Humans are drawn to light as much as they run from darkness.
0o0o0o
Six years later
The quiet hours. Midnight and two o'clock in the morning and four, AM or PM. That was when they talked and said dangerous things. Those were the times, the three times when they'd built a fragile defense against the world.
It should be fitting that the time Light Yagami died was four, the number of death, the number that divided, two into two.
Light, Kira, gods in their own deluded minds.
Light, I loved you.
Light, Kira, staggering along a street, each heartbeat a step towards Death, who waited at the end of the road.
I could have loved you.
It was all about hearts, wasn't it? Heart attacks, heartbeats that killed instead of fed-didn't they all do that, if you thought about it?-and hearts that had broken and healed wrong, hearts that shredded like tissue paper, hearts that burned too bright and too fast and lit everything around them.
Hearts, beating along red strings, hearts that woke up in the chests of angels and made them take notice of the world below.
Hearts that turned angels, that made them burn and fall and make deals with demons.
If circumstances were different.
0o0o0o
L? Are you listening? This is from your rival.
Look at me now, L.
I'm dying. I'm bleeding out, and every drop of my blood on the pavement burns.
Six wounds, one for every year without you.
Is this enough for you? Have you hurt me enough now, years after I thought I was finally free?
No...it's never going to be enough. Not for you. I'll never bleed out enough to appease you, will I?
Because I was never good enough. I was a student with a notebook. I was a delusional fanatic screaming 'Justice!'. I was an inconvenience to the game. I was an out-of-place pawn. I was just another person who thought they were more than firewood.
I was nothing but a child addicted too soon, too hard, too fast.
I have never been good enough for you, have I, L?
Not for you. Not for the unattainable image of justice. Not for the World's Greatest Detective. Not even just for you, L the fragile human monster.
I was never enough for you, L, no matter how hard I tried. No matter what I did.
No matter what I said to you.
(Beyond would have done everything better, wouldn't he?)
I became a god. I killed on a scale nobody ever had before. I left blood and ashes in my wake like the Grim Reaper.
I brought entire nations to their knees, and you brought me to mine.
You destroyed me, L. You tore me to shreds and set me aflame, watching the paper scraps like firewood sparks.
I went to lengths more extreme than anybody else. I brought you a rival you'd be sure to see as an equal.
I thought I could be your perfect opponent, and you reduced me to words and lies.
Maybe one of us was a god all along, and one of us was just playing, just borrowing power.
Maybe we were never gods. Maybe we are just an angel and a demon, and your wings and your power reminded me of everything I'd lost, everything I'd given up, everything I left behind when I jumped.
Maybe I realized I wanted all of it back.
Maybe I tried to forget I couldn't. That all deals were permanent, except for the ones between an angel and a demon.
Maybe I used you and burned you and chained you up so you'd never run away. So I could have just one more night of closing my eyes and praying that I'd have wings again when I woke up. One more night where I almost did, because we were so close it almost didn't matter.
And maybe, one day, I turned around and killed you with 'I win' lingering on my kiss because you'd already won every other way.
Because after all this time, I have never been good enough.
Look at me, L.
I am just Light Yagami, an angel with broken wings.
0o0o0o
Light, please be listening. It's me. It's L.
'What if', the words to everything we could never hope to have.
If we'd met and we were normal, or as close as we can get. If the reason I found you was not the Kira Case.
If we'd met in the quiet store nobody else ever goes to, you trying to hide the antidepressants behind your back and me dropping most of the sleeping pills I'm holding.
If you'd picked them up and put them back in my arms. If I flinched when you traced the shadows under my eyes and you pulled back like you'd been burned.
If I'd apologized and my voice was rough from disuse.
If we'd walked out of the store together and you'd suddenly pressed me back against the wall and all I could concentrate on was the bricks and your eyes and that I'd dropped the sleeping pills again.
If you'd asked if I knew the little coffee shop that sold the best cake, and if I was free tomorrow at nine. If I'd said yes, and you'd smiled like I was the first thing you'd seen after years of being blind. If I couldn't take my eyes off that and nearly forgot what the question was because your smile was crooked and gorgeous.
If you'd picked up the boxes and put them back in my arms again. If you'd nearly disappeared when you faced towards the sun and walked away. If I'd forgotten to ask your name until you were gone.
If I'd told myself not to go, but I did. If we'd met and I'd learned your name was Light and you were a college student studying to become a detective like your father, not because you wanted to, but because it was expected for you to get a good job. If I'd promised myself earlier not to tell you anything about me, but faced with those eyes and smile, I broke down and told you that my name was Ryuzaki, that I worked in my family, like you not wanting to, but being expected to.
If we'd talked about whatever came into our minds and I remembered how good it felt to laugh. If, right before it was over, you'd pulled me aside and written a number on my arm and asked, 'Saturday?'
If it had continued like that a thousand times, and we'd reforged each other into keeping a piece of the other's heart forever. If it had started with the kiss I stole in the rain and then the words you whispered in my ear the next time we met and then that night where my body had covered yours, an offering of heat and skin, and you'd accepted.
