Disclaimer: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Author's Note: Admittedly, this idea has been played with in doujinshi, but not quite in this way. Not that I've seen, anyhow.

Warnings: LxMatsuda and LxLight. Kinda cracky fluff. :D

XXX

Sugar

XXX

He'd meant nothing by it. Nothing personal or significant, anyway. It had simply been the end result of the tried and true 'process of elimination' method of decision making: basic, elementary deduction. Really, the situation was unbelievably easy to explain; he could even dumb it down to the point where Matsuda could understand it.

Which was lucky, really, as Matsuda played a key role in this whole charade.

But such details would only be significant later, after some obvious facts had been established and explained.

Obvious Fact Number One: L was out of sugar. (And yes, during the first moments of this horrifying discovery, he, too, was overwhelmed with shock.) At some point— some point when he had apparently not been paying attention—, the young detective had consumed every last cookie, cake slice, and strawberry left in the building. To make matters worse, he was out of cherries, doughnuts, gummies, chocolate, and jawbreakers, as well. In a moment of desperation, he had been forced to choke down the remnants of a bag of pure sugar… unfortunately, there wasn't even much of that. And as L's reasoning power depended quite heavily on his gratuitous eating habits, this was quite a bind, indeed. One that could not merely be solved by Watari heading to the grocery store and bakery. (After all, what was he to eat while he waited?)

Conclusion: L needed something sweet. Immediately. Really, the fate of the world depended on it, what with Kira still on the loose.

Obvious Fact Number Two: Love is sweet. At least, that was what books, internet websites, TV shows, and Misa continually insisted. And as he did not have the experience necessary to contradict such claims, L supposed that he would have to believe it. Or rather, hope that it was true, for anything sweet would be appreciated at the moment.

Conclusion: If love is sweet and kisses are how people show love, a kiss must be sweet.

Obvious Fact Number Three: The human brain functions on sugar. Glucose, more specifically, which travels the bloodstream and fuels the mitochondrial furnaces responsible for keeping one's mind functioning. Due to the fact that a person's neurons cannot store glucose, they must have a constant supply to continue doing what they do. Which all tied back to Obvious Fact Number One, of course, but more relevantly…

Conclusion: As intellects such as himself use a great deal of brain power, (and consequently sugar,) one could assume that the smarter a person was, the more bitter they would taste. Conversely, the stupider one was, the less mind-might they used, the more excess glucose there would be, the sweeter they would taste.

Was it not, therefore, fairly evident as to why he chose to kiss Matsuda? And yet, for some reason, the rest of the investigation team simply had to make a huge fuss over the matter, ranting and raving and blushing all the while. Even after he had explained his reasoning (one would think they would be flattered that he had considered them too intelligent to kiss, but no—), the overreacting did not stop. L, for his part, couldn't make much sense of it… particularly Matsuda's reaction, which was to turn fantastically pink and demurely refuse to meet his eyes for the rest of the day.

L chose to pretend that it was not painfully apparent that the older man had a crush on him. Perhaps he should have considered such details before sticking his tongue in his mouth… but no, desperate times had called for desperate measures.

Not that it had gotten him anywhere; the idiot tasted less like sugar and more like tuna. It still made L shudder to think about it.

And he ended up thinking about it a lot that day, as no one seemed willing to let it rest. In fact, the only one not to reference the event at least five times would be Light: even during the initial incident, the teenager had merely stood in contemplative silence, waited for the pandemonium to die down, and then—referencing a manila case file—said loudly, "So I believe this new Kira may be female…"

Really, L mused later, chewing morosely on a rope of licorice, it had all been much more trouble than it was worth—particularly for tuna; he hated tuna— and he had therefore been relieved to finally see the team head home for the night.

But in the excitement of the day, L had forgotten a rather pertinent, glaringly obvious fact.

Obvious Fact Number Four: Yagami Light possessed a mean vindictive streak.

Conclusion: This wasn't over yet. (…and his chances of being Kira had increased five percent.)

"Did you know," the younger man began conversationally, skimming a novel as L typed furiously away on his laptop, "that too much sugar is actually counterproductive? While the brain needs glucose, it does not receive large amounts of it from sources like pure sugar. On the contrary, studies have shown that too many sweets make one's brain rot—if you keep this up, you won't be the world's greatest detective for long."

A pause. L grit his teeth, waiting for the inevitable punch-line.

"…that, and I'd hate to see Matsuda's stupidity rub off on you."

L's already expressionless face seemed to fall even flatter. "I appreciate the advice, Light-kun," he droned, wanting very much to push his bedmate to the floor… but he'd already experienced enough rebound-abuse at the hands of their chain, thank you. "I would also appreciate if you would never bring up the events of the past 24 hours ever again."

"No need to get defensive," Light airily returned, trying (and failing) to hide his growing smirk with the pages of his book. "I'm not knocking your lifestyle choices… I'm just suggesting that you sample something on the bitter—perhaps more intelligent— end of the spectrum, once in a while."

Silence. L was eighty-seven percent positive that he did not just imagine the blatant double-meaning of Light's words. He shot his handcuffed companion a sideways glance; his suspicions rose to ninety-three percent.

"…do you have a particular suggestion?" L murmured after moment, delicately closing his laptop with two ginger fingers. "Of bitter dishes, I mean."

In reply, Light grinned.

Or rather, L assumed that Light grinned—for it was impossible to see his lips directional orientation when they were pressed so pointedly against his own.

Obvious Fact Number Five: Books, internet websites, TV shows, and Misa were (unsurprisingly) wrong about love and its concurrent sweetness.

Conclusion: Nevertheless, L was fairly certain that he could tolerate the occasional taste of mint and apples.

XXX