The Girl With No Name

Chapter Eight

I didn't know much about sleepovers, but from all those cheesy teenage chick-flicks, I'd gotten the gist. Sleepovers were supposed to be cute-cuddly-cultish gatherings between close friends; they were fulfilled with pillow fights, and nail painting, and sexual truths and dares.

It was supposed to be fun.

This was just weird.

As promised, I'd been graciously taken under the wing of the detective for the evening. We'd made a quick pit stop by my hotel before heading to his place so I could grab some essentials: deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush, a change of clothes, etcetera. As I was exiting the building, I saw Chris' car in the parking complex and briefly considered stopping by his hotel room to let him know where I was staying for the night. However, I was feeling hugely petty that evening, so all he got was my cold shoulder and jankily adjusted wing mirrors (he should just be grateful I didn't punch through his windscreen, the prat).

Both Watari and L were very accommodating given the extremely short notice. Neither of them grumbled or complained. Watari, bless him, even ordered me room service, seeing as I hadn't eaten since that morning. I was completely taken aback by the gesture - no, rather by the entire opportunity. I'd been partially flippant when asking L to take me in for the night; I never fully expected him to say yes!

Out of courtesy, I'd stayed up with the detective for a couple more hours, discussing and debunking potential theories (in other words: talking shit) about our prime suspect. There wasn't much to discuss, other than the fact that 'oh wow, Light Yagami has skills' and the conversation grew tedious pretty quickly. Eventually, most likely due to our lack of invigorating conversational topics, I succumbed to fatigue and retired to bed.

Here arised my main issue: sleeping. I had no pyjamas. It's not that I forgot to bring any with me (I'm not that stupid). I just didn't own any. Sleeping with clothes felt weird and uncomfortable, so in hotels, I always slept in the bare minimum. This didn't seem wrong to me. If I paid for it, it was my bed; I didn't have to share my bed with anyone, so no one could judge.

However, what I hadn't taken into account was the fact that I might not own the bed I was sleeping in.

L had generously allowed me to use his room to sleep in, saying that he was going to stay up working for the rest of the night. I didn't protest; it was highly preferable to crashing on the couch (or the floor), and I definitely wasn't going to turn down the opportunity to sleep in a five star bed! However, as soon as I'd slipped behind the panelled door, briefly taking a moment to gawk at the splendour of his room, I realised the extremity of my dilemma.

Ultimately, after a few dramatic minutes of sheer panic and red-hot humiliation, I deigned to sleep in my underwear. In L's bed. In my superior's bed. Although I knew that he rarely (if ever) slept in his bed and - judging from how high maintenance this hotel was - the staff probably changed the sheets daily, it was mortifying nonetheless.

Another loud rendition of an old 90s song shook me awake the following day, and the confusion as to where I was sleeping was completely swamped by my ulterior feelings of embarrassment. With red cheeks and a shameful scowl, I crawled out of my cocoon and made the bed.

As I smoothed out the white sheets, I took a quick glance at my phone, noticing that the time currently read as 8:30am.

"Crap," I groaned, throwing my phone across the room without a care.