Chapter Text
Slow spring mornings, open windows, feeling a warm breeze after months of icy winds, birds returning to their melodies, and longer golden evenings… Springtime was a marvelous time of year. The streets shimmered underneath the street lamps, and puddles reflected crooked rows of brick buildings and cathedral spires softened by mist.
Matt and Mello walked under the same umbrella, even if it barely covered the two of them properly. It was mostly because Mello kept drifting closer while talking.
“No, but you don’t understand,” he insisted for perhaps the fifth time, pushing damp hair from his eyes. “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is literally one of the greatest albums ever made!”
Matt glanced sideways at him. “You say that a lot.”
“Because it’s a fact.”
“You called Billy Corgan a tortured genius like ten minutes ago.”
“He is a tortured genius.”
Matt laughed softly.
Mello looked pretty when he got excited about things. Words spilled out of him quicker than he could organize them, ditching his typical debate club posture and stiffness, hands moving animatedly while he dissected lyrics and guitar distortion with near-religious devotion. Matt liked it, because he knew the feeling; he became just as animated when discussing his favourite bands, whether it was Type O, Metallica, or Korn.
“And the thing is, people think it’s all just angst or whatever, but it’s not,” Mello continued passionately. “It’s about isolation, grandeur, and the desire to matter so badly it destroys you!”
“Sounds like you’re talking about yourself.”
Mello blinked, buffering slightly, before rolling his eyes. “Dickhead”
Matt grinned and nudged their shoulders together beneath the umbrella.
Ahead of them, a small figure crossed the opposite sidewalk alone. Near. Walking while loneliness tamed him, no umbrella. Rain dotted white hair and soaked the sleeves of his shirt while he remained seemingly oblivious, one hand absentmindedly playing with one of his curls as kids his age passed him without speaking.
Mello fell quiet mid-sentence upon the sight. Matt looked at Mello to gauge his reaction.
Mello had never truly hated Near, not really. Before rankings carved fault lines between them, Near had simply been the new kid a year after Matt’s arrival, another lonely orphan wandering the halls of an orphanage. Quiet, brilliant, picked on, and isolated in ways that mirrored Mello more than either of them would ever willingly admit.
In another life, one without the idea of succeeding the symbol L, maybe the three boys would have simply grown up together under the same roof. Grown up together as three friends, not three successors with pre-determined fates.
Perhaps that was the tragedy of it.
The rain slowly began intensifying as raindrops started to hit the umbrella quicker and quicker.
“Uh, we should head back inside, Mells,” Matt said.
Mello didn’t answer directly, his eyes still fixed on Near. He then mumbled out: “Yeah, alright…”
—
Mello will never forget that day. April 19th, 1999.
It was the day he met Matt.
The afternoon sky over the House was pale and windy, clouds moving swiftly above the soccer field. Children played across the field with violent enthusiasm. Mello was winning, of course. At nine years old, he already played everything as if his survival depended on it.
“PASS THE BALL!” Linda screamed from somewhere to his left.
Mello ignored her completely. He darted across the field with reckless speed, bangs flying into his face as he cut between the opposing team effortlessly. He was smaller than most of the other boys, thinner too, but impossibly fast, being pure nervous energy condensed into a child.
“MELLO!”
Kai, eight yet taller by a solid two inches, lunged for the ball. Mello shoved past him with enough force to send him stumbling backward before shooting toward the goal once more.
“That doesn’t count!” someone yelled.
“It does,” Mello shouted back.
His kick sent the ball flying perfectly into the net. Groans erupted around the field. Mello grinned triumphantly, chest heaving from exertion while several kids glared murderously at him. Linda marched over immediately.
“You never pass to anybody!”
“Because you all suck.”
“Mello!”
“What?” He spread his arms defensively. “We’re winning.”
“You’re acting cocky.”
That offended him instantly. “I’m not cocky.”
“You totally are.”
“Oh my gosh,” he snapped. “Fine. You want me to pass the ball so badly?”
