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The handcuff clicks shut like a gun cocking. Light Yagami looks down at the steel chain between them as if it’s a riddle he’ll solve before dessert. L merely continues eating cake. It’s carrot this time, swirled with something that looks suspiciously like blood orange and regret.
“This is excessive,” Light says, flicking the chain with two fingers like it might bite him.
“On the contrary,” L replies without looking up, “I think it’s a necessary escalation. You have an unfortunate tendency to disappear from my sight, Light-kun. That won’t happen again.”
“You say that like I’m some kind of feral animal you’ve decided to leash.”
“You say that like it isn’t true.”
Light smiles. Not the soft, politician’s son smile he gives the cameras. The other one. The sharper one. The kind of smile that feels like it should come with a Latin epithet and an ominous cloud of crows.
“You really enjoy this, don’t you?” Light murmurs. “All of it. The mind games. The suspicion. Me.”
L finally looks at him. His posture is as inhuman as always—perched like some cursed goblin prince—but his eyes are sharp enough to draw blood.
“I neither enjoy nor dislike you, Light-kun,” he says, and it’s a lie so transparent it practically fogs the window. “But I do find you fascinating. Like a fire in a locked room. Beautiful. Dangerous. Ultimately self-destructive.”
Light leans in, and the chain clinks like a bell before a duel. “And you’re the one who locked the room. Tell me, Ryuuzaki, what does that make you?”
L takes a slow bite of his cake, chewing thoughtfully. He swallows. He never blinks.
“It makes me the person who intends to survive the fire.”
They stare at each other like twin blades mid-clash. Somewhere in the corner, Matsuda drops a folder and mutters an apology no one hears.
---
There are too many cameras.
This is Light’s first thought when he sits down on the cot in the suite they’ve been moved into—neutral territory, they’d said, which meant it wasn’t a prison but it wasn’t freedom either. The walls are white like a padded cell, and the cameras blink red like watching eyes, all of them trained on the boy who might be God or might be the devil or might be both.
L sits across from him, disheveled as ever, legs folded up like a child on a jungle gym. He is watching Light like a mathematician watches a collapsing equation—half horrified, half aroused.
Light wonders which part he is.
“You can’t keep doing this,” Light says eventually. “Treating me like I’m the suspect just because I’m smarter than you.”
“You’re not smarter than me,” L says, so fast it’s almost a tic.
“I’m younger. More charming. Better hair.”
“You’re insecure.”
“I’m handcuffed to you. Of course I’m insecure.”
L tilts his head. “You didn’t complain when we had to share a bed.”
“I was asleep,” Light mutters.
“You weren’t asleep. You were pretending to be asleep. You breathed inconsistently. You twitched every time I moved. You were hyper-aware of our proximity. It was, frankly, suspicious.”
“It was cold!” Light says. “It was cold and you don’t sleep under the blankets like a normal human being!”
“I’m not normal,” L says evenly. “You should know that by now.”
There’s a long pause.
Light swallows.
“I know,” he says.
They lie in the dark like mismatched bookends. The chain between them coils like a serpent—silent, patient, ancient.
“I think about killing you sometimes,” Light says.
“I think about kissing you sometimes,” L replies.
Light goes still. “What.”
“I said, I think about kissing you. Sometimes. Usually when you’re angry. Or when you monologue.”
“I don’t monologue.”
“You absolutely do.”
“You monologue.”
“I monologue better.”
Light turns over sharply, facing L in the dark. “You’re trying to distract me.”
“Is it working?”
“…Yes.”
Another pause.
“You’re really good at making me want to punch you in the face and kiss you at the same time,” Light mutters. “It’s not fair.”
“You’re not fair either. You’re beautiful. And you think you deserve to win just because you’re beautiful.”
“I do.”
“You don’t.”
“I do. You just hate how much you want me.”
“I hate everything. I love nothing. I want you.”
There’s a sound between them—almost a gasp, almost a laugh, almost a sob. It might be Light. It might be L. It might be the air giving up.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Light asks softly.
“Because I don’t know if I want to destroy you or devote myself to you,” L replies. “And until I know, I’m keeping you close.”
“…Close,” Light echoes. He slides a hand under the blanket, follows the chain, wraps his fingers around L’s wrist. Their heartbeats clash. “Define close.”
“Closeness is a construct,” L says. “But in this case…”
Their mouths meet like they’re still debating. Like it’s a dare. Like neither of them wants to be the first to break contact—but also neither of them intends to lose.
It’s not soft.
It’s teeth. Tongue. A harsh exhale. A confession in violence.
L kisses like he’s solving something. Light kisses like he’s burning for an answer.
When they pull apart, they’re both breathing like they ran a race.
“We shouldn’t do this,” Light says.
“No,” L agrees. “But we will.”
---
Morning comes, or at least the suggestion of it, because the blackout curtains remain drawn and the fluorescent ceiling lights are stuck in a limbo between “interrogation” and “post-modern hellscape.” The room smells like toothpaste, masculine pride, and the faintest trace of betrayal.
Light wakes to L’s hand in his hair.
