Light is oddly contemplative as he walks home from cram school, although he can't quite put his finger on the reason why. All day something has been bothering him – well, not bothering him exactly, but leaving him on edge and restless – convincing him that something momentous is about to happen, and yet the day has been disappointingly anti-climatic.
It's a shame; he could have used the distraction.
Nobody else takes this route home from cram school, and for that he is thankful. This half-hour walk is one of the only times in the day when he doesn't have to tolerate anything, be it his dull academic work or the idle chatter of his family members and schoolmates – it gets tiring, after all; keeping up pretences and expectations and grades and making it look so effortless. Sometimes he wishes it wasn't his burden to carry, wishes that he doesn't have the NPA chief father and the mediocre mother (because what right does she have to tell him what to do with his life?) and the under-achieving baby sister all cheering him on to greatness.
Maybe then it would all come a little easier, there would be no battles with either himself or some unseen force he has yet to identify. The invisible weight on his shoulders is so heavy and yet so hollow, as if it has no real substance to it at all. He'd like for it to feel a little lighter.
The night sky is devoid from stars as he halts in his walking and stares listlessly up at it – of course it is, this is Tokyo, and its city lights literally outshine the ones above. All evening it has been raining softly, but now on this walk Light is beginning to notice the effects of it, his slightly too long school trousers soggy and squelching uncomfortably beneath his shoes.
The dark clouds hanging over his head aren't only literal, and maybe that's why, for a split second, he is almost thankful when a woman's panicked screech tears him from his thoughts. And then reality hits him hard, along with a burst of adrenaline that sets his hair on end and makes his spine tingle with fearful anticipation. He turns his head towards the noise almost fast enough to induce whiplash, the golden hue of his eyes molten as he searches for the source of the screaming. It doesn't take long to spot her, backing up into a busy road as a group of large, leather-clad men advance on her like hungry wild animals.
Disgusting.
Sound is a form of vibration. This is why Light isn't surprised to feel the angry roaring in his ears shudder down his neck, through his arms and into the tips of his fingers, making them shake and tap sporadically against his sodden trouser legs. Scum, that's what those men are – but even that thought cannot last long inside his mind as conviction pierces its apathetic folds like a knife, and so begins his resolute march in their direction. Unnervingly, his pace does not falter.
Reality contorts itself until it tangles. As if fed through a kaleidoscope, Light sees fractions of himself slosh out over the pavement where his shoes hit puddles – sees his figure walking, again and again endlessly home from cram school. The repetitiveness of it all is stifling and yet in this moment his pent-up rage gives him power to continue.
However, he is not invincible. Somewhere, in the back of his mind a voice tries to warn him of this, a sort of logic that tells him such a level of almost mania is inappropriate for even this terrible situation. But, the voice is muffled by layers of what feel to be instinct and a bizarre sense of deja-vu. Somehow Light knows this moment should be filled with colour, it should be loud, it is almost as if he has been possessed by the moment and any weak attempts he might make to pause and think rationally have been thwarted with ease.
It is very unlike him, and yet in this adrenaline rush and sense of fierce empowerment, he feels more whole than he has in a while. Something has been missing for a long time, something he can't quite identify, and although right now he does not possess it, it has graced him with its abstract presence and that is enough.
At least, it is enough until the woman and her potential captors begin to take notice of him. He is a high school boy, slender in build and with an average height. His facial expression is dark but there is a brightness and naivety to his eyes and ultimately this betrays him. In their eyes, he is laughable.
And laugh they do. Like an angry robin, Light's chest swells as he juts his chin out defensively, feet planted firmly on the ground, amber eyes ablaze. Still his panic is diluted and strangely detached.
"You want in on this too, kid?" One of them jeers -an especially greasy-haired man with glistening yellow teeth. The other three men cackle harder. Disturbed by their lack of remorse, he straightens his body entirely to prevent any shudders of repulsion from making him look more vulnerable. He gains around an inch of height immediately, which he supposes is an added advantage because most of these men appear to be taller than him – and far heavier.
