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For the last time, Light Yagami wondered why the fuck he was stuck with a person like Misa Amane.
Apart from the obvious factor that she was pretty much a lesbian so deep into the closet there was no closet to her, there was also the part which involved her annoying chirpy personality. Which Light did not appreciate, especially on a Monday morning at 8.39 a.m. before he had his coffee.
As if on cue, she gave a high-pitched laugh, and Light’s headache (both physical and metaphorical, and if this continued it was probably going to become spiritual too) spiked.
“I can’t remember my lines for this part…what was it again, Light?”
“You’re supposed to say ‘But what about school?’” Seriously, Misa, it wasn’t that hard, it was a fucking one-liner —apparently some people’s brains just weren’t cut out for memorising lines, or really, anything other than firing neurons up for the sole sake of movement, Light thought to himself.
“Oh, yeah, silly me.” Misa gave another laugh, and Light shot Ryuk a look, wondering if the student director was regretting casting her as the female lead, because now Light was rethinking his choice to act as the male lead.
Ryuk shrugged back.
Great help, leaving the actors to deal with this shit…
Light sighed, turning to Misa and also turning on his stupid lightbulb-like grin. This was, honestly, just… sad .
“Let’s try the next line, Misa…”
“...what was it again?”
Oh. My. God.
It was dark, it was late, and more than anything Light wanted to go home.
But no, he just had to be the perfect little kid and stay back rehearsing lines, even though he’d long gotten the entire script down in his brain.
Sometimes Light Yagami really hated Light Yagami .
“No, it doesn’t matter. Not as long as we’re together,” Light said, and for that matter who the fuck was the scriptwriter? The amount of clichéness made Light want to vomit, and he was pretty sure the audience might also vomit watching them, unless the audience happened to be a bunch of middle-aged aunties and uncles who had nothing better to do with their lives, which were, to be fair, most middle-aged aunties and uncles (no offense to any middle-aged aunties and uncles reading this).
He stepped to the side, imitating Misa in a squeaky voice that made him sound like a screechy myna (which Misa did resemble at times), “...really…?”
Honestly, at this point, Light should just make it a one-man show.
Even then it would probably be more successful than whatever they were doing now, because even though any good theater cast should have at least a few geniuses, their theater team was just filled with a bunch of bumbling idiots and one (1) struggling Light Yagami.
And then something moved, flickered at the edge of his vision.
Light turned around.
“Who’s there?”
His voice echoed in the empty, near-silent place.
Was this cheesy romance scene rivalling Romeo and Juliet in terms of idiocy going to turn into some low-budget horror movie? A high school genius, 16, tragically murdered at the prime of his life?
Whoever this murderer/student/teacher/staff/what-the-fuck-maybe-even-an-alien was, they certainly had a penchant for the dramatics.
The guy stepped out from the shadows of the curtains. Dramatically, of course, or at least that was what it seemed like to Light.
“Who are…you…” Light’s voice faltered a little (okay, even Light Yagami’s voice faltered sometimes, okay, cut him a fucking break, but listen, it was for a good reason ) because the guy looked, to be completely honest, like a serial killer in the making.
His hair was atrocious— imagine combing that in the morning, Light thought. And his posture—just by looking at it, Light could tell this guy definitely wasn’t an actor.
(You see, it had been for a good reason!)
“I’m L,” the student introduced himself nonchalantly. “Backstage crew.”
“...just L?”
L nodded. And Light thought, this guy could be a theater person if he wanted to. He had all the qualities: a flair for the dramatics, a mysterious aura surrounding him, and of course that air of weirdness that theater stained with everything it touched (except Light, of course, because everyone simply loved him and he was an actor, too, in his real-life).
“And you’re here because…?” Light probed, hoping that L wouldn’t say something like oh, to kill you.
L shrugged. “Light-kun interests me.”
And Light nearly threw up right then and there, from a variety of combinations: shock, confusion and also the fact that it was fucking 8.10 p.m. and he wanted to go home .
“I. What.”
“Light-kun is a very interesting person. He acts all the time…a true theater star off and on the stage,” L observed, as if it was an everyday observation, as if—as if—
(As if he hadn’t just seen through Light completely.)
“What do you want,” Light said, toneless.
“Wouldn’t it be easier for Light-kun if he could practice with somebody?”
No matter what L said, whenever Light looked at him, all he could feel was a steady, steady wave of skepticism.
“You know Misa’s lines?”
L smiled, and in that instant Light knew that they were different but same in all ways, because that smile was a smile that Light saw in the mirror all too often.
