During dinner that night, Light made a dangerous, awful, arrogant, selfish mistake.

A news bulletin came on while they were listening to music, announcing that Interpol was sending fifteen-hundred agents to Japan to aid in the Kira case. Considering Light was mainly attacking in Japan, Sayu doubted Interpol would actually consider it such a high priority. A crack team, out of obligation, perhaps, but fifteen-hundred? She would have put a little asterisk next to the word 'agents.'

But then Light couldn't just say nothing about it and maintain a low profile, nooooooo, he just had to make a remark.

"Interpol is so stupid."

Sayu couldn't help it. "What?" she blurted out in her disbelief. You know about the cameras, idiot! Now is not the time to show off!

Her brother shrugged. "What's the point if they announce it like this? If they're going to send in all those detectives, they should just keep quiet about it and let them work in secret." Shut up, Light, shut up shut up shut up! You're going to get yourself arrested!

Her silent pleas did nothing, and Light continued to dig his own grave. "Those FBI agents were here on a top-secret mission, and look what still happened to them!" Aaaaaand he was drawing attention to his own handiwork. It was like the smug bastard had a death wish! "If Kira knows about these guys, he's going to get them, too, for sure."

All Sayu wanted to do was shake him, pound her fists against his chest and scream Whatareyoudoingstopitstopitnow but instead, she kept a tight grip on herself and her impulses, and used all her willpower and strength to give the vapid, inane response that was, as always, expected of her: "Oh, yeah, you're right! Smart as ever, Light."

(Oh, how dearly she wished Ryuk were here. He might've understood how hard it was for her to say that with a straight face, even if his laughter tipped Light off.)

But Light wasn't finished. "That's why I bet it isn't even true. This is just a ruse to put pressure on Kira."

Oh, how Sayu wished he had stopped there (stopped earlier, even). But he had to put another nail in his coffin.

"But, it's pretty obvious," he said with a goddamn smirk, "so I bet Kira's figured that out, too."

Are. You. SERIOUS?!

Calling that move obvious, when here he was, practically jumping around in his underpants with red paint and a target on his forehead, shouting 'I'm Kira, I'm Kira!'?! The audacity! The idiocy! If he weren't her brother, and making a horrendously terrible mistake by all but daring L to put him on the top of his suspect list, Sayu just might have admired how ballsy he would have to be to say that, knowing he was being listened to.

When Light was done eating and incriminating himself, and he grabbed a bag of potato chips to take up to his room, Sayu made a dig at him getting fat, and it deeply frustrated her that it was the closest she could get to beating the shit out of him for being such a moronic, thoughtless, cocky, selfish, arrogant dick.

Ryuk came to visit her in her room a few days later, while she was listening to music. She casually slung the headphones around her neck and slid her sketchpad towards her.

"The cameras are gone, but Light still thinks there might be wires." Sayu noticed he had an armful of apples, and he was munching on them as he sat down on the edge of the bed next to her. "I have a question."

Seeing as there were no cameras to watch her now, and she could dispose of the notes the same way she disposed of the pictures, Sayu wrote down her answers. Ask away.

"I know what Light does, with his smarts," Wasting them, presumably. (Sayu was still mad about the news bulletin.) "but what do you do? There has to be something – you act like you're average, but you must have some kind of outlet, or you'd probably waste away from boredom."

I read philosophy, mostly. Keep up to date with science. Conduct experiments and write anonymous papers when my family can't see. These days? Wondering about shinigami and the Death Note.

"Like what?"

There's enough holes in the Death Note's rules to drive a barge through. Are there other rules that aren't written down?

Ryuk shrugged. "Probably? I wrote down all the ones I could remember, but I could have forgotten some."

So not all the Notes had the rules written down – Ryuk had done that for whoever was going to use his. How old are you? How long have you been using the Note?What's the earliest thing you can remember? Earliest period in human history?

Ryuk scratched his head in surprise. "You know, Light never even thought to ask me that. He's got a pretty one-track mind, that guy. Uh, I don't know, I also don't know, and the earliest thing I can remember is using the note on some old guy hunting with a spear. I don't remember when that was, sorry – shinigami mostly don't keep track of stuff like that. The first time I really remember us paying attention was during World War One or Two, I think. Some shinigami were panicking, because there were humans dying too fast for us to harvest lifespan. They thought you guys might go extinct."

