Chapter 4

Raito slumped back into his seat.

Hah. What a coincidence. Yesterday he admitted his feelings to himself, and now Ryuk admitted identical feelings to him. It was too perfect, like something from a bad movie.

But those kinds of movies were bad because happiness in others isn't fun to watch unless you care about them. Drama makes you care about characters, especially unresolved drama. Drama could make you feel superior, because your life didn't seem so bad when compared to someone who lost his wife and kids to an epidemic. But if you saw a movie about some guy and his beautiful wife, darling children and high-powered job, about happy people, about consistently happy people, it would offend more than all the bigoted language in the world. Normal people want to hear about people like them, who struggle to get what they want, so they can feel like they have a chance. They want people to be humble so they can feel superior at the first fuck-up. If someone in real life gets a lucky break, then people want to drag him back down-tall poppy syndrome.

Raito decided that if their love was genuine (or genuine enough), he should stop worrying about the little Roger Ebert in his head and just enjoy the ride.

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When the lunch bell rang, Raito dashed into the cafeteria, a bustling mini-metropolis where you could get rid of your hunger and your sense of hearing in the same second. Thousands of law students were eating, drinking, and he even saw a few being merry. There was plenty of conversation, which was comforting- if a large group of people suddenly shut up, or don't even talk in the first place, then you knew something was wrong.

All the kids were talking about either personal events or talking about the Kira case. Raito could only tell this much, everything else was tuned out by his growling stomach, which felt like it would dissolve in its own acids. He sat at a table and tugged out his lunch, which was nikuman with pork fried rice (he loved pork), plus the apple he packed yesterday for Ryuk and the bizarrely named Men's Pocky for dessert. He bit one of the steaming nikuman.

"Oi, Raito."

"Mhguhk!?" Raito looked over his shoulder, then swallowed, partially because of the chewed-up pork and pastry, and partially to make sure he didn't stutter from stress. He really had to fasten his seatbelt before he could enjoy this ride.

"Ryuk!" Okay, prepare yourself. Don't pause for too long. "Ryuk, about how you said you were in love with me..."

The shinigami stared directly into Raito's irises in anticipation. He was smiling slightly, because if he was this eager to answer him, his response had to be positive.

"By sheer coincidence, the night before I did a little thinking..."

Ryuk leaned in closer.

"...and realized that I..."

Ryuk could've sworn that those eyes had clouded like glass on a humid day.

"...am also infatuated with you."

Ryuk smiled a gentle version of his usual grin. "Perfect enough."

"So you didn't have to float into the next class after your confession." Then Raito's expression turned serious. "But what about yesterday, while I was debating with Tatsuya? That thing was like a-"

"That was me. Smart boy." Ryuk grabbed the apple and took a big bite from the middle. "That wasn't a love charm. Shinigami don't officially love, so they don't have any magic relating to love."

"Then what the hell was that for? Were you testing me or somthing?" Raito raised his voice slightly, though not enough to make passing students try to stuff him full of antipsychotics.

Ryuk took what looked like a deep breath. "I was attempting to put a spell on you, but I stopped. I realized that I didn't have your permission and would most likely hate my guts afterwards."

Raito's face turned a light shade of purple. "I see. At least you realized that you fucked up and stopped it."

"It was from a moment of sudden emotion. Part of the reason why Shinigami are discouraged from having emotions is because they're supposed to repress them in the first place. But it's like a pressure cooker. You bottle them up for so long, they start to get so strong that you can't hold them in, and so they come out with a bang, such as your little seizure. This only convinces the Shinigami King that emotions are no good, since he's only seen the two extremes: bottling it in and keeping it in, or letting it out and causing trouble in the human world, which prevents them from killing people."

"Ah, I see now." Raito's face softened. "It happens in humans too, you know."

"That's right. Like in the Columbine Massacre. Two outsider kids who decided they wouldn't take getting beaten up anymore, so they proved their point with death. Because of that, people only know quiet outcasts who are beaten up then don't complain, or angry outcasts who are beaten up then grab an AK-47 and shoot up their schools. In both cases, you never hear about the middle ground."