Not gently. Not fondly. No, it’s tangled there like L is trying to determine if Light is made of real human matter or some synthetic substitute woven from hubris and God complex. Which, fair.
“What the hell,” Light says, voice still ruined from sleep.
“You snore,” L replies flatly.
“I do not.”
“You do. Very lightly. It’s irritating.”
“You’re irritating.”
“And your hair is sharp,” L adds, twisting a strand as if it’s a weapon. “It poked me in the eye at four in the morning.”
“Good. Maybe you’ll go blind and finally stop watching me like I’m a goddamn equation.”
“You are an equation. But one without a satisfying solution. It’s offensive.”
“You’re offensive.”
“You’re repetitive.”
“You’re obsessed with me.”
A pause.
L’s fingers still in his hair.
“…Yes,” L says, so simply, so absolutely, that Light’s breath stutters.
There’s a kind of war that happens in the seconds after that. Not loud. Not violent. Just quiet, awful understanding. The realization that this is not a game, not really, not anymore. That hate has folded itself into something stickier. That obsession is no longer a straight line—it’s a Möbius strip.
“Don’t say things like that,” Light whispers, venomous.
“But they’re true.”
“Exactly.”
Later, when they’re handcuffed in front of the task force, trying to look professional, Light is still haunted by it. The confession. The tone. The way it made his skin feel like it didn’t fit right anymore.
The others drone on about alibis and evidence, but all Light hears is you’re an equation, and yes, and I think about kissing you sometimes, and then he thinks about how he let him.
He let him. He kissed back. Worse—he liked it.
No. No, no, no. That’s not the plan. That’s not part of the elegant mindfuck opera Light has written for himself. The script does not include feeling things for the freak crouched like a haunted Victorian child at the end of his bed.
L is looking at him now. He has frosting on his thumb. He licks it off slowly, never breaking eye contact.
Bastard.
Light glances down at the desk and realizes he’s dug his pen into the legal pad hard enough to tear it.
“Are you alright, Light-kun?” L asks, head tilted in that way that means I’m being innocent but also I’m thinking about handcuffing you for fun.
“Fine,” Light replies through gritted teeth. “Just thinking.”
“Dangerous habit,” L says.
“For some of us.”
That Night.
They’ve been chained together for 11 days, 13 hours, 27 minutes.
It’s been 21 hours and 25 minutes since the kiss.
Light is doing pushups when it happens.
L is sitting on the floor, eating strawberries dipped in sugar and watching Light like he’s a lab rat with particularly nice arms.
“You’re breathing hard,” L observes.
“That’s because I’m exercising,” Light snaps.
“Mm. Or thinking about murdering me.”
“I can do both.”
“I’m impressed.”
Light finishes the last pushup, panting, hair sticking to his forehead. The sweat on his skin makes the thin shirt cling in all the right places. He knows. He’s seen the mirror. He’s also seen the way L looks at him when he thinks Light isn’t paying attention.
(He’s always paying attention.)
“You could join me, you know,” Light says, standing, stretching, muscles flexing in elegant rebellion. “Build some upper body strength. Instead of, say, consuming your weight in icing and trauma.”
“I have the reflexes of a god and the cholesterol of a goat,” L says. “I’m invincible.”
“You’re pale. You’re strange. You don’t blink. Honestly, I’m not convinced you’re human.”
“I’m not. I’m justice.”
Light glares.
L smiles.
There’s a quiet between them that’s less peaceful and more sexually charged warzone.
“You kissed me,” Light says finally, like he’s reading a line off a crime scene report.
“You kissed me back.”
“Under duress.”
“You moaned.”
“I was tired!”
“You bit my lip.”
“You taste like sugar and moral failure!”
L stands up. The chain between them tugs tight.
He’s close now. Too close. Their breath mingles. Their hearts speak in Morse.
“Do it again, then,” L says, voice low and vulgar and uncharacteristically steady. “If it meant nothing. If you hate me.”
“I do hate you,” Light hisses. “You’ve ruined everything. I had a plan.”
“You are the plan,” L whispers.
Light grabs his shirt.
L doesn’t stop him.
The kiss is messy. Worse than the first. Teeth clash. A tongue slips. They make a noise that is not appropriate for surveillance.
The chain rattles like it’s applauding.
When they break apart, Light is panting. His lip is bleeding. L looks like someone lit him on fire and he’s trying to decide whether to scream or come.
“Fuck,” Light says.
“That’s an idea,” L replies.
Later, Light lies awake and thinks about Greek tragedies.
He thinks about Oedipus, mostly—how knowledge destroyed him. How the truth was worse than ignorance. How the pursuit of justice led to ruin.
He wonders if L is his Sphinx.
Or if he’s the monster.
Or if there’s a difference.
His body still hums from the kiss. From the friction. From the need that crept in like a virus and made a home in his gut.
He can’t let this happen again.
He will let it happen again.
He’s already planning how.
---
They don’t speak of it the next morning.
L eats a cinnamon roll with the intensity of a man on death row and Light reads a book he’s not actually reading. The chain between them lies slack on the floor, glinting in the morning light like a leash that’s seen too much.
