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Myocardial infarction.
Coronary artery spasm.
In recent years, Light read over those words with a growing dissatisfaction. It’s not as if he wants to be caught, because really, who in his position would want to stifle their fight for the greater good? He wasn’t predisposed to the guilt of lesser beings, but — sometimes, on very rare occasions, did he desire to see if the world would lend him someone with the dim imitation that he could be.
It had; and, just as with Light’s favorite childhood toys, he bent the arms back too far, snapped them off, and put the pieces together again so Sayu wouldn’t complain.
His name tapers from recognition in connection to the Kira case with the death of L Lawliet. (Light had learned his name. Finally. Finally — but what good is victory when he can’t force L’s nose into it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.) Medical reports softened what should have been a more deserving end. It read so commonplace. Hemorrhaging in the right aorta and then a lack of oxygen — with just enough time to prove his threadbare theory correct; a blink’s pace. Fingers, ringed, clung to his trembling shoulders worse than any brand. It was beautiful and destructive in the way that suited him. The flash of recognition, or rather, observation as if L had traced the curve of their destinies with the pad of his thumb and found in a millisecond where Light had picked at the seam. He knew that L knew that he knew; the flaw of it being that Light had found that slight window of opportunity to toss him right through it.
He should have known. He should have anticipated. He should have bested Light.
But he didn’t. (Do you have a death wish? Light found himself wondering when their gazes snagged — one of the many, many times. L hooked his thumb into his mouth and refused, as was natural to him, to break first. Inconclusive. Requires further observation.)
What he learned from his experiments was that once you broke something, no matter how tirelessly you labored or how closely you studied its working parts, it was a forgery of the before. Memory was the trick. Even the strongest of things had marks of change and transformation. The butterfly could never revert to the chrysalis. The dead were supposed to stay that way.
L always exceeds his expectations.
He doesn’t appear in his normal fashion. Light never witnessed Ryuga, Ryuzaki, or L write. His preferred method of relaying information was through direct confrontation or the (outdated) laptop that was now collecting dust under Light’s desk. The password would remain uncracked despite his technical prowess. It becomes a pet project.
Two days after the funeral, Light had begun to transfer the system's data that had yet to be deleted. Something had set his keyboard off-balance. Light assumed that it was the cord, but was surprised to find a crumpled bit of off-white paper. It had been ripped from something. Light imagined it was a witness statement that L had been too smart to believe or bother with reading. The handwriting didn’t match anyone else in the Task Force. Unsymmetrical letters, nothing like Light’s own. Penned in English (black ink, deflated shapes) were the words: Victorian Sponge Cake.
That tracked.
Light pinched the note into the smallest square he could. The patter of rain drowned out the clicks of his watch (four in the span of a single second). Ridiculously, he pretended to read through the newest Kira article while it slipped into the compartment, eyes lingering on the screen well after the slide of his clammy palm had secured it shut.
That was years ago.
The sound of keys in the lock pull him out of his thoughts. Without fail, cloudy days always made him remember.
“Sorry I’m late!” Matsuda chimes, too chipper for the drab weather. He has a tray of three coffees in his hand and two cups of tea. Delivery starts with Soichiro, then to Aizawa (who had initially complained when Matsuda had given Light his cup first), to Mogi, to Light, and finally, to himself. “I didn’t miss anything, did I?”
“L’s associate has been in contact with us regarding the notebook.”
“Successor,” Light interjects to his father, bitter to match the taste in his mouth.
Matsuda blinks owlishly and whistles as he lowers himself into his desk chair. “I always thought he was the type to work alone. That’s pretty strange, right? I mean, we’ve spent so much time with him, you would think that he would have said something. ”
You don’t know him very well. He needs someone to be better than. Light doesn’t say this, of course. He finds himself containing his comments about L more and more these days, partially because if he did mention every little comment, it would have said much more than he was willing to admit.
‘That’s your point of view.’ L says from the void, guiding Light’s hand through a spreadsheet of names, more to take a look himself. It feels like television static or perhaps it always did. Light couldn’t be sure. ‘It’s not exactly a false interpretation, but it’s still a subjective opinion of your perception of me. You brandish your insights as fact. It’s a dangerous way to think.’
You never complained.
‘No, I haven’t.’
They bicker like this for a while (or — L speaks and Light listens with his brow furrowed). He isn’t sure why he entertains the voice (projection? Exhausted vision? The shriveled remains of his conscience?), but he does. L doesn’t assist him in any way. Instead, he’s more of a nuisance. Once, he pushed the fountain pen Light had just used off of a table. He’s a distraction that Light thought he left buried in his toy chest. L only — always — watches as he goes through the motions of writing a comprehensive report on the criminals most recently killed. ‘I don’t know why you’re bothering with research when you’re familiar with the most intimate details of these murders. You killed them, after all.’
L speaks of a criminal that Light barely gave a second glance, but he knows that’s not who they’re talking about. It never is. He shifts in his seat and hovers over the ‘N’ on his screen. L’s gossamer skin almost has color. In a different world, Light thinks that it would flush if he were to click the icon. Now he’ll never know.
Misa killed this one, actually.
‘My apologies. I can’t imagine that you enjoy being reminded that you yourself are a criminal. ...Or maybe you do. Tell me. Am I a construct of your own self-flagellation? But that would mean that Light experiences a sense of guilt.’ Through a sigh, dark eyelashes flutter down into darker eyes. ‘And we both know that’s impossible.’
All Light can think, as with every time he has heard those words thrown back in his face and throughout the chaos of pretending that his dead rival isn’t speaking to him, is that this L has never used the honorific so typical of him. Again, he shifts in his chair so all he can see is the screen of his computer. He does, however, dim the screen with the expectation of seeing L in the reflection. It never works the way he wants it to.
“The meeting’s in a few minutes, Matsuda. Quit dozing off.” The sound of Aizawa swatting either the table or the arm of the man sitting next to him; Light isn’t paying attention.
“I’m not dozing off! My eyes are open. These long paragraphs are just hard to focus on sometimes.”
‘You’re a terrible person, Yagami Light.’
He considers this for a second-and-a-half before he dons his headset. Gods don’t feel pity or pain, but for a moment, Light is plunging down onto the floor with L in his arms; the code loops and he's unable to discern whose heart between the two of them had stopped that day.
A few more clicks and he's connected through a secure network.
“Hello, L.” Near begins.
The room falls silent.