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On the twenty-seventh of March, L Lawliet walks out the front door for the first time in three months and the last time in twenty-five years.
The world outside is bright in a dull way, the same as it always was. L takes a deep breath, but it's just air. Nothing is more beautiful for knowing that some unknown moment today he will close his eyes and never see any of it again.
L closes the door without locking it. He picks a direction at random and starts walking.
There isn't a soul alive who doesn't recognise the tone. Certainly no one's died who didn't, at least in the last sixty odd years. On your Day, your phone will chime at sometime between 9:00AM and 5:00PM, with a half hour lull in the middle while the agents go to lunch. There's no telling how much notice you'll actually get, because they don't give you a time. It could be ten minutes. The lucky, or perhaps the unlucky, get a little more. Nobody gets past midnight.
L looks out. There are a few boats drifting down the river he's walking beside. Several little children hang out of the nearest one. To L's eyes they look foreign. They spot him and wave, so he waves back, but he can't hear the giggling over the rush of the breeze.
“Excuse me,” someone says from somewhere near him. “Excuse me?”
The girl is speaking English. He must have wandered into a tourist space. He turns his gaze on her and she almost balks, but continues doggedly in a slow, clear voice. “Can you tell me how to get to Tokyo Skytree?”
“I don't know,” L says in English. “Sorry.”
The girl blinks, then laughs, sheepish. “Oh, sorry!” Her voice speeds up. “Are you here on holiday too?”
“No, I live here.”
“But…”
“I've just never been,” says L. “Good luck.”
He watches the girl walk away.
He must be around Asakusa. Had he gotten on the train at some point? L blinks; the trees around him are pink. Is it cherry season? Some detective… he hadn't even noticed.
Something familiar chimes. L's fingers go to his pocket, but it's not his.
There's a man nearby, donning a light-coloured blazer and an unassuming haircut. L's gaze would have passed right over him but for the fact that he's standing on the wrong side of the railing.
As L watches, the man extracts a twittering phone from his pocket and pitches it calmly into the river below.
He's not sure what makes him speak. L’s never been one to make idle chit-chat with strangers, or really with anyone. Still, he finds himself opening his mouth to call, “In denial?”
The man half-turns at the sound of his voice. He has a sweet smile. “In the Sumida, actually,” he calls back cheerfully.
He doesn't seem surprised when L approaches him. Up close, there's a stiffness in his shoulders which his easy stance hadn’t betrayed from a distance.
L looks down at the churning water. “You weren't planning on joining it, were you?”
“Well, I thought it might be a day of firsts,” says the man. “You see, I never really got around to making a bucket list, but I thought, well! I've never drowned in a river before.”
“You might die from the impact.”
“I've never done that either.” The man looks down at his feet. “Hi there. I'm Light. It's nice to meet you. Do you want my apartment? It's paid off.”
L leans on the railing. “It wouldn't do me much good.”
“You can have it anyway, as long as you don't try to talk me down.”
“Actually, I was going to ask a favour,” says L.
“Oh?”
“I've never been to a grocery store. Do you think you could take me to one?” L taps out a steady rhythm on the railing with a nail. “You see, I won't have the chance to go after today.”
Light's eyes widen. Then he laughs.
The technology had come around a good long while before L was born, but Watari had been old enough to remember a time without it. He'd considered it with a fair amount of ambiguity. L had considered it a burden and an irritant at best. Odd for a detective to turn down free information. Then again, some knowledge, he felt, simply needed to be earned, and if it could not be earned then it was not warranted. He'd never found the date of his death to be information he deserved. He hadn't wanted Watari's. You could appreciate your companion’s Day better knowing what it was, Watari had reasoned. You'd lose a needless day to grief, L repelled. He'd had one less day with Watari than he could have had, frozen in time and stuck counting the seconds until they stopped. Today was passing in a similar blur, ticking and ticking and slipping away.
Light is turning over a wedge of Gorgonzola in his hands.
“I never liked this stuff,” he says.
L takes it and puts it in his basket. Light laughs and says, “You're kind of contrary, aren't you?”
“Is there a better way to carry the basket?” L asks him. “It keeps banging into my knees.”
“That's how they are. It's an unintuitive design, right? I think some shops have the handles lengthwise.” Light picks up three shrink-wrapped salamis and a pear. L holds up his unintuitive basket and Light lobs the items at it, raising his hands like an athlete when they all go in. “Is this your treat?”
“I suppose so.” The store offers a 50% discount if it's your Day, but you need to show your call log as proof and Light's phone is at the bottom of the Sumida River.
Light tosses a little square of fig jam into the basket.
“You still haven't told me your name,” he says.
“You didn't actually ask.”
“What's your name?” Light asks.
“L,” says L.
“Elle? Is that French? You don't look much like an Elle.”
“L. The letter L.”
“It's not like I can steal your identity,” Light says, annoyed. “But fine, if you don't want to tell me.”
L scoops some chocolate into the basket.
“Have you really never been to a grocery store?” Light asks him.
“I never had to.”
“What, do you live with your parents or something?”
“My friend.” Friend was not the right word to describe Watari. L had never had the language for it. “Handler.” L got along fine now, too, though still occasionally dropped things on the floor while trying to pass them behind his back to someone who wasn't there. He gets his groceries delivered.
“I live by myself,” Light says conversationally, though L had not asked. “My parents and sister are across the city. I usually visit them on the weekends. I guess when I don't come this weekend they'll figure something's happened. Unless it's something violent, then they'll probably hear about it on the news.” This man is far too chatty. L scoops more chocolate into the basket. “Hey, isn't that too much?”
“I'm not overly concerned for my health right now,” says L.
“That's true. I guess we could give it away if we can't finish it.” Light looks thoughtful, then eyes the liquor shelf. “Are you over twenty?”
“Yes,” says L, surprised. “How old are you?”
“Nineteen,” Light says wryly. “As of a few weeks ago. Say, would you buy me a bottle of wine? You do owe me a favour, you know.”
L sighs, but picks up a bottle of strawberry shochu. Then a couple of bottles of lemonade for good measure.
“Kind of a sweet tooth, aren't you?”
“You're very talkative,” L informs him.
“Am I talking too much?” Light asks freely. “Are you regretting talking me down?”
“To be honest, I'm not sure why I did,” answers L. “Perhaps it just offended me to see you throw your remaining time away when I was so focused on how little of my own I had left.”
