Lawlight Week

It’s day thirty-eight. The air is yellow and L is still not back.

Light sips his coffee. There isn’t much else to do. The monitors have been blank ever since the bomb hit, and the back-up generator hasn’t brought them back online. Venturing beyond the control room in search of a fix has been deemed inadvisable.

So, this is where they’ve holed up. This bland square space filled with non-functioning tech is all that’s available to them. Light considers his good luck, in spite of it all. Of all the places to be when nuclear warfare breaks out, L’s stupid ostentatious building had turned out to be a godsend. Radiation-resistant walls. The backup generator whirs along and keeps the lights on and the kettle working. A water filter, for L’s million cups of tea. Gas masks.

The only exit to the room is the exit to the building. L goes out to get supplies. Mostly other people’s radios and televisions he’s deconstructed. They don’t need food, for now - the kitchen is well-stocked, and Light has drawn up a plan for rations, just in case. Neither of them suffers easily from cabin-fever. Light learned that about himself during his fifty days’ confinement. As for L, Light wonders if his stint at university was his first time out of doors.

Light takes another sip of coffee. The handcuff chain clinks against the arm of his chair.

Ah, yes. Those. Light had really, really hoped he’d seen the back of those.

L had disillusioned him the first day he’d decided one of them would need to go outside.

—

“Kira cannot be trusted on his own.”

Light had stared at the twin loops dangling from L’s crabbed, pinched thumb and forefinger. He’d pushed down the urge to scream.

“We proved my innocence. You stared at those rules for hours and you couldn’t think of a loophole.”

“I think we’re beyond proof now, Kira-kun. Hold out your arm.”

“I am not Kira. It is impossible for me to be Kira. The policemen of my country have determined that I am innocent. I don’t have to do anything you say.”

L sighed. Light laughed. The sound was sharp and echoing in the metal box they now called home.

“You must be overjoyed, now it’s just the two of us. Nobody can stop you tormenting me now. It was never really about proof, was it? You know I didn’t do it, and that’s why you’re out to get me - because I showed you up. I showed everyone The Great L was wrong. You want to punish me for not being Kira.”

L’s jawline twitched. It was the first time Light had seen an emotion force its way onto his face.

“I went easy on you before, Light.” There is no pleasure on L’s plain, tired face; only immovable dislike. “During our fistfights. A trained martial artist versus a teen with a handful of high-school boxing lessons under his belt? Don’t fool yourself into thinking we were evenly matched. If I’d fought back with no care to your safety, I would have done you a serious injury. Now, I could spend the next few hours laying out why you are Kira, and why those rules in the Death Note are fake, and how you have engineered this situation to provide yourself an alibi. But I am tired, and we are out of time. Hold out your arm.”

Light laughed again. It was hard to hold back, in this new ruined world. His laugh rolled around and around the room.

He refused.

It was a miscalculation.

—

That was weeks ago.

Light rubs his jaw with the hand not holding coffee. It still twinges when he presses too hard.

In the end, he can’t stop L doing what he wants. A small light of rage burns within him, replenishing every time he looks at L, every hour he spends tied to this chair. But it isn’t defeat, not really. L is just as trapped as he is.

Footsteps sound in the corridor outside.

Whenever L comes back, Light has a shameful urge to prick up his ears and lean towards the entrance, like a dog. He only does it because nothing else happens here. But for an instant that flame of rage gets directed at himself, for feeling anything at L’s comings and goings. Light’s priority is to ensure he stays alive and L dies, and the latter will happen as soon as the former is assured.

The door sweeps open, and a yellow astronaut steps into the room.

The astronaut places a backpack carefully on the ground. It straightens up and removes its helmet. Underneath is L’s head, smaller than usual with his body covered in bulky hazmat-wear.

Light lets out a breath. He hates the feeling of relief creeping up inside him. If L became a shambling radiated zombie, or got his head bashed open by some desperate person, Light’s only reason to mourn would be for his own odds of survival.

