Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. Anyone thinking that I do is hallucinating and I would like to know what they're on to be able to come up with such an idea. This story is written without any profit to the author except for the fun.
Now, for the warning: This chapter started out with the same crazy vibe as the previous ones did, but somehow hints of plot insinuated itself insidiously right at the very end—I wrote down a whole paragraph of it before I realized what happened. It's still pretty tame by my standards, but in case it's shocking or worrying to other people, I'd rather err on the safe side and say that from this point on, it's for 17+.
Truth is, I probably read these kinds of stuffs all the time when I'm 13 without any side-effects, but well...one's own measure is not always a good measure for another. Blargh, that's a long author's note. Onwards with the story!
'-
The Meeting of the Yagami Sisters
Light hadn't even arrived home for long before Sayu ran into her bedroom and attacked her with a tackle-hug and the two Yagami siblings fell on Light's bed.
"Niii-san!"
She smiled. "It's Nee-san, now. Whatever's the matter?"
Ryuk was laughing out loud, at least until Light gave signs that he should just go, for now. It took another pointed look and a glance at the apple Light left at the table when the shinigami started making caricatures of batting eyelashes and looking pretty, and then he finally flew through a wall with a disappointed huff. Life as a shinigami was basically boring without watching humanity, after all.
"Well, home is dull without you and I miss you" Sayu said with a cute pout. It was probably the same kind of expression that sent all those male classmates to call home and their father to start guarding the phone like a terrier whenever he was home.
Light chuckled, "Somehow I feel that's not the only reason you barged in here. Is there another homework you've been having a problem with?"
"There's something about Advanced Calculus III but it's boring, and we could finish it in an hour later on tonight. I think there was some physics stuff I don't quite get either about those oddly-shaped electron orbitals and whatnot, but I think that's even easier" Sayu said with a dismissive wave of her hand as she stood up and helped Light up. She was smarter than everyone else in her class, if not her whole year, but when one had Yagami Light as their older sibling, one begins to think of it as merely a small factoid instead of something very important.
"What I'm more concerned right now, is that you're going to have a date! You have to get dressed! You can't go down and eat just with jeans and shirt!" Light winced. Her pitch wasn't as high as Misa's, but she had a wonderful pair of lungs and the volume was starting to make Light's ears ring a bit. Sayu was almost bouncing in a way that made Light suspect she had downed a litre of coffee.
"Take a deep breath and calm down. It's just a dinner to get Dad to snap out of his weird funk" she said.
Sayu stared at Light strangely. "But Ryuuzaki's going to be there, right?"
"Well, yes?"
If it was possible, Sayu seemed to loom even larger,
"And he's your boyfriend, right?" Light didn't even have a chance to answer it with anything before his sister continued, "Don't you see? I bet that's the reason Dad's been planning to dress up a bit for dinner. I mean, Mom even brought out the good china and the rarely-used silverware when she heard that Ryuuzaki spent his childhood in England, so no chopsticks for tonight. You should see the flower arrangements on the dining table—we opened up the extensions to make it larger to fit more people of course—as well, or how—"
"Okay, I get it. Big day for Dad, yes" Light said, finally managing to cut her sister's rant before she gets overwhelmed from the tide of words. "Well, I'll just pick up a nice suit—"
"NO! No suits. You are going to wear a Dress. That's final." Sayu stated it so seriously it sounded like a commandment.
"I do realize that you haven't had the chance to shop out and change your wardrobe after the...change, but I just noticed that our sizes don't differ much apart from your height. So, I'm going to lend you one of my dresses and we can pick it together. Now. In my room"
With that, she gripped her older brother-turned-sister's wrist and started dragging a confused Light out.
'-
The moment Light sat on Sayu's bed, she finally knew for sure that the love of pink was not a side-effect of the hormone estrogen or having two X chromosome instead of one. If it was, she wouldn't be having this headache just looking at neon pink shade of her sister's desk. Sayu's room wasn't as frilly as Misa's, but still...
"How about this one? You definitely have the legs to pull it off" Sayu pulled out a dress fom her wardrobe.
