chapter 4

disclaimer: I do not own death note


Vanilla parked her motorcycle in front an old dirty building that looked like it could fall apart at any moment. "Is this really the place?" she muttered to herself as she took off her helmet and let her long hair fall around her face. Her honey-brown eyes scanned the building once again. She strapped her helmet to the handlebar and got off the bike, but she lost her balance and fell when she felt something tug on her arm. She looked up to realize she had somehow tied her right hand to the handlebar with the helmet strap. "How does that even happen?" she almost yelled. She undid the helmet and examined it for a moment.

It was a black helmet and she had painted it too look like a skull. It wasn't very detailed, it was mostly just shadowing and at night it almost looked like an ordinary black helmet. She put the helmet back on the handle, this time making sure to NOT tie her hand down. As she approached the building a slightly chubby man with light brown hair and blue eyes came out of the building.

"hello miss, you must be the new resident" he said, walking up to her.

"yep, that's me, Valarie kurusaki" she held her hand out.

"Lance Golding" the man shook her hand. "that's a nice bike ya got there, I didn't even hear ya pull up, wouldn'ta known ya were here if it weren't for that huge racket ya made" he said humorously.

"hehe, sorry about that" Vanilla scratched her cheek.

"it's not a problem. Come right this way miss kurusaki-san, I'll get ya the keys to yer apartment" she followed him up to the building. She examined it again from the inside. It was really old and dusty. "here ya go miss. yer room is number 404" Lance handed her the keys.

"thank you Golding-san" she said politely, adjusting the strap of her backpack on her shoulder.

"yer welcome. See ya 'round miss kurusaki-san" he replied.

Vanilla practically bounced up the stairs. "now let's see...apartment 404, apartment 404, 404..." 20 minutes later and she still hadn't found it "I can't find it, where the hell is apartment 404?" she sighed in frustration and looked up to see...apartment 404.

"oh, there it is" she put the key in the lock and turned it. The door swung open with a loud 'creeeeeeaaakkk!' "oh yay! built in burglar alarm!" She almost giggled at her little joke and looked around the apartment. The room was small and mostly empty, There was a stove and fridge on the left wall and a couch on the right. There was a ceiling fan in the middle of the room. The floors were wooden and the wall paper was a dirty yellowish and was peeling slightly in the corner by the ceiling. She closed the door and walked to the center of the room, the floorboards creaked with every step.

She could see cobwebs in some of the corners and a layer of dust coated everything. She tossed her backpack onto the couch and a cloud of dust formed. 'ok, maybe more than a layer of dust' she walked over to the door in the left corner of the room and opened it. It was a very tiny bathroom. The sink, shower and toilet took up most of the room leaving about about 4 square feet of floor to actually walk on. It had the same wooden floor and yellow wallpaper as the main room.

She left the bathroom and went to the last door, which was directly across from the entrance. She opened the door to reveal a small bedroom with a little bed. when she sat on the bed it sounded like it could fall apart at any moment. When she layed down she noticed that the pillow was soft but the rest of the bed felt like a lumpy brick. She stood back up and examined the rest of the room. It had the same yellow wallpaper but the floor was a white carpet, or it used to be white but how it was kind of a tan color. There was a little closet that looked just big enough to fit all her stuff in. "It might be small and dirty but it's an improvement!" she said with a smile, putting her hands on her hips.