Light can still taste him.
Still feel the imprint of L’s mouth, the way he kissed like he wanted to own something. Not like a person kisses. Like a thief.
He hates it.
He hates that it keeps circling in his head like a prayer gone wrong. You kissed me back. You bit my lip. You moaned.
He hates that he did.
That it felt good.
Not just the kiss, but the surrender. The tiny death. The terrifying flicker of being seen—actually seen—by someone who could ruin him with a word.
He doesn’t know what L is thinking. Doesn’t want to. He’d rather fantasize about killing him than admit he wants to press him to the wall and map every inch of him until he knows if he’s made of sugar or arsenic or both.
L glances up. Their eyes meet.
Light looks away first.
He wants to throw himself off the balcony.
He wants to push L off the balcony and follow him down.
That night, Light dreams of being dragged into the ocean by a pale hand. He wakes up hard.
He does not jerk off.
They fight over something stupid.
Something about which suspect to follow. Or what time the meeting is. Or maybe the way L drinks tea like an alien mimicking human behavior. Maybe it’s all of it. Maybe it's just the third day of not touching when they both desperately want to.
Light slams the door. L slams it back. They’re handcuffed together, so it turns into a weird, almost cartoonish tug-of-war down the hallway, each of them storming in the opposite direction like physics doesn’t apply to geniuses.
By the time they get back into their suite, they’re both breathless, furious, and already halfway through three insults each.
“You are infuriating!” Light snarls.
“You are profoundly un-self-aware,” L snaps. “Which is tragic, considering how much you allegedly enjoy introspection.”
“At least I’m not a cryptid with a sugar dependency and the emotional range of a broken calculator!”
“At least I don’t murder people like an edgy theater kid with God delusions!”
“You still think I’m Kira?”
“I think you’re arrogant enough to believe justice is whatever you decide it is.”
“And you think justice is what? Chaining yourself to the boy you suspect so you can watch him in the shower?”
“Oh, please, you left the water running for an extra two minutes just to see if I’d say something. I did. You called me a pervert.”
“You are a pervert!”
“You’re harder than your moral rigidity.”
They stop.
Both breathing hard. Chest to chest. The chain tight between them like a violin string pulled to snapping.
“I hate you,” Light says, low.
L nods slowly, eyes dark and hooded. “Good.”
And then they’re kissing again.
No—crashing. Like they’ve been circling this inevitable apocalypse for weeks and have finally decided to plummet into the heart of it and see who survives.
Teeth. Tongue. Gasps.
Light’s hands in L’s hair, yanking.
L’s fingers digging into Light’s hips, dragging him forward like a man possessed.
They stumble backward until Light’s spine hits the wall. L’s mouth is on his throat, biting, sucking, wet and hot and wrong. Light makes a sound like he’s choking on rage and lust all at once.
They don’t undress each other with care.
They strip, like violence. Light’s shirt is yanked over his head, buttons pinging to the floor. L’s hoodie is discarded like a failed experiment. They leave a trail of clothing across the room like evidence of a crime scene.
They never stop touching.
L bites Light’s chest like he wants to bruise him into memory. Light claws at L’s back like he’s trying to open a door into hell.
The bed is too far.
They collapse onto the floor, chain tangling, limbs colliding. Light ends up on top, straddling L’s hips, both of them still in their pants, breathing like animals.
Light grinds down once—just to see. Just to prove a point.
L’s breath hitches.
“You’re hard,” Light says.
“You’re smug,” L replies, voice shredded.
“You want this.”
“I want to ruin you.”
“You already have.”
That’s when Light kisses him again. Deep. Hungry. Like he needs to own something back. Like he wants to taste the root of the problem.
They fumble out of their pants. They don’t care. There’s no ceremony to it. Just friction and gasping and the ugly, beautiful sound of need overtaking everything else.
L’s hand wraps around them both—hot, rough, determined.
Light moans.
L smirks.
It’s awful.
It’s perfect.
They rut against each other like beasts dressed in brilliance. Not elegant. Not gentle. Just furious, rhythmic, desperate. The kind of sex you only have when there’s too much history and not enough future.
Light wants to cry. Or laugh. Or kill him.
Instead, he bites L’s shoulder and comes with a choked-off groan, face buried in his neck.
L follows, silent except for a hiss of breath and the way his hand tightens for one unbearable second.
When it’s over, they lie there—sweaty, sticky, panting, skin hot and red with exertion and marks.
Light stares at the ceiling.
L stares at Light.
Their wrists are still chained.
“Don’t,” Light says, already hoarse.
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” L replies, deadpan. “Though I am considering adding mutual masturbation as interrogation tactic to our official report.”
“Fuck you.”
“You just did.”
Light covers his face with one hand.
L covers Light’s chest with his own hand, fingers splayed like a crime scene marker.
They don’t move for a long time.
That night, Light lies awake again.
His body is satisfied. His mind is not.
He doesn’t understand what’s happening.
He doesn't want to.
He thinks of justice. Of purpose. Of power.
