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What they had wasn’t love.
Knowing smiles. Targeted phrasing, chosen especially to annoy one another. The way that when they first locked eyes, they felt like they were looking in a mirror for the first time in their lives. Silent nights, inches apart, wrists cuffed and shadows speaking more words than they could offer.
What they had wasn’t friendship.
Friendship wasn’t touches that could speak paragraphs or the way it hurt, even though they both knew it wouldn’t end well.
Friendship wasn’t spending every waking moment hunting each other like a dog starved to the bone. Friendship shouldn’t hurt as bad as this did.
It wasn’t hate either.
Light didn’t hate it when Ryuzaki would trap him in a corner. He didn’t hate the way his eyes gleamed knowingly over a teacup.
Ryuzaki didn’t hate that Light was Kira. He didn’t mind that Light killed people in the slightest. If he were to hate the man for his nature, he would be a hypocrite, for truly, Ryuzaki’s nature was much more unruly.
It wasn’t something that needed defining, because it would be gone soon anyway.
Could L have won?
L looked at Lights sleeping form at night sometimes. He often asked himself if he could have won.
As if the fight had already ended. As if he knew what was coming before it happened.
And it didn’t matter if L or Light were smarter. Only fools compared themselves in such petty ways. L or Light could have easily won either way. That was never what they measured this by.
However, L liked to think that neither of them wanted this to end. This purgatory. Like the moments after you pulled the pin from the grenade, when time seemed to slow. Like it would almost never end.
Of course, it would blow up. Of course, they would all die.
But pretending felt safer. Like maybe it wouldn’t hurt so bad when the sun rose. Like maybe they could spend forever in a moment.
They watched each other for too long sometimes. L always thought Light's eyes were kind of sad. Cruel, twisted into a permanent posture of judgment. And sad too. Always with a hint of despondency. Like a black hole forever chasing a light that would disappear as soon as they touched.
Really, they weren’t together that long. They didn’t work together nearly long enough to become as intimate as they behaved in the end.
In those days, sometimes Light would let their toothbrushes touch, and L would purposely dog-ear the pages in books to annoy Light. Light would secretly add a double card to a deck of playing cards because it would throw L’s counting off.
To the common onlooker, these acts were malicious.
L and Light found them endearing. They didn’t dare admit that, though.
How could they?
Why remark on the beauty of a rose when it's bound to fade?
L probably would have won. Light knew this.
But what was life but another assortment of colorful petals waiting to fall?
When they died, all things left on this earth would be meaningless.
The last night they spent together was another hot night. They quietly lay above the covers. This time without handcuffs. This time, listening to the sound of rain.
“When I die,” L began slowly, glancing at Light, “when you kill me, I want to be looking into your eyes.”
Light didn’t bother denying this much. They were both tired of pretending.
“I want…” L continued, “To have my last moments in the presence of light. My light.”
It was so sappy it was offensive.
Light wasn’t smiling. Nor did he talk, which L knew that he loved to do.
“Sweet words won’t change my mind. You can’t change me, Ryuzaki,” Light frowned. He propped himself up on his side to look down on L.
“I’m not pretending,” L spoke each word slowly, leaning in, “also, you might as well use my real name by now. I want you to say it.”
Light stared at him, brows furrowed. He couldn’t understand why his heart was pounding so loudly. It reminded him of the sound of mortars, or shells going off, of war. Of death and ending. Of rebirth and new beginnings.
War was petty. War was pointless. It often brought people back to where they began, only with more debt and more dead.
L pressed his mouth to Light's ear so that when his lips parted, Light would feel the heat of L’s breath.
He told his murderer his name.
L’s eyes still had those dark bags, but somehow he looked more tired than usual.
Light tested the name on his tongue. He didn’t like that it felt right on his mouth.
L looked satisfied, he lay back and closed his eyes. “Thank you, Kira.”
They slept peacefully, as calves, knowingly slumbering in front of the slaughterhouse.
+++
After L died, Light expected himself to feel relieved.
He didn’t expect the sudden weight to pile onto his chest.
He had held L’s hand in the end, just as he had asked. Fingers intertwined, where a soulless gaze had found that cruel and yet pitiful glare.
And now Light sat on L’s tombstone.
He hated it. How empty he felt.
“I won,” he cackled to himself, lacking any bite, “I BEAT YOU L!”
But the winds blew softly and he was all alone.
It felt wrong.
Light crawled on his knees. Maybe if he screamed over the winds, his eyes would stop watering. Maybe if he pretended long enough, he wouldn’t feel shattered anymore.
He brushed his fingers over the Gothic letter ‘L.’
It was cruel not to even use his real name. Like he was never a real person, but an idea. And maybe Light imagined even their exchange. Maybe Light’s brain was altering the way L had looked at him. Maybe those final moments of soft words and gentle touches had never happened.
Maybe L had never even looked at him to begin with.
On one side of L’s grave lay a rose gathering dust. Light picked it up and tore it to shreds.
He smiled to himself.
“You're watching me, aren’t you. Laughing too,” Light said softly. He didn’t shout it over the wind this time. He didn’t need to.
“Why I tore it, you ask?” Light looked up at the sky.
He stared at the sun. Because maybe if he challenged it long enough, his eyes would burn, and he would have an excuse for his tears. And maybe he wouldn’t have to see the gray and the black anymore. Maybe the sun would leave if he refused to step down. Maybe the stars it revealed would remind him of Ryuzaki.
“You already know why I tore it,” Light laughed, empty of joy, “Because it was going to die anyway. I want you to remember it in its fullness, not watch it decay slowly as it rests on your grave. That would be too depressing, even for us.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets.
He couldn’t remember L’s voice.
But that was okay. He remembered the color of his eyes, the assortment of petals that made up his smile.
What they had wasn’t something that could be coherently described or put in a box.
“The beauty of a rose is bound to fade,” Light whispered, knowing that for the last time, he had been heard.