Chapter Text
Todai was vibrant and alive in the spring. L had visited once in January, back when he’d gone out to take the entrance exams, but the new school year had woken the university from slumber. Cherry blossoms drifted onto the brick paths from a pink canopy of trees, and the chatter of students filled the air. It was warmer than usual for mid-April in Tokyo, and L moved carefully through the shade of buildings and trees, avoiding the bright sun that spilled across the campus grounds.
As he rounded the corner of a building, a petal clung to his shirt, carried by the breeze. He pulled it off and ran the pink wisp between his fingertips, lingering in the sensation for a moment before letting it fall.
“… know it’s a bit sudden, but would you like to go to Aoyama with me this Saturday?”
L stopped. He looked over to a secluded clearing surrounded by trees. On a stone bench lounged Yagami Light—son of the NPA’s police chief, prime Kira suspect, and the reason L was enrolled at Todai—looking like a bored Adonis as he faced a girl that stood determinedly before him. She fidgeted with the hem of her skirt, waiting for his reply.
Light smiled apologetically at her. “Sorry. I’m busy on Saturday.”
He let the statement hang. The girl faltered, but only for a moment before she forged on. “Oh, well, maybe another time then? There’s a new art exhibit at this museum that’s free for students on the weekends. It seems super cool, it’s, like, some kind of fusion of Japanese mythology with retro styles? I’ve been dying to check it out, and I thought it’d be nice to go together…”
“I appreciate it, but I have a lot on my plate this semester. It wouldn’t be fair to make plans I can’t keep.”
“Oh, you’re always studying,” the girl laughed, “you should take a break once in a while! It’s college, have some fun—”
She was a beautiful girl, L noticed, and self-aware of her own beauty in the same way Light was; her hair tumbled down her back in purposeful dark waves, and she was looking up at Light through thick and downcast eyelashes that reminded him of a small woodland creature. L wasn’t pretty himself, but he could appreciate the things that were. He liked peppy idol pop with bright melodies and chemical-sweetened desserts that made others feel sick to taste, and in that moment he thought they looked good together. They looked right, like a bride-and-groom couture display through a storefront window. But Light’s expression had frozen over.
“I’m sorry, Inoue-san… the truth is that I’m not really focused on dating at the moment. I do appreciate the invitation, though.”
“I…” The girl flushed. “Okay. I got it, you’re busy. And that’s totally fine, I just thought it might be fun… I mean, we’re friends, right?”
“Of course we are,” said Light. The smile had returned.
“Okay. I’ll see you around, Light.”
“Yeah. See you.”
She hurried off in the opposite direction. L watched Light’s smile fade as soon as the girl turned her back, replaced by a blank stare like the conversation had never happened.
He didn’t wait long before stepping forward.
“Yagami-kun,” he called.
“Ryuga.” Light turned, blinking at him through the sunlight. “I didn’t see you there.”
“I was looking for you,” said L. “I thought we could head to class together.”
Light nodded. As they walked to their next class, he started talking about their assigned readings for the week, glancing over at L with that easy smile pasted back onto his face. It seemed so hollow that L wondered how anyone fell for it.
“Yagami-kun, I think I like you,” L said solemnly. “Will you go out with me?”
How would Kira react to being propositioned by L? It was a stray thought that had struck L in the middle of a deathly boring philosophy lecture, as Light stared dully out the window and L watched Light in the vain hope that his expression might betray how Kira was killing dozens of criminals every day.
He realized he didn’t know. Kira, who had risen to every challenge L had thrown his way—Kira might really say yes, if he perceived it as part of the game they were playing. But for someone like Yagami Light, L was hardly the ideal partner. Light would probably go and find a nice, well-mannered girl to marry one day, the kind who wouldn’t complicate his life or ruin his image. Though, did he even want to? L thought about the girl in the clearing again. Light could have had a girlfriend easily, but as far as L could tell he’d shown no interest in one.
By the end of class, his curiosity had gotten the better of him. So he’d told Light he wanted to speak in private, and they’d gone back to Light’s favorite cafe afterwards.
He briefly imagined receiving the sort of rejection he’d witnessed with the girl, bland smile and all.
So sorry, L, but I’m not looking to date right now. I’m busy with my studies, you see, and my strictly plotted murder schedule—
Instead, Light was frowning at him.
“Don’t joke around, Ryuga.” His expression smoothed, and he laughed, a beat too late. “Is this because you heard me with Inoue-san? She’s nice, but I just wasn’t interested. I don’t know what you expect me to say.”
“I’m not joking,” L murmured. “It has nothing to do with what I heard, either.”
He picked at the slice of cake he’d ordered, a faintly sweet strawberry cream, and tried to recall how the girl—Inoue—had looked as she was inviting Light out. Eyes warm and upturned, lashes lowered, head slightly down. Smiling. He attempted the expression, though he suspected he mostly just looked odd, and glanced at Light for confirmation.
Light, as usual, was a polite veneer of nothing.
“What are you really getting at, then?” he said casually, eyes flickering over L’s face. “Is this some new investigative technique of yours?”
