Work Text:
Unknown number
2012-01-14 13:28
Do you still think about him?
Matsuda just stares blankly at the message on his phone screen for far too long. He considers not responding at all, deleting it and forgetting it ever happened, but it feels impossible to ignore. He types out ‘Who is this?’, but deletes it before sending. Types ‘Who are you talking about?’ but then deletes that too.
He knows already. He knows exactly who they’re talking about.
2012-01-14 14:08
I do
The reply comes almost immediately.
Unknown number
2012-01-14 14:09
51.5108301,-0.1209054 January 28th 6pm
He looks up the coordinates and finds that they point to a hotel in London. There are so many reasons this would be a stupid idea. He still doesn’t even know who this is, though what they’re talking about narrows it down a lot. He doesn’t know what they want with him of all people. He doesn’t really have the money for spontaneous trips halfway across the world. With how cryptic they’re being, he thinks he might end up being murdered if he goes.
It would be beyond stupid. Close to being the stupidest thing he’s ever done, though it wouldn’t take first place. He knows what first place is.
Matsuda has never been known for making good decisions.
2012-01-14 14:16
I’ll be there
He wants to be far, far away from Tokyo on the 28th. And more than that, he doesn’t want to be alone.
Matsuda isn’t often early for meetings. In fact, he’s usually late. Today is different. It’s not as if he has anything better to do, so he makes his way to the hotel bar well ahead of schedule, and is already a few drinks deep when it starts getting close to 6. He’s felt wrong all day. His chest is too tight and his hands are shaky, and drinking helps him feel a bit more human. Plus it might just be his last day alive, so why not?
He’s not sure whether he even expects anyone to show up. This could easily be some sick joke that he fell for, one that would have been obvious to anyone else but him. He’s the same gullible, naive idiot he’s always been. Always wanting to believe the best of people. Always blind to the truth. People used to tell him when he was younger that his kindness and optimism was admirable. That it was his best quality.
Matsuda doesn’t have any good qualities. Not anymore.
If nobody comes, he’ll probably just keep drinking. He’ll drink until he can’t think straight, drink until he can barely walk. Maybe he’ll fall into the Thames and drown. His parents would have to fly out here to identify his body. They’ve always wanted to visit London.
It’s exactly 6pm when he shows up. Matsuda might not have even recognised him, if it wasn’t for the fact that the events of that day have stayed burnt into his memory permanently, replayed over and over on a loop whether he wants to remember or not. His hair is longer, almost down to his waist, like he hasn’t cut it at all in two years. He’s wearing jeans and a hoodie and Matsuda feels strangely overdressed next to him. Near sits down beside him and orders a double shot of rum, which he drinks quickly with a grimace on his face.
“So. It was you.” He states the obvious, because he doesn’t know what else to say.
“It was. Are you disappointed?”
He leaves the question unanswered as he finishes off his whiskey and coke. It’s not strong enough, but it still leaves his throat burning as he swallows it. He doesn’t know how he feels. About Near, about being here right now. About anything. He used to feel so much and now it’s just a blank, empty void.
“Why did you bring me here?” he asks instead. Near looks up at him with vacant, lifeless eyes, and for a brief moment, he’s back in that warehouse all over again. He feels sick. He doesn’t want to be here, but he doesn’t want to be anywhere else either.
“I guess we’re getting right to the point then. Come on.” He hops down off the barstool, and Matsuda follows him, because it’s all he can do.
“It was my fault that he died,” is the first thing Near says to him once they’re in the privacy of his hotel room. He turns to Matsuda but doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “I killed him. You hate me for that, don’t you?”
He’s never really thought about it. He doesn’t want to think about it. Everybody in that warehouse saw what happened, let it happen, was complacent in it, but Matsuda was the one who pulled the trigger. He’s never put much thought into it besides that.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you should,” Near says, matter of fact, stepping around Matsuda to sit at the edge of his bed. He takes out a few things from a bag nearby and places them on the bedside table, and it makes it very obvious what the plan is here. Matsuda feels oddly calm about the idea. It wouldn’t be the worst thing he’s ever done.
