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Their nights ran late.
Light stayed late, working hard, running his genius mind till its gears ground to dust. Matsuda stayed late, doing the grunt work, making sure Light didn’t have to worry about coffee and cable management. And Misa stayed out late, doing whatever she did in the Tokyo nights when her boyfriend couldn’t spare the time for her.
Their days ran lonely, with much of the task force out on field work — or working with the SPK, for all Matsuda knew. Light pretended not to care, but Matsuda couldn’t imagine it didn’t bother him. Matsuda was right. Light was very bothered.
“Misa brought back brownies,” Matsuda noted as they set up one morning. “Probably from one of her parties.”
“I think she went with some clubbing friends last night,” Light said. Ugh, Misa and her latest crew of bimbos, some crew of C-tier aspiring actresses and models. He really needed to tell her to drop them — he knew she would. She’d do anything for him. “They don’t seem like the baking type.”
“Oh, hey, maybe she made them for you at your place, then! Awww, she’s so sweet. Want one?”
“Hm, all right. You should take one as well.”
“R-really? You sure?”
“Yes. She wouldn’t have dropped them off here if she didn’t want the whole task force to have some, right?”
“Yeah, you’re right!” Matsuda took out a pair of plates and cut a generous brownie for each of them. “Maybe Ryuuzaki was right about sugar, and this’ll make our investigative skills even sharper!”
“That would be nice,” Light sighed, taking the plate. Unlike Ryuuzaki, he’d never been one for sweets. He preferred savory and salty snacks when his brain was in need of fuel. But he couldn’t deny the allure of chocolate. “We’re in need of a breakthrough. Perhaps you’ll blow this whole case open, Matsuda.” He said this despite knowing very well that Matsuda would never figure out the truth, namely that Light was Kira and also a lying snake.
The brownies were not very good. There was an odd pungent undertone to them that neither Light or Matsuda could identify — despite being total narcs, or perhaps because of this fact, they were not familiar with the signature taste of marijuana in edibles.
“Misa’s not a very good baker,” Light grumbled. “What’s in these?”
“No idea,” Matsuda said, wolfing down his brownie at record speed. “But I just realized I’ve been craving chocolate.”
Light, too, finished the entire brownie. It tasted weird, but his body craved sugar. He attributed it to his brain burning through sugar, instead of the reality that he simply was not adhering to an adequate diet for a human person, despite Matsuda’s best efforts to make him take care of himself. Efforts for which Light was entirely ungrateful.
Matsuda made them coffee and breakfast, and they got to work, the brownies quickly forgotten. Because they were full from the stodgy brownies, they only ate a bit of yogurt for breakfast. This was a grave error.
At approximately 9:17 a.m., Matsuda became acutely aware that the words he was saying were incredibly inane.
“How are you doing over there?” How stupid. Of course Light was doing bad. It had barely been any time at all since his dad died.
“Hey, look at this correlation in the data here?” No doubt Light had already figured it out — did Matsuda really think he’d be able to find a novel pattern to Kira’s killings? Sure, it was weird that the number of deaths per day had become more regular, but Light had definitely noticed that. But he couldn’t stop saying things, and it was horrible. Oh God, he was being so annoying. Matsuda forced himself to shut up. He wanted to keep talking, but the paralyzing conviction that Light thought he was being annoying pierced him through the tongue. Why hadn’t he realized before just how obnoxious of a person he was? And yet he still wanted to keep talking. His hands would be shaking, except they were being rather sluggish, which cancelled the anxiety out.
At approximately 9:27 a.m., Light noticed that Matsuda hadn’t talked in some time. This made the hairs raise on the back of his neck. Matsuda talked a lot. He commented on almost everything. Therefore, the fact that he wasn’t talking meant something was different about him at the moment. Light congratulated himself for this dazzling leap of logic that was proof that he was fit to be God.