“No, I meant what I said. I’m sincerely interested in getting to know you better, and spending some time together. And maybe more, if you’re up for it.”
L smiled, blinking demurely up at him. Light didn’t even flinch. “I don’t see why you’d want to.”
“You’re very attractive, for one,” L said, trying to mask his own rising amusement. Seduction really wasn’t one of his talents, but he’d known that. “Surely you’re aware of it. Besides, I find you interesting.”
Light laughed. “Why, because you think I’m Kira?”
“Because you’re intelligent, and I enjoy talking to you. I haven’t known you for long, but I can tell we think alike.” L allowed himself another forkful of cake. He mumbled, “You’ve certainly shown that with your observations on the Kira case.”
“But you still suspect me,” Light said.
“You’re only at four percent,” L assured him.
It was one percent more than the number he’d given last time.
There was a slight furrow in Light’s brow again, one that L only saw because he was looking for it. “What’s the basis for the extra percent?”
“If I told you, I’d have to factor that into my calculations too. It’s better not to say.”
“I suppose getting closer to a suspect would provide you with more insight into that person,” Light said. “But wouldn’t that make it harder to stay objective in the long run?”
“I’m very objective about the cases I take on,” L said. “I promise that’s not a concern.”
Light was developing the same intent, wary stare he’d had when L had tested him with the prisoners’ notes, the one that made him seem like he was valiantly attempting to defuse a bomb. Clearly he was bothered about the percentage thing, but L had been lying about that anyway; Light was well beyond four percent. L sighed.
“I never went to university,” he said finally. Tilting his head, offering up another one of the raw truths underneath. Here is something I’ve never told anyone. A token of sincerity. L saw Light’s eyes sharpen as he latched onto it; saw him calculate the merits of pressing further, and saw him plunge ahead with it after a half-second’s delay.
“You never went to university, but you made time to play competitive tennis?” Light asked.
“Well, I’m self-taught,” L demurred. That got him a little laugh, punched out of Light as though he hadn’t intended it. “You don’t have to be part of a club or a team to enter those championships. Anyways, university is the time for romantic entanglements, isn’t it? Your conversation with that girl reminded me of that. Then I thought I might as well make the most of it while I’m here. You know, when in Rome.” He waved his hand vaguely. “Of course if you were Kira it could never truly lead to anything, but I’d still like to try.”
That seemed like a reasonable enough explanation to him, but Light still looked suspicious. “You said it had nothing to do with… what you heard before.”
“I may have been inspired by it, a little,” L acknowledged. “In any case, I’m hoping to get better results than she did. But it’s entirely up to you.”
Light scoffed. “So this is like, what, some belated school romance?”
“Sure. Something like that.”
“You didn’t strike me as someone who’d care about that.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” L said mildly, and dredged up another smile. He was starting to lose interest in this little experiment. “You’re at five percent now, by the way.”
Light started. “What? Since when?”
“It’s just that you seem to be avoiding the question I posed.” L blinked serenely at him. “That’s quite suspicious, you realize.”
“The question you posed?” Light echoed, incredulous. “About whether I want to date you?”
“That’s right, Yagami-kun. It’s a very simple question, yet you still don’t have an answer for me. I think you’d only be this conflicted about it if you were—”
Light stood up, grabbed the front of L’s shirt, and kissed him.
It was not an exceptional kiss. L wasn’t expecting it, and Light had to tug him partway across the table for their mouths to meet; his shins dug painfully into the edge. He was trying not to fall onto his slice of cake. Light’s mouth was a messy, insistent pressure on his, seeking and seeking.
L shivered, suddenly unable to control himself.
Light pulled away, letting go of L’s shirt, and settled back down across the table. L blinked silently as the sensation of normalcy came back to him in increments.
For once, he felt rather lost for words.
“So sweet,” Light muttered.
“What?”
“You taste sweet, Ryuga.” His eyes snapped onto L’s. He took a napkin from the stand and wiped delicately at the corner of his mouth. “All you do is eat sweet things. It’s a wonder your teeth haven’t rotted away.” Light smiled, and kept looking at L, and L recognized it for the first time. That glint of malice in his eyes, peeking out from underneath.
Naturally, fairness demanded retribution, so L didn’t wait long before seeking his.
He followed Light into an aisle of the library the next day, silence stretching between them until they were alone in a gap between the stacks. Once L had gotten close enough to peer over his shoulder, Light turned and raised an eyebrow.
“Do you need anything?”
“An eye for an eye,” L told him, and pushed Light back against the shelves.
The kissing was better this time, mostly because there wasn’t a table to deal with and because now there was a sense of anticipation, a recognition of the thing that had arisen between them. L had seen it in Light’s expression as he turned, but he’d gone for it anyway. Light hesitated for only a moment before his lips parted obediently to deepen the kiss, acceding to it. His hand came up to rest against L’s face, and L fought a shudder as his skin tingled pleasurably at the points of contact. His eyes fell closed.
It felt good to kiss Light. The thought clarified in L’s head for the first time: he liked this. There was a slow warmth blooming in his core as Light touched him, aching in time with his heartbeat.
