ℕ𝕠 𝕛𝕦𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕔𝕖 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕡𝕖𝕒𝕔𝕖 - H&S

“Yes, I made it out eventually,” Orpheus replied, a small smile appearing on his lips as he remembered. “Poor Mr. Hermes was trying to guide me out, and I don’t think I wanted to leave. I thought the fun would be over if I managed to find my way out of the maze, which was… not the smartest way to think about, it I suppose.” Orpheus gave a quiet laugh, making sure his gaze never left L’s. It was hard, telling a story without knowing if the other person was going to interrupt. He didn’t want to talk over L… it seemed he still had a lot to learn about returning to society now that he couldn’t hear.
“I think I eventually let Mr. Hermes show me the way out when I got too tired to keep walking around in circles. The maze felt a lot bigger when I was small… I mean, it’s still tall, but the cornstalks used to tower over me, and I guess I thought it was a little bit magical.” He was the sort of child who looked for magic in everything. As a kid, it had always been very easy to find it. Now that he was older… he thought the explosion had probably killed magic as surely as it had killed Mr. Hermes. He didn’t say that out loud, but his lips pursed and his brow furrowed. It was tough to remember that Hermes was gone, sometimes.
But he was here with L, and he wanted to make the most of that. Orpheus forced his features back into a pleasant smile, hoping that L hadn’t minded the small blip.
“I think it’s good that you’re taking a break from work,” Orpheus said, stepping aside as a group going the other way passed them. He wondered distantly if he should tell them they were going back to the entrance… well, they would figure it out soon enough. And there had been a turn they hadn’t tried, so maybe that turn led the right direction.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been called sensible in my life,” Orpheus laughed, eyes lighting up with the sound of it. “I’ve been reproached countless times for having my head in the clouds or for thinking about things that other people thought was weird… but sensible is a new one.” He found he wasn’t upset by the description… he hadn’t expected Ryuk to understand his desire to stay in the corn maze even when it made little to no logical sense. Well… Ryuk had never said he understood it, just that it made sense in some strange way. Orpheus would take it.
“Don’t worry,” he added after a moment of silence filled the air, amusement still sparking in his gaze, “I have no intention of getting us purposefully lost this time. I think I’ve grown up enough that I can see the logic in wanting to find a way out and do the task how it’s meant to be done.” He still thought it would be fun to get lost and try to find their way out, but there was a lot more he wanted to do. Perhaps they could come back and do this again if they had done everything else they wanted before the whole thing closed down for the night. It was just barely early afternoon – they had plenty of time.
“I think you actually do need some of the vitamins the sun gives you,” Orpheus commented, raising a brow as he stared up at the sun. He winced, the old warning popping up in his head a few seconds too late. Never look directly at the sun. Well, he had, and his vision was coated with spots. He felt… he felt utterly disoriented. He couldn’t hear, and he couldn’t see well enough because of the spots to make out whether or not L was saying anything.

Orpheus blinked, trying to get rid of the bright spots in his vision before he could turn back to see what Ryuk was saying. It was frustrating… he could tell that the detective was talking, but he couldn’t for the life of him tell what he was saying. A frown appeared on his lips as he tried, unsuccessfully, to make the light spots fade quicker than they wanted to naturally. By the time they did, he was fairly confident he had missed half of what Ryuk had said. It was too late to ask what his companion had been saying – he had already moved on to saying something else.
“I suppose it’s a good thing I wouldn’t try to, then,” he managed, a bit of uncertainty leaking into his voice. He thought he understood what Ryuk had said, but it was hard to know for certain when he had missed at least a sentence. Hopefully Ryuk wouldn’t mind too much.
“Never?” he demanded, eyes wide. “I… wow.” This new conversation topic was better… at least Orpheus knew he hadn’t missed anything this time. “I tried not eating vegetables once because Mr. Hermes told me I had to and I really didn’t want to, but it didn’t last very long. I really like sweet potatoes and I guess he sort of bribed me with them.” The amusement returned to Orpheus’ eyes, and he gave Ryuk a small smile. “I… I don’t think I’d want to test out never eating them at all, though. Do we turn here?” He peeked over at the map, glancing at the first of the little stops they were supposed to make. It looked like it was to their left, but he couldn’t tell for certain.