“Well, it's your fault I'm still here, so you can just listen to me talk.” Light picks up another bottle of shochu, then puts it down and swaps it for sake. “This probably isn't sweet enough for you, so I'll have it. Hey, when you take out your ID, I'll see your name.”
“I already told you my name.”
“L,” says Light, rolling his tongue over the sound. “It's not Japanese. It's not even a name.”
“Neither is Light,” says L.
“It is. It's written ‘moon’, though. Strange, isn't it?”
“I wouldn't have guessed from looking at you that you'd have a kira-kira name.”
“What would you have guessed?”
“I don't know,” says L, suddenly very tired. “Let's pay.”
“You're the one who wanted to come here.”
“I guess so.” L hadn't been aware of any particular desire to go to the grocery store until the words had been coming out of his mouth, but they weren't untrue.
That said, they weren't really true, either. It's not like he'd had a burning need to walk through crowded aisles picking out cheese. But it's also not the case that the words were a lie to get Light off the bridge, an outcome in which L had very little stake either way. Somewhere in the middle of those two propositions was a thesis which might have been the truth. L was twenty-five years old and had never been to the grocery store, like he had never been to Tokyo Skytree. He had walked to Asakusa without seeing any of the pink trees that tourists swarmed to the country en masse to see. Sometime before the clock struck its eighty-six thousand and four-hundredth second today, he would be dead. And he had never been to the grocery store.
“L,” says Light. “You're kind of blocking the aisle.”
L moves to the left.
“My credit card was in my phone case,” says Light.
L walks to the self service kiosk and pays for cheese, three salamis, a pear, fig jam, chocolate, some lemonade, and two bottles of liquor. The attendant comes over. L doesn't show her his call log. She doesn't ask for his ID.
“What do you think of the cheese?” Light asks.
“It's bad,” says L.
“What about the salami?”
“Also bad. You shouldn't have bought three.”
“Do you think anyone's going to miss you?”
“No,” says L.
They're at the Skytree. You're not really supposed to bring food inside, but Light had informed the staff with a rather sincere sob in his voice that it was their Day. His instinct had been correct. Nobody looked twice at you if you wanted to spend your Day carrying three salamis up a tall tower for a picnic. Nobody really wanted to look at you at all.
The staff had informed them with some awkwardness that per policy they would not be allowed too near the glass windows. Evidently Light's little bridge stunt was not so unique after all, a revelation which seemed to put a damper on Light's mood as they rode the elevator up.
Light smears a pinky into the fig jam. “What about your friend? The one you live with.”
“He's dead,” says L.
“Hope you don't still live with him, then,” says Light.
L stares at his cheese and tries to figure out why he's still spending his day with this man.
“It's because you don't have anyone else,” says Light. To L's face: “You didn't need to say anything. You're actually pretty expressive, you know.”
“That isn't true,” says L.
“Not in the normal way, maybe, but it's not hard for me to read you. Besides, it's obvious. We don't know each other. You don't seem that interested in me. I don't think you care if I live or die, not that I do either, since it's a moot point today. Any normal person would be spending the day with their loved ones, or alone, or at least not with a total stranger they don't care about. But you've never been to the grocery store. You really don't have anywhere to go, right?”
“What do you do?” L asks.
“I was a law student,” says Light. “Top of my class. All my professors said I was going to be something great. I was on track to join the public prosecutors’ office, and I might have been the youngest yet. What a waste of a young life! I'll be sorely missed by my peers. So what do you think?”
“I think it's gauche to write your own epitaph,” says L.
“Well, I didn't write it,” says Light.
Talks too much. L massages his temples. Light catches the motion, because L is not hiding it, and smiles mischievously.
“What do you do, L?” he asks.
“I'm a detective,” says L.
Light is reaching for the sake. Three words, and Light can't pretend to care what someone else is saying before they're done. He peeks up as L is thinking this and smirks again. “Go ahead. I'm listening.”
“Are you going to drink that out of the bottle?”
“You're a detective,” says Light. “Take a clue and figure it out.”
L opens a box of chocolate and plucks out something wrapped in shiny red foil. Light takes a swig of sake all cool and aloof and immediately coughs it all over the floor. Out of the corner of his eye, L sees an attendant sigh.
“It's strong,” L says to Light. “Be careful.”
Spluttering and hunched, Light raises his head enough to give L the evil eye.
“Let's go somewhere else,” says L. He stands up without waiting for Light to follow.
“What did they tell you on the call?” Light asks him. They’re on the Yamanote Line, not going anywhere.
“You didn’t answer it. I thought you didn’t want to know.”
People on the train will offer you a seat if you tell them it’s your Day. Light’s been doing that, so L’s curled up in a seat by the door, but Light had opted to stand when an elderly woman had walked in. He’d told her, too, and she’d shed a tear and gripped his hand. What an odd thing for Light to do, thought L, growing more bored of him by the second.
“I just didn’t want to have the conversation,” Light says disdainfully. “I don’t know why they bother, really. The chime is enough. They don’t stop calling you if you don’t pick up and I got tired of it.”
“Then why do you care what they said?”
“Indulge a dying man,” says Light.
“Light-kun,” says L. “You forget I’m dying too.”
“Well, I can tell you something in return?”
“I don’t have anything to ask.”
Light scoffs. “You’re the least curious detective I’ve ever met.”
“I’m not uncurious,” says L. “I’m just not curious about you.”
This seems to offend Light no end. “If it wasn’t for you,” he says haughtily, “I’d be drifting peacefully down the Sumida River right now.”
“They’d have found you by now. You’d be a bloated corpse.”
“You went to the trouble of talking me off the ledge and I went to the trouble of climbing off it—why, when you clearly don’t want anything to do with me?”
“I don’t know,” says L.
It’s the grocery store all over again. Why? A different question: when was the last time L had spoken to another person besides Watari about anything other than a case? Spot a man about to hurl himself off a bridge, about to hasten the inevitable—well, it’s always inevitable, actually, so it makes little difference and it makes even less difference today. Why? Why? Now that he’s here, the company doesn’t even really seem worth it. Light talks too much and the nihilism is starting to get old. The lights are too bright and too dull. Somewhere deep within him is an ache of something he will miss, but he doesn’t know what it is. It’s not the conversation. He breathes in deep. It’s not the air, either, which is after all just air.