And did he fucking resent that, and he also kind of wanted to rip the smile off this sleepless gremlin’s face, because how dare this weirdo (who even said I’m here because Light-kun interests me ) smile like Light Yagami ?
“I know everyone’s lines.”
Light scowled. “Prove it.”
They went back and forth, and back and forth, like some kind of perverted tennis match that involved Light getting angrier and angrier, and nearing the end he was absolutely steaming, because L was right .
He did know everyone’s lines.
And that fucking sucked, because that meant he was getting this weirdo as a practice partner, and why couldn’t Light have just chanced on somebody nornal enough?
“Fine,” he said reluctantly. “You’ll do.”
“Oh, I did better than just a ‘you’ll do’, Light-kun, and you know it.”
“Whatever,” Light said, even more pissed, because L was right again, and c’mon , someone other than Light could get things correct against Light two times in a row? It simply wasn’t fair .
Anyways, if he was so good, why the fuck was L stage crew in the first place?
“I actually applied for an actor’s position at first, Light-kun, but they kicked me out the moment they took a look at me.” L shrugged and Light couldn’t help but laugh at the forlorn look on L’s face—rather like a kicked puppy, he thought, which was funny.
“I mean, was this what you looked like when you walked into the room?” L nodded.
Huh. Maybe L wasn’t a genius in everything, after all, which ha-ha! —meant that Light was still better than him.
“Let’s start then,” he said, marginally happier.
L shrugged.
They ended up staying until 9.58 p.m., and Light had no idea how he managed to get home without face planting on the train’s floor.
Over the course of the next few days, Light managed to discover more of L, because it was rather hard to keep secrets when you spent at least five hours each day with each other.
He was a year older than Light, and he never, ever paid attention in class (think the opposite of Light), but somehow still managed well in his classes (fine, a little better than just well ) and Light thought that this proved the world was inherently unfair.
But, funnily enough, L had a difficulty of telling left from right.
“I told you, L,” Light said, exasperated, because he had counted and this was the fifty-fourth time he had been saying this over the course of four days, and if this continued he was going to start saying it in his sleep, too, “You spin left, not right!”
“Does it really matter,” L said dryly.
“Yes, it does, because Misa is going to spin left and if I get too used to you spinning right I’m going to be thrown off and the whole performance will be ruined.”
“You think too much sometimes, Light-kun. It’s very fascinating.”
“Shut up,” and then L dipped him, so Light said, “Lower,” even though it was actually okay and maybe, just maybe, he only wanted to nitpick at L, because L was a fun person to poke and prod at metaphorically.
“Is this enough?” L asked, and Light looked up at him and for a moment it almost felt like he was dying, gazing up into the too-bright stage lights, and it seemed almost fitting that L would be the last thing he’d see before he died.
“Yes,” Light said abruptly, and then he followed it up with a sentence that somehow managed to beat his previous words in terms of abruptness, “Let me up now.”
“Well, how did I do, Light-kun?”
“You know it,” Light said, because no way was he going to say that L had been the best actor he’d ever worked with before.
“I suppose I do.”
And Light kind of hated that L knew everything.
Somehow, though, after L, Light’s patience improved, which made him slightly more tolerant towards Misa and basically every single one of the incompetent people he’d be stuck with until he graduated, and hence also meant that he was more tolerable to those people.
Misa clung to him more often, which was annoying, and Light really, really wanted to tell her look, girl, I’m pretty sure you’re a lesbian because c’mon , had you seen the way she looked at Rem? He was pretty, relatively sure that she was just convincing herself to love him, which was fucked up on many levels, but oh well most theater people were fucked up in some way, anyways.
Light’s kind of fucked-upness was that nobody could tell he was fucked up. L’s kind of fucked-upness was that everyone could tell he was fucked up, and in a way, that was rather beautiful. In a fucked-up way, of course, because theater was for the weirdos and the sad people.
Soon Light knew that L liked cats, that he liked forks more than spoons, and lastly that he despised driving for some unknown reason, and probably some literature major would say it was because L did not like to be in control of his own life, which made absolutely no fucking sense to Light.
And every night as they practiced Light could feel himself feeling like someone he didn’t know, and he didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.
And when he dipped L, when L dipped him, when they stood on opposite sides of the stage and said stupid things that never used to mean anything to Light, Light no longer knew if he was acting anymore.
The canteen was closed for maintenance. For the third time this semester, and they were only two weeks into it.
You’d think that such a prestigious high school would have better repair staff, but apparently not, and Light really, really wanted to ask the principal where the fuck the funds were all going to.
“I know a place, Light-kun,” he heard L say.
“Where?”
