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They call L in on the Kira case after two months of gruesome murders. Unlike some of the other cases, L knows this one, has been reading up on it since the first tackless news station broadcast pictures of the Penber-Misora murders in all their dismembered glory. L had opened the article, watched blood and gore leak onto his monitor, and his first unbidden thought was,
beautiful.
His second was a dull sort of disappointment—at the technical tragedy of the case, but mostly at himself.
L is a detective. He is above such things as errant speculation and fascination.
After that, L followed Kira wherever he worked.
Now, he stands exposed in an office building that anyone would call excessive. There are only a few things standing here: the table, sleek and black, a monitor screen locked onto the wall, a scattering of potted plants and paintings (the rest of the room is so bereft to make it obvious they are here merely for pretences’ sake), and then the corpse.
L keeps his distance.
All the rest swarm around it, taking pictures, collecting evidence. The stray flash catches his eyes every now and then, but L blinks away the lights and slings his hands in his pockets. He turns his gaze out the high-rise window instead, watches the streets wind below, dark and slithering.
Kyosuke Higuchi, businessman of the Yotsuba group, probably a shark of a man, given the string of companies and people he had stepped on to climb his way to the top of this very building. Kira had gutted him, stolen all the vitality out of his body, scooped out the thick flesh of his organs, then sewed him back up. Left his suit on. Sewed him down to the chair, then painted the window with a gallon of his blood. Took his eyes, like Kira always does, wrapped white linen around the weeping wounds.
The window before him is red-tinged. L leans in closer, until he is nose to nose with the thin film of Higuchi’s blood.
How fitting,
he thinks,
a world painted in red.
He has Watari assemble a task force. Soichiro Yagami comes highly recommended, one of the best. So L has his team, and his headquarters. Before they start, he stares at each of them direct in the eye, until each and every one of them looks away uncomfortably, and then he asks if they are Kira.
They are all of them aghast, in sync with their horror. It is as real as a reaction as L will ever get.
“Alright,” he says, and settles into his chair. “Now we can begin.”
It feels, inexplicably, like something is missing.
He hunches in his armchair, methodically swiping whorls of icing off a small cupcake. The rest of his task force stares at him openly. L tries to stop his gaze from fixating on the details in the photos spread out over their low table, the creases in the corners of Higuchi’s empty eye sockets that speak to hot pain, to Kira ripping his eyes out alive. L wonders how he did it. With his bare hands? Is Kira the sort of man who would deign to get his own hands deep in the blood?
One would have to, to paint such brutal pictures, but L wonders if Kira distastes in it. If he revels in it.He sucks the last of the icing off his index finger, lets the sweetness dissolve on his tongue.The task force offers up information on motives behind him. They hypothesize everything from a jilted competitor to an insane serial killer, targeting his victims at random. L drags over his plate of cherries, plucks one out, and thinks of a faceless man splashing buckets of blood over windows.
“He has a motive,” L says, fishing a cherry pit of out his mouth and laying it down on the growing line. “Something defined, some reason he has to commit these murders.”
Someone—Aizawa, L thinks—crosses his arms. “How do we know he’s not just on a murder spree?”
“Too spread out.”
“What if he’s choosing at random.”
“He took Higuchi’s eyes,” L says.
“Along with the rest of him.”
“He took Naomi Misora’s eyes. And Raye Penber’s. And Takuo Shibuimaru. Didn’t take Kurou Otoharada’s, but he did blind him.” L stacks another cherry pit on the desk. “All the victims had missing organs, at that, if not entire limbs. There’s too much of a defined pattern here for everything to be random.”
Aizawa sits back, unease drawn on his face. Beside him, Chief Yagami adjusts his tie. “The methods may be patterned,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean the victims are, too.”
L shrugs. “He scooped out Higuchi’s eyeballs when the man was still alive—autopsy results should confirm that if you don’t believe me. That’s a personal touch. Call it a hunch if it suits you. Kira has a method to his madness.”
Matsuda clenches fists into the couch. “What kind of messed up person has a reason to do any of this?”
“Kira likely has some sort of warped worldview. I believe he thinks what he’s doing is right.”“Oh yeah?” Aizawa is challenging, again.L swipes some more cherries out of the bowl. “There is no shame in any of his crime scenes. No hesitation in any of his cuts, or signs of panic,” he says. “If he didn’t believe what he was going was right, why would he bother to go to the lengths that he has?”
“That’s true,” Chief Yagami says.
“That’s fucked up,” Matsuda adds.
L shrugs. “Be that as it may, if we can figure out Kira’s motive, we might be one step closer to figuring out his next victim. Or at least be better equipped to track him down. Make that your priorities, moving forward.”
He dismisses the task force and settles down into his chair for another night of analyzing the crime reports. If Watari didn’t indulge him so much, he might’ve asked if L was perhaps a tad bit obsessed. L himself knows there is truth to that, obsession isn’t so different from the familiar exhilarating flare of finding something he couldn’t solve, not yet. There are cracks in the Kira case. L intends to break them open.
Chief Yagami lingers behind.
L peers at him out of the corner of his eye. “Yes?”
Yagami puts his hands down on the table. “This is an odd request, I know,” he starts.
L shakes his head. “Nothing of the sort. What is it?”“My son’s managed to get into my case files.”
For a moment, the ludicrous image of some wunderkind five year old, digging through the treasures of Chief Yagami’s work briefcase flashes in L’s mind, for all the parental weariness that Yagami injects into his voice. Then, he remembers the man’s file, and his children. A teenaged daughter and a son fresh out of college.
L turns in his chair. “How did he manage that?”
“He said he was curious,” Chief Yagami says, “about the case.”
“Was your involvement in the Kira case not supposed to be kept under wraps?”
Now, Chief Yagami looks properly chagrined. “He figured it out,” he mutters. “Light’s always been a bright boy; I promise I haven’t leaked anything properly. He’s just got it in his head that he can help on the case and won’t leave me alone about it.”
The image in his head shifts from a precocious child to a bright-eyed young man. But even in his mind’s eye there is something behind the gleam of his curiosity, something that spoke to a son who would go hunting for his father’s murder files on a whim. Or not a whim. A curiosity, maybe.
L rolls a cherry pit around in his cheek, makes up his mind. “If he wants, he can come to the next meeting,” he says, waving a hand.
Chief Yagami looks aghast. “What?”
L simply gives him his usual dull-eyed stare, until the man stammers out something of a thank you and makes his retreat.
After the man is gone, L turns back to his monitors, scrolling through the case files again. Except this time, his mind is still stuck on that image of one Light Yagami. He pulls up Yagami’s file again, hunts through To-Oh’s databases for Light’s records, until eventually, he finds himself trying to find every shred of data the internet has on him.
It isn’t much. Perfect marks, enough of a sports background to count for normal childhood activities. Everything after that is a blank.
When night falls, L chews on a fingernail and waits for Light Yagami to show up come morning.
The task force is nearly all assembled, save for Chief Yagami and his son. L sits, starts the meeting with a lazy wave of his hand, and pretends he isn’t waiting.