L asks Light, “When was your birthday?”
“February 28,” says Light, visibly still sulking.
“Happy belated birthday.”
“Thank you.”
“Did you do anything for your birthday?”
“This is worse,” Light decides. “Will you let me kill myself now?”
“Why were you on that ledge?” L asks.
“Because my phone went off this morning and I didn’t want to hear someone else tell me I was about to die,” Light snaps. “They don’t tell you when, right? Or how. What am I supposed to do? My heart’s just going to stop at some point and I don’t know when and I’m meant to, what. Go for a walk?”
“That’s what all of life is like,” says L.
“Shut the fuck up,” Light advises him.
“Harajuku,” says the train. “Harajuku.”
L gets up. Light, looking a little wrong-footed, follows him out. “What, you want to spend your last hours on Takeshita Street?”
“I’d like a crepe,” L decides, and for once Light doesn’t seem to have an argument, so they go.
On Takeshita Street:
“Why were you on that ledge?” L asks again, now with a crepe in each hand. The ledge is not much of a mystery, so it’s not all that interesting, but it’s still the most interesting thing about Light so far.
Light had decided on a savoury crepe, which he is dutifully eating without pleasure. In his spare hand is L’s third crepe, which has cheesecake in it. Light swallows his mouthful of tuna and says, “If I can’t control my fate, I can at least bring it about myself.”
“Does controlling your fate matter to you?”
“That’s a stupid question,” says Light. “If you asked me yesterday I’d have had a hundred thousand things to say that mattered more to me than choosing how I’d die. My options have just kind of narrowed today, that’s all.”
“Isn’t it worth it to spend your last day doing something you—”
“Don’t,” says Light warningly. Despite himself, L smiles. “Hey. I didn’t know you could smile.”
“Really, Light-kun,” says L. “You have a family. Why not spend it with them?”
“Because I love them,” says Light, then opens his mouth to continue but for once seems to find his voice empty. L doesn’t ask him to elaborate, but does keep looking at him.
Light’s throat bobs once and then he clears it. He looks back at L. “Why are you staring at me?”
“You’re holding my crepe,” says L.
“As a favour to you,” says Light, annoyed, but passes it over. “Why are you still staring at me?”
Because. Because L has made a career of looking, but he hadn’t noticed the cherry blossoms in the street where he walked on his last ever day. Because. It’s been three months since he’d left his home, and the last time had been to bury Watari. Because there is a little blob of mayonnaise on the corner of Light’s irritable mouth, the same one that had offered him that sweet smile just this morning.
Because Light startles something awful when L reaches for it with his thumb.
“I don’t want to do that kind of thing with my last day,” he says shakily.
L swaps his thumb out for the corner of a napkin and then shows him the mayonnaise. “Be clean?”
“Oh,” says Light, then laughs. “Oh, sorry! You’re pretty strange, so it wasn’t really a leap for me to think you might turn out to be some kind of weird pervert trying to take advantage of me.”
“I don’t think I would seduce someone by touching the corner of their mouth,” L says. He crumples the napkin.
Light watches him. “Well, how would you do it?”
“I thought you didn’t want to do that kind of thing with your last day.” L takes a big bite of his third crepe. “What’s something else to do in the city? I haven’t gone out in a while.”
Light looks thoughtful. “We could commit a crime,” he suggests.
“I don’t want to do that.”
“Why not? There are no consequences. We’ll find something victimless. We could be vigilantes. Maybe we could find someone rich to rob and then throw his cash into the streets for people who need it.”
“We’re dying,” L reminds him, “not superhuman. I don’t know how to rob someone.”
“Sure you do. You’re a detective, right?”
“You’re right,” says L. “I know how to rob someone in a way that would get us caught by someone like me.”
Light laughs. “Okay, point taken. Hey, if you could do anything in the world and not face any consequences, what would it be?”
“Buy another crepe,” says L, getting back in line.
“Come on,” says Light, looking frustrated again. “Can you play along? It’s our Day, you know. I know I’m not who you wanted to spend it with, but I’m who’s here, and you didn’t let me kill myself, so can you just… I mean, I would’ve died on my own terms. I’m having this Day because of you. Can you not ruin it?”
L looks at him. “I didn’t talk you off that ledge so you could guilt me over it.”
“Then can I go jump off it?” Light demands.
“No.” To the counter: “One of number forty and one of eighteen, please.” To Light: “Sorry.”
“I don’t want another crepe,” says Light.
“They’re both for me,” says L. “What would you do if there were no consequences?”
Light eyes him like he’s expecting a trap. When nothing seems forthcoming, he says, “I’d change the world. Whatever it took.”
“That’s vague.”
“Sorry. I thought I’d have a little more time to plan than I do, you know, being nineteen and about to die.”
“No individual can change the world on his own, you know,” says L. “No matter how remarkable.”
“You could help me,” says Light. “We could do it together.”
“I thought I was a weird pervert.” L accepts his crepes and licks one. “If I’m so strange, does that make you normal? And yet, I’m here because I don’t have anywhere else to be. So you’re here, because…”
“You don’t need to be a detective to figure that out,” says Light.
“No, I don’t. You want a bite?”
“No, thank you,” says Light. “It’s interesting, isn’t it? It takes dying to realise the person you thought you wanted to be isn’t real after all, and now it’s too late.”
“I don’t think I can relate to that.”
“No? You’re happy with your life?”
L pretends to think about it, then takes another lick of his crepe without answering.
Light trails off the tail end of something between a rant and a scheme, and L says in the pause for breath, “Light, tell me about your family.”
“What? Why?”
“I just want to know.”
They’re on the train again. L didn’t bother checking which line. They’ve been on the train for thirty-seven minutes, going nowhere once again. There is no-one around to impress; Light accordingly has opted to take a seat.
“Uh, okay.” Light thinks. “My dad’s a police officer. I was mostly raised by my mother. My little sister’s in high school still.”
“A police officer,” L echoes. “I suppose that makes sense.”
“Are you profiling me?”
“You’re very idealistic. Perhaps it’s a good thing you got the call today,” L says. “Given an opportunity and a few more years, I might have been chasing you down.”
“What’s wrong with being idealistic?” Light demands.
“Nothing in itself. Taken a little further it becomes cynicism—then radicalisation.”
“It’s radical to care about people? About justice?”
