I forgot to mention what I found in the library. I assumed that putting it between the pages of the diary would explain it, but in who knows how many years, I will pick up this notebook and find myself thinking about what it means.

Honestly, I don't have much information about it, as I haven't yet faced L on the matter. I decided to take them one by one, and this one appears to be the least urgent. I'm concentrating on trying to talk to Watari so I can be present in Ayla's life the way I should, and she deserves, because I don't want to lose her.

At the moment, this plastic-coated card is a declaration of war and the letter on its back is the seal. The warlike character should already put me on the battlefield, ready to strike the most appropriate strategic blows so that I can gain ground and win. However, I am not ready and not recognising the fact that I have found it allows me enough time to sort out all the other aspects of my life, so that I can act without interference.

In any case, it confirms my theory: he tried to trick me, and this was all his plan to get me to find the card. The question is, then, what was written on the paper he wanted to give me to prove to me that he was in the right place? Unfortunately, though, as I don't know where the binder is, I find it difficult to get an answer and I have no clues to hold onto to start my search until I talk to L about this. It might just be this simple phrase – better luck next time –, which he wanted to use in front of me, so he could see my reaction.

As much as I damned it, I realise that this is the best scenario. I don't know how I would have reacted if I had him in front of me, but I assume nothing socially acceptable. However, on the other hand, if I had acted the way I imagine, I wouldn't have even been in this situation, because I would have gotten L off my back and I would have made sure he didn't get close to Ayla, so that I could continue to be her friend.

I don't actually know if Ayla considers him her friend, because I haven't asked her, but it wouldn't surprise me. It would only bother me.

The real problem with this whole situation, though, is that I appear to be predictable. I don't think I am, but somehow, L managed to foresee that I was going to check out that shelf in the library. At this point, I would hazard a guess that, knowing this, he hid in the bathroom until he heard me come up and put on that pathetic scene where he got scared to check if I was actually headed to the library. He didn't wait to see if I was really heading there, but it doesn't matter.

The point is that he has an advantage over me. I observed him enough in the first few days to understand the way he acted, but since he returned, he seems like a different person in the way he talks and behaves. And I did not take into account that he might have a wider field of action than Wammy's House, which irritates me. Now, I have to imagine a thousand scenarios and areas in which he might be involved, such as the thousand contraptions indicating the invasion of his room, which, perhaps, do not even exist.

I can't stand it, but I'm not going to back down. No matter the difficulty, it is a battle I intend to win. I am not going to take part in his stupid and immoral challenge about researching the other's past. I simply intend to make his project fail on the public birth when he reveals himself to the outside world as L. I will make sure that he does not have a career, but in any field, not just investigative. In the meantime, I will make sure he keeps his promises to Rae and Ayla.

I will prove ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶a̶m̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ that I have been right about him all this time, which will be quite long, because I still can't get a moment to talk to Watari.

Two days ago, when I got my courage up, he wasn't even around. I had to interact with Roger, who told me he was absent and would tell him I was looking for him.

That did not happen, and Watari returned in the morning the next day. Knowing this, I could have insisted on waiting for his arrival, even to the point of exasperating Roger completely and letting me stay up. He would, of course, have exaggerated the issue – finding me awake after ten o'clock – and said it was something I often do and, therefore, I should be watched, but I could have lied and said it was a particular circumstance.

However, this was not the case. I went to bed, having, for obvious reasons, refused 'help' from Roger, with the expectation, albeit bruised, that he would let him know, as he usually did, but he didn't.

Why?

I know he doesn't really like me, but he has always fulfilled that obligation, with everyone, regardless of who they were, because that's what he has to do. Watari gave him that task and he, in these two years, never once failed to notify him, but now he did? Without a specific reason?

Even if he should feel such hatred towards me that he takes pleasure in getting my hopes up, only to destroy them, it seems excessive to me, especially when it was he himself who asked me if it was urgent, with the intention of taking charge of the problem.

Was it, perhaps, the fact that I implied that I could wait that led him to think that two days of silence was no big deal? He must have thought that, surely, Watari had many other more important things to take care of and that I would have gladly allowed, and therefore understood, them to surmount me.

