Places, places, get in your places,
Throw on your dress and put on your doll faces,
Everyone thinks that we're perfect,
Please don't let them see through the curtains.
Picture, picture, smile for the picture,
Pose with your brother, won't you be a good sister?
Everyone thinks that we're perfect,
Please don't let them see through the curtains.
D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E
I see things that nobody else sees.
- 'Dollhouse', Melanie Martinez
Sayu was pretty sure she was lucky enough to be born into the perfect family.
She'd come to this conclusion based on how others reacted to them. Whenever she went into a new class and told the teacher her name, she would receive a warm smile - "Light's sister, right? Well, let's see if talent runs in the family", or "Soichiro's daughter? I have a lot of respect for your father, let's hope you make him proud."
Sayu would never let anyone know how much she hated those comments. She was perfectly aware that they were meant as compliments, and it would be ungracious of her to be upset by them. And besides, she should feel blessed to have such a respectable father, a high-achieving brother and a loving mother.
That's what she told herself as she sat at dinner table, Soichiro late at work (again) and her mother busy gushing over Light's perfect report card (again). As she pushed the rice idly around her plate, she wondered if anyone would notice if she slipped away to watch TV.
They probably would. Sayu was supposed to enjoy sitting at the table and listening to her mother piling praise on her brother. If she didn't do what she was supposed to she would stick out like a sore thumb, have some manners, Sayu, look at Light, why can't you be more like your brother?
The worst of it was that she couldn't fault Light for anything. He was always friendly to her, helping her with homework and chores whenever she needed it, everything an older brother should be. It wasn't his fault that he'd been born more intelligent, more talented, more athletic, better at being courteous and charming and at paying attention in school. If she sometimes resented that, well, that was just her being childish, wasn't it?
If their positions were reversed, after all, Light wouldn't be jealous; he'd just be happy for her, like the perfect brother he was.
The thought made her want to hit something, sometimes.
"Ryusei! For the last time, get out of my room! I'm trying to spend time with my friends, here."
Saki pouted at her brother, arms crossed and looking like she was about to stamp her foot. Sayu stiffled a giggle behind her hand. Saki would undoubtedly be annoyed if she laughed, but Sayu couldn't help it. Truth was, she didn't want Ryusei to leave. She liked him, and especially liked the way he and Saki teased each other. They acted as though they hated each other, but Sayu could tell there was a deep current of genuine affection running beneath.
"Not until you tell me where you hid my controller."
"Never!" Saki was smirking at him now. "That's what you get for telling Mom on me when I tried to ditch school. Now get out!"
"Make me."
Wordlessly, Saki shoved at him with all the strength in her little arms. Ryusei swatted her aside with ease, then picked her up and threw her down on the bed, where they wrestled each other until Ryusei was able to pin Saki down.
"Surrender," he demanded.
"Mom!" Saki yelled. Her mother appeared in the doorway almost immediately. "Mom, make Ryusei leave!"
Saki's mother gave a long-suffering sigh that suggested she had to put up with things like this often. "Come on, Ryusei, give your sister some privacy," she said, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him out the door.
As soon as Ryusei was out of the room, Saki threw her hands in the air and rolled her eyes melodramatically. "Ugh, brothers. They're so annoying. Seriously, Sayu, I am so jealous of you. How come you get to have a brother like Light? He's so smart and polite and I bet he never messes with your stuff. Not to mention he's absolutely gorgeous."
A dreamy smile flitted across her features and Sayu fought the urge to roll her eyes. If she had a yen for every time one of her friends made a suggestive comment about Light...
"Say, you wouldn't trade brothers with me by any chance, would you?" Saki asked teasingly.
"Any time," Sayu answered. Saki started laughing, but stopped when she realised Sayu's expression was dead serious.
"Wait, you mean it? Are you out of your mind? Who in their right mind would want to trade a guy like Light for a goofball like Ryusei?"
Sayu shrugged. "I like Ryusei. He's nice and funny and he's not afraid to mess around with you. Light and I could never tease each other like that. Sometimes he acts more like a father to me than like a brother."
