B: Haa? You wish for the LightxNatalie? Well, once she's out I can assure you there will be a bit of that (and then a section of major LSam before going back to Lightalie :T Yeah).
Ahh, Three Days Grace used to be my favorite band, haha~ Oho, you haven't played the Pocky Game yet? It's rather fun, unless you're playing with someone that takes it seriously... e3e The nieces and I play it every time we get a box - though Real-life Anna less than Real-life Sierra.
Oh, trust me, I wouldn't mind dating the crazy either. I just wouldn't be able to keep it up for long 'cause, well, BB-crazy is a crazy that means any relationship just won't last. But hey, go ahead and take him! He's completely free~
What other...fandoms...
I really like the Kagerou Project. If you even know what that is. It's like my favoritest thing ever right now. *begins to ramble about favorites* I really like the Shuuen no Shiori Project too, plus Durarara. I love, love the RPG game Ib. Ahhh, I'm only just getting into Attack on Titan, but I find it really interesting so far. Yosh. Any you, dear? *grins* Oh, and yes, I do have a Tumblr. I just don't know how to work it, so I just sorta follow people that seem interesting and like things I, well, like.
...Teach me.
Okay so, I'm stupid and awkward so I'll just put your Bond list here. I'm just gonna...copy and paste what I said last time...
So, the first stage is when the Real-World person is able to hear an occasional thought from their mind-sync, while in the company of said person. The more time spent together and interacting, the faster this stage progresses. How comfortable they are together also helps stimulate (or stagnate) the progress. It is the same for every stage, with a few exceptions. Second stage is when the DN-world character can hear the Real-World person's thoughts in return. This is still only while they are nearby each other. Exercising the abilities of this stage can also speed this up. The third stage enables the ability to hear each other's thoughts even while far apart, even if one is on the other side of the world. After this, it progresses in relation to how freely they allow the other to read their thoughts, not by how much time spent together. The fourth stage enables each side of the Bond to feel the other's emotions. The fifth stage enables access to the other's subconscious. This is most often while they are both asleep, though there are exceptions and, when one mind is exceptionally strong over the other, they can take momentary control of the others' subconscious while awake. The sixth stage is when they start feeling each other's pain. However, there is no actual damage taken by the one not physically hurt. It is at this point that both would enter the In-Between at the same time, whether or not they are in physical contact. Around a week after the sixth stage is reached, there is the 'Jump' to the final stage, which I'm sure you understand. There are only three things that can disrupt or break the Bond at that point: poison/drugs, death, and one other thing that hasn't been broached upon yet.
Yeah... so... Yeah...
The LSam is just so wonderful, isn't it? Ahh, but I can't help but love Beyond. On those children's rhymes, they're just...wondrous. I recall having to do a speech in English class last year, so I chose the topic of death and brought those rhymes up. *nods*
Yaoi, eh? I never thought much about that pairing... Weird, huh? But ahh, I'm sure it's cute~~
Oh, shush. I never stopped caring.
Mrs. Lawliet: Unfortunately BB needs an outlet for his frustration. *sigh* That poor, innocent wall. He should be charged with assault. ...Even though he's kinda a murderer already anyway.
Oooh, do tell me the results~
Codebreakeryuuki: BBxWall? Oh my. This exists now. It. Exists. Yes.
Pshah, don't worry about not reviewing~ I'm glad you still enjoy my writing, aha.
I hope you enjoy the record of Beyond Birthday's past, as written below.
The man with the blood spots in his handkerchief wasn't the only human in Beyond's neighborhood that he surveyed. He waited for numerous deaths; mostly of older people who would die peacefully in their beds, or would grow sick and end up in the hospital. It was to see if the numbers were always right, see? It almost became like a game to him. Eventually, he saw a lady meant to die soon; a lady with a red scarf that always walked down their sidewalk in the morning at around 10:15. She seemed fine, though, and so the day the numbers indicated, B wandered after her to see what would happen. He turned the corner as she had and froze, watching her as a car veered from the road and slammed into her. Her spine snapped, he heard it, and her eyes were wide and empty. The red numbers and letters blinked out on impact. He stared for awhile, some part of him scared out of its wits. The lady's blood was seeping down the brick wall she was pinned to, running and dripping down to the sidewalk beneath her. A pool of blood began to form; crimson red just like the letters and numbers above everyone's heads. Red like her scarf. The man driving the car was slumped over in his seat, leaning on the steering wheel. The side of his head was caked in blood, and his eyes were closed. He looked at the numbers. They told him he was alive; that he would stay alive for a few more years.
He eventually snapped out of it and ran back home, stumbling once on his young feet and scraping his knee. It was ignored, and he ran on, back to the small house he lived in. His mother immediately embraced him. Considering he was but three, his mother was scared out of her mind when she didn't see him in the yard. "I turn my back on you for one second, and you're already off and running. What am I gonna do with you?" At first he was happy to be with his mother, a mommy he could have forever and ever, like she often promised him. But when she stopped hugging him and began to scold him, he looked up at the numbers that he now understood, and the numbers didn't tell him she had an eternity. No, she only had three years. He eyed his father as Mommy scolded him for wandering off, and saw clearly he had even less time. He was initially terrified, like they had already died and he was all alone, but then he felt a little better as he was distracted again. He was, after all, but a child.
A week later, something occurred to him: other people saw the names and numbers too, right? (He'd discovered those letters coincidentally spelled out people's names; how convenient.) So he walked to his dad that morning and said, "Daddy, I have a question." His words were warped with his three-year-old mouth, but they were surprisingly understandable for his age.
His father; with his black hair, hard grey eyes, and sturdy body; looked at him from his newspaper. Showing acknowledgement.
