A/N: This fic attempts to track the consequences of a minor change in Death Note's initial conditions. Here are the rules for the fic, for those interested in that aspect of the narrative:
1. Updates on weekends.
2. No premeditated plot; effect follows cause until events have reached their natural culmination.
3. No commitment to characterization except that which arises in the course of events.
4. No commitment to genre.
As you can probably tell from the rules, there's an experimental component to this. As such, your reviews help improve the experiment. Without reviews, you run the risk of letting the experiment become a hideous monster that lurches to your village and eats your children. Food for thought.
- Gonzalez
The human mind tends to take its surroundings for granted. You must be forgiven this behavior—it's impractical to rediscover the world each moment. Instead, it allows you to notice the novelties in your environment. A holdover. A survival trait.
Light didn't notice the classroom anymore. The teacher, too, was no surprise. Nor did the lesson stir him from his complacency. So the rhythm continued. The day inched forward.
Within the stillness of his boring life, he strained against the confines of his own mind. He watched the world around him move in slow motion and knew that anything he achieved would be utterly without meaning. He measured the complexity of his soul against the simplicity of the world and all but despaired.
But he continued with the life that he knew he was never meant to have. Perhaps some part of him was asleep. Or perhaps he was simply waiting.
He sat in suspended animation in the classroom. Then, out of the corner of his eye, movement. He looked in time to notice something drop from the sky. A bird? It didn't matter. It wasn't on the schedule, and thus was worthy of investigation.
Class was far from over, the rhythm of Light's life droning its fatally slow beat. But somehow the world was a little more exciting for containing unidentified falling objects. If Light didn't have his dignity, he would have drummed his fingers with impatience. But he was Light Yagami, and Light Yagami did not drum his fingers. Light Yagami, legendary student, waited coolly with the patience of a cat. So he sat through the lesson with hardly a change of expression. But he felt the temptation to break character just this once. Just this once.
He did not hurry as class ended. He did not rush to the door. He did not leap down the stairs. He did not admit to himself that he would have liked to do all of these things. But nevertheless, he reached the place where the object should have fallen. And behold, there it was. He lifted it gingerly, and read the title with disbelief. He cracked open the cover.
Is it some sort of practical joke? he wondered. A prank on the number one student? Who would think of something like this? What the hell were they even thinking?
He was Light Yagami, and Light Yagami did not fall for tasteless practical jokes. He was going to toss the thing away in disgust. He anticipated the inertia as his arm flung it. He visualized it flying into the bushes, pages flapping like the hundred wings of an odd and very confused bird. He imagined the sound of pages in the air, the sound of paper against leaves. He realized that he had slipped it into his bag while he daydreamed.
Nothing for it now. If he took it out again, then it would look like he changed his mind. That would imply that he had made a mistake, and Light Yagami didn't make mistakes. Without glancing to see if anyone was watching, he grasped at whatever poise he could muster (which, even in his befuddled state, was a sizable amount of poise relative to the average person, inasmuch as poise is quantifiable). He stalked from the scene of the prank.
Self-controlled as he was, he was unable to deny passage to a lone traitor of a thought:
A Food Note? As in, a notebook of food? Seriously?
FOOD NOTE
HOW TO USE IT
* The human whose name is written in this note shall eat.
* This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
* If the type of food is written within 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen.
* If the type of food is not specified, the person will simply eat the first food they can find.
* After writing the type of food, details of the meal should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
Light stared blankly at the inside cover.
"What." He continued to stare.
The cupcake at the top of the page was staring back at him. Wait, no, he mustn't think like that. Mustn't doubt his sanity. That was undoubtedly what they intended here.
Who's 'they,' Light? he asked himself. Paranoia and mental stability are terrible bedfellows. They secretly smear each other's toothbrushes with their disease-ridden socks.
But what if he took the Food Note at its word? What if it was real?
