Bean

Chapter 22: The Experiment

A pleasantly warm breeze fluttered the leaves of the trees that lined the campus quad at Toho University. Sunshine spilled through the branches, sprinkling dappled patches of light over L's white t-shirt and unruly hair as he sat hunched over on a bench, his shoes having been removed and placed neatly together on the ground.

He was well aware that Light would be passing this way in approximately one minute, likely with his girlfriend, Kiyomi Takada. A bold move, L thought, to be dating Miss Toho herself. It was as if Light were flaunting his inconspicuousness, purposefully putting himself in the spotlight to prove that he had nothing to hide. Naturally, this only made L more suspicious...

His reason for being here today was two-fold.

First, it was something of an experiment- to observe Light's behavior when he showed up unexpectedly asking to spend time together again. Perhaps if he was caught off guard, he would reveal something... it was a bit of a desperate move, but then, L had his second reason for being here today.

Agent Mogi had uncovered the identity of the mysterious blonde woman, and it had turned out to be none other than the famous pop idol, Misa Misa. So why would Light flaunt his relationship with Miss Toho but keep his relationship with a pop star a secret? In truth, there were a myriad of explanations, but the one L was trying to prove as truth was that Light Yagami was Kira and that Misa Amane was the Second Kira.

In the meantime, back at the hotel, Watari was supervising Bennett's schooling. The small boy sat at a table watching a pre-recorded video on a math lesson that was three years above his age group. He had a little whiteboard in one hand and a collection of dry erase markers that he had lined up neatly on the table in the order of the color spectrum. Naturally, he was nibbling on a hoodie string as he concentrated on the word problem. Right now, he was using the purple marker, and the young lady on the screen was speaking.

"Monty had 48 stamps. His brother had 16 less stamps. How many stamps do the brothers have altogether?"

Bean tapped his lips with the marker, then wrote down some numbers. His writing was smallish for a child, and rather messy.

"So first, we have to find out how much the brother had..."

"Thirty-twoooo..." Bean murmured to himself.

"Now remember, LESS means that we subtract! So we have to take 48... minus... 16..."

Bean sat and waited patiently for the teacher to catch up with him.

"...which is 32! So Monty's brother had 32 stamps."

He started writing again.

"Now, we have to figure out how many they had together!"

The purple marker circled the number 80 on Bean's whiteboard.

"So we have to line up... 48... plus... 32..."

Bean dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling, thoroughly bored.

Watari observed all of this and began to chuckle. The boy was solving the problems faster than the teacher could teach them. The problems were simple enough... but Bean was only five and a half, and the concept of multi-step word problems had only been introduced to him yesterday.

"...so we have to carry the 1..."

Bennett's legs swung back and forth as he waited.

"...and plus 3 is 8, so the answer is... 80! Monty and his brother had 80 stamps altogether. Let's try another one!"

"Bean," Watari spoke up around an amused smile, and the boy looked over. "You can be done with math for today."

Grinning with some relief, Bean sat up, more than happy to exit out of the video with the nice lady who did her math problems way too slowly.