Disclaimer: Don't own Death Note, and I'm not making any money off of it. I'm just having a little fun with the characters!
Summary: The first time she held him in her arms, she knew that he was different, special...
Warning: Instances of an overly intelligent child and a mother's insecurities.
Author's Note: Usually I'm very harsh when it comes to writing mothers. In this instance I wanted to be sympathetic. Poor Ms. Mikami, I felt so bad for her as I wrote this. Hope you enjoy it, and share my sympathy for her! Note, this was written for DN_Contest LJ!
-Cassie
"Exodus"
By C.K. Blake
She's exhausted, breathing heavy, and wear to her very bones, still she finds the strength to smile at the sound of a tiny wailing infant. She cranes her neck to catch a glimpse of the child. Finally one of the nurses brings her a squirming blue bundle. She takes him carefully into her arms and his crying ceases. She pulls the blanket away from his face and he stares up at her, almost knowingly, an alien intelligence shining brightly in his eyes. She knows without a doubt that this child is special, destined for something great, and he comes from such humbled beginnings.
The nurse smiles at her and then says, "Such a lovely baby boy, and his eyes so bright. Have a name for him?"
Before she can answer, an intern pipes up, "Why would she? The family says he's being put up for adoption."
A surge of righteous indignity flares within the young woman as she draws the baby closer to her, her dark eyes narrowing as she looks up at the intern. "This is my son, and he is not going anywhere. This is my little Teru. Mikami Teru."
The intern looks down, cowed by the young woman's sharp tone. The nurse looks at him in disapproval, and then turns her attention back to the young mother and child. "A fine name for the boy," she says in a kind voice, and then she begins to instruct the new mother in feeding the young Teru.
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She turns to look at him sitting in the passenger's seat of the car, so small and perfect, his eyes hidden behind the square glasses perched on his knows. He's dressed in a clean, freshly pressed school uniform. He's so handsome, and as she looks down at the tiny figure of her son she can't help the burst of pride that floods her. She made the right decision in keeping him all to herself.
She gets out of the car slowly, glad that she took today off, his first day of school. She walks around the car and opens his door for him. He gets out, grabs his backpack and puts it on, and then he calmly reaches for his mother's hand. She smiles down at him, because she's so proud of him, and gives his small hand a little squeeze. He tilts his head to look up at her inquisitively as they approach the school. Once they reach the main building they step inside, head toward the door on the right, and there she stands in the doorway, his hand slipping from hers as he enters the room, looking around, curious, observing everything with his strange intelligence.
He spares her a single glance back, and she feels someone inside of her grow hollow. It's only his first day of school, but she feels as though she's delivered him to the beginning of his destiny, and this is only the first step in losing her precious son.
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She is astonished to find herself in the administrator's office. Her son is a straight A student, hardworking, focused, respectful, and self-assured. Surely this is a mistake. She can't have been called to his school because her Teru was fighting, but the evidence of his split lip and the other boy's swelling right eye is certainly very compelling in making the headmaster's point.
"Mikami-san, your son openly attacked another child today without probable cause or provocation. This is unlike Teru-kun's usual behavior, but fighting is against our rules here, and as such I am forced to punish him. He's is being sent home from school for a few days for the fight," the headmaster says.
Aida Mikami stands up, takes her son's hand, gives a nod to the headmaster, and heads out of the office. She is silent until they've reached the car, Teru calmly settled in the passenger's seat, and her hands clenching the steering wheel, wondering how this could have possibly happened. Her son is well mannered, sweet, calm at all times, and polite. Surely it could not have been Teru's fault.
"Aren't we going home now, mother?" he asks, his voice calm, almost chillingly so, and it's enough to drag her from her inner musings.
She let's go of the steering wheel, turns to look at her handsome young son and then asks, "What happened Teru?"
He takes in a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and in his calm, low voice, a voice that shouldn't belong to a child so young, he answers her, "He was evil, mother. He stole lunches from smaller children, punched a boy, and then he hit a girl two years younger than us. He needed to be stopped. The teachers do not act in the name of justice, so I stepped in. The civil liberties of other students was being challenged. Isn't it true that crime should be punished? So then it stands to reason that I saw fit to punish his crime. That is how justice works. Why should the good suffer when the evil are ignored and sometimes even rewarded?"
She doesn't know how to respond to her son's strong sense of justice. In a way she is proud that he's taken to defending the weak from the bullies, but she can't help the cold, apprehensive fear of something more sinister in her young child's words. Sometimes her handsome, smart, talented young son is far too intelligent for his own good, and her peace of mind.
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He is twelve when she finally feels that it is time that he knows the truth about his father and why he's never met her own parents. She waits for him to finish dinner before she clears the dishes away, and then asks him to stay at the table. Soon she's sitting across from him, her eyes meeting his, and she sees the curiosity in his steady gaze. She knows he senses the importance of what she's about to tell him.
"Yes mother?" he prompts her.
"I think you're old enough now to know the truth, Teru," she says softly.