Light had been the one to start the kissing, and was now reciprocating a good deal more than L had had the chance to, back in the cafe. It seemed unlikely that he was doing it purely for the enjoyment, though, so maybe he’d decided that seducing L would be a good strategy for Kira after all. But that was fine. That could be part of the game too—just like the tennis matches and the classes L had no need for, like this whole friendship they’d been playing at. All the better that L liked it.
When he pulled back, Light was watching him with a strange gleam in his eyes.
“There,” L said, once he had regained his voice. “Now we’re even.”
“Oh, however shall I recover,” Light said dryly, and kissed L again.
Then he kissed L behind the courtyard as they left, and in the doorway of an empty room before class, and it devolved into something of a competition after that.
L had been right about one thing, though—Light had far too much pride to be seen kissing him publicly; L didn’t care for the attention they already drew as the school’s resident geniuses, either, so together they quietly set their illustrious minds to tracking down every hidden corner of campus. It might have been the only thing on which they were in whole, uncomplicated agreement.
The following weekend found L fifty pages deep into a book titled Level Up Your Love Life: The Essential Guide to Holistic Relationship Development.
It was one of those instances where he appreciated Watari’s habit of not asking questions, because he hadn’t even managed to explain it to himself. All he knew was that Light was winning the kissing game and that he was highly displeased about this turn of events.
It wasn’t exactly his first priority at the moment, but L was nothing if not thorough in his work.
The problem here, L observed, was that he liked kissing Light too much. Light knew this, of course, because he had eyes and a working brain, so the game had been stacked against L from the start. What L needed was something that would affect Light equally, to even out the scales. So he could get closer, make up ground. And that meant the ball was in his court.
Unsurprisingly, the book was proving to be worthless for this purpose. All the vision boards and daily affirmations in the world were not going to get under the skin of Tokyo’s number one serial killer; the answer, in L’s case, remained as obvious as it had ever been.
He tossed the book aside on the carpet, where it landed with a satisfying thud.
Sex invites vulnerability, he thought. Sex builds trust, when you get it right. It’s the natural next step here, isn’t it?
For someone who had shown no interest in college friendships thus far, Yagami Light was ridiculously, inexplicably popular. L idled near the doorway after class as Light made excuses to a couple of students who were clustered around his desk, trying to invite him to some event at lunchtime.
“I have some homework to finish before afternoon section,” Light said sheepishly. “But thanks for asking me.”
The students dispersed, and Light gathered his belongings before falling into step with L.
“I found somewhere to hang out for lunch,” Light said without preamble. “There’s a rooftop terrace on one of the old science buildings. It’s pretty quiet, and facing out from campus. I think I’ll just pick up a sandwich from the university cafe for today, do you want anything else?”
“I don’t need lunch today,” said L. As usual, he could feel the stares that trailed after him whenever he was with Light. He commented, “I wonder if people find it curious that we’re always together.”
“I mean, it’s not that surprising. They think we befriended each other at the entrance ceremony.” Light glanced critically at him. “Which I suppose isn’t too far from the truth.”
“Hmm. And the homework?”
“That’s not a big deal, I’ll finish it later.” He paused. “It’s not like I was lying about that.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Light scoffed. “Why, are you going to raise my Kira percentage again?”
“Can’t say,” L murmured, and Light rolled his eyes.
After Light had gotten his lunch, they made for the science building. It was as empty as Light had implied, cloaked in a stillness that made their footsteps ring as they climbed the stairwell. Light came to a stop just before the last flight of stairs.
L glanced up at the doorway. “We’ve arrived, haven’t we?”
“Yeah. Obviously.”
L looked at him, waiting, but Light didn’t move. His expression was a shade too pointed for what he’d just said. A bit expectant, imperious, almost—and then L got it, with a flash of understanding and something like amusement. He pushed Light against the wall of the empty stairwell and kissed him, grasping at the collar of his shirt.
He nearly jumped when Light’s tongue slid into his mouth.
They wasted a few minutes like that before heading up the stairs.
On the terrace, Light chose a table near the railing, setting down the food and a water bottle from his bag. L clambered onto the bench across from him. Then, as Light started in on his lunch, their talk turned to the Kira case.
By now, this was a familiar routine. Light wasn’t officially on the Kira investigation yet, but they still discussed the case under the guise of casual conversation. It was interesting to learn about Light through the lens of his own analysis on Kira; Light let himself slip quite often during these discussions, whether he realized it or not.
Case in point.
“It’s not just the publicity,” L said. They were talking about one of Kira’s more sensational murder sprees as of late: an international crime ring of thirty people, all dead of heart attacks within the same five-minute window. It had been all over the news when they were exposed, and all over the news when Kira had executed them immediately afterwards. “It’s the timing.”
“You mean the timing of the deaths,” Light said, frowning faintly. The defusing-a-bomb stare was back in full force.
