Work Text:
Ide didn’t want him to go.
He hadn’t actually said it. He’d mumbled “Well, it’s your funeral.” when Matsuda had first told him what he wanted to do. And he’d scowled a lot whenever Matsuda had mentioned it after that. Normally, that would have been enough to make Matsuda reconsider anything, if he were honest. He didn’t really like it when Ide was mad at him. When anybody was mad at him but particularly Ide, these days. He needed Ide. Ide had kept him sane when everything was awful. Ide was his friend.
But he couldn’t change it. Not this, not even for Ide. He needed this to happen.
Near sent someone to pick him up on the day. They blindfolded Matsuda and he pretended not to mind, even though he was sitting next to people that he didn’t know and couldn’t see. He told himself it was okay, that Near would only work with safe people – but he wasn’t absolutely sure that safe people existed any more.
When they’d pulled into the building, they let him take the blindfold off. He had to take his weapon off then, then all the other metal so he could go through the metal detector. It made him think of working with L, which helped a little. He wouldn’t have minded so much if it were L (though Ide said he would. Ide said that he’d have hated anybody who’d captured Light Yagami. Matsuda didn’t like to think it might be true.)
They searched him all over – politely and professionally, but they did. After that, he was allowed to dress again and taken through to where Near was waiting. He looked almost the same as he had all that time ago. Still short, still curled up on himself with his soft white curls and playing with toys. This time, it seemed to be a train set.
“I still cannot talk you out of this.”
Near said it quite calmly, acceptingly. Matsuda found it almost impossible to meet his eyes. He stared over Near’s head at the wall and shrugged his shoulders. Near gave a very soft sigh.
“Would you like to see him on the monitor first?”
Matsuda shook his head. He knew that Light would be monitored constantly but he didn’t want to think about it. He just wanted to do it.
“Very well. Follow me.”
He hadn’t expected Near to take him personally. He wasn’t quite sure how that made him feel. He followed Near down another flight of stairs.
“He knows you are coming. We only told him as you arrived here so he has had no time to plan anything.”
Matsuda hated to hear him say that, even though he knew it was a reasonable thing to worry about. Light had always been good at planning, hadn’t he? Manipulating people, making them think what he wanted them to think, do what he wanted them to do. Of course Near was preparing for that, thinking that Matsuda would be manipulated. Everyone would think he was easily manipulated. He probably was. He was here, wasn’t he? None of the others were. None of the others would dream of it.
But the Chief ... the Chief would have wanted him to, wouldn’t he? The Chief wouldn’t have wanted Light left alone with strangers. And Matsuda needed to know. He needed to see.
Near opened the door, then stepped aside. Matsuda walked in, swallowing.
It was a big room. Quite nice really. Matsuda got a vague impression of a tidy space with a large bookshelf but he quickly focused because there was a chair in front of a sheet of glass and on the other side of it was Light.
He looked very similar, really. His face was a little rounder – it was probably harder to exercise in here – and his hair was a little longer, a little lanker. He wasn’t wearing a suit, he was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of jogging bottoms – and those didn’t look right at all, not on Light, he was always so smart, so well turned out, it wasn’t right. He smiled at Matsuda, a rueful sort of smile.
“Hello Matsuda-san. It’s good to see you.”
His voice came through the glass clearly. He sounded ... the same. Matsuda wasn’t sure what he’d expected. A different voice? A more childish one? Everything to have been washed away with the memories?
“I ... I wanted to come sooner ... ”
“That’s all right. You must have been busy. Of course, I don’t get to read the newspapers or watch the news any more but I expect the crime rate is going up.”
Matsuda swallowed, hoped his face wasn’t giving anything away. He wasn’t supposed to tell Light anything about current affairs, he had been told more than once. He sat down and Light sat down too, staring at him. He placed his hands on his lap and Matsuda had to try hard not to look too closely at them.
“You don’t look very well, Matsuda-san. I hope that’s not the case?”
“N-no, I’m ... I’m okay. I’m ... l-like you say, it’s been busy.”
Why did he have to stutter like a kid? Light would have noticed. Light always noticed. He didn’t look like he had but he would have done.
“Are ... are you well?” he asked, trying to sound normal, trying to sound in control.
