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The boy before him doesn’t look 25. He doesn’t look like anything, really. Light leans over his shopping basket to pluck a fistful of soil-scratchy carrots and frowns at them, like a proxy.
It is a proxy. L says, “Don’t use carrots as a proxy, Light.”
L doesn’t look 25, and he isn’t. Same sun-bleached pale nose and sleepless undereyes and terrible slouch, but his long elbows poke out the wrong way and his smile’s gleaming with teeth. The sleeve of his shirt’s stretched out enough that half his palm disappears into it, and his shoes are laced but his ankles are shiny and bare.
Light adds the carrots to his basket — six of them, he counts as he drops them in, wincing when the dirt gets onto Misa’s expensive bottle of wine, Misa’s favorite brand of lemon biscuits — and picks it up carefully. Tucks it into his elbow. “I don’t eat carrots, don’t worry.”
“That’s fair. I don’t like carrots either.” L scratches his wrist.
Light doesn’t need to say anything. He says, walking past the sweets aisle, “They’re for Misa. She’s been getting into those health smoothies and clean diet options lately.”
“I see.”
“She cooks well. The wine’s for her. I don’t drink.”
L hums noncommitantly and his fingers are spindly and see-through white and Light would break them if he wouldn’t have to hold them first to do that.
They’ve already reached the glass door with cold milk and yogurt. It’s streaked damp with condensation, wetting the gaps between his fingers when he pulls the door open. When he tries to see L in the reflection. But of course he isn’t there.
He inhales the cold rush and carefully removes a carton without knocking into any of the others. “Why are you here?”
“I think you’re smart enough to answer that yourself.” When Light doesn’t say anything, L grins and it’s too wide and it’s wrong. “Although I suppose intelligence isn’t the only deciding factor.”
“You’re dead.” Light says out loud. He thinks he says it out loud. His arms ache from holding the basket and he thinks, dazedly, he’d break L’s fingers right now if it meant he could hold them just for a little. Hold them at all.
“You killed me.” L agrees.
Light pays for his groceries and shoulders his plastic bags and the lemon biscuits are crushed when he fishes them from the bottom of the milk carton later, and L is gone.
*
The living room’s still lit up orange when he stumbles out of bed, his shoulders gone sleep-limp but he’s moving in his body the wrong way and it’s a half-thing, thickening behind his teeth. He doesn’t really know where he’s going to go, pressing the bare backs of his arms against the walls of his apartment, all plaster and all cool and all his. All Misa’s. His and Misa’s: her ceramic plates clattering curry-yellow in the sink, her glossy magazines dog-earred and lined up neatly in her old-wood bookshelf, her crooked attempt at a crochet keychain swinging from his house keys. His Death Note locked in his drawer and his toothbrush in the plastic red cup.
His eyes in the mirror. Their toothpaste flecking the bottom corner and she’s left the showerhead on the floor, the tiles still glinting wet around the drain.
Orange light sliding across the door from the living room, even though Misa always sleeps early. He steps out of the bathroom and she’s cutting flower stems over the counter.
The pale line of her neck’s curling dark with shadow. She’s standing in a bad position, tired eyes. Bleached-blond hair rolling straight down her straight back and her knees are covered for once, her entire breakable being drowning in the thick gray of an overlarge sweater and sweatpants.
Not his, though. Never his. Maybe she bought it online. She looks up. “Hi Light! I didn’t know you’re still up. Do you need anything?”
“No.” He rubs a hand over his eyes and steps around to the pitcher of water icing in the fridge. Her cartoon magnets on the door. “I’m going to sleep.”
He cups his hands around the glass. Misa looks down again and flexes her hands. Flexes the scissors. “What flowers do you like?”
“Don’t get me flowers.” He closes his eyes. The carrots ran out a week ago but L ran out a month ago, his punched-out aliveness pooling around him dark and heady, soaking his clean white sleeves, his clean white shirt. Light’s ironed suit.
He had the Death Note, has the Death Note, and yet.
“No, they’re for L.” Misa gathers them up and taps them straight on the countertop. “We haven’t visited his grave in so long, and it’s important to keep up appearances.”
“Throw them away.” He softens his voice. “Misa. You don’t need to concern yourself with L anymore. He’s dead. Go to sleep. Don’t you have a shoot tomorrow?”
