Yes, I finally posted! This chapter came out a little differently than I envisioned, and is kind of like the Justice interrogation chapter lol. Just a gentle reminder that I use this story as a character study, and sometimes to explore new ideas. So there's a lot of rambling etc in this chapter.

I do not own Death Note nor its characters. I only own my OCs.

Chapter 34: Sobriety

Aug 16, 2004; Time unknown

Rui awoke with a jolt, her heart racing for no discernible reason. Her body felt strangely heavy, and she was SO thirsty. There was an unpleasant taste in her mouth. That was... a hangover? Why was she hungover?

Drunk... Umeshu. Misa and Light... Interrogation? Oh, the date! She had had plans to get drunk. But then, how had she gotten back into bed? The last thing she remembered was...

"I'm wet," she whispered slowly, clearly enunciating each syllable in a manner that captivated him. "Wet for you."

"I want you so much, L."

Long, pianist fingers delicately tracing her folds, causing more slick to seep from her most private area, driving her to the brink of frustration, before he finally slipped them into her...

SHIT!

Rui groaned in embarrassment.

What had she been thinking?

Oh, that's right. She hadn't . She hadn't thought her drunk self would ever be so bold. If she'd known, she wouldn't-

Wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't… They say hindsight is 50-50, no crying over spilt milk and all that.

How could she face Ryuzaki now?

Would he think of her as someone wanton? It would be painful if he ended up avoiding her, or losing all respect for her. Come to think of it, Rui was surprisingly okay with the actual interaction, per se. She was more concerned with the aftermath.

Speaking of the aftermath… Hmm. It had happened in her room, hadn't it? There was bound to be surveillance footage of this interaction.

SURVEILLANCE FOOTAGE.

Oh god. Forget Ryuzaki, she could avoid him for a day at least, long enough to think of how to deal with him. But to have the surveillance footage of their… dalliance… captured and stored as part of the task force's property, or rather, L's, but Watari and Light had access to it too…

She had to get it deleted, STAT.

Rui scrambled to access the surveillance via her own laptop. Yep, there it was. But there did not seem to be an option for her to delete it from her account, only to view it. It was likely that she hadn't that level of clearance.

Rui cursed to herself, leaning back and trying to think. She would have to talk to Ryuzaki, then. There was no way to pretend that she didn't remember this. Not that she would want to forget.

She blushed, chewing on her fingernail as she watched the surveillance footage that was still playing, now for the third time. Damn, the way Ryuzaki was suckling at her neck while driving his fingers in and out of her was kind of hot. She had never seen him look anything more than deadpan, but here he tilted his head, moaning against her neck, eyes half-lidded…

Ryuzaki had been surprisingly passionate.

Rui turned the volume up a little more, squeezing her thighs together as she recalled the way he had made her feel.

"Rui?"

The unwitting voyeur shrieked and jumped up from her seat, almost knocking the laptop over.

"R-R-Ryuzaki!" Her eyes danced about the room like a hunted animal. There was no way around this. He looked like he'd been there for a while, probably long enough to see her turn the volume up. Fuck.

"Delete this shit at once!" Rui decided to get right to the crux of the matter. Maybe he'd focus on that and forget everything else. "I don't want anyone to see it. Not Watari or Light or, or, anyone."

Ryuzaki remained still in his typical position, slumped over, hands in his pockets. Now he scratched the top of one foot with the other.

"...Ryuzaki?" Rui inquired, a little less agitatedly this time.

"You seemed more than comfortable seeing it." The hint of amusement in his voice both embarrassed and annoyed her.

Rui's face was turning an interesting shade of red, and the way she was wordlessly opening and closing her mouth, like a fish, presented a wholly amusing sight. For a moment, Ryuzaki forgot how… upset he was. Rui had the right idea, but Watari had already caught wind of the footage. They had had a rather… stilted, tense exchange of words in the wee hours of the morning, during which Ryuzaki had managed to verify that Watari had indeed been interfering in his correspondence with Wammy's.

"Rui," he began, not sure why he was even bothering to ask her input, "How would you feel about going to live with Aiber or Wedy?"

It felt like someone had taken a hammer to her heart. Intimacy always got Rui more emotionally sensitive than usual, which was why she didn't usually engage in it.