The itch of anticipation under his skin makes no sense. L drops a sugar cube on his tongue, sucks, and ponders this bout of irrationality that has seized him for no apparent reason. He is not foreign to this taut eagerness that makes him want to get up and pace around the room in defiance of his usual easy slouch, but it is usually easier to suppress. He piles more sugar on his palm, balances the cubes.
And then the door swings open, and Chief Yagami is apologizing for being late, and L understands.
Behind him, in the guise of a young man, Kira strolls in.
For a moment, he is struck with the absolute certainty of the feeling: Light Yagami, one hand tucked casually in his pocket, the other reaching up as if to offer for a shake, a beatific smile gracing his handsome face. Easy posture, sharp-cut suit. Eyes like blood.
Or, that’s the light, and when L lifts his head up the barest half-inch, they settle back into a warm caramel.
“Light-kun, is it?” he murmurs, ignoring the proffered hand for dumping his small stack of sugar cubes into the tea resting by his computer. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Instantly, the smile turns sheepish. Light turns the direction of his hand to rub at the back of his neck. “I’m sorry about that,” he says, though he does not sound very sorry at all. “I knew my dad was going somewhere that wasn't the office, and I’d heard about the murders. I was worried about him.”
“Worried,” L says, “a passable excuse.”
The room stills.
A small crease forms between Light’s eyes, a tiny imperfection. L stirs his tea, and watches. The rest of the task force is quiet—commendable, he thinks, to know that they should keep their mouths shut for what is inevitably coming. Light’s eyes crinkle in confusion, but he stands his ground.
They stare at each other for a long time. L reads nothing in Light Yagami’s eyes. Nothing but a flat mirror, the easy emotion of confusion, worry, even a shy hint of fear tucked behind it all. But for as baffled as Light might look, his face is a steel trap. He does not look away.
Eventually, Chief Yagami steps out from behind his son and takes a seat.
“Hm,” L says.
Light raises an eyebrow.
“Five percent,” L intones, then turns back to the computer.
“Five percent of what?” Light asks.
“The possibility,” L says, then holds up a hand and takes a long sip of his tea.
Hm. Too bitter.
He fishes around the table for more sugar cubes, then counts five out, drops them in. One, two, three, four, five—”That you, Light Yagami, are Kira.”
The room explodes in a flurry of whispers.
“Ryuuzaki,” Matsuda hisses. “You can’t just jump to conclusions like that.”
Mogi scowls. Chief Yagami looks stricken, like his entire world has broken apart. He keeps sneaking glances at his son out of the corner of his eye, his mouth dragging downward violently. His hands are clenched tight in his lap. Aizawa pins Light with a neutral, but piercing stare.
Light himself holds himself with impressive poise—something that speaks overwhelmingly either to his innocent or guilt. This fact he seems to know all too well. As the task force dissolves to pieces around him, Light simply frowns, crosses his arms tight across his chest.
“That doesn’t seem very logical of you,” he says, still softly. “I wasn’t aware the great detective L made such rash judgments.” Coming from his mouth, the title has an edge of mocking to it.
L smiles. “Call me Ryuuzaki.”
“Alright,” Light says. “Ryuuzaki then.”
“It was far from an irrational decision.” L prods at a couple of keystrokes, and pulls up a map. “We’ve already worked out a passable profile for the man behind the Kira murders: likely young, athletic enough to physically overpower his victims, or else charming enough to evade discovery until it was too late; the cuts made are precise, but not surgical, which speaks not to professional training, but does indicate a tendency for high performance within a given framework —say, a near impeccable academic record. Likely a sociopath of some sort, but that’s hardly detectable other than the usual norms of ambitious men. Light Yagami fits every single point on that profile.” He holds up a finger to forestall the next outcry. “A number of Kira’s crimes have taken place at specific times where there was weak police presence in the area, and the most parsimonious explanation is that Kira had access to official police records. And Light-kun has been brought here because he’s just admitted to hacking his father’s records in order to find more about the Kira case.
I said it was a possibility, not a fact.”
The room is quiet.
Light smiles. He inclines his head, as if conceding. “I have to admit, none of that is untrue.”
L narrows his eyes.
“I only have one complaint,” Light says. “If I were Kira, why would I have told my father I hacked into the files? Wouldn’t that only bring more suspicion on myself.”
“Not if you wanted to get close to the investigation,” L says. He tilts his head forward again, watches Light under the brim of his own fringe.
“Touché.”
“Seven percent.” This, of all things, is the only lie. L keeps quiet for the rest of the meeting, watching Light sink back into the couch cushions and toss his head back, laughing freely at something inane Matsuda said, or another one of Mogi’s dry quips. His eyes glitter. L is absolutely certain he is looking at Kira, and, moreover, he is absolutely certain that Kira knows.
The next day, Light doesn’t come.
Which, of course, is counterintuitive to every single strategy he could’ve deployed. It doesn’t bring him any closer to the task force, and it doesn’t make his traipse in the day before seem any less suspicious. L searches for reasons, and all he can come up with is the simple one that even now, after they’ve hit yet another dead end with the Higuchi investigation, he is still thinking about Light Yagami.
He nudges the files he’s been consulting for hours now off the desk petulantly.
When Watari comes in to find him trying to piece them back together in chronological order, he has the good sense not to ask.
It’s another three days before Light Yagami graces the task force again with his presence.
He puts a finger on a nearby open file.“Is there something interesting, Light-kun?” L asks.Light turns to him, something razor sharp embedded in his smile for just a second. “I thought I recognized something,” he says. “You see this briefcase?” He points to the one dropped at the feet of Raye Penber, kicked aside and nearly broken.
L inclines his head.
“That’s CIA, isn’t it?”
“What?” Matsuda asks.
“It looks standard issue,” Light says. He leans over, strands of his hair ghosting over L’s cheek, to press something on the monitor. Blown wide on the screen, the image of a the few CIA officers who had briefly come in to oversee progress on the case. He points to the briefcase. “See? They’ve got the same sort of lock.”
L slinks out of his chair, his cheek still lightly prickling. He crouches in front of the photos on the counter, squinting at the briefcase. “I suppose I see the resemblance.”
“Check his records,” Light says, with the casual arrogance of someone utterly convinced of the truth of his own words. Which, he should be. He was the one who spilled Penber’s guts all over the train station floor, made a noose out of his entrails, wrapped them around the man’s neck. The only question is: why is he letting his hand show so early?
If this is a game about whichever one of them cracks under pressure first, L is willing to play.
If this is a game about both of them knowing, circling around the simple truth of Light’s inner nature, each of them waiting for one to slip up, L is willing to play. He can think of no reason for Light Yagami to saunter into the room, practically offer up his wrists, flaunting the red hot pulse of truth beneath every word, every breath, every twitch of his eyes that tells him,
I am Kira I am Kira come get me—
none but one, that is: this is the game, this is Light proffering up all the information L needs to be sure,
come get me, hunt me down, you have no proof.
Whatever this is, L is willing to play.
Move number one: keep the enemy close.
“Light-kun?”
“Yes, Ryuuzaki? Was I right?”
“Would you like to join the Kira task force?”