“I want you to hurt me,” Near tells him, pulling his hoodie and t-shirt over his head in one go, leaving his chest bare. He’s pale and thin and his snow-white hair covers most of his body. He looks about as dead as Matsuda feels. “Fuck me and hurt me and make me pay for what I’ve done. Whatever you feel, take it out on me. I won’t ask you to stop.”
If Matsuda was a better man with stronger convictions, he’d probably say no. If he was someone sensible and rational like Ide, or moral and steadfast like Aizawa, he wouldn’t do it. Wouldn’t agree to hurt someone else to try and make himself feel better. But he has never been strong, or smart, or morally upstanding. He can’t ever do or say the right things. All the decisions he has made have led to catastrophe. He has been half a person for the past two years and he’s so tired of it.
“Okay,” he says. “I can do that. I think.”
He thinks he should feel more nervous about it than he actually does. As Near undresses in front of him, he does the same, slipping off his tie and unbuttoning his shirt. He hasn’t had sex with a man before, but it can’t be that different. It’s just Near, it doesn’t matter if it’s bad, or if he does something wrong. They’re probably never going to see each other again after this. It’s not as if it’s someone he really cares about, someone he loves.
There was a time when he’d thought, hoped, that he might get to have this particular first experience with someone else, but that’s not possible anymore. It probably never was.
So it doesn’t matter. None of this does.
He climbs onto the bed between Near’s parted thighs, laying himself out like he’s just something for Matsuda to use. His eyes are dark and heavy as he looks up at him. He looks so different from that calm, collected boy in the warehouse. Time has changed them both so much.
“Do you need me to… uh, prepare you, first?” That’s a thing that people do, right? He might not care much about Near, might not exactly like him, but that doesn’t mean he wants to cause him any real harm.
“Weren't you listening when I told you to hurt me?” Near’s eyes narrow, and even with the position he’s in, it’s a little intimidating. “No, I don’t. Just get on with it already.”
“Okay. Okay.” He uses the lube set out on the table to stroke himself, and if he closes his eyes, he can almost pretend that it isn’t Near who’s here with him at all. He’s not sure whether doing that makes it easier or harder. He only fumbles a little as he finds the right angle to start pushing inside him. It’s warm and tight and he’s not quite prepared for just how good it feels. Nothing has felt good to him for a long time now.
It makes him think of long, guilty nights spent alone with nothing but his hand to fuck into, fantasising about someone who he knew he shouldn’t, someone who he had been sure would never want him. He’d never found the courage to act on those fantasies, and now he’s been left to regret it for the rest of his life. He doesn’t know whether it would have hurt less if he had, if he’d been rejected, or if by some miracle he hadn’t been. He doesn’t know whether it might have changed things. Whether it might have made it hurt worse. He’s not sure how anything could possibly be worse than this.
Near whimpers softly as he slowly eases himself inside, clenching tightly around him. Matsuda grits his teeth, closes his eyes, and lets himself imagine things are different, just for a moment. Lets himself think of what could have been if he hadn’t been such a coward. It would probably have felt something like this, but so much more. Him and Light, connected, bodies pressed together so close, holding onto each other tightly and never letting go. His grip tightens around Near’s thigh as he sinks deep into his body, breathing out in a sigh of relief. He thinks that if he had done this with Light it would have fixed everything somehow. Matsuda could have talked to him. He could have figured something out.
He could have saved him.
He swallows tightly around the lump in his throat, begins rocking his hips slowly inside Near, just getting used to the feeling of it. It feels good, physically, but it’s all wrong at the same time.
He hears the sharp crack of Near’s hand slapping him across the face before he even feels the sting of pain, shocking him back to reality, eyes snapping wide open in surprise.
