Disclaimer: As you're probably already aware, I do not own Death Note.

A/N: you could also call this a sequel to my other stories, Heat and Bleed; an AU timeline as if Duality never took place. But saying so would be something of a stretch, because this isn't, at least not really. I did this mostly as an experiment – and because I've never really properly written Near before. Rated for flashbacks, mild sexual content, and Mello's potty mouth in later chapters. Takes place during Chapter 109, the Death Note one-shot. With lyrics provided by Oingo Boingo. Please R&R.

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Cupidity

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here in my humble room at night

i often wonder what goes on out there

what makes them runs so scared

i often stare at the people passing by

but they can't see me through my window shades

(it's like i'm not even here)

--

The first time Near meets Sayu is at the graveyard, on the anniversary of Light's death, when the grass is damp with dew and the rolling hillsides are still shrouded in the early-morning mist. He is here chasing shadows (L, elusive even in death, with his elaborate but unmarked gravestone, and Mello, with the simple yet elegant plot), and Sayu is mourning the loss of her only brother. The fact that their visitation falls on the same day could be called coincidence, but really it isn't. They are both grieving here, but for different reasons. Near has picked this day because Light's death is something of a complicated relief - and he honors L's sacrifice, Mello's sacrifice; those who had fallen first in the line of duty, the ones who paved the way in order for Near to defeat Light in the end.

(And perhaps a part of him wants to check up on Light's own grave - extravagant, expensive, and entirely too gaudy for Near's taste - to make sure that the body is still in the Earth, that Kira hasn't risen again. Although Near does not consider himself a superstitious person by any means, he has seen things out of this world, and is weary and a little mistrustful as a result.)

Fortunately, when Near reaches Light's plot (on his way out, after properly paying his respects to those worthy of them), he is relieved to find that Kira's tomb is undisturbed, except for the lone figure kneeling beside it, almost as if in reverence. Near can't help but pause, hesitant and a little curious, peering through the swirling fog to get a better look.

Eventually the woman slowly gets to her feet and glances back at him. Their eyes meet, endless black and soulful browns, and Near belatedly realizes that he has seen her before, at least from afar. Sayu Yagami stares back unabashedly, and Near is struck by how unselfconscious she is, even with muddy jeans and a tear-streaked face.

"Did you know him?" she finally asks, and her voice is slightly hoarse from lack of use.

Near doesn't know how to respond at first. "We've... met," he says finally, twirling an ivory strand of his hair absently around his forefinger. Sayu is watching him with an expectant expression, as though she is waiting for him to indulge her further. Near doesn't like this at all, and although his face remains as impassive and unreadable as ever, his insides are beginning to churn.

What do you want from me? he thinks, as Sayu continues to watch him intently, waiting. You won't like anything I have to say. I promise.

"Light was a good man," Sayu tells him in a strange voice, as if she can sense his disapproval. As if his dislike for Light is written across his face (and maybe it is, evident in the slight crease of his eyebrows, the faint down-turned shape of his mouth.) As if she's trying to somehow convince him.

You don't know how wrong you are, Near thinks cynically. She's hopeless in devotion, blind and oblivious. But Near can't find it in himself to blame her in her foolishness, because it isn't her fault, no, not really. Although the fair-haired prodigy is vague on the details, he knows that the Japanese Task Force had never revealed Light's true identity to his remaining family, Sayu included; Mr. Aizawa and the others had instead fed them some cock-and-bull story about Light dying valiantly by Kira's hands, his last victim before succumbing to the darkness himself. He thinks that they did Sayu and her mother a disservice in withholding the truth from them, but ultimately the decision was not his to make, and so Near says nothing.

Sayu's gaze hardens, as though daring him to contradict her. Eventually, Near shrugs.

"I didn't know him very well," Near says slowly, deliberately choosing his words with care. "But from what I did see he certainly was..." a vast multitude of words go whirling through his head (manipulative, calculating, insane) but the one he settles on is: "...Brilliant."

And it's the truth, because Light was brilliant. Near gives credit where it was due, and Light almost beat him. How alarmingly close he got to achieving his goals is enough to give other men shivers, but Near remains blank, almost numb. Sayu's expression immediately softens.