Ryuzaki wasn't prepared for the way the atmosphere between them suddenly dulled and tensed. "Do you not… want me around anymore?" Her voice, too, was small and almost childlike. "Was it because of… last night?"

Ugh. See, Rui wasn't originally going to bring this up, but her mouth had run away from her. She wasn't sure which was worse - that she had opened herself up to a possible world of hurt, or that Ryuzaki was being completely, terrifyingly silent.

They remained there at a standstill, Rui avidly watching him chew his thumb the way prey would watch a predator. Say something! Rui silently begged. But the oblivious detective continued to chew, his gaze fixed on something far away.

Ryuzaki suddenly started, only now noticing the sting at the tip of his thumb. Apparently he had chewed at it so much that it was now ragged and torn.

Of course, he was aware of Rui's burning stare. He ought to say something. But what?

This was probably the second time in his life that Ryuzaki felt so abjectly out of his depth. Where did he begin? Judging by the crease in the middle of her brows and the quivering of her bottom lip, Rui had been made extremely unhappy at his words, more so than she was letting on. Her clear eyes, though despondent, were fixed on him steadily. She wanted an answer from him and wasn't backing down this time. Dimly, he noted that she had taken and let out a deep breath.

Ryuzaki's mind had blanked out the moment he registered her reaction. Apparently, her lack of happiness bothered him, to his mild surprise. Ryuzaki wasn't sure why she was upset, nor was he sure why his reasons for sending her away suddenly seemed so flimsy, even to him. But somehow, he was aware that his next words would be the deciding factor for how their future interactions would progress. The issue was that he wasn't exactly sure how he wanted their future interactions to progress.

Ryuzaki knew for a fact that his ability to connect with others was… deficient. But his considerable intellect had always been able to compensate for that, or so he believed. It was clearly failing him now when he needed it most. What had he, besides his intellectual prowess?

That thought further churned the already roiling mass of urgency within, and he hunched into himself, averting his gaze from Rui and from the turmoil within that he did not at all understand. The world seemed to have gone quiet as blood pounded in his ears and his vision narrowed.

Rui watched, almost incredulously, as Ryuzaki gradually lowered himself into his characteristic owl-like posture, his side facing her. His thumb was bleeding, but he was still gnawing at it, almost compulsively.

Clearly, Ryuzaki wasn't going to answer.

Ryuzaki flinched at her involuntary sigh of frustration, which concerned Rui a little.

She wasn't exactly sure what was going on, but perhaps Ryuzaki needed space. Leaving the subject now might make it harder to pick it back up again, but…

Rui, unhappy but uncertain of what else to do, left the room.

The tension in the task force room was palpable. Ryuzaki never once looked at her. He, professional detective extraordinaire, had the thespianesque ability to give no indication that anything was going on, which upset Rui all the more.

Light and Matsuda, being brothers of sisters, were well-attuned enough to any whiff of poorly-hidden feminine ire, even if you could tell neither knew what to make of it. It was almost funny, how they were trying their best to smooth it over - Light, by being extra polite and pleasant towards her whenever she came near, and Matsuda, by being extra jovial and cheery. This was the second cup of coffee he had poured out for her.

Rui, for the most part, was trying to focus on her work, even as her mind continued to whirr in the background. She valiantly tried to bury the vague irritation, borne of anxiety and hurt, that rose every so often at the thought of Ryuzaki's non-response. What, did she not deserve a response? Was he just that ashamed at the side of her he had witnessed? Was she just not good enough? It would be all too easy to subscribe to that line of thought.

Instead, she was again going over the facts. She had come onto Ryuzaki, Ryuzaki had acquiesced, then he had come in to tease her, but then he asked her what she thought about going to stay with criminals. Her first reaction was, of course, 'I can't believe he's considering shipping me off to criminals!'

… But Ryuzaki wasn't exactly the type to ask, was he? Not to mention, his motive for wanting to do so, anyway.

Indeed, it could be that he didn't want her around. Occam's razor and all, Rui was inclined to take that explanation.

The puzzling thing was that the surveillance footage would suggest otherwise. Ryuzaki hadn't just left her once he was done with her. He had wiped her off, dressed her, removed her shoes, and tucked her in. And he had done all that very carefully. Rui even thought that the length of time he had stopped to survey his work after tucking her in was a little suspect too, but that might have been wishful thinking on her part.