"What do the numbers mean?" This would be his test. Surely a grown-up would know what they meant already if B could figure it out, so this question would indirectly ask the question he was really asking: do you see them too?
"What numbers?" his father asked him.
"The ones above people's heads," B replied patiently.
"Sorry, boy-o, there are no numbers over people's heads that I know of."
The three-year-old boy thought over it, then decided to confide in his father. "But I see letters and numbers above people's heads, Daddy."
His father thought on that, setting the newspaper down on the table and getting into his thinking position: putting a cupped hand over his mouth while looking off to the lower left. "Well, y'are a very smart kid, ya know. Maybe ya've got one o' them special things where ya see things other people don't. Like how some people can remember dates and exactly what happened on each of 'em, and the people who can solve complex math problems in their heads."
B looked down and nodded. He thought it was probably more than that. It wasn't just some special thing; he could tell when people died. And that was stuff he saw in movies that he watched, not something people just had. Otherwise people wouldn't be so surprised when people died.
His father's hand came down and ruffled his hair. "Maybe y'are just a special kid, eh, boy-o?"
"Daddy," said B, "it tells me when people die, though."
The hand gave pause, and there was silence. He looked up to his father to see doubt in his expression. "That… is something I don't think is possible, boy-o. Sorry."
B didn't argue, just nodded, apologized, and went back to playing with his three-year-old toys.
He came to notice the numbers more often, though, and kept being reminded of the deaths that will inevitably come. His mother in three years, his father in two, and his brother sooner…. He wondered if they'd die horrible deaths like that lady with the red scarf. He wondered if he'd watch it happen. He decided he hoped he wouldn't see it. But it would happen, and he knew it. They'd die, and he'd lose them. His heart began to grow cold. Death was a part of life, and he had accepted it. He would see a newborn baby and not think of hope and life, but instead would be reminded that that baby would die eventually, just like everyone else. There was no hope in birth, for Death was always waiting, always there. He accepted it, Death, and he allowed it to become a part of him. And yet, it was the death of his brother that got him to really feel it, because it was one of those close to him that he awaited the death of.
His brother wasn't necessarily family, really. He was a boy they'd found in an alley soon before BB was born, all alone, nibbling on a piece of stale bread. His mother took him in, feeling kind. B's father had just gotten a promotion. His name was Ferdinand, and he'd been such a happy child upon first earning himself a home. However, he grew sick, and he never seemed to be able to get better. 'Heart problems,' the doctor told them in bluntest terms. He couldn't play outside or move too much, let alone go to school, and he always stayed in bed.
He was six years old when taken in, seven when diagnosed with his illness, and ten when he died. The truth was, he could have gotten surgery, and Mommy and Daddy tried to raise up enough to pay for it. It took years, but they were hopeful to get it for him and save his life. Ferdinand, however, somehow knew he would die before he could be saved, and that's what B liked about him. Sometimes, on worse days, when he tried to get up and move around, he'd grow utterly pale and cadaverous. Eventually he couldn't come out of his room for meals, though on his better days he'd come out anyway, walking oh-so-slowly so as not to change the rate of his heart.
It was a funny thing, actually, when B turned four and Ferdinand seemed to start getting better. He could walk again, and he actually had some color in his cheeks. He even laughed at one point, and Mommy and Daddy were convinced that he was on the mend. Beyond was only watching from his little corner filled with toys, staring at the numbers, thinking how it must hurt to be hit with death so abruptly when you had only just found hope at last. His mother encouraged B to smile with them and have fun, and he did join them, but he did not smile. He knew that Ferdinand would die in about a week, without a doubt. Fate. Death.
He tried telling his mother this, if only so she wouldn't suffer so badly when the blow came. So one night, he waited for his mother to tuck Ferdinand into bed, and met her outside of his room as she clicked the door shut. He looked up at his mother. Her long, deep brown hair swept down to her waist, her soft grey eyes gentle; happy. Hopeful. She was skinny, so skinny, no matter what she ate, but even though her hands seemed somewhat knobby and you could see her spine beneath the skin on her back, she was still so lovely. B thought that perhaps he got his body type from her. Then, perhaps, the strength was from his father.
"Mommy," he said, looking up at her. "Please don't get your hopes up too high."
His mother blinked. "What? Why, honey?"
"Because I don't want you to hurt so much when he dies."
She frowned. "Stop talking about your brother like he's dying tomorrow!" she scolded in hushed tones. "He has a lot of life in him yet!"
"He's dying soon, Mommy; he's dying next week," he told her, his eyes wide. Worried. Sad? "Why don't you believe me?"
She sighed and knelt down on the ground in order to be closer to his height. Her hand went to his face gently as a mother's hand would, her thumb caressing his cheek. "Honey, have a little hope, okay? Ferdinand is going to get surgery soon, okay? And then he'll start getting better. Stop thinking so negatively, honey, and maybe stop thinking so much about death."
But Death lives in our house, Mommy. Death is everywhere. "Okay," he said, and she gave him a kiss on the forehead.
"That's good, honey," she smiled, and ruffled his hair before walking away down the hall. He watched her go until she turned and he couldn't see her anymore. He was interested in how you could see the name and lifespan of a person only if you saw them the right way…. It centered on the eyes. The eyes…. Fitting, he supposed. His sight was special, and he knew that, and perhaps the eyes could be the doorway to the soul, as so many people believed. And they were right, in a way. The eyes could tell a lot about a person….
Beyond turned, and was about to walk away, but he heard Ferdinand call his name softly from inside his room. He paused and blinked, then looked back to the door that led to his supposed brother's bedroom before opening the door as quietly as possible and peering in. His brother was looking at nowhere with brown eyes that said he was tired. Weary. His hands gripped the blankets gently, and his light brown hair was only slightly askew.
