"Daddy! Watch this!"
Five year old Kai ran out to the ocean and jumped, doing a cannonball in the shallow water.
Light ran over and picked up his little son, "that's very cool Kai, I'm proud of you."
Kai yawned and closed his eyes, "daddy, I'm sleepy."
"Are you ready to go then?"
"No, I just want to close my eyes for a minute and then I wanna play some more in the water."
Light smiled and carried his son to his car to take him home.
Kai woke up with the memory fresh in his mind.
Wow…I haven't thought of that in a while…I wonder why I dreamt about that…
Kai got up, went through his morning routine, and headed downstairs.
Keitaro rushed through the headquarters without saying a word and headed out the door to go to school.
Near twirled a lock of hair between his fingers before stating; "I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed, but it seems that Keitaro has become increasingly distant."
Mello nodded, "for once I agree with you, usually he talks non-stop to everyone, he always has something to say. Lately he hasn't said much of anything unless someone talks to him first."
L turned to face them, "perhaps one of you three should talk to him and try to figure out why he's been acting so strangely."
"I'm guessing you already know why he's acting that way?"
Mello asked raising an eyebrow.
L turned back to the monitors, "I can think of a few reasons."
Mello looked at Near and Matt, "I think I'd be one of the worst people to talk to him and Near wouldn't help either, so I elect Matt to talk to him."
Matt glanced up from his video game.
"M'kay, I'll talk to him when he comes back from school today."
Kiyoko sat in the classroom staring at Keitaro.
He seems so sad! I wish there was something I could do…but I don't know what's wrong and he would just say that he was fine if I asked…I'd ask Kai but I'm kind of scared to.
She frowned and gathered her things as the bell rang, signaling the end of class.
"Hey Keitaro, can I talk to you for a second?"
"Uh s-sure Kiyoko."
"Is everything ok? You seem kind of down."
"Yeah of course, everything's fine!"
Kiyoko frowned for a second and then smiled, "well…ok, if you're sure…"
She stood, thinking for a second before kissing him on the cheek and quickly running out of the classroom blushing. Keitaro stood in shock, his cheeks burning bright red.
Kai sat staring at his father's gravestone and thought back to the dream.
…are you still proud of me dad? Am I doing what you want me to do?
'You sure do come here a lot Kai, are you waiting for something?'
"No, I just like coming here to think. It's quiet and no one'll bother me—well, other than you anyway."
'So, what's your next move?'
"I suppose I'll have to find a way to draw the attention away from myself. With Lorelai following me every once in a while and L doing surveillance it's getting harder and harder to find time to write in the Death Note, the only question is—how to do it?"
'Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk. Something tells me things are about to get a whole lot more interesting.'
Keitaro walked into the headquarters, still mildly shocked about the kiss Kiyoko gave him.
"Hey Keitaro, can I talk to you for a sec?"
Keitaro looked up at Matt and nodded. Matt and Keitaro walked through the halls of the building.
"So…how's school going?"
"…it's going pretty good, I've been doing well and I haven't been picked on very much since Kai talked to Shinobu."
"That's good…so is there anything you want to talk about? You've been kinda quiet and quite frankly we're all starting to get a little worried."
"Oh! No, everything's fine, I just haven't had much to talk about!"
"Really? You sure?"
"Yeah, don't worry about me!"
Keitaro smiled and Matt smiled back.
"'Kay kid, if you're sure," Matt ruffled Keitaro's hair and walked to his room.