“What do you think of this, Matsuda?” Light asked, pulling up a spreadsheet of NHN employee timecards. He wasn’t quite sure what “this” was.
“Um…” Matsuda squeaked, terrified to make an ass of himself, “I…I bet you can find something in there! Maybe figure out what time the emails were sent…” he trailed off, convinced that his idea was stupid, that Light had already thought of it, and that if he became any more of a burden on the investigation he would be taken out back and shot like a lame horse.
An answer utterly unMatsuda, Light thought. He hadn’t even jumped to any simplistic conclusions. He was afraid to voice his opinions for some reason. But why? Light was confident he could figure out the answer. He knew Matsuda very well, after all. Matsuda was a simple man. An easily solved algorithm. He had never done anything that Light could not account for, and never would. Therefore, if Matsuda was nervous around him, there was a simple explanation. But what explanation could that be?
There was only one: Aizawa had gotten to him. Near had gotten to him. Matsuda Knew.
Immediately, Light’s world shattered around him. The world swam before his eyes. The lights were far too bright. He experienced a litany of physical symptoms that he incorrectly attributed to psychological shock.
Calm down, Light, he told himself. This isn’t the end of the world. You already planned for this. You’re handling Aizawa, and you handled Naomi and L. Matsuda is nothing.
But. There was a cabinet with their weapons. Matsuda was closer to it. Light eyed him. Who knew what Matsuda would do? Not shoot him, no, that was impossible. Matsuda would never do that, even if he knew for certain that Light was Kira. So why did Light’s heart beat so fearfully, so erratically? Even if Matsuda knew, Matsuda understood Kira. Light had nothing to fear.
And yet there was a growing part of Light’s brain that was unshakably and irrationally convinced that he had lost Matsuda forever, that Matsuda would kill him. This was the part of his brain that was, scientifically speaking, high as balls. (In the end, it was also the part of his brain that would be vindicated.)
Light suddenly felt like crying, which he found worrying. He hadn’t really cried even after his father died, just faked some crocodile tears, because he was a total asshole.
They sat in this tense moment for what seemed like a minute at most but was, in actuality, an hour and a half. Light almost fell asleep. He did not realize this. He thought he was perfectly alert, and in total command of all his faculties.
At that point, Matsuda realized that he was ravenously starving. He saw the perfect opportunity to leave the situation and avoid annoying Light further. He would also have a chance to do a service for Light and perhaps get him to eat something. Multiple birds would then be killed with one stone.
“I’m hungry,” he said. “I’ll pop down to the noodle place down the street — want me to get you something?”
“I’ll come with you,” Light said, convinced that as soon as Matsuda left the building he’d contact Near and have an airstrike called on Task Force HQ. He needed to stay right next to Matsuda until they were back on the same side. “I need to stretch my legs.”
He walked side by side with Matsuda down the sidewalk. They were both incredibly aware of their limbs. This awareness did not help them control said limbs in an elegant way. Matsuda internally berated himself for being such a klutz. Light was immensely frustrated at his own lack of coordination, and blamed it on Matsuda, who was flustering him. The streetlights were too bright, even though they were not on. Somehow, they ended up seated at the ramen bar, and both ordered large bowls with hefty helpings of meat. Far more food than they’d typically end up eating, especially Light, who had a bad habit of picking at a small meal throughout the day.
“Thanks,” Matsuda said abruptly.
“For what?” Light asked, because to him it sounded like a goodbye.
Matsuda shrugged. “Everyone else talks to me like an idiot.” Oh my God, Matsuda, stop talking, he thought. “But you always treat me like I’m saying things that make sense. It means a lot.”
Light opened his mouth to respond. Was Matsuda putting out feelers? Thanking Light for being Kira? Or was this really a goodbye, Matsuda thanking Light for his kindness despite their differing ideals? It was a fitting goodbye. Light was a liar in many ways, but with Matsuda he was a bit less of a liar when it came to talking about Kira. Matsuda’s ideas really did make sense. He got Kira like the rest of the task force didn’t. With Matsuda, not all of Light had to be a mask.