He says yes, then disappears for another week, supposedly to talk it out with his boss at his current job, at some financial firm that L has already scoured for any suspicious ties. It’s clean. Everything is clean. Seemingly, move number one in Light Yagami’s playbook is to infuriate your opponent until they want to murder you theirself.
When next Light comes back to the headquarters, he doesn’t stay long, gives some excuse about meeting up for a date, but he leaves behind an invitation to dinner. His place, that night. And then, as if miraculous, the rest of the task force finds themselves unexpectedly busy, all of them.
L watches the sheepish grin on Light’s face as he promises them the invite some other time—apparently, he’s been trying out some new recipes, now that he’s finally living out on his own. It flakes at the edges. No one notices.And then, like a chef, unveiling the main course, Light turns to him.
“Ryuuzaki?” he asks, and L discovers there are many flavours to the way Light can twist his lips into an approximation of a smile. This one is faintly apologetic. Barely there, really, just a small upward flicker at the corners of his mouth, faintly pursed lips, enough to say,
I’m sorry I asked you last.
“Perhaps you’ll have time to join me?”
L has smiles, too. He pulls out a wry one, tilts his head to the side. “I would be honoured.”
Light’s apartment is modestly furnished, tucked in a decent part of the neighbourhood, and decorated enough to be called cozy, if L were so inclined. He leaves his shoes in a small heap at the doorway, then slouches his way into the kitchen.
The dinner invite, apparently, comes with a meeting with Light’s blond annoyance of a girlfriend, and L wonders if this is yet another piece of the game. Surely Light knows they’re playing by now.
“You should’ve introduced us earlier, Light-kun,” he says, letting his eyes go wide, showing enough of a leer that the girl—Amane, that was it—makes a face at Light’s side.
In response, Light curls his fingers against Amane’s ribcage, splays them out like marking property, and nods. “Of course, Ryuuzaki,” he says, “Misa is very interested in the Kira case.”
Amane strikes an absurd pose, peace sign next to her winking eye. “I love Kira-sama!” she declares.
Instantly, L feels the mood shift. It is almost tangible. He himself blinks his eyes wide, lets his mouth open as if in shock, curls his toes against the hard kitchen tiles and tries to slot Amane onto the board.
Light has the good sense to cringe. “Misa has...an unusual outlook,” he says, then shoots her a glare so poisonous it might’ve killed, if he wanted.
“Unusual is putting it lightly,” L says.
“Kira-sama rids the world of terrible people,” Amane says, solemn-voiced, pitched half an octave lower. “How could I not love him for that?” She barely looks ashamed. She straightens up, in the circle of Light’s arms, and leans hard into him, like he is all the support she will ever need in the world, like he is her personal saviour, and the scene is so obvious L wants to laugh in disbelief.
“Misa’s parents were murdered,” Light explains. He tightens his grip. “And then Kira murdered the murderer. An ugly solution, I suppose, but I can’t blame her. I can’t help but sympathize.”
Amane practically beams.
Are you trying to confess to me?
L wants to snap, but he bites the words back and wishes desperately he had some candy to stuff his mouth with.
He turns, instead, to Amane. “And what about the other victims?” he asks, imploring. “And their families?”
Amane shrugs, and in that simple, casual movement, L sees how someone like Light could stand to be around her. “I don’t really care,” she says.
More silence, bracing and acute.
L rolls his tongue up against one side of his mouth. “And what do you think about that, Light-kun?”
Light puts a hand over Amane’s, covers her fingers with his own. The way he leans over her, his torso swallows her lithe form up in its shadow. “I keep my professional opinion out of things,” he says. “Less conflict.”
“And what is your professional opinion?”
“That Kira is a murderer.” If Amane objects, she has the good sense to keep her mouth shut this time.L raises his eyebrow.
Light straightens, brushes his hair out of his face. “I accepted your task force offer, did I not?”
“Do you believe Kira needs to be brought to justice, Light-kun?”
“Of course.”
“And what does justice look like, to you?”
Light’s smile is a sharp slice across his face, red and thin. “Let’s have dinner.”
“I hope you like this dish,” Light says. “I’ve been experimenting.”
“I have a sweet-tooth,” L deadpans.
Light chuckles. “Well,” he says, placing a platter of something browned and thinly sliced in front of them all, “I did try to be accomodating.” A flash-fire image ignites in L’s mind: Light, standing behind the counter, one hand holding down a steaming piece of liver, the other holding a long, sharp knife, gleaming in the fluorescent light. He slices with a professional precision, the flex of his boney wrist, a quick-dash downward of the wicked blade. The slices are thin. So thin, it is impossible to tell what kind of meat it is, only a red-browned piece of something, gossamer and savoury.
Amane claps her hands in delight.
L prods at the thing.
“Ah, hold on a second,” Light says, placing the last of the plates down. He disappears back into the kitchen, and brings out a bowl of something gleaming. “Sliced liver, marinated and steamed,” he says, gesturing to the plate set on the table. “But for you, something special.” He takes a spoon out of his silver bowl, stirs it around with an expert twist of his wrist, then drizzles something bright red all over the meat. “Raspberry syrup, with a touch of ice sugar and a pop of colouring. Tricks your brain into thinking it’s sweeter, see.”
He sets the bowl aside, then peers down at L as if expecting praise.
L picks up his fork, spears a slice clean through. The red of the sauce sticks onto the metal prongs, capillary action drawing the viscous glob up, translucent. When he lifts the fork, there is just enough pull for the sauce to slide downward, draping the meat in a thin film of red.
“Hm,” L says, turning it this way and that.
“Try it,” Light says. He leans against the table, seemingly content to watch until L puts the eats.
He swallows the piece in one gulp. It is, despite himself, delicious. Enough sugar to drown out the savoury meat, enough texture so when he rolls it around in his mouth, it sticks. L chews, slowly, closing his eyes to try and hunt down the medley of flavours. “Light-kun is a very accomplished chef,” he says, the sauce still clinging to his teeth.
Finally, Light retreats to his own seat. “Thank you,” he says, holding his fork primly in one hand. “Like I said, I’ve had time to prepare.” He cuts into the meat with his knife, deliberate. There is no red sauce drizzled over his portion, so the cut looks dry, like skin splitting in two, clean. Light skewers the piece with a fork and raises it to his mouth, drapes the meat over his tongue, closes his lips around the prongs of the fork with a satisfied smile.
“I hope you invite me over for dinner more often,” L says, opening his eyes wider.
“Trying to take advantage of my hospitality, Ryuuzaki?”
L licks a bit of sauce from the corner of his mouth, then drops his fork and picks up another slice with his fingers. “Not really,” he says, ripping it in half and watching the sauce drip down like so much blood. “There’s something I enjoy more than your food, Light-kun.”
“Oh?”
L nods, sucking up the pieces of meat, then licking his fingers clean. “Your company, of course. Are we not friends?”At that, Light finally has no easy retort.
L polishes off the plate, then settles his hands on the table, open and clean.
Light’s eyes are narrowed. “Yes,” he says. “We are, aren’t we?”
“I’m glad,” L says, tossing the words out generously. He looks up at Light, lifts his head, bares his throat and smile all at once. “You’re the first friend I’ve ever had.”