"Y-yeah, he was, wasn't he?" she whispers. "We all miss him so very much." She blinks, as if suddenly remembering something. "I'm sorry. We haven't met before. My name is Sayu. I'm Light's sister."

Near regards her apprehensively, unsure of how to proceed. He wasn't under the impression that this was an encounter where introductions were deemed necessary. He doesn't like how talkative she is, how determined she seems to be to draw this out. "My name is Near."

"How did you know my brother?" she inquires, and Near frowns at her. This was exactly what he had been afraid of: more questions. "Through school?"

It would have been easy enough to agree with her, to lie. She's probably used to it - being lied to, that is. The whole foundation is which Sayu and her brother's relationship was based upon was composed entirely of falsities, after all. Light lived a double-life in his later years, and must have been very good at it, because it's clear that Sayu still very much adores him. Perhaps it is this that causes Near to respond the way that he does, to opt for the truth instead.

"No," he says quietly. "Through work."

"So you were involved the Kira investigation too?" Sayu asks interestedly. "Did you work with Light and my dad, then?"

"Yes, but I worked for a different organization, the SPK." He sees no harm in disclosing this little piece of information. "At the time, it was a rogue group, acting independently of L."

"My brother worked for L, you know," Sayu says proudly.

Your brother killed L, Near doesn't say. Sayu looks as though she would like to talk some more, but suddenly the front of her jacket lights up and Sayu makes an apologetic face, reaches in and produces a phone. She takes one glance at caller ID and then frowns. "It's my mom," she explains distractedly, before glancing back up at Near. "I probably should get going. It was nice meeting you, Near." She doesn't wait for him to return the sentiments; instead, she wags her fingers at him in a parody of a wave and just like that, she's gone, fey-like, disappearing into the mist that surrounds them.

--

The next Near sees Sayu is shortly after the murders begin anew, the handiwork of a second supernatural killer, a cowardly criminal that doesn't deserve to be called Kira. But the heart-attacks have gotten the rumor mill going again, and Japan is abuzz with the talk of a second coming, a second judgment. Near is not impressed in the slightest.

Idiots, he thinks, disgusted by their hopeful faces as they crowd around the TV sets in a store window, whispering conspiratorially amongst one another. Near spots Sayu in their midst, a little off to the left of the main crowd. She does not look eager like the others; her eyes are wide, watching the newscasters emblazoned on the screen before in distress, not pleasure.

It would be easy enough to move past her, to make his way toward the front of the doors of the mall and leave it all behind. She is lost in her own world, and does not notice Near's familiar floating face in the sea of people behind her. Something about her anguish moves him, however, inspires him to lean in and address her.

"Sayu."

She jumps in surprise at the sound of her name, and suddenly whirls around to face him. She looks mildly confused at first, before she remembers who he is. "Oh! I remember you, from the graveyard!" Her eyebrows knit together as she tries to recall his name. "You're..."

"...Near," the albino offers, and she frowns unhappily at him.

"I would have remembered," she tells him, although Near still doesn't quite believe her.

--

Somehow this will eventually lead to them going out to dinner, at Sayu's insistence.

"I'm sorry," she tells him, over and over. "I just don't want to be alone. Not… today."

She's chewing on her lower lip, and Near knows that she's wondering if Kira has somehow come back. Near does not. "It's not Kira," he tells her, and she looks up at him in surprise, just as one of the bus boys comes buy and pours them each a glass of water. Near waits until he ambles off before continuing. "The method is the same, but the motive is not. Kira killed criminals, right?"

"Yeah, but…" Sayu begins uncertainly.

"Sayu," Near says stoically, reasonably. "I worked for the SPK, remember?"

"That's right," Sayu says vaguely, in recollection. She seems to realize his area of expertise on the matter, and it visibly relaxes her. "The SPK has probably been disbanded since the case was closed, right?" Near nods. "Do you think they'll start it back up again now that there's another Kira on the loose?"

"Sayu," Near says, a little disgustedly, "don't call him that."

