Soundtrack - If anyone has even heard of the Bollywood movie Karam, the song "Tera Hi Karam" was playing in my head the whole time. Amazing, amazing emotional vibrato. You can find the video on YouTube. Be forewarned - the video itself is damned strange, and I don't honestly recall those somewhat disturbing images from the movie, but the song rocks. Maybe it's best if you ignore the video, heh.


Guilt?

-

-

There was a whole crew of tiny men inside Light's head, hammering away at the inside of his skull with minuscule pickaxes. The noise was only slightly less miserable than the ball bearings had been. He tried to step lightly so as not to disturb them as he made his way down the stairs after taking what was likely the longest shower of his life.

His mother was in the middle of cleaning the living room, one of her usual Saturday activities. She looked up at Light as he came into view, and he paused, wondering what she wanted to say. She had 'The Look' on her face. He hoped it had nothing to do with...

"Were you alright last night?" Damn. So much for hoping that she hadn't noticed anything.

"What do you mean?" He made sure his face was completely blank except for mild puzzlement.

"You sounded a little odd when you came in. Are you feeling sick still?"

"A little. My head hurts, but the cough is gone. I just had to get out of the house for a little while last night." She smiled, and Light felt reassured. She was just being motherly.

"I know, you've been sick so long. Just be careful until you're feeling fine again, alright?"

"Yes, mother. Is there still coffee in the kitchen?"

She nodded, and he ended the conversation and headed out of sight into the kitchen, feeling inexplicably relieved yet almost guilty. After all, what right did he have to feel relieved about her not noticing if anything was wrong? He was going to be dead relatively soon, and any easing of her conscience that he did now was not going to matter when he was gone. Remorse was barely a tickle at his conscience, though. His mind was still made up, and his pride would not allow him to go back on his word to himself.

Speaking of going back on his word... Light sighed as he poured himself a cup of coffee, deciding to take it black this morning. He had told Ryuzaki he would meet him this evening. Why he had agreed to meet the odd man was beyond his comprehension.

Ryuzaki wanted, for some absurd reason, to discuss business, as though Light was some salaryman looking for a new client. Why he wanted to discuss work with someone that he knew was determined to die was unexplainable. After all, Ryuzaki could not possibly offer Light reasons to keep living, to keep waking up and watching the world and his own life deteriorate into nothingness.

I'm not going to change my mind about leaving this world behind. It felt liberating to think that, that he was putting distance between himself and this wretched world.

Light took a sip of the near-scalding brew and leaned on the counter, debating whether or not he could stand to eat anything. He hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday, but he didn't entirely trust his stomach yet. He was quite unwilling to repeat his vomiting sessions, especially if he knew his mother was home and might hear. He didn't want her to know anything about his drinking 'accident.'

However, it wasn't as though his mother would disown him if she found out he was ill, or even that he had been drinking. She would be disappointed, of course. She wouldn't throw him out on the street, though. He knew that, but something in him made him want to hide the sordid details anyway.

Briefly, it occurred to him to wonder how long he had hoped that his family saw nothing other than his carefully crafted 'perfect son' image. He felt like he had always been hiding things, pieces of himself that wouldn't fit with the 'perfect' image. He was seldom honest with them about how he felt or what he was thinking about, for they wouldn't have been able to help, despite their good intentions. There simplywas no helping him. It was better if they thought he was perfect, faultless. He didn't need to complicate their lives unnecessarily.

Had he ever once asked for help, even indirectly? He had never voiced his concerns to his family, not once. Years of keeping his intelligence to himself in school and finding no outlet for it at home had eventually turned into keeping everything bottled inside. Light never asked for help in school, and his pride eventually kept him from asking for it at home, or for anything at all. If there was no food, he cooked it. If he was bored, he amused himself. If his room was dirty, he cleaned it. He learned to count on only himself for everything.

That was why leaving this world was appealing. He had failed to come up with reasons to stay alive. Light Yagami asked for nothing from other people, and he was not about to start now.

If he couldn't save himself, no one would.


It was a very conflicted Light that looked at himself in the mirror in his room hours later, cell phone in hand and a confused expression on his face. It was six o'clock, and Ryuzaki's friend and apparent driver, Watari, had just called to say he would be there to pick him up at seven. He had a whole hour to do... something. He truly had no idea what he was doing, or what he was going to do tonight. After all, the man had seen him inebriated, ill, fainting, clumsy, angry... had the man seen any good parts of him at all? Why in the world did he want to meet him, anyway!

Light had not gotten the impression Ryuzaki was simply gay and was hitting on him, albeit indirectly. That would have been the easiest answer as to why he wanted to see him. Ryuzaki had not once said what he did for a living or what capacity he was looking for Light to fill. However, Light had also been drunk, and he might have forgotten that part of the conversation, though he thought he could remember everything that had been said. There weren't any gaping holes in his memory, at least.

Cursing his idiocy the night before for the thousandth time, he resigned himself to having to figure it out over the course of the evening. It was bound to be incredibly awkward and ultimately pointless. He was only going through with it because he had said he would, and he didn't break his word.

He decided to simply act as though this was a job interview. He had only interviewed once, and that was for the NPA. He had known he would get in and had applied nowhere else. He pulled out several of his suits before settling on a two piece dark blue pinstripe with a white shirt underneath. It wasn't black, which would give the meeting an unusually solemn air, nor was it a gray tweed that would make him look like he was simply showing up for work. This suit was classy and refined but not overly dressed up. A steel gray tie and black shoes completed the look.

His hair looked fine as it almost always did, except for this morning when he had woken up. He had seen the crimson cheeks in an uncommonly milk-white complexion in the mirror, the bloodshot and bruised-looking eyes, the colorless mouth, and the sweaty hair plastered to his head and standing up in other places and nearly shrieked in horror. It had looked like someone else, a young, homeless, drunk ragmuffin. He shuddered and shook off that memory.