“Yes. The criminals were exposed to the police around midnight, Tokyo time, but it wasn’t made public until 6 a.m. during the morning news cycle. According to my records, the deaths occurred between 6:07 a.m. and 6:12 a.m., in almost the same order that the names were announced.” L trailed off for a moment, pressing his thumb to his lips. “It paints a picture, doesn’t it? Of somebody who’s fairly impatient to kill, and human enough to rely on the news. I wonder why Kira wouldn’t choose a more deliberate timeline—one that wouldn’t make his presence so obvious. Moves like this only make him easier to pin down.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t seem like the most calculated approach,” Light allowed. “Then, if you were Kira, would you have waited longer to kill them?”
“If I were Kira…” L said thoughtfully. “If I were Kira, I’m not sure I would have bothered at all. Most of them were heading to prison for life anyway. If I were thinking of punishing them, I suppose I might have gradually killed a number of them in the following weeks or months, and let the rest live in fear of their impending deaths.”
A flicker of amusement crossed Light’s face. “That seems a bit sadistic, Ryuga.”
“Not really. I’m just thinking from the perspective of Kira. Someone who wants to punish criminals.”
“No, you’re thinking like someone who wants to inflict pain.”
“Isn’t that what Kira does? Enact punishment?”
“I think Kira’s more concerned with shaping society than punishing anyone individually,” Light said. “The visibility of his actions is part of that. It sends a message to the public not to commit those crimes.”
“That’s very astute of you, Yagami-kun,” L said slowly, and bit back a grin as Light’s eyes flashed. L only ever complimented Light’s intelligence when he’d said something revealing. “You may be right, then,” he drawled. “Though I’ve always suspected Kira mostly likes putting on a show for the attention. Maybe he saw the crime ring becoming news and decided to get ahead of the story, turning himself into the center of it. What do you think?”
Light stared neutrally back at him. “I think that’s impossible to say, to be honest. But regardless of what he’s thinking, his methods are letting him influence society according to his ideals.”
“Playing god,” L murmured. “Do you admire that, Yagami-kun?”
“Admire what, Ryuga? The murders? Or the transparency? Of course it’s bad that Kira murders people. It wouldn’t be more or less wrong if he did it covertly. If his methods help the investigation catch up to him, like you said, then I suppose that’s a good thing.” Light’s lips twitched up in a half-smile; L caught the sharp edge of malice there again and leaned in, fascinated. “But they might be effective in other ways. After all, you’re out here now, aren’t you?”
“Are you comparing me to one of Kira’s criminals?”
“No, of course not. But you declared war on him, so now he’s invested in drawing you out. And he has. Before Kira, the world had no idea L existed. Now they talk about you almost as much as him. Doesn’t that mean you’ve also sacrificed some anonymity for the sake of your goals?”
Light wasn’t wrong, of course. But by saying it at all, in this context, he’d only proved L’s point. That was the thing about Light. About Kira, too. When he saw an opportunity to posture, he could never, ever help himself.
And that was the biggest reason L had gotten as close to finding Kira as he had.
“I suppose that’s true,” L said agreeably. He leaned back, letting the tension in the air dissipate. “Well, I did pledge my life to this case. But I’ll have to hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Light smiled good-naturedly this time, accepting the concession. “If anyone could catch him, it’d be you, Ryuga,” he said lightly, and reached for his water with a satisfied air.
It was a funny thing, this dance between them. L knew he was baiting Light with every word he spoke, but he had a reason for doing so. Sometimes he couldn’t decide whether Light was trying to bait him in return. Or how self-aware Light was about it. Perhaps Light knew neither of them were gaining much ground at the moment, which made the posturing safer. Or maybe recent events had simply made him more confident.
Light’s throat worked as he swallowed from the water bottle. L stared vacantly at him from across the table, a faint impression of something rippling through his mind, until all at once he felt several thoughts collide in a beam of spontaneous brilliance.
“Say, would you like a blowjob?” L asked.
The effect was glorious and immediate. It turned out not even Light could maintain his composure while choking on water. L had a split second to see his eyes widen before he turned away, his hand flying up to cover his mouth.
L sat back and waited patiently for the fit to subside.
“What are you talking about?” Light said, once he’d stopped coughing.
“I asked you if you’d like—”
“I heard you the first time,” Light cut in irritably. “This isn’t a test of some sort, is it?”
“You really overestimate my capacity for subterfuge, Yagami-kun. A blowjob is a blowjob, do you need me to define what it entails?”
Light muttered, “It was just the way you said it. Like you were offering me a napkin, or something.”
He wasn’t quite looking at L as he spoke.
L could not believe he’d caught Light off guard with something like this. Perhaps there was something to be said for the intentional application of relationship development techniques after all, he thought.
“I think I’d be quite good at it, actually,” he told Light, stone-faced. “I have an unusually flexible tongue, and I like putting things in my mouth.”
“… There’s something seriously wrong with you.”
“I thought it’d be relevant to your interests, no?”
“Oh, my interests,” Light snapped. With mounting glee, L noted that a faint flush had arisen on his face. “You’re the one who asked out of nowhere, how long have you wanted to do this exactly?”
“Not until now, and you’re avoiding the question again,” L said smugly. “Do you want me to, or not?”
“Not at school,” Light hissed.
“There are plenty of other places we could go. We could do it in my car—”
“Absolutely not.”
