9137

"Rem . . . why don't humans live longer?"

He used to ask me that question so often that it became a bit of a bore. He was becoming far too obsessed with this human that I was half afraid he might do something drastic. The laws of the Shinigami could have quite horrifying punishments.

I used to tell him that humans weren't given long lives because they tended to live better if they knew there time was limited.

"Yes, but . . . it's so limited." He would answer me mournfully and turn back to the void before us. "Even for a human, it's a very short lifespan."

He would answer me mournfully and turn back to the void before us.

He did this quite often. He'd pick a human and spend years sat there, watching them. Loving them more with every moment to the point where he would completely forget everything else. I always wondered if he picked ones with short lifespans on purpose, because it would give him less time to love them and it wouldn't be so hard when they died.

Still . . . he had never become obsessed with a male before.

"I saw when he was born," He would relate the tale to me many times, a gleeful look in his eyes as he told about the strange feeling he got when he witnessed it. "I could tell right away that he was unique. You can see it in his eyes, can't you?"

He would relate the tale to me many times, a gleeful look in his eyes as he told about the strange feeling he got when he witnessed it.

It was true; his eyes were very strange. But then my poor friend's smile would drop and that mournful look would return.

"But he has such a short lifespan . . . " He'd murmur in his soft, gentle voice. "I watched when his name appeared above his head, and then his lifespan. Nine-thousand, one-hundred, and thirty-seven days. Isn't it so very short?"

He'd murmur in his soft, gentle voice.

Jealous' feelings were never clear to me. He spoke about the human as though they were the dearest of friends, brothers, father and son, or sometimes even lovers. I was never sure if his feelings were actually romantic or not, but it didn't matter either way. He was hooked.

He would always tell me about some amazing new thing he had done. When the human was a child, Jealous would tell me about how he was growing up.

"He said his first word today."

"Today is his first day of school, you know."

"Watch how he looks at this girl. I think he likes her."

"Look at him—graduating already. He's on the Principle's List again. Isn't he clever?"

And everyday, after he had told me what new events had happened that day, he would remind me of that ever decreasing number.

"Today is his sixteenth birthday. Do you know what that means? That means that he only has three-tousand, two-hundred, and ninety-three days left."

I often sat with him and we watched together. I never said much, only responded to his comments. I remember one time when the human was going to bathe, Jealous covered my eyes and told me I wasn't allowed to look. There were many times that he decided something was too inappropriate for me to see. The human's teenage years were the worst and Jealous often told me to look away whenever the boy retired to his room and locked the door.

Sometimes we talked while the human slept, and discussed his future. There is one conversation in particular that haunts me the most.

"Today is exactly two-thousand days before he dies." He said quietly, watching the boy—no, young man is what Jealous insisted I call him now that he was closing in on his twentieth birthday—drinking a cup of tea whilst throwing a tennis ball against the wall. " . . . How do you think he will die, Rem?"

He said quietly, watching the boy—no, is what Jealous insisted I call him now that he was closing in on his twentieth birthday—drinking a cup of tea whilst throwing a tennis ball against the wall.

I took a minute to think about it and observed the human carefully. "I can't say that he looks perfectly healthy." I admitted, noticing the way the human's eyes were heavy with some form of stress. "Perhaps he will die from an illness?"

"I should hope not." Jealous answered me quickly. "That means that he would have to suffer. I don't want him to suffer." Then his eyes lit up with a strange kind of look and he continued slowly. "In fact . . . I should hope that he dies in an accident, or better yet, I hope he is murdered."

Jealous answered me quickly. Then his eyes lit up with a strange kind of look and he continued slowly.

His words hit me with both shock and suspicion, forcing me to question him. "Why would you want such a thing?"

"Accidents or murders always have a second party. He wouldn't die if the second person wasn't there."

I knew exactly what he was suggesting. He had allowed himself to watch this human for far too long. Most humans he began watching only a year or two before their deaths and it helped prevent such protective feelings, but this one he had been watching since birth and had become far too attached. If the human were to die because of some other human, Jealous would surely save his life.

