It was late and he was trying to walk out his stiffness in these hallways that all looked the same that he could only keep track of by turns and slightly different scruff marks when Matsuda rounded a corner and came close to running him down.
"Chief! Sorry, I – didn't – I was late," the man stammered, rubbing his neck, eyes down, face flush.
"No harm," Soichiro told him, "I'm still upright."
"Sorry," Matsuda said again, shuffling slightly as if unsure what to do with himself.
"Anything important?" he asked and Matsuda's shoulders slumped as those eyes raised up, showing despondency.
"Nothing. We can't seem to get close to whoever has it. And we know – it's people just being announced too, it isn't just something Light –" Matsuda choked on his words, head back down. "I shouldn't – I know I'm the last person you want to see right now."
"I'm not mad at you," Soichiro told him and it was only a little lie. He was slightly peeved that Matsuda had let Sayu browbeat him but given all the stress, the extra guilt Matsuda alone carried for what he considered a sin by letting him take the deal, he let it go. She would have found out, at least some of it when Light's fate was decided. At some point, her brother was going to be lost to her, it was just sped up.
And Near was always going to meddle.
Matsuda still looked worn, his clothing presentable but Soichiro wouldn't doubt if someone told him it was from yesterday, and it wasn't hard to see that Matsuda's jacket hung loser than it had. Soichiro didn't think urging the man to care for himself would be heard as he tried to center his thoughts on the task at hand.
"He'll be found eventually," Soichiro continued, keeping his voice even. "It had to have been someone Light would have been able to find and that does make the suspects finite. Eventually, we will uncover the truth."
"But you –" the words were cut off, Matsuda rubbing his arm and unable to look up.
"My time is already limited. If it happens, then we'll know for sure that the rules he used were lies."
"That shouldn't be how we test them!"
Matsuda had finally looked up, eyes wet, face showing what he was feeling and Soichiro was at a loss as to what to tell him. The world wasn't fair. He was aware Matsuda knew this. He was not blind to how the young man saw him, his own parents disregarding him, Matsuda never having been good enough in any capacity. The others at times went too far with how they carried on with him and Soichiro worried that it may have gotten worse in his absence. He hoped Ide was still the voice of reason in those times.
And he knew Matsuda was fond of Light, wanted to be like him, wishing he had the opportunities and the abilities his son had displayed. It was cold, how Light had betrayed them all, shown what he was and he felt Matsuda was taking it harder than the rest of the officers, having felt a kinship with Light, held him up as to be something to aspire to.
"I don't blame you," Soichiro said watching Matsuda when his own soul felt wrung out and his body hollow. "I don't blame you for any of this."
"When you had me drive you home after we got back to Japan…"
"I had figured out a good portion on the plane," Soichiro finished after the pause had dragged on.
"It's why you got sick."
"Yes. Matsuda, you have to keep focused because I can't finish this."
"Don't say that. We don't know –"
"I'm injured," Soichiro cut him off, Matsuda falling silent, back to shuffling his feet. "And, I don't know how long I have. I need you to finish this for me, do you understand?"
"Yes." A deep breath, Matsuda raised his head, hair slightly in his eyes but he looked more determined if not upset still. "I promise I will, that we will."
"Good. You should get going. I bet they're waiting on you."
"Ah," he said, nodding, moving on but Soichiro didn't miss his look back before he was gone around the next corner.
It wasn't a lie. Regardless if he was alive in seven days or not, he wasn't the one out there, anymore.
Standing in the hallway with his left leg aching as it liked to do, he struggled to compose himself. A part of him wanted to go see Light and just talk to him. Not about Kira or what his child had done, but just talk to him. Try to see what Light thought about the world, how he saw things because somewhere along the line it had gone so terribly wrong. He remembered a young Light, eyes bright, declaring that he would be a police officer like his father, and Soichiro stared up at the false ceiling above him blinking rapidly.
That was a long time ago, before Light had sat by his bedside the first time and lied to him, when L was alive, claiming he would bring Kira to justice if he died.
Did he care then that I was so unwell? Was that big speech all just to keep his cover and he couldn't give a damn outside of misleading us long enough to keep us permanently down? Was he telling me something else entirely that I will never understand?
"Your biggest hurdle is that you believe your son. I do not have that hindrance or that luxury."
