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Six months spent in the United States, helping the American agencies crack a case no one else could solve. Sugar kept him going through the long days and nights of staring at computer screens and corpses, reading police reports and autopsy results, examining crime scenes and evidence. Sleep became a foreign concept, reserved to twenty or thirty minute catnaps on the armchairs in hotel rooms, which always felt too synthetic and smelled too clean, as if the room service had taken the very essence of people out, along with their germs. The past seventy-two hours had been completely devoid of sleep, as he’d instead popped sugar cubes like horny old men popped Viagra, because he was almost there, almost there, and finally there, case solved, criminal behind bars. The detective known to the international law-keeping community only as “L” had figured it out again.
Watari had suggested going back to the orphanage to take a break, and he’d been in no mood to argue, so there they were, back in England. Leaving it to the maids to get his luggage, L went straight to his favourite armchair, in one of the kiddie playrooms, with the intention of going over the case in his head, but the lack of sleep caught up with him first. It wasn’t long before he dozed off, knees drawn up to chest, bare feet on the edge of the chair, hunched over like a gargoyle, or an accident just waiting to happen.
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“Mello! Give it baa~aack!”
“Shut up!” I should chuck your damn spaceships in the toilet, like you did with my chocolate bars!”
“Melloo~o!”
The voices filtered down through the layers of sleep, enough to make the detective’s eyelids twitch, but not enough to fully wake him.
“Catch it if you can, midget!”
There was a brief struggle, punctured by almost animalistic whines and snarls, and then L was aware of an object coming into painful contact with his left eye. Even if that hadn’t woken him up, the unexpected pain caused him to topple headfirst onto the floor, thick carpeting probably all that prevented him from receiving a concussion. To add insult to injury, he dragged himself up, into his usual, hunched over stance, only to find a miniature replica of the Millennium Falcon on the floor.
Damnit, he thought. I’ve had enough of Americans.
Mello had emerged the victor, and was again holding a bag of toy spaceships above the smaller boy’s head, a triumphant, almost crazed, smile on his face as Near made hopeless swipes for the sack. L knew that it wasn’t possible that neither boy had noticed him—they were far too observant for such a large oversight—but apparently, what was happening between them at the moment seemed to be more important than him. It was highly unusual, as they typically revered him as the great detective, what they must become.
For, of course, one of them was to be his replacement, if such a replacement were ever necessary.
Near’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “I apologise for flushing your chocolate bars down the toilet,” he said, staring at the red carpet squeezing through the cracks between his toes. “Alright, Mello? Can I have it back, now, please?”
But the other boy was not assuaged so easily. “Oh, so you’re sorry, now, Near? You mean you didn’t think about that before hand, like every wanker in this place says you’re so good at? Maybe you really aren’t so much better than me, you stupid little tosser—“
He stopped suddenly. L experienced the sensation of confusion—one that tended to be warded off easily—until he realized, with a start, that tears were streaming thickly and noiselessly down Near’s cheeks.
Near was not accustomed to self-loathing, or acting on impulse, so it made sense that the latter usually led to the former. He had decided to take revenge on Mello himself, and thus had let this happen again. Other children had once seen his reaction when Mello took his things and tried to do the same, but he'd just stared at them, blankly, until they'd gotten bored with it and thrown the bucket of legoes back at him. Since then, he had always wondered why this boy was the only one able to make him whine, raise his voice, plead . . . even cry, even though he never wanted to, even though it was out-of-character, even though the tears just seemed to come on their own. He didn't know. Mello just made him . . . irrational. Which, he thought sometimes, could be dangerous.
Mello continued to hold up the bag of spaceships, expression stony and arm quickly falling asleep. The familiar guilt began to mushroom in the pit of his stomach, reminding him of times past, when he’d hated Near for being the only one who was able to awaken his usually dormant conscience. But since then, he’d learned that the smaller boy hated crying as much as he hated watching him, so now Mello just felt like an enormous prick. Slowly, his arm lowered to his side.
“Oh, take your damn toys,” he grumbled, dropping the bag at Near’s feet and turning to leave the room.
“Mello. Near.” L stopped them mid-motion, Mello freezing mid-step, Near halfway through wiping his eyes on his shirtsleeve.
