Linhai University Library.
4:17 p.m.
About three hundred people occupied the second-floor study area.
The air during finals season carried a blend of coffee and anxiety.
Turning pages, tapping keyboards, and the occasional muffled cough formed a dull white noise.
Kannazuki sat in his usual spot by the window.
Special Topics in International Criminal Law lay open before him, with a neat stack of printed research papers to his left.
His fountain pen glided steadily across his notebook.
L crouched on the chair to his right.
Today, there were no case folders or photographs on L's desk, only a takeaway caramel macchiato-with twelve sugar cubes added, so sweet that even the stirrer could stand upright in it.
"Yagami." L poked at the caramel at the bottom of his cup with his straw.
"What brand of shampoo do you usually eat?"
Kannazuki's pen paused for three-tenths of a second.
"What?"
"Your hair." L stared at Kannazuki's hairline. "
The shine is very even, and there are no split ends.
Maintaining hair like that under such intense academic pressure means either you use very expensive hair care products, or your cortisol levels are unusually stable."
Kannazuki turned a page of the research paper.
"Blue Moon. Bought it at the supermarket. Twenty-nine eighty."
L nodded and tapped twice in his phone's notes app.
L initiated these utterly illogical everyday conversations seven or eight times a day.
The topics ranged from shampoo brands to breakfast preferences, from hours of sleep to shoe size.
Kannazuki knew this was L collecting data. Every seemingly pointless question was a data point for his profiling model.
Answering too quickly would seem rehearsed; too slowly would seem fabricated.
So each time, he answered in the blandest tone possible, perfectly conveying, "I can't be bothered with you, but I'm answering