#008. 2004年7月01日 {Yagami Sayu}
You haven't gotten any less angry at Light.
You'd thought you would have. You've never been an angry person, not really. So you don't know what to do with the feeling that something inside your chest has actually been ripped open; that someone must surely see, and know it. You want to scream. You've done enough crying. Light and dad still aren't speaking.
Dad still hasn't come home.
After school, you take the train over to the Todai campus. You think you remember Light's schedule. You've been really patient, but you're tired of being patient. He hasn't answered his phone. Last time you tried, (that was four days ago) you got a message saying that the number had been disconnected. You're going to see him and if you have to, you're going to shout at him. You don't have any illusions that it will fix anything. Obviously Light is head over heels for Misa-Misa. You can picture them in an apartment in the city, Misa doing something glamorous, coming back from a photoshoot, Light dressed all in black, reading one of his books… she probably doesn't have time to cook, so they go out every night for dinner. She's rich enough to afford nice restaurants every day of the week. Candlelit, romantic affairs. They probably go to a love hotel afterward. None of it really sounds like your brother, but who wouldn't be taken in by a celebrity? He must meet all sorts of people. Maybe he's even shaken Ryuga Hideki's hand.
Light isn't in his physics class. You wait by the doors while streams of people come out, chattering, and peer inside, waiting to see Light sitting somewhere in the class. You want to corner him.
But he isn't there.
I'm his sister, you tell the teacher. You show him your student ID. You feel a little silly, a little like an investigator. I thought he took this class.
He hasn't come to classes since June.
What?
Excuse me, the teacher says. There are other students waiting to talk to him. Some of them give you pitying looks.
One of them is a poised young lady who's been waiting politely behind a couple of guys (before you barged in front and practically shoved your ID into the teacher's face. You'd feel worse about that if you weren't on a mission.)
Yagami-chan, you said? the young lady asks. You're his sister?
Yeah.
Is he okay?
You look at her. She looks… concerned. A friend of his, maybe? It's worth pursuing. At this point, anything is.
He had an argument with our dad and moved out, you say. Quietly, and you and the young lady are moving a little farther from the other students. For a moment, you can't actually realize you've said it. You haven't said that to anyone. All your friends at school think everything's fine.
You've been so fine for the past month you feel like you've stopped existing.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Yeah… he hasn't talked to any of us since then, you say. I was worried about him. But now I'm more worried. I guess I can picture him not talking to tōsan and even me, but he can't miss classes for a month. He's going to go into the NPA. (He's going to be the director general of the NPA, but you don't want to brag.)
I haven't seen him, the young lady says. Oh, I'm sorry, I should really introduce myself. I'm Takeda Kiyomi.
It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Takeda.
Miss Takeda smiles. She's collected. Calm and in control. Her smile and her bearing remind you of your brother. You're not surprised that they were friends at school. How about we walk outside while we talk? she asks. We shouldn't keep lingering in the classroom like this.
You laugh a little, embarrassed. Yeah, you're right, you say. You follow her out of doors into the courtyards. There's pavement and cherry trees, now green with summer; and the ground is wet with rain. You and Miss Takeda both have a raincoat, and she's carrying an umbrella, so she holds it up for you to stand under as you walk. Students are moving quickly through the grounds, but it's a grey day, and no one's standing outside to spend time in the rain. You take in a deep breath of air, smelling of water and earth in the June (well, July, since today) warmth. It's the depth of the rainy season, and for the first time in a month, you feel almost: steady.
"Do you know what other classes he's in?" you ask. You remember some, but a second opinion would always be nice. Plus, she might actually know how to get to some of the classrooms.
"Of course, he shared a few with me," Miss Takeda replies. So the two of you pass through campus visiting every teacher with open office hours… they all have the same answer. Yagami Light hasn't shown up in classes since May. He hasn't turned in any assignments either.
Miss Takeda stops at the cafeteria after, and she orders a cup of tea for both of you, sliding a bill over the counter before you can protest, and soon you're sitting disconsolately on a stool at a high table near the windows. You stare out onto rain-streaked glass.
"I think you're right to be worried, Yagami-chan," Miss Takeda says. "You said just dropping out of school like this isn't like him."
"It isn't," you say. You press your hands against your cup and stare into the steam. It's warm, but for some reason, you're trembling.
"Not being seen since the end of May…" Miss Takeda says. "That lines up with when I last saw him."
