A/N: Surprise. :D As you can tell, this is a beast of nearly 20k, so although it's posted as one chapter on FFN, it's split into two parts on Ao3, as suggested by my lovely beta (thank you for all your help and advice, Hannah!). I originally wrote it as one chapter and it takes place over a very long night for the PM (tbh I just wanted to write a monomyth in one chapter for him before it's over), so it's in one long chapter on here because it's kinda important to me that the cycle doesn't have a break. There is always the Ao3 alternative that makes it more manageable.

Quick disclaimer is that there's a scene in italics about half way through this which, although not being graphic, is suggestive and may be triggering. However, it's written in a way that means it can be easily skipped. Thank you for all your support and patience while I was a poorly bear. xxx

Kind Of A Pretty Boy

Once I had a love and it was divine
Soon found out I was losing my mind
It seemed like the real thing but I was so blind
Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind

~ Heart of Glass

In quiet moments like these, rare as they are, I like to consider the concept of self care. The definition is to initiate actions to benefit and maintain the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of an individual. I do this naturally and don't understand how anyone could find it difficult, but unfortunately for me—especially since I've gained premiership—I have to be considerate of others, and as such my self care has to be secondary to that of others. My own well-being struggles to squeeze between the tiny gaps within the heaving mass of people that scurry around this country like ants. Today, I have enacted self care selflessly yet again by destroying my competition while barely lifting a finger. There's more to self care than putting a candle on the edge of the bath.

The silence of this house is only interrupted by the distant roar of the sea, close and groaning with a hunger to take lives. Y'know. The usual. It's just always fucking there. The intensity of it starts to thunder in my head with a panic that I might actually be alone in this house, because I asked him to leave but I didn't mean it, and I didn't hear him go.

"L?" I shout out, leaving the living room for the heart of a foyer to which all other tumorous rooms are connected. I hate this house. It seems to grow bigger by the day like E. coli in a petri dish. "L?"

"What?" he sharply shouts back from the room I just left. Just when it seems that Lord Bastard must have acquired the gift of invisibility now, I find him lounging on the sofa and with a face as pale as milk like he was there the whole time.

"I told you to go," I remind him, the disobedient little shit that he is.

"I'm reluctant to leave in the middle of the night since my name is on the deeds of the house as well as yours. I'm not some delinquent tenant to be turfed out by you on a whim just because I cut a little too close to the bone didn't I, Light?" he replies, pretending to read a book throughout.

"Oh, you're still accusing me of being a murderer? Really?" I sigh like a director of a play who has to put up with actors who can't remember their lines. "Ahh, and I'm 'pure evil' as well, I almost forgot. Well, sorry to disappoint, but if had wanted to kill Tsukino then I'm sure that I would have done a better job, because he's still alive and kicking after killing two people, so I'm told. Look it up. Accusations of evil murdering aside, I'm offended that you think I'd be so inept at it, L."

"Obviously I'm not in a position to criticise a spot of democide every now and again.'

"No. Because you killed The Lady," I say, and he likes that. He dips his head to cough and smile to himself, and I realise that maybe he's trying to remind me what he's capable of. He can topple Kings and Queens.

"I didn't see you complaining," he points out, snapping his book shut. Well, at least I have his full attention now. "It's becoming de rigueur in international politics, but it's particularly lethal to live in Japan right now, it seems."

"Since you moved here, yeah."

"But I've never been as devious as you've been today."

"You knew! You just didn't know how I did it. You're amazing," I tell him, shocking both of us by how impressed I am by him. No one else would suspect that I could possibly choreograph such a thing. It'd be something that even mad conspiracy theorists would disregard as being too far fetched, but L knows that I'd be able to do that and more.

"Amazing, yes, amazing," he laughs, and it's quite sinister, really. "Great, I'm so pleased. We're doing so many amazing things today, you bastard!"

"I'm not blaming you, but you've got to take some responsibility here. You could have made this so simple. She didn't have to die."

It's a fair comment but, nevertheless, he stands and walks towards me to prod me in the chest a few times.

"What the fuck are you talking about, you fucking mentalist?! I didn't kill them but it's my fault they're dead? It's my fault you slept with that fucking woman? I've seen more virile looking things squashed in a mousetrap. How the fuck did you do that, eh? How did you pull that one out of the hat? How long was that going on?" He jabs me in the chest with every question until a thought seems to dawn on him, and I don't need to say a word. It takes him a while but he usually works things out. I revel in the delay quite often, though sometimes it's frustrating. "Not long," he answers himself calmly. No, not long at all. I did most of it while on official travel and lunch breaks. I'm efficient. "You took the train so you could find her. You're a piece of work."

"You're just angry that I slept with her," I laugh. "Take comfort in the fact that I didn't actually sleep. But she did. I must have tired her out, poor thing. Or are you angry at yourself because you had no idea what I was doing? Have I hurt your pride, L? Because I can do things without your help when you leave me with no other option? I'm sorry, but I think it's good for you to remember who makes the rules here. You think you do because you have that fucking book. You think you're so clever. You use that thing for the most stupid reasons, you make mistakes, and you won't let me use it for real, justified reasons. The only person who should have the Death Note is me and you know it, you fucking know it!"

"I know no such thing," he says as the audible equivalent of a full stop. "Giving you the Death Note would be like inviting an apocalypse, and I'm not quite suicidal enough for that yet. Besides, the rest of the human race is doing such a good job at fucking up the entire planet, I'd hate to cramp their style."

He walks with intent, no doubt towards where the vodka is because he's heard its call. I'm so furious that he's turned his back to me that I start shaking from this red heat inside of me.

"It doesn't matter, though. I don't need the Death Note," I tell him. "That's why I want you to know how I did it, but all you care about is who I fucked to do it. What sort of person are you?"

Aaaand he stops in his tracks to turn back to me. Good.

"Well, as I said, I can't criticise some sporadic murdering, no matter how unnecessary it was, but I care that you slept with a woman, and it was premeditated."

"Oh! So if she was a he then you wouldn't mind so much?" I ask. "I should have fucked B after all then, shouldn't I?" I tell him coldly just to see him react in the way I anticipated. His face sets like concrete in trying to contain the anger that's pooling in his fists, judging by the way he's forcing them into his pockets. He might as well hit me. I wish he would.

"No," he finally replies. "I think that if I'm being monogamous, then you should have the courtesy to at least attempt to do the same."

"Haaa! That's the funniest thing you've ever said, L. Like you could ever be monogamous. The word is not in your dictionary."

"It's certainly not in yours. I don't know what happened to you while I was… away, but you've turned into someone I hardly recognise," he tells me without a flicker of emotion on his face, apart from the disappointment I've been seeing there consistently since I met him.

My eyes become swollen with water and pressure from looking at him for so long, I have to allow it to reabsorb before things starts looking dramatic. Thankfully, he looks literally anywhere else apart from at me, so he doesn't notice my momentary struggle and misconstrue it.

I can hear that mournful piano song that was playing in a restaurant a few weeks ago, and I'm sure that there must be a radio left on here somewhere until I realise that it is really just in my head after all. I thought that it was sad when I first heard it, I don't know why it needs to come back now.

If I'm different, then he doesn't see that he has anything to do with that. I've felt myself become almost transparent as the layers of what made me have fallen away since I woke up on the floor of his house and he wasn't there. But we don't talk about that. He can't recognise it, let alone understand it, and if he can't understand me then what hope do I have? Like he'd come back and I'd be exactly the same as I was when we were happy for all of two days. I feel this way now because of those two days and brief moments when nothing mattered more to me than him. I gave up everything for those two days.

"You haven't got a clue have you?" I ask him, stunned by how oblivious he is.

"There's nothing to have a clue about," he says. "You did this so you'd win the election, it's so predictable. That woman though, Light, seriously?"

"Do you think I'd want to fuck that? I needed proof and… I felt sorry for her," I admit while looking around me cautiously. I hope she's not listening.

"Sorry for her?" he asks. "You fucked her then killed her like a black widow spider because you were sorry for her? At least put some effort into your excuses, Light."

"She'd only been with Tsukino. Can you imagine that horror? And that was all she'd known but she thought that there must be more than that: she read it in books, she heard it in songs, she saw it in films. Fuck, L, of course I felt sorry for her. She'd had no life apart from what that bastard inflicted on her."

"So it was a charitable act, what you did?" he asks sarcastically. "Because you're such a considerate, gentle lover that it was totally worth dying for?" Well, I don't think that deserves an answer, and I struggle to do so much as shrug. Why wouldn't it be worth it?

"I don't know why you're bothered anyway," I say, to which he lets his head fall back in annoyance as he walks to the window. We're such a nice couple. I have no regrets about throwing my whole damn life down the toilet and becoming a meme for this. Since he has his back to me again, I quickly alternate hands in giving him the finger.

"How did she die?" he asks the window, all solemn and tortured sounding. "How did he kill her and Sakurada?" Horribly, Darling, horribly.

"Well, I wasn't there, how could I know? Aren't you impressed though? I mean, it is kind of impressive, you've got to admit. It takes more skill than writing in a book. Even Kira could do that," I tell him, walking up behind him to whisper now, because these things should not be spoken. "Don't pretend that you care about anyone, bearing in mind that you're directly responsible for a lot of deaths. I might be indirectly responsible for what happened today, but it's not really the same thing. I was with you when Tsukino was killing his wife. Think about that. I did it to win. I need to win, L."

"So you made me your alibi?" he complains to our glassy reflections against the darkness outside, but faces me to hear my answer.

"Yes, but don't misinterpret me. I could have just done an impromptu public appearance if I wanted a rock-solid alibi. Security are my alibis, and hacks and photographers follow me wherever I go. I wanted to be with you."

"Oh, I am grateful to have shared such a poignant moment with you. If only I'd known, I would have fucked you harder," he gasps, clasping his hands to his heart before letting them drop back to his sides. I remember a time when I would have paid money to have him look at me like this. "And what about B? You brought that issue up. I walked in on something, didn't I."

"Hm?" I sound out, having decided upon pleading ignorance to the whole B issue. "Ha, no. I forgot he'd be here to be honest. We got into an argument about guess who and he held a knife to my throat. Normal for a psychologist, apparently."

"Oh, and I bet you did nothing to provoke him. You must have loved that."

"Wouldn't you? You know how weird he is. Anyway, he did cut me, didn't he. But that's old news. He's a fucking psychopath and a cocktease."

"I hate it when you're like this. You go mad and give the big come on to everything that breathes just to see their reaction."

"Yeah, and you know what I've concluded after years of research? Not groundbreaking or surprising but it turns out that everyone just wants to fuck me, L," I reply, scratching at the irritation on my throat. "Since you're asking about B: look at this," I add, turning to bare my practically slit throat to him. "He did that with his fucking knife which I thought you'd confiscated. I had to put some concealer on the cut for the press conference, but it stings like hell and there wasn't one that matched properly."

