Disclaimer: All characters belong to Tsugumi Ohba + Takeshi Obata.
Warnings: Spoilers for the entire series. Erm, language?
Notes: This is a one shot. A very strange one shot.
Relighting the Moon
by The Honorable Arik Novak
A chuckle in the shinigami world. "You goin' down again, Ryuuk?" The taller one said nothing.
"You were down there what, less than a century ago!" another shinigami scoffed.
"And I'm already bored," Ryuuk cackled, licking his lips. After all, other than entertainment, the human world had bright red tasty apples.
He blinked his eyes wearily. It was too early. What day was it again? The man lifted his tired eyes to the calendar hanging slightly awry on the far wall. Ah yes.
Jan 28.
He groaned as he came to consciousness and groaned again when he fell out of bed. "Goddammit," he cursed, rubbing the back of his head. He picked himself up and slouched all the way to the refrigerator. The door swung open and he stuck his head in: nothing. Apples, more apples, goddamn apples, and a microwave dinner. This was not good. Even though he had been eating nothing but fast food for what felt like the past month, he had always had food in his refrigerator. Or so he thought. "Now I have to go shopping. Great," he said to himself.
There was pain spreading in his shoulders and neck, a pressure or tightness. He felt lightheaded and cold, the chilly January air did nothing to help, and his chest hurt a bit. The pain disappeared within a few minutes and he was fine as he could be. He had always been unhealthy, and after the past week, there was a perfect explanation for his worsening health. Finals had ended, thank god, but then he had to go and look for a damn job. And no one would hire him.
Employers didn't care that he had a law degree from the top university in Japan, no, they didn't. They didn't care that he had attended school on a full academic scholarship. They didn't care that he had worked as an unpaid intern for the Tokyo Police since he had been sixteen--and that he had solved most, if not all, of the cases he had laid eyes on. They didn't care that he had a goddamn genius IQ! No!
He clutched his chest again, and was determinedly thankful for the trains that ran all across Japan so he wouldn't have to. He tended to get stressed easily, and always had been stressed easily. His employers, instead, focused on his family history and his health condition. He would never be out on the field, they all insisted, with such a weak body. And anyway, his mother was a known crack addict, a convict, even, a woman whom all respectable men would avoid. And he had a small criminal record. A small one!
And the train was out. Great. He glared at the tracks and the people working to fix it. They couldn't go a bit faster? He had to be somewhere! He sniffed at the people working on the train. It was ridiculous.
He jogged the mile and a half to the grocery and regretted it as soon as he reached the automatic doors. His breathing was labored and he felt like he would throw up. He put his hands on his knees to catch his breath.
"Hey! Tsuki-san!" a voice shouted. He turned around to see his old classmate inside the store pushing a cart filled with junk food. He walked into the store and looked queasily at the contents in the cart.
"Oh god, Matsuda-san, that is disgusting," he said. There were heaps of sweets and junk food, but mostly sweets. Tsuki and he had hung out a bit after classes, but Tsuki would never consider themselves friends.
The other boy rolled his eyes. "Everyone can't be a health nut like you, Tsuki-kun."
This time, Tsuki rolled his eyes. "And is there some reason you can't call me by my last name? You want me to call you Lawliet-chan?"
The other boy faked horror and laughed. "Please, never," he said with a laugh. He picked up a magazine, some entertainment magazine about actors and actresses.
"Your parents are crazy for naming a Japanese kid a name like that. How would you even write it?" Tsuki asked, glancing at the cover of the magazine Matsuda had picked up. The woman on the front had blonde hair, but her roots were starting to show near her scalp. She looked to be in her late thirties.
"Hiragana," Matsuda laughed. He stopped at the line of people waiting to be checked out and dropped his junk food onto the conveyor belt. "So what are you here for?" he asked Tsuki.
"Nothing, really," he said, swiftly taking the magazine from Matsuda, "Just something to eat. I looked at my refrigerator this morning, and all I had were apples. And the damn rails were out." Matsuda laughed boisterously and ignored Tsuki's skilful swipe of the magazine.
"Ooh, is that Amane Misa? Heard she just put out a new movie," Matsuda said dreamily. "You know, my dad went undercover as her agent once. Working on the Kira case."
Tsuki resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He was always hearing how wonderful his father was for actually shooting Kira. With a gun. Of course, the identity was never given to the public, so Tsuki was allowed to be skeptical. "I still don't know what to think about Kira." Tsuki himself was utilitarian. It wasn't the best morality, nor the most accepted, but at least it was some sort of morality.
"Yeah. Remember what Tanaka-sensei said about it?" oh, did he. Tanaka was die-hard anti-Kira professor, and Tsuki had had several arguments with the abominable man. The man argued with his heart and not his reason, and his arguments were weak, based only upon emotion and so-called morality.
"I remember damn well that bigot's opinion. Not that it's much of an opinion."
