DS
Disclaimer: I own a laptop, a recliner, and a ferret.
Chibi Misa: Er… hi again.
Chibi Raito: After a year.
Me: Shut up!
Chibi L: Cake?
Me: I can explain, I swear. I have excuses coming out my eyeballs. I'm gonna' give you one right now.
Chibi Misa: School!
Me: Yes D:
Chibi Raito: I'm a fucking straight A student and look what I can do! –snaps-
Chibi L: Nice try.
Chibi Raito: Shit.
Me: Anyway, welcome to another chapter! I know you all missed me sooo much:3 Love you all too. I'm trying to be a little quicker, but I'm having a stress attack. Bear with me, ne?
Chibi Misa: Read, review, and relax!
D S 6
"Did you see anything as you were having this heart attack?"
"Not in particular, no."
"When you say 'not in particular,' what do you mean?"
"No, I didn't see anything unusual."
Raito was not happy with his situation. He was currently sitting in a white room, in a white, aluminum, fold-up chair, at a white card table, with a man in a white coat.
And he was being interrogated.
Well, the Japanese Police force hadn't exactly used the word 'interrogation,' but Raito saw differently. Ah, well, he supposed he shouldn't have been so upset. This meant that the Law didn't have enough information. Their little 'lead' that Sayu blurted out was still in its stages of infancy. Perhaps the police were having trouble with their evidence.
"I dislike this room," said Ryuzaki drearily. For once, Raito had to agree with him.
It was also the first thing Ryuzaki had said to him for three days. As a matter of fact, Raito had been avoiding him on purpose. The silence between them had been more than slightly oppressive and irritating. It dampened his mood while it lasted. His father made a comment about it when they were eating dinner one evening. Raito didn't think he was acting differently, but Soichiro said he looked depressed.
Raito was not depressed.
Not at all.
"Yagami-kun?"
Raito raised his eyes. "Yes?"
"Did you… feel anything different? Something not normal?"
Raito ran a hand through his hair. "I had a heart attack, sir. Yes, it felt different."
The inquisitor sighed, "You are aware of the basic symptoms of a heart attack, are you not, Yagami-kun?"
Raito took another despairing look at him and decided the interrogator was a spineless ham of a man. His face reminded Raito of a greasy, pink, steaming, round pork-roast. What little black hair he had was combed over the great, gleaming bald spot on the crown of his head. Raito particularly disliked the way his fat and stubby fingers shook as he held his handful of papers up to his glasses.
"I am familiar with the symptoms, yes," Raito said tiredly
"Well, other than the characteristic pain in the chest, did you feel anything odd?"
'Well, other than the fact that you were in crushing, grave, mind-numbing pain…'
Just wait 'till you have a heart attack, old man.
Despite the man's extreme disrespect on the subject, Raito decided to give him a run for his money.
"Well," began Raito, pausing dramatically in thought with a hand to his chin, "I did feel something, now that you mention it." As he suspected, the inquisitor leaned in anxiously. Raito made a face, clouding his eyes over as if remembering something exceptionally painful. "I remember something really… cold. Like ice in my chest. Worse than ice, actually."
Ryuzaki muttered something off to his right.
"Worse than ice, you say?" the man-pig grunted, "That is interesting." He gripped a pencil in his fat hand and scribbled something on a pad of paper. Satisfied with his answer, Raito relaxed in his chair.
As much as one could relax in an old, metal fold-up chair, anyway.
The interrogator looked over what scant notes he had made, then glanced back at his papers. Raito assumed that the interrogation was nearly done.
Wrong.
"Had you done anything of… questionable legality that day?"
What a nice way of asking someone for a confession. Or was this man testing him for a reaction? Ryuzaki had informed him earlier of a number of hidden cameras installed in the room. He was being watched by an outside source.
If he was being observed and he answered too quickly, it could be assumed that he'd done something. However, if he paused, it would seem that he was hesitating about whether or not he should tell the truth.
If they assumed that he had done something illegal to attract the eye of the Killer, they'd be half right. As much as Raito hated it, killing people, criminals or not, was illegal.
Raito did the thing that would draw the least amount of thought or attention.
He decided to tell a lie.
"There's a magazine that I've been wanting to buy for a while now. It's very rare. An import. Anyway, I saw it in a book store window that day. I didn't have any money with me at the time," Raito slumped and sighed, "I shoplifted it." He made a show of pinching the bridge of his nose and digging his fingers into his eyes. "I didn't think something that minor would attract the attention of the Killer, though."
"You're very crafty, Raito Yagami," Ryuzaki mumbled
The porker scribbled more notes onto his paper. Raito decided he'd add something truthful, just so the police would have something his father could testify to later.
"My father said the reason I was targeted was because of him. He's not exactly a secret agent, so the Killer could have known about him and used me to get to him."
"Hmmm…" said the interrogator.
Raito sighed, playing the part of the guilty criminal.
Ryuzaki's languid voice sounded. "Quite the criminal genius you are, Raito-kun. Though I wonder how you'll provide evidence of the book you stole."
Raito cast a glance behind him.
Raito-kun now, eh?
He focused his attention ahead of him again. Of course he could provide evidence. Raito may have been a model student, but he was a still a teenage boy. A raging ball of hormones.
He had his share of hidden, imported porn magazines.
"Were you being followed by anyone that week? Did you notice anyone unusual around you?"
Raito rolled his eyes at how quickly his heartfelt confession of wrongdoing had been forgotten. Nevertheless, he offered an answer, if only to satisfy the men behind the cameras.
"No, I didn't notice anyone. Then again, Tokyo is a crowded city." Raito then paused, having a thought. These people still thought the Killer was a man. A human.
This wouldn't do. Humans, in general, were not deathly afraid of other humans. However, if this thing, killing the unjust off through brutal heart attacks, was a god… Brilliant. Kira would be a god to men. The god he was. Then he would watch as the world cowered in fear!
Raito made a grim face. "You know, I just have this feeling…"
The inquisitor looked up from his work. "What feeling?" he asked.
Raito smirked inwardly. Bingo. "The thing that tried to kill me… wasn't human." His mind's triumphant smile broadened when the inquisitor asked him what he meant. "No human could possibly do this alone. This is… this is divine judgment. This is a god." It was more than cheesy and generously theatrical, but Raito thought that a little enthusiasm would do him good. He was, after all, the only survivor. His opinions were valuable. "Tons of criminals have died! Hundreds of them! No man could do this alone!" He raised his eyes to the ceiling of the room and said, "A name came to me while I was dying," he chose the word 'dying' for dramatic effect. The man-pig, sitting on the very edge of his seat with his notepad at the ready, said, "What was it? What was it, Yagami-kun?"
