Chapter 3
First period was study hall, or as the students called it, "Nap Class." Most people who were there just needed schedule filler. Half of the students at any given time in there were asleep, and a quarter of the desks had permanent drool-stains. Raito had set his lunchbox on the empty desk behind him, so he almost had a bed. He had heard of one kid bringing an actual blanket and pillow in, but someone sitting near him got in a fight with him over it, and it was ripped before it could be used.
"Oi, look at the girl in the purple sweater 5 rows away." Ryuk was poking Raito's shoulder to get his attention. On a Friday. In Nap Class. 10 minutes after the bell.
Not very pleasant.
"Nice to see you again Ryuk."
"Look what she's writing."
"Where?"
"In her notebook."
"I can't see it."
"Our name. Over and over. "
"Our name?"
"She's been writing it for the past half hour in bright red ink."
"Hm."
"You wanna see?" Ryuk's tongue lashed out like a snake's.
"Ung...yh!?"
With a snicker, Ryuk wrapped his powerful arms around Raito's torso and held him to his chest, then jumped up, wings beating furiously until they were directly above the girl. At first his sleepy eyes only saw red blobs, but soon enough he could make out "Kira loves Sakura" all over the paper.
"Like I said."
Raito waited to be dropped into his desk again, but that never happened. If he shouted for help, that would only draw attention to the fact that he was (seemingly)suspended in midair. Instead, they zoomed out the open door and into the hallway, where Ryuk accelerated at a roller-coaster pace, pausing at at various classrooms as if searching for something. Each stop made Raito's head spin, and just when he felt like passing out, they came to a complete stop outside classroom 493.
"Listen," commanded Ryuk as he held Raito, who was still catching his breath, to the glass of the door, so he could see the portly man in his forties lecturing.
"As Plato once said, good people do not need law to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find ways around the laws. We aren't interested in casting pearls before swine or preaching to the choir. We seek to keep the moral middle class at bay, those who might be tempted. If they were to break loose, modern society would crumble. The legally damned can justify their innocence by examining the wording of the rule and finding an exploit. But those men are few, and the laws cover enough cases so we can survive in relative health and prosperity."
Ratio tried to shrug. "And your point is?"
Ryuk lowered his head until he was looking directly down at Raito, his hot breath scalding his face. Ryuk flicked his long, thin tongue at Raito's chin until it struck his lower lip. Then he set Raito on the floor, and after a few seconds of stumbling, Raito was standing upright.
"I am legally damned. And I expect you will be too."
"What do you mean? Is there some hidden law in the Death Note that says you can break a few rules after a certain number of deaths?"
"Negative. I'm talking about something you may have experienced more than me, because you humans are expected to feel it, and we Shinigami aren't supposed to. It is possible for us to experience emotions, but we are supposed to repress them, especially when dealing with humans. Remember Jealous?"
"What? Anger? Happiness? Sadness?"
"Every single one of them. For most of my life, I've had an easy time with that. Humans just seemed like giant wind-up toys, and it was fun to break them. The facial expressions were especially fun to watch. I prided myself on killing them in many interesting ways, from domino arrangements to people dressing in specific colors before collapsing into a morbid rainbow. However, you're the first human I've spoken to in a long time, if you don't count the occasional taunting of a dying person who managed to touch the Death Note," Ryuk smirked as he picked up Raito and flew back to the doorway of Nap Class even faster than the first time, as if he had been procrastinating the trip for a long time and now just wanted it over with.
Raito thought of the owls from the internet. "Oh, really?"
"Yes, really. If I was a human and had a brain scan, it would detect a drop in serotonin. If I was human in France, I could kill someone I found in bed with you, it'd be excused as a crime of passion."
Raito felt his face flush magenta. "In bed with...wha-eh...!?"
Ryuk shifted his weight (or what it felt like) to his left leg. Anxiety was one emotion he'd especially like to be without. "I'm in love with you, Raito."
Then he flew through the wall to the next room, leaving Raito to ponder just what the fuck happened.