If the day I walked down the aisle, I dropped the box with the vows because my hands were shaking so badly and you'd picked up the box and put it back in my arms.
If we'd fallen in love slowly, softly, gently, like heartbeats and feathers.
If I hadn't fallen in love with you the way I did in the Kira Case; the way firewood burns. Too fast and hard and sharp with too many sides, letting you turn me to ashes.
If the words you had whispered in our last embrace weren't 'I win', but 'I love you'.
What if, angel, circumstances were different?
Would you have loved me back then?
0o0o0o
Because they never told you so much about humans and how they are living firewood and you will get addicted to watching them burn for you.
Because nobody knows except those who have been there, who have reached out for the demon's hand and gotten pulled into the game, and they are too far gone to tell you anything.
Because the world is not beautiful and you cannot give it to someone, and if you could, it would crush them.
Because the world is too big for one person to change with murder and too small for one person to share with another exactly the same.
Because you and I are angel and demon and we will always be rivals.
Because I always remember our earlier dances and you don't. You never do, and it hurts so much to see your hope every time that somehow, we'll be allowed to stay happy.
Because we are pawns of our god, L, and nothing more. We can't be together. We can't find a way to exist in harmony.
Because you and I are destined to kill each other every single time, and God, I wish I could tell you that it has ended the same way a million times before and will a million times after. But the way you smile is too beautiful to despoil so soon.
Because we are hopelessly addicted to being human and we are always going to be us.
0o0o0o
If we were normal, Light, I would have loved you like the world could end and I wouldn't care. I would have woken up next to you, my angel, my Elysium-born creature who chases away all my shadows.
But we're not like that and I fear we will never be.
L knelt by Light Yagami as he was dying and told him a story about humans and angels and games and words and firewood that catches everything around it and leaves them branded in it's short life.
It was too late to ask for just one more night.
If we were normal, we never would have said 'just for tonight'. But we're not. We'll never be anything but a detective and a suspect. Why did we ever think we could make a relationship work?
Light Yagami was gasping for breath. Something, somewhere, with raven-black feathers, was opening a notebook and touching a pen to paper. L stared into those red eyes and begged for his Light to come back for one last goodbye.
Nothing.
If you'd asked, L would have denied it. He would have said he saw Light come back, just for a second, but enough for a goodbye.
If you had asked, L would have denied that he shattered when Kira won and Light finally slipped away.
I loved you like you were the only illumination in the dark prison I had lived in all my life.
I loved you because I'd never unraveled all of your red strings. They held me together.
He hadn't saved Light.
I told you once that you were my biggest mistake. Maybe I was yours, instead. Maybe it took six years for me to realize that. Maybe I fell in love with you, Light, and Kira killed us both. Maybe I was teasing and mocking and playing and falling in love with you, Light, not Kira.
He'd failed at everything.
Maybe we had found just the right balance of heat to light, all careful hands and guttering matches, and Kira was standing behind us in all his pyromaniac glory, just wanting to see us charred instead of watch the flames.
Somewhere, a shinigami began to write.
And it was after six years, of waiting, of childish arrogance, of a story that began with 'just one night' and ended with a fallen angel kneeling beside his bittersweet lover and begging for his enemy to win, just to see Light maybe one more time, L realized four things.
One: Kira had already won all those years ago, the moment he'd said three words.
Two: Light was gone, and because L refused to accept that, he prayed for Kira to keep an existence that was torturous for someone he'd said he'd loved.
Three: He'd never fallen in love with the real Light. He'd met barely half a shadow of who Light really was, because he'd met a Light who had already been corrupted by the Death Note and then fallen for one who had that entire part of him ripped out.
Four: If he'd never fallen in love with the real Light because they'd met too late, then the real Light had never done the same to him. Kira had, maybe, with the same take-and-hurt that Beyond had given and he'd tried so hard to escape from in Light.
He'd wanted to give Light the entire world and he'd forgotten that he couldn't.
L's heart finally broke.
Kira, you've won…
0o0o0o
Tap, scratch, tap, tap. The sound of a shinigami who'd played the viewer, writing out the characters for moon, night, and god.
How ironic. L would have laughed at that, maybe.
Light imagined he could hear Ryuk's pen dragging along the paper, severing his lifeline. Would the shinigami make it painless and easy, or make him pay for all the sins he'd committed?
It didn't matter in the end.
Ryuk's pen traced the last line, and a deep shudder went through Light's body, filling him with an abiding peace.
This is it, then, Kira.
Forty, thirty-nine, thirty-eight, thirty-seven…
Kira was screaming and denying the act who's clock had been counting down since the second the black notebook had dropped from the sky.
Thirty-three, thirty-two, thirty-one...
Light handed his life over to the shinigami, and they parted ways, their deal at it's end. He gave up the fight to keep his fate out of the hands it had always been in.
Twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven...
He'd given it to L, anyways.
Twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty…
Kira's reign of justice was over.
Eighteen, seventeen, sixteen…
Light closed his eyes and imagined a night, just one night. He imagined L's kiss one last time, and his bruised skin, and the way he'd say 'I love you'.
Twelve, eleven, ten...
I'll see you again, my rival and best friend, the place we'll always end up.