“It’s in the afternoon. Thanks for asking, though!” Her hair swishes golden when she looks up, and her mouth curls up drowsy. For how aware she is, she acts so stupid sometimes, but she calls it love and she’s so, so easy. “But I was just thinking—”
“It’s fine.” He doesn’t say you don’t need to think. You’re thinking all wrong. You’re completely wrong. Just shut the fuck up. “Go to sleep soon.”
He pads over to the bathroom again, wishes he hadn’t left it in the first place, and the light is still on. Makes him waxen-white, like a ghost, and he turns around just in case but there’s nothing except Misa’s glittering soaps.
He counts all the white spots on the mirror, then remembers himself and washes them away, fixes the showerhead back and his head spins when he accidentally inhales too deeply and sucks in Misa’s shampoo, burning—vanilla, or whatever, gumming in the back of his mouth. A pretty piece of Misa taken in.
Misa in the plates and magazines and family bookshelf and her love in the frizzing seams of the keychain he can’t bother enough to take off yet. Misa in the house.
L might be behind him right now. He isn’t, though.
*
He’s crouched in Light’s chair and cracking his knuckles and Light watches his ghost-bones stutter under his ghost-skin and then remembers to say something. “Get out of my chair.”
“Misa’s right, Light. You should bring me flowers.” L says instead. “Your latest wild goose chase is rather impressive, but of course, you’re a highly intelligent individual.”
The wheels slide smooth and easy when Light shoves L away from him, the chair spinning around three and a half times, all dizzy, before it slows in the center of the room. L’s back is to him now, but he cranes his neck and smiles until his cheeks dip and dimple. Twisting his body like that can’t be comfortable, paper-white of his skin bobbing when he opens his mouth, but Ryuk’s already begun cackling and Light’s moving all wrong in his body again, again.
He takes the other chair. It doesn’t make sense. Misa was just telling him about the flowers yesterday. Was L there?
Is he even real?
“That’s mine.” L observes.
“Since you’re hogging mine so freely, I thought you wouldn’t mind if I used yours.” He can’t hear L’s knuckles even though he can hear his voice.
“That’s fair.” L tilts his head and it has to be painful now, but then again. “You make a good point, Light-kun.”
He turns on his computer and Ryuk drifts over to the chair, bending terrifying over the stretched-out knife of L’s body but his bug-eyes glaze past L and wander over the handrests instead, like he’s not really there. He’s not really there. Not even Shinigami can see him.
A hallucination, then? “When will you go away?”
“When you bring me flowers.”
Light snorts. “You don’t like flowers.”
“But I like you.”
“No you don’t.”
“I do.” L insists and Light feels Misa’s lipstick pressed into the corner of his mouth when she’d kissed him before work, her supermodel hands scrabbling down his back two days ago and five days ago and ten days ago until she flopped back breathless and he still had so much breath slurring around his chest but he wouldn’t share it, he won’t.
“I.” He starts, and he can’t go past the start.
L’s eyes are glittering. It’s too early for the Task Force to be here and Misa always sleeps early so she can wake up early for him. “You’re my first friend, Light.”
“The real L would never say that twice.” Ryuk’s watching him with a keen amber interest and his screen’s gone dark with disuse already, even though he just turned it on. “You’re dead. You don’t need to keep up the ruse.”
L sniffs. “You don’t need to disapprove of everything I say. It’s unbecoming of you.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Are you bothered that you killed me?” L says. “No, let me correct myself. Are you bothered that I’m unbothered even though you killed me?”
He’ll always have the Death Note, but he didn’t expect L to press a gun to his head, his entire wispy being completely covering his body until he couldn’t move at all, the staircase digging harsh into his back and L’s hands clammy with rainwater, fingers curving into his jaw, saying slow and intentional, I’ve already informed the international courts of law—
“As I said, it’s over. You don’t need to hide behind rhethorical questions. Just say what you want.”
His smile grows wider. “You don’t need to dodge questions, Light-kun. As you said, it’s over. Just say what you want.”
Very eloquently, Light says, “Shut up.”
“You’re losing your touch, Light-kun. Miss Amane put the flowers in a nice vase. You could bring the vase to the grave too. It’d add a nice flair.”
“The real L.” Light grits out, and it’s been kind of boring now, he can admit that much, but he hasn’t been lonely. “Wouldn’t ever say flair.”
L looks—angelic, fine, or just ghostly, shifting so the bristling ink of his hair falls in front of his eyes. “Why are you so convinced I’m not real?”