He thinks of L’s hands. His mouth. His voice. The smell of him. The look in his eyes when he came.
He thinks of how he felt afterwards—not victorious. Not superior. Not even clean.
Just… real.
Too real.
That’s the worst part.
If this continues, Light knows he’ll forget who the enemy is. Forget the lines. Forget the plan.
Worse—he’ll start hoping for something.
He turns over and sees L watching him through half-lidded eyes.
He doesn’t say anything.
Neither of them do.
They just breathe together in the dark. One heartbeat. One chain. One truth no one will name.
---
Everything's burning beautifully.
The room is too quiet.
Not the calm kind of quiet, but the kind that hums like an old TV left on a dead channel. It’s oppressive. Suspicious. Like even the air is aware something unspeakable has happened and is now tiptoeing around it.
Light lies on the bed, one hand over his eyes, as if that will keep the memory of L’s mouth off his body. It won’t. It’s branded on him. Not with heat, but with logic. The same way you remember a brilliant proof: step by step, cold and irreversible.
His body aches.
Not just from the sex. From the implication of it. From the way it felt like surrender.
Or worse—need.
It would be easier if it had just been lust. An ugly little glitch in the system. A hormone spike. A mistake.
But no. L hadn’t looked at him like he wanted to win. He’d looked at him like he wanted to know him.
And Light… Light had let him.
That was the true indecency.
Across the room, L is drinking tea like nothing has happened. As if they didn’t rut on the floor last night like godless philosophers in a failed Nietzsche play.
He’s back in his hoodie. His posture is feral and unforgivable.
Light watches him from the corner of his eye.
“You’re going to say something,” he mutters eventually, voice sharp.
L sips. “Of course.”
“Don’t.”
“I must.”
“You don’t.”
“I do.”
Light growls and sits up, the chain clinking like a reminder that no matter how many walls he builds, this man has a key.
L sets his cup down with delicate finality.
“I’ve concluded,” he begins, “that we are a moral paradox wrapped in sexual tension and poor coping mechanisms.”
Light throws a pillow at him. “Shut up.”
“We are. Last night was not just sex. It was a tactical alliance of unresolved grief and god complexes.”
“I said shut up.”
L holds the pillow, then slowly hugs it like it’s part of some abstract performance piece.
“You’re an idiot,” Light hisses, standing. “You think this is quaint? That we’re some tragic, intellectual fable with dicks and eyeliner?”
“I’m not wearing eyeliner.”
“Your soul is wearing eyeliner.”
“You kissed me first.”
“I did not.”
“You moaned.”
“I WAS BETRAYING MYSELF!”
A beat.
Silence.
Light's fists are clenched. His breathing is uneven. L watches him like a doctor watching a patient break in real time.
“Interesting,” L says finally. “You equate emotional vulnerability with betrayal. That tracks.”
“I equate you with betrayal.”
“And yet you came all over me.”
“Because you were there.”
“And because you wanted to.”
Light turns away. His heart is kicking inside his ribs like it’s trying to escape. He rubs his temples. He feels like a temple crumbling.
L stands.
The chain draws them closer with a sick kind of poetry.
“You want to destroy me,” L says quietly. “And you don’t know whether that means killing me or loving me.”
“I could still be Kira,” Light mutters.
“You are Kira.”
“You can’t prove that.”
“I don’t need to. I feel it. In my bones. In your breath. In the way you say ‘justice’ like it’s your name.”
Light whirls on him. “Then why?”
“Why what?”
“Why let this happen? Why fuck me? Why kiss me like I’m something you want to keep alive?”
L tilts his head, gaze soft in that infuriating, bottomless way.
“Because I don’t think killing you would save me anymore.”
Light doesn’t answer.
He can’t.
His mouth won’t work. His throat is tight. His chest hurts in a way that has nothing to do with heart and everything to do with truth.
He sits down hard on the edge of the bed, like gravity just tripled.
L joins him after a moment.
Their shoulders touch.
Light doesn’t move.
They sit there in the flickering dimness of the suite, both of them quiet, both of them profoundly loud inside.
After a while, L speaks again. “I was eleven when I solved a double homicide just by looking at the carpet.”
“What a surprise,” Light mutters. “Your origin story is unbearable.”
“I didn’t say it for praise.”
“Then why?”
“To make a point.”
“Which is?”
“I’ve always been good at seeing what other people miss.”
Light glances sideways.
L’s eyes are still fixed ahead, but softer now. Like they’ve traveled inward.
“I see you, Light,” he says. “More than you want. More than I should.”
Light closes his eyes.
There’s a long silence.
He almost—almost—says something real.
But then.
Then.
“I still think your sitting posture is proof you’re not human,” he mutters instead.
L lets out a breath that might be a laugh or a sigh. “And I still think your hair is sculpted by wrathful angels who got kicked out of heaven for being too smug.”
Light looks at him.
L looks back.
Their faces are close.
Everything is quiet again.
But this time, it’s a different kind of silence.
Then, mercifully, Misa calls.
She calls on speakerphone, because L wants Light to suffer.
