« January 8, 2004. It's already a chore to look through this uninteresting pornography, but Ryuk certainly doesn't help by floating almost on top of you. In fact, as far as you know he might even be partially phased though you, and you can feel him craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the scantily-clad women on the pages. 'You know I don't really care about masturbation and all that human crap,'—sure, Ryuk. Very convincing.

"Whoops…" he says, after a moment, finally coming to his senses.

Took you long enough, you think, ungratefully.

"I'm supposed to be looking for those cameras…"

Meanwhile, you turn a page.

This is so boring. Do people really get off on this kind of thing? Oh, it doesn't matter. All that matters is giving L an airtight reason for why you're so worried about people getting in your room.

As soon as you can, you close the book, muttering something about getting tricked by the cover. Let L think you just wanted something racier…

The next day. It's Friday, you're on your way home from school, and any other week you'd be looking forward to uninterrupted time with the Death Note. Sure, you managed to kill three people last night with your potato chip trick, but it's still nothing like what you'd be able to do without the surveillance. 64 cameras… L really is going all-out. Are you that much of a suspect?

"Hey Light," Ryuk says.

"Hm?"

"Do you really think L's gonna be fooled by your tricks and things?"

"You mean, will it convince him?" You think for a moment, not breaking stride and answering in a low, quiet voice. "I'd like it to, but I guess it doesn't really matter whether it convinces him or not. Either way, he's got the physical evidence that says Kira was killing when I had an airtight alibi."

"Oh, so that's why you didn't bother to jerk off when you got those porn mags," Ryuk says.

"I didn't jerk off," you say, "because as far as I know, my father and any number of investigators could've been watching me."

"Good point," Ryuk says, as though it had never even occurred to him. Honestly. "I guess you didn't find them that interesting, either."

"What's that supposed to mean?" you say. You're walking by yourself, and you're not being followed, but it still wouldn't be a good idea to turn and glare at Ryuk like you'd like to right now.

"Well, I've never seen you with any girls," Ryuk says. "You only jerked off after killing Raye Penber as far as I know. I figured you were into guys."

You almost break stride. Raye Penber? Of all people! Only a shinigami, you think, could say something like that so casually. I guess it makes sense they wouldn't care about stuff like homosexuality if they don't even have sex with each other in the first place.

"You're mistaken, Ryuk," you say. "I've never been sexually interested in a man in my life."

"But you're definitely not interested in women," Ryuk says.

"You've seen me go out with girls plenty of times before," you say.

"Once," Ryuk corrects. "What was her name? Yuri? She kept screaming on the rollercoasters, I could barely hear myself think!"

Of course Ryuk would associate her with Spaceland, and not the bus-jacking incident. You sigh, a little annoyed.

"But you never kissed her," Ryuk adds.

"Who says I had to kiss her?" you ask, put out.

"No one," Ryuk says. "Just saying you didn't, that's all. I mean, it was a date."

He's right. It wouldn't have been at all out of place. Yuri didn't require it, of course; she was happy to do whatever you asked about pretending the whole bus-jacking incident never happened, just because you went to Spaceland with her and held her hand. But in the future… it's definitely something to keep in mind as a method of control. In fact, now that you think about it, you should probably figure out how to have sex with women. Just because you're trying to avoid using it doesn't mean it shouldn't be a tool in your arsenal.

Ugh. You're definitely going to look like a novice, though, at least the first time. You need to practice with someone who's going to let it slide and still remember you fondly. »

April 9, 2004. As you walk out of class with Ryuga you consider how that whole conversation about Kira's motives had begun; Ryuga's immature jab about "finding you" in the Abnormal Psychology textbook. You hadn't insisted on defending yourself from the accusations more because, truthfully, even if it would cause you a whole lot of trouble for him to go around claiming stuff like this about you in public, he wouldn't dare. He said he hadn't mentioned it to the investigation as though he were doing you a favor, but the actual reason is because it's completely baseless, and completely unprovable. A diagnosis of ASPD, the corresponding disorder to the pop-culture conception of "sociopathy," requires a finding of conduct disorder as a child; a persistent pattern of juvenile delinquency and breaking of social norms to a disruptive level. A simple background check already proves that false, which both of you are aware of. No child with conduct disorder becomes an honors student who scores #1 on the National Entrance Exams and gets into Todai. They usually end up in prison; conduct disorder and ASPD isn't known as the 'criminal' disorder for nothing. Of course, that makes it definitely yet another roundabout way of accusing you of being Kira, no matter what he claimed his reasoning was… simple boredom? Yeah… sure… as for narcissism, it's not quite so quick to disprove by a basic fact-check and yet you can clearly imagine how much he'd be laughed out of the task force if he even tried to float the idea… the World Health Organization defines narcissism as a personality disorder not otherwise specified, which basically amounts to saying that L actually doesn't know shit but he's sure that if a psychiatrist took a look at you they'd have something to say. Which brings the question back to, why did he mention it? Perhaps it really was just to see what you'd do… to see how you'd react if he accused you of something socially unacceptable that wasn't murder…