Absolutely not.

Can't he make space for me? Don't I deserve it? Have I done something that has led him to consider it pointless to talk to me?

I don't understand why he avoids me. Every time I seem to take a step towards him, he takes a hundred steps away from me. Since L came here, I no longer seem to exist for him. When I tried to put forward my point of view, he took L's side, without even questioning it... Without even taking a minute to understand me. He let L do the talking, as if he knew about my past and what was the best path to take.

L knows nothing and Watari has forgotten everything.

There is little point in asking him to see him, because, at this point, it is sure that he does not even remember him, his name or where he is. Perhaps, he didn't even bother to inform himself after the event, because he knew he wouldn't care anymore.

I would have preferred to find out earlier, so that I wouldn't let him bring me here, so that I wouldn't spend a month in his company, so that I wouldn't be deceived like this.

It was pathetic of me, because I already knew adults were bad people. They are evil. They don't care about others. They only think about themselves. Trusting them is useless, because the only thing they can do is turn their backs on others, even for no reason. They have no logical explanations to give for their behaviour. They make no sense at all. They are irrational.

Growing up is horrible. I don't want to

The door to Roger's room opened and Watari came out, with a folder in his hands. He spotted me almost immediately, as I was in an unusual position for me and anyone else: sitting against the wall of his office, near the right-hand corner.

I had placed myself there so that it was impossible not to notice me. Part of me still believed that he had simply not seen me in the previous days, which had not set off the little bell in his mind that he had to talk to me. It was something absurd, which even I realised, because he had never needed a memo of someone's existence to remind him that he had to speak to them.

However, since he had replaced me, I had begun to think that perhaps he was slowly forgetting that I was there too, as if I was slowly becoming a shadow that only appeared when it was light and, thus, when he was not around, but outside the building going about his business.

"Hello, Ethelinda." He greeted me and I merely nodded to him.

At that point, I had abandoned the idea that asking him for that favour was the objectively right thing to do, as I was more likely to be disappointed than indulged. Saying something would inevitably lead me to make a remark about his forgetfulness, and I didn't want that brief interaction to evolve in that direction.

He walked past me, without saying anything else, confirming what I had, from that instant on, to define as his standard attitude towards me, and it came naturally to me to wonder if he had pretended to be interested in me until then. If everything he had done for me was not because he cared, but out of obligation, because he had indirectly imposed it on him by his request to take me to Wammy's House.

Maybe, all that time, I had just been a burden in his eyes, and he had grown tired of having to hide it. Besides, he had finally found another L; therefore, I had no reason to stay there.

"Ethelinda."

I looked up at him, who was standing in the doorway.

For a second, a small flame of hope was ignited, and I tried hard to keep it safe and secure from the raging storm that was ready to eradicate the bridge that existed between Watari and me.

"Is L still giving you trouble?"

But apparently, it was not destined to survive for long and it went out, not before it could illuminate the wooden planks losing their support and plummeting into the abyss.

I turned back to Mazzaroth, pretending to write, as an explicit invitation not to disturb me, even though I was simply drawing horizontal lines on the left edge of the page, which I wasn't even sure he could notice, since it seemed to me that he couldn't actually see me.

I even thought it was ridiculous of him to ask me that question, as he had not even tried to mediate the issue. He had left it up to L to choose for both of us what was the best course of action, showing that he did not even trust my judgement. L had even threatened me to research my past and he had stood by silently and watched.

I should have realised at that instant that reaching him was an impossible and futile mission.

"If anything bothers you, my door is always open."

He was making fun of me, and I could no longer bear to be in his presence.

I stood up and, undecided as to where to go, opted for the bathroom since, apart from the infirmary, it was the closest room to where I was. I did not look back to see if he was paying attention to me, since I doubted it and, in that case, I did not actually want to be right.

I sat down on the floor, with my back to the door, and began mentally counting how many seconds were passing, so that the time I would spend in there would be appropriate. However, I found it difficult, because the stinging I felt in my eyes kept distracting me and making me lose count.