Saki went quiet for a while. "Maybe he acts like that because your father spends so much time at work?" she suggested. "I mean, he could feel like he has a responsibility to provide you with a father figure."
"Maybe," Sayu said. While she was surprised to see Saki being so insightful, she couldn't fully agree. She had a feeling Light would still be distant and aloof and treat her like a little kid even if Soichiro were at home most of the time.
She would try harder, Sayu determined. Study more, get better grades, not get into trouble so much. Be more like Light. Maybe then she would feel like she fit in better. After all, her family was perfect. Anyone could see that. If it didn't feel that way, well, the problem must be with her.
It was so hard, though. Her schoolbooks were so boring and she missed her friends whenever she decided to spend all night holed up in her room to study, like her brother. She tried to be polite and always say the right thing, but sometimes her thoughts would just slip out before she could stop herself.
She watched every day as Light pulled off all the things she struggled for with seeming effortlessness, and reminded herself that she shouldn't feel jealous.
That was a struggle, too.
"Yagami Sayu, can you stay behind for a moment?"
Sayu froze as the art professor called her name. What did I do this time? She racked her brains, but couldn't come up with anything she might be in trouble for. Truth be told, art was her favourite subject. The only thing she really excelled in. Okay, so maybe she whispered to her friends now and then in class, but the art teacher was fairly relaxed and didn't usually get bothered by things like that.
Silently, head hung low, Sayu walked up to her teacher's desk as her teacher carefully laid out every work in her portfolio. "Yagami Sayu," she said, "Are you aware that you possess an extraordinary talent when it comes to art?"
Sayu shook her head, eyes widening. She could hardly believe that she was hearing those words. No-one had ever called her talented before, let alone extraordinarily so. Her first reaction was to ask 'are you sure it's me you're talking about?', but she realised that would sound foolish, so she bit her tongue.
"Well, you are," her teacher said with a gentle smile. "Have you ever considered pursuing a career in arts?"
Sayu blinked. She never had, but now that she thought of it, the prospect was highly appealing. To spend every day drawing and painting, lost in a world of canvas and colour...
"I can't," she realised, the dream crumbling before it could even fully form. "My family would never accept it. My father is a police officer and Light is certainly going to get a prestigious, high-income job as well. I can't be the one to let them down." Again, she added silently.
Her teacher sighed sadly. "Oh, Sayu. You do have a wonderful talent. It should be allowed to flourish, not smothered because it doesn't fit into your family's cookie-cutter expectations. You shouldn't let others define your worth. Tell you what... if you ever do decide to apply for an art college, I'll support you fully."
"Thank you," Sayu whispered as she left the room. She knew it would never happen, but she appreciated her teacher's words anyway. She really did.
Light was changing, and it worried her.
"It's nothing, hon," Sachiko had said when Sayu had gathered the courage to voice her concerns to her. "He's a growing boy, he needs his space. You'll understand when you're his age. It's probably just the stress of exams getting to him." Sachiko ruffled her hair affectionately. "Maybe you should worry more about your own school-work, hmm, Sayu?"
Sayu grit her teeth and walked away in annoyance, her worry not abated in the least. Could her parents really be so blind to their own son, the one they loved and praised so much?
She watched with concern every time he slammed his schoolbag down a little too harshly, every time he headed upstairs to his room without a word, watched the news with a look of frustration and disgust on his face, ate less, talked less, forgot to say goodnight to her...
She may have felt jealous of her brother once (she could admit that to herself, now) but she'd always loved him and these changes scared her. It scared her even more that her parents saw nothing wrong. Besides, that jealousy had almost completely faded. Sayu had matured since then, and she was starting to realise that maybe seeming 'perfect' in the eyes of the world like Light did wasn't such a gift after all. He seemed lonely, and Sayu didn't know how to reach out to him.
One night, when she was meant to be researching on their computer for a school project, she decided to type 'Symptoms of depression' into the search bar instead.
'Apathy, sudden lack of interest in hobbies, feeling bored of everything' was the first thing to show up.
