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Watari poured himself a cup of Earl Grey tea.
It’s a damn good one, if he does say so himself, and it has no room not to be – it is going to be one of his last, after all.
He’s supposed to be watching surveillance, but truthfully there’s only so much one person can observe before they tire and bore. And although Watari’s tolerance is high, he’d much rather spend these moments enjoying a puzzle or perhaps watching some television reruns.
He’s come to intuit things.
Over the course of doing thousands of cases, one can often tell the outcomes before beginning. He’s nowhere near L’s level, but he’s seen enough. He knows why L is going to be at his door at this hour, why the clocks seem to move with more emphasis, and why this cup of tea feels like his last.
The door behind him opens to the stiffly standing figure of L.
He knows it has to be – anyone else would’ve knocked.
L stands and looks at him, with that same manner when the boy has something on his mind and no understanding of how to express it.
Watari is used to that by now.
He knows exactly what L means by his body language, his expressions that would seem empty and devoid of feeling to anyone else.
It may be a little presumptuous, but that’s the kind of role any father should take with his son.
“You can take a seat if you’d like. I was just tiring of watching Yagami spend hours getting himself ready for the morning.”
“You really should keep watching him.”
“I think we’ve both observed young Yagami enough. You, especially.”
L bit down on his thumb. “But not enough.”
“And you’re acting like you’ve lost before it happens. Why, that’s a first for you, Ryuzaki.”
Watari turned his whole body away from the screens to face L, a moping, depressed look on the boy’s face.
“Yes...” He said solemnly, “It seems this case is giving me a lot of firsts.”
“Then perhaps you’d enjoy trying my brew properly for the first time?”
“Hm, I believe I’ll need a second serial killer before I do anything as drastic as that.”
“A third.”
“Ah yes,” L grumbled, “Don’t remind me.”
Watari busied himself, grabbing a quick selection of cakes and candies and a small glass of strawberry milk before setting it front of L.
It’s an immature thought in itself, to believe one can make a child behave well with treats.
L’s lived off sugar for so long that it hardly counts for anything special other than just survival. He wonders what L could possibly count as a treat these days. The Yagami boy pops into his mind, before quickly dismissing the thought.
L’s barely even looked at the food.
He’s staring intently at Watari.
Usually that kind of behaviour unsettles people that meet L, they say he has an unrelenting stare.
It’s partly true – it’s also true that whilst some individuals struggle to make eye contact, others feel compelled to keep it. His boy is the latter, and it hasn’t made him ever uneasy.
Watari looks calmly back at L, taking a sip of his own tea. It tastes rather bland then what he recalls.
“Why don’t you try some? They were made fresh from the bakery across the street just this morning.”
L eyed the sweets for a moment before moving his head back to Watari. “I’m hardly hungry.”
“Then I suppose you’re hungry for good conversation, rather?”
“Something along those lines...”
Watari listened to L’s fingers tapping at two-second intervals, the sound, as calming as it was for L, only elevating his own heart rate.
“Are you going to talk to him?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“And what will you say?”
“I don’t particularly have a script.”
“Do you plan to force him into a corner?”
“No, I plan to apologise.”
Watari stilled for a moment.
An apology. So it was true, then? His intuition for the situation, that voice in the back of his mind; L was going to surrender.
“Is that what you were coming to see me for, then? To apologise as well?”
“No.” After a moment, L spoke again, “I just wanted to talk.”
“You’re giving up.”
L didn’t respond. It was as good a yes.
Watari continued, “Do you want my blessing, is that why you’ve come? To tell you I support letting Kira take us all down alongside your defeatism?”
“I’m not a defeatist.”
“You cannot bear to steal a win unless you’ve won it outright. You refuse to catch him, kill him off, or lock him up completely. You’re playing a game, L.”
“Ryuzaki,” L corrected.
“Does that really matter right now?” Watari shook his head in disgruntlement. “Never mind. And you can’t think of a way out? Yagami’s worldview is narrow and sheltered. He’s a child.”
“He’s not just a child.”
“You’ve kept neck-and-neck with him so far, what makes it different?”
“I don’t know, Watari, maybe the fact that Kira has a Shinigami under his belt.” L held up a finger to count off each point, “That Shinigami exist in the first place. That the murder weapon is an otherworldly notebook with properties we’ll have no idea about. That Kira gets luckier and luckier by the day. That the only person I’ve shared a comradery with is inevitably about to kill me and there’s no stopping it because he’s got a notebook that kills people and a monster to support him. Isn’t it more absurd to think we could win?”
“And you were fighting him just fine before, even with his ‘killing powers’, you kept him on the defensive. Nothing makes it different, Ryuzaki, nothing but the fact that you’re surrendering.”
It feels like a yelling match. If the participants were a boy who could barely inflect his tone and a gentleman who refused to.
“You’re not the one to be experiencing it. You don’t know how it feels.”
“I’ve been here every step of the way. I’ve seen your relationship and I’ve believed you when no one else would.”
“Then you know following up with miss Amane is the only way forward.”
Watari wants to scream, he wants to grab L by the shoulders and shake him until he understands that his actions will affect others, that he’s twenty-five years old now and he should understand life isn’t about acting on the whims of depression or intrigue.
Watari is about to do just that, until he sees his dejected boy crouched on that lonely throne, a candy forgotten on the table before him.
And he remembered when he pledged to follow L to the grave.