"It was…" Raito paused to build up the tension…
"Kira."
----
L didn't like to admit it, but Kira was smart.
He was manipulating human fear to achieve his goals. Well, Raito was a human being, as much as he liked to believe he wasn't, and knew the ins and outs of the human psyche. Fascinating…
L found Raito Yagami utterly fascinating.
But Raito didn't need to know that.
"You're a very good liar. I might have fallen for that one myself," L mentioned, biting his thumb all the while. Raito made a nearly inaudible sound. But L had good ears.
"A confident liar, too," L deadpanned.
"So, Yagami-kun," L blinked over at the table again to find the fat man once again babbling to Raito, "Do you believe that this 'Kira' of yours spared you for some reason? Do you believe he has some other use for you? A purpose, perhaps?"
L gnawed on his thumb. This was a tricky one. Any answer Raito provided could be used against him. If he was modest, he was hiding something. If he was proud, he was Kira's follower.
Raito lowered his head in a perfect imitation of deep thought. Knowing Raito, though, he had already come up with something.
He was a criminal genius.
"Well, Yagami-kun? Need I remind you that your responses are being timed?" L screwed up his face. He had no idea Raito was being timed in the first place.
That was it.
A trick.
L bit down on his thumbnail. Raito wasn't being timed. If Raito was a proud individual, he would immediately reply that yes, he knew. It could be inferred that he was very quick to cover himself. If he admitted that he was astonished and reprimanded the man for not telling him, it could be assumed that Raito was a very hot-blooded and righteous person. If he acted bashfully and said that he hadn't known, that would be the best way to go.
But it was very out of character for Raito to act in the last of the three ways. That in itself was a reason to suspect him.
This interrogator was not a smart man. Not intelligent enough to come up with something like this. He was reading directions and questions off of the sheets of paper in his hands. Whoever conceived the words on those pieces of paper was, indeed, worthy to call himself Kira's adversary.
In the meantime, Raito had been presented with two riddles.
L wondered what he'd say.
"I don't believe you ever told me I was being timed," Raito began, leaning back slightly in his chair, "furthermore, there are no timers in this room. If I were being timed, I would have to be monitored by someone not in this room. If I were being monitored, there would have to be cameras, bugs, or both positioned around the room."
Raito's powers of deduction were impeccable.
However… what would the man upstairs think? Was Raito too smart to be an average kid?
"You are very intelligent, Yagami-kun," said the inquisitor. Raito sighed and crossed his arms. "It's been bugging me," he said, "for the past half hour. I've had this feeling that I'm being watched." Raito cast a wary glance about the room.
And Raito was a very good actor.
Did L mention that?
"Ah, yes, Yagami-kun. There are cameras. Surely, you can understand," the fat man said. Raito rolled his eyes, crossed his arms across the card table, buried his face in his arms, and moped. The inquisitor made a sad attempt to cheer him up. "I thought they were well hidden. As I said before, you're very intelligent."
"Yes, maybe that's why he tried to kill me," Raito hissed ardently, "and maybe that's why he let me live."
L whistled.
A very tactical response. Very tactical indeed.
Raito's timing was perfect. His responses were concise, to the point when they needed to be, and followed directly after one another. This made it more difficult for the man upstairs to form conjectures rooted in Raito's behavior.
Impressive.
Twenty minutes more and Raito was breathing fresh, free air. The man behind the desk had asked him a few more questions before showing him out the door. The questions, L couldn't remember. He'd fallen asleep on the floor.
Which was odd.
He never fell asleep.
He was feeling a bit hungry, too.
However, L most certainly didn't feel like asking one Raito Yagami to bake him a cake. Kira was most likely still edgy about the mini-death's Mello-outburst. What to do…
L's stomach growled.
This greatly alarmed the psychopomp, who took the sudden vocalization as a sign that he was gravely ill. He leapt two feet in the air, sailed back down, crumpled into a ball on the concrete, and writhed. Raito looked back at him, eyes widened slightly. L didn't care that Raito's father was looking at his son in a very funny way. All he knew was that he was in excruciating pain.
Or…
At least…
He should have been in excruciating pain.
"Raito-kun! It's making noise!" L whined pitifully.
Raito's eye twitched, the corner of his lips turned upward, and he squinted. His expression was so ridiculous, that L knew he must have been thinking, 'What's making noise, Ryuzaki?'
"What's wrong, Raito?" His father was at his side in a flash as if he'd just been bitten by a snake. The brunette cast a glance at Soichiro and shook his head. "Nothing. Thought I saw something is all."
He cast L a withering glance.
The strange, crawling feeling in L's midsection subsided. He unwound himself and got himself off of the pavement. "Raito-kun!" he complained, "My stomach's growling."
Raito, walking back to the car under the paternal, possessive wing of his father, looked back at L and sighed. The mini-death made an awkward face and followed Kira to the car. Once he was safely in the back seat, Raito cast L an unusual look and coughed.
L recognized it as a failing attempt to hide his derisive laughter.
The psychopomp squinted at him, grimaced, and stuck out his tongue.
Smart Alec…
He crouched in the corner just opposite Raito in the back seat and brooded. His stomach had started growling again. He felt a strange, bubbling feeling in his body which he found increasingly difficult to tolerate. What was it? He searched his mind for the answer. Yet, in all its infinite vastness, L's conscious had no records of any event of this nature.
Troubling…
"Raito-kun," L whined, "My stomach hurts. It's making funny noises and it feels like I ate a bunch of marbles."
Raito gave him a look that said he wouldn't doubt that L had, in fact, eaten a bunch of marbles. He uttered nothing of the sort though and continued glaring thoughtfully at the psychopomp under the guise of looking out the window. It occurred suddenly to L that Raito's father was in the car.
Well, Raito wouldn't have told the mini-death what was wrong with him anyway.
He sighed, seeing that he'd never get an answer going about it the way he was. Perhaps…
Wait.
One of the side-effects of eating too much human food was a mind-numbing pain in the stomach. He'd been having milder pains lately, but this was much, much worse.
Oh my.
"Raito-kun," L gasped, "I think I'm having withdrawals."
Raito sighed, laid his head back on his arms, and slumped smugly in his seat. The corner of L's eye twitched. He should have foreseen this reaction. Yagami-kun never was one for condolences.
L whined to himself and miserably scooted around in the car. He needed something to eat. At the same time, he didn't. Gah! He was addicted to food! This was bad…
The car pulled up in front of the house and L flew out the window. He tore into the house long before Raito had a chance to open his door and mercilessly devoured four cookies. By the time Soichiro walked in the door, the cookies were gone.