"I heard you out there…," he said. His voice was still soft. B made his way over to his bedside in order to hear him better. "I am going to die, aren't I?"
Beyond only gazed directly at him without expression, not saying a word. In the silence, Ferdinand's gaze shifted from the thing only he could see to B. They looked each other in the eyes for a second or two before Ferdinand smiled and closed his eyes. Accepting it. Accepting Death. Beyond respected him for that.
"I knew I'd die," he said. "I've known for a long time now. I just felt it." He breathed a soft sigh. "I guess I'm not even afraid. I saw it coming, and… well, I guess I'm used to death." His words held weight. Maybe he'd been speaking of his now-nonexistent parents. After all, he had been an orphan. He looked at B again. "But you understand something about death, don't you? Something more…."
Beyond just watched him. Nodded once to indicate he was right. He wondered about how he knew when he himself would die. The one thing Beyond couldn't do was tell his own death date. Yet here was a boy without the sight, and…. Well, it made B look up to him all the more, even though he knew the boy was but mortal and he would be dying the very next week.
Ferdinand smiled again. "Thank you for being honest," he whispered.
B watched his adoptive brother die the next week. He stayed nearby him the rest of the next seven days. Perhaps there was a part of him that wanted to make sure he wasn't lonely in his last days, or perhaps it was just a morbid curiosity. Maybe he wanted to see just how he'd die, when his health seemed to be getting better rather than worse. Wanted to see exactly what the numbers foretold.
He grew closer to his not-brother that week, and he found himself smiling around him. There even came a point where Ferdinand got him to laugh. It was the laugh of happiness and amusement; one untainted by death, even though Beyond still knew somewhere that Ferdinand would be dying very soon. It would be his last happy laugh. Ferdinand began to laugh with him until it looked like he couldn't breathe. He leaned against the head of the bed, still laughing breathlessly. "Could you get me a glass of water?" he asked Beyond, and the four-year-old beamed and nodded. He exited the room, heading down the pale hallway to his kitchen, where he climbed up onto the counter so he could reach the cups. From there he filled the cup with water from the sink, and set it down near the edge before slipping down to the ground. He reached up to grab the cup from the counter, then headed back to his brother's room. Ferdinand was still leaning his head back on the headboard, his face sickly pale. His breathing was shallow and his hand was on his chest. His eyes were staring at something on the ceiling.
"I have your water," he told his brother, and began to walk toward him. Ferdinand shifted his head and looked at his brother. The red symbols above him were flickering. Beyond could hear Ferdinand's breath catch, and then come again, like he were choking, or out of breath after running a very long way. He made a sort of noise. It was not a word. Perhaps more of choked sound of surprise, or pain, or something. But Beyond could not identify it. For a moment, they looked deep into each other's eyes. Beyond could see something there. A look of acceptance. Then the eye contact was lost, and his chest heaved and he curled forward, clutching his chest, making a choked sound of pain again. Then he unfurled and bent backwards, his hands ever clutching at his chest, all the while making strangled, agonized sounds in that choking, breathless way. He stopped moving eventually, his chest still heaving a few more times before there was a horrible gasp of air, then nothing. It was silent.
Beyond was expressionless. The symbols were gone. The water and its cup were on the ground, but he didn't notice. B could only stare. His eyes were wide. All was still. The blankets did not stir, and Ferdinand's chest no longer moved gently up and down. He thought of the horrible way it had heaved. Not even the symbols swirled, as they were gone now. Ferdinand's body looked clammy, and his brown eyes that had… that had had something in them were now empty and had begun to glaze over with the look of the dead. B couldn't move. He wasn't so sure what he felt at that moment, but he couldn't move.
Eventually his mother called his name, but he did not respond. "Are you in your brother's room?" she called. "Ferdinand? How are you doing?" The door opened behind Beyond, but he didn't look. He was still staring at Ferdinand. His mother presumably froze in the door. "Oh God," she whispered. "Oh God; oh God." She suddenly rushed forward to Ferdinand's bed, her long hair flying behind her. Beyond felt a rush of wind as she passed. "Ferdinand! Ferdinand, are you alright?!" She looked back to B with wide eyes. "What happened, honey? Tell me what happened! Ferdinand, honey, answer me!"
His funeral would be in two days. The next day was the day Beyond caught himself in the mirror with that scary look in his eyes. It was sharp. Cold. Even lethal. You know there's something wrong when you catch yourself in the mirror and are afraid of the look in your eyes, he thought, and laughed at it. The eyes were important, weren't they? So important. That was something to be scared of. Because then, if his eyes had scared him, there was something that he didn't know inside him somewhere, and that in itself could frighten anyone. He supposed the laughter was a way to release all of the sadness of his brother, the fear, and the tension of it all.
His mother heard his laughter, and rushed in. "Honey; what is it? What's so funny?"
He shook his head, his mouth twitching slightly, and his mother pulled him into a hug.
"Are you alright?" she asked hoarsely, kneeling in front of him.
He nodded. He thought of Ferdinand again and how they'd laughed right before he died.
He supposed his expression changed at the thought, because his mother was instantly worried. "Oh, honey; honey…. You shouldn't have had to be there when it happened…. I'm sorry…. I'm so sorry…." She began to cry softly; he could feel her chest shaking, hear her voice quivering. "You're okay, right, honey? Are you really alright?"
"I'm fine," Beyond replied, and decided to close his eyes and allow her to embrace him, even putting his own small arms around her shoulders. "I'm fine, Mommy."
