Chapter 3- Best Friends 4Ever

…I never had a best girlfriend. It was always a good friend one day and she was a total gardening tool and female dog to me the next. I mean, jeez. Whatever was wrong with them, I hoped they died from it, especially if it was slowly from a disease. Didn't they know even an abomination such as I needed a person to confide in? Nevertheless, it didn't stop when I came to the orphanage. Well, not at first anyway. They were all snotty like, "Oh my GOD! A filthy simpleton just stepped in here! I can FEEL myself getting dumber by the minute! Like, Jare, let's go before we walk into a wall and DIE!" Well, they weren't fit to be L's successor any way, so I paid no mind. But when I did make a friend, she was smart (of course, she was at Whammy's), nice, funny, Portuguese, and was sort of girly (cursed cosmetics, skirts and high heels ahoy!). But she was mine. MY own girlfriend to share secrets and cry with. She didn't treat me like scum on the bottom of her patented Kenney Mary Jane wedges (which are actually cool looking), but she gave me breath and life. She gave me love outside my family for the first time. She gave me new friends and a reason not to die…

"Hi-hi, Gailen! Why are you—AH!"

"Sayu! Watch out!" Gailen yelled running behind her and pushing her to the right.

Sayu stumbled from being pushed and was about to fall, but grabbed onto a skinny tree within her reach. She caught her breathe.

"What was that for?! I could have broken my ankle!" She yelled.

"So? I wanted to catch the bubbles!"

Gailen presented Sayu with a handful of non-popping orange blowing bubbles. Sayu gave her a look.

"I think I'm more important than some orangey bubbles."

"Nuh-uh, you're not as elegant and delicate as they are."

"Am too."

"Uh-huh, just keep telling you and your other friends that."

She starts walking away with bubbles in hand with Sayu walking beside her.

"I am! See!"

Sayu pulls up a sleeve and shows Gailen. Gailen looks over and sees.

"What? That you have stretch marks?"

"No! They're not stretch marks! They're bruises!"

"From what? Telling lies?"

"I bruise easily! See, I'm delicate!"

"Um, Sayu, I don't think having a slight trace of sickle cell anemia is something to be proud of."

"Gailen! You know what I mean!"

It was a month later and Sayu and Gailen were walking home from school. Gailen decided that their friendship could go past the trial period she had set up. After all, Sayu wasn't such an airhead that she was a snob and wasn't nice to her. Sayu was cool by Gailen's standards. She proved to be a good, trustworthy person. Gailen even told Sayu a few secrets. Like that she was adopted by her grandparents after staying in an orphanage for gifted children a few months ago. Or like that she had a little sister who was living with her aunt Violette and uncle Ophelos since her grandparents couldn't take care of two children at once, especially worrying about people like Kira…

"So, you want to come in?" Sayu asked when they reached her house. "My mom can drive you home later since my dad is working late."

"Sure, if it's okay," Gailen said smiling a little. "I don't want to be intruding."

"Of course it is!" Sachiko Yagami said opening the door. "We'd LOVE for you to stay a while Gailen."

"MOM!" Sayu squeaked, clearly surprised by her mother's sudden entrance into their conversation. "Were you LISTENING to our conversation?"

"Not intentionally, you two were just so loud at first. Now come in, come in."

When entering Sayu's house for the first time, Gailen was surprised by all its sense of familial values and warm family love. She took off her light coat and hung it on the coat rack before taking off her brown leather loafers and slipping into a pair of guest slippers. Sayu beckoned her up the stairs and into her room. There, Sayu plopped down onto her bed, letting out a sigh of relief. Gailen looked around her in a sort of wonder.

So this is what a normal Japanese teenage girl's room is like? Gailen thought. Wow, and I thought Americans were the normal ones.

There were posters of popular Japanese actors, actresses, bands and models on Sayu's walls. She had a small desk with a computer and a CD player/radio with usual clutter. Sayu's bed was a full sized day bed with a light blue and pink striped comforter and about five small decorative pillows that accompanied two regular pillows. A white bookcase next to the bed housed neat piles of magazines and upright books, mainly fantasy and fables with a few books of Japanese plays and some European plays. The one window into the room was parallel to the door. It looked out to the front of the house with a comfy, stuffed chair next to it and a small cushioned foot rest.

