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Death Note (Watari) Fic: "Things Unsaid"
Fandom: Death Note
Title: "Things Unsaid"
Characters: Watari, L, mentions of Light
Rating/Warnings: PG or themes?
Genre: Angst, I guess
Summary: Watari writes L a letter (mid-Kira case).
Disclaimer: I do not own DN, nor do I own the Beatles.
A/N: Notes on Japanese, etc. at the end.
"Things Unsaid"
Dear L,
If you're reading this, I am a happy man because you have outlived me. You will not find this letter of use in the Kira case or any other; still, I'll set it down. I must; that's all.
Do you know, after my mother died, I read her diary. In those pages, I met her anew. Understand, I knew my mother well. We were close. But there were certain things she could not share, certain secrets that could only find their way into the light in writing. There are forbidden utterances. You understand this, you who forbid them.
I had walked this Earth fifty-three years when I met you. I had lived vibrantly. I'd had friendship; I'd had romance. And grief and guilt, which I number among life's most precious gifts. I'd traveled the world, learned eight languages. I'd had music and the music of mathematics. I could transcribe for you the symphony of computer revolution so intimately did I listen to it; nay, I played in the orchestra. Solving crimes, I'd saved more than a thousand lives. What I'm saying is (pray you pardon me) that of all those friends and lovers, there is no one compares with you. And those memories lose their meaning when I think of love as something new. And though I know I'll never lose affection for people and things that went before, I know I'll often stop and think about them, in my life...
Well. Suffice it to say you became my reason for living. Mind, there's much that I still love in this world: tea in the library with R., Pri singing, persimmons, John Cleese, アキラ, driving, a good crossword, FORTRAN. Playing the most dangerous game. Every day I spend enmeshed in life excites me still. But if I lost you, the rest would darken as if with the fall of night.
This investigation terrifies me. I can too easily imagine it being your death. I have never seen you so off your game. Oh, I've seen you younger, greener, far less keen than you are now. But operating so far beneath yourself, never. You called him your friend, and while I don't doubt you said it calculatedly, equally as little do I doubt that it came from your heart. I understand the attraction. He is brilliant, charismatic, audacious. He is a worthy opponent for you, perhaps the first, the only, worthy opponent. But he is not your friend. A friend is someone who cares for you, and he doesn't care for you. I'm sorry. He would kill you as soon as bat an eye. I think you think you know all this, but your actions advertise you don't. I can't let this matter lie. Obviously, I can't. This, at least, I must say in person. You'll think me crass. Go on and think it.
The other night, I dreamed he killed you. You fell to the ground, and I held you in my arms as you spasmed and went limp. And I held the great, heavy, limp collection of organic molecules that had been you a minute before and attempted to fathom the unbeing of you. 「いない」, I thought, and my mind held the word and could not understand it. And somewhere in the background, he was saying something about how Kira had killed you and would come for us next. And I took out a gun and shot him, and thus ended the Kira case (and me, but that was of no moment).
Now, what I am about to say I mean very seriously. If he should kill you and prove incompetent enough not to eliminate me first, I will put a gun to his head, and I will blow his brains out. And thus, I'll end it. And if by some remote chance we should be wrong in our suspicions, then God have mercy on my soul. I don't claim that it's moral, but it is what I'll do. I'll have nothing to lose.
I have lived seventy years to the fullest. There is just one thing left in this world that I want: for you to live--not just to live to be fifty or a hundred, but to live, to become, to be always becoming. I look at you, and I find you wondrous, not because you have a prodigious intellect but because you have depth of character. That character is always in formation. You are not now the boy you were at fifteen. At thirty-five, I daresay, you'll be sadder and wiser. At fifty-five, I'll venture, you will be wiser and happier. Live through the griefs, learn into happiness, grow into the friend, the mentor, the person the seed of whom has already germinated in the man I see today. Live. You are capable of so much more than you imagine.
Know that--well, I find myself bursting into song again: 「誰もあなたになれない...」 Nor could that beautiful, sad song have said it better. The children are your heirs, not your replacement. Though someday one of them may be called "L", it will be as a position, like prime minister or president. You alone are you.
I remain, my most beloved child, yours.
Q.W.
Notes:
Pri: Priscilla, my commonly recurring OC, Watari's ex-girlfriend.
アキラ: Akira (i.e. the manga/anime)
The most dangerous game, I intended as a reference to the short story about the sport of hunting humans.
いない: inai: "he is not."
「誰もあなたになれない...」: dare mo anata ni narenai: no one can become you. From Chihiro Onitsuka's "Hotaru," the MoB song to end all MoB songs. A song about love and death. I have taken a temporal liberty: it hadn't been released in 2007. Oh well. Watari has sneak previewing ways. (In the original "anata" is written "貴方", but Watari, having only heard the song, doesn't know that.)
