Work Text:
1%. That is the chance you give yourself of being wrong. A margin so slim it is practically invisible, a ghost haunting the edges of probability. You do not believe in ghosts, but you chase them anyway, phantom criminals leaving breadcrumbs in the dark. You tilt your head, press your thumb to your lip, and wonder if you are chasing yourself.
2%. The chance that Light Yagami is Kira. It should be nothing. Two percent is the rounding error in an equation too complex for most to solve, but you are not most. You do not discard numbers—you hoard them, press them into your palm until they leave indents, until you can feel them beneath your skin. Two percent becomes five, then ten, then thirty-three. You stack them like sugar cubes in your tea.
3%. This is the number of times you have spoken your real name aloud in the past decade. Lawliet. You let it decay in the back of your mind, a rotting thing best left untouched. L is easier, safer, a mask without eye holes. Lawliet is human. And humans make mistakes.
4%. The sugar content in your bloodstream is a question best left unanswered. You do not believe in indulgence—only necessity. If your body is a temple, then it is one dedicated to function, and sugar is simply the fuel for the furnace. You wonder if Kira takes his coffee black. You wonder if he takes it at all.
5%. The percentage of the world that might understand you, given enough time, enough words, enough confessions whispered in the dark. You do not have time. You do not have words. You do not confess.
6%. The tilt of your head, an angle calculated and deliberate. You are always off-center, always tilting, as if shifting your perspective by even a fraction might reveal the pattern beneath the chaos. And it does. Until it doesn’t. Until you are looking at Light Yagami and seeing yourself reflected back, a perfect counterfeit.
7%. The hours of sleep you should be getting. You do not sleep. You do not dream. Sleep is a luxury, and dreams are nothing but illusions you cannot afford. You keep your eyes open and watch the world through the glow of a monitor, let the numbers blur until they rearrange themselves into meaning.
8%. The number of people you have trusted in your life. Eight is too many. Eight is too few. Trust is a currency more volatile than any other, and you have spent yours poorly. Watari is the only investment that has ever yielded returns.
9%. The steps between you and Light. You count them. You shorten them. You stand beside him, brush his hand in a moment so brief it does not register as contact, only static. It should not feel like fire.
10%. The likelihood that you are enjoying this. A game of minds, a chessboard stretching infinitely in both directions, a battle you were born for. Light smiles at you across the board, and you feel something dangerously close to joy.
11%. The weight of your name in his mouth. He calls you “Ryuzaki.” You let him. Names are just another game, another layer of deception. He says it with familiarity, with amusement, as if he has already won. You let him think that.
12%. The chance that you could have been different. A normal life, a normal childhood. You cannot imagine it. The past is a locked door, and you threw away the key long ago. You do not regret it. That is what you tell yourself.
13%. The number of sweets on your desk. Each one a tiny, perfect piece of order in a world unraveling at the seams. You pick one up, let it rest against your lip before consuming it whole.
14%. The probability of escape. You do not run. That is the difference between you and Kira—between you and Light. You do not fear death. You only fear being wrong.
15%. The incline of your spine, the unnatural curve you hold like a secret. You have been asked why. You do not answer. If you were meant to stand like everyone else, you would have been born like everyone else.
16%. The sound of rain on the window. It pools against the glass, fractures light into something unrecognizable. You watch it fall and think of time slipping between your fingers.
17%. The percentage of your thoughts that belong to Light Yagami. This is dangerous. You do not stop.
18%. The way he looks at you. A fraction too long, a shade too sharp. You wonder if he knows what it means to be seen. You wonder if you do.
19%. The chance that this was inevitable. That Kira was always meant to rise, that you were always meant to fall. You do not believe in fate, but you believe in statistics, and statistics are just another way of measuring inevitability.
20%. The weight of truth. You have spent your life chasing it, dissecting it, wielding it like a blade. You forget, sometimes, that truth is not a weapon—it is a mirror.
21%. The percentage of your life spent in shadow. You have never minded. Until now. Until Light smiles at you like he knows something you don’t. Until you realize he might.
22%. The moment before a checkmate, the heartbeat before the fall. You see it coming, and yet. And yet.
23%. You are not afraid of dying. That is what you tell yourself. But there is something in the way Light looks at you—patient, poised, waiting—that makes you question whether you were ever honest with yourself.
24%. You are afraid of being forgotten. You were never here in the first place, a ghost in the machine, an unseen hand moving pieces across the board. But ghosts do not leave footprints. Ghosts do not leave names carved into the bones of the world. And you—Lawliet, L—refuse to be erased.
25%. You are afraid of not knowing. The numbers are there, perfect and unwavering, but numbers are not truth. Truth is an elusive thing, twisting and writhing between your fingers like smoke. You do not fear death. You fear that, in the end, you will die not knowing.
26%. You are afraid of losing.
27%. You are afraid that you already have.
28%. The space between breaths, the weight of an unanswered question. Light does not flinch beneath your gaze, does not waver, does not break. You should find satisfaction in the challenge. You should find exhilaration in the game. Instead, you feel something breaking in your chest, a wound without a name.
29%. The probability of his laughter being genuine. You wish you did not care. You wish it did not matter. But the sound of it lingers, something warm curling in the corners of your mind.
30%. The probability that he is lying to you. That is too low. That is unacceptable. You run the numbers again, shift the variables, redefine the constants. The probability does not change.
31%. The realization comes slowly, like water seeping through the cracks. If he is Kira, then you were never his opponent. You were his entertainment.
32%. You want to prove him wrong.
33%. You want him to be right.
34%. You want the world to be different. But the world is not different. It is cruel and calculating, and so are you. So is he.