But then they decide the game is over. Their intentions change all at once and Light thinks he can tell by the way their gazes darken simultaneously, almost as if they are robots being reprogrammed in real-time. Nobody would create an AI like this, though, because artificial intelligence is supposed to help the advancement of the human race, and these men are doing the exact opposite. Primeval, unintelligent brutes – thinking they can take what they like from others with no thought of the consequences. He wants to destroy them all. Not just these men alone, because they are but the tip of the iceberg, a symptom of a sickness within their species that he has long since diagnosed. He wants to vanquish the source, rip out the tumour causing all of this cancerous behaviour and rid the world of corruption in its all.
The group of men advance on him and he briefly makes discreet eye contact with the woman they seem to have forgotten about. She takes this as her cue to escape and runs with barely a nod of thanks to him. He doesn't blame her for leaving him to deal with the aftermath – he chose this, after all, and now can only hope that she is kind enough to call some kind of emergency services for him. But she has a life to get back to, perhaps children waiting at home, or a cat, maybe just a good book. He understands that people take solace in those kind of things and will seek comfort above all else. Suddenly the thought strikes him that perhaps the reason he is doing this is because he feels he has nothing to lose. Would he miss anything, if he were to go? Sanctuary is something he's never seemed to experience.
The men surround him. There is no justice in this world.
Existence is a blur. It is all he can do to focus on the scene unfolding in front of him with a kind of disconnected concern. Watching his human self being cruelly beaten on Earth is a distraction that, along with the apathy he has developed over many years, helps him to ignore the questions buzzing persistently in the back of his mind. He knows they won't wait for him forever and soon he will be forced to wonder about all kinds of existential conundrums, but he can try to put it off for as long as he can. Just long enough to gain back some semblance of clarity in his thoughts.
The only real problem is that he is unsure of how to refer to himself. Ryuk is a name that doesn't seem to fit him anymore, but Light does not feel like his own either. He is full of two personalities; the callous, apathetic god of death; and the genius boy – full of conviction but tortured by his own mind until he could no longer cope. Both of these identities are stunted emotionally, but in such conflicting ways that he feels his brain being torn to pieces as they wage war against each other. He feels human sans humanity, and he feels afraid.
Down in the human realm, Light's defences against his attackers are weakening greatly. It won't be long until their assaults exhaust him completely and he fights no more. It's unsurprising, with so many fully grown men ganged up on one college boy. What had Light been thinking, to attempt such a heroic act? It was unlike him.
Or was it? Should he have just walked past?
Perhaps the reason Light's actions do not sit right with him is the idea that he hadn't done it out of kindness or pity – it had been a desperate grasp for martyrdom in what he perceived to be his final moments.
The Shinigami doesn't know what he would do, and he is afraid that if he were to act with the same apathy he has known for many years now, he really would simply walk by and let the woman suffer the consequences. A huge part of him feels disgusted, but it is subdued by a part that doesn't care. Being in this body is almost like having a split personality, but he knows that is not the case. There are just huge amounts of existential confusion placed upon him from having lived life as two separate people for such long amounts of time. He'll figure it out. He has to figure it out.
Face down in a puddle, he sees stars across the canvas of black enveloping his vision. The weight on top of him is unrelenting and his survival instinct is begging him to take a breath, but he knows if he does and chokes upon the filthy water, he will lose any fighting chance. Logically he knows his best option is to keep holding his breath and hope that he is shown any sort of mercy, but his lungs strain against his thoughts. Mind versus matter.
Even now, up against the premise of something as irreversible as death, his pride wins over and he thinks of how disgusting it feels to be dependent on another for mercy. Never has he seen himself in such a subordinate light. Anger wells up inside him in an indescribable way and he thrashes with energy he doesn't have, feeling his nose scrape against the coarse friction of the pavement and hearing laughter from miles and miles away. They are laughing at him. He is laughable, fickle and quite insignificant to their lives as a whole and the realisation drains him.