*
He buys carrots and makes sure to transfer the lemon biscuits into the bag without the milk. They come out unscathed and unbroken. Misa snaps hers in half and offers him the bigger piece.
It’s Friday. He stares at the grainy plane of the biscuit until she gets the hint. She draws it back kind of sullenly and sticks both in her mouth, and says around them, “Aren’t you hungry, Light? I can cook you something if you want.”
“I ate.” The flowers are on the table, they’re on the sofa and he’s half-listening to the news anchor and Misa’s Note is spread open on the table.
She frowns. “Oh. I could still—”
“Don’t bother. I don’t need it.”
The biscuit’s chewed through already so instead Misa nudges closer to him and practically glows when he doesn’t peel her off, like he usually does. And he would, but she’s so warm, her doll face all dolled-up. Glitter smeared on her lips. He could kiss it off and he doesn’t.
Light wouldn’t, won’t, bring flowers for L but he entertains it, just for a second: spring-green stalks wobbling on gravestone, trimmed twice a week, are you happy now? He would trim it twice a week himself, with his best silver scissors, and if the petals drip into his hands he’d scrape them off gently instead of crushing them. Will you leave now?
He won’t. Light won’t. If he does, Misa’s doing the maintenance.
“The Task Force is stupid.” She says adoringly. Her arms are bumpy with gooseflesh. “They won’t ever catch you.”
“Don’t say that.” He says automatically, and from the corner Ryuk sings, for the millionth time, “The real L wouldn’t ever say flair.”
He knows that Misa hears it but she’s good at blocking everything out, playing the loving fool, so she snuggles into the crook of his shoulder, practically lying on top of him now, and he still doesn’t push her off because she hasn’t said anything about L yet.
Her painted red nails and her chewed red nails and they’re in-between moments now, Light thinks, hazily trying to decide if the shape of the shadow on the far wall is L, she hasn’t said it yet but she will.
“Light.” She begins uncertainly, and there it is, but just to be safe, he seals the secret into her lips and she’s still flustered red when he sits up.
The shadow isn’t L. He puts on his best smile. “Yes, Misa-chan?”
She blinks, melting all dopey already. “Yeah. Yeah…that’s me.”
*
“You should be nicer to Misa.” L tells him when they next meet. Sunlight’s streaming right through his upturned face and he’s blinking bleary at the sun like it still hurts, like he can still be hurt, and he can’t, he’s dead, he’s not real, he’s—nothing.
Light wills the traffic light to blink green faster. “She’s happy.”
“You brought flowers to my grave.”
“No I haven’t.”
“I’m sorry.” He smirks. “I thought we were trading lies now.”
The traffic light blinks green. “You don’t need to be here.”
“Yes I do.” L says, then says nothing else. Light thumbs the seam of his tie, smooth silk and downright expensive, but all of his outfit is: the grey suit cut to hug around his bones, the neat flare-out at the edges pressed perfect, his best white socks rolled high even though his pants drape low enough that nobody sees them at all.
He likes the feeling of it, all prepared and all gentleman, look, Light Yagami is such an intelligent and well-mannered person, I think I like this Light Yagami fellow, gee, he’s such a good person, he could never be a murderer, but L looks kind of amused. “It’s hot in that suit, isn’t it?”
“You change topics so quickly. Pick one to settle on.”
“You seemed annoyed at my previous one.” He widens his eyes. It’s almost childlike. “I’m being considerate to you, Light-kun.”
“The real L isn’t considerate to anyone.”
“Am I not?” L’s mocking him, he’s sure of it, and he wants to——
—his body pushed into the staircase, L dipping so low to breathe into Light’s ear that for a long, liminal moment L was blending into him, both of them made up by where they meet, and hasn’t it always been this way—
—no. He doesn’t.
“You’ve never appeared in my house before.” Light says abruptly. “Is something keeping you?”
“I don’t think you want me in your house, anyway. But to be fair to Miss Amane, it’s more of hers than yours.”
L still isn’t wearing socks but his hands would probably go right through Light’s if he tried to hold them, the way the sun's puddling around him now, like a melting halo.
Light isn’t making sense. L isn’t making sense. L’s a ghost. “What’s your point?”
“Be nicer to her.” He repeats. “Pretend a little harder to love her. Cook for her on Saturdays. If you can’t bring me flowers, buy her some, at least.”
“You straightjacketed Misa for 50 days straight. You’re not in any position to comment, and since when do you care?”
