Author's Note: Hello again! It's time for chapter two! Thank you to all who reviewed and all who read. This time around the focus drifts over to young B and his meeting with A. Very little actually happens though. I just wanted to explore some aspects of the two boys' personalities and get myself familiar with them. I think I may have let A take a little of B's thunder here, but I wanted to get stuff about A set in stone early on since… well, you know…
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note or any of the characters used in this story. I also do not own the song "You Are My Sunshine", although it my already be public domain. I don't really know.
B continued to scream from the back seat of Roger's car as it pulled through the gates of Wammy's House. Manicured lawns and patches of shady trees passed by the windows, but neither of the car's occupants seemed to notice. Roger was too absorbed in keeping the car under control in the midst of B's agonizing tantrum, and B was too absorbed in throwing said tantrum.
By the time the car came to a stop, B's throat was sore and Roger was developing a migraine. Nevertheless, the two piled out of the vehicle and stood in the middle of the driveway staring at the spectacle before them. It was like some kind of dreadful hybrid between a refugee camp and a bowl of alphabet soup. Children were scattered across the front lawn of the orphanage, each with a respective single-letter nametag and a small entourage of bags. Some of them ran and played, some of them sat and stared, and some of them just cried as if their lungs might burst.
Roger sighed uncomfortably and began to walk toward the ill-fated crowd, hoping that B would follow.
B watched the old man, but remained where he was. He sat down on top of his suitcase and tried to control his breathing, which still came in shallow, sobbing gasps.
What kind of outrageous place was this?
"Are you alright?" asked a voice from behind B.
The black-haired child whirled around faster than a tornado and nearly lost his balance, but before he could topple, a small, pale hand reached out and grabbed his shoulder. B looked at the hand and jumped backwards, brushing it away violently.
"Don't touch me!" he yelled in a voice fractured from too much crying.
The owner of the hand, a boy about one year older than B with short, blonde hair and glasses, looked at him in utter horror.
"I-I'm sorry… I just thought…"
"Don't. Touch. Me," B repeated menacingly.
The other boy froze like a deer in the headlights and continued to stare with saucer eyes.
"Don't look at me either. Go away."
"You look sad though…"
Though the boy was older, his speech and mannerisms were clearly very childish, as if his mind had stopped developing the day he became an orphan.
B met the boy's gaze, causing the other child to go rigid with unease. The blonde quickly averted his eyes and began to kick at the gravel of the driveway. The corners of B's mouth flickered with the ghost of a smile. Seeing someone more afraid than he was raised his spirits a little bit.
"What's your name?" B asked.
"A," the boy replied without hesitation, as though the letter really was printed on his birth certificate.
"What's your real name?"
"I'm not supposed to tell anybody that…" A answered, lowering his voice to a whisper. "It's not safe."
B rose to his feet in an unsettlingly rapid motion and scowled down at A, who was easily half a foot shorter. He didn't need the boy's voice to learn what he wanted to know. He glanced above A's head and read the label that floated there. As he did so, he could not help but notice the strangely low number that accompanied it.
"Are you sick?" B asked candidly.
"What? Uh, no. Why? Do I look sick?" A seemed to be genuinely worried about B's perceived observation. "I did feel a little weird on the car ride here. Like a bit dizzy. You don't think there's something wrong with my brain, do you?"
B's eyelid twitched as he looked at the panic-stricken boy.
"Wrong… with your brain?"
"Yeah, like an aneurysm. Or a stroke. Am I speaking funny at all? Does my face look okay?"
B didn't know what to make of this. He had never met a child with such a strange medical fixation.
"Your face is fine."
A didn't seem convinced and turned to the window of Roger's car to check his reflection. As he was checking it, he saw B's nametag which had been left on the car seat inside.
"Is your name B?"
"No," B snapped. "But I guess that's what everyone's going to call me."
"Nice to meet you then, B."
B frowned at his blonde-haired counterpart, suddenly annoyed with his sickening fear and innocence.