L skittered out of the kitchen, feeling more than slightly agitated, and morphed into Raito's bedroom. As he perched on the office chair and chewed fervently on his nails, he heard Raito say he'd be up in his room taking a nap. Seconds later, the pitter-patter of his feet became apparent on the stairway.
Meanwhile, L was forcefully spinning himself in circles. Food. Food! L was addicted to food! What if he turned into a HUMAN for eating their FOOD? On one hand, humans weren't so bad. If he was human, he'd have all the food he wanted. He'd be able to feel what sunlight felt like. He could actually die and have fun doing it.
On the other hand, humans weren't very tolerant of nature. Heat, cold, rain, drought, day, night. They were practically dependent on nature.
And then there was pain. Perhaps even worse than the food withdrawal L had earlier. Pain was decidedly bad. He'd have to keep away from it.
Raito's door creaked open and in walked the man himself. No sooner had he emerged, however, than the door was slammed, Raito was airborne, and then Raito was landing on his bed and not moving for quite some time.
L spun himself in his chair.
Raito seemed stressed.
Stress.
That was another downside to human life. Stress was lurking everywhere. Since L had popped into the human realm, he'd met his share of it. Dread was virtually nonexistent in L's realm. The carefully planned schedule of everyday life made sure of that. L reluctantly concluded that stress was necessary in an exciting life. It was, after all, a part of surprise. When taken in small doses, stress was healthy.
And that was the way it was.
----
Raito was positively exhausted. He'd been interrogated for hours and he missed lunch. Of course, the missing meal could easily be compensated for, but, as Raito stated before, he was positively exhausted.
He was on his bed.
Food was downstairs.
He could have asked Ryuzaki to sneak it up for him, but the psychopomp seemed excessively agitated about something.
Something trivial.
That was certain.
He rolled over on his side, peering suspiciously at the dark, gangly shadow on the office chair which seemed preoccupied with devouring its own fingernails. Raito quirked an eyebrow when Ryuzaki's glassy eyes blinked in his direction. "What's got you so jumpy, Ryuzaki?" he asked.
The mini-death chewed on his thumb once more and chattered, "I think I'm in trouble, Raito-kun."
Raito nodded his head as if he wasn't wholly pissed off with the ambiguity of Ryuzaki's reply. "So," he began slowly, "What sort of trouble are you in?"
"I think I might be turning into a human."
Raito shot up in bed. Turning into a human? Well, this was news.
Wait…
Didn't that mean…
"You won't be able to keep me from dying anymore?" Raito gaped. Ryuzaki gave him a look that said 'oh dear God, help me,' and then sighed heavily and chewed on his thumb again.
Raito, meanwhile, was on the edge of his seat in anticipation. This did affect his fate after all.
"I'm not sure, Raito-kun. I've never been a human before," here Ryuzaki paused. Raito was no longer on the edge of his seat. As a matter of fact, he'd leaned too far over and fallen off. After he righteously picked himself off the floor, he repositioned himself by crouching at the footboard of his bed and stubbornly continuing to be at the edge of his seat.
Ryuzaki apparently took note of this, but oddly never commented about it.
"I think I might be able to keep this from happening if I don't eat anymore food," the mini-death stated simply with his eyes rolled skyward.
"Like you could keep that up," Raito remarked snidely.
Ryuzaki gave him an aloof look, turning his face upward and eyeing Raito down the bridge of his nose. Then he lowered his head and continued staring in a completely different manner.
Raito could only roll his eyes, huff his exasperation, and plunge back down into his mattress. He took a stroll down memory lane. Were there other things Ryuzaki needed to avoid in order to stay a psychopomp? Did Ryuzaki ever tell him about turning human?
"So," Raito drawled, "How exactly do you turn into a human?"
The mini-death gave him an appraising look. He stuck his bottom lip out and squinted. To tell or not to tell? Wasn't that always the question?
"Basically, I have to value something in the human realm more than I value my own realm. It's as simple as that." He started to stutter when Raito said nothing. Hurriedly, he rambled, "Eating too much sugar can get me hooked. Too much human food in my system contributes to the process as well."
Mutter…
Mutter…
Raito nodded thoughtfully. "And how much do you like your realm, Ryuzaki?" he asked like every bit of the psychiatrist he wasn't.
The mini-death eyed him again. Wary, wasn't he?
"I hate it," he said drearily.
Raito quirked an eyebrow. "You hate it?" he clarified, "Then what keeps you tied to it?"
"Fear, mainly," Ryuzaki droned uninterestedly.
Raito blinked.
Ryuzaki, noticing his confusion, elaborated on the subject. "It's been branded into my subconscious that change is bad. A change in form is most definitely bad. Essentially, Raito-kun, I don't like what I don't know."
Raito gave him a look that said he didn't care. And he didn't care. That was the truth.
Ryuzaki blinked once, then drew his eyebrows down and the corners of his lips drooped. He pouted, sighing and grumbling for at least five minutes. Raito let him sigh. He was tired.
Raito disregarded the psychopomp's personal problems and focused on his own. If Ryuzaki turned into a human, he would be part of the human realm.
Mortal.
And Raito could DIE.
Raito blew a frustrated sigh out of his nose. Fuck that. Kira was not going to die anytime soon.
"Ryuzaki," Raito began. The addressed stopped worrying his hair and blinked over hopefully. "Stop eating human food," Kira commanded. Ryuzaki's hair gave the appearance of dropping instantly limp. Raito resisted the urge to invade his personal space, point a finger, and laugh hysterically.
"Raito-kun!" Ryuzaki hissed, "What would you do without food?"
"Well, I'd probably die," Raito said with his shoulders shrugged, "But what do I have you for, eh?"
Ryuzaki frowned vehemently. "Is that what this is about? You don't want me to eat food because then I'll be human. If I'm human, I am a product of this realm, and thus a subject prone to expiration. With myself out of the picture, you would undoubtedly be picked off next. From the moment I walked into your window-"
"Flew into my window."
"-Flew into your window –Now that isn't important, Raito-kun. Let me finish. From the moment I saw you I knew you were shallow, but it seems I've overestimated your sympathy for others."
"Touché."
The mini-death gave Raito a typically level stare. "You really don't care, do you?"
"Not really," Said Raito with a strand of oddly colored reddish hair caught in his gaze.
He heard a helpless huff of air heave itself out of Ryuzaki's lungs and took comfort in assuming that would be the end of things. He was more than content to stare dreamily at a piece of his own, vibrant, shimmering, auburn hair. He'd have to cut it soon. If he let it grow out, he wouldn't be able to see his own reflection in the mirror.
Depressing.
The mini-death was still distractedly pawing at various writing utensils at Raito's desk and chewing on them. Let him chew. Let him worry. Ryuzaki wasn't Raito's problem. If he didn't stop eating himself silly, Kira's might would put a stop to it.
