Death Note Fan Fiction ❯ Pinhole Leak ❯ Pinhole Leak ( Chapter 1 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

When Near compared the L he knew to the one now acting in his place, he often lost track of time. He'd lose himself in the details, turning them over and over as he reexamined what he knew about both. The hours would fly by as if he were in a trance. This was a puzzle in many ways, one with multiple tangents, ones he could almost taste on his tongue if he thought too hard, moist and bittersweet. Nothing else had this sort of effect on him. It would bring a chilling calm down upon him like a sheet, but one full of tiny holes which frequently allowed the impurities small passage.

There was something else to it as well.

Sometimes he felt something. Interest of a most unusual sort. Unusual for him, that is. When he was younger he often felt a yearning for the man called L, one that extended beyond admiration. Beyond infatuation, even. One might call it downright lust, except... Near didn't find interest in anything of a sexual nature. The only evidence to support this possibility, which Near would only admit to himself, was the coincidence of waking after a dream about him to find his sheets sticky. He knew this was a natural occurrence, but these 'occurrences' always followed such dreams.

Near would brush it off, of course, even though it continued for years.

Then came the period where there was nothing. Near didn't understand, except he did. L was dead. The people at Wammy's House had told him so, and over the years there was never any evidence to the contrary. Only when four years had passed and suddenly it came again did he recognise that something was afoot.

Or rather, Near came. The night after he spoke to the new L.

Near had a new puzzle to solve alongside the one regarding Kira's identity.

There was a reason Near usually wore white.