“I told you to hurt me,” Near hisses at him in a low, scathing tone that doesn’t feel like it belongs to him at all. Matsuda rubs at his rapidly heating up cheek instinctively. That actually hurt.
“What don’t you get about this?” he continues. “I killed him. I killed Light. I took you all to that warehouse knowing what would happen. I could have had him convicted quietly. I had the evidence. I could have made sure he didn’t get the death penalty. I could have done anything else besides that, but I didn’t. It’s my fault that he’s dead.” His voice gets a little frantic towards the end, but he sounds so sure of what he’s saying. Matsuda has never thought about it like that before. For two years, he’s blamed himself. He was the one who pulled the trigger. He was the one who shot him again and again until he was left bleeding out. He was the one who killed him.
But… what Near says makes sense. If they hadn’t been in that warehouse at that specific point in time, Matsuda would never have done that. He would never have hurt Light.
“You understand, don’t you?” Near says, and just the sound of his voice makes him feel uneasy, off-balance. “So show me how much you hate me for it.”
Matsuda pulls out of Near and forcibly rolls his body over so he’s laying face down. He suddenly doesn’t want to have to look at him anymore. Doesn’t want to have to listen to him talk. Doesn’t want anything to do with him at all, really, but if this is what Near wants then fuck it, he might as well do it. He deserves it anyway, doesn’t he? He’s right about it being his fault Light is dead. Near deserves so much worse than this.
He slaps the back of one of Near’s pale thighs firmly, and he flinches in response. Matsuda almost feels bad about it, but he just has to keep reminding himself of what Near has done. What he’s taken from him. He hits him again in the same place, a little harder, and it feels easier. His palm stings from the impact. It gets him out of his own head, makes him feel more real.
Matsuda hits him again, harder still, a sharp crack and a soft whimper. Once he’s started it doesn’t feel like he can stop. It feels automatic, like he needs to keep taking more and more. Giving Near what he deserves, like some sort of long overdue retribution. A resolution to put things right in this world that has gone so wrong. Matsuda hits him over and over, growing more confident, more sure of himself, every impact harder than the last. He hits his thighs, the plush softness of his ass, pale unmarked skin turning pink. Near makes a quiet little sound of pain and it only spurs him on further.
Matsuda wants Near to hurt. He’s not a good person. He has never been a good person. He wants to hurt Near like Near has hurt him. Hurt him and fuck him and use him like he should. Near was right. Matsuda should hate him. It’s easy to hate him.
“You deserve this,” he says to Near, or maybe to himself. “You killed him.” His voice sounds strange and distant, like it’s not really his anymore.
“I do,” Near breathes out in a shaky exhale. “I did.” He lifts his hips a little as if in encouragement, slipping a hand underneath his body to touch himself. He’s getting off on this, Matsuda realises. It feels horribly wrong but he’d be a hypocrite if he said anything about it. Treating Near like this has his pulse pounding with an intoxicating mixture of anxiety and arousal.
He leans into it, into the state of just feeling and not thinking, or at least trying not to. He hits Near over and over in the same spot, listening to his cries grow louder and more intense. It must hurt. It looks like it hurts. His skin is bright red and hot to the touch. Matsuda wonders whether he’s crying, whether he could make him cry if he keeps doing this. The image of Near that’s permanently stuck in his mind is of him with a smug smile, looking down on Light as he gloats over his victory. If he can just erase it and replace it with something different, maybe it won’t hurt so much. He’d like to see him look as broken and pained as Light had that day.
With that thought in mind, he pulls Near up by his hips until he’s kneeling, putting pressure on the sore spots on his thighs and ass intentionally. Grabbing hold of him like he’s just something to use. That’s what he’s made himself, what he’s asked for, and Matsuda isn’t going to refuse it. He forces himself back inside Near in one stroke, taking from him with no regard for his comfort. He doesn’t know why he’d bothered trying to take it slow earlier. Near doesn’t deserve it.