Raito had control.
Complete control.
"Not without me, you don't," droned a voice from the office chair. Raito peered queerly over at the psychopomp to find two black eyes studying him from behind a mess of number-two pencils. He sighed and explained, "You get this peculiar look on your face when you're trying to convince yourself that the world revolves because you command it to. Whether you choose to believe it or not, there is a higher power."
"So God exists, does he?" Raito questioned hotly with his arms across his chest.
"Yes," stated Ryuzaki.
Raito snorted.
"You're only here because He wanted you to be."
Raito's posture straightened and he smirked to himself.
Ryuzaki hissed and slapped himself. "I knew it would go straight to your head," he muttered.
"So," Raito beamed with a flick of the hair, "Why'd he choose me?"
"Right now," remarked Ryuzaki dryly, "I doubt His judgment."
Raito's eye twitched.
"Satan must have slipped something into His ambrosia. That woman was never one to be trusted…"
"And Satan's a woman? I could have guessed," snorted Raito.
"Hm," Ryuzaki droned, "She'd kick your ass."
Raito rolled his eyes. He was never a spiritual man. He didn't care what religion it was, it was all bullshit. Not so bullshit now though. Raito began to wonder whether or not he was on God's good side.
Or worse, Satan's bad side.
Of course, with his last comment, he was probably heading more south by the moment. Would he end up in hell? What was hell like?
"Ryuzaki?" Raito mumbled. "What?" responded the nail-biting psychopomp. "What's hell like?" the Yagami asked out of pure curiosity. Ryuzaki stopped devouring the tips of his fingers and pondered a moment in silence. "Hell is extremely boring." He paused, "Like a Sunday morning in Nigeria with ninety nine percent humidity in a room containing a broken air conditioner, no telephone, no radio, no books, a crooked bed, a leaky faucet, a blinking fluorescent light, daisy-scented air-freshener, and heaps of dead fish."
Raito rubbed at his eyes.
"And it's always overcast, but it never rains."
"Enough," growled Raito.
"I've made my point then, have I?"
"Stop."
"If you want."
The room was silent once more. Ryuzaki had ceased chewing on his nails. This was deemed as an important and positive development to Raito, who was concerned that the psychopomp would somehow bleed to death if he persisted. The silence became overbearing in a surprisingly short period of time, though. Raito peered once more at his lackey of supernatural-ish-ness and said, "What about the shinigami realm? You ever been there?"
"I've heard rumors," Ryuzaki admitted with an incline of the head. "They say it was Satan's knockoff of the psychopomp realm."
"Because she wanted to outdo God at His own game," Raito interrupted.
Out of the corner of his eye, Raito saw Ryuzaki give him an appraising look. "You are correct, Raito-kun."
The brunette snorted like he'd expected to be right.
"She tried to copy Jesus, too."
Raito quirked an eyebrow, "Really?"
"Yes. She failed three times. Eventually she gave up and got herself knocked up."
"Seems a bit… crude."
"But effective, Raito-kun. She's proven herself capable of replicating and twisting God's miracles to her own liking. And the Antichrist is surprisingly good at DDR. It's awful," hummed Ryuzaki.
"It's awesome," hummed Raito.
The mini-death gave him a look.
Raito dwelled in his thoughts for a moment. First off, God was a boy. Satan was a girl. That would explain how they never understood each other in the first place. Satan was tired of playing second fiddle to God and all His wonders, so she outsmarted Him, copied them, and used them to create catastrophes of her own. If she could recreate the psychopomp realm, then could she devise a way to make herself her own Kira as well?
"Ryuzaki," began Raito thoughtfully, "Seeing as how Satan has a knack for knockoffs, do you think she could make another me?"
"Pardon?" coughed Ryuzaki over a bit of eraser.
"Another Kira. An Anti-Kira."
Ryuzaki hummed and spun himself around in his chair. "As far as I am informed, the old man keeps that secret under lock and key. He lends Kira the power of divine judgment, probably because He has become delusional in His old age and prefers Bingo to smiting, and allows him to deal justice on whomever he pleases."
Raito grinned.
"Don't let it get to your head, Raito-kun," warned Ryuzaki. He leaned back in his chair, making it creak, and twirled himself back and forth with one corner of the desk. His brow creased in meditation and he brought a museful thumb to his lips. "I suppose," the mini-death crooned, "that she could accomplish such a feat if she desired, but we may never recognize this Anti-Kira of yours. She's very smart. For all we know, he could be a perfectly normal person. Satan is very keen to conceal."
"I see," mused Raito as he tossed a pillow into the air and caught it. He lay on his back and contemplated the plaster in the ceiling. He wondered if Mello ever had this many questions.
Mello…
Speaking of whom…
"Ryuzaki?"
"Yes?"
"How did Mello die?"
----
"Oh what a shame," was all that Raito said. He expressed no outward surprise at the mundane nature of Mello's death but the slight quivering of his left big toe. It was because of the scarcity of a reaction that L assumed the Yagami had been deeply shaken up.
After all, it was immensely unexpected that the mighty former Kira would choke on a muffin and die.
"A muffin," Raito repeated with a relaxing rock back into his sheets.
"Yes," confirmed L.
"Chocolate muffin."
"You're quite right."
"With blueberries."
The psychopomp nodded, "With blueberries."
"Wow," said Raito.
"Yes," said L.
Raito's head bobbed in a reflective nod and he licked his lips. L was quite proud of himself. If Raito's personality was anything to live by, he was extremely angry. Currently, he was choosing to express his anger in a passive way. For this, L was measurably grateful.
He'd hate to see Raito act in an irrational way again.
"Raito, honey!"
Ah, dinner. L sniffed the air and drooled. With a smell that thick, he was surprised he hadn't realized it sooner. Wonderful… wonderful… were those pot stickers he smelled? Luscious, garlicky potstickers.
L glanced mournfully down at his stomach. Then, he wiggled around miserably on his chair and whined at Raito. The object of his attention leered impassively at him through the corner of his eye. Of course Raito wouldn't let him eat anything! He was a pig that way.
And the food smelled so good… L could almost taste it!
"Raito-kun…" L whined quietly. The Yagami took no notice of this. He turned the doorknob, opened the door, yelled that he was coming, and shut the door behind him with a soft slam.
L was left to stew in his slobbering misery.
The nerve of that mortal! Leaving him there while he ate his precious, delicious, hot, steaming food…
Dammit.
L was hungry, and since he could turn himself human if he ate too much, Raito wasn't allowing him any food. Troublesome. However, he didn't need Kira's permission in order to sneak food. L allowed himself a devious grin. If no one caught him, he could eat as many pot stickers as he wanted. Better yet, he could see what delectable treats Sayu had in the fridge.
