#main-exam

Chapter 38 of Checkmate:

“It’s head was a swirl of stars, comets, suns, asteroids…the whole universe both laid out and condensed into consciousness. Darkness made corporeal, the raw power of a hurting, dying creation, fearful of the rot within it and reaching up to Light for salvation. He reached into the void and his fingers bled into nothingness, the folly of grasping the unknowable, of pinning down time. But an ache as plain as an exclamation point hung there and asked Light again, not with words, as the voice of creation would not use words. But through gravity, the wrongness of a planet’s tilt, the impact scar of an asteroid now floating in pieces, photons murdered inside black holes, an electron spinning away to lonely void, the unraveling of the strand of DNA that may have given rise to life. Just the act of being asked the question changed him.“

Chapter 7 of Dial K for Kira:

L felt the music, absorbed it, Kira’s beautiful music striking deep within a soft hidden place he hadn’t realized was there. He watched Kira’s fingers move his, guide his, taking his breath away at the emotional intensity he felt from this, from the complex puzzle behind him. How can so much depth and beauty come from a monster, how can this be possible? He wanted it to stop, for Kira to stop doing these confusing things, making him real to L, a person to L, a tragic and special and unique and beautiful thing that L could never replace if he destroyed. A monster becomes a god. He wanted it to never stop, to never let the song end, their relationship end, this weekend, this disaster, this case, this life, this tragic and special and unique and beautiful thing that was ripping him down the middle. A god becomes a friend, a lover. This thing L would have to destroy soon, was meant to kill soon. Held in his hands in this sparkling moment, more real than the flesh beneath his fingers. The notes were knives, stabbing and cutting, and L was sinking into Kira, his thighs moving wider to touch his, his back leaning into Kira’s chest until he felt his metronome heartbeat pounding out seconds of mortality, reality. A god becomes a man. L closed his eyes and let the cuts bleed, fingertips dripping his righteous blood across the piano, with Kira with Light, and there was nothing just about killing this, not for him, for L. The whole world could burn and fall to ash before he’d let this man slip away to where L couldn’t follow.

Astraphobia:

“But when L’s parted lips met his to keep their bad-faith promise, B’s heart began to pound as it did in the extremely rare moments when he’d been outmatched, tricked. He’d be the one chasing this high forever, this deadly electricity, wouldn’t he? He’d be the one reaching into the sky and pulling down lightning, and he couldn’t hear the thunder anymore.”

Chapter 10 of The Neologisms of Yagami Light:

Light pulled a pen from his pocket and clicked it open, the sound making L grab him harder. He stared down at the man in his lap, more broken that he was, more doomed and raw than he was. Light tried to become steel, become the rock he’d carefully chiseled Kira from.

The impassive judging god. The untouchable deity. The avatar has no heart. The statue cannot regret.

He tried to climb atop that pedestal once again, climb it to safety and step back into the place his shadow made plain for him.

But the heartworm writhed, broke stone. The heartworm that had consumed him these past months didn’t die first, and Light needed that to die before L could. I can’t erase you so easily L, I can’t forget you now, what we had, for all the lies there was that one truth. I loved you.

There’s no amnesia for that. There’s no new word I can make to describe how I’d feel, no new world I can create that could mask it.

How I’d die feeling. His fingers trembled as pen met paper.

It won’t die.

Chapter 5 of King’s Gambit

Light laughed at the absurdity of Kira standing in his mother’s garden at 10 pm with someone intent on killing him, discussing the etiquette of stealing flowers. “Sure Ryuga, she won’t mind. She’d be happy you appreciated them. Flowers grow and bloom and die without a purpose if no one notices them.”

L turned his eyes to Light, watching him closely in the moonlight. Then focused again on the rose. Quietly, “That’s true for more than flowers, isn’t it?”

A loud clap of thunder sounded in the distance, and it began to lightly rain. Just enough to be annoying, but not enough to soak them. Light took a step towards the door, but L was walking around the rosebush, considering which rose to take. He finally settled on a bud just beginning to bloom, and plucked it with two fingers. He held it up in the moonlight and sniffed again, “Tell your mother thank you Light-kun.” The rain was picking up and another clap of thunder sounded, closer this time. “She created something beautiful.”

A Ghost in My Body:

He was traveling through dust in Ryuk’s mind, flying across a black hole in a neverending desert. The nothingness was crippling. And here Light was at the very end of it, an oasis in a meaningless existence, reaching out to offer something that was irresistible. Water poured through hands that couldn’t hold it. Wind flowing to breath that couldn’t catch it. A pinprick of callous care brought to an orb of self hate grown enormous, but fragile to bursting. And the danger of that. The fear as it approached, not as a stab but as a kiss. 

Bad Bishop