The funeral was solemn and rather depressing. There weren't so many in attendance. B's father's family lived in Ireland, and didn't even know where he was, let alone that he had adopted a child named Ferdinand. His mother had almost no family to speak of, though there were a few friends of the family that came. The day was dark; sharp and clear. The air was crisp. It had been a fall day.
The family of three drove home in silence. Beyond watched colored leaves flashing by, as well as the blurs of red above pedestrians' heads. He hadn't cried yet, and he wondered idly if he was supposed to. He didn't feel quite sad anymore. Almost numb. He just accepted it, just as Ferdinand had in that moment of eye contact before he lost his senses to pain as he suffocated and soon died.
His mother retired early that night, her eyes still red from tears. Beyond only sat down in his corner in the living room, idly playing with his toys. He eventually decided to ask Daddy to have today's crossword. Upon not finding his father in the kitchen, however, he decided that maybe he would just go to bed, telling Mommy that he would be doing so. He headed down the hall, pausing at the door to Ferdinand's room. He gazed at the lines in the wood for a bit, and began to move down the hall.
It was his father's hand that stopped him. He turned around to see his father's tired face. "Let us head to another place, where we won't disturb your mummy, eh, boy-o?" he whispered. "I'd like to speak with ya." Beyond blinked, then nodded. "C'mon, then." His father turned and walked back down the hall, and Beyond followed along behind him. Once they reached the kitchen, his father turned to him. "Ya told your mummy somethin' last week, didn't ya, boy-o? Ya warned her."
Beyond gazed up into his father's hard grey eyes and nodded. "I told her what I knew, that's all."
"Ya weren't kiddin' when ya told me about that special sight, were ya, boy-o?"
"No," he responded.
He was silent for a moment. "…Ya watched him die," he said. It almost sounded like an accusation.
"I did…," B answered, and looked down to the ground.
"Look up at me, boy-o," he said, and B looked up again. "Ya knew he was gonna die, didn't ya? Ya saw it comin'."
"I did," Beyond confirmed. "I… tried to tell Mommy…."
"Ya coulda done somethin', boy-o! Think about it. Ya knew it was comin', so why didn't ya try to save him?!"
"Save him?" Beyond repeated, gazing up at his father confusedly.
"Yes, boy-o! Don'tchya think it be wise to save him when ya could?!"
"But… why would I save—?" B was cut off by his father's strong hand coming down upon him, hitting him square in the face. He found himself on the ground. He looked up at his father with a blank expression.
His father seemed to instantly regret it. "Ohh, I didn't mean that," he said, kneeling down and helping him sit up. His voice became quieter. Raspier. "I'm sorry, boy-o." B saw that his father had begun to cry. "Won't ya forgive me?"
B nodded silently, and his father sighed. They sat on the floor of the kitchen together.
"It's just…. Ya had to've gotten that power for a reason, right, boy-o? I think maybe ya got that power to save people. And, well, ya coulda helped him, couldn't ya?"
"No," B said softly. "It… doesn't work like that."
"Ya really think so?" his father asked him. "Ya don't think ya could've… done something?"
B shook his head.
"So Ferdinand… was supposed to die at ten years, and we can't do anythin' about it…." A tear leaked out of the corner of his eye. "Ya… ya coulda tried, boy-o… but I shouldn't be scoldin' you about this, eh?" He forced a smile. "Ferdinand is gone now anyhow, and all we can do now is remember him well and move on. Nothin' we can do about it, eh?" His voice trailed off, and another tear came. B watched him cry. "Y'are a strong kid, boy-o. I'm sorry for sayin' anythin'."
"It's fine, Daddy."
B's emotions began melting away over the next year. He found that his toys held no purpose than to keep him occupied. School began for him soon after Ferdinand's death. It was, in fact, his death that had delayed his arrival into Kindergarten. He did, at least, amuse himself with the crossword puzzles that would be in the paper every day but Sunday in his spare time. But then, it began taking less and less time to do them. So, he began putting his intellect to use. He'd watch the news, taking particular interest in the murder cases. Sometimes he would see a picture of a witness or a family member of the victim, and he'd smile to himself and think, They're next, and they always were. Sometimes a suspect would come up, and he would smile to himself as he realized they would be dying soon. Perhaps they'd become a victim, perhaps they'd be executed or shot down. He thought of his father's words. 'I think maybe ya got that power to save people.' He considered it. Maybe, in a way, he could. His sight could aid him in the capture of criminals, could lead him on the way to becoming some sort of detective.
In any case, the murders intrigued him, and he began collecting newspaper clippings and pictures and any information his four-year-old hands could get about the cases that interested him most. He'd pin them up on the walls of his room until eventually his walls began to become covered in papers. It didn't necessarily make him happy, and it wasn't exactly fun, but it took up his time, and it became something like a hobby. He would even occasionally solve a case, and sometimes he would be right and the police would be wrong and he would just be frustrated. He decided that maybe he'd become a policeman on homicide when he grew up, or a detective if he really wanted to be specific. In the case of serial murders, he could have a 'feeling' of who the next victim would be with his sight, and he could protect them… and then he would be the good, helpful man his father wanted him to be.
But then there was also a part of him not just intrigued by solving the case, but how the killers set it up. He couldn't help but respect some of their tactics, and began to wonder how many ways there were to kill a person; how many ways there were to go about setting up an interesting case just for show, without getting caught. He was also intrigued by just the mere idea of killing. I mean, it didn't appeal to him in the least – far from it – but it interested him that a human could kill another human…. Sure, he had his sight, and so he could easily pick out his victims…. But when death was such a misunderstood entity of the world, it was odd knowing there were humans without his sight that felt they could pick and choose who would die. It amused him how any killer who believed that was so wrong…. The deaths they created were really already planned out.
