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Light halted inside the archway that lead to Wammy House’s solarium, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. The cavernous room was empty except for two occupants. The screen at the front of the room was pulled down as if it was movie night, but it wasn’t Friday night, and outside the massive windows looking out on the gardens, the sun was still going about its business. Well, as much as the sun did anything in England, really. There’s a reason HappyLights and SAD exist.
The words “GENIUS IS A CURSE – FAN SOUNDTRACKS” shone on the screen as if a slideshow was cued up.
“What’s this about? Is this metafiction?” Light asked as L passed by him, carrying the snacks and tea tray he had refused to leave behind in Light’s sitting room.
Matt had one of his laptops propped on the arm of an overstuffed white chair in the middle of the back row.
“It’s something fun, that’s what it is!” the redhead said, twisting in his seat and pulling his goggles down so he could see the two of them. “We’ve got music to go with the story.”
“Please no more Three Days Grace or Breaking Benjamin. I don’t want to make another suicide attempt,” Light said with a groan, remembering the early maudlin chapters.
“Those were part of the author’s soundtrack. These are fan-created playlists! Totally different,” Matt said as he turned back to his screen. He scrolled eagerly through a wall of text to find something before he slumped, defeated. “Aw, what the hell. I’m not even in this until Chapter 20! Most of these songs won’t apply to me.”
“You might be glad that is the case,” Near said from where he and his white pajamas were nearly hidden against another glaringly bright chair on Matt’s left.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You will see,” Near said ominously, his fingers making spirals of his pale hair.
Light sighed in resignation. L looked bored, as always, and shuffled down a level until he reached the sofa beside Matt. The end table between their two seats could hold his tea tray, so he set up in the corner of the sofa in a crouch that let him pluck cubes out of the sugar bowl. L dropped several in his tea while Matt flicked through slides on his laptop.
“There’s plenty of room here, Light-kun,” L said, looking over his shoulder when Light continued to linger in the archway.
“I think not. That’s a loveseat,” Light said, unmoving.
“If you sit too far away, we can’t discuss the songs! Now sit down,” Matt said.
Light sighed/groaned/kvetched and took his seat on the far side of the diminutive sofa from L, who smiled and rested his teacup on his knee from a foot away. Light crossed his forearms over his stomach, his long sleeves hiding all but his fingers and one gloved hand as he tried to ignore L.
“Okay, first up…” Matt trailed off as he picked up a remote and clicked it. The slide on the wallscreen changed to the following text:
“WORST IN ME” BY UNLIKE PLUTO
The room’s excellent surround sound speakers came alive with the song’s opening guitar strums. Roger and Wammy had sunk their personal money into this newer room when investors hadn’t seen the need for it, but it seemed under-utilized with only music and lightly-animated song lyrics to command the occupants’ attention.
“This looks promising,” Light said with a smirk and a glance at L as he talked over the opening notes and words. He was probably terrible company during movies. “I can already guess this is about you and me.”
L refused to be baited so early and ate a chocolate-coated caramel in response.
“Most of them probably are,” Matt groused, sinking lower in his seat. “Chapter 20, really? Jeez. Guess I should be lucky I got an invite to this at all.”
Near just rolled his eyes at Matt’s irritation, glad he was too low on anyone’s radar to have any songs dedicated to him. Hopefully.
Playing games from the start, oh
Sinking your nails in my heart, no
You bring out the worst in me, oh
You bring out the worst in me, oh
“The playing games part is right,” Light said.
“I play games,” Matt started.
“And the part about bringing out the worst in each other,” L added without acknowledging Matt’s contribution. “I’m not sure how to interpret the ‘nails in my heart’ line.”
Nothing, no nothing can change you, no
I decided to play when I knew you were fire, no
“Sounds like L again, messing with someone who was only going to burn him,” Matt said as he started skimming the story again to keep from fidgeting if he couldn’t play games.
Bemused, Light cocked an eyebrow and shared a disconcerted look with L at the lyrics.
“Am I imagining the subtext here? Why would readers get this impression?” Light asked uneasily, but L only went tight-lipped for a nigh-indiscernible moment before looking disinterested again.
“Nothing says those lyrics in particular were relevant to our situation or this story,” L said with bland nonchalance.
Near said to Matt in a low voice, “I told you you would not want to be part of this.”
Matt shrugged. “Ehh, that wasn’t so bad. What’s the next one?”
“BURNING DESIRE” BY LANA DEL REY
Light snorted. “Oh come on, it’s not even a subtext now.”
A music video started playing with the lyrics superimposed over it.
“Sweet, a girl, something this universe could use more of,” Matt said, sitting up and adjusting his goggles.
“Then it wouldn’t be very much like Death Note,” the author said.