Matsuda just smiled and nodded, knowing Tsuki's view of Tanaka. He had heard very clearly what the other boy thought of the teacher. "Well, my dad liked Kira, even though he was hunting him down. He never did tell me anything about who Kira's identity was," he said with a definite disappointment in his voice.
"You know, you should join us for lunch today. Actually, it'll be a late lunch. My mom's wanted to meet the infamous Tsuki-san," Matsuda said.
Tsuki was tempted to say no, but he just didn't feel like cooking or paying for a meal. No, he could just freeload off of Matsuda for one meal. It shouldn't be too bad.
"Okay, sure. What time?" he slipped the magazine into its rightful place and wondered why other middle-aged women couldn't look that pretty.
"Around two. Is that okay?"
"Sure."
"You haven't called in a while, Tsuki-chan," a woman's voice reverberated from his cell phone's voicemail. "I miss you. I'm sorry. I-I need a bit of money. Can you spare a bit? Call me back, baby."
Tsuki sneered at the phone and the voice behind it. "Goddamn woman," he muttered. He dropped it on the counter and glanced at his watch. It was almost one o'clock, and he needed to leave in about thirty minutes. His cell phone started ringing again, but he ignored it. The phonecall went straight to voicemail: "Dammit boy, I gave birth to you! Answer your phone, I know you're listening!" He glanced forward: the mirror showed a tired man. A tired man with bags under his eyes and messy brown hair. Like his father's, he supposed. Another call, another message: "I'm sorry, baby, I'm just desperate. How about we just--" Angrily, Tsuki pressed the answer button and then the end call button, hoping his dear mother would get the message. Tsuki looked back up at the mirror and sneered at himself, turning away from the mirror to his room to look for his khaki trousers. He had a clean white shirt on and was adjusting his red tie when he felt another jerk in his chest. This time, the pain didn't abate. What is this?
The pain continued to dig through his chest as he shakily dug through his pockets and turned them inside out. He always had medicine just in case this would happen. Finding nothing, he lurched into the bathroom and threw open the medicine cabinet. "As-aspirin!" Tsuki quickly took a hold of the pill bottle but had trouble opening it. Frustrated, he jerkily grabbed his cell phone from the sink top and dialed the emergency number. "Hello. What is your emergency?"
He swallowed two pills dry and rasped into the receiver, "I think--I, heart attack! Number--thir-thirteen, f-fifty-first street, help…" and with that, his eyes closed and he passed out.
"Dad, he's really late. I'm worried," the young man whined. Although he had only mentioned his friend a grand total of three times in the entire course of college, Tota Matsuda was curious about him.
"Well I heard the trains were held up today. Maybe that's the problem."
The younger Matsuda shook his head. "No, dad! He knew the rails were messed up, and he's almost compulsively punctual!"
"Honey, why don't you try calling him and if he's not here by two, you could go to his house and see if he's okay," his mother said rationally.
"Smart thinking, honey," Tota smiled at his wife.
"And you're supposed to be the leading detective…" she playfully muttered. Tota chuckled and patted his son on the back. "Well, we can go now. Maybe we'll be able to pick him up, eh?" His son looked at him gratefully as they headed toward the car.
"You two be careful now, okay?" his mother called. Lawliet waved and climbed into the passenger seat. "Okay dad, he lives in an apartment complex on fifty-first street, about a mile away from the grocery store."
Tota nodded. "I think I know where it is, then. Hang on!" For a cop, he drove recklessly but wrecklessly. They reached the apartment in a few minutes as opposed to the half hour it should have taken. Lawliet stormed up the stairs pulling his father with him and spied the open door to apartment number thirteen. "Dad! Something's happened to him!" Tota Matsuda whipped his gun out and held it vertically against his chest, creeping into the room. He never knew where dangers could lurk…
Tota slipped through the house silently and found the bathroom. "Aspirin?" he asked himself quietly. The bedroom was in order, and it looked nothing like a burglary. No signs of struggle apart from the aspirin and... there, a cell phone, lying open on the ground! He ignored normal procedures and picked up the phone without putting gloves on. He doubted it was a crime scene anyway. He found the most recent call, in or out. "Lawliet," he called his son, "Does he have some type of medical condition?" he asked, glancing at the last number called.
"Yeah. He's got a bad heart and asthma. Why?"
"I think he had some type of heart attack. He was trying to get this bottle of aspirin open, so he knew what the problem was, and then he probably called the ambulance…"
"He might be dead!" his son exclaimed. Tota shook his head somberly. "I very much doubt that. If he had the strength to run around his room looking for aspirin and then to call the police…then the heart attack was probably not that bad."
"Wow, dad, you know a lot about medical stuff," Lawliet said, picking up the cell phone. He glanced at the missed calls and noticed the three before the emergency call from "Sayu." Hm.
"Just about heart attacks. Because of Kira…I needed to know the signs of one of his attacks as opposed to a normal heart attack. Now, if Kira were still alive, I'd say this heart attack could have been caused by him. His victims tended to linger longer than normal heart attack victims." He paused with a morose expression on his usually jovial face. Sighing, he said, "Now, you want me to drive you to the hospital? He's probably at St. Vincent's."
