Author's note- This chapter came out a lot longer than I thought it would. I wanted to keep going until the end of the scene but it was getting way too long. So I had to cut it off for now. The editing takes way too long when it gets lengthy. Hope you guys like it though :)!
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Chapter 3:
The last couple weeks had been exhausting. There was a killer on the loose. We barely had any leads. And the Kira case had everyone working on overdrive. The late nights and extra work had stressed us all.
Today didn't start off any better. I was in need of at least one good day in this mess but I was more than willing to settle for a good half day. We all really needed it at this point. Especially since there were only six other task members remaining on our team. A majority of the task force members had decided to choose their safety and backed out of the case just hours earlier. I had decided that I was going to work on this case no matter what but I was starting to lose hope on the end result.
That's when L decided to come in and save the other half of our day. He told us that he would finally meet up with us in person. This was a big step forward. This would make us feel less like pawns and more like a team. That's why I wasn't worried about our small numbers anymore... Well, I still was, but I wasn't going to admit it. At least I knew we had quality over quantity.
"Now what should I bring with me" I muttered looking around my room.
I spotted my drawstring bag on the floor and swiped it up. My room was slightly organized. Most of my stuff was put away but the stuff I used frequently was usually kept out in the open. This meant all of my important possessions were scattered across my floor. The floor display of items made grabbing things more efficient when I knew I was cutting my time close.
Notes. Pens. Paper. Prescription. Advil. Bandaids. Phone. Phone charger. ID badge. Three energy drinks. 3DS. Wallet. T-shirt. Sweatpants.
I jammed it all inside the bag. It was a close fit but I somehow managed to squash everything in. Matsuda and the Chief had told me that they weren't going to bring anything but I hated not being prepared. Every time I went empty handed somewhere I instantly regretted leaving my stuff at home.
I was a little hesitant on bringing my sweatpants but after thinking it over I decided to just bring them. I hated sitting in jeans for a long period of time and girls jeans were always uncomfortably tight. I would just have to wait and see how L's character was before I decided if I could get away with whipping them out. It wasn't like I could just leave to grab things whenever I pleased and we had no idea how long we were staying to talk to him. It could end being an all nighter.
I glanced over at the clock.
If I wanted to make it on time, I only had ten more minutes before I had to leave.
I tossed off my work clothes and skimmed my closet for an appropriate outfit. After staring blankly at my closet for a couple of minutes, I finally decided on a maroon tank top. I didn't want to look too casual so I also threw on a leather jacket. Then I grabbed my black skinny jeans and shimmied them up my legs.
"This should be good" I mumbled checking over my appearance in the mirror. The black in the outfit contrasted nicely with my long red hair making the color pop to life.
I always thought I was lucky. My red hair color wasn't anywhere near as eye catching as my mother's bright red locks. My hair was more of a dark red mixed with auburn. And unlike my mother's green eyes, my brown eyes didn't create such a bold statement when paired with my hair. My appearance was enough to make me easily distinguishable but not crazy enough to make me stand out drastically in a big crowd. That's the way I liked it. I would much rather blend in easier than stand out.
This probably made me a hypocrite. I liked to watch and study people but I hated it when people did the same thing to me.
One more minute until I had to leave.
I threw on a pair of black boots and swung my bag straps over my shoulders. I was about to walk out the door when a tube of lipstick caught my eyes. I wasn't originally planning on bringing it but...
"It could come in handy" I said with a smirk. I grabbed the lipstick and shoved it into my pocket.
"You never know, it could end up saving my life" I said with a laugh.
Of course this little gadget wasn't just a normal lipstick tube. My mother had given it to me as a moving out gift. She knew I was working with police officers and that Japan had a strict gun law. I wasn't classified as a police office. I was just an employee that worked with them. That made it illegal for me to carry a gun.
Luckily pepper spray was a grey area. It was deemed acceptable for a woman to carry for defense purposes. So my pepper spray in the disguise of lipstick was the perfect accessory.
I took one last glance at the clock.
Time's up.
I walked out the door and made sure to lock it up behind me. I left my apartment at the exact time I had planned. That meant I could walk to work at a leisurely pace today. It felt good to leave on time. I hated it when things threw me off my mental schedule and I hated losing my time.