35%. The tilt of his head mirrors yours. A fraction of a fraction, an unconscious mimicry. You do not know if he realizes it. You do not know if you do.
36%. He calls you “friend.” You do not flinch. You do not believe in such things. And yet. And yet.
37%. There are things you cannot quantify. The quiet between words. The way his eyes linger a second too long. The sharp edges of something unspoken, something dangerous.
38%. You are falling.
39%. You do not know when it began.
40%. The probability that you let this happen. That somewhere between suspicion and certainty, between check and checkmate, you hesitated.
41%. You were never meant to hesitate.
42%. You do not believe in fate. But if you did, you would think that perhaps you and Light were meant to meet. That perhaps you were meant to destroy each other.
43%. The rain comes again, heavier this time. You watch it streak down the windows and wonder if it is trying to tell you something.
44%. There is a weight in your chest you do not know how to name. You do not name it. You do not touch it. You touch nothing that cannot be measured, categorized, contained. And yet, it lingers.
45%. The game is nearing its end. You can feel it in the silence, in the spaces between words, in the way Light watches you as if he already knows what happens next. As if he has always known.
46%. That should not be possible. You have accounted for every variable, every permutation of every move. The answer should be yours to hold, yours to control. But the pieces are moving without your hand guiding them.
47%. Light smiles, and you feel the world tilt. Not like your head, measured and deliberate, but like the ground beneath you is shifting, cracking, breaking apart.
48%. You have always been prepared to lose. You were not prepared for it to feel like this.
49%. The moment before a storm, when the air hums with electricity, when the wind stills, when the sky hesitates before it opens its mouth and devours the world. That is what this feels like.
50%. The balance tips.
51%. The air is too thick. The numbers do not align. Your mind, sharp and ruthless, stumbles over something small, something insignificant. A fraction of a second where instinct overrides calculation. A fraction of a second too late.
52%. He is looking at you. He is watching you. And there is something behind his eyes—something vast and unknowable. You wonder, distantly, if he sees the same thing in yours.
53%. The answer is slipping through your fingers. You grasp at it, tighten your hold, but the harder you clutch, the faster it dissolves.
54%. You have never feared dying. But you wonder—do you fear being wrong?
55%. You think of Watari. His voice, steady and constant, the only anchor in a life spent drifting between screens and silence. His belief in you. His loyalty. His absence.
56%. You close your eyes. Just for a second. Just long enough to memorize the weight of your own breath, the shape of the moment before it disappears.
57%. Light is still smiling.
58%. You wonder if he ever truly stopped.
59%. The realization comes slowly, crawling up your spine like a cold hand. You knew this ending long before you reached it. You have been moving toward it from the moment you first heard the name "Kira."
60%. There is no such thing as fate. But if there were, you would curse it.
61%. The pressure behind your eyes builds, not pain, not fear—just inevitability.
62%. You have always hated inevitability.
63%. You count the seconds between the raindrops.
64%. You wonder how many more you have left.
65%. The bells toll in the distance. A sound you have heard before, a sound you have never truly listened to.
66%. The ground feels different beneath your feet. Not unstable, not yet—but wrong. Like a board misaligned, a calculation skewed. Like the moment before a checkmate you failed to see coming.
67%. You shift your weight, fingers pressing against your palm, searching for balance. You do not find it.
68%. The weight shifts, subtle at first, a change in equilibrium, a thread snapping in the fabric of certainty. Your body follows before your mind can catch up, before your calculations can stabilize the moment, before logic can reassert its dominion.
69%. For a fraction of a second, time expands. The world fractures into its components—rain against glass, the sound of fabric rustling, the slow arc of movement as your vision tilts. A chess piece mid-topple. A king without a throne. A detective without an answer.
70%. The numbers blur. They have never blurred before.
71%. Light's voice is a metronome, measured, unwavering. "Are you all right, Ryuzaki?" A kindness, a performance, a taunt. You do not know. You do not ask.
72%. There is a rhythm to deception. A pattern to the way he speaks, the way he waits. You know it better than anyone. You have built your life unraveling patterns.
73%. But there is something in his voice that you cannot quantify.
74%. You are running the numbers again. Again. Again. Each outcome is the same.
75%. You have never believed in god. But if there is one, then he is sitting across from you, his hands folded neatly, his lips curved in something that should not be a smile.
76%. You realize, with perfect clarity, that you have always known how this would end.
77%. The first move. The first moment your eyes met his. The first time he smiled at you like he knew something you didn’t.
78%. It was inevitable.
79%. Your breath catches. The room tilts, slightly, imperceptibly. Your heartbeat slows, then quickens, out of sync with itself.
80%. You feel it now—the checkmate you should have seen coming.
81%. Watari is dead.
82% That is not a probability. That is truth.
83%. Your hands are cold. They should not be. Your grip tightens, then loosens. It does not matter.
84%. Light is watching you. Waiting.
85%. The weight in your chest does not belong to fear. It belongs to knowing. To understanding.
86%. You have always known you would not live long. You did not expect it to be at his hands.
87%. You did not expect it to feel like this.
88%. The numbers are meaningless. You count them anyway.
89%. You are still falling.
90%. Light’s hand on your back, steadying. Gentle. Ironic. You want to laugh.
91%. You do not.
92%. You do not.
93%. You do not.
94%. The floor is cold beneath your cheek. The world is distant. The world is slipping.
95%. The last thing you see is Light’s face, tilted in something almost like regret. Almost.
96%. The last thing you hear is the rain, drumming against the glass, drowning out the sound of your own breath.
97%. The last thing you think is—
98%. No.
99%. No.
100%. Checkmate.