So if Matsuda turned against him, that meant it was time to torch the Task Force to the ground.
Why was Light getting so emotional over the prospect of losing Matsuda? It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t like he was attached. He would kill Matsuda without hesitation. Yet he couldn’t deny that his heart had plummeted into his shoes when Matsuda first began acting oddly and it hadn’t risen since. Did he…did he actually care about Matsuda? Was Matsuda a person whose existence was worth preserving beyond his utility to Kira?
Light was so lost in the epiphany that he actually might care about Matsuda that he forgot to respond, convincing Matsuda that what he’d said had been completely stupid and now Light would never forgive him for the crime of existing.
Their noodles arrived, steaming enticingly and looking absolutely delicious, more so than any meals they’d gotten from that noodle place in the past. They began eating. Light made a noise of satisfaction.
“These are the best noodles I’ve ever had,” he said.
It was the best food he could remember having, period. The umami was as rich as velvet on his tongue, and the salt was a symphony. A thousand beautiful flavors and textures intermingled, igniting every possible craving. Ah, the savory joy of a last meal…no, no, that was too morbid. He was simply too smart to die. Instead, as his godhood approached, he was becoming further immersed in the pleasures of the world he was to rule.
He glanced over at Matsuda, who was similarly engrossed in his meal with singular happiness.
“This is really, really good,” Matsuda said, wiping a drop of broth off his chin. “Holy shit. This is so fucking good. Shit, sorry, I shouldn’t swear…”
“Matsuda, you are 30. You can say whatever you want.”
“Right, sorry,” Matsuda mumbled through his noodles, feeling humiliated.
They paid for their meal. Light did not know how much it cost. Numbers were hard to read at that moment. He decided this was because his brain was simply so smart and efficient that it was devoting all of its energy into handling Matsuda’s suspicions instead of knowing what numbers meant. He mentally patted himself on the back for his galactic intellect and massive bank account balance. He was so very generous for paying for Matsuda’s lunch. Surely this meant that Matsuda trusted him more now, and was remembering his past kindness.
Matsuda, meanwhile, was berating himself for not picking up the bill. He felt like crying, and did not know why. He did not consider that he was drugged, which was understandable, as he had no way of knowing that. He also did not consider that he’d been under nonstop stress and threat of death as the world turned against all he stood for nearly half a decade, and had recently suffered the death of a man who was like a father to him. This was less understandable.
“Matsuda,” Light said very eloquently, “I’ve been thinking. About our talks. I know that we’re all so focused on fighting Kira. Catching him. Because that’s…our job. But I wonder sometimes…maybe we should consider…the underlying morals. Consequentialism. And all that. And really talk about why we’re doing the right thing. What are your thoughts?”
Matsuda stared at his feet as they stumbled over the pavement, rightfully convinced they would start disobeying if not carefully monitored. He did not really understand Light’s question, and thought it was weirdly vague, but tragically assumed that this was because he was stupid, rather than realizing that Light had lost the capability to say things that were not basically word salad. The two of them kept bumping into each other, so at some point they started holding hands. This seemed very sensible at the time. It allowed them to keep walking in a somewhat straight line.
“I know I’m wrong,” Matsuda said, “but I always have doubts. I wonder if I’d be as anti-Kira as I am, if I hadn’t been on the Task Force from the beginning. I look around and…and I see a world with less crime, less war.” He swallowed down the taste of broth and guilt. “And it’s like, are people really like that? Are we really the kind of species that can only be peaceful under the eye of a vengeful god? And that’s what really scares me, I guess. Because if Kira is right, it doesn’t just mean that we’re wrong — it means that Hobbes was right too, that human life is destined to be nasty, brutish and short, only tolerable under the wrathful eye of the Leviathan. Plus, I don’t believe Kira is evil, not in his intention. He wants to create a perfect world. So if I don’t fully disagree with the consequences of what he does, and I don’t believe he’s making a malicious and rationally autonomous choice, what would we even be punishing? Besides, I don’t have any faith in my own judgement of what the world should be like, so if the world believes Kira is right, isn’t it unethical for me to attempt to impose my own authority on them? I want to catch Kira, I know I do, but is that really because I believe we’re serving justice, or is it just personal? And does it even matter…sorry, I’m rambling.”