Forget healthy food.
The psychopomp melted into the floor above the kitchen. He could smell Raito's mother's cooking. She always did have a nice food-smell around her. He stealthily poked the upper half of his head through the ceiling. Cooking ingredients lay haphazardly on the counter, remnants of Sayu's cooking endeavors. Noting that the coast was clear, L slunk out of the ceiling and into the refrigerator. He nosed around in the frosty darkness until he sniffed out a wedge of chocolate mousse cake.
Marveling at his luck and skills of confection location, he giggled to himself and swiped the plate up in his fingers. After trying to morph back out of the fridge, he was reminded of the fact that food was material and couldn't be pulled through solid metal. The dish clattered and smashed into the space between the shelves and the door.
"Ah," Ryuzaki withdrew from the refrigerator and scratched through his messy, dark hair, "shit."
If he opened the door, the plate of mousse would fall onto the floor, making quite a bit of noise and ruining his treat at the same time. If he tried to rearrange the plate so he could remove it from the fridge, he ran the risk of being discovered by Raito.
Choices…
Time hardly got a chance to pass before L's stomach made the decision for him. He needed food, and he needed it now. His eyes shifted around the room before he decided to maneuver the dish of mousse back onto the shelf. He morphed into the door and pushed up on the plate. It clinked a bit against the metal edge of the shelf. This alarmed L, who flew back out and listened carefully for footsteps. Hearing none, he hurriedly got back to his work.
He pried the ceramic plate out from the crevice with a careful push and immediately opened the door. There it was, lit up in all it's glory, and it was…
A pile of whipped cream.
…
What?
Had he miscalculated something?
He could swear it was chocolate mousse he smelled.
"Got you."
Ryuzaki whipped around on his toes. There, in the doorway, was a mildly angry-looking Raito Yagami. L accepted his defeat, groaning in submission and silently melting back through the ceiling.
He meandered toward the edge of Raito's bed and sat there. Foiled… L was puzzled and frustrated. All he wanted was a piece of cake. Just a piece of cake! Why was Raito suddenly so fervent in his prevention of L's happiness?
Because he was preserving his own interests before L's.
Preserving his own life.
How selfish.
Minutes later, Raito clomped up the stairs. L was prepared to give him the glare of the century. Raito tapped open the door with one hand and backed into the room, muttering something to his mother about how he had to study.
Study.
Hah.
L was breaths away from converting all his pent up frustration into verbal abuse. However, when Raito turned around, any protest he might have conjured up vanished in the blink of two, sugar-glazed, coal black eyes.
Cake.
Raito had cake.
L followed the ceramic plate topped with spongy, white, pink-frosted goodness with a strand of drool dangling off of his lips. He inhaled a deep, searching breath and found that the pink icing was, in fact, strawberry flavored.
Oh, heaven on a stick.
"Rai-Raito-kun," L stuttered with an anxious index finger in his teeth. The addressed glared impassively at him and waited for the psychopomp to collect his thoughts. "That cake," said L, gesturing to the generous portion of heaven Raito had in his right hand, "wouldn't be for me… would it?"
Raito glanced down at the cake, then back up.
His sweet, juicy lips pressed together and his luscious, pink tongue curled to form one decisive word.
And that word was "No."
L squeezed all the breath held in his lungs out in one forceful squeal of dismay. He thumped his heel on the seat of the chair and chewed on his nails in an especially unhappy way.
Raito gave him a peculiar look and rumbled, "This one is mine," then he brought his other hand out from behind his back, "but this one's yours."
L lit up like a candle. He gleefully sauntered over to Kira, Savior of Sugary Sustenance, and accepted his treat. Raito's cake was bigger, but at the moment, L's eyeballs were too deep in frosting to notice.
----
After seeing Ryuzaki maul his helpless piece of cake, Raito lost his appetite. Or, at least that was the excuse he used. The truth, though Raito would never admit it, was that he hated cake. He'd originally brought one piece just to gloat over how incandescently happy he was, but decided it was a little too much.
The look on Ryuzaki's face would have been priceless, but for some reason completely unknown to him, Raito thought he'd done enough damage to Ryuzaki's nerves for one night.
The Yagami boy rolled his eyes and flopped onto his stomach.
The mini-death was licking the frosting off of each finger with a deafening smack of the lips. Raito glared, annoyed, and snatched up the remote to turn the television on. Not to his surprise, there was a special about the case. Nothing worth noting was said. This greatly angered the mighty Kira, who thought that his magnificence couldn't possibly have fit within the time frame of a mere one minute news segment.
Not coincidentally, halfway around the world in Madrid, a suspected terrorist gave himself up before dying mysteriously of cardiac arrest.
Raito noticed out of the corner of his eye that the mini-death was fidgeting. He turned on his side to see Ryuzaki's eyes fixed on the discarded piece of cake. Raito groaned.
When his attention did not cease, Raito grudgingly turned on his side again and grumbled, "You can have it if you want."
Skeptical eyes peered accusingly at him from a screen of dark, ruffled messiness. "You don't want it, Raito-kun?" asked Ryuzaki.
"I'm not hungry," Kira announced after a moment of hesitation.
Without further ado, the helpless wedge of cake was five feet away and halfway gone. After deciding that two more people would die tomorrow at four-o-clock in the morning, Raito turned his gaze on Ryuzaki. The way he inhaled his cake suggested that he really was, no joke, starving. Raito wondered just how bad these hunger pains of Ryuzaki's were.
"Feel better?' Raito asked dryly as the last of the cake vanished down Ryuzaki's throat. "Yes," said the psychopomp pointedly before licking his fingers again.
"Hm," said Raito.
"I like cake," said Ryuzaki.
"I see."
"And strawberries."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Sayu made these last night."
"I love her cooking."
"I thought you might."
"Tell her she's very good and she should try strawberry shortcake sometime."
"Sure thing," consented Raito. The television buzzed in the background. Ryuzaki seemed content to crouch on his chair and curl his toes around the cushion. He was grinning like a Cheshire cat and pressing his fingers together, satisfied.
Raito rolled his eyes once more.
Gratified by a slice of cake.
How shallow.
In a dark hour of similar melancholy a few nights later, something much more interesting happened.
A news special blipped onto the television. The anchorwoman on the screen was shuffling papers about on a desk, looking flustered.
"We interrupt this program to bring you a globally televised broadcast from Interpol," the woman gulped, coughed, and babbled some more. Raito couldn't believe his eyes. He hopped out of bed, stalked over to his office chair, swept it out from beneath Ryuzaki, and glided over to the television.
Ryuzaki grumbled on the floor before slinking over to Raito's shoulder and peering at the screen.
