Mikami/Gevanni fic: Choke On A Lie
Title: “Choke On A Lie”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG
Summary: There was chemistry between them, a sense of familiarity, vague interest - and a God who failed. [Vague Mikami/Gevanni] Please R&R!
Disclaimer: Death Note belongs to Ohba Tsugumi and Obata Takeshi.
A/N: Greatly inspired by A Perfect Circle’s song ‘Judith’. Damn, it’s difficult to write such an unslashy slash! XD
CHOKE ON A LIE
Mikami vaguely remembered that man from the street, and the bank, and the sports club, the elegantly dressed youngish brunette with the looks of a straight A Math student. The man in a fine-tailored suit with a neat briefcase smiling briefly at him like one bored person to another and then averting his gaze while Mikami was scanning the crowd with an aloof façade. He saw the man often, so he deduced he must have worked near his office. He took the same tube in the morning, had lunch in the same café, and Mikami had pegged him for an employee of one of those huge glass-and-concrete American companies just down the street.
Mikami was a man of habit. He didn’t like changing his way of things and followed it very meticulously. Bit by bit he began to notice that the dark-haired American fit well into the habitual scheme of things. Mikami would occasionally raise a glass to toast him across the dimly lit hall of the café, and he would receive a toast in response.
They never talked directly. Sometimes Mikami sat with his back to him but just in front of the mirror and he would feast his eyes upon the young man’s mirror image. Snapped his fingers around an elegant pair of chopsticks. Dipped them into the bowl and fished a piece of food neatly clenched between the pointy tips. There was some elegant simplicity in the Japanese style of eating. And the American with his naïve impressions of Japan seemed enchanted by it. He looked like a busy person, and busy Western people, Mikami knew, often thrived on packets of Chinese food. Fascinated by the slight movements of the comely foreign fingers, Mikami would lose himself in riddles what the food tasted like and how it felt in his mouth.
It was only prior to the showdown that Mikami realized who that man might have been. An agent assigned to tail him. It struck Mikami when he saw him in the bank on the twenty-sixth of January. He smiled at the bitter irony of it. Yet there was something deeply satisfying in this drastic situation: the first man he’d laid his eyes on had to be special. It filled Mikami with joy to know that he would be there at the curtain fall, engulfed in the mystery that was his God.
And Mikami would learn his name, too.
* * *
The taste of the three cups of coffee Stephen had had almost in a row clung to the roof of his mouth. He had grown accustomed to the hospital-like Japanese coffee (‘Kohi,’ he corrected himself mentally and chuckled at the amusing changes the language had made to the simple word.) Stephen flattered himself that he was a paragon of unpretentiousness. He had a soft spot for elegant suits, fine leather and expensive coffee, yet he could do without it perfectly. In a way it helped him parallel himself with Mikami.
“One of the good sides of working with Ryuuzaki was that we always had great coffee,” he’d once heard Matsuda say. Gevanni smirked. Well, Near never cared much for coffee, so it was sort of his responsibility by default…
Stephen filled another plastic cup and turned back to the glass panel behind which Mikami was confined. The SPK would be disbanded in a few days and each of them would return to their original work. He felt more than ready to dispose of the mask of Gevanni and get back to being Stephen Loud.
Mikami sat in the middle of the cell perfectly still, his hands folded on his knees. Not a hair out of line. His perfectionism never left him.
“What is he doing?” Halle asked quizzically.
“Praying. They say he’s been like this for the past six hours.”
“That’s really pathetic, don’t you think?”
“You don’t say. His God failed him, happened to be weaker than himself. It’s not what we expect from the ones we put great faith in.”
Halle knitted her eyebrows. Dim lights played upon her yellowish hair.
“You never struck me as a particularly religious person, Stephen,” she said quietly.
Gevanni shrugged. “Never thought I was.”
Mikami’s unmoving form seemed to have been burnt underneath his eyelids as he went to bed that night and dreamt about the man in the cell. The phase of interrogation was over. They needed nothing more, not that Mikami had anything to add. He had been rather cooperative, but afterwards he simply fell out of this reality. Perhaps, after all it had been too much for him.
Gevanni loved his job. He collected the suspects the same way people collect stamps or coins. He would get rather curious individuals from time to time. Gevanni never thought a meticulous religious fanatic who never even bothered to hide himself would fall into that category.
What had he ever known about Mikami? He collected his impressions from the sound of his voice, and the passionate glint in his eyes, and the glimpses of chopsticks as he ate. Gevanni could tell that Mikami had been watching him too, sitting in front of the mirror.
The next day Lester met him and Lidner at the entrance of the building. He looked both worried and relieved at the same time.
“Mikami Teru is dead.”
“What!? How?” Stephen breathed.
“We’re not sure. Killed himself, I guess, poor wretch. He’s gone really nuts after all. The fact of the matter is we’re free to go.”
Stephen leaned against the wall and let out a small sigh. Relief. That was what he felt.
Or at least that was what he was trying to convince himself that he felt.