White Chocolate

I woke to the distant crashing sounds of water that I knew must be Mello in the shower. I rolled over and planted my feet on the floor, trying to ignore the pounding in my brain. I reached over to my nightstand to slip my goggles on my face, when I found myself staring numbly at the strap. Last night…This morning…Shit. I let the goggles slip from my hand and tumble onto the carpet.

Somehow, I'd make it stop. If I couldn't even put on my damn goggles without thinking about…No. What in the name of Princess Toadstool was I thinking? I was not into Mello. End of story. This just had to be a phase of puberty. I'd read somewhere that people react strangely towards their initial sexual desire, although girls seemed to be more "creative" in that respect. Moreover, I was damn curious as to how, but I didn't think any girl at Wammy's was going to admit how a bathroom sink or a bedpost could relieve their sexual tension.

Thinking about girls masturbating made my head throb, but at least it took my mind off of Mello.

I suddenly craved a long drag and stood up to look for my cigarettes. A crisp sting met my face when I slid open our one window. I inhaled the perfect autumn morning breeze along with my nicotine. From where I stood, I had a perfect view of the west garden. Far from the suffocating hydrangeas and tulip beds was a lone tree. Its body seemed to claw up from the ground, gnarled, knobby, twisting and winding upward in such stark juxtaposition to the flawless rose buds and smiling daisy bushes. I wondered briefly if that tree felt like I did. I watched the gray clouds in front of my face and thought bitterly about how my heart was burning more than my cigarette. I was on my third smoke when I heard his voice.

"You alright, Matt? If you try to get more out of that cancer stick, you're going to end up smoking your fingers."

I turned to face Mello as he was pulling a long sleeved black shirt over a relaxed pair of jeans. After he'd pulled the hem a bit past his hips, he stole a glance my way.

His eyes went wide.

Mello opened his mouth to speak, but then seemed to think better of it. Instead, he strode across the room and placed a firm hand on my shoulder. I couldn't shy away from his piercing eyes once they bore into me, searching my naked emotions. I've never felt as vulnerable as I did in that moment.

Time, like us, stood still as we breathed together, arm's length apart but locked in each other's eyes. Mello was the one to break the silence.

"You're…you're crying, Matt."

Without taking his eyes off of me, he reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a long bar of chocolate. The wrapper crinkled noisily as he peeled it away from the dark rectangle. In a swift jerk, he snapped off the edge with his teeth. The first bite must have been to calm his own nerves, but I was still surprised when he handed the rest of the bar to me. I held it dumbly.

"Damn it Matt, twice in one morning? This had better not become a pattern," he teased, but gently, his voice heavy with more concern than I've ever heard from him. "Was this nightmare even worse than the first?"

I'm not sure what shocked me more, Mello's behavior, my behavior, or the fact that I was staring a perfect cover-up story in the face. Mello thought I'd woken up from another bad dream? I could force myself to nod a little in confirmation. Even in such a vulnerable state, I would quit smoking before I'd tell Mello the real reason behind my sudden breakdown.

"Do you feel like talking about it?" he asked, a little pensive.

I shook my head. To be honest, I felt a bit too apathetic for conversation. Especially if talking meant I had to make up another lie to tell him. I really wasn't up to thinking any more this morning.

The next five minutes dragged on. Mello sighed deeply and sat on the edge of his bed, eyeing my goggles that I'd discarded. Suddenly he threw his head back and the corner of his lips curled into a mischievous smile. He nearly jumped out of bed and pounced on my goggles. Then, swinging the goggles around his finger in a mini centrifuge, he turned to me and smirked.

"Mello, what the hell are you---"I started, but he cut me off midway.

"Let's play a game, Matt." He stopped swinging my eyewear long enough to walk to the window. "If you win, you get to keep your goggles. If I win, I get to do whatever I want with them. If you don't play, I still keep your goggles."

This was definitely not a response I expected from Mello. But I knew him well enough to gauge that if I didn't follow, I'd have to live without my precious specs. It was one thing for Mello to see me without them, hell he was my roommate, but for the rest of Wammy's? No. Fucking. Way.

I tilted my head to show that I was listening.

"The rules are simple," he continued, "whoever finds them first wins."

He laughed at the puzzled look at my face and then I saw him raise his arm. The world seemed to creep in utter slow motion as I flung myself at him, but I knew it was too late.

He threw my goggles out the window.

I scarcely had the time to turn and watch them land in a mound of raked leaves adjacent to the base of the crooked tree.

"Mello, you bastard!"

A loud slam from the door told me that I was already wasting time. Mello had a head start. My legs protested but I drove them out of our room. I didn't even apologize to Linda when I knocked her over in the hallway; although I remember her muttering something about how uncivilized it was to go around shoeless. I made a beeline from the front door to the tree, fueled by sheer anger and…what was this other feeling?