His arms are trapped beneath his chest and one wrist hurts as if somebody has tried to hollow it out - to squeeze out the inside of his very bones until he becomes as lightweight as a bird and can fly like one. Thoughts slip away from him like a wary lover, neglected and shying away from his apologetic touches. He is sorry, he wants to make things right with the world but the blackness is overwhelming. A sense of calm comforts him. The world moves slowly in circles beneath him and he feels it, feels the orbital pull of the sun drag him backwards and upwards towards it, hollow like a bird and so light-
-until he rushes back down to collide with the earth once again and he is so disappointed but there are invisible hands all over him and detached voices calling for help and yelling instructions he thinks he should comprehend but doesn't. Oxygen feels so wrong inside him, so weighty and dirty after having ascended to space and he splutters and coughs to remove it from himself. The heaviness is overwhelming, his clothes damp and cold and dragging him down down down into the ground. Water spills out onto his chin inexplicably, briefly he sees it splash against the pavement before his vision leaves him again. He's being dragged along and with fear he envisions the men he had challenged, but the voices he hears floating around him are feminine and comforting with no trace of malice.
More coughing up of that heaviness pervading his chest until eventually his ribcage stops seizing around his lungs and something is forced over his mouth which makes him overall feel lighter and less close to the void. Slowly, things trickle back into existence and he feels himself quite succinctly sitting up against a heavily stuffed chair, with what seems to be an oxygen mask over his face. A twinge in his wrist eventually forces him to look around reluctantly and he observes quite dispassionately as a woman injects something into the vein running along the crook of his elbow.
"To help with the pain, dear," she tells him with a smile that makes her cheeks balloon.
They haven't asked if he has any allergies. At least, he doesn't think they have. Maybe they did and his mouth answered them without asking him. He doesn't like that, his own body not asking for permission. Where is his tightly reigned self-control? Perhaps he never actually had any, it was all just a façade so that he could believe himself to be invincible. Does something stripped away so easily ever really exist? It couldn't possibly be an inherent part of him if it left so simply, and so does that make him fundamentally weak?
The thought is shaken away from him as the ambulance he suspects he is riding in crosses a speed bump and everything around him jolts for a second, including him as for a moment he is almost in the air again and he thinks of the sun dragging him away like space debris. The woman paramedic who injected him moves closer once the bumpiness stops, and places what she must think is a calming hand on his shoulder. Normally it would be soothing and in some abstract way he is thankful for her efforts, but he is calm. Empty, tranquil even. He has lost everything. He is calm.
Time warps its way around the vehicle so Light doesn't know if they've been driving along for minutes or years. It crushes the thin sheet of metal separating them from the road outside, the confines of the ambulance bending steadily inward towards him and the nurse who is seemingly indifferent to the scenario. As she scrawls something hidden on a clipboard he envisions the metal tearing in two so they are flung out onto the road to fry on the undersides of passing cars. Their skin would bubble as they scraped along the tarmac, faces limp and expressing no agony in death.
But then a pinprick in his finger pulls him back to reality and he watches as the paramedic checks his blood sugar level. It must be an adequate result because she nods to herself and discards the tab of paper stained brown. With a smile, she looks to him and speaks of hospitals and parents and he nods without agreeing. None of the words sound real enough to be true, all strange syllables and pauses mixed together as she watches him expectantly. He can hardly make out the words, but notices the appearance and absence of her lisping treble voice, more like a piece of music than a one-sided conversation.
The ambulance stops, its doors opening to reveal a hospital and Light is pulled outside on a stretcher he hadn't noticed himself being on. All together, the paramedics walking alongside him as they enter the building speak and make no sense. He tries to sit up but nails dig into him as fingered leashes drag him back down upon the fabric beneath him. In a hall of mirrors, he watches the ceiling lights distort above him until his eyes slide shut.
"I wouldn't recommend him making a statement so soon, Mr Yagami. Your son was very dazed before falling asleep and if you ask me, he needs some time away from this trauma. If you wouldn't mind leaving it a few days, that's probably-"
"If we leave it for that long we're practically handing those bastards a chance to get away!"
"Soichiro, please calm down and listen to the doctor…"
Voices. They had been floating around him in wisps of uncatchable smoke for a while as he slept, but now he can make them out quite clearly. His father's protesting holler is by far the loudest and especially succinct. Either they are giving him a headache, or worsening one that had already formed. Perhaps rubbing his temples or pinching the bridge of his nose as he was usually wont to do would help lessen the pressure, but he knows what would follow that. Bombardment from his parents and the doctor; a price he is not quite ready to pay. For now he'd much rather leave them hanging.
"Why hasn't he woken up yet? It's been hours."