Gosh, the way her heart had panged at the sight of him taking care of her so gently… Rui had it bad, no cap.

Was it… concern, somehow, that led Ryuzaki to want to send her away? For her safety? That explanation was so sweet that Rui was almost reluctant to believe it.

What were the sources of danger around her, anyway? The Kiras, most definitely, but nothing had changed. The shinigami, but she hadn't seen any in a while.

… Watari. That was the only possible new development Rui could think of. What exactly was Watari doing, what power did he hold over Ryuzaki, if he did? Had something happened between Ryuzaki and his guardian last night, or had this been an ongoing situation that Ryuzaki had kept mum about?

Rui frowned. She was essentially flying blind, and there were only two ways forward she could see, with the first being to try to speak to Watari casually and get a sense of how much he knew, his intentions for her, etc. But Rui wasn't confident in her ability to do that, especially when she wasn't even sure of anything when it came to the old man. He was so impenetrable that it would be far more likely for him to get the better of her. She supposed if she had to, she could complete that set of tests and use it to approach Watari if necessary. There was her Plan B.

The more promising way was to somehow have a frank conversation with Ryuzaki, without Watari breathing down their backs, but of course that came with its own set of drawbacks, even apart from the awkwardness. How on earth could she manage this? Ryuzaki might be forthcoming if she approached him right, but she would have to find a way to get him to help-

Rui hissed, jolting back to the present as boiling hot coffee came in contact with the back of her hand, which inevitably jerked, knocking over the cup that she had been pouring into. Aizawa and Mogi startled, the former immediately pushing the stacks of papers away from the spreading spill, while the latter stopped her before she could start to try cleaning up her mess.

Chief Yagami took one look at the situation and motioned for Matsuda to tend to her burn.

Damn. She hadn't even started hyperventilating at the possibility that Watari might have seen the incriminating footage.

Ryuzaki watched covertly as Matsuda guided Rui out of the room, gritting his teeth at the sight of Matsuda's hand resting gently on the small of her back.

He wanted to pull up live footage of them both on his laptop, but Light would notice. He hesitated for only a moment, then got up, pulling an annoyed Light up along with him as he quickly scaled the stairs, two at a time. His mind worked to come up with an excuse, even as Light looked askance at him, annoyed at being pulled away from work.

"Tell me, Light-kun," Ryuzaki began offhandedly, "Do you know how to treat a burn?"

At Light's silent consternation, he continued. "Me neither. It's a good time to learn."

The boy in question sighed, choosing to stay silent before he thought of something. "Ryuzaki, why do you keep changing the way you address me? First it was Raito-kun, then Yagami-kun, and now you've been calling me Light-kun."

Pick a name and stick to it , is what Ryuzaki supposed Kira was trying to say. Quite honestly, there wasn't a real reason for the changing mode of address, but it having the effect of annoying Kira was a plus point.

"Well, what does Yagami-kun want me to call him?" Would Kira work just fine? Ryuzaki was tempted to add, but they did not need the conflict right now.

Said Yagami-kun was clearly caught off guard. "W-well, either is fine, it's just nice to have a consistent mode of address."

"Alright then, Raito-kun." Ryuzaki purposely cut Light off before the boy could protest further. "Let us learn some first aid from Matsui," he announced, opening the door with a flourish.

Rui jumped as the door was suddenly flung open, only to reveal a stone-faced Ryuzaki and his unwilling, annoyed attachment. She quickly looked away, partially shrinking behind Matsuda who was innocently asking why they were there.

Seeing that Ryuzaki wasn't at all inclined to answer, Light stepped in. "Please don't mind us, Matsui-san."

Ryuzaki fought to keep his expression blank as he saw Rui and Matsuda turn to share a look of bewilderment, and then agreement. In silent consent, they turned away from the handcuffed pair.

With nothing better to do and still highly annoyed at Ryuzaki for having dragged him on this pointless expedition, Light shoved his hands into his pockets, studying the detective.

Everything about the man pissed Light off. Even the sight of him annoyed Light, so he never allowed himself to look for too long, lest he start punching him again. The sight of Ryuzaki's face crumpling under his fist was still one of the most satisfying memories that Light had in the small collection of memories that could put him in a good mood.

The detective's face was currently slack with blankness, and he appeared to be avidly watching the pair while sucking on his thumb. A nasty habit, to be sure. Light was almost certain that this was another test on Ryuzaki's part, or a new way to annoy him. What sort of test could it be this time?