Strangely, a sliver of anger has embedded itself in Light’s hardened stare. L hides a smile.
The next day, they get the call that there’s been another murder.
It happened the day of the dinner.
Light sits across in the hotel room, one hand plastered over his mouth as if in distress, listening to the report. His head is bent. Nothing much of his face is visible, hair and hands covering the most fluid of his tells, obscuring his bright eyes, his devilish mouth.
L chews on his nails and listens, too.
Takeda Kiyomi, rising star news anchor, found trussed like a pig, gutted and immolated. Left in a church pew, eyes seared out, of course, tongue cut, set up as if in supplication. Praying, to some god that never heard her.
Matsuda’s knuckles are white.“Dammit,” Aizawa mutters, his hands tangled in his hair. “We weren’t even close to solving the last one.”
“Have they started an autopsy?” L asks.
The Chief nods. “Specialists on scene just cleaned up. We should get reports soon.”
L bites down hard on his nail. “Check for missing organs,” he says. “Stomach, pancreas, intestines, anything missing. Liver.”“Like Higuchi?” Matsuda asks.
“Yes,” L says, bile pooling in his mouth, “exactly like Higuchi.”
The next day, Light brings in leftovers. “Misa didn’t like it,” he says sheepishly, “but I figured good food shouldn’t go to waste, right?”
Matsuda laughs easily. “What is it, then?”“Marinated pork tongue,” Light says, setting the plate on the coffee table, then drops a handful of chopsticks. “It’s mom’s old recipe, actually,” he says, inclining his head towards his father. “I’ve been meaning to try it out for ages now. Remember how much I loved it as a kid?”
Chief Yagami nods. “I remember she used to bring plates up for you when you were studying,” he says, fondness colouring his tone. He softens, then leans forward to snatch a piece. “Hah,” he says, beaming. “You’ve got it exactly the same way she makes it, Light.”
Light basks in the praise. The rest of the task force swarms around the dish, all exclaiming compliments.
“Man,” Matsuda says, “next time you have leftovers, you have to bring me some. Or, better yet, just invite me over for dinner!”
“Of course,” Light says. Over the clamour, he meets L’s eyes. “I would love to have you for dinner someday, Matsuda.”
L scoffs. “Showing off, now, are we, Light-kun?”
“Well I’ve already shared with you,” Light says. Even his usual careful restraint can’t hold back the glee in his voice. The air shimmers, dim shadows elongating in the corners. Light crosses his legs at the knees, splays a hand out, and practically preens. “I figured it was about time I cooked for the rest of the task force too.”
“It sounds like this is becoming much more than a hobby,” L mutters.
“Oh it always was. I’ve always wanted to cook more, just never had the time, what with university and all.”
“And now,” L says, “you have all the time in the world.”
Light leans forward, lacing his fingers together over his knees. “Yes,” he says. “Exactly.”
“Why do you think Kira does what he does?” Matsuda asks one day out of the blue. The mid-afternoon sun is leaking into the room, drenching them all in a syrupy honey that makes them all just the bit lazier. L waves his hand through the air and it feels like going through water, shimmering and slow.Light shrugs. “Why does any psychopath do it?”
“Ryuuzaki says he has reason,” Matsuda says.
Light lifts one elegant eyebrow. “Oh?”
L sighs, tucks his feet in and sits up straighter in his chair. “I posited that Kira believes he is just,” he says.
“What do
you
think, Light?” Matsuda asks.
Light shrugs. “I think he must have a reason, but who knows how coherent it is.”
“What would your reason be?” L asks.
“My reason?”
“If you were Kira,” L says, “what would be your reason?”
“I don’t know,” Light says. “I can’t imagine it.”“I can tell you mine.” L spears a strawberry with a confectionary fork, straight down the middle. “I think I would make a game out of it, myself. I would pick some arbitrary reason to find my victims—pretend I’m an office worker with a grudge, for example. Wait and see how long I was called in on my own case.” He pops the fruit in his mouth, bites down with a crunch and grins at the room. “A game.”
Matsuda is pale. “How could you even think of that, Ryuuzaki?”
L flicks his fork at the man. “It’s not about imagining yourself as a murderer, but, rather bringing yourself to a place where you understand how it is a man could bring himself to murder. How are you planning on catching Kira if you never understand him?”
Lit from behind, the back of Light’s hair catches the glow like a halo. L thinks this is something to be framed, and wonders if Light planned it that way. How meticulous are you, Kira? Would you walk into the room, position yourself between the rest of us and the source of light? Light leans into the shaft of gold, and puts his hand up to his chin as if in thought. “I would find unsolved cases,” he finally says. The words are clipped, even. “I would solve them myself, and then find the fuckers, and kill them slowly.”
There is what sounds like naked truth in the statement.
Even Aizawa looks faintly impressed.
For a split second, the pen Light is holding in his slender fingers looks like a weapon. A knife, slit carefully across the line of arteries, cut down to the quick of bone. His eyes catch the spun sunlight, too. The yellow edge—it makes them look bloodied.
L finds himself leaning in. Was that a miscalculation? Too much of the truth revealed? Or another play—a move to bare his soft underbelly, pretend at having vulnerabilities?Light shifts, and the moment passes, and all his malicious intent is folded neatly back into the curt line of his lips, unsmiling.
“Geez, Light,” Matsuda says.
“Honesty suits you,” L says.
Light inclines his head. “I know myself, Ryuuzaki.” He unfolds himself, and stands. “And I know what it takes to be a murderer.” Abruptly, he comes to L’s side, hovers at the arm of his chair, but no closer. “I’ve always admired you, you know. Ever since I was older enough to understand what it was you did.”
“That’s quite flattering coming from you, Light-kun.”
Light leans in. His legs are oddly placed, neatly lined up with the arms of the chair, as if to hem him in. L looks up, unflinching.
“I used to follow all your cases,” Light admits. “I would always wonder about what it would take to solve so many, so quickly, what lengths to go to. Tell me, Ryuuzaki, do you ever sleep?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“I think I understand you a little better now.”
“Because I confessed to how I would plan elaborate murders, if given the chance?”
“Precisely that.” Light’s eyes smile more than his mouth does. It is a spark embedded deep in the fathomless depths of his irises, a gleeful abandon that lives in the abyss of his pupils. “Perhaps murder is the way to a man’s heart after all.”
After a long pause, he laughs. The rest of the task force follows suit.
“Is that so,” L murmurs in the aftermath.
Have you given me a piece of your soul, Light-kun? Kira?
“Do you really believe that?”
“Yes,” Light says, indecently sincere. “I do.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Ryuuzaki?”
“Hm?”
“What kind of person,” Light says, lips a sibilant caress over the words, “do you think Kira is?”
L pauses. He looks up from his teeming cup of tea, stirs twice counterclockwise, and settles his chin on his knees. “Not a person,” he says, his own voice a dry and tired rasp in comparison.
A flash of white—Light doesn’t bare his teeth when he smiles, more exposes them, more opens his mouth and curls the corners up slowly enough to show L the deliberation behind it. As with everything he does, L calculates what percentage is performance.
“Why not? Kira’s a man, like anyone else.”
“Or a woman.”