Feet shuffling, "Your son will wake up when he is ready to, I don't know how long that will be. It is altogether possible that he could well just sleep through the night now. We can arrange a place for you to stay on the hospital grounds if you want to stay with him-"
"Oh, Doctor. That would be wonderful. Would you mind?"
"Sachiko, he needs to be home! He can sleep when we arrive back, can't we wake him? Sayu is there all alone and it's far too late to arrange for someone to sit in with her."
"While it's true that he doesn't necessarily need to be monitored here, it's still very important that he rests while he can-"
Oh, it's not worth the effort. He pretends to stir and hears the voices all fade into nothing. Beautiful peace for a moment, and then something warm brushes his cheek. It's sore.
"Light," his mother soothes, attempting comfort, "you're in the hospital but that's okay, everything's going to be okay."
When his eyes flutter open he sees her leaning over him, her familiar features tired but relieved. He chances a smile at the expense of his aching face, but feels it is worth it when his mother plants a quick kiss on his cheek before drawing away. These tiny shows of affection have always meant something to him, his parents are rarely warm and when they are it's so over the top it almost seems fake. But these things are small enough to be true and he is fond of their sincerity.
The doctor checks him over then, showing him various bandages and stitches along the way. Considering the way in which he became injured, he thinks he got off quite easily. Many of his ribs are bruised, a wrist is broken and his left knee had become dislocated but was put back into place upon his arrival. It will hurt for a while anyway, the doctor tells him. His lungs burn when he breathes in too deeply and he mentions it, expecting it to be put down to water inhalation or lack of oxygen and not being disappointed.
Other than that, it's all surface injury. Scrapes in places where his clothes weren't thick enough to protect his skin from the harsh blows or the friction of the ground, bruises here and there and a graze on his nose hidden by a strip of gauze. The doctor tells him how lucky he is, how it could have been so much worse, and the words float past him like rainclouds. Everyone is so far away.
"Light, son, do you want to get home to your own bed and have some rest?"
Although he can't quite bring himself to want anything yet, Light nods. This disconnected feeling he has is a universal thing, he will carry it with him wherever he goes for the meanwhile. Moving will neither aggravate nor console it, so he is indifferent about the matter. He hands the proverbial pacifier to his father who takes it gratefully and begins to pack things in order to leave. The doctor's stuttering eventually fades away completely and Light barely registers him leaving the room. It doesn't matter.
The car ride home is short and inconsequential. Not much is needed to be said, he thinks, so why waste time? Soichiro presses on about official statements and "should we get the press involved" and Sachiko berates him. "Light is very stressed," she says. Light has been very stressed for quite some time and finds it funny that now he is freed from it they begin to worry. Always one step behind, his parents, but that's inconsequential too.
Slowly, as they bypass skyscrapers towering like watch-lights, he feels the hardness return to his bones. His parents' voices become obtrusive and bruise him all over with how piercing they've become. He wants to tell them to speak quietly but can't find the words, can't find the moisture in his parched throat to make a sound. Slouching forward and feeling his back strain at the pressure of it, he waits for the chaos to stop, for there to be some kind of relief, but there isn't.
Limply, he drowses against the sofa cushions, tucked beneath a thick blanket with his feet propped up on the coffee table. His mother (who normally would have scolded him for such behaviour, but now insists upon it), is in the kitchen, preparing lunch mutedly so that she can listen out for any noises he might make. At around eight in the morning Light heard his father and Sayu leave the house, one going to work and the other to school. Their farewells to his mother were barely audible, muffled and low.
Throughout the night Light had been unable to sleep, and in the morning when his father and sister left he remained in the same position he had been in all night. He was hurting all over, a hollow ache that started in his skin and then whittled away at him, burning holes right through his lungs. In some places it was more profound; his head throbbed from lack of sleep and his broken wrist smarted under the slightest of pressures despite the painkillers he had taken. Perhaps because he felt so ethereal, so as if he were floating in some other distant place instead of tethered down to earth, the painkillers would have no effect. He was elsewhere and no drug could find him.
At some point the faint squeaking of door hinges nearby interrupted his musings, and he knew he would not have to bother moving. Indeed, Sachiko brushed back the blankets entangling him and spoke empty words he was too far off to catch. It's stagnant in here Light the change of pace will do you good we can watch a film together I'll boil the kettle for some tea just please come downstairs I'm starting to worry do I need to call the doctor again do you need to speak with your father how is your wrist you look so pale have you eaten yet today of course you haven't come on I'll make you something.