And all the while, Beyond counted down the days for his parents to live.
His father died in the winter. B said goodbye to his father that morning before school, knowing full well he'd never see him alive again. The hug goodbye he gave his father that morning lasted a little longer, had a little more heart. He watched his father walk down the sidewalk, and wouldn't move until he couldn't see him anymore. Then he turned away from the sidewalk and made his way through the snow and into his school. His thoughts were plagued with death, but he got his work done just fine. He didn't say a word in school that day.
He came home on the bus, and found his mother home; bright and happy as she made some gingerbread cookies. She must not know yet. Perhaps he hadn't died yet…. Maybe he would die at home, as Ferdinand had, and fate would force B to watch him die, too. But his father still wasn't home by 8:30, and Mommy began to worry about him. She called his cell phone three times, but to no avail. She kept assuring Beyond that the Irishman was fine and he was just late getting home, but B knew better and he thought that she was really just assuring her own worried self.
He vaguely wondered how his father had died, but supposed he would find out soon enough. He stayed up until ten o'clock, just to see, and eventually they got a call. Beyond watched his mother as she answered the phone. Watched her expression go from hopeful to horrified. Watched her complexion go pale, just as Ferdinand's had so many times before his final breath.
He was looking at her with an expectant, curious expression when she finally hung up. She didn't say anything for a few seconds, only staring at the ground. Beyond waited patiently. "H-honey…," she whispered. "Come over here, dear…. We have some bad news."
B slid off of the chair in the kitchen, leaving behind today's crossword to go over to his mother. She sat down on the green couch, and B followed suit.
"Your… your father…," she said, struggling to say the words. "Your father… is no longer with us. He… he's passed on to be with Ferdinand up in Heaven."
"What happened to him?" he asked.
"He—" She cut herself off, and stopped. There was the trail of a tear running down his mother's cheek. "There are… a lot of bad people in the world, honey…. And… well, one of those people killed Daddy…." Her voice trailed off, and she seemed to restrain a sob. "Oh, honey; honey," she murmured hoarsely, and embraced her son. He hugged her back, and she cried. B didn't. He was only silent.
The only man that would ever know of B's sight was now dead. The only man he'd trusted to tell had died.
His funeral had to be delayed until the spring, because the ground was frozen. He saw the crime scene on the news; he'd been mugged and killed in an alley and the snow had been stained red. He eventually turned five, and soon after was the funeral. By then, Death had truly become a part of B, and all emotion drained after his father was gone. A part of him still cared for his mother, but by that time his subconscious had simply accepted she would die and only counted the days until it would happen. Soon after the funeral his mother had broken down into tears, and she'd looked at B and sobbed, "Oh, honey, it's probably so hard for you; I'm so sorry…." And she cried and cried but B didn't and he wondered if maybe he should have.
Time passed. B continued to work on his cases as if it were a game. He liked to challenge himself. He moved on to first grade, though his teachers questioned whether he even belonged in that grade, taking into consideration his intellect. He became utterly quiet, and wouldn't say more than a few words each day. With time came his next birthday, and he turned six. His mother's death drew closer. "Alright, honey," his mother said one morning, when the red told him her time was near up. It was the summer; there were only a few days of school left. He looked up at her, but said nothing. Showing acknowledgement but keeping silent as he most often was nowadays. "I'm going to be going to a meeting in the city, okay? I can walk you to school, but I've gotta hurry so I can get to the train station."
B nodded and finished his breakfast before it was time to go. They walked together down the sidewalk, his small hand in hers. When it was time for her to depart, he allowed her to hug him, and accepted the kiss on the cheek without a word. "I love you, honey. Have a nice day," she smiled brightly, and then began on her way to catch the train that would mean her death. He was sitting silently in class, his math work already done, waiting for how things would end. He was honestly curious. He would be an orphan soon, wouldn't he? He wouldn't have a family anymore, because he had no one else to fall back on. Ferdinand was gone, leaving his parents. His father was gone, leaving his mother. And today his mother would be gone for good too, leaving only him. He thought of all of the people around him, doing their adding and subtracting with concentration set on their faces, still oblivious to death. Unable to grasp it quite yet. And here he was, a boy who not only understood it, but accepted it and had let it become a part of him.
He thought again of Ferdinand, and the heaving of his chest; the way his hands clutched at his heart and at his throat; the horrible, strangled sounds he made. He thought of the red snow in the alley where his father died. He thought of his mother's wet red eyes from all the tears that came with each death. He thought of the sharp, dry, not-red eyes that he saw in the mirror the day after Ferdinand's death, and for many days afterward. He thought….
A wave of emotion washed over him, and he could swear he nearly threw up right there in the classroom. For a few moments after, he still thought he would, and so he raised his hand and spoke in school for the first time in months, asking if he could use the restroom. His teacher nodded, and he made his way to the bathroom in the classroom. It wasn't a bathroom with stalls, but an individual bathroom, and so he locked the door behind him and waited to see if maybe he actually would throw up. He didn't.
But that wave of emotion hadn't left him quite yet, and suddenly he just felt the need to cry. And he did. It all came down on him at once: the loss of his short-lived childish innocence; the death of his not-brother and the horror of having to watch it happen; the murder of his father, who was the only man he had trusted with his secret; and the knowledge that his mother would be dying soon and he couldn't do anything about it. The only one he had left. And even though for the longest time he'd felt nothing, right now he felt something, and it hurt. He found himself to be collapsed on the ground, tears streaming down his face and dripping down onto his legs and arms and the floor. They tasted like salt. Salt and something missing. Something he'd lost. He tried to breathe normally, but found himself sobbing, curled up into what could almost be considered a fetal position. His breathing came shakily, and eventually he himself was trembling.