"I…like your room, Sayu," Gailen said trying to be polite.

"Tell that to my dad, he thinks it's too distracting and cluttered for a student. He wants me to be like Light, even in room décor!"

"Light, huh?" Gailen dropped into the stuffed chair after depositing her back pack onto the floor next to Sayu's briefcase. "He's…?"

"…the brother you never see since he's at school studying for exams and taking night study classes all the time. He doesn't come home on time that often either. I think he has a girlfriend and they go out on dates secretly!"

"Uh-huh…"

"But he's really cool!" Sayu said noticing Gailen's interest fading. "He's super smart and is going to graduate top of his class! You're at the top of our class too, aren't you Gailen? I hardly see you except for a few classes."

"Yeah, I'm in some high school classes too, honor level. The administration is letting me take a test so I can go to college instead of high school next year, since they saw my scores on the entrance exams and standard IQ test."

"Wow! That's great! If you pass the test, you go to any college you want?"

"Yup, I'm thinking of To-Oh University. It's a pretty good school."

"To-Oh? That's where Light is going to go! You should totally go there then!"

"Sayu," she said sitting up, "I didn't even take the exam yet, let alone review."

"Well, when is it then?"

"Next week on Thursday. The results come in two weeks after that on the first of next month."

"On the first of November? That's when Light is going to be on time coming home for a family dinner! You should come! We can celebrate your passing and you can meet brother at the same time!"

"You really think I'll pass?"

"Not think, know!" Sayu tapped Gailen on the head. "If you haven't noticed, you're way smarter than most of the teachers let alone the smartest students! I just know that it'll give you a big head, though!"

"Why, you little—" Gailen hit Sayu in the head with a pillow she snatched off the day bed. Sayu fell off of the bed with a thunk. She got up and wielded an even bigger pillow.

"Bad move, Yayate!" Sayu said while smiling menacingly.

"What do you mean 'bad move?' You're the one who's going to die with death by pillow fight!"

They commenced to hit each other with pillows. Gailen was about to deliver the final cushiony blow to Sayu who was helplessly on the floor when someone was heard coming up the steps.

"Crap!" Gailen whispered.

She and her friend started to fix up the room like it was before they started their little pillow battle. When the door opened, Sayu sat her desk doing some history homework and Gailen sat in the stuffed chair writing in a notebook titled "Honors Writing Class" in Japanese characters.

"I see you two are working hard!" Mrs. Yagami commented carrying a tray of tea and cookies. "How would you girls like a snack?"

"Thanks, mom," Sayu smiled looking up from her school work.

"Yes, thank you, Mrs. Yagami!" Gailen replied.

"Just don't eat too much girls. Dinner should be ready at four o'clock." To Sayu, "Your father will be coming home late again, so he said to eat without him."

"What, again? Oh…okay…" Sayu's eyes cast down and Gailen felt her friend's mood go down as the housewife went back down stairs.

"Hey, don't be sad, Sayu! It's just work, right? Your dad is probably just on important police business."

"That's just it! He always is! I get scared though, he's working on a dangerous case! He can get killed!"

"Yes, but he died trying to make you and your family safe. Isn't that what matters?"

"I…yes. That makes sense. Thank you Gailen."

"Yeah, no problem. Now, do you want to hear this new CD I got or not?"

"Who is it?" Sayu asked sitting on the foot rest.

"Mindless Self Indulgence."

"Oh, that band you always talk about? Isn't it explicitly written?"

"Yes, but for your sake, I brought the clean version to listen to. This album, Tight."

"Oh cool. But Gailen…"

"Yeah?"

"Does this mean we're friends now? Like best friends?"

"Only if you promise to not let me down or hurt me, then it's a deal."

"Alright, I promise."

Then Gailen quickly hugged her before turning on the CD player.