“I see,” Orpheus replied, though he really didn’t see. Either Mr. Hermes had lied to him his entire life about needing vegetables, or Ryuk was at risk of dying at some point because of a lack of them. It wasn’t a risk that Orpheus was comfortable taking for himself, but if Ryuk said it was fine for him, Orpheus was inclined to believe him. He wasn’t a doctor, he didn’t really know anything about health. He wasn’t exactly the picture of health either – he didn’t sleep nearly enough and he didn’t tend to get enough exercise. But at least Ryuk looked pretty healthy. At the very least he didn’t seem to be dead or running out of energy, so it seemed whatever his diet was, it was working for him. Vegetables or no vegetables.
Orpheus followed Ryuk quickly, not wanting to lose sight of what he was saying as he made the turn. He didn’t think he was talking, but it was a risk he felt more comfortable not taking. He could tell Ryuk had noticed his slip up a few moments before because of the sun, but he was determined not to let it happen again.
“There should be one of the the little stops in front of us in a little,” he commented, glancing at the map. “I wonder… how do they know we’ve gone through all the stops? Or is that something that we need to be keeping track of ourselves?”

“There!” Orpheus announced triumphantly, surging towards the stop with renewed vigor. It was exciting, he thought, finding the little stops, knowing that he was making progress. “Oh!” he exclaimed, eyes widening as he turned to look at Ryuk, not wanting to miss anything the detective had to say. “It looks like we don’t need to worry about it,” he told the detective, pulling a piece of paper out of a small wooden cup attached to the stop. “It’s like… I think we have to collect all of these!” He approached Ryuk again, making sure to grab a second piece of paper to give to the detective. Upon further inspection, it appeared to be a sticker in the shape of a planet.
“Mercury,” he read, beaming. “I think… how many stops are there? It looks like we might get a different planet for every stop! And then we’ll know that we did them all, if we get every planet. And we also won’t be turned around and accidentally visit the same spot twice. Or… if we do, at least we’ll know about it.” He carefully tucked the sticker into his pocket, glancing at Ryuk as he did so.
“The first one wasn’t terribly difficult to find.” It seemed that the corn maze was easier as an adult than it had been as a child. He supposed that made sense, but… he was pleased to find it still had the same little spark of magic to it. Perhaps it was just because he hadn’t allowed himself to do anything enjoyable since Hermes’ death. He was fairly certain he hadn’t smiled this much since the explosion. It was an odd feeling, one that part of Orpheus wanted to push away. Instead, he welcomed it.

Perhaps going into the corn maze first had been a bad idea. Orpheus had done his best to think it out before they had made the decision, but he had neglected to remember how enjoyable corn mazes were. The young, childish part of him wanted to run and get lost in this one forever, trying to find all of the stickers and then getting lost again so he didn’t ever have to leave. It wasn’t quite as fun now, but maybe that was part of what growing up was. It was stepping through a doorway that made things not quite as fun, not quite as exciting. Maybe that was why Orpheus still wanted to believe that there might be some type of magic out there, somewhere. He didn’t see how the death predictions were anything short of magical, and if magic could be harnessed in that way… how could it improve other people’s lives while they still had lives left to live?
“I don’t know how much more challenging it’s going to get,” Orpheus replied after a moment, pulling himself out of his thoughts. “I mean… it does have to be simple enough that kids can finish it out, but that adults still have fun.” He looked up, trying to crane his neck to see above the corn. If he could do that… well, he would be able to find another one of the stations. And it would probably be a little bit easier to navigate to.
“Where on the map does it say the second station is? Also… do we know if they’re numbered? It would be cool to get them in the right order of the planets, right?” Orpheus doubted that it mattered, technically, but it would certainly make the maze a little bit more difficult… which was, of course, what made it so much more exciting. A challenge felt as though it might be worth it, now. Although from experience, one distraction was as good as any other. Making the maze more challenging was just… getting Orpheus to move on just a little bit from what had happened. Or at least… making it so he didn’t have to think about it, even for a short while.

