An Odd Affection
It was either post-traumatic stress syndrome or brief psychotic disorder. Two psychiatrists, laying down diagnoses on her, like axes on a frail piece of wood. Harsh words: obviously, they would not let her recover at home. Extra attention from her parents just wouldn't cut it, they said, she needs therapists and perhaps antipsychotics if things come to that. And just like that, Sayu found herself being quietly admitted into an insane asylum.
Her father admonished her about the use of the term, insane asylum. Don't make the place sound more violent and insane than it really was, he said. He assured her that the place they were going to was a private psychiatric facility, and that people who would help her through rehabilitation were not considering her as something deprived. "You've been through a lot, Sayu. Normal people would react the same way if they went through the same thing."
"Normal people." Sayu wasn't thinking straight at that time. For some reason, she didn't want to speak, eat, sleep, or even go to the bathroom to bathe on her own. Before she was wheeled in this place (which was much too white for her tastes), she only found a sliver of meaning in staring at the television all day, everyday. She knew that she had to ask herself why she was doing these things, but she didn't have the strength to even ask herself questions. "Normal people," she repeated. Safe to say, she temporarily lost her membership in that category.
Souichiro sadly watched her, trying to find a shred of life in those dead eyes of hers. Nothing. He faced the nurse who was patiently waiting for them to finish. "Let's go on ahead," he said. The nurse nodded.
The room number: 212. One bed, a modest dresser, a normal-sized closet, no TV, sealed windows. Cafeteria this way, bathrooms that way, recreation room at the basement, basketball courts outside. Individual psychiatric sessions will be done in the doctor's office, upstairs to the right. Pharmacy is located downstairs. The Yagamis were allowed to visit her on Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. All the details blew past her abilities of comprehension. But again, she didn't complain. The nurse's babble filled an emptiness in her mind, and having something up there comforted her somewhat…
Before she knew it, her father was patting her on the head sayinggoodbye, I'll bring Mom and Light here next time, be a good girl, I love you and then he took his really big police officer's coat and walked away like a zombie who didn't know where he was going and he was gone and then the nurse was saying Welcome to our family, Sayu, we'll let you rest for a bit I'll come back to bring you dinner and was smiling like the nice old lady that she was and then she took her hand and led her to her bed and parked her wheelchair on the side and then she left and closed the door quietly behind her.
And then she was all alone, in the dark, wondering passively about the quiet footsteps she heard outside her room, the buzz of quiet in her head and the eerie flapping of wings outside her window.
Near the beginning her mother came to her looking like a very sad crow. "Your father, Souichiro passed away," she said. Sayu didn't react—couldn't react was more accurate. All she could do was stare at her mother with those dead eyes of hers. She was as dead as her father, she wanted to say, so uncharacteristically emo to her as that phrase was, so please Mom don't look at me like that because I'm not crying when you told me that Dad died in the hospital after he was gunned down and bombed by a gang from LA—she wanted to say—Mom was it the same guy, that tough-looking blondie who sort of looks like a girl, was he the one who gunned Dad down because I don't believe that he would do that for kicks, and why would Dad be doing back there anyway was he going to kill them because of that silly black notebook and that blondie he seems like a nonviolent nutcase maybe it was all an accident, maybe someone else did it because I don't buy it.
But of course, she couldn't say those things, because this sickness of hers forced her mouth shut, forced her brain to scramble into static every time she wanted to say something, and the antidepressants helped somewhat, but she hated taking them and sometimes she didn't drink the things that the nurses put in those tiny plastic cups they give you when you're eating lunch and dinner. The nurses did the explaining for poor Sachiko, who was probably suffering the most because she didn't know these things: "Sayu has certain chemical imbalances in her brain, so she can't respond to you the way she would, normally. She's doing well, though. Keep visiting, and you'll see improvements."
