February 14, 2010

Present

Near had always been on the small side, but he was positively dwarfed in his casket. He didn't look right. Matt couldn't place his finger on it, brain sluggishly trying to piece together what was wrong with this image. As hard as he tried, he was unable to come up with the right answer, finding several instead; he just couldn't figure out which answer fit best. Maybe it was that he could not recall ever seeing Near in anything but his pajamas. He was laying against soft velvet, dressed to the nines in black formal attire. Resembling a porcelain doll, his dark clothing contrasted his pale face and wintery hair; he was lifeless like a doll, too. Roger probably made the decision about what he would wear to his funeral. Didn't make sense really—to dress the guy in something he wouldn't've picked out himself on any other day.

Ah, well. It wasn't Matt's funeral.

His problem could have also been with the way his classmate's buggish eyes were now shut. They had never been the best of friends; other than a love for games, he and Near barely had anything in common. This and Mello's combative relationship with the white-haired boy made Matt unable to easily befriend him. However, anytime he called Near's face to his mind, he couldn't picture him without the wide-eyed look he always had fixed on his face. Across from him in the halls of the Orphanage, he would blink owlishly at Matt where they both often waited their turn to be called into Roger's office, never there for the same reasons.

He wasn't going to pretend as though he knew him, but they had shared classes together.

They had grown up together.

Easily, if he had said yes to Mello, he could imagine himself being in Near's place.

But this wasn't Matt's funeral.

Near would be buried tomorrow morning. This would be the last chance anyone had if they wanted to say some parting words to his corpse before his casket was sealed shut. It would be the final time daylight ever touched his little pale face. There wasn't a body to bury for Mello (because he wasn't dead). Instead, a very skilled portrait of him had been commissioned. The artist's rendering was so detailed, so lifelike, that Matt couldn't stand to look at it, turning his gaze downward at the bouquets of flowers resting at the foot of the painting's easel. Roses—very romantic and fitting for the mafioso.

He blew out a puff of smoke, ignoring Roger's dirty look as he approached the casket. Not like Near was actually around to protest his filthy habits. If he were, what the fuck would he want to hear from Matt of all people anyway? Nothing he had to say would have been worthwhile to the guy. Stopping in front of the box, he forced himself to look down at Near's boyish, baby face. Had he really been nineteen?

Around the edges of his sight, his vision began to warp, distorting like a really bad acid trip, only Matt had never done hard drugs before. Yet, the inside of the church seemed to sway, blurring nauseatingly and horrifically. He tore his gaze away from his classmate's body, pulling the cigarette from his mouth so he could breathe easier. It didn't work. Clearing his throat, he struggled for words, insight, meaning, anything. The inside of his skull was wiped clean, an empty harddrive that contained nothing special within—no thoughtful, wise, sentimental, or philosophical ideas that could have made it all better.

"Hey, Near," He forced himself to say, speaking in a hushed whisper. His quiet words sounded like shouting to his ears, blaring through the still building, echoing disruptively along with the booming of his heart. ' Really,' he thought to himself sarcastically. ' 'Hey, Near.' That's how you choose to start?' As if to punish himself, his teeth sunk into his lower lip, chewing, chewing, chewing, chewing—

No.

No.

No.

He couldn't do this. No. This was fucked up. This was beyond fucked up, and he couldn't breathe. It wasn't fair. Near had been a child. They were all children, but Kira hadn't cared about that. He did it anyway. Because he could, and it didn't matter to him that Near was too small for a casket or that Matt had never been kissed. Because he was a God. Because he was Death. Matt was sucking in air, but it didn't fill his lungs—he couldn't feel the organ's movements anymore. He was numb to his own chest's heaving, the expansion and contraction of his lungs drowned by the stuttering of his heart pulsing noisily in his ears.

"Excuse me. I'm sorry to bother you, but do you have the time?" An accented voice asked politely, steadying Matt's swaying vision. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them, blinking rapidly as his eyes sharpened back into focus.

The stranger standing next to him was an attractive familiar face, but Matt's mind—alarmed and dazed—struggled to place where he'd seen him before. He was a tall, athletic-looking Japanese man. Unlike Matt, he was appropriately dressed for a funeral, wearing a handsome dark suit. While the outfit was correct, his expression clashed with the occasion. Rather than appearing grief-stricken, he wore a perfectly friendly smile.

"What?" Matt gasped out.

"The time?" The man asked, grinning sheepishly at him. He held up his wrist, pointing to the faceplate of his watch. "I have my watch set to Japan Central Standard Time. It escaped me to properly set it before I left my hotel."

Matt continued to balk until he slowly understood what was being asked of him. He reached into his pocket, robotically pulling out his phone. Inspecting the time, he read it aloud for the stranger. "I-It's noon. Twelve o'clock. Greenwich Mean Time."