The detective motioned to a loveseat facing his armchair as he re-seated himself. “Sit down,” he ordered.
Near obeyed immediately, picking up his Millennium Falcon as he sat in his own fashion--one leg hugged to his chest, the other dangling off the loveseat. Mello stood next to the opposite armrest, furthest away from Near.
“Sit down, Mello,” L said again, feeling somewhat cranky.
“I don’t wanna sit by him,” the boy protested.
The detective raised his eyebrows. “Quite obviously. Why?” he asked, with a slight sense of foreboding. (The answer might be stupid enough to kill off a few precious neurons.)
“He has cooties,” Mello replied promptly.
L sighed, but otherwise concealed his exasperation. “Cooties,” he began, “is a slang term for a type of skin lice. Due to the fact that you are kept in close contact in the probably vain hope that you will someday learn to stop hating each other, if one of you had cooties, the other would, by this time, undoubtedly also have them. Now sit.”
“I don’t hate him,” the boys chorused, as Mello reluctantly did as he was told. “That would be a waste of my energy.”
Suddenly, the detective was reminded of why Watari had said it had taken so long for him to solve this last case. Something about not being able to understand the “human relationships.” True, L had never really been “close” to anybody; he would have felt honestly strange, to say the least, if he’d spoken in perfect unison with another person like these two had just done. Yet to them, it seemed to be a usual occurrence, and though the boys appeared to have a severe dislike for each other, it was undeniable that they thought on the same level, even though Near beat Mello in all the academic tests and competitions.
There was another issue that had been nagging at L, scratching at the back of his mind for a while. Near, like himself, was calm, unemotional, able to rationally think an investigation through. But Mello was different. He actually seemed to think like the most successful criminals, was possibly more able to get inside their heads, and thus solve the cases quicker, no matter what his test results might be. Which, in itself, had caused L to wonder. . . .
“I’m going to ask you a question based on a story I am about to tell you, “ he announced. “Whoever thinks he has the right answer should come here and tell me quietly. I want to see who gets it first.”
By this point, he had Mello’s full attention, and probably Near’s as well. The smaller boy pretended to look bored, mostly to counteract Mello, but he twirled a lock of hair around his finger, always a sure sign that he was thinking hard.
“There was a young woman whose mother died,” the detective began. “She went to the funeral feeling terrible and depressed. All the relatives and close friends were there to offer their condolences, but she just felt worse as the day went on. At the funeral, she met a man who seemed to know her and her mother and expressed his regret at the death, but she couldn’t remember seeing him anywhere before. This man was good-looking, polite, and charming. He made her feel much better than anyone else had. They talked for awhile, but he disappeared before she could ask his name. Although the young woman asked everyone at the funeral, none provided any insight on who the man was, or where he had gone. This left her feeling even more terrible and depressed than when she’d arrived at the funeral. She proceeded to go home and kill her sister. So, why would she kill her--?”
“I know!” Mello interrupted, vaulting off the loveseat to whisper his answer into L’s ear.
L nodded. ”That’s correct,” he confirmed, as Mello sat back down, beaming in a rather terrifying manner, overjoyed that he had, for once, beaten his rival.
“Near?” the detective asked.
The smaller boy twirled his hair furiously. “I’m not sure,” he said, “but I’ll guess it’s because the young woman found out that the man was her sister’s boyfriend. Already in grief from her mother’s death, she could not stand having someone else taken from her.”
“Wrong!” Mello sang happily, before L could speak.
Near smiled faintly. “Ok, Mello beat me this time,” he admitted. “L, may I ask what the purpose of the question is?”
Upon hearing this, the other boy snapped out of his ecstatic state. “Yeah, it can’t be a logic question,” he agreed.
“Because I always get those first,” Near added.
“And you know he had a higher I.Q.” Mello’s tone had only a trace of bitterness.
“So, if not our intelligence--”
“--what are you trying to determine?”
L swallowed, trying his best not to be unnerved by how easily the boys finished each other’s sentences. “It means that Mello may be a psychopath,” he replied flatly, “though it would be foolish to base a conclusion as drastic as that on one correct answer.”
“What!?!” Mello shrieked, jumping up. “That isn’t funny, damnit!”