But the weeks passed and she didn't improve as well as the doctors had hoped. The death of her father introduced her to a new sort of emptiness, and the pain of her mother was like a blow of cold air through her hollow stomach. Her brother was absent all throughout her stay in the clinic, and all she could do was imagine what it was like, running around in America, never enjoying himself or Misa-Misa, living the next second as if it were the last. Sometimes, thinking of these things, she heard voices in her head, saying Sayu, your brother is a killer! A killer! A killer! Don't think about him! and she gets so frustrated because this usually happened when she was trying to write him a letter during private sessions with her psychiatrist and she didn't mean it, really, but she started screaming and crying for the lying voices in her head to shut it, just shut it because wasn't her brother in enough trouble as it is?
Soon after the voices entered the picture, Sayu proved to herself that she was probably a psychic because her mother, along with a somber-looking Matsuda-san, came to her again, dressed like the saddest crow in the universe. "Light is gone," she choked out, a soggy handkerchief in her gloved, black hand. "He…. Kira… Kira killed your brother… before he killed himself…"
To this, even her own voice in her head fell into sullen silence.
Matsuda-san was looking at his shoes. They were dusty and creased from use. Sayu could tell that this was, indeed, not an ordinary day because the guy was quiet.
"Light's not really dead, is he?" she asked quietly after a long pause.
Sachiko could not speak, but instead pressed her eyes against her handkerchief. Matsuda noticed this and uneasily turned to Sayu.
"I'm sorry, Sayu," he said. Was all he said. Was all the weak guy could say.
…because your brother was Kira! Don't deny it, Sayu, you've known for a long time, you've had suspicions, the reason why Matsuda is so quiet is because he lied to your mother by telling the truth in a stupid figurative manner and Light probably deserved to die, you know that, he probably died because he tried to kill everyone in the police and failed, and death ended his misery, so don't be sorry at all that you're listening to this drivel, Kira is dead!
The voices, the voices, the awful voices. Something in her brain shut down. Her world was instantly thrown into darkness. Numbness. She vaguely felt Matsuda-san's hands gripping her arms, as if restraining her shaking body from exploding. The feeling subsided. She disguised herself to escape the voices: had to become emptiness itself. Somewhere in this void, she heard an animal-like scream in the guise of her own small voice, and after that there was nothing.
She couldn't remember what happened after the blackout, but the doctor explained it to her, calmly and neutrally: she started screaming. Hit Matsuda-san repetitively. Told him that he's a liar, that she knew what he was up to. When she was told to calm down, she started retreating, backing out, and for some reason she started running away. She ran and ran and ran, and it wasn't until the male nurses caught her did she stop. She got sedated, and she was out cold for a rather long period of time.
Afterwards she couldn't answer the doctor's questions. She insisted that she didn't remember what happened, and that she didn't know where her accusations came from, and that she was sorry for upsetting everyone in the hospital. She wanted to show them that she wouldn't ever go nuts like that ever again, but the doctor who knew better shook his head and said, with the kindest voice he can muster: "Things don't work that way in here."
Now she had a room further isolated in the clinic. Her movements are more than ever surveyed and restricted. Interactions with other patients were more than ever prohibited. When she drank her medications, a nurse made sure that she swallowed everything.
Matsuda-san was not afraid of her, unlike her mother. His visits were more frequent, and she tried her best to not cry in shame every time she saw him with those tiny gifts of his that were usually confiscated by the nurse anyway because she always remembered how grave the doctor looked when he told her that she beat-up this nice cop who was only concerned for her because she and her mother were all alone now and what was she saying anyway those stupid voices in her head ought to know when to shut up. But shut up they won't. Sometimes they had the courtesy to be quiet when Matsuda-san was around, but oftentimes they spoke quickly and recklessly, and all she could do was to ignore their screams and focus on the confused guy in front of her. This proved to be a hard task. She only vaguely understood what he was saying to her. She always assumed that they were hi, how-are-you-doing, did you sleep well, what did you eat today, and so on and so forth, and honestly she did try to listen when he talked, but it was really really hard, and she was just thankful that Matsuda-san understood that she was trying hard, but just wasn't ready for talking.