Her voice is chirpy and piercing and completely unaware of the godlike internal hemorrhaging Light is experiencing. She chatters about clothes. About remixes. About upcoming appearances.
Light answers politely. Smoothly. Like he’s not covered in bruises and shame and semen memories.
L eats cake while maintaining eye contact with Light.
The whole time.
Light almost snaps the phone in half.
After the call ends, he turns to L with a manic calm.
“You’re a sick, sick man.”
“I’m aware.”
“You want to destroy me.”
“Very badly.”
“I should kill you.”
“You should kiss me.”
Light throws the phone at his head. L catches it one-handed, like a smug Victorian spider.
That night, they sleep back-to-back. Touching, but only because of space.
Light doesn’t dream of drowning.
He dreams of burning.
Of standing in fire while L watches from the shore. Of reaching for him and finding only chain.
---
The first time Light lets L touch him—really touch him—it’s not about sex.
It’s about control.
Or the absence of it.
Or maybe it’s about the way Light wakes up three days later with the taste of rust in his mouth and his heart in his throat, because he dreamed of fire again, and this time the fire talked back.
The chain tugs taut as he sits up too fast. L stirs beside him, curled like punctuation at the end of a very long sentence. He watches Light through half-lidded eyes, says nothing, but his fingers ghost toward Light’s ankle. A flicker. A breath. Not quite contact.
Light flinches anyway.
L retracts his hand, slow and deliberate.
Neither of them speak.
This is the choreography now. The ballet of avoidance and implication. They orbit each other like dying stars, gravitationally entangled and violently private. Every inch they get closer, the more dangerous it feels. And yet, the distance is what might kill them.
The next morning, they sit on the same couch but pretend not to.
L makes a comment about Light’s cereal choices reflecting his suppressed masochism.
Light accuses L of being allergic to sunlight and intimacy.
They watch CNN with the volume muted, arms brushing every third breath.
“I dreamt I was God again,” Light says, softly, staring at the screen.
L doesn’t look away from the TV. “What did you do?”
“I forgave no one.”
“Sounds accurate.”
“You were there.”
“That sounds worse.”
Light glances sideways. “You kept asking me what I wanted. I couldn’t answer.”
L’s fingers curl around his teacup. “Do you know now?”
Light’s silence is heavy and flammable.
“No,” he says, eventually.
L nods once.
“That’s good,” he replies. “Wanting is dangerous.”
Light exhales through his teeth. “You’re one to talk.”
“I never claimed to be innocent.”
“You never claim anything, Ryuzaki. Just float there like some postmodern disease and let everyone bleed for you.”
L hums, faintly amused. “Are you bleeding?”
“I’m drowning.”
“Same thing.”
“Not to me.”
Now they’re looking at each other again. Eyes sharp, wet, wild. Like rival poets in a thunderstorm. Like boys who learned love through cruelty and never unlearned it.
The chain clinks.
Light’s knee touches L’s.
They don’t move.
“I want to touch you,” L says.
Light’s breath catches.
He wants to make a joke. He wants to say “already did” or “buy me dinner first” or “you’ll have to ask Kira for permission.”
He says none of it.
Because he wants it too.
Wants it more than is logical. More than is safe. More than is acceptable for someone who might still be planning a flawless, godlike murder.
“…Fine,” Light says.
It is not fine.
L’s hand is very warm.
It starts with fingers on his wrist. Not seductive. Not groping. Just present. Like someone touching a bomb they built themselves. Like he’s making sure Light is real and not just another hallucination his paranoia invented.
Light doesn’t breathe for twelve seconds.
Then L does something unforgivable.
He leans in and presses his forehead to Light’s shoulder.
Light shudders like he’s being struck.
It is not sex.
It is worse.
Because Light has always known how to perform pleasure. Always known how to fake or force or control his body into compliance.
But this?
This quiet, trembling stillness—this fragile, human contact—it undoes him.
He stares down at L’s profile. At the black mess of his hair. At the dip of his spine where he’s curled forward like a dying saint.
He wants to push him off.
He wants to pull him closer.
Instead, Light does something unspeakable.
He reaches up and tangles his fingers in L’s hair. Just once. Like a memory. Like a prayer he forgot he knew.
L doesn’t flinch.
The moment holds.
Then—
Knock.
“Ryuzaki?”
It’s Aizawa.
The two of them spring apart like teenagers caught mid-sin. Light wipes his hands on his pants like he’s been contaminated. L grabs a spoon and pretends he was eating cake off his lap for the last twenty minutes.
Aizawa opens the door. Narrow eyes. The gaze of a man who suspects everyone of something and usually has good reason.
Light smiles like a shark in church. “Good morning, Aizawa-san.”
L, without blinking: “Light was just confessing to arson in his dreams.”
Aizawa stares.
Light throws a fork at L’s head.
---
Later, after the meeting (which was mostly L mumbling while slouched and Light smirking like a suspect in a noir film), they return to the suite. The chain clinks. The silence returns.
But it’s different now.
Worse, maybe.
Because Light’s skin remembers.
