Chapter Text
The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.
And so God said, thou shall not kill.
“You have seen me with Shiho and Emi,” Light said with the lingering feeling of Amane Misa on his lips. His room was once bugged with sixty-four tracked cameras. It was hard to forget that and talk without being reminded of the shame. “I’ll have to keep this up and make sure she stays totally infatuated with me.”
Ryuk crackled. “I have heard that humans are driven by their emotions.”
“They are weak,” Light pronounced. “This is where idiots fail.”
“Light is not an idiot,” Ryuk sing-sang in a terrible imitation of a human girl. Ryuk, fascinated with Sayu’s TV shows, developed a liking for female protagonists with too much to cry for. “Light is smart,” Ryuk said. “Light does not love.”
Light propped himself on his bed, crossed his legs. He laughed, then wondered why he was laughing.
It could be this: Light never believed in God.
When the Creature sought pity, it proclaimed to its Creator: I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen Angel.
If Light were to fall- if Light were to die- then he would receive no pity. A game was a game, and a victory was a victory. Light was no sore loser, but he was a proud winner. History will remember him as God, or nothing at all.
L swirled his spoon inside a cup that was, Light suspected, one hundred percent sugar. “I don’t want Light-kun to be Kira,” L said, “because Light-kun is the first person I have ever liked.”
Light almost laughed; he smiled instead. He let some seconds fly by, just to instill that in- the first-ever. “I miss you at school,” he admitted, lowering his eyes to meet L’s. “We should play tennis again, sometimes.”
L’s head turned to him, a tug of lips. “Yes,” he said.
Beside them, a God of death crackled. There will be no pity, no losing. Light was not Adam. He did not fly. He will not fall.
Back in the comfort of his clean, cameras-less room, Light sharpened his pencil and opened his diary. Light will reap for what he sowed.
L went up the stairs with the grace of a frog.
“As a friend,” L had said. But Yagami Light was a Kira suspect, and Kira wanted to kill L. Kira wanted to kill L and L was attached to Yagami Light. So L lied, and so there can only be lies between them.
Sayu approached him discreetly and Light bent down to meet her. “Your friend is weird,” she said.
Light smiled. “He is a good friend.”
She shot him a look. “You never bring friends home.”
“Listen well, Sayu,” he said, lowering his voice. “Don’t come and disturb us with your calculus homework. I will do them for you if that’s what it takes, but later.”
Instead of beaming like Light thought she would, she narrowed her eyes. “What are you guys doing?”
Light blinked. “Don’t tell dad about it,” he said, making sure his voice cracked a bit, “but my friend… has a little problem.”
Light pointed down. Sayu giggled.
“Shouldn’t he see a doctor for that?”
Light glanced nervously at L, then back to Sayu. “Well, I am his only friend, and his finances can’t allow him to go to the clinic…”
“Light-kun,” L deadpanned.
Light stood. “See you later, Sayu.”
Sayu pulled her tongue at him, and bid them a cheerful goodbye.
L surveyed his room with clinical interest. “I would have preferred the peace if it weren’t for the fact that Light-kun just insinuated in front of his little sister that I am diagnosed with erectile dysfunction.”
“Allegedly,” Light replied lightly, patting the space beside him. L ignored that, curling in his chair instead.
“Oh, Light’s going to do it again,” Ryuk said.
Yes, Light thought. “Ryuzaki,” he began.
“Light-kun is very cold,” L cut in, his limbs draped over his desk, his head bent to look at the drawers. “He thinks that I don’t know what he would say.”
Light laughed. “You said you liked me. Of course, I am going to bring that up.”
L opened his diary. The one he was supposed to open. “Yes, I enjoy Light-kun’s company a lot.”
”I do too,” Light said, looking through his lashes, “Ryuzaki.”
L made a non-committal sound from the back of his throat. He flipped a page. “Light-kun doesn’t mind?” he asked, his eyes glued to the paper.
