"A note on Light's many secret high school admirers, there are many. Apparently as Light's wingman I have now gained the reputation of expert on Light, this apparently means that whenever anyone wants Light to notice them they come to me. And I have to explain to them, without telling them that Light doesn't have feelings or a soul, why he hasn't noticed their interest. This, among all other things, is the most awkward thing about my relationship with Light Yagami."
His father didn't meet Anna until winter, long after Lind L. Taylor's televised scandal, and the agent's disappearance. Anna had never asked after his father, only mentioned him in passing, as she did with anyone who wasn't truly involved in Kira's game. Whether she thought about him beyond that was hard to tell, she tended to convey only her thoughts on the mundane, the irrelevant, and the absolutely necessary and Soichiro Yagami was not on that list. As for his father, the man barely had time for his own children let alone to meet the American stranger who had taken up temporary residence, he passed her once or twice early in the morning or late at night, and they'd nod to one another but other than a good day or a goodbye no words were actually exchanged. She would look out after him as he walked past her with a strange look in her eye, almost as if she was about to say something, but then she'd turn away and the spark of a thought was gone.
He wondered if they were looking at the same thing.
Work had taken its toll on his father, as Light had known it would. Still though, the physical signs of the prolonged stress were more pronounced than he thought they would be. His hair had gone almost all gray, with each day the investigation dragged on a little piece of him withered.
With little results and more invasion of privacy than was considered legal in the worst of times L was slowly but surely pushing Japan's homicide division to the edge. Light had been tracking the numbers and slowly but surely the number of employees dropped off as the frustrated workers transferred to different departments or quit altogether.
His father would remain though, until the very end, even when there were no men standing beside him he would sit in that empty office and follow L's leads. He'd begun to wonder how long his father would survive this, but then, hadn't he already declared his family expendable?
He had little time to spare thoughts for his family, especially in the midst of being followed and the aftermath of Lind L. Taylor's death, but recently (in this calm in the storm) he found himself reflecting on what his personal future might be more and more often. His father had almost stopped coming home altogether and he wondered, when the Kira case continued to escalate and lengthen in time, if this would continue or if he would eventually admit partial defeat. For the moment though, he seemed determined to see it through until the bitter end.
It was a surprise then, the night his father finally made it home in time for dinner. They went out of their way to set the tables, to create the illusion of family unity, and wait smilingly for him to return home. Anna had looked at all this with raised eyebrows, but had said nothing, instead picking up a pair of chopsticks with a small frown that predicted future coordination issues.
And though the girl with the red hair and the blue eyes didn't speak a word of it at the table Light knew exactly what she'd say. This is the play, she'd motion to everything, the room the people the plates. She'd turn to the table, these are the props, all plastic you see? She'd move to Sayu, to his mother, these are the characters. Finally she'd stop before him, and this is the director, see how he places them all? But then, he'd ask in return, what are you supposed to be? And she'd smile, that cad who never learned the lines.
Sayu talked about school and friends, Light about upcoming exams, and Anna dutifully attempted to pick up rice gracefully via chopsticks (a skill she never seemed quite able to master). Meanwhile their father looked at them all with dead eyes, finally though as the small talk ended his eyes drifted to the stranger in their midst, the red-headed school girl.
"Jones, isn't it?" He asked, Anna blinked and put aside her attempts to eat with poise for the moment. She nodded as if unsure what to do with that kind of a question.
He gave her a worn smile, one that lacked compassion or patience, it was the smile one gave out of politeness or the feeling that they should do something with their expression. His intent was clear, she was inconvenient but otherwise unimportant, in the way where she shouldn't be. This night was for his family, not for this stranger caught in the crossfire.
"I'm sorry we haven't had a chance to meet properly." He continued, "Things have been… busy at work."
"Oh, no, that's fine." Anna said with a wave of her hand, "Believe me school's been busy too. Well, I guess not in the same way." She added sheepishly before looking back at her food as if she wanted nothing more than to disappear inside it.