It remembers L’s hand. L’s breath. L’s silence, which was somehow louder than all his words.
Light strips off his shirt and throws it across the room. He feels wrong in his own body. Like he’s outgrown something vital. Like the architecture of him is cracking and he doesn’t know how to repair the scaffolding.
He paces.
L watches him like a documentary subject.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Light snaps.
“You are very beautiful when you’re breaking,” L replies, completely serious.
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
Light storms into the bathroom.
L follows, because of course he does.
They’re chained. It’s absurd. It’s tragic. It’s… intimate.
Light turns on the sink and splashes water on his face like it’ll wash away the hunger.
It doesn’t.
L is behind him.
Their eyes meet in the mirror.
“You want to be good,” L says, voice low. “But only if it means being right.”
Light says nothing.
“You want to be loved,” L continues, “but only if it means being obeyed.”
Light grips the sink so tightly his knuckles go white.
“You want to be God,” L murmurs, stepping closer, “but only if no one knows you’re terrified of dying.”
Light turns.
His voice is cracked glass. “You don’t know me.”
L places a hand over Light’s chest. Right over his heart. Right over the evidence.
“I do,” he says.
“I hate you,” Light says again.
“I know.”
Then he leans in.
No kiss. No escalation. Just the press of his forehead against Light’s again, like earlier. As if that’s the real intimacy now. The real blasphemy.
They breathe like that for a while.
Together.
Light doesn’t cry.
But it’s a near thing.
---
Light dreams he’s underwater again.
Only this time, he isn’t drowning. He’s floating. And there’s a voice murmuring in the deep—his own voice, maybe. Or something older.
You are loved.
You are doomed.
He wakes up sweating and strangled by the chain.
L is curled up beside him like punctuation again. A comma, maybe. A parenthesis. Some grammatical mark that means this isn't over.
Light stares at the ceiling.
He tries not to count how many times they've touched now. How many times L has said nothing and meant everything. He tries not to think about the way his body has started anticipating warmth when L gets too close.
He fails.
Every calculation ends in grief.
By the time they make it to the main room, Watari has left them breakfast—tea for L, black coffee and a bowl of philosophical despair for Light.
L dips a sugar cube into his tea, pops it in his mouth, and says, apropos of nothing:
“You’re flinching in your sleep again.”
Light does not look up. “So are you.”
“You say my name sometimes.”
“Better than screaming yours.”
L hums. “You also said ‘I am the light of the world.’ Which I found a bit redundant.”
Light sets his spoon down with enough force to be symbolic.
“I hate you.”
“We’ve established that.”
“I mean it with new passion every morning.”
“That’s what makes it romantic.”
Light glares. “Do you even know what romance is?”
“Yes. It’s when you and your arch-nemesis lie to yourselves simultaneously until the lies turn soft and start holding hands.”
“That’s not—”
“I read it in a book.”
“You are a book.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“Then why did you say it like a poem?”
Light throws a grape at his face. L catches it in his mouth. Light hates everything.
Especially himself.
---
The chain between them has stopped feeling like punishment.
That is the worst part.
It’s just there now. Something metallic and inevitable. Like mortality. Or God. Or shame.
L brushes his shoulder against Light’s in the hallway and it doesn't even register as significant until they're in the elevator and Light realizes he's still leaning into it.
He shoves away like he’s been electrocuted.
L says nothing.
He never does when it matters.
---
The task force is beginning to suspect something.
Not Kira.
Something worse.
Something emotional.
Aizawa watches them too long. Matsuda starts offering to “give them some space” with the twitchy cheer of someone who knows he’s walked in on a slow-motion car crash and doesn’t want to die in the wreckage. Soichiro looks like he’s aged five years in five weeks.
No one says anything.
They’re all afraid it might be true.
That L and Light have started orbiting each other too closely. That gravity has been replaced with something unnatural. That if one of them slips, the other will fall with him.
Light goes home once—just for a day, with permission—and stands in his childhood bedroom like it’s a murder scene.
He picks up an old math trophy.
Holds it like a relic.
Remembers a time when he thought intelligence was the only weapon he’d ever need.
Now he knows the truth.
It’s loneliness. That’s what kills gods.
---
That night, when he returns, L is sitting in the dark. Cross-legged. Barefoot. Like a cursed monk.
“Do you remember anything yet?” he asks, eyes unreadable.
Light closes the door softly. “Define ‘anything.’”
L shrugs. “Godhood. Judgement. The smell of burning criminals.”
Light’s skin prickles.
He lies. “No.”
L believes him, but only because he knows Light too well to trust him.
“You’re humming in your sleep,” he says instead.
“I’m what?”
L stands. Walks closer. The chain clinks. “You’re humming. It’s always the same melody. I haven’t placed it yet.”
Light stares at him. “You’re insane.”
“You like Chopin.”
“I liked Chopin before he started playing exclusively in my night terrors.”
“Then you remember something.”
Light doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t have to.
The silence between them stretches long and thin.
Then L steps closer.
Their bodies nearly touch.
“If I’m right,” L says softly, “and you are Kira—”
“I’m not—”
“If. If you are. Would you still kiss me?”