Sayu considered it. Light had always seemed aloof, reluctant to show interest in things he thought were beneath him, but lately it had become something more akin to apathy. He'd resigned his place on the tennis team (because of exams, he said, even though Sayu knew he wouldn't have any trouble juggling both) and seemed to care about little other than school these days.
Mentally checking a box, Sayu moved down the list.
'Acting detached from others, having difficulty forming and maintaining friendships, feeling separate from other people.'
It wasn't hard to check that box for Light. In spite of his many admirers, Sayu didn't know of anyone Light genuinely enjoyed spending time with.
'Sudden drop in performance, academic or otherwise.' Well, that would never apply to Light, at least.
"Sayu!"
Sayu jumped.
"How much longer will you be using the computer for?"
"Just a few more minutes," Sayu called back, closing the tab and deleting it from her internet history. If she told her parents she was looking it up for Light's sake they would just laugh it off, and the last thing she needed was for them to believe that she was depressed.
Soichiro had always spent a lot of time at work, but it only got worse with the appearance of Kira.
Light didn't seem to be getting much better, either. Sachiko had claimed his bad mood was likely due to exam pressure, but his brilliant results in the entrance exams hadn't helped at all. Sometimes, Sayu thought she heard him shouting in his room, though she couldn't quite make out the words.
At least he'd found a friend now in Rideki Hyuga. At least, Sachiko believed they were friends. Light spent an awful lot of time with him, but always seemed to come back from their meetings more annoyed than anything else. Well, that was Light for you.
Several more months in, and Sayu was sick of the word 'Kira'. She understood that his actions were awful and he needed to be stopped, but really, was there nothing else they could talk about?
Sayu may not always have gotten along perfectly with her mother, but she had never loved her more than when she laid a reprimanding hand on her husband's arm one day and said, "Soichiro, please, could you choose a less morbid topic for the dinner table?"
Kira was probably the only thing that could draw a genuine reaction from Light, these days. Whenever the topic came up, a contemplative look would cross his face and he would turn his eyes away. Sayu supposed he was concerned for their father.
Sayu was too, but not as concerned as she was for Light.
Not long after Light's admission to Touhou University, he disappeared for month, and Sayu was told nothing except that he was 'safe' - supposedly.
When he returned, everything was different. He moved to his own apartment with his girlfriend, but when he visited it was clear that he'd changed. He was darker now, sharper, angrier, more tense. Sayu also sensed an edge of tension between him and their father that had never been there before.
Even Misa-Misa never seemed to make him happier. Posing together, they looked like the perfect couple, but sometimes Sayu wondered if her brother even loved his girlfriend at all.
She tried to get her mind off things. Light would be fine. He was perfect, after all, the role model she should be following.
"Wow, Sayu!" Matsuda said once when he came to visit. "You've gotten really pretty lately."
Sayu blushed, glowing at the compliment.
"No daughter of mine will marry a police officer," Soichiro informed him coldly, and another dream was shot down.
Sayu didn't remember much of her kidnapping. She remembered rough hands and being tied down to a chair, a sharp voice barking orders. She remembered the terror as she prayed for Soichiro, Light, anybody to come save her. She wasn't brave like her father or brother. She was just a scared little girl who was good at painting and would never measure up to her brilliant brother.
Her father did come to save her eventually, and she slumped against him in relief, mind shutting down into a state of catatonia.
No-one was sure if Sayu would ever regain awareness, but she did. She opened her eyes to blinding lights and white walls and Sachiko weeping openly and holding her tightly to her chest.
"Oh, thank God, Sayu," her mother gasped.
Sayu frowned as she tried to make sense of the mess of memories flooding back into her mind. Something was missing from the picture.
"Where's Dad?" She managed to croak at last through a dry, unused throat.
"He's - he didn't - Soich-" her mother's voice broke and she was unable to continue, a fresh flood of tears overcoming her.
A knot of dread formed in Sayu's stomach. "...Light?" she inquired.
Watching the way Sachiko's face crumpled, Sayu vowed never to ask that question again.
Once upon a time, Sayu had hated the way everyone believed her family to be perfect. Now, the only thing she wanted was to regain that illusion.