arcanegel: Formerly "Daddy Long Legs," resurrected.
Lapsus - Lapse
I. Dirge
Lapsus
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Half past midnight. The only voice in the world of Quillsh Academy is deep and resigned, a voice laced with as many secrets as with warmth. Hidden behind the doors of the upstairs office, the man who owns that voice paces back and forth on tired feet.
"Are you sure about this?" he is talking into his cellphone. The voice on the other line, similar to his in that it carries a sheer cloak of exhaustion, speaks strictly. Whatever is happening at this ungodly hour, neither party seems to be at ease.
"Yes, I am," the other man is saying. "Tell the boy only the most important things. Whatever question he has afterwards, he can give to me. Is this all right with you, Roger?"
"...Yes, I suppose so." Roger closes his eyes and thinks of the man on the other line, the man of many names that he himself had helped raise as his own, sitting alone on the other side of the world. What could he be thinking? The young man was never one to make unclear, and possibly unwise, decisions. So why...?
"Thank you. Wammy will not be able to leave my side at this time, but someone from my team will take care of things. I'll keep in touch. Goodbye, Roger."
"Goodbye..." the old man pauses, and tries again. "Goodbye, Deneuve."
There is a click and the call promptly ends.
Just as Roger prepares to relax in his armchair, there is a blackout.
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I. Dirge
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Light Yagami looked back to that specific moment when everything he had had all his life was broken into irretrievable pieces. It was a Sunday, a fine day like any other, and he was studying at home while his parents took Sayu out for a celebratory shopping spree. What had it been for? Light was ashamed to admit he had not been paying attention to his family that day, or to anything for that matter. A test was coming up and he wanted to put his all into scoring one hundred percent. The afternoon was a complete blur; between flipping through his textbook and punching equations into his calculator, there was not much he could remember of that time. Until he received the phone call, nothing interrupted his autopilot.
It was from Aizawa. Light knew him, of course. He was one of the police officers working with his father, Soichiro Yagami. He considered the man aloof and a little distant; that he called at all was an instant sign that something was wrong. Otherwise, he would not have bothered anyone for anything.
He remembered holding the phone tightly against his ear as a deep sinking feeling settled into his stomach like a punishment.
"Light Yagami," Aizawa said half-heartedly. "Are you doing well? I heard you're studying for your exams."
Aizawa tried to start with something nice. It made him nervous so Light did not respond to that. He countered instead with a firm, "What's going on?"
There was silence. Light's heart rate increased each minute the man hesitated. It was almost as if he was being forced to answer his own question.
"I...called because..."
Get on with it...
"I have..."
Get on with it!
"...terrible news."
The police officer gave it all away before even saying it. By observing his tone of voice, Light already built up a suspicion of his own. But those...Those last two words. They threw away so much more than Light needed to come to the conclusion.
"My family..." he whispered, more to himself than the man on the other line. "Is my family all right?"
"You see, Light..."
"...Someone went on a rampage in Shinjuku. Many people were hurt."
"...No."
"Light, I'm afraid that your family was among them. They-"
"No."
He would not accept this. He definitely was not going to accept this. This was not happening.
His family.
"Light, they were all killed. I am-"
"No!"
"I'm sorry."
His world stopped in that moment, throwing Light into a void. It was as if he had taken a blow to the head and, although he could still plainly see everything around him, he had gone blind. He did not know what to do or what to focus on, much less what to say to the man who had given him the news. He remembered the silence that enveloped him shortly after that sensation of helplessness, and then falling to the floor, letting the telephone hang from its wire like a condemned sinner.
He remembered the insensitive events that followed that afternoon. He had not yet had time to recover from the initial shock when he found himself in the police headquarters with Aizawa, where a tall, overbearing man of indeterminate descent was speaking to them in a private room. Light truly did not possess the energy to focus on the situation then, only registering that they were discussing his future without a family. His life as an orphan from now on. His...studies? The foreigner seemed more distant than Aizawa himself, if that was possible. He barely laid his eyes on Light while he pored over documents with the policeman, speaking in a painful accent that made both Japanese citizens cringe.
Had that occurred on the same day he received the news? Who knew.
Next, the boy recalled the memorial service. Once again, Aizawa had been his only real companion. A crowd of figures in black surrounded him from all sounds but they did not matter, despite the tears that were falling from everyone's eyes. Or the sound of strangers' voices oozing like thick pus from their mouths despite the tenderness. Or the way those eyes furrowed to attempt understanding and the way they tried to pat his shoulder or embrace him, as if they too had been shot through the heart.
In fact, Light had been faking as well. The teenager was heartbroken, which was clear despite the facade he had served up of remaining calm. The pretense was useless, really; one could peer into the surviving Yagami's eyes and find all the tears he'd hidden away. But to indulge the boy, everyone in the procession put up a facade of their own, one that collectively believed that Light was all right. He would be fine. Light had always been supported by a mask of some sort. It had become so natural to him that he rarely ever found a need to take it off. He knew they could tell, and he held no personal contempt for them, but Light could not fight the feeling of rage towards the warmth they offered him.