So you only depend on humans for your life? There aren't any other species? Can you use your Death Notes on each other?

"Yes, no, and no. Shinigami can't kill each other, only the Death King can do that."

Who is the Death King? What happens if a shinigami runs out of lifespan? Are there beings other than humans and shingami?

"You sure have a lot of questions. Why haven't you asked any of this before?"

That sounded like a deflection to Sayu. I've kind of been digesting the fact that Heaven and Hell are real. Also, well, Kira. She had to try not to write anything too incriminating of Light, just in case. Are there any other beings?

"Erm," Ryuk squirmed. Sayu suspected he was often embarrassed by his own ignorance, no doubt the result of a culture that dismissed curiosity and intellectual engagement. "Well, I don't know – if there are, they aren't really our bag. The only two worlds I know of are ours and yours. There might be a few of the others who know, but if they do, they don't tell anyone."

And the Death King?

"He's uh, well," Ryuk scratched his head. "I'm honestly not sure how to describe him. He's the one who basically rules us – we go to him for disputes, he gives us our Death Notes, he punishes us when we go against the laws. He's been there for as long as I can remember. No one ever explained to me why he's in charge, and I never really thought to ask."

Does he have a real name? Do you know where he gets the Death Notes?

"I don't think so. I think he's the one who makes them – I can't think of where else he would get them. Some of the others think he created our world, too."

Every answer brought more questions, but she focused on the ones that had been driving her crazy. Do you think your world might've been different at some point? More alive?

This left Ryuk silent for a few moments.

"I..." he began hesitantly. "I don't think so, somehow. But, it's kind of strange, isn't it? A dead world. You'd think a world that's dead would've been alive at some point. Somehow I don't think it ever was, though. Less like it was alive, and then it died, and more like it didn't exist, and then somehow it did. Like time doesn't touch it."

He was silent, and completely still for some time after this. She supposed he must be thinking, but Sayu felt chills, seeing him so unmoving like this. Nothing alive on Earth could sit that still, not even plants. For a solid few seconds, Ryuk seemed to be a fixed point in space, immovable and untouchable.

Just like the world he came from.

"I suppose," he said softly, breaking his long silence, "that's why I find your world so fun to watch. Things change so fast here. Everything moves and flows from one moment to the next, so fast. It breathes like it's a living thing itself. Compared to a still, lifeless husk like home – like me," Ryuk held his palms out and spread his spindly fingers to indicate everything around them, "It's – it's like comparing existence and nonexistence. Apples and, uh, dust."

She was caught on those words, 'like me,' on him likening himself to the world he came from, and before she could process it Sayu found herself speaking. "But -" she caught herself just in time. Shocked at her own lack of caution, she clapped a hand over her own mouth as she hastily started scribbling onto the paper. Ryuk looked surprised too, though as always there was always some other, unidentifiable emotion lingering behind his eyes.

But you're not lifeless! You chose to come here! You chose not to lay about doing nothing! You chose curiosity over complacency! You're not dead, none of you are. Any one of you could come over to this world if they chose, all shinigami have it in their power to defy the Death King. The problem is that not enough of you think to choose something different to what already you know. Humans and shinigami face the same problem – we're too comfortable with the familiar and too afraid of the unknown.

Ryuk stared at the paper, and then stared at her, leaning in so close that Sayu was suddenly very aware of the details of his presence – his big, big birdlike eyes, his sharp, predatory maw, how he didn't breathe or give off heat, how his feathers made his shoulders seem wider than they really were, how his earrings only seemed to obey gravity when he wanted them to –

"You're fascinating," he murmured, bringing up a spindly black finger (God, how his claws looked so long and sharp and dangerous) and tapping the top of her forehead. "So many wonderful secrets and keen observations hidden away up in that little head of yours, and nobody has any idea. How has no one ever wondered if there's more than what you tell them you are? More than what you show them?"

As she stared up at him, his enormous hand dwarfing her supposedly keen little head, Sayu desperately wanted to whisper: You're the one who's fascinating.