“Have I, during this entire conversation, betrayed the slightest hint of amusement?” the detective asked, by some amazing feat managing to maintain a completely straight face.
Near, however, smirked openly. “It must be your tragic fate, Mello,” he said. “You finally get something right instead of me, but it means that you’re mentally unstable.”
“Goddamn you!” Mello snarled, tackling the smaller boy.
Oh my, L thought, as sleep reclaimed him. I seem to have made things worse. But at the moment, he was too tired, and far, far too sugar-deprived to care.
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Some four years later, L, Yagami Light, and the four remaining members of the Kira investigation team passed around photos of and information on the Yotsuba business group, now acting as the third Kira.
“It could be any of these guys,” Matsuda groaned.
“Or someone close to them,” Light added thoughtlessly.
Matsuda sighed, handing the papers to Aizawa. “I really hate Kira at times like this.”
“Emotion serves only to cloud your judgment,” Light and L said in unison. “And hate is a waste of energy.”
The youngest investigator dropped his head like a scolded dog, generating slight chuckles from Aizawa and Yagami Soichiro, and a trace of a smile form Mogi.
L gave his prime suspect a sidelong glance. Light sat casually in the swivel chair next to his, leaning back, arms crossed. He did an astounding job of ignoring the handcuffs chaining him to the detective, something Kira, who hated to lose, should resent far more than he was. But he was Kira; L was sure of that. He was simply wondering why the statement they had just made together caused him to automatically up the percentage of Yagami Light being Kira by a few points. It reminded him of something . . . something . . .
I don’t hate him. That would be a waste of my energy.
Mello and Near at the orphanage, two years ago. L pressed the pad of his thumb against his mouth. That was it.
“Yagami-kun,” the detective said, popping a sugar cube into his mouth, the tone of his voice attracting the attention of the entire investigation team.
Light raised his eyebrows. “Yes, Ryuzaki?”
“May I ask you a psychological question?” he inquired pointedly.
“Does it have to do with Yotsuba?” his prime suspect asked deliberately.
"No,” L replied, “but it does have to do with the investigation."
Light sighed, not bothering to hide his annoyance. (L was the only person to hide it from, and he’d see it anyway, in the way Light’s eyelids closed like shutters, or how his fingers tightened around his elbow.) This, as anyone with a half a brain should be able to tell, was another attempt to determine the probability of his being Kira. “Go ahead, Ryuzaki,” he said, thinking, Well, it’s not as if I can say no, is it?
“The question is based on the following story,” L began. “There was a young woman whose mother died, and she attended the funeral grieving and feeling terrible. All the friends and relatives who gave her their condolences only increased her foul mood. At the funeral, she met an intelligent, charming, and handsome young man whom she could not remember meeting before, but he told her how sorry he was about the death as if he were a close friend of the family. They talked for awhile, and though he greatly improved how she felt, he left before she could get his name. Distraught, the young woman asked and asked about the stranger, but no one knew who he was, leaving her even more miserable than she’d felt previously. She then went home and killed her eight-year-old sister. So, why would she do such a thing?”
“Wha?” Matsuda asked. For once, the rest of the investigation team mirrored his puzzled expression.
But Light was smiling. “That’s simple,” he said. “She wanted to see the man again, and killed her sister in the hope he’d attend the girl’s funeral, like he had her mother’s.” He shot a contemptuous look at the detective. Had L forgotten his I.Q.? Did he really think he could get him like that?
“That is the correct answer, Yagami-kun,” L announced, devouring another sugar cube. “However, the question is commonly used to test many serious criminals--serial killers, people of that sort. Those who get it right as quickly as you are more likely to posses psychopathic tendencies. I calculate that there is a seventy-two percent chance that you are Kira.” He turned back to the computer, dragging Light, who did not desire to experience the near-dislocation of his arm, along with him.
The rest on the investigation team blinked helplessly and generally sweatdropped. It didn’t take long for everyone to decide that it was time for a coffee break.
Light glared at the detective, fuming, and getting still-angrier as he saw a slow grin spread across L’s face. “Do you find this funny,Ryuzaki?” he asked tersely.
L shook his head, grinning ever-wider. “No,” he said. “It’s just that you remind me of . . . Someone I know."
~End