“Not the point, I think.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Light-kun,” L says. He digs his toes down into the soft mesh of his chair in lieu of chewing on a fingernail. “I believe Kira is as mortal as we all are. What I don’t believe is that he thinks of himself that way.”
Light tilts his chin up.
Go on
.
“Kira wants to be a god,” L says. He turns back to his monitor, just as deliberately, as slowly, lifts a hand to his mouth and gnaws at his cuticle until it bleeds. He wants Light to see him looking away.
Later, he rewinds the security tape, watches the way Light’s face slide into impassivity, studies the way his mouth falls—quicker than any of the smiles, like a twitching reflex, live-wire nerve on a roundabout circuit that has never even taken conscious control into account, an ugly, human, mortal response. He watches Light pull the mask back together. Rewind. Watches it fall. Rewind.
Morning rises. L blinks, craning his neck towards the window, scratches an ear against the sudden bright chirp of birds.
On the screen, Light Yagami’s smile carves itself back onto his face, and sunlight blinks into L’s room.
The next day, Light marches into the apartment with Tupperware and a triumphant gleam in his eyes. He sets the dish on the table, pulls out their old crime scene photos and drops them in front of L.
“If Kira is striving to be some kind of god,” he says, “then this is
punishment.”
L states at the pictures. The wrinkled blindfolds, the flaking brown crust. “Justice is blind.”
“Precisely.”
Looking at Light properly now, L blinks and focuses his gaze on the sharp twist of those lips again, the eager flare of his arms as he sweeps them towards the evidence. There is no hidden malice in his eyes today. They are almost open, carrying nothing but a keen and gleaming ingenuity. His pupils are glossy brown, like glass.
The rest of the task force is already pouring back over the photos. Dimly, he hears Matsuda exclaiming something, Aizawa’s grumbling rebuttal.
Light has not moved.
L nods once and gathers up the files. “A promising hypothesis,” he intones.
“It’s a start.”
“Yes,” he mumbles.
The heat has ignited Light’s voice. “This means we can catch him, Ryuuzaki,” he says. “We can figure out his patterns.”
“Kira never leaves any evidence behind.”
“Like you said—“ and there was a wry twist to that voice now, rich with undercurrents—“Kira isn’t god. He’ll slip up eventually.”
Will you?
L rolled the chair around, properly facing the task force now. “You’re right,” he says, perhaps a touch distantly, perhaps a touch too cold. Everyone stops and turns to him. “Let’s focus on any high profile criminals in the area,” he says, pushing the tips of his fingers together. “And also, if you would please, Mogi, we need to profile the other victims, look for significant crimes in their history.”
“Some of it’s obvious, isn’t it?” Matsuda says.
“Yes,” L agrees. “For example I’m reasonably sure we can assume Kira targeted Higuchi out of some recognition of corporate greed. Still, it’s good to be certain. I’d like to dig up any proof of past misdemeanors, embezzling, anything like that.”
The task force trades grim nods.
“If this is punishment, we need to figure out who Kira deems necessary to punish, and why,” L says.
“Personal grudge?” Aizawa offers.
“No,” Light says. He shoves the files aside, puts his hands firmly on the table. “There’s no obvious personal connection between any of the victims. This is philosophical.”
“Divine punishment,” L murmurs.
“Precisely.”
Matsuda makes a frustrated noise at the back of his throat. “Then who deserves to be punished?” he asks. “How does Kira
decide?
”
“God knows,” Light says, colouring his words with a little frustrated growl.
Something about the simplicity of that statement sets L’s teeth on edge. This time, the hotel room is darkened, sunset blotting out details, smudging everything a muddled grey. The unnatural glow of his monitors is the only real source of light, illuminating everyone in cool tones. Light sits with his elbows braced against the table, frowning down at the files, as if trying to piece the case together. He is, L thinks, too still.
“Kira wants to impose a new worldview,” L says slowly, “because Kira believes himself to be a god. So yes, only god knows, Light-kun—if that god is Kira himself.”
Slowly, Light looks up.
“Kira is targeting those who oppose his world order. That’s what the punishment is. Kira kills anyone who doesn’t accept him as their god.” Which is, in retrospect, what is keeping Amane alive all this time. Kira’s most devout worshipper. “As you said, it’s philosophical.”
“Then that makes us all dead, if he ever finds us,” Matsuda mutters bitterly.
Light laughs. It sounds like shattering glass, like church bells tolling, like the blade of morning against a dark window. “We always were, I think.”
“That’s true enough.”
Aizawa stands. “And what is Kira’s world order?”
At that, L has no guesses, which is infuriating in and of itself. “I don’t know,” he admits, and keeps his eyes firmly on the monitors if only to not have to look at Light, and the smug expression that must be spreading slow as molasses across his face now.
Aizawa starts to pace. “Then we’re right back at square one.”
Matsuda flings himself backwards onto the couch with a loud groan.
“Not necessarily,” L says. “Perhaps Kira is trying to tell us something.”
“What, like the murders are some sick form of evangelism?” Aizawa mutters.
L shrugs. “It’s possible.”
“Then what the hell kind of message is he trying to send?”
L wants to break free of his chair, right now, grab Light by the shoulders and ask that exact question. He wants to cut it out of him, draw it out like an anatomical map, break open the reluctant cage of his ribs and figure out what it is that lies at the heart of him. What are you trying to say. What are you trying to tell me. Why are you
here,
presenting yourself to me like a pig ripe for slaughter.
Old memories swim up, in his early days of detective work—L has always had a keen intuition, a sharpness for reading people. He is always right in his hunches. It is easy to piece together the details afterwards, find the waving flags that his subconscious has long since picked up on. Easier to find the criminals, leaving tracks behind like entrails. Harder to convince the authorities. Unless you put the evidence in place, delivered the wrongdoers to their fates with a little forgery, a little planting on evidence. No one would notice.
L is not a saint, but that was years ago, and the fact that Light Yagami makes him want to climb to his feet and hide a murder weapon in his perfect apartment cuts deeper than any knife.
“Maybe he wants to share,” Light says softly, and this is not for Matsuda, or Aizawa, or Mogi, or his own father, or any of them. He sits across the room, too far to touch, but the searing heat of his gaze threatens to rip L apart either way. His eyes rake up and down L’s body, and it feels like being sized up for slaughter. “Right now, Kira is a god without followers. Isn’t it natural that he wants to make everyone else see?”
That night, L switches on the cameras he planted in Light’s apartment.
Kira sleeps like any human, Amane’s arms splayed over him like creeping vines, like something possessive. His hair falls over the pillows. His face is slack, for once, nothing calculating written in the lines of his face. If his eyes were open, they might be dark, glassy, blank for once.
L chews on his nails. He reaches for a pile of cherries, plucks one out, gets as far as rolling it gently between his fingertips before he thinks better of it.
He opens the case files instead, lays out each picture in front of him.
Lind L. Tailor, holding his own decapitated head in his arms, seated as if about to open the evening news. Eyes stabbed out, the blindfold wrapped around so many times, the outside edge is still pristinely white. His fingers holding his own mouth open, like some sort of grotesque gag.