Did they think it helped?
What could their sympathy ever do to take this away?
A curtain of agony had consumed him as he gazed at the headstones of his loved ones. The world all but closed in on him.
The sky grew and darkened immeasurably.
He did not remember much afterwards.
.
That was how quickly and chaotically it all happened, a steady series of pain and confusion that tore him up like gunfire. In a sense, Light felt that he himself had died. It was as if he had been paralyzed, unable to express his pain yet unable also to defeat it. Each memory that flitted through his mind threatened to take him down: his father's heroism, his mother's affection. Sayu's innocence, memories of petting her head to escape her hugs...Thinking back on it, the boy decided that it would have been much less devastating if he had cried out his all during the memorial service. But he had been constantly presented with mugshots of the murderer. The man's face had been there everywhere he went, from the giant screens in the city to the papers. He couldn't bring himself to break, not when he was being watched. And now the chance had gone and he was left to will himself through the rest of his life with nothing but silence to soothe the ache.
His father, his mother, and his sister no longer existed.
Although Aizawa had taken it upon himself to watch him and even stood beside him throughout the entire ordeal, Light felt truly alone.
And now, even the police officer was gone.
For some reason, it felt too late to break now.
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The sound of the plane cutting through the sky suddenly broke his contemplations. Light snapped back to reality, the one that he would now be traversing on his own. Sitting in the aisle across from him was the foreigner he had met at the police headquarters. Light vaguely recalled the man introducing himself as Angel, a name that hardly suited him. He looked more like a gangster in Light's humble opinion. In the meager light provided by one open window Light could make out an olive complexion and the shimmer of greased black hair.
Angel, who until then had been leisurely writing on a notepad, cast him a glance. He must have noticed Light looking at him.
"How are you holding up?" he asked in terrible Japanese.
"I'm fine," Light replied flatly. He paused for a moment and then added, "If it helps, you can speak to me in English."
Angel scowled, but took Light up on his offer. Unfortunately there was very little improvement.
"I don't think it helps your case, but English is much easier for me," he said, accent still just as thick. Then, placing the notepad down on his lap, he leaned over his seat slightly, turning his full attention to Light. "You haven't really been here for a while, if you know what I mean. And I don't blame you, but that just won't do when we reach our destination. All right? What do you know of your situation so far, anyway?"
The foreigner's voice was deep. Combined with his strange way of speaking, it was reminiscent of-for some reason-black coffee. Light did not enjoy black coffee. And he did not enjoy what Angel was getting at. Nevertheless, he thought long and hard about what he'd retained of the past few days.
"I'm...my family is gone. You and Aizawa-san took care of everything. I'm leaving Japan..." he went with the most significant facts, the ones that had been impossible to miss although they still felt untrue. Beyond that, he realized he knew nothing. "We're on an airplane now. Uh...I'm unclear as to why I'm to live abroad from now on."
Light ended there, realizing too late that in his depression he had allowed himself to be passed back and forth between strangers without once trying to involve himself in the matters concerning his own future. That was incredibly stupid and he knew that, yet he still could not shake himself from the listlessness that embraced him.
He looked to Angel for any sort of elaboration. As if to congratulate him for remembering as much as he did, the foreigner swiftly filled him in.
"I was sent to take you to the Quillsh Academy," he said. "To put it bluntly, you've been scouted. It's a school for gifted kids from all across the globe. You will be able to further your studies there. The academy's priority is the refinement of their students' talents, sort of like sharpening a knife. You know? So you won't be wasting your time with simple radio calisthenics and shit you'd already learned on your own."
"How did they even find me? How was I at all considered...?"
"We have some outstanding alumni, kid. That's about all I'm allowed to tell you. Roger will explain the rest," said Angel, smirking enigmatically. Then, completely dropping the subject, he peered out his open window.
"Now get ready, we're almost there."
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Deneuve, the third greatest detective in the world, sits crouched on a red armchair with a thumb in his mouth. He holds an unwrapped lollipop in one hand.
On the coffee table before him, a laptop glows as the only source of light in the room. It burns into unblinking eyes, reflecting.
"Forty-two...no...forty-five..."
His toes start curling and uncurling, as if he has realized something important but is not willing to do much else about it.
"Forty-six?"
Silence. Deneuve ponders to himself for a moment, absently nibbling at his thumbnail. Finally he sighs and drops the lollipop into an empty teacup. Taking his time, he unfolds himself from his crouch to stand. He approaches the laptop, which is now overheating with a muffled hum, and forcefully presses the power button.
"Forty-eight percent. Near will be furious."
The laptop screen flickers and fades to black.
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I. Dirge
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Lapsus
arcanegel: Let's see where this goes. Until next time.
Lapsus - Lapse
Light
Deneuve
Roger
Aizawa
Angel (not a character from Death Note)