[L exhales past the tang of a fresh wound. In the presence of such raw pain, so many things blur together. When he's both a victim and a monster standing here in Mello's kitchen, what can he say about evidence that is clear one moment and conflicts the next?]

Words are only the most obvious and pedestrian part of any truth.

[Or any lie.]

I'm not asking you to parse it or even to acknowledge it. Just to see it, and eliminate the impossible.

[Living with L, like Bonding with L, will be more than Mello bargained for. He'll witness things he never wanted to, fall victim to tangled messy webs that L spins needlessly around even the mundane and simple matters. Accepting that he's a fallible human being is really the least of it all.]