Now it was 6:30, and he had 30 minutes to wait around. He turned to his desk, intending to read something until Watari showed up, but a knock sounded at his door.

"Light, it's your father. Can I speak with you?" Light opened the door, his face asking what Soichiro's reasons were even if he didn't voice the question. His father looked his choice of clothing up and down. "Are you going somewhere?"

"I'm meeting someone." His father waited, wanting to hear more. This time, Light humored him, choosing to be honest and not vague like he would normally be. He actually was meeting someone this time, not merely lying about it to make it seem like he had a social life. "Ryuzaki wanted to talk to me about something. He was the man whom you met in the hotel when you picked me up." Light carefully avoided referring to himself being ill or otherwise incapacitated.

"After you were out all night? The skinny young man with dark hair?" Light nodded. "What are you meeting up for?" What was this, an interrogation? Normally he would stop answering directly out of habit and bend the conversation around to something else, but now with his newfound lack of concern for his future, he thought nothing of giving the extra information.

"He wants to talk about work or something. He wasn't really specific." Soichiro nodded, seemingly to himself.

"You just seem really dressed up to meet with a friend and not a girlfriend." His father smiled a little. "Can I talk to you outside? Do you have a few minutes?" Light nodded again, wondering what was going on. If he had to guess, he would think it had something to do with him going out while sick. As they headed to the back door through the kitchen, he saw his mother and his sister watching television in the living room, but neither of them looked at him or his father as they passed by. That was unusual, and he felt himself growing uneasy. He followed his father out the back door into their tiny, fenced-in backyard. The sun was just starting to settle on the horizon, painting the sky that he could see vivid shades of red and pink that faded to blue.

His father was dressed like he had been in the office again that day. He almost always worked six days a week, despite the fact that he usually had Saturday as well as Sunday off. He put his hands in his pockets as he drew a breath, and Light immediately knew that he was nervous and reluctant to have this conversation. Why he was nervous he didn't know yet, but he was sure he would find out soon enough.

"Light, I don't want to make you upset, or put you on your guard, but your mother and I are worried about you." Light felt his face forming into that perfect, complacent look that he usually wore when he was trying to appear neither concerned nor distant, merely considerate. "I won't lie, I never wanted to have this conversation, but your mother said that you..." His father looked away as he paused, and Light felt his stomach twist as he guessed what was coming.

"Your mother said that you were at least intoxicated when you came home last night. She didn't say that you were drunk, just that you smelled and acted as though you had been drinking, and Light, I have no reason to doubt what she says." Light tried to keep his face impassive, but he felt so awkward right now. He couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't a lie.

"Truthfully, we've noticed a lot of things going on lately that don't make sense right now. We don't know why you left home after your graduation without taking anything and not telling either of us you were staying out all night."

"Father, that was an acc--"

"We know it's not entirely your fault that you didn't come home," his father interrupted, holding up a hand for silence. "We know you got sick, but neither of us asked any questions when maybe we should have. Now you've gone out drinking when you have been sick for weeks, and it frightens us. Light, this isn't like you. You've never done anything like this before."

His father looked down, and for a moment, he looked so dejected and confused that Light almost felt guilty for deciding to die. Soichiro sighed deeply before continuing, for Light could still think of nothing worth saying.

"You're an adult, Light. Don't think that your mother and I are trying to treat you like a child, but we are concerned.

"You've never been anything but a good son, always well-behaved and always working so hard to make us proud of you. You've never given us any reason to worry about you until now. I'm not going to ask about your reasons, but I want to know that you're alright." He looked into Light's face, and the deep brown eyes that Light had inherited transfixed his own with unusual authority.

"I want to know that you're okay," he repeated, and Light swallowed. He could honestly say that this was the most emotional he had ever felt when dealing with anyone in his family. It was also the first time his father had directly asked about his mental state. He had never done this before, and Light would never simply offer the information.

It wouldn't be asking for help. He would simply be answering a question.

No, I'm not alright!

Things are not okay, and I have no more reason to live!

The words were like glue, stuck in his throat as if cemented there. He couldn't swallow them even as he tried, for they stayed lodged there, waiting for the signal to escape. If he wanted saving, now was the time to say it. Maybe his father could help, if only...

The thought trailed off and died, like a meteor burning up in the faraway heavens.

If only...

He loved his father, he truly did, but his father was... well, his father. He was a workaholic and too distant to really be a friend, to be someone Light confided in. He was Light's hero, not his companion. That saddened Light, but the foundation of their relationship had been built too long ago, too set in stone to fix now.

His mother was his caretaker. She made sure the house was warm and cozy and that Light had everything he needed as far as survival; food, shelter, and clothing. She encouraged Light to do well in his studies.

He was more a tutor to Sayu than anything else. She was sweet and Light had high hopes for her as far as getting into a decent high school, but she was no one Light could relate to.

He loved his family more than anyone else in the world, but he couldn't confide in them. He was not emotionally close to them. They might have simply been roommates living together for as long as he could remember. He couldn't ask them for help now. He had relied on himself for too long to admit that maybe he needed a copilot or an advisor.

He thought it might break his father's heart to know he was lying right now, but he made his mask smile, just a little bit, as he spoke.

"I'm alright, Dad."

-

-


A/N - Sorry, no L in this short chapter! Blame the fact that this has been stewing in my head while I was unable to write, so I changed my timeline a little. I can't think in English half the time, and my fingers turned into frozen fish sticks while writing today because I was trying to type outdoors in D.C., which is quite cold right now.

Next chapter will have L, I promise! Thanks always for reading!