He would have preferred to rot, but with his tomb intruded upon there didn't seem much point, so he stood and stared at the space on the ground where his mother had stood. She'd bustled off again to boil the kettle most likely. His legs had turned to matchsticks overnight and dizziness made his vision swim slightly. His blood pressure was low, a side effect of the painkillers. He waited for the wave to pass before attempting the stairs, and followed his mother into the kitchen.
The rest of the morning came in and out like waves against a sea shore. He remembers picking a film from an extensive selection housed in a bookshelf. There are blankets and awkward gestures of comfort from his mother, coldly delivered as if she is attending to a business transaction rather than a son. She has trouble expressing fondness, he remembers, it has always been that way. It had been his job as the perfect and dutiful son to bring her good grades and much pride and in return she housed, fed and indulged him with gifts. Things operated like that with his father as well, although with less consistency due to his absences. He'd never much minded. However, now things are not so cleanly cut it seems nobody knows how to handle it.
Before she had left to prepare lunch, Sachiko had asked if he needed to open up to her about anything. He pretended like he hadn't heard and moments later she was gone.
So now he lies here, gazing at the frozen image on the television screen. The movie is paused because his mother doesn't want to miss anything so he just sits and stares and breathes. He was fed some more painkillers at some point, and gosh, his sense of time is so skewed that for all he knows his mother is overdosing him. Carrying out a plan to get rid of this faulty thing now all it can do is slump against the sofa cushions and disturb her potpourri arrangements with its feet.
Days pass, bruises fade. Sayu asks for help with math homework on the third day he spends at home, and although he can't write yet with his aching wrist and his mind is still foggy from the painkillers, he still helps quite a bit and she thanks him earnestly. Sayu is somewhat of a healing force, a stark contrast to her family's coldness. Light wonders where she gets her bright and amiable traits from.
Her warmth is a welcome break from the clinical gaze of policemen and investigators who ask him endless questions as the days pass. On his second day at home they arrived on his father's command. It was still dark outside when his mother woke him and pulled him down to sit and relive his experience verbally. There wasn't even time to brush his teeth. A mountain of forms was handed to him, and then passed onto this mother who actually had the ability to fill them out. Of course, they offered gestures of comfort – pats on the shoulder, recommendations for potential counselling services – but none of it touched him. His mother would smooth back his hair, bring him tea and tell him how much of a good deed he was doing by giving this information, but the truth held resolute. The men wouldn't be found. It was a startling realisation that hit him late at night and let him know his career ambitions meant nothing. There was nothing salvageable about humanity for him to grasp onto and fix. He felt sorry for his father, and the entire life the man had wasted on maintaining such an ugly status quo.
For now, though, the dusk is drawing in on Friday night and the last dregs of sunset light trickle in through the blinds into the living room. The air smells of tea and a book lies open on his lap, halfway finished. His mother and sister converse upstairs about something, the voices seeping through the floorboards until he hears them, but can't make out the words. It's a friendly noise that lets him know he is not alone.
Though constantly disrupted by outside forces, the dust is finally beginning to settle in his mind. There is less pressure from his father now that his statement has been given to the police, and although no justice will come of it, at least the burden of pretending to look for a resolution is gone. But it pains him, when he thinks about it too much. Even though he sits relatively intact and surrounded by family, and that one woman got away from a terrible situation, it hurts to know that those men will go on to cause more damage. If he's just another casualty among many, what difference did he really make? A slight tweak in the statistics, maybe.
And he'd always been raised to believe himself as so important. But this, it changes things. Above all else, he feels as if maybe he could grow from the experience, if he plays his cards right. Rethink his career choices, do something where he has a little more power to make a difference. He's got nothing in mind yet and can't bear thinking about it whilst his father remains still so proud and overbearing, so he shakes his head to clear the thoughts and reclines back into his seat next to the window, switching on a lamp as the evening light drains away. This is a thought for another day. He picks up the book.