"I wouldn't expect there to be one," he replies. "You're far too unique."

"Heh. Thanks. The nearest the House make-up artist could find is called 'Bronzed God.' Well, it's 'Bronzed Goddess' actually. I hate all this gender specific terminology shit. Anyw—"

"You have to stop causing trouble wherever you go," he interrupts, but I ignore him.

"She has to mix it with 'Golden Sands' to get something that even slightly matches. You look like a 'Silvered Porcelain Rose' shade to me. But you tan well, don't you," I remind myself, suddenly so distracted by the vivid picture in my mind of him dusky from the sun that it makes my voice soft and breathy. "Murder. You look amazing with a tan. I don't think I told you… yeah. But I only saw your tan close up when it was fading." My face becomes tight and pinched with old but ever-present hurt and anger. "Did you and Stephen fuck on a beach? Is that how you got that tan? Because you didn't have any tan lines. And you don't even like the sun, I don't really understand… that. I didn't know you liked that sort of thing, you should have said something. I could fuck you on a beach," I inform him confidently. The whole sand complication bothers me actually, but I'm sure it'd be an excellent exfoliation treatment for both of us. "You'd never forget it. You forgot him quick enough, so I guess he really wasn't all that memorable to be worth keeping. If it was me, I'd never let you forget it. We'd probably never fight again if I could just…"

I trail off, surprising myself by my sudden fragility from imagined past pain, something suspected, of trying to grasp at anything I can think of that'll make him want to keep me, not kill me.

"What?" he asks, shaking his head and blinking compulsively as if this came out of left field. I suppose it did, but it's relevant to me now. It's always relevant.

"You and Stephen. He was just something you used to waste time with, wasn't he? That's all any of these people are, but I'm different, aren't I? He tried his best but you haven't seen me try my best."

I sound so aggressive on this statement that I think it might sound more like a threat, and judging by his reaction of pushing back his hair and forcing out a laugh, he clearly doesn't know how to interpret it either.

"What do you want me to say?" he asks. "You're shit and he was great because we fucked on every beach in the South of England?"

"There's nothing in England outside of London and you couldn't get a tan there," I say dismissively. "You had a continental tan. You'd get nothing in England but nits and herpes, you're lying to me again."

"I'm not, actually. We didn't do anything on any beach, but I don't know why you're—"

"You didn't fuck," I say forcefully, pointing my finger at his face. "A fuck means nothing. It wasn't nothing. You had sex with him."

He tilts his head and his eyes narrow like he's trying to work me out, and he takes so long about it that I can't keep up the eye contact. I look down at the mirror-like varnished floorboards beneath my feet and want to throw up all over them.

"Do you need something, Light?" he asks me softly. Maybe he means to sound concerned but he just sounds patronising, as always. He reaches to touch my arm tentatively, but I step away from him. "Do you need one of your pills?"

"No," I laugh mockingly. What a ridiculous thing to say, oh my God! "They're for migraines. Do I have a headache, L? Are you Kiyomi now?"

"What about a joint? It'll calm you down."

"There isn't anything in this world that could calm me down," I tell him slowly, proud at how he backs up against the console table and holds onto the edge of it. It takes a lot to make him show any emotion at all, but now he's so deer-like that I can glimpse the violated and violating beautiful boy I've only seen in photographs. Life was cruel to deny me of him then firsthand. I could have carved the imperfections from him when he was as impressionable and eager to please as women. We should have been born at the same time, joined and sharing organs, screaming when surgeons tried to cut us apart.

"We'll have a joint together?" he suggests weakly.

"You're a stupid bastard," I laugh to myself while I fumble in my pockets for a cigarette. We shouldn't have any drugs in this building. We shouldn't even have that hoard of alcohol in the kitchen. We should just have one bottle of wine on show and a stocked and locked cellar of bottles with dust on them and little tags that don't say anything. I don't want to be accused of being extravagant, boozing it up and snorting fruit bowls of cocaine with this pittance of a salary I—

"Takes one to know one, as they say," he says. What are you talking about, you idiot?

I let my lighter burn my cigarette for too long until I remember that I called him a stupid bastard, didn't I? Oh yeah. Stephen. One of the many fatalities of sleeping with L. Anyway, now that my cigarette is well and truly lit, I pocket my lighter and blow out a smoke cloud as vast and town-consuming as those vaping fuckers with their sub-ohms.

"I don't know what's made you think about this all of a sudden," he says after passively being enveloped in the atmospheric fog. Heh. "Guilt, maybe? But since you're asking: yes, I slept with Stephen. Many times actually, he was very good. Great stamina. I've slept with a lot of men and graded them in my head, and Stephen was near the top, if you'll excuse the pun. Sex means nothing more to me than what it is, and I judge people on it. Actually, I had a journal for grading, but I couldn't be bothered updating it after a while." My jaw tenses, and to cover the tell with a bluff, like this is a glorified game of poker, I disinterestedly smoke my cigarette. He doesn't buy it. "Is this causing you a lot of pain?" he asks me. "Because obviously you're having problems quite late in the day with how I've slept with a lot of men before, during, and after you, even though you're hardly a vestal virgin yourself. Why are you bringing all this up now?"

I swallow and look around me like I might find an answer just floating in the air, but I don't know. What about David though? What about the art tutor in Barcelona and Aiber and Toshio and Ukita and… 'he went through tutors' was what B said. Someone gave him the Hephaestion statue because he was their Hephaestion once, he said. What did L find in them that he can't find in me? Most of them I know are dead now. They're probably all dead now because they fucked the wrong man, and the same thing will happen to me. He wouldn't give B what he wanted because then he'd have to die. The man's a graveyard. Astbury.

"Just that the next break we get, we should go somewhere to get you a tan," I say blithely. "It'll be nice. I'll be nice. It'd be… Actually, I meant to ask you. Have you seen anyone else here today?"

"Oh God, don't tell me that one of the men I keep locked up in my secret dungeon has escaped again?" he says dramatically, and I feel instantly ashamed of mentioning this.

"I'm serious. And not a man. A woman in a white dress."

"What use would I have in keeping a woman here? I'm happy just hiring a cleaner like everyone else. I like the fact that she leaves, although she doesn't take that incense smell with her. Why do you ask?"

"I think she followed me home."

"Our cleaner? Who? Kiyomi or one of your crazy fangirls? Well, let's face it, they're basically the same thing. Oh fucking hell, was it Misa? I'd love to meet her and all her batshittery before the police arrive!"

"Forget it, it doesn't matter," I say despondently.

"No, who do you mean? You think that someone's in the house? There's no one else here apart from our friendly neighbourhood god of death, you know that. What do you mean?"

"I saw her. She was in the car with me before."

"Who?" he asks, like he actually believes me or is at least giving me airtime.

"Shiori," I tell him quietly, more of a whisper than anything else. Please don't just interrupt me and knock me down like TV interviewers. I'm tired of fighting to be heard.

I watch the expression in his eyes morph from concern to the sort of look he has when I talk about the likelihood of me lowering business rates. I should have known he wouldn't even try to listen to me.

"But she's dead, isn't she?" he says.

"Yes, she is. I know how this sounds, but I saw her, L. And I think she's upstairs."

"Okay… that's mad, you know that, right?" There it is.

"I'm not mad! What about you seeing dead people outside the windows all the fucking time!"

"I was on like a cocktail of uppers and downers then, for fuck's sake. And I don't think I needed them. I just needed a holiday, to be honest, because I'm all tickety-boo now. And I knew that they weren't really there. You believe that she was there?"

"I saw her! I was sitting next to her all the way back here in the car and… now I think she's in the house. Why don't you ever fucking listen to me!?"

"Actually, I think that I will go," he says suddenly, and slides out of his penned in position between the console and me. Something about the ease of him stating his intent, as if I have no say in it, infuriates me so much, like my heart has been stabbed with a shot of adrenaline. I can't stay still but neither can I move, and the room has started shaking. I'm suddenly laughing so hysterically I don't sound like myself.

"Of course you'll go, of course you will, of course!"

"Light look at me," he says firmly, grabbing my shoulders and being so close that I can't avoid looking at him. "I'm not leaving, not like that. I just think that we need some time apart, alone, to think or, y'know, sleep. Maybe both? I know, it's a crazy idea but I think that it might help so we could talk rationally later. Get some sleep, please? I'd rather suck The Don's tiny dick than to see you like this, I just can't, and I don't think I'm helping you by being here. If I go up there—" he says, pointing to the stairs. God, no.

"You can't go up there!" I nearly shout, but he just holds his hand in front of me, pressing down on air repeatedly as if he's appealing for calm from an angry mob with pitchforks.

"If I go up there, she won't be there," he tells me. That's how much he knows. "There's no one there, and I just can't see you like this. It worries me and… you just need to calm down. Really, no one could love anyone as much as I love you."

Yeah, right. If this was a movie, this would be the moment when I'd look at the camera and break the fourth wall. As it is, I just look at him blankly, skeptical and becoming deathly calm in record time, as requested.

"I'm touched," I reply, as flat as speech synthesiser.

"So I can tell," he replies dejectedly, stepping away from me, looking for all the world as if he's hurt. "Ok then, despite that, or maybe because of it, one of us has to leave or we might start tearing each other's hair out. Let's leave that shit for the drag queens, yeah? If it came to that then we'd never be the same."

"Yeah," I laugh like canned laughter that laughs at every line.

"Don't laugh at me."

"I'm not laughing at you. I just remembered something that Kiyomi said. She said that if I was leaving her, I'd better make it worth it. Didn't happen, did it. You lie and you leave and you come back and you hide things from me. I know about what you and Ryuk are planning. That was really the death knell for what I thought of you. It's funny. It took years for me to love you and an overheard one minute long conversation for it to stop completely dead."

"I'm not… I'm not planning anything with him. You don't know what you heard."

"Oh, I think I've got the picture now, don't worry. I heard enough."

"No, you don't understand."

"Then make me understand. Please, L, I just want to know. He's not here, you can tell me."

"I can't," he enunciates slowly, which opens out the canned laughter again.

"So you keep saying!"

"I'm horrified that you'd even consider that I'd hurt you. I'm upset that you're so upset." I'm offended he thinks that he could upset me. "I don't care what you did or—"

"You're not worth the sweat from a fat man's asscrack. I won't give you my tears," I say, and so adamant about it that the aftershocks appear to destabilise everything he was so sure of.

"Are you saying that you never loved me after all?"