"Interpol?" the mini-death frowned, "This should be interesting."
The screen cut to a shot of two people, a man and a woman, seated behind desks. The both of them wore suits and dark sunglasses.
The man on the left, whose side of the desk was labeled 'Aiber L. Kaiser,' had impeccable posture and an angular, smirking face characteristic of arrogance. The gaping collar of his shirt said he was very conscious of his good looks as well. His short, blonde hair flowed out behind him like a gelled, flaxen flag and the stubble covering his chin suggested that he was equally at home near a crime scene and a high-class cocktail party. When he removed his sunglasses, Raito took note of his weasel-like eyes. Raito found it odd that they kept glancing at intervals to one side of the screen.
One foe.
Raito's calculating eyes then analyzed the woman sitting next to 'Aiber.' She had her equally blonde, equally straight hair swept behind one ear. She fidgeted slightly in her seat, but otherwise seemed relaxed. Raito likened her to a Barbie Doll. Her skin complexion was flawless, her face was soft and her features seemed to flow comfortably into one another. Her lips were painted rose red and she smashed them together several times. Her side of the desk was labeled "Wedy M. Rose."
Two foes.
And yet… something seemed amiss.
His father, Soichiro, often mentioned the codenames of two top detectives. He said their work was unparalleled. They solved cases together that could be pieced together by no other organization.
They were called Aiber and Wedy.
A and W.
Raito simply could not take seriously two top-notch detectives whose preferred initials spelled the name of a brand of root beer.
Anyway, the possibility of wiping out two of Kira's greatest potential foes was overwhelming, but something wasn't right. Something about the two figures on the screen was terrifically out of place.
Ryuzaki hummed something off to his side and took up permanent residence over Raito's shoulder. "Intriguing," the mini-death crooned, "What could they be thinking, I wonder?"
They spoke.
"I am Wedy M. Rose," said the woman.
"And I am Aiber L. Kaiser," added the man in a clipped tone of voice, "We are the sole people capable of mobilizing police in any country."
The woman nodded strangely, "As you well know, criminals have been the target of our world's latest and most appalling case of mass-murder."
Appalling? Her English accent was appalling. Kira was doing the world a favor! Criminals were disappearing one by one. Perhaps the world in its infinite weakness was not ready for Kira's divine judgment. Raito released a slow, low, reverberating growl.
Let them whine. They'd see soon enough.
"You're getting angry, Raito-kun," Ryuzaki warned into his ear. Raito only growled at him to shut up.
"These atrocities must be stopped whatever the cost, and we assure you, they will," continued Aiber. "'Kira' as the murderer is called, will be stopped."
"Stopped?" Raito scoffed. He laughed darkly, cracking his knuckles and leaning back in his throne. "How are you, a foolish, mundane, run-of-the-mill human being going to stop me?" He suddenly lurched forward in the chair and waved his right hand in front of the illuminated, electronic faces of his enemies. "You see this? I can kill you as easy as I can snap my fingers! How can you possibly catch me? What proof do you have? With a weapon like this, what evidence can I possibly leave!?"
"Eh, Raito-kun," came the voice of a cringing mini-death, "Perhaps be a bit quieter."
He didn't listen.
"I knew this would happen sometime," Raito hissed, grinding his teeth viciously, "You're trying to turn the public against me, aren't you? You're trying to psyche me out, aren't you!? Well I'm above your petty tricks! I am above your very level of existence! You fools! You groveling, sniveling, feather-brained fools!"
"Raito-kun!" Ryuzaki yelled. Raito turned to face him, grinning wickedly. "I knew this would happen," he repeated as if he were out of his mind. "I knew it from the start, Ryuzaki." The psychopomp nodded absently, "Yes, but I warn you, don't do anything rash. You may regret any decisions you make in haste."
Raito blew a puff of air out of his lungs in a guttural 'harumph!' Who was Ryuzaki to tell him how to think? He couldn't make any mistakes. It was impossible for him to make mistakes.
Raito tested the fingers on his right hand.
The face of the man suddenly grew softer, "Kira, if you are watching, please, pay attention."
Oh, he was paying attention alright.
Aiber droned on. "We think we may understand why you're doing these things. We know your intentions are for the better, but no matter what the reason, killing is evil."
Raito blinked and fell back into his chair.
… Evil?
Raito was… evil?
No. No! That couldn't have been right. Punishing the unjust was the very definition of righteousness! In order for a pristine new forest to flourish, a purging wildfire was needed to burn the old, decayed, diseased, overgrown flaws of the last one! The immoral, the vulgar, the bloodthirsty; all of them had to be erased.
Those who obstructed the dealing of justice were criminals as well. They had to be eliminated.
Every last one.
"You idiots," Raito hissed, shaking with rage, "Maybe if you'd have been smarter, we could have played a nice game of cat and mouse. But from the moment you showed your faces, you breathed your last! For your insults and your foolishness, death is your sentence!"
As Wedy rambled on about the immorality of Kira's actions, Kira's fingers smote against each other, snuffing out the flickers of two candles at once. Seconds later, two agonized, convulsing bodies hit the surface of the desk.
Dead.
Raito snickered, then flew into a full-blown maniacal laugh. What idiots! So this was the best the world could dish out at him, was it? Kira, God of Death, had just eliminated his most threatening foes within minutes of seeing their faces.
"Raito, Raito, Raito…" He heard Ryuzaki laugh tensely, farther behind him than before. Raito spun his chair around and sneered, "What the fuck are you laughing about?"
"Oh, details," fretted Ryuzaki.
Details? What details?
"What details?" Raito demanded hotly. Ryuzaki shook his head, "Oh no, Yagami-kun, you would surely kill me if I told you. No, no…"
"I'll kill you if you don't," Raito threatened.
"I suppose I have no choice in the matter, but you must promise me not to worry yourself about it."
"Whether or not I take what you say into consideration depends entirely on the gravity of the situation, Ryuzaki."
"And therein lies the problem."
Raito frowned deeply. "Just tell me what the fuck you want to tell me!"
"I don't want to tell you now," Ryuzaki stated with a thumb in his teeth.
"But you will," insisted Raito.
"Watch the television, Raito-kun. I suspect it will broadcast something very soon. When you process the information, let me know and I will fill you in."
Raito's gaze shot back to the screen.
Two men were dragging the dead bodies off of the desk.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Suddenly, a caption appeared at the bottom of the screen and with it, a voice. "We couldn't believe it, but we've seen with our own eyes…"
What… What was this? A joke? The voice was digitally cut up and recombined as if to make it completely unrecognizable. What was more, it referred to itself as 'we.'
"Watch carefully, Raito-kun," said Ryuzaki, "and try not to get angry."