Eventually, he unfurled from his curled up position and leaned against the wall, waiting for the tears to stop. The feelings drained away again, leaving him more hollow than he'd ever felt. He knew emptiness. He'd known it for years. Yet now it seemed a little worse now that he remembered what it felt like to feel.
But he dried his tears and unlocked the door, stepping back out into the classroom with his head bowed. The math was over, and the students were relaxing until the next assignment. Beyond only walked to his seat and sat. The students knew not to try to talk to him, because he never said much, if anything at all. So, he only sat there and let the emptiness flood him again. There came a moment in this free time that a girl by the name of Olivia Hewitt brought B to attention. Her eyes were bright with the light of a child's innocence, and she just seemed the sympathetic type. Her messy brown hair was pulled into a ponytail, and bangs covered her forehead. It was her that shook his shoulder lightly, saying his name. He looked up at her with the red eyes his mother used to so often have. "Are you alright?" she asked.
The phone rang.
B felt a horrible tremor down his body, and there was another wave of queasiness. He looked at Olivia, and was comforted to find she had decades yet to live. Indeed, she'd live to be ninety-seven before her death. His mouth twitched, and he almost responded as the teacher hung up the phone. But then the teacher spoke his name, and he and Olivia turned to the teacher as she said, "Could you go to the main office? You know where it is, right?"
B nodded and stood, an accusing 'ooooh!' resounding through the room. Typical of first graders. The moment you were called down, they immediately assumed you did something wrong. "I'm sure it's nothing!" Olivia snapped, then looked to B. "Good luck," she said with a crooked-teethed smile.
He blinked, then forced a fake smile in return before he headed down to the office to be given the news that his mother's train had crashed. He received the news quietly, accepted the staff's sympathy without a word, and was told he wouldn't have to go back to class until they knew for sure his mother was alright. But he knew she wasn't. She was dead, or she was dying. Either way, it didn't matter. She was eventually found as one of the many casualties of the accident and Beyond was alone. The last person Beyond remotely cared about had died.
A friend of his mother's had to plan the funeral, and he was taken into the local orphanage. He said goodbye to the home he'd known his whole life, goodbye to the mother that had loved him and had cared for him in her lifetime…. It was a sad thing to watch her being lowered into the ground.
There came a day at the orphanage when an older man with white hair and a white mustache came in to survey the children. He talked to a few of them, and eventually came to B, greeting him by his name. "I'm Mr. Wammy," introduced Mr. Wammy, later known as Watari. B eyed his name and lifespan. Quillsh Wammy was his name, and he had a long while left before he died. He smiled at B, and B stared at him. "I'm just going to ask a few questions, is that alright?"
"It depends," B responded. "Why are you asking me, and what sort of questions are they?" It was the most he'd spoken in a long while.
The man smiled again. "You're sharp. See, I'm looking for children with minds that are above and beyond what is normal. It's so I can train them so they can better harness that intellect and then use it to its highest potential. I'll just be asking a few questions to test your intellect, okay?"
B nodded, and Mr. Wammy asked him a few simple questions that pertained to his grade level, then asked things that got increasingly harder as time went on. It was the most lengthy conversation he'd had since before his father's death. But then, as a bonus question at the end, he gave B some evidence, and told him to solve a case. Beyond only blinked, then smiled, thinking of his room with the walls covered in papers. It was the perfect challenge for him. When he answered with the killer, Mr. Wammy's eyes and mustache upturned to show he was smiling again.
"Very good," he told the orphan. "You are most certainly qualified to come to my orphanage, if you'd like. It's specifically for those with special talents and higher intellect."
He thought on it, then nodded. Maybe there he'd be challenged, and he did like a challenge. With the lack of emotions and the emptiness flooding his being, things would be rather dull without a challenge, he thought. It was one of his few small hobbies, like solving cases and filling out crossword puzzles.
"Now, agreeing to this would mean allowing me to erase your existence. There will be no records of you, and those who knew you will think you dead. Are you ready to accept this?"
He hesitated, then nodded again.
"I have one more question," he said, and Beyond tilted his head to the side. "Would you like to step in line to be the next great detective; the man to succeed L?"
L? B thought. He'd heard of him, sure. He was the nameless, faceless detective that had begun solving cases in England, oftentimes doing better than the police did. Could this be the man who had created the detective? Or perhaps… was he L himself? "Are you L?" he asked him, and the man laughed.
"Oh, no; no. I am simply L's caretaker."
L's caretaker, then…. So perhaps L was an orphan too? Did he go to Mr. Wammy's orphanage? "I would love to succeed L," he said to Mr. Wammy, and he smiled yet again.
"Pack your things tonight. We'll be leaving for Winchester tomorrow."
On the car ride to Wammy's, Mr. Wammy began to speak to B about the orphanage. "Now, at Wammy's House, we shed our identity. It's mostly a place to raise successors of L, so it requires being nameless and faceless, as he is. That is why I erased your records. According to the authorities, you don't exist. You are the first generation of his possible successors, and so you will need an alias. A letter, just as L has." The car parked, and Beyond grabbed his small bag containing all of his possessions and stepped out with Mr. Wammy to face the tall metal gates.
"From this day forward," the man said, "your name will be B."
Wammy's House was bigger than B had expected. He supposed it was a good thing, though it was the largest building he'd ever lived in. The local orphanage he'd lived in for about a month was relatively small, and his own home was miniscule in comparison. The people of Wammy's all seemed to have their own quirks and talents, and for a moment B wondered if maybe any of them had his sight too. But no one seemed to, and he didn't dare give his special secret away. He had only given that to one man, and that man's lips were sealed.
