Chapter One
L's voice remained level and unwavering as he spoke. “ I don't want Yagami Light to be Kira.”
Never did he advert his eyes from the bluish gleam of his computer screen, only his stormy irises seemed to withdraw at every syllable he spoke.
The police surrounded him, ever attentive. Only one dared to speak. Move. Breathe, even, through the thickness of the air. “Why?”
“Because...” L stared down into the sugar-saturated cup of coffee in his hand. His face was unreadable, as was typical of him; but when he spoke, an alien voice arose full of guilt, regret, and something else...something nondescript.
“Because Yagami Light is my first ever friend.”
Light awoke with a start, his hair hanging in damp tendrils around his chin. His entire body raged uncontrollably with tremors. He was tactile to the touch, dripping with sweat. His face, too, was wet, but with something other than perspiration: tears. It took minutes for his breathing to slow to normal, moments still before the pounding of his heart fell silent. Light turned over on his firm, unforgiving mattress, and squinted at his alarm clock. It read 4:28 in the morning. The pixilated numbers taunted him as yet another minute drolled by. Whoever said that time is an illusion was lying . He flipped back onto his side, then swatted away the beads of moisture that were weaving defiantly down his cheek
How long will this continue? This...hell? This was not the first time Light had experienced a nightmare with him –Ryuzaki, L, Lawliet, etc. Etc. Etc-- as the lead character. In the past few weeks, they were happening with an increasing frequency, both day and night whenever his eyes were to close. It was as if someone had captured Light's personal horror movie and projected it on the surface of his mind, on constant repeat, until the very head of it scalded.
Light stared at the empty expanse of his bed. It at once struck him how vacant and imposing it seemed with only one person laying on its wide girth. He grimaced. Light rubbed the sleep from his eyes, then reluctantly rolled out of bed to a sitting position. When he could stand it no longer, he thrust himself onto his feet. Through his window, Light could see the sun was still hidden beyond the hills.
He sauntered purposefully over to his desk, and withdrew an all too familiar book from the safe house of his drawer. Its black leather cover displayed the ominous words: “Death Note”. His death note. “If I can't get to sleep, I'll work,” he reasoned with himself. Anything to forget....
From the foremost corner of his room came a chorus of conspiratorial snickering. “Ryuk, you stay up here,” he commanded blithely, without turning. He had become almost oblivious to the shinigami's presence. The lanky figure of the death god bowed in mockery, his wide grin nearly sweeping the floor. “As you wish, Master Light.”
Light walked through the dull gray darkness of his house, down the steps, and into the kitchen. He walked on pointed toe, reminded only by the muffled sounds of his mother's snoring drifting from down the hall that every sane person in the house was asleep. He instantaneously put a kettle of water on the stove, then sat down at the den table. Light opened the Death Note to a clean page, a pen poised in his hand ready to write the names of his chosen. He did not want to risk turning on the television to pick up the names of criminals; too much noise. He tried fruitlessly to bring names and faces of bad-doers he's uncovered in days past. It was a ridiculous game of distraction that he knew he couldn't surmount. No faces came to recall; none but one, that was. Light forced the thought from his mind.
A soft whistle came from the kettle on the stove. He jumped to take it off the burner, then prepared himself a warm cup of coffee; he settled down to breathe in it's cathartic aroma. Light sighed. He retrieved a sack of sugar from the kitchen pantry, then returned to his seat to shovel mountains of it into his coffee until he could separate individual granules and clumps of it from the tamed brown liquid.
Light took a small sip, then immediately spuddered and spat. How did he do it?! How did he.... Then suddenly Light found himself in tears once more. He sobbed relentlessly, his tears falling into the mug, making rings burst forth from the tepid water. He flung the cup across the room with a swipe of his hand. It shattered into millions of shards against the tile floor. The coffee spread like a lake of wildfire –blood. The blood spilled for the covenant, Ryuzaki. It was you.
“Am I still under suspicion, detective?” Light probed. He jeered inconspicuously at the boy before him, who was hunched on the ledge of the diner's slick red booth seat. His knees were folded unfathomably below his chin. Light often wondered how that stance could possibly be comfortable. It was somewhat of a pantomime: Either a cat ready to pounce, or some unsightly toad.
The boy stared back with avarice, his eyes unblinking. “Yagami Light has a three percent chance of being Kira.”
Light swallowed a smirk. Not high statistics, there. He can't be on to me. “How could you possibly think I could be some...some common murderer?!”
The boy's obscure coal hair fell over his eyes, but a slanted grin was still visible behind its shadows. “Common, no,” He returned his attention to the glazed donut clenched between his thumb and forefinger.
There was a long pause. “You're infuriating, Ryuzaki,” Light seethed.
He nodded in agreement, “Yes.”
Minutes later, Light slapped a few tattered bills onto the diner table. The two said their goodbyes, then parted company.
Light pulled his windbreaker tight against his ribs as he walked down the sidewalk through the brisk autumn chill. His mind was screaming with perplexity. He had made a speedy resolve from the beginning that no one –nothing-- could step in his path. How can he see through me? Every time Light held conversation with L, he felt violated; as if someone had just rifled through the vault within his head. It was meant to be a sacred place; a place only intended for the wisdom of a god, where not even the righteous were able to tread. His mind was the proverbial tree of knowledge, where the beloved and damned alike were unwelcome. And yet that bastard acts like I'm his own personal library.
How ironic it seemed that he could strike down all his persecutors with a slash of a pen, but he couldn't kill his largest enemy, who was hidden from death by the shield of an alias. He hated L with his entire being; he, who was living testament to the fact that Kira's power was not without limit. I swear to the heavens, the day I ever have to be in a room with him for more than an hour, I'll be forced to write my own name down.
L clamped to metal ring around Light's wrist. “Know that I'm not doing this because I want to, Light-kun.”
Light furrowed his brow, but chose to disregard L, along with his rather unprovoked niceties. “...Why are you doing this?”
“To prove if you're Kira.” He took considerable care to ensure that the handcuff could not possibly slip off.
“Or not,” supplied Light.
L looked up. He had clearly not been listening. “Hm...?”
“Or not,” he repeated, impertinent.
L produced a wheezing sound. He rocked on his heels, shanking. Was he...laughing?
Damn it, he is. He's laughing.
“Perhaps not, Yagami Light.”
Light's boundless hazel eyes flashed a brilliant red. No matter how appealing, he couldn't simply strangle the impertinent boy with his bare hands. No death note needed, Ryuzaki. Or better yet, I can use the damn chain connecting us! But no, the he was far more than an annoyance. He was Light's most favored pawn. Every move he made –every word he spoke-- had to be orchestrated with the greatest of intent. On the exterior, the two were to appear as friends; beloved friends. One would never question the other of treachery. Never!
He would make L to trust him. It would not be long. The pallid-faced demon was already confiding his every suspicion to him. Once L cleared his name, no one would ever question his integrity; no one would dare.
Now the only thing left to do is endure all this idiocy.