L's words from long ago floated back to him, who had given repeated warnings about his death and what it would mean. A man whose life he hadn't known and Soichiro wondered now if he had been actually cared for outside of perhaps Ruvie. Watari was an odd one, their lives tangled together in ways that Soichiro felt they would never understand as he acted as a servant when he was anything but one.
And he died at such a young age, staring up at Light because we wouldn't listen. Because I refused to listen.
Slowly, he made his way back to the room he shared with his wife in this sprawling place, becoming conscious that he hadn't seen the outside world in almost two weeks now. He wanted to blame his thoughts on that, thinking that maybe he should ask Near to at least let his family have fresh air as he opened the door to rejoin Sachiko, telling her the walk had helped.
~x~
Aizawa paced as they watched, a more comfortable chair in Near's control center had been found for him and Soichiro tried to relax. They still had several days before whatever was coming, and nothing was going to be solved by being tense and worried every moment of the day.
Not that telling himself this helped him to cease doing exactly that.
Earlier, he'd had lunch with the Task Force, his team because they still saw him as the de facto leader no matter how inappropriate he felt that was at this point. This interview was something that had been discussed, how to proceed without tipping their hand to Light that they had already begun the rule test. Right now, they wanted to see if he attempted to make contact with anything or if Ryuk disappeared from the building for any length of time.
Fourteen miles could cover a lot of ground and it would be impossible to try to set up surveillance into all the nooks and crannies of the sprawling landscape and buildings flowing out from around this one.
It had taken him forty minutes into the lunch to finally understand that his men were awkward not because they were disgusted around him but that they simply were uncertain how to act.
"I'm angry," he had told the room, so silent in that second that he could hear them breathing, imagined their heartbeats. "I am so angry that I am numb and I don't know what to do with it. I apologize for endangering all of you because of what he's done."
"Light isn't your fault," Aizawa had near spat out in answer, enraged. "No one here blames you for that. All of us fell for his act. I'm the one who insisted he be freed because of those damn rules. Declared him innocent on that alone and that Amane was just a klutzy moron who got used. So, no, you aren't to blame."
Now, Aizawa was attempting to reign in his own anger as he stalked in front of Light's cell, eschewing the chairs that had been placed there originally for him and Sachiko.
He had yet to go back to see his son. He didn't know what he would do.
Just tell the truth. If you ever loved me, tell the truth, Light.
Light was sitting on the edge of his cot, elbows on his knees with his hands lose but he was intense, watching Aizawa with an air of being relaxed when he was anything but. He still looked the same, but Soichiro wouldn't doubt by this point that he had lost some weight. The cameras were good enough to see his face, but not all the fine details helpfully hidden by his loose clothes. He had been informed that while Light did eat it wasn't full meals.
He did that at home when he was bothered by something. Sachiko used to get so upset over it because if something was really digging away at him he could go without food for a few days, at least what was served to him. I wonder if she remembers that November when we believe he found this. I vaguely recall a stomach bug he had but I don't know if it was before, after, or during that first week anymore. I should have thought of it sooner.
"Why now?" Light finally asked and Aizawa took a few more steps, glancing over. "Why all this focus on the rules?"
"Don't you think some things have changed?"
Light shrugged. "You seemed to think words written in ink that didn't exist on earth in a book capable of ending life as being true when you ordered L to free me. But, now dad decides that it doesn't add up and demands we test them after he yelled at L repeatedly that he couldn't?"
"What your father says makes a lot of sense, Light. About how Misa knew your name, the way Kira operates –"
"And what else is there?" Light sighed, leaning back, frustrated. "L became hyper-focused on me from the beginning. He had a theory and instead of working to prove it true, declared everything else false. And in doing so, erased any other leads or information that could have possibly existed."
"Are you saying that he intentionally compromised his investigation from the start?"
"Maybe unintentionally and he might have. I don't know. That's the point. I don't know, and neither do you."
Aizawa finally stopped pacing, hands behind his back as he stood squarely in front of Light. "And the piece of the Note we found in your watch? Your mother touched it herself and was able to see Ryuk."
His son's shoulders slumped forward more, a sign of concession, as though he was giving up but Soichiro knew better, Near seemed to, too. Near was sitting on the floor, carefully building a house of cards, a few toys scattered in a semi-circle around him, and given his baggy clothes and smaller stature, he truly did look like a young child, not helped by the mask obscuring his face.
After speaking to him, it was clear that he was anything but as Near watched the screen intently.
"Because of Sayu."