"Yes, I suppose not." He said and finally came to his point, "If you don't mind there are some matters I'd like to discuss privately with my family." That smile again, the one that seemed to apologize but really said nothing.
She stared at him for a moment, seemingly oblivious to being politely told to get out, and then she stood and began to clear her place, "Of course, sorry, I didn't realize. You haven't been here in a while and I should have… Well, um yeah, anyway I'll be upstairs if anyone needs me."
And the actor who didn't know her lines gracefully bowed and made her way off the stage. Somehow though, even though she gave all appearance of stumbling through his play, he knew that she had seen this scene before and could easily relate back, if asked, every word spoken from this point on.
"She's an odd girl." Soichiro mentioned briefly as he watched her go.
Sayu shrugged, "Yeah, well, she's also really nice though. And really smart, too, I guess." Sayu then fiddled with her food looking slightly thoughtful as she thought back to the few times Anna had helped with geometry.
Light said nothing, he found that he didn't want to discuss Anna Jones and the shows she put on for their entertainment. Suddenly it was all very exhausting, these little scenes he had to participate in. For a moment he wanted nothing more than to silently exit, just as she had, his lines filled by the understudy as he took his leave of the stage. It was only a moment though.
"You had something you wanted to talk about, dad?"
"You know that I've been working late recently, this is because I've been assigned to the Kira case."
So he finally told them, of course they all had known more or less, even Sayu hadn't stopped to ask why her dad was spending so much time at the office. They had all more or less assumed that he had been involved at least on some level in the Kira case, still they each pretended as if they hadn't known or acknowledged this fact long ago.
"No, dad, you can't!" Sayu said, "It's too dangerous!"
But of course even Sayu must have known that he would ignore this, as he would ignore any attempt to sway him from the Kira case. His mother sat there, looking at his father with resignation, knowing that though it would most likely be the death of him there was nothing she could say to stop him. What would Light say though? The Light Yagami he had been before the notebook, would he have seen the pointlessness in the endeavor, no he would have stood and told his father how proud he was of him.
And so Light did precisely that, noticing the lack of reaction to his statement, all the while thinking that only one other person would have noticed how shallow his persona seemed and she had left the stage halfway through the scene.
He looked at all these people surrounding him, and he remembered the day he sat in that warehouse with a box on fire, the day he had declared so easily that he would burn them all if necessary. Somehow, even watching them now, he knew that this declaration hadn't wavered in the slightest and that it probably never would.
His father smiled in response, knowing he could count on his son's support, while his sister looked dismayed and his mother's resignation settled in.
All the world's a stage, he thought as he suppressed a bitter smile.
"What the hell?" Anna Jones, illiterate refugee from another universe who barely even thought her real name anymore, looked down at her literature paper with dumbfounded confusion. She looked around the classroom to see if anyone else was having a moment, but things seemed really normal, well as normal as they ever were.
Ryuk was floating ominously behind everyone like the shadow of death, just lurking out of sight, moving in and out of the classroom seemingly at random as he tried to make his way through yet another boring day. Although, Ryuk did confess to her one time out of Light's hearing that he was never really bored, he just sometimes wished Light would speed things up a little in his quest for world domination. Light was gazing out the window with all the focus of a zombie, his brain had probably left the building and made its way into that magical land where he plotted moves against L in the most intricate game of imaginary Risk ever created hours ago, and was currently winning the staring contest with his own reflection. Several girls were doodling in the margins of their notebooks; each writing their and Light's initials as they imagined what their future wedding would be like. The rest of the class was either attempting not to fall asleep or was actually paying attention to what the teacher said.
All in all, pretty much all the everyday occurrences had been checked off her list for the day, all that was left was for Light to drag her into a corner of the cafeteria where they would awkwardly eat lunch by themselves and for one of Light's admirers to come to her and demand to know the truth about the relationship between Anna Jones and Light Yagami. (They all either thought they were secretly dating, which was a horrifying prospect, or tried to use her to pass messages on to Light. It was getting seriously weird and she and Light had to have a long discussion some time but right now was not the time to be worrying about Light's love life and her involvement in it.)