“Or I could arrange a hotel room, or we could go to your house—”
“I am not having sex with you in a car, and I’m not getting a hotel room just for this, I have better things to do—”
“But what could be better than deepening our mutual understanding of what we can provide for each other,” L said regretfully. “Being Kira?”
“What—no,” said Light. “Normal things, like, keeping my grades up—”
“Which requires an immense amount of effort for Todai’s brightest, I’m sure.”
“Which you wouldn’t know anything about, since you don’t even bother with the assignments,” Light retorted. The reminder of L’s flagrant disregard for their studies seemed to ground him; he almost managed to sound authoritative as he continued, “Listen. It’s enough of a risk to be secretly kissing at school and all that. I’m not going anywhere else, and I’m definitely not bringing you to my house either. My family lives there, in case you forgot. And—you’re living at the investigative headquarters, aren’t you?”
L paused.
“Yeah,” said Light. “I thought so.”
The problem of keeping Light away from headquarters resolved itself soon enough. L knew he wasn’t bringing Light onto the investigation under the best conditions—the emergence of a second Kira who could kill with a face alone, calling for L’s head on national TV, could hardly be called ideal—but he was confident he had the situation under control. As under control as it could be in his position, anyway.
Light-kun, I want you to play the part of the real Kira. Play the first Kira against the second; control the flow of information at the source. Given the pieces in his hand, it wasn’t a bad move. And the request had been worth it for the look on Light’s face alone.
That night, Sakura TV ran their newly constructed “Kira” message without a hitch.
“I’d like a moment to speak with Light-kun privately, please,” L said once the broadcast was over, and after the last of the investigators had left the hotel room he tugged Light into the adjoining bathroom and crowded him against the wall.
“What are you doing,” muttered Light, though L knew that he knew.
“Providing a reward for your services,” said L. He kissed the edge of Light’s mouth distractedly, trying to work himself up to it. Light didn’t stop him. “Welcome to the investigation, by the way.”
“Is this how you typically welcome people to the investigation, Ryuzaki?”
L smiled blandly. “Only the Kira impersonators, I’m afraid.”
He sank to his knees on the bathroom tile and undid the button on Light’s fly. Whatever response Light had for him cut off abruptly as L clinked his teeth around the zipper and tugged downward with his mouth. He pressed his hand to the material of Light’s slacks to maintain its tension, and felt Light’s thigh tense up against his palm.
By the time his fly was open, Light was already aroused, half-hard in his underwear. L tugged the band of his briefs down along with his pants and pulled him free. With a flare of anticipation, L looked up and caught Light’s eyes, wide and blown dark, oddly fragile in the stark bathroom lighting.
“Told you I’m good with my mouth,” L hummed, neutral tone, and pressed his lips to Light’s cock.
It was as though he’d flipped a switch. L heard a choked-off sound as he took the head into his mouth and Light shivered beneath him, practically melting against the wall. That was it: L had him. The realization caught L like a static shock. He let himself sink down further, careful, letting saliva pool around the intrusion, and was rewarded with another soft noise from Light that stuttered out into the room.
After that, things were easy.
It really did pay to know your own strengths, L reflected smugly. Of course, it also paid to be sufficiently prepared; in this case the preparations had involved a certain amount of tactical research, where he’d gotten the idea about the zipper, and the mid-sized cucumber he’d procured from Watari to test his gag reflex, to fairly optimistic results, but, still. Everything was going perfectly and he was a natural.
There was a pleasant, single-minded daze settling over his brain like fog as he sank into the motions—half playing out a mindless reel of the porn he’d seen, all the mental reference points; half responding to the way Light gasped and reacted under him, intuiting what didn’t work and what he liked best. It felt a little dangerous, being this mentally compromised, but Light didn’t seem like he was in a position to be able to kill L right now, either. In any sense.
L palmed at the front of his jeans in a distracted, aimless way, trying to relieve some of the pressure there. Light’s hands moved up, shaking, to wind through L’s hair. His palms were an uncertain weight at the back of L’s head. L wanted to tell Light to relax, except that his mouth was rather occupied at the moment, so he redoubled his efforts at playing Light like an instrument. He pushed himself closer, almost eye level with the taut expanse of Light’s stomach, and flexed his tongue experimentally. “Ryuzaki—I’m—” came Light’s voice, breathy and unraveling, and his hips twitched forward to push himself further into L’s mouth. L fought an impossible smile and leaned in, letting his throat work around Light’s cock as he swallowed; Light’s fingers twisted in his hair and L didn’t flinch as Light came down his throat, shuddering, grinding out his orgasm until he was tugging weakly away and L pulled himself off with a slick, wet pop.
Blurry and self-satisfied, L blinked to himself as he came back to awareness under the fluorescent lights.
He thought the whole affair had gone pretty smoothly. He’d tried everything he’d wanted to, and gotten Light to come, along with a range of interesting vocal reactions, and his jaw wasn’t as sore as he’d expected it to be, so overall, it had been a success. Except—
“Augh.”