Only three days after his arrival the great L came home to Wammy's. The children all gathered round to see him downstairs. B found the convergence of children in the hallway, and made an attempt to work his way through each of them. None of them paid attention to him, only trying to see L. L. It was all about L.
He eventually reached the opening: an arch into the next room, where L stood among other children. B's eyes flicked among all of the children, seeing which one could possibly be the amazing L. They came to rest on a boy with black hair just like his, shadows under his eyes. L Lawliet. Now, the Shinigami Eyes work in such a way that the numbers gave the entire length of time a person would live. In order know how much time had already passed in their lifetime, the numbers also gave the date of birth. This boy was only eight years of age; two years older than B. But he had to be L, as all of the children looked up to him and gathered around him….
L seemed to sense B's stare, and turned to look at him. For a moment, there was eye contact. In that moment, B could see the emptiness in L. A reflection of the emptiness inside himself. They were the same grey eyes. There was something inside them that was the same. The only difference was the underlying sadness in his eyes that B could only just identify in that moment. But then his name was called and he turned away from B. Called by Watari to be brought out again to his next case. The children would protest, but he would have to leave, and it would be L's last time at Wammy's House. B watched as L put his hands in his pockets in his slouching way, listening to his voice in his response. Take into account the way he responded, how he acted. He would store every little detail that he could in this one meeting, for this was the boy he had to live up to as a successor….
Or are they just raising copies? he wondered, and looked across the room and to the opposite arch to see another boy watching L go. He had brown hair and green eyes. Eyes that had something in them that B could not quite identify. He looked to B just as B looked to him. The boy's lifespan was short. That was the moment that B first saw A.
The next day was a Sunday, and so B decided to make himself his own lunch. He got the jam out of the fridge in the large kitchen, and began to climb onto the counter to get some bread. The housekeeper caught him, and scolded him. He slid off the counter without his bread, and decided to just eat his jam plain. He didn't know where the silverware was, so he supposed he would just use his hands. B walked out of the kitchen, taking one last glance back at the stern housekeeper. He headed to the living room to find the brown-haired, green-eyed boy with the short lifespan sitting by the wall. There were other children here, sure, but he was the boy that caught B's eye. It's him again, he thought, and blinked before heading over to him.
He walked over to the boy, who was wringing his wrists with his eyes on the ground. "What's your fake name?" B asked him, tilting his head and sitting himself down before him.
The boy looked up. "…A," he answered, and B flashed a smile. He'd found another successor possibility.
"B," he grinned. "A and B. Looks like I found the guy before me."
"Oh…. Yeah…."
B watched him. He didn't seem sick at all, just nervous. How was it that his lifespan only lasted another half of a year? He tilted his head slightly. This boy didn't talk much either, just like L didn't seem to speak. That was another thing they had in common. The silence. The things left behind that were never spoken about. Whoever A was in the past, B liked him. They had a mutual silence they could share. And so, B went to the wall, too, and sat beside his peer, eating his first plain jar of strawberry jam.
They saw each other a lot. They shared the silence together after classes each day, and in these silences B supposed they became acquainted. Beyond began to recognize that something in A's eyes that he couldn't understand at first. A did have that emptiness that L and B shared, but it was also a sort of overwhelmed look. Like there was too much. It was rather contradictory. Over a few months, they actually said a few words to one another. One day, A asked him whether he thought he could succeed L, and B had looked at him.
"Succeed him?" B asked him, and A nodded. B frowned at the floor. "Of course I can succeed him… but I want to do more than that. I want to surpass him." He looked at A again. "They're teaching us to be his copies. His backups. I want to be more than a copy. I want to be better than the original; I want to beat him. Be better than him. And one day, I will be."
A looked to the ground. "Yeah…. I guess your right. And I think you will beat him, B…. I think you can do it."
B eyed him. He sounded resigned. But he did not question it. There came a time when A retreated to his room, and only came out for classes and meals. He started eating less. B came to understand what the numbers were telling him. They were foretelling not an illness or even an accident, but suicide. B accepted this just as any other death, and only counted down the days as they passed. Something began to nag at him, though, as the death date drew closer.
'I think maybe ya got that power to save people.'
He thought of his father and felt nothing, but there was a certain something that made him want to try. Try, like he hadn't done for Ferdinand, or his father, or his mother. At first he decided to just let things run their course and let A die, but there was a sort of loyalty to his dead father that hit him that night in winter, later at night when the day was winding down. A would be in his bedroom. He'd be dying tonight, and B couldn't stop thinking about it. He tried to ignore the feeling, and just continued in filling out his crossword in the room filled with all sorts of interesting things: puzzles and art supplies and Rubik's cubes and other things. But his father's words kept coming back, and so he stood abruptly. The sun was down. It was only seven o'clock, but A could die at any time…. If he could save him, he'd have to do it now.
Could he beat Death in a race to the finish? Was his father right? Could he save people, rather than just watch them die?
'Ya had to've gotten that power for a reason, right, boy-o?'
Yes. Surely he did. And he had to find that reason. Just as every human had a specific time to die, there was also a sense of fate to it all. Maybe his father was right, and B had been chosen by some higher power to beat Fate, to help people to evade the great Death. So he ran up the stairs two at a time, making his way swiftly up to the third floor, where A's room was placed. Even when he felt he couldn't breathe, he pressed on. Yes, yes, there was Fate, a specific time to die. He could do anything he wanted and it wouldn't kill him unless it was supposed to. He could live without fear. He'd bested Fear, what about Fate? Death? Could he beat them to the finish line and save A?
