•After everything had transpired since that night, Mello, Near, and the other orphans began receiving more and more trinkets and gifts from this Koko person. Things that included snacks, sweets, toys, and visits from various friendly animals. The Wammy's staff had also looked more haggard as of late from mischievous animals terrorising the property, food poisoning, and mysterious illnesses.•
•A coded letter appears in Mello's chocolate, after decoding it, it merely reads: "Meet me at A's old room." "From Koko"•
Mello's life had been permanently altered after an act of survival, his previously bright personality was being slowly replaced by an even more crushing sense of inferiority and self-hatred; he would only talk to Near, if they did talk and didn't just sit in silence with each other, in silent thankfulness for the other's presence.
Their living conditions had become considerably worse, but they still had each other. The older boy would prevent any more physical damage on his 'brother' as much as he could, dreading the screams and bruises on the albino's fragile body; the adults had failed them, and now the calls to L where filled with scripted lies that the staff would give out to them, with no exceptions.
Because of that, what he once considered a safe space for himself, turned into something that he wanted to quickly get done, even if the detective's voice was somewhat comforting to hear after beatings and curses directeed at him.
After that night, Mello had developed an irrational wariness towards black cats, not out of a fear for bad omen, but because they were a representation of the cruel freedom that had abondoned him, leading to Mello losing himself in a land of sin.
He was glad that they seemed to entertain the children though, whom he'd fought tooth and nail to keep decently innocent and far from the truth; unwrapping chocolate had become a nauseous cycle, as the sweeter part of the addiction disappearedd from his perception, the melting taste of cocoa morphing into fly-infested, flesh-tasting repulsiveness.
After reading the note, the mention of A made the hairs of his skin go up, he hadn't heard that name in a couple of years, the name that would forever seperate him from the ignorance of the orphanage's inhumane methods; when reading that the meeting place was A's room, he didn't even need to remember where it was, he had reached it on autopilot; the suffocating, albeit imaginary smell of a decaying corpse flooded his nostrils, and he covered his mouth quickly as he slightly opened the room's door.