"You're pulling her into this –"
"No, you don't understand. When I let dad take the book, I worried about not only who we were giving it to, but what we were giving up."
"So you planned to use it?"
"I don't know. I wanted the option. I didn't want to be that powerless because of what we were doing." Light's voice was even, far more controlled than he had been.
"I would guess he's adjusted and doesn't have constant shocks to his system," Near said, glancing over and Soichiro nodded. "That his mother and now sister are aware of his crimes shattered part of his narrative and he reacted accordingly. This is the Light Yagami I expected to see from the beginning – smooth and spinning his own story that will sound completely reasonable."
"And the needle?" Aizawa asked.
"Something I learned from Rem." Light cocked his head, hair sliding across his forehead giving him an inquisitive look and it made Soichiro shiver with how many times his son had done this to him. "That Shinigami didn't give up much, but did say that as long as whatever was used was legible, it was allowed."
"And you decided on blood?"
"I decided based on space." Light exhaled, never dropping his eyes. "I felt, that if the need to use it ever truly arose, it would be desperate, more than enough to use that."
"Convenient that all those security tapes, that footage of this supposed conversation of a near-mute Shinigami that I've been told sang a convincing chorus of 'I don't know' was wiped out," Near said, twirling his hair around his finger. "Like he was banking on L doing that to provide his own cover for questions with difficult and uncomfortable answers."
"Why didn't you just tell us to begin with that you wanted to do this?" Aizawa asked on screen.
"You would have been appalled. All of you would have been. Just your reaction now is why I was hesitant to say what I had thought at the time. There's only one person I ever thought I would use that on, and it felt foolish to be left on unequal ground."
"And when your father confronted you over it?"
Light scoffed, almost a laugh. "What did you expect me to say? Anything I would say would be wrong, my mother was dragged into this and upset, and I didn't lie. Near had every opportunity to sabotage my watch, that neither mom nor dad should just believe things handed to them no matter how much all of you want to suddenly trust a stranger.
"It didn't occur to you that it was wrong?"
"It didn't occur to you that we've been losing for years?"
"Most likely because you've designed the game we've been unknowingly playing to get that outcome."
Light curled his lip, amused. "Talking to dad again?"
"He never thought I'd turn him in," Soichiro said softly, Near making a small sound of assent as Restor went to Near holding out a phone.
"No, I'd imagine he felt if he kept you feeling doubt, enough uncertainty that you wouldn't go against him. Plus, given your emotional state and your guilt, he probably believed that you most likely would be dead before you became a problem," Near said, taking the phone. "Yes?"
Soichiro dropped his eyes from the screen for a moment, drawing in a deep breath to clear his head. It was the truth but it was still hard to hear. The thoughts were still there, even if not prevalent now as his death would solve very little.
Near would probably point out that his willingness to die testing these rules was a testament to his inability to cope with so much of this, let alone the guilt he was slowly drowning under even in this minute that people were dead because he had valued his daughter above them.
"Your daughter is wanting to see her brother," Near said, dragging him away from his thoughts.
Absolutely not, he almost said but stopped himself, seeing Aizawa back to pacing.
"I doubt Aizawa will allow her to stay if he goes back to what he was doing," Near added.
I shouldn't. I should forbid this, for what little it is worth. Near is still going to let her in, he's just being polite to make me think it's an option –
"I will deny her if you want," Near said smoothly as though he was mind-reading. "But I warn you, it may hurt her more in the end. He is calm, closer to what she knows."
Restor claims that Near hasn't been including them out of cruelty or to get information, or at least not solely for the latter. He has a point, but –
"And you're hoping that seeing her will rattle him."
"Of course. It seems to. He gets the most emotional with her." Near was watching him as Soichiro fought with his own conscience about letting his little girl do this. "They were close, weren't they?"
"Yes. Until about his second year of high school."
"What happened then?"
"I'm not sure," he answered, hearing Aizawa ask something but not really caring anymore and Light simply shrugged. "He got more distant then. A lot of his friends when he was younger went to other schools. He buried himself in his school work, stopped playing sports –"
"Essentially cut himself off."
"He'd still help her, they'd bicker, but it wasn't the same." He sighed, running a hand over his mouth before adjusting his glasses. "As long as Aizawa is there, she can go."
"Let her go in but remind her to not mention anything about the rule testing. Anything else she is free to speak of."
"You are assuming I told her," Soichiro said as Near hung up and handed the phone back to Restor.
