Spoilers for "Another Note"

This takes a lot of dialogue, verbatim, from Death Note chapter 8.


Case Files from the Kira Investigation, 2003-2004


#001. 2003年12月20日 {Misora Naomi}

In July, you quit the FBI. You did so the week after Raye proposed (second time's the charm?), though bureaucracy being what it is, you didn't actually end up leaving till the end of September. His parents love you; you've never felt more welcomed by a family than you did by his. Your own parents… well, it's not like you have a problem with them. You just haven't seen them since college, when you emigrated to the U.S. on a scholarship. The girl who left them didn't curse or drive a motorcycle or wear leather jackets—she wouldn't have dared. The girl who left them didn't know capoeira; not that it would've mattered when it was your own boyfriend who had left you bleeding on the bed and not sure if it was possible to call it rape when you'd never actually said no.

(You haven't thought about that shitstain in ages, but you hope he rots in hell, or is stuck reincarnated as an ant that someone steps on for the next thousand years.)

You're staring at the same page of your book, waiting for the sound of the door opening. After a morning spent wandering the city and trying to persuade yourself that your parents wouldn't have a fit when they saw you, you'd come back to this hotel room. Japan is as familiar to you as the back of your hand, and yet you felt like a tourist; you might as well live it up.

You'd gone to the pool and did laps until your muscles sang with fatigue and your head was good and clear, and yet the moment you'd sat down to read, all you could think about was the Kira case.

Raye's working on it. It's the reason the two of you were even able to come back; the whole thing was paid for by the FBI. L wanted his eyes on the ground, so he got them. This time, there's no weird email with accompanying message of impending self-descruction on your computer. He probably knows you quit.

Or maybe he doesn't need you anymore.

"Raye, you're back," you say, putting down the book in relief as he walks through the door with a sigh, taking off his suit jacket. He's been tailing a suspect all day. At least this time he isn't watching through the night as well. You've barely gotten a moment with him since the two of you stepped off the plane. He throws his jacket onto the bed, sinks down into a chair and loosens his jacket, leaning his head back. He'll probably want something to drink, so you go to the kettle. The tea here is shit but you keep forgetting to buy something better. "You seem drained," you say, when he doesn't even acknowledge your presence. "...Did something happen?"

Is it terrible to want something to happen? You've been bored enough you'd almost considered renting a motorcycle, but that would be a ridiculous expense. You're going to be a wife soon, you need to figure out how to be a little more practical. Plan things better. Be less impulsive.

"I got mixed up in a busjacking," Raye says. You're boiling the water, picking up two ceramic cups as you echo his words.

"A busjacking?"

"Yeah," he explains. "This guy who tried to rob a bank a couple days ago decided to hijack a bus." He adds, a little lower, as though to himself, "didn't think this kind of stuff happened in Japan."

You're probably just too bored, but what are the odds? L would know. L probably should know. An FBI agent on the Kira case, tailing a suspect, and then this happens? You turn back to the kettle. The water's boiling.

"And were you on the bus when this happened?" you ask nonchalantly.

"Yeah. But the guy jumped out and ended up getting run over by a car."

He's gesturing for the cup when you bring it to him. "Did he die?" you ask.

"Yeah," Raye admits. "Probably. I didn't stick around to make sure. Didn't want to get involved." You should give him the cup but your mind is whirring. "Hey, Raye?"

"Hmm?"

"Was it really a coincidence that you happened to be there?" you ask gently. "I mean, you were on that bus because you were tailing a suspect, right? And then a criminal dies right there…?" It's always harder to see something objectively from in the thick of it, you know that. Fear, adrenaline, even excitement, they cloud things. But from an outside perspective…

"Hey," Raye says, annoyed. He's looking away from you now, and you realize, with a sinking in your gut, that you've lost your chance. "Look, I know you were an excellent FBI agent, but you're here now as my fiancée, and nothing else. You're not in the Bureau anymore, okay?"

His fiancée, and nothing else.

(You know that. You'd just thought it might be helpful, for him to have a sounding board. A partner—)

You're not his partner anymore. It's hard to figure out, sometimes, what else you're supposed to be, outside of work.