So it wasn't really anything major that was making her question the state of her reality, again, just a letter written in ink on the top of her essay.
Somehow, beyond all conceivable explanations, Anna Jones had gotten one hundred percent on her essay. There were many problems with this. One thing was that she could barely write or read Japanese, sure she could babble like a nine year old on the best of days (she had now progressed to the point where she could write sentences about her cat and her desire to go to the beach) but she still felt she wholly deserved Light's labeling her as illiterate. She'd tried to disguise this fact from the various teachers throughout her days at high school by hiding in the back of the room, faking being asleep in class, and developing the most obnoxious stammer possible whenever asked to read aloud. She'd always gotten the distinct feeling that it wasn't working and they were going to ship her back to America where she'd be promptly disposed of by some terrible accident on Light's behalf.
The other reason was that she hadn't read the book. Oh sure she'd meant to, but then it had been so long and in Japanese too, and it had been so very boring. It was one of those existential novels, or something, she hadn't made it very far but the hipster of the main character seemed pretty down on society and it really looked like it was heading in that direction. So after a few attempts she'd decided to go watch television and look it up on Wikipedia or Sparknotes, unfortunately she'd forgotten that Death Note took place in the late nineties when the internet barely existed. Also it was in an alternate dimension, which might not have helped things.
So she'd cranked out the most pathetic excuse of a paper in English or in Japanese all while using vocabulary that would cause a kindergartener to shake its head in pity. Worse it had been during one of those periods where Light was in no mood to edit, ever since Raye Penber had not died Light had been pretty antsy over the fact that L hadn't appeared to have done anything, and would probably have thrown her out the window if she'd even suggested he write it for her. She'd figured she could afford to fail at least one essay without being thrown out of the program and deported. She'd pretty much been resigned to an "F for fantastic!"
She checked the name on the paper, wondering if they had given her someone else's by mistake, but nope there was Anna Jones written in English lettering (after debating a few weeks she'd decided that she wouldn't bother to learn how the hell Anna Jones translated into Japanese characters so that she didn't sound like an uncultured ass). What she wouldn't give for Spanish again, she'd never paid attention and forgotten all of it but there was something so comforting about romantic languages that she could vaguely read.
She dropped the paper on her desk and closed her mouth before a bird decided to nest there. She let her eyes drift to the teacher who had turned back to their latest assignment, the next book that she hadn't bothered to read because it looked long and boring and in Japanese. He didn't look back at her, in fact barely acknowledged her presence at all; he just went on lecturing about the various themes presented within the story. Her eyes flickered to Light who was still staring out with all the expression and feeling one usually reserves for watching paint dry.
Fidgeting in her seat she tried to calm the sudden need to run over to Light's desk and to demand to know why he was bribing her teachers. Not only would it look really weird but the thing was that he probably hadn't, actually not probably she knew he hadn't, it probably wasn't a course of action he had even considered. No, there weren't any signs of deceit in any of them, it was as if none of them found this situation horribly wrong.
So how the hell did she get an A?
She flipped through the paper, rereading it with as much subtlety as she could muster, and yes it was just as shitty as she remembered it being. Maybe the teacher had a brain tumor and hadn't realized it yet.
It was with that thought in mind that she waited through the rest of the class, answering questions every now and then with the best of her ability, and eventually made her way up to the teacher to ask about her grade. She stood awkwardly in front his desk as the other students shuffled their way out the door, Light spared her a questioning glance at her back, paused for a moment and then made his way to wait beside the door until she was done. Eventually the teacher turned his attention to her, and then smiled as if she was a particularly beloved student instead rather than the girl who slept until the bell rang and then drowsily pulled her way through class.
"Hey, sensei…" She said trailing off awkwardly as she wondered if she was really about to do this or not, "I was wondering if we could talk about my paper for a few minutes."