I've got to, he thought as his mind remembered his brother dying in his bed, the blood in the alleyway, the carnage of the train crash; the way the metal had twisted and the way his mother's head had been bashed in. He thought—
His foot hit a step, and he tripped, tumbling forward onto the next platform, his spine curling backward farther than it was supposed to. He cried out and could feel his neck threatening to snap, but he knew he wouldn't die yet, he couldn't die yet, and so he pressed his hands against the marble and took the pressure off of his neck, putting himself in a bridge before collapsing and rolling over. He scrambled up the steps to the third floor. Is Fate slowing me down? he asked no one as he reached the end of the staircase and bolted to the right, down the hallway and to his room. He pounded his fist on the door. "A!" he cried out, but there was no answer. He pounded harder. "A! A!" He gave up with that and tried the doorknob. Locked. He backed up and charged, shoulder-first. As hard as he could. He heard something crack, and wasn't sure if it was him or the door. He did it again, and again. Once more. The door cracked. He tried it again, and the door splintered, allowing it to open at last.
"A!" he cried out once more, and looked into the room, hoping he was still alive, hoping he could save him because a part of him had begun to believe that he actually could.
B hurried in, and found A in his room as he thought. He slowed, and stared at him, hanging from the ceiling, a noose around his neck. His mouth was open slightly, his eyes still open. Wide open. Slightly bulging. They were looking at him. "A," he said in a strangled voice. A's eyes flickered. He was still alive. The numbers were still above his head.
With this sign, B was about to jump back into action. Climb onto the bed and untie the rope from the ceiling fan. But A was looking at him, staring at him with empty eyes. He looked at him, and they made eye contact, just as he had with Ferdinand when he was four. B felt a burning in his throat and nostrils and eyes, almost as though he were going to cry. A's eyes showed acceptance. Letting go. Letting everything go and allowing Death to take him. Going straight for Death. But after that moment of eye contact, the red above him began to flicker and blink out, and he stared at nothing. B took deep breaths. A's eyes were still looking at him, but they weren't, they were dead, they were… he was….
All of a sudden, it all stopped. B could breathe again, and the burning in his throat left him. He stared at A's body for a minute or so as his eyes glazed over, then walked numbly out the door in search of Roger. Someone needed to be told that a child was dead.
A was buried in the graveyard out back of Wammy's House. The first human to be buried there. And if B looked, he was sure he could find who had the next reservation, and the next, and the next. Because there was no changing people's lifespans, and Death and Fate could not be bested by even him. B.
After awhile, A's death stopped bothering B so much. Rather, it began to intrigue him, just as the murder cases would. He was intrigued by the mere fact that A had taken his own life. So unnatural. Yet he came to respect anyone who could follow through with that fate. Taking one's own life…. It was like taking control of the great Death and choosing when to die. He thought it amazing that, in a way, A had chosen his own fate. And that was an amazing power indeed, just as Ferdinand had seemed to be able to foretell his own death.
B thought of his father. 'Ya had to've gotten that power for a reason, right, boy-o?' He could not save people. He could solve cases, but L had a long, long while to live yet, and B knew for a fact that the first generation of his successors would not succeed him. No, he was nothing more than a failed copy, never meant to live up to the original. But who said that had to be his fate?
He liked a challenge. L would be his enemy; his obstacle to overcome. B would be the copy to surpass the original. A was right. He could beat L, couldn't he? How, then? By becoming his own sort of detective and beating him that way?
No.
That obviously couldn't work, not when he was meaning to beat him, really beat him. L. The child only two years older than him that had somehow become the boy to be the idol of this orphanage. The boy who supposedly had the right to be the original, while B was only the copy. The backup. With the pressure of being in L's shadow, A had gone so far as to commit suicide. B was up to the challenge, but he thought that maybe he didn't want to be a detective. There, he would forever be caught in L's shadow, and he didn't want that. Sure, he was coming to like the dark, but he wanted a darkness where he could thrive, not one where he would only be suppressed. No…. He would beat L in a war against him, not surpass him in an alliance beside him. I had to've gotten this power for a reason, right, boy-o? he thought to himself, and smiled.
He had his sight. He knew who would die. And if it came down to it, he knew who to kill. 'Kill.' It was such an unappealing word, wasn't it? But he could pull through with it. They would be dying anyway, there was no reason not to kill. They'd die either way; he couldn't save them. And if he wasn't meant to save them…. Perhaps he was chosen to have the right to kill. The right to be the human personification of Death. That could be his challenge for L. The greatest detective, eh? The man who left no case unsolved? Well, B could create a case he couldn't solve, and that was how he would beat him. It became almost an obsession. His walls became covered with papers again; he studied and researched L, learning all he could about him and reading into his techniques of solving a case; he began planning things out for his staged case meant just for his challenge.
L.
He graduated Wammy's at fifteen, and the first thing he did was go back to his old home and house in it despite the fact it was abandoned. He killed his first victim at sixteen; he did it to make sure he could do it. And then, it became a sort of morbid curiosity. They were already going to die… how many ways could he kill a man?
At eighteen he began to travel. Upon buying his first plane ticket, he set fire to his old home and left it, never to look back. He moved to New York, and changed his name. Beyond Birthday, to represent the sight that he'd had for as long as he could remember. That he'd presumably had since before he was born. And from there, Beyond moved forward, progressing towards the man he would become. The man you know.
B. BB. Beyond Birthday.
Shall we go forward, then, boy-o?
Yep.
Fun Fact: Whenever I go through reading this again, I always read B's dad's lines aloud, because I just love his accent. xD
Review? For, uh...Irish accents? .u.