Raye Penber and Naomi Misora, tangled up in each other, Penber’s intestines hanging like a noose around both their necks. Strung up in the subway station. They were sewed together in an embrace—Misora’s face was stitched over so many times the autopsy team never managed to severe them without disfiguring it. Eyes taken out, of course.
Then Higuchi, and Takuo Shibuimaru, and Kurou Otoharada, and Takeda.
L stares until the gruesome details are seared into his mind, then he sticks his fingers in his own mouth, closes his eyes, and imagines Light walking through the carnage with a serene smile on his face. Sleeves rolled up to the elbows—no, something worn over his clothes so as to not leave any traces of himself behind. Hair slicked back, maybe. Eyes bleeding red.
“What do you want to show me?” he asks the image.
The Light in his imagination, mercurial and vivid, only holds out a dripping hand, as if in invitation.
He takes the small pieces of meat, gathered at the bottom of his teacup, one chunk from every ‘leftover’ dish Light has brought to the task force meetings so far. Goes so far as to bag them. Stares for a long while.
It feels something like insanity.
Certainly, there would be no easy proof here. Kira is careful. But Kira is arrogant. In the end, which one wins out in the equation?
He frowns. There’s no harm in venturing, he thinks, and sends the samples off to the lab that evening.
“What do you want us to look for?” the tech asks, blinking eyes and glasses, the only thing driving him to be curious scientific inquiry.
L grimaces. “Human remains,” he says softly. “And don’t alert the others. Give your report to Watari, when you get it.”
The tech looks confused, but nods, and L slinks away, unsure what he wants the results to be.
“It’s not just a punishment,” Light says that evening. This time, there isn’t even the faint touch of sunset to colour the windows, so there is only the inky black of night outside, seeping in despite everything. The room is near empty, save for the two of them, everyone else long since headed home.
L shivers, huddles in closer to himself. Tonight is too tender for words, he thinks, somewhat deliriously. “What?”
“Kira’s punishment,” Light says. His long legs are splayed out over the couch, head tossed back over the armrest, eyes half-lidded as if he is two blinks away from sleep. As he talks, his voice is a low, grinding murmur. “It’s about excess,” he says. “Greed. Kira punishes those who transgress.”
“And what does that entail?”
“I know you, Ryuuzaki,” Light says instead. “Tell me, do you have any boundaries set up in your quest for justice?”
“No,” L deadpans. “I’m a detective. I find the truth.”
“Hm. Kira wouldn’t like you.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
Light kicks his feet up, then turns to L with a savage grin. “Is there something you wouldn’t do, then?” he asks. Like this, he sounds almost innocently curious. “Is there a line you’re not willing to cross? Take this hypothetical: kill a man, solve a case. Do you take the plunge?”
“You’re going to have to be more specific than that, Light-kun,” L says. “There is always a solution.”
“What if it were that simple.”
“Nothing ever is.”
Light taps his lips. “I suppose you’re right, Ryuuzaki,” he says, gives a little rueful shake of his head. Behind him, the city’s street lights leak in through the window. His face is all flat planes and chiaroscuro edges, the insistent work of his jaw hinting at the precise musculature beneath smooth skin.
“What was that Kira theory of yours?” L asks, if only to keep the words flowing.
Light shrugs. He draps an arm over the back of the couch. “Kira’s victims aren’t all criminals,” he says, “but they’ve all overstepped, somehow. Bitten off more than they can chew, so to speak.” The smile curls back around his words, serpentine. “Higuchi was greedy, Takeda was arrogant. I’d even go so far as to say Penber and Misora were investigating him somehow. Maybe they got closer than we ever did. Maybe they found something.”
And—the problem is that all of this sounds terribly, devastatingly real. L sits, and listens to Light’s honeyed story, and it would fit, perfectly. From another investigator, L might’ve been jealous at the easy logic, the way the case is splayed out and dissected in front of them so easily.
From Light, all L can think about is the familiar push and pull,
how much is he revealing, how much is the truth?
For the first time, L wonders if maybe the answer is
all of it.
“How does that sound?” Light asks.
“What is the endgame, then?” L asks.
Instead of answering, Light angles his face up, somehow manages to give L an imperious stare even while looking upward, tilts his chin so that the bob of his adam’s apple is obvious and thick as he swallows. Their eyes meet. L finds he cannot tear his gaze away.
Slowly, he eases himself off the chair. Somewhere in the distance, a siren sounds, and L makes his way across the room. Again, he thinks about how tiring all this is, how he could easily take the lab tech’s pending report and make it say whatever the hell he wants it to. How he could take Light Yagami apart, right here, right now, and how Light probably would let him.
Light swallows again. He is lying properly on the couch now, limbs liquid in the pooling night. He exhales, flutters his eyes, and barely moves when L lays a hand over his throat.“Does Kira have an endgame?” L asks, pressing his hand up against Light’s carotid artery.
“Depends on what counts as one.” Light’s voice vibrates through his fingers, up his arm.
“What is your endgame, Light-kun?”
“Kira behind bars,” Light says easily. “A life without boredom. This job, solving cases, putting assholes where they belong.” He slides his eyes back open, just the barest slit, and they catch the gleam off the nighttime window. It is either that crimson glow again, or else the glare of a stoplight from outside. He reaches up, takes L’s wrist, wraps his long fingers clean around, and presses his hand deeper against his own throat. “You.”
L frowns.
“If you’re worried about Misa,” Light mutters, “she won’t be a problem.”
There are a million things to say, here, now. But Light takes his other hand and places it on the other side of his neck, so his thumbs are only inches apart, so it would be easy to reach down and squeeze and solve all his problems at once.
Perhaps this is the point. Perhaps this is the endgame, after all.
The lab results come in tomorrow. One way or another, everything will come crashing to an end sooner or later, and Light Yagami is splayed out beneath him like a cipher willingly opening up.
Come,
he says with the arch of his hips, the curve where the small of his back leaves the couch surface,
come in, figure me out.
So L does. He lets Light pull him down, and afterwards, he dreams about cutting Kira apart, piece by piece.
And then, the next day, like a hand carelessly tipping over an elaborate portraiture of dominos, he catches Light in the act. Or, rather, he stumbles into Light in the act. Much later, L will hold regular debates with himself about how purposeful it must have been. He’d done it in their kitchen, after all, not his own lovely one but the one shared by the task force, right there in the headquarters. But when Light Yagami set out that morning, had he known that L would be away for most of the afternoon? Had he known he would have free reign of the hotel room? Had he gotten out of bed that morning, weak light slanting across his face, and pictured this exact scene, laid out before them?
Light stands behind the counter, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Not that it helps. Blood leeches up the stiff fabric of his dress shirt, crawling up the fibres like vines, entwined with the lithe muscles of his forearms as he works. It’s dirty work. Butcher’s work, really. L brings the nail of his thumb up to his lips, pressed lightly as if he could bring out his own pulse, and watches Light take Misa Amane’s corpse apart.
With a languid twist of his wrist, Light unspools a length of writhing intestine, laying it out over the counter like a piece of abstract art. Amane’s finger twitches—a trick of the light, the tip of her manicured nail caught on a stray thread of Light’s sleeve as he leans over her spilt chest. He settles the guts aside, reaches both hands deep in her abdomen, excavates it.
