Chapter 4: Arigato
Light woke up in the middle of the night to wind and rain pounding harshly against the guest room window. He would have gone back to sleep, but he then noticed that the foot of his bed was sagging slightly. He looked over, his eyes adjusting to the darkness, and he saw Ryuzaki staring at him. the pale man's obsidian eyes were wide, he was not expecting Light to wake until the morning.
"What the hell are you doing?" Light asked in a dangerous voice. He was tired and didn't care how rude he sounded towards his creepy host. Ryuzaki was starting to seem like a stalker now. Light didn't care what kind of tragic past the older teen had, there was a little thing called privacy that he was just not respecting.
"I am sorry Light, I didn't intend on you waking up until the morning." Ryuzaki said.
"That doesn't answer my question." Light rolled his eyes and glanced over at the digital clock beside his bed. "Are you crazy, it is two in the morning, what are you still doing up?"
Ryuzaki smiled to himself as though he were enjoing a joke that only he got, which was probably the case. "I couldn't sleep. It's nothing to worry yourself about."
"I wasn't worried." Light grumbled. "Will you leave now? I can't sleep with you in here staring at me." He said not wanting to bother with why Ryuzaki was in his room to begin with.
"Very well." Ryuzaki said hopping off of Light's bed. He was halfway to the door when there was a loud crash of thunder and a scream echoed through the house. "Mello." Ryuzaki deduced in his usual monotone.
When L didn't seem to be moving to see what was wrong with his brother, Light scrambled out of bed and pushed past the raven-haired teen. He was halfway down the hall then there was another loud bang of thunder and a muffled scream from Mello's room.
Light rushed into the room and saw Mello curled into a ball on the floor in the corner furthest from his window, crying into his pillow. Light Made his way to the terrified boy and gently put his hand on the top of his head so that he didn't startle the boy too much. Mello flinched, and then looked up, fear welling in his eyes as he stared at Light.
A few moments passed and the thunder resounded once more causing the blond to screech and hide his face in his pillow once more. Light pried the pillow from Mello's grasp and then pulled him into his arms. Light knew exactly what the problem was, Sayu had the same problem, he was...
"Astraphobia." Ryuzaki deduced, startling Light who hadn't noticed that Ryuzaki had followed him.
"It doesn't take a genious to figure that one out Ryuzaki." Light growled while trying to comfort Mello.
It was at that time that Matt came rushing into the room, not caring that he almost knocked Ryuzaki over in the process. He knelt next to Light and Mello and put a pair of head phones on the blonds head. "This should help." Matt said turning on the music.
A crash of Lightning resounded through the room and Mello dug his surprisingly sharp nails into his skin and buried his face into his chest. He pit back another scream and didn't look back up until he calmed down. He sniffled and swiped his arm over his eyes to brush away the tears that had leaked out. "This music sucks Matt." mello said in a choked voice.
Matt smiled warmly then left their side to raid Mello's music collection. He grabbed an American CD, Metallica, and popped in into the CD player then turned the volume up all the way. In fact it was so loud that Light could hear it perfectly. He could easily translate the music if he wanted to, but somehow he felt it would be better if he didn't.
After a while Mello began to drift off in Light's arms, Matt and Ryuzaki had left the room at this point. Light smiled warmly and picked the boy up and carried him to his bed. He tried to set the boy down, but he had a firm grip on his night clothes. Light decided it wouldn't hurt anything, so he got onto the bed with Mello and wrapped Mello's blanket around the two of them. It took a while, but eventually Light fell asleep with his arms wrapped protectively around Mello.
When Light woke up in the morning it took him a few seconds to remember what happened last night and that Mello was already up and out of bed. Light decided to follow suit and crawled out of the bed and headed towards the door. Just as he was reaching for the handle, the door opened and he saw that it was Mello.
"It's about time you got your ass up." Mello said, back to his normal self. "I thought I'd never get my room to myself."
"Get over it brat, I'm going to take a shower" Light said making a wave motion that indicated for Mello to move over.
"Good, I don't want your stink infecting my room."
"You got that backwards, it's your room that stinks."
"No way, it's you. I'd know, you were practically smothering me with your oder this morning." As soon as the sentence was finished an awkward silence fell over the two of them. "Thanks. For last night I mean."
"No problem." Light said, flashing one of his signature smiles.
"Alright, no mushy stuff, get going." Mello said delivering a soft kick to the back of Light's thigh.