Linda crossed her arms. “Yes.”
“Fine then.”
The game resumed. Thirty seconds later, Mello swiftly stole the ball again. And instead of passing normally, he kicked it with enough force to practically launch it across the field, straight into Olive’s stomach. The impact folded the boy in half instantly.
“OW— WHAT THE HELL?!”
The ball bounced away uselessly while Olive clutched his stomach, face twisted harshly in pain. Several kids gasped. Linda appeared horrified.
“MELLO!” she yelled.
“What?” he yelled defensively. “It’s a sport!”
“You did that on purpose!”
“I was passing!”
“You kicked it like you wanna hurt him!”
Olive straightened furiously, tears burning in his eyes. “You’re such an asshole!”
Before Mello could clap back, Olive launched himself at him. The two boys crashed violently into the grass. Mello immediately grabbed handfuls of Olive’s shirt while Olive tried yanking his hair hard enough to permanently kill a couple follicles. They rolled across the muddy ground in a blur of kicking limbs and shouted insults.
“GET OFF ME!” Mello yelled.
“PSYCHO!”
“LOSER!”
Olive managed to pin the blond briefly despite Mello fighting viciously beneath him. Mello lacked physical strength compared to some of the others, a part of him he severely disliked. He was all speed rather than actual weight, but what he lacked physically, he compensated for with alarming intensity. Thus, he bit Olive’s shoulder hard enough to make him scream.
“MELLO!”
Linda grabbed the back of Mello’s shirt and physically dragged him backward while Kai and JJ pulled Olive away simultaneously. Both boys were breathing hard now, furious and grass-stained.
“You’re insane!” Olive shouted.
“Oh, shut up!”
“Mello,” Linda snapped, “what’s wrong with you today?”
“Nothing’s wrong with me!”
“Yes there is!”
Mello wiped dirt angrily from his mouth while glaring back at everyone around him. “It’s literally football. You’re allowed to play rough.”
“That wasn’t playing rough, that was being a jerk!”
She grabbed his sleeve more gently afterward and pulled him aside from the others while the game awkwardly resumed without them. He crossed his arms tightly, and she sighed.
A few months ago, Linda had been his closest friend. She was one of the few people at Wammy’s House who actually spoke to him like a normal kid instead of treating him like a problem waiting to happen. Which meant she also knew exactly when something was wrong.
“You’ve been acting weird all week.”
“I’m not acting weird.”
She sighed. “You can’t freak out every time you get angry.”
“I wasn’t angry.”
“You bit Olive.”
“Okay, and?”
“Mello.”
He yanked his sleeve from her grip. “I’m going inside.”
Before she could stop him, he turned and stormed toward the orphanage building, sneakers splashing through damp grass and gravel paths. Indoors, the halls were quieter, easier on his conscience than the field was, though less tempting, less amusing. He climbed the staircase toward the second floor two steps at a time, still angry enough for it to burn beneath his skin. Then he stopped halfway up.
Roger stood near the end of the hall speaking to a woman Mello had never seen before. She was tall, red-haired, sharply dressed in a long dark coat and fishnets, very unlike the practical and modest cardigans and long skirts most female teachers wore here. And beside her.
A little boy. About Mello’s age, surely. Brown hair falling messily into enormous doe-like eyes that looked painfully gentle. He wore a striped black-and-white shirt under an oversized denim jacket, with jeans hanging far too low around his hips. Low enough for bruising to show above the waistband, dark purple against pasty skin.
Mello stared. The boy noticed immediately. For one strange second, they simply stared at one another, Mello’s face half-hidden by the staircase. Then Roger opened the office door and gestured inside, breaking the peculiar moment between the two boys. The woman squeezed (presumably) her son’s hand once before entering.
Mello frowned faintly. A new student, probably.
“Hello, Mello.”
He jumped slightly. A stood nearby holding several library books against his chest, dark circles under his eyes severe enough to appear painted on. Maybe they were. Mello knew how A and BB were getting into alternative styles recently, something Roger often called disdainful and ‘a rebellious phase for teenagers experiencing an identity crisis.’