“Of course not,” says L. “It would be radical to kill for it, and in your little oration just now I believe you wished death on no fewer than six individuals and several entire demographics.”
“ Criminals . I didn’t wish death on them , I just said they deserved to die. It’s different.”
“I don’t really want to argue definitions with you. This isn’t a criticism, by the way. It’s not like you pose a risk to anyone as it stands. I just find you interesting, that’s all.”
“Oh, now you find me interesting,” says Light.
“Yes, a little. Don’t look so offended, it’s an improvement. I didn’t before. I take back what I said. It’s a shame we got the call. It might have been fun to catch you.”
Light looks even more offended. “Why are you so sure I’d become a criminal? I was going to be a prosecutor.”
“The lines between criminals and law enforcement aren’t always that distinct,” says L.
“We’re in agreement there,” mutters Light. “But I think in different ways.”
“You should spend some time with your family,” says L.
“I’m not going to. Okay? Drop it.”
“You don’t have to tell them it’s your Day,” says L. “You can just drop by like it’s any other day. Let them see you again.”
“Drop it,” Light says again, looking tense. “I’m not going.”
“Why—”
“What if it happens there?” Light bursts out.
L falls silent.
“What if—” Light struggles. “What if I fall down the stairs or I, the—the house catches on fire or something and I die right in front of them? And they just have to… I mean, my dad will blame himself forever. Sayu—Sayu will have nightmares. She’s my baby sister.”
“Okay,” says L.
“My mother would never get over it. She’d never stop crying.”
“Okay,” says L. “We won’t go see your family.”
“No, we won’t.” Light seems slightly calmer with this affirmation voiced. “Let’s rob a bank.”
“No, we’re not doing that either.”
“I wish I was spending my last day with someone else,” grouses Light. “It feels strange to think about my family. They don’t know they’re going to miss me yet.”
“I think it’s selfless of you to give them that,” says L.
Light meets his eyes. “Your friend,” he says. “The one who died.”
“Yes.”
“How did you spend his Day?”
“At home,” says L. “He didn’t want to do anything special. He just wanted to spend time with me.”
“Do you think it would have been better if you hadn’t known?”
Unequivocally. “I can’t know that.” He’d spent the day half-there, half in mourning. All day Watari’s gaze had not quite reached reproachful but had well-crossed resigned. L had been jittery, watching the clock, wondering what time he had left, counting down to a deadline he couldn’t see. In the end, he’d missed the moment Watari had closed his eyes.
“I wish we didn’t have the calls,” says Light. “I know it’s supposed to grant you some special opportunity to make the most of your last day, but isn’t it all a bit of a farce? It’s not like we don’t all know we’re going to die one day, so we might as well just get the call when we’re born and have it tell us to make the most of our lives. The whole reason we can get by is because we force ourselves not to think about it, and then somehow it’s supposed to be a blessing that we put all the pressure on this one day?”
“Light, I actually agree with you, so you don’t need to keep talking, okay? And don’t say I should have let you kill yourself. I’m getting bored of hearing that, too.”
“I think you might be the worst person I've ever met,” says Light.
L nearly smiles at that. “Likewise,” he says. “In a way, I'm almost glad they called me today.”
Light grins. “So you'd get to know me?”
“So I don't have to spend longer than a day doing it.”
“God, you’re the worst,” Light says happily. “It’s your own fault, too.”
“Are you glad you didn't jump?”
“I was seconds away,” says Light, “from missing out on feeling the most irritated I've ever felt. You really cheated me.”
“Hours.”
“Maybe minutes,” Light concedes.
“You wouldn't have jumped,” says L.
“I was going to. I thought, if it's going to happen, it's going to be me choosing it.”
“I know what you thought,” says L. “I also know you wouldn't have jumped.”
Light's face goes suddenly hard.
“You sure know everything about me for a guy who met me only a few hours ago,” he says, “and on a day when I'm not really myself.”
“Yes, I do,” says L. “And you wouldn't have jumped.”
Light lapses into sullen quiet.
“You should call your family,” says L.
“This again?” Light says, sounding tired.
“You can’t traumatise them over the phone. If they’ve been calling you today, they’ll be worried.”
“They’ll assume I lost my phone,” says Light. “It doesn’t matter.”
“To you,” says L. “You’re sparing yourself the grief, but they’ll have to go on knowing you knew you were about to die and you didn’t even try to reach them.”
“I thought you said I was being selfless.”
“Yes, I changed my mind.” L hands Light his own phone. “You should think about it.”
“What if I throw your phone out of the train,” Light asks.
“Well, I’d rather you didn’t do that,” says L.
Light smiles, but when the doors open next, he keeps his hold on L’s phone.
A little while longer into the train loop, Light had decided he was out of ideas for what to do in the city. And it’d turned out they were nearby, so now they’re at Light’s apartment.
“I didn’t think I’d be back here today,” he tells L, sticking his key in the lock. “Sorry if it’s messy.”
“It doesn’t matter to me.”
It’s not messy. If Light wasn’t standing right in front of him, L might have assumed nobody lived here at all. Light walks in, politely takes and hangs L’s coat, then throws himself onto his futon.
“Want some hot water,” he asks.
“Do you have hot chocolate?”
“No. I don't like it.”
L wrinkles his nose. “Fine, then, water.”
“The kettle's over there. You can boil some.”
“Light-kun,” says L. “I can't be sure, but I think you're a bad host.”
Light's laugh sounds like a cackle. L wonders if he's approaching a mental break.
“Maybe the kettle will short,” he says. “Maybe it'll electrocute you. Or explode, and I'll die from shrapnel. Maybe it'll start a fire. Maybe the roof will cave in. Maybe, maybe. You should've let me jump.”
“I didn't actually stop you from jumping,” says L. “As I said, you simply wouldn't have.”
“We can't know that,” Light mimics him. “It's moot. Make the most of your last day by doing what humans do best: trying to keep ahead of our crippling fear of the unknown by staying in denial.”
“How loud is your kettle,” L asks, walking towards it.
“Maybe it'll explode after all. That would be loud. I wonder if I'll die saving you, or something like that,” Light muses almost dreamily. “Throwing you out of the burning building before being consumed by flames myself.”
“Yes, you’d like to be able to blame meeting me for your death,” says L.
“I'd like to know it was for something. That's all.”