Tota walked into the hospital just as his son finished telling the receptionist the name of his friend. "I'm sorry, how do you spell his first name?"
"The kanji for moon, ma'am."
"And last name?"
"Ya as in the kanji for night, and gami like the kanji for god. Yagami."
Tota froze.
"Hm…we do have a Yagami Tsuki. He's been moved to a normal room to recover. Room S794. That's the Sato Building across the sky bridge. There are volunteers along the way to help you if you need it. Have a good day."
"Didja hear that, Dad? He's okay!" They practically ran toward the other building, climbing into the elevator as it was shutting
Tota glanced at his son, anticipation and anxiousness apparent on his face that was not mirrored on his son's. The boy didn't get it. "Lawliet," Tota started uneasily, "Why didn't you ever tell me your friend's last name?"
His son just shrugged. "Never seemed important, why?" Of course he didn't get it…Light's name was never released to the public.
Tota tried to shrug it off, but by his son's look, he wasn't entirely successful. They stepped onto the seventh floor and looked around. He sighed to himself and told him, "It's an uncommon name. My, er, chief back on the Kira case, he was Chief Yagami. A good man, died on the case." Tota stopped talking abruptly, hoping his son would understand that he didn't want to talk about it. It was strange hearing Yagami Light's name spelled out, even though he couldn't be closely related to the Yagami he was thinking of. As far as he knew, the Captain had no brothers, no uncles. And he was certain that Light never got around to getting Misa or anyone pregnant.
"Are you looking for something?" a nice young nurse asked them.
Matsuda was thrown from his thoughts as he looked at the woman. "I'm looking for a young man, Yagami Light."
"Yagami Tsuki, dad!" his son whinged.
"Right, Tsuki, sorry. The receptionist said he was in room 794."
As the nurse led them to the room, his son asked, "Was that your chief? Yagami Light?"
Tota felt uncomfortable, but he could not very well lie to his own son. "No, the chief was Yagami Soichiro. I--" he paused for a second and decided that a little lie wouldn't hurt anyone. "I read the name incorrectly. I once knew someone named Light who spelled his name with that kanji. He was…also a good man. Misled, perhaps, by his sense of justice." And he felt guilty when his son accepted it without another thought.
"I'm sorry sirs, but apparently Yagami-san has been discharged. Acted strangely, but had an otherwise perfect bill of health." Tota could tell his son was about to argue and so pulled him away.
"That doesn't sound right, dad! He can't have left if he just had a heart attack today!"
"You're right, Lawliet, but we shouldn't make a scene, even a small one. Just try calling him." Lawliet nodded and slipped his cell phone out. He had it to his ear for a few seconds before they both heard a ring from Tota's pocket.
"Dad, that's not your ringtone." Tota knew that too. He unearthed the phone and flipped it open. "Crap."
"Did you take his cell phone?!" Lawliet shouted. Tota nodded, berating himself. "That's his only phone, Dad!"
Lawliet was sulking over his father's rather irresponsible move, and his mood was becoming ever worse as he realized that he didn't know if Tsuki had a home phone or if he had ever given the other boy his number. His mood grew even darker when they stopped at Tsuki's apartment, which had been locked with all the lights out, meaning that Tsuki had stopped by his own apartment and then left. So they were on their way back home, since it was late and even if Tsuki were home, the man probably didn't want to be bothered.
But Tsuki had gone straight back to his apartment, locked the door, closed the curtains, and sat on his bed. In a trance, he walked to his refrigerator and pulled out an apple. He stared at it, wondering if it would taste like sand. Then he shined it on his sleeve and stared at it some more.
For some reason, it seemed like he should have…given it to someone. Yes, this apple was not for himself. He looked around, and for some reason, was not shocked to see an ethereal creature locking eyes with him.
The thing chuckled an eerie, haunting chuckle and plucked the apple from Tsuki's numb fingers. "You look just like your uncle, boy." The thing swallowed the apple in one bite.
"Excuse me?" Tsuki asked, eyes narrowing.
"I didn't expect your soul to find another body so quickly. I suppose you just really, really, wanted to continue your mission. But it must've been easier, since there was an unborn child with your blood," the thing said suggestively.
"What are you?" Tsuki settled on asking. He pulled another apple from the refrigerator and tossed it from hand to hand.
The thing grinned. "A shinigami. And this, I believe, is yours." The thing cackled as the boy hesitated.
Tsuki wasn't sure he wanted to touch it. But it was beautiful, black, sleek, and it seemed to be calling to him. It just felt…right. So he tossed the apple to the demon thing and watched the book hit the ground. "That' s no way to treat a book," he muttered to himself. For some reason, he felt himself smiling. Grinning.
He stretched an arm out, and traced the letters on the cover. Death Note.
"Thank you, Ryuuk. I suppose you were getting bored again."
"Yeah. Plus I missed the apples."
Thus revives the story of the Death Note.