Near has white hair and gray eyes. Near is only seen wearing a white long-sleeved pajama top, with white pajama pants. Despite his incredible genius abilities, Near has a low social knowledge and is bad at interacting with others, "he is only able to display his true deductive powers when he has the support of his members." The book also states that Near is distant from people because he is sensitive. Near is living in an orphanage called the "wammy's house", they raise kids to success a detective named L who had beaten unsolvable cases, the orphanage is only for gifted children, it is also an institution. Near has low social skills, seems to be not very talkative, he plays with toys and solves puzzles a lot, he has a lot of toys, he's actually quite childish, and outside of his intellectual knowledge, he knows nothing else outside of it, and has little to no life skills, he also tends to be very dependent on other people, he's seen to be always sitting at all times. He has a very petite and frail build. He also rarely ever shows expressions or emotions, yet he tends to obey everything people tell him to. He easily ranked first in the orphanage due to his natural born genius skills, the second happens to be Mello, who is a highly competitive boy, although Mello isn't a natural born genius, he studies a lot. He is very envious of Near and wishes to be number one, which had made them rivals. Although, Near likes Mello and wants to talk to him, Mello doesn't really wanna talk to Near. Near is about 13 years old here. He tends to be quieter here rather than analytical, always letting anything happen and not defending himself as he is frail. He does not talk to anybody and only sits down and plays puzzles.

Mello's best friend, he does anything Mello says, he always games all day. Matt has brown hair and dark blue eyes, he is seen wearing a red and black striped long-sleeved top, blue pants, brown boots, and white goggles with amber-tinted lenses. He wears black gloves that reach just below the elbow. Matt is shown to have a dry sense of humor. He is confident, and his cockiness while monitoring multiple computer screens at once is what leads him to make a few mistakes. Matt's hideout is shown to be littered with junk food and a box of cereal. Matt smokes cigarettes all the time. He enjoys and is often seen playing video games, and he dislikes going outside. young man who loves gaming and doesn't really care much about the world.