Fourteen reviews on one chapter…? -faints-
-wakes up five minutes later- Oh. Now it's fifteen. Yay!
I'm in a state of utter disbelief at all of the activity my stories got last night (er… actually super early this morning, but oh well!) after I went to sleep. Hey, even caffeine-addict insomniacs need to sleep sometimes!
Disclaimer: See previous chapter.
"But I still don't understand how a person can manage to break a car's windshield with a freaking cheeseburger…"
Despite the fact that she had heard the story a day ago, Katherine was still in awe over the fabled "Cheeseburger Incident." She also planned never to eat fast food again in her own car.
"It wasn't the actual cheeseburger that did it," Matsuda said. "The bread was stale."
"Okay, okay, okay," she said. "Let me get this straight. The bread on the cheeseburger somehow magically flew out of your hands and off of the burger, and then into the windshield in the patrol car, thus breaking it and causing Aizawa-san to attempt to kill you?"
"He was the one who slammed on the brakes!"
"It was that stale?"
"Yeah. And since I was still just in training, he had to pay for the fix."
"Ouch."
"Would've been a bigger ouch if he had found me when I hid."
Katherine shook her head again. "A fucking cheeseburger…."
"Would you two stop talking about fast food? You actually have work to do, you know."
She glared at Aizawa. Still grumbling about cheeseburgers, Katherine picked up a stack of papers from the table and pretended to read them. Paperwork wasn't really her strongpoint, especially not when she was distracted by cheeseburgers, hunger, lack of caffeine in her bloodstream, and a certain detective glancing back at her ever few minutes. Her main problem was definitely the latter of the list, especially after the previous night with her stupid feelings and her equally impaired mind keeping her from sleeping. He had probably done it on purpose to confuse her. And indeed, it had confused her. It had confused the hell out of her. There was one thing about this attempt of his to confuse her that was getting on her last nerve more than anything.
That was the fact that it was actually working. She had no idea how she felt anymore. Her tendency to over think things had taken over the night before, and – he was freaking looking at her again. She almost wanted to smack that evilly innocent look off of his face… but that would have been like hitting a puppy. Hitting puppies was just mean; she didn't want to hit a puppy, even if it was an evil, mocking puppy that was only pretending to be cute to infuriate her further.
L suppressed a grin as he looked back at the computer screens in front of him. His plan was working perfectly, judging by exasperatedly confused and frustrated she appeared to be. She would probably want to talk about things later on that day, even if she didn't figure out why she was so infuriatingly confounded. He glanced back at her again, but was met with a glare that was icy enough to freeze hell over. So it was only a quick, half-a-nanosecond glance. He wondered vaguely if all women were so intimidating when they were incensed over something.
Stupid freaking… argh! Katherine felt her fingers twitch around the stack of papers she was still pretending to sort through as she fought an urge to pull out her own hair in frustration. If he'd stop with this looking at me thing, then I might be able to think logically.... I usually have no problem with logical thinking but Mr. Super-sleuth over there has purposely cut my last few strings of sanity for which I would really like to freaking smack him. Stupid freaking puppy. Stop looking at me, dammit! At least I have my evil glare on my side. Though it may have just scared the bajeezus out of Mattie. Whoops.
Katherine glanced over to her side to see that Matsuda had just cautiously moved over to the very end of the couch. He definitely looked scared out of his mind, and it was absolutely pitiful. She laughed a little, then went back to her paperwork.
"Hey," he said quietly.
"Hmm?"
"Why's Ryuzaki keep looking at you?"
She flipped her hair from behind her ear to hide her blushing. That idiot just had to be so obvious about randomly looking at her at inappropriate moment. She glared at L again, though he currently had his eyes on the computers in front of him.
"Because he's a weirdo. But I think that's already been established in the past. He probably thinks that I'm Kira or something, now that there's a ninety-nine percent chance that Light-kun isn't."
"The homicidal glare probably isn't helping your case much, you know."
"I'll stop glaring at him when he stops looking at me."