“You were gone overnight. I was worried,” he said out loud.

L starts to wriggle out of the hazmat suit. No doubt it’ll be left in a pile on the floor until the next trip. “Apologies, Light. I found an office that was still accessible on the ground floor. It made sense to work through the night.” Just as Light knew he would, he discards his suit on the ground like an old skin. L crouches on the floor and unzips the backpack.

“Well, I’m glad you’re alive. I could do with another coffee when you’ve got a moment.” Light watches L pull bits of deconstructed computer out of the backpack. Unusually for him, he has remembered Light’s request for more toothpaste. A bright pink, half-empty bottle of shampoo, obviously stolen from some teenage girl’s bathroom, is crammed at the bottom. And so are… condoms.

Light blinks as L lays the little box on the floor with the other personal items. Definitely condoms. There’s no reason Light would hallucinate that.

“That’s a little presumptuous,” he says.

L lifts his huge eyes. His dark circles are worse than ever. If he stayed up all of last night, Light calculates he must be nearing hour eighty without sleep.

“It is still possible there are other survivors. In case we end up accommodating more people, I am trying to prepare as broad a range of supplies as possible. These don’t expire for another five years, so that gives us plenty of time.”

Light wants to laugh, but he feels too exasperated. “L, quite besides the fact that no-one else in Tokyo is likely to have been inside, effectively, a nuclear bunker when a bomb was dropped on them with no warning -”

“Breathe, Light,” L mutters.

“- And besides the fact that we now live in a single room, which while spacious, does not provide for privacy or sound-proofing -” Light does pause for breath at that point. L inspires a lot of run-on sentences - “I doubt anyone with the dubious luck of being alive in this hell on earth has sex on their mind.”

“Oh well. I’ll put them with the spare batteries.” L sets the condoms aside.

Light watches him as he sorts through the guts of the computers he’s shredded. He feels vaguely rattled, though he doesn’t know why. It isn’t just because he spent the night chained to a chair, while L was apparently raiding strangers’ night stands for sex aids.

“You’re lying to me,” he says, half to himself.

L’s nimble fingers stop sorting bits of metal. Light’s always found them interesting to watch, the strange crabbed way L holds them at odds with their dexterity. They remind him of spindly pale insects he once saw in a nature documentary.

“I regret, due to the nature of my work, I am frequently lying to you, Light-kun. As ever, I pray you won’t take it personally.”

“Oh, spare me,” Light snaps. “It’s the goddamn apocalypse. Nobody has a job any more.”

The words surprise him. The concept of an apocalypse feels straight out of comic books. It’s not a word he would normally reach for. Still, he realises that this is how it feels. Not just that Tokyo has ended, but the world has.

His New World has died, right when he’d begun to shape it for the better.

L gives him a look, but doesn’t comment on his odd word choice. “As far as I am concerned, L is a job for life. It’s not as if I was drawing a salary. I am still working a case, even as the circumstances I am working in become… highly irregular.”

“Ah, the case.” Light rolls his eyes and tips his chair back. “Some might call it selfish to fixate on catching one murderer when millions are dead and the world is in shambles.”

“What an abrupt change in Light-kun’s attitude.” L’s voice is sharp. “I recall you giving me a black eye the last time I lost focus on the Kira case.”

“Well, what can I say. Statistically, Kira is probably dead. And if not, he must be having a job locating new victims at the moment.” Light sets his empty cup down on the ground. His eye catches the condom packet and he almost loses his train of thought. “But far be it for me to question your priorities, L. One: acquire as much junk as you can carry. Two: provide for the sex lives of hypothetical guests. Three: chain up the one person who could help you and call them a murderer. Four -”

L drops the bit of piping in his hand to the tiled floor. The crash rings throughout the room.

Light almost jumps out of his skin. He stares from the pipe on the ground to L’s tightly drawn mouth.

“Light. Shut up.”

Light’s mouth snaps shut. He has never seen L lose his temper.

