Mazzaroth, I managed to find the answer to one of my many questions about L. It is not definitive, but definitely the most probable and, therefore, acceptable.

It concerns his computer – why he has one of his own. And it pains me to say it, but it's because he bought it with his own money or, rather, that he repaid the debt to Watari.

I know it sounds absurd, because I couldn't believe it myself that an eight-year-old boy had the resources to afford it, but I acquired some information yesterday that helped me put the pieces together. That's not to say that it doesn't bother me that he has one of his own, because if my calculations are correct, he has the ability to provide one each for all of us, but he's not doing it.

Besides, I think I know where he's been during that week spent outside Wammy's House, but everything calmly, point by point.

Yesterday, I unfortunately found myself having a private conversation with L. Because of him, most of it was based on a misunderstanding. He wasted my time, in a nutshell, and didn't even admit he was wrong.

How can he be the head of a project dedicated to justice if he can't even be responsible for his actions? I hope he hasn't wronged Ayla in any way, other than interacting with her. I could ask her, but she would diminish the intensity of the fact and I wouldn't want my appropriate reaction to end up seeming exaggerated.

The confusion was because he indicated 'exchange' instead of 'stock' in a newspaper headline. I thought he was referring to the exchange in a game of chess and I think everyone inside Wammy's House would have interpreted it the same way.

From the books I have read and from what I understood, stock is a part of the capital of a joint-stock company – clearly –, an enterprise whose members' participation is based on the transfer of these assets.

On one of the newspaper clippings that L had around, there was this big skyscraper. I managed to identify it and it is the London Stock Exchange. And the most appropriate way to describe what L did to earn enough pounds to buy a computer is 'playing the stock market'. In doing so, L asked Watari to buy stocks at a certain value on the LSE and they resold them at a higher price. The difference between these two resulted in a rather large profit – which I will avoid naming, because I am not supposed to know –, which went to confirm the fact that Watari trusts him because he has demonstrated this skill.

However, many critics on the subject argue that this type of market or investment is not infallible and L himself told me that he has to 'hope'. You too understand that, consequently, his was luck and not skill, and that Watari is wrong in believing him capable; above all, because he also has a 'broker'.

The Broker in question – whose name I will not write down and merely capitalise on the common noun when referring to him specifically – is in charge of buying stocks and selling them on Watari's behalf, as well as providing advice. This means that it was not exactly L alone who earned that money.

But, knowing the latter's personality, it is not difficult for me to imagine him insisting on a certain stock that led to that achievement and, since I am a person who can admit that even those I can't stand can be good, I am not going to say that it is not thanks to him. I'm simply going to say that he doesn't deserve all the credit, because without Watari, the Broker and all the possibilities that Wammy's House offers him, he wouldn't have reached that point.

Now, about that week. In Watari's agenda, I noticed that he had made several appointments with the Broker, and they were in-person, as he had marked several locations. The owner, of course, did not go, as he was here the whole time. The only plausible explanation is that it was L who met him.

How he managed to convince an adult other than Watari to listen to him is no great mystery, since he had the word of his guardian. It bothers me, though, how easily he manages to do everything, because I risked a lot to convince people much older than me to listen to me.

They did help me, anyway. I cannot entirely condemn them, but if they had listened to me earlier, he would not have been involved.

In any case, I was right in believing that L was trying to manipulate the facts to make me believe he was in the right place. He is not, indeed. This behaviour of his further proves that he is not someone to be trusted, as he lies.

I lie too, but in my case, it is not likely to permanently mark the lives of others, unlike L. He lies at the cost of others' futures, and it makes me wonder if whatever he has shown them to persuade them to participate in his disastrous project is to be considered truthful. Perhaps he is taking credit for something that someone else took part in, who helped him immensely, but whom he avoids naming, because he is a mean person who does not care about others.

He cannot be relied upon, but I already knew that. However, his presence allows more interest and attention to be put on the promises made to Rae and Ayla, so as to push Watari to engage more on the two issues.

Honestly, I don't actually know what Rae might have asked of him, but whatever it is, it is also highly important.

However, I must continue to fulfil the pact I made and ̶i̶n̶v̶e̶s̶t̶i̶g̶a̶t̶e̶ research information to answer my other questions:

What was actually written in that binder?