“Oh. Hi,” Mello muttered.
A smiled faintly despite Mello’s obvious lack of enthusiasm. His gaze drifted toward Roger’s office. “Looks like you’ll be getting a new roommate.”
Mello instantly soured. “What? Why?”
A shrugged. “There’s no more empty rooms upstairs.”
“That’s unfair.”
“Life tends to be unfair.”
“I don’t want a roommate again!”
“You’ll be fine.”
Mello scowled deeply at the office door.
Another guy appeared behind A. It was Beyond Birthday, undeniably so. Dark hair, huge grin, too much energy in the middle of the day. He draped himself lazily across A’s shoulders immediately.
“There you are!” BB announced. “I found some new gore videos on the library computer.”
A seemed unimpressed. “You were supposed to look for corpse paint tutorials.”
“I did both.”
“B.”
“Don’t sound so disappointed. One guy’s arm came off, it was sick!”
Mello stared at them in vague horror. (“What freaks!”)
A pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly. “We need better psychiatrists here.”
BB grinned wider before finally noticing Mello standing nearby. “Oh. Hey, tiny Russian boy.”
“I’m not tiny.”
“Right, you’re microscopic.”
Mello opened his mouth to retort an argument but A interrupted first: “Yeah, let’s go before you start describing internal organs again…”
“Buzzkill.”
BB looped his arm more securely around A’s shoulders as they walked away down the corridor together, still bickering quietly about black metal aesthetics and internet censorship.
Mello watched them disappear, then glanced back at Roger’s office door, toward the new boy inside. He didn’t know yet that someday Matt would become the center of nearly every memory worth keeping; didn’t know that one frightened little boy with bruised hips and soft brown eyes would someday know him better than anyone else, alive and dead. At nine years old, all Mello knew was this: Someone new had arrived at Wammy’s. And for reasons he couldn’t explain, the world already felt affected by this latest arrival. Altered in a way, one could say!
Mello returned to his bedroom still irritated. The fight with Olive had left mud streaked across his shirt sleeves and grass stains along his knees, which immediately made his skin crawl. He hated the feeling of having dirt on him, of being unclean. It reminded him too much of the nights he’d spent sleeping on the streets, alone, freezing, and helpless. Weak. No, that wasn’t his life now… Mello was great at forgetting past lives, at reinventing himself.
He hated disarray, especially now. If he was getting a new roommate, he refused to look like a mess when meeting him. So he brushed his hair carefully until every blond strand fell back into place, changed into clean clothes, washed the dirt from beneath his nails, all in ritualistic motions. Effortless perfection required maintenance.
That was the thing nobody here understood. Everyone here looked at Mello like intelligence came naturally to him, as if he were nearly just as brilliant as the great L. Nobody saw the hours hunched over computer keyboards long after midnight, the obsessive rereading, the memorization, nor the desperation under achievement. Yes, Mello was gifted, that went without saying! Nevertheless, he wasn’t gifted enough to stop trying. Not gifted enough to rest.
He climbed onto his bed afterward, opening his worn copy of The Secret History and forcing himself into reading.
The door creaked open. Roger stood there. And beside him, the new boy. Mello kept his eyes stubbornly on the pages, pretending not to notice him at all. But then he noticed it. A small, awkward wave came from him.
“Hi.”
—
October 2004
Paper lanterns hung from tree branches glowing amber against the early evening dark, booths lined the courtyard with caramel apples and cheap games, and music drifted softly through cold October air. Teachers smiled too much; Roger kept trying to appear relaxed yet failing completely.
Matt knew what this really was. Damage control. For the past two years, Roger’s been trying desperately to avoid a case like A’s or a successor going rogue the same way BB did. Hence, after years of turning gifted orphans into pressure cookers with names instead of identities, Wammy’s had suddenly decided perhaps the children should occasionally experience ‘fun.’ A warped version of a childhood, behind controlled doors, ‘friendly’ competition, and ranks.
