Disclaimer : I don't own Death Note, or Moulin Rouge.

L was on his way to his room. He had spent the past thirty-six hours watching Light and Misa in their imprisonments. It was exhausting watching them all day, and despite the urgent need to prove his theory of Light and Misa being the first and second Kira, he was tired and felt he had earned himself a little nap.

On his way to his room, he was surprised to hear a sound coming from one of the rooms, for it was nearly three in the morning! Who on Earth would be up this late, unless of course, like himself, they had been doing important work on the Kira case? He had dismissed the rest of the investigation team hours ago; who could possibly still be awake?

His curiosity getting the best of him, he knocked quietly on the door. When no one answered, he gently pushed the door open. As soon as his eyes assessed the situation, his jaw dropped in annoyed astonishment. Really? Was he really seeing this?

Before him, Matsuda was curled up on a couch, clutching one of the throw pillows. His eyes were fixed on the TV, while his mouth moved in stifled sobs. He was tearing up as he watched a man on the TV walk away from a girl onstage. Matsuda continued to cry, clutching the pillow closer to himself as the man on the TV continued his angry exit from the theatre.

Finally, Matsuda cried out, in shocking unison with a different man on the TV, "The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love, and be loved in return!" This sent Matsuda into another fit of tears as a song started, and the man returned to the girl onstage. Matsuda was now smiling through his tears, "You are so right. I wish the story ended here though… the ending is so…" he sniffled, "…sad."

L was dumbfounded. The mysterious sound had been Matsuda crying over a musical? What an idiot. L rolled his eyes and left the room as silently as he had entered. There was no point talking to Matsuda, especially in the condition he was now in, so he headed straight back to his room.

When L had cuddled into bed with his stuffed cupcake pillow, he let his mind wander. The first thought he had was of the absurd scene he'd witnessed in Matsuda's room. Second, his thoughts turned to one particular aspect of the scene. Matsuda had said, 'The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love, and be loved in return." L scoffed at the thought; of course Matsuda and the movie were wrong. The greatest thing a person could possibly learn was justice and how to obtain justice; which, at this particular moment in time, translated into : the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just who Kira is, and how he is killing people. Yes, that was the greatest thing a person could ever learn, Matsuda was wrong, like always.

L mused, what was the second greatest thing a person could learn? L pondered this a few moments before naming his opinions on the matter. How to bake a good cake? The correct sugar cube to coffee ratio to make it simply tantalizing? L considered the many possibilities as he snuggled up into his cupcake pillow and drifted into a sugar-coated, dream filled sleep; the slightest smile on his lips hidden in the darkness of the room.

When L woke up a few hours later, he made his way back down to headquarters. Nobody else was there yet, so L seized the opportunity to have some coffee. Watari brought it out to him, and while placing the many sugar cubes in it, he was reminded of last night's musings over sugar to coffee rations.

This then led to remembering what had taken place in Matsuda's room. A frown once again appeared on his face at the thought of Matsuda's ignorance of the truth, and absurdness in general. L shook off his irritation with the man with a sip of his coffee, and turned toward the monitoring screens.

Light was the only one of the captives who was awake. He wasn't doing much, just sitting there talking to himself, "My pride… I'll have to get rid of it…" This was strange to L. Why was Light talking about giving up his pride? It seemed oddly out of character for him. What was he up to now? Minutes later, Light collapsed back onto the floor, falling quickly back to sleep. That was strange, L thought. With both of the suspects sleeping, L quietly sipped his coffee, waiting for the other investigation team members to arrive.

Roughly ten minutes later, the other members arrived, ready for work. They each sat down to work on their own individual tasks. Several hours later, they were interrupted by a loud, "L!" being shouted from one of the monitoring screens.

"Yes Light?" L asked, curious as to what the Kira-suspect had to say.

"I know I requested to be locked up like this, but I finally realized that it is completely useless! I'm not Kira! There's no way I could have possibly killed all of those innocent people," Light explained, his voice ragged from his quick, gasping breaths.

"Light, it is strange that you would say this, seeing as before confinement, you were suggesting that perhaps you were killing people in your subconscious state. You asked to be restrained, therefore, you will remain as such, until I've decided whether you are Kira… or not." L's voice was calm, deeply contrasting to Light's.

"Yeah, I know, but L, I'm not Kira, you have to believe me! You have to let me out, let me help on the case; you must believe me, I'm not Kira!" Light's voice was steadily growing louder, to the point of yelling, and yet, L's face remained calm and pensive.

L remained like this for several minutes, leaving Light without a response. Finally, he turned to the rest of the investigation team. "What do you guys think? Should I let him join the investigation team?" Each member expressed a consent to the proposal, so L returned his attention to Light. "Very well, Light. I will release you from your confinement, and let you help the task force with the Kira investigation. However, I am now forty-three percent sure that you are Kira, so I will be keeping track of you, 24-7."

Despite the news of having to be with L all the time, Light was ecstatic to be being released from his prison. Minutes later he was brought to L, where he was then handcuffed to the older man. He thought for a moment how creepy the setting was : an older man forcing a younger man to be bound to him 24-7, but he quickly dismissed the notion. He was only in this condition because L did not believe him, he didn't believe the truth.

"Light-kun, I hope you understand that the only reason you have been released from confinement is that I believe you, as Kira, may provide us with some angles that we have yet to realize or see yet, hence the still being supervised by me part."

"I can live with that; though I hope you know that by spending so much time in such close proximity to me, you are going to be given the proof that I am not, in fact, Kira. I'm really just a normal kid who excels at school, living and loving life."

L eyed him up, taking in what Light had just said. "Hmm… we'll see about that Light-kun, we'll see about that."

That was the first day that Light helped on the Kira case since his confinement. They didn't accomplish much more than was expected for the day, but L thought it was an improvement. He felt it, somewhere deep within him, that he was on the verge of discovering something big and important soon. Adding Light to the investigation team could have quite possibly been the biggest step forward toward discovering the truth.

A/N :phew! so i finally had the opportunity to post this chapter/story. it's been written for the past few weeks, i have just been so busy with school and such, that it kind of got postponed. i'm hoping to have the next chapter written in the next few days... and as a heads up, this is going to be a L/Light Shonen-ai story... so, you've been warned in advance, in case you didn't pick up on the foreshadowing. ^_^ also, i am working on a few other stories, so hopefully, once those are editted, i will get them up. =) please feel free to leave a review and let me know what you think so far! until next time, xo. rhea.