On that day, many would expect the boy to be within his own little world, slowly constructing it and making sure that they were all stable enough to not collapse after a long time.
Many who knew the boy would typically see him twirling his hair around his finger, a very usual thing that he did when very deep in the depths of his own mind as he tried to figure out the answer to a hard question or when he felt a twinge of excitement.
But on this day, one could only find the boy on the computer, his toys for the first time left untouched.
His white hair reached the bottom of his neck, onyx eyes with bags so dark and heavy that even eye liner couldn't darken them at all.
He stared intensely at the screen before him, eyes unblinking for a very long time.
As the screen went back to the search engine once more, he typed in another few words: "Jigoku Shōjo".
As the links came up once more, he looked down through several pages, passing the already purple links that gave a clear sign he'd been there before.
But for several pages, he found absolutely nothing, once again.
Near narrowed his eyes, hand reaching up and twirling his finger around his ivory locks.
If one were to see him, they would have a hard time not wondering why he sat on the chair with his knees up, feet on the place of the chair that usually was only reserved for a person's rear.
But that was simply his way of sitting, strange as it was.
He looked at the time again, then saw how close it was to 12:00 midnight.
Realizing this, Near went through his newly added bookmarks.
Scrolling through them, he clicked on the first one he deemed to be the best chance of being what he looked for.
A flame sparked across the screen, and then the words came on:
'I will exact your revenge.'
A typing bar came on then, clearly for a person's name to be sent.
'Your bitterness, I will dispel.'
It said above the bar.
Wihtout hesitation, Near began typing, to what many people would find surprising, his very own name.
'Nate River.'
Clicking the send button, he waited.
But after waiting for what felt to be much too long, Near looked at the time again.
12:01.
Near gave a scowl at the screen, then went to his bookmarks list again, deleting the link.
Another fake...
Getting up, he shut off his computer.
He'd have to put it off for tomorrow.
As far as his knowledge went, she only came at midnight.
It was useless to try anything now.
And so, Near went back to his usual spot, crouching down and his hands by reflex beginning to move around the pieces, his city being formed to an even higher scale as time went on.
He knew that the possibility of her really being real was probably close to, if not below, zero.
But, like any other case that he'd decided to take, he only chose this one because it interested him greatly.
If it weren't for the fact that he felt like this, he'd have forgotten about it the very second he heard about the Hell Correspondence.
Or maybe it was the fact that the rumors about this truly reminded him of a self-claiming "God" that had done what many considered the impossible: Single handedly make the world a, in some ways, better place.
He had used a notebook, named the "Death Note" to kill people without even having to be in the same continent as them.
And as a result, roughly 70% of all crime worldwide dropped, and even wars were put on hold.
However, Near recalled a wannabe of the man who used the Death Note trying to impersonate him, but instead of criminals, he'd only targeted the elderly who wished for Death.
The difference between these two however was obvious: The man, Light Yagami (or Kira as his followers called him anonymously), only targeted criminals that took advantage of the weak, while the newer, "C-Kira" (Near's name for the new user of the Death Note, an abbreviation for "Cheap Kira"), only attacked those who were weak.
When he went on a killing spree of suicidal idiots who went on TV, Near responded immediately.
By telling the world that this Kira was a fake.
He'd used his alias as the detective L of course, but he simply said that the Kira before them at the time was not "worth even his own interest".
And to the slightly unsettling shock of the Japanese, the killings stopped almost instantly after that.
But not even Near, the world's current best detective, could ever know that the person had committed suicide after that.
The reason why that story came to his head again, was mainly due to the alleged Hell Correspondence having a very similar way of doing things as to the Death Note.
The differences were about half the amount of similarities.
The Death Note could kill a person almost indiscriminately, with as many people in number as the user wanted, while Hell Correspondence only allowed the use of one person to be taken to Hell.
The Death Note user would also have no chance of going to Heaven or Hell, only going to a place of nothingness. The one who requested Hell Correspondence would have their chosen person sent to Hell, while that person who used it would be damned with that person for eternity.
The list itself went on and on...
But Near wanted to know for sure whether it was the same as the Death Note or not.
This question would fester in him for about an hour straight before he himself investigated.
But unlike his preferences, all his information had been collected online.
And so, this was what brought him to this moment.
Many may think that he was going on a wild goose chase, but the main fact that there were reports of sudden disappearances in people in Japan, and then rumors of a "Hell Girl" coming up to the surface soon after were a bit too coincidental for him not to acknowledge.
And so he resigned himself to his single handedly made city, putting the thoughts and stress out of his mind for the time being.
And yet, in a certain city within Japan...
"The choice rests with you." A girl said, her emotionless voice being given to the girl before her, her shaking hands on her dead dog's picture, a black doll with a red string on it shaking in her other hand.
Her red eyes stared in the dark room for a moment, her flowing, straight black hair reaching her mid-back.
Then those red eyes disappeared into the darkness.