Broken Tune
Rating: PG
Characters: B (mention of A, Watari and L)
Warnings: English is not my first language, so please do point out my grammar/tense errors if you wish. ^^ And this is my first DN fiction!
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It was not even an invention to begin with.

Watari had somehow succeeded in creating something where B finally stopped haunting him with endless questions concerning the great detective. He was particularly concerned at the rate of increasing obsession B had for L. He needed to do something.

[On a random night, when A fell sick, Watari stayed by his side and narrated a story on one of his great inventions to him. When A gradually stopped groaning and drifted into dreamland, Watari overheard B's soft muttering followed by sobbing. B was dreaming.

"Potpourri! Tchaikovsky! I can't be wrong, mama. I can even play the notes backwards!" The young boy said, playfully pressing a few keys on the grand piano.

The young boy's mother shifted in her seat and smiled gently. "At this rate, only an empty table awaits your father's empty stomach when he gets home." she said, standing up and glancing at the clock.

"But it's fun!" he said, eyes pleading and lips pouting. "And you haven't been playing for weeks now."

She bent down a little and gave the boy a hug. "I promise," she said. "New scores after dinner."

And the boy's eyes shone with anticipation.]

After several random nights of observation on B's sleep talking, Watari was surprised that B kept on having the same recurring dream. Except that in his recurring dream, his mother was playing different piano scores. In the midst of observation, Watari had taken note of the list of scores.

He spent only a day on making a small digital musical box with the list of piano scores and put it beside B while he was taking a nap on a warm afternoon. When B awoke to the music, he thought he was still dreaming and when his eyes rested on the B-shaped box, he could only let out a soft 'Mama'.

Ever since then, B carried the box wherever he went. And L seemed to cease existence in B's mind. The 'B-Box', which B affectionately calls it, intrigued B to no ends. In turn, it intrigued the other generations of Wammy's orphans as well as they watched B transformed. The old 'B' was gone, literally. No more "How is L today?", "When can I meet L?", "What dessert is L having later?"... All he wanted to do was to bask in the memories only he knew about.

L studied B from a distance.

He was well aware, up to that point, B was the only one who could succeed him in terms of intellectual and deductive reasoning. However, when Watari informed L on the behavioral change in B, L was skeptical. There was the obsession, which L knew, and then the change.

For as long as B could remembered, he was a backup for L. Despite not knowing what L looked like, with all the descriptions of L which Watari had generously offered, B was almost certain that he could even became an exact copy. It was only when the familiar music, which his mother used to play, infiltrated his ears, then was he reminded he once belonged to himself.

In a somewhat eloquent way, music was B's kami.

Except that it was a weak opponent against B's shinigami eyes, which no one knew, and jam-laced poisoned mind. It was only a drug enough to calm his mind but not cure it.

That was till the 'B-Box' broke.

And along went his sanity and memories.