“Not bad,” Light said quietly. “As you can see, it’s a nice room. So far, they haven’t refused me any of the books that I’ve asked for. And my hand is healing nicely. I’ll be able to write again properly soon.”
Matsuda swallowed convulsively, trying not to remember the blood. He saw a flicker of expression cross Light’s face, expressions that he couldn’t really make out and wasn’t sure about. He’d always been so confident about Light’s face before. Always thought Light was open, revealing.
Was that different again now?
“I’m ... I’m glad it’s nice, I ... has anyone else ...?”
“No, Matsuda-san. Nobody else has been to see me. But you know that, don’t you? After all, who else would?”
Matsuda couldn’t meet his eyes. He stared at Light’s feet. He was wearing slippers; plain, clean slippers that looked like they’d barely seen use.
“Do they let you exercise?”
“Matsuda-san, did you really come here to see if they’re treating me well?”
Matsuda’s mouth felt dry. He looked at Light again and Light stared back at him; his gaze steady, unwavering.
“You ... you don’t remember? Do you?”
“No, Matsuda-san. Or, at least, I remember all sorts of things – but not everything I did that apparently brought me here. I’m told that I was Kira, that I killed – but I don’t remember doing it.”
Light sounded so calm. A little sad, as though it hurt him but calm all the same. He shrugged his shoulders slightly.
“You know all about it, don’t you?”
Yes, Matsuda knew. They’d known that giving up the notebook erased your memories of the notebook. Of everything you did, everyone you’d killed. And when Near had burned the notebooks, the twisted look of hate and rage had vanished from Light’s face, replaced with bewildered terror and pain and he’d sounded so small when he’d looked at them and asked where he was.
“What’s it like?” he asked, then hated himself for it.
“Like? Oh, I see what you mean. It’s strange. There are gaps that render a lot of my life nonsensical, if I think about them too much. My mind mostly papers them over – it’s natural, the human brain doesn’t like inconsistency and prefers a narrative that makes sense. When I think about them, I can see it but I can’t understand them. I assume that Near-san is correct when he tells me that I lived with Misa because she was the Second Kira but I don’t really remember why I chose to, only that I did. I remember meeting with Takada for the case but almost nothing of our meetings remains. I remember my father dying in an explosion in America because we were attacking Mello’s headquarters but I have no idea why we were so confident that that was the moment to do so. I remember you shooting me in the warehouse but to my mind, it was the act of someone fundamentally irrational because I know that I hadn’t done anything wrong.”
Had Light done it on purpose? Picked the things that he knew would make Matsuda hurt? His face was calm, neutral, as though they were discussing the weather. He had placed his wounded hand on display. The T-shirt didn’t fit him right, it had slipped down on his shoulder and Matsuda could see one of the puckered scars from where he’d shot again and again and would have kept shooting him, would have finished him –
“You had done something wrong,” he whispered. “You were Kira, you – ”
“I know you say that,” Light interrupted. “But I don’t remember it, Matsuda-san. I can’t remember making that choice. I can’t remember doing any of the things that Near-san likes to tell me that I did. I can’t ... understand how I could have let it happen. My father ... ”
His voice trailed off. He looked away. Matsuda wanted to bang on the glass, scream at him. How could Light look sad? How could Light still hurt when it was all his fault? How could Light not understand it when he’d made it happen?!
“They’ve told my mother and Sayu that I’m dead, haven’t they?” Light said.
“Yes,” Matsuda whispered. Aizawa hadn’t let him go to see them. He’d said quite bluntly that Matsuda wouldn’t be able to handle the lie. Later on, Matsuda had heard him telling Ide that it had been one of the worst things he’d ever had to do.
“I suppose it’s for the best,” Light said calmly.
“For the best? The best? They think you’re dead! Your mother lost her husband and son in the space of three months! How can it be for the best?”
He was yelling. He had to clamp his jaws together to stop it. If he yelled, they’d take him away, say that he wasn’t right, tell Aizawa that he couldn’t handle it. He’d lose everything there was left to lose.