"I'm assuming you saw the damage already done at this point by keeping them in the dark."
All he could do was nod, though Sayu didn't know that Light may be directly responsible. Careful wording, so she understood that if the other Kira wasn't found in time it may end in his death. Telling her that her brother had arranged for his death in order to free himself was simply too much. It may always be too much even after they had a concrete answer.
He wondered if Near worried that if they didn't know if Light would have tried to use them in his own schemes.
The door was being opened, they could hear it, Aizawa started before he turned, Light puzzled. Everything about Aizawa stiffened and Soichiro knew she was there.
"I don't know if you should be here," Aizawa told her.
"They said I could. For a few minutes."
At the sound of her voice, Light stood, came forward as far as he could before the length of his chains stopped him.
Sayu came into view on the camera they were watching, her hair loose around her shoulders, fingers clutching at the sweater jacket she wore, pulling it around her. Her shoes made no noise as she approached, cautious, shoulders hunched and her body like she expected to be hit at any moment.
"Hey," Light said gently. "You didn't need to come."
"I wanted to see you. I was worried." Her voice was so soft it was hard to hear as she came to a stop a few feet from where Aizawa stood. A glance up at him and he gave her a nod as she refocused on Light. "You aren't eating enough. Is the food bad that they give you?"
"No," Light answered and he swallowed loud enough for the camera to pick it up. "It's stress, that's all. Not much of an appetite."
"You always did that. I won't tell mom." She swayed and Soichiro could see her pulling at her sweater more. "I remember one time you didn't eat for three days a few months after you started high school. She got mad, remember? Because you didn't know what to do about that cheater."
"Yeah," Light said, obviously uncertain. Soichiro was stunned his son had ever faced this kind of problem. "When I figured out that scholarship guy cheated off of me."
"Did he cheat again? He didn't, did he?"
"No." Light let out a small laugh. "You were right, talking to him instead of just turning him in."
How little do I know about my own children?
"He seemed nice." Sayu shuffled on her feet, uncertain, before she continued. "I remember, a month before New Year's when you were preparing for all your tests that you didn't eat for a week."
"What?" Light was startled, taking another step forward despite the strain he had to be feeling from the chains pulled taunt.
"You would just push food around on your plate when you ate with mom and me, excuse yourself, and told her you'd just eat in your room. But you weren't."
"What makes you think I wasn't?"
"Because you lost weight," she shot back, upset. "And when I went to ask you for help with my math, you were in the shower and I –"
"And you looked where you shouldn't be." Light's voice was sharp but there was something underlying it that made Soichiro think of fear. "I don't go through your things."
Sayu glanced over again to Aizawa who said something they couldn't make out and she held her head higher. "Because I tell you things."
Light scoffed, shaking his head before retreating a couple of steps but he was clearly unnerved.
"Interesting," Near said, still twirling his hair as they watched. "She knows him, probably uncomfortably well, at least in his view. She found the food he was hiding to get your wife to leave him alone and I would guess you had long hours and let him lie to you because he wasn't overly sick yet."
"Yes." It was all he could say and Soichiro clenched his jaw, disliking this.
"I would also say he's feeling actual remorse over lashing out at her before, along with some residual fear over her almost finding out his secret back then."
Near's words carved him out even more, the idea of Sayu being around any of this when she had been so young, Ryuk lumbering around their home unseen, and Soichiro forced himself to pay attention to keep his own thoughts from swallowing him.
Was he suffering, at the start of this, before he lost his soul?
"Did you just come to nag me to eat?" Light asked, voice clipped.
"No, I –" she stopped, back to shifting on her feet.
"It's alright," Aizawa told her. "Say what you came here to say."
It was a well-practiced tone, probably earned through years of dealing with his own children and it relaxed Sayu, her attention falling back to Light.
"Why did you let dad make that deal?"
"I didn't. I didn't want him to. I told him not to do it." Light wiped at his mouth, the farthest up his hands could reach when there was slack and he shifted, unhappy. "Matsuda offered, he wanted to do it, despite the risks, but dad wouldn't let him."
She looked up at Aizawa who sighed. "He's telling the truth."
"Why would –" she stopped, her shoulders slanting forward, a small little sound coming out of her. "Because of me."
"Sayu –" Light began but she paced away from the cell. Soichiro could see her face and it broke his heart.
