By Any Other Name

C.23

Near soon pulled us to sit in a rec room with him and some other kids.

"But-" L whined and I looked to him with a knowing smile.

"Stop being so horny. It's time we spent time with them." I said softly and he gave me a small smile.

"Fine. But you owe me later." He said in a low voice.

"Don't be gross." I hit his chest softly, and he caught my hand and pressed a kiss to my knuckles, making me roll my eyes.

We sat on the floor around the kids. Near did his white puzzle, Mello was making a card tower and Matt was talking to him by him. Some other kids were doing rubix cubes, other puzzles, or working in activity books.

I looked around and found the familiar old lilac book on the top shelf. I got myself up and grabbed it, opening it and finding my alias written inside the front page.

"Anyone got an extra pen?" I asked and Mello took one out of his pocket and handed it to me, not looking away from his card tower. "Thanks, hon." I said and went to sit back, leaning on Lawliet as I did word searches.

"You sure you wanna do that in pen?" He asked softly in my ear.

"You seem to forget how good I am at these." I smiled, chuckling under my breath.

"Six fucking years..." He sighed, and I turned back to look at him and saw him with his head tilted up, looking at the ceiling.

"And here you are, telling me not to swear near the kids." I scoffed and he narrowed his eyes at me.

"You swear a lot more than me." He said.

"I'm grown. Older than you." I shrugged with a smirk, and turned back to my word search, immediately finding three words, and circled them.

"By two weeks." He huffed. He was born on Halloween, and I was two weeks earlier, the seventeeth.

"Still older." I grinned and he simply pinched my side, making me jump a little, and I hit his arm softly, hearing him snicker. "Now, shush. Lemme work." I slid a little down, my head on his shoulder as I leaned on him.

A few minutes later, I hummed under my breath, now at the end of the word search. As I finished up, I turned the page, and the room was completely silent aside from my humming. When I stopped, looking up to realise this, some others looked up at me.

"Why'd you stop?" Matt asked.

"Nothing, sorry." I said and started to sing softly, turning back to a new word search.

"It's you, it's you, it's all for you
Everything I do
I tell you all the time
Heaven is a place on earth with you
Tell me all the things you want to do
I heard that you like the bad girls honey, is that true?
It's better than I ever even knew
They say that the world was built for two
Only worth living if somebody is loving you
Baby now you do..."

I sang soft and slow songs to match the mood of the room, and after a little while, L's phone beeped. I sat up so he could go answer it, and I heard him say "Matsu" before he left the room. I could hear him outside the room, speaking in Japanese, and I shut up to listen.

"Are you going to-" Mello started and I held up my finger to him, and L walked back in, looking at me.

"Matsuda?" I asked and he nodded, and I stood. "What happened?" I asked, taking a few shaky steps forward.

He looked at the kids in the room before his eyes settled on me. "They..." He said in Japanese before clearing his throat. "They want us there for the execution."

"Of... both of them? Light and Misa?" I asked in Japanese as well, and he nodded and I looked away.

"You don't have to go." He took my hand, now in English.

"No, I will, I just... I guess I should feel glad that they're getting a proper sentence, but... I don't." I said and he just put his arm around my shoulders and lead me out.

"I know. I don't feel good about it, either." He pulled me to our room so we could pack.

Again.