"When the eye makes a statement, the lips should be quiet."
~Francois Nars
When Light entered the small café, he was first hit by the surprisingly pleasurable odor of ground coffee beans. It was, in fact, the first tolerable odor he had encountered so far, and the aroma engulfed him in a delightful embrace.
When Light found himself with a fresh cup of black coffee, still steaming, and in the café's back parlor, he didn't question it. Instead, he let himself get cozy on the upholstered couch and stretched his arms to the harsh, unstopping melody of Ayato's irritated mumbling about 'Yoshimura' and his tendency to"adopt strays."
What he meant by that, Light didn't know nor did he particularly care.
When the man finally sat down in front of him, Light leaned forward, ears and eyes pointed to glean something from this whole endeavor. With a subtle sniff, Light deemed the coffee palatable and took a sip, staring into the sloshing black liquid as he was met with a surprisingly good flavor.
His face remained straight, and Ayato teased him from behind closed eyelids.
He felt like a fool, and this feeling came with good reason.
It should go unsaid that when one enters the devil's house, one does not accept a cup of coffee.
His subconscious whispered at him to question, question, question–
So he did.
He questioned the colorful parlor of the quaint café, wondering what sick twisted front a café was for ghoul activity. The humans who walked in and out daily probably had no idea. Fools.
He questioned the man's identity. The man's fatherly aura was masking an unknown and threatening wit; Light could easily imagine a cruel personality within the old man, so he resolved to distance himself.
He wondered all this as he took a sip of coffee without recoil.
Even that was strange.
He questioned, most importantly, the faint smell of blood tinged in the room.
The musk of human blood was wrapped around him like iron chains; the heavy smell of metal smothered the air. With a harsh and heavy breath, he mustered a semblance of self-control, just to stop himself from snapping into an inhuman trance of gluttony and insanity.
The mere intensity of it was enough to make it feel as though his stomach was being stabbed with knives, twisting in the blade with each inhalation. He was starving– He tapped his fingers on his knees rather urgently, and he drifted his eyes everywhere but towards the man looking pointedly at him.
"You may call me Yoshimura," the man opened, wrinkled and weathered face twisting into a wry smile. His pinched eyes danced with some sort of unknown emotion, and it prickled at Light's skin. The unknown was terrifying, and Light didn't trust him. Especially after last time…
"Yagami Light," Light returned, bowing to stare into the cup of coffee he had been handed. His hands smoothed over the cup, he blinked at his reflection in the murky liquid, and raised himself back up to a sitting position, "Though, given the circumstances, it'd be perfectly fine to use my first name."
It was, undeniably, an extremely familiar situation. Honorifics be damned, Light was in no position to say this was normal. Especially with a man who only handed out his first (or perhaps last) name.
"A pleasure," Yoshimura returned the bow with the same knowing smirk on his face.
He didn't ask his age, his true identity, or his intentions, and that set off alarms.
A game of give and take–
Like real life chess, Light surmised. Though, one wrong move and he's–
dead.
Yes, the stakes were clear now.
"You know," Yoshimura drawled with a long sip of coffee, "People don't normally come around here without a reason."
His eyes were pointed.
"Especially in the middle of the night."
The cup clinked onto the table and Light found himself drowning in something, air, water, blood, that he just couldn't understand. Yoshimura's hands were twisted together and his cup was sat on the table, and he just looked so normal.
"I was told I could come here," Light murmured softly, voice wispy as though the unknown, unseeable entity were still holding his throat hostage. As if a breeze, the next few words jumbled out swiftly, "For help, I need help."
The porcelain mask cracked like a hammer to glass; it shattered completely and utterly. With wide eyes and clutched hands, Light, in his wretched state, let himself tremble in terror.
He needed help.
For the first time, just once in his life, it had finally sunken in that he was not human and that, if not one of them, he was an enemy.
A helpless, useless ghoul.
Just like that, the world turned in on itself, revealing vicious fangs normally seen on the underside of a viper's hissing maw. It was no longer welcoming to him; he was a ghoul now, he didn't deserve that kind of acceptance.
Just like that, humanity was now a currency, a meal of choice, and– Light squeezed the fabric tighter– a threat.
Just like that, he was no longer an independent human being. Pathetic.
This word, feeble and so unlike him, kept repeating like a broken record in the cold confines of his mind. Broken and battered and yet without wounds, Light held himself with as much solidarity as a lost child in a bustling crowd.
"You need… help?" Yoshimura crashed into his thoughts with the intensity of a speeding car, and Light dumbly nodded at the man's question, seeming completely out of place.
His hands folded into a curled fist as he continued to look everywhere, anywhere else except the man's eyes. He knows you're a dead weight too.
"Very well," Yoshimura's words had an edge to them, and Light noted the shift in tone as much as he did the scent of iron in the room. The elder man continued, "Do you have work experience?"
