Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note.
"I wouldn't believe me if I were you."
Ryuzaki's words were barely audible to Light through the heavy rain that poured onto the roof of their headquarters.
After all, Ryuzaki's ears had been ringing all day, not in the way people's often did, but with the loud chime of church bells that nobody else seemed to be able to hear. He might not have even believed his own ears only days ago, but if Shinigami were real, who knew what else was possible?
Woken up this morning by those bells, which he hoped the rain would drown out, it wasn't even the sound that bothered Ryuzaki the most, but that it accompanied the feeling he'd had recently in his gut, which almost never betrayed him. It'd been warning him the whole time of the young man leading him back inside to dry off in the stairwell. Even when all evidence pointed away from Light, Ryuzaki couldn't ignore his instincts.
All day, Ryuzaki had been mourning his own impending death as silently as Light had been waiting for it. He should've felt something worse toward Light than bested, like he'd just been beaten at chess.
As competitive as he was, he hated to be a sore loser, though, so why was he still so distraught with not only his death but, more specifically, Light?
Maybe he felt worse than bested, after all.
He felt betrayed.
The only revenge Ryuzaki could think of, was forgiveness.
His offer to dry Light's feet was a symbol of just that, and as he knelt down to carry out the act, like Jesus did with his disciples at the Last Supper, he hoped that Light would both feel less like a god and be contrarily ridden with more guilt at the acknowledgment he'd been forgiven in advance, but it only had the opposite effect.
It wasn't long after they returned to their work that Ryuzaki had to watch the only other person close to him dying on screen before he felt his own heart clench like a fist in his chest. A heart attack that he could only interpret as heartbreak. He fell sideways out of his chair and onto what he at first thought was the floor but turned out to be into Light's arms. Colorful mandalas spun like wheels in Ryuzaki's vision, overlapping his view of the expression that crossed over Light's face.
In the past, Ryuzaki had said more than once that he wouldn't be satisfied unless he could prove Light to be Kira. That was partly because he just wanted to be right, and partly because if he were, Light simply needed to be stopped.
Finally satisfied to have some kind of answer, though wishing for once he were wrong, Ryuzaki—L—Lawliet—Light's best and only real friend—slowly let his eyes close on the sight of that twisted, self-satisfied smirk, grateful to Light for flashing it in part to provide him with the closure, however genuine the smile happened to be.