"Thanks. I can be so forgetful at times." But the stranger did not move to change the hour on his dial. He continued watching Matt with the softest expression, brown eyes melting with warm understanding. Reaching into the breast pocket of his expensive blazer, he pulled out a little piece of white cloth.

Extending the handkerchief out to Matt, he politely informed, "Your lip is bleeding."

Matt's eyes followed the movement of the stranger's hand with uncertainty. Sensations began returning to his body, making him aware of the trickle of liquid dripping down his jaw and the cold perspiration chilling his body. Something clicked in his mind; he felt stupid for not recognizing him. Yagami Light, the man who had helped arrest Kira when nobody else could. There would be no more murders. No more children in boxes that were too big for them.

"Thank you." Matt was shaking, reaching out to take the cloth. He wiped his bloodied mouth, using the heel of his boot to put out the cigarette he had accidentally dropped to the floor.

"Are you feeling alright now?" Light frowned, concerned by his trembling. "Nobody would judge you if you needed to leave. Were you from the Orphanage, too? This must be such a difficult time for you..."

"It's whatever." Matt shrugged, embarrassed to have nearly lost his mind in front of a room full of unremembered peers and Light Yagami. "That's life isn't it?"

People leave. They die.

"Yes, that's life." Light pressed a bell-shaped blue flower—a fresh gentian—into Near's casket. "But it's natural to find it unfair anyway. You're allowed to feel hurt, angry, sad, or confused. To mourn is human; there is no right or rational way to go about it. It's like I said, nobody here would think less of you. We're all going to go through it. I'm sorry for your pain. Your loss."

"Wasn't mine," Matt scoffed, flustered by the lovely words. Wouldn't they make the prettiest sympathy card? His eyes began prickling with wetness. "'My loss...' Hardly knew him."

"That makes two of us. He wasn't a very sociable person, was he?" Light wrinkled his nose at him almost playfully. "We were investigating the Kira case together, but I was talking at a gothic letter on a blank computer screen the entire time, never his actual face."

"Then why are you here?" Good question; Matt should have asked it to begin with. This was a private viewing for friends and family—not that Near had many of those, just whoever was old enough to remember him from Wammy's. Orphans saying goodbye to one of their own but ultimately disconnected from one another. His gaze fell back down onto Near's peaceful face.

"I thought it was only right to come pay my respects to him after he gave his life in pursuit of justice. I didn't see him much in person, but we still worked together and fought for the same ideal, though we went about it in our own ways," He answered honestly. "He had my admiration just like his predecessor. Like mentor, like mentee I suppose."

Matt jerked his head up in surprise.

"I knew L. We were friends until the very end." Light's lips pressed into a bitter, unhappy smile. "This is the seventh funeral I've had to attend. So, believe me when I say that whatever you're feeling is okay and normal, even if you didn't know him too well."

"I hate Kira." Matt shuddered. "He ruined everything. All my life I…"

Light reached out to touch his shoulder, squeezing it comfortingly.

Kira had ruined his life. How could he not be blamed for all those sleepless nights, his missing friend, and this too—for making him grieve over a boy he'd never wanted to know? Pulling away from Light, he made his way toward the exit, ignoring the eyes of the other Wammy House students. Some he recognized, some he didn't. They were all made a blur in his haste to leave the church.

"Matt!"

He was almost in his car when he heard the sound of his name.

He almost ignored the call but was struck with its familiarity. When he turned around, he saw a young woman with a crop of short, spiky hair. She was struggling to catch up to him, inconvenienced by her tuxedo. As she jogged to reach him, he remembered her as Linda—not her real name, another Wammy House student who he had not seen in three years. Like Mello, she had left the Orphanage at a young age, graduating early after being accepted into a prestigious art school in California.

"You, uh, did a good job with the painting." He told her instead of greeting her, assuming that the portrait could have only been done by her. His hand was already on the handle of his car door. "Looks just like him…"

"Oh, thanks." She caught up to him, coloring a bit under the praise. "I was working from memory. I was afraid it wouldn't be accurate. He probably doesn't look as young as I remember him, but I tried my best to imagine him a bit older."

"It's perfect." She had gotten everything except the scarring anyway.

Linda didn't suffocate him with sorrys or look at him with pity. She pulled a notepad from her purse, scribbling a set of numbers on it. "I stopped you because I wanted to keep in touch with more people from my class. I live in Los Angeles nowadays due to work, but you can call me if you ever need anything."

Matt eyed the paper, taking it reluctantly and shoving it into his jacket pocket. "Not too busy? I hear you're a fancy artist now."

Linda laughed. "Fancy? Where did you hear that? Thank you, though. I do well for myself, but I would always make time for you, even if my schedule was full. Us Wammy's kids need to stick together, right?"

"Right."