"No, I loved you. I loved you until I stopped," I tell him looking directly into his eyes until I hear a shattering sound in my head. He has little to no visible reaction, which angers me even more than I was already. "Anyway, it's not all that bad. If things do happen to go your way with whatever you're plotting, you might be known for something other than being my whore, because that's all you are now, L. You know how the press works, you understand how immovable public opinion is. And you thought that you were a respected barrister and businessman? You're not; you're a disgusting whore, and that's all you'll ever be."

"A disgusting whore," he repeats. Yes, just like your mother.

"You had the right idea before—get out," I tell him, abruptly stepping away from him. "Security will drop you off somewhere, because you're drunk and I can do without the press if you crash," I shout behind me, and leave the room.

Not long after, the front door slams and a car starts up to roar off so that the house feels truly empty. I'm on edge and even slightly regretful, despite my determination not to be. I've never been alone here at night and I don't want to be, precisely because I won't be alone for long, I'm sure.

So, with the win I've bet my happiness on not reaching the peak I'd expected or the longevity I'd hoped for, the issue I've been suppressing for days rises to the surface with nothing to contain it. I see that he must have left without a bag or even his coat, so he probably left the notebook in this house somewhere. I sit on my Bauhaus chair in the living room and wait for Ryuk, because he'll come now if I wait long enough. Over time, the sound of the sea rolling, never-ending, almost takes me with it, but I refuse. Speaking to Ryuk should be about finding out the truth, but in my heart I think it's just as much about finding some way to forgive L for…

I close my eyes for a moment to escape a blinding headache, and I mean that literally. It's not just any headache. It blinds me with white shafts of light spreading across my vision like a massive light leak on a camera lens. The pain and pyrotechnics in my head are cymbals crashing together so that everything shudders from the power of it, and if I could claw at this bowl of a skull to rake out all the shit, I would. But as abruptly as the pain started, it ends, leaving only a shocked, haunting stillness.

When I open my eyes again, I'm not in my house; I'm in one of those intimidatingly grey offices where the blandness tries to instill calm banality by brute force. This is a room in which only bad news is given, and it could be a waiting room in any establishment anywhere. All I know is that someone knows why I'm here even if I don't, and it's the most terrifying feeling, waiting, staring at a steel vault door in front of me. I keep throwing logs on the fire of my anxiety to keep it burning as the locks of the door clunk and shunt before it opens painfully slowly. From behind the door, a faceless man, all features smoothed out completely, comes into the room and tells me: "I'm sorry."

"What do you mean?" I ask him, looking over his mint coloured scrubs. I know what he means but I can't believe it. "Where is he?" but I'm already walking past him.

The vault door leads to a dark, sterile room in which the metal surfaces reflect what little cold, flickering light there is. Laid on a stretcher in the middle of the room, dimly lit by a deep sea light, is a large black bag emblazoned with 'property of the city morgue' in white characters. The door closes behind me as I walk towards the shape—which looks more like a modern day Egyptian mummy wrapped in plastic—just to stare at the zip running down the centre of it. I unzip it. There's another bag inside, another zip. I unzip that, and there's a body inside. I know them, but they're not L and I'm looking for L.

"Sometimes you have to do more than scratch," the faceless man tells me.

A pale grey hand with black nails passes me a knife, and without hesitation I slice a perfect Y-incision into the cadaver as if I've been doing it all of my life. The flesh of it is like a mix of soap and congealed jelly, like a body that's been floating in water for months until it was dredged out, and it tears apart when I claw at it impatiently with my bare hands. I rip out ribs which are covered in dark, sticky mucus. Maggots ooze from organs and all the decomposing muck I fling aside, until I find another body within the cavity. It's someone I've known since I was born and I have half of his chromosomes, but I tear into that corpse like an animal who destroys for no understandable reason. Inside him, there's my mother, and I cut through her without a second thought, although I know that I should feel something. I don't. I feel nothing but the determination to get to what I'm looking for and have no time for anything else. Time after time like a fucked up game, I tear through people—Raye, Kiyomi, Jeevas, B, Tsukino, Mikami, and others—only faltering for a moment when one of the bodies I have to cut through is my own.

I just become more desperate, determined and rabid until eventually I get to the centre of these Russian Dolls, none of which get smaller, as you'd expect.

And I find him. His skin is not like the others; it's warm and firm like I remember it. I pull him from the messy womb of a sack, and we collapse to the floor surrounded by the gore of countless people. I cradle him in my arms because I've saved him; I've birthed him, he's mine because I created him. All he is to me is what I've made him to be, and now he's here as he should be. The choice was mine to make him important to me. He was and could have remained nothing more than another life passing by my own, but I chose for him to stay and to give him the importance he doesn't deserve.

Rocking him gently like a treasured child, I notice Ryuk standing in the shadows. His arms hang stiffly at his sides, though his hands twitch intermittently like little shocks of electricity surge through them. Then I realise that it's not Ryuk; he just has the overall impression of him. I'm looking at myself in his clothes: staring, teeth bared, lips spread thin and wide across my face. The only reaction I'm capable of is to curve inwards protectively when I see him, feeling my brow furrow as I bite my teeth together and hiss.

The dark vision of myself is hunched over and shuddering with laughter, and I watch it. A soft echo of a thudding heart beats for the first time as L's chest is clutched against mine, but I don't know if it's coming from him or me. It gives the impression that it's beating for both of us.

It's impossible to tear my eyes away, not even to blink, but the stinging, gritty feeling forces me to close my eyes for a fraction of a second. I'm ashamed at my weakness, because I'm sure it'll be the death of me now, but when I open my eyes again, I'm lying on the dining room floor, breathing in the same rapid breaths that I was taking in that room. I'm not there now and the air doesn't taste like death and antiseptic. I'm in our house, but in my mind I went somewhere else. And L's gone again.

Steadying myself on any furniture I pass on the way to waking up my computer, my head is so full of confusion, fleeting thoughts, and waking momentary nightmares, I forget what I came into my office for. I open the files of this morning's footage from the security cameras I had installed, watching the grainy picture of L in the shower like I'm a disinterested pervert with a beaten up VHS porno. He gets dressed, and at one point seems to look at the camera like he's staring directly at me, so then I know that Ryuk must have tipped him off about the cameras. My eyes follow him on the screen, moving from room to room to the stairs. I can hear his footsteps above, so loud in my head, until he becomes a real life picture walking down the stairs towards me. He avoids looking in my direction though, heading straight towards the door to a storage room instead, like a fast-moving ghost reenacting past crimes.

Once he's out of sight, I look at the livestream, but L's not in the house after all. I'm not going to question or overthink what I just saw because there's no point unless I want to roll myself up in a blanket and panic for a few hours, so best just accept it. I put a call in for L to be followed instead, which is easy enough since I had a tracker put in all his cars.

I'm told that L's in Tokyo and went straight to a casino for two hours. It couldn't have been two hours. He left with a man I don't recognise from the description, and they lost L in the middle of Shinjuku because the guard is a fucking idiot, but spotted his car parked on a residential street a while later. After some enquiries, I find out that he's parked near 4256 Nakacho Meguro-Ku, which is the address of Reiji Namikawa, a lawyer from the Yotsuba Law Office—one of L's rival firms—and he's a despicable junkie who I've met once and hope never to do so again. I do a search on him, but find more of interest from Facebook than official records. He's married, his wife's an air hostess and they're both awful. Through reading all this and seeing the fake happiness of Namikawa's holiday photos, my distrust becomes a solid mass of dread in my gut. It's a familiar feeling but one which always troubles me. I hate anyone who L shows any interest in and, since Stephen, it intensified to the point where it's become a phobia that my stability hinges upon. I don't know why. I just know that I hate being reminded of any created, stupid fuck dependence on anyone but myself, and I couldn't have found anyone more unreliable than L.

At that moment, my phone rings with a video call. With some reluctance, I answer it, but disable the video from my side. L seems to be struggling to prop his phone up against something to get a decent angle of the room behind him.

"What are you doing? What do you want?" I ask, and his cropped face smiles.

"Sorry, but I'll have to mute you. Consider this a live video of an adult nature," he whispers. "I was going to give you something to see, but never mind. I'll try to make it as visual as possible for you, so make sure you have the volume turned up. Maybe wear headphones for the best experience." He winks at the camera before obviously placing the phone flat on some surface, because now all I can see is a ceiling.

"Do you want ice in that?" some strained voice I recognise as Namikawa's says. "I mean ice for the vodka, but I have the crystal kind as well, if you want any." I remember him sounding nervous, but most people do when they're talking to me, and he's a tweaker, so it's hard for me to work out a baseline. He sounds particularly nervous with L, however.

"No, this pleases the court. You may be seated," L says, and Namikawa laughs, either because he's got a crush on L, wants a job, or is easily amused. "I hope that you won't find this rude, but I've always wondered why you keep your hair so long."

"Oh. I keep meaning to cut it," Namikawa answers, sounding shy and… just stupid. Why L thinks that I'd need to listen to this is beyond me, except that I suspect that this is just foreplay.

"It doesn't look terribly professional, but I suppose that professionals can get away with a lot these days. If you want to have feminine hair but call it samurai, then all power to you."

"It's not girl's hair! My wife likes it."

"Oh, she swings that way, does she?"

"What? No, she just likes my hair long. Every time I ask her about it she says that she likes it, so that's why I haven't had it cut. Like, your hair is really nice. I'd like mine cut like that."

"Thank you, but my hair is copyrighted. Reiji, have you considered that your wife might be lying to you?"

"No. Why would you think that?"

"Just that it might explain why you're having problems with her. You'd look better with shorter hair. I'll cut it for you, if you'd like?"

"Ha, do you cut the Prime Minister's hair?" Namikawa laughs. Like I'd let L of all people loose on my hair.

"I wouldn't change anything about him. Not even a hair on his head," L says softly, probably so that I might not hear him, but I do. And it makes no fucking difference. "Anyway, I was just thinking how cruel it is of her to leave you all alone like this."

"Yeah, but it's her job and, anyway, I can't do this shit here when she's around. Right, do you want an A-bomb or something else? You can roll your own if you want… Hey! What are you doing!?" Namikawa and I say at the same time for apparently different reasons. I start to dial my guard who's currently outside that house, but my fingers lock up. L's right and I hate him for it. He knew that I'd have him followed and he did this because he knew the effect it would have and that I can't stop him.

"Sit back and think of my assistant at the firm or whatever that woman's name is that you keep crying about," L tells him, "but I'll put a hefty bet on you not thinking of her when I'm done. Think of this as a kind of intensive therapy that you're in dire need of."

"Get off! I'm not gay, man!"

"That's what they all say," L replies. "I'll up the stakes. My car and a blow. You don't get an offer like that every day. Especially not from me."

"Seriously?"

"Serious as genocide. However, you have to win the bet to get the car."

"What's the game?"

