The Alias

L-Fourteen

Goddammit, I'm getting nowhere because these idiots don't know anything. Soichiro is too grief-stricken to help, Aizawa is an asshole, Light doesn't care, Mogi is annoying me, Matsuda is stupid, and Ide knows literally nothing. "Matsuda, please, will you shut up already," I growled as the idiot hummed an annoyingly cheery tune. What was with his sudden change of mood?

"Sorry," he murmured, lowering his head.

"Why are you so happy today? It's nauseating," I grunted.

"No particular reason."

"Well can you go be happy somewhere else? I'm trying to work," I sneered, glaring at him angrily.

"But you've just been staring at a map of the Kanto region for, like, 30 minutes now," Ide butted in, "how exactly is that helping us find Kira?"

"NOBODY ASKED YOU, IDE."

"Ryuzaki, please, this behavior is not getting us anywhere," Watari warned, strolling into the room with a package of Hello Panda. I groaned, knowing he was completely right, and sunk back in my chair.

Hito, where are you? I can't take this. All I can think about is you being alone and freezing in some alley. Or worse... Please don't be dead. If you died, I don't know what I'd do. And if you are dead, I'm the one who drove you to it. It's like I put the gun in your hands, or, rather the poison. Oh my god, I put the poison in your hands. Am I no better than Kira?

I jumped to my feet and staggered a bit, gaining the attention of the entire room. I awkwardly shuffled towards the door, ignoring Mogi as he asked me where I was going, and headed towards the roof.

Once outside, I sat in the same exact spot Hito and I shared our first, and quite possibly our last, kiss. The wind rustled my hair and I pulled out the necklace, staring into the blue middle as the sun revealed the mesmerizing shine of the sapphire.

I know I'm supposed to be working on this Kira case, but with the state I'm in, I won't get us much further. I can't work until I know where Hito is and if she's safe. I don't want to be thinking about the negatives, instead, I need to focus on the positives even if there seem to be very few. The only thing is, it's hard to focus on the positives when I don't even know what sort of mental state she is in. If I want to find her, I'm going to have to leave the case to the others and do this on my own. But where do I start? I can't just open a map without having an idea of where she could be.

Suddenly, my mind flooded with unrelated memories of Hito. I remembered the way she focused intently on a subject and unconsciously bit her bottom lip; she completely tuned out the world around her as if she were encased in her own bubble, barely responding when a lock of hair draped over her eyes. To most, this was annoying. However, to me, it was an opportunity to look at her without her noticing, to admire the things nobody else took the time to admire. Things like the slightly defined cupid's bow on her upper lip, or her button nose, or the way her gray eyes would sparkle from the light's reflection, almost reflecting a light blue.

Then there were times when she'd complain about absolutely everything. Whether it be her wavy, wine-red hair being too long or the TV emitting an obnoxious high-pitched noise, she'd always find something to fixate on. I often had to flick her forehead in order to get her to shut up. Most of the time I wasn't bothered by her mindless babbling, though. I actually find it utterly enchanting.

My eyes clouded over and a single tear escaped from my left eye, cascading down my cheek. I wiped it away with the hem of my sleeve and watched it soak into the fabric. Sniffling, I tried to stem the flow of water to my tear ducts to no avail, I whimpered and covered my eyes with my sleeved hands to catch the hot droplets of saltwater before they could create small streams down my cheeks. I scolded myself, pulling at my hair and grunting to force my feelings back into the back of my mind where they were supposed to be.

If I'm going to find her I need to be able to control myself, which hasn't been a problem for me until now. I don't understand what's happening to me. I've always prided myself on my uncanny ability to eliminate the tedious; or more specifically my achievement of completely separating myself from useless human emotions such as empathy or guilt. But all of a sudden it's like... like something in me has snapped and I'm feeling everything at once. Guilt, lust, empathy, compassion... love.

My eyes widened larger than they had ever gone before. Love? My heart fluttered abnormally in my chest and I felt a smile prick at the sides of my mouth as my cheeks heated up. Yes, love.

***

It was later in the day, and I seemed calmer than before. I opened the creaking door to the hotel room, and all eyes sprung to me. Nobody dared to say a word as I walked further inside, closing the door behind me. The bag holding Hito's overnight belongings rested against the couch she had been sitting on before she left. I walked over to it and crouched down, unzipping the top zipper to the biggest pocket of the bag. Her deep violet throw blanket popped slightly out of the top of the bag as I opened it, catching my attention. I locked my pointer finger and thumb onto the soft fabric and yanked it out of the bag slowly to not draw attention to the fact that I was stealing from her bag.

"Ryuzaki, what are you doing?" Mr. Yagami questioned, concerned. I ignored him and pulled the rest out, throwing the blanket around my shoulders and going back over to my chair. Hito's scent, a mixture of vanilla and burnt sugar, hugged my nose, and I pulled the blanket tighter around my body.

This was the only thing I had left of my Hito, and I wasn't going to sit there and let it taunt me in her bag.