Orpheus glanced as L, surprise flashing across his face as L’s words processed. He didn’t disagree, but L didn’t seem like the kind of person who would spend a lot of time around children. In fact, he was one of those people that made it very difficult to imagine them being a child at all. It was much easier to imagine L popping up as a full grown adult, solving crimes and making people’s lives better and just… acting as he did now. He was unusual, though not in a bad way.
“Of course,” Orpheus replied under his breath, letting his gaze shift so he was just looking ahead of him at the corn maze and the paths they were trying to take. “Children are a great deal smarter and more capable than a lot of people give them credit for.” The saddest calls Orpheus had made before he had lost his hearing were the calls he made to children on their last days. He played them music, of course, but he also asked about their life, he asked what they were interested in, and he listened. They deserved to have someone listen before they died, especially since far too many kids had parents that weren’t willing to listen to them go on and on and on about the things they were interested in. Orpheus had learned a lot on those calls. And he mourned every one of those children the next day.
“I guess,” he continued, trying to shrug off the thought before it got to him. “what I meant is that children are still learning, and many of them haven’t used a map before or had to figure out their way out of situations like this. So it has to be a safe enough and well-marked enough route that the average child can figure it out safely without getting hopelessly lost.” He shrugged, giving L a small smile as he continued down the path. He was looking to see where the branches marked on the map were, but he trusted L to navigate more than he trusted himself.
“I wonder,” he mused, glancing at L, “If we have to take the path intended for us. Is it a requirement? Is it better than any other path? I think it makes sense to do them in the right order, but… I doubt there would be anything wrong with doing them in another order. I’m… well, I’m not sure anyone would be able to tell. We might just make it harder for ourselves by having to double back to get to stations we missed.”

Orpheus didn’t know how long it would take to explore every inch of the corn maze. Part of him wanted to – part of him wanted to know if there were any little easter eggs that hadn’t been placed on the map – but he didn’t know if they would be able to do that without getting lost. There were other things to do here, after all… he frowned just a little, thinking about the options in front of them. There was a ferris wheel that Orpheus had been excited about, and they absolutely had to go get a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch, but beyond that…? There was apple picking in another part and horse drawn carriage rides, but if they didn’t get to either of those, Orpheus wouldn’t be completely devastated. It was just about having fun, and that was what the two of them were doing here. They were enjoying themselves, and it seemed like they might enjoy themselves even more without the map.
“Maybe… we could do that, then,” he offered, tone only a little bit hesitant. “I mean… the maze is small enough that we probably can’t get too turned around even if we’re looking for things that aren’t on the map. They probably cut all of the paths pretty deliberately. And if we end up somewhere with no paths, then we know to turn back.” He hoped that Ryuk would agree with that one condition. It wasn’t that Orpheus was afraid or anything, it was just that… an uncut cornfield probably belonged to someone, and Orpheus really would prefer not to be charged with trespassing on his first day back out in the real world.
Orpheus peered over Ryuk’s shoulder, noting where the next station was supposed to be.
“We could turn left there, instead of right,” he suggested, pointing ahead of them at what appeared to be a fork in the road. “That would allow us to explore the parts that don’t seem to have anything in them.”

