One Year Ago
Raito's walk displayed an air of confidence. His strides were long enough to get him where he needed to go, but short enough for whoever he was walking with to keep up with him. His hands rested comfortably in his pockets, but at ease enough for him to not look presentable. His posture was good, but not tense enough to give the impression that it was a conscious effort. This appearance made him into the perfect image everyone saw him as. No one knew it was a lie.
Raito was currently walking home from a date, and easily making conversation with the girl he had spent the past four months getting to know. He and Kiyomi Takada's relationship felt more public than private. Being the two top students in their high school, everyone had predicted that they would fall in love since freshman year.
Now all anyone could talk about was how they made such a 'perfect match' and how the two of them were lucky that they had found 'that special someone' at such a young age. Raito usually kept a false smile on through these exchanges, while Kiyomi would agree with whoever they were talking to. Sometimes he wondered if she meant what she said or if she was only trying to keep face the way that he was. If she was, then he didn't give he enough credit.
"Are you sure you don't want me to walk you home?" Raito asked as the two of them neared his house.
"It's only a few blocks," she told him. "I'll be fine on my own."
"I'll see you on Monday, then." It was Saturday, but they never went on dates on school nights.
"Yes," she smiled at him.
Knowing that she would think something was wrong if he didn't, Raito pressed his lips against hers for a few short seconds. He didn't look back to watch her go as he walked into his house. He never did.
Sayu was watching TV in the living room and his mother was in the kitchen. Before retreating into his room with the excuse of homework, Raito said hello to the both of them. As always, neither could detect that anything was amiss by his demeanor. It was only after Raito closed and locked the door to his room that he let the tears form in his eyes.
You're being over dramatic, he mentally reprimanded himself. It was easy to think this—to repeat it in his mind over and over agin—but never once was he able to believe it. Not for the first time, he wondered what it would be like if someone asked him what was wrong. He wondered what his response would be. Yet, despite his secret need to get what was bothering him off of his chest, Raito doubted he had the courage to say what was wrong.
"I'm gay," he whispered to himself. The voice he used was so soft, he could barely hear it.
After six years of pretending he hadn't realized, this was as far as he could get. It was pathetic. He was pathetic.
Each time his desperation came difficult enough to inflict tears, Raito would mentally list all of the reasons why it was better for him to keep pretending. There were thousands of reasons, but in the end only one really mattered. Raito doubted that, in any situation, his family would approve.
He knew for certain that his father and mother would be disappointed at least. The thought of what all of the relatives who saw him as the golden child would say brought him a headache already. The only one who probably wouldn't care was Sayu, but only because she was young and far more openminded that even Raito was.
At that moment, his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his cell phone ringing. Before answering, he glanced at the call ID. Usually he didn't answer random calls even if they were from his peers, but he was so taken a back by who was calling him that he decided to answer out of curiosity.
"Misa?" he cursed the fact that his voice came out horse from the crying.
"Hey, Raito!" was the cheerful voice on the other end of the line. Misa always seemed happy to him. When they first met he thought this was annoying, but after having to be around her for classes he had come to like this trait. "I had a question on our science homework, and you're really smart so I thought you could help me."
"Alright," he wasn't doing anything but feeling sorry for himself anyway. "What's your question?"
"Are you okay?" her voice was less peppy.
"Of course," he answered too quickly.
"You sound like you've been crying," she informed him.
Since when was Misa Amane so good at reading people?
"I'm fine," he tried.
"If you need to talk to someone," she started. "I'm good at that kind of stuff."
"Misa," he made his voice stern. "I'm okay, really. What was your question on the homework."
"Do you think I could show it to you in person?" she asked suddenly. "It's easier for me to understand you if I can see you."
"Sure," he found himself agreeing. "Do you remember how to get to my house?"
"Of course!" She hadn't been over since their first year of high school, and even then it had been only once and for a school assignment. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."
