Infatuation

Trembling slightly, he knocked a little too loudly on the doors, which were immediately opened by Mr Wammy. Mello, used to this sort of procedure, lifted a hand and smiled by way of greeting. Mr Wammy’s moustache twitched up at the corners and his chin withdrew a bit into his neck.

“Good evening, Mello. L is expecting you.” Mello was bowed into the room, which had changed significantly since earlier that summer when it was being used as a classroom. A large four-poster bed, presumably for decoration, was situated in one corner; a table covered in papers, laptops, and various sweets was in the middle of the room; surrounding this table were three of the puffiest white chairs Mello had ever seen—perched in one of these was L. Mello could just see the tufts of messy black hair peeking over the top of the chair, but there was that feeling—that aura that was undeniably and completely and perfectly L.

Mr Wammy exited the room, clicking the doors ever-so-slightly, leaving Mello to stand awkwardly and wait to be acknowledged.

“Go ahead and sit down, Mello. I have cake.”

A spidery hand slid a plate supporting a smallish cake further down the table and into Mello’s field of vision. Mello practically skipped over to the chair next to L’s, eager to partake in a tasty treat. He plopped down happily, shot a pleasant smile at L, and nearly fell out of his chair.

The last time Mello had seen L, he had been eleven and L had been twenty-one. His view of L had been simple enough: L was a tall, older person who was truly awesome and was therefore to be emulated as much as humanly possible. Mello had taken to wearing a lot of eyeliner and hunching over until Matt had caught him applying makeup in the morning and couldn’t stop laughing until Mello punched him in the stomach.

But now, there was something completely different—an unexpected new factor that changed everything about the way Mello saw the world: hormones. Mello was now fourteen, and every fibre of his being was urgently demanding that he remove his pants and drag L to the bed which would, he reasoned, be completely useless otherwise, and wasn’t that sad, to be a bit of furniture with nothing to do, so he’d be doing a service, really…

“-if they are exactly equal.” L was looking at him expectantly, hovering a butter knife over the cake. Mello could only assume that he planned to cut it in half. He made a vague sound of approval.

L, watching both Mello’s eyes and the cake, placed the knife almost-but-not-quite exactly in the middle and began to cut at an angle, so that one half was decidedly more than half. Keeping his eyes wide, presumably to detect any objections from Mello, he placed the smaller piece on a paper plate and held it out for Mello to accept.

Mello took it without complaint. What choice did he have? L looked delighted that Mello was not going to put up a fuss and began to shovel large amounts of his own piece into his mouth.

“Foh,” said L thickly around the food before swallowing. “You are aware that I have been working on the Kira case, yes?”

Mello immediately set about the process of re-prioritizing his thoughts. This was more important than the way L’s lips curved just right and looked so soft and were covered in chocolate frosting…No! Kira! Focus! Mello nodded vigorously.

“I’ve been following it since it started. Of course, we’re not allowed to know quite a bit, but I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s going on anyway. They showed us that tape from Japan after it was broadcast—you know the tape—the one where you completely cornered Kira and were like ‘KILL ME IF YOU CAN!’ WOW that was brilliant! It was amazing.”

L seemed amused. “I’m glad you were able to see that. I was surprised it worked so quickly, to be honest.” Then L’s face fell slightly. “But I did not want to discuss the case itself so much as its implications for your future.”

Mello’s heart began to beat more quickly than was probably good for his circulatory system. Here it was. L was going to kick him out—that, or have him beheaded.

“To be frank, Mello, there seems to be a chance—not a significant chance, but a slight chance—that I will not survive.”

“What?!” Mello choked on a bit of cake and had to set down the plate on top of L’s already-empty one. “You can’t—you can’t say things like that! You’ll beat Kira!”

“I certainly hope I can, and I believe I will be able to: at this point, solving the case is really only a matter of finding sufficient evidence. But Kira is an extremely clever and dangerous person, and I am—have been—in his way. I have been taking many risks in this case—more than I’ve ever needed to take previously—and, as a result, I believe it is necessary that I begin to sort out the business of who my successor will be.” L squared himself on his feet and leaned forward. “I need more observation, but I feel that I ought to tell you that I am thinking of asking you and Near to become L together. You’d make a brilliant team; I think it-”

Mello leapt to his feet. “NO, L! No! You can’t just—I can’t work with Near! He’s an arrogant prick! It’s like he doesn’t have a soul or something. That just couldn’t work!”

L frowned. “Mello, I have taken your feelings towards Near into consideration. May I finish what I was saying now?”

Mello flushed and sank back into his chair. Too emotional. He was too emotional, damn it.

“Thank you. I think it would be good for you two to be partners, so long as you can work out your problems. I have not spoken to Near yet,” (Mello’s spirits lifted considerably at the knowledge that he had been asked to see L before Near had) “but I believe he will find this acceptable, possibly exciting. The only real barrier is your own reluctance.” L sat back in his chair and eyed Mello’s discarded cake.

“But—but Near doesn’t actually want to work with me. I’d just…he’d think I’m slowing him down. He thinks he’s so much better than me—it couldn’t work, and I’m not the only reason!”

“Yes, yes. I’m going to need to ask you to look at this.” L pointed to a laptop at the far end of the table. Excited at the prospect of being asked for his input, Mello got up to inspect the data in question. It seemed to be a list of Japanese men. From what Mello knew of Japanese, he could read what he assumed to be “police force”, but may have been “cave conjecture”. What did this mean? Mello knew that L was working with the Japanese police—these men—but why did he need to view a list? Mello risked a glance at L, and was shocked to see that L had taken the opportunity to steal his cake.

“Hey!” Mello angrily reached to take it back, but L stood up and held the plate just out of Mello’s reach.

“Mello did not consider that I would distract him to take his cake. Therefore, he has lost and I have won. The cake is my prize. I would like to enjoy it now without him attempting to steal it.”

“Can’t steal my own cake…dirty trick…” But L had already finished it off and was licking the fork in a most distracting manner. Mello’s eyes glazed over slightly.

“I am going to ask Near to see me tomorrow. The day after that, I would like to speak with you again. Hopefully, your feelings on the matter of becoming L will have changed slightly. But now I believe you should be going to eat dinner.” L smiled innocently. “You are probably quite hungry, yes?”

Mello desperately wanted to glare and point out the obvious: that L had taken his food. But he couldn’t manage it. Instead, he found himself nodding serenely and allowing himself to be ushered out of the door with a quick ruffle of his toothpaste-encrusted hair.