[L was always bold to a fault, when it came to approaching risky people with questionable motives. Maybe it was part of the job and one of the things that allowed him to be lethally effective in his work, but it's just as likely that this tendency also led to his untimely death. Ryuk remembers that death; L does not, though he's aware of it courtesy of Mello filling him in.

Just because his death hasn't occurred in his home world, however, doesn't mean it hasn't left him cold with a stillness in his chest cavity in Ryslig. Being a vampire means being undead, and the cloaked and covered figure standing before Ryuk is very much deceased even though he's still walking and speaking like a living person. L has always had a way of making such things appear as odd pantomime, but it's truer now than ever.

He stares unblinking at the shinigami turned something like human, gaze snapping only briefly to the crowd he indicates before returning firmly to Ryuk.]

I've counted, and I'm sure I'll speak with them another time. As for this moment, however, I am speaking with you.

[It's his stiff, cordial way of saying that he's not going to be shaken off so easily. The pastry shop, likewise, gets little interest; L stopped being able to taste sweet things long ago.]

It's because I'm a vampire and the sun and I do not get along. Where you're from, what is it like? Are there many others who look like you, or at least share the name of your species?

[L is all too happy to turn this into twenty questions.]