Matt looked around in confusion. “You all heard that, right?”
Near looked bored now and pulled a miniature robot out of the chest pocket on his pajamas. L gave a little shrug and paid more attention to the caramels on his snack plate. Light sat with his legs crossed, his chin in his hand as he watched the video. Matt checked the archway and behind them but saw nothing, so he turned back to the video.
I drive fast, wind in my hair, push it to the limits ‘cause I just don't care
“Hey, I like fast cars. Maybe this is from my perspective?” Matt asked.
Near yawned. “There is a lot of car porn in this fic.”
“I liked driving fast, wind in my hair, when you lent me your Lotus,” Light said in the same cadence as the song, making Matt grin.
Matt held out a hand to Light for a long-distance fist bump. “Yeah, maybe it’s about both of us!”
I don't wanna be nowhere but here
I've got a burning desire for you, baby
Matt blushed as red as his hair and dropped his fist to stare at the lyrics. “For the car?” He looked at Light. “For you? Never mind, it’s nothing to do with us.”
“Agreed,” Light said with a pinched expression.
They listened in silence after that, but restlessness set in before long. Near pulled a second robot a few centimeters tall out of another pocket and set it beside the first on the arm of his chair. L stacked sugar cubes and caramels on his plate. Light checked the watch he was wearing on his gloved wrist. Matt thought about taking up smoking again to give himself something to do.
“Is her vocal range only five notes?” Near asked.
I drive fast, radio blares, have to touch myself to pretend you're there
“She has a much greater appreciation for cars than I do,” Matt said. “Touching yourself at high speeds seems dangerous—"
“Skip!” Near said. Then he pulled five miniatures out of his pockets. In a group, they looked more like Warhammer 40K space marines than toy robots.
“This isn’t going to work for a whole story. Can we liven this up?” Matt asked with a groan as he skipped the rest of the song.
“Roger has a bottle of Laphroaig in his desk,” Near said as he arranged his figures. At the silence, he looked up to find the others’ eyes on him. “What?”
“I don’t want to get shot for stealing that,” Matt said, remembering the contents of the armory and the hints of Roger’s interesting past with Mr. Wammy in the military. “I’ll just go to the liquor store. Any requests?”
Thirty minutes later, Light sipped a thimbleful of Junmai-Daiginjo sake, pleased that he could hold the tiny cup without spilling the contents, never mind that someone else had to pour it for him. Anything else that came in such minute servings was stronger than he wanted… unless he was playing piano in a jazz bar that was far, far away from nosy detectives and anyone else he knew. On second thought, maybe not even then.
Beside him, L cracked the seal on a bottle of Baileys and tipped the dark bottle into his empty teacup. Once it was brimful, he set the Irish cream aside. He lifted the cup between index finger and thumb and sipped at it as if it was hot tea. His eyes fell shut with pleasure.
Light’s stomach did backflips off a high-dive board.
“Don’t you normally mix that with coffee or ice or… something?” Matt asked from L’s other side with an expression of equal disgust.
“I have Kahlua too, but this is sweet enough by itself,” L said before taking a long swallow. He gave Light a side-eye and licked his lips, knowing how much his diet sickened Light. Light made an involuntary retching sound.
Matt grimaced and poured a second pint of German beer into the heavy one-liter glass stein that dwarfed L’s bottles on the shared side table. “Now we’re talking.”
Near took dainty exploratory sips from an open bottle of Amarone della Valpolicella. With the other hand, he used the chair’s wide arms to set up two Warhammer 40K armies in battle formation.
“Okay, we have to talk more now or this is going to be really tedious,” Matt said. “Bottom’s up!”
"BRAVE AS A NOUN" BY ANDREW JACKSON JIHAD
I could go off the deep end
I could kill all my best friends
I could follow all those stylish trends
Matt laughed at the singer’s voice after several swallows of beer.
“This guy sounds way too energetic, but it’s like Light if he was punk,” Matt said before his jovial expression cracked. “And, uh, killed his friends.”
Looking like the least punk anime character ever in his Abercrombie & Fitch quarter-zip jacket, long-sleeved tee, and khakis with Zac Efron’s “High School Musical”-era haircut, Light made a face like he’d bitten a lemon.
“Sure, if you’re talking about me in canon,” he grumbled. “Are we pretending that didn’t happen?”
“Yes,” said the author.
“Who else could it be about?” Matt asked, toasting Light with a stein already only half-full. “Except for my bitchin’ goggles and red hair, you’re the only one in this story that could ever be called ‘stylish.’”
“Except for his sister,” Near deadpanned.
Matt flushed, again, and went back to drinking more quietly.
