Dark eyes watch silently through the window, the snow drifting ever so gently to the ground. He curls hair between his fingers the way he always does, his mouth closed the way it always is, and his face completely unreadable the way it always has been.

This just isn't the same.

The silence in the room is almost unbearable. He usually enjoys the quiet, but not now. It only leaves room to remember and it is painful at how he simply hears nothing. He can't hear his own heart beating, not even if he blocks his ears and listens as carefully as he can. He knows why he can't hear his heart anymore . . . because it's not there.

A little more than a month ago, it was broken. He stayed quiet, and his face stayed exactly the same—he did not cry—but inside he felt everything crumbling away to nothing.

Why?

That was the question he had wanted to ask Roger at that moment. Why? Why would anyone want to kill L? Why would they take him away? But he couldn't ask why. The word wouldn't come, and instead, several other, far more cruel words, emerged from his usually silent mouth. He had called L a loser—a loser for dying—the words had come so carelessly forth that he surprised himself a little by saying it.

Why?

Why can't he say the things he wants to? Why does he have to say those things he never means? Why does this hurt so much?

The smell of tobacco suddenly fills the air. He considers looking but he knows it can only be one of two people: Roger with his pipe, or Matt with his cigarettes. The sound of heavy boots joins the smell, and now he knows.

Matt is leaning in the doorway, a cigarette hanging lazily from his mouth. He is a daring boy, smoking inside the orphanage like that, but then again most of the superiors are so busy trying to sort out the issue of L's successor that no one has time to lecture him. Even if someone were to catch him, Matt would simply put out the cigarette with a curt apology, wait for them to leave, and light another one.

"Still not the new L yet?" Matt asks casually. He does not say this to be cruel; he merely wants to start a conversation.

"No." He answers simply, finger still twirling in his hair. He can never replace L. No one can.

"I hear that they're going to pretend he's not dead." Matt continues nonchalantly, taking a long drag on his cigarette. "So that Kira won't know if he really got him or not."

He closes his eyes and quickly turns his head so that he facing a little further away from Matt than he previously was. Those words hurt. He doesn't like to hear people talk of such things as L's death. It just hurts so much. But he can't let Matt see how much it hurts. He can't let him see how special L was to him.

He can't let him know.

"Do you know what day it was?" He asks suddenly, unaware of the question until after he had already asked it. His concern quickly changes from the slipped question to the hope that Matt will understand what he means. He doesn't want to explain himself. He doesn't want to explain that he means the day L died.

"November 5th." Matt answers simply; he understands. "Why?"

"Don't you think that it's ironic how close it was to . . . " He doesn't finish the sentence on purpose. He wants to see what Matt will say. He wants to see if he knows.

"Halloween?" Matt chimes in. "It was pretty close, huh?"

So he doesn't know, or at least he's pretending he doesn't. No, Matt likes to keep his games on a TV screen rather than in people's heads. If he knew that October 31st—Halloween—was also L's birthday, he would have said so.

He smiles a little inwardly. He can remember that one night when L had come to the orphanage, like he often did, and he had asked L to tell him a secret that no one else knew. L had responded that he was born on Halloween, 1979. He had always wondered if this was really a secret or if it was what he told all the children who wanted to know L's secrets.

Matt asked many questions, so he was sure that if it was a reserved answer for those kinds of children, then he would know.

It was their secret, and he took delight in the thought that some things really did just belong to the two of them. Even something as common as the knowledge of a birthdate was like catching a glimpse of the Holy Grail. Everything about L was precious.

So very, very precious.

He remembers with a sad happiness the way they once were. When L came to the orphanage, he admitted that he tried to have him all to himself. He craved and loved those scarce moments that belonged to them and only them. He had just wanted to give everything away to him.

He had given him his real name, and then three words that were not so secret to L anymore. Those words that he would only speak to L, and those words that L would only speak to him.

"I'm leaving." Matt suddenly blurts, taking another drag on his cigarette and then removing it from between his lips. He holds it between his fingers and gently flicks the end, the ash floating to the floor. He waits for a response, holding that sweet toxicity in his lungs for a long moment before breathing it out with a quiet sigh of appreciation.

Everyone knows that Matt can appreciate and love something that could bring about pain and untimely death.

"For Kira or for Mello?"

Matt's eyes flick toward the white-haired boy; he looks a little annoyed. "Mello's going after Kira. I wanna get in on the action."

He nods a little and pulls his hand away from his hair, putting his finger against the glass of the window and trailing the path of a falling snowflake. "So, you're going for Mello after all."

Matt returns his cigarette to his mouth and takes a quick inhalation. "I might be going for L."

"You might be," He agrees quietly, choosing a new snowflake to follow. "But you're not."

There is a long moment of silence between them. Matt is lost deeply in thought, while the other is only thinking about one thing—one person. Suddenly Matt realizes that he and the strange boy before him have something in common.

They both have a one-track mind. They only have enough room for one.

"You're right." He admits quickly, cigarette dangling lazily from his mouth as his eyes move to stare blankly out the window. "You're right, I'm going for Mello. I don't . . . I don't care about L."

There's that pain again. He wants to hurt Matt for saying that. He's just so angry to hear that Matt doesn't feel the same pain that he has to suffer, but at the same time he's happy. It means that there is just another piece of L that was never shared, and so there is another piece that belonged to him alone.

" . . . I will also be leaving soon." He murmurs softly, forsaking the snowflakes to look down. He feels so cold by the window.

Matt smirks lightly and drops his cigarette on the floor, stamping it out. "For Kira or for L?"

"Mello's going after Kira." He answers, turning to stare straight into the other boy's eyes. "I wanna get in on the action."

Matt grins and pulls another cigarette from his pocket. "I thought so." Removing a lighter from some jiding place in his jacket, he lets the flame burn the end of his cigarette and inhales the smoke deeply. " . . . How did he know?" He looks at the other boy's blank expression and explains his question further. "You always look so . . . emotionless. How did he know how you really felt?"

"He was the world's greatest detective." He answers simply and then turns back toward the window.

Matt nods in understanding. "Right." And then he is gone.

He lets himself go a little once he's alone again. A blank stare and simple, robotic words; this is how he behaves in the presence of others. He must do this because it was their secret. And when it became their secret, it meant that it was a secret from everyone else. It was a promise he had silently made when he told his secret, and a promise that L had made when he returned that same secret.

"Tell me a secret."

His secrets were his feelings, his emotions. They were secrets that he would only share with L, and secrets that L would share with him. And because these were their secrets, they were so very precious, and he would not allow them to be tainted by exposure to the world.

This is why he did not cry when Roger said that L had died. This is why he will not let the others see his pain. This is why he would not smile when L used to come visit the orphanage.

Not until they were alone.

Not until it was secret.

This is why he is going to kill Kira with a blank face, hollow eyes, and a silent mouth.

Because . . .

It was secret.

XxXxXxXxX

Yes, this is a little random but I got curious as to why Near is always so blank and emotionless. Then I started to think that L behaved the same way and I came up with this whole thing that they would only express their emotions to each other and their feelings were like a secret that only the other knew about. I hope it made sense; it was kinda difficult to explain :S I hope you all enjoyed it and go a little easy on me cuz I've never written Near or Matt before cuz I'm a little new to the Death Note category :)

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