I quickly reached the gate that led to the west garden; it was still swinging from how violently Mello must have shoved it open. I immediately regretted that I was barefoot, because my heel connected with a jagged rock from the dirt path I was sprinting. I winced but didn't let my pace falter.

The tree was just around one more corner of Wammy's House…just a little further up. It was almost in my sight.

Mello was already there, holding something in his left fist. I was panting when I finally reached him.

My legs doubled underneath me. I wasn't really out of shape, but all those hours sitting in front of my video games hadn't aided me in a race against the blonde bombshell in front of me.

"Mell..Mello…You. Asshole." I managed to pant.

I didn't look up; I simply trained my eyes on the grass. Suddenly, I felt a cold plastic slide against my forehead and gentle hands adjusted the strap around my hair and eyes. Mello was leaning towards me with an innocent smile tugging the corners of his face.

"Oh don't look so surprised. I said if I won, I could do what I wanted with them, didn't I? And what I want is for you to wear them. You…just aren't quite my Matt without them."

My Matt. He said my Matt. Sweet mother of Toad, he said my Matt. I couldn't even repress the shiver that vibrated through my whole body as his slender fingers slipped the last bit of plastic in place. I knew I was blushing so I closed my eyes to avoid his. From my heart to my toes, I felt a strange warmth spreading…spreading...spreading and I didn't want it to stop.

"I'm sorry; I know I'm an ass. Okay? But I had to do something to get you out of that room. You looked so damn depressed and I was afraid it was contagious."

I opened my eyes when I heard a crunch and rustle only to find…What. The. Hell?

There was Mello, sunlight reflecting off his perfect golden hair, his arms stretched wide and grinning like the godless bastard he was, no, grinning as if he was God himself…jumping in the freakin' leaves. That's when I realized he was just as barefoot as I was. Like a five year old, he curled his toes around the brown stiff leaves and let them shatter with a satisfying crunch.

"Are you just going to just stare, or are you going to join me? I did bring you out here for a reason you know."

I couldn't help myself. I really couldn't help myself. It felt so stupid, but the way Mello was grinning and the way my heart seemed to beat faster every time I looked at him…I was done fighting myself. Mello grabbed my hand and pulled me into the leaf pile where we started throwing leaves at each other, blowing them into each other's faces, crushing them into each other's hair, crunching them under our naked feet.

I was done fighting myself. Over the past few weeks, I'd been agonizing over my dreams, telling myself that whatever I was feeling was shameful and I needed to break it from my mind.

The moment Mello had said my Matt though, everything changed. It was one thing to imagine him kissing me, caressing me, in love with me, because that was all in my head, but to hear him call me his, like he owned me…to hear him claim me with his own voice here and now and not in my dream world…

I was done fighting myself. Even if he didn't mean it that way, it was completely and irreversibly true. I was his simply because, without knowing it, I'd already given my heart to him. What reason did I have left to fight it? And even if it was a one-sided love, there was just something so freeing about it that made me feel even happier than the time I beat Twilight Princess in under 8 hours.

Even childishly playing in the leaves felt right, as long as I did with it with Mello.

I'm not sure how long we stayed, disturbing the masses of leaves under that tree. Mello didn't seem to mind and I was already forgetting my tension from the morning. I sat on a crook of the tree, watching Mello, reverting to my default calm, relaxed state. As stupidly childish and extreme as his little "game" had been, I think Mello secretly knew how therapeutic it would turn. Nothing could disturb this wonderful expression of our deep friendship. Nothing.

Except her.

"Meeeeeello!. Maaaaatt!!" shrieked a horribly familiar voice.

Great. Perfect. I swear I'm going to shoot that girl one of these days. Right through the voice box. No. First, I'm going to disembowel her teddy bear right before her eyes, and then I'm going to…

"I've been looking all over for you guys!" Linda chirped. "You sure picked the wrong day to play hooky during breakfast. You missed Roger's big announcement."

A side-glance at Mello let me catch him tense up. His hand released its captive leaf and let it float in a swaying pendulum motion before it reached the grass.

"When?" was all he could say, but the playful tone was all gone. Mello gave Linda a tell-me-when-L-is-going-to-be-here-or-my-fist-will-make-you-regret-it kind of glare.

"5 minutes. The drawing room. Come on! You don't want to miss it. I wonder what he looks like." Was her simple answer.

Mello had sprinted half the length of the west garden before Linda and I caught up with him. The eagerness in his eyes was simply electrifying. He thrust open the front door and nearly tripped over a robot toy that lay in the middle of the hallway. I think I heard him mutter 'Damn that Near' under his breath. When we all reached the drawing room, Mello calmly slipped his fingers around the doorknob and twisted it. A voice greeted us the moment we stepped onto the carpet of the already inhabited room.

"Hello children of Wammy's House. I think you are all fairly acquainted with my name. I am L."