“Because I—” L hunches forward and pokes a finger at—empty air, because Light leans away instinctively. “Like. You. I care about you, and it’d be a lot easier if you weren’t a horrible person.”
Light laughs and he wants to throw up. “That’s selfish. Love is supposed to be unconditional.”
“No, no. I don’t love you. I rather despise you, in fact. It’s rather unfortunate that I like you too.”
He wishes he hadn’t gone to the library, but maybe L would have appeared anyway. He doesn’t know how it works, when it works, and there’s no rhythm to it, L bleeding in and dissolving away in a here-and-then-gone, there-and-gone, stay fucking gone. “I suppose hallucinations usually don’t make a lot of sense. You do have some moments of coherency, though.”
“Coherent.” L sounds delighted. ”You think I’m coherent.”
“Well not right now.” Stay gone.
“But you said I’m your hallucination.” L says. “So what does that make you?”
Saying so slowly that the wet of his breath dripped damp over the shell of Light’s ear, I’ve already informed the international courts of law of Kira’s current identity as 18-year-old university student Light Yagami. The tribunal has yet to reach a consensus on how to handle you, but it’s obvious that they’re only squabbling around because they’re scared.
“Nothing.” Light says shortly. “You’re a nuisance.”
Are you scared? I think you’re scared.
“And yet here you are,” L grins and Light wants to fucking punch him. “Talking to me.”
“Because you started talking to me. I’m being polite.”
L lifts up two fingers. “First of all, you’re not polite.” He flicks down one finger and wags the other in the air, and he’s bleeding gold all around, all the way through, like he’s teetering on the brink of evaporating. Light’s surprised he hasn’t already. Light wants him to already. Stay gone or stay and he does nothing, half-there, half-thing, nothing at all.
“Second of all.” L sounds bored. Kind of annoyed. “You don’t owe anything to the people you killed. You never have.”
They’re standing in the middle of the pavement and people part around them to move on. L’s soaked through like he was before the staircase, Light just realises, his clothes baring him down into his languid eyes, his gleaming dark hair, his thin bones. He’s not 25. He’s not even alive.
“Flowers.” Light says instead. “On Saturday.”
“No, Light-kun.” L laughs and Light doesn’t think he’s ever heard L laugh when he was alive. Doesn’t know if he’s actually hearing anything at all. “Flowers whenever you can. Cooking on Saturdays.”
*
“Ryuk.”
Ryuk’s dangling upside down from the ceiling fan. “Hm?”
“What’s the shinigami realm like?”
“Light-o.” He starts swinging, and the silver studded his ears and belt and neck whip around too. “Death Note users don’t go there, you know.”
“I do know.” A white wash of steam bellows out of the rice cooker when he checks Misa’s instructions, presses it open, checks Misa’s instructions again, because I have a shoot today, I’m so sorry, but if you wouldn’t mind—
Her calendar on the wall reads: Saturday. Her customised wall hooks, and the gaudy pink sticker she plastered beside the month. Some cartoon character, and instant noodles are unhealthy, anyway.
“I’m just curious.”
Ryuk hyuk-hyuk-hyuk’s all the way through him clattering out the glazed bowls from the counter, clumsily eyeballing out a shaky heapful of rice, fishing a careful ladle of re-heated miso soup into his bowl, and he’s never made himself dinner before. Sachiko handled meals then and Misa handles meals now and L only ever saturated himself with sugar, but Light burnt through all his hours arguing irrelevant things with L when it still mattered and he still could, because they are, they were, better than genius and genius is just another word for god.
Do gods do hauntings? Ryuk sneers at the lopsided stack of rice, but he’s perpetually sneering anyway, his mouth all twisted and gone bad. “I’ve never seen you curious about irrelevant things, Light-o.”
“It’s not irrelevant.” He feels—silly. One pair from Misa’s set of matching spoons pinched in his hand. “Information is never irrelevant.”
“Hmmm. It’s boring. You wouldn’t like it.”
“Are there any doors?”
Ryuk’s still staring at him, but Ryuk’s always staring at him anyway. “No doors. It’s a barren wasteland up there, Light-o. There’s no distinction between places.”
“How did you come here, then?”
“As you said, it’s over. Just say what you want.” Ryuk says suddenly, black line of his mouth drawing up grotesque. “Light-o, do you miss L? You were going to ask if the Shinigami realm is connected to other realms, and if L could come from those places, weren’t you?”
