Chapter 4: Shadows

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It was still dark outside the little English inn when Naomi woke up. The rain had stopped, and a peaceful calm hung in the air.

L had been sitting next to her reading a newspaper by lamplight when Naomi had fallen asleep, but now, the left side of the bed was vacant, the vintage, floral sheets cast aside and lying crumpled in a heap.

With her eyes half-shut, Naomi rolled over to check her phone. She blinked as her vision, blurred by the remnants of sleep, took in the time.

4:41 a.m.

She flopped onto her back and rubbed one eye with her fingertips before propping up onto her elbows. She looked around the room through bleary eyes. L was nowhere to be seen.

Naomi picked up her phone again and attempted a text message. It went through this time.

Where are you?

A few seconds later, her phone buzzed with L's reply.

Downstairs.

Naomi stretched her limbs in a yawn that arched her back and made her toes curl, then tossed back the comforter. She had slept in her jeans and camisole, having no other clothing with her. Sleepily, she pulled on her cranberry-colored V-neck top and stepped out into the quiet hallway to head down the creaky, twisting staircase.

The large main room, which had bustled with life only hours earlier, now sat empty and still, the silence disturbed only by the gentle flickering of the gas fireplace and the soft thunk! of a dart hitting a felt board.

"Hi," Naomi greeted softly.

L's back was to Naomi, and he turned to look at her, his left hand pocketed. The right held another dart up by his shoulder.

"Hi," he returned. He faced the board again and flicked the plastic-feathered barb. It landed in the ring just outside the very center, about seven o'clock from a bull's-eye.

Naomi stepped up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, clasping her hands together and resting the side of her head between his prominent shoulder blades.

"Poor baby," she sighed playfully. "You don't know what to do with yourself without a laptop or an internet connection." She grinned and set her chin on top of his shoulder, tightening her grip around his middle.

L turned his head toward her, both of his hands now pocketed. "It's oddly nice," he admitted. His elbows tightened inward, as if hugging her in return. "But I'm glad you're here now," he added, glancing over his shoulder at her.

Naomi moved her hands to his hips and pressed her lips against his back, just below the collar of his white t-shirt. Then she moved around him to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the slate and iron fireplace. Looking upward and smiling, she patted the carpet beside her.

L stepped over to the indicated spot and crouched down into his usual sitting position. The glow of the subtly dancing flames reflected in his large, grey eyes as he watched them, wrapping his arms around his knees and lifting a thumb to rest against his bottom lip. They sat together in comfortable silence for a few moments before Naomi turned to look at him. It was clear to her, she who had come to know him so well, that something was on his mind.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked quietly, leaning forward a little with her forearms on her knees. Her fingertips played lazily with one another.

"That news story..." L mumbled slowly. "That California inmate who burned to death in the hospital bed. Some of the details seemed awfully... coincidental. Familiar, even." He turned his gaze to Naomi, the end of his thumb clamped between his teeth.

Naomi blinked. "What?" She leaned forward and lowered her voice, her eyes widening. "You think it could have been... Beyond?" Naomi spoke the infamous name in an arid whisper, glancing around as though it were forbidden to say aloud.

L lifted his thin shoulders in a shrug, and turned back toward the warm, flickering light. "A life sentence inmate in Los Angeles mysteriously burns to death?" L sighed, then made a low growl sound deep in his throat as his dark eyes narrowed. "I can't help but wonder..." His voice floated away like a feather caught up in a breeze, and his teeth rhythmically clipped against the tip of his thumbnail as he sat lost in his uneasy thoughts.

"Well..." Naomi looked down at her hands. "Could you call the hospital and find out who it was?"

"Not from here," L sighed, returning his hand to his denim-clad knee. "I don't want the call traced."

Naomi nodded in understanding. She was starting to wonder now, too.

The two sat contemplatively side-by-side, watching the quivering blue and orange flames.

"Burning alive would be an awful way to die," Naomi said quietly, breaking the silence. She shivered at the horrible thought.

L looked at her again. "You're thinking about Beyond now, too," he surmised.

Naomi just nodded, the glowing light gently illuminating her face, casting both light and shadows on her visage. Her brow creased uneasily.