He extricated himself from Light’s grip and scuttled over to the toilet, spitting generously into the basin. By the time he turned back, Light had done up his pants and was observing L with an extremely casual expression, like he’d just completed an errand and was checking the time. He looked for all the world like nothing had happened to him at all.
L glared at him through a sheen of reflexive tears.
“You taste horrible,” he rasped.
Light bristled. “I don’t know what you expected.”
“No, I’m serious. Try it.” The majority of it was gone, but the aftertaste lingered heavily at the back of L’s throat. He pulled Light in and wound his tongue into the other boy’s mouth, a thorough kiss, only drawing away once he was convinced the point had been fully made. “You see,” he mumbled, just a little dizzy. “Awful.”
“Mmm.” Light’s nose scrunched up a bit. L resisted the urge to prod it back into place. “I mean, it’s not—that seems fine. I still don’t know what you were expecting.”
“Candies and sugarplums.”
Light’s eyes narrowed. “Was that an excuse to kiss me, Ryuzaki?”
“I don’t need to make excuses to do what I want, unlike you,” L replied. “Oh, that reminds me.”
He drew a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to Light.
“That’s my personal number, independent of the investigation,” L said. “Feel free to call any time if you’d like to repeat the experience. Or if you ever want to confess to being Kira,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
Light never did call the number L gave him, but L got his practice in anyway. Light was stopping by headquarters as frequently as the rest of the task force, and L had already established a pattern of meeting with members individually, even before Light had joined. And there were only so many different ways they could circle each other around the same case files.
“Doesn’t your family wonder about where you are?” L asked him once, as Light was buttoning up his coat, getting ready to leave.
The moon was high in the sky, a pale sliver glowing against the dark night.
“I told them I have a girlfriend,” Light said, after a moment. “And that we’re meeting each other at a hotel.”
In the end, there was no way L could keep showing up to school while the second Kira was active.
He’d broken cover and shown himself to Light on the assumption that Light would need his name to kill him, but with the second Kira intent on meeting the first, the stakes had changed. Now he had to make sure the second Kira didn’t see his face, or learn that he was L. Accordingly, he’d retreated back into the safe cocoon of their hotel headquarters and erased all his photos from public records, including his school picture at the university.
Still, there was one loose end he couldn’t see a way to tie up: the entire incoming class at Todai had already seen his face.
“If there did happen to be two Kiras at Todai, though,” L muttered, chewing on a macaron, “it might really get me to believe in the gods.”
Light, seated on the couch behind him, remained silent. L let out a pointed sigh.
“You’ve thought of it too, haven’t you? Speaking purely hypothetically, of course. If the first Kira knew my identity and the second Kira knew my face, and they managed to meet…” He popped the rest of the macaron in his mouth. “Well, it could only be an act of fate.”
“Don’t be such a pessimist, Ryuzaki,” Light said absently, and L glanced backward at him. He frowned.
“Are you doing homework?”
Light shrugged. “You won’t let me look at the Sakura TV mail, right? There’s nothing else to do until the others get here.”
Light’s schoolbooks were laid out in an unapologetic spread across the hotel couch, and he was scribbling in a notebook balanced on his lap, cross-referencing it with an open textbook beside him. L got up and went over to him.
“You don’t seem very concerned for my well-being, Light-kun.”
“Considering that your pure hypothetical assumes I’m Kira, I find it a little hard to be worried,” Light said. He nudged some of the books over to the side. L clambered onto the couch beside him and propped his head on Light’s shoulder, getting a good look at what he was writing. The concept of justice must be analyzed through both a philosophical and a practical lens to understand its implications in broader society… “Besides, it seems unlikely the second Kira would be at our school.”
“How so?”
“He’s making himself way too easy to catch. You think someone like that could have passed the entrance exams at Todai?”
L blinked. “Yes. The second Kira has been careless with the tapes, but that doesn’t preclude scoring well on the exams, does it?”
“Not just that, his actions are too impulsive,” Light pressed. “He’s undisciplined on top of lacking intelligence. It doesn’t fit the profile.”
“Light-kun. Are you honestly saying you can’t imagine any of your esteemed classmates being the second Kira?” L leaned back, regarding Light’s flat, unconvinced stare. He mused, “I think even the second Kira could have gotten a better score on those exams than I did.”
“Ryuzaki, you got a perfect score.”
L just looked at him. As realization dawned, Light’s expression morphed gradually into something like polite disbelief.
“You faked the test results?”
“A perfect test score is one of the easiest credentials to forge.”
“But—you still went to take the exams. I saw you there. Why bother showing up at all, then?”
“To get a taste of the experience, I suppose,” L said wryly. “But I may have spent most of the test observing my favorite suspect instead.”
Back then, he’d thought he might make a real attempt at it, if only to prove a point. Some fragment of his own arrogance rising in him, whispering that he could beat Light—beat Kira, or, well, his maybe-probably-Kira at the time—at everything, including this. He’d beat Kira at Kira’s own damn life without studying, without context, and in his fourth language too. Because he was L.
Then the exam had landed on his desk and he’d understood it for what it was: a drawn-out punishment for his brain. They might as well have asked him to scrub the floors.
L didn’t suffer tedium unless it was conducive to his purposes.