Near makes a soft sound of discomfort as Matsuda starts moving inside him, quick and rough, but he doesn’t stop touching himself, and it only makes Matsuda want to do more. If he’s still enjoying this, it’s clearly not enough yet. Matsuda wants to make him hurt. Really, genuinely, hurt. It’s not about doing this because he was asked to anymore. He wants to. Feels like he needs to, to somehow put this right.
Near’s hair lays spilled around his shoulders, and it’s so easy to reach over him and grab a fistful of it, pulling his head tightly upwards by it. He really does cry out properly for the first time at that, a startled little “ah!” that has Matsuda feeling tingly with the heady rush of power it gives him. He holds him up by his hair, pulling him up higher still when Near instinctively puts his hands out to prop himself up.
Matsuda keeps fucking into him the whole time, feeling Near clench around him as he inflicts pain on him. He’s whining desperately in Matsuda’s ear, stroking himself like he’s still enjoying it even like this, even though it must hurt. He slaps Near across the side of his thigh again with his other hand, hits him and fucks him and pulls tighter at the mass of white hair in his hand, and it feels good, it feels right, it feels like something. He feels something.
It’s with another loud crack of his palm that Near comes suddenly, spilling over the mattress in front of him, whimpering and tightening around Matsuda where he’s deep inside him. He groans at the feeling of it, tries to slow down but Near doesn’t let him.
“Don’t stop. Don’t stop, I can take it, I can take more-”
So Matsuda doesn’t. Near wants this. Near asked for this. He’ll keep taking from him, take everything he is. Break him like he deserves.
He pulls out just for long enough to force Near down against the mattress again, rolling him onto his back, letting him suffer the humiliation of having to lay in his own come. He doesn’t complain. Doesn’t do anything, just lets Matsuda back inside him with a stifled little sound of discomfort, and it only makes Matsuda hate him more. He acts like he knows exactly what he has done and accepts it, and how can he possibly accept it? How can he let Matsuda hurt him like this and think it just absolves him? How can he accept still being alive after what he’s done?
Near doesn’t care, not really, not the way Matsuda does. He’s doing this just because he enjoys it. He’s doing this to taunt Matsuda. He will make Near regret it. Make him feel the guilt he should.
He moves fast and hard inside Near, hitting him as deep as he can, using his body as a weapon to cause him pain. It doesn’t even feel like sex anymore, not really. It’s violence, it’s raw aggression that he hadn’t known he was capable of, but he hadn’t known he was capable of murder either, and he had killed Light anyway, so what does he know? Near winces, face scrunching up in pain at every rough stroke, body jolting instinctively to try and get away from it, but he doesn’t tell Matsuda to stop. Matsuda reaches out to pull at Near's hair again, grabbing a handful and yanking so hard he might just tear it out, and Near cries out sharply, and like this, face to face, Matsuda can see the tears forming in his eyes, welling up and spilling over.
It’s still not enough. It will never be enough.
“You don’t deserve to be alive,” he says, and it’s an ugly, horrible thought that he doesn’t really mean to say out loud but he does it anyway, because what does it matter? It’s true. “You should have died instead of him.”
He is certain of that. It doesn’t have to be Near specifically, though he would deserve it the most. Anyone else could have taken his place, and Matsuda thinks it would have been better. Light had been young and bright and full of life. Passionate and principled and sure of himself in a way that Matsuda could never be, that Near could never be. The two of them are barely even people anymore. Light had done awful things, at least, that was how Matsuda saw it at the time, but maybe he had been right after all. Maybe he had made the world a better place. Matsuda doesn’t know. He has never known the answers to questions like that.
Light had always had an answer to everything.
Near grabs Matsuda by the arm suddenly, and he thinks he might be about to throw him off, but he just lifts his hand as Matsuda loosens his grip, moving it from his hair to his throat, holding it there tightly.
“Show me,” he says, dark eyes sharp and commanding despite how they’re still wet with tears. “Show me how much you want me dead.”
