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Shuichi Aizawa stared out the car window into the daytime highway. Cars whizzed past in the opposite direction. Next to him, in the driver’s seat, sat Anthony Rester, the large, built ex-CIA commander who had joined the SPK in order to solve the Kira case.
Even ten years later, the case still sat like a weight in Aizawa’s gut. Now fifty years old and the director of the Japanese police, he still wasn’t free from the legacy of that case, from the guilt of having sat by as the mastermind deceived him for so long. Especially now, especially on this day, ten years to the day of when that investigation finally wrapped up in an abandoned warehouse.
“I have to say,” the gruff older man began, finally breaking the silence with an awkward throat-clear and a low tone of voice. “Getting a call from you was the last thing I was expecting today, especially on your off day.”
Aizawa nodded, swallowing the nerves jumping up through his system. “Yeah, well…” and there was a brief pause, a grin and uneasy silence. “I guess I had some stuff to get off my chest. The sort of stuff only L can hear.”
A knowing smile from Rester, faint and fast to flee, but earnest. “I get that,” he said slowly, each word sounding like it was released under a metric ton of pressure.
“By the way,” he added, as if his mind had just jolted back to life. “We’re still using ‘he’ for L in public appearances, but when you meet Near, it’s ‘they.’ Don’t screw it up or I might have to toss you, on their orders.” A deep, booming laugh erupted from the man, one implying that this was more than a hyperbolic scenario, and if Aizawa was to infer, meant that he had happily done just that on at least one prior occasion.
“Got it,” Aizawa said with a nod. It shouldn’t be too hard, he figured. His daughter had experimented with her gender for awhile too. He never really got it, but it wasn’t too hard to follow a few name and pronoun changes when you’d tackled something as intricate and massive as the Kira case.
The trip to visit L’s headquarters was a long one, and with no shortage of headache. First was the drive to the airport, and the flight to America, and then was the process of being blindfolded just to be driven around aimlessly to obscure the true whereabouts of the building. Still, it had been almost ten years since Aizawa had met with Near, so a little bit of hassle would be acceptable, if only just for the sake of the reunion.
When the director had last seen Near, they’d been just over eighteen- a mere child confronting a serial killer who fancied himself a god. It always blew Aizawa away, thinking about it like that. Now Near would be twenty-eight, and the idea of that childish figure from the warehouse growing up into an adult was something completely unfathomable to the man. If nothing else, he was eager to see how they’d changed.
It was a few hours later that they finally arrived, and Aizawa’s blindfold was removed once they were safely in the building’s lobby.
“Sorry for the hassle,” Rester said with a sheepish grin. “You know how it is with L. Lots of… unnecessary obfuscation, and all that.” He chuckled. “Follow me.”
Down the hall, to the left, and through a short corridor, they finally reached a door in the back. Rester held an arm out.
“Now, if we knock, we’re gonna get an earful. So just wait for a second.” The man removed his cell phone, typing something quickly, and then there was movement behind the door, and what sounded like groaning, and then the sound of a lock clicking.
“Now?” Aizawa pressed, unsure if it was impatience or nervousness getting to him. Rester shook his head.
A few moments of confusing silence later, he dropped his arm. “That should be enough time,” he said. “You can go on in.” The man ran a hand through his short, buzzed hair and sighed. “I’ll be back by the time you’re done here. Good luck.” He smiled, almost mocking, and headed off down the hallway.
Going into this truly alone, the director sighed and placed a hand on the door. It was always like this when he went to see Near, and he wondered if it would ever change. At last, he pulled the door open, and stepped inside.
It was a large room, with metal walls and a tiled floor, monitors around the perimeter, and what looked like a bed in the center on the far wall, resting underneath a mountain of stuffed animals. Next to it was a wooden toy chest, distinctly not belonging in the metallic, tech-filled room. Odd metal structures and wires hung at odd levels from the ceiling. And in the center of the room sat Near.
They were definitely older, but the vibe hadn’t changed at all. Jeans and a messy, wrinkled white button-down with unbuttoned cuffs, now underneath a dark blue vest. Their face was completely obscured by a mess of long white hair, spilling over their shoulders and in front of their face, down to their waist. A massive field of playing cards, arranged neatly into small stacks, was splayed out before them. Aizawa recognized the patterns, it resembled a game of solitaire… but that was too many cards for just that… wait, no, was it…?
“Are you… playing,” and he paused, counting them silently. “Three games of solitaire at the same time?”
“Yes,” came the detective’s reply, instant and blunt, without a second of thought.
Aizawa shook his head. He’d been away from this eccentric lineage of investigators for awhile, so it was definitely a change of pace to be thrust back in. “Can I… ask why?”
Near shrugged. “I was bored.”
The director couldn’t help the smile that crept onto his face. There was something equal measures charming and infuriating about the blunt, befuddling way both Near and L had always spoken.
“So anyway,” Near continued, flipping over a card from the stack in front of them, and glaring at it intently, as if hoping to will the number into changing. “What are you doing here?” Frustrated, they placed the card in front of one of the smaller stacks.
Aizawa scoffed. “Yeah,” he grumbled. “Nice to see you again too.” And he shook his head, adjusting. “Sorry.” And there was no response from the detective, lost in one of their games of cards.
“Alright,” started, sighing as he rolled his sore neck. “First thing’s first. Honestly, I owe you an apology.”
