Charles Dickens' Classic Story, A Christmas Carol, told with characters from Death Note.
Mikami was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Light signed it. And Light's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Mikami was as dead as a doornail. Light knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Light and he were partners many years. Light was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Light was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnized it with an undoubted bargain.
He was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone. Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire. Secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his features, made his eyes red, He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. External heat and cold had little influence on Light. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. They often "came down" handsomely, and Light never did.
Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve -- Light sat busy in his counting house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already: it had not been light all day: and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighboring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.
The door of Light's counting house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, Ryuzaki who in a dismal little room beyond was copying letters. Light had a very small fire, but Ryuzaki's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Light kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the Ryuzaki came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore Ryuzaki put on his white blanket, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, despite being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.
"A merry Christmas, Light! God save you!'' cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Matsuda, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
"Bah!'' said Light, "Humbug!"
Matusda was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.
``Christmas a humbug, Light!'' said Matsuda. ``You don't mean that, I am sure.''
``I do,'' said Light. ``Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? You're poor enough.''
"Come, then," returned the Matsuda gaily. "What right have you to be dismal? You're rich enough.''
Light having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up with "Humbug."
"Don't be cross, Light," said the Matsuda.
"What else can I be," returned Light, "when I live in such a world of fools as this Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas. What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer? If I could work my will,'' said Light indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas'' on his lips, should be judged and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.
"Light!" Pleaded Matusda.
"Matusda!" Returned Light, sternly, "keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."
"Keep it!" repeated Matsuda. ``But you don't keep it.''
"Let me leave it alone, then,'' said Light. "Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!"
"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned Matsuda: "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time. The only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave. And therefore, Light, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!''
Ryuzaki, involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark forever.
"Let me hear another sound from you,'' said Light, "and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation.
"Don't be angry, Light." Said Matsuda, "Come! Dine with us tomorrow."
"Good afternoon!"
"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last. So A Merry Christmas, Light!''
"Good afternoon!'' said Light.
"And A Happy New Year!''
"Good afternoon!'' said Light.
Matsuda left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greeting of the season on Ryuzaki, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Light; for he returned them cordially.
"There's another fellow,'' muttered Light; who overheard him: "Ryuzaki, with fifteen shillings a week and a family, talking about a merry Christmas." Ryuzaki, in letting Matsuda out, had let two other people in. They were Aizawa and Mogi, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Light's office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.
"Yagami and Mikami's, I believe,'' said Aizawa, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Yagami or Mr. Mikami?"
"Mr. Mikami has been dead these seven years,'' Light replied. ``He died seven years ago, this very night."
"We have no doubt his generosity is well represented by his surviving partner,'' said Mogi, presenting his credentials. At the ominous word 'generosity', Light frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.
"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Yagami,'' said Aizawa, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.''
``Are there no prisons?'' asked Light.
``Plenty of prisons,'' said Aizawa, laying down the pen again.
"Are they still in operation?'' demanded Light.
"They are. Still,'' returned Aizawa, "I wish I could say they were not."
"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,'' said Light. "I'm very glad to hear it.''
"A few of us are endeavoring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth." Returned Mogi, "We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?''
"Nothing!'' Light replied.
"You wish to be anonymous?''
"I wish to be left alone," said Light. "I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there."
"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."
"If they would rather die,'' said Light, "they had better do it, and decrease the unworthy population."
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, Aizawa and Mogi withdrew. Light resumed his labors with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.
At length the hour of shutting up the counting house arrived. With an ill-will, Light dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant Ryuzaki, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.
"You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose?" said Light.
"If quite convenient, Sir."
"It's not convenient," said Light, "and it's not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-used.''
Ryuzaki smiled faintly.
"And yet," said Light, "you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no work."
"It is only once a year." Ryuzaki observered.
"A poor excuse for picking a man's pockets every twenty-fifth of December!" Said Light, buttoning his coat. "But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning!"
Ryuzaki promised that he would; and Light walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and Ryuzaki, with the long ends of his blanket dangling below his waist for he boasted no coat, went down a slide, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honor of it being Christmas Eve, and then ran home.