"I can't understand what would drive someone to do something like willingly setting themselves on fire," she said, shaking her head. "It was... haunting. The way he screamed, it..." Naomi shut her eyes tightly, then opened them again with another shudder. "...I can still hear him sometimes."

L was watching her closely. "You never told me that before," he said quietly.

Naomi shrugged. "It's just the kind of thing that sort of stays with you, I guess," she murmured.

L seemed to consider her words as his gaze traveled back to the fire.

It was quiet again for several moments.

"What was he like?" he asked finally.

Naomi looked at him confusedly. "I thought you knew Beyond?"

"Well, that was a long time ago," L clarified. "And I never... personally knew him."

Naomi wrinkled her nose. After a brief hesitation, she answered. "Well, he was... strange. Creepy. He reminded me of a... a spider. You know, the type of predator that is sneaky and cunning and lures its prey." She brought her knees to her chest and hugged them to her, suddenly feeling like her skin was crawling. "And there was something about his eyes that I can't quite put my finger on. Like he didn't just look at you, he... read you. His gaze was so intense and so... intrusive." She squinted her eyes and parted her lips a little, like she wanted to say something, but couldn't quite find the words.

L just listened, his own eyes glinting with contemplation and firelight.

"I don't know how to explain it." Naomi lifted her shoulders as she shook her head slightly. "All I know is that something was off about him from the moment I met him. The way he acted and moved was just... unsettling."

"You said he acted and moved like me, though," L frankly pointed out. His words were not spoken with offense, but merely as a statement of fact.

"Well, no... I mean, yes, he did, but..." Naomi tipped her head and sighed. "But he was so much more... fierce about it. So much more 'in your face,' so to speak. Like he was trying so hard to be that way. It was... warped and unnatural." She glanced over at her boyfriend and mentally noted that his own movements and postures were, by society's standards, warped and unnatural. But there was something about Beyond that had been different. That much she knew, even if she couldn't quite manage to put it into words. "I don't know, L," she said finally. "I feel safe with you, and... I didn't with him." She shrugged again.

L made no reply. His thumb was tucked between his back molars, and he gnawed on it slowly and absentmindedly. His thoughts were far away, at a crime scene in a hospital in Los Angeles. Too many details were lining up, too many coincidences... A subtle yet disturbing uneasiness had settled in the pit of the detective's stomach like a heavy weight.

"When can we check out?" he asked abruptly, without looking away from the fire.

"Um, six, I believe, is the earliest," Naomi answered him, her own eyes captivated by the gentle blaze.

L wrapped his arms tighter around his knees, annoyed that there was nothing he could do at the moment to ease his wonderings.

Naomi sensed his agitation and moved over to sit closer to him. She bent her legs and tucked them comfortably underneath her as she rested the side of her head against L's shoulder.

"You're probably hungry," she noted.

"Mhmm." L sighed.

"I think they may have left some complementary scones and coffee out." Naomi lifted her head and looked around, her eyes coming to rest on a tea table on the other side of the room set with stainless steel thermoses and some delicately patterned dishes. An empty plate sat among the coffee and tea service, and Naomi swung her head back around to look at L.

"You ate them all," she accused with an upturned palm. She let her hand fall back onto her lap as she gawked at her boyfriend. "L!"

L lowered his brow towards her defensively. "They were complementary!" he retorted around the thumb in his mouth.

"But..."

L's eyes widened innocently as he looked at her, as though challenging her to counter his logic.

At last, Naomi sighed and shook her head, laughing lightly in defeat. She shifted to lay her head against his shoulder again.

"What am I going to do with you?" she crooned softly.

A smile tugged at the corners of L's mouth, and his head tipped to rest atop hers. They sat together for a little while longer, the firelight dancing faintly on their features.

-1998-

Of course it was raining.

Beyond stepped off of the bus and onto the drippy, wet grass. Thunder rolled lazily in the distance, and the sky overhead was shrouded in a bleak and foreboding mist spanning relentlessly from horizon to horizon.

