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The strange bits of luxury, the early privacy, the endless supply of toys or sweets or anything else they ask for; the deceptive freedom and the underlying, silent expectations and demands; the isolation, the weirdness, the total fixation on achievement, the most perfect and most crippling environment for the development of their genius – none of these are the things Near associates with Wammy's house.
Excelling at all examinations comes easily to him. He knows, intellectually, that he studies much more than other children his age, but emotionally, it never registers: this is normal. Thought, logic, is easy, is natural, is barely worth notice, though he's always absently aware of his superiority over the others (he knows, intellectually, that they are all much more intelligent than average people outside, but emotionally, it never registers: this is the only environment he knows), and Wammy's house is all thought and logic.
Safe for Mello, and this is what he remembers, what the place means, what is worth remembering. Mello, glaring at him, effortlessly, with blazing fury whenever he catches sight of him, who does things, says things, makes mistakes that make no sense, no sense at all; who believes, with all his soul, that being chosen as L's successor is the most desirable thing that exists, who wants to be L so much and hates him, who stands in the way of this goal, so furiously.
Mello, who almost cries in grief and anger the day he hears L has died, and screams in rage when he is offered to share the title with him. Mello who vanishes without notice the day he turns fourteen. Near spends the last, lonely year, barely coming out to eat, building card houses all around himself, and allows no-one to enter his room.
"Mello!" His tone is calm and free of urgency, and it doesn't cross his mind to run; Mello hears him, just as he reaches the exit, and he stops abruptly, turns to him: very briefly, surprise flickers in his gaze, to see him leave his spot on the floor to come after him, without his agents to protect him: Mello is still armed. Then, immediately, his expression turns to annoyance, clearly saying: I don't want to deal with you anymore.
"What?" he snaps impatiently, but allows Near to walk up to him.
Near is silent. If he were a normal child, he might have said "I missed you"; he steps even closer, almost touching his rival, and stares at the new scar on his face, into his eyes that would be so easy to read if the emotion they convey wasn't in such a constant turmoil, and at his lips, and his interest in Mello has never before felt so much like desire. If he were normal, maybe he would kiss him, but before he can make any move, he has already thought of all the possible consequences.
Mello stares back for a very long time (it feels, but a remote part of his brain routinely counts the seconds, ten, fifteen), and then he is the one to make the last step, grasps him, without gentleness, on the back of his head, brings their lips together. And now Near can kiss him back, hungrily, desperately, can sucks at Mello's tongue: he tastes a faint trace of black chocolate, and never thought he could like it, and he loves Mello so, so much, with his egoistic impulsiveness, and his unexplainable irrationality, and his strangeness, and hates it all just a little when Mello pushes him back again just as briskly.
Mello's eyes are wide and his lips very red, and more than he's wanted to kiss him Near has missed looking at him. Eventually, Mello says in a hoarse voice, and Near doesn't realise until he does that he's forced him to speak first with his patient waiting:
"I'll find him first."
Near doesn't argue back. He understands: until Kira is caught, there can be nothing else, no partnership beyond this exchange of information.
Mello briskly turns, like he has nothing to add: Near wants to tell him that he's just running away, but instead he stays to watch the door fall close behind Mello, and calmly walks back to the main room, ignoring his agents' agitated questions.