my goggles to shield me from Mello, but they're still lying uselessly on the table.

My eyes snap open when Mello lays a hand on my shoulder. With his other hand, he delicately catches the tear on his fingertip and smears it to the side of my face. "Shhh," he breathes. I look at him in mild alarm, my eyes stinging, but I can't read his expression.

He sits absolutely still for a split second, then leans forward and places his rough, dry lips against mine. I inhale sharply through my nose at the sudden contact, staring into his electric blue eyes. Neither of us moves at all; for an impossibly long moment, I'm completely paralyzed.

I finally come to my senses and scramble backward. "Wh—what the fuck was that for?" I stammer, feeling heat rise quickly to my face. My heart is pounding so hard that my chest hurts, and I wonder if this is what it feels like to be murdered by Kira. No, that's stupid. This isn't a heart attack; it's just shock.

The tip of Mello's tongue pokes out to lick his lips. "Thought it'd make you feel better," he murmurs.

I stare at him, my mouth still slightly open. "That—was my first kiss," I finally say, unable to keep the shakiness out of my voice.

"Oh, come on. You think that counts as a kiss?" He smiles teasingly. "Man, I didn't think you were that much of a virgin."

"Damn it, Mello..." Why the hell is he joking about this? "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to seduce me or some shit to get me to—"

"Shut up," he interrupts, his smile transformed to a slight scowl. "If you didn't like it, just tell me to back off."

It takes a few more seconds to get my vocal cords working a third time, but I can only make indistinct noises. "I—uh..." The truth is, I didn't exactly hate it. Damn, did I really just think that? I swallow and manage to say, "If that was an attempt to—proposition me or something, you've got to admit it was pretty damn lame."

He rolls his eyes. "I'd never try to have sex with you, stupid. I know you're not interested." Come to think of it, I'm sure that if Mello actually wanted to seduce me, he'd have much better methods of doing it, even if he knows I'd never accept his advances.

"Then what, are you... in love with me or something?" My pulse is annoyingly loud in my ears.

"Not exactly," he says with a hint of his trademark smirk. "You're just the only person in the world who really gives a shit about me, you know? I've never let you know how much I appreciate that." Before I can fully process his statement, he grabs the front of my shirt and catches my lips in a much deeper kiss. I forget any further questions as my brain shorts out. In the complete lack of rational instructions from my cerebral cortex, my hands start to reach behind Mello's head and my eyelids fall closed.

When I used to wonder what it would feel like to really kiss somebody (and Mello was right, the peck on the lips a minute ago didn't count), I didn't envision anything like this. The hair I'm hesitantly tangling in my fingers isn't silky, but thick and slightly singed; the skin under my hands isn't smooth, but tough and half scarred. There's no way I could have imagined how warm the mouth on mine would be, or how it would taste faintly of bitter chocolate. I can't say I feel any fireworks or starbursts or stirrings of arousal, either—I just feel an overpowering desire to hold and be held by Mello, to touch his hair and his shoulders and his exquisite, ruined face.

Wait, what the fuck? This is Mello, for God's sake—my best friend, my only friend, a wanted criminal who's planning to die in a couple of weeks, and—oh hell, I don't fucking know anything about kissing! At this realization, I immediately wrench myself away from Mello, and only now do I find myself completely unable to look at him. My face is burning, as though in a mockery of his injury, as I try to catch my breath and quell my impulse to run away.

There's dead silence until I hear Mello sit back against the sofa cushions and speak in a placating tone. "Hey." Startled, I glance up at him. "Sorry... I promise I won't do that again."

Through my haze of mortification, I almost find it funny that Mello is apologizing for doing something that could actually be considered nice. And here I was expecting him to complain that I taste like an ashtray or something. "I—it's okay," I mumble, raking my fingers sheepishly through my hair. I think about the statement as I utter it, and to my surprise, I find that I'm telling the truth. After all, how could it be harder to forgive him for this than for anything else? "It's just that I, uh... Why—"

"I'm going to die soon," Mello says bluntly. His words send a slow, dreadful shiver down my spine. "Look, I told you, this isn't about sex, or being in love, or any of that bullshit, all right? You're just... a hell of a lot more than a friend to me. You're the only person I've ever cared about that I can actually remember." He looks away while I continue to stare in stunned silence, and the flush creeps even further down my neck.

Mello cares about me that much? Who would've guessed? I thought all he really cared about was being number one, avenging L's death, eliminating his enemies, that kind of shit. He's hardly ever indicated that he gives a flying fuck about me, and now he suddenly does something like this? I swear, he's an enigma. I don't get people in general, but Mello really makes no fucking sense. Maybe the only reason I've managed to stay friends with him for this long is that it isn't necessary for me to understand him; he just pelts along at breakneck speed, and I try to keep up. It's impossible to not want to follow Mello—hell, he's going to lead me to my death, but I still want to stick with him. I have to.

Mello's eyes are bright when he returns his gaze to me—not gleaming with his usual mania, but rather with a subtle warmth that almost makes my chest hurt again. His eyes remind me of the time before Near came to the orphanage—when it was just the two of us, with no one to aggravate Mello's competitive streak. We both knew then that Mello would grow up to take L's place someday, but how could we have known that L wouldn't live forever?

It's both a relief and an embarrassment to break the tense silence with my bumbling ineloquence. "Mello... I—" I look at him helplessly, unable to get any more words past my larynx.

"What, Matt?" A small, easy smile spreads across his face. "You love me, too? You'd die for me? You think I'm a damn good kisser?"

"Hey!" I didn't think it was possible that my face could heat up even more. "Shut up!" Even though none of those statements might actually be false, I still have a right to be indignant. Trust Mello to turn a sentimental moment into an opportunity to be facetious.

Maybe he planned this as a way of getting back at me for punching him. Bastard.

He laughs softly. "So... was I successful in temporarily distracting you?"

My brow furrows. "Sorry, but I have totally not forgotten about your stupid plan." Granted, maybe that wasn't the topmost thing on my mind these last few minutes, but if Mello thinks a bit of snogging is going to let him off easily, he's got another think coming.

"Well, in that case..." He stretches languidly. "We've got lots of work to do, and less than two weeks to do it. I still need to tell you all the details."

I'm completely bewildered at Mello, I'm craving a cigarette, I'm probably mottled pink and maroon like my favorite striped T-shirt, and I'm scared shitless of what's going to happen to us—but the most pressing issue at the moment is that I'm really damn hungry. I clear my throat and stand up. "Okay. Uh, let's get something to eat, all right? Then you can tell me what you need me to do." I glance down at my bruised knuckles. "And... I promise I'll try not to hit you again."

"That sounds like a bullshit promise," Mello observes with a raised eyebrow. I shrug noncommittally in response and lean over to retrieve my goggles, but Mello snatches them up first. Ignoring my puzzled expression, he stands up, reaches behind my head, and pulls the goggles down over my eyes. "Come on," he says, grabbing my hand and starting to pull me away.

Lots of work to do... Yeah, I guess there will be plenty of work involved in preparing for our imminent death. Probably, I won't ever be ready to hear about it, so Mello may as well get the full explanation over with now.

I wonder how much additional mood whiplash I'll be able to handle tonight. Dazedly, I allow myself to be dragged into the kitchen, trying very hard to ignore the way my skin is still tingling with the ghostly impressions of Mello's lips and hands.