The brunette looks confused.

"He isn't fit to hold the title of Kira. This person… he's nothing but an imposter. And a poor one, at that."

Sayu is regarding him disapprovingly, as though Near is putting Kira on some kind of pedestal, glorifying him. The severe look in her eyes is almost enough to make him smile. Your brother, Sayu, he thinks wryly. The gravestone that you were worshipping. Kira.

"You didn't answer my question," Sayu says, and her tone is vaguely accusing.

"Oh." He folds and refolds his hands awkwardly in his lap, itching for one of his toys. This has been the longest time in years that he's been without some kind of trinket rolling between his fingers, and it's an awkward feeling. He considers reaching into the plastic bag at his feet, filled with several decks of cards he had bought earlier today in the mall, but he's afraid that Sayu might think he's weird if he does so. Then he shakes his head. Why should he care what she thinks?

"Excuse me for a moment," he says, disappearing beneath the table as Sayu stares on in befuddlement. A few seconds later and he re-merges, tearing the plastic sealing of a deck as he does so. He pulls the cards free from their sleek little box, shuffling them absently as he settles back into his chair. "Yes, I suppose the SPK might be… called to arms, so to speak," he admits, and he takes three cards and puts the rest aside, making the beginning foundation for what it is going to be a tower. "Whether our members will be willing to take action, however, is a different story entirely."

He is referring to himself, in particular. All day his phone has been vibrating in the pants of his pajama bottoms, the numbers of Rester, Lidner, and Gevanni showing up on his caller ID. Near is the only one reluctant of the SPK to take action – the only one who isn't quite sure how to respond to the threat. All day he has been mulling over what L would have done, if he were still well and very much alive. L always decided on pursuing criminals on a case-by-case basis; Near wasn't even sure if his predecessor would deem this entire thing worthy of his attention. He wished he could ask him, but he knew he could not, because L was dead.

And the reason he was dead was this girl's brother, her nearest kin. How strange to think that this girl and Light were related, that they were one of the same. He could see the resemblance, the similarity in the slope of their nose, the color of their skin. But Sayu was dark where Light was light (or was it the other way around?), with rich, coffee-colored hair and eyes the color of earth. She had a rounder face, and was what Near might have considered attractive, although perhaps just slightly less so than her elder brother.

But even still, the similarities (and how small they were!) ended there, being only skin-deep. Sayu was… less intelligent, yes, but more honest, most certainly; she naive and reproving and easy to read. A more colorful term Near might have used would be "stupid", except that she wasn't, she was just easily overshadowed by her elder, more gifted brother.

She's not really unlike Mello, Near realizes, surprising even himself with the revelation. Mello was always runner-up, always second, good-but-not-the-best. Sayu was, too, but Near could imagine that she was probably happy at one point, at least before this whole mess began; content with her place in the world. He could see other traces of Mello in her, too: there is something calculating about this woman, something shrewd. It connects him to another world, a place dominated by a volatile, angry blond.

"You know, you remind me of someone," Sayu says, startling Near out of his reverie. He looks up from his house of cards, which is now slowly expanding outwards to become a city. "Back when my dad was the Director of the NPA, I was abducted and held hostage by a mafia group." Near's heart begins to beat a little faster and he stiffens. "The leader of that group was named Mello. You remind me of him."

Near's hand wavers, and suddenly, just like that, the tower falls, taking out the surrounding areas with it. "I doubt I'm hardly comparable," he says slowly, trying desperately to keep his voice even, "to a kidnapper."

"You even look a little alike," Sayu says, and Near looks up to regard her stonily. "Somewhere around the eyes." Almost immediately he looks away again, gathering up the fluttering remnants of his structure, setting them aside in a neat little pile off near his right elbow.

Her timing is coincidental, or maybe not. Near gets the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps Sayu knows more than she has let on; that she's more well-informed than she originally led him to believe. Perhaps she picked up a few tricks from Light when she knew him, the Great Deceiver, the world's most notorious liar.

"Funny," Near mumbles, although he doesn't think so in the slightest: "I was just thinking the same thing about you."