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"Uh... why are you guys still in your work clothes?" I asked giving them the side eye.
The five men in front of me were still dressed up in their professional business suits. They hadn't even ditched the stiff jackets or dull colored ties.
"The real question is why are YOU not dressed in your work clothes? We're going to a business meeting with L!" Aizawa said irritated at my appearance.
"Yea but L wanted us in pairs of two so that we would draw less attention to ourselves... Wouldn't it be suspicious if we were all dressed up for a work meeting?" I asked confused.
"Oh, right! That's actually a good idea! I wish I would have brought some extra clothes with me" Matsuda said.
Good old Matsuda to the rescue.
I smirked over at Aizawa and he let out an annoyed grunt. I don't think Aizawa liked dealing with the two of us when we were together.
"Alright enough bickering. Mizuki, you and Matsuda will be the first pair to head up" the Chief said.
I gave him a thumbs up to let him know I was paying attention. I was happy that he was letting us go first. It felt like a hidden compliment. He trusted us enough to be first ones up there...But then again... It could also mean that he didn't trust me to arrive on time if we went last.
I decided to be optimistic and just take it as a compliment.
"Mogi, you and I will go up second. Aizawa and Ukita, you two will come up last" the Chief explained.
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I was fricken bored. Matsuda and I had arrived in front of L's hotel door thirty minutes ago. At first we just stood there, waiting outside professionally. I think I remained in good posture for at least twelve minutes.
When I realized how long we were going to end up waiting I gave up looking professional. It's not like L had cameras out here to observe us or to watch our every move. That would just be weird.
What did L expect us to do this entire time anyway? Why couldn't we go inside and wait? Wasn't it more suspicious if we stood outside a hotel room waiting for the arrival of our other members?
I was sitting down against the wall with my head tilted backwards when the Chief and Mogi finally arrived. The Chief raised an eyebrow when he saw me sitting in the hallway but he was quick to understand why I was just sitting there.
While we waited I went through all of the possibilities involving L's appearance. I sung through a couple songs in my head. I made a mental shopping list. I counted the ceiling tiles a couple times. And I silently wondered if I was going to lose my mind.
Then I heard the hotel elevator ding before the doors slid open to reveal the last two members of our group, Aizawa and Ukita.
"Thank heavens!" I said sighing in relief.
"Good, we're all here" Chief said looking down at his watch.
I picked myself up from the ground and the Chief knocked on the door.
"It's unlocked, you may come in" a muffled voice called out from behind the door.
The Chief opened the door and we were immediately greeted with a very unusual looking young man. The first thing that caught my eye were the man's bare feet and wiggling toes. The guy was wearing a plain pair of jeans and a white, baggy long sleeved shirt. His face was cute in a disheveled sort of way. He was extremely pale with prominent black bags under his grey eyes and his black hair was ruffled out in different directions.
As I studied him closer I realized his eyes and face were completely void of any emotions. As a criminal psychologist I was usually good at reading people but I found him incredibly difficult to read. The only thing I was able to pick up on was a slip of his body language. His one foot was rubbing the bottom of his pant leg and his hand was rubbing at the back of his head. He must have been uncomfortable or nervous.
"I am L" he told us in a monotone voice.
My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open.
This guy was L?
"Well, that's impressive" I whispered. I was expecting him to be a lot older. For him to be L he would have had to start detective work at an incredibly young age.
"He's nothing like I thought he would be" Matsuda whispered to me.
"Yea, I guess the rumors were false" I whispered back.
He definitely wasn't a sexy middle aged man with striking blue eyes. When I thought about it logically L's appearance actually made perfect sense though.
The Chief was the first one to break our awkward staring.
"I'm Yagami of the NPA" he said showing his badge.
"Uh, Matsuda"
"I'm Aizawa"
"Mogi"
"Ukita"
I reached into my pocket to grab my badge.
Oh crap.
It wasn't in my pocket like it normally was. I usually carried it around in my work pants. Oh, yeah! I had taken it out when I was packing. It was most likely sitting at the very bottom of my overly stuffed bag.
I already embarrassed myself once in front of L. I wasn't about to dump everything out of my bag just to get to my badge. I would definitely look like an idiot. Maybe he won't notice...If I act confident he might not pick up on my missing ID.