"To make a gay snuff film with me," L tells him excitedly. Oh my God, what are you doing? "Haaaa, I'm joking, I'm joking," he laughs, just as I'm about to call my guards after all, and I'm still not sure that I won't, actually. I find Namikawa's home phone number in the meantime. "The bet is that you take a blow, but no more, for my car. When I stop, everything stops, and if you leak even the tiniest drop of groin gravy on me, then no Mercedes for you. Shouldn't be difficult for a strapping specimen of heterosexuality like yourself, should it! Now, I know you're thinking that you can dodge this at a critical point if you happen to… I don't know, forget your straightness or whatever, but a rule is that you cannot withdraw from the blow at any point, because in this game, I'm the banker and you're the wanker, ok? However, I have to warn you that in five minutes you won't be thinking of any car, and you'll want more than some head. Heads I win, tails you lose. Oh, and you better smoke that; you're wasting it."

"Fuck… we're talking about the black car you were driving, yeah?"

"Mmm. Top of the range Mercedes-AMG GT coupé with under a thousand miles on the clock. I paid, I don't know, 19 million yen for it? I can't remember, but it's a beautiful thing."

"I do like that car."

"Of course you do. That's only to be expected for someone who drives a Honda Jazz."

"Yeah… but it's reliable," he sulks.

"Good gracious, how boring. Reiji, I'm starting to think that you need my car more than I do. It's also reliable but moves like shit off a shovel and generally makes you feel glad to be alive. Your car just makes me feel sad."

"Me too."

"Then why don't you have a punt for my car?" L says seductively. I can just picture him leaning in and saying that. Will you give me permission to take your mind off your heartbreak?

"As long as you know that I wouldn't enjoy the oral, obviously," Namikawa says unconvincingly. "But if you insist on it."

"Yes, the addressing of the court is compulsory. Ok, fun times! Let's put these here then."

I hear what sounds like the jangling of keys while I try to skim ahead to work out what he's going to do, because it's not going to be this simple and L isn't going to lose his car or anything else. He'd die first.

"Why are you doing this?" Namikawa asks L for me.

"My dear Reiji, that hardly matters. Get yourself comfortable and keep your eyes on those keys. This won't hurt a bit."

"Hold on. This doesn't count as gay, does it?"

"No, this is definitely not gay, don't worry. Now, take off your trousers."

At that point, I give in and call Namikawa's landline. His slurring, droning voice answers it mid-laugh after I hear L tell him to.

"Hi, hello, hi, yeah?" he babbles.

"Reiji Namikawa?" I say.

"I'm sorry, he's not available at the moment. Can I take a message? Ha!"

"Are you Namikawa?"

"Hey?"

"Are you Reiji Namikawa, born August 3rd, 1979 in Tokyo, son of Taro and Namiyo Namikawa, and married to Rikako?"

"I'm happy with my electricity supplier, thanks. Is that what you're selling?" he asks. God, what a absolute cretin.

"Reiji Namikawa who studied law at Harvard University to become a lawyer for the Yotsuba Law Office in 2011? Your credit score is 419, you're mortgaged to the hilt and spent time in rehab in the States for six weeks for drug violations and DUI but haven't declared that to your employers? You voted for the New Renaissance Party in the last election because you're a fucking knobhead? Your blood type is A? Are you Reiji Namikawa?"

"How do you know all that?"

"I want to speak to L."

"Wow. Sure thing, hang on."

"Is that Liam Neeson calling to threaten me again or is it Stalag wanting me to return to base?" L asks him. He sounds disturbingly pelvis-level. "If it's Liam, tell him that I have no idea where his daughter is."

"I don't know who he is but he knows my credit score and he wants to speak to you."

"Sounds like Stalag."

"Larsen, get on the FUCKING phone!" I scream.

"He's going ballistic here and wants to speak to someone called Larsen now. Wait, is that your name?" Namikawa cackles in his schizophrenic way before stopping abruptly.

"Hey," L grunts.

"Yeah?" Namikawa answers.

"My trousers aren't around my ankles, so I see no reason for your mouth to be open."

"Ok."

"But does he sound angry? I'd love to hear that. Put him on speaker," L says, so I bellow down the phone:

"L, get back here right now or I'll have the guards drag you out and beat both of you to mush, I swear you'll be picking gravel out of your balls with tweezers for years to come. Remember the torture scene in Casino Royale? You should. You made me watch it. That. But worse. DID YOU HEAR THAT NAMIKAWA? BECAUSE THAT GOES FOR YOU TOO! I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE, YOU FU—"

"On second thoughts, let's turn the volume down a bit," L says after my tirade. What the hell am I supposed to do now.

I hear shuffling on the line and press my ear close to the phone. My hand crunches itself into a shaking fist around the phone until it aches. The idea of having my heavies crashing into this fuckwit's house on my say so to break up whatever's going on seems like a brilliant idea, but I know how catastrophically embarrassing that would be for me and L does too. It's amazing what he'll do just to piss me off so much that I'll have a nervous breakdown.

Then I hear the sound of a zip being opened, because it's obvious that it wouldn't be closing.

"Ok! Point proven, L. You can stop now," I shout into the phone. I'm pretty sure that L has the phone because he sounds closer to it than Namikawa, so I try to be more calm, but in reality I must sound frantic.

"Hold on, did you hear that?" I hear L say. "Point proven?" he asks directly into the phone. "What point is there to prove? I'm only doing what you told me to do because I'm so disgusting. And I'm just a whore, after all. I can't help myself." I close my eyes. It wasn't like that, I didn't say that.

"Stop playing," I say. "It's not a game. I need to talk to you."

"We did talk and look at how well that went. Do you take it back? Say it out loud."

"Yes, I… just come back."

"Why is it so urgent? I'm busy right now."

"Stop it."

"Are you asking me not to do this?"

"Yes."

"'Yes' what? Yes could mean: yes, you had a shower this morning; yes, you'd like chocolate sprinkles on your cappuccino—`Yes` is very unspecific, and I'd like more than that, Honeybun."

"Please come back here," I say. It sounds like begging and makes me sick to hear myself. I realise how I'm clutching the phone to my ear like it's a lifeline and I'm some desperate fuck when I'm so much better than that. He's trying to hold me hostage by the heartstrings just to get back at me. Why should I lie on the ground for him to kick me when he made me doubt him in the first place? And now he's doing this. "L… it's not having any effect on me. No fucking effect, you're wasting your time and you're making a fool of yourself. I. Do Not. Care! Get back here, you dramatic bitch!"

"Oh," he sighs after a few moments that seem sewn together for how drawn out they are. "Well, since you asked so nicely… no. I don't think so. And, by the way, Stephen and me on the beach? You were right."

"Fuck him then!" I shout, unable to temper myself. I can't think or see straight because of the craving to kill them both. "Why do you have to be such a bastard? You can tell that idiot that he's dead, he's fucking dead! You're dead, you stupid fuck, I'll—"

"Excuse me, I might not be able to answer because, as you keep telling me, it's rude to talk with your mouth full. But feel free to comment at any time. I always appreciate feedback," he interrupts cheerfully and apparently waits for a reply I don't have. "Do you have nothing to say, Light? Well, I'll see what I can do about that."

The line goes dead, and when I phone back, it goes straight to a sickeningly chirpy message from Namikawa's wife telling me that they're unable to take my call at the moment. I'm running out of options here now that L's gone all Harvey Weinstein.

"Who was that?" Namikawa asks, so my head snaps back towards the ceiling shot of the video call on my phone. "Was that the Prime Minister? He sounded really angry Lawliet."

"Yes, it's a lovely sound isn't it? Like bird song in the Alps on a Spring morning. Anyway, it's his bedtime now," L's voice replies. Bastard. "So, is this still a goer, Reiji?"

"I'm just thinking that there has to be a catch here somewhere. All that for a blowjob? And not even me having to give one to you."

"I'm philanthropic, what can I say?" L replies flatly in a blatant lie. I don't know why he's doing any of this and I don't know why I care.

"But, really, just for that?"

"You say that like it's any old shop-bought blowjob we're talking about. I don't think you know what you're in for here, but I get the feeling you'd be happy with anything. So, yeah just a blow. Unless you accept my complimentary options."

"No way, man. I'm–"

"Not gay, I know, we've established that, you're very convincing. But I thought you said at Espace that you were curious."

"I was, y'know… I just meant that you're attractive… for a man."

"Really! See, in my language that usually means 'fuck me gently.'"

"Nooo… haaaa… Well, maybe, but I'm not gay. If I did this, it doesn't mean that I'm gay. I just want the car."

"Of course! That will never be in doubt. If we were facing each other, that'd be a different story, but as long as we avoid doing that then we're as macho as Rock Hudson. Just think of driving away in my car. And I'll write your debts off too, so you can forget about what you owe me for a start. I might be able to offer you a position at my firm if you're a good sport."

"Why? I mean, that'd be great, but you said that you'd never hire me when I asked you."

"Oh, I was just playing hard to get there, Reiji."

"I don't understand why when you must know I'll win. Why would you give me all these things?"

"Gratitude, hopefully. I'm not unattractive, am I?"

"No."

"Disgusting?"

"No."

"Someone said that I was. Let me level with you. I like sex. I don't think I should be made to feel like I'm a bad person because of it. I'm a bad person for other reasons."

"You're not a bad pers—"

"I am, but I'm a good fuck and that's all that matters. Have we got a deal?"

"Ummm… alright then, why not?"

"Why not indeed."

"Speak in English for me? You sound boss when you speak in English, it might help," Namikawa requests. That's how much he knows. L sounds stupid when he speaks in English, it's such an ugly language. Is this actually happening?

"Well, I won't really be able to do that while I'm sucking you off, but here you go: All you have to do is close your eyes, you brainless little man. I'm really very good at this."

"Nice."

And now I'm silenced, forced to listen to random noises of fabric sliding against fabric followed by disgustingly slippery, moist sounds and pleasantly surprised groans. L has no gag reflex and he can tie knots into cherry stalks. It's an earth-shattering talent worth writing a five star review about and he knows it. I'm very familiar with all this, so I anticipate the sounds before I hear them, putting images to everything happening right now in some shitty house in Tokyo. Even if they could hear me, I don't think I could speak, and suddenly it's so unbearable that I rush to the downstairs bathroom, locking myself inside just to avoid listening to the noises. Pacing around for minutes that seem like hours makes me want to die. I have an election in a few days. It surprises me how something as trivial as L doing what L usually does can make everything else so insignificant.

Eventually I summon up enough anger to act in the place of courage and force myself back into the room, grateful that my footsteps mask any sounds that the phone echoes around the room.

"Ughhh… and to think I could have had Makepeace" I hear L say. "I need to rinse my mouth out, pass me that drink."

"Just finish it!"

"The drink? I plan to. Oh, you mean you?! No! That'd break all the rules. If you're not going to abide by the rules then I'll just toodle off and leave you to it."