"Yeah…?" you ask. "Do you remember…"
"It was the 28th," Miss Takeda says. "A Friday, so it didn't surprise me not to see him for the next few days. We'd been walking out of class together… but when he saw that other guy…" she trails off, and looks down pensively. "I didn't think anything of it at the time, but…"
"What?"
"We all knew who he was, of course," Miss Takeda says. "He was the other top-scoring student. He and Yagami-kun did their opening speeches together. Were you there?"
"Oh!" you say, smiling. "Ryuga Hideki-san!" (You hadn't been there. Light had made a big deal about how it wasn't a big deal and how he'd be embarrassed to see his family come, so you hadn't, but you'd watched the broadcast. Light, standing behind the fuzzy lines of the TV as though he belonged there, as though he were another one of your idols, untouchable and shining.)
Miss Takeda smiles too. "Yeah. Funny coincidence, right?"
"But he looks nothing like the real Ryuga Hideki-san," you continue. "He was kind of a freak."
Miss Takeda stifles a laugh. "Well, plenty of people in school called him a freak too. But for the first few weeks of classes he and Yagami-kun would sit next to each other and go everywhere together. It was kind of infamous, but they were the two geniuses… after that, though, they stopped hanging out. I figured Yagami-kun had realized he didn't much care for Ryuga-san's personality after all… but then, I didn't see Ryuga-san in any classes either… and he's not hard to miss. Everyone joked he'd decided he was too much of a genius to deign to come to class." She pauses, and continues in a more serious tone, "until that day… Ryuga-san was sitting on a bench outside. Yagami-kun asked for a moment alone with him, so I left. I didn't want to interrupt. And that's the last time I saw Yagami-kun. Or Ryuga-san, for that matter."
Your eyes are wide. "Wow…"
"I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful," Miss Takeda says.
"No, you've been super helpful. Really, I don't think anyone would've even talked to me if you hadn't been showing me around."
Miss Takeda smiles. "That's very kind of you, Yagami-chan."
After that, you go home. You take the ladies' car on the train line and stick your school bag on your lap, leaning your elbows on it. As you watch the blur outside the windows, you try to put it all together.
Light hasn't been seen or heard of at all since the beginning of June.
Neither has dad.
Dad's been working on the Kira case. Could it be that…
All throughout May, there were these terrifying broadcasts from Kira and the Second Kira. At the same time, Light started spending more time away from home, sometime even into the evenings. He said he was spending the time with Misa, but… what if he was part of the investigation too? He's been acting different this whole year really, in little ways. You'd thought he was just growing up but maybe he's been busy trying to catch Kira himself. It wouldn't be the first time Light's helped out on a case. And you know that Kira can kill people if he sees their faces. That night during the broadcast, where dad had driven that bus straight into the building like a total hero… another officer had died. Later, they surrounded the place with a bunch of masked officers, hiding it all from view… dad had been in the hospital, and mom had been with him… it was just you and Light in the house, and you hadn't known dad was even involved until later. You'd been watching TV, and had seen a news banner talking about a broadcast from Kira, so you'd switched to Sakura TV and seen the whole thing. The threats, the newsanchors on the other channels dying… just dying… clutching at their hearts… you'd never seen anyone die in front of you before and you'd been scared but more than that you'd thought, this can't be happening.
This is impossible.
Isn't it?
"O-onichan…" you'd shouted, loud enough for it to travel upstairs. "Onichan, Sakura TV—Kira—"
"I see it, Sayu," he'd shouted. "I'm watching it up here."
"Oh… okay…" you'd said, and it was too quiet for the words to travel all that way. You'd been holding the remote in your hand, your fingers slippery on the buttons as you saw one man after another die on television, and still, under your terror, part of you kept saying, this has to be a joke. Stuff like this… stuff like this doesn't happen in Japan.
Stuff like this doesn't happen anywhere.
And you'd stayed in front of the TV alone.
Kira can kill people if he sees their faces. Or their faces and names, you aren't sure. People argue about which one's correct. If he can kill people just by seeing people's faces… then maybe that's why Light and dad disappeared at the same time. Maybe they're both investigating Kira… and they don't want to be seen by anyone… it's only a theory, but… it explains why Light would've stopped going to school. There's no other reason he would do a thing like that. Even if he was head over heels for Misa Misa.
.
.
.