Chapter Text
Sunlight filtered through the cracks in the curtains and spilled out into the bedroom, peeling Light's eyelids open. He wished it was just the sun that woke him up, but unfortunately it was an unruly combination of that and Mello's shouting. The source of these kids' infinite energy was truly the biggest scientific mystery of all. The little digital clock to his right read 6:25- he was normally supposed to wake up five minutes later but the Lawliet household wouldn't even dignify him with an additional 300 seconds of sleep.
After brushing his teeth and doing his skincare, he stumbled downstairs to the kitchen, bumping into a very angry Mello on the way. Probably some argument with Near again. It was too early for him to be dealing with this.
His disappointed gaze met the nearly- empty fridge. Who could have ever thought that a household of five would need so much food?
He made a mental note of everything they were missing before calling out, 'L!'
'Yes?' He answered back from the couch, sitting with his knees up while typing on his computer. Matt had his head propped up against him, laying sideways, playing some game on his Nintendo DS.
'We need to go grocery shopping.'
'Again? Didn't we just go a few days ago?'
'Where do you think all your meals come from?'
L groaned slightly, just loud enough to make sure Light was aware of his displeasure at the thought of doing the oh so heinous task of going to the local grocery store.
'Can I come with you two?' Matt asked.
L shrugged, 'I don't see why not.'
The boy jumped up from his seat and rushed out to the stairs. They faintly heard him open a door and say 'Mello, Mum and Dad are going to the market, do you wanna come with us?'
Mello must have agreed, because five minutes later they were both out of their rooms, fully dressed.
Light sighed, a frail little sound that bordered between endearment and disappointment, 'I've never seen children so deprived of normalcy that they'd be this enthusiastic about a trip to the supermarket.'
'I feel like them working on brutal crime cases is of greater concern, no?'
Light snapped his head towards L, 'No wonder why you turned out this way if your childhood was anything like this.' He sighed, once again. It felt like he sighed more in a day here than he did during his eighteen years of freedom before being made L's assistant.
He turned back towards the two boys, 'Call Near as well, please.'
'Do we have to invite him too?' Mello grunted, when Near suddenly appeared behind him.
'No need,' he said calmly, grinning, causing Mello to jump and turn around so fast he nearly fell over, 'I'm here.'
Just as Mello raised his hand to hit him, Matt placed his hand on his arm and said, 'It ain't worth it, mum's watching.'
'Good choice, kid.'
Back when Watari was L's assistant, he would allow him to stay inside while he dealt with the shopping and chores himself. Light, meanwhile, called that 'coddling' and made sure that he went outside with him at least once a week (also because he wouldn't allow him to leave the house by himself). It was still an incredibly low amount by any normal measures, but L was anything but normal, and progress was progress.
They would occasionally get looks from others- whether it was people staring at L judgingly, girls gawking over Light, or the sheer absurdity of seeing them both side by side.
Mello and Matt said something about a videogame before running off somewhere, while Near sat in the shopping cart solving puzzles on a newspaper despite how he definitely should've been too old to fit in there. He managed to fit, though, so Light allowed it. Besides, he struggled to walk long distances and he would feel a hinge of guilt if he made him do that.
His first mistake of the day was probably walking through the candy aisle with L next to him.
Soon enough, the cart was already half-filled with various sweets before they even got to the vegetable aisle. Light sighed in pity for L's dental health.
'Alright, we needed to get... tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, garlic-'
'Are you really going to make me eat all of those?'
'Really? L- the Greatest Detective in the World, stands no chance against his greatest enemy since Kira- vegetables.'
'You're being very rude. I should've just handed you in to the ICPO when I had the chance,' He said with a playful pout, which looked more unsettling than anything when paired with his wide, owlish eyes.
'How mature. If I were you, I'd be embarrassed to know that three twelve year olds eat healthier food than you do.'
'Hey, I still eat most of the food you make.'
'Keyword, most. Consider yourself lucky today though, I'm going to try making macarons this evening.'
'Don't you usually buy them from Yamamoto's?'
'Yes, but I've been meaning to make them myself sometime.'
'Ms Yamamoto mentioned that macarons are a difficult dessert to master.' Near added without looking up, now working on a different puzzle book. When did he even pick that one up??
'So I've heard. But I have all the time in the world now to learn.'
'What, now that you can't spend your time killing off half the population?' L asked sarcastically, slightly inching away to avoid one of Light's attacks.
'Say it louder for the whole store to hear, will you?' He hissed. 'But I'm sure that it can't be that difficult to make.' He added, blissfully unaware of the dramatic irony in his statement.
'Why of course, the perfect Light Yagami can not possibly be bad at something.'
'You should hope so, or you won't be getting your macarons this evening.'
Evening came with the end of dinner. The children left their dishes in the sink for Matt to wash- it was his turn to do the dishes that day.
