Author's Note: Yep, it's been some time, and as always, thanks to everyone who had reviewed! At least it stopped me from forgetting about this fic completely. Well, my muse hadn't been cooperating with me, that's what, and my papers aren't going to write themselves. So, without further ado, here comes the next installment:

'-

Unfolding Plot and The Dinner

THE WEEK BEFORE:

"Look, I don't see the reason why we have to manually assess and try to eliminate every sodding prefecture in Japan from suspicion" Light said from beyond the almost-overwhelming pile of maps and company index on the table. Most of them had been scribbled on, marked, highlighted, or basically vandalised in one way or another. The other members of the Kira Investigation had done their part, turned them in, and basically declined to go on more than a 24-hour work binge. Ryuuzaki was nuts, she thought, there was no other reason for this current rash of obsession and dedication. "And then move on to the various companies in Japan, even! What on earth is the point of this?"

"I think we've just gone through a very productive 48 hour work. Narrowing down the area of Kira's operation base is always useful" Ryuuzaki said with a strange calm and satisfaction in his voice. Light wanted to throttle him just for that sin. How could the man not be bleary eyed and exhausted after the relentless poring, writing, detailing, and every other blasted thing they did? Did he not need sleep? Were those dark shadows under his eyes the result of bargaining half his soul away to some dark gods of sleep?

"Do you even think that Kira might be a company?" The brunette asked,

"The possibility has crossed my mind" Ryuuzaki said as he poured his own drink and sipped from the saucer. Light narrowed her eyes at the small ceramic bottle he was holding. Sake. The damned detective was drinking sake and he wasn't even sharing.

"Hand that over" she ordered.

"What?"

He had the grace to look confused. "Your bottle. Hand it over"

Light stood. Ignoring the papers on the floor and the odd notebook she was stepping on, she loomed over the table and snatched the bottle of sake from L's hands. She drank whatever liquid remained in it and returned the bottle on the table with a satisfying smack that surprised her companion a little.

"Eurgh, a little on the sweet side, I should've guessed" she muttered. Ryuuzaki stared Light wide-eyed, as if only noticing her for the first time. "I'm guessing that you take your martinis very dry"

"You look...tired"

"No, I need another bottle of sake as that one wasn't even half a bottle. Where did you keep the rest? I thought you only drank tea"

"You need sleep" Ryuuzaki started, but Light was well on her way towards the kitchen and going straight at the refrigerator before he could do anything but follow.

"Aha! When did you stock these? I didn't recall them here last week"

'-

"I had no cause to be drunk last week" Ryuuzaki comiserated as he watched the view in front of him.

Light was leaning back against the fridge, holding a bottle of sake in one hand and considering a saucer in the other. Her eyes rimmed with red, her hair dishevelled, shirt untucked in a complete mess and still utterly gorgeous with that tilt of her head that exposed her neck, peach lips forming a dangerous pout. He was trying hard not to notice the lack of bra—he had been doing well when all he needed to focus on were numbers and profiles and geography, but here, in the kitchen, he didn't have the luxury of distracting himself. If she was in a skirt instead of trousers, he might have gotten a nosebleed when Light was bending down and rummaging through the fridge.

She raised an eyebrow while opening the bottle of sake, not quite believing his words.

"Huh, really? You lead one of the most important investigations of the century and you only have cause to be drunk from last week? What are you, slow on the uptake?"

Well, previously, Kira wasn't in my apartment and draining the blood running through my brain elsewhere. Ryuuzaki looked away. "Sometimes realizations hit some people a lot later than they do others"

It seems that Light was a chatty sort of drunk, with words still pretty legible. "So you admit that you are slow, but in so many words that you still look wise and deep. Heh, nice move there, Ryuuzaki. Unfortunately, only Misa is going to be impressed by that"

Light idly poured to the saucer she carried, drank, before deciding it wasn't worth it and opened the fridge for another bottle. This she handed to Ryuuzaki.

"There, now we both have a bottle"

"Why would I need a bottle?"

"Because you're drinking with me. I'm not just going to go to sleep after you forced me to slog through that tedious drivel until I feel like my brain is peeling inside out. I'm going to sleep only after I finished getting smashed enough to yell at you for being an idiot and inconsiderate bastard, though only after I made sure that you're smashed enough not to remember it the next morning. Then we can both have an awful hangover and at the very least you're suffering as bad as I am" Light said as she pushed Ryuuzaki out of the kitchen. They fall back on the living room sofa and Light turned to Ryuuzaki with a stern look.

"Is the basic idea understandable enough?"

Well, he thought from between another gulp of sake, that sounded oddly reasonable... "Yes, completely"

"Good. Now drink up. I'm getting more from the kitchen"

'-

He had barely drank halfway through his second bottle when Light took it without ceremony and drank it herself a bit sloppily, almost daring him to take it back. That was ten minutes ago. Maybe not 'a bit' sloppily. The spilt liquid had rendered the front part of her shirt transparent.

Now, Light's breath was hot against his neck, his pulse racing and his left hand was yanking her shirt off her shoulders while she was pulling his trousers down. Words died on his tongue when she ran her hands lightly above the waistband of his underwear, cool confident fingers edging down and he bit back a groan. He had stiffened so much it bloody hurts.