After Light's shower, he went back to the guest room, and found that there were some clothes laid out for him. The clothes, like the pajamas, probably belonged to Aiber. He got dressed without complaint and went downstairs to make something to eat. When he got into the kitchen, he found that he was too late, Watari had already made breakfast. He handed Light a plate with an American style breakfast of eggs sunny-side-up, bacon, sausage, and toast.
Light ate all of his breakfast and when he was done he took the plate back to the kitchen, insisting that Watari let him wash it.
"Thank you for what you did for Mello." Watari suddenly said.
"Hn? Oh, it was nothing. I do the same thing for Sayu when there is a thunderstorm."
"Mello has never had an older brother to care for him like that. As you can tell by now, Ryuzaki isn't really much of a brother to any of them. It's nice for them to have someone older to help them with things like that."
"I hope they don't become too attached to me." Light said solemnly. "I won't be working here forever. I'm not sure that I will keep working after summer ends."
"That's true. But if you are going to start warning them, then I should warn you about the same thing. I can see how fast you seem to be warming up to them. You're treading dangerous ground by making bonds that you intend to sever one day. You all will get hurt that way."
What Watari was saying actually struck a cord with Light. Was he actually becoming too attached to these boys? Would he be able to handle leaving them? Light shook off that feeling and resumed what he was doing. "I guess I'll just have to deal with that when the time comes." Light looked out of the glass doors leading to the back yard and grimaced at the sight. The storm had blown leaves, sticks, sakura blossom petals and clumps of mud everywhere. "You might want to wait until tomorrow to make Mello do the yard work."
"I'm sure he'd appreciate the gesture, but he knows that when I make up my mind about something he will follow through with my demands, no matter how bad things may have turned against him. You have the day off Light, enjoy it."
Light sighed and left the kitchen, it was really no use arguing with the old man.
Light spent a few hours watching Matt play some game involving ninjas in bright orange jogging suits fighting other ninjas in equally weird clothes. He occasionally battled against Matt. Once he was a ninja in green spandex another time he was the little emo looking one who seemed to have a grudge against his brother, who Light thought was a girl until Matt told him differently. He eventually grew bored with the game and decided to go out back to see how Mello was doing with the yard.
When Light got outside he was surprised to see how much Mello got done. He stretched out and was pleased with how the weather felt, it was a perfect day for a swim. He made up his mind and told Watari that he'd be right back, he was going to get some swimming trunks form home.
After a good half an hour, Light returned to the Lawliet house ready for a nice relaxing swim. The best part of it was that he'd have the pool to himself since Mello and Matt were battling to the death on the Xbox
Without even testing the water, Light climbed up the diving board, bounced once, then did a back flip into the water. After he broke the surface he instantly began swimming laps. Gradually his breast strokes died down until finally he just let himself float over the water's surface, eye's closed, letting the sun kiss his nicely tanned body.
He continued this way for a while until he heard a creak above him. He opened his eyes and saw that he was almost directly under the diving board and someone was staring down at him. Startled, Light lost his balance on the surface of the water and sunk under for a couple seconds before breaking back through the surface. Once he was up and properly treading the water he looked up, and saw that it was Ryuzaki who had been watching him. Somehow this didn't shock him.
"What are you doing Ryuzaki?"
"Light looked so peaceful." He replied, watching Light in wonderment.
"You didn't answer my question. And now that I am properly awake I'm going to ask you again why you were watching me sleep."
"Light looked peaceful then too." Ryuzaki said.
"That is not an answer, what was your reason for doing it?"
"I have told you." Ryuzaki said. "You intrigue me."
"You are so weird."
"So I have been told."
The two of them stared at each other for a while until Light broke the silence. "You know, this is the first time I've seen you outside of the house. Why is that?"
"You must be getting tired from treading water like that Light. Would you rather lean agains the edge of the pool so that you do not cramp up and drown yourself."
"Surely I wouldn't drown. You'd save me wouldn't you?" Light said trying to make converstaion as he swam to the edge of the pool, Ryuzaki followed and knelt in his odd sitting position by the latter, Light swam to him.
"I have never swam before." Ryuzaki said.
"You don't know how to swim?" Light asked in disbelieve. he could understand Near not knowing, but Ryuzaki is eighteen, he should know this by now.
"I never said that I did not know how, I have read up on how to do all of the motions, I have just never practiced it in the water."