She was only two minutes off on the time, and Raito wasn't sure if he should be uncomfortable by how quickly she was able to get to his house.
"I was in the neighborhood," she explained as he let her in.
Doing science homework? He questioned but did not ask out loud.
If Raito wasn't sure on wether or not he was uncomfortable before opening the door, after he was positive that the answer was the affirmative. Every time that he had seen Misa it had been in or right after school, and she had always been wearing her school uniform. Right now she was wearing an extremely short dress. Raito hoped that this was the sort of clothes that she wore on a daily basis, but was getting the increasing feeling that she was purposely making an effort.
"Do you want a jacket or something?" He offered before he could stop himself.
"Oh, that's alright," she smiled at him.
"Alright." Part of him knew that he should just ask her to leave, but another part of him wanted to see what she was trying to do. "We can study in my room."
"Great!"
Raito lead the way to his room, and cleared off the school books already on the desk. He offered Misa the chair, and her blush at this did not escape his notice. She showed him the question that she was having trouble with, and—slightly to his surprise—that she did need and was grateful for the help.
"Are you okay?" The question would have seemed out of the blue if she hadn't called him out on crying over the phone.
"Misa—"
"Because I meant it when I said you can talk to me," she leaned her upper body on his desk and turned to face him. He was once again reminded of how revealing her dress was.
"I wasn't crying," he said stiffly.
"Raito, I—"
"Are you trying to seduce me?" His voice was flat. Maybe directly asking this wasn't the best corse of action, but Raito did not want to have to sit through her trying to make him open up about his feelings.
"What?" she looked offended. That was fair.
"You are, aren't you?" He had already confronted the matter, so there was no point in softening it.
"You know what," she had stood up now, hands on her hips. Although her posture was defensive, it look to Raito like she wasn't sure wether or not to be angry. "Maybe Misa is trying to seduce you! You're not acting like you're not interested."
"I think you need to leave," Raito could hear himself sound more tired than appalled.
"Oh," she looked taken aback.
"I'm sorry," he wasn't sure how else to get her out of his room. "But you know I'm dating Kiyomi, and I don't want to—"
"I get it."
She was out the door faster than he thought possible for her.
School on Monday was not as awkward as Raito thought it would be. Misa seemed to have forgotten, or at least moved on, from what had happened. He had thought she would at least give him the silent treatment, but, aside from a few times he caught her staring at him out of the corner of his eye, she was behaving perfectly normal. It was clear that she hadn't told any of her friends about meeting him that weekend, for they were far worse actors than she was and if they knew anything he didn't doubt that he would be able to tell.
It must have been the relief from avoiding the drama he had predicted Misa would bring, but for the fist half of his school day he had been able to keep his thoughts away from the reason he had been crying in the first place. At least, he hadn't thought about his sexuality until he accidentally brushed his arm across his lab partners hip during science. The situation wouldn't have been that bad if Raito had been able to pretend that he didn't notice. Instead he felt a blush darken his cheeks.
"Sorry," he muttered, feeling the need to say something after displaying it on his face.
"You're fine," Teru Mikami shrugged it off. Raito wondered if the guy was just pretending not to notice his blush or if he simply hadn't seen.
He was confident it was the latter until—
"Sorry." Mikami spoke now, but Raito was certain that he had intentionally skimmed the side of Raito's leg with the back of his hand.
"No, that's okay," Raito acted as if he hadn't read into the gesture.
By the fourth and fifth 'accidental' brushes, they both stopped apologizing.
It was odd that it took a conversation with Mikami to boost Raito's self-esteem. That is, if what happened that day in class counted as a conversation. For the first time in too long, Raito was feeling genuine confidence.
Knowing that it would be better for him to act or his than wait until it passed over, Raito decided that he was going to come out to his parents and sister. At the moment, he couldn't see what had been holding him back for so long. His family loved him. Why would they care if he was gay or not? It wasn't like he was going to go around flirting with every guy that he saw.
