Eep, I forgot about this fic, haha. ::shuffle shuffle blush::
It's quite sad, really. I would do just about anything for some snow right now as opposed to this awful heat…
Don't own Death Note.
near.
the snow is lonely or, if you prefer, self-sufficient. - joseph wood krutch.
Near fails to see what the fuss is all about it.
They don't merely pass by him; they scurry, like hungry street rats all towards the same goal, clad in coats of ridiculous volumes and hats that sit low over their foreheads. Mittened, socked, scarved, this beastly charge of orphans makes a smooth arc around Near's block tower of an incomparable height, but the rush of wind that comes with their arrival slaps off the top block to skitter down to the floor. He saves rest of the tower just in time with a scowl.
They are practically squeeling, and it hurts his ears. He calmly retrieves the fallen block and puts it back in its rightful place. The wobbling tower returns to neutral as the swarm of children disperses.
They have been like this all day: rushing in and out of classrooms, talking. Sitting about round tables at breakfast, lunch, talking. Staring out tall, gleaming windows out onto the white grounds, talking.
Near finds it disturbing that he is the only one taking the level noise as a bother, but he simply places two more blocks atop his creation and ignores it. Still, even as he briefly looks up to see the last of the gaggle rush out the open door held by a particularly stressed-looking Roger, he doesn't understand why the world has stopped turning because of frozen water. Except right now, it is everywhere outside the window he sits beneath.
Another block. Another half minute. And then, a voice.
Correction; a snarl as the action figure by his feet is seized into a small tyrant's hands. He doesn't even have to look up to see who the culprit is, and he doesn't make the attempt. "Mello," he greets dryly, rolling a small painted cube in his palm. He knows better than to make any more advances in the tower; he is quite certain that if Mello doesn't get the reaction that he wants out of him, which he indeed won't, the blocks will collapse with one swipe of the blonde's fist.
"You're the only one staying inside," Mello sneers, as if it's some grand offense that Near should attest to be false. When he doesn't, Mello grits his teeth and, just as Near had expected, takes the initiative to send a knotted fist into the block tower at his feet, sending a waterfall of wood, color and numbers to fling itself to the floor.
Near watches them fall and twirls a piece of hair between his fingers. He can't say that he is all too impressed with Mello's tactic (the boy should know by now that it takes much more than knocking over blocks to surprise him), but he remains staid.
"You think you're so great, don't you?" Mello snaps. "You think you're so great because you're number one, right? Isn't that it?"
He is in his face to a discomfiting level, his breath warm on Near's cheeks and his eyes flashing with something terribly familiar: wrath. Near picks up a single green cube labeled with a "3" and backs up, for his own relief. "I thought we were discussing me staying indoors, Mello," he says calmly.
There is a fist clutching his shirt, pulling him up to the glowing blonde's level. "Shut up!" Mello barks. "You just think you're so damn great because you're above me and you know it."
"Not at all." Near stifles a yawn. That would be the first and last step to causing Mello's self-implosion: appearing bored with his tactics, which he is, heavily.
"You're lying!"
"If it bothers you so much, Mello, then why go out of your way to bring it up?" Near's voice is still so flat, so unperturbed even in the midst of being this close to the burning blonde whom wanted his head on a plate.
Mello noticeably twitches and curses a string of spicy obscenities beneath his breath, but releases the silver boy in his clutch. A glance down at the action figure in his hand, and something awful gleams over his eyes, something that Near knows far too well. It's the I-know-what-to-do-with-this-and-you-can't-do-anything-about-it that causes Near to sit up a tad straighter, beginning to reach out his hand. "Now that that's past us, I believe I'll be taking that back now-"
But Mello has whipped around quicker than Near can finish his sentence, and is running down the white corridor until reaching the double doors leading to that cold expanse of frozen marble outside. As Near looks on, highly unamused, Mello shoots him a smirk that is haughty and brash even for him before taking a quick series of steps out into the snow and tossing the toy into the air far and wide. It is buried beneath thick pockets of snow in no time.
As Near stands up, stepping into his slippers and padding over to the door, he hears, "Fetch." And Mello is gone.
Near stands in the open doorway, stricken. He has underestimated just how milky the sky is, how oddly bright the snow appears beyond his slippers, and…
And how much Near himself blends in with the world right now.
White. Silver. Frozen. Everywhere. And Near, dressed in white, with silky white atop his head, with white skin that exposes fragile blue veins so clearly, almost like glass, on the underside of his wrist, suddenly cannot bring himself to take one step out there into that infinite white. Not one step. There are children everywhere, skipping, jumping, tumbling, laughing, and they all stand out, they look nothing like snow.
He wonders if anyone can even see him standing here, his gaze stretching on for miles, the silver boy who is number one and yet can't even be spotted in the aftermath of a snowstorm.
No, Near doesn't like this at all.
Which is why he stares at the clump of snow in which his action figure has been put to rest with a vague indifference and turns around, meandering back to his sea of blocks. He'll trek out there when the snow is gone, gone, gone.
So I've decided to definitely write some more Near.
Anyway, review please! And if you wish, do suggest who I should write next, I'm stuck between a few…