L considers. “It's more likely you'll die in some inane way that didn't matter at all,” he says. “Probably something entirely avoidable. Most deaths are that way, you know.”
“Maybe I'll die killing you.”
“I suppose that could be interesting,” L says thoughtfully. “In that scenario, I would be killing you too?”
“I’d kill you first,” says Light a little muzzily.
“I don't think so,” says L, and puts the kettle on.
It doesn't explode. Over on the futon, Light breathes out a sigh.
“I'm not going to call my family,” says Light.
This is the third pronouncement of this variety in ten minutes. “Okay.”
“They'll just worry. They'll think something's wrong. They'll come see me.”
“Okay.”
“It's better if I just go quietly,” says Light. “Maybe I should leave a note.”
“Okay.”
“I could make a video recording. I should record something for Sayu’s graduation, since I won't get to see it. Maybe my parents’ birthdays.”
“Okay.”
“I'm going to assassinate a political leader.”
“Don't do that,” says L.
“Oh, good, you are listening. Do you think I should make a video for Sayu or would that make her sad?”
“I don't know anything about your sister,” says L.
“If your friend had made a video for your next birthday, would that have made you happy?”
“There's nothing he hasn't told me already.”
“That must be nice,” says Light. He flops onto his back again. “I feel like I have so much left to say. And do. Too bad my roof is going to collapse on me and then explode.”
L gets up.
“Light,” he says. “I think I'll be going now. Thank you for your hospitality.”
“You're leaving?” Light sits up. Is that a tremor in his voice? “Now?”
“I'm getting bored of your self-pity,” says L.
“My—oh, come on,” Light says, suddenly furious. “You force me to live, to contend with the reality of my own—”
“I didn't force you to do anything,” L snaps.
Light is so surprised his mouth actually shuts. Good. It’s a nice change.
“You keep acting like I've thrust some terrible chore upon you,” says L. “Light, all I did was ask you to take me to the grocery store. You didn't have to say yes. Will you face facts? It's your last day.”
“Listen, you don’t get to speak to me like that,” Light begins.
“You asked what I would have guessed when I looked at you. Would you like my deductions?” And here L waits, but just as he’d thought, Light does not stop him, because he’s curious and self-obsessed and wants to hear what other people say only insofar as it will inform how he should prove them wrong. “You're scared of how little time you have left. You thought to shorten it yourself just so you wouldn’t need to think about it anymore. We both know you never would have gone through with it. You want to live, and you're getting in your own way.” L claims his coat and the last word both. “You can keep my phone.”
L is halfway down the road when he hears footsteps behind him. “L, wait. Wait.”
Typical, predictable, L should keep walking so Light has to suffer the indignity of chasing him to pursue the argument. He stops.
Light seems to teeter on the edge of something that looks suspiciously like ‘you're right’, evidently decides he can't bring himself to go through with it, and says instead, “Sorry.”
That sort of takes the wind of the sails of the whole thing.
“You don't owe me an apology,” says L. “You’re dying.” This isn’t even fun.
He thinks for a moment, then adds more gently, “Light, I'm sorry it's your last day.”
That throat bobs again. “Thanks,” Light says softly. “I'm sorry it's yours.”
Around them, the trees rustle in the breeze. L takes a deep breath, but it’s still just air.
Light says, “I really would've liked to be friends, you know.”
“I’ve never had a friend,” says L.
He thinks again of Watari, and the ways in which Watari had been something altogether different from a friend. Watari had worried over L’s solitude until his death. Even on his own Day, Watari had been most concerned about L, and how L would fare alone. “Light-kun.”
“Yes?”
L hesitates, then asks, “Do you think we would have been friends?”
“We can’t know that.” Light sounds wistful. “Maybe not. You’re really annoying.”
“You talk too much.”
“Your apathy is tiring.”
“Your nihilism is getting old.”
“I’m not really a nihilist,” says Light. “I wonder what you’d think of me if you’d met me on a normal day.”
“Then,” says L, “I’m sure it would have been your optimism which was grating.” Light had not become interesting to L until that spark of ideology in his eye had started to flicker into something like motive; but then it had burned out, of course, much like Light himself would soon do. “I’m not ordinarily apathetic, either, by the way.”
“I sort of figured. Funny what dying can do to a man.” Light seems to realise he’s in his house slippers and shuffles his feet, self-conscious. “L, want to be friends?”
“What do friends do?” L wonders.
Light taps his chin. “Let’s see. You make small talk for a while about nothing until you stop feeling awkward around each other,” he decides. “Then, once you’ve built up some trust, you become each other’s confidants. And you enjoy each other’s company. Well, I don’t think we have time to make awkward small talk.”
“Are you asking me to trust you, Light-kun?”
Light smiles at him. “Tell me your name,” he says.
L manages not to sigh. He digs in his pocket for his wallet.
Light takes the proffered ID. “L,” he reads, “Lawliet.”
“It’s pronounced low-light .”
“Low light,” Light echoes in English. “Wow. So you aren’t Japanese?”
“A quarter. Do you believe me now?”
“L low-light . What a strange name. Yes, I believe you.” Light hands back the card.
L puts it back in his pocket.
“I’ve never told anyone my surname before,” he says.
Light looks surprised. Then he smiles. “So I guess we’re friends,” he says. “Right?”
Despite himself, when Light starts walking back to his apartment, L follows.
The milk in Light’s fridge is going to expire tomorrow. Light resents it for outlasting him, so he’s taken some of L’s chocolate and melted them together in a little saucepan so he could present L with–
“This is the worst hot chocolate I’ve ever had,” L says.
“Well, go fuck yourself,” Light says easily. “It’s your turn.”
It’s L’s turn. The game is for each to tell the other something they’ve never told anyone. The game is also stalling, because L’s never told anyone much of anything, so statements like “I like Cinnabon” are perfectly within the bounds of the game’s rules despite being, as Light points out, against its spirit.
“It’s malicious compliance,” he insists.
“Liking Cinnabon is malicious compliance.”
“Telling me about it is malicious compliance. The point of the game is to share something secret. Like, how old were you when you lost your virginity?”
“I also like salted caramel milkshakes,” says L.
Light groans.
“I’m sorry,” L says. “I’m really not used to this. Watari already knew everything about me, and it wasn’t in my interests to share much with anyone else.”