"You're drunk"

What was supposed to be level-headed words came out pinched in more ways than one. Light raised her eyebrows, and kept that carefree smile of hers that could bring an empire to its knees and predictably pantsless. All she needed to do then was to behead it.

"No, not that drunk" she said, softly, only an inch from his lips as mischievous fire danced in her eyes. "Drunk enough to torture you for this all-nighter, 's payback time, Ryuuzaki"

She shifted to move closer, but only leaned back when he unconsciously shifted forward. Light laughed, nails running lightly over his chest in a sensation that was more prickling than pain; his problems were more sudden dryness in his throat than any other cause for complaint.

"However, I am still sober enough to give consent" she said.

The last bastion of his self-control was wiped out the moment her fingers were entangled in his hair and she kissed him with a burning fire only the immortals and self-assured emperors have.

Correction, empress.

'-

L closed the door carefully to his apartment, and stood in the corridor. It was always well-oiled that no human ear would pick up the sound of its movement. It's not that he was going anywhere then. He needed to think through this calmly, with some distance, preferrably with an unbiased mind—

"Right. Whose turn was it to be on top this time?" her hand was tracing invisible letters on his waist, her collarbone a delectable distance away from his mouth.

A lesser man would've groaned and staggerred when the memory hit him without even giving him space to catch his breath. He simply leaned back as if he had planned it and closed his eyes, letting the images, the sounds, the scents run wild in that moment of random recall and only opened his eyes again when they were gone. He had accepted it a few days ago that there was probably no escape from them, from the fleeting touches and scattered memories. Light's scent on his shirt. Denying them wouldn't make it go faster or easier, and he had read enough to know that repression really isn't a good long-term solution.

So he let them be, let the memories lay, the laughter that would never escape his mind, the confident smile that looked very much the same and yet so very very different after the change be etched in his mind. He accepted the fact that he may never see her again when this case was done. He let the fear of loss echo alone inside, let time and the night silence to carefully pull the tide back again into acceptance. He had known of the possibilities of attachment before he began, even if only on an intellectual level. To feel it so acutely now...

For the first time in many, many years, the detective began to think of himself as human again.

He's still his usual objective self—he has never been otherwise and he didn't know how to be anything other. His first mistress was always the Lady Justice. The difference was, he was not as cocksure as he was before that he was immune to distraction. So, yes, he had unfortunately proven that he was just as human as the random Joe on the streets of Tokyo.

As he walked down the corridors, he remembered Watari's words, from who knows how long ago.

"It takes a human to fix humanity's mistakes"

The irony of the current situation didn't escape him. He had sent Watari away to go to Romania for some intensive and extensive 'profiling' mission for later purposes, with the secondary intention of getting him out of the way for his other plan. He wasn't sure how much Watari would agree with what he was about to do and he wasn't about to take any risk of disagreement to his plan from that quarter. It wasn't anything ideological, really, more for...sentimental reasons, L supposed. Watari held a certain ideal about 'the world's number one detective', something he didn't even pretend to understand, much less uphold. L was pragmatic, after all.

This was a decision that he made precisely because he finally realized what being human meant. For the first time.

He stopped a few doors down from his apartment to what seemed to be a blank panel of wall that was the same was any other. After a careful scan of what seemed to be the agonizingly boring flecked pattern for more minutes than most people would think is necessary, he started pressing on different points in the wall and the panel slid open.

It was... a disappointingly normal kitchen.

The long table on the right was obvious first, along with the coffee machine and its accompanying enormous sugar pot. There was the expected fridge and stove. The computer on the countertop beside the fridge look benign and outdated (it had the boxy expression that seem to say the last OS installed in it had been Windows 98) with scattered printouts of recipes here and there and he turned it on with ease. A pink apron embroidered with 'kiss the cook' hang to the left of the stove. The first thing he checked on the computer was the infrared camera he had set up in his room. Light was still asleep, or at the very least, immobile and lying down.

Then, he idly prepared to contact a few people, debating whether it was necessary to even do it through the secure satellite and all.

No, not low profile enough. Every geek vaguely mad with power was going to try to do it at one point or another, and not many people actually have the ability to do it that one can actually start eliminating the suspects if that was the channel used. He was going to use a more common protocol. Right after he sent an innocuous short message from a website.

He went to create a chatroom about collecting tax forms from around the world.

He waited. And waited.

'-

DINNER:

The members of the Yagami family and their guests were seated on the dining table, new linen, best silverware complete with all the bells and whistles all the way to napkin rings. Due to her father's manipulation, Light was seated to her father's right, with Misa next to her. L was seated to her father's left and right across the table from her. If it wasn't so amusing, she would've rolled her eyes. Out of all the things her mother could cook, Light honestly didn't expect to see fish and chips on the table.

"So, how far have you boys progressed in your investigation?"

Light raised her head and noticed that her mother had accidentally lumped her with the guys in her question and cleared her throat.

"And you too, Light, of course" She said with a smile.

"Unfortunately, that's classified information, Yagami-san" L answered, prompting a cough from her father.