L resumes picking through his stack of parts, while Light’s brain whirs into overtime. It is the condoms that’s bothering him. L’s explanation makes no sense. And everything he does is calculated. Dropping them in front of Light like that… it was a provocation.

The conclusion drops neatly into Light’s head like the answer to a test. He smiles.

“You’re lonely,” he says.

L pauses. He doesn’t look up.

Light’s voice brims with satisfaction. “You’re afraid you’re going to die. So you’re hoping for a pity-fuck.”

L still says nothing. Light doesn’t need him to. His smile widens.

He didn’t realize exactly when it happened, but one morning L Lawliet nodded at him in class and it dawned on Light that they were probably friends now.

It was probably the day Matsuda screwed up once again and L and Light looked at each other in exasperation. Or when they got into yet another argument in class about something or the other. Or maybe it was when the argument left them both smirking and feeling alive.

L Lawliet wasn’t an easy person to know. He had transferred a few months ago. Light remembered feeling vaguely sorry for him the first time he saw him. He looked like the perfect guy to bully; thin and wiry, bags under his eyes and a tendency to stare at people unblinkingly till they looked away, uncomfortable. Apparently the class bullies who cornered him in the playground had the same first impression. It didn’t take long for him to prove them wrong.

It was probably the tennis match. Yes, that’s when they had truly started to hang out with each other. Soon, Light discovered there were a lot of things that he had gotten wrong about L. He was stronger than he looked, smarter than he appeared and more sarcastic than people gave him credit for. Light hated his guts and yet, he couldn’t help but spend more time with him, even if it was spent arguing.

What infuriated him the most about L was how little he knew about him. He somehow managed to evade all questions about his personal life. All Light knew that L had no parents and lived with his guardian, and that he was filthy rich. L rarely showed interest in anything that happened in school, yet managed to tie with Light when results came out. His participation in conversations with other classmates was limited to a few sarcastic comments and condescending remarks. The only person he really interacted with was Light, and Light tried to not feel ‘special’ because of this. He was just another guy. Maybe smarter than most other people and surprisingly athletic when it came to sports but just another guy.

Maybe it was this curiosity that ultimately led to the beginning of their friendship.

A year later, and Light had made some progress with L. He had discovered a few more things about L: he was obsessed with desserts and was always craving strawberry shortcake. He lived in a huge mansion at the outskirts of the city with his guardian, Watari and his brother, Mello. He was half-British and had lived in England before coming to Japan. He hated wearing shoes, was weirdly flexible, and could get really cranky if things didn’t go his way.

It took a while for Light to admit that he was curious about L’s romantic life. It was pure curiosity of course, and hypothetical, and only because L was so weird as a person Light wondered how he’d behave on a date. While Light received a lot of unreciprocated attention from girls in his school, L rarely showed interest in anyone. Not to mention, his general demeanour was enough to keep any potential suitors away.

Which is why Light grabbed the first opportunity to come his way to investigate.

‘Light-kun, Mello wanted me to tell you that he expects you at our house at 5 to play Mario Kart with him’, L intoned during the school break.

Light frowned. ‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m busy today.’

L looked up from his cake. ‘Are you?’

‘Yes, I thought I told you’, Light said. ‘I am going on a date with Misa today’, he added, smiling. ‘I thought I should give her a chance, since she is so persistent.’

L raised a brow. ‘Oh’, he stabbed his cake, ‘I didn’t know you…liked Misa.’

‘Yeah well, I like her enough to give her a chance and I guess she is…pretty, right?’

L shrugged. ‘She is very attractive, yeah.’ Light felt a pang of annoyance. Misa was okay.

‘So listen, Misa has a friend who is also very, um, pretty, and Misa suggested that we go on a double date’, Light said, rather hurriedly.

L blinked at him. ‘Double date? With who?’

Light rolled his eyes. ‘With you, L. Her friend and you, and Misa and I, together.’

L stared at him. Light stared back, expectantly.