A mistook the frown for concern and gave B a weak smile.
"Hey, why don't we go see the other kids? Or maybe you're hungry? I've still got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my bag if you want a piece."
B suddenly realized just how empty his stomach was and let his hunger win out over his annoyance.
"Sure. I guess I'll have a piece."
A unzipped the bag sitting a few feet away and pulled out a sandwich wrapped in cellophane. He tore away the clear material and ripped the sandwich in half.
B accepted the half-sandwich and bit into it eagerly.
The minute it touched his tongue he grimaced in disgust and held the food item out in front of him, letting it dangle from between his thumb and index finger.
"What is this?" he spat angrily, causing A to flinch.
"Peanut butter and jelly…?"
"No. This is bread. Bread with a thin layer of jelly. And it's not even grape!"
"It's strawberry…"
"Where's the peanut butter?"
"I don't like peanut butter on my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Lots of kids are allergic to it. And allergies can develop at any time. What if I go into anaphylactic shock?"
B stared at A in furious disbelief.
"Then why the heck do you even bother to call it a 'peanut butter and jelly' sandwich?"
A looked hurt at B's reaction to his food offering.
"I don't know… I'm sorry…"
B sighed and shoved the sandwich back into A's hands.
"Come on. Let's just go see what's happening over on the lawn."
The two boys melded into the sea of young humanity and watched as adults scrambled around trying to keep track of all the children. They appeared to be ushering them into the building two at a time.
It was Roger himself who finally addressed B and A.
"Are you feeling any better, B?" Roger asked.
B looked up at Roger and nodded solemnly.
Roger hid his discomfort and handed the two boys a pair of keys.
"It's good that you two found each other. You're going to be roommates."
The old man forced a smile.
A and B looked at each other before following Roger into the building.
Once all the clothes had been put into drawers and the sheets spread across mattresses, A began to unpack his final bag while B stared out the window. He was still puzzling over A's low numbers and frustrating health fears when he heard faint, tinkling music that caused him to turn his head.
He saw A hugging a pastel yellow teddy bear to his chest. It looked very worn and had a turn key in its back which caused it to play a music box rendition of "You Are My Sunshine" when wound. A clung to the toy like his very life depended on it.
"What is that?"
"This is the bear my mom gave me," A replied, still hugging it. "Well, actually, I gave it to her when she was in the hospital, but she let me have it back."
"The hospital? Did your mom die in a hospital?" B asked without any regard to sensitivity.
A looked at the floor and tried blink back the beginning of a tear.
"…Yeah. She got really sick. The doctors tried to help her, but…"
B studied A's sorrowful body language with curiosity. Suddenly the health fears seemed to make a little more sense.
"She was in so much pain, B… I know people always talk about how brave sick people are, but… she was in so much pain… she was so scared…"
A's face contorted into a mask of despair as he broke down into hysterical sobbing and grasped the bear so tightly that it seemed like it was going to break in half.
An unfamiliar feeling of pity shot through B's heart. He wondered what it must have been like for A not to know when his mother's last breaths would be. He must have been forced to watch her wither away for months on end, never sure if he would miss his chance to say goodbye. Trying to imagine that kind of uncertainty was strange and frightening to B, who had known the dates of his parents' deaths all his life.
B crouched down beside his new roommate and wrapped his arms around him in an awkward, childlike hug. He didn't know what to say and the embrace was quite uncomfortable for him, so it lasted only a few quiet seconds.
A took a small amount of comfort in the gesture and turned the key on the back of his teddy bear once more, allowing himself to be taken back to a horrible, wonderful time in his memory where the desolate sounds of hospital machinery mingled with the sound of his mother's yet unsilenced voice.
Author's Note: Though the tone in this chapter is not exactly light, it's still not as dark as it's going to get. The boys do not have happy times ahead of them, and neither does Roger, who will get more "screentime" again soon enough. Thank you very much for reading. Please review if you have comments or suggestions.