“Would I count as one of those ‘best friends,’ Light-kun?” L asked with a pretense at a drunken leer. Probably.
“Hell no,” Light snapped. “Pour me another.”
“So cold.” L pouted as a little blizzard blew cartoon snowflakes around him, but he poured another measure of sake into Light’s outstretched cup.
“THE FALL” BY HALF-ALIVE
Matt nodded a little in tune with the music. “Sounds like a song about songwriting.” He looked at the others with him. “Not really about us. Is anyone, uh, putting themselves out there?”
Silence. L took sips of his drink. Light emptied his cup again and looked only slightly foggy. Near set a 56-centimeter-tall Warlord Titan on the arm of his chair.
That finally caught Matt’s eye and made him lower his glass so he could stare. “What the—?”
I jump off into your arms
But I can’t trust the fall
Take my voice, I’m giving it though
I don’t feel safe at all
Light stopped drinking and made a pained expression at the lyrics. He and L exchanged a momentary look.
“Considering I asked you to give up ties to your previous life, that’s one way to look at our early interactions,” L said drily.
“True, but it was more literal when I lunged out of that morgue drawer for you.” Light’s cheeks went pink and he stared forward again, as if he’d said more than he wanted to. Damn alcohol.
“I wanted to ask what prompted that,” L began as he turned to face Light with a faint smile.
“The cold. I was feverish and freezing,” Light interrupted through his teeth before he compressed his lips.
“Did I make you feel safe by then?” L whispered with a grin. Light’s glare could have curdled the Baileys L was drinking.
Matt couldn’t hear the most recent exchange and watched the two of them before he spoke. “Soooo… is this also about Light agreeing to come out here? Metaphorically?”
“Sure. Next song,” Light bit out.
“CONTROL” BY GARBAGE
The world might end, the night might fall
Rain on down and cover us all
And drown us with the burdens of our sins
“Several of our early encounters also involved rain,” L said, losing his grin and leaning back against the sofa.
“Don’t remind me,” Light replied, thinking of the park in Aoyama. “There was even a Breaking Benjamin song about it.”
Maybe I'll look you in the eye
Tell you you don't wanna die
Maybe I'll hold my breath and jump right in
Whatever Light was about to say next was forgotten. He closed his mouth, crossed his arms, and sat without moving, as if he hoped to disappear from sight. L set down his teacup without looking at it, his gaze fixed ahead on memories of a disastrous dinner and interview.
When he spoke, his voice was soft. “I should have chosen my words more carefully.”
“Why? We were practically strangers back then,” Light said in bored tones without meeting L’s gaze, but he lifted that gloved hand, perhaps on accident, to make a dismissive gesture. L had to look away from it.
If you think you are the reason
Give me something to believe in
It's always darkest right before the dawn
“I need some coffee.” Light got up smoothly and vanished out the archway before anyone could react.
Matt listened to the lyrics until he was sure Light was out of earshot before he asked, “Was he really like that before?”
L just ate a caramel as he stood. “Don’t wait for us,” he said as he left.
The song ended with the singer’s words:
I was suffocating.
“Yikes, I hope the next song is a little less serious,” Matt said with a worried glance at the archway.
“SEA, SWALLOW ME” BY COCTEAU TWINS AND HAROLD BUDD
Interrupted, Lily punts in jest
Heading through the air and then there’s more
Yet I want to know
Yet I want to know
“Is that really what she’s singing?” Near asked, contractions slipping out as he continued draining a bottle of lovely, nuanced wine that was utterly wasted on a novice drinker. He squinted at the lyrics that showed on the screen while the music played. “Who’s Lily?”
Matt skipped back to the beginning and listened, brow furrowed with effort and eyes closed. “I think it’s… No, what about this?”
Candle rock so many punches
Seven, sugar and a man mangoes
Yell I wanted my
Yell I wanted my
“Man mangoes? That makes even less sense,” Near said. He left his miniatures alone and massaged his head as the piece played on. “At least her voice is pleasant during the operatic parts.”
“What if it’s not the lyrics but the title that’s relevant? It made me think of putting Mello’s ashes into the sea when I saw it.” Matt slouched against the side of the chair and resumed scrolling through over 250,000 words of text as he spoke.
In the archway, an unseen someone smiled for just a moment. A hand heavy with rings rested against the wall; thick-soled boots were silent on the hardwood floor.
“It’s not mentioned in the story, but I waded into the water to do it.” Matt drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. “I read later that Catholics aren’t supposed to disperse ashes, so… I don’t know, it’s not as if we ever talked about dying. I don’t know how much he would’ve cared.” Matt smirked then put his head in his hand, so he could rest an elbow on the chair as he flicked through text with the other hand.