His hand shakes a little as he pushes down. He can feel the heavy thud of Near’s pulse underneath his fingers. He’s warm and alive and everything Light isn’t. It would be so easy, he realises, to just do it. To choke Near to death, right here and now. He’s practically forcing Matsuda to do it. He’s not like Light, defiant to the end, going out fighting and screaming in desperation, clinging to life with everything he had. Matsuda thinks he could kill Near and not feel anything at all.
They’re both murderers already. Near deserves to die for what he’s done and Matsuda is capable of killing him. It wouldn’t be the first time he has killed someone. Light would have done it. Light would have said it was making the world a better place, and right now, he feels like it just might. He squeezes his hand tighter around Near’s throat and he doesn’t even react, just breathes a little heavier as his eyes stay fixed on Matsuda.
He takes it as a cue to push harder, cutting off Near’s air supply, hearing his steady breaths turn to ragged, wheezing gasps, his mouth falling open. It makes his hands feel like powerful weapons, makes him feel powerful. He hadn’t felt powerful at all when he had shot Light. He had felt weak and angry and betrayed and scared. This is completely different. It feels satisfying, to see Near struggle for air underneath him. It’s what he deserves and what Matsuda needs.
Matsuda rocks his hips inside Near’s body as he chokes him, and it’s pleasure with a sharp edge to it. It feels good not in spite of what he is doing but because of it. It probably makes him a terrible person to enjoy this, but he has already been a terrible person for a long time. It doesn’t change anything. Near writhes and gasps and his eyes look a little distant but he doesn’t stop Matsuda from doing what he’s doing.
He grips harder, harder, harder, and he thinks Near’s neck might just snap under his hands, and the thought makes him feel sick but it doesn’t stop him, and there’s anger and horror and panic and arousal all mixing together in a horrible cocktail of feeling inside him, swelling up and spilling over. He fucks Near hard and fast and violent and watches his face turn red and his eyes glaze over and he feels as if he has become a monster. The exact same type of monster Light was, or the ones he was trying to fight, or maybe both, or maybe worse. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything.
When he comes it’s a shock to his system, a jolt through his body, and it’s unsatisfying and unenjoyable but it’s more than he has felt in a long time so he closes his eyes against the feeling anyway, moving rhythmically against Near until his body is spent, feeling the slow thud of his pulse under his fingertips. A wave of clarity washes over his mind and he lets Near go the second it does, snatching his hands away from him as if he has been burned, as if he was the one hurt instead of Near.
Near gasps, trembling and loud and desperate and then he chokes, clutching at his own throat, coughing and wheezing as he tries to regain his breath and Matsuda thinks for a moment that he might not be able to, that he might really die, and his chest is tight and his body won’t move and he watches Near in horror and sees Light on the floor of that warehouse, screaming and writhing, bleeding out, bleeding everywhere, bleeding because Matsuda had shot him, because he had made that split-second decision out of anger and fear that had taken Light’s entire life from him. Near’s breathing is ragged and pained and no, not again, he can’t do this again, he has never been able to do anything right in his life and he is dangerous and he shouldn’t be allowed to live because he will just keep doing this, keep killing and hurting people over and over, and he should have been put down a long time ago, just like Kira believed, he is nothing more than a killer and that is all he will ever be now, and he should have just-
“I’m fine,” Near gasps out, voice hoarse and cracked. “Calm down, for god’s sake. I’m fine.”
Matsuda looks at him, really looks at him, and his eyes are still wet with tears and he’s still breathing heavily but he’s alive. He’s okay. The tight band around his chest loosens and he realises suddenly that he hasn’t been breathing properly either. His head is foggy and floaty and it aches and he feels like he might pass out, but as he closes his eyes and focuses on breathing steadily, it gets less intense. He doesn’t know why he hadn’t noticed it at the time, but as he comes back to himself he realises that he had been speaking out loud, his thoughts tumbling out of him between shallow breaths. He doesn’t quite remember everything he said - even though it just happened a moment ago, it’s distorted and veiled in fog, like a distant memory - but it can’t have been good.