The question hit Light like a truck, and he found himself struggling for a response.
"Y-Yes?" Light wasn't sure if helping his father with cases counted, but it was probably not the kind of "experience" Yoshimura was looking for. "Only in detective work. I am… I was planning on going to college. I don't know if that's happening anymore."
"Can you make a cup of coffee?" The elder man shot back as soon as Light finished his sentence. Yoshimura's face was like a lake; still and stagnant. The lack of hesitation further staggered Light's line of thought, and his brows furrowed together in a bout of deep concentration.
"I suppose, but I don't do it often," Light had never made a decent cup of coffee in his life, but he wasn't about to reveal his little lie.
He was desperate, not stupid.
Yoshimura's face gave nothing away, but Light couldn't help but feel as though he had failed to convince the man. Brush up on your acting, Light.
"What about grocery shopping?" Yoshimura asked with a long sip of coffee, face scrunched in what seemed to be deep thought.
"He doesn't actually mean… you know… grocery shopping," Ayato chipped in, "He wants to know if you can hunt."
"I–" Light stumbles, he's never actually hunted before per se, but he's scavenged. Once. And wasn't that a miserable failure? "I get by, never shopped."
The euphemisms were strange, but anything was better than saying murder. Anything.
"It sounds like you have your business in order, Yagami," Yoshimura hums with a deep tone of approval, and his eyes shone with something terrifyingly unfamiliar. His arms opened wide as the cup clinked back onto the table, "I'd be happy to offer you a job here at the café. There's fair pay and, of course, rations for the month. The only conditions are that you don't go out and shop for yourself, but that's fairly reasonable, no?
Light imagines Yoshimura as an eagle swooping in for the kill, ready to grab the snake by the tail as it nearly slithers away from capture and towards tall grasses. He thought over the offer, and he did it with a wavering disposition.
If he accepts, he may never get another option. He'll be locked in.
But you may never see an opportunity like this agin.
On one hand, he could find a steady, dependable food supply and not have to worry about hunting. No more doves, just a part-time job. It'd even make a good excuse for his family now that he thought about it. Some bullshit about wanting to be more responsible and taking life into your hands; they'd eat it up.
The golden child does no wrong.
On another, there was the trustworthiness of the agency offering it. Light did not know Yoshimura, and a twenty-minute conversation was not enough to know if he was going to get a decent deal. He was here because he was desperate and because Ayato was his only connection, and he wasn't even sure if it was a given since the boy was now dead.
Despite the objections, like red flags and blaring alarms in his head, he knew that there were no other options when it came to security.
Without Anteiku, he would be left for dead.
And Light was not ready to die.
But…
Brown eyes darted down as Light's clenched fingers slithered around the mug of coffee. With a tight squeeze, he managed to tie himself back together emotionally. Ayato was muttering off-handedly in his head, making Light have to slow down for a moment just to decipher the near-silent words.
"… he's got that face on… wants something… stupid old man…"
So, naturally, Light knew something was off.
Yoshimura met his glare.
"There's has to be a catch," Yoshimura dictated rigidly, copying Light's few readable mannerisms in what he could read as a satirical manner. Light grimaced: he was onto him, perhaps one actor to another. The elder man's head slid sideways as a smile painted itself onto the man's blank face, "That's what you're thinking."
A finger pointed at Light, and Yoshimura took a deep sip of coffee, exhaling slowly as to dribble over his thoughts.
"Everyone is like that, Yagami. I was like that," Yoshimura murmured, barely above a whisper. Wrinkled hands steadied around the porcelain cup, and his baritone hum rang out again, "One thing you learn by the time you're my age is not to bite the hand that feeds you."
"Though… " Yoshimura slowed, tone as frigid as the Antarctic.
The man's eyes shifted from a soft brown to the eldritch, beast-like black and red hue, and wrinkled hands nearly strangled the delicate porcelain between them.
"You know," Yoshimura's words were like serpents, and they slithered around him, slowly constricting him with deadly coils of muscle and scale. "You are not wrong to think that. The ghoul world is very much a dangerous place for humans like you."
The eyes shifted back to brown in an instant, and all the tension in the room evaporated into thin air.
"I will not ask why you smell like him," Yoshimura's eyes met with Light's for a split second.
But you're going to tell me at some point. You will.
The words went unsaid, but Light saw the threat poking out from underneath the blasé conversation.
With a subtle nod, he waved off the conversation to a later date. His plastic smile dipped into a frown as he dwelled on that thought. It buzzed around him like a fly, pestering him.
Despite himself, his lips curled back up as his fists clenched on his lap.
"When can I start?"
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Questions
Will Light ever tell Yoshimura what's happened to him, or will he continue to stew in solitude?
Is Light capable of depending on others than himself? Can he genuinely help others despite his sociopathic tendencies?