Infatuation

Mello observed his spiral notebook with a scowl. This was not going as planned. He had set out to create elaborate maps and strategy boards for getting into L’s trousers, but hadn’t known where to start and wound up drawing stick figures in compromising positions instead.

What he needed was a plan—a good, firm plan that was completely foolproof. A plan that would WORK. But how the hell could anyone manage to manipulate the renowned detective L?

He was interrupted from this thought process by lewd chuckles.

“What on EARTH are those stick figures supposed to be doing?”

Mello felt his face turn pink. To distract himself from this, he hit Matt’s head with the spiral.

“They’re knocking boots. Prat.”

At this, Matt decided the best course of action would be to join Mello in his endeavours. Clearly, this would be the best use of their time. Mello, always quite the multi-tasker, was trying to find the best way to get L and himself in these situations. He came up blank. He didn’t even know how to seduce a NORMAL person, let alone L!

Matt giggled loudly at his own drawing, gaining Mello’s attention. Hmm….

“Oi, Matt”

“Mm?”

“How do you get someone into bed?”

Matt pondered this for a moment, scratching the back of his head with his pencil.

“Er…okay, I’ve got it. You spill water on her clothes, accidentally-like, then you say you’ve got dry clothes under your covers, so she’d better get naked and get in your bed. Then, er…then she’s in your bed,” he finished lamely.

It frightened Mello that he seriously considered this plan before firmly eschewing it. He was rather desperate, but L was just too clever.

“How do you get someone smart into bed?”

“…Tell her you’re really good?” Matt eyed him suspiciously. “Why? You don’t fancy anyone, do you? Because if you do, you have to tell me who it is.”

“Of course I don’t FANCY anybody—there’s no one in this fucking orphanage worth fancying!” Matt pouted a bit at this.

“I’M worth fancying,” he mumbled. Mello rolled his eyes.

“But you’re my best chum. If I fancied you, that’d just be weird.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Matt pondered this for a bit. “Why do you need to know, then, if you don’t have someone in mind? You can’t possibly be studying the THEORY.”

“It…it’s a secret.”

“Aha!” Matt tapped his nose sagely. “Secret’s safe with me, boss!”

“Whatever. It’s still a secret.”

“You HAFTA tell me who it is! Best chums, remember? Come on, please don’t make me get mad at you! I don’t wanna sit with the Duel Monsters kids at lunch again!” He leaned closer to Mello and whispered as if afraid they would hear. “I don’t think they bathe.”

“Look, it…it’s NOBODY.” Matt smiled broadly, though his eyes remained sad.

“Do I know her?” Mello glared.

“Why do you keep saying ‘her’? I don’t recall mentioning a gender.”

“Well, I think the default is normally female, seeing as…” Mello’s continued glaring made Matt falter a bit. “Er…but whatever gets you off, I guess.”

“Shut up. I didn’t say anything about…shut up.”

“Ooo-kay.” Matt shut up for a total of ten seconds. “So who is it?”

“NOBODY, damn it! I don’t like anyone! This conversation is going in circles.”

Mello stomped off to the library, entertaining the hope that there would be a book written on this sort of thing. Almost as soon as he entered, however, he tripped over something very soft. He landed rather painfully on his hands and knees and set about trying to kill the object at fault with his eyes. Near rubbed his head sadly.

“This is the second time in two days that someone has tripped over me.”

“No shit.” Mello stood up and dusted himself off. “Of COURSE people are going to trip over you if you crouch in doorways. I mean, who does that? No one.”

Near lifted a finger to interject. “As you’ve just established, I do.”

“No one who isn’t fucktarded.”

“Mello, that word doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand what it’s meant to say about me. The only definition that even VAGUELY works would be ‘one who is mentally handicapped due to intercourse’ but I don’t see how that would-”

“You don’t see ‘cos you’re fucktarded.” Mello peered down at Near’s half-completed puzzle. “Izzat new?”

“Yes. L brought it for me.”

Several thoughts ran through Mello’s mind at once upon hearing this. Near had seen L. What had L said to Near? Had L told him about his plan? Of COURSE L had told him about his plan. What did Near think about it? None of these, however, managed its way out of Mello’s mouth first.