Light Yagami breathed his last in the bloodied staircase where he'd lost the game, held in the arms of his detective, having finally given up.
Just like L, he died with words he'd waited too long to say still forming on his lips.
Four, three, two…
Wait, Light thought. L.
L, I lo-
Zero.
0o0o0o
It wasn't supposed to end this way.
It wasn't supposed to end with Light's bloodied body cradled in his arms. It was supposed to end with soft kisses and gentle touches and blue ink and tears, after a long life together, ready to return to heaven.
It was supposed to end differently, and maybe it would have if L had chosen differently all those years ago.
Hadn't chosen his angel.
Maybe they weren't angel and demon after all. Maybe they were simply monsters, kindred monsters.
Not the kind that caused unseen trouble or stole children or sucked away dreams or blood. The worst kind, the ones who wore the human mask so well they almost convinced themselves they enjoyed it.
The kind that devoured to feed a hunger they didn't feel. The most human kind.
They were lying monsters trying to forget that they weren't really human.
0o0o0o
I loved you too much, Light.
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Light-kun. I'm sorry for everything. For pretending that I was fireproof. For our games. For not being able to talk normally. And living in our past days and circumstance. I'm sorry for the Kira Case.
L bent down and kissed Light. He kissed Light like the world was ending. He kissed his rival and worst enemy and best friend into darkness and oblivion and the end of nuance and words and tap scratch tap tap patterns.
He felt Light's last breath, soft and wracked with agony. More a gasp than a breath.
He felt the moment when his tortured angel's life ceased and his heart stopped it's march to kneel before Death.
Light Yagami had tried to be a god and died alone in a stairwell, bleeding from six gunshot wounds.
He'd played the judges to reach the top and fallen.
He'd lost their game, six years later.
Light's kiss tasted of blood and sugar and fire. L knew his taste.
L whispered the truth as the last thing they both heard, as a replacement for the words 'I love you'.
'I win, Light-kun.'
L saw Light die, and closed his eyes and cried.
I'm sorry for falling in love with you.
0o0o0o
This time, it had started when they were seventeen and twenty-four. It didn't always. Maybe somewhere else, it started at twenty and twenty-three.
Light Yagami was seventeen when he picked up the black notebook that fell from the sky and started writing names.
L was twenty-four when he heard about Kira and started to focus more on his new case than Beyond for once.
Light was seventeen when he found his rival taunting him across TV and started playing the game that was offered.
L was twenty-four when Kira became more than his average case because he'd accepted the offer to play.
Light was seventeen when he met the man with messy black hair and dark circles under his eyes and that man became his world.
L was twenty-four when he met the young man with an arrogant smile and sometimes-red, sometimes-brown eyes and that man became his angel.
Light was seventeen when he fell in love with his detective, someone he knew only as L.
L was twenty-four when Kira became more than a killer and took on human form and he fell in love with his main suspect.
Light Yagami was seventeen when he killed his best friend and the side of him that loved the elysian man.
L was twenty-four when Light killed him, and he'd never wished more that it was Kira who dealt the blow instead.
It has been six years since and Light Yagami is twenty-three and his eyes are never red anymore and never will be again. Not this time.
0o0o0o
I told you in the very beginning, angel, that we are nothing but a story with no hero and no villain. We have lived before and will again, because we cannot help falling in love.
It's only human.
We have existed since the beginning, not always the same young man with eyes that are sometimes red and sometimes brown and the raven-haired man with shadows under his eyes, but our story has.
We are destined to fall in love, in a relationship that neither of us deserve, biting as it is, and use each other until we are consumed by the fire we've lit.
We are destined to end the same way every single time. We are destined to whisper 'I win' instead of 'I love you' because it is all we know how to do.
I see the look in your eyes sometimes (yours, not Kira's), and I think you remember how many times we've already done this dance.
I will never tell you that I remember too, because I know what happens when our story is truly done, and I do not ever want you to be hurt like that.
Ours is a story of firewood and falling angels and addiction and I-hate-you-I-love-you. It is the worst and best thing I know, and the only.
Our game will end once we figure out a way to stop breaking beautiful things.
When it's all over, I'll tell you that I love you and that it wasn't just a game.
Please, all I'm asking is that you believe that I'm not lying for once.
0o0o0o
L tore himself into tiny paper pieces that scattered in the wind and caught on blood-crusted hair and fluttered past the remnants of blue-inked promises and rules about worlds and different universes and prisons with gilded bars. All the earthly red strings around him led to Light, and they fluttered in the wind, paper at their ends like the kites that are said to grant wishes.
He became a story of how fast firewood burns and angels, fallen and not, and their gods, and games, and circumstance, and many-sided obsession and the words 'just for tonight'.
Have you heard the story? I'm sure you have. It starts like this.
'Humans are drawn to light as much as they run from darkness…'
Does it sound familiar?
It's the story of how L Lawliet fell in love with an angel.
0o0o0o
'At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman.'
-Albert Camus
(Do you hear the bells?)
:: We are all accidents, attributed to human error, to circumstance, to free will
-LyingMonsters, the one who thinks about the individual threads in all the red strings