Maybe after this he would dump Kiyomi. It wasn't exactly fair to keep dating her after he had come out to those closest to him. This didn't mean that he had to tell her that he was gay. Raito knew it would probably be better to keep the people at school in the dark on this for the rest of the year. He doubted anyone would care once they got to college.
Raito walked into his house at the end of the day with this positive mind set. Everything changed when he hear raised voices coming from their hallway. It was rare for anyone in his family to shout. Both he and Sayu respected their parents and understood why not to yell or even talk back at them.
"I'm going to hang out with whoever I want to!" Sayu's voice screamed as she stomped up their hallway. "You're both jerks! You know that?"
Raito found his mother sitting in the kitchen with tired expressions on her face.
"What's going on?" He asked.
"Your father and sister had a disagreement." His mother's ability to soften a situation never ceased to amaze Raito.
"I've never heard her yell like that before," Raito stated.
"Would you mind talking to her?" His mother asked. "I don't think she'll listen to your father or I."
"Alright," Raito agreed mainly out of curiosity.
"Thanks, sweetie," she really did look tired. Raito wondered if she had tried to end the argument before it escalated to the screaming.
"Sayu," he knocked on the door once.
"Yes?" She didn't sound angry right now.
"I'm coming in, okay?" He warned her.
"Fine," she said as he opened to door.
"What happened?" Raito took a seat at her desk. She was currently sitting cross legged on the floor.
"I realized that I was born into a house of narrow minded fools," she said pleasantly.
"Okay," Raito had to conceal a laugh at this. "First of all, presenting and insult as a complement is my thing, I called it when you were four if you don't recall."
"You were an odd eight-year-old," she mused.
"Second of all," he made sure he looked slightly more serious now. "We don't call our parents narrow minded fools."
"I said other things to their face," she objected.
"Thirdly," he continued. "Is anyone going to explain to me what you were screaming about?"
"My friend Saki is a lesbian," Sayu told him.
"Good for her...?" Raito wasn't following.
"Dad says I can't invite her over anymore," she explained.
"Oh." Raito felt his stomach drop.
"Yeah," she crossed her arms. "It's not my fault I started yelling."
"I understand where you're coming from." He kept talking, despite his thoughts blending between anxiety and relief that this had happened before he tried to have his talk with the family. "But you can't yell at Dad, it's disrespectful and won't solve anything."
"I know, but what else am I supposed to do?" she huffed.
"Talk to Mom," Raito suggested. "At least you won't have the heart to yell at her."
"Right," Sayu rolled her eyes.
"I just remembered I have a group project due tomorrow," Raito wasn't even sure if the lie was convincing. "I need to go out."
"You're leaving the house in a war zone?" Sayu was half joking.
"It's a big project," Raito tried to justify. "And we haven't done any work on it yet. I might be out all night trying to finish it."
"Have fun," Sayu muttered.
"Bye."
He ran from the house. The tears of frustration and self pity that started forming in his eyes seemed to mock him. He was beginning to hate the amount of times this subject made him cry. Only when he was a block away from his house did he pull his cell phone out of his pocket and hastily dial a number.
"Hey, Misa?" He asked when he heard her pick up.
"What is it?" She sounded more than a little bit less cheerful than she had at school that day.
"I was just wondering," he cleared his throat. "Does the offer you made yesterday still stand?"
"Offer?"
"You know-" he was't sure how to make it clearer without saying it outright.
"Oh!" She exclaimed, getting the message. "I don't know, it depends."
"Where are you right now?" He asked.
"My place," she drew out the words. "I can text you the directions."
"Alright," he agreed.
"See you soon," she hung up.
Raito took a breath. He was ready to run from his problems even if that meant running into more.
Backstory time! I know that I've sort of broken the pattern of Raito and L's POV switching off every other chapter; I did this because Raito's backstory is longer.
Thank you to Callicanios, Guest, Wizard-Party-Forever, and America is Awesome for the reviews!