The detective was rubbing one foot on top of the other, like a barbarian, and he shifted his weight about, still watching as Matsuda brought the woman's hand under running tap water.

Light had never had to treat a burn, but he was pretty sure that one should not be applying anything but petroleum jelly to the burn, to prevent infection. As if to confirm that thought, Ryuzaki's gaze shifted to meet his, as if to see whether Light had noticed.

Of course he had!

Quashing the slight indignation welling up in his chest, Light stepped forward, the usual air of geniality settling over him easily.

"Ah, Matsui-san, I'm not sure that…"

The police officer paused, having been about to smear a topical antibiotic over the back of Rui's hand.

"Perhaps petroleum jelly should be used instead?" Light continued, noticing that the detective had now stopped rubbing his foot.

"Light-kun is right, in this case," Ryuzaki finally spoke up. "This antibiotic cream would only aggravate the burn site."

Rui eyed the pair of geniuses as Matsuda went to retrieve the suggested item. What on earth were these two even doing here? It had to be Ryuzaki's doing.

"I've never been burnt before," Ryuzaki suddenly mumbled from behind his thumb, in a bid to prevent Light from thinking too closely on why he had dragged them both here. "Have you, Yagami-kun?" Ryuzaki wasn't even sure that he himself wanted to be thinking too closely on why he had brought them here. To Rui.

Was that another taunt of some sort? This was getting old. But try as he might, Light couldn't see the hidden meaning behind Ryuzaki's words. For someone on the same level as the detective, this was next to impossible, so perhaps Ryuzaki really was just trying to make small talk.

"Ah, not really. Unless you count the numerous times I burnt my tongue on hot tea." A little light self-deprecation was usually the right response, right?

"Hmm." The detective's gaze, reflecting nothing but his customary obsidian blankness, was still fixed on Matsuda and Rui. As usual, Ryuzaki did not react like a normal person. He was still chewing on the tip of his tongue like always, so why-

"I believe we've learnt enough about fixing burns," Ryuzaki suddenly spoke up, jolting Light from his thoughts. "Let us not tarry."

You were the one who-!

There was no arguing with the bastard, so Light sighed and turned to follow him. Full of inward complaints that he kept hidden beneath a placid exterior. He was sure that Ryuzaki knew, though.

Aug 17, 2004; 19 03

They should have taken the stairs. Rui, Ryuzaki, Light, Matsuda, and Misa. They really should have.

First were Matsuda and Misa, on the way from the ground floor back to her apartments from whatever modeling assignment had led her to leave the building. Ding! It stopped at the second floor.

Next was Rui to enter, pushing a small cart of equipment and drinks for the upcoming karaoke event for the other officers. Ding! It stopped at the fourth floor.

Last were Ryuzaki and Light, both of whom looked askance at the unusual amount of people already occupying the elevator, but went in anyway, the chains between them clinking lightly as they took up the space the other three had made for them. It was an unpleasantly intimate experience - Rui could smell the lavender scent of Ryuzaki's fabric softener wafting from the left, and the fresh, aquatic scent of Matsuda's cologne from her right. ( Matsuda wore cologne? ) Both those scents were, however, overshadowed by the gentle, sweet scent of Misa's perfume from right in front of her.

At first, Rui had not registered what was happening. How could she, when she had never experienced an elevator breakdown? Yet, this was to be her first. The elevator that had once cruised up and down floors so smoothly, was emitting a slow screech, and then it suddenly jerked to a halt.

Ryuzaki tilted his head. "It seems that the elevator has broken down," he commented. It might have been stating the obvious judging from the slight shift in Light's stance and the slightly more forceful way he exhaled, but Rui was looking lost, and Ryuzaki didn't care a hoot what Light thought.

"I-I guess we should call Watari, then," Rui sounded nervous. "No, wait-" There was no signal.

Ryuzaki snuck a glance at her from the corner of his eyes, leaning forwards to press the call button as Rui hastily backed away to give him more room, not that there was much. "Watari?"

Thankfully, said butler responded immediately. "Yes, Ryuzaki?"

"Rui, myself, Light, Misa and Matsui appear to be stuck in lift A-1. It is estimated to be located somewhere between levels 4 and 5 at the moment."

