L had made great progress since he'd met you. But there was still some way to go, he still wasn't great at long conversations. He could get a few sentences out now, but anything beyond that always seemed to get caught in his throat. He'd learnt not to push himself, so he took things steady. But there was something he wanted to try.
If talking face to face was hard... maybe it'd be less hard over the phone? He was able to call Watari and the successors fine so surly he could talk to you on the phone right?
You'd left this morning to pick up some of the case files from the recent findings, and you'd messaged him just now asking about bringing some snacks back. This was the perfect time to try talking on the phone.
He looked down at the flip phone on the table, decorated with one of the phone charms you'd won him at the arcade the other day. A little cat with a bell around its neck hung off the string, and when he picked the phone up it jingled. The cool thing to do with phones nowadays was to cover them in rhinestones and bedazzle them. And add several phone charms as an extra decoration. When he'd done cases in Japan and Korea he saw a lot of gyaru girls with so many phone charms it could knock someone out if you hit them with it.
But he'd stick to just his little cat for now.
He worked up the courage to pick it up, flip it open and scroll down to your contact. He took a breath, reminded himself that it was just you and he's spoken to you multiple times now. He could do this. So he pressed the call button, and listened to it ring.
After a few rings, which he assumed took a while because you were looking down at your phone in shock to see him call rather than text, you answered.
"Hey sweetheart! You ok?" You asked.
"Y-yeah, I just figured I should get used to phone calls..." he replied.
He could hear in the tone of your voice when you spoke that a smile had broken onto your face hearing that he was taking a step out of his comfort zone.
"That's good! It's not that scary is it?" You replied.
"Not if it's you"
If only he could see your smile on the other end of the phone right now.
"I'm heading back but going past the shopping district, want some snacks?" You asked.
"Yeah, that's what I called for. Can you get some rock cakes? Really craving them for some reason" he asked.
"Rock cakes. Sure, I think the bakery has them. Bubble tea too?"
"Of course, that's our thing. I'll have... uh- fruit tea with lychee jelly"
"Full sugar?" You teased.
"Of course" he replied.
"Alright I'll bring the goods. And hey look at you, having a whole conversation"
He was feeling kind of giddy about all this. This was the most he'd spoken to you so far, he'd probably be a bit drained after this but it was good progress.
"I know I feel all... jittery" he said.
"You're doing really good hun, I'm proud of you. I'm about to get to the shopping district so I'll talk to you when I get back ok?" You replied.
"Ok, thanks for indulging in my sugar addiction as usual. And... I-I love you"
"I love you too sweetie. I'll see you in a bit" you replied.
"See you in a bit, bye"
"Bye!"
And that concluded the call. He heard the hang up tone beep and he sat there for a moment with the phone to his ear processing everything. He did it, he had a full conversation with you! At this rate he'd be able to have a full face to face conversation soon. Closing the phone he put it back down and sighed in relief that he didn't mess anything up. And as he processed it, a smile crept across his face.
"I did it... I did it!" He smiled.
He couldn't help but let the childish excitement take over him, and he got up practically skipping with joy into the next room over.
"Dad, dad!"
Watari looked up from the paperwork he was doing for the orphanage.
"I just had a proper conversation... on the phone but still! I'm actually being a decent communicator now!" L smiled.
"Well look at you go, you definitely have gotten better at this as you get older" Watari replied.
"I'm only in my 20s, my joints feel like I'm 60 but I feel like my speech ability is still stuck as child"
"It's not your fault. We both know why it ended up that way, at least you're getting better at talking to (y/n). It'll definitely make the relationship easier"
While a relationship can totally work with no talking, since fully mute people and deaf people get married all the time and still communicate fine. It's definitely no secret that talking really does help with communicating, so to L who did have the ability to talk, just some issues holding him back, he was glad to be getting better.
"Who knows, maybe one day you'll be able to talk to a taskforce?" Watari teased.
"No! No, no, no, that's too many people. I'd die" L replied, shaking his head in disapproval.
"I know. I'm just teasing, but hey... I am proud of you L. If 8 year old you could see how far you've come now..."
"I think 8 year old me would start crying he'd be so relived"
"You were such a cute little kid though" Watari began.
L groaned, knowing exactly what was coming now.
"Oh god not this again-" he sighed.
"Ah I remember you climbing up the drawers on the kitchen counter to reach the cake batter, always trying to steal it. And even though you could barely talk you'd still giggle when you got away with it" Watari reminisced.
"Daaaaddd-"
"And when you before you got all tall and lanky you were too small to fit into your jeans properly and tripped on them all the time. But you'd get right back up and keep playing"
"Daaaaaaaaaadddddd-" L groaned.
Watari loved to tease him like this, he knew that L didn't really mind all the reminiscing, he just found it repetitive after a while. But he was such a cute kid and the first and only one Watari had gotten so attached to he just had to adopt.
"And when you'd give me grabby hands for the lollipops whenever you hurt yourself and needed to be patched up. And because you were such a brave boy you got a lollipop each time..." he teased.
"DDDAAADDDD!"