How can I ruin L's stock market play without it affecting Wammy's House's assets?

What did he show them to convince them to be his 'successors'?

One last thing, because I've been here long enough and I'm sure Lex is wondering what happened to me – when I have time, I'll tell you about him too, because I have news: on the seventh of September, L told me that he wouldn't bother Watari with such a request, when I retorted by saying that he could pay us to keep him company, since he provides him with the resources he wants.

I think I understand what he really meant.

I closed the diary, resting it on the board game box, and hung the pen on the cover. Immediately afterwards, another hypothesis about how L had afforded the computer and the meaning of that provocation leapt into my mind. I reopened Mazzaroth.

Forget the above. What if he had earned money before he got to Wammy's House?

I took a quick glance at the watch, noting that the twenty-five minutes spent writing could, still, be justified by the difficulty in finding the game. The guys didn't often bother to put back what they had taken in their place, unless there was an explicit request from Roger or Watari; therefore, my – hard to define – long absence would have been understandable. Plus, I figured Lex couldn't be bothered, since he might have spent that time talking to people in the cafeteria, including Faust.

I left the library and walked towards the stairs. I stopped just before going down, turning to look at the door of L's room. I was sure he wasn't in it, because I had seen him in the garden from the library window, which meant I had the green light to search the whole of it for information that could tell me for sure if any of my hypotheses were correct or evidence that could make it clear to Rae and Ayla that my judgement was accurate.

I took a step in its direction, but then shook my head to put the idea out of my mind. In the first place, L had certainly made other arrangements to see if there was any incursion by me. I could not risk being publicly reprimanded about it. Secondly, it was clear that L had, at least in part, 'cleared' his room of anything that he considered important and did not want to end up in my hands. I wouldn't have been surprised if I had learned that he deleted all the data on the computer every time he left the room, only to restore it when he needed to use it; so, it wasn't certain that I would find anything useful in it and it might just be a waste of time.

Grudgingly and trying to ignore the fact that that was, after all, a decent move on his part in our chess game, I went downstairs and headed for the canteen. I froze in place when I didn't see Lex sitting in the same place I had left him. I looked around, even in the main hall, but couldn't spot him.

Had I made a miscalculation? Had I underestimated the time I had taken and overestimated his willingness to wait for me?

I saw Faust at a table away from me, wiping his glasses with the edge of his shirt, trying to still read from the book he held in front of him.

I could have asked him, but the possibility that he would reply that he simply got tired of me made me change my mind. It would have been the first time I had ever heard of such an attitude from Lex, as he had always been available to everyone, and I didn't want to be the one to push him so far. I preferred this to remain as unspoken as possible, as it would have drastically worsened my reputation within Wammy's House.

Being the first person to exasperate Lex was definitely not a title to bear with honour; neither was being the Apex' bootlicker. However, in the latter case, I knew that wasn't like that, whereas, with Lex, it would be forever engrained that I was the most unpleasant person in there, which would've confirmed that Rae and Ayla pretended to be my friends and just put up with me.

"Caught them!" I heard Ayla shout, followed by a thud, and immediately, I approached the door leading out onto the garden.

It wasn't a cry for help, but, when I laid eyes on her, I realised she was in danger: she was in L's company, under the tree at the far left of the garden – the one I had used as a shelter more than once.

She was on her knees in front of him, who was squatting as always and had his back to me. She was slightly bent forward, but since L was covering her, I could not see exactly what she had 'caught'.

"Did you see that jump?" I recognised Rell by his voice but did not look at him.

"Do I look like I care? Pass the ball!" Set told him, and soon, the ball began to roll between the players again, along with the rather serene chatter of the others.

However, that situation was anything but peaceful: Ayla had performed an unthinkable action, certainly under L's orders. If what I understood was right, I wondered how much more she would be willing to do. Jumping down from an oak tree was quite dangerous, even if it had low enough branches that, even falling face-first, the most she would get would be some nose pain.

It didn't matter. Ayla shouldn't have done it. I would never have asked her to put herself in such a situation, where she could get hurt. L was putting her at risk and, surely, if he was willing to ask her to do such a thing now, when they didn't know each other so well, it meant that, once the project was firmly established, he would increase the intensity of the demands.

