Lawli: ...Um, sorry for the delay?? -dodges random flying objects-

Just a reminder:
"text" is spoken in English.
"text" is spoken in Japanese.

“What’s with you?” Light asked, frowning, appearing almost troubled by the stricken look on Lawliet’s face.

Lawliet didn’t say anything and Light had to wonder if he was even there, mentally. The far-off look in his grey eyes suggested he wasn’t.

“L-Lawli-kun?” Misa said, tentatively reaching to touch his shoulder but pausing just before doing so, pursing her lips and deciding against the action as she lowered her hand back down to her side.

Still Lawliet refused to respond to their attempts at catching his attention. Impatient, Light sighed and completed the motion Misa had been too hesitant to go through with.

Lawliet jumped at the touch, his already large eyes bulging and a startled cry of “no!” escaping his lips. Realizing his mistake Light withdrew immediately, watching as the boy curled himself into a protective ball, his chest heaving as though he’d just run a marathon.

Not for the first time Light wondered, what the hell is wrong with this kid?

“Lawli-kun?” Misa tried again, and the genuine worry in her voice almost made Light smirk.

“I... I’m sorry,” was the quiet reply.

Misa shook her head, assuring Lawliet that everything was okay and that there was no need for him to be apologizing. “Are you all right, Lawli-kun?”

Lawliet slowly nodded his head, looking over at her from underneath his dark bangs. Light could still see the fear causing him to shake, and tried to think back on their conversation to figure out what might have triggered the strange response from the other boy.

Now that Lawliet had apparently returned to normal, Misa moved on to other topics, offering Lawliet some of the sweets from her lunch box as she caught him eyeing them in the middle of her story about a girl named Chiyoko getting a detention for rolling her skirt too high.

Light wasn’t paying attention to what Misa was saying, and suspected Lawliet of being guilty of the same thing, for looking at Lawliet out of the corner of his eye showed him as being focused on nothing but jelly-filled onigiri. There was a distant expression on his face again, causing Light to try and think of what might be on the other’s mind. And as he pondered over this, he also couldn’t help but wonder why he was wasting so much of his time thinking about Lawliet at all; he cared very little for the boy, and certainly couldn’t care about what might be bothering him. But he was – as young boys tended to be – curious.

And it was that curiosity which prompted him to interrupt Misa.

“So what had you so scared?”

Lawliet blinked, startled by the abrupt change of subject – as apparently was Misa, who did not appreciate being spoken over in the least bit and was presently glaring at Light’s head in a way that was far from threatening. Light ignored her for the time being, knowing she’d forgive him within minutes and so seeing no need to apologize or even acknowledge her disapproval.

“Light-kun, I...” Lawliet’s voice trailed off.

“When Misa-chan was telling that story,” Light reminded him in English, in case Lawliet was trying to feign ignorance. “What made you so scared?”

Cheeks slowly turning a shameful red, Lawliet lowered his gaze to the ground.

“I don’t think he wants to–” Misa started, only to be interrupted yet again – this time by Lawliet.

Light hadn’t been expecting an answer, and so when Lawliet did quietly respond to the question he was momentarily taken off guard.

“Fire,” Lawliet whispered, the very word causing him to tremble slightly. “I afrai... I don’t like it.”

Was that all, really?

Light couldn’t help but feel disappointed. Lawliet was so strange; it was odd to think of him as having such an ordinary fear.

Light couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Pyrophobia,” he stated easily, and Misa raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar word, clearly not thinking that a twelve-year-old should be able to spout complicated English words like that off the top of his head. “That’s a common thing.”

“I guess,” Lawliet agreed reluctantly.

There was silence, during which Light tried to conjure up other questions he could ask on this matter. Lawliet didn’t appear to keen on the idea of treading back into these waters, judging by the way his eyes had taken on that rounded, distant quality, making Light highly doubt that he would be given much more information even if he continued to pry.

So he allowed it when Lawliet hastily changed the subject, though he was surprised by the way in which he did so.

“H-how short was Chiyoko’s skirt?”

Misa’s eyes widened.

Light hid a grin behind his hand.

And then...

“Lawli-kun is such a pervert!”

And Light couldn’t stifle it this time.

“P-pervert?” Lawliet repeated, face flushing as he ducked away from the playful swat Misa aimed in his direction.

He burst out into laughter. Not long afterwards, once he had realized the error in his words, so did Lawliet.

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I didn’t even realize I was laughing with him...
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By the time his last class of the day rolled around, several of Light’s classmates had warmed up to Lawliet. There was Misa, who thought the boy was just so sweet, even if he was a bit creepy to look at, and couldn’t get enough of teasing him about being a pervert. And there was also another girl, Kyoko –a mousy-looking honor student whom Light didn’t even know he shared homeroom with until she approached to ask him about Lawliet – who seemed to take quite a liking to him, though possibly in a more romantic sense than Misa.

Light couldn’t understand it. What about Lawliet could possibly be appealing to other people – girls, no less? The boy was interesting, there was no denying that. The scarf that hid half of his face prompted much curiosity for Light, as well as several aspects of the boy’s personality (the way he crouched, the way he hunched, the way he spoke, the irrational reaction to just the mention of fire), but there was nothing attractive about the other boy. Certainly he wasn’t good-looking, nor was he social, and as far as Light could tell he wasn’t exceptionally smart.

He was a freak, plain and simple. Even if Light learned all that he wished to about the boy, Lawliet would still be nothing more than a freak.

“Who would like to solve this problem? Yagami-kun?”

Light raised his head and noticed the equation his math teacher had written on the board.

11s x 12s^3

“132s raised to the third power,” he answered after several seconds of consideration.