It was honestly a bit of a relief to have Ryuk notice that something was bothering Orpheus. It felt a bit like being seen. Orpheus hadn’t allowed himself to believe anyone would see him again, especially not after Mr. Hermes had died. It felt like he was blocked off, estranged from the rest of the world. There was the hearing barrier now, of course, but there was also the fact that Orpheus had never really been close to anyone besides Mr. Hermes. Nobody else had been able to tell how he was feeling just by glancing at him, in spite of the fact that he wore his heart on his sleeve. Having Ryuk catching on to Orpheus’ small bit of uncertainty… it felt almost as though the detective had just given him a gift.
“No, I think taking our own path sounds like a good idea,” Orpheus managed after a moment, a smile accompanying the words. It was a little bit more forced than some of his smiles had been, but he wasn’t good at lying even when it came to facial expressions. He wouldn’t have smiled if there weren’t’ at least a part of him that really, genuinely meant it. “It was kind of you to double check. I was just… well, I was thinking about how long it might take and whether or not we’ll have to change our plan to accommodate it. But we didn’t really have much of a plan, so I suppose we’re plenty flexible enough. The only other thing I really care about is visiting the pumpkin patch so we can carve a pumpkin later this week and maybe make pumpkin pie… or pumpkin seeds, it doesn’t matter which. Or… if you’re busy, then I can do it by myself, but… I guess it doesn’t really feel like fall until there are pumpkins.” Orpheus was rambling, but he didn’t seem like he was going to stop any time soon. “We’ve… we’ve got time, though. We should do the maze how we want to do it, not how the map says we should.”

“I’d like that,” Orpheus replied cheerfully, sending a smile in Ryuk’s direction. “I mean… they do all the work of cutting the corn so that there’s a maze pattern, they probably figure it’s a shame that people won’t see the entire maze if they’re only following the map. Which means… well, it means that maybe they put something extra around to incentivize people to shy away from using the map and instead look throughout the maze as much as they can.” Orpheus didn’t know how likely it was, but he knew that the path they were supposed to travel based on the map’s advice was much smaller than the corn maze as a whole. It would do to search every nook and cranny, just in case there was something else interesting to find. He had a feeling someone could spend all day in here, if they really wanted to, but Ryuk was right. It probably wouldn’t take too long to pick out a pumpkin, and if there was really anything else they wanted to do, they could come back another day. Hopefully, Orpheus would be able to convince Ryuk to take another day off at some point soon. In his opinion, the detective worked a little bit too much. He spent hours and hours every day working on his cases, and he didn’t seem to sleep. Orpheus had a feeling that he was also working whenever he was absent from the house.
“Even if there’s nothing to find,” Orpheus added, his voice softer as though it were almost a secret. He was still having trouble controlling the volume of his voice without being able to hear it. “I think it will still be fun. And perhaps a bit more peaceful and secluded than the main paths that everyone else is travelling on to complete the maze as quickly as possible.” He grinned at L one more time, then pointedly looked away from the map and began to spin wildly, finger pointed out as though the needle on a compass.
“That way,” he said suddenly, stopping with his finger pointed at a random pathway. It wasn’t very methodical, but it would work.

“Oh,” Orpheus replied, a blush appearing on his face as Ryuk corrected him. He supposed that did make more sense – it couldn’t be an incentive if nobody knew about it. “I guess… if someone found out about it, though…” he frowned just a little bit, trying to make his thoughts move in the right order. He wasn’t great at that – perhaps that was why he preferred poetry to logic. “Well, if someone found things they hid in other corners of the maze, then they could tell more people, and then it would spread quickly by word of mouth if enough people found it. And then people who had done the maze once might want to try to go again to see if they could find it, which would earn more money for the entire fair. I think, at least. But… I suppose that relies on someone finding it in the first place, and that’s not necessarily a guarantee.” Orpheus hummed softly under his breath, letting the thought overcome him as he tried to think it through. He was very obviously not as skilled in logic as Ryuk was.
The hardest part of being deaf, at least for Orpheus, was that he often missed out on people’s tones. He had a feeling that might come with learning to lip read better, but for now, he just had to guess. Ryuk seemed more straightforward than a lot of people, though, so it wasn’t terribly difficult to guess at what he meant. Besides, Orpheus saw emotion flickering to life in Ryuk’s eyes – more emotion than he had shown at any point before. It seemed that he was as relieved as Orpheus was to be going somewhere with fewer people. The corn maze wasn’t crowded, but there had been a number of times already that people behind them had passed without Orpheus being aware of them until after they were already in front. It was disorienting, but Orpheus didn’t want to make his companion look out behind them to warn Orpheus about any oncoming people.
Orpheus glanced at Ryuk as he stopped spinning, a small smile crossing his lips at the sight of the detective’s. It felt… well, it felt good to make him smile. It felt almost like he had accomplished something.