Still, Matt was excited.
“Come on!” he insisted, grabbing Mello’s sleeve excitedly. “You have to try this one, Mells!”
Mello appeared profoundly unimpressed by the beanbag toss booth before them. “These games are always rigged.”
“You sound eighty, man.”
“They are rigged.”
Matt shoved three beanbags into his arms. “Win me something then, genius. Let’s test your theory.”
Mello rolled his eyes but accepted the challenge instantly because refusing would imply loss. Five minutes later, he had somehow become violently competitive with a game clearly designed for six year-olds.
“Блядь!”
“Oh my days, you’re actually getting angry over this,” Matt laughed as his partner narrowly missed again.
“I’m not.”
“You’re cursing in German, dude.”
“That was Russian. And it’s not my fault the angle is wrong.”
“The angle isn’t conspiring against you.”
Mello glared at the bottles as if they were insulting his entire bloodline. Then finally, success! The last bottle crashed down. The booth worker handed over a ridiculously ugly stuffed black cat with button eyes.
Matt gasped theatrically. “He’s perfect!”
“It looks diseased.”
Matt immediately hugged the plush cat to his chest anyway. “Thanks, Mihael.”
The use of his real name warmed Mello. Matt smiled.
They continued wandering together afterward underneath light and falling orange leaves, shoulders bumping together every few steps. Matt kept talking endlessly about the food options while Mello pretended not to listen, occasionally feeding Matt bites from his own snacks. At one point, Matt looped his arm through Mello’s absentmindedly while dragging him toward another booth. Mello never pulled away.
—
The next assessment test loomed. So Mello went to the library. Rules at the House had always been strange things. The orphans weren’t allowed wandering the dorms past curfew, yet they were perfectly permitted to stay awake until ungodly hours if they remained inside the library under librarian supervision, studying themselves hollow. Mello never complained.
Normally he preferred studying in his room while Matt lounged nearby on the bed rambling about games, music, or whatever nonsense crossed his mind that day. However, Matt was dangerous in quiet ways. He was too warm, too nice, too loving, too easy to choose over work… Tonight, Mello couldn’t afford distraction. The exams were after tomorrow; he needed all the time he could spare.
The library smelled like dust, paper, and rain-soaked coats left hanging near the entrance. Rows of bookshelves stretched endlessly. Mello wandered between aisles, searching for an empty aisle, then stopped.
Near sat alone at the computers. At first, Mello walked away automatically. However, something felt wrong, so he walked back and saw how Near’s breathing trembled faintly. One hand twisted tightly into the sleeve of his sweater while tears hovered unshed in his pale lashes.
Mello stared, disturbed due to the fact that he felt something. Something that resembled a little too much like… No, it wasn’t recognition, was it? Well, he certainly was able to recognize the fact he never truly hated the sheep, that much he could admit to himself (otherwise, if he refused to admit it, he’d be stubborn and ignorant). Nonetheless, he detested how effortless Near seemed, how naturally adored. How teachers softened around him; how genius dripped from him without visible suffering while Mello clawed himself bloody for every achievement he earned.
Mello looked away sharply.
He could still make it. He could hang in there. Soon, all his efforts will pay off. Someday soon, he will be able to rest. But only if, for now, he works harder. He pushes himself further. He could still win. He could maybe get ahead of Near.
…
Much later that night, Matt slipped quietly from the dormitories after realizing Mello still hadn’t returned. He found them both in the library.
Mello had fallen asleep face-down across textbooks, exhaustion finally dragging the sun beneath the horizon. Near remained awake nearby, barely. Half-asleep himself, fingers still moving pieces across a puzzle mechanically beneath the cold glow of desk lamps.
The moon endured long after sunset.
Matt stood silently watching them and told himself that neither of them truly wanted to become L anymore. They just wanted the race to continue. Mello wanted to defeat Near no matter the cost, and Near had begun appreciating the war itself.