As she understood it, because, number one, the building had such stringent security measures, number two, any help that could be called had to have their backgrounds security-cleared before they could proceed to, well, do their thing, and number three, the lift was built in a rather tricky way, it would take at least an hour before they would be rescued.

As Misa opened her mouth to loudly protest, Rui groaned, rubbing her face with the heels of her palms, pushed her cart into a corner, and proceeded to plop herself down on the ground. It had been a rather… trying day. And she was honestly still a little too raw to want to be in Ryuzaki's presence for too long.

"We'll be here for a while, might as well make ourselves comfortable," Rui said, looking up to meet everyone's stares. Ryuzaki couldn't help but think that Rui looked really young like that. Before he could do anything, Matsuda had already followed suit, plopping himself down right beside her. The corners of Ryuzaki's lips twitched as he barely caught himself from frowning. Did he have to sit so close to Rui that their thighs touched?

Glancing at Light, Ryuzaki lowered himself into a crouch. And of course, it just so happened that he ended up on Rui's other side. He didn't miss Rui's subdued flinch as his hip accidentally brushed hers.

Light stared incredulously at the detective, wondering how long he was cursed to rub elbows with such undignified people. He kept the frown from his face but not his surreptitious inspection of the lift floor.

"The lifts are cleaned once every three days," Rui remarked casually, tactfully choosing to keep her words general.

It didn't mean that the floor wasn't dirty, but Light deemed it alright, and finally sank into a cross legged stance. That left Misa.

Rui supposed she could understand the hesitation. Misa's skirt was so short that her bare skin would be touching the ground if she tried to sit. Sighing, Rui shrugged off her blazer again, spreading it on the only available floor space, right between Light and Matsuda.

Ryuzaki would never admit it, but he did take note of the way the gaps between the buttons in her silk shirt widened ever so slightly as she shrugged out of her blazer. He didn't miss the way Matsuda's gaze subtly traced the slight curve of her breasts, before the idiot caught himself and averted his eyes. That idiot .

The model smiled weakly at Rui, then slowly lowered herself to the floor. Huh. Now they were in a circle.

Rui smirked. They had bottles of alcohol. Rui herself wouldn't play, of course, but she needed something to entertain herself while they waited. "Guys, let's play Spin the Bottle!"

All of them, save Ryuzaki, stared at her, confused. "Whaaa-?" Misa exclaimed.

Rui laughed. "I thought we could use something to pass the time while we wait. Here, we have drinks. And we can use this bottle. Spin the Bottle is, as the name suggests, a game where players take turns to spin the bottle and match up with another player. Typically, it's a kissing game-"

As Misa's gaze grew eager, Rui hastened to continue, "-but we don't have to do that. We could always do something like 20 Questions." Ah, she supposed Truth or Dare was more common in Japan, judging from the way there was no confusion this time. "We could even have a drinking forfeit!"

Again, Matsuda was the first to go along with her suggestion. "Sounds fun! Let's see what drinks we have… Oh, I like Asahi beer! But this Irish Coffee drink looks interesting, too…"

"Right?" Rui turned to him with renewed enthusiasm. "That's why I picked it up! I think it's a new flavour-"

"Right," Ryuzaki cut in, dryly echoing Rui's words. "Shall we start?" He rifled through the contents of Rui's cart, gingerly selecting and picking out a bottle with much more care than the situation warranted. Light was still shooting him that incredulous look, to his great amusement. And best of all, he got the idiot to stop talking.

Eventually, he settled on a bottle of dessert wine - not just because it suited his tastes, but for the smaller, thinner, more uniform shape that made it more appropriate for spinning, and set it carefully on its side with two fingers. Then they all selected a drink. Ryuzaki and Rui went for the non-alcoholic drinks this time, mindful of the consequences of the vice.

There was an awkward pause as all eyes rested on Rui.

"What?" she wondered, then realised that they were waiting for her to start the game, seeing as she had been the one to suggest it.

Shrugging, she reached out, spinning the bottle. It landed on Misa. "Misa, how did you get into modeling?"

"EHHHH," Misa exclaimed, making Rui blink in surprise. "That's so boring!"

"Oh, Misa can never be boring," Rui smilingly cajoled, causing Misa to give her a genuine smile, and for a moment, Rui felt a little guilty.