Orpheus didn’t really know why there would be two mazes in one without the second maze being advertised, but he still liked the idea of finding something unexpected with Ryuk. It meant that they could spend a little bit more time here, too. Hew as starting to enjoy the detective’s company, and it was really the first time he had been out for anything other than groceries (and the job interview) since the explosion. He hadn’t allowed himself to have fun in so long, and he had to admit that this time with Ryuk was fun. He had to hope the detective felt the same – he wasn’t brave enough to ask him. Not yet, at least. He didn’t know him well enough that he felt comfortable asking anything like that. If he wasn’t enjoying their time together, then it would just be awkward, and there would be very little Orpheus would be able to do to fix it. In this case, better to live in blissful ignorance.
Orpheus caught sight of the fact that Ryuk kept looking back over his shoulder. It was a relief. It meant Orpheus didn’t have to do it quite as much himself. If there was someone behind him, then Ryuk would alert him and he would be able to step aside so that they could be passed. Hopefully, that was something he’d have to worry about a lot less as they moved to explore some of the more secluded parts of the maze.
“I think it’s possible that there will be more children than we expect,” Orpheus admitted with a small laugh. “Depends on whether the parents are letting their children navigate the maze or whether they’re navigating themselves. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if there were children that ended up ignoring the maps and getting themselves pretty lost trying to figure it out on their own without assistance.”

Orpheus was looking forward to the getting lost part. He knew he probably shouldn’t be – getting lost wasn’t supposed to be fun – but there was something about the idea of being completely disoriented that was sort of appealing. There was something about the feeling of success after getting yourself un-lost. The best adventures, Orpheus thought, were the ones that happened when you weren’t sure where you were going. That applied more to the situation than he was fully comfortable admitting. He liked Ryuk. He really liked Ryuk. But he had no idea what destination they were hurtling towards. He had no idea how hard the fall would hurt, or how long the journey would be. All he knew was that he was going on an adventure with someone who may or may not have been a friend. He had no idea that Ryuk usually divided his attention six or seven ways. He had a hard time imagining a detective doing that and still being successful. Of course, he hadn’t yet met Ryuk at full capacity. He had only met him taking on this one case, though Orpheus didn’t know for certain what the case was. All he knew was that it must have had something to do with the explosion. Secretly, he knew what that meant. It hadn’t been an accident. He couldn’t manage to admit that to himself or anyone else. If it wasn’t an accident, then someone had purposefully killed Mr. Hermes. Someone had been trying to kill him.
“I don’t believe that getting lost will be an insurmountable obstacle with you around,” Orpheus told Ryuk lightly, a thin smile on his face even as he moved to let the people Ryuk had noticed through.

Orpheus didn’t want to look at the map either, but he had a feeling he had spent a little bit longer studying it than Ryuk had. Ryuk may have been better (and more experienced, probably) than Orpheus, but Orpheus had been trying to figure out which turns they needed to take so he wouldn’t have to be looking down at the map all the time instead of watching Ryuk. He wanted to make sure he didn’t miss a word his companion said. He didn’t want to seem rude by asking him to repeat his words too many times, either. So he had spent a lot of time peering at the map when he had been certain that Ryuk wasn’t talking.
The result hadn’t been a perfect image of the map in his head, but he could at least answer Ryuk’s question.
“The exit is sort of on the opposite side from the entrance,” Orpheus returned, folding the map up and tucking it delicately in his pocket. He knew they would probably both look over it after they were done, trying to determine if they really had searched every nook and cranny.
“Does it matter?” Orpheus asked after a moment, tilting his head and shifting so he could see L’s lips better. It was hard, he had learned, to walk and talk when he had to make sure Ryuk’s lips were in sight at every moment. He was afraid he was being creepy, staring just a little bit too much, shifting so that Ryuk’s face was always visible. He didn’t know how Ryuk had found out the explosion had deafened him, but he was grateful the detective knew. Otherwise he would have a lot of uncomfortable explaining to do about why he was staring so intently.