Light's mouth goes dry.
“Would it matter?” he asks. “Wouldn’t you be obligated to arrest me?”
L looks at him like a priest looks at confession. “Answer the question.”
Light hesitates. Then:
“…Yes.”
L doesn’t move.
Then:
“Would you still kiss me,” Light says, “if I wasn’t Kira?”
L’s mouth curves, almost wistful. “Yes.”
Their hands touch.
Their fingers lace.
It’s obscene. It’s sacred. It’s absolutely, unforgivably real.
Light leans in.
But before their lips meet—
L pulls back.
Light freezes. “Why?”
“Because I think it will destroy us.”
Light swallows. “You think we’re not already destroyed?”
L looks down.
Then—very quietly—he pulls Light’s hand to his own chest.
Puts it over his heart.
Lets Light feel the beat.
The pulse is steady.
Human.
Terrifying.
“I want you to know I exist,” L murmurs. “Even if everything else was a lie.”
Light wants to scream.
Instead, he closes his eyes.
And memorizes the rhythm.
---
Later that night, Light wakes up gasping.
It’s not a nightmare this time.
It’s a memory.
A name.
A laugh.
He sits up. His mouth is open. His heart is pounding.
L is beside him, awake too.
Watching.
“I remember,” Light says, voice trembling.
L does not blink.
“What do you remember?”
And Light, smiling in the dark like the devil returned home, says:
“Everything.”
Light sits very still.
L is looking at him like the verdict just came in and it’s not good, but it’s not wrong, either.
Outside, rain drums against the glass like it’s trying to remind them that time exists. That consequences are coming. That gravity still applies.
But inside the room, everything is suspended.
Light exhales once, shakily.
“I killed them all,” he says, like he’s narrating a fact from a textbook.
L doesn’t speak.
“I remember everything,” Light says again, quieter. “The Death Note. Ryuk. Lind L. Tailor. Penber. Naomi. I remember every name. I remember what it felt like. Like justice. Like—”
“—righteousness,” L finishes.
Light nods.
His eyes are too bright.
His smile is wrong.
“I was a god,” he whispers.
L shifts. “You were a boy with a twisted ideal.”
“I became a god.”
“No. You became known.”
Light’s lip curls. “And isn’t that the same thing?”
They’re circling again. Not just metaphorically. They’ve both risen to their feet, and the chain between them is taut as they move like wolves around a wound.
L tilts his head. “You could have kept it all buried.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Light stops.
His voice breaks.
“Because I wanted you to know me.”
L flinches like that’s worse than a confession of murder.
“Why?” he asks, voice low.
And Light—Light finally screams.
“Because I love you!”
The silence that follows is catastrophic.
L stares.
He does not move.
And Light just stands there, raw and exhausted, trembling like a violin string at the edge of snapping.
“I remember you, too,” he says, softer now. “How you never looked at me like I was a person, but you touched me like I was the only one who was real.”
L’s throat moves, but no words come.
“You made me feel like I could be loved,” Light continues, broken. “And I hated you for that.”
L closes the distance between them.
He reaches out.
Very gently, he touches Light’s jaw. Just two fingers.
“You scare me,” L says. “You always have.”
Light leans into the touch like it hurts. “Then why are you still here?”
L looks down.
Then he kisses him.
Not dramatically.
Not erotically.
Just softly.
Light’s breath stutters.
His hands find L’s sleeves. Grasp, not pull. Anchor. Like if he lets go, they’ll both disintegrate.
The kiss deepens. Unfolds. Blossoms like a bruise under skin. Neither of them close their eyes. It’s not about surrender—it’s about acknowledgment.
I know what you are.
I know what I am.
I want you anyway.
I want you still.
When they part, L’s lips are red.
Light’s are trembling.
Their foreheads rest together.
Their hands, knotted at their sides, begin to untangle.
“We can’t fix this,” Light says.
“I know,” L replies.
“I want to be good.”
“You’re not.”
“Neither are you.”
L smiles, and it’s the saddest thing Light has ever seen.
“Do you still love me?” Light asks, voice barely audible.
L doesn’t answer.
He just steps back.
Just enough.
Enough for the chain to pull taut again.
Enough for Light to understand that everything he just said will be used against him in the court of truth.
“You remembered,” L says. “Which means I won.”
Light stares.
And then, so quietly it hurts:
“I let you.”
L’s eyes go wide.
But Light is already moving toward the bed. Sitting down. Hands in his lap.
Still as a child awaiting sentencing.
“I let you win,” he says again. “Because I wanted you to see me. Not the performance. Not the prodigy. Not the justice fetishist. Me. Light.”
L is silent for a long, long time.
Then—
“I did see you,” he says. “A long time ago.”
He sits beside Light.
Their knees touch.
The chain loops between them, indifferent.
They breathe in sync.
Light speaks again. “I don’t know who I am without Kira.”
L’s answer is immediate. “You’re still Light.”
“But that’s—”
“Light is the boy who dreamed of perfection and couldn’t survive his own brilliance. Kira was just what happened when he stopped dreaming.”