"It's nothing like in the book's Ryuzaki."
"I can see that Light."
"why have you never tried it before?" Light asked. Ryuzaki looked down as if he were embarrassed. "What can you be embarrassed about? The only people that would ever see you would be your family."
"I don't want to ask anyone to teach me." L mumbled.
"Hm, I guess i can understand that, pride is something everyone clings to." Light said, then paused to ponder something. "I could teach you if you want. I taught my sister how to swim and now she's tempted to join the swim team, I don't have the heart to tell her that she doesn't stand a chance though."
Ryuzaki stared into the pool's depth for a moment. "I don't know." He mumbled.
"If you're worried, we can start in the shallow end of the pool, it's only three feet deep over there."
Ryuzaki's lips twitched into a small smile and he gave Light a nod. "Good, go put some swimming trunks on."
"..."
"Do you even have any?" Ryuzaki shook his head. "You could borrow your fathers couldn't you."
"..."
"Oh, I forgot. Watari told me you were germaphobic."
Ryuzaki bit his thumb, then stood up and removed his shirt and pants. "Will this be fine Light?" Ryuzaki asked unsure of himself as he stood in front of the younger teen in his navy blue boxers.
"It'll be fine." Light said and led Ryuzaki into the shallow end. He waited patiently as Ryuzaki descended the ladder. "Let's start out with having you just float on your back." Light instructed. "I'll keep my hands under you incase you aren't buoyant enough.
Skeptically Ryuzaki leaned back into the water and reluctantly let his feet lift from the pool's floor. He relaxed once he felt Light's gentle hands rest gently on his back. Ryuzaki opened his eyes that he didn't realize he had closed and saw Light looking back down at him.
"Now I want you to glide across the water by moving your arms and legs, I'll swim ahead of you, but I'll be close enough for a quick rescue if I have to."
Ryuzaki felt Light's hands retreat from his back and splash a couple feet away. Ryuzaki did as Light requested without any complications.
That's good Ryuzaki, see, swimming isn't that scary."
"I never said I was too scared to do it Light." Ryuzaki siad with slight annoyance.
"Either way, you're a natural."
"I believe that anyone with a set of working lungs can do this much Light." Ryuzaki said, obviously knowing that it was the air in his lungs that was keeping him buoyant.
"That's true, but you seemed skeptical at first."
"That is because, as I have previously stated, I have never done this before." Ryuzaki grumbled as Light treaded water without a care. His eyes widened for a second and he glanced over at Light, who was beside him treading water. That meant he had...
Without realizing it, Ryuzaki had forgot about taking in another breath and sank below the surface. Ryuzaki frantically tried to copy Light's actions of treading water, but he was too panicked. He felt a pair of strong hands grab him around the chest and pull him to the surface. After they broke through, Light kept hold of Ryuzaki with one arm and used the other to make it to the side of the pool so that Ryuzaki could hold onto the ledge.
"You did that on purpose!" Ryuzaki accused when he had a firm grip on the pool's ledge.
"Guilty." Light grinned. "I wanted to test your reaction to getting into the deepend without realizing it."
"That was dangerous." Ryuzaki scolded.
"No it wasn't." Light defended. "I told you I'd be close enough to rescue you if I had to. And you know that I know CPR. You were in no danger. As long as you are with me you will be safe." Light put a hand on Ryuzaki's shoulder. "What do you say to continuing our lesson?"
Light held his hands out for Ryuzaki to grab. "I have no objections." He said grabbing one of the hands.
"When you grab the other kick your feet as I drag you away. I'm going to teach you how to tread water first. Remember, I will be right beside you, so don't panic." Ryuzaki grabbed Light's other hand and the day's swimming lessons finally began.
A/N: I loved writing that first part, (I'm talking about the bit with Light and Mello, not L being a creepy stalker and watching Light sleep)
Making fun of Naruto Ultimate Ninja was fun too (and dont get me wrong, I love Naruto, Im a Narutard through and through... my friends call me Itachi for christs sake!) Ninjas I made fun of: Naruto, Lee, Sasuke, and Itachi
I got the idea for the Light teaching L to swim from Shadow-L-Chan's comment that Light should have been a life guard :-)
See people, your comment's do count! More comment's equal posable plot bunnies wich equal more fun chapters. And because of the nice weather outside, the next chapter will be really fun