There was a flash of something complicated in Light’s face that L couldn’t quite read before it was tucked away. “You were watching me?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”
But that was another thing L had realized about Light that day. Most people had their tells when they picked up on someone observing them, but not Light. Either he couldn’t sense it at all, or he was exceptionally good at ignoring it. L was beginning to doubt the latter. He could stare at Light all class, and Light wouldn’t flinch—just like at the entrance exams, when he’d only glanced back once, his movements as relaxed and steady as ever.
“That’s not the same thing, though,” Light said, annoyed now. “I’m well aware that you’re a crazy person who only came to my school to follow me around. But you’re obviously capable of passing a test like that, regardless. You just didn’t care enough to try.”
“Ah, well,” L murmured, “at least I have your vote of confidence, Light-kun. I don’t know if I could bear the shame otherwise.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s interesting that you’d associate the competence of a murderer so strongly with academic ability, that’s all,” said L. “I suppose it would follow that the first Kira is exactly the kind of person who—”
“Ryuzaki,” Light said evenly. “I’m going to kiss you, okay?”
That was all the warning L got before he felt Light’s lips land on his.
It was annoyingly effective. His train of thought dissolved into the sensation, narrowing down to Light’s hand at his neck, the heat of his mouth. Light was leaning into him, pushing him down until he almost lost his balance on the couch, except that Light’s other hand had moved to L’s side to lower him onto his back.
He felt the edge of a book digging uncomfortably into his side, and arched up—but their bodies were flush against each other, nowhere to go, just Light above him chasing the kiss inward.
It felt like an age before they broke apart, before Light let him go. L opened his eyes to see Light smirking inches away from his face. There was a pleased, mischievous look dancing in his eyes.
You used to be subtler about your manipulations, L thought vaguely.
Content in his victory, Light drew away and settled back down the couch.
“It’s unfortunate you can’t come to school anymore, though,” he said. “People are asking me where my shadow went. You know. The other genius.”
Then he went back to his homework while L stared at him and tried to work out if that was supposed to be some sort of threat.
“This is depressing,” L declared, after a long moment of silence. “Forget it. I’m not going to think about the Kiras right now. I’m going to do something that will cheer me up.” Light rolled his eyes. L lowered his lashes mockingly and sent Light the Inoue-smile, just because he could. “Light-kun. I’m going to suck you off.”
“You really have such a way with words, Ryuzaki,” said Light.
Undeterred, L slid off the couch and to his knees on the floor. He stared up at Light from between his legs, enjoying the way Light’s eyes widened in response.
“I think we’ll have about fifteen minutes before your father gets here,” L said.
With a deliberate motion, he reached out and knocked Light’s books off his lap.
“Right here? In the main room?” Light was trying to seem appalled, but the effect was rather ruined by the arousal that had already flared up in his eyes, which made L think amusedly of dogs reacting to bells. “We should go somewhere else at least.”
L batted his lashes again. “I won’t get it on the couch, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he promised, and Light’s gaze darkened further.
In the process of experimentation, they had found that if Light shoved his cock in deep enough as he came, L could barely taste the semen going down his throat. This had proved to be the ideal state of affairs for them both.
“Fifteen minutes,” L said, and reached for the button on Light’s slacks.
Ten minutes later L was coming with a hand shoved between his legs, mouth still wrapped around Light’s dick. He’d gotten worked up too fast, been on the edge for a bit too long, and he was grinding down on his crotch with the heel of his hand when a sudden pleasure wrenched through him and he could feel his cock pulsing wet in his jeans, tumbling over the peak almost before he realized it. His mind went empty and detached with heat, a clean wildfire irradiating his insides, leaving pure nothing in its wake.
“You came,” Light said, afterwards, “just like that,” and L had expected it to be mocking but instead there was a hunger in Light’s face like he wanted to rip L apart with his hands, like he didn’t care about hiding anymore. He hauled L off the ground and shoved him against the doorway and crushed their mouths together, harshly, bruisingly, with too much teeth, too much—
Kira, L thought.
He had to send Light out to distract Soichiro while he got changed in his room. By the time he emerged, the task force was waiting for him, and he felt the heat of Light’s stare sink into his skin like a brand.
“You’re not Kira… or rather, I don’t want you to be Kira,” L said. “Because I feel as though you’re the first friend I’ve ever had.”
And he thought, If I don’t do something, I am going to die very soon.
L had never operated purely on logic. Sometimes you didn’t have all the information in a case. Sometimes you barely had any of it. But L had an instinct for weaving the most far-flung scraps of evidence and the barest of implications into a cohesive image, intuition filling the gaps, patterns forming in the negative space. And now it was intuition screaming at him that the anvil was coming down on his head—that he’d better run, or fight, before it was too late.
Light hesitated. He hesitated a moment too long, just enough for L to feel it, a stutter in the flow of conversation. The rest of the task force was watching them somberly from behind.
“Yeah. You’re a good friend to me too, Ryuzaki,” Light replied.
“Thanks.”
“I miss you at school,” Light said, perfect once again, placating and sweet. “I’d like to play tennis with you again.”