That was enough to get the detective to look up, something distantly approaching curiosity in their eyes. “What for?”
“During the Kira investigation, if I had trusted you sooner…” he shook his head. “No, even then. It was wrong of all of us on the task force to have been as antagonistic to you as we were. Sure, we weren’t at leisure to trust anyone, but you were still just… a kid. Power to command or not, you were what, eighteen? And beyond that…”
Near leaned all the way forward until they were almost laying down, completely scattering the intricately-placed cards in front of them, and then meekly pulled themselves up by their arms to a seated position on their knees, reaching around to gather up the playing cards. “Mister Aizawa,” they began. “If you’re just coming here to apologize for distrusting me, presumably because you feel bad on account of me having been…” they paused and looked up at nothing for a moment, as if grasping for words. “An autistic child,” they finally said, their face souring immediately at the clinical description, shaking their head before returning their eyes to the cards. “Then you don’t have to bother. Your mistrust was actually somewhat critical to my plans, after all.” A faint, tiny smile, just like in the warehouse.
“That’s not all,” he started, biting his lower lip. “Not even close. And it’s not just that I feel bad we didn’t trust you at the time. I feel bad that… some of us still don’t trust you.”
“That’s to be expected as well,” Near fired back in an instant, turning at an almost-perfect 90-degree angle and facing the splayed-out cards to their right. “There’s no definitive way to verify that I wasn’t controlling X-Kira, Mikami, on account of his…” they waved their hands at nothing, letting the implication linger. “If I was in your place, I would also consider the possibility that I had used the notebook to make things go my way.”
“None of this even phases you, huh?” Aizawa couldn’t help but give a little smile at that.
“Well,” they continued, leaning back to an upright position and twisting a long of long, messy lock of hair around one finger, allowing themselves a faint smirk. “I would have discarded the possibility on account of my refusal to use the notebook before that. If I had no qualms about using the notebook, I’d have had Gevanni test it to make sure it was real. Kira himself even said as much. Based on that refusal to ever use the notebook, it stands to reason that I wouldn’t think to use it in a more dangerous, less advantageous circumstance.”
The director shook his head. “Sheesh. You’ve really thought it through…”
“It bothered me as well,” they fired back, turning over the top card of the largest pile. Their face remained blank. Was that a good thing, Aizawa wondered?
“It bothered you… even though you’re the person it’s speculating on?” The director gave a faint smile.
Near placed the card atop one of the many stacks in the front position. “I don’t like loose ends,” was all they offered, an answer mumbled out like it was obvious.
Aizawa chuckled. “Yeah? That sure is like you,” and he took an awkward half-step forward, afraid to invade the detective’s space, leaning slightly toward one wall. “There was one other thing.”
“Yes?” Near placed a card in front of the stack, and their expression instantly soured. “Why am I playing this,” they grumbled to themselves. “I hate solitaire. You can lose in solitaire. How did I forget that?”
Aizawa took a deep breath, his whole body seeming to tremble. “I’m thinking about quitting the police force.”
That got a reaction out of the detective, eyes widening as they finally tossed a glance in Aizawa’s direction. “Quitting?”
The director tried to stay firm, giving an anxious nod. “It was one thing when we were working on the Kira case. Stopping a person with a truly despicable ideology, doing material good in the world and preventing deaths. But ever since then…” he shook his head. “Arresting people has always bothered me, but it bothers me even more now. Like they’re all afraid of Kira, that he’ll come back. Or maybe not even of him, so much as they are of us.”
Near seemed to take all that in, nodding as they continued to finish off the apparently doomed game of solitaire. “That was always the reason L operated as a private investigator,” they explained. “If you only take the cases you choose to, there’s no risk of…” they made a half-gesture. “Even then, it doesn’t always feel good. Not every case is going to be that ethically clean.”
Aizawa nodded silently, biting his lower lip. It was the first time he’d even said it aloud, told anyone he was considering quitting the force… there would be a lot to leave behind. A lot risked on an indefinite future, and a lot he would still have to work to correct. But it was worth it, if it would make a difference.
He’d thought about it, long and hard. The original L, Ryuzaki, had always rubbed him the wrong way, but there was no denying he had a sense of responsibility, a sense of justice. But at the time, that justice was willing to let people die to prove his case. It was worth being gambled on finding evidence, on learning more about the notebook. Aizawa had, and still would, side with Soichiro, who refused to let any lives be lost.
And that was what kept eating away at him. His mind kept returning to it. Just as Near had said, they had gone to great lengths to never even test the notebook. In order to win a perfect victory against Kira, they had foregone killing anyone even as a test. It was a different system of morals than the old L, and it was also a different sense of morals from the Japanese police force.
“Anyway,” he finally began, after a lengthy silence in the room, nothing but the sound of shuffling cards echoing off the walls. “I was wondering… if I made that choice… if you’d have a place for me here. On your… L’s team.”
Near looked up again at last, eyes quickly and sharply running up and down the man. “Okay,” they said at last, quick and casual.
“Wh… that’s it? Just okay?” Aizawa couldn’t help but laugh a little. It was always like this with these people, and even as it had once bothered him, there was a charm to it, to never knowing what would happen.
“Yes,” Near repeated, reaching forward to gather back the field of cards. “Your first assignment is to get me some coloring books.” They sat up straight, brushing one of the countless hairs from in front of their face behind their ear. “I’m really sick of solitaire.”