"Mr. Shimura, you look horrible," said the secretary, watching a disoriented and panicky Suguru Shimura pull out his ID. "Maybe you should stay home a while and-"

"NO, no I'm-" Shimura interrupted, shaking and sweating nervously as he had been since the night before. "I'm fine, alright? Never better." He stumbled off down the hallway after putting his ID back in his pocket, leaving a befuddled front desk attendant in his wake and almost walking into a wall.

"You're sure about that?" The attendant asked worriedly, using the kind of tone that would annoy anyone no matter what had happened the night before. Shimura stopped, putting his hand on the wall and exhaling sharply.

"I SAID I was FINE, didn't I?" Shimura yelled, spitting slightly as he turned to face the undeserving Yotsuba employee. His eyes were wide, conveying a mix of anger and fear that was slowly starting to get the better of him.

"Okay," said the employee, uneasily reaching for the phone. "Try to remind Mr. Mido about that paperwork."

"Sure, yeah." Shimura continued down the hallway, heading to the elevator. Even in his current state, Shimura could still remember where to find Mido. The head of Financial Planning, Shimura thought, smirking, who hates finance more than anything else. Shimura pressed the button on the elevator, continuing his journey to the corporate strategy department, completely unaware that the front desk secretary was in the process of dialing the company's seemingly unnecessary medical hotline.

Light Yagami is an ace student with great prospects, thought Light, as if exercising his already overly-enflamed ego. And he's bored out of his mind. He sighed, continuing up the stairs, Ryuk following closely behind as if waiting for an apple to magically appear in Light's hand. In a few minutes, an apple actually did appear in his hand, although he had grabbed it before dinner and Ryuk just hadn't noticed.

"You know, Light," Ryuk said, while simultaneously processing a rather large bite of apple, "You should really take a rest sometime." He swallowed. "You're probably so stressed, you'll die of a heart attack before he does." Ryuk gestured to the name Light had just written down on the cursed paper.

"Get real Ryuk, I'm 17," said light, letting the comment slide off him. He turned back to his notebook, checking over any mistakes he might have made.

"Remind me why you have seven girlfriends?" Ryuk asked, annoyed by Light's prick-ocity.

"Because I don't have eyes the size of bowling balls," said Light, without missing a beat. Ryuk was about to reply, but decided an argument would be pointless. Losing interest, he finished his apple, then turned on the night's sumo match-up.

-Later-

"Damn it, Mido, you were supposed to get that paperwork in!" Mido was in the process of explaining over the phone to an inordinately irritable Divisional Head of Development why he hadn't gotten the accounting work he needed.

"Allow me to explain, Mr. Higuchi-" Mido started, expecting nothing less than to be interrupted when he was.

"I don't want you to explain anything besides the current state of my department's accounting work," Higuchi butted in irritably.

Easy, it's right up your ass, thought Mido, who was in his kitchen fixing a few cocktails for him and his colleague. "Look Mr. Higuchi, it's not finished yet, alright?"

"Well finish it! That's my money you're handling." It seemed this Higuchi wasn't particularly bright. Mido held back from saying anything to effect of, "I'm sorry, Higuchi, but that third Ferrari you've been anticipating is going to have to wait."

"If you want to blame someone, Mr. Higuchi," Mido started, making a conscious effort to avoid sounding as annoyed as he was. "Blame my workers, they're responsible for most of the accounting work. Now, if you don't mind, something came up with one of my friends, and I have to leave." Mido was tired of dealing with this guy, who was clearly just another one of the many greedy bastards at Yotsuba who had had a decent-sized stick (or rather, a decent-sized stack of paperwork, as Mido had concluded earlier) stuck in his ass for quite some time. "Goodbye, Mr. Higuchi." Mido hung up before the unnecessarily bitter businessman on the other end of the line could say anything more. "Anything yet?" Mido said, turning his head towards the living room, where Shimura sat watching the news.

"They mentioned the FBI agents, but they don't have names or pictures." Shimura sat awkwardly on the edge of the leather armchair, patiently doing as he promised and searching the news for Raye Penber. Shimura had, at this point, told Mido about seeing Raye Penber die, but he hadn't told him about his hectic morning. When Mido had asked how he knew the FBI agent's name, Shimura just told Mido he had heard KIRA say it.

Shimura owed Mido for everything he had. If it hadn't been for Mido's quick thinking, Shimura would have been in a hospital right now. As it happened, the secretary had attempted to call Shimura's office, stating that something was "off" about him. He wasn't in his office at the time, having gone off to visit Mido in the Department of Corporate Strategy office a few floors up, so the call was redirected to Mido. Mido, of course, was already in the process of talking to Shimura, and had yet to listen to why Shimura was suddenly so spooked. So, he did the Shimura the kindness of claiming that Shimura was merely suffering from a bad case of vertigo, and was on his way home. Everyone believed it, save for the still-mystified front desk secretary.

Mido walked in, setting two mai tais on the table and straightening out his tie. "Shimura," he said, sitting down in the chair opposite Shimura and looking his friend in the eyes. "You're not telling me everything."

"No, I'm not," Shimura admitted. "Then again, I can't have you thinking you did the wrong thing by helping me." Mido chuckled, shaking his head.

"Of course I did the wrong thing." He rolled his eyes. "You fainted almost as soon as I finished that phone call." He dropped his head, still smiling, then looked back at Shimura.

"Well, since you already think I'm crazy," began Shimura, moving his focus from the TV to Mido. "I guess I've got nothing to lose if I ask whether you believe in ghosts."

Mido stared at Shimura for a moment, until finally sorting out the thoughts in his head. "Under any normal circumstances," he began, "I would have taken that as a good, final bit of proof that you'd completely lost it." Mido was leaning forward, looking at his hands, which were currently clasped in front of him. "But I have yet to meet a half-assed rugby star. He shifted his eyes towards one of the Hawaiian cocktails he had prepared earlier. "Something had to have spooked you pretty bad."

Shimura smiled, breaking out of his nervous shell for a brief moment. "Yeah, I suppose so."