“No.” He takes another bite of rice. “Don’t ask stupid questions, Ryuk.”
He huffs. “It’s just so weird to see you talking to thin air.”
“Then don’t. Leave if you want.”
Ryuk looks wounded, but he’s a Shinigami. “You really expect me to miss out on the most interesting part?”
*
L lunges for him the moment he sits up.
“Let’s go outside.” He says, and somehow he’s already got his fingers looped around Light’s wrist, like a handcuff, dangling it above his head and Light doesn’t even have time to startle. Moonlight’s gliding silver through his ghost-skin and then Light registers, too late.
“What.” He tries to make sense of it. There’s no sense to be made out of anything. “I thought you couldn’t appear in my house. You lied.”
“A liar I am, then.” He tugs and Light snatches his hand away, watches it pass clean through the ghost-bone wavering in L’s fingers. “Let’s go.”
“Why do you like me?” He says instead. His blanket’s still scrunched up to his hips and warm, but it’s mellowing into something sickly. It’s not his anyway—Misa chose out the bedspreads, and Light was carrying the basket but she kept draping everything over her own arms instead, don’t worry about it! I got this!
A good boyfriend wouldn’t have let her do that, so he let her do that. L pauses. “Because.”
“Because?”
“You’re clever, Light-kun. You really are impressive, no insult intended. I’m sorry I ever twisted your intellect into insults. You know how to play chess, don’t you?”
“The real L wouldn’t—” L doesn’t say sorry, except the only time when he was crouched on the staircase, but that was only so he could spring up right after and say rice-sticky, I think you’re scared. What are you going to do now, Light Yagami? “The real L wouldn’t apologise for that.”
“Stop it already. You’re overusing it..” L’s eyes are drifting to the door.
“So you like me because I’m your intellectual equal?”
“Yes. I think so. That’s mostly it.”
“Mostly? What’s the other part?”
“Probably the reason I’m here.”
“Why are you here?”
L frowns, but he looks—endeared, maybe.“We’ve had this conversation before. You don’t need to bring it up again. It feels very circular.”
“You didn’t answer me the first time.”
“I’ll answer you. Outside.” L heads towards the door and Light follows this time, then stops. “I can’t open the door. Can you open it for me?”
Light opens the door for L. The lights in the living room are off, thankfully, Misa gone to sleep long ago so she can wake up for Light, to Light, the darkness dissolving grainy and brooding in the corners, and the crooked pole of L cuts through it, glowing blank-paper pale, pausing at the main door for Light to catch up.
Light always catches up, and he opens this door too and it’s cool outside, the neighborhood going blurry with the hour. “Why do you want to go outside?”
“I don’t.” L stabs a finger at Light and grins when he flinches back again. “You do.”
“No I don’t.”
“You’re 19 and you have a life outside of the Kira case. You should start by appreciating nature.” He’s still smiling, soft and sweet. “Although, I guess that’s hard when you’re Kira himself.”
It’s been a long time coming, anyway. “I’m surprised you’re only bringing this up now. You only cared about the Kira case when you were alive.”
“No, that’s my investigative process. It’s not unique to you.” L turns a little, and he looks odd standing there, and his hair isn’t sleep-mussed but it’s something-mussed, drooping wild in all directions. “It’s a bit of a stretch to say I only cared about you, though, but I’ll allow it.”
“Don’t.” If L’s his hallucination, why would he be conjuring this? “What about Watari?”
“That’s true. I can’t tell you about me, though, Light-kun. Even though I’m dead now.” L turns all the way. “What about Kira?”
“What about me?” He should be more worried, but it doesn’t feel like he’s saying anything to anyone at all.
“Do you care?”
“About you?”
“Yes.” L’s chewing his thumb but Light doesn’t remember him lifting up his arm. “Don’t you want to know why I’m here?”
“I don’t. It’s the same as you – you were a fun game until it became disruptive. So I.” He still can’t say it.
“Removed me.” L says for him. “That’s fair.”
Light looks over but L doesn’t say anything else, his shoulders slinking low and awkward and he’s not wearing shoes at all this time, and Light can see the pavement through his feet. Ryuk always wanders around Light sleeps and Light has never been more glad for that now.
“So why did you really take me outside?” He says, after a moment. L’s not-there-ness is flaring up even more, patches of transparency blotting his arms and then disappearing, and he looks—brittle, just a little bit. Like nothing at all.