When he opens his eyes again, Near is still laying back against the pillows, staring up at Matsuda with those dark eyes of his. He thinks Near might call him stupid, or pathetic, or something else like that, because Matsuda certainly feels like he is, but he doesn’t. Just looks at him silently, and Matsuda has no idea what he’s thinking, and he hates it. Near is a mess, teary-eyed and exhausted and broken, but he still manages to look composed and unaffected.
Near said that he was the one who killed Light, but if he had been in Matsuda’s place, if he had been the one with the gun, things would have been so different. He’s sure of it.
“I’m going to-” he says it before he even knows what he’s going to do, because he just needs to be away from here, away from his thoughts and what he’s just done. “I’ll go and run you a bath,” he decides on, because Near looks like he needs it and it feels like a nice thing to do for someone after almost choking them to death.
“Okay,” Near says, and nothing more.
Matsuda takes the opportunity quickly, moving to the bathroom and shutting the door, crouching by the stark white bathtub and turning on the tap. The sound of rushing water fills the room, blocking out the buzz of noise inside his head, and whatever small burst of energy he’d managed to find drains out of his body as he sits by the side of the bathtub. There are so many thoughts inside his head but they’re all vague, foggy, indistinct. Everything just hurts. Everything has hurt for a long time, but he’d grown used to it. The pain had turned into emptiness, something that didn’t feel good but didn’t feel bad either. It was just nothing. This is different. It’s all spilling out of him at once, spilling over in the tears rolling down his cheeks and into the water, the muffled sobs rattling through him. It’s quiet but violent, something trying to burst out of his chest. A locked box forced open. It feels like he’s been keeping it trapped inside him for so long, without even meaning to.
It had felt wrong, to cry over Light’s death after it had first happened. Like he didn’t have any right to. Matsuda had killed him. Matsuda had trusted him. There were other people who deserved to grieve far more than he did. The people who Light had been closest to. The families of his victims. Everybody but him.
Light killed hundreds of thousands of people, and Matsuda had trusted him and believed in him to the very end. He had fallen for every lie, every word Light had spoken about justice and catching Kira. He had been too gullible, too stupid, too trusting, and it had been his downfall. He still remembers the betrayal. The shock. The anger, like nothing he had ever felt before. Anger that had led to him pulling the trigger.
Light had killed far more people, but Matsuda feels as if he killed the only one that really mattered.
And Near…
Matsuda doesn’t know what to think about Near.
There’s a knock at the bathroom door, Near’s voice muffled but distinct as he asks, “are you done yet?”
Matsuda quickly dries his eyes as best he can with his hands, wiping away any residual tears and shutting off the water.
“Yeah. You can come in.”
Near doesn’t try to hide his naked body at all as he walks into the room, and it makes Matsuda oddly conscious of his own nudity, but he supposes it doesn’t make much sense to feel self-conscious after what they’ve done. He gets up to search the bathroom for supplies as Near just stands there, watching him again.
“The water might be too hot, I don’t know how you like it. There’s-” he holds up the bottles he finds sitting on the edge of the sink. “Whatever these are. Uh. I guess if you need anything else I can go get it.” Near won’t stop staring, not even blinking, and it’s making him feel anxious all over again.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” he asks, and Matsuda still doesn’t understand him but he can tell that he seems genuinely confused. Matsuda doesn’t know what to say.
“I… I don’t know, I just- it’s just a bath. I hurt you and- and it felt like the right thing to do.”
“I made you hurt me,” Near says. “And you’re supposed to hate me. I killed someone you care about. It makes logical sense.”
Maybe Near is right. Maybe it does make sense to hate him. But he doesn’t look like a killer, not like this. He looks fragile and small and as broken as Matsuda feels. Matsuda had felt so furious at Near only ten minutes ago but now he can’t seem to bring that feeling back. He’s not sure why he ever felt it in the first place. Near is no more responsible for Light’s death than any of the rest of them are, and while the others there moved on with their lives, Near seems to still think about it just as much as Matsuda does. That has to count for something.