Months go by in relative peace. He returns to school in early January, focuses on throwing himself back into his work and extra-curricular activities as a distraction from the dregs of that evening which still haunt him. His arm remains damaged, however – the tips of his fingers go numb and then stay that way, and it is found that the nerves in his wrist are trapped to the point of being unable to transmit signals to his hand. The doctors sign him up for a physical therapy class in which he will do exercises in order to free the nerves from their hiding places. He is bitter, although he knows many others have it worse. Because of those men he cannot write in school and will miss many cram class sessions in order to get the use of his hand back. For a while he is vocal about his anger, until his mother begins to snap back at him, sick of his foul moods months after the attack.
"You should be over it by now," she tells him one evening at the dinner table. He remembers flushing and dipping his head to avoid his father's righteous stare. But he takes the message – the world has had enough of his misery. Now it is time to go back to being the poster child once more.
It is almost midway through March when he meets Misa Amane. They are both sitting in the same hospital waiting room. Light is waiting for his physical therapy class to begin – almost his last, thankfully – and when Misa approaches him, she says she has a friend who just had a car accident she is waiting to visit.
"Oh my, I'm so sorry. Do you know how they're doing?"
"Ah," she giggles, kicking her legs absentmindedly beneath her plastic seat, "thank you so much, but she's okay. A few bruised ribs, I think, and possibly a minor concussion, but the doctors seem to think she can go home tomorrow. I'm just here to keep her company for a while since she's helped me a lot with things lately, it's the least I can do."
"That's nice of you." He says, and in response she smiles somewhat wistfully and looks down towards her feet. There is no clock on the walls, which seems a bit strange in a waiting room, but he thinks little of it and checks his watch instead. Ten minutes until his appointment. Oh, how he hates arriving early.
"Wow, that's a nice watch," the girls speaks up, smiling up at him. It's then he realises her eyes are blue despite her definite Japanese features. Why on earth would someone bother wearing contact lenses and such dressy clothing to a hospital? Light himself is in a pair of jeans and a jumper, nothing too much out of the ordinary.
"Thank you; my father gave it to me as a gift when I started high school." He hopes she isn't a thief. "I'm sorry, I don't think I caught your name?" Better safe than sorry. At least this way he can report her if she tries anything.
Blushing slightly, she fiddles with a blonde pigtail before answering; "I'm Misa - Misa Amane. You might recognise my name? I was just on the cover of Eighteen Magazine recently!"
"Oh, my sister reads those so she'd probably know of you," nodding, he continues, "I don't have much interest in those sorts of things myself however, it seems frivolous to spend time flicking through picture books when there are far more important things to be done." When she looks deflated, he starts. "Oh, I'm sorry again – I didn't mean to criticize your work at all. It's definitely a huge achievement to make the cover photo nonetheless, and you are an incredibly beautiful girl."
Bashfully, she grins up at him, all traces of offense gone from her face, "It's fine, I get that some people are against my line of work for whatever reason, but I like it, you know? In fact, the friend I'm visiting today is actually my manager – she's the one who got me the chance at being in Eighteen in the first place. She's really amazing. You see, my parents died recently and she's taken such good care of me in the aftermath, especially when the people who killed them escaped conviction." Misa goes quiet for a moment and then hums to herself, shaking her head. "I didn't mean to dump all that on you, gosh."
"It's alright, I'm sorry all of that happened to you. I think you're really brave to have-"
"-What's your name, anyway?" She changes the subject, grinning up at him as though nothing is wrong, but he can see the tension around her eyes and decides to let the matter drop.
"I'm Light Yagami." Checking his watch again, he almost jumps when a nurse calls out Misa's name.
"Oh, I can go in and see my friend now!" she squeals, jumping from her chair. "It was nice to meet you, Light Yagami!" the girl bounces off to speak to the nurse, but not before turning around to plant a quick kiss on Light's cheek.
When her back is turned and she's safely far away, he scowls and rubs his face with his sleeve to remove any traces of lipstick. What was she doing behaving so informally only five minutes after they met? It creeps him out how easily some people are able to get attached to others and feel comfortable enough to do those things, and it's especially shocking considering her disturbing background. If he were Misa Amane, he would never want to become attached to anyone again. Even as himself, the idea isn't appealing.
Three minutes until his session. If he starts walking slowly towards the makeshift hospital gym it's set in, maybe he'll get there just as it begins.