She again glared at L, who looked back at his grin, attempting to pass a laugh off as a cough. The glare was scary enough, but it seemed less threatening when she was blushing.
The hours passed by slowly that day. There were more Kira murders in the newspapers, of course, but that wasn't much a surprise, considering the miraculous return Kira had made the day earlier after a two week absence. Many people were now saying that Kira had only been taking a break, and that this was the same Kira as before and all the regular yada-yada blah bull-crap of people who couldn't piece together the fact that the murders were patterned differently than before. Those types of people – particularly the ones that actually supported Kira – were the same types of people that made Katherine want to send a meteor crashing into the Earth at times.
If Katherine or L had pointed this out to Matsuda and Aizawa this quickly, then they both would have immediately suspected something was up. L had to play out his paranoid-of-Light act, and Katherine just had to act like a possible Kira suspect who was pissed of about the fact that she was a possible Kira suspect. L had finally managed to pick up on some acting. Compared to the rather amusing and yet unskilled act he had played as a diehard Misa-Misa fan back at the college in order to get her arrested, he had improved tenfold. Of course, being paranoid of Light was an easier act to play, considering how Light actually was Kira.
L wasn't at all surprised when someone sat down next to him at around midnight. He didn't have to look over to confirm who it was, especially not when he heard the sound of the top of a soda can popping. There was, however, no speech. None whatsoever. This was a little unnerving and made him almost afraid to look over, for fear of having his eyes gouged out by a very irritated female. However, curiosity conquered fear, and he found himself looking over after only a second of wondering whether or not he should.
The first thing he noticed was that there was a muscle twitching above the left corner of Katherine's lip. This was a bad sign, and it was made even more so accompanied by that same evil glare as earlier.
Keeping her glare going was hard while being giving that curious look that made her want to pat him on the head like a puppy. Especially the slight head tilt and the fingernail biting. She halfway wondered if L was doing it on purpose, but it was doubtful that he was. She couldn't keep it up. She sighed and shook her head.
"You're a butt," she said exasperatedly. "You know that?"
Now he looked confused, and almost a little offended.
"No…" he said slowly, "I wasn't fully aware."
"And you look like a freaking puppy when you're confused."
He blinked a few times, wondering if this was an insult. It couldn't possibly be a compliment.
"No," she said, "more like a cross between a puppy and a panda cub. Yeah."
"… What?"
"You heard me," she said. "You're a panda puppy."
She was indeed good at masking her true tone. Katherine's completely toneless voice didn't imply whether this was meant to be a joke or an insult. L wasn't sure whether to be offended or amused. He decided to stick with puzzled after a moment of pondering. She wasn't making any sense, after all.
"A… 'panda puppy?' That would be a biologically impossible crossbreed. Dogs are–"
"I know," she said impatiently, "no need to go all scientific. But I'm telling you. You're a panda puppy."
"How am I something that couldn't possibly exist?"
"I don't know. It's not my fault you're a panda puppy, I'm just pointing out facts here."
This wasn't going at all how he had planned. She had failed to make any mention of the previous night or the fact that his looking at her was irritating. Katherine was smart enough to figure out his plan, however – that was obvious enough. He had hoped that things would go according to plan, but there had still been a twenty-five percent chance that they wouldn't. It seemed that his luck was against him if she was going to keep on with this "panda puppy" nonsense. Although, it was hard not to imagine what a cross between a panda and a dog would look like at her constant mention of it… probably quite strange….
"You look confused," she said.
"Really?"
"Now you sound irritated," she said, nodding. He sighed and looked back at the computer screens. "And exasperation sets in."
"Why are you narrating me?"
"Is it annoying you?"
"Slightly."
"That's why."
"Oh," L said. Two could easily play at that game. "I see."
This seemed to infuriate her entirely. He remembered that Katherine had previously mentioned that the phrase "I see" had the same meaning as "fuck off and leave me alone" in her vocabulary, and it annoyed her to no end. She looked absolutely outraged at his use of the expression, which was rather entertaining.