"Misa-Misa always wanted to be a model!" the girl began. "Misa tried many things. At first, she was into gyaru. Misa also had her own cooking show! Come to think of it, Misa–Misa always wanted her own makeup line!"

"Do you like cute things, then, Misa-chan?" Rui asked. Misa, a gyaru? She couldn't imagine Misa being anything but a goth girl, and she told her as much. "You mean you didn't always have this goth lolita concept?"

Amane Misa looked hard at Rui, although no one noticed. There wasn't much that could be seen, of course, since Rui's face was still covered with that ghastly surgical mask. What was up with that, anyway? Rui came off well-intentioned and detached, most of the time. Misa knew those types. They had the desire to be good, but not the will. Bystanders who didn't come forward in her time of need.

Still, she couldn't make up her mind on Rui as easily as she could for the rest. She had to admit, at least to herself, that Rui was growing a little on her. Just a little. There was a warmth and affection to her that couldn't really be faked. Misa would know, seeing as she worked with certain types of people in her career. And the way Rui lit up every time Misa was good to her… Misa employed the same strategy with the people she met, but it didn't stop Rui from being any less likable to her.

Rui sometimes probed a little too much, though Misa never let it show. Like now.

Yes, Misa used to like cute things. But irrationally, it seemed to Misa that Death followed her wherever she went. Death was the answer to her problems, as Kira's justice against the murderer of her parents had proven. People died all the time, that was a fact she had long since accepted. Everyone died. But not all deaths were the same, or carried the same weight.

Naturally, Misa did not want to die. She would fight to her last if she were faced with the prospect of death, but if she did die, she thought she might want it to be pretty at the very least, glamorous and glorious at its best. Black lace, velvet, black roses, long fluttery eyelashes resting against porcelain-like cheeks in eternal repose, the gentle, mournful scent of lilies. That kind of aesthetic. Not the messy, bloody, smelly, undignified and struggling-to-stay-alive-in-vain kind of death, the kinds that left their faces in grotesque rictuses, a mockery of the people they were in life.

Misa had not intended for that, but evidently others felt the same as her, at least subconsciously, if the way her concept quickly gained popularity was any indication.

"No," Misa shook her head, in response to Rui's question. "But Misa likes this better!"

That was the end of the conversation on this topic, as far as Misa was concerned, and she reached out, black acrylic nails clacking against the glass bottle as she spun it.

Coincidentally, it landed on Rui again. As Misa stared into Rui's glasslike eyes, she blurted out a question she hadn't meant to ask. "What is your view on death?" She immediately wished she could take it back. This was not congruent with her image.

For a moment, Rui was shocked. It didn't seem like a topic Misa would even think about, and Ryuzaki probably thought so too, given how he subtly shifted his weight beside her.

"I was raised around Buddhist concepts," Rui began quickly, to take everyone else's focus off of Misa. "The idea that every single thing we do has an effect that ripples out and rebounds through time, space, and lifetimes, the thing they call karma. I believe there are multiple worlds around us, and that we are reborn time and time again, and that where we end up depends also on… karma. As such, death is inevitable and we should make the most of the time we have."

But… in the Death Note universe, according to Ryuk, there was nothing after death. What did this mean for someone like her? What would happen to her soul should she die in this world?

"I'm not ready to die, though," Rui added, forcibly injecting some cheer in her voice. "LOL."

"LOL?" Light repeated incredulously.

"Ah. L. O. L. Like, laugh out loud," Rui hastened to explain.

"Laugh out loud?" Light repeated again. He did not find this topic humorous in the least. He wondered what Ryuzaki thought about the matter.

"Uhhhh, it's, uh, an ironic expression," Rui stumbled through her words. "A-anyway." Before they could continue on this ridiculous side tangent, she quickly reached out and spun the bottle. It landed on Matsuda.

Huh.

Rui found herself unable to stop thinking about the concept of death, now that it was in her head, so she asked Matsuda the same question.

It was there they learnt that Matsuda was raised with both Shinto and Protestant beliefs, had bounced between them both, then stopped following either of them. It all seemed innocuous enough, but there was a slight shadow over Matsuda's usually-sunny expression when he talked about his background. Privately, Rui wondered if those differing beliefs had caused clashes within his family, somehow, and how that might have affected Matsuda's upbringing and such.