Light stared at the scandalously short little black dress and her protective instinct surfaced faster. How does one walk around in it and not flash panties? "You wore that? When? Where did you get it? Does dad even know you have it?"
Sayu rolled her eyes, dismissing the concern with the practiced ease of a teenager. "You're such a big brother Light-nii. Alright, alright, we'll just put this in the reject pile. It's not as short on me as it would be on you, anyway"
Light gave a disbelieving look to her little sister, but Sayu ignored her already and started shuffling through her clothes again. "Let's see. Aha, a red dress! Hmmm, strange, I don't believe I bought this one. I think it's Negami's. I think I remember this from Negami's cousin's wedding"
"You're lending me your friend's dress?" Light said,
"It's been through the laundry and she'd only worn it once before she forgot it was here. Heck, even I forgot it was still here. Here, try it on"
Sayu passed the hanger to Light, leaving her older sister to stare at it. At least it wasn't short—a glance was enough to show that the fabric went all the way to the ankles. The light and shimmering satin gave the impression that the dress was liquid blood, an interesting double entendre for a Death God, Light mused. Sayu turned around with a small pile of dress in her arms already, her hands on her waist once she saw that Light was just sitting there and staring.
"Oh, come on! You won't know how well it fits if you don't wear it"
Light was incredulous. "Here?"
There was a glimpse of a devilish grin on Sayu's face, "Well, we're both girls, so what's wrong with that?"
Before her little sister could hatch any other plot, Light manuevered her out of the room swiftly and locked it, dress in hand. She could even hear the disappointed huff that Sayu let out on the other side of the door, and somehow Light thought she had made a very good decision. Sayu's enthusiasm was beginning to be...worrying. Light turned her attention back on the dress.
Now, how on earth was she supposed to wear this?
'-
"Nee-san? Are you done yet? You couldn't have taken that long to wear the dress, right?"
Light sighed as she reluctantly opened the door.
"Dad's going to bust a blood vessel if he sees this" Light muttered. It's not as if she agreed with the dress herself. It was too...
"Oooh, that's sexy!"
...impractical.
Light rolled her eyes, ignoring the way her younger sister was gushing. Instead, she pulled on the long silk gloves that came with the dress all the way to her forearms, leaving only a strip of skin between the dress and the gloves. The dress was slit to the thigh, the lowest point of the décolletage was beyond the lower curves of the breast and she felt like all she needed to do was to trip over something before everything spilled out. The top half of her shoulder blades were bare, and Light felt she had just stepped out of some 30s gangster movie. If she ever wanted to reduce L to a pile of drooling mush in a very private setting, yes, the dress would be a very good choice, but in front of her parents?
"It feels as if it's one size too small"
Sayu shrugged, "Well, I have to admit it didn't look this good when Negumi was the one wearing it"
"I'm not wearing this out of this bedroom"
Sayu raised a knowing eyebrow, "Would you want it for affairs needing settled in the bedroom, then? I'm sure Negumi wouldn't mind if I bought it from her; she wasn't too attached to it"
Light stared at the ceiling helplessly and wondered who on earth had been poisoning her baby sister.
"If I ever catch Matsuda—" she started. Sayu rolled her eyes.
"Please, one look at him and you'd know that he's still a virgin" Sayu shrugged, before noticing the flabbergasted look on Light's face. "What? It's true. Do you know how easy it is to make him blush?"
'-
"Let me establish a couple of things first" Light said as she fought back an impending headache. As far as she knew, her sister was the darling girl in the family, and knowing how wicked she could actually be was getting Light a little too concerned about the kind of people Sayu had been hanging out with. Maybe she should send Ryuk to follow her out some other time.
Maybe there are a couple of names that should end up on his death note.
"I don't mind dressing up, but the aim is not to get tackled from across the table" Light said firmly. Hey, she still have an image to uphold in front of her parents.
'-
Sayu pouted. There goes her infinite source of fun, especially considering that her older sister was...well-endowed. She picked a dress with peony and phoenix embroidered on it.