Light nodded serenely. “I think you’re making a lot of good points.”
He didn’t understand half of what Matsuda said, and decided this was because Matsuda was stupid. In reality, Light had simply never thought about his own code of ethics beyond whatever he could hack together to justify his own egotism and avoidance of guilt. His morals were whatever allowed him to retroactively justify his own pompous view of himself as the arbiter of right and wrong. In this way, he resembled many Republicans.
“I-I do hate Kira, though!” Matsuda insisted. “I just…I just can’t be as sure as the rest of you guys. I’m with you all the way, though, Light. Through everything.”
“That’s a dangerous promise to make,” Light said.
They were both inside Task Force HQ somehow. Neither of them remembered entering the building.
“I talked to the Chief,” Matsuda said, “before you arrived at the hospital.” He swallowed, aware that talking about Light’s dead dad was an absolute landmine but unable to stop talking. Why was he running his mouth so much? And why was Light saying such weird things? “I promised him I’d look after you.”
“Is that so?” Light hummed.
“Y-yeah.”
Light did not know what to make of this. Maybe Matsuda didn’t suspect him after all — no, that was a dangerous line of thinking. Matsuda was a surprisingly good liar, as exhibited by his cover story to the Yotsuba group. If Light were fooled by Matsuda, his ego would never recover.
“I’m glad,” Light said. “Even if Near fools the others, I’ll have you, won’t I?”
“Of course.” This put Matsuda at ease. Maybe he was annoying, but the rest of the Task Force losing faith made him the MVP by default.
“I’m still hungry,” Light realized, even though he’d devoured an entire large bowl of noodles. He began rifling through the snack cabinet and pulling out various foodstuffs.
“Another brownie?” Matsuda suggested.
“Ah, yes.”
They both ate another brownie, as it was something filling that was available. They also split a bag of jerky and some onigiri from the fridge. Then Matsuda found something that he decided would endear him to Light once and for all.
“Look, your favorite!” he said, pulling out a bag of barbecue potato chips. “I got these at the grocery store a few days ago — Ryuuzaki said these were the kind you like, I don’t know why I remembered…”
Light stiffened. That confirmed it. Somehow, Matsuda knew about the miniature television. What’s more, Matsuda was taunting him. He knew that Light couldn’t kill him now, not without confirming the task force’s suspicions.
“I’ll take some,” Light said.
It was only a matter of time before the rest of the task force returned from their daily tasks, the nature of which Light couldn’t remember and deemed unimportant. That was probably when Matsuda planned to hammer his coffin shut. He must have discovered some proof. Matsuda wouldn’t turn on him from intuition alone. He trusted Light completely, or at least he used to.
Or. Maybe Light’s goose was not, in fact, cooked. Maybe Matsuda was on the fence, trying to signal to Light that he knew, and he was silently begging for an explanation, a reason to take his side. Well, Light was very good at giving people reasons to take his side. He needed Matsuda to trust him and tell him what he’d found. Perhaps Matsuda could even become a new valuable ally — he had, after all, said he would be with Light through everything. Now, what did he usually do when he needed someone on his side? The best example of such a gambit was Takada, so the answer was clear.
He had to seduce Matsuda.
He congratulated himself on his quick thinking, not realizing that he had been eating barbecue potato chips and idly clicking around a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet filled with their monthly budget numbers for a full twenty minutes. Light decided he needed to wait for a few more minutes. And so, an hour after eating the second brownie, he decided to put his plans into place.