“Yes. Same here.” L glanced back at Light with a smile. Light was smiling too, that gentle, smooth smile that betrayed nothing, and for a second it seemed as though it was only the two of them, Light-and-Ryuzaki, playing out some private joke for everyone else. L turned forward again, but let the smile linger in his voice. “Kira and the second Kira… once we solve this case and rid the world of them, I’d enjoy that. I hope that day comes soon.”
On May 22, the second Kira had discovered the first in Aoyama. Five days later, L had confirmed the two Kiras were in contact.
According to Mogi, Light had been seen with four different girls in the past few days.
L was reminded, strangely, of the days leading up to the FBI killings, when Kira had started using prisoners to test the extent of his powers. A bloody pentagram, a set of suicide notes. L, do you know? Kira always went overboard like that. Experiment with one criminal and kill thirty more to obfuscate; seek out multiple girls just to hide one. He did it because he could.
It did make his behavior easier to understand, though. And out of all the girls Light had been seen with, one was the most incongruent.
“We’ll do a search on all of them, but let’s start with her,” L said thoughtfully, and tapped the photo of the smiling blonde. “Amane Misa.”
“Amane Misa has been apprehended on suspicion of being the second Kira.”
L’s voice was steady and calm. With the second Kira he had been smiling, nearly boisterous, fueled by a sickening cocktail of triumph and adrenaline and dread, in the knowledge that everything had been leading up to this, to L’s face reflected in Amane Misa’s wide guileless eyes. But now her phone was in his pocket and the girl was never seeing the light of day. He had saved himself.
There was no warmth left in Light’s eyes; like this, he was as harsh and empty as he’d ever been. Look at you, L wanted to say, you thought you had me. You thought you’d won. But it was Light who the trap was closing around now.
L hadn’t seriously thought that Light would call the private number to confess to maybe being Kira. But that was fine. He had been planning to bring Light in for questioning soon; it would have been more ideal to get a confession from Amane first, certainly, but she was holding out longer than expected in the face of torture.
Light’s insistence had made him uneasy, but he couldn’t argue. No matter which way L looked at it, the confinement was merely an acceleration of his own plans.
Two hours after Light was taken to his cell, Ryuga Hideki withdrew perfunctorily from Todai, leaving no trace of his existence behind.
Light-kun, it’s only been one week, but you’re looking worn out. Are you alright?
Yeah… I know I must look pretty bad in here, but this useless pride, I’ll just have to… get rid of it.
It was on the twenty-fourth day of Light’s confinement that L heard the sobs coming through on the speakers.
His first thought, until he shifted his attention to Light’s screen, was that the sound connection was malfunctioning. His second thought was: Does he think that’s going to work? He would’ve thought it beneath Light to try something like this. L pressed the intercom button and leaned into the mic.
“Light-kun.”
At the sound of L’s voice, a shudder ran through Light’s body. L waited until Light had wrestled himself back under control, noises fading to ragged breathing, before he spoke again.
“Light-kun. How did you kill as Kira?”
It took Light a moment to muster up a response. “Go away,” he snarled.
His face was white and humiliated, tear tracks glistening under the dim bulbs of the cell.
L said nothing, but he left the mic on so Light could hear it. He thought he might be likely to get something useful out of Light in this state. He could be very patient when necessary.
A few minutes went by, then:
“Ryuzaki.”
Silence.
“Has Kira started killing again?”
The killings had restarted nine days ago. “No,” L sighed. “You haven’t. Won’t you confess to being Kira already?”
“I’m not Kira,” Light mumbled. But there was a hopeless thread running through his voice, drained from repeating the same denial over and over. “You have to let me out, so we can find the real one.”
He sounded like he’d convinced himself it was true. He had sounded that way for the past two weeks.
By the time the evidence on the second Kira had been found, L had been entirely sure Light was Kira. All he’d needed was that final piece of proof. But the now-familiar dread was rising in him again, the awful feeling that Light was telling the truth, except he couldn’t be. Because he was Kira. None of it made sense.
The reversal in Light’s demeanor, one week after entering confinement.
Two weeks’ worth of killings, arriving all at once.
And then there was Amane, who had changed her tune completely just before Light had called in with his half-confession, who kept going on about some stalker—
“That doesn’t make any sense, Light-kun. You told me you might be Kira. You told me to keep you here until I was sure of your innocence. And the deaths have stopped now that you’ve entered confinement. Might I remind you that you volunteered for this?”
“I told you it was a mistake, okay?” Light’s face twisted, and he stared down at his knees. “I didn’t know Kira would stop. I didn’t know he’d know to stop. I thought the killings would keep going, and maybe that would be enough for you to—to be sure, and you would finally trust me. And then I could be a real part of the investigation, to help you get to the bottom of everything—”
The words fell from L’s mouth, flat and dumbfounded, before he could recalibrate them. “I was never going to trust you. You knew that.”
Light shut his eyes. “I wanted you to,” he said. “I wanted you to trust me.”
L stared at the screen in blank frustration.
“Let me know when you’re ready to confess, Light-kun,” he said quietly, and switched off the intercom.