He raises a brow at this, and she swallows reflexively. "The truth about what?"
"Your father. I was never married Teru. You were born illegitimate. Your father already had a wife. I dishonored my family, first by having you, and then by keeping you. I could never give you up though. My sweet boy. They dishonor you by not acknowledging you, and for that I am sorry. You have far surpassed any wish I have ever had for you, such an intelligent, polite, and hardworking boy," she confesses.
He's quiet for a long time, and she waits with baited breath for him to say something. Finally he does.
"I suppose for the sake of propriety we should continue to keep things as they are. I am the only son of my widowed mother, to preserve our honor," he says, and bows his head forward in respect toward her.
She lifts her hand, brushing tears from her eyes, and she wonders how she was so fortunate to end up with such an amazing child, so grown up for his age.
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Sitting across from him at the table, barely picking at the rice in her bowl, she watches him. He's precise in everything he does, careful, calculated, and this precision is beginning to scare her. He's grown so quiet, closed off, and single minded that she doesn't know what to think of her son anymore. He's still polite, friendly, and kind to her, but he's always busy with his school work and reading books on the subject of laws and justice. She was especially shocked to see that he'd been reading Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment the other day. She wonders if he's finished it by now.
She doesn't know how to engage him in conversation anymore. She doesn't know hwo to talk to her son, and that fills her with emptiness. How have things come to this. She remembers the first time she held him, and he looked up at her with those strange, intelligent eyes of his. She'd known then that the child in her arms was special. Now after years of watching him grow up she wonders what will become of him, and she is afraid. His ideals are too black and white, his demeanor too strict, and his sense of morals too harsh.
She sees what he could become and it frightens her more than she can say. She's losing him more and more, and she doesn't know how to find her little Teru. This boy so close to being a man sitting across from her is a strange creature that she doesn't recognize, and this silence that is so oppressive to her, does nothing to bother him.
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She doesn't even bother to listen to the headmaster this time. It's no use. There is no changing her son now. There is little that she can do, other than clean his split lip, put ice on his bruised knuckles, and hide the tears that build behind her eyes.
The drive home is in silence, she's lost in her own thoughts, and he's looking passively out of the window. The silence is overwhelming her. She can't take this anymore. Finally she pulls the car into a parking lot near the park, cuts the engine and gets out. He looks at her, his eyes cool and calculating behind his glasses as he follows her example and gets out of the car. She heads toward the park. He shuts his door and walks after her.
She stops in a mostly secluded area and sits down in the grass. She smiles absently as he sits down next to her, a grimace on his face, probably in concern for the stains that would surely ruin his pants. He tilts his head at her inquisitively, and says, "Mother, I understand that you are probably upset over how things turned out at school, but why are we here?"
She lets out a small snort. Upset is an understatement. Actually she is terrified. Terrified of what her son is becoming.
"Why do you do these things, Teru? Why do you fight? Why do you try to help those who don't even try to help themselves? What is it that drives you to do this? Don't you understand? Justice is an illusion, bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. There is evil in all of us, and good. We can't always be judged for the bad things we do. Don't you understand that? As intelligent as you are, can't you understand that? You can't keep pursuing this black and white ideal of justice that you have. It will only get killed," she says, her tone edging on desperate.
She feels a chill slip up her spine as his dark eyes narrow behind his glasses. Her throat tightens and she's never been more afraid for or of her son before in her life. When his speaks his voice is cold like ice, and cutting, "If there is a God then I'm certain he will give me the means to bring true justice to this world, and anyone who would oppose that justice. There is a reason why I am so intelligent, why I was ordained to witness so much filth and evil in this world. I was meant to judge it and condemn and punish evil. Are you going to stand in the way justice, mother?"
She's truly frightened as she gets to her feet. Her breath comes out in sharp pants, and she feels trapped beneath his cold, dark gaze. She can't stand it. She has to get away. She begins to run from him. She pushes past people, running faster and faster. She has to escape. She doesn't know where she's going, all she registers is the crushing pain of something hitting her from one side and crushing into her from another.
She's trapped between a light pole and the hood of a car, the car's horn blasting from the weight of the driver pressed against it. So much blood fills the inside of the car, and she can taste the iron of blood in her mouth. It's so hard to breathe. She struggles to catch her breath against the pain and the dizziness, and then she feels the sharp, calculating coldness of her son's gaze on her. She finds enough strength to lift her head and meet his gaze, realizing that this the last thing she will ever see.
His eyes are wide in fascination and wonder. He should be horrified to be watching her die, but his isn't, and this causes the emptiness inside of her to grow even more. She sees that curious, merciless look on his face as everyone else is gathered with looks of horror on their faces. He just calmly watches, doesn't make a move to come forward to comfort her in these final moments, and can't help that thoughts that fill her mind.
He is beautiful and terrible all at once, an avenging fallen angel. In her last moments, she sees for the first time exactly what he's becoming, what he's been all along. She is the mother of a devil.
End.