Such actions were forbidden.

I didn't want to imagine what fate would be in store for him if he intervined with a human's death for the sake of love. I decided to help Jealous, and so I carefully weened him away from watching the human. I did so by drawing his attention to another human—a girl.

She was beautiful and innocent in the kind of way that I knew Jealous could not resist. But better yet, she was destined to die in as little as two years. His attachment moved from the boy to the girl, although it was never gone completely. There were the rare moments when he would turn his eyes away from Misa Amane to gaze upon the boy he had watched for so long. Then, once he could see him, he would mutter the human's remaining lifespan under his breath.

"One-thousand, four-hundred, and twenty-two."

"One-thousand, one-hundred, and sixty-three."

When I had picked Misa, I picked her because I knew she would be irresistable to Jealous. What I hadn't counted on was that she was too irresistable, nor had I considered that her death was to brought about by that 'second party' Jealous had talked about.

On the day that Misa Amane was meant to die, she survived. Instead, two people died in place of her. Misa's murderer and Jealous were sacrificed so that she might live.

I felt responsible, because I had brought Jealous to watch her and thus was the cause for his falling in love with her. I wanted to make sure that Jealous' life was not taken in vain, and so I came to the human world to protect her. I was very disappointed when she gave away half of her lifespan for the eyes of the Shinigami.

Soon, Misa had been caught up in something I wished she had never become a part of. A battle that raged between two beings known only as Kira and L attracted her attention, and she squeezed her way onto the battlefield. Before long, she was at Kira's side and he wanted her to help destroy L.

Then the time came.

Misa was introduced to one of Kira, Raito's, 'friends'. He was introduced as Hideki Ryuga, but both Misa and I knew that it was not his real name. The false name was what caught Misa's attention, but the real name is what caught mine.

He was the same boy. That same human that Jealous and I had watched since birth. He was all grown up and unfortunately had become a huge part of the battle between Kira vs L.

He was L.

I had to keep Misa alive, for Jealous' sake. I, myself, had grown to love her too and I would do anything to stop her from dying. I knew that the war would soon be over anyway; L's lifespan was down to it's last year.

Misa was taken captive, and released, but kept under the watchful eye of L. I was sent away for a while, forced to follow the notebook that I had to give to a greedy business man. Eventually he was caught and the Death Note was kept under L's supervision. With both the Death Note and Misa under his constant supervision, I was finally reunited with her.

I watched, day after day, the little red numbers above that man's head counting down. Each day I felt a little more pain from knowing how much Jealous loved him, and I felt that I should watch over him the same way that I watched over Misa . . .

For Jealous.

Finally, the day came. It was day 9137 of L's life, and now his lifespan had gone down to, not days, but hours. Then it moved from hours to minutes.

I stood behind his chair, beside Raito. L asked me things that I had to answer and I quickly realized the true nature of his questions. L knew that Misa was an active participant of the Kira war. She would be caught and executed.

She would die.

When I looked at her lifespan I realized that her execution was a strong possibility. She would be dead within a couple of months.

I found myself met with a sudden and horrible realization.

" . . . How do you think he will die, Rem?"

I was going to die that day.

I was going to die to save Misa's life, and I was going to do this by killing L.

The guilt hit me hard when I thought of Jealous' affection for him. It was some cruel joke of Destiny to have my existance be the cause of so many deaths. L's short lifespan was at my fault, and to save Jealous from saving him, I showed him to Misa, and instead he died for her. Because of this, I felt the need to save Misa from anything, and to do that I had to kill L and succeed in making his short life so short.

It was difficult to work out, but eventually it clicked. If I did not exist, or if I had not become interested in Jealous' obsessions, Misa would have been the only one to die out of the four of us. Now, she was going to be the only one to survive.

I snuck into the next room and pulled out my Death Note. While L sat, unsuspecting and innocent in his chair, the numbers above his head were counting down by seconds. I had written his name down and now I waited.