“Let’s play a different game,” Light says suddenly. “Instead of volunteering information, how about we try and guess things about each other?”
This, L thinks could be interesting. He sits up. Light’s eyes gleam.
“I’ll go first,” he says. “Three things, okay? You’re realising that since you’ve never had to put voice to it, you don’t really know who you are. You’re scared of dying, and you’re a virgin.”
“Everyone’s scared of dying,” says L. “I’m not a virgin.”
“What about the first one?”
“If I don’t know who I am, how could I confirm a statement about it either way?”
“So it’s true,” Light concludes.
L cocks his head, kind of pleased despite himself. “My turn,” he says. “You haven’t stopped thinking about calling your sister. You’re a virgin. You’re realising that despite putting extensive voice to it, you don’t know who you are either.”
“You just stole mine,” Light says, displeased. “That’s petty.”
“You seemed fixated on the topic of virginity, and I can’t think why you would be thinking about it at all if you weren’t one. Why don’t you call your sister?”
“Why are you so fixated on my family if you don’t even have one?” Light shoots back.
L says nothing.
“Sorry,” says Light, apologetically and yet somehow managing not to sound sorry at all. “That was uncalled for.”
“Then answer the question,” says L.
Light looks like he’s about to retort, but then appears to remember this was supposed to be a trust exercise and grits his teeth. “I don’t know what to say to her,” he says. “I want to talk to them, but if I slip and say the wrong thing, they’ll get worried and come see me. I’ll have to spend the whole call making sure I don’t slip, and then she’ll just resent me anyway for lying to her on my last Day.”
“So it’s a burden on you to lie to your family,” says L, “and if you can’t carry it, it becomes a burden on them.”
“Yeah,” Light says. “Point to you.”
“But if you don’t call at all, it’s a burden on them that they never got to speak to you again.”
“I guess it’s lose-lose,” Light says weakly. “I think I’m going to record a video for Sayu’s graduation.”
“I can hold the camera, if you like.”
“Yes, please.” Light gets up and opens a cupboard to find a camera. He looks morose. So much so that something in L twinges.
“Nineteen,” he says.
“What?”
“If it matters to you that much. I was nineteen when I lost my virginity.”
Light smiles a bland smile. “What must that be like,” he says. He opens a plastic box and takes out an old camcorder. “Here, take this.”
“Do you feel like we’re wasting the Day?” Light asks.
“Probably,” says L. “Do another take.”
“We’re just in my apartment. People tend to do other stuff on their Day. I think there’s an app for it.”
“You didn’t want to do anything,” says L. He’s still holding up the camcorder. His arms are starting to hurt.
“Well, I was depressed,” says Light.
“Are you not depressed anymore?”
“Yeah, I’m better now.” Light shoots him a winning smile. “I repressed it. Okay, let me think of what to say.”
L watches the mania drain from Light’s posture. His eyes go soft and kind and his back straightens, picture-perfect. L clicks the record button again.
“Hi Sayu,” says Light. “Hi Dad. Hi—”
L clicks the recording off. Light clears his throat, embarrassed. He hasn’t managed a single take so far without his voice breaking on “Hi, Mum.”
“When you’re ready,” says L, and watches Light put himself back together yet again.
Click . Light says quietly, “Hi, everyone.”
Better, L thinks.
“Sayu, I wanted to leave you something for your big day,” says Light. “Congratulations on graduating high school. I hope your grades are better now that you aren’t relying on me to do your homework. I’m really proud of you. Make the most of your opportunities, okay? I’m counting on you.” Light blinks. “L, you can turn it off now.”
“That was short,” says L.
After a moment, Light says, “Yeah. I just couldn’t… I just couldn’t. How was it?”
“Good,” says L, “if your goal was to be as flat as possible. Is it unthinkable to let your family see you get a little emotional? This is all they’ll have left of you, you know.”
“I’m not taking cues from you,” Light snaps, and swipes the camcorder from L’s hands. “God, whatever. Let me crop this.”
L watches him fiddle with the screen. “What if you died saving them? Would that be a good fate?”
“No,” says Light without looking up. “Then they’d feel guilty.”
“I see. So your need to play hero is overruled by your concern for your family. That’s encouraging.”
“Stop psychoanalysing me,” Light says. He puts the camera down and scrawls a note next to it that says, Please play this when Sayu graduates. Light.
L watches him do this too.
“They’re going to play it right away,” he says. “Do you want to record another one for them saying goodbye?”
“No,” says Light. “L, let’s go outside. I don’t want to die here.”
“Okay,” says L, so out they go.
“Are you scared of heights?” Light asks.
It’s a bit late to ask that. The Ferris wheel is a hundred and seventeen metres tall and they’re approaching the top, and unlike at the Skytree, they’re surrounded by glass. Apparently the wheel lights up at night, but, well. Wait an hour for sundown and they could miss it entirely.
“No,” says L to Light. “Are you?”
“No, I love heights. Seeing everything at once. It makes the world seem so manageable.” Light offers him a small smile. “These doors don’t open, do they?”
L jiggles one. “No.”
“Would you stop me?”
“I wouldn’t need to,” says L.
“Mhm,” says Light. “Hey, L.”
“Yes?”
Light stares out over the water. He’s thinking about the carriage falling. The bolts failing. He’s thinking about the city below, so small it might be manageable, rushing up to meet them as they drop.
Or L guesses, anyway.
Light says, “Nothing, never mind.”
Light talks a lot. No great mystery, it’s fairly obvious why. Neat blazer, tidy haircut. Family who loves him. Career waiting in the wings to sweep him off his feet after a glowing academic performance, surrounded by adoring peers. An insistent chime growing faint as it topples into the river, a young man staring down at it and wondering if he has the guts to follow. There are two people in this carriage, each as lonely as the next. L’s been frozen all day, unable to see or hear his next step for the roaring of the ticking clock, resigned and reproachful like the remaining seconds he can't count don’t count. But Light’s been running as fast as he can. Sprinting for anything at which he might make some desperate last bid at connection or meaning. There were two people standing on that bridge, one on the wrong side of the railing and one on the right. One had given the day up.
L closes his eyes and bids the ticking fade.
“You okay?” Light asks.
Two. Three. Two. Three. Four. Three. Two. L shakes his head. Can’t count up. Can’t count down. The numbers keep changing, but he can’t find zero. “No,” he says.