The boy in the doorway frowned.
“Of course, it could also be about Light traveling to the sea, the same place even, and feeling despair about going on,” Matt added. “’Sea, swallow me,’” he murmured in a sing-song tune to mimic the singer.
Near extricated himself from his increasingly-crowded chair and walked unsteadily over to Matt’s laptop. Matt lifted his head when Near set his heavy-bottomed bottle in the scant space remaining on the side table.
“Could I look something up?” Near asked. Matt pulled his hands back and sat up to let Near reach the keys. “Lyrics. Cocteau Twins,” Near said under his breath as he typed.
Can't turn up, somebody punch me, yeah
Seven sugars and a madman goes
Yell, I wanted more
Yell, I wanted more
There was a moment of total silence before they both burst into mildly-intoxicated laughter.
“’Seven sugars?’ ‘A madman’? This must be about L when he’s low on energy.” Matt snickered.
“Only seven sugars would be evidence of restraint,” Near said, trying to smother a hiccup.
Mello let out a silent chuckle and leaned against the arch, crossing his arms over his chest as his best friend debated the significance of nonsense lyrics with someone who had been one of Mello’s greatest rivals.
Low voices made him turn his head, blond hair swishing noiselessly against his shoulders. Down the hallway toward the kitchen, L stepped around the corner with a travel mug in his hand trailing a wisp of steam.
“It wasn’t any trouble,” L said quietly to Light, that former outsider who walked at L’s elbow.
“I can’t take it for granted. So again, thank you,” Light replied. At L’s grumble, he added, “Just say, ‘You’re welcome.’” When all L did was stare ahead with an exaggerated frown, he rolled his eyes with a smirk.
Mello let go with a faint smile and faded from sight before they reached him.
L paused at the sound of Near and Matt having a giggle fit while listening to music of no discernible language. Light sighed when he caught up to L.
“Maybe I should have brought back coffee for everyone,” Light said flatly. “This is only going to get worse, isn’t it?”
“We can make it more bearable if it does,” L said with a shark’s smile. “How much do you remember of our first real conversation?”
Light gave him a baleful look for bringing up Aoyama again. “Too much, but point taken.”
L let Light sit before setting the travel mug on the sofa arm. Light steadied it with his ungloved hand and tipped it toward himself so he could take a sip. L waited for the nod before he went back to his half-full teacup of dreadful milky liqueur and topped it off. Light made a despairing noise but let L add a healthy dose to his black coffee as well.
Matt stifled his giggles and Near returned to his seat before Matt pulled the slideshow up again. “Ready for the next one?”
“TAKER” BY DIIV
The years I lived in vain
Chasing the pain with pain
“If they’re all like this, I’m going to need something a lot stronger to drink,” Light said, but his words were more lighthearted than before.
“I have Kahlua,” L said.
Matt shuddered. “Take one of my beers instead. It’ll be easier than trying to get drunk off Kahlua.”
“More for me,” L whispered.
The path of wreckage that I cut
All in want of what?
“Too literal,” Matt said, then he grabbed the remote and skipped the song before Light could ask him to do so.
“RIPTIDE” BY UNLIKE PLUTO
You hit me like a riptide
Light made a rueful chuckle. “I doubt I hit you that hard, if we’re being literal,” he said with a glance at L.
L patted his nose as if testing it for breaks again, but he was squiffy enough (somehow) to almost poke himself in the eye.
“A riptide would drag me away; you didn’t even knock me down,” he said with feigned disdain.
Matt eavesdropped shamelessly while he dumped another pint into his stein. He’d always wondered how only Light had landed a hit when L knew capoeira, for he still didn’t have the whole story about that day.
Then he turned to the miles of text on his laptop, his eyes wide. Actually, he did.
But hey, it was an honest mistake
We'll go our separate ways
We don't need to dig our own gravestones
Push each other out 'til we're alone
These fights are taking on the same tone
Oh it's worse if I stay
'Cause you changed my personality
I'll close the door behind me
So hit me with a riptide
If that's the way you wanna say goodbye
L shifted uncomfortably; Light tapped his nails against his travel mug.
“What?” Matt asked as he looked up from skimming the story when he and Near were watching the lyrics play out in indifference.
“It is a surprisingly apt interpretation of one of our last conversations before…” L trailed off with a glance at Light. A lot had happened that day, and none of it was easy to talk about.
“Before I tried to kill myself,” Light said with utter sangfroid. Matt and Near both looked taken aback at how baldly stated that was.
“It was a mistake. I did think it would be worse if I stayed here, so I left. It does no good to pretend it didn’t happen,” Light continued.
L could sympathize about the day being full of unwelcome revelations and tragedy, but he felt no need to give voice to any of it. Ever.