Forty . . .

Thirty-nine . . .

Thirty-eight . . .

I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Jealous." I muttered almost silently.

Twenty-seven . . .

Twenty-six . . .

Twenty-five . . .

Watari was dead by then, I could hear L's voice drifting through the walls. He had caught on that I wasn't in the room. I couldn't believe what I was doing. I couldn't believe that I was the one that had placed the number above our heads.

Fourteen . . .

Thirteen . . .

Twelve . . .

This was all caused by me and I made one last realization. Shinigamis are not used to the concept of love, and so I had not known that it was not something to be messed with. In a realm where a Shinigami's boredom can cause the deaths of many, our love could hold far worse consequences. It was a sort of curse bestowed upon us for our deeds.

Humans can go to neither Heaven nor Hell for using a Death Note; that is their curse.

Shinigamis can never get away with love; that is our curse.

Three . . .

Two . . .

One . . .

I closed my eyes and held my breath.

L's voice, which I had been hearing through the wall, suddenly stopped.

Zero.

I heard the thudding of his chair toppling over and his body hit the ground, the startled shouts of the other people in the room. I could hear his short, shallow breathing in my head. I was surprised; I thought that I would hear his heart beat, but then I realized that it wasn't there.

His heart had stopped. And while his brain was shutting down and his body slowly suffocated from the lack of blood and oxygen, I felt the pain that I knew Jealous would have felt.

Oh, wait . . . No . . . It's not that kind of pain.

It's—

XxXxXxXxX

"S-sand?" Matsuda exclaimed, staring at the pile on the floor, dumbfounded.

Raito stood to the side, the Death Note tucked away in his jacket where no one else would see it. Everything was over; he had won. L's body lay on the floor in just the next room while Ide made absolutely certain that he was dead. They were all pointlessly hoping that somehow he was still alive, but they all knew he wasn't.

He headed back to the main room, stopping for a quick moment to remove his prize from its hiding place. He flipped through the pages, letting curiosity get the better of him. He finally came to the last page that had been written on; L's name lay before him and he quickly memorized it.

He had his ultimate opponent's true name burned into his mind and he knew it would never, ever leave.

Then his eyes were drawn to something strange on the side of the page. Written right beside that human name was a number, that Raito also felt that, for some strange reason, would also scar into his memories forever.

He tucked the Death Note back into his jacket and entered the main room. He jumped a little in surprise when he turned the corner and came face-to-face with his father. L's body lay in the older man's arms, his head hanging loosely over Soichiro's arm, eyes closed and hair swaying with every movement.

Raito stared blatantly at the lifeless face before him for a long moment before Soichiro cleared his throat.

"I know it's surprising." His father said in a low voice. "We'll get past this, Raito."

Raito nodded his head quickly. "I know, Dad." He answered, looking down in an attempt to look sorrowful. He almost forgot that he was supposed to be mourning the detective's sudden death, but he was so distracted.

He shook his head a little once his father was gone.

"It was only in your head." He thought to himself. "It had to have been in your head."

He thought to himself.

For a second—just a second—he thought he saw a set of red numbers flicker above L's head. He was so sure he had seen them. Now he knew he could never forget . . .

9137.

XxXxXxXxX

I don't really know what to say about this fic, it was sorta random :P in the 13th volume of Death Note (How To Read) it gave both the times of L's birth and death (he was born October 31st, 1979, and died November 5th, 2004 for the curious) and my sister and I got curious and decided to figure out exactly how many days he lived XD I know, I have no life XD Anyway, we came up with 9137 and in case any of you decide to check my math, just remember leap years XD Anyway I thought it would be neat to just screw around with the whole lifespan idea and I really wanted to write something with Jealous in it X3 I know that L's lifespan would be seen as his natural death rather than showing a time based on when the Death Note would kill him but it was the only way to make the story work so I say I get to bend the rules! XD Anyway I hope you all liked it :)

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