"He had to come save me and he didn't forgive himself. It's my fault –"
"It isn't your fault!" Light's voice was thunderous and angry, so very angry as his son tried to get himself under control. "Sayu, listen to me. What happened isn't your fault. No matter who I am or what someone accuses me of being, that doesn't make it okay to do anything necessary to get the answers. Even if I was guilty, it doesn't make it okay and it doesn't make it your fault. What dad did isn't your fault."
She shook her head as Aizawa came over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"If I just hadn't gone -"
"It was never your fault, Sayu," Aizawa interrupted, but her tense body showed she didn't believe him. "No one blames you. Especially not your father."
I never blamed you.
"But he had to give up that thing and he's never been the same." She was upset but there was something else in her as she turned towards Aizawa more. "I'm so angry," she whispered. "I'm so angry all the time."
"Has she been to therapy?" Near asked.
"Yes. And I had hoped it was helping some."
"And you weren't there," Sayu told Light who balked at her low tone. "I got home and you were nowhere. I was all alone with mom who cried and dad who barely talked and you didn't come."
Her words were fast, punched out, and Soichiro did not miss how Light flinched under the weight that he had abandoned them in her eyes.
"Sayu -"
"I thought maybe, after everything, you were afraid of losing us. That if you came it would be worse later. Matsuda-san thought that too, but now - now - "
"I wasn't trying to avoid you."
"Then why were you never there!" Her voice was loud, piercing, raising chills along Soichiro's flesh.
"I'm sorry, Sayu," Light said, looking away from her. "I was consumed with work –"
She turned from him again and he stopped, seeming to understand it was a poor excuse.
"I didn't know what to do," Light finally said as she tried to control herself, Aizawa seemingly at a loss as to what to do to even provide marginal comfort that would help in the face of this. "It was our fault, we were involved in the case and Mello went after you to get what he wanted."
"And now, you're here and dad's going to die."
Light rocked on his heels as Soichiro could only helplessly stare at the screen, Near absolutely motionless, but a card in his hand was bent.
"What?"
"He made that deal –"
"That doesn't mean he dies right now," Aizawa tried but she pulled away.
"Half the life he had left is gone. He was hurt so badly. And – and, it's just the way mom and dad are, the way they're acting. Everything, Light, everything feels like he's about to die." She was at the bars, hands wrapping around them as Light took a step back, shocked.
"I –I don't know. It may be something with his health –"
"They keep saying that he's the same. But – I can't explain it. I just feel like it's coming. I can barely sleep and I have nightmares where he's just gone, or dead, or dies in front of me –"
"Sayu," Light tried, voice soft. "As far as I know, he's alright for right now. No one has said anything to me, and I think they'd probably tell me that, at least."
"I don't believe you."
"I don't know what you want me to do," Light said and there was a strange helplessness in his voice. "I don't know if he's done something foolish –"
"There it is," Near growled, low, and Soichiro felt a chill all through him. "Been waiting for that."
"Foolish?" Sayu was repeating, almost pressed against the bars.
"He made that deal," Light told her. "I don't know if he's done anything else."
"So he could."
"I don't know. I'm saying I don't know." Light turned away from her, seeming to shudder slightly and it confirmed Soichiro's worst fears of what his son may have done. "None of this is your fault, Sayu. He makes his own choices."
"That doesn't matter if he's dead!"
"I know." Light's voice was soft as he composed himself, his face hard to read when he looked towards her again. "I'm sorry it's like this, that you have to deal with the fallout alone. And I'm sorry I told you what I did the last time you were here. I shouldn't have."
She stepped away, back to pulling her sweater around her, her whole body trying to be small. "I don't know what to do, oniichan."
"Just stay with mom, alright?" Light actually turned to Aizawa. "Could she stay with your wife?"
It was a surprising request that his son would think of that and it was clear Aizawa was unprepared as well.
"That's up to Near," Aizawa answered. "I don't have control over that but maybe a different arrangement for both your sister and mother is possible."
Light nodded, seeming to find some kind of relief in this. "Could you ask for them? I know you can't force it but being here hasn't been great for them."
"I will," Aizawa said. "Sayu, do you want to go see your mother?"
"I –" she stopped, taking a breath. "I need to know something."
"What?"
"They said that there was evidence against Misa. That they found it on those tapes that were sent to the news station that was broadcasting all those Kira threats. That the rules they found later cleared both her and you."
"Yes." Light's voice was soft, and Soichiro felt his son was wary as Near straightened out the card he had bent, knee drawn up to his chest as they watched.
