cadence a sequence of chords that brings an end to a phrase, either in the middle or the end of a composition
The new house is only a few years old, and larger than the other, with more thoughtful little touches. Light's room even has its own balcony. His parents have forbidden him from using it until he's seven, though, and that seems to him to be an unfathomably long time.
Sachiko has said more than once that the utilities are much nicer than the ones in the old house. She sounds delighted, and Light supposes it's a good thing, on the whole, especially after Sachiko tells him it means more hot water for his bath. He doesn't mention that the bathtub itself is smaller, or that the rumble of the old house's heating unit soothed him to sleep during the winter.
As best Light can make out, Sayu doesn't like the new house much, but she didn't seem to like the old one any better. If she likes anything besides Sachiko and her little stuffed doll, Light can't tell. She's a fussy baby, loud and demanding, and he wonders sometimes if he was ever like her.
No, he decides each time. Not him. The tears are a girl thing, probably.
Still, they're going to all this trouble for her, moving to a bigger house. The least she could do is be more gracious.
The move has progressed more quickly than he counted on, and now he's standing in his bedroom for the last time, feeling as though the full significance of the moment is eluding him. The room itself is empty, as is the rest of the house; the packing is done, the boxes and furniture removed. Downstairs, Soichiro is talking to a mover with an annoyingly nasal voice while Sachiko tries to soothe Sayu, but Light had felt he owed a last good-bye to his bedroom, the first space that was ever designated as his own.
He almost wishes he hadn't come. The room looks large and inexplicably sad, with afternoon sunlight falling flat onto the empty floor. It should be glancing off his little cart, and his blocks, casting their shadows onto the small shelf crammed with every book he's been able to wheedle away from his parents. But those things are at the new house already, in his big new room with the balcony he can't use.
He finds, abruptly and irrationally, that he wants to write his name on the wall. In the corner, making the kanji as small as his still-clumsy fingers can manage, so that the room will never forget him. But he doesn't have anything to write with, and in any case he knows better than to write on a wall. Sachiko would be angry. And in the end, it's just a room.
"Light?" Sachiko calls up the stairs.
He pauses only for the briefest moment before he yells back, "I'm coming." Gathering up Ducky and Bird, he makes his way down the stairs, listening to the familiar creaks in the wood. Behind him, sunlight drifts across the bedroom floor.