"Y– y-you– you – you son of a bitch!"
Okay, maybe not so entertaining. More scary. Yes, scary was the word.
"You have no right to annoy me, you've been annoying me all freaking day!"
Her last word was accompanied by a rather painful poke in the arm. However, she had brought up the subject she had been skirting around since they had begun talking. Despite the fact that there was now a sharp pain on his upper arm, things were now turning to his advantage. She realized this suddenly and swore under her breath, then swore under her breath again when she realized he had heard her the first time.
"Alright, fine," she snapped, "yes, your constant staring annoyed me. Happy? I'm guessing that's what your intention was, as some sort of stupid revenge. You could have just said I was bothering you, that's what friends do. Talk. Com-mune-eh-cate."
"There is no need to enunciate your words so assertively," he said with a sigh. "That wasn't my intention, you do not particularly 'bother' me, as you put it, and it was not revenge for anything."
"Then why," she asked in irritation, "did you use the forbidden phrase?"
"You mean 'I see?'" She made a noise of absolute disgust. "I do not appreciate being narrated."
"You could've just said so!"
"I did."
"No you– oh, you did… sorry. Wait!" she added. "I shouldn't be apologizing, you should be explaining!!"
"I planned to," he said. "I am honestly surprised that you did not deduce my plan from the beginning, I guessed that you were eluding what was on your mind for the sake of avoiding speaking of it."
"Well apparently your little plan was more cunning than you thought," she said irately, "because I don't have a bloody clue what's going on."
She saw a look on his face that indicated he was concealing a rather smug grin. She sighed in annoyance at this, but didn't say anything. Despite the fact that she was sure that it was simple and would definitely make her feel stupid for not figuring out, Katherine really wanted to know what this "plan" of his had been. It definitely involved the hugging that had set her mind to kill mode in the first place. She glanced at the computer screens to see that he was pulling up something on the Misa monitoring one. It was titled… "Research." He minimized it before she could read it. She gave an irritated growl.
"This document," he said, indicating the button at the bottom of the screen on the taskbar, "is, obviously, research of mine. I grew bored with keeping a constant eye Yagami-kun when it was obvious he wasn't going to do anything besides complain when I would interrogate him, so I started looking up things."
She gave an unexpected laugh. L looked at her oddly. "Porn?" She laughed when the look of question turned into an all-out glare. "Sorry," she said, still laughing. "Couldn't help it."
"Anyway," he continued, "as I was basically always too busy working on cases in the past to ever gain any 'friends,' and the concept still did puzzle me somewhat, I decided to research different meanings of the word, as well as a few other related subjects."
"So this was some weird test of how a friend would react to constant annoyance by another friend?"
"No," he said. "Let me finish, please. Besides friendship, I looked up related subjects, as I said."
"Like friendship is related to love, and also… enemy-ship? Good enough word. And similar things. And the boundaries between and whatnot?"
"Right."
"You were bored." She shrugged. "I also research strange things when I get bored. I can practically recite the history of piracy at this point."
"You aren't catching on at all," he said with a sigh. "I researched friendship and realized that I may consider…"
He trailed off. The words seemed to have escaped L's mind entirely. Just the thought of saying it made him feel nervous. He hadn't expected it to be this nerve-racking, just to say a few simple words. Yes, he may consider her as more than a friend, but what if the reason she couldn't catch on what he was talking about was because she only looked at him as a friend and nothing else at all.
"Consider…?" she prompted him.
"I may consider you as… possibly… a little more than a friend."
… Oh. That explains it. She watched his eyes widen nervously as he heard his own words. And there're the scared puppy eyes…. I should probably say something so he doesn't think I hate him or anything… but… I don't know what… but dammit… he could just be trying to trick me….
"R… really?" was all she could manage in her now terribly confused state. She swallowed the lump in her throat. "How much more?"
L's eye twitched slightly in response to the question, and he immediately became refocused on the computers in front of him, as well as very intent in chewing off the fingernail on his index finger. Katherine almost allowed herself an aww at the absolute cuteness of his confusion. However, he wasn't going to get away with not answering her question. Now she was curious. When she was curious, she got answers.