A nurse enters the room in near silence, the sign of someone who has long since perfected the art of letting patients sleep undisturbed. Misa turns from her friend, blanching as she realises her extra time in the room ran short over five minutes ago.
"Excuse me, Amane-san, but my shift will be ending soon and I'm afraid the other nurses won't be as kind about you breaching the visiting hours rule. If you want to visit again tomorrow, you're going to have to leave now." In her left hand, the one that isn't holding a clipboard, she carries a sheet of paper folded in half, Misa's signature hidden inside. That had secured her the extra fifteen minutes after visiting hours ended officially, but even the benefits of minor fame had to run out at some point.
Misa paints on a smile suddenly, all false and red lipstick, so wide it cuts her face in half.
"Of course, I'm so sorry about the trouble," standing, she turns to the patient lying in the bed behind her and fiddles absent-mindedly with the bed-covers, "See you tomorrow, Yoshi! Get a lot of good sleep tonight, okay?" Yoshi nods without getting a proper chance to reply, as at that moment, Misa turns on her heel and bounds out of the room, the usual spring in her step. If anyone watching her exit the ward doesn't find her attitude indicative of a person with a friend in the hospital, they don't say anything. And when a few of those people see a middle-aged man turn and exit the ward close behind her, well then they don't say anything about that either.
It's not exactly a chilly night when she steps out into the street, but it's enough to wake her up a little and make her tug her sleeves down slightly in reaction to the temperature change. There's a breeze about, though, skirting around buildings and howling in her ears. The sound and feel of it is annoying and makes her wish she'd brought headphones along for entertainment and to keep her ears warm. Still, it isn't a long walk back to her apartment, and she can probably tune out the noises around her anyway.
Something disturbs her, after a few minutes. As much as she is trying to distance herself from the noises of her surroundings, she can hear footsteps behind her. She tries to calm herself – tells herself that it's just an ordinary person on the way home from someplace maybe and they just happen to be on the same street as her - but the paranoia is overwhelming. It's dark, late at night, and she has to know. She hadn't thought she had any sort of a survival instinct left after the loss of her parents and subsequent deep depression, but she has to know. Her nerves stand on end. She turns around.
The man behind her stops suddenly, grinning, and it's then she realises she recognises his face, almost like he's someone from a dream she vaguely remembers.
"Oh, I know you," she chirps, all smiles and sunbeams, golden pigtails shining under the streetlamps as she searches for a way away from his intense gaze, "you worked on the set of one of my photo shoots, right? I always remember a face!"
His smile doesn't falter as he reaches into a satchel sitting on his left hip and pulls out a knife. Misa gulps, manages to keep up her jolly façade for a moment longer before her face crumbles into fear. After seeing her parents suffer in the way that they did, bleeding out and gurgling on the stairs as she watched helplessly from beneath the living room sofa, she knows a fraction of the pain that awaits her.
Rapidly, the man advances, and without much space between them in the first place, this causes Misa to trip and fall to the ground. He towers above her and beneath her fear she wants to scowl at how demeaned and objectified she feels, with him leering down upon her as if his brutality has achieved something. If she could, she'd like to shake him and explain that he doesn't have the right to torment her like this, but when she opens her mouth no sound comes out.
"You're going to be my prize," his voice is a low rumble, the words tainted with liquor and all running together, "I want you to stay with me forever."
Before she gets a chance to say anything to change his mind, he raises the knife as if to bring it down upon her in one brutal slash, a look of fierce determination on his face. And then suddenly, without warning, the manic glint leaves his eyes, the smirk slips from his lips like water and he drops the knife haphazardly in order to clutch at the fabric around his chest. It nearly hits Misa, the knife – lands on the ground squarely between her knees and screams of menace despite no longer being a threat. She backs away, daring to stand gingerly as the man gasps for air, veins bulging around his temples, his lips a deathly bluish hue.
They make eye contact briefly, he stares at her with desperation as she watches him fall, puppet-like, to the floor. His breath falters and she listens as it fades into nothing, tells herself that now this man is just some empty stranger lying face down in some poorly-lit alleyway. They had no past or communication so long as she refuses to admit it. It's almost as though nothing ever happened.
She turns, and runs.