Deductive reasoning, by its nature, requires premises—in order to find a fact, you must have a fact to begin with. You cannot begin with a baseline of nothing. With no reference, there can be no inference. L keeps counting, but there is no zero, or rather, there is a zero and he doesn’t know where it is. The next second could be his last, or the next, or the next, and all he can know is that at some point the ticking will stop and there is no way to orient himself to it because that point keeps moving .
“L?”
L cannot open his eyes, because if he does, he will see that Watari had closed his at some point while L had been counting. How do you brace for something if it could be coming anytime between now and infinity? Any second between now and eighty-six thousand and four-hundred? Watari’s hand had been cooling when he’d touched it, but still warm, and papery and soft and familiar. L had stared at him until it had gone cold.
A much warmer hand closes over his. L gasps and falls out of his seat, eyes snapping open.
“Jesus!” L blinks against the harsh light and sees Light pressing himself against the walls of the now-rocking carriage. “Don’t throw yourself around like that, are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“You touched me,” says L. There’s a tremor in his voice.
“Sorry,” says Light, looking offended. “I was worried about you, that’s all. Your eyes were shut and you were breathing kind of hard. I didn’t want to be in here with your dead body if it came to that.”
“I was just thinking.”
“I think you were having some kind of panic attack,” says Light.
“Oh,” says L. “Maybe.”
He looks at his hands. They’re shaking.
Beside him, Light eases himself awkwardly to the floor. He holds up both hands as though to warn L they’re there, and then pats him on the shoulder.
L opens his mouth to tell Light that this is uncomfortable and not helping, but something stops him.
“I actually don’t know what to do with someone who’s having a panic attack,” Light realises.
“No,” says L. “This is fine.”
When was the last time L had been touched by anyone at all? It must have been years ago now, if you didn’t count Watari. L swallows. His throat feels detached from the rest of him. He can feel his pulse hammering away, evidently still in the throes of that maybe-panic attack. How strange. Does his heart, working so diligently to keep him alert and awake and alive, know its beats are numbered and dwindling? Does it care?
Light’s hand settles on his back, then slips uncertainly around his shoulders. L realises he is being hugged.
“Oh,” he says.
“Is this helping?”
“No,” says L. Light starts to draw away. “Wait.”
The next time L manages to look anywhere but the front of Light's shirt, the carriage is back at ground level. As L watches, they slowly begin to climb again.
Light seems less comfortable huddled on the floor than L is, but he's still sitting right there beside him. The hug has regressed to leaning on L's shoulder, which is much less tense and probably easier on Light's back. He's a solid weight against L's body, which L observes with some relief has finally seen the trembling abate.
“It doesn't look that manageable to me,” he says. Light glances out the window at the retreating skyline. “It just looks far away.”
“Doesn't that make it more manageable? You get some distance, maybe some objectivity.”
“That's what I always thought too,” says L. “But now I find… I don't know how to say goodbye to something I never really saw up close.”
Light rests his head against the seat. “That's a good point,” he says. L feels breath tickle the back of his ear.
“I don't know that it's objectivity, anyway,” says L. “It might just be denial.”
“I think it's Tokyo Bay this time,” says Light.
“That joke wasn't funny the first time,” L informs him.
“Was it funnier the second time?”
L watches the water. “Maybe.”
The wheel turns for seventeen minutes. By the time they exit the carriage, the sun is beginning to dim. L tries to watch it dip, since his corneas won't be much of a concern soon. But after barely a second he has to look away.
“We should've gone to the aquarium or something,” says Light.
There's a bright splotch on his vision obscuring Light's face when L turns to him. “We still could.”
“Nah. The day will be over soon and I don't really wanna die there.”
“Where would you like to die?” L asks.
Light grins as they start walking to nowhere in particular. “At the top of the world,” he says. “Peacefully. Knowing I’ve left something great to remember me by. You?”
“I never thought much about dying,” says L. “I never thought that much about being alive.”
“You've done things, though,” says Light. “You’ve solved cases and helped people.”
“Yes, I suppose so. You've achieved plenty yourself, to hear you tell it.”
“I thought so,” says Light. “But it feels more like a prologue than anything. All just preparing to start something I won’t get now. I thought I'd at least get a story.”
L keeps walking a few more paces before he realises Light has stopped. He turns around. “Light?”
In the dimming sun, Light looks suddenly very young.
“I don't really want to keep walking,” he says.
“Okay.”
“I don't know what we're walking to,” says Light. “I feel like I'm walking closer to my—to my own—”
“We can stop.”
“That just means it'll happen here instead. I don't want to die here, either.”
“Where do you want to die?”
“I don't,” Light says. His face crumples. “I just don’t. I'm not ready to be done.”
L walks back to him.
Two hugs in one day. Watari would never have believed it. Light takes a shuddering breath and L feels the inhale.
“I want my mother,” he whispers into L's shirt. “I’m stupid. I should've gone to see her.”
“We still can.”
“It's too late.” Something wet soaks into L's shoulder. “If I go now it'll definitely happen there.”
L reaches into Light's pocket and takes out his own phone. He holds it up. Light stares at it.
“Throw it into the bay,” he says. “Please. Don't tempt me.”
“Call your family, Light,” says L.
Light shakes his head and keeps shaking it. He sinks to his knees right there on the pavement.
L kneels down beside him. “You should call them,” he says. “They'll want to hear your voice.”
“I can't. They'll know. I'll cry.”
“So cry,” says L.
“What do I say?” Light asks desperately. “Hi, Dad. Hi, Mum.” Break. “Sorry I'll never give you grandchildren. Sorry I didn't get to graduate. Sorry you'll have to bury my dreams with me. Sorry for nineteen years that came to nothing in the end. It came to nothing.”
“It seems strange to apologise for dying,” says L.
Light is shaking, worse even than L had been on the Ferris wheel.
“I've always been afraid,” he whispers. “I’m afraid of this. Dying without meaning anything. It’s my worst fear. Just being nothing. My whole life meaning nothing and then I disappear.”
L glances up.
Crouched in the middle of the path like this, he isn't sure what he'd expected to see. Maybe a few curious glances. For the most part, people seem content to just walk around them like they aren't there. L looks back down in time to see a few more tears darken the pavement.
“You meant something to me,” he says. “You were my first friend.”
Light's head turns slightly.
“Thank you,” he says in a low voice.