—
Everyone slept. Of course, never Mello. Earlier that evening, while heading back upstairs, he had overheard Roger speaking with Watari over video call through the partially open office door.
The Kira case was worsening.
Even with the new lead involving Yotsuba Group, L remained unconvinced. The killings didn’t feel right anymore, neither did the new prime suspect. L strongly believed there was another layer under everything, another plan moving invisibly underneath the surface-level stuff. And if L was worried, Mello was terrified.
Now he sat curled beside the bedroom window wrapped in blankets, knees drawn to his chest, dark chocolate bar in hand purely out of habit. Matt sat pressed against him under the same blanket cocoon, warm and sleepy-eyed. Neither boy turned the lights on, as they chose to remain in the darkness.
Matt yawned. “So, I’m gonna have stacks of records everywhere,” he murmured.
“You say that like you’re seventy.”
“I’m serious! And, like… three game consoles minimum! Maybe four. A coffee machine too.”
“You don’t even drink coffee, Matty.”
“I will eventually. It looks cool.”
Mello snorted softly.
“And,” Matt continued, “a mini fridge exclusively for my energy drinks.”
“Gross.”
“Nuh uh, it’s practical!”
Mello smiled, resting his cheek against the window glass. “There’d be books everywhere too.”
Matt groaned. “Oh my God, of course there would. You and your books.”
“Literature is important!”
“You sound like a divorced professor.”
Mello rolled his eyes. “Books are incredible. In a single novel, you can learn so much, fictional or not, and develop a vast variety of skills. Don’t get me started on the character and world building, the storylines, and the psychologies one can be exposed to when reading and writing literature!”
“Nerd.”
Mello hit his shoulder. “You can’t talk, you collect wires, porn magazines, and electronics.”
“That’s different, man.”
“No, it’s somehow worse.”
Matt laughed, then commented softly, “You are an incredible writer, though.” Mello blinked faintly. “You should publish something someday.”
Mello immediately glanced away. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to be an author. I want to be a detective. Like L,” he retorted, voice instinctively sharpening. “I want nothing more than to succeed him. That’s all I can really hope for. It’s all that’s ahead of me.”
“Well, if you ever become super famous or something, you’d probably forget about me,” Matt murmured teasingly. “Whether it’s because you wrote some pretentious book, started a band, or became the next L.”
Mello smiled. He leaned forward silently and pressed a gentle kiss against Matt’s forehead. “I could never forget you.”
Matt’s chest hurt at that.
The terrifying thing was that Mello meant it and wasn’t just trying to console Matt. He wasn’t just trying to help the gamer feel less forgettable, less invisible than he thought he was.
Branches scraped faintly outside the window. Matt stared out at the dark grounds of Wammy’s House and felt dread pooling in his stomach. He loved Mello, truly, as much as a fourteen year-old boy could love his best-friend-he-makes-out-with. That was a simple truth by now. However, if L died…
Everything would collapse. One of two things would be sure to occur.
Either Mello would succeed L and throw himself into the Kira case, risking inevitable death.
Or Near would succeed L instead. And Matt honestly didn’t know which possibility frightened him more. Because if Near won, Mello would destroy himself trying to endure the loss. Mello would spiral and inevitably relapse. He’d been doing better for eleven months now, nearly a year!
Matt closed his eyes briefly. He wasn’t religious. Quite frankly, he’d never been much of a believer. Regardless, somewhere deep inside himself, he prayed anyway to some distant spiritual entity.
“God, if you exist, wherever you are, please let L survive a little longer. Like, until Mells and I are eighteen; until Mells develops his frontal lobe and realizes how batshit crazy this all is!”
Just a few more years. That was all he begged for. After all, Matt could not imagine losing this. The slow mornings tangled in blankets, when he and Mello would take turns playing music on their record player… The movie nights in the abandoned greenhouse, followed by runs in the wheat fields… The play-fighting in the common room… Studying together until dawn… Mello stealing his hoodies… Mello laughing… Mello simply existing in his life!