“Right. Next song,” Matt said.
“MISTAKES LIKE THIS” BY PRELOW
You never act aloud the way you appear
L roused, trying to distance them from that last heavy conversation. “This must be about you. From my perspective,” he said with a gesture with his half-empty teacup at Light.
“Who else could it possibly be about?” Matt asked in mild despair.
“Me?” Light snorted in mild disdain. “You’re the wealthy detective in his thirties who appears to be a teenage slob.”
“That’s hurtful, Light-kun. And there are a lot of references to you wearing masks.”
I'm not confused, it's just you're making me think
Of all our conversations missing their link
“All of our early conversations were missing something,” L said.
Light lifted his eyebrows at L. “Honesty?”
“Humor!” Matt interjected.
“Unresolved Sexual Tension™.”
Everyone stared at Near. Someone coughed.
“It’s canon!” Near said, somehow slurring the words.
But all your makeup's running
And I'm walking you home
L felt wary at the direction the lyrics were going. He glanced at Light then away, his words getting strangely defensive. “I only walked you home in a sense.”
“You carried Light. Twice,” Near clarified to L’s continued discomfort. L began making a concerted effort to finish his drink.
“I wasn’t wearing any makeup!” Light insisted, as if that made any difference at all.
“It would have run in that rain if you had,” Near said.
Matt sighed, oblivious to L and Light’s growing unease as he clicked back onto the story. “Definitely a song about L and Light. Again. I wonder when—”
And my dick takes over
And I'm thinking 'bout your lips
L choked on his drink.
His teacup hit the floor and splashed its meager contents onto the loveseat and carpet. L coughed violently.
“Say what?!” Matt asked with a squeak. He scrolled faster through the story.
Light made a startled bark of laughter. “As if you would ever…” he trailed off at L’s continued hacking and sat up from his slouch. “L?”
But we're too damn sober
For mistakes like this
L wheezed, his hand against his heaving chest as he tried to clear his throat enough to talk. “Slander,” he got out amidst coughs. “A misunderstanding…”
“Oh wow, it’s really here. Chapter 38,” Matt said in wide-eyed surprise.
“Finally!” said readers.
L made a sound that might be “No!” or just a scream if his sudden lunge toward the remote lying on the arm of Matt’s chair hadn’t made him start coughing again.
Matt held up a hand to block L from interfering as he read quickly, “’Spicy-sweet notes of sandalwood and tea warmed with body heat made L wish that he could bury his face in that silken hair…’”
At the damning words, L went whiter than Near, whiter than hexadecimal code #FFFFFF, whiter than the apotheosis of that color. He froze in place, his body going stiff as… umm, stiff things.
Remorselessly, Matt continued to read: “’Then Light was talking, and L had to tear his gaze from that perfect mouth lest he do unspeakable things to it. Even so, he couldn't completely ignore the feel of Light's breath on his skin.’”
He whistled softly and dropped his hand when he finished reading. “Damn.”
Light’s perfect mouth fell open, his cheeks pinkening with embarrassment. His huge eyes stared unblinking at the complete stranger sitting next to him. L would not meet his gaze, his ghost-white fingers clamped over his mouth as his shoulders shook with the effort to keep from coughing. Or throwing up. Or wishing himself into an early grave.
Matt made a half-hearted attempt at a laugh. “So, um… Does Light’s hair really smell like sandalw—?”
“Yes,” Near interrupted. He nudged one of his Terminators into a better position.
Silence.
“Skip,” L whispered hoarsely, the word barely audible behind his fingers. “Please.”
“I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU” BY THREE DAYS GRACE
“Not them again!” hissed Light.
Every time we lie awake
After every hit we take
Every feeling that I get—
L heaved himself over the arm of the chair before Matt could react and smashed the skip button on the remote before any more lyrics appeared, breathing hard.
“No,” he growled in that hoarse voice, still leaning over the arm of the sofa and side table with one foot to brace himself against the cushions. Light pulled his left arm out of the way and edged away from L’s foot.
Matt chuckled. “Okay.”
Near looked up from studying his toys. “They might have been talking about physical altercations—"
“I don’t care!”
“PAIN” BY THREE DAYS GRACE
Light made a strangled noise, his skin crawling at the words on-screen before the song began.
Paiiiiiin, without love—
Crack!
The song died, as did the cheap plastic remote when it snapped under L’s jab. Matt jumped and almost knocked the laptop off the chair.
“No! Fuck no!” L cried.
“Language, L-kun!” Light chided, his uneasy laugh high and nasal.
Matt hastily set the computer on the chair’s other arm, away from any more attacks from L.