"But the car… Ow…"

"The car is off the table because you accepted—sooner than anticipated and in a manner that could be mistaken for pleading—this once in a lifetime opportunity. You're not obliged to redeem your coupon, but it's valid for one night only."

"I wouldn't have this fucking boner if you hadn't stopped before I—"

"Yes, I did stop," L confirms, sounding disgustingly pleased with himself, and all I can think of are the various ways I could kill him for this. "I don't want you coming in my mouth. What would I get out of that apart from indigestion? People pay a lot of money for this mouth of mine. Why would I do you a favour like that and let you drive off with my car?"

"Whoa!" Namikawa says. L must have taken his trousers off or something. I'm going to be sick.

"I know," L agrees proudly. "It's not going anywhere near you. Don't touch it."

"Why not?"

"Do you want a list? Well, firstly, it doesn't want to. My arse isn't fussy, but this little fella is used to the finer things in life. Also, you're probably cooking a shit and you might need some stretching out that I can't be bothered to do. And frankly, I doubt that you'd be worth the trouble. This is unpleasant enough as it is, we don't need to add to it. So, none of that seems very appealing to me but I don't mind you fucking me up the arse. I'm sure I can handle your… disappointment."

"Hey, that's not fair, it's cold in here, this isn't a true reflection of—"

"I'm sad to say that I think this is as good as it's going to get. I love your excuses, though. It explains a lot about how you consistently lose cases."

"Ohhh… ok, what do I do?"

"Well, I won't make this too intimidating for you. Let's go back to school. You like cars, don't you?"

"Yeah… Oh God," Namikawa gasps like a weak bitch, whereas L sounds completely unaffected. "How did you learn how to do that?"

"Do what?"

"That… with your hand."

"Home Economics class," L says. "Who knew that learning to make bread could be such a valuable skill?" Oh shit. I sigh from the realisation that L's going to do that husky audiobook voice thing he does sometimes and is generally pulling out all the tricks in his vast repertoire for this, so Namikawa never stood a chance. And somehow I've separated myself from the whole thing. I don't know these people. "Ok. What we're going to do here is make an internal combustion engine. Sounds good, eh?" L tells him.

"Yeah…"

"Yeah. I'm going to give you some advice in a way that you might understand and which you'll thank me for in the future. And so will your wife, I'd imagine. This is your piston, unimpressive as it is, and your hips are your crankshaft. I am the cylinder. The crankshaft makes one revolution while the piston moves into the cylinder and back. Since the piston is connected to the crankshaft, the motion of the piston is dictated by the angle and rotation of the crankshaft, so these hips of yours are very important. Use them. Zero degrees occurs when the piston is inserted to the hilt inside the cylinder. I will accept no less. In one revolution, the piston is up to the hilt when the crank angle is 180 degrees. Don't try any fancy tricks, leave them to me. You have one job. You've got a beat in your head and you need to mix it up sometimes. It's not a funeral march but it's not a Beastie Boys remix either, ok?"

"So... like 'In the Air Tonight' by Phil Collins?"

"O…Ok, but maybe skip the drum rolls. Back to the nitty gritty: the distance travelled by the piston from zero degrees to 180 degrees is called the stroke of the piston. The inside diameter of the cylinder—my arsehole—is called the bore, but believe me, it's not boring."

"Heh."

"It's not funny either. DON'T KISS ME!" L shouts suddenly, making me press my hands against my head and push like I could break through my skull. "That's very, very gay, control yourself. Focus on the job. Are you listening to me?"

"Not really… God, you're good. In all my livelong days, Lawliet."

"I know. Do you want a firm merger?"

"Please… so that's why the Prime Minister left his wife for you," Namikawa says dreamily. Was that really the reason I left her?

"You are not to mention him. I'm trying to teach you something."

"Just saying, you look a bit like a girl when the lights are low."

"What a horrible thing to say. I'll forgive you this once. Right, so, this is important and if you fuck this up I'll throw you out the window. The piston needs lubrication to increase efficiency by reducing power wastage in overcoming friction, or the engine is good for nothing and we won't get any speed up at all. Also, it could fucking hurt, and if it does, remember that there's a window right behind you and I'm a kicker. With me so far? Good. Here you go. Rubber up and apply this liberally to your piston after every stroke for the first three to five strokes or until I tell you otherwise. Slow start until the cylinder is fully lubricated. Don't just fuck me like I'm your wife. I deserve better."

"I don't know, this is sounding too complicated now and you've kind of put me off."

"Really?" L asks, and it's instantly followed by some kind of defeated squeak from Namikawa. I don't want to know what happened then. "It's worth the prep. You won't regret it. Based on reviews I've had from men such as yourself, the general summary is that you should imagine the best sex you've ever had in your life intensified by a considerable percentage. I'm talented. All anyone wants is a tighter orifice. It's oxygen, but you have to work for it. Every man dreams of this, but women just don't want to do it, do they? That's what I hear. I've heard all the justifications, excuses, whatever you want to call them. So, are we doing this or not?"

Apparently they're doing it, and it's at that point that I rush to the phone on the desk to hurl it against the wall. I just pant against my hand until my breathing slows and I can open my eyes again. When the phone hit the wall and bounced on the floor, it was louder than I would have expected, and it's left a blackish dent on the white paint. The floor glistens with tiny shards of the phone that look like stars. It's tangible proof of what just happened, and I say to myself: "Yes. Something just ended, didn't it, Light. He broke it."

Suddenly sickness rots the bones of me. Through the building nausea, I sprint to the kitchen with my mouth covered, and double over the sink to throw up. The used coffee cups L left in the sink catch whatever I spew into them like it's an offering.

As the physical sickness passes, I feel like I'm in the Kantei bathroom all over again. He's dead and there's nothing apart from helplessness; the desolate, puncturing thoughts and images and words race through my mind when there should be the freedom I once had. I expect feelings to wither and die and crunch into dust under my feet like leaves, but they don't. What is love and what is possession and do I feel either? It's every hurt he's given me in one fatal stab: the jealousy, the betrayal, the shaming, how he knew I couldn't do anything because he knows how limited I am by my position and pride. He's thrown it in my face, knows me, knew that I'd feel this way when I didn't think I'd ever feel like this again. I could interfere even now, like ordering my guard to do something, but it's all irrational and too late. Then I realise that it's not the act that hurts me; it's the motivation of sheer vindictiveness behind it.

Who knows why people tell you to splash your face with water at times like this when it makes no difference to how you're feeling. It takes me about twenty minutes of sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of water in front of me before I go back to my office where my murdered phone lies on the floor. The screen is black and cracked now,and I'm reminded that I'm one of those people who takes out their anger on inanimate objects and furniture in lieu of a person. I'm so exhausted and hollow now, that weirdly the first solid thought I have is how L won his bet and still has his car. It'd be nice if he'd lose at something one day.

The house is silent apart from my still too rapid breathing which I try in vain to hush against the back of my hand, but I hear sounds on my dead phone somehow: hitched, metallic noises like Ryuk's laugh. On my computer screen there's still a live stream from the cameras in this house, showing empty rooms with no life in them, but I expect something to happen. I pick up the broken phone again like it's an ancient torture device used to glimpse the world and the lives of others through an onyx scrying mirror; not a part of it, having all the power a man could have, and yet none at all.

Something on my computer screen catches my eye. A wisp of white floats off the corner of one camera's shot, like someone's just crossed the bedroom floor. I'm too scared to go to the room to check, because either I find someone or something there that wants to kill me, or I find nothing, which would mean that I'm seeing things. I lean in close to the camera feeds on the screen. Watching. Waiting. Willing something to happen…

The phone rings. A jolt runs through me and I blink rapidly at the shrill sound. For some reason I assume that it's the broken phone that's ringing, but it's the landline, of course. It rings again and keeps ringing, getting more frustrated by the second. My shirt feels damp and clings to me coldly, and I still can't fucking breathe properly, so I stare at the phone from across the room like I expect it to dance for me. It goes to the answering machine.

We're unable to take your call right now. Please leave a message after the tone.

"Why did you turn your phone off, Light?… That's not like you," L breathes into the phone. I cover my eyes and lean over my desk when I hear some piggish noises in the background, but L's voice is soft and breathy and sounds very close. I can't stand it. "Ahhhh… are you there? I know you're there… I wish that it wasn't like this. I wish I could kiss you the way I want to. I wish you'd let me."

"We agreed, no kissing," Namikawa rushes the words out like it's an immense effort and inconvenience. He sounds far away and partly muffled, so again an image comes into my mind which is so real that it might as well be happening right in front of me. In a way, it is. And I've done nothing to stop it.

"I'm not talking to you," L replies angrily. There are shudders in his voice but I can't tell if the cause is from being fucked or from something else, but it makes him sound very young and cold. Only because of that, I step towards the phone to hear each breath drawn in and expelled like he's in the room with me. With me instead of some used, faceless germ of a man. My madness is confirmed the moment I feel sorry for him for doing this to get to me. Any pain only goes skin deep now, and I'm covered in scars already.

"Light?" his voice whispers out, sounding suddenly panicked, like he's seen an asteroid screaming towards us and it's the last word he'll get a chance to say before he dies. I blink repetitively at the phone as his breath hurries out of the machine, so close now that the sound is distorted and rumbling. "I love…" he says. I wait expectantly, but he never completes it. He's quiet for a while apart from his breathing, but it builds into a frustrated growl until he spits a "fuck you" right into the phone. The line goes dead.

The drone stretches on until the machine, as if it was shocked by the message, realises it's recording a dead line and cuts it off. A green light flashes to tell me there's a message, and for some masochistic reason I want to hear it again, but I don't. Instead, I stare at that blinking green dot and picture him right now, somewhere else, with someone else, doing something he regrets as he's doing it, and I know how that feels. There's always a moment when any reason you had for doing it just doesn't seem so important after all and you regret everything.

Maybe I shouldn't care. Maybe when he comes back, I'll pretend that this never happened. I could do that, and so could he. I was tired. I'm still tired and this was all my fault. I didn't mean what I said even though I did. I should have kept it to myself, because I'd rather have whatever he spat at me than nothing at all. Maybe I'll tell him what he couldn't say to me just now. But spiny words begin to build and form in my throat, and I know that I won't say any of those things.

"You're dead."

I wake up lying face down on the floor, only feeling the rough texture of the tatami mat against the side of my face. but I quickly numb to it and nearly everything else. An echoing boom of drums shakes the ground beneath me, interspersed with laughter which sounds both close and far away at the same time, like waves rushing towards you and retreating hesitantly, over and over again. And all the way through, a high pitched note strings out in my ears. I struggle to open my eyes because I feel so tired, and what little I can see spins like I'm on a fairground ride from hell. The tiredness is so overwhelming that I think that maybe I'm dying, and that panics me enough into trying to lift myself up from the floor, but I collapse back down again immediately.