Matsuda at this point was beginning to understand the Book of Job, which he’d had to read for a philosophy class in college but had never really clicked with.
“Matsuda,” Light said, “you’ve done a lot for me, haven’t you?”
“Kira is no God,” Matsuda said. “His ideals slot too cleanly into how we conceive of right and wrong — when a true God would be so vast that our false dichotomies would be simple mirages obscuring His truth.”
“Are you becoming a Christian, Matsuda?”
“I’m bisexual, actually,” Matsuda said.
So the plan was ready to go ahead. Excellent. It was a good thing he was doing this with Matsuda, who was objectively an attractive man. Light started wheeling his chair closer to Matsuda, inch by inch. Matsuda stared out of the window, musing on how he’d never noticed how beautiful a smoggy sky could be — it matched how he was feeling, with time turning molasses-slow on his tongue. Light’s chair creaked, and Matsuda turned back to him, not noticing that Light had gotten closer. His depth perception was not cooperating very well. His short term memory wasn’t either.
Light decided to give Matsuda the Look: the gaze that laced his eyes with steel and fire, that convinced women that despite his soft-seeming intellectual exterior he had a hidden edge. It was sexy. He knew that. He was totally an attractive guy. This was absolutely going to work.
Matsuda then became terrified that Light was going to eat him alive. There was no other explanation for that look — Light wanted to devour him, body and soul. Not in a hot way. In a literal way. A Hannibal Lecter way, but not the sexy Hannibal Lecter way. Sure, maybe Light leaning into Matsuda’s space like that could be interpreted as a come-on, but Matsuda subconsciously decided that would be ridiculous before the thought even fully occurred to him. He was Light Yagami, noted womanizer and approximately three leagues away from Matsuda. (He was right about that, but in the opposite direction that Matsuda thought.)
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Light asked.
“No,” Matsuda said.
“Why not?”
“Where would I even find the time?” Matsuda said. He immediately winced, because Light had a girlfriend — he’d totally accidentally implied that Light was slacking off by dating Misa.
Light touched Matsuda’s hand. Matsuda felt like he was in free fall. Light looked into Matsuda’s eyes and discovered they were a color previously known only to shrimp.
“I feel great,” Matsuda said, apropos of nothing. “I just realized — usually the scars from the explosion hurt. But they don’t. Haven’t since breakfast.”
Usually, they were an ever-present ache, a burning reminder of what he’d lost. But ever since that first mediocre brownie, the pain had faded to a slight tingle.
Light took this as a sign that his genius plan was working, and Matsuda was becoming properly wooed. He decided to stand up and get into Matsuda’s lap. He succeeded at the first step, and then toppled over onto the floor. He started to wonder if there was something wrong with him, physically. Come to think of it, some of the sensations he was experiencing were not normal. He slapped a hand against his cheek and discovered his face was almost completely numb.
“You okay?” Matsuda asked, getting onto the floor with him in solidarity.
“Matsuda, do you feel odd?”
“Uh…yeah. But that’s normal. It’s the anxiety.” To Matsuda, temperature had ceased to have meaning. This is not normal with anxiety.
“Something’s wrong,” Light said. “I feel…drunk, almost.” He was very proud of himself for catching such a subtle and insidious change in his functioning. He was approximating a guess at what drunkenness felt like, as he was too paranoid about losing control of his faculties to have ever imbibed alcohol in significant quantities.
“But you didn’t drink anything. Including water. You should drink water.”
They took a break from the conversation to chug several glasses of water, and continued to talk on the kitchen floor. The floor was the ideal place to have a conversation. No conventions or constructions of modern man could stand against the base human desire to just be on the ground for a bit.
“I didn’t do any drugs, either,” Light said. “Matsuda, did you put something in my food?”
“No!”
“Right,” Light muttered. “Everything I’ve eaten was either made in a restaurant or packaged.” He forgot about the brownies. “Some kind of weapon…targeted at me.”