The mingled fury and mortification drained out of L so suddenly that he deflated, crumpling into a heap in the corner of the sofa. He pulled his collar up over his rapidly-reddening face and covered his head with his arms, hiding from all of them.
“You didn’t really think that…?” Light asked, trying to be lighthearted, as if it was only a minor misunderstanding, as if L had said he wanted cheesecake when he really wanted ice cream.
In response, L made a noise like he’d been stabbed, and he pulled his other leg up onto the cushions and compressed himself into a ball.
“It’s right there in the text,” Matt said in a deadpan. “Pretty undeniable. There’s even more too.” L groaned.
Near slipped out of his chair. He cued up the next song while they were distracted.
“Were you not going to say anything?” Light asked with a disbelieving look.
“Not in this story!” L barked, his face still hidden.
“$%*#!” said the readers.
“Not ever,” he added in a tiny voice.
The author chuckled.
“Please, no.”
The quiet guitar plucking on the speakers didn’t draw the group’s attention, but when the drums and guitar suddenly escalated, it startled Light and Matt.
“PASSIVE” BY A PERFECT CIRCLE
Wake up and face me
Don't play dead ‘cause maybe
Someday I will walk away and say
You disappoint me
Maybe you're better off this way
L slowly lowered his arms until they were crossed over his knees, letting the shirt collar fall to expose his eyes but nothing more. They stayed fixed on the lyrics on-screen and away from Light, but Light wasn’t looking at him anymore.
Leaning over you here
Cold and catatonic
I catch a brief reflection
What you could and might have been
It's your right and your ability
To become my perfect enemy
A ghostly form materialized on the arm of Matt’s chair, crouched so she could reach the laptop if necessary. “Perfect. This is going into a playlist.”
Light pushed a hand through his hair with a sigh before crossing his arms over his chest.
“This is also from L’s point of view, as if the singer is talking to me,” Light said with evident reluctance, staring ahead with a tight expression. “He is frustrated by my lack of engagement and listlessness, perhaps rightly so.”
His near-hidden brows peaking with surprise, L eyed Light without turning his head.
“Thanks for not walking away,” Light said simply.
L was silent for several moments. “You’re welcome,” he said softly, his voice muffled behind his shirt.
Light made a mild self-deprecating smirk when their eyes met. L stopped hunching quite so tightly over his knees.
Matt looked back and forth from the apparition perched on his chair to the others in the room.
“Is anyone else seeing this?” he gestured helplessly.
“Don’t mind me,” the author said, scribbling frantically into a notebook. “The song fits Genius; it also fits Death Note if Light’s ‘singing’ it to L when he dies.”
L sat up the rest of the way, letting his shirt fall back into place. He gave the author a dirty look, opened his Kahlua, and chugged a third of the bottle while the song finished playing. Light uncrossed his arms and watched L, a bit worried.
When the last notes ebbed and L set the bottle down shakily, he looked on his way to being bombed.
“No more songs. No more,” he said, rubbing a hand across his face. “That was too relentless. I saw the direction so many of the lyrics were going but I hoped… ngghh.” He put a palm to his temple. “My head is spinning.”
“It did seem to be a recurring theme,” Light said with deliberate nonchalance as he leaned against the sofa to sip his now-cold coffee.
Matt snorted and closed the presentation. “Imagine anyone finding Light attractive, someone nice who washes his hair regularly.”
Now Light swallowed his drink wrong. He put his head in one hand until the discussion was over.
The author chuckled. “Even you did, Matt, in a joke draft of one chapter.”
“Ha! Maybe if Light was made of video games,” Matt said.
“Or cigarettes,” Near deadpanned.
“What the hell, Near?! I quit in case you didn’t notice.” Matt glared at the white-haired boy behind his space marines. “I bet if Light wore power armor and a helmet, you’d find him irresistible.”
Light closed his eyes in feigned agony but couldn’t help smiling. “If I wore what?”
Near stared thoughtfully into the distance and twisted his hair into ringlets with one hand. Then he squinted at Light who fortunately didn’t notice the scrutiny.
L just watched the exchange and shook his head lightly, a small smile spreading across his face.
“Anyway,” Light said in an attempt to steer the talk somewhere with fewer conversational landmines, “you said there wouldn’t be any more Three Days Grace!”
“I can’t help what fans submitted!” Matt said. “I’m just operating the laptop. This was a mystery to me too.”
The author shrugged and put away her notebook. “Readers must have found the group appropriate too. Don’t worry; I’m not using them for drafting anymore, though one song was the theme for another work.”
Matt looked at the author page for Genius. “Which story, ‘Collateral Damage?’ ‘Fracture?’ They sound fucking miserable.”
“‘Fatal Attraction,’” Near said, and the author nodded.