When that, too, was done, the kitchen was finally empty. Light opened up a cookbook to the double page about macarons and cracked his knuckles.
That's right, how hard could it really be? It was only a few macarons.
Turns out that it was, in fact, really difficult.
It was 11:46 pm. The kids were all already in bed. Normally, Light would have been as well in about 15 minutes, opting to go to sleep at midnight exactly rather than pulling all-nighters like L did. Instead, the kitchen lights were still on, and Light was there sitting on a chair near the counter.
A wineglass rested between his fingers, presumably filled with water because they didn't have any alcohol in the house. Two cookbooks, a laptop, multiple batter-tainted utensils and- most prominent of all- a large pile of half-crushed macaron shells surrounded him like a sort of summoning ritual.
L approached him slowly,
'I've seen crime scenes that look better than this.'
'I'm ashamed to say that Near was right. Macarons apparently aren't easy to make.' Light sighed and closed his eyes.
L picked one up from the graveyard of macarons and bit into it.
'What's wrong with these? They're quite good.'
'Yeah well your taste isn't that refined, is it? You'll eat anything that has sugar in it.'
'I'm being serious, this isn't much different than the ones you buy, they're just a little chewy.'
'That's the problem!' Light snapped, exhausted, his body sinking deeper into the chair he was sitting on, 'It's too chewy, the batter was slightly overmixed and I didn't leave them to rest for long enough.'
'What about the ones you crushed, what was wrong with those?'
'That batch was undermixed, so the shells were too frail and stiff. They broke as soon as I put a little force on them and I had to crush them to remove them from the silicone mat.'
L laughed slightly, 'All this for some macarons? Is it really worth it, I mean I would eat these ones and I'm sure the boys would as well, they don't need it to be perfect.'
'No, I'm getting there -it's trial and error. I just needed a moment to rest and clean this up.' He took a sip from his glass, looking displeased when the water finished, 'I have a newfound appreciation for Ms. Yamamoto after this, you know.'
L quirked an eyebrow and sat on the chair opposite to Light. He raised his knees up because of course he did, and brought his thumb up to his bottom lip.
'Why do you still feel the need to do everything flawlessly? There's no one you need to impress here, Light-kun.' And it would've sounded hostile or accusatory if it was anyone else, but L said it with such gentleness that Light couldn't help but smile a little. Screw him and his soft, British voice, and screw how he always somehow read Light like a book.
Maybe he was doing this to impress someone, be it L or himself. Maybe he was doing all this - the help around the house, the kids, with the cases- to prove to himself that he hadn't suffered a complete loss against L. That he was still the perfect Light Yagami, the perfect Kira who always had everything under control no matter what. To feel like he was accomplishing something because that's all he'd done all his life- chase accomplishments like he was running a marathon.
Or maybe he just sucked at making macarons. Who knows.
'It's not about impressing anyone, it's just- that I don't want to leave a job half done.'
'I definitely wouldn't say that this,' he pointed towards the sad pile of macaron shells, 'is a 'job half done''.
'I just want to get them done right, what's wrong with that?'
'Nothing, but you already do enough as it is. And there's no need to stress yourself out worrying about something as small as this.'
Light paused for a moment while making eye contact with him, then broke it when he started laughing.
'I bet I look so stupid worrying about this. How I went from being a God to bending over backwards just to make some macarons puzzles me.'
'Perhaps even Gods struggle making macarons.'
He picked up a shell from the pile, and inspected it for a little bit.
'Some of these still look salvageable. Why don't you make some buttercream for them to finish them off?'
'I still need to clean the dishes.'
'Don't worry about that, I'll take care of it.'
'Pshh, you? Clean the dishes? Has hell frozen over?'
'Listen, I'll try my best. I still don't understand why you won't just use a dishwasher.'
'Because it doesn't clean the dishes properly, I've already told you this,' he stood up, and handed a sponge to L, 'Enough chatter now- get to work, dishwasher boy.'
After an hour of L poorly washing dishes while Light prepared the buttercream and filled the non-crushed macaron shells with it, they sat back down, the air now feeling a bit lighter than before. Maybe that was just because of the smell of dishsoap, though.
They got a lopsided macaron each, and tapped them against each other.
'Cheers!' They said in unison.
'Ugh, I never liked sweet things.' Light said after a bite.
'You know what they say about opposites attracting.' L smiled, greedily shoving another macaron into his mouth.
'Oh my god, you're so corny.' He smiled.
Then that smile turned into a giggle, and that giggle turned into a laugh.
Not the too-perfect, too-polite laugh he would use on others.
A real laugh.
And it was the most lovely thing L had heard in a while. He wouldn't have minded it if Light just killed him right then and there because he'd die peacefully knowing that was the last thing he heard.
To have the honour of seeing Light be real with him was a greater victory than catching Kira.