"This broadcast was meant to test a theory of ours, but never in our wildest dreams had we expected an outcome of this nature," continued the voice, "Kira… you can actually kill without physical contact…"
Raito lost all his will to sit up straight. He fell back into his chair like a limp noodle. He'd been played. Played like a fool.
Dammit!
"The two people you have just seen were convicted criminals. They were scheduled to be killed one week from today. Both of them volunteered to help us in discovering more about Kira. May their souls rest in peace."
The voice changed suddenly in tempo and in mood. "Kira! The convicts you killed were incarcerated and sentenced in secret! News of their arrest was nonexistent. There were no records of them on the news or on the internet."
Raito slammed his fist into the side of his desk.
Really, really loud.
"Raito-honey?" the door slid open to reveal Sachiko's worried face.
"Yyeeessssss!" Raito hissed, disguising his immense pain and humiliation as elation, "They just caught Kira red-handed, mom!"
Sachiko smiled with relief, "Oh, honey, that's wonderful!"
"Isn't it?" Raito half-squeaked, bordering on tears, "He screwed up, mom! He screwed up like the jackass he is!"
Sachiko nodded, grinning from ear to ear. "I think we'll all sleep better tonight. You take care of yourself, sweetie."
"Yeah, mom, I will," promised Raito with his toes curled tightly around one wheel of his chair.
As soon as she left, Raito dropped face-down onto his desk and crossed his arms over his head. He was in pieces. He'd screwed up so badly, there was no repairing the damage.
"I failed," Raito hissed as the bridge of his nose started to sting, "I screwed up."
In the background, Raito heard the sound of two digitized voices taunting him. "Kill us! Go ahead!"
"What are you waiting for? Go ahead and try, Kira!"
"The damage is done, Raito-kun," mentioned a melancholic voice from the direction of Raito's bed. The exhausted, deceived Kira glanced mournfully behind him. How humiliating. He could tell by the annoying, tingling pressure in his nose and the heaviness of his eyes that he was coming dangerously close to tears.
"The damage isn't life-threatening yet, Raito-kun," Ryuzaki, who was in a terrifically good mood, pointed out, "Perhaps you could use the publicity you've just gained as an advantage."
Raito rolled his eyes away and thought.
Yes…
Yes.
Yes! That could work! Now that people knew Kira was no ordinary human being, he could manipulate their fear and confusion to his liking. An unintentional publicity stunt. That was what it was. "Glad to be of service," mentioned Ryuzaki with an evident smile in his voice.
"Kira!" the television addressed.
Raito looked up optimistically from the wood surface of his desk and into the television. "In recompense for the valuable information you have just given us, we will now return the favor."
He listened.
"Firstly, at the beginning of this broadcast, it was announced that the event would be televised globally. That was a lie."
Raito groaned and dug his fingers into his eyes.
"This event was only broadcast in the Kanto region of Japan. Why the Kanto region? The police missed this, but your first victim was a man who took control of an office building in Yokohama. This was televised only in Japan. Being the area of highest population density, we broadcast in Kanto first. That you responded within this region was pure luck."
Raito sighed, willing the pain away from his face. He'd have to look for a way to use their information to redeem himself. He knew not how, but it was a necessity. Perhaps he had to be more cautious in the future. One valuable piece of information that A and W had unwillingly given to him was that there were flaws in his power. Without physical evidence, they would still find something.
The voice changed again. "We, A and W-"
A can of root beer suddenly wormed its way into Raito's mind's eye and he couldn't help snickering-
"-are confident that we will bring you to justice."
Justice? Raito was Justice!
"It would interest us greatly to know exactly how you kill, but we can find that out after we've caught you."
Such confidence from mere mortals!
"Until we meet again, Kira."
And the television fuzzed out. Raito was no longer inclined to watch it. He clicked it off. "Ryuzaki," he sighed soberly as he turned slowly around in his chair, "Tell me how you knew I'd made a mistake."
The addressed stopped fiddling with his toes and peered at Raito with wide, intelligent, deep, black eyes. "Are you angry?" he asked. The brunette nodded that yes, he was angry. Ryuzaki nodded as well. "As is to be expected. Are you angry enough to do something to harm yourself?"
"I'm not sure yet," Raito mused, taking deep breaths to clear his mind.
"Mm," hummed the mini-death, "I have a great eye for detail, Raito-kun. I notice a great many things any human being might miss." Raito listened, not offering his input on the subject. Evidently taking note of this, Ryuzaki droned on. "Did you notice anything odd about the two people on the television and their surroundings?"
Raito closed his eyes and thought a moment. "The woman kept squirming in her seat and the man's attention was focused to one side of the screen." When he opened his eyes, Ryuzaki was staring him down very intently. "You're very intelligent, Raito-kun," he praised, "but you didn't link your observations together. Did you notice anything odd about the side of the screen the man stared at?"
Raito organized his thoughts and found nothing. "No," he admitted.
"You didn't see any shadows? You didn't see any reflection in the woman's glasses when the camera zoomed in on her face?"
"No."
"Judging from the shadows cast onto the desk by the paper labels, the light source was from the right. The man kept staring to his right. There was a light spot in the right lens of the woman's glasses and a dark shadow on the right side of the wall, both of which closely resembled the shape of a man with a rifle."
Raito's eyes widened. He glanced up at Ryuzaki again. How did he notice all that?
"There was a man with a gun standing to the right of the camera and to the left of the primary light source, casting a slight shadow on the right side of the wall. If you had seen this, you could have assumed that the two people were being held there against their will. Would the world's two most prestigious detectives be held against their will?" Ryuzaki reasoned with his thumb in his mouth.
"No," inferred Raito. He reflected Ryuzaki in the way he suddenly stuck his thumbnail between his teeth and bit it. Raito started to laugh. "They messed up just as much as I did. I just couldn't see it…" He tapped the fingers on his injured hand against the side of his desk. "They have flaws, Ryuzaki! They aren't as high and mighty as their theatrics, huh?"
Ryuzaki nodded.
"Do you want a piece of cake, Ryuzaki?" Raito asked suddenly.
The psychopomp looked shocked. "Yes, Raito-kun," he nodded feverishly, "I do."
With that, Raito pushed from his mind the fact that Ryuzaki could have informed him of his observations sooner and left in search of a piece of cake.
----
L was glad.
Somehow, against all odds, he'd brightened the sudden dark blotch in Kira's life. With any luck, Raito had learned his lesson and the two detectives he hated so much had very little information pertaining to his exact location.
L hummed contentedly to himself as he perched in his usual spot, watching Raito sleep. It was creepy, yes, but L was full of cake and equally full of pride in himself. As such, he couldn't bring himself to feel embarrassed.
