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You all go to a bar, after it's over.
Well, not all of you. Near and his people stay behind, to clean up the mess and notify the relevant authorities, but you can't bring yourself to care. Near and them had never been part of the group, the original task force.
(Of course, an argument could be made that he had been part of the original task force, but you are not willing to be the one to make it)
There are four of them left, now: Aizawa, Mogi, Ide, and you. The remnants of the Kira task force division of the NPA walk into a bar. Insert punchline here. Ba-dum-tss.
You had been the joker of the group. Once.
The four of you sit around a table and nurse beers you can't taste and talk about nothing at all. No one says anything of substance, joking around as if it were a normal night off.
The others are trying to ignore what had happened, you realize, slowly.
(You had always been too slow to realize)
A hand lands on your shoulder and you jolt, splashing beer on your shirt.
Your shirt is already stained, with something much worse. What's one spot of beer?
"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Aizawa is saying. You don't know what he's talking about. His words are slurred already. "Come on, let's find you someone and get you laid."
You stare into your glass.
Little does he know.
Ide picks up the thread. "Yeah. When's the last time I've seen you land a chick? Have you ever?"
He throws back his head and laughs. You feel sick.
"We'll help you, just this once," Mogi adds, a sliver of a smile on his face.
It's fake, it all is, obviously, the cheer, the laughter, the smile. No one wants to be here, but no one wants to be alone. They're all just fucking with you, the easy target, and you know that, you've always known, but the little bit of beer you've managed to get down threatens to make a reappearance anyway.
The problem is, none of you know what you're doing. Not without him.
You notice the table you've chosen has an extra seat. You don't remember consciously choosing one like that. You all just left a space. Like you always had.
It's next to you. That's worse, somehow.
The problem here, the problem with this whole setup, is you all went out drinking the night before. It had been his idea, a reward for being so close to the breakthrough, a way for all of you to relax like you hadn't in years.
(His victory party, you now realize)
You had sat, the five of you, in a bar like this one, and tossed back beers like nobody's business, and laughed and joked about sex you will never have.
He had been the target that night, you remember. (Had it really been last night?) Because they all wanted to know about Misa and how she was in the sack and he had deflected with his usual grace.
But then, you remember with stunning clarity, he had looked at you, and there had been something in his eyes when he dropped the bombshell. They'd never fucked.
You had been as surprised as the rest of them, at the news, because, duh, she's hot and he's hot and they've been together for years.
And he'd clammed right up, then, no matter what the others had done to try and get it out of him.
You'd fallen silent, too. He'd been looking right at you, that whole time. You hadn't known how to interpret that look.
(Again, you had always been so painfully slow on the uptake)
Here, now, the others are onto the same bullshit, and you hope it's making them feel better, because it certainly isn't helping you.
It's different, you know, for them. They had been close with him, sure, worked side by side with him and his father this whole damned case.
But you? Just hours before, you'd put an end to this case. Permanently. With your own two hands.
You feel the phantom weight of the gun, even now. Your fingers ache with the ghost of its recoil, and your ears ring with the echo of its shots.
You like to think you had done it because it was the right thing to do. Get rid of the killer, stop him from killing, close the case.
(You know it had been personal)
The two of you had been friends, you and him. Friendly acquaintances before this had even begun, and later you had leaned on him and trusted him with your secrets.
(You had thought he had trusted you with his own. How much of that had been a lie?)
Aizawa's forced laughter pulls you back to the present. They've moved on to joshing Ide, because apparently they only have one joke between them.
It makes you angry, all of a sudden. This is so stupid, this obsession with your sex lives, this stupid, macho contest to rile each other up with lewd talk because apparently it's funny.
(You hadn't cared so much, before. It had just been part of the humor of the group)
He had hated it, then, too, you remember. You think. He'd said he'd hated it, later that night, after it had all been over, because of the lies he'd had to weave, but you hate that you can't separate his fact from his fiction anymore. You'd thought he'd thought it was funny, until he'd told you otherwise. You'd thought he had been telling you the truth then, until he'd shown you otherwise. Lies within lies within lies. And you'd eaten every one of them up, eager as a puppy to embrace the illusion that you were getting a glimpse of the real him. Turns out, that had just been more lies. After everything, after he’d shown who he truly was, you can’t be sure anything he had ever told you was true.