“Near must have done this,” Matsuda concluded.
Maybe Light misjudged him. Maybe Matsuda really was a genius. Oh, right, Light was trying to seduce him. That had to happen before they figured out who had attacked Light with an insidious bioweapon.
“Light, are you high?” Matsuda whispered conspiratorially. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“I’m not high!” Light insisted. “I’m under the neurological effects of a nerve agent of some kind.” That was the only explanation for the numb face and delayed reactions.
Matsuda nodded sagely, still thinking about the Book of Job. The climax was the most impactful part, but he knew there was more to dissect in the lead-up. “I’m not high either,” he said. “I’m a cop.”
Light planted a hand on his shoulder with a solemn nod. “A good one.”
This was the perfect opportunity to kiss him.
Light then woke up on the kitchen floor, Matsuda asleep beside him. Judging from the quality of the light, it was far past noon. Light sat up and his vision went completely black for several seconds. The situation was not good, and Light did not want to face it alone. He shook Matsuda by the shoulder.
“Matsuda, wake up,” he hissed.
Then he kissed Matsuda on the forehead. This did not help anything. He did not know why he had done that.
After far more vigorous shakes, Matsuda woke up, blinking blearily and muttering something incoherent. He grinned when he saw Light. Yes, seduced indeed.
“Others’ll be back soon,” Matsuda yawned. “Then we can yell at Near for poisoning you…”
Light nodded decisively. This was a perfect opportunity to get everyone back on his side by playing the victim — and it wouldn’t even be a play, because it was true. Near had tried foolishly to go on the offensive, but that would be his fatal error.
They cleverly managed to make their way back to the main desk by leaning on each other like contestants in a three-legged race. This was necessary, as gravity no longer followed the rules.
The door was very loud as it opened to allow the remaining members of the task force in. Matsuda and Light hissed at the creak of the hinges.
“Hey, any progress on the NHN analysis?” Aizawa asked.
“We hit some snags,” Light said, convinced that he was responding after an appropriate amount of time. In reality, it took him about ten seconds to respond.
“Near sent us anthrax or something,” Matsuda added, convinced that he was responding after an appropriate amount of time. In reality, his words bit the heels of Light’s and he was talking way too fast.
“Please clarify,” Ide said.
“Light feels weird,” Matsuda clarified. Light grit his teeth, incensed that Matsuda would reveal his weakness like that. Matsuda’s statement had a double meaning, as the fluorescence of their HQ were turning fun new colors to him. He would probably get a headache from that, except all pain was miraculously gone. “It’s totally Near’s fault.”
“Um, okay,” Aizawa said, feeling distinctly unnerved. Even from across the room, Light and Matsuda’s pupils were visibly dilated. “Did you eat anything that wasn’t sealed or prepared in a restaurant?”
“Oh my God,” Matsuda said. “The brownies. Near poisoned the brownies.”
Ide suddenly realized what had happened. But before he could voice his epiphany, as if summoned by their conversation, Near called. Light clumsily clicked the button to accept the call, leaning in just a bit too close to the microphone. Ide went to the kitchen to confirm his suspicions.
“Hello, Near,” Light said. “Here to gloat at your victory?”
“What are you talking about?” Near asked, already thrown off guard while attempting to play some standard-issue mind games. “I’m calling to caution you about Takada. If Kira’s supporters find out what you’re doing…”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Light said. “Also, don’t pretend to be concerned for me. I know you sent that bioweapon. In the brownies.”
“L,” Ide said, returning from the kitchen with a pale face, “that wasn’t Near. L, listen—“
“Shut up, Ide,” Matsuda said.
“…brownies?” Near repeated, baffled.
“Oh, Christ,” Ide said.
“Near didn’t poison those brownies,” Mogi whispered to the rest of the task force. “I made them with some greenish artisan butter Misa had lying around. I know Near didn’t get his hands on them.”