It was a long time ago, although surely L still remembers, when Watari had promised the small child he would support him in whatever ways he could. He would help him reach his full potential.
Perhaps it had been a way to live vicariously through another.
But L still looked like that little boy now. Sad and alone and not entirely understanding the world despite how smart he was.
“I remember one birthday of yours,” Watari broke the silence with a chuckle to himself, “Maybe eleven or twelve, we spent it wandering around London together.”
“Yes, I recall.”
He sounded deeply dejected. It was a wonder L answered at all.
“I recall you spent hours in a leaf pile, crunching them all down to dust, and then demanded I buy you ten different treats for dinner.”
“And I made us stop to crunch every leaf while we walked, too. It must have been bothersome, tending to a child like that.”
The older man sat himself across from L, pushing the candy towards him.
“It was never bothersome. Perhaps on occasion I would groan about going back to the same bakery multiple times within the hour, but, L, I would never wish for anyone else. They’ll keep trying to manufacture you like some cloning institution, and God knows Roger is hellbent on it, but they’ll never succeed. No, they could never create someone as truly distinct as you.”
L doesn’t respond to that. He probably doesn’t know what to say. Or, he’s so caught up in considering responses and situations that he might have just forgotten.
Watari is okay with that.
He’s learnt how L works, what makes him react in certain ways and how to communicate properly with him.
So when L takes the candy from the table, Watari smiles. It barely reaches his eyes, but he does smile.
“I remember,” L said, “That you took me into a bookstore. And when I immediately went to grab textbooks and adult fiction, you steered me away and forced me instead to read childish adventures. I may have complained deeply about it then, but – now, I wanted to thank you. I found the stories quite charming.”
“It was my pleasure.”
Watari decided to indulge, and took a small chocolate biscuit from the selection.
His blood sugar levels should hardly be of any concern.
He bit down and enjoyed the slightly sweet aftertaste on his tongue. His life had been one full of different experiences, new challenges and achievements around every corner. He wasn’t scared to go. He’d been holding out for long enough as it was.
But as for L – screens, evidence, testimonies, these were the things the boy had spent most of his life surrounded by.
A brief foray into sports and investment had only held winnings. To achieve those kinds of things without challenge was a dull life, L had known better than anyone.
And then Kira stepped onto the world’s stage, and suddenly L was there in-person. He was dealing with people without a proxy, making gambles and taking losses.
There was a light in his eyes that had never been there before.
Watari smiled.
Yes, to address the other issue, however–
“You know,” He told L, dusting a remaining few crumbs from his moustache, “You don’t need to hide it. I’ve been rather well aware how you’ve felt toward him.”
L swallowed clearly. Did he really not think Watari could tell? Almost decades together, and Watari was the only person to be able to read him like a book.
“It’s complicated,” L mumbled.
“I could imagine so. But nonetheless, I’ve watched each moment fold out. I’ve put blankets over you when you fell asleep watching Yagami, brought you food when all you could do was hatch plans and think about Kira’s next step.
“You needed someone other than an old man to understand you, to butt heads with you and come out at an impasse. I scarcely broke your fights up because it was the first time I’d ever seen you look so alive to care to squabble pettily.
“I was there every night to mediate those handcuffs of yours. And every day to mediate the rest. He could’ve been a charming boy.”
“He is,” L mumbled yet again, less audible than the last.
“Despite Kira?”
“Due to Kira.”
Of course, it was just like L to be enamoured with Kira in this way so.
“I recall when you were much smaller, you always got rather possessive over your toys. There was that one ragged and old stuffed bear, but you wouldn’t let it go for weeks, even hurting the other children who tried to touch it.”
“Watari, you need only to say that my obsessive behaviour as displayed in the Kira case had been prevalent since a young age.”
“Come now,” He chuckled, “Let an old man enjoy a metaphor.”
He knows L. He knows him so well, that there isn’t anything more to say on the matter. L’s feelings, as enigmatic as they are, would always be an honour to support.
“Do you have any regrets, for any of it?” Watari asked him.
L picked at his bottom lip. “I suppose I don’t.” He paused for a moment, “I regret, that we’ll both have to go down together. If I played had my cards better…” He trailed off.
Watari got up, placing both hands on L’s shoulders.
Where he wanted to shake the boy earlier, now anything left was the overwhelming need to see him comforted, see that sadness in his eyes lift by even a fraction.
“I’ve seen and done more than the average person ever should. And I’ve been ready for this for a long, long time. At the start, when cases had higher stakes, and your methods weren’t as polished, I was ready to face whatever came next. It takes a while to get complacent for that kind of thing, but it does happen. I’ve relied on your skills and between the two of us, we’ve been unstoppable. But there’s not a single part of it that I regret, no matter the outcome.
“I’ve been Watari for a long time now, however, Quillsh Wammy wants to say that he loves you dearly.”
Panic hits L’s eyes, and then he looked about to apologise, Watari’s sure of it, but he bites his tongue and says, “Then... thank you. For being the only one to never doubt me. And for... all of it, across all these years.”
“It’s been my pleasure.” He brings the boy into a hug, and it’s only in these moments does he realise how small L can feel, for all his presence. L’s arms don’t fully understand how to hug back, but that’s alright. Watari knows L. He knows what makes him react, what the smallest of his movements mean. He hugs the boy close with all he’s got left. “My son.”