"Ryuzaki," she said, poking his shoulder. This action made him jump. "Don't get paranoid," she said quietly. "It was just a question." He gulped noiselessly, but still didn't answer. She sighed. "I'm going to keep poking you if you don't answer me." He didn't answer. She poked him again.
"W… with the research that I did, I would say there's probably about a ninety-nine percent chance that I might possibly have a… a small crush on you."
"So you devised a plan to see whether or not I felt the same way?" He nodded without glancing over. "Well, it was a well devised plan, I'll grant you that. But there was an easier way to do things that you completely overlooked." He looked over curiously now. "It's really a simple thing. And it's called com-mune-eh-cay-shun."
"But–"
"You didn't want to say anything if you didn't know how I felt?"
"Y… yes."
"But you already did," she pointed out.
He seemed to ponder this for a moment, his eyes swiveling upward to stare at the ceiling as he did so. After a moment of thought, they came back down and locked with hers expectantly.
"Then… do you?"
She imitated L's eye swiveling purposely for a moment, as though thinking. She already knew her answer, but imitating him was amusing.
"Well," she said, "I believe there is a one hundred percent that I may have a 'small' crush on you, a ninety percent chance that I may have a slightly larger crush on you that I might think, and a one hundred percent chance that I will be imitating you a lot more in the future because it is quite entertaining to me. And just for clarification," she added, looking back at him, "there is a five hundred and twenty-six percent chance that you are, indeed, a panda puppy."
"Well…" he said slowly, apparently ignoring the latter of her statements, "if you seem so sure of this, then why did you panic last night?"
"I had a whole twenty-four hours to think about it. Granted, someone was staring at me for half the time, but I managed to figure it out."
"Sorry…" he said sheepishly, looking back at the computer screens.
"Aww, I'm not mad," she said, moving over closer to him. She turned and wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her head sideways on his shoulder, which seemed to startle him for a moment. "I'm just glad my panda puppy wasn't playing a trick on me."
"You thought I was playing a trick on you…?"
She picked her head up and looked at him in a puzzled manner. "I told you, I thought it was some kind of mean revenge for me confusing you all the time…."
"That would have been rather unkind."
"I just said that." She smiled for a moment. "Aren't you supposed to be smart?"
She received another wide-eyed look of confusion, instead of his signature irritated glare that she had been expecting and somewhat looking forward to. It was just as cute as the confused look.
"… Yes?"
Smiling again, Katherine let her arms move back to her own personal bubble of space. She moved next to L so she was facing the same direction he was facing and rested her head on his shoulder again. He looked down at her for a moment to see she had closed her eyes. Then a completely incoherent thought crossed his mind.
"What exactly is a panda puppy?"
She looked up at him as she opened her eyes, amusement shining in them. "You should know better than anyone, being the only one in existence and all. It's a good thing I claimed you before Kira-face could go claiming you when you chain yourself to him."
And there was the glare she'd been looking for. She grinned evilly in response before shutting her eyes again, in a more comfortable than tired manner.
EEP! Now I'm up to 16 reviews on the previous chapter!! That's an uberly major record.
Mucho thanks to EVERYONE who has left the 125 comments on this story, to the 41 favoriters and to the 50 alerters. I love you all!
I now declare halfenburgen to be the word of the day. Thanks to Sabext (whose name I spelled CORRECTLY this time) for the awesomely cool word. Cactus will continue its roll as "word of the week" after a day-long vacation to Arizona.
To Miorochi in regards of suggestion – I did consider that, actually, but I came up with a different-yet-similar idea that will happen at around the time of the Yotsuba-finding. Involves an acquaintance, in a manner of speaking, yes, but not in Yotsuba, but it is tied in with the whole Yotsuba deal.
Don't wanna spoil it, so won't say anything else :)
Again, MANY thanks to everyone, especially the people who comment regularly on my other stories, too!!