"Hello, You can call me Mizuki" I said with a grin.
Unlike the others I had used my first name and not my last. I wasn't sure if L had noticed but I had a feeling he had done a thorough background check on all of us beforehand. If he had, it would have explained why I barely used my last name
I had grown up in The United States and graduated high school there before my family moved to Japan for my father's work. In the US last names were usually only used to address our elders. Americans are a lot more casual with our names. A lot of them even shortened long names or resorted to nicknames. That's probably why I have never been comfortable being addressed by my last name. My last name was lame anyway so I usually just introduced myself with my first name.
L didn't seem to mind, I was pretty sure he had already found out my last name on his own anyway. It's not like it was hard to find, I just never included it to avoid confusion.
L still hadn't question my lack of ID and I took the lack of response as a good thing. That is until he raised his pointer finger up at our group.
"Bang!" L said surprising us all.
"What the hell was that?" Aizawa shouted.
"If I were Kira you'd be dead Mr. Soichiro Yagami, chief of the NPA" L stated.
"Kira needs a face and a name in order to commit murder. But I'm sure you already figured that much out, haven't you?" L asked glancing at me. Why was he directing that question towards me? My mouth opened in understanding.
"Oh, you thought I did the name thing intentionally" I slipped out with a sheepish laugh. "Yea.. that's not why I didn't show ID. Sorry" I said rubbing the back of my neck. L let out an annoyed sigh.
"How disappointing. Please do not give out your names so carelessly. Instead let's value our lives" L said earning a glare for me. I'm pretty sure that was his subtle way of calling me a disappointment.
Jerk!
"I knew he needed a face to kill somebody but I don't remember any evidence that showed that he needed a name too" Matsuda said to the Chief.
"There's no way to verify this as related but criminals who's names were never released publicly or were spelled incorrectly have not been targeted. We briefly went over it at one of our meeting" Chief replied.
"That's enough small talk for now. Come this way" L said with a wave of his hand.
"Oh, uh, right" Matsuda muttered out.
"Please turn off all your cellphones, hand holds, and any other communication devices and leave them on the table over there" L said motioning to a checkered coffee table.
"What? Do you think we're going to use our cellphones during the meeting to leak information?" Aizawa asked irritated.
"Aizawa it's alright. Just do as he says" Chief said trying to calm him down.
I sighed and placed my bag in front of me. I was pretty sure my cell phone was close to the bottom of my bag. Probably sitting right next to my ID of course. I refused to empty everything out so I started digging through everything.
"Actually, please leave your entire bag on the table" L said to me, interrupting my search. I rolled my eyes when he turned to walk away and tossed my bag onto the table with the phones.
"I realize he's been cautious from the very beginning but I still can't tell if he trusts or not" Matsuda said placing his phone on the table.
"No, that's not it. I just find phones to be distracting. I can't stand it when people's cell phones are ringing when I'm trying to talk" L called out from the other room.
Everyone left the room to follow after him. I was the last one to walk into the room but I didn't end up getting very far. For some reason they were all just standing in the middle of the arch way. I peeked out from behind Mogi to see why it was taking so long. I found my answer. The great detective L had managed to catch everyone off guard and all he had to do was sit down to do it.
Well... I don't know if I would classify it as sitting. More like standing or crouching. Whatever he was doing it wasn't exactly normal. The soles of his feet were lifted up so that only the front of his feet were touching the chair. Not even his butt was touching the chair, it was like it was hovering slightly above the cushion. His knees were bent in front of him and his upper body was hunched forward. The only thing remotely normal about his position were his hands, which were causally resting on the top of his knees.
"Let me start by saying that nobody takes notes on anything that's said in these meetings. That means when we leave headquarters any information that we need is committed to memory" L explained, "Please, make yourselves comfortable" he said motioning to the seats with his eyes.
"Uh, right" the Chief said. He was the first to start moving before the rest of us filed in behind him.
The Chief, Matsuda, and Mogi claimed the couch on the right side of the table. Ukita grabbed a chair at the very end of the table. Aizawa and I claimed the last two seats on the left side of the table. Aizawa was to my left and L was to my diagonal right. L obviously being at the head of the table.