‘Why is Light-kun setting me up on a date?’

Light swallowed. ‘Well it was Misa who suggested it-’

‘Misa Amane hates me.’

‘-and then I thought it was a good idea! I mean, what’s there to lose?’

L was still looking at him as though he was trying to piece things together.

‘Fine, okay, I will come. Tell me where and when.’

Light had gone on a few dates before, but he didn’t remember feeling half as much as he was feeling now. He felt nervous but eager, and it wasn’t because of Misa. Setting a date up with Misa had been easy. He knew she liked him, and he had agreed to go on a date with her if she brought a friend for L too. He was almost confident L would end up making a fool of himself on the date and it would make Light’s day if he was there to witness it.

Light’s doorbell rang at exactly five as he was buttoning up his shirt. He heard Sayu open it and a minute later, she called out for him. He hurried down the stairs and opened the door, expecting to see L slouching at the door, except that he wasn’t.

It was L but…Light had seen L outside school several times, but he had never seen him dressed like this. He was wearing a button-down shirt and slacks like him, except that the clothes fit him well, unlike his usual loose attire. His hair was properly brushed for once and styled neatly (Light suspected it was Mello’s work). And he was wearing shoes.

‘Something wrong, Light-kun?’ L asked innocently. Light realized he had been staring.

‘No. I-er, you look good, L. You actually put in effort for the date…’, Light said, rather lamely.

‘Of course, Light-kun. It’s our first’, L replied, eyes twinkling.

The walk to the cafe was short and Light was still reeling from the fact that L knew how to dress up for a date. Maybe he wasn’t so clueless about romance as Light initially had thought. He toyed with the idea of L actually being nice to someone other than Light for once and getting along with Misa’s friend. It was…disturbing.

‘They aren’t here yet’, Light observed as they entered the cafe and took a seat near the window. The cafe was fairly popular among couples and was buzzing with sounds of conversation and laughter. Light whipped out his phone to check the time. L went straight for the menu.

‘I think we should wait for the girls to come before ordering anything’, Light said distractedly.

‘Hmm, I suppose so’, L replied, still carefully going through the dessert portion. Light texted Misa to hurry up and put down his phone. He looked at L.

‘So’, he began, ‘what kind of girls do you like?’

L didn’t even look up. ‘Pretty. Intelligent. Someone who can keep up.’

Light raised his eyebrows. ‘Huh.’

‘So how was Light-kun’s day?’ L finally shut the menu and kept it aside.

‘The usual. You were with me the whole time, L’, Light rolled his eyes. He wondered if Misa’s friend was pretty and intelligent.  

‘Not the entire time’, L shrugged. ‘So what did Light-kun think of the case we came across while hacking the NPA’s website from your father’s computer?’

‘Keep your voice down’, Light shushed L. L rolled his eyes. ‘I solved it, of course. I sent an anonymous tip to the NPA as well’, Light added, proud.

‘Ah, so did I. Let’s see if Light-kun came to the correct conclusion as well.’

‘Your conclusion isn’t necessarily the correct conclusion, L.’

‘I beg to differ.’

They spend the next twenty minutes arguing about the case, even though both of them had narrowed it down to the same suspect. Light almost forgot about the date.

‘Where are these two? Oh, Misa replied to the text’, Light frowned at the phone. ‘She says she got an urgent call from her agent and wouldn’t be able to come, and her friend is apparently busy with something too. This is ridiculous’, Light muttered. ‘I can’t believe Misa stood me up.’

L, to his credit, looked entirely unaffected. ‘Ah that’s sad, I dressed up for nothing’, he said dryly. ‘Well, might as well enjoy the food here, right?’

Light snapped his phone shut, feeling annoyed at Misa but also strangely relieved. ‘Right.’

Light was not one to give up so easily. He tried again.

‘So, this girl, Kyoko, she keeps coming to see our tennis matches’, he said lightly. ‘I think she likes you’, he said teasingly, watching L carefully from the corner of his eyes.

