According to The Powers That Be (Ohba, I think, though it may have been Obata), L is actually a quarter Japanese (and a quarter English, a quarter Russian, and a quarter either French or Italian). Even so, he'd still be somewhat foreign and exotic-looking in most countries (except perhaps in the US, where mixed heritage is probably most common).
Also, L was 24 for most of the series as I recall, having his 25 birthday on Halloween just after Higuchi's death, then dying on November 5. Even so, if this story happened between Halloween and February 28th (Light's birthday) then the ages still line up correctly. So I'm just going to assume that's the case.

Overall, an amusing fic of an early, forgotten meeting and a spark for the main theme of the entire series (the concept of Justice, of course).

("Woah, with these questions there is a sixty-two percent chance that you're a spy! Who sent you?" He gave a little grin to show that he was kidding. He chewed at his thumbnail thoughtfully as he responded, "I'm eighteen.")
This made me laugh omg And L coming off as a gentleman to Light is endearing.

(He hoped that the dumb woman would choke on her sucrose-soaked scones and have a heart attack.)
Is this another nod to canon? I approve 8D Light realizing he had followed L to a table without realizing was totally cute.

("...Cake-giving behavior?"
He didn't laugh at the comment, he was far too serious.)
I laughed lol

(But of course he did forget about Lawliet, and Lawliet forgot about him, too. Ultimately the meeting was unimportant, in the long run it was meaningless. It was a small event among many years of lifetime and would count for nothing more.
But Light never did forget that justice could only be defined in a matter of taking sides. Lawliet didn't forget that either.)
Their conversation was fascinating to follow and the last part gave me chills.

I like this :) it's refreshing to find a Light and L friendship fic considering most have some sort of romance (Sorry to fans but I don't ship them) and it seemed to fit with their ages along with their separate views on justice :)

Great debate, I wish Light had taken L's ideas into account later on. I always wondered about a false conviction and if he would feel bad about it or not if he killed an innocent

cute. *sigh* if only Light had met L BEFORE he got his hands on the notebook. *shrugs* oh well, a girl can dream. ) lovely story. i wonder with this background, even if they forgot, how light would have reacted to the death note. would he still turn crazy or would he remember what that stranger told him and not do it.

This is amazing, I love the idea of eleven-year old Light running into L like this. I thought all of this was superb and it fits into canon perfectly. I agree with you that a younger L would indeed be a little more social, though certainly eccentric. Thank you for sharing such an awesome story with us. :)

Wow. This was really deep. You somehow managed to make Light resent Kira's would-be actions, while at the same time understanding them. You also nailed L's character perfectly, especially when Light had brought up many good points, but L had just asked that one question which resulted in a speechless Light. I also enjoyed "Fall of an Athiest" and "L is for Lucifer, L is for Lamb'" but I was crying too hard to review. I hope you have a story about when L appeared in front of Light just before he died, seeming like he forgave him. I still cry myself to sleep over that episode and episode 25. Keep writing! Codename: Sailor Victory

Hello, I liked your fic, I love how L dominates Light, my favorite couple is LxLight provided that Light will be the uke is so cute, but it's a shame because there are very few fics of them so, hopefully make more fics of those two, you keep it up, thanks and kisses.

Based on How to Read: 13, it was stated that L Lawliet was 24 when he took up the Kira case, so he was roughly 7 years older than Yagami Light, whom was 17 years old at that time. As for the dialogues, they worked out alright, not that much out of character between a teenage-L and kid-Light. It's nice to see the debate about justice between them being toned-down into a squabble of some sort, rather than an all-out debate where both sides want to defend their definition of 'justice'.

They think that the bad things that they do are okay, even if it's wrong when everyone else does it."

I think it is beyond ironic that you made Light say this...
apart from that, I enjoyed the dialogue, would have liked it if L was able to convince Light though...

This was gorgeous. The simple interaction and discussion about morality was one of the main reasons I was drawn to Death Note and you do such a great job of arguing both sides of justice. A wonderfully written story and a bitter-sweet premise. I wonder what would have happened had they remembered... a question for a another day perhaps. Well done.

On the one hand I'm intrigued and amused by this premise. On the other. . . I get your goal as stated in point 4, and the story came together logically, but I find it frustrating never the less. One of the major things about early Death Note that I enjoyed was that Lawliet and Light were portrayed as equals, or at least so close to equal that it didn't really matter, it was more then a question of resources - an informational give and take (and one that early on seemed to favour Light far more than Lawliet). I think that, while this may be accurate to a child's point of view, it creates too much of an intellectual disparity between them (even if it's an accurate one to their age gap) and because of that not only appears to favour Lawliet's side, but loses some of its potential meaning because of this bias. That and - while I'll totally buy kid!Light as a Super Genius Kid - I don't think I buy Light here as Light. The conflicting balance you set up between his child-like idealism and his ability to accurately and rapidly analyze the world around him are really good and really cool, but your tone sets me off a little. Most 11-year olds I know (granted, Christmas' with the -MASSIVE- extended family do not an unbiased/large sample pool make) don't tend to sound quite as. . . emotionally genuine as Light does here. I suspect that while you were aiming for 11 here, you ended up somewhere closer to 8 or 9 (once again see above for my experience pool and how it may be sorely lacking). Other than that this was a fun little romp though, and I do like where the two of them come down on the equation and why (unsurprisingly perhaps I find myself siding more with L than with Kira here - speaking from the point of view of a - highly lax - Catholic whose been the victim of violent crime (armed robbery at the convenience store I work at) whose friends are predominantly Atheist, Agnostic, and Wiccan I've often found a difficult time in arguing for a human-but-forgiving justice system with them when a lot of them are more of the 'eye-for-an-eye/let-god-sort-'em-out' schools of thought (notably several of them have also had past run-ins with violent crime, usually in their neighborhoods growing up - one lost a parent to a break-in-gone-wrong). It's a debate I participate in on a every-other-month basis and a lot of it invariably comes down to belief in second chances and whether or not the individual can change or will. But a great number of my older friends tend to be extremely ideologically dogmatic and unswerving in their opinions, and whether they're correct or not (or I'm displaying the same behaviors since I can't tell) it does tend to get awfully frustrating awfully fast)

If this was the canon version of L, I would have sided with the guy. Instead of being fascinated with our resident maniac, that is.

Quite honestly, I'm fond of the morally-grey mentality. Not many can pull of a good argument about WHY the notion is accepted; most would just come across as douchebags. Though the debate was heavily one-sided, but sadly, anything otherwise would go against canon.

Marvelous work!

Interesting story.

Wow, I have to say I'm impressed.

Awesome job keeping L and Light in character that a hard thing to do, especially in a story when your dealing with there character being younger.

I enjoy there conversation, it had a lot of meaning to it and it basically describe there personality perfectly.

Awesome one-shot and the idea is very creative.

It defiantly going on my favorite story list!:)