dolce sweet or sweetly
Every time Light sees his aunts, they offer him sweets.
They're lonely, he'll think later. Aunt Etsuko and Aunt Emiko, twins living together in Kyoto with the rest of Sachiko's family, whom she doesn't take Light and Sayu to visit as much as she could. Something about bad influences and impressionable children; Light heard her talking to Soichiro about it one night.
He doesn't really see it, though. They have books, the aunts, and after they're done cooing at him they let him read whatever he likes. Sayu endures much more cooing, and then she's left in her rocker, to bat at the shapes dangling from the handle until she falls asleep. Light sits beside her as he reads and keeps watch while the adults go into another room to talk. It's peaceful, and there are books here that they don't have at home, and all in all Light rather likes it.
He always knows it's time to leave when the conversation between his mother and her sisters rises slightly in volume. It's no different today. "No," Sachiko is saying as he closes his mystery novel (it's less than half-finished, but the culprit is so obvious that it doesn't really matter). "Sugar is unhealthy for anyone, really, but they're children."
"It's just one bag," Emiko says, rather tiredly. "It won't hurt them."
"Sayu would choke!" Sachiko sounds more annoyed than usual. "Konpeito, really, what were you thinking? Absolutely not."
The aunts sigh and murmur acquiescence, and only then does Sachiko appear in the doorway. "Rai-chan, it's time to go."
"Yes, Mom."
As Sachiko lifts Sayu's rocker and shushes the abruptly-awakened Sayu within it, Light ducks into the front room to give his aunts good-bye hugs. When Etsuko pulls back from hers, she keeps hold of one of his arms for long enough to drop a small handful of konpeito into it.
"Shh," Emiko whispers, with a quick smile.
Light blinks down at the little balls of sugar crystal, then slides them into his pocket just as Sachiko emerges from the living room with a mostly-quiescent Sayu. "Thank you very much for your hospitality," Light tells his aunts, and they hug him again, and touch his hair, and say what a sweet boy he is. But as he's leaving, he shoots them one last little grin over his shoulder.
He wishes he saw more of his aunts.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The aunts, unsurprisingly, are the brainchildren of Vashtijoy. Have you guys ever had konpeito? My sister brought me some from Japan and that shit is fantastic.