L looked thoughtful. ‘You think so?’

‘Yeah, and I mean, she is sort of, cute, I guess’, Light tried, ‘want me to ask her out for you?’

‘Well’, L mumbled, ‘I’m not averse to the idea, but…’

‘But what?’

‘I am not very good around girls. It was fine the last time we went out because Light-kun was with me, but alone, I am not very…friendly’, L said, eyes hidden. Was he embarrassed?

‘Oh that’s not a problem’, Light said breezily, ‘I could help you with that. I can come with you and hang around for some time to put you at ease and then you can take it from there.’

L looked up. ‘You’d do that? That’s very nice of you, Light-kun.’

Light smiled. ‘No problem. I’m sorry about the last time though, I didn’t think Misa would be so irresponsible.’

‘It’s okay’, L replied, ‘we managed to have a good time still, didn’t we?’

Kyoko didn’t turn up. Light and L waited outside the park for twenty minutes before deciding to screw it and go to the nearest McDonalds because they were starving. Kyoko apparently later texted L to tell him that something had come up and she couldn’t go out with him. To L’s credit, it didn’t look like he minded, at all. They spent the day walking around the park, arguing about L’s music tastes and why he disliked shoes.

Still, Light persisted. He managed to convince Yuri to give L a chance. But she cancelled at the last moment too; apparently she was part of the swimming team and due to last-minute rescheduling, her tryouts were conflicting with the date. L and Light ended up going to Spaceland anyway. He came back home exhausted but content and grinning ear-to-ear.

Next was Naomi, who was perhaps the only one L ever talked to in school, apart from Light. She looked surprised when Light asked her out for L, and then amused, which annoyed Light. She chose to introduce Light to her boyfriend, Raye, after they had already waited for half an hour inside the mall for the date. L merely shrugged and shook hands with Raye, looking unperturbed, and the only person who looked as confused as Light felt, was Raye himself.  

Four times. Four times Light had tried to set up L on a date, and somehow he was stood up each time. It didn’t add up. He had no idea why anyone would try to sabotage L’s dates. A lot of people didn’t like him, but no one had a grudge against him.

Unless.

Well, there was only one way to find out. He picked up his phone. Kyoko first.

‘There is this place Sayu keeps talking about, apparently they make really good sushi. We should go there’, Light said as they walked back from school together.

L hummed. ‘Are you trying to set me up on a date again, Light-kun?’

Light chuckled. ‘Well, sort of. Speaking of which, isn’t it a weird coincidence that all the girls I set you up with ended up cancelling the dates? All of them?’ He said, glancing at L.

‘Yes, very unfortunate for me’, L agreed. He could tell by the look in L’s eyes that L knew where this was going. He persisted.

‘Weird that both the Astronomy Club that Kyoko is a part of and the Swimming team Yuri is a part of, would reschedule important events such that both of them are unable to come for the dates, isn’t it?’

L chewed on his lip. ‘Very weird, yes.’

‘I wonder why Naomi didn’t tell me about her boyfriend when I asked her out for you. We could have just stayed home and not wasted our time at the mall, right?’

The corners of L’s lips were tugging up in the smallest smile. Light felt his pulse quicken. ‘It was very inconsiderate of Naomi, yes.’

‘I don’t know how you managed to stop Misa from coming to the date, but, L’- Light stopped walking and turned to face him. ‘Why did you sabotage your own dates?’

L looked at him blankly. ‘Did I?’ he said in an infuriatingly calm voice, but his eyes were twinkling. ‘I thought we had a lot of fun on all our dates, Light-kun’.

Light wished he could stop the blood from rushing to his face.

‘Well’, he managed to say, ‘you could have just asked me out.’

L smirked, leaning towards Light to kiss him on the nose. ‘But where’s the fun in that?’

Which is how, Light discovered another thing about L. He could dress well when he wanted to, was surprisingly good at sabotaging his own dates, and had a crush on Light Yagami.