“What’s that?” Matt asked when he couldn’t find it.
“What indeed?”
L leapt off the sofa at that raspy voice and spun to keep the speaker from being at his back. He only stumbled a little in his inebriation, then he winced when he stepped in forgotten Irish cream. At least his teacup had survived the fall.
His unfortunate Backup, B, Beyond, Rue Ryuuzaki, slouched inside the archway, a jammy finger pressed to his burn-scarred mouth. He cast a lascivious glance at Light and grinned.
“If you play it, you summon me. I know you felt it. Don’t you remember? ’Pain’ was our song, Light,” B said. He licked the last of a snack off his finger and shoved his hands and a tiny jar into his blue jean pockets.
Light had remained seated despite L’s reaction but twisted to see B better. At B’s address, he frowned and spoke in frigid tones, “I don’t know you.”
“It’s… B, isn’t it?” Near asked, staring at the man who had transformed utterly in his years away from Wammy House. He’d been only ten or eleven when B vanished.
“Nate, Mail,” B greeted them drily, ignoring how they both tensed in surprise. “You’ve gotten taller.”
Light mouthed the word “Beyond?” at L when B diverted his attention to Near and Matt, and L nodded, keeping his body loose so he could react to anything B did.
“They told us you died. What the hell happened to you?” Matt asked.
“I did die, but it probably wasn’t how Wammy or Ruvie said,” B said with another of those hoarse laughs. He leaned down and stage-whispered, “They lied to you, boys.”
“Quiet, B, you’re confusing timelines,” the author said. “Ahem. The ‘Fatal Attraction’ story was a bad idea. Period.”
Matt sucked in air on a gasp, his eyes darting back and forth as he read something off his laptop. “That was a bad idea… compared to ‘Collateral Damage?’ To ‘Fracture?!’ How the hell could it be worse?”
The author shrugged. “I write gore; I can’t write sexy gore.”
“I beg to differ. So did some readers,” B said as he fanned himself exaggeratedly. He bestowed another hungry look on Light when he noticed the younger man’s appraisal.
“I taste vomit,” Light deadpanned.
“It was never my style, and I shouldn’t have tried it,” the author said, then she massaged her head. “For anyone still interested, ‘Fatal Attraction’ was a ‘Light wins’ story. B became infatuated with Light and got careless, Light lured L out, so B could see L’s name with the Eyes. Despite some touching scenes—”
B snorted. “There was some touching—”
The author spoke over him with irritation: “Despite some sentimental scenes and B’s mixed feelings about his hero and rival L, B was blindsided when Light used a Death Note scrap to kill L and then killed B without hesitation. B made Light even more of a monster. Kira wins. The end,” the author finished.
L finally spoke. “What. The hell,” he said with inebriated eloquence as he looked back and forth between B, Light, and the author, his aborted comment impossible to ascertain the meaning of.
“Don’t be jealous, love,” B drawled, shaking what remained of his wild dark hair out of his eyes and finally looking at L for the first time. He put a thumb between his teeth, bit down, and winked. “It’s beneath you.”
Light cast the frostiest, most disparaging look at B and leaned back as if B was no concern of Light’s. “Someone get me a bucket.”
B rolled one shoulder lazily, the others’ disgust sliding right off him. “If I couldn’t kill myself or L, I’m glad you got to do it. I can’t hold it against you.”
“Why are you doing this?” Near, of all people, asked in a strained whisper. “Haven’t enough people from this house died?”
“You know nothing, you sheltered, spineless little fool!” B snarled, his voice rising to a shout as he sloughed his easygoing, sensual act like snakeskin. Near cringed behind the chair back with the words, and even Matt hunched like he’d been kicked. “You’re not alive either; you’re on a fucking hamster wheel. What’s wrong with you and everyone else in this house? Why won’t you grow up?”
The author jumped off the chair and waved her arms. “No spoilers!”
“Ugh, whatever,” B said, crossing his arms and leaning back against the archway, his fury dissipating as fast as his innuendo did. “Do I ever get a decent ending in your stories?”
“Yes.”
“Doubtful. You enjoy killing me,” B countered with disgust.
Matt got up slowly, keeping an eye on B, and edged over toward Near’s chair. L watched him but didn’t move lest it draw B’s attention.
“I can write what’s necessary without enjoying the waste of a good character,” the author said, referring to B as well as someone she wasn’t going to name lest it hurt L again. “Why else would I keep bringing you back?”
B made a rude noise and sighed, looking a lot like Light in that moment. “So I don’t die tragically at Light’s feet or in jail again in this ‘decent ending?’”
“Correct. You might even call them ‘happy.’”
