Charming Criminal | Light Yagami ✓

Charming Criminal [23]

"Can I take the blindfold off now?"

"Not until we're inside," the voice answered softly. "Here, take my arm." You groped around blindly and found his outstretched arm, placing your hand over it. You had no idea where you were. The car had picked you up at two o'clock that afternoon as L had said, and the driver - an older man with grey whiskers - had insisted you wore a blindfold to protect the location of the Task Force. It all seemed rather dubious, but you still decided to go along with it. Light had indeed phoned L to try and discourage his involvement of you, but he had insisted that you would be well taken care of and had nothing to worry about in terms of caring for your 'well-being'. So Light was forced to let the matter drop and merely told you not to bother going with the car that was to pick you up at two that afternoon. But when you saw it pull up outside your window, a sleek black limousine with tinted back windows, you couldn't help but feel curious and had ended up climbing into it anyway.

The journey hadn't been too long, perhaps half an hour or so, but being blindfolded hadn't made it the most comfortable experience. Your hands hadn't been bound, so you could have easily taken it off, but you were a little too apprehensive to find out the consequences of doing so.

Using the man's arm to guide you, you stumbled awkwardly after him, trying not to trip over your own two feet and take another tumble. Your hand still stung slightly from yesterday.

"Watch your step," he warned, and you felt forward with the toe of your shoe, hitting the step and lifting yourself over it. You went through a doorway, the air suddenly turning warm and muggy, and breathed a sigh of relief. "Right, I'm going to remove your blindfold now."

You gave a small nod and felt him untie the knot at the back of your head. The blackness fell away and you blinked a few times, unaccustomed to the side light.

"Now, if you'd follow me."

He was already walking away, and you ended up tripping on the carpet in a bid to catch up with him. The lobby you were in was wide but empty; a circle of black armchairs formed a sort of waiting area, and a desk curved around the back of the room, but there was nobody manning it at this time, the chair hanging still and untouched.

He took you through a set of doors to an elevator, ushering you inside and pressing the button to the eleventh floor. Your mouth was pried ever so slightly ajar at the number of floors available; over twenty. Just where the hell were you?

The elevator lurched to an abrupt stop and your stomach flipped as the doors rattled open. You were faced with another short corridor, the walls white and empty. This you walked through and emerged into a large square room. A few figures were milling around on the sofas or staring up at the wide display of screen blinking on the far wall. A hush fell when you entered, all except one turning to stare at you.

It was L - recognisable by his messy black hair and the only person facing away from you - who spoke first. "Nice of you to join us, [L/N]-San."

"Yeah, nice of you to give me a choice," you muttered in return, your stomach jittering with nervous energy under the attention of such imposing figures. The man who had escorted you gave your shoulder a soft nudge and you moved forward, taking slow, anxious steps.

As you passed one of the police officials, you heard him give a short utter of surprise. "Wait, you're that girl I interviewed." You lifted your eyes a little higher and sure enough, the nervous man who had spent the whole time fidgeting with his tie was stood there, staring at you through watery brown eyes. You gave him an uncertain smile and a nod and hurried over to L.

"Are you going to tell me why I'm here?" You asked bluntly, wishing Light was with you.

"Yeah, why is she here Ryuzaki? Is it because of her involvement in that man's death?" The man - Matsui, or something - asked, coming to stand next to you with his hands pressed forward on the desk.

"I-I wasn't involved in it. I just so happened to be there when it happened," you choked out, those memories you'd tried to forget flaring up again. "And anyway, who's Ryuzaki?"

"That would be me," L answered, still not taking his eyes off the screen. "And no, that's insignificant. She's here because she can help us."

"She is?"

"I am? In what way can I help? I'm already spying on Light for you," you muttered testily, shoving your hands roughly into your pockets. "I'm not exactly trained to be a police investigator."

"No, you're not," L - Ryuga, Ryuzaki, how many names did he have? - agreed. He finally swivelled his chair to face you, his face looking unnaturally pale and thin in the eerie glow of the computer monitors. "But you're close to Light. That gives us a personal advantage."

You rolled your eyes, brushing your hair back out of your face. "Light is not Kira, how many times-"

"What happened to your hand?"

You stopped, your tongue feeling dry and heavy in your mouth. "What?"

"Your hand is bandaged. What happened?"

You pulled your sleeve over your bandaged palm, turning defensive. "An accident."

"Oh?" From the tone of his voice, he already knew you were lying, but didn't pursue it further. "Anyway, I need you to do something for me."

"And what's that?" You asked jadedly. You were getting quite tired of all this running around after him and Kira. You sometimes wished you had never touched that damn piece of paper.

"I need you to find out as much as you can about Light's girlfriend."

You groaned out loud, covering your face with your hands. "You have got to be kidding me."

————

Light's P.O.V

It was three o'clock in the evening and Light Yagami was sat at his desk with his head in his hands, running through everything you had said to him. Ryuk was munching quietly on an apple, flicking through a magazine, and Light was puzzling over what you were trying to gain from asking if he was Kira, then admitting you didn't want him to be caught. He hadn't expected that at all. But he still didn't know if he could trust you completely. Were you saying these things of your own accord, or was L pulling your strings? That was the big question. And until he answered it, he couldn't get anywhere with you. You were getting too embroiled in this whole thing that you were starting to become a risk. One mistake, one trip-up was all it took, and everything would be ruined, he would be ruined.

But he couldn't just kill you. Not just because it would seem awfully suspicious, but because he didn't want to. He liked you. And he had a desire to see you succeed alongside him.

Even before you had both met L, you had given that hushed speech in the cafe revealing what you really thought about Kira. L wasn't pulling your strings then, so you must really have believed that Kira was 'healing the planet by killing off the disease that crime has caused'. That's what you'd said, that had come from your own mouth, your own thoughts. You had strong opinions, you had courage. You weren't afraid of his judgement for saying such things. That made you both useful and appealing in Light's eyes. It made you an ally. And in his bid to create a new world, he needed all the allies he could get.

So maybe, just maybe, you were a risk worth taking.