"Yes, it was quite a wonderful paper too, very insightful." The man smiled, "You know, your essay has changed the entire way I look at the novel now."
All she could see was the concluding line in her essay running through her mind, "And the book was really good and stuff." Because clearly that was exactly what he was referring to.
"Oh, well, I'm glad you liked it?" She said, no asked because she was really too confused to say anything in confidence. "Are you sure it was that good though, I mean…" Here she paused and looked at Light who was waiting with the patience of a martyr beside the door, "Light's had to have been better, right?"
The man smiled conspiratorially, "Mr. Yagami is quite gifted Ms. Jones, and his paper like yours was excellent to read, but if you really must know I felt yours had just a bit more depth."
He must have some sort of brain tumor.
"Erm, okay." Was all she managed to get out of that, she raised up a hand awkwardly to wave goodbye, "well, I'm gonna go get some lunch now. Thanks for going over that with me."
With that she turned almost mechanically on her heel and began to walk rather stiffly toward the door before the universe decided to get any weirder on her.
"Oh, before you go Ms. Jones," The man said, "I'd heard you were applying to university in Japan and I wanted to wish you the best of luck on the entrance exams."
And then she stopped and turned around again to face the man who did not look like he'd said a really bad joke.
"What?" She asked, "But I…"
"The rumors are all over the school Ms. Jones, it's quite an ambitious goal but I believe you are fully capable."
She wanted to say that, no she was in fact not capable as she couldn't read. She also wanted to say that she had every intention, as soon as this fake exchange program ended, to haul ass back to fake America and attend whatever university Anna Jones had been accepted to. She also wanted to say that even if she did stay in Japan that didn't necessitate attending university. Instead of that all that came out was a dumbfounded question.
"…Really?"
He just smiled indulgently at her and then waved her off and again she mechanically turned around to walk out the door with Light and the Shinigami in tow. She walked her way through till lunch as a zombie trying to reconcile the fact that her grades did not at all reflect her effort and or assignments. Finally when Light grabbed the table in the corner she began to think again.
"Did you brainwash your teacher?" She asked, normally she didn't talk politics with Light at school. This meant mentioning anything that might relate to him being Kira or Kira in general but she really couldn't wait on this.
"What?" Light asked abruptly before pulling on a sheepish expression in case anyone was watching, "Anna, why would I need to brainwash a teacher? I'm the number one student in Japan."
"Yeah, well, according to my latest essay grade you're not." Anna said as she began to eat lunch. Light's expression became more thoughtful, he regarded her carefully, watching as she tried to eat her lunch as casually as possible.
"Really?" Light asked, but in a tone that was not curious at all rather as if he had suspected this might happen.
"I know, I said the same thing to the teacher." Anna said her complete bafflement returning, "I mean I didn't even read the book, I don't even really remember what the book was about, some guy contemplating life and death and it was so boring and in Japanese."
She thought back to the rumor that he had heard, of her attending university in Japan, and the bafflement faded to something more sinister. She had been living one day at a time, not even thinking about universities or what she would do after high school ended. She had been so focused on the present that it hadn't appeared even as an issue to her. Sometimes she vaguely wondered if Anna Jones even had parents or a life back in America, or if she was just a cardboard cutout, whose background had been filled in well enough to dispel any doubts but who had no true place in the world. She had wondered if Light would allow her to leave for America at all, or if he would have no control over it. She never imagined that she would attend a university in Japan.
Light said nothing, he continued to stare into nothingness where his thoughts tangled themselves into a briar, leaving Anna to drop her slightly forced smile altogether. Finally he seemed to refocus on her and gave a somewhat grim smile.
"I think, Anna Jones, that your god may be back."
Author's Note: Writing filler is surprisingly difficult, at least for me anyway. Slightly less life or death drama, which is a nice break, and more vague OC normality. Thanks for reviews you guys are awesome and for reading that is also awesome and reviews are indeed appreciated. Stay classy.
Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.
