literature

Origins: Wammy's House. Ch.3

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Mello stopped in surprise as he realized where they were headed.  Matt walked a few more steps before he realized Mello wasn’t beside him and turned around to gaze at him questioningly.  “We’re going to study in a play room?” he demanded.  “Not a classroom?  Not even the library?”

Matt blinked at him like he was the one acting oddly.  “It’s what Near likes,” he said, as if that explained all.

Mello pursed his lips.  “I don’t like it,” he complained.  “Near’s really weird, isn’t he?”

Matt shrugged noncommittally and resumed walking.  “You get used to it.”

They reached the play room and walked inside.  Near was sitting in the middle of the floor with his legs twisted to either side, surrounded by a ring of stuffed animals and action figures.  He didn’t react when company arrived.

“Near, I brought Mello here to study with us tonight,” said Matt without preamble.

Near paused in the act of building a pyramid out of figurines.  “Ah,” he said, his voice completely devoid of inflection.  “You brought the new boy.”

Mello waited for more, but nothing else was forthcoming.  Near didn’t introduce himself, didn’t wave, didn’t say hi, nothing.  He didn’t even look up.  Mello was momentarily at a loss.  He wasn’t used to being ignored, and he didn’t like the feeling one bit.  He crossed the room to stand in front of Near.  He smiled his most charming smile, but it was a wasted gesture since the boy didn’t look up from the plastic dinosaur in his hands.  He tried once more.  “Hi,” he said.  “I’m Mello.”

“I am aware of that,” replied Near mechanically.  He placed the dinosaur carefully atop a plastic soldier and picked up a transformer.  

Once again, that was all.  Mello glanced at Matt and raised his eyebrows questioningly, searching for a clue about Near’s strange behavior.  Matt just shrugged.

Mello was starting to get downright flustered, and that made him mad.  He dropped to his knees so that he was on Near’s level.  “Hey!” he exclaimed.  “Don’t you know it’s rude not to look at someone when you meet them?”

Near clutched the plastic soldier to his chest and turned his face farther away, his free hand twisting his hair agitatedly.  “I am fine like this,” he said.

Mello frowned and leaned closer, trying to place himself in Near’s line of sight.  Near deftly avoided him, and his frown turned into a glare.  He was peripherally aware of Matt shaking his head frantically, but ignored him.  “Well I’m not fine!” he declared in frustration.  He snatched the toy out of Near’s hands and tossed it aside.  Then he clasped Near’s head with both hands, fingers splayed, and turned his face towards him.

Their eyes met, finally.  Near’s were slate gray and very round with surprise.  His lips had formed a perfect O, and his fingers had frozen with a lock of white hair wound around them.  His breathing had all but stopped.  His gaze skittered over Mello’s face, flicked down to the floor, then returned to his eyes.  He stopped trying to look away; that was more like it.  Mello released his face and rested his arms around the younger boy’s neck, then smiled and brought his forehead very close to Near’s.  “See?” he said.  “My face isn’t so bad to look at, is it?”

Near started breathing again, quick and shallow.  His hands fluttered over the well-worn carpet, groping blindly for a toy to clutch but finding nothing.  Finally he sought out the one comfortable place that was in his reach.  His fingers buried themselves in the depths of Mello’s hair, and he stilled.

“It is rude to touch someone against their wishes,” said Near softly.  His voice was shaky, halting, a stark contrast to the monotone of several minutes earlier.  “I am…very uncomfortable.”

Mello’s eyes widened.  Then he burst out laughing.  He said that, but he was still gripping his handful Mello’s hair tightly.  He might be brand new to the strange habits that passed for Near’s social graces, but Mello was pretty sure that this meant acceptance.  He released the other boy’s neck with one arm and snatched a toy car off the ground to press it against his chest.  Near freed a hand from his hair in order to clasp it.  There was a ghost of a smile on his lips as he turned away and ran the car back and forth over the carpet.  His other hand remained firmly in Mello’s hair.  Mello grinned and glanced up to catch Matt’s eye.  The redhead was looking between the two of them with wide, worried eyes.  Mello waved him over.  Near arranged himself comfortably against Mello’s shoulder as Matt approached.  Matt gave Mello a strange look as he sat down, but he unfolded the problem set and laid it out on the floor wordlessly.

Mello peered at it curiously.  There were only a few questions.  One involved math that he was certain was beyond him, and another, much to his dismay, was written in a foreign language.  He couldn’t even tell which one.  He swallowed and tried to ignore the wave of uncertainty that rolled over him.  “So how come just the two of you get extra problems?” he asked quickly.