At that moment, though, one doubt nagged me more than the others: would Ayla have done it if I had told her to perform such an act?

I answered no, because I had not demonstrated anything that L theoretically possessed. I was not in charge of any project. I was not dealing with stocks. I didn't have my own computer, nor did I have Watari's unconditional trust.

I was just an ordinary person with a secret diary, which I carried around with me all the time, as if it was my only way of communicating between me and the world around me, because I thought I had no way of understanding it. I had put it first, even when Lex was waiting for me downstairs to play. I preferred to write down on a piece of paper what was going on, rather than live it, and that was also why Ayla probably liked being with L more than with me. Maybe she had even begun to confide in him more, surpassing her trust in me; therefore, it was logical to deduce that she had no problem doing what he told her, because he was 'her friend'... 'Her best friend'.

I felt my heart begin to beat faster in my chest as I kept repeating that sentence to myself. I turned and almost bumped into Lex, who had, suddenly, appeared behind me. He was saying something, or so it seemed, as he moved his lips. However, everything that came out of him sounded like rambling. He also seemed to be strangely threatening in his manner and the room was slowly closing in on us.

I needed to leave and take refuge in a safe place.

I passed him and returned to the library. I left the board game on the first available table and grabbed Mazzaroth. Holding it under my arm, I took some random books from the shelves of the least visited aisle and used them as bricks, so as to build a barricade high enough to cover me. I created four piles of at least a metre and a half each and sat down on the floor, leaning my back against the wall.

From my position, I could not see what was on the other side, which was what I had always hoped to achieve in the past. In my old residence, there were not so many books. I would just place them in the direction of the door and make myself as small as possible. At first, I engaged in activities that were mainly static, such as playing with the dust on the wooden planks in front of me. Later, when I learned to read or count better, I spent my time that way. There, at Wammy's House, I could do anything in my fortress, and it was perhaps that infinity of possibilities that led me to do nothing except sitting with my eyes closed and inhale deeply.

The time I had taken to place the books had allowed my heart to slowly calm down as my mind was busy choosing the most suitable volumes. However, the feeling of replacement remained, and I had to restrain myself from pulling up and looking out of the window at what the two of them were up to.

Perhaps, in exchange for my non-interference, I should have asked for his in my friendships. I should have categorically forbidden him to interact like that with Ayla, but... She didn't mind. It had made her sad that he left; so, it was better to feel that way than to hurt her.

"Ethe, are you here?"

I kept quiet at Lex's question, hoping he would leave, but I heard the sound of crutches being pressed to the floor as he approached me.

I didn't understand why he was insisting, since I had proven myself unfit for the role of potential friend: I had kept him waiting, I had ignored him again, I was hiding from him. If I had seen someone behaving like that towards me, I would have thought they did not want me around.

"Can I get closer or are there invisible mines?" He asked.

"There are a lot of them. You risk blowing both your legs off." I replied to push him away.

Lex said nothing, but I did not hear any movement from him either. The idea that he was staring at the wall I had created, having a lot of negative thoughts about me, didn't particularly help the situation. I felt I owed him something, for all the time he had wasted on me, but I didn't know how to repay him, other than to simply avoid interacting with him any further and allow him to spend his energy elsewhere.

"Um..."

He seemed really unsure of what to say, which squeezed my stomach into a tight grip, because I couldn't expect to have a friendship with someone who had to use tweezers to talk to me.

"I guess it's about L... Right?" He waited for my reply, which didn't reach him. "Well, I, um... I know I'm bothering you right now, but if you want to, um, complain about him, I'm all ears."

I didn't want to talk about L. I didn't even want to think about him. I wanted, instead, to know if I was a good friend, someone up to that role, or surrender to the idea that it was impossible for me to be one, but Lex didn't know me, like everyone else in there after all. No one could give me an answer or a tip.

"I'll leave you alone now, but... You know where to find me." He paused. "We live in the same place, after all." He added and, a few seconds later, seeing that I wasn't considering him in the slightest – not even with a thank you –, he walked away, leaving me alone with the question of why something that was promised to make me happy made me feel so bad.