And when he left, and when she wasn't mute, she always asked to be left alone. She let herself shout and cry and just fall into bouts of silence, not thinking and certainly not listening to anyone or anything. The nurses and doctors were aware of this, but she was still obedient when it comes to medication and therapy sessions, so as long as she didn't get hurt, she was allowed to do these things. And status quo became just that – therapy, medication, Matsuda-san, isolation in her room, avoiding voices in her head. It seemed to never end.
It was in one of these bouts of silence that something new happened.
She had her face buried in her pillow when it happened. (For added effect, a storm was pouring outside, and random flashes of lightning and booms of thunder interrupted her silent moment.) First, the voices told her that there were shadows lurking in the room. And then there was something floating, they said, over her. It was watching her cry. It was smiling at her.
And then—it was subtle, the girl barely noticed it herself, but—there was a rustling of paper. And after the rustling, a light tap at the back of her neck. A slight crumpling of paper and a sharp nail, pressed against her neck.
Laughter. Black smoke. Glowing eyes.
Sayu looked up and saw a black figure standing by the foot of her bed. It was a monster, with big black wings, grey skin, and yellow eyes. A perpetually smiling mouth displayed a row of sharp teeth. Long arms and legs floated lazily over the floor. Adornments made of human skulls shone in the dark. A notebook was held in between two large and bony hands.
She wasn't afraid when she saw the monster. Rather, she knew that it was coming. The voices were in her head now, and it wasn't surprising to see a vision such as this visit her. Strangely enough, she was calm enough to see some human features in the monster, and thought that it was a male. She was impressed by the presence of wings.
"Hajimemashite!"The monster greeted cheerfully. His voice was odd. It seemed to belong to a jolly old man who drinks a lot of sake and smokes a lot of cigars. At least it was comparable to that of a human's.
She echoed his words and calmly asked, "Are you an angel?" because he seemed kinder than the voices in her head, who for the moment took a break from tormenting her.
"No. I'm a Shinigami – a death god. My name is Ryuk," he said.
"My name is Sayu. Sayu Yagami," she answered. She said this carefully and politely, as if meeting a friend of her father's for the first time.
"Yeah! Sayu, I know you. I've seen you lots of times before," he said excitedly. His massive shoulders shook as he gave a laugh. "It was whenever Light needed to come home to your house. You were pretty young then – fourteen, if I remember correctly. You used to come to his room a lot to ask for help with your homework."
"You knew my brother?" Sayu didn't mean it, but instantly, tears fell from her eyes. It must be the mention of her dead brother's name. But by all means, she controlled her sobbing, and her voice remained steady. It was only her eyes that didn't cooperate with her.
Ryuk paused when she started crying. He then looked around uneasily. Sayu supposed that he's never seen a human cry in front of him before. Or maybe he has, but never got used to it. "Ehm. Yeah. I knew the guy," he said.
"How did you know him?"
Ryuk turned to her. The permanent grin on his face seemed to grow wider. "I was… his Shinigami!"
(Darkness. Thunder and lightning. Flashes of Ryuk's evil grin, glowing in the dark.)
Sayu blinked, apparently not understanding what it was all about.
"I mean… hm, how do I start?" It was pretty funny, watching a self-proclaimed death god scratching his head in confusion, seeming so desperate for a well-made script by a competent horror film scriptwriter, Sayu mused. Ryuk spoke again, but this time in an honest, matter-of-fact voice, "I've never had to explain this to someone who hasn't used the note before. It's kinda hard, now that I think about it."
"What note are you talking about?" asked Sayu.
"Hm? Oh, this." He flew over to her and handed her the black notebook in his hands. Sayu felt the cover: smooth, consistent with the expensive notebooks that foreign bookstores sold. Silver letters shone in the front. In the dark, she barely recognized the foreign letters emblazoned on the front: Death Note.
"Seem familiar to you?" asked Ryuk excitedly.
Sayu shook her head.