L watches, eyes blown wide. Amane’s chest collapses inward.
Light pulls a hand out with a wet slick. He is holding an organ. Dark and plump, and slippery as he settles it down in a waiting metal tray. The smell of copper in the air is so pungent L is certain he tastes it at the edges of his own mouth.
Bracing his elbows on the edge of the marbled counter, Light closes his eyes and takes in a breath so deep L sees the flare of his nostrils.Then, as if he has only just now noticed L standing by the door, he opens his eyes, and his gaze flicks up.
Something dark and glittering peers out of Light’s eyes. It is almost bashful, a slow yawning hole opening from behind his soft lashes, bleeding away all the human empathy that used to live there. Light brings his own thumb up, a mirror of L’s gesture, and licks a strip of blood away from it.
L narrows his own eyes and takes a step forward into the room.
“She offered,” Light says. He lets his wrists hang loose, draped over the counter. “I didn’t even have to ask.” As if that makes it okay.
“You would’ve done it anyways.”
Light tilts his head. The tip of his tongue darts out, swipes along his lips, smears them a brighter red. “Yes,” he says, “I would’ve. But I appreciated the gesture.”
“Appreciated…,” L finds himself, for once, at a loss for words.
“She saved me a lot of effort,” Light says. He drags himself back up off the counter, then gently strokes a hand down Amane’s pallid cheek, plucks a strand of stray hair out of her face.
“You’ve left her eyes.”
“This isn’t a punishment.”
“Then why did you kill her?”
He caresses Amane’s neck, lifting her head just so off the counter. Sternum up, she looks angelic, her face serene, hair unbound and free for once, a golden around her shoulders. Below, there is only the ruined spillage of her chest: split ribcage, jutting bones curving out like fingers, the red coils weaving in and out like something still alive. Light lifts her shoulders, cradles her in his arms, and presses a soft kiss to the exposed skin of her dead heart.
“An absolution,” he murmurs, lifting his face. “I wanted you to see.”
And just like that, the pieces finally slot together.
The thing still keenly watching him out of Light’s eyes is the answer, has been the answer, is the culmination of this entire damn case. L watches as the corners of his mouth twitch, the last pieces of his mask falling away, until there is nothing but a gaping wound, nothing but Light Yagami’s hollow madness, excess and gluttony and hedonism swirling in the wine-dark sea of his eyes, nothing but
Kira
left over.
You,
Light had said, and meant every word.
L takes another couple of stumbling steps forward, closes the gap between them, and bumps his mouth flush against Light’s bloodied one.
Light makes a surprised keen at the back of his throat. He still has his arms around Amane. He leans in, deepening the kiss as he settles the body back down on the counter.
Amane’s blood is painting L’s teeth. It is leaking into the lines of his chapped lips. L rips at Light’s mouth hard enough to break the skin, enough to spill his blood too. Light groans into his mouth. He winds his hands up and into L’s hair. Something cold trickles down L’s back. Light’s hands tighten enough to hurt.
At his sides, his own hands hang limply.
Light kisses like a hunger. He presses them close together, teeth knocking harshly, blood and spit smearing between them. Amane’s body is between them. L leans up, closes his eyes, wonders what it is like to let Light Yagami devour him.
Then, almost gently, Light unwinds his hands from his hair. He pulls back from the kiss and trails his fingers down L’s arms, then circles them around L’s wrists.
L lets it happen, watches Light’s face the entire time. Kira knows he’s being watched, and likes it. L notes the upward slant of his chin, the half-lidded stare, the way his tongue flicks out again against the oozing cut at his lip. He still has L’s hands in a loose grip. When L doesn’t give voice to the thousands of questions making themselves evident in his mind, Light brings up one of L’s hands and presses a kiss to the inside of his wrist. Right next to the pulse.
A wry smile makes its way onto L’s face, surprising to them both. “What are you trying to accomplish, Light-kun?” he asks lightly, as if Light is not still breathing into his palm, as if Amane’s blood isn’t drying on his back.
Light turns L’s hand back down. He guides it downward, his palm cupping the back of L’s hand, until L sees the tip of his own finger tapping against Amane’s ribcage. He studies the scene as Light curls his fingers around the bone, feeling oddly detached when staring at his own hand, long and white, nearly as pale as the shard of bone.
Then, Light closes their hands tighter, and L’s fingertips sink into the plush cavity, settling into a pool of blood.
“Ah,” L says. His voice finally dries up.
“This is everything I wanted to show you,” Light says, some of the madness ebbed away. And now that L has come face to the face with the truth of him, it is impossible to see anything else. Kira, shuttered away by a bland disinterest, kept in check with a polite smile, hidden by that full fringe of his—but always there. Light closes L’s fingers around the jagged edges of Amane’s chest, nudges him to snap the bone. With his other hand, he cups L’s face, brushing gentleness and blood across his jaw. “Don’t you see?”
For a moment, L leans into the touch.
Kira is the monster, he thinks. Or realizes.
Or—Kira is temptation.
Kira is Light Yagami, looking at him with unfathomable eyes and a begging mystery—
come solve the puzzle, come figure out who I am, come take me apart, over and over, until I break and let you in
—and L is not weak, but he has his own vices and he has never lost a game he didn’t intend to.
He chews at the skin of his lips. “Did you love Misa Amane?”
“Of course I didn’t.”
“She loved you.”
“That’s why she wasn’t upset.” Light tilts his head down, presses their foreheads together. “Are you upset, Ryuuzaki?”
“No,” L admits.
Light laughs. It is brighter than it has any right to be. “I knew you would understand,” he says. “You put on a good show for the others. I almost believed you when you spouted off that inane definition of justice. Even more when you claimed to be working for the greater good. But I always knew you and I are the same.”
“There is no justice in the hands of man,” L murmurs.
Again, that breathless, boyish, eager laugh. “What is justice but our collective desire? What is desire but in our instincts? Justice is what I want to come to fruition, and what you want, and in the end it’s all body and flesh and blood and bone.” Light draws a finger under L’s chin, tips his face up, captures his lips in another devouring kiss. It is slower, this time, Light’s tongue tracing an easy path over his lips, deeper.
When Light pulls back, his eyes are bright. “Some men deserve to be punished,” he breathes. “All that’s up for me to choose is how to deliver it.”
“And what do you choose, Light-kun?”
“I choose hunger,” Light says. “There is only ever hunger. You understand.”
L’s heart is a desperate, palpitating thing in his chest. A vision blooms: the long game, the spiralling road ahead, letting Light Yagami eat him alive so he can explore Kira’s guts, trace the path of his viscera and find the way out. Let yourself be devoured, so you might break the monster inside out. But then, that sheet of red, the way Amane’s blood is already cooling under his hand. L is not a man of many scruples, but he is well aware of his own shortcomings, how easily the game calls to him, how he is so willing to sacrifice so many for the sake of his own petty whims.
Awareness is something of a curse, he thinks sardonically, then draws his hand away from Amane’s body.