The orphans of Wammy's House were paired up, two to an umbrella, but B told his "buddy" to go on ahead. He didn't want to be shielded from the watery veil falling like a steady stream of tears from a sullen sky. He wanted to feel the rain pelting his skin as he tilted his head, blinking his eyes and lifting his face toward the gloomy, grey heavens. He wanted his hair to stick to his ears and to his forehead and down the side of his nose, forming to the shape of his skull like ink being poured onto a sphere. He wanted nothing more than to feel something on this godforsaken day because now...

Now he was truly alone.

Before him, a small crowd clad in shades of black and grey was beginning to gather around a plain, wooden box and a fresh mound of dirt. Beyond shivered. It was cold, to be sure, but that was not the reason his broad, albeit thin shoulders were trembling beneath his wool coat and suit jacket.

He wasn't ready for this.

Nonetheless, he stepped forward to join the others just as a man dressed in long, ornate robes standing beneath a small tent began to speak.

"Friends and loved ones, we gather here today to commit our dearly departed to his final resting place. We gather to comfort one another, and to grieve together at his passing. But most of all, we gather to commemorate his life and to honor his memory."

Beyond wanted to scoff. These were just recited words to this bellowing old geezer in the gaudy costume. No one knew A like he had.

No one.

The officiant continued, reading from a small book which he held in both hands. "Fourteen-year-old Ash was a joyful young man, and he loved to laugh. He excelled in his studies and was at the top of his class. He enjoyed reading and music..."

"Who wrote this??" B disgustedly thought to himself. It sounded so... generic. Like he could be talking about any number of people.

The man in the flowing garment continued with the eulogy, but B tuned him out, sickened by the voice of a man reverently speaking about remembering a boy he had never even met. A boy who had longed more than anything to travel and to see the sights he had only read about in books. A boy who had loved anime and racing games and drizzling exorbitant amounts of syrup over his scrambled eggs. A boy who had been chosen for a life he had never wanted, and a boy who had deemed ending that life better than being forced to live it.

Beyond scanned the faces in the little gathering. Most of them were fellow orphans of varying ages. A few of them were his teachers. But his gaze came to rest on an unfamiliar pair standing off to the side under a large umbrella.

An old man stood with a much younger man at his side. The one with the hat and white mustache held the umbrella and the man beside him- barely more than a boy- stood hunched over with his hands in the pockets of a dark green rain jacket with the hood up. Beneath the unzipped coat, he wore a plain, white t-shirt paired with loose-fitting, faded blue jeans, and on his feet were a beaten pair of worn-out sneakers. He stood staring straight ahead through heavily shadowed eyes that appeared as though they had been forced to remain open for years and years.

B lost interest quickly and looked down at his muddied dress shoes, which were a little too tight for him.

At last, the little ceremony concluded, and one by one, the funeral-goers turned slowly from the lonely little grave. The orphans began to file quietly back to the bus, but B stood frozen in place, staring at the simple coffin and the mound of earth beside it. Suddenly and without warning, hot tears welled up in his dark shinigami eyes and spilled over, mixing with the cold raindrops running in streams down his face. Slowly, he took a few steps forward and lifted a weighted hand to place it gingerly on top of the casket. His other hand was in his suit pants pocket.

There hadn't been a viewing, but he could picture A inside there, with his long, strawberry blonde eyelashes resting softly on his round face sprinkled with freckles. They'd probably made him wear a suit.

B's eyes traveled the length of the box as he ran his hand gently along the smooth, polished pine, coated in a thin layer of rainwater. His chest rose and fell heavily.

Then he bent to press his forehead against the simple box that held his best friend. His long fingers gripped the wooden corner as he closed his eyes tightly. The rain drops battered down on his head and the back of his neck and trailed down into his collared shirt. Everything within him wanted to scream, to demand an answer to the question "why," to tear into his own skin and cast aside the torment so deep within his very soul.

But instead, he bit his lip and tensed his shoulders, keeping all of it inside.

"Goodbye, brother," he whispered.

Slowly, he stood upright again and sniffed, blinking red, swollen eyes. His long, tanned fingers tapped the casket twice in succession as he took a few steps backwards. Then, pocketing his hands and dropping his gaze, he turned around and moved with heavy steps toward the bus.

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