"You promised me you wouldn't get involved, or do anything that would put you in danger," Raye insists, sounding worried now. You put the cups on the table in front of him. "Those were the conditions," he says. "The only reason you're here with me is so we could meet your parents."

He's worried. He's worried, and it's making him harsh. Kira is too terrifying a killer to risk the lives of anyone you love, if you don't have to. Still, for a second you almost snap, really? You didn't want to spend time with me? You didn't want to see my home country?

That's Misora Massacre talking, and this isn't one of the asshole coworkers who constantly belittled you. "All right, Raye," you say instead, softly. "Force of habit, I guess. I'm sorry."

"Hey," Raye says gently. "I'm sorry, too. Don't take it too hard. Once we have a family, you'll be so busy you'll forget you ever were an agent. You won't have the time for that habit to pop up anymore."

You hope so. You hope that, when you have children, they will magically make you the right kind of mother. Someone who hasn't seen the face of a child killer, and held hands trembling with a gun in them, out into his face, berating herself not for the cruelty of almost taking a life but for being unable to shoot. You hope that, when you have children, wherever you live will be a place where bus-jackings and Kira-killings and date-rapes don't happen.

You hope, but you're not holding out a lot of it.

"So how about using that brain of yours to figure out how I can make a good impression on your folks?" Raye adds teasingly.

You laugh. "Raye, don't worry. They'll love you." You take a sip of your tea before remembering that it's shitty, and consider grabbing the sugar. But that thought makes you feel depressed. You hate sugary drinks. For a second, you're remembering the sweet tar Ryuzaki had tried to force down your throat under the guise of hospitality. There must be something about a detective's greatest case… the way it sticks with you, never lets you forget it. The LABB murders were yours. Maybe that's why you'd shown up during visiting hours on and off for a year, just to prove to yourself that Beyond was truly defeated.

"I'll think about it," you'd said when Raye proposed for the second time. It wasn't that you didn't want to say yes; but that's what you'd said the first time: yes, without thinking about it, and after everything that had happened with your suspension and Ryuzaki, when you announced you were rejoining the FBI, you and Raye had had a raging fight which boiled down to him being terrified for your safety (I thought you were going to settle down after this, maybe even…) and you being terrified of everything he was trying to offer you. No, the FBI was safe, and that's what he didn't understand; you knew how to protect yourself from the barrage, how to conduct yourself in an organization, but when it came to love, how would you know? That you hadn't failed again? (You don't want someone like me, Raye—)

(Where's this coming from, Naomi?)

Girls like you never end up in stable, safe relationships.

The day after his second proposal you'd gone to see Ryuzaki, who was just as much of a freak as ever. He sat curled up on one side of the table, handcuffed to the metal; the shiny, warped skin over his body, his almost hairless scalp, a reminder of his failed suicide.

"So, Misora," he said. "You don't want my help for a case this time. It must be love."

"Shut up," you'd said, automatically.

He mimed cutting out his own tongue.

In graphic detail.

"Raye proposed to me," you said.

"And you didn't accept?" he asked.

"I plan to."

"So why didn't you?"

Because I needed someone to talk me into it, you hadn't said.

"I guess I just wasn't sure," you lied.

"If you want, I could break out of here," Ryuzaki had said. "Kill him. You wouldn't have to turn the idiot down."

"Thanks, Ryuzaki," you'd replied. "I'm sure the cameras didn't catch any of that."

He'd grinned. His thin, melted lips made the gesture look even more disgusting than it had before his near death experience, but only just. "The offer's open."

You'd left more settled than before. He still, after all this time, thinks I can't stand up for myself. …He's wrong.

Ryuzaki would love the Kira case. Maybe, if it's not solved by the time you get back—

"Naomi?" Raye asks, and you blink the past away.

"Sorry," you say. "I guess I'm a little tired. Look, maybe we should turn in early tonight. You've obviously had a day of it. I can grab some food, and we can eat it here. No restaurants, no worrying about cases or parents… how about it?"

He leans forward; meets your lips in a long, heated kiss that has you gripping his shoulders, wanting so badly to topple him down onto the nearest bed and damn the whole concept of waiting until marriage. But that's Misora Massacre speaking, terror of the FBI, and you're not that woman anymore.

"That," he says, softly, "sounds perfect."

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