"I have this Chinese dress—"
"Nothing so predominantly blood red anymore, please"
"What about this white one piece—"
"I know it's supposed to be a halter neck, but why is the back open all the way to the top of my butt?" Light asked, "Wait, is that even your dress? Tell me it isn't, because otherwise you are going to go out shopping with mother to get some more decent clothes to offset those"
Sayu pouted. Light was being too much of an older brother, again. Was her elder sister purposefully making this more difficult for her? She sighed.
"No Light-nee, that was part of the costume for Odette from the drama club's last play"
"Why is it in your wardrobe?"
"Hey, I made it and with my own money instead of the costume budget, so it's mine" Pride tinged her voice as she said it, before she muttered something else, "Though of course, I'd have to size it down first if I ever want to wear it..."
'-
"Sayu, if it's too over the top, it would seem like I'm desperate to get into someone's pants" Light said with a sigh as she rejected yet another dress.
"You're not?" Sayu asked, not quite believing it.
"Whether the answer is yes or no, I think subtlety goes a long way than overt methods" Light replied diplomatically. "And that last dress looks like something I'd only ever need to wear if I want to be a hostess in a yakuza establishment"
"This is burlesque! It's historical" Sayu defended. Light raised an eyebrow.
"You mean there's actually a burlesque club in our high school?"
Sayu shut her mouth as she blushed. She had walked straight into Light's trap. Her older sister gave her most angelic assuring smile. Somehow, it didn't exactly calm Sayu by much. "Don't worry, I'm always ready to listen to any explanation you might have—you do have one, right?"
'-
"So two of your friends is actually a hostess at night" Light said as she rubbed her temples. She desperately needed an aspirin—it was either that or go find some more criminals to execute. "At this point, I'm sure I can extrapolate further and say that the establishment is an organized form of the usual enjo kosai individual cases that the police force has been having. I have the suspicion that it's probably part of an organized crime network run by one of those crazy young regional heads of one yakuza family or another experimenting with new businesses"
Light clasped her hands together on her knees. "Now, please enlighten me further about your friends and give me a reason as to why I shouldn't just tell this to Dad"
Sayu dropped herself on her bed, beside her older sister.
"It's not really anything much—they just accompany these doddering old men in eating and drinking—"
"In skimpy outfits" Light deadpaned,
"—well, in various costumes, yes. But they really need the money—you know that not everyone is lucky enough to afford university tuition fees, right? Or be smart enough to get a scholarship? Or have parents that are earning well? And you know how demanding our high school is, it'd be pretty hard to get a daytime part-time job that doesn't clash with various school schedules"
Light ran her hand through her sister's hair, pressing back her concern very well that it didn't show on her face at all. Sometimes Sayu was too nice...
"And I'm sure they'd be harrassed at least once a week on the job, but they've just never told you about it" Light said softly, "Because they'd want to protect you from it too"
Sayu sat up suddenly and hugged Light, hiding her face under her nee-san's shirt collar.
"I know. I…at least I suspected it. But what could I do? I know some of them won't quit even if I ask them to"
And Indeed, Light considered it to be a challenge for her intellect. Give criminals what are due to them, she thought easily, while patting her sister's back. And as for her friends...hmm, they'd still need a part time job, and without an adequate one, they would fall through the same cracks of society as the one they've fallen through before. Where should we start from?
"I'll find a way, Sayu. You know I always do" she said soothingly, the unnoticed wide and sharp grin of a Kami of Retribution grazing her features.
And when I finally serve them all justice, it will be wonderful.
'-
Author's End Note: So the tension rises—and we haven't even gotten to the dinner! Is the writer intentionally procrastinating? Will the dinner get somewhere or will the story be distracted by the late entry of a semblance of plot? Stay tuned for the answer in the next installment.
Author's Postscript: Oh, wait, I forgot. Some people might not know what enjo kosai is and too curious to be satisfied by what meager hints exists in the story. It's basically about a (almost always female) student dating older men (usually salarymen) with the expectations of getting expensive trinkets bought and gifted for them. These items include (and not limited to) LV handbags, perfumes, etc.