A life without his blond muse felt fundamentally wrong, like imagining the night sky without stars.
“Hey, Mells.”
Mello hummed quietly in acknowledgement.
Matt hesitated, then let out: “How was your life before the House?” He then slightly regretted the question, biting his tongue when he noticed Mello stiffening a tad bit. “I know,” he added quickly, reluctant. “I know we promised ages ago not to ask each other stuff like that, but… I wanna know.”
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
“Mello.”
“It doesn’t matter, anymore.”
“Mells, please?”
Another silence.
Then, finally: “I was lonely.”
Matt stayed still inside him.
Mello stared out the window while speaking. “You already know about my sister. She died when I was six. Around the same time my little brother Ivan was born.” A bitterness appeared in those icy eyes of his. “And suddenly, everything became about him. Nobody helped me deal with my grief over losing the only family I had. No, everyone moved on. It was all about him. I understand where my parents were coming from, though. Ivan was cuter. He was less of a burden than I was. He wasn’t born broken or cursed like I was; he was born healthy and didn’t cry as much. My parents loved him more than they ever loved me.”
Matt listened carefully, a hand in Mello’s.
“After my sister died, it just felt like I was being replaced. Without her, well…” He shrugged weakly. “So, I ran away. I was sleeping on the streets when Watari found me. Police contacted my parents eventually.”
“And?”
He smiled bitterly. “They were embarrassed. Furious. Burdened. So they abandoned me. Disowned me. Threw me in here instead.”
Silence.
Matt slowly rested his head against Mello’s shoulder afterward, quietly admitting: “My mom was an addict.” Mello glanced at him. “An alcoholic too. She wasn’t really violent or anything. Mostly just…” He searched for a word, one that didn’t seem too harsh. “Absent.” His fingers twisted slightly in the blanket. “She yelled a lot though. And some of her boyfriends would hit me.”
There it was, Mello thought. The explanation behind the cigarettes Matt seemed used to at only nine years old, behind how naturally the boy recognized weed in the woods, behind his peculiar understanding of psychology and the blond’s complexities. Mello had always understood that Matt had probably had a rough childhood before the orphanage, ever since he first laid eyes on him, back when his hair was brown instead of red then blue. The realization still hurt when confirmed by words.
“Hey, Mells.”
Again. Softer this time.
“Hm?”
Matt’s big brown eyes looked strangely vulnerable in the dark. “If we actually became… like actual boyfriends. Lovers, or whatever…”
Mello listened silently.
“And if we ran away together someday… left this place in our past…”
Matt’s voice quieted further, cracking a bit.
“Would we be enough to fill the empty parts in each other? Or is everyone bound to have a ribbon of loneliness inside them no matter what?”
Mello stared at him. He couldn’t answer. He didn’t.
—
Yet another assessment test was knocked down, completed. The date was November 1st, 2004, and for whatever reason, Roger still hadn’t posted the results and updated rankings yet. As if by law of equivalent exchange, the snow had started early this year whilst ranks came late. Thin white powder drifted across Winchester streets while Christmas lights flickered dimly in shop windows despite there being still a whole month and a half before the holidays.
Matt and Mello wandered side by side underneath the cold because neither of them cared enough to dress properly. Mello hated the puffy coats that were provided to them, finding them to be ugly and unfashionable; Matt simply was too lazy and tired to search for his coat in the mess that was his side of their closet.
When they entered the convenience store, Matt instantly seemed relaxed. Mello noticed.
“You really like convenience stores,” he said while watching Matt grab a donut.
Matt shrugged. “I dunno. I find them comforting.”
“Comforting?”
“Yeah!” He glanced around as he explained, “They’re always open, always bright, and you can get food at like three in the morning when it’s empty. And the cashiers don’t expect you to say hi, so you don’t need to socialize. It’s quaint.”
Mello snorted, grabbing a chocolate bar. “At this point, one of our future meetups is gonna end up being inside a 7/11.”