But he was 25 when he died, so he sounds 25, at least. “I did tell the truth. You need to appreciate your girlfriend, appreciate the world, and live your life to the fullest until justice inevitably catches up to you.”
“You’re definitely not the real L.” Light snorts. “I don’t even know what you are.”
“You are insinuating that you ever knew the real L.” L laughs. “Really, Light-kun. It’s been grating on my nerves for some time.”
*
“I’m still surprised that you managed to get away with shooting me dead and evading the international courts.” L says mildly. He’s hunched so much that he’s hugging himself, like he’s the last line of defence against unbecoming.
“It wasn’t easy.” Light concedes. They’re at the grocery store again, and it’s been weeks since L appeared in his house, and he hasn’t again. “You’re going away soon, aren’t you?”
“Well, you are my intellectual equal.” L smiles, wide and easy.
Light adds carrots to his basket. “When are you coming back?”
“Do you want me to come back?”
“Does what I say have any weight in the matter?”
“You killed me. Some remorse would be nice.” L shrugs.
What are you going to do now, Light Yagami?
*
Because he had the Death note, and yet:
I’ve already informed the international courts of law of Kira’s current identity as 18-year-old university student Light Yagami. The barrel of the gun’s digging bright red into his forehead. L’s body is looming over his.
He’s never sounded more alive. What are you talking about, Ryuzaki? His fingers wet on Light’s face.
The tribunal has yet to reach a consensus on how to handle you, but it’s obvious that they’re only squabbling around because they’re scared. He grins wider and Light can feel his mouth move, his entire body cycling over itself under his rice-paper skin.
His body melding into Light’s, and his shoulders are jutting out scrawny, his elbows digging into him. Are you scared?
So alive. I think you’re scared.
What are you going to do now, Light Yagami?
What are you going to do now, Light Yagami?
Light lurches forward, the gun catching over his skin before pushing back just a little, and then he has to blink away the blood that streams down from the scraped-raw portion before he thinks to stab his knee upwards.
What are you going to do next? What are you going to do now?
L looks a little stunned, his empty hand balling into a fist, which means his gun-hand slackens, so Light—
The process of it whitens out in his head, and it’s a lucky shot, he knows, the recoil ricketing angular up his arm, and before L’s dead he’s already bleeding. Brawling is familiar, the teeth and the snap, the bruise and the bone, but it’s always been sheathed sterility, and afterwards they’d dress each other’s scrapes begrudgingly and wash their hands with the same soap.
What are you going to do?
Bang.
What did you do?
He’s never held a gun before, and afterwards, he fishes his sleeve from the dark pool of blood leaking out of L’s body, turns to the side, and throws up.
*
“I do know you.” Light says when L reappears, before L can say anything else. It’s the day of the Yellow Box Warehouse. It’s been 5 years.
L looks amused. “It’s unlike you to pick up a conversation from 5 years ago. And that wasn’t even our last conversation.”
“You shouldn’t have been gone for 5 years, then.” He tips his head back against the leather and glances at the rearview mirror, the empty backseats. The Task Force collectively went to get the Death Note and bring it back, without him, and it’s a precaution and not a jab but it feels like one, anyway.
He’s supposed to be good at this. “I did know the real L. Why are you back?”
“It seemed like a good time. You’re heading to the warehouse now. It’s a showdown.” L smiles and he looks the same, like he was at the beginning and now at the end. “I’m cheering you on.”
Light rolls his eyes. “No you’re not.”
“You need to stop making assumptions about me, Light-kun.”
“But I’m right.”
“But you’re right.” L acknowledges.
“You really don’t.” The words glue in his mouth. “You really don’t feel like the real L. Can’t you just try?”
“Why?” L smirks and it’s the first time in 5 years, but Light still wants to punch him. “Miss me?”
“Will Near start haunting me too?” Light says, ignoring him. “Because he’s part of the L lineage? Mello doesn’t count, because he’s not your direct successor.”
“Mello here is not amused by that comment.” When L whirls around, L laughs. “Light-kun, at this rate, you’re going to lose. That would be pathetic.”
“I’m not.”
“Okay then.” L settles into the shotgun seat and his hair spills all over the back like dark oil, and Light reaches out curiously just to see if he can—
Leather. Ryuk isn’t there to laugh at him, at least, but he gave up Ryuk to the Task Force a long time ago. He’s good at giving things up.
The boy before him doesn’t look 25. He doesn’t look like anything, really. “I’ll see you later.”