“I suspect she’d rather have me dead than Kira,” Light said, his voice rational, reasonable, like it was just one of those things. “It isn’t as though she could exactly visit me, is she? Nobody knows I’m here. I’m guessing even you don’t know where we are. If Near-san wants to move me and not tell you, I suppose he would. If my mother knew, that might change. He doesn’t want that.”
“He can hear you,” Matsuda said dumbly.
“Oh, I’m aware of it. He can watch me all the time, if he chooses, I know where all the cameras are. We talk, sometimes, but not much. He hates me, you know. Because of Ryuzaki.”
“Ryuzaki was your friend.”
“Yes, I think so too, Matsuda-san. But I suppose neither of us remember reality, do we? And that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You can’t bring yourself to really believe that I might have worked with you so long and yet been so uncaring as to kill you without a second thought. You want to believe that you would have noticed if you were with someone that despised you enough to see you die.”
Matsuda stared at him. Staring into Light’s calm eyes, his calm face. Light stared back. He shrugged.
“I’m sorry, Matsuda-san. When I think about working with you, I feel absolutely nothing at all. You were just there and you wouldn’t go away. That’s all. You were nothing. You were nobody.”
Matsuda stumbled to his feet, knocking the chair over. Light didn’t move. He looked up at Matsuda, smiled very slightly.
“It was kind of you to come, Matsuda-san. I’m sure my father would have appreciated it.”
“No,” Matsuda said. “He would have told me to leave you to rot.”
Even through the glass, he heard Light’s breath catch, saw him jerk back, just a little. It was the only thing he’d managed to say that made Light really react and as Matsuda walked out, he hated himself for it.
Near was waiting. He held out a hand, like a child who wanted to be walked across the street and Matsuda took it, numb and unthinking. Near led him calmly back up the stairs and into his main control room and Matsuda clung to his hand because it was something to hold onto when everything was falling apart. Again.
Near took him back into the main room, sat down with his train set, handed Matsuda pieces of track to hold. Matsuda held them, running over what Light had said over and over. Why had he come? Ide had been right, Near had been right, this whole thing had been stupid, stupid, stupid. Light had been Kira and he’d never cared about any of them, not at all, not one little bit and it hurt and it shouldn’t hurt but it did.
He was crying. Stupid, childish tears like a baby he was. Near didn’t seem to have noticed. He was delicately setting up the points on his track, making sure he could send the trains one way or another, depending on his mood. He took another piece from Matsuda’s unresisting hand, then padded quietly over to the bank of consoles in the corner, turning one of the screens on.
Light was there, in his room. He appeared to be sorting it, although Matsuda couldn’t see what there was to sort. He’d moved his chair back to the little table, seemed to be arranging it so it sat just so. Then he moved over to the bookcase but rather than take out a book, he was clearly checking that they were lined up in neat exact rows. He moved a book a fraction, then stared at it, moved it back.
Near pressed a button.
“Yagami.”
The image was so clear on the screen that Matsuda could see the way Light stiffened at the voice, the way his hands trembled on the books.
“Near-san.”
“He is gone.”
A lie. Matsuda wondered dully if he should call Near on it, let Light know he could hear. But what would be the point?
“I’d prefer if you didn’t let him come back.” Light’s voice sounded curiously flat.
“Oh?”
“What would be the point?”
“As you say,” Near said and cut the connection. He looked at Matsuda as though he expected that to have meant something to him. Matsuda wasn’t sure that it did. Didn’t he already know that Light didn’t want him to come back? Wasn’t that clear already?
Near gave a very soft sigh.
“Light Yagami is a liar, Matsuda-san. Light Yagami has always been a liar. He will always be a liar. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes.”
He wasn’t sure that he did but he was tired and felt lost and small and suddenly wanted nothing more than to go home. Near seemed to understand – but then, Near was clever, just like everybody was clever except for Matsuda.
It was easier, getting out. They just took him to a car and blindfolded him again but only for a little while. Maybe they weren’t worried because they didn’t think that he’d ever want to come back. And they were right, weren’t they? He was never, ever going to see Light Yagami again.
Light Yagami was dead. Even though he was still breathing and walking around, he was dead. He’d died a long time ago and Matsuda knew that he needed to accept that and move on.
But as he got out of the car, he thought about Light on the monitor screen, straightening his already perfectly organised books and he knew that he never ever would.