"Why did she come that night to our house?"
"She saw me in Aoyama when I was there with Matsuda for part of the investigation," Light answered, voice still gentle and Soichiro felt his son was truthful because he sensed Sayu knew a good bulk of the story by now.
"And she followed you home?"'
"Something like that."
"Didn't it make you nervous?"
"It's – it's complicated," Light said. "I'd like to not go into my relationships while incarcerated and being filmed."
"You don't love her, do you?"
Light sighed, sitting back on his cot, arms draped across his thighs. "That's not – it's hard to explain, Sayu. I told her a long time ago that I couldn't love her the way she wanted me to."
That was shocking. Near made a soft sound as Sayu drifted closer to the bars again, Aizawa right beside her, seemingly prepared to rip her away if he needed to. As though Light could be dangerous, and Soichiro supposed his son, even like this, still was.
"She seems to think you love her."
"I'm not surprised. She did this during our last confinement." A low sound, Light resigned. "It's appearances. She wants a certain appearance and I match that."
"And you care if you have a model for a girlfriend? Since when?"
"It gets people off my back. She accepts my working hours and I play the dutiful boyfriend. It's not something I'm particularly proud of, it's just how it's been."
"Certain benefits," Sayu ground out, looking disgusted. "And you're – no. I don't want to hear you lie anymore. I want to go back," she told Aizawa who nodded, and they walked out of frame.
Light remained seated, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand, frustrated, but he didn't call out after her or try to explain further as they listened to the door close with its customary slam signaling his daughter was gone from there, at least for now.
"I don't believe he was all the way lying there," Near said, thoughtful, back to playing with his hair. "Do you?"
"No." It was a strange thing to admit to, Soichiro trying to relax in his chair. "I've often wondered why he's with her. While he tries to give the appearance of being happy, I've often thought he's been anything but."
"It makes far more sense he stays with her because she has your eyes."
"It does." It was a terrible notion that settled over him like the truth as he watched his son thinking, silent and upset.
"It may be that he is planning on distancing himself from Amane if she does break."
Soichiro nodded. It was not a far-fetched idea. The unpredictable nature of all this, how far it was out of his control. Light had no way to control the information Misa was saying or given. It was a possibility that Light was slowly creating a backup plan to create a net for himself in case she said something incriminating.
Though he did not doubt that Light most likely did not love her, at least not in the way he should, given the status of their relationship.
"Based on some of Sayu's other statements during her last visit alone, it gives the impression that Amane is very jealous and very obsessed."
"You think she's truly threatened other women?"
"And him," Near said and it shouldn't be as shocking as it felt. "I wouldn't put it past her to do that and him needing to keep her in line. I bet, originally, when he found someone else willing to fill her spot and was able to get her to give up her book, he was relieved. I would be. Anyone would be because she's not only a liability to him but a danger. The downfall is that he can't just kill her. It would have raised too many questions. I would bet he's been working on doing it as soon as possible. Even just the fragments she has are too damning."
"Like when he sent her to get the other book."
"Yes, we can't prove it was for that, but it just buries him deeper." Near sighed, leaning his head back. "You should go spend time with your family."
He nodded, rising, Restor opened the door for him and Soichiro made his way back, finding Aizawa speaking to Sayu in her room.
"Are you sure you don't want me to get your – Yagami-san," Aizawa said, seeing him at the threshold, bowing slightly. "She's upset."
"I know. It's alright. Thank you for being with her."
"Of course. We'll keep you informed if we make any progress."
Aizawa excused himself, Sayu's eyes widening as Soichiro limped his way to a chair, hating that simple things were so complicated for him now.
"You were watching?" It was accusatory, as though planned and he held up his free hand.
"I was watching Aizawa speak to him. I didn't know you had gone to see him."
"Oh." Her eyes dropped and Soichiro went past the chair and wrapped his arm around his daughter.
"I wish you would have told me what you were feeling."
"I didn't know how," she whispered against his shoulder, her hands caught in his shirt. "I didn't know how to say anything and it just became harder and harder."
"I'm angry, too." It's getting worse every day, he thought as she pressed closer.
"Are you going to die?"
"I don't know." That depends on Light. "I can tell you that I don't blame you for anything. I will always love you. Both of you."
"No matter what he's done?"
"Yes."
She was quiet, lost, and he held her, staring up at the ceiling wishing he had seen the signs she had, wishing he hadn't put his duty before his children.