It had taken Raito longer than usual to fall asleep, but it was justified. His mind was at work, worrying and figuring. Trying to patch up his mistakes. Trying to convince himself that he was safe.
And Raito was safe.
As long as L was there, any detective, greatest in the world or not, would have to come through hell to lay a finger on him. And if they did manage to lay a finger on him… well… L would do something. Somehow, it was impossible for him to pick things up and hit people with them with the intent of doing harm. However, if Raito's life was threatened, L would find a way.
The aforementioned Yagami boy quivered slightly in his sleep. L looked up at the clock and smiled. It was about this time every other night when Raito had an entertaining bout of sleep-talk. L wondered what was going through his head this time.
Much to his surprise, Raito sat up in his bed, eyes glazed and shoulders slipping. He looked off into nowhere in particular and muttered, "They aren't here, are they?"
Oh goody!
L clapped his hands together, thrilled. A conversation! This happened only once before on a night before an especially important test. He'd asked L what score he got. L replied that he hadn't taken the test yet. Raito looked deeply confused and asked him what he meant. To this, the psychopomp replied that he should go back to sleep. Raito stubbornly refused and asked him once again what score he'd gotten.
L said he hadn't gotten a score.
Then, Raito had nodded as if it was perfectly fine with him that he had no score. He fell back into his sheets after that and didn't say another word.
And for some reason, he'd taken a liking to referring to L as 'Dave.'
Hm.
This conversation, L knew, would be a blast. "They who?" he asked.
"I don't know," Raito replied hazily.
"You're confused?" asked L.
"I don't know," said Raito.
"You're confused," said L.
Raito screwed up his face, blinked slowly, swayed once as if to fall over, then righted himself again. "I smell root beer," he mumbled nostalgically. "There is no root beer, Raito-kun," L corrected.
"There is," said Raito as if he'd stake his life on that there was, in fact, root beer lurking somewhere within the shadows of his room.
"What kind of root beer is it, Raito-kun?"
"A and W Root Beer."
And there it was.
Relevancy.
"Raito-kun," reasoned L, "They have no idea where you are. You are perfectly safe."
"They know," Raito argued like a drunk who'd lost his designated driver.
"They don't."
"They know I'm in Kyoto. They're going to find me out," mumbled Raito sleepily.
"Go to sleep," suggested L.
Raito's lopsided scowl deepened and his long, thin, elegant eyelashes dropped lower. "Can't sleep," he muttered, "The root beer will get me."
"You're sleeping now," L pointed out, hoping that, through his delirium, Raito would see sense. Predictably, Raito argued with him again. "I'm not sleeping, Dave," he slurred intelligently.
"What do you have on your mind, exactly?" L asked in the most friendly way he could.
"If they get me, I'll die. I don't want to die, Dave."
"No one wants to die," reasoned L.
"Some people do," persisted Raito.
"Go to sleep."
"I'll die."
"You won't."
"I will."
L sighed, rolled his eyes up to the heavens, and cast the ceiling a hurt look. He was arguing with a mule. Perhaps a compromise would be in order.
"What would you like in exchange for going to sleep?" asked L.
"A biplane," said Raito. Then he squinted slightly, looked down at his sheets, and said, "No." He rolled his head back up and chewed on his bottom lip. L saw an opportunity to take advantage of Raito's childish state. He padded across the floor and sat at the foot of Raito's bed. The honey-eyed citizen of la-la land blinked in an attempt to focus his gaze on the invader of his personal space.
"What say you I sit here and keep watch," suggested L, "Then you can go to sleep."
"Mmm…" mumbled Raito. He turned the idea over in his head several times, marking each revolution with a bob of the head and a droop of the eyes. Without further ado, his eyes closed and the top of his body bent abruptly forward.
L took it as a yes.
As Raito sat there, bent over himself and in complete, ignorant bliss of being so, L mulled over his future. If he was going to protect Raito from death, there were certain limits he had to set for himself.
Firstly, he would have to inform Raito right away if he noticed anything fishy around him. The 'that's for me to know and you to find out' would have to stop. He would also… a gulp… have to give up… food.
A little bit.
What hurt was a crumb, eh?
A crumb… per day… Maybe two.
Or a cake a week…
He could manage it.
But there was one factor L had absolutely no control over. And it scared him! All his life, L had looked at his world as the most mediocre of places. It was boring and pointless. Yet, in order to stay a psychopomp, he had to value his own realm more than anything.
He was beginning to value something else more and more every day.
That thing was annoying, stubborn, proud, vain, vulnerable, beautiful, and had a deep, mesmerizing voice which liked to call him 'Dave.'
It would be his downfall.
It had liked his company enough that evening, but who knew when it would focus its one-track mind back on world domination?
It was a misguided force of justice.
It was Raito Yagami.
His Raito Yagami.
Perhaps it was a trial. Perhaps this whole 'Kira' deal was a game. How long could L keep himself from denouncing his life and becoming human? How long could one egomaniacal human last in a world who hated him?
How long could L keep him alive?
L snorted through his nose and realized that he couldn't keep Raito alive very long when he was constantly thinking about him.
Okay. Room… beige colored room at home. One window. One bed. One computer. One cup of coffee.
A thousand cookie-cutter houses.
One that was his. With one yard. One very green yard. One garden. One kitchen. One faded denim-ish sofa. One Raito…
One Raito…
ROOM.
BEIGE COLORED ROOM!
Window. Bed. Computer. Coffee. Cookie cutter. Raito. Yard. House. Raito. Garden lawn kitchen sofa coffee computer bed cookie-cutter-yard-house-window!
Raito.
L was going to have a hard night.
----
Chibi Raito: SnoooOOOOoooOoooore…
Chibi L: House window bed computer coffee cookie cutter yard house garden lawn kitchen sofa coffee computer bed cookie cutter yard green house window window window window window window...
Chibi Misa: -pokes Raito in the eye-
Me: Well? Was it worth it? Did your wait pay off?
Chibi L: Window window window window window window…
Me: Misa, he's stuck. Step on his toes.
Chibi Misa: Okay! –stomps L's toes-
Chibi L: EEEeeYYyyaaaaaah!
Chibi Raito: ShUt Up dAvE! D8
Me: Granted, a ton of weird shit happened in this chapter at the end, but that's because I was up late and I had dumplings for dinner. The romance bunnies and the plot bunnies are going at it in my head. The plot bunnies, though higher in number, are slowly being beaten down. I'm hoping I can fix a truce between the two before things get ugly. Have sympathy for my nerves.
Chibi Raito: Snooorrree…
Chibi L: Tell Swirly what you thought. Tell her what a bad bitch she is for making you wait.
Me: Quiet, you.
Chibi Misa: Review, review, review!