Again I hear laughter, but I don't know who's laughing, like I don't know where I am or what's wrong with me. All I know is that no one is helping me when I think that I'm drowning, and I can't even help myself. That's what frightens me most, because I'm helpless if I can't rely on myself. That's all I know, so how could this carcass of mine let me down like this now? Then I hear myself laughing. The idea of failure always terrifies me until I can just laugh in the face of it. The sheer dizziness and exhaustion of trying to stay awake and breathing makes me feel as if I'm floating out of my body to touch the sky, and if I am dying then I'm starting to not care anymore. I've wanted to have wings for as long as I can remember.

"I thought you said that he'd be out by now," a voice says. It sounds double tracked and autotuned somehow, I can't explain it, but I recognise the voice. I just can't remember whose it is.

"I slipped him roofie in his drink, and with everything else he's had he'll be out cold in a minute probably. I don't like it if someone's completely gone. It looks a bit… rapey, y'know?"

"It is rapey, Jeevas."

"Alright, Mr Abuse Committee, alright! Fuck, it's not like we're doing anything to him," the second voice replies—Jesus or something—but he sounds slowed down and under water. Nothing seems real now, but his voice also has a vague ring of familiarity. The more I try to remember where I am or what I'm doing here, my head burns like a fucked up, burning engine. Different coloured lights in a dark room? Every time I try to open my eyes it's like they're clamped shut by something stronger than I am. It wants me to crash dramatically and for a long time, so I stop fighting it. But I want to see the lights.

I'm being moved, rolled over, rough pulling and shoving at my shoes and clothes before I'm pushed back over onto my stomach again. Being tossed about in a strong wave by many hands. Oh! What was the name of that goddess with too many arms? That one. Durga or something. It means 'inaccessible'. The room is still spinning and I try to bat my hand at Durga, but it hits nothing apart from when it limply falls back to the floor again. Stop it, Durga.

"Oooh, what's on the meat rack, gentlemen?" asks a new voice which drips with so much money it's like viscous tar, and I really need to stop laughing. All these voices above me. I thought that a deity would sound more… godlike.

"Someone who's just dying to meet you, Higuchi. Get yourself a drink. He'll be ready in a minute." Too many gods now.

"I thought you were getting a girl."

"He's better than a girl."

"Hmmm… but he's a bit old, isn't he?"

"Early twenties, fuck, what do you want? No girls, no kids, them's the rules in Chez Jeevas. They're too talky, anyway. If you don't like it then you'll have to go somewhere else."

"He looks like a politician."

"He's a bag carrier boy."

"He's a researcher, actually."

"Shut up, Miki."

"Whatever he is, I thought you'd be bringing in someone who's not from the House."

"What is your problem, mate? This one's special. He's kind of a pretty boy, isn't he? His name is-"

"It doesn't matter who he is, Jeevas." Janus? And my eyes open enough to see shoes walking away from my face.

"Twisted bastard," Janus whispers. "I bet he's one of those fuckers who just likes strangling eleven-year-olds on boats. God. Maybe Yagami'll need another dose and more vodka to be wasted enough."

"I'm stopping this," the first voice says firmly, and I feel myself being roughly lifted into a kneeling position like a dead weight. There's no blood in my head. "I'll take him back to his flat and let him sleep it off." Yeah, sounds good, whatever.

"Will you calm down?!" the second voice hisses, and I'm dropped to the floor again. "You are not fucking this up for me. This'll be good for both of us. If Higuchi has a good time then we're in as partners, yeah? Yagami might get something out of it as well, you never know. Just remember that. He won't remember a thing, so consider it done already. I don't need to tell you that a lot hinges on this now, do I, Mikami?" Haaa… Mikami. Three - Above. Three gods above and me on the ground. But I don't think that he spells Mikami with those characters. Not sure why I think that.

"I don't like this," Three Above says.

"Oh, boohoo, go then! Pretty boy wants to stay here, DON'T YOU?" the second voice shouts in my face. Too loud. "But if you go, you might as well clear out your desk and any plans you had to run for office. Man up and remember the Brotherhood."

"I didn't bring him here for this and you're making me an accessory."

"Miki. Have another drink and some base and calm the fuck down. This prissy bitch needs to earn his keep, and he won't remember a fucking thing. He's the best I could find. Why the fuck would he think he'd be invited here otherwise. He's just some no name."

"If Penber finds out about this then—"

"Penber's not going to find out shit, Miki, you worry too much. I'm not going to tell him—are you? Thought not. Like he could do anything anyway."

It's sounds like someone left the TV on and it's a shitty programme. I just keep laughing but I don't know why and it doesn't matter to me because nothing does now. It coincides with a small kick in my ribs which is a trigger for nausea from the pit of my stomach that spreads all over me like fire. I try to speak but everything comes out as a slurring mess that leads to more laughter from behind me. I laugh, too, I think. My eyelids feel like they've been stapled shut again.

Any consciousness after that seems to only be for a few seconds at a time and due to more pulling, hands around my waist; rough, worker's hands with clammy skin, fingers like palette knives lifting and turning me over like a fucking pancake. The floating feeling is too physical this time, and the hands never leave me. They grip my hips so firmly that I panic again, turning to reach out in front of me to claw at the floor, desperately trying to drag myself away. The sharp stabs under my fingernails from scratching at the tatami never stop until my arms are held behind my back. The last thing I remember is a blurry, faceless shadow prising my mouth open.

Mikami was there.

I wake up with a start, just relieved to be awake again. I must have fallen asleep at my desk, so I rub my face because I woke up, cheek-side down on my keyboard. What a fucking idiot, probably with a rubiks cube pattern of punctuation embossed on my face.

My head still aches, even more so when I look up at the computer screen that's way too close to my face, and see Shiori in the bedroom on the livefeed. I lazily watch her wander around like she's trapped and searching for something or someone, still in her white dress that's soaked in blood. I'm probably not in the best position to criticise what's obviously the costume of choice for ghosts, but she could try harder or at least figure out how door handles work. Anyway, she's why I can't go to bed. I forgot.

Since the entire first floor is blocked to me, I go to the downstairs bathroom for a piss. I sway while I stand there and really need to concentrate so that I don't just spray piss all over the wall. Not thinking of anything and grateful for the mindless peace of doing something so perfunctory but incredibly difficult right now. For a second I forget everything.

I walk off to wash my hands and probably drown myself while I'm there, but when I round the corner, there's a man standing at the basin with his back to me. I nearly apologise for walking in on someone until I remember that this my fucking house and they're trespassing. They're wearing a black and white striped, long-sleeved t-shirt which stretches tight across his back as he bends over the basin snorting cocaine off the tiles. What the very fuck?

When he stands straight, I see his red hair for the first time and my blood becomes frozen sludge in my veins. He turns towards me in what seems like slow motion, snapping a gold stash tin shut. I recognise it. I recognise him.

"Oh hey, Yagami! Whoa, who died?" he says to me, artificially euphoric to see me. "You look like you need to loosen up. It's no crime to have a good time y'know, bro. Here. Just a little bump from a friend to help you through the night." He opens his stash tin again and offers it to me. I look between the tin and his face, stupefied. "I've got some molly in my coat too, wherever it is. You know you love molly."

I watch his smirk slowly spread from ear to ear like a gaping slash. When I take a few steps back, his face starts to smoulder before just bursting into flames; it burns like someone's holding a blowtorch at his face. The skin bubbles and pops and crackles and blackens, and when he speaks again, the words sound like the slow rumble of an underground train coming to a stop.

"Come on, Yagami. Don't be such a boring fuck."

He shouts after me as I run away, but I'm hyperventilating so much that I can't hear him now. My heart feels like it's going to blast out of my chest by the time I reach the door to the sun room. I open it like it's a gateway to a sanctuary, but as soon as I do I'm confronted with Jeevas again, inches away from my face.

"I'm feeling a bit crispy, mate. Have you got any hand cream?" he says, turning his hands over to show me charred, split palms dusted with that fine grey powder I last saw on L's body and on my hands. Vomit rises up my throat when I see it, and I run again before he finishes speaking.

Once I get to the corridor, I start to slow down—bouncing off bookshelves and knocking pictures off the wall because I can't seem to walk in a straight line. When I hear Jeevas shouting, I start to run again, but I run past a woman standing on a chair. I see her at out of the corner of my eye at first, but just that much is enough to make me stumble back against the wall. Sensible blue heels, a blue skirt suit, a pearl necklace. She's tying a noose to a rafter. She slowly turns to look at me, and as she does, her head lolls to one side like her neck is boneless.

I slowly step backwards from her as I did when she was alive. Never disrespect The Lady by turning your back on her was something that was drummed into me before I was even an MP. She commanded the respect that I always aspired to have and will never have now, unless…

As if she heard my thoughts, she opens her mouth impossibly wide to scream: long and piercing like a siren. The sound follows me as I run down the dim corridor to get to the kitchen, past the silhouettes of dozens of people pressing their hands against the wall of glass to get to me. Some have cameras that flash in my face, blinding me.

But I am the camera.

The people are outside a window above a sheer cliff face drop that's at least 60 feet above the sea. As impossible as all this is, the fear won't let me think logically that maybe this is just another nightmare I can't wake up from. I'm experiencing this. This is no dream.

As soon as I cross the threshold of the kitchen, breathless and holding onto the doorway for support, I'm faced with the room not being as I left it. All of the cupboard doors and drawers are open. Smashed plates litter the entire floor. A tall man in an apron is standing behind the island worktop. He's holding up a gun in one hand and a butcher's knife in the other, and smiling at me so maniacally that his blue eyes look glazed over by frost.

"Hi, Prime Minister! Let me show you my boat!" he says, but I run away again. He calls after me just like Jeevas did, and for some reason I look behind me to see that he's moved to the doorway. He's a silhouette against the bright white of the kitchen, but he's still holding up his knife and gun like an orb and sceptre. "I was hot rodding it…" he says, "but I'm not sure where it is."

When I get back to my office, I lock the doors and pull the blinds when I'm sure that no one else is in there. This is a holy place, and I light four incense sticks and clap three times to confirm it. The only sound after that is of my own breathing that's now ragged and desperate, so I fall into my armchair in the corner of the room to put my head in my hands and wrench at my hair. The only thing to fear is fear itself, which sounds reasonable unless you have a shitload of ghosts in your house.

When I lift my head, it's because I sense that I'm not alone even now. Raye stands in a dark corner opposite me, arms crossed. Judging me.