"It certainly isn't classified to say that he doesn't have enough blood running to his brains in these last weeks" Yagami Sr. muttered out loud. Sayu managed to swallow her morsel of food before affecting a hacking cough, knowing eyes on her elder sister all the time while Misa blushed. Only L seemed to be more-or-less unaffected.

"Dad," Light said,

"You're too hard on him, Soichirou, he's still a young man" her mother said, smiling at a plainly-confused L. Just before Light thought that the meal could resume at a more normal condition, she added,

"Surely you remember that you're once young as well? Why, I remember that time when you've just entered the force, you were always rushing off to one life-threatening crisis after another, and I was always worried that you won't make it home. It's all good and well, though, because once you came back home alive, if not always well, we would always find comfort in each other's arms soon enough. Why, on that one time you came home after your shoulder was set, we didn't even—"

"MOM, TOO MUCH INFORMATION!" Light and Sayu managed to blurt out at the same time, with the same pale and horrified looks on their faces.

Their mother huffed. "Kids, really. Surely you don't think you both came out of thin air?"

"But no one wants to imagine their parents" Sayu said, while Light only shuddered.

Mrs. Yagami's eyebrows turned down slightly, "I was only going to say that it was one of the best kisses in my life in that foyer—" The two siblings whimpered in mutual suffering. They would never look at the foyer again if they could help it. Never. She continued on obliviously. "—surely it's an acceptable sign of affection in your generation, even moreso than mine"

The one good news from the statement was that Yagami Soichirou was smiling too much at his wife to give much notice to his surroundings. Light pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to will the image away. It wasn't working. It seems that there are unfortunate limitations to shinigami powers.

"You must feel lucky to be so happily married, Yagami-san" L said.

"Of course, dear, and I wish my children to be as happy as I am" she said with the same warm smile, "Please, you'll confuse me with my husband if you keep calling me Yagami-san. Call me okaasan"

Light choked on her chips. Yagami Sr. gave L an intense look of disapproval, no matter what his wife said. Even L knew what that meant and stopped all movements from his body as his fork stopped mid-air, though the only indication on his face was a slight widening in his eyes.

"After all, Misa-chan already does" the Yagami family matron finished.

Yagami Soichirou spluttered. This time around, Sayu didn't bother to hide her soft chuckles as she let her gaze wander to the matching awkwardness in her elder sister's friends.

'-

BEFORE DINNER:

Light was staring curiously at the bouquet of roses that L was holding. They had gotten over the preliminary 'good evenings', and just about to move on into the dining room when a silence of sorts fell between them as Ryuuzaki and Misa stalled. It could be said that L might have forgotten it altogether if Misa-chan didn't elbow him right then, and as if she was pulling the right lever, L automatically offered the roses to Light without a word, followed by a facepalm and a groan from Misa.

It was admittedly a strange arrangement. There were the large and luxurious red roses with velvet petals, making up most of the bouquet, but interspersed between them were roses so dark they were almost black, and they certainly had a stronger scent than the large red ones.

"We had a disagreement" L said without preamble. "Misa-chan wanted red roses. I thought they were too clichéd and not representative of you at all, so I took the dark ones as I think they are more accurate. She complained they were too morose. I compromised by just taking both—"

"Ryuuzaki you idiot" Misa hissed from under her breath and stepped on his right foot. Apart from a slight tic, there was no change in his expression. "You are not romantic"

Light was wearing a conservative black dress that ended mid-thigh paired with a silk blazer, and even if she had only been a woman for a while, her instincts were still honed well enough to know when a guy is trying hard not to look at her legs.

She smiled and took a step towards Misa and took the sight of her in: honey blond hair and demure purple satin dress highlighted her earnestness and expression of innocence, her lips of the freshest pink. Light leaned forward to kiss her, the taste of strawberries mingling with sighs and the softness of her leaning in almost surrender. She drew back just before Misa begin to press herself and took the box of chocolate from Misa's hands, the smaller girl still with a star-struck expression in her eyes.

"Thank you, Misa-chan" she said, before taking the roses from Ryuuzaki and pecking him quickly on the cheek. "Thank you, Ryuuzaki"

He looked...perplexed.

"Why..."

"She gave me chocolate, you didn't" Light said as flippantly as she can manage. She turned back and began walking to the dining room, stopping once in a while to wait for them to follow her.

" But that was mine"

"Well, she gave me more flowers than you, how about that? It's true that the red roses are hers, right?"

She left Ryuuzaki to his musings as Sayu walked out of the dining room and greeted Misa-chan with her characteristic girlish friendliness. Behind Sayu, his mother walked out, followed by her grudging father. She kept her eyes on Ryuuzaki, whose expression was the slightly-glazed look that he had whenever he was thinking. Light hid a smirk behind her polite facade.

Sometimes it was so fun to mess with his head.

'-

Author's End Note: As always, my good readers, don't mind me and write in a review if there's anything you want to say. Anything. Even 'Interesting chapter!' would be fine by me, or maybe 'What's with all this new plot hooks you keep throwing at us? Moar!'. It's always nice to know someone's reading.