“Let's keep going,” says L. “You can think about what to say.”
“Okay.”
They rise. Passers-by adjust their routes accordingly and walk on.
Light's voice is still shaky, but it steadies as he speaks like he's using the sentence to recalibrate. “What's your biggest regret?”
“I don't really have one.”
“Really?”
“There are things I wish had been different,” says L.
“That's called a regret,” Light reminds him.
“I don't think so,” says L. “They're things I couldn't have changed even if I'd known ahead of time, so I can't call them regrets. Watari worried I was too much on my own, but I chose it that way. I don't think I'd choose differently.”
“Isn't it lonely?”
“Yes,” says L. “Now I see it is. But I still don't think I'd choose differently.”
“Why not?”
“I don't think I'm the kind of person people can be friends with,” says L.
“I'm honoured to be the exception,” says Light.
L stares at the sky. “I think Watari would be glad,” he says. “Thank you, Light.”
Light offers him a little smile.
“Are you ready to call your family now?” L asks him.
They stop at a crosswalk. Light stares down at the phone in his hand. “Maybe,” he says. “No. Yes.”
“Those are all the options.”
“Yes,” Light decides. He starts tapping.
“Look when you cross the road.”
“I am.” Light makes a great show of looking both ways. “Wouldn't want to cheat myself of those last few minutes.”
They stop on the other side of the road. Light hits the call button. It rings a few times, then clicks off.
“Damn,” says Light, “I didn't think of this.”
He's going for lighthearted, but that tremor is back in his voice.
L takes the phone and hits the call button again. “Give them a minute.”
Light laughs shakily. “Wait, I forgot what to say again.”
“Don't practise. Just talk. You're good at talking, you've been doing it to me all day.”
“You are such,” Light begins, and then someone screams behind them.
They both whip around. The crosswalk light is red and a toddler is racing across, doggedly chasing a little rolling toy. His mother screams again and lunges for the road, but others are closer, including the man who until one second ago had been standing next to L.
“Light!”
As L stares, reaching hands scoop the toddler off the street from the other side. L watches a look of relief cross Light's face in the split second before the truck horn blares.
In L's hand, the ringing stops. A woman's voice says, “ Hello? ”
It's dark now. Properly dark. It's a new moon tonight, and though the stars do their best, there's little that can cut through the blackness in its absence.
L discards his phone in the recycling box of a nearby convenience store and picks up a chocolate pudding. Heroic and ultimately meaningless. He'd not mentioned that last part. Light had died trying to save a child, nevermind that someone else had gotten there first. Let that wasted sacrifice mean something to the sobbing voices on the phone.
“I wanted to thank you,” L had said. He did not mention that it had been Light who'd tried to call. “Your son was a great friend to me. He thought of you all day but didn't want you to grieve. He left you something in his apartment. I'm sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you for calling ,” said a man's voice, thick with pain, and L hung up.
In death, Light had looked younger than ever. His face had returned to that painful neutrality he’d had to work so hard to achieve all day. L had looked on while the paramedics gently sponged the blood off his skin before pulling up the sheet.
There’s no way to know what Light was thinking in his last moments, or if he’d had time to think anything at all. It seems unlikely. Light probably hadn’t even realised what was happening. Simply there one moment, and in the next there was nothing in the space where he’d once been. Just like that. Fairness is nothing to dwell on, but it does strike L as a regrettable kind of absurd that a man with so much to say had not been granted the opportunity to make some final statement on the life he’d been so unwilling to let close. No story, now no epilogue… or at least that’s how Light would see it. Probably. Who knew? L had barely known him, after all.
L stares up at the moonless sky. He's in some sort of park now, but he can't see the cherry blossoms anyway.
“Watari,” he says. “I hope that was enough to ease your worries.”
He hadn't asked Light's surname. He'd forgotten. It didn't matter, anyway. There would be others to remember Light.
In some other corner of the park, L can hear rowdy laughter. Friends making merry, maybe. It's a little late for that sort of thing, but then L doesn't know what's normal in that regard.
L sits down on the ground. If the moon had been out, it would have been high by now. Nothing much left to do but wait. It's rather cold for late March. It would be nice, he thinks, to have a coat, or perhaps a friend. Those laughing voices seem to be getting closer. Light's warm weight next to him in the Ferris wheel had been all right. Drinking hot water and bad hot chocolate in his apartment had been all right, too.
He opens his pudding. It's better than the hot chocolate. Better than the cheese.
“Hey,” calls a stranger's voice.
L looks up to see a group of people approaching him. The merry-makers, he presumes. One takes a swig from a bottle. Another grins, leering and unsettling. Nothing like Light's arrogant, slightly vulnerable smile. L doesn't see a knife yet, but he's sure it's forthcoming.
What a degrading way to go.
“A little short on cash tonight,” says the guy with the bottle. “Wanna be friends? You could help us out.”
“Sorry, I'm not carrying any.” They could at least let him finish his pudding first. The ticking, oddly, had stopped some time ago; perhaps L had been too distracted to hear it since the truck had drowned it out. He wonders if it’s close to midnight.
The guy gestures at the pudding. L takes another bite. “You bought that with something.”
“A card. You can have it, but it won't be much use to you after today.”
“That's all right,” says the guy. “Only need it tonight.”
L takes out his wallet and tosses it to the guy. He takes another bite of pudding.
“He could still call the cops before morning,” says another guy. “Hey, it's your Day, isn't it?”
“No,” says L. “I was just going to cancel the card tomorrow.”
The first guy is squinting at his wallet. “L Lawliet,” he says. “No, I know that name. Weird one, stuck out. We called you this morning, huh?”
Ah.
Sorry, Light , he thinks. Should’ve let you stay the only one.
“Usually we only call,” says the guy. “Don't normally take care of the delivery side of things. But as it is…”
There's the knife.
“It's inevitable anyway, right?” says the guy. “Could get something out of it.”
“It's always inevitable,” says L. “Wasted effort to hasten it, really.”
“Don't think I like your smart mouth.”
Light had, L thought. Light had laughed even while he was complaining. Light had made plenty of meaningless small talk, and then L thinks they might have started to enjoy each other’s company.
He takes another bite of his pudding while the guy with the knife comes closer. It might have been nice to die with the moon. What might a good final thought be? A final sight? He wonders if he could possibly find a star before