2 hours left.

2 hours left to love her.

2 hours left before he's burned down into ashes.

Faint morning sunlight spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows after he drew the plain gray velvet curtain aside. He stood before the window, topless as he looked at the majestic sun that just rose, giving the sky a brilliant crimson glow. It was a picturesque sight he could hardly catch in Hell and he loved waking up in the morning, anticipating the impending sunlight. This morning, however, was different. The sunlight seared his bare chest in red patches. He'd love to cry like the human around him but he was anything but human. The scorched skin came off his chest and landed on the matted floor as dust.

Parts of skin had already beginning to burn and soon, what's left will be the ashes of his body. Jamming his hand into his back pocket, he took out a black spiral notebook that had his sharpened pencil - which had never seemed blunt under any condition - tugged inside the rings of spiral. He sat back against the head of the bed, raising his head up to look at the dull ceiling that had only a spinning fan, seemingly to be contemplating. 

Jiyeon's face screwed into a scowl as the butter oil splattered onto her fingers. "Darn it," profanities spilled again for the nth time. Never in her life had she touched the kitchenware. The idea of cooking had once filled her with a nameless horror but she decided to do so today. For L. The man who had given her his everything, loving her with his everything. Her lips quirked upwards as L flooded her mind despite the red blotch on her fingers induced by the scalding hot butter oil. With another swift movement, she lifted the pieces of bacon using a spatula and placed it across the white porcelain plate that had already had eggs, toasts and baked beans delicately set. Jiyeon hoisted the plate up and admired her masterpiece in gratification. 

She climbed up the stairs with the plate on her hand like a waitress, her skirt flouncing around her hips. Wearing skirt was a terrible idea, especially when it was her first time wearing it but she wanted to look more feminine in front of L although he had been emphasizing that he loved the way she already was. Just Seo Yul. Just Jiyeon. 

She arrived the door that led to L's room. Before she could step in, her eyes held her legs back. Memories stood out with agonizingly clear precision as her eyes fastened on the letter 'L' runed onto his arm. "A reaper..." she whispered, almost inaudibly. Her heart beat unevenly in her chest, like a malfunctioned meteonome. Jiyeon would move heaven and earth to hide this cruel fact from her eyes but the images of her parents' death that washed across her mind hindered her from doing so. "This may not a be real. He may not be trying to get my name."

With every ounce of energy Jiyeon can gather, she took a step forward. Then another. Every step felt like she was dragging her feet through cement. "Breakfast's here," her voice cracked.

"I'm not hungry yet. Just place it aside," L said, waving his hand to indicate her to sit next to him.

After setting the plate on the desk with trembling hands, she lead sideways and put her head on his shoulder. As if out of instinct, L reached his hand out and laced it with Jiyeon's firmly. There was hardly any time left and he had the strongest urge to feel her beside him. "L, we're already together but I think we still barely know each other," she paused before continuing, "Seo Yul is actually not my real name. Park Ji Yeon is. You've loved the wrong person." She decided to risk her life to ascertain if L was a reaper. 

L stared at Jiyeon in openmouthed horror and then at his legs under the blanket that had reduced into ashes. He had no time left. "Jiyeon or Seo Yul, I know I love the right person." He took out the Death Note that had been tugged in his backpocket. Jiyeon looked appalled at the black spiral notebook. It was the book that had killed her parents and will also be the same book that kill her. L scrawled words out on the Death Note immediately.

Tears were verging to pour out as she cried, "You've never loved me. The biggest reason you were beside me was to know my name and kill me! You're a murderer. A reaper!" The Death Note sank onto the bed as L's hand flared into ashes. Jiyeon's eyes flew open at the ashes and then at the messy words scribbled onto the yellowing page: Park Jiyeon shall die in another 80 years peacefully with her husband and children mourning over her death. L wasn't planning to kill her. He was keeping her alive in another way. "L-" she whispered. 

"I have no time left," L said as he raised his fingers up and hypnotize "You shall forget me immediately after my death."

"No, no, no. This is not happening."

"I love you," said L. A tear dropped from the corner of his eye. A tear that had never existed until he met Jiyeon. He then blazed into a blinding crimson fire and into ashes across the room, along with the autumn wind that breezed through the opened window. Everything seemed to happen very slowly, as if time were stretching itself out and restricting the movement of her heaving chest inch by inch. 

Tears finally streamed down her pale cheeks. "Idiot. You ing idiot, that won't work on people who don't believe in hypnotization," she whimpered like a vulnerable girl she had never been. "As long as I'm still breathing, I'll be missing you every single moment of my life. I love you too, L." Her fingers smoothed across the remnants of his body on the white coverlet. 

"Always have. Always do."