"Did you know? I didn't want anyone to know," I say quietly, but he doesn't reply. He's just like a statue without any emotion. How he looks at me makes me feel guilty for what I've thought of doing about Naomi. Both Raye and Naomi are so linked in my mind I can't separate them. "I don't have any choice, Raye. She could ruin me with what she knows," I tell him like I'm begging for understanding and an approval that I know will never come. "She betrayed you, anyway. She'll do the same to me. I can't even say that it's because she's a woman, because men are just as bad. Remember when you said that trusting anyone in the House is the same as giving them a loaded gun? I agreed with you then and I agree with you now. I've lived by it, but it's true whether they're in the House or not. You can't trust anyone, and you can't argue with me about that. I mean, look at you. You're dead!" I laugh, but he doesn't. His stare is so piercing with a hatred I never saw from him in life, and a thin line of blood slowly runs down from his forehead. "Don't look at me like that. Raye, I said STOP LOOKING AT ME!"

I impulsively reach towards the table next to me to grab my Holmegaard ashtray and throw it at him as I shout, but it speeds straight through his head to shatter against the wall. For some reason, that calms me. He can't touch me. None of them can hurt me now.

"So you are dead," I mutter to myself, rubbing my lips with my shaking finger. "I remember, I saw you. I was going to destroy them and I will, I just… got distracted. You know that, probably. I gave him a loaded gun. Even after I knew that he… I tried, Raye, but I can't trust anyone. You know, if I sleep, I just see you with that hole in your head and I think, how could they do that to you? Just end you like that, not just killing you, but shooting what made you special was an insult. It was symbolic, wasn't it, how you died? I don't know if that was L's idea or The Lady's, but I want to think it was a Cabinet decision because… I didn't want to believe that he was involved, Raye. At first, I thought: 'Ok, I'll use him and bring him down with the rest of them,' because I didn't care about him. But then I did and I'm sorry," I whisper like I'm confessing to a priest, but he says nothing.

Wiping my nose on the back of my hand, I wait and wish that he'd say something, good or bad, but he might as well be a cardboard cutout. It's as though our roles have reversed, because he used to confess to me and I'd listen, absorb information and offer nothing in return. Now our places have changed.

"They want to kill me now," I mutter. "Everyone does. And he does. L. He says that he doesn't but who'd believe that? You'd have to be pretty stupid, wouldn't you? I've been pretty stupid. A funny thing I noticed was that I wanted whatever feelings I had to be shared by him. That's all I wanted and I wanted it so badly. I'd never felt it before and I feel sick from it because it never goes away, even now when… I think about him all the time, I have done for years. Do you know what I mean or is it really just me? No one talks about it; they're just smiley, happy, smug bastards. But he's no different from the rest of them. So you see, I'm just defending myself. They don't deserve to live anymore, do they? None of them."

As soon as I say that, what I thought was Raye appears to glitch like an old videotape so that his image is overlaid with that of Ryuk. It flickers between the two repeatedly and so quickly that I'm convinced they're just gearing up to judder towards me suddenly. That is until the lights in the room fail. All that's left is my own hitched, choked breathing in a room of complete darkness.

That universal childhood fear of the dark returns to me for new blood to feed on, but knowing that Ryuk is here just makes me determined to find him. The lights are on in other rooms, because I can see them as a glowing sliver under the door. I approach the door to unlock it, only pausing for a moment to evaluate whether this is really what I want to do. It's what I need to do. I can't have come this far to lose now, so I open the door and step outside.

Cold air hits me and makes me blink from the shock of it. When I close the door behind me and stand in the living room, waiting, I turn the light off to test it. It switches itself back on immediately, but the light flickers now. No, it's not just that. It's as though the lights are revolving—spinning in mid-air. Different parts of the room are illuminated then cast into shadow on rotation, and the flickering looks as if wings of a thousand birds are circling around the light as it spins.

Other lights in the house go dark but some remain on in what appears to be a line through the house. This could all be interpreted as an electrical fault, but I take it as a phenomenon that I shouldn't ignore. So I follow this luminescent breadcrumb trail, and the lights flash and die as I pass them. Only a light in the hall remains, so I walk towards it, and when I reach it, that light blows. I cower beneath it as the glass of the light bulb shatters over my head, so then I'm left in complete darkness again apart from a thin line of light from under the door of a spare room. It's a small room I planned to have knocked through at some point, but for now it's used for storage, and is so innocuous that I'd almost forgotten that it's there. It's unlocked, whereas L's office is always locked, and logic suggests that rooms are locked only when there's something inside that's worth hiding. L's office was a mask. It'd make sense for someone like L to do that. So, this is where he's kept the death note all this time.

When I open the door, the light stays on so I can see the intimidating number of box towers and tall furniture stacked up like a cityscape. Much of the furniture are covered with dust sheets, and I really don't know where to start looking.

It hits me, when looking at this redundant or rejected stuff which sentimentality prevents us from throwing away, that all of these things have stories unknown to anyone else. I root through boxes, getting increasingly frustrated by the sheer mass of what I have to look through, and knowing that I need to think like L in order to find it. Freud's theory is that hoarding is a result of punishment during toilet training, and that a hoarder, like L, is simply trying to replace what they feel they lost during childhood. From what I've read, I think Freud cut and pasted that reasoning to explain every psychological problem going. Modern thinking is that compulsive hoarders are comforted by their possessions, because of their fear of being left with nothing at all. Either way, it's messy as fuck.

Now in a rage at my ongoing failure when faced with all this shit which is mostly L's, I rip down dust sheets from what turns out to be my erotic netsuke cabinet, and from Hephaestion who's still languishing, which leaves the tallest thing in the room to unveil. When I pull the sheet off it, a pair of yellow eyes in a dead face stare back at me like a hideous noh mask. I stagger back and trip over a box so that I end up on the ground from the unexpected horror of it. I'd think that I'd be more accustomed to Ryuk by now, but not when he just pops up like a demonic jack-in-the-box.

He points at my feet, and I presume that he doesn't mean my slippers, so I push some boxes out of the way and pull back the rug that covers the floor. Under that are some parquetry floorboards that don't look disturbed at first glance, but when I use my penknife as a pry bar, it's clear that this isn't the first time that they've been removed. After I take out the first piece, the others quickly follow like breaking up a jigsaw, until I find… a red apple. My disappointment is indescribable. I toss it towards Ryuk, who grabs it greedily and laughs like hyena before he holds it over his open and waiting mouth. I watch him, transfixed by how foreboding it is to see him relish the moment before he drops the apple into the cavernous crater, chews it, and spits out the spine of a stalk. That's exactly what he does with lives.

I have to look away for my own sanity, back at the hole I've made in the floor. My slowness of mind from tiredness is so frustrating, because it takes me a moment to realise that the apple was only sitting on top of what was really hidden. Under where the apple was, there's a black book, face down, just lying there, blending in with the dark camouflage between the floor joists. It's almost insulting to see how little effort L put into hiding it.

As I'm holding the book in both hands as a bequeathed holy relic, Ryuk walks towards the wall on my right like it's not there. A thin, electric blue field glows around him as he passes through the wall, leaving me with the book and no answers. I should be shocked, because every time I see him it's like being thrown into a strange scientific anomaly, but I've accepted a lot of bizarre things in the last few years. My head throbs painfully with every strained heartbeat.

I resist writing a name at first. Part of me wants my first to be a glorious moment in ending someone who deserves this kind of justice. I could look back on it with pride. People would thank me if they knew, because I did what they could not. But I sit cross-legged on the floor with a blank double-page spread of the notebook in my lap, pen-clicking and pen-spinning obsessively while I consider writing a particular name with only a purely selfish motive behind it. I reason with myself that I should test the Death Note. It's a scientific investigation of a curiosity and no more. Every scientific test needs a lab rat, and like a lab rat, no one will mourn his passing in aid of the greater good.

The first name I write in the Death Note is Reiji Namikawa.

I spend the night slumped at my desk like a broken puppet, looking up at the camera feeds on my computer. The house is pinked with sunrise daylight, when I do actually notice it, and my mind has reset itself into a calmer state. I make a trail of my clothes to the pool and swim slow lengths until I feel more alive and can begin to formulate my script for what happens next. I like planning. It brings some comfort of order into the chaos of life.

When I go to our bedroom without even thinking of the danger I'd imagined to be in there—in fact, I don't actually remember it until I'm in the shower, when it doesn't seem to matter at all—I develop a theory. Maybe Shiori just wanted me to have the Death Note like Ryuk did. She must've just wanted the best for me. Everyone wants the best for me; I'm told that in letters to my office from supporters about 200 times a day. Actually, I don't get quite so many letters now, but that's L's fault. I'm sure that they still want the best for me, though. I want the best for me too.

So used to the silence of the house now, I nearly jump out of my skin when a guard calls to tell me that L spent most of the night at the firm and that it looks like he's on his way back. Marvellous. It's not where he was, but whatever. They must be glossing over the truth for my sake. They want the best for me as well, not humiliation. L is not the best for me.

So, what should I do now? I pack a bag, order a new phone, and put my broken one in the microwave for five minutes just to see what happens.

Since the lights came back on they haven't malfunctioned since, though they're not necessary now that it's 8am. I should just think of it as an electrical peculiarity to be expected in the countryside, I suppose.

Sourcing the original Model B3 chairs made such a good investment. None of this reproduction shit. These chairs aren't comfortable, but, frankly, comfort isn't what makes them a design classic. What makes them a design classic is precisely why I'm sitting in one now. This chair gives you a feeling of sophisticated anticipation in waiting, whereas lesser chairs promote indulgent laziness. I can't be allowed to forget who I am.

Eventually a car pulls up outside, of course. I stand only to take off my jacket and remove my cufflinks before I roll up the cuffs of my shirt and take my seat again. In my mind, I've been rehearsing what will happen for hours, so this all feels as natural as breathing now. I'm extremely good at planning.

Perhaps because I haven't slept in so long, all minute sounds pierce my eardrums like the sharpest of arrows. The door is opened after a brief jangle of keys, and a tall man in a dark suit walks in slowly like reverse footage of how he left. After seeing me about 20 feet away from him and being disappointed in my lack of enthusiasm, he takes off his coat and drops it on the nearest chair when he walks towards the stairs.

"And how is Aiber?" I ask him, causing him to stop and stretch his neck out from side to side tiredly before he answers.

"You know that he moved abroad years ago. I haven't had reason to speak to him since and didn't feel like getting a flight to Cape Town for a flying fuck. Sorry, I mean, visit."

"Then who was it this time?"