You remember sitting in his room with him, the both of you on the edge of his bed. You had still been pretty tipsy. You'd thought he'd been drinking the same as the rest of you, but he had seemed perfectly sober, in that moment.
"I hate that I can't tell them the truth," he had said. "I hate that I have to hide from them, from Misa, from you."
He had looked at you, then, a peculiar tilt to his head. Something about you is different, he had seemed to say. Something about you is special.
(More lies)
Mogi rests a hand on your shoulder. While you've been distracted he's taken the empty seat next to you, and his faux cheerful expression has been replaced by genuine concern. "Do you want to go home?" he asks.
Aizawa and Ide are talking about something stupid. Something different stupid. Sports, you think.
You shake your head. You hate it here, but you think you'd hate it more if you had to sit alone in your stale bedroom.
You'd all pretty much moved permanently into the apartment-turned-headquarters. You still pay your rent on your own apartment, but you can't remember the last time you slept there.
Last night you barely slept at all. You should feel tired, but you aren't sure you do. Just numb.
You think you might be fine in your room at the headquarters, if Near lets you back in there. You'd spent last night in his room, after all, so it's not like there's really going to be much of anything to fixate on if you go back.
But, then again, the whole apartment reeks of him, of his presence. If left alone there you know you'll find something of his lying around, and you don't know what you'll do. Bad enough that he lives behind your eyelids. You dread finding evidence he ever lived in the real world.
It's thanks to you he doesn't anymore.
Your hand twitches again. Your thumb pulls, your index finger curls, your other hand stiffens and steadies. Bang bang bang, down goes Kira.
"You good, man?" Ide is staring at you, and Aizawa, too. They all know you're not good, but their false cheer has given away to worry and you curse yourself for ruining their attempts at sleeping tonight.
You force a smile on your face. You used to have such big, natural smiles. You don't think you ever could again.
You pound back your beer. Maybe that will help. Maybe you need something stronger.
You get through the whole glass when you start to feel it kick in. That familiar buzz in the back of your head, the blur at the edge of your vision.
"Another round!" Ide shouts, slamming the butt of his glass on the table.
You probably shouldn't, none of you should. You all do anyway.
The second beer goes down easier than the first, and you feel your head swimming. Everything feels smoother, and your grin comes out a little easier.
(You've always been such a lightweight)
Last night had been much the same, you remember before you can stop yourself. Three beers and you'd practically been throwing yourself at him.
To be fair, you never would have done that if he hadn't hinted at it. That bit about Misa, the glances. And you'd confirmed it later, in his room he'd invited you into after you'd all gone back to headquarters. You'd still been buzzed but you'd made your brain work enough to ask if you're picking up what he's putting down right.
You had been. You think. He'd said yes, he'd continued saying yes at every stage, sounding a little annoyed that you'd kept asking. But you'd never been sure, because of everything, and then later he'd told you he'd never told anyone before and he'd always been so scared.
(Had that been a lie, too?)
You put your head in your hands, feeling the noises of the bar wash over you. It's the fall before the rise, you know. If you finish this beer and if you dare to get another, you'd call yourself drunk, but for now you just feel tired.
It’s been such a long day. You hadn't gotten back from the last bar until after midnight, so everything that had happened since had all been in this one day.
In his room, his bed, his arms. In the meeting room, the warehouse, the bar.
(You lost him mere hours after you had him for the first time)
You recoil at the thought. You never had him, that had just been some sort of ploy to get you sympathetic. You hadn't lost him, you'd eliminated an enemy. He had never been your friend, never been yours at all.
He had always been Kira. First and last.
(You feel your hand twitch and this time you can't tell if it's from wrapping around a gun or from tangling themselves in his hair. Phantoms, the both of them)
You knock back the rest of your beer. Might as well. The others seem settled in as if they're going for drunk, and you think you will too.
Nothing better for it.
You know, objectively, this is unhealthy. You also know that you've just shot the man you had slept with hours before, so you cut yourself some slack.