"Exactly." It looked like the container was sucking Raito's face as he lifted a clump of rice into his mouth using only his tongue. "But what would've that power done if you didn't stop it?"

Ryuk smiled his default evil grin. "The rules forbid us from killing people out of love for another human. I certainly would be tempted to do that in the future. However, there's a loophole in that law. It doesn't mention other Shinigami...that was why I was gone for most of yesterday. Pawing through ancient books of magic, not unlike those law books you read religiously." He licked his lips. "I finally found a spell that would detach a mind and spirit from the body of a human Death Note user. If the human has killed enough people, by the Death Note or otherwise, the spirit would form a new Shinigami body and go into limbo with the mind, which would be in a seizure-like state until that person died. Then the mind would be installed in the new body, and a new Shinigami is produced, with all human memories intact."

"Wow..." Raito inhaled the last of the fried rice. "And the rules can't touch you, since you'd be killing me, and fufilling the agreement."

Ryuk nodded and sheared the apple of its flesh and popped the core in his mouth, speaking between bites. "No rule says that Shinigami can't fall in love. The only restrictions are on sex with humans or Shinigami, and killing to make sure a human won't die. But in our case, Rule 36 won't apply. This is because sex is strictly defined as male-female coitus, which is the only kind that results in reproduction."

"Haha, so they're taking the Bill Clinton approach..."

"Exactly. They don't want Shinigami breeding for a number of reasons. If it were legal, there'd be too many of us and not enough humans to supply us with life force, so we'd all be dead. Since most Shinigami would pick the opposite sex if they could, the rules just forbid sexual activity period. If it added exceptions for non-procreative acts, we'd just get confused." He swallowed the apple core.

"Why can't they just make birth control?" Raito asked.

"Because they don't want little baby Shinigamis in the first place, and suppressing emotion has a lower failure rate." Ryuk tapped his claws on the table. "You know about the bubonic plague?"

Raito grimaced. "In first grade, we had to watch a very graphic video about it. Three kids threw up and five ran away."

"Hyuk, hyuk," Ryuk snickered. "That was caused by a love story gone sour. Around that time, two Shinigami fell in love and bred. A lot. They and their children all needed to kill humans, so they created the plague to do it quickly, easily, and without much work on their parts. The Shinigami King found out and threw their asses in hell before they could say 'Whoops'. Then he made Rule 36. Just in case we learned about sex from a hentai or two on Earth, he banned that too. To discourage us from even caring about them, he ruled that we couldn't kill to save another's life. And besides, making new life is the antithesis to the Shinigami credo, which is to stop life."

"Ah, I see," said Raito. "So as a Shinigami, I could fuck your brains out and it would be legit."

"There is one catch," Ryuk answered. "Everytime a Shinigami has sex, it drains from their life force. So to break even, instead of a post-sex cigarette or even an apple, you'd have to kill someone. And there will always be people who punch out of the pressure cooker of life with a gun in tow, so you'll have a steady supply of bodies. That's the closest you'll have to a philosopher's stone." Ryuk's plump charcoal lips curved upwards. "Perhaps there is a spell that takes life force from plants and animals if crime ever completely stops. Or you can just use vegetables," he added with a chuckle as he pinched a stick of Pocky and slid it into Raito's mouth, who twisted his head, making the chocolate part break off onto his tongue.

Ryuk licked his lips.

"I want to taste it."

Raito reached for the green box, but before he could pick up a new Pocky, Ryuk placed his large hands around his head.

"Wahuh?"

"Don't move," commanded Ryuk as he lowered his head to Raito's. In one quick movement, Ryuk's tongue parted Raito's lips, curled into a straw shape, then sucked up all of the saliva-soaked Pocky.

Ryuk didn't stop there. He pressed his lips against Raito's as his tongue searched Raito's mouth (probably not for more Pocky crumbs), rising and falling against each cheek like a waterfall in a thunderstorm, rubbing the veiny bumps at the top, and slithering over each tooth in a sweet daze. Then Ryuk's tongue excited in a puff of air. Ryuk stood up on the table, jaw dropping at what he had finally done.

Raito just smirked. "How do you like them apples?"