"The new paralegal I hired who looks like Idris Elba, if you must know. His name is Makepeace, which is hilarious, all things considered," he says easily, but tiredly decides to change his story. "Actually, I didn't see anyone apart from a security guard. And before you say anything, I do have some standards, and he'd have to be one hell of a security guard to warrant any lowering of my standards. As it is, I'm supporting Japan's Silver Human Resources and hired an 83-year-old great-granddad for the night shift two nights a week. You didn't know that, did you. That I'm supporting a government subsidised program because you would not shut up about the ageing population and dwindling workforces, with bonus statistics because you like statistics. I did listen. Anyway, I went to the firm, and with only an ancient man within fucking distance and not really wanting what would probably end up in being a fatal sexual assault charge being slapped on me after such a long day, I tried to sleep, which didn't happen. I'm guessing that you didn't sleep either? No?" he asks, and when I don't answer him, he sighs. "Did you have your guards tail me? What an excellent way to waste money… Ok! Well, you're not expected at the Kantei today. I told them that you were working from home, so you might as well go to bed, or at least make yourself useful and make pancakes or something."

"How could you do that to me?" I ask him, having discarded whatever he said as soon as he said it.

"What? I'm sorry, but you'll have to remind me of what I did, Light."

"Don't treat me like an idiot. You know exactly what you did."

"I really don't. I told you what I did and I don't see how that could be hurtful to you. Since you had your guards follow me then you'd know this already."

"Namikawa."

"Nami… ha, sorry. What about Namikawa? That's a bit random, I wasn't expecting that."

"Are you seriously going to lie about it? You know that I don't believe what you say about what you did last night, don't you?" I say calmly, proceeding to take off my tie and open the top two buttons of my shirt. "I know what you did."

He looks confused as he watches me take off my tie, before shrugging and smiling to himself. "Ok, Light. Whatever you think I did, I must have done it."

He starts to walk away after totally ad libbing the fuck out of the script I'd set out for him. I don't remember standing, but suddenly I'm running towards his back and driving him into the wall. I turn him around to punch the side of his face. It sends him a couple of feet away from me to stumble and fall to the floor. Even though I wanted this and part of me always expects it, my body fizzes from hot blood rushing inside me like I've never felt alive before. I breathe deeply and watch him rub his jaw where I hit him. I naturally put my guard up and tuck my chin down in readiness for the inevitable. When he looks up at me, a spatter of blood at the corner of his lip, he knows that I regret nothing. Something about his eyes instantly shows how furious he is, and he runs at me like it's some kind of ugly rugby scrum.

There's nothing refined and gentlemanly about how we fight. It's shocked, messy and unrestrained brutality in trying to hurt each other as best we can without weapons, and for a second I realise that we really are just animals fighting over some infringement of territory. I'm not concerned with any potential damage to either of us; I just want to hurt him. I want to inflict the most base, purest pain on him like that's my only purpose in life. From experience, I know what hurts the most—I wore unforgiving Carmina black Oxfords with steel toe caps especially for this—and after landing punches while simultaneously being punched by him, I pull myself together and aim for his neck in particular. There are so many nerves and arteries in one place in a stupidly flawed anatomical design which make an ideal target, like a bunch of them lying there waiting to be hacked at, and that makes me consider something irrelevant. I don't think that people realise that the origins of bowing are so animalistic, like a dog rolling on its back in deferential submission. You're making yourself vulnerable, exposing the back of your head, not out of politeness, but to demonstrate that you are no threat and that you're resigned to defeat as the weakest. I haven't bowed like that for years for this reason. Because it'd be a lie.

I hit him soundly just behind his ear. He falls again and tries to put some distance between us to allow him to recover, but I won't let him. The punches fall like a bombing raid then and any pause is only because of some hit I couldn't block or dodge. I'm temporarily stunned by dizziness, gasping from exploding pain by hits to my solar plexus, unprotected kidneys, or stomach, though each time it's almost immediately eradicated by a force of adrenaline.

Driven on by pure rage—lashing out at him instinctively, and joyous when I feel my knuckles hit his jaw and see his head spin to the left. When he turns back towards me, I hit him on the other side and wish that I was wearing a knuckle duster. I'm surprised only by how he tries to roundhouse me like a punchdrunk idiot, when every fucker knows that never works unless the other person is asleep. I can block his attempts so easily once he starts obviously getting tired, breathing heavily, knocking over the dining chairs we've never used, and bouncing off the walls, but always running back towards me, trying to knock me down. He grabs at my clothes to throw me off balance. I block any headshots with my elbows, guarding my face and pivoting around him while he tries to blitz me with head punches and kicks like we're still in school. It occurs to me that he probably hasn't found it necessary to do a self-defense class like I have, because you just never know when some angry feminist with unmanicured nails and a balaclava is going to come at you these days.

Since he's been slowing down for a while now but stubbornly not giving up, it's predictable that he finally backs off, bent double and holding his hand up to me as a white flag I have no intention of accepting. I give him an oblique kick just above his knee to show him how it should be done, forcing his knee back against its natural bend, stretching muscles and tendons so that he buckles and falls against the wall. It's nice when a plan comes together. Not that I ever doubted it would.

"Ok… ok," he breathes out, pulling his knee towards him so that he ends up sitting against the wall. I feel a sudden urge to check my face for any damage, but just because he appears to have conceded doesn't mean that he can be trusted. In the unlikely event that this went badly for me, I reasoned that any cuts and bruises and broken teeth and bones would be easy to explain. Politicians are punched every day, and usually by each other over security bills in the House. There was an article two years ago which described me as a passionate ronin who'll fight only for peace or to protect my honour. I'm protecting my honour and much else besides.

I only feel overwhelmed by sadness and a hopelessness which is somehow encapsulated by looking down at L, bloody and bruised on the ground, and knowing that I caused it yet don't regret it, even if I don't rejoice in it. I step away from him and half-fall onto the couch to massage the pain in the side of my head where L got one heavy punch in early on. I catch the movement of my reflection in the polished blue labradorite that covers the wall behind L, broken in the flashes of iridescent blues, golds and peacock greens captured in the shining black mirror of granite. Why did I put so much effort into this house if I was only to live within it for such a short time? I thought I'd live a long life here, though I never really believed it. I wanted it to be beautiful, so that everywhere I'd look, I'd be surrounded by a gorgeous frame for a life that I'd chosen for myself. In retrospect, L never really cared about that either. He never cared because he knew it wouldn't last for long. We were both just pretending throughout the last few months. Maybe long before then. Now I understand why most of his things were just left in boxes next to sculptures under dust sheets, just like I was kept in his bed under sheets as one of the most precious things he owned. This house was just another temporary piece in his collection, like I was, and he'll sell us both off soon. There were warning signs everywhere and I just refused to see them.

L's breathing calms, and I take that as a cue to stand, closing my eyes to stave off the delayed unsteadiness of being in a storm at sea, rocked by walls of waves as high as the sky. I put my jacket and coat over my arm, pick up my overnight bag, and turn my back to L.

"Going back to the wife?" L asks me quietly, but somehow the sound bounces and echoes around this lonely, empty house. "She is still your wife, I suppose, and she'll take you back. Just a mistake. Back to the comforting arms of the Madonna, eh?" he adds bitterly, but it's a tone I'm so accustomed to that I don't really take in what's being said.

A shadow passes through the edge of my vision, causing me to turn towards it until all I see is L—thin and crumpled on the floor like wreckage in this house which seems so ridiculous to me now. He nods slowly to himself as if he's answering questions he always knew the answers to, which draws my attention to his rising bruises and broken skin. All the blood on his face. I did that.

I turn to walk to the door, making a point of dropping my house key to make a hollow, mournful sound of finality on the console table. There's blood on my hands like a beautiful varnish, and I turn them over to see them shine. But L's voice follows me throughout it all, breezing over me as I stand there in my stillness.

"I wanted to hurt you like you hurt me. But love is a cruelty we inflict upon ourselves, isn't it. This is as much my fault as it is yours," he admits, and still in the same desperately melancholy tone that sounds like the death of something. "I've known men who've never loved anyone, and they live long lives. I wanted to be like them so that I could accomplish something and never be hurt, like you, I think. But I love and I think it will kill me. You don't need to worry now, Light. The only one who'll die is me."

I recognise that he's trying to shock me into some kind of mad panic for his life with the lightning strike that he loved me, but instead I turn to stare at him blankly. I feel so strongly that I've experienced this many times before, it creates nothing but a familiar tiredness and emptiness in me. The firestorm of emotions burnt me out a long time ago, maybe. Or perhaps we really have been here before and nothing's changed. It's crushing to realise that, for a time, I believed that we could make it different. It's all his fault that we didn't.

L draws his knees towards his chest in a weak defence as I approach to kneel in front of him. My thumb brushes against his cheek slowly, like I'm drawing a tender outline of his features, sensing any tension in him fade through my gentleness, and feeling him put his forgiving hand on the back of my head. Then I lean towards him and kiss where my thumb has passed over.

"L, do you know?" I whisper, so close and soft as my lips glance over his ear that it makes me close my eyes and almost forget myself for a moment, "Gods of Death who only eat apples… have red hands."

When I pull away, I see his eyes wide and staring at mine with horror from the understanding of a cryptic message. Yes, Love, I own the Death Note now. I know everything. Every lie of yours has been sliced open to shed truth like blood.

My crimson-streaked hand slips to his shoulder while my other hand locks onto his hair, but he doesn't seem to notice. He focuses on what's behind me for a moment, his mouth opening with voiceless words before he looks back at me and my smile.

"Light, don't—" he rushes out, terrified. It'd be so gratifying if he was anyone else.

But, no, what I don't want or need is to hear any orders, so it's a good time to smash the back of his head against my labradorite wall behind him. The first hit only causes him to let out a low grunt and to grab at my hands. The second hit makes his hands fall to his sides. And the third was unnecessary, probably.

After I let go of him, he slides down to one side. There's blood on the wall, tainting the winter colours and pearlescent lustre of the Northern Lights trapped in mineral. That's what the ancients thought explained the colours of labradorite—the spirits of the dead forever entombed in stone—that's why I bought it, because I loved it, but now it's spattered with blood. There's blood everywhere. I look down at my split knuckles, angry from where the bones have collided with his face, and I instinctively reach to touch my nose and find that it's bleeding. My only clear thought is how I can withdraw from the attempted suicide of having known him?

"He's not dead," a gravelly, vaguely disappointed voice says behind me, though initially I think that it's my voice. As if it's a prompt, I look back at L.

"You're mine now, yes?" I say, talking to God but looking at L. "You're not to talk to him again, do you understand?"

"I don't have to do what you say, but there's no need for me to talk to him now. I go where the Death Note goes," God replies.

"I'd call an ambulance but it'd be in the papers. He never called an ambulance for me, so why should I bother? You were there then, too, weren't you."

"He'll live. Like you did," God tells me disinterestedly. "Are you worried about him?"

I turn my face to my right, towards where the voice is coming from at my shoulder, and pause before I speak. But only to breathe.

"Did you see Shiori here? In the bedroom last night? She followed me home."

"No. He was right about that. You're mad. It should be interesting."