Maybe hating him is the logical choice, but Matsuda has felt lots of things that aren’t logical at all.
“I don’t hate you,” he says simply, and that’s the end of the conversation.
Near gets into the bath silently, and Matsuda spends so long just standing there that it would almost feel weirder to leave now, so he sits back down on the floor beside him. Near lays back in the water, a mass of white hair fanning out around his head, pooling around his shoulders. There are pink marks around his neck that make Matsuda feel awful to look at. He’s ashamed of how badly he lost control of himself. It was as if everything he’d spent two years not feeling came out all at once, turning him into a monster who forgot himself.
But Near had encouraged it too. And Matsuda hadn’t been thinking about it at the time, hadn’t been thinking much at all, but now he thinks he understands why. He thinks he might be the only person in the world who can right now. Thinks that maybe Near is the only person who can understand him, too.
“I tried to kill myself last year,” Matsuda says, the words just spilling out of him again. “On the anniversary.” It's one of those visceral memories where every detail sticks with you, clear as the day it happened. “I went out to the bar after work. Just kept drinking and drinking, and when I got home I- I was just so tired of it. I had the gun to my head. Finger on the trigger. I almost did it and sometimes I wonder why I didn’t.” He’s not sure why he’s telling Near all of this, but it’s like he can’t stop. He’s never said it out loud before. “You know what stopped me? It sounds stupid, but it was Sachiko. Light’s mom. I couldn’t do it because of her.”
“What about her?” Near asks, head tilted curiously. He doesn't look like he's judging Matsuda or feeling sorry for him. He's just listening.
“I went to visit her a lot, after Light- after Light died. She lost her husband and her son and I guess I felt like it was my responsibility to make sure she was okay. I thought that- that maybe she'd miss me if I was gone too. Maybe not. I don't know. It's stupid.”
“I hadn’t even thought about his family. Does she know what happened?”
Matsuda shakes his head. “We told her Kira killed him. It seemed kinder I guess. I don’t know. I don’t know why I- why I kept going back.” he sighs. “It’s not like I can make up for killing her son.”
“You’re a good person. That’s why.” Near says it like it’s a simple fact, not something up for debate, or a personal opinion. Near always seems so sure of himself, so confident in his conclusions. It makes Matsuda feel compelled to believe it, even though it conflicts with everything he knows about himself. “It’s a good thing that you’re still here. The world needs more people like you.”
“You too,” he says. It’s a strange thing to say, maybe, after everything Near has done, after everything he’s said to Matsuda, but as he says it he knows it’s the truth. “You’re a good person, too. You wouldn’t hate yourself like this if you weren’t.” He thinks about Near, ordering Matsuda to hurt him. Placing his hand against his neck. Telling him how he killed Light, how it was all his fault. Thinks about himself, a year ago, gun in his hand, that same thought running through his head on repeat. You deserve this.
It feels like something slotting into place inside his mind, pieces fitting together in a way he hadn’t been able to see before.
“I suppose you may be right,” Near says, closing his eyes and laying back under the water. His hair wraps around him like a thick blanket. It looks peaceful. It makes Matsuda feel kinda peaceful too. He sits there beside him in silence, but it’s not uncomfortable. He has come to hate silence and the way it leaves him alone with the constant ticking of his own thoughts, like a clock he can’t turn off, but right now, it’s not so bad.
He comes back up after a few moments, wet hair slicked back, leaving his pink-tinted face uncovered. He looks nothing like the boy from the warehouse anymore, Matsuda realises. He’s not sure what exactly it is that makes him different, just that he is.
“I don’t know how L did it,” Near says with a soft sigh. “Having all those people sentenced to death. He made it look easy. I always thought I’d be just like him.”
“It’s a good thing you’re not. I’ve met him. He was a bit of a dick.”