“That is because Matt and I are the official candidates to succeed L,” answered Near.  His voice was calm once again.  

“And that’s because you’re ranked one and two?” Mello inquired.

“Usually,” answered Near.  “Although sometimes Matt drops in rank because he failed to study.”

Mello glanced at Matt in surprise.  The redhead was glaring at Near, nettled.  “Hey, sometimes I beat you too, Near, don’t forget that!” he exclaimed.  

“That is less than twenty per cent of the time,” replied Near stiffly.  “If Matt wants a consistent ranking, he should work hard consistently.

Matt glared.  “Hey—“  He broke off when Mello jerked upright in surprise, and stared at him questioningly.

Mello’s hand flew to the side of his head where Near’s fingers were.  He had realized that Near wasn’t just playing with it, he was doing something more.  He found two braids already in place, and a third that was half finished.  He pulled one of them forward so that he could confirm its nature, and stared.  “Did you just braid my hair?” he asked in disbelief.  “With…one hand?”

Near drove the car into his stack of action figures, sending them toppling to the ground.  “Does that bother you?” he asked quietly.

Mello twisted in place, trying to catch Near’s eye once again, but he was staring intently at his toys.  He shrugged and faced forward again.  “No,” he answered.  It seemed that allowing the braiding was an integral part of being around Near.  “I suppose not.”  He released Near’s fingers, and the younger boy deftly finished the braid within moments.

Mello looked over Matt and Near, and then the problem set.  These were his new classmates, and that was the level of achievement he was going to have to reach.  He could see that he had his work cut out for him.






Matt’s life changed now that Mello was around.  His newfound friend had every intention of becoming one of the official Successor candidates as quickly as possible.  He turned out to be quite bright, just as Matt had expected.  But his predictions suffered a major blow when it turned out that Mello was in the remedial math section.  Near smirked about it, but Matt didn’t think it took away from Mello’s innate intelligence.  After all, it wasn’t his fault that his previous orphanage didn’t teach calculus.  Mello complained that his current math class moved too slowly, borrowed a pile of textbooks and vowed to complete the coursework in a quarter of the time allotted.  

He also didn’t speak a word of any language but English.  There were sequences of French, Russian and Mandarin Chinese in progress right now, but he needed to work with an individual tutor before he could catch up enough to join them.  Near was conspicuously silent about that deficiency.  His weakness with language was well-known; he took only half the normal complement of language courses.  Mello’s initial reaction was to complain that languages were a waste of time that could be better spent on math because everyone at Wammy’s spoke fluent English, but only until he figured out that being the House’s sole monoglot meant his classmates could call him “stupid American” in a dozen different tongues while he was none the wiser.  Then he added a pile of French books to his math books and buckled down.

Despite a few muttered complaints about Mello’s lack of proficiency in math, Near offered no objection to working with him on any other subject.  Mello became a regular in their study sessions in no time.  Instead of sitting back-to-back with him the way he did with Matt, Near would drape himself across Mello’s back and shoulders with one hand in his hair and one arm around his neck, like a pale, white-haired blanket.  He seemed to have a particular affinity for Mello’s hair, and Matt understood why when he ran his fingers through it one day curiously.  It was soft and silken, without a doubt far more pleasing to the touch than Matt’s thick and somewhat course shock of hair.  

The three of them sitting in a group and studying became a common sight around Wammy’s House.  As soon as Mello figured out that part of the reason for Near’s lethargy was that his legs didn’t support his weight very well, he began carrying Near from place to place on his back.  That expanded their range of study locations greatly, and after that they took over classrooms, any and all corners of the library, and sometimes even hallways.  

Mello tried to convince them to study outside repeatedly.  Matt eventually gave in, but Near was stoically against the idea until the day Mello convinced Matt to help him throw the younger boy into the stream that ran through the edge of the House grounds.  Near was so light it felt like nothing to lift him between the two of them, but Matt’s arms were starting to ache by the time they had sprinted halfway across the soccer field.  It turned out that there was no good way to toss Near into the deep part without getting wet themselves, so they all ended up tumbling into the water.  Near spluttered and flailed indignantly as he righted himself, and had made it halfway back to the House proper under his own power by the time Mello and Matt had even managed to stop laughing and sit up.  But his energy flagged long before he reached the indoors, and he ended up striking a deal that he would study outside in the shade of the big trees for one hour each day provided Mello didn’t pull any more pranks like that.  Then Matt and Mello helped him back to the House and into a dry set of pajamas.