Not too long ago their teacher had introduced them to Algebra, a subject area that was impossibly difficult for his fellow peers. Oftentimes he was called on to answer the questions his professor wrote on the board, something which always left him with a smug sense of pride. He liked being the smartest, enjoyed the praise he would receive when he got the answer right – and he always got the answer right.

“132s raised to the fourth power.”

All heads turned to Lawliet, who up until that point had been silent during the lesson (discounting when he told the teacher that he needed to sit with his feet on the chair in order to increase his thinking ability).

Light’s eyes narrowed. Idiot, he snorted.

“Correct... Lawliet-kun.”

There was a shared silence among his classmates, during which Light gritted his teeth together and sent his professor a nasty look once her back was turned.

“I can’t believe Yagami-kun actually got something wrong,” a girl sitting near him whispered to her friend, and Light’s cheeks reddened in mortification. That was because he never got these sorts of questions wrong! School was one thing he excelled in; no-one was better than Yagami Light when it came to academics, everyone said so.

More than anything, Light hated feeling stupid, and that was exactly how he felt now as he overheard more and more of his peers either congratulating Lawliet on getting the right solution or sniggering about Light getting the wrong one. Placing his elbow on the desk, he gripped a handful of brown hair tightly, glaring with all his might down at the wooden desk.

How dare he? How dare he humiliate Light like that, and in front of all his classmates?!

Several seats away, Lawliet turned his head in Light’s direction, and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners suggested he was smiling.

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because that’s the sort of things friends do,
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It was Misa who found him. On her way back from cheerleading practice she saw him, huddled up next to the air conditioning system behind the gymnasium, and she’d only known it was him because of the telltale cream-colored scarf laying several feet away from his body.

“Lawli-kun!”

Dropping her duffle bag she quickly rushed to his side, kneeling before him and reaching out to take hold of his shoulders and turn him around. He didn’t jump when she touched him, which relieved Misa until she discovered that the reason he didn’t do so was because he had fallen unconscious.

It wasn’t difficult to figure out what had happened. Some bullies must have seen Lawliet when he was alone and, knowing he was a foreigner and (judging by his physical appearance) probably not very strong, figured he would be an easy target.

What was he doing by himself? The thought crossed her mind as she surveyed the damage done to Lawliet’s face.

His face...

The scarf was gone from his face – discarded and, from the looks of it, completely shredded not even three feet away – leaving it entirely viewable for the first time. All day Misa had been curious as to what the boy could be hiding; really, the most she’d thought was that Lawliet was just shy, and keeping his face hidden was a form of protection.

But...

Her face paled at the mangled skin of his jaw and neck.

Even if she had imagined a disfigurement at some point, it wasn’t anywhere near the likes of this.

The sight of it almost made her let go of him, almost made her want to run away and pretend as if she hadn’t seen anything. She couldn’t help him – she couldn’t even look at him like this. It made her feel sick, made her skin crawl unpleasantly. She placed a hand to her mouth (thinking as he did so of Lawliet’s cracked and bleeding lips).

No, she had to help him. She couldn’t leave him like this.

Swallowing the feelings of repulsion, Misa slowly reached out for the scarf, grasping it and winding the pieces of it around Lawliet’s neck. It was bad enough that his face was so bloodied up; Misa didn’t want any of her peers seeing the whole of his face.

He wasn’t very heavy, but it still took Misa several minutes to figure out how to pick him up and maintain balance while holding him. She walked gingerly with him, afraid of accidentally dropping him should she move too fast.

By this time, there was hardly anyone left on campus. A few dozen students still lingered about, either having just finished with club meetings or team practices like Misa or still waiting for their parents to pick them up, but there were no big crowds of people. This was both a good thing and a bad thing, for Misa didn’t really want other people to see Lawliet in this condition, but at the same time she needed to find someone who would be able to help him.

Salvation arrived in the form of Yagami Light, whom Misa spotted exiting the main school building, most likely just having finished tutoring someone or something like that.

“Light-kun!”

He didn’t hear her at first and Misa panicked. She couldn’t run to him, not with Lawliet in her arms, and she didn’t want to scream Light’s name and draw attention to herself. Mind reeling, Misa deposited Lawliet gingerly under the nearest tree, propping him up against the trunk and – after checking to make sure he didn’t fall over – sprinted off in Light’s direction.

“Light-kun,” she cried, “Light-kun, wait!”

As she reached his side, she grabbed hold of his arm, not missing the aggravated look that flitted across his handsome face.

“What is it, Misa-chan?” he asked.

Misa pointed in the direction of the tree, explaining hurriedly, “it’s Lawliet-kun! He’s really hurt, Light-kun, you have to help him!”

Light’s amber eyes widened, a rare dumbfounded look on his face which he hastily shook away. “Where is he now?” he asked, and allowed it when Misa grabbed his arm for a second time in order to lead him to Lawliet’s resting place.

Lawliet was still unconscious when the two arrived at the tree.

Light proceeded to grill Misa with questions as he knelt beside Lawliet, removing his school jacket and place it around Lawliet. “Where did you find him?”

“Behind the gym,” she replied, watching in awe as Light placed a hand to Lawliet’s forehead and then his palm. For all his talk about how he didn’t like the boy, Light seemed so genuinely concerned. Misa had never seen him act this way with anyone before. “I-I think some upperclassman got to him.”

A nod signaled that Light agreed with her. “We need to get him to the infirmary,” he told her, moving one of his arms underneath Lawliet’s knees and the other around his shoulders. “I’ll carry him. You run ahead and tell the nurse what happened.”

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and he’s not my friend.
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Lawli: T-T I'm sorry, Lawliet!!

Happy Holidays, everyone!! Please give the gift of a review to this poor authoress? ^^