Near laughs, really laughs, cheeky and childish and joyful, covering his own face as if he’s a little embarrassed about it, and it’s so infectious that Matsuda finds himself smiling too.
“Wow,” he says once he’s calmed himself down. “I knew someone once who would have punched you for saying that.”
“It’s true! He hated me. Hated everyone, really.” Matsuda had admired L, respected him, but that didn’t mean he had to enjoy working with him. He had been cold and impersonal and more like a robot than a person. Most of the time, anyway. There had been some moments, when Light had been working with them, where he’d seemed different. Both of them had.
“Well, he hated everyone except Light. They were close, at one point. I think. Thought. They fought like an old married couple, but they seemed…” he can’t quite find the words for it. Sometimes Light had looked at L, spoken to L, as if he was the only person in the room who actually mattered. The only person in the entire world.
Matsuda had been a bit jealous of L, sometimes.
“And Light still killed him, in the end,” Near says. Matsuda supposes he must have, but it feels strange to think about. In his mind, there is Light, and there is Kira. There is the Light he knew before he knew he was Kira, and the monster he killed in the warehouse. It doesn’t feel real, that they were always the same person.
“Yeah,” he says. “He did.” For the past two years, he has never stopped thinking of Light. Of his bright smile and his sharp mind and the passionate glint in his eyes. Matsuda killed him and took all that away, but maybe the truth is that it was never real in the first place. He had felt betrayed, finding out that Light was Kira. He hadn’t known what to think, what had been real and what hadn’t, and he had wanted to believe, wanted to keep believing that up until that final moment, the version of Light he had known had been real.
“Do you think-” Matsuda stumbles over his words, trying to ask a question he’s not sure he wants the answer to. “Do you think it’s possible? To spend all that time with someone, act like, like friends, and still feel nothing towards them at all?” His voice shakes a little. He doesn’t think he’s talking about L anymore.
“I think he was human. Not a monster. A human who did monstrous things, but still retained some part of his humanity. It's why he did what he did. That's the scariest part. Monsters don't care enough to hurt others on that scale. Humans do. He did it because he did feel things.”
Matsuda knows that he’s saying it because it’s the truth. Near might just be the smartest person Matsuda knows. They both killed Light in a sense - but that doesn’t have to make them monsters. Light wasn’t either. He’s not sure whether it makes him feel any better, but it doesn’t make him feel worse. He thinks that’s probably good enough.
Near gets out of the bath after a few more minutes of silence, and Matsuda brings him a towel. He figures he’s overstayed his welcome long enough, so he leaves him alone and returns to the bedroom. He’s a little worried it’ll feel like walking back into a crime scene, but the rumpled bedsheets are still mostly clean, the room empty and quiet and peacefully free from the scent of death he remembers so clearly. He dresses himself in his stupid suit with his stupid tie that he doesn’t know why he bothered wearing, and Near emerges from the doorway with a towel wrapped around his head as he’s putting his jacket back on.
“Do you have any plans?” he asks Matsuda. He hadn’t thought about it until now, but he realises that he doesn’t. He hasn’t planned anything ahead in a long time, just going through the motions of day-to-day life. It didn’t feel like there was any point. He has felt as if he was one single step away from the edge of a tall building for a long time, just waiting for a push to send him over.
“I guess not,” he says. He’d probably just go back to drinking at the bar alone.
“You can stay here, if you’d like. I wasn’t going to do much. Watch TV. Order pizza, maybe.”
Matsuda is used to being alone. Even when he isn’t alone, it still feels like he is. There’s a distance between him and other people, a wall he can’t break through. He can’t talk about Light, can’t talk about the guilt he feels crushing him from the inside, can’t talk about how he often wishes he was dead so he wouldn't have to live with it anymore. The people who don’t know the full story wouldn’t understand, and the people who do wouldn’t either. Near is the only one he’s been able to tell. The only one who’s the same as him.
He’s tired of being alone.
“Yeah,” he says. “That sounds nice.”