Matt found that studying with Mello was infinitely more appealing than it had been to study alone or just with Near.  When the three of them worked side-by-side, it was easy to get so engrossed in schoolwork that he didn’t even notice the passage of time.  He was studying for hours more each day than he ever had before.  Entire afternoons slipped past in which he didn’t even turn his game boy on.  And to his surprise, he found that his rankings suddenly steadied out.  Gone were his frequent fluctuations anywhere between one and ten.  In the next round of exams, he beat Near on five of their eight subjects, and took second in the other three.  Mr. Ruvie met with him specially, his smile brimming with happiness as he congratulated him on his newfound work ethic.  

Mello also began making waves immediately.  He took rank eight in English, seven in chemistry and, most impressively, four in Deduction on the very first round of exams.  He wasn’t below fourteen in anything but math.  And after that, his rankings only climbed.  The whole school started whispering in speculation about how long it would take before he was jostling for position with Matt and Near.

Things changed between Matt and his classmates, too.  Mello made friends with almost everyone, which meant that lots people came by to talk to him.  And since he was often with Matt and Near, that meant that the other students hung around them as well.  The bubble that had isolated them had been popped by Mello’s arrival.  Now anyone might come chat with them at any given time.  People who had seemed openly hostile to Near in the past were now revealed to be just uncertain of how to deal with the brilliant but strange boy in their midst.  People Matt had thought hated him turned out to be pretty friendly once he started talking to them.  He was surprised by how many of the classmates he had by and large ignored until now turned out to be somewhat interesting.  Daniel, for example, proved to be a natural whiz at video games once Matt taught him how to work the controls.  He even managed to make up with Temper, who had been giving him the silent treatment for nearly a month, by shyly asking if she still wanted to braid his hair.  She and Near made a joint effort, and it did, in fact, end up taking more than an hour.  Mello burst out laughing when he saw the results, and so did Matt the instant he looked in a mirror.  He had to have at least a hundred tiny braids sticking up and out haphazardly from his head.  It was much more unruly than his typical unbrushed look, and it looked a little bit like he’d stuck his finger in a socket.  But it was so entertaining that he left it there for five days, until Mr. Ruvie pointedly reminded him that he needed to wash his hair again sooner or later.  Then it took more than an hour to get all the braids back out, but it wasn’t so bad since Mello and Near helped him.

When he wasn’t studying, in class or sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, Matt spent his time with Mello.  They had their first fight when Mello unexpectedly tried to read to him out of the bible one afternoon.  Mystified, Matt demanded to know why the heck he’d bother to open that stupid thing up when it wasn’t even assigned in class.  He didn’t realize he’d made a mistake until Mello tackled him, and didn’t realize how serious a mistake until his friend was still snubbing him the next day.  Matt gradually realized that Mello actually took that god stuff seriously.  He didn’t think anyone still did that these days!  Certainly no one else at Wammy’s did.  They had discussed the psychological and societal factors that led to religion during class, and Matt couldn’t figure out why any intelligent being would buy into it.  

But Mello had, somehow.  He made Matt apologize and take back his words before he would talk to him again.  After that, Matt kept his mouth shut if Mello wanted to read the bible to him.  There actually turned out to be some fascinatingly messed-up stuff in it, but he quickly learned that it was a mistake to make that observation out loud.  

In addition to reading to him, Mello loved to talk.  He would talk about anything and everything, from mocking the size of Mrs. Westbrook’s butt to speculating about how the universe would end.  Everything he said was fascinating.  Even things that Matt had considered many times before somehow became fresh and exciting on Mello’s lips.  He loved to listen to him.  He would follow him around for hours, through the hallways, into the cafeteria, even outside into the bright sunlight that bothered his eyes, listening raptly to what Mello had to say.  These were times that belonged only to them.  Near wasn’t mobile enough to keep up, plus he spurned all activities other than studying and puzzles.  They were Matt’s favorite times.  Mello was always smiling, and Matt was amazed to realize how much he could smile, too.  Sometimes he laughed so much that it made his face hurt.
Chapter 3/30

First Chapter: [link]

Next chapter: [link]

Death Note and Mello, Matt, Near, Roger, and an assortment of other characters are (c) Ohba, Obata. Permission to my clubs: :iconmello-x-matt::iconmattgasm::icondirtyxnumbxangelxboy:
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Subscribe2Billaconda's avatar
Aww you made Near seem kind of awesome. "Hi I'm Mello" "I'm aware of that" Ouch lol! I wanthim to braid my hair. So cute that Mello carried him around on his back. Aww why can't it just stay like this! Mello always smiling...I like the sound of that.