You all get another beer.
It’s hitting now, you realize. Really hitting. You feel like you’re floating, individual sensations drifting by you in disconnected moments. Aizawa calls for a toast, for some reason. There is a clink as your glasses collide. Ide is shouting to change the music. You had not noticed what had been playing before and you find it hard to concentrate on what is playing now.
Mogi says something to you. It takes you ages to turn your head to face him.
“You good?” he asks. You think he looks worried.
Why would he be worried? You smile at him. You’re fine.
“You’re not fine,” says Aizawa. Your drink is no longer in your hand. You look down at it in shock. Where did it go?
“I think you’ve had enough,” Ide says. He has a drink in his hand. Hadn’t he just finished his drink?
They are all staring at you.
“This was a bad idea,” Aizawa says.
“We shouldn’t have taken him here,” Ide says.
Are they talking about you? They’re looking at you. Why are they talking about you as if you aren’t right there? Just like he always used to do.
The three of them wince. Did you say that out loud? You aren’t sure.
“Maybe let’s not talk about him,” Mogi says slowly. “Let’s talk about - uh.”
He doesn’t know what to talk about. None of them know what to talk about. There’s an elephant in the room and they’ve circled around it so much that there’s nothing to do now but talk about it.
Aizawa slams his glass on the table. He looks angry.
(He always looks angry, these days)
“Fuck him, man. It shouldn’t be like this. It should’ve been over the second -”
Ide’s hand is covering Aizawa’s mouth. You aren’t sure why. Your brain had lost track of Aizawa’s sentence the second it ended prematurely.
Aizawa and Ide start arguing again so you lose interest and turn your attention to the TV above the bar. You remember, vaguely, that when you had come in here, you’d ignored the screens and tried not to think about what was on them. Now, though, you aren’t able to stop yourself.
It’s his face, you realize, your brain finally catching up with your eyes.
It’s a news report of some kind. The volume is off so you can’t really tell what they’re saying about him, but just the image is enough.
It’s his official police portrait. It feels like it had been just yesterday you had formally welcomed him onto the force. You had thought that was his dream.
(Yet another of his lies)
You remembered you had hugged him, on his first official day in the office. He had been aloof, as always, but he had allowed you to hug him with only a roll of the eyes.
You had thought you had imagined him leaning into your hug.
Later, you had thought back to that incident, and wondered if that had been a sign.
Now, you know it had been a trap.
Below the image is his name. Night and god. Moon. Thematically accurate, you think.
The image flashes. His name is replaced by another. One you know well, one that has haunted your dreams, the dreams of the world for so long.
Kira.
Your nemesis. The man who had torn apart your entire life. And, for one night, your lover.
You don’t think you had ever hated anyone before. You’re easy-going, something your colleagues always complained about. You thought you had hated Kira before. You had been trying to stop him, after all, risking your life and career for years. But that had, ultimately, been abstract. Kira had always been a ghost, an enemy you could never see or touch.
Until, suddenly, he had been all too real.
Your hand tenses again. You remember the softness of his hair, the sharpness of his jaw, the firmness of his arms.
Your view of the screen is cut off and you come back to yourself enough to realize Mogi is standing in front of you.
“Let’s get you home,” he says, not unkindly.
You don’t know where home is, anymore. You let him decide.
The second you stand the room tilts, and what feels like seconds later you’re in a car. Someone is sitting next to you, but you don’t bother to look over and see who. You stare out the window at the city in the dark.
You remember last night, looking out at the same view from his window.
You remember a brief moment, in the middle of everything, when his eyes had fluttered closed and his breathing had hitched in almost a sob. You had cupped his chin gently, and he had leaned into your touch. You had stroked his cheeks with your thumb, and felt a faint wetness. You had believed him to be showing you a vulnerable side to himself that no one else got to see. You had thought that had been the real him, the version of him without any barriers up. You had allowed yourself to believe that he had given you (you!) a glimpse of the man behind the mask. You had foolishly thought that there had been something about you, something between you, that had made you special in his eyes.
You realize now that he had been playing you all along, every second, all the way up until the end.
Matsuda, you idiot.