Chapter Text
The sun was dipping deep into the horizon, red and gold painting the sky into deep hues of warm color. The autumn breeze kissed (y/n)’s cheeks. Below the rooftop, children raced home to beat the streetlights, only moments away from flickering to life. (y/n) stood near the edge observing below. It had been a mere few months since she’d been asked to assist L, and the police force, on capturing and identifying Kira. She still didn’t quite understand why she was asked in the first place. Sure, it was flattering to be considered, but why? She wasn’t a wonderful detective, or police personnel at all, actually. Rolling the lukewarm coffee cup between her hands, she still couldn’t make sense of it. What could an elementary school teacher offer the world’s best detectives that they didn’t already have?
It wasn’t her place to ruminate on what role she played, rather, to just do as she was told. With this mindset, it was easy to tackle any tasks thrown her way. Which as of recently, seemed to be any obscure task L could conjure up. Right now, that was scanning through old security footage that a handful of eyes had already seen. Surely if there was anything of substance on the footage, L would have found it himself. God knows he scans every piece of evidence thoroughly, and independently, before allowing any other eyes to see it. Sitting at around three hours into the eight hour footage, nothing meaningful had happened. With how much footage remained, the task of scouring it all would persist well into the night. Even one more moment of viewing fuzzy footage would have been met with uncaring eyes, leading (y/n) to take her coffee to the roof.
“Are you as deep in thought as you look?” L asked, bare feet on the cold brick below them both. His white long sleeve shirt hung loosely on his figure, much too long. She flinched at the sound of another voice. Her heart violently thudded against her ribs. Her eyes flickered up to L instinctively; momentarily they held each other's gaze without any words exchanged. Swallowing a lump embedded in her throat, (y/n)’s gaze fell to the pipes protruding off the side of the roof.
“Not really.., maybe a little?” (y/n) began, unsure of how honest to be, or, L’s desired depth of the conversation. Was the conversation supposed to just generate casual small- talk without any substance? Did he actually want to know? Her conscious whispered cautions of the danger in honesty. He was only asking to be polite. The grit on the chipped mug dug into her thumb as she tried to focus on rephrasing the answer to be more clear. “ Sorry, I don't know, kind of?” she stumbled through her sentence. “ idiot” echoed in the back of her mind.
If L was annoyed, or if he was judging at all, it wasn’t obvious to the eye. He didn’t often wear his feelings, and as usual, his face offered no insight as to what he was thinking about this particular interaction. His shoulders slumped forward slightly. Only his thumb remained out of a dark washed jean pocket, drawing small half circles on the denim. “Why are you unsure?”. L asked
“I just am thinking of a few different things. Thoughts are sort of rolling through, some of them are sticking”
“Which ones have stuck?” L continued. Weight shifted from his left foot to his right haphazardly, body now leaning towards (y/n) instead of away. His gaze absentmindedly drifted to meet her soft features. An iridescent pink tint highlighted her cherub face. She looked down into the darkness of her coffee mug.
The coffee mug was gently placed on the cement beside her brown boots to allow her arms to wrap comfortingly around her chest. Fingers painted with chipped indigo polish dug through a black dress, pressure cutting into the flesh on her ribs. “I just don’t really um, understand my purpose, or what I offer the team?” she began, glasses slipping down her nose as her gaze fell to the floor. People lowered their gaze to elders, and royalty, certainly L was somewhere amongst the people you lower your gaze to. “Not to be rude or anything, I am happy to help, I just don’t get it.”
“I can understand why you’d be confused”. L offered calmly. “I don’t expect any of you to fully understand my methodology, task force included. I just need you to continue doing as I ask, which you have. You are an important contrast in Light’s thought process.”
Important? The letters wrapped her in a tight embrace. Important. There was nothing better to be than valued, (y/n) figured. Being important to the prolific detective L, was something. “Thank you” she returned, allowing a small smile to appear briefly on her face. “ I’m about three hours-ish into the security footage, I should be able to finish by midnight”
Another endless day in the office would mean another night of watching L. Being around so many detectives had pushed her to be more observant of behavior, especially when only the two of them remained shuffling through papers and clicking on keyboards. L’s shoulders would drop. His jaw would unclench for the first time in hours. When soft hums to melodies of her favorite songs rang from her lips, she swore he’d stop clacking on his keyboard so loudly to listen in. Intricate, small, pen drawings of him were etched into the side of her notes. Sometimes it’d be Matsuda, or Misa. On a one off occasion, it was Light. Most of the time though, she captured L while at work. When she’d get up to stretch, go to the bathroom simply for a break, she’d return to slightly shifted papers. Sometimes, on especially late nights turned into early mornings, she'd be fighting sleep, with her knees to her chest, arms folded neatly on top, eyes fluttering shut. She remained facing her work, a pen still loosely held between pointer finger and thumb, until sleep overcame her. On those night’s, she’d hear L’s voice, never capturing his words , and be briefly awoken by Watari draping a quilt over her shoulders.
“After you finish the footage, I’d like to go over your notes with you and see if you offer any helpful insight.”
(y/n) nodded. “Okay, I haven’t noticed anything worth mentioning yet. I mean, there is still multiple hours of footage though, so it could change.” she concluded.
A beat of silence occurred, one cut off swiftly by rambling. “I think I’ll head inside now. I should get back to my work. See you inside”. (y/n)’s hand waved towards L quickly, much quicker than he could respond. L watched (y/n) timidly shuffle off towards the door descending into their office. L’s eyes flickered away from her as the door swung shut, landing on a chipped red coffee cup that still remained on the cement where (y/n) once stood. Long and pale fingers wrapped around the red marble, the cup rested around three fourths full of now cold, dark liquid.
Pulling a Tokyo Banana encased in plastic from his backpocket, the cup remained in L’s grasp as he lowered himself to the cement floor, sitting crosslegged. The coffee and sweet snack were brought together as his Tokyo Banana was plunged into the mug.