“Why didn’t L bring ME a puzzle?” Near looked as if he were shocked that anyone could be so stupid.

“You don’t even LIKE puzzles. You like activities that involve physical movement; you’ven’t the patience to sit through an entire puzzle—you’d get bored.”

Mello sniffed loudly, rubbing his nose with a finger. “I have LOADS of patience. I just don’t use it, is all.”

“All right, but whether you have patience or not, you still don’t like puzzles, so you shouldn’t be jealous that L brought one for me and not for you.” Near turned his back to Mello, clicking more pieces into place.

Stunned and not quite certain as to how he ought to respond to such logic, Mello kicked at the floor a bit and, with a muted "shut up", stalked over to the tiny self-help section of the library. He shot a glare over his shoulder to see if Near was watching him but, infuriatingly, he was more interested in his puzzle.

Mello scanned briefly over the titles, hoping to see something to the effect of "How to Make the Man Ten Years your Senior Fall Madly in Love with You", but all the Wammy's House library had to offer was such useless selections as "Caution: Puberty in Progress" and "Patterson's Complete Guide to Mental Disorders". Curiosity commanded him to thumb through the latter, but after self-diagnosing himself with nearly every disorder he saw, Mello became disheartened and had to put it down.

In spite of his lack of success, years of intense education at Wammy's led Mello to firmly believe that he required a plan to proceed; attempting any project with no sort of structure was simply not done. And so he sat down at a table, extracted a few leafs of paper from a nearby stack, and began to write.

Numbered lists that gave way to bulleted lists with decreasing levels and various stylistic applications soon filled his paper; he didn't realize how furiously he had been writing half-thought-out schemes until a polite cough behind him made him jump in his chair.

"Mello, I'm not sure what it is you're trying to do, exactly, but chloroform doesn't actually work like that." Mello quickly crumpled up the paper and shoved it down the front of his shirt.

"That's right you don't know what I'm trying to do. Because it...um...I'm doing something...top secret. None of your business. And you're not allowed." Near rolled his eyes.

"It took you THAT long to come up with 'top secret'?"

"And also none of your business. That's the critical part. Now go away; 's important."

Near gave the library a furtive glance before leaning very close to Mello.

"You're not trying to kill someone, are you? Because that's illegal."

It occurred to Mello that he ought to make a really biting comeback that would suggest that he would be killing NEAR if he did not mind his own business, but he couldn't quite find the correct words, so he merely sniffed in Near's direction and scratched at his own nose. Mello hoped Near would go away without an answer, but Near was hovering patiently in front of Mello's face, clearly concerned.

"No, I'm not killing anybody. Don't be stupid." Near frowned.

"Well I hope you're not doing anything bad, anyway." He shrugged. "That plan probably won't work, unless your victim is really stupid. Or really young. It seems to rely quite heavily on sweets."

"It's not a PLAN. It's--it's a brainstorming...thing."

"Brainstorming for a plan. There are STEPS, Mello. Steps and squiggly lines."

"For fuck's sake, Near, it doesn't concern you!"

Near eyed the wad shoved down Mello's shirt warily and shuffled off.

Mello carefully extracted the paper, smoothed it, and looked over it again. It seemed like a pretty solid idea to him. He'd return to it tomorrow morning--yes, that would be best. After all, he wasn't going to be able to see L until then, so there was no hurry at all.

Feeling comforted now that he had something on paper, Mello folded his plans up and headed back to his room, whistling absently with his hands in his pockets.

Just as he was nearing the correct hallway, however, a very strong whim overtook him. It would, he decided quite suddenly, be best to do this NOW, before he lost his nerve. Or was nerve less important than a re-thinking? Mello dithered for roughly thirty seconds, then ran as fast as he could to L's room.

He paused, doorknob already half-turned. Perhaps he had-

"Watari, someone seems to be trying to open the door. Look into it, would you?"

Mr Wammy carefully cracked the door open to reveal a very startled Mello. He smiled kindly.

"Mello wants to talk to you, I believe." He gestured into the room, waiting for Mello to timidly enter, then exited, shutting the door behind him.