“More than one?” B blinked in surprise. “A-all right.” He opened his mouth then closed it. All the tension bled out of him until his back rounded as if he was weary. He looked nothing like the B that had first appeared anymore.
B was frowning, his eyes tired, when he tilted his head toward the hallway for several seconds. “I’m coming,” he said softly. Then he pulled away from the archway and shuffled outside.
L relaxed his shoulders. Light swallowed. Matt let go of the empty beer bottle he had picked up and rolled his shoulders.
“I doubted that would work on a ghost, but you never know,” Matt said with an attempt at a grin. “You all right?” he asked Near.
Near let out a shaky breath but nodded. He said in a low voice, “He isn’t wrong, but it still… stings.”
Light stared for a while at the empty archway then looked from one former Wammy House student to another before turning back to face L. “What the hell was that about?”
Before L could answer, Matt strode over, shoved his goggles back into his hair, and leaned over the back of the loveseat to glomp Light. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Light froze with Matt’s arms around his neck and shoulders. His eyes darted around before landing on L with an uneasy expression.
L brushed off Light’s consternation with a little smile but went to Matt’s laptop, rubbing his sticky feet on the back of his pant legs and making Light grimace. L lifted the laptop and walked back to the sofa, scanning the text Matt had been reading in a hurry. His near-imperceptible eyebrows shot up into invisibility behind his hair. He clicked to the other story, ripped through “Fracture,” and scowled now.
“What do you have against hands?” L asked the author.
The author frowned. “It’s an unintentional motif. Try it, readers: count how many times I mangle someone’s hand or hands in my stories.”
Light glanced down at himself and the scarred hands lying open on his lap, one exposed and one hidden but both mostly covered by sleeves as long as L’s. Physical therapy was slow, scar reduction treatments would be longer and more painful still, and sometimes, it took effort to imagine anything going back to “normal,” if such a thing was even possible anymore. He took a deep breath and let it out.
“Should I see them too?” he asked hesitantly, “so I know it isn’t just me?”
Matt’s arms tightened around Light’s shoulders and he probably shook his head, scrubbing Light’s hair into a mess, but it was L who said, “No.”
L sat back beside Light on the sofa and put his right hand over Light’s left forearm. He set the laptop behind him on the sofa while he closed the fingers of the other hand around Light’s dark blue sleeve, the trenches of scars almost noticeable against his palm though they lay under two layers of thin fabric. Light glanced down at the hand and back up at L’s face, waiting. He made no move to free himself.
“Nothing will improve if you read them. They’re no more about us than they’re about the Light that B knew,” L said quietly, pushing the laptop closed.
The author faded away behind them.
Light’s eyes shifted slightly, going from one of L’s gray eyes to the other before he breathed out, his tense shoulders relaxing under Matt as well. “If you say so.”
L didn’t smile in reply, but he didn’t need to.
Light was trying to figure out how to extricate himself from the sofa when a pale shape moved around L’s side. Near walked a little unsteadily but gave Light’s legs a wide berth. When he stopped beside the arm of the sofa, though, Light tensed up again. What now?
Near extended a pale hand toward Light’s other arm, and Light clenched his teeth at the prospect of even more touching. He was already wearing Matt like a collar. Near opened his hand…
And set a Dreadnought model beside Light’s drink on the sofa’s arm before he withdrew with a tiny smile. Light felt his own mouth quirk in amused response.
Near inhaled slowly and let out a breath along with his own tension before he spoke.
“See? Sandalwood.”
Laughter. Matt said that he could see and let go of Light with a grin, so he could prop his elbows on the back of the sofa between Light and L. L took his hand off Light’s arm to keep from pressing on it when he leaned forward, his eyes closed as he breathed in.
“I don’t see. I’m only 87 percent certain it’s sandalwood and not vetiver or patchouli,” L said with exaggerated curiosity.
Light put a knuckle against the hollow of L’s throat to hold him at bay despite laughing and asking, “How would you know what any of those smell like? And patchouli, really?”
“Is anyone else starving?” Matt asked. Near nodded, so they immediately launched into which options they had for delivery considering no one could drive.
The projector shut off after so much inactivity, leaving the room lit only by the late-afternoon sunlight that streamed through the windows around the screen and made the space warm. Matt found his mobile in the corner of his chair, so he sat on the back of the diminutive sofa to avoid stepping in L’s spilled drink and put the mobile to his ear. He appeared to be taking orders from the other boys.
In the solarium’s entrance, Mr. Wammy watched the group interact. With the knowledge of Light’s plans that he and L had discussed that morning as well, he could breathe a sigh of relief. Finally. Then he gestured for both the blond boy standing beside him and the black-haired man crouched on the floor to follow him, and they all left as silently as they had come.