Matt seemed delighted instead of embarrassed. “What’s wrong with that?”
“A convenience store date?” he repeated incredulously. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not?”
“It’s sad.”
“It’s romantic!”
“It stinks of instant noodles, trashy one-bedroom apartments, and opioid abuse.”
Matt grinned wider. “I think you’re just scared of true love, man.”
Mello rolled his eyes dramatically.
At the counter, Matt glanced sideways at him. “So. The assessment test.”
Mello instantly straightened. “It went amazing!”
Matt smiled. “Yeah?”
“I’m serious. I actually think I did amazing,” he insisted.
“You probably did.”
Mello looked pleased with the immediate faith in Matt’s voice.
Outside, snow continued falling while they walked back toward the House carrying snacks in plastic bags that rustled quietly between them. Matt said something then, an incredibly stupid pun about Near probably being born with a calculator up his ass, and Mello burst out laughing so suddenly he nearly folded himself in half.
“Shut up!” he snorted, laughing.
“I’m serious! His parents prolly held him up like—”
Matt attempted a horrifying baby impression; Mello laughed harder. Then slipped. The snow beneath them had become thin and icy enough to betray balance in an instant. Mello hit the ground first with a startled curse while Matt crashed directly on top of him seconds later.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Snowflakes drifted lazily in Mello’s hair… Matt was hovering above him, goggles crooked now… Cheeks pink from laughter and cold… Slow breathing… Matt’s slow breathing stopped. Mello looked beautiful under the winter light. Somehow, he still managed to resemble the sun, bright and shining.
Matt kissed him first; Mello kissed back immediately. Cold hands gripped jackets, snow melting beneath the two teenagers, breath fogging pale air while their laughter dissolved into hunger.
Their mouths had collided half-laughing at first, cold noses brushing awkwardly while snowflakes melted into their hair and eyelashes. Mello’s hand tightened instinctively in the front of Matt’s jacket, pulling him closer against him despite the freezing ground beneath him.
Matt kissed like he loved openly. His affection was overflowing and impossible to hide.
Mello kissed differently. There was a persistent restraint buried somewhere inside him. Yet every time Matt’s hand slid into his hair or rested gently against his jaw, that restraint fell apart.
Matt shifted instinctively closer, one knee in between Mello’s legs, thumb brushing under Mello’s cheekbone with absent tenderness that made the blond’s chest ache strangely. Mello let himself feel fourteen instead of doomed. He deserved this, right? He deserved some love. Some physical affection.
Eventually, he gently pulled back, smiling faintly.
“Matt.”
“Hm?”
“Get the fuck off me.”
Matt burst out laughing.
“The snow is soaking my trousers,” Mello informed him with exhausted dignity.
Still grinning, Matt climbed off him and offered his hand dramatically. Mello accepted it, and together they went back into the falling snow.
By the time they returned to the orphanage, snow clung damply to the hems of their trousers and melted slowly into their sleeves. Matt was still laughing. For his part, Mello, despite himself, wore traces of a wide smile. For once, things were light. Then they saw the crowd gathered near the bulletin board in the common room. The air changed in one swoop. Students stood clustered under the staircase, whispering excitedly while papers rustled against the board. Someone noticed Mello approaching and moved aside automatically (probably to avoid getting aggressively shoved to the side). Matt felt his buddy straighten beside him. Mello stepped forward and read.
1. Near: 100
1. Mello: 100
2. Matt: 96
3. Linda: 90
Silence.
Not external silence, no, externally the space buzzed with murmurs. But inside? Internally, Mello heard a deafening silence.
A tie.
A fucking tie.
Matt glanced over instinctively, ready to congratulate him on getting full marks because objectively this was incredible, but the expression on Mello’s face stopped him. Mello simply stared at the paper as if it had stabbed his heart seven times.
Second place hurt. Tying? Tying was unbearable. A loss could at least be clean and simple, quite final as a matter of fact. But this? This was proof that no matter how violently Mello chased perfection, the gap between him and Near would seldom fully disappear. The gap simply reshaped itself.