“I don’t, Light-kun,” he admits. And then, he pulls Light’s hand away from his face. And then, “I think you should come quietly.”
After all the speeches and days of trial, Light Yagami is declared insane. L snorts, pushes the dredges of sugar around at the bottom of his tea-cup and turns away from the news.
Two minutes later, he opens the tab back up, if only to briefly scan for what they’ll do with him now. Certainly not the death penalty. More likely, they’ll keep him locked up somewhere, out of his mind with drugs, tucked away in the deepest recesses of society. Light might hate that more than death. For some reason, the thought leaves him feeling empty, hollow.
He finishes the article. Then finds himself clicking for the next one. And the next, and the next, until morning is dawning.
As soon as it is late enough in the morning, he calls Watari.
“How much paperwork did it take?”
“Shut up.”
Watari chuckles. He pulls the door open, takes a step out. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I always do.”
At that, Watari gives him a sharp nod, then leaves. The door clicks shut behind him.
L shifts in his chair, gaze flicking up to the wall of monitors before him. The blue-ish grey of the screens makes him feel washed out, exhausted for once. When he blinks, the lids of his eyes feel heavier than they have in years.
It had taken an ungodly amount of paperwork. L had done it anyways. He’d gone to court himself and pleaded his case, admitted he was wrong, cajoled people who looked at him with the sort of obvious disdain that was usually easy to brush off, and yet somehow dug like a sharp branch between his ribs this time, had even brought out old degrees and fake identities he’d discarded years ago to cobble together some sort of excuse for why he was doing it. Requesting custody of a serial killer. No, not just a serial killer, but the highest profile case Japan had seen in decades.
Through it all, L hadn’t given himself the chance to question it.
And now, he has a monster locked in his study.
He sighs, chews thoughtfully on his thumbnail, then hops off the chair.
The study is, perhaps, the best decorated room in the entire complex. It looks something out of an old antique house, two-levels, bookshelves lining three of the walls. On the fourth wall, a mosaic of computer screens hang. There is carpet. Lush under his toes. L wanders around and pulls a few books off the shelves, imagining himself working in here.
The room is bisected neatly down the middle with a pane of glass. L is keenly aware of the eyes behind the transparent wall, tracking his every movement.
“I would’ve thought Light-kun might open with gratitude of some sort,” he says, slotting the book back onto the wall.
Light laughs, and it sounds hollow. “Gratitude? You should’ve let me rot in the hospital.”
“What a waste.”
“If you think I’m going to comply with whatever schemes you have cooked up, you should think again.” Even dressed in standard order prison garb, Light looks haughty. He carries himself like a regent, shoulders flung back and chin tilted just
so,
as if he’s waiting on the fruits of a particular order at every moment.
L scratches at the back of his head, tilts himself towards the glass. “I don’t expect anything from you, Light-kun.”
“Then why bring me here? To mock me?”
“What is there to mock? I never caught you.”
“Yes,” Light spits bitterly. “You just tricked me into giving myself up.”
Hearing the edge of regret in Light’s voice unexpectedly gives life to a flare of satisfaction in L’s own chest. He presses a hand to his sternum as if he can catch the feeling, dissect his own triumph like a living thing. “I never did anything,” L says. “And I didn’t win.”
“Didn’t you?”
The satisfaction sours abruptly. L turns, about face, and marches up to the glass. “I don’t understand you, Light-kun,” he says flatly, eyes sliding around the gleaming pane. Light reels back, his chin rises a notch. “I never understood you.”
Slowly, a sharp grin twists its way back onto Light’s mouth. “I see.”
“I will never understand you.”
“But you wanted to.”
L thinks of the black biding in Light’s eyes, how easy it might’ve been to slip into his world of red and madness and punishment. How dark it would’ve been, plucking eyes out of men and women deemed unworthy. How satisfying it might’ve felt, if he’d let it.
“Yes,” he says. “Very much so.”
Kira is the monster. Kira is the unsolved puzzle, the chess-board waiting for your next move, the thing beckoning in the shadows, the easy answer, the black and white solution to all the world’s problems.
L regards Light with his own dull stare. L knows more than anyone what you do with personal monsters—and that is, lock them down in the depths of your own mind, refuse to give them the time of day. “But I for one, am more than willing to refrain from giving into my base desires,” he says lightly, lets his lips twitch up in a small smirk.
The look on Light’s face reads something like pure rage.
Funny, that. There was something uglier hidden underneath. Light is layers, primadonna perfection over calculating coldness over sadistic delight over a blank, infuriating mystery. But strip away all of it, and he is still human. He is still ugly, of flesh, of mortal, twitching things. Light’s lips are lifted in a snarl. L memorizes the shape, the bared teeth, empty threat in his narrowed eyes. This, too, is what Light Yagami looks like: a desperately angry boy, caught in the web of his own lies.
Then the moment passes, and Light’s face smooths out, impressive control wrenching his expression back into a bland disinterest. The only hint of his rage the way his arms are still tense, how his shoulders curl up just so, the hackles raised at his spine, like he is hiding something animalistic under the dull upturn of his lips.
“So why bring me here?” he asks. He sounds bored.L still finds delight in dissecting his tone to find the thin layer of tension, a violin string held taut to the point of breaking. “It’s nothing to do with you,” L says, affecting his own version of forced casualness. “I simply needed a reminder.”
“Of
what
?”
“That I cannot solve everything,” L says. He offers up a small shrug. “You are a mystery to me, Light-kun. I suspect the only way I could ever figure you out is if I let you win. And I needed to remind myself that lives aren’t worth indulging in figuring you out.”
You’re not worth that much,
he doesn’t need to say. Light isn’t stupid. He can read between the lines.
The lines of his face tighten. “I see.”
“I assure you,” L says, “I don’t intend on indulging any time soon.”
This time, the laugh is sharp and ragged. “Then you’re just like all the others. How much longer can you stay in denial, Ryuuzaki?”
“This isn’t denial, Light-kun.” He looks at Light in his terrible eyes. “I know exactly who I am.” He slides his hand up to the glass, rests the tips of his fingers there. “And what I am is terribly fascinated by you. I simply don’t intend on falling prey to myself any more than I already have.”
“Right.” Light shakes his head. All at once, his walls clamp down, until he looks sad, and forlorn, and nothing like the murderer that could make international headlines. “Either way, I’ll be here, whether you come to your senses or not.” He says it like it’s a choice.
L dips his forehead against the glass. “Yes,” he says, “you will.”
Light tucks his hands behind his back. L draws back, mirrors him.
“Kira-kun.”
An incline of the head. “L.”
L gives him one last curt nod, then leaves the room.
Light slants into the study. It illuminates two figures: one still, one restlessly pacing.
At the far wall, an array of screens blare, unnaturally bright in comparison to the soft morning’s glow. L sits hunched at his chair, thumb hooked at the corner of his mouth, a pile of candy wrappers forgotten beside him. What is on the screen is irrelevant—another murder, another gruesome scene, all the details of it are rote by now. L reads, and contemplates, and he will solve this case by the end of the week, just like all the others.
Ennui is too precocious of an emotion to suit him, but L does find himself unchallenged these days.
At his back, behind transparent glass, a monster peers out.