Light presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “You make everything sound like a fable.”
“It is.”
They sit there like that, unmovable.
In love.
In hell.
In perfect understanding.
Until Light whispers, “Will you sleep beside me again?”
L hesitates.
Then: “Yes.”
He crawls into the bed without question.
No seduction. No spectacle.
Just presence.
Just warmth.
Just two boys on opposite sides of a war they started for reasons they don’t even believe in anymore.
Light turns into him.
L lets him.
Their hands meet.
No chains now.
Just fingers, twined.
---
L wakes before Light.
The rain has stopped. For once.
Sunlight slants through the curtains, catching on dust motes like golden evidence. The kind of light that forgives nothing. That reveals everything.
L watches Light sleep.
There’s nothing beautiful about it, not really. He drools a little. His hair’s a mess. His shirt is half-off, tangled around the chain that still binds them wrist-to-wrist.
But L watches anyway.
Because it’s the last time he’ll be able to.
He already knows.
Light shifts in his sleep. His lips part. A soft breath escapes.
He whispers a name.
L’s name.
And then he opens his eyes.
It takes him a second to orient. A second to remember where they are, who they are, what they are.
Then he sees L looking at him.
And he smiles.
Like they’re just two lovers in a bed.
Not two monsters on the brink of mutually assured destruction.
“Good morning,” he says.
L nods once.
“You said my name in your sleep.”
Light raises an eyebrow. “Romantically, or like I was sentencing you to death?”
“I’m not sure there’s a difference anymore.”
Light stretches, the chain tugging between them. “Is this the part where you drug me?”
“No.”
“Poison?”
“No.”
“Execute me by legal means while crying softly?”
“Possibly.”
Light laughs. It’s quiet. Fractured.
Then he sobers.
And says, without any drama at all:
“You’re going to die soon, aren’t you?”
L looks at him.
Straight through him.
“Yes.”
Light doesn't flinch.
He just nods.
And says:
“I’ll miss you.”
L closes his eyes.
That’s the worst part.
Not the loss.
Not even the guilt.
It’s the truth of it.
That Light Yagami means it.
That L believes him.
And that neither of them will stop what’s coming.
---
The rest of the day passes in a haze.
The task force is buzzing. Tension so thick it’s molecular. Everyone feels it.
Misa leaves seventeen voicemails. Light deletes them all without listening.
L doesn’t ask.
Instead, they sit together in the main room. Light curled into the arm of the couch, L perched like a gargoyle on the edge. Neither working. Neither reading. Just breathing in the same poisoned air.
At one point, L speaks:
“Do you believe in redemption?”
Light doesn't answer right away.
He turns the question over in his mind like a stone he’s been carrying since childhood.
“No,” he says. “But I believe in recognition.”
L tilts his head. “Of what?”
“Of what we are. Of what we tried to be. Of what we destroyed to reach each other.”
L considers that.
Then: “Then this is the closest thing we’ll ever get.”
Light looks at him.
And nods.
---
That night, they don’t speak.
Not for hours.
They lie on the bed, fully clothed, side by side, staring at the ceiling like it contains answers they missed.
Eventually, Light rolls to face him.
L mirrors the movement.
Their hands meet again. Instinct, now. The shape of memory.
“Say it,” Light whispers. “Just once.”
L shakes his head.
But he leans in.
And he kisses him.
Deep. Slow. Final.
Like a name being carved into marble.
When they part, Light’s eyes are glassy.
“You’re going to let it happen,” he says.
“Yes.”
“You could run.”
“I could.”
“You won’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
L blinks. Just once.
Then he says:
“Because if I have to die, I’d rather die knowing you were real.”
Light doesn’t cry.
He’s beyond that.
He just says:
“Then I’ll make sure the world remembers you.”
L smiles. Faint. Wry. “That’s the problem.”
Light leans in.
Their foreheads touch.
For a long time, they just breathe.
No words. No justice. No lies.
Just the unbearable honesty of being seen.
---
L dies three days later.
Light holds his body.
No one stops him.
No one speaks.
There’s a mark on his wrist where the chain used to be. It itches sometimes.
Like phantom pain.
Like memory.
Like guilt.
---
Light writes another name.
The pen scratches smoothly.
He stares at the paper.
He does not blink.
“I loved you,” he says aloud, to no one.
The page stays blank.
Eventually, he tears it out.
Burns it.
Because it wasn’t the name of a criminal.
Just L.
And Light, for once, does not know how to write the end.
Only the aftermath.
---
Years pass.
Light becomes the god he always wanted to be.
Until he doesn’t.
Until Near catches him.
Until everything burns.
Until he dies on a staircase in a pool of his own regret.
Afterward, there are rumors.
That two boys once played chess with the world.
That they loved each other in a way neither could admit.
That justice, in the end, was just another word for obsession.
That they died hating each other.
Or loving each other.
Or both.
No one can agree.
But in one quiet file, buried deep in the task force archives, there’s a note.
Handwritten.
Simple.
He was the only one who ever knew me.
– Light