Everyone remained silent. All eyes were staring at L's every move. L used his pointer finger and thumb to gently pick up a teapot. He tipped the tea into a cup in front of him. He set down the teapot and took a single sip from his cup. His one eye twitched slightly before he set it down again.
"Do you always sit like that?" I asked trying to break the silence.
"I do" L muttered as he started piling a crap ton of sugar into his tea. I was about to ask him why he would sit like that but Matsuda decided to speak up instead.
"Excuse me, L?" Matsuda asked.
"Hm and from now on I'll have to ask that you stop calling me L. It's Ryuzaki now. Just to be safe" L announced.
"Uh, ok, Ryuzaki... If we know Kira needs a name and a face to kill, couldn't we cut down on the number of victims by keeping criminals names from the news?" He asked.
"If we do that, we'll only be putting the general public at risk" L replied.
"The general public?" Ukita asked confused.
"Why?" Aizawa asked.
"Kira is childish and he hates losing" L said as he stopped stirring and looked up.
"Just what do you mean?" The Chief asked.
"Well..." L said, eyes shifting down to his tea, "I'm also childish and I hate to lose...That's how I know" he said taking another sip of his tea.
"Ryuzaki would you mind being a little more specific for us?" The Chief asked.
"Early on in the investigation I tried to provoke Kira with that broadcast. Up until then we thought Kira would only go after criminals but as we all witnessed, he didn't hesitate to kill my stand in. Also as soon as I said we knew that he was in the Kanto region, in defiance, he made sure his next victims came from within Japan. As if to say, what are you going to do about it" L said pausing to take another sip of his tea.
"He's met each of my challenges head on and he's never missed an opportunity to return the favor. Now what do you think would happen if we tried to use media restrictions to hide criminals from someone like that?" L asked.
"I guess..." Matsuda trailed off in thought.
"Oh I get it. He would just return the favor. He would most likely start to kill off petty criminals, right?" I said looking at L, "It's even possible he would resort to targeting innocent people to make us feel guilty. Of course it would end up making us look like the bad guys because we would be the ones withholding the criminals names from him" I answered.
"That's right" L said, "I'll hold the whole world hostage, so who's it going to be? I'm not the evil one here but all those that oppose me by hiding criminals are truly evil" he said. A dramatic sigh left his lips and he shifted in his seat.
"In any case, that's how Kira thinks. Let's look at another way we can use the media to draw him out" L said changing the conversations direction.
"Hm, We could try to do something to intimidate him or scare him" I suggested.
There weren't many options we could use through the media. If we wanted a reaction from Kira, our plan had to either provoke him or intimidate him.
"But how?" Aizawa asked. I shrugged my shoulders. I couldn't just come up with detailed plans at the drop of a dime.
"How about something like this" L said putting his fingers to his chin and drawing his head back, "Death of the FBI agents infuriates the US and the international policing community. Nations agree to send over fifteen hundred investigators to Japan. For Kira this will be way beyond what he faced with the FBI. He'll see everyone as a threat. Psychologically he'll start to feel cornered and that will cause him to take some kind of drastic action" L explained.
"You want to use intimidation to try to get a fight or flight response. I like it. If Kira's reaction is big enough to the threat, it could lead us to a clue" I replied.
"That-That's interesting!" Ukita said with a smile.
"So he'll think that there's 1,500 , when there's really only eight of us" Aizawa said impressed, "And since none of these investigators exists, Kira won't be able to kill them." Aizawa said with a grin.
"This just might work!" Ukita said with a wide smile. Ukita wasn't the only one smiling. The whole task force seemed excited about the plan.
It was nice to see everyone so excited for once. It didn't happen often with the Kira case going on. It was felt good to have a plan. Yet I couldn't help but wonder...
Did L have this whole thing planned out before we even got here? Or did he really come up with that detailed plan in just a matter of seconds?
Either way the plan was great and L had impressive me. I just didn't know how much more of this I could take. It made me nervous to be left in the dark about someone. Everyone on the task force had a very distinct personality. It made it easy to adjust my work style to fit with those around me.
L wasn't your average person though. He threw off my mental calculations. He was a distraction. I admired his ability to remain a mystery but I couldn't fit his unpredictable personality in with my mental plans...And I absolutely hated it when things didn't go as predicted.