"So, well, I don't know what'll happen after death, and I don't think it's necessary to think about what happens with death!" Matsuda continued, cheerily. "Let's just do our best!" He pumped his fist, and Rui and Misa joined him, ignoring the judgy looks the other two were serving.

For a moment, they sat there awkwardly, Matsuda looking confused at the expectant looks being directed his way.

"Your turn to spin the bottle, Matsui," Rui told him, under her breath.

"Oh." He reached out and carelessly did as he was told. It landed on Yagami Light, who looked the teensiest bit ruffled at the prospect of now being everyone's focus.

Matsuda felt himself getting flustered as everyone, Light included, turned to him expectantly, waiting for him to ask his question. Things always got heavy when these people were about. He knew he wasn't as intellectual as Light and Ryuzaki, but if even Misa was asking weighty questions, he thought he'd better join in.

"What are your beliefs around God?" he asked Light, feeling a bit proud of himself.

Rui, too, straightened a little. If memory served, the predominant religion in Japan was.. Shintoism, right? But there was never any canon depiction of Light praying, or being religious in any way.

The youngest in the room, well, elevator, thought for a bit. Honestly, he did not believe in any concept of the divine at all. He supposed that kami could exist, living side by side with humans, and he supposed it was plausible for there to be different planes of existence, but as far as he was concerned, he had never encountered any concrete evidence in favour of these improbabilities, and so it did not matter to him, not one bit, whether or not God existed. In fact, he was inclined to believe they didn't.

Light was a firm believer that one made their own outcomes, through the abilities they were born with, which, again, depended on mere chance and thus, bore no further pondering on. The only thing an individual could be sure existed was his own mind. Anything else in the world, besides his own mind, cannot be known fully and definitely, and so in order to navigate the world, all he had to do was act on what he knew, and what he knew the outcomes of cause and effect were to be. As such, Matsuda's question was a little inane.

But if ever there were an entity he had to define as God…

"Someone with the vision and will to do what is best for humanity," Light stated aloud, thinking. "Someone who, at the same time, has the authority, power, and moral compass to impartially determine the laws and direction of human civilisation for the greatest good. An arbiter of justice."

Rui tilted her head. That was starkly secular. But before she could ask what he thought justice was, the elevator fans turned on with a whir, and the elevator began lurching up. Finally, the doors opened smoothly on the 5th floor, revealing Watari, who peered in at them, somewhat concernedly.

It was great to be out of that cramped space , Rui thought, but I would have liked to hear Ryuzaki open up, too .

Notes:

AN: It's kind of disturbing to have your parents/guardian see you doing something sexual, isn't it? It's also kind of disturbing how normalised it is to Ryuzaki, now that I think of it. Rui seems to have another kink lol

I guess Ryuzaki could seem a bit OOC here. But note that in canon he's never had to deal with caring for people. INTPs are weakest when it comes to navigating relationships, and yet a lot actually do care. I've known an INTP who started stress-eating a bunch of gummy worms when he knew he had inadvertently hurt his crush's feelings lol. Here, Ryuzaki really does care about Rui's feelings and about his relationship with Rui. So he starts beating himself up for not being able to do well in relationships, the way a lot of INTPs do, poor baby.

But Ryuzaki's response to stress - is this autism-coded? I just wrote what I could see him doing.

Also, Light's hubristic interpretation to what Ryuzaki does could be why he doesn't yet catch on to Ryuzaki's feelings for Rui, even though he's so observant and smart much of the time. Or at least, I hope that explains it. It's a bit of a reach, tbh.

Recently I went to Japan, and took a look at the Aoyama and Harajuku neighbourhoods. I now see why Ryuzaki was so suspicious about Misa going to Aoyama. The Aoyama neighbourhood is definitely not a place you would expect someone like Misa to visit. It's definitely a place for the wives and children of successful men to stay, idk. I got that vibe. If Aoyama were a person, it would dress like Light and Takada. Misa is more suited to being a Harajuku denizen. So yeah. I kinda get it now.

At first, I thought Misa might wear some sort of sweet floral, like Marc Jacobs Daisy, or Lolita Lempicka? Definitely not an out-and-out gourmand though. But then, I read somewhere that Misa didn't always have this gothic lolita concept until after Kira killed the murderer of her parents. So then I started thinking why. And I now think Misa might smell like lilies.