"Eh? Well. I thought you'd recognize it, it's the same kind of note that your dad brought to America," said Ryuk. He didn't seem to notice that, once again, Sayu's eyes went blank. "Anyway, this one is different since it's my personal note. Go ahead and browse through the pages and read the rules. I wrote everything in English, because I heard that that's the most popular language in the human world. Erm. That is, I hope you know how to read in English, Sayu," he said.
"Right." Her voice was deadpan when she said this. She tried to remember whether she understood English or not. (One of the voices whispered to her that yes, you're pretty good at English since your brother talked to you in English all the time when you were in elementary school so that you'd be good at it and so you can marry an American man when you grow up, remember Sayu?)
Flip, flip, flip. The first few pages were chock full of rules. "Humans whose names are written in this note shall die," and after that a countless number of rules about the artful ways that a person can or can't die using the note. She wouldn't remember anyway so she skipped all those confusing English words, and then she started flipping through the pages. There were many names, some in foreign script, some that sound so obscure that they were probably the names of people who existed a millennium ago. No conditions, just names.
She turned and turned and turned until she reached the last page, the only one with a Japanese name on it that she recognized. Instantly, her eyes widened.
"This is."
She swallowed and looked up at the shinigami, who was grinning rather sinisterly.
"Yep. That there's my last victim. Specifically, your brother, Light," he explained casually.
"So… you're going to kill me?" she asked. Despite the nature of her question, her voice was neither broken, nor was it pleading. Due to the chemical imbalance acting up again, it was as good as dead.
"Ah. No. Er. But wait. I could do that…?" He started musing to himself out loud, scratching his head in that odd, confused manner of his. "Ah, hell with it, I think I won't. Your family's depleted enough as it is," he said.
"Oh. So what are you doing here then, Shinigami-san?" she asked.
"Please! Call me Ryuk!" he said, suddenly taking his notebook from her hands. "And, hm, I guess I'm here to make a few things clear… I actually still don't know how to start!" Again, he started laughing. For most, it would sound like a creepy laugh, but by then Sayu was used to it.
"Well, Ryuk, I guess you could start by explaining to me how you became my brother's shinigami," said Sayu. "And if that's a bad thing or not."
"Ah! Good idea," said Ryuk. He flew to her other side and easily sat on the bed, crossing his long legs as he did so. "Hm. So like I said, I was your brother's shinigami. How did it happen? Well, he found the Death Note I left in the human world, and he started using it. Quite obsessively, I might add. Since I was the one who left that particular notebook, I'm obligated to explain the rules, follow him around and generally just watch as he does a shinigami's job," he explained.
"A shinigami's job?"
Ryuk nodded. "Killing humans with a Death Note."
Sayu's eyes widened. "M-m-my brother…?" she stammered. Her hands shook as a new feeling of weakness engulfed her.
Again, Ryuk nodded. Looks like Light's actions seemed perfectly natural for shinigami. He continued, without fussing, "He was pretty excited about it, too. I thought at first that he had a lot of enemies—five pages worth of enemies, in small letters even, to be exact. But then he explained to me that he didn't actually know those people. They were criminals who deserved to die, he said. He brought it upon himself to exterminate all of those human scum. And that same night that we met, he was already calling himself god of the new world! It was crazy!" He cackled in glee and slapped his knee. It was like telling a story about a particularly amusing old friend to a complete stranger. "Boy, I was worried that humans will be boring, but then your brother comes along. I'm glad I wasn't disappointed!"
"My brother…" she said weakly, as Ryuk laughed joyfully. She closed her eyes sadly and breathed in deeply. Don't tell me that the voices are right all along, shinigami! "My brother killed many criminals with the Death Note?"
"Yep! Although sometimes he had to kill people who weren't criminals to keep himself from being found out," said Ryuk. "Of course, you can imagine that the police wasn't at all pleased, so smart guys like L came along. And… well, you can guess what happened next: the world was their stage for the chase! I didn't think it would last for years!" Again, the shinigami laughed. Those were the days.
"So that means my brother is Kira." Sayu opened her eyes and stared into Ryuk's yellow goggle eyes.
"Yes. Exactly." His eyes glowed red in the dark.