“Oh, it’s just down the road. Shall we?” L offered his hand jokingly, and something in Light’s heart twitched and he slapped it away, harder than he’d meant to.
“Light-kun has a very strong hand.”
“Maybe you’re just weak.”
“Light-kun is also slightly shorter and probably slightly lighter than me.”
Light frowned. “I’m a year younger, I can still grow. You know what, just lead the way and shut up for once.”
Light ordered a salad, and watched with an air of disturbedness as L ordered more sweet things, and more sweet things, and at this point it was probably more efficient to just give the waiter the menu and say I want the entire dessert section , because that was basically what L was doing. Half of the names were foreign to him, which was great, because Light didn’t want to know what the fuck L was going to put in his mouth anymore.
Once the poor, poor waiter had left, looking like he wanted to die (Light didn’t blame him, L had that general effect on most people), Light said, “Are you really going to eat all of that?”
L blinked at him. “Some of it.”
“...and the rest?”
“I will take them home to my humble abode,” L said, straightfaced, and Light stared at him skeptically.
“I think it’s better if we change the subject, L.”
L shrugged and stretched, like a cat basking in the sun, and Light thought that L was basically a cat at times except for the unusual penchant for sweets that he had. “Sure, Light-kun. Since you’re a theater person, what’s your favourite play?”
“... Death of A Salesman, I guess,” Light said, and it was the first honest answer he’d given to this question—people usually liked to hear something about Shakespeare, after all.
“Interesting…and why is that?”
“It’s basically a tragedy. The main character in the play struggles with so many things at an age when he should be letting go, but he hasn’t learnt how to throughout his whole life, and in the end everything he worked for wasn’t the things that mattered.”
Light ran his nail against the grains of the wooden table, horribly aware of L’s eyes on him and also horribly aware that this was the most truth he’d ever said to anyone in his life, and, oh, god. “That’s just my reading of it, anyway,” he tried, attempting to sound nonchalant, but Light wasn’t really sure if he’d pulled it off.
L appraised him. “Well…I didn’t know that about Light-kun.” Oh, so Light’d finally managed to surprise L with something. “I would’ve expected it to be something like the Tempest , or even Romeo and Juliet if I didn’t know Light-kun at all.”
Ah, that was why people said Shakespeare’s plays made sense for something Light Yagami would like, and in a perverse way L was right, as usual.
“ Romeo and Juliet is kind of a dumb play,” Light said. “Who would die for love?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised, Light-kun,” L said, smiling a little. “Even Willy Loman had people who loved him, you know? And he loved people, too. And too much of that love, and you’ll be all too willing to die for it. Isn’t that very theater-like?”
“Would you die for love?” Light said, almost like a challenge.
“I think the real question here is, would you die for love, Light-kun?”
Thankfully, though, the food arrived at just the right time, and Light would’ve kissed the waiter if he could. “Let’s eat,” he said, because he did not know the answer to the question, didn’t know the right answer to the question either, and fuck it, this was why he didn’t like Romeo and Juliet , because it was a tragedy, and loving too much would end in nothing other than a tragedy.
He forked a bite of salad, and watched L eat, and he wondered if he could ever love someone that much. In a way it was even impressive.
“Is Light-kun jealous that I have cake and he doesn’t?”
Light blinked, trying to shake himself out of the daze. “No.”
“Why don’t you try some of it? Your meal looks sad,” L said, holding a bite out to him on his fork.
“Meals don’t have emotions, L, they’re just meals.”
“I can’t let my junior eat such a sad meal. Just because you can’t see it crying doesn’t mean it’s not sad,” L said, and what was this conversation even, and maybe it was something along those lines that made Light lean forward and bite it off L’s fork.
The sweetness of chocolate lava cake exploded in his mouth, and he met L’s eyes.
And he tried to smile, but if Light was a different person he would’ve burst into tears, right then and there.
But because Light Yagami was not anyone else but Light Yagami and not a very avid believer of love, he just said, “My meal is happier than yours,” and L chuckled and the moment passed.
The next day Light had to say ‘I love you’ because it was on the script, and this was theater and hence everything on the script had to be followed. Even if he had to say it to Misa.
“I love you,” he said, and somehow that reminded him of Romeo and Juliet, and by extension L and dying for love, dying for someone , and the words slipped off his tongue as easily as lies tend to do.
“I love you too,” Misa said, and she sounded like she was trying her best to believe in it.
And Light thought that I love you was easy to say if you didn’t mean it.
He looked to the side and met L’s eyes, and when he looked back at Misa he couldn’t say I love you anymore.
It was the day of the performance, and Light Yagami was panicking.