So now Gelus is dust, and Rem feels obligated to take on the burden of Misa's emotional baggage, and although he'd seen it coming, it still feels disappointing when it does. In all the time they had spent together, Misa had never once revealed to Light that the traumas she'd suffered had left long-lasting emotional scars. But he can't pretend to have been completely oblivious – he'd caught things, sometimes, the shaking of her hands when he'd raised his voice out of anger or stress, the way she would cling onto him like a child and demand constant reassurance of his affection. At the time it had just been another annoyance to deal with, he hadn't considered it to be the aftermath of a great psychological trauma.
He prefers sweeping such concerns under the rug anyway. Plaster on a smile and continue, carry out your plans, don't let the world touch you.
Distance yourself greatly from the things which bother you, and even more so from the things that bring you joy.
At some point, Rem drops down into the human world with Gelus' notebook in hand. He doesn't bother to say goodbye or inquire into what the other Shinigami is doing. After all, he already knows.
It's a Sunday, and with nothing to do, Light is sitting idly at his desk, pen in hand, a sheet of paper for doodling set out in front of him. There's a very important essay that he has due in in a few months' time, and whilst he should be spending this time devising a topic to write about, or at least considering which field he'd like to write about, he remains static in his chair.
The essay sits half-completed in his documents folder anyway.
Downstairs, there's a sound of a key scrambling in a lock and their front door opening. His mother and sister are home and this person entering didn't ring the doorbell, so it can only be one person.
"I'm home," calls a low and tired voice, then the sound of worn shoes scraping on the welcome mat before his father steps inside.
Light rises from his chair, walks from his room and pads down the stairs in slippered feet to greet his father, who is tucking his work shoes into their designated place on the shoe rack.
"Dad," he says through a smile, "we weren't expecting you back today. Welcome home."
His father offers him a thin-lipped smile, and it's then that Light notices the concaves beneath his eyes, thick brown smudges as an indicator that the man hasn't been sleeping well for quite some time.
"Is everything okay?" he asks as his father steps through the hallway and into the kitchen, setting the kettle to boil and sitting down at the dining table just as the rest of the family enter the room.
"Hey Dad, welcome home," Sayu sits down in the chair opposite the man. Sachiko, however, stands nervously in the doorway, sensing the same unease as Light, perhaps.
"Everybody, please sit down. There's something I need to explain." It's the second time the man has spoken since entering the house, and the serious edge to his voice adds to the tension in the room. The kettle whistles as it boils, but Light ignores it in favour of taking a seat next to Sayu at the table, as his mother moves to sit down beside Soichiro.
"What is it, Dad?" Sayu huffs, well used to her father announcing to the family that he would be away, for weeks or even months at a time. It was a painful experience that had dulled over time, and now she just wanted it out of the way so that she could get on with her life during yet another one of his absences, "are you stuck on a case again?"
Choosing not to note her insolence, Soichiro nods and takes a steadying breath, preparing to speak.
"Something new has just come up, and despite it being a very recent occurrence that could simply be put down to coincidence, I just – I can sense it's going to be something big. Now, this is incredibly confidential information, so please don't go spreading this around," He says, looking pointedly at Sayu, who blanches and scowls, "but criminals recently have been dying of heart attacks. It started off with wanted terrorists suddenly disappearing, but now more ordinary, local criminals are dying, and all from the same thing."
"How is that even possible?" Light asks, surprised by the way his voice jumps with shock.
"That's what we've been trying to figure out, but at the moment it's all just a wild goose chase. The killings are happening around the world, with no physical evidence to suggest a person is committing them, and nothing to link the deaths other than the fact that they're all either convicted murderers, or those wanted for crimes committed on a grander scale, like terrorism." Soichiro sighs, combing fingers through slightly greasy hair and closing his eyes in exhaustion. "It truly is baffling everyone in the force. We've heard rumours that even the great detective L doesn't know what's going on."
A stunned silence overtakes the room, as the family tries to absorb what they've just been told. Even Light, used to feeling so stoic about tricky, dead-end cases, is shocked into bowing his head in hushed thought. Minutes pass like this, each person sitting around the table feeling some kind of devastation but being unable to pinpoint exactly why.
After a while, Sachiko stands and places her hands on her hips in a faux-confident stance.
"I'll pour everyone some tea, shall I?"