"…" Sayu closed her eyes, quietly and slowly. Her hands automatically curled into fists of rage. She fell silent and only listened to the sound of rushing blood in her ears. After about three minutes of this attempt at self-control, she finally uttered something under her breath. "That liar."
(See Sayu? You're not the stupid one after all so you shouldn't have ignored yourself after all these years, you knew something was up when Light supposedly studies for hours and hours and hours in his room and always locks the door and only scribbly noises are heard and when he disappeared for a really really long time with the police and Dad got scared and worried and all secretive and sometimes Light seemed really different and quieter and deadlier in a sense and he's the only person smart enough in the world to be Kira and there had to be a reason why the people in LA kidnapped you besides pissing off your dad but all you said to yourself was that you were jealous of your brother Mr. Perfect and you left it at that and your life was ruined and Dad died because of Kira and Kira is Light so that must mean that your life was ruined because of Light.)
"Gee. You look a lot like your brother when you do that. Ku ku ku ku," cackled Ryuk. When Sayu opened her eyes, he was floating in front of her face, a look of pure amusement etched on his face. He froze for a moment, tilted his head curiously, and uneasily asked her: "Are you OK?"
"I feel a bit unwell, Ryuk," replied Sayu. Her eyes were dry when she put her feet up on her bed. "I don't understand why you have to tell me those things. Now many voices are screaming at me in my head," she said passively.
Those dead eyes of hers. Ryuk looked a bit freaked out when he observed them. "Oh. Er. Then, I'm really sorry for telling you all these things, Sayu. I was in a talking mood today, you see, and no other human or shinigami would have any use to what I wanted to say. I guess I just wanted the whole thing to be clear to you," he said.
"Clear to me?"
"Yep!" From a bag hanging at his waist, he pulled out a juicy red apple and offered it to her. "You're his little sister, after all! Maybe you don't know it, but even when he was Kira, he still cared a lot about you. And you're at a pretty terrible state right now, so I thought you could have some use, hearing the truth."
"… yeah…" Ignoring the apple, Sayu flopped down on her bed, facing the ceiling. She was like a rag doll, and rightly so. All these years she's been fooled, and all these months she spent wasting away in the sanatorium, all triggered by her brother's megalomania. Or, should she say, mistake? Misfortune? In any case, the truth was heavy, and it had all but drained her.
"Thank you, Ryuk. That's very kind of you." Deadpan as her voice was, it seemed that she meant what she said.
Ryuk tilted his head at all this. "Er… you're welcome?" he said awkwardly. He threw the rejected apple upwards and caught it in his mouth.
For a while, only the sound of rain and the rich crunch of the apple against Ryuk's shark-like teeth were the only ones that filled the void in the room. Sayu listened to these sounds intently. The noises in her head and the noises outside of it melded together to form one haunting melody, and it spiraled within her like a staircase leading to a door never opened before. Now she found a means to make it there, and a realization dawned upon her. "Ryuk," she began, in a commanding tone not unlike her brother's.
This made Ryuk's head turn sharply towards her in surprise. "Yeah?" he asked.
She sat up from her bed. Lightning flashed, sending flashes of odd light into the room. It was made clear at that moment that her eyes carried a new, determined clarity on them. As if an epiphany took place. "Would it hurt you in any way at all if you killed me with your notebook right now?" she asked.
Thunder noised outside. Ryuk's permanent grin floated blankly in the dark.
"No, it wouldn't," he answered after a moment of silence.
"Then… would you do me a favour?" She looked into his eyes. "Would you do it?"
Ryuk didn't answer immediately. He floated around Sayu, observing her in a circle. All the while, that look of clarity didn't leave her eyes.
"I guess I could, yeah," he said. "But you gotta explain things to me here."
Sayu nodded. "It's simple, Ryuk. I'm not well. They don't tell me anything, but the doctors believe that I will eventually develop schizophrenia, and for humans there's no cure for that. And I think I'll only get worse."
Ryuk tilted his head. "Er… I don't know what you just said. Skitzofreenya?"