Light waited to say no. He waited long enough for L to get suspicious. L had his diary held on his fingertips, his eyes wide and black when he stared back at him.
“I don’t know,” L quoted, “if I should feel this way for him?”
“Oh!” Light made a show to grab at the diary. It fell between them like a silent promise, a quiet victory. “I mean,” Light blurted, looked away. He wondered if it was too much, the emotions. If he should tone them down or let them wash over. L didn’t seem like one that would enjoy grand proclamations of love. Words like fate, words like destiny. Worse was that it could be true, so Light settled on a whispered “sorry”, and watched the world tilt to the way he wanted.
L picked up the diary again. He folded it and put it back from where it came from, a surprisingly kind gesture from someone who was neither kind nor clean.
“Light-kun thinks he likes me too.”
Thinks. That was an issue. “I don’t know,” Light said, then, shaking his head. “I don’t know.”
L looked at him. He looked at him for a long time. He seemed to like what he found.
“Light-kun lies. He is lying.”
Light knew what he wanted. He knew exactly what he desired; what was frustrating was that L knew, too.
L held his hand.
It was an odd sight, an even odder feeling. Yagami Light was a liar. L was an even better one.
“I wish you can stay here,” Light said. He told Sayu that his friend was staying. Ryuzaki was so ashamed of his flagging genitalia that he refused to go back to his girlfriend, don't laugh, Sayu. Be more sympathetic. “I wish you can stay with me.”
“Yes,” L said. Lies, lies, lies. “I am comforted that Light-kun thinks the same.”
I wish you can fall into a swamp, rot, and die covered in mud. If he were Kira in L’s eyes, he doubted that the thought wouldn’t be too far-fetched for him as well.
It was a small, but accommodating bed. They didn’t move or touch except for their hands. It seemed to Light that he was by himself, with Ryuk, with his notebook. The strange comfort of knowing exactly where and why he lied, and why he sometimes didn’t.
L kept holding his hand.
And so God said, go forth and multiply. Light didn’t think that was what it meant. Be fruitful, Light thought. Well, that certainly explained a little.
“You’re awake, Ryuzaki.”
“I was never asleep.”
“Then why,” Light said, still frazzled by the whole ordeal, “are you like this.”
L stopped getting closer. “That wasn’t a question,” he remarked.
“No,” Light said, sighing. “It wasn’t.”
L let Light settle his forehead against his. In L’s eyes, Light’s reflection was black. “Light-kun is afraid of intimacy.”
A test. An easy test. “A little,” Light said, pushing himself up. He lowered his eyes. “I assumed that you would be less… inclined as well.”
Lies, lies, lies. “I am not afraid of Light-kun,” L said. His shirt and hair were more ruffled than usual. “I am prepared to die for this case.”
“Yes,” Light said, prying his mind from laughter. The sheer ridiculousness of that lie. It was like L was begging to be mocked. “Justice wins.”
L smiled a little. “If there ever was a good, an objective one, then we are far from it.”
“You don’t believe that you’re delivering justice? It’s Kira that we’re talking about. You’re in the right.”
“Only poetic justice,” L said. “And even then.”
Light stretched. L followed his movements. “Plato hated poets, Ryuzaki.”
“I would think Kira read him very diligently.” L brought his thumb to his lips, craning his head to smile at Light. He found it funny.
Light shrugged. “Everyone had. Don’t look at me like that. I am not Kira.”
“Ah,” L said. “I know you’re not, Light-kun.”
Light stopped. L was crouching beside the bedpost, his eyes twinkling with an amusement that Light had never seen before. An elation, deep in the veins, began to run its course. Light let his hands travel to the sheets, then to L’s neck. He brushed a few hair strands away from his face. This horrible, ugly face. This lying face. No sculptor would have created such things. Plato hated all artists.
L smiled at him. “Light-kun doesn’t need to kiss me for that.”
Liar. Light did anyway.
Light had to reap for what he sowed.