“Are all the props here? Is everything accounted for? The backdrop hasn’t fallen, right?” he yelled at a stagehand, who looked like she was starting to get traumatised, but Light was going to be the traumatised one if everything didn’t go perfectly, because it had to, because he didn’t practice so hard for the play to turn out like a pile of steaming, flaming shit.
“I—the light switches are all working, right?” Light turned to L. “The sound is fine, the everything is okay, right, and—wait, every single one of the cast is all done with costumes, and makeup and things like that?” He whirled to Rem, the makeup artist, and she nodded, but his heart was beating so fast too fast.
“Light-kun, I think maybe you should try and calm yourself down before it starts,” L said, and Light wanted to reply that maybe he wasn’t the panicked one, maybe it was L who was way too calm about all of this, but then he realised something that made everything instantly a thousand times worse.
“Where’s Misa? Where is she? Without her everything can’t happen,” he blurted.
“She’s…I think she’s sick today,” Rem said, looking up from her phone with a vaguely nervous (or as nervous as Rem was going to get) look on her face. “She just called.”
And the lights blurred a little before his eyes and Light kind of wanted to throw up, but he also kind of wanted to set the whole place on fire and watch as it burned to the ground, because at least that meant he wouldn’t need to perform anymore, and, and he didn’t know what to do (Light Yagami, not knowing what to do ?), and, oh ,
suddenly breathing was a little hard to,
achieve ,
distantly he registers someone grabbing his arm, pulling him out and the corridor was wide and white and he puts his head down and tries to, breathe , and, he, calms—
—down.
“Light-kun. Light-kun, are you okay?”
“Yes,” he said, and suddenly even acting had gotten a little hard to achieve. “Yes, I’m okay.”
And of course it had to be L.
“Misa-chan isn’t here, but I know the play. I know that I can play her role,” L said, still as calm as ever. “Will that do?”
Light met his eyes again.
“I think it will.”
The stage lights were piercingly blinding. Light couldn’t see anyone’s face, which was good.
L was a good partner, Light had to admit. One of the best people he’d worked with, even, and not once during the dance scenes did he mix up left from right.
And this was the only time Light had ever felt something when he was acting, and at the end, when L dipped him and spun him to his right, saying something which was meant to be a monologue—
—his heart tripped and stumbled, hard, in his chest.
Light was caught , he knew, caught up in everything, caught up in what L was and was this what it meant to be really, truly a good actor ?
Was this what it meant to be—
L looked at him.
“Are you listening?”
—and it was almost the end of the play, but maybe the end was just another type of beginning, after all, like when Juliet closed her eyes for the very last time—
“I—” Light swallowed, tried to make the lines come out the way they always had.
—and L was looking at him still, and Light understood then why people would want to die for—
“I think the real question here is, would you die for love, Light-kun?”
“I love you,” he said.
L looked at him. And then he did something that, for fuck’s sake, wasn’t in the script.
He leaned forward, until his lips brushed Light’s.
The audience gasped.
Light leaned more forward and kissed L, because goddamnit , he was damned if he was going to let the idiot take all the credit for their first kiss.
The audience woo-hoo’d and broke into uproarious applause.
Rather dramatic , but well—it was theater, after all, Light thought, and really, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
And with that the normal lights came on, and they took their final bow.
The moment they were backstage, Light whirled to L.
“What was that,” he said, and he meant for it to sound like a demand but damn his idiotic voice, because it sounded breathy instead, like he was a stereotypical fairytale maiden in need of saving from a handsome, heroic prince (which wouldn’t be L, anyways).
L looked at Light.
“Light-kun didn’t want to be kissed by me?” and somehow even that managed to sound forlorn, and Light gritted his teeth.
“That wasn’t in the script ,” he said instead.
“Light-kun is also not answering the question,” and Light wanted to bash L’s head in, but also maybe kiss him again, and love was very conflicting indeed. Stupid Romeo and Juliet hadn’t been complete bullshit, after all, and for Light Yagami, that sucked. That sucked ass.
“...fine, okay, I liked it, but that wasn’t in the script—”
“The audience liked it though,” L said.
Light rolled his eyes. “You’re insufferable.”
L smiled. “Light-kun likes insufferable people, though, doesn’t he?”
“I hate you,” Light said, but then he was leaning in and then L was leaning in—
—and then they kissed again.
Ryuk whistled, and Rem muttered, “I fucking called it.”
And for once, Light didn’t feel like he had to act anymore, because all of this—it was real, and true, and it broke his heart in all the best of ways.
And he pulled back, and he smiled, and then L did, too, and then—
“ I love you.”
Inspired by @wildernezz's beautiful Lawlight high school theater AU!