"It's… well, trauma—that is, being really scared when the LA gang kidnapped me—it triggered it. And now I go crazy, even if I don't want to. I get distracted so I can't talk to my doctor about the things I see and feel. I hear voices in my head, I sometimes black out and do things I wouldn't normally do… and it really scares me. I don't want to go on like this anymore…"
Her voice weakened. She wasn't sure whether the shinigami was listening or not, but he was there, just staring at her with those creepy red glowing eyes. She continued. "And… I don't know, I don't want to do anything anymore. I don't like being related to Kira. I don't want to think about these things anymore. I don't want to make my mom or Matsuda-san feel bad anymore. "
Ryuk looked up the ceiling and asked, "Really? Your doctors think you're crazy?"
She nodded.
"Funny. You can't be crazy and know it at the same time. I thought your brother was the nutcase." He laughed. "Well then, that sounds good enough for me, Sayu. If it's what you really want."
Again, she nodded. She sighed in relief, and for the first time since they started talking, smiled. "Thank you, Ryuk. You're a very nice shinigami." And she really meant it. For her, Ryuk was the angel who had the means to take the load off her shoulders.
"Don't thank me. It's my life that will get extended here," he said, opening up his notebook. "Do you want to die now?"
"Yes please. A simple heart attack will be fine."
"Then one heart attack, coming up." With a flourish, Ryuk opened his notebook and scribbled the Japanese characters of Sayu Yagami's name on the page behind her brother's name.
As expected, forty seconds after the name was written down, Sayu died of a heart attack. Or rather, her heart decided on its own to stop beating. It was a quick and silent death. She didn't even have the time to close her eyes.
Ryuk was the only being present when this happened. All these years, Sayu was always the girl who wasn't capable of doing things on her own, always the one being influenced by the decisions of the men around her. It was good that she finally decided something on her own, thought Ryuk. The decision to die was both her last and most significant one, and it freed her more than therapy or medication can.
In an act not expected of average shinigami, he reached out and unfolded her delicate eyelids so that her eyes would close. At least they would think that she died in her sleep, he thought.
He disappeared the next moment, pondering about things. There wasn't a clear enough reason why he chose to visit Light's little sister that day. Maybe it was because he was running out of things to do in the human world, after all these years of being entertained by the wild Kira chase. It would make the most sense, as Ryuk definitely wasn't a shinigami who enjoyed boredom.
But another reason surfaced in his mind, as he flew over the busy city of Tokyo. He only remembered it during Sayu's last moments. Here was the girl who frequently knocked on Light's door, brightly asking for help on quadratic equations, term papers, ideas for the high school festival. Even when she didn't need help, she'd drop by to talk to him about nothing-sorts-of-things. Those days, she was young, innocent, and sincere. Ryuk concluded that if Sayu was the one who picked up his notebook, she wouldn't even dare write a character in the pages. She was one of the few humans who had no hidden agenda, no means to become evil or turn rotten.
Ryuk used to think that those were the attributes of a pretty boring human, but when he saw her moments before, he realized the extreme extent that humans can degenerate, not only because of age, but because of the consequences of others' actions. For Sayu, the loss of life that immediately precedes death was stretched for weeks, because of precisely this.
And as he thought of those things, he felt a twinge inside—an odd affection for the girl, maybe.
In other words, Ryuk thought, am I just feeling sympathy for this human girl? He laughed at himself for that sentiment. Maybe this was how shinigami like Jealous and Rem made their first steps towards their demise.
Well, she's dead now. No use attempting to extend the life of the dead now, is there? Trashing the last shreds of affection for humans in himself, he swooped an innocent fruit stand to steal an apple, making it twirl in mid-air as he went, letting the crunch of invisible teeth against red skin ring out on the busy street.
Author's notes: I'm no genius in psychology, I just tried to remember the things I read in an Abnormal Psychology textbook. So don't take the diagnoses and prescribed medication for Sayu seriously!
Ah, I love Ryuk. I had to write about the thing sometime.
Comments, suggestions, and stray thoughts regarding these matters are welcome. :)