Title: "Things Unsaid"
Characters: Watari, L, mentions of Light
Rating/Warnings: PG or themes?
Genre: Angst, I guess
Summary: Watari writes L a letter (mid-Kira case).
Disclaimer: I do not own DN, nor do I own the Beatles.
A/N: Notes on Japanese, etc. at the end.
"Things Unsaid"
Dear L,
If you're reading this, I am a happy man because you have outlived me. You will not find this letter of use in the Kira case or any other; still, I'll set it down. I must; that's all.
Do you know, after my mother died, I read her diary. In those pages, I met her anew. Understand, I knew my mother well. We were close. But there were certain things she could not share, certain secrets that could only find their way into the light in writing. There are forbidden utterances. You understand this, you who forbid them.
I had walked this Earth fifty-three years when I met you. I had lived vibrantly. I'd had friendship; I'd had romance. And grief and guilt, which I number among life's most precious gifts. I'd traveled the world, learned eight languages. I'd had music and the music of mathematics. I could transcribe for you the symphony of computer revolution so intimately did I listen to it; nay, I played in the orchestra. Solving crimes, I'd saved more than a thousand lives. What I'm saying is (pray you pardon me) that of all those friends and lovers, there is no one compares with you. And those memories lose their meaning when I think of love as something new. And though I know I'll never lose affection for people and things that went before, I know I'll often stop and think about them, in my life...
Well. Suffice it to say you became my reason for living. Mind, there's much that I still love in this world: tea in the library with R., Pri singing, persimmons, John Cleese, アキラ, driving, a good crossword, FORTRAN. Playing the most dangerous game. Every day I spend enmeshed in life excites me still. But if I lost you, the rest would darken as if with the fall of night.
This investigation terrifies me. I can too easily imagine it being your death. I have never seen you so off your game. Oh, I've seen you younger, greener, far less keen than you are now. But operating so far beneath yourself, never. You called him your friend, and while I don't doubt you said it calculatedly, equally as little do I doubt that it came from your heart. I understand the attraction. He is brilliant, charismatic, audacious. He is a worthy opponent for you, perhaps the first, the only, worthy opponent. But he is not your friend. A friend is someone who cares for you, and he doesn't care for you. I'm sorry. He would kill you as soon as bat an eye. I think you think you know all this, but your actions advertise you don't. I can't let this matter lie. Obviously, I can't. This, at least, I must say in person. You'll think me crass. Go on and think it.
The other night, I dreamed he killed you. You fell to the ground, and I held you in my arms as you spasmed and went limp. And I held the great, heavy, limp collection of organic molecules that had been you a minute before and attempted to fathom the unbeing of you. 「いない」, I thought, and my mind held the word and could not understand it. And somewhere in the background, he was saying something about how Kira had killed you and would come for us next. And I took out a gun and shot him, and thus ended the Kira case (and me, but that was of no moment).
Now, what I am about to say I mean very seriously. If he should kill you and prove incompetent enough not to eliminate me first, I will put a gun to his head, and I will blow his brains out. And thus, I'll end it. And if by some remote chance we should be wrong in our suspicions, then God have mercy on my soul. I don't claim that it's moral, but it is what I'll do. I'll have nothing to lose.
I have lived seventy years to the fullest. There is just one thing left in this world that I want: for you to live--not just to live to be fifty or a hundred, but to live, to become, to be always becoming. I look at you, and I find you wondrous, not because you have a prodigious intellect but because you have depth of character. That character is always in formation. You are not now the boy you were at fifteen. At thirty-five, I daresay, you'll be sadder and wiser. At fifty-five, I'll venture, you will be wiser and happier. Live through the griefs, learn into happiness, grow into the friend, the mentor, the person the seed of whom has already germinated in the man I see today. Live. You are capable of so much more than you imagine.
Know that--well, I find myself bursting into song again: 「誰もあなたになれない...」 Nor could that beautiful, sad song have said it better. The children are your heirs, not your replacement. Though someday one of them may be called "L", it will be as a position, like prime minister or president. You alone are you.
I remain, my most beloved child, yours.
Q.W.
Notes:
Pri: Priscilla, my commonly recurring OC, Watari's ex-girlfriend.
アキラ: Akira (i.e. the manga/anime)
The most dangerous game, I intended as a reference to the short story about the sport of hunting humans.
いない: inai: "he is not."
「誰もあなたになれない...」: dare mo anata ni narenai: no one can become you. From Chihiro Onitsuka's "Hotaru," the MoB song to end all MoB songs. A song about love and death. I have taken a temporal liberty: it hadn't been released in 2007. Oh well. Watari has sneak previewing ways. (In the original "anata" is written "貴方", but Watari, having only heard the song, doesn't know that.)