“Oh, no,” Ide said. “Oh fuck. They ate like, half the pan.”
“Sorry, but I couldn’t help but overhear that they ate half the pan of these mysterious brownies,” Near said. He knew exactly what Ide’s horrified words meant. Roger had not been scrupulous with checking the contents of Matt’s garden back at Wammy’s. “Does that refer to L and another member of the task force?”
“Oh, right! I’m poisoned too, I guess,” Matsuda said.
Near started cackling from the other end of the line.
“How the fuck,” Ide said, “do the two of you not know what edibles taste like? Mogi, how did you not smell it? I know most people don’t have access to weed, but we’re cops! We should know this!”
“Oh no,” Aizawa said, realization dawning on his face.
Mogi, who had just wanted to do something nice for his coworkers, leaned his forehead against the wall.
“Buckle up, boys,” Near said. “That’s the forever weed that makes you high for the rest of your lives. Get used to it and hold onto the grass before you fall into the sky. And you better not let anyone else find out you’re high, or you’re fucked. Penalties are pretty steep over there, right?”
“This is forever?” Matsuda squeaked.
“It’s forever,” Near confirmed. “No one in the history of the world has ever been as high as the two of you are right now.”
“I’m not high,” Matsuda insisted again. “I’m a cop.”
“Remember to eat a lot of fatty foods, don’t drink any water, and stay awake as long as you can,” Near said. “Maybe it’ll go away if you think about your friends and how much they might hate you. Now, L, how are you feeling about your task force? How many of them do you think have talked to me? You don’t need to answer that. I can hear your thoughts from here — you’re saying them all out loud and you don’t even notice.”
Light slammed his finger so hard into the button to hang up the call that it nearly broke. On the other end of the line, Near grinned.
“That was mean,” Gevanni said.
“That was funny,” Lidner said.
Rester was too busy smoking a joint to comment. Such medicines were necessary to work with Near.
“Light, calm down,” Ide said. “It’s just THC. You guys will be fine, you just need to sleep it off. And you’ll be feeling the effects for a day or two, maybe more, but it’s not forever—“
“And why should I trust anything you say?” Light demanded, far more slowly than he intended. He tried to dramatically stand and topple the chair, but his legs did not actually move. He still thought he was standing. “You’re probably already working with him! You all are! None of you trust me anymore — I spent my youth hunting down Kira, and this is the thanks I get?”
“I trust you,” Matsuda said, grabbing Light’s hand.
“I think you need to go to sleep,” Mogi said meekly.
“I can’t,” Light said, crazed. “I’m gonna be like this forever.”
“Light, you are literally just high,” Ide told him. “You are fine. People get high all the time. You just need to sleep for 12 hours or so. You too, Matsuda.”
Light continued to protest this. Mogi shrugged and picked him up, hauling him bodily to the couch and dropping him on it. Once a face mask was forced over his eyes, he promptly fell asleep.
“Wow,” Matsuda said. “Guess he really was high.”
“You’re high too, Matsuda,” Aizawa reminded him, exasperated.
“Oh, right, yeah. I’m starting to realize that now,” Matsuda said. “Weed makes you anxious, right?”
“The effects vary,” Ide said. “It affects everyone differently.”
“So you guys don’t hate me?”
“No, Matsuda, we don’t hate you,” Aizawa said. “Now it’s time for bed.”
“Cool,” Matsuda said, and passed out sitting up on his chair as all tension left his body simultaneously. He slowly slid out of the chair and onto the floor.
Mogi relocated him to the other couch.
“This is the stupidest thing that’s ever happened to us,” Ide said.
“Honestly?” Aizawa sighed, “it’s a breath of fresh air. Usually when some bullshit happens on this investigation, it means someone dies. This is tame in comparison. I can’t remember the last time I got a funny story to tell.”
“I’m just going to go throw those brownies out,” Mogi said.
“Cut me some first,” Ide and Aizawa said simultaneously.