He stopped himself. Firstly, it was against all probability that such a thing would exist. Secondly, there was no reason for such a thing to exist. If anyone had the sort of mind control technology to make this thing operate, they wouldn't waste it on specifically gustatory functions. Thirdly, even if it was real, Light had no business with it. He wasn't about to start messing with people's heads. He had no desire to control minds. He…who was he kidding?
"I'm going to do this scientifically," he muttered to himself. "I am not insane. I am simply testing a hypothesis."
(He reflected that if you had to reassure yourself you were not insane, you should probably re-evaluate your confidence in that particular proposition).
He strolled through the city, looking for something he could use to test the Food Note. Preferably a situation where a successful test wouldn't draw any attention to it. After all, on the incredibly small chance that the Food Note wasn't a hoax, he wouldn't want anyone to know about it. The last thing he wanted was a visit from the suits and a suddenly smaller total of notebooks.
True, the chances of success were infinitesimal. But from the description of the notebook's mechanics, it was possible he would be able to deliver any meal anywhere. He could end world hunger with a bit of lateral thinking. Though the chances were infinitesimal, the benefits were limitless. He was ethically bound to try, at least.
As he walked, the sound of speech caught his ear. He followed the sound to an alley, where he saw a homeless man in animated conversation—complete with frenetic hand gestures, a lively back-and-forth dynamic, and a general air of the profound benevolently unveiled—with himself.
Bingo.
He scanned the surrounding area and noted a manga store. Casually, as if it had been the object of his stroll the entire time, he crossed the street and entered. He withdrew the Food Note from his bag and slid it into an open manga book. Now he just had to hope no one asked why he was writing on the merchandise.
Right. He didn't know the hobo's name. He could always just ask, but it was too obvious. He couldn't be too involved.
"I told ya, Obito Kamazaki," Light heard from the alley, "I told ya they's out there. They's controlling your mind from outer space."
Ah. Light thought. Luck is on my side. Or possibly the Illuminati. No! That way madness lies!
He hesitated a moment, and wrote the hobo's name in the notebook. Nothing happened.
Did I spell it the wrong way?
He looked over the name. He was about to generate a mental list of alternate spellings when he noticed the hobo had stopped talking. Light looked up and saw the hobo digging through a trash can.
Ew. So I guess the Food Note isn't limited to gourmet food. Or he just got hungry and this was a total coincidence. I need more tests.
One test was hardly statistically significant. As a rational human being, he had a duty to discard the hypothesis should the evidence fail to support it. And when that moment inevitably arrived, he was definitely going to acknowledge it without bias clouding his judgement. Honestly.
He was startled out of his reverie by a feminine shriek. He looked up to see a woman being cornered by a group of thugs who clearly did not intend a nice dinner and a movie.
Light was painfully aware of every second that passed.
I need to stop this, Light thought. I could confront them directly. He immediately dismissed the option.
What tools do I have? he asked himself, and unconsciously glanced at the notebook in his hands. He knew what he had to do.
"Please stop this!" the woman shouted. "Someone help!"
"Don't you know who I am?" asked the lead thug, and then foolishly told her.
Gotcha.
No chances here. Light blazed through every alternate spelling he could think of, and proceeded to write each one with the man's face front and center in his mind. After each spelling, he added the terse details that would save the victim from her hopeless situation.
"Filled with remorse," they read. "Eats nearest garbage."
It wasn't a rigorously derived conclusion, nor a cleverly designed test. It was electric, adrenaline-powered intuition and if it worked he was going to seriously doubt his sanity. And for a moment of ethically dubious elation, it looked like his sanity would remain only mildly questionable. But then the leader yelled to stop the molestation. Light watched him burst into tears and, between sobs, apologize to the woman while his erstwhile buddies stood by in utter shock. He should have watched in disbelief as the man ran to join the hobo, but by the time it happened he had already accepted the facts.
*** THE FACTS ***
1. The Food Note was real.
2. Light was going to Statistics Hell.
Postscript: I'd like to do commentary on the fic, but not everyone wants to read that stuff. So I set up a blog for the no doubt fascinating reflection on what went into this mess. You can find the relevant link on my author profile.