Five years. Five years of clawing at Near’s heels like a starving animal. Five years of studying until the point where he developed migraines blurring his vision. Five years of forcing himself awake through chronic fatigue. Five years of reducing himself into ambition, caffeine, and desperation, and—
The closest he had ever gotten to defeating Near was equality. Not victory, not triumph, just… an ugly tie.
Mello felt sick.
Near was effortless. Near was the prodigy. Near was natural. And what of Mello? He was merely the boy who was never the first choice. The one who stayed longer. The one who ran faster. The one who thought more obsessively. The one who burned himself alive more. Yet somehow, victory always drifted elsewhere. Always toward that fucking sheep.
Mello hated how obvious it was that he wouldn’t be the first choice to succeed L. He wasn’t Roger’s first choice, nor would he be destiny’s. A tie only confirmed it further because if he had truly been better, he would’ve won. He wouldn’t have let his potential go to waste.
“You did very well.”
Near’s voice had come from beside him. Mello turned sharply to glare daggers at him. The sheep stood there pale and calm as ever, hair messy from where he’d probably been tugging at it while waiting for results. His facial expression wasn’t mocking, which only made the blond feel even more humiliated. Mello saw pity in everything now, saw superiority hidden inside every soft word.
“You sound surprised,” Mello snapped.
Near blinked. “No.”
“You think because we tied you’re still ahead.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Matt felt dread curl slowly in his stomach.
Near frowned slightly. “Mello, I—”
Mello punched him. Hard.
Near stumbled sideways into the wall, more shocked than injured, one hand flying toward his nose while several students gasped aloud.
Matt froze.
Mello’s chest heaved violently. Years of resentment sat ugly and exposed inside his expression now.
—
November 25th, 2004 arrived cold and colourless. Matt woke to silence. For a couple minutes, he stayed half-buried beneath his blanket, eyes unfocused with sleep. The other side of the room was already empty. Mello’s bed was untouched except for tangled sheets. Matt frowned. That had become more common lately.
Ever since the assessment tie with Near, something inside Mello had sharpened into ugliness. Not toward Matt (never), but toward the world around him. Irritation clung permanently to him now. He snapped quicker, studied even longer (if that was even humanly possible), ran more to avoid binging, and smiled less. The tie had poisoned him more than getting second place again ever could have.
Matt dragged himself out from bed and wandered toward the window. Outside in the courtyard, Mello stood near the far fence kicking a football violently toward JJ with enough force to nearly send the younger boy sprawling backward each time. JJ laughed nervously; Mello didn’t; Matt watched quietly, then sighed as he got dressed for the day ahead.
By lunchtime, Wammy’s House was noisy again as teachers herded children toward the dining hall. Matt shoved his hands into his pants’ pockets while weaving through the crowd. He then spotted Mello. The blond was near the stairwell, shoulders tense, shoving another student’s head harshly aside after the kid brushed against him accidentally.
“Watch where you’re going,” Mello snapped.
The younger boy hurried away immediately. Matt stared toward Mello instinctively, but before he could get to him, Roger appeared. For the first time ever, Matt saw fear plastered on Roger’s face. Genuine fear.
“Mello,” Roger said sharply, tightly grabbing his wrist before the boy could protest. At the same time, Roger motioned toward a nearby doorway where Near sat alone on the ground, completing a puzzle. “Near, come with me.”
Near looked up slowly.
Matt’s stomach tightened. (“What’s going on?”)
Roger led both boys quickly down the corridor toward his office.
Mello frowned. “What’s this about?”
Roger didn’t answer. The office door shut. Matt stared after them for barely half a second before curiosity overtook caution. He moved silently down the hallway and pressed himself beside the office door, ear against wood. Inside, he heard movement. Then, Mello’s voice:
“What is it, Roger?”
Silence. A long one. And then Roger finally spoke.
“L is dead.”