It's true that he seems to believe that you have low empathy, and that he considers himself the same way. This doesn't surprise you. To be a detective who deals with a staggering amount of international crime… there's no way someone who felt cripplingly bad every time he saw someone hurt could even deal with such a thing. Up until the Kira case and the Lind L. Tailor broadcast he'd taken the Batman approach; it had been just as frightening to find out about his existence as Kira's. After, of course, you'd searched the internet—and found talk about a "detective L" that went back years. A rumor, an urban legend, a conspiracy theory—but obviously, no matter how wild the idea of a man or an organization that interacts with the law enforcement agencies of the world like a god, with ultimate power at his disposal—there's something to it. Your father had confirmed that those in the higher echelons of the NPA had known about this for some time. It's no surprise that the shining face of these agencies holds a corrupt core, but somehow the sheer breadth of this revelation had still been staggering.

The way L was talked about, even in message boards that took hours of digging down internet rabbit holes to find, painted a clear picture of what any man who regularly used such power would have to be like. 'A pervert detective who relishes bizarre murders,' 'a human computer capable of measuring mass murders in terms of cold numbers,' 'a reclusive sociopath…' perhaps that's what Ryuga meant about knowing what people will try to label you with. While "psychopathy" and "sociopathy" are considered to be the realm of the monstrous, "people" who don't even deserve the name, with absolutely no affective empathy to speak of, the truth is that levels of empathy naturally vary in the human population. He's not wrong about you on that count, though his reasoning leaves something to be desired. Maybe that was, in fact, his angle. 'I know a secret of yours, but I won't tell anyone, you can trust me…' after all, if you were L, and had decided that pursuing your chief suspect would be best done by going to the same college with him and pretending to be friends… yeah, he definitely wants to get close to you. He probably wants to get close enough that you slip up, reveal something to him, maybe even the murder weapon or killing power or whatever it is Kira uses to pull off his impossible crimes.

After all, it doesn't really matter how juvenile Ryuga's accusations are. The point is, they paint a compelling picture of yourself and Ryuga together on one side, a side of abnormality, and the rest of humanity and ordinary society on the other. He probably wondered if the thought might, subconsciously, appeal to Kira. After all, Kira must feel distanced from the rest of humanity by now, if he didn't before he started killing… to have someone with L's power, his equal and opposite, assure him 'it's not so bad' would be the kind of thing that would definitely get under his skin.

"Kira's been a criminal since the very first person he murdered. It's not like killing FBI agents and breaking whatever code he set up for himself can change the fact that he was already a murderer," you'd written. Based on your profile of Kira as a young person with purity who's trying to change the world, to be as unselfish with his powers as possible, the tension between these two things could only be reconciled by considering himself some kind of martyr for the cause. It's very possible he thinks he's even selling his soul, but that it must be justified by the results…

April 25, 2004. "What conclusions do you come to, looking at these numbers?" Ryuzaki says. You're in the same hotel you'd been invited to yesterday, and the numbers in question are Kira's kill counts. Since the fake Kira has not yet answered the task force's response, Ryuzaki is, predictably, coming right back to the first Kira and yourself.

"You mean, besides the profile I already gave you?" you ask.

"Yes, precisely."

You sigh, and lean forward, the striped couch shifting under your weight. Ryuzaki's in a chair catty-corner to the edge of the couch, and when you lean forward he leans forward too, his finger against his lip and his eyes wide and unblinking.

"Well," you say, "when Kira started it was with a five-day killing spree. He'd obviously just gained his powers and was trying to do the most he could with them, starting with some of the worst, most notorious criminals, and he was killing up to sixty people a day. After that, though, the numbers go down to eight a day… it looks like it's the start of a persistent M.O., but after the day you broadcast via Lind L. Tailor, Kira's kills go down even further, to 4-6 kills per day, and stabilize after that. I can't think that's a coincidence."

"And Kira's reasons for killing less after being challenged?" Ryuzaki asks.

"It's definitely weird," you admit. "Most serial killers tend to escalate, not pull back… I mean, you see that later with these days…" you point to December 10 and 11, with Kira's on-the-hour kills, "and this one," December 19. "I'd have to assume that, just like the December 19 experiment kills, the kills on December 10 and 11 were partially a taunt to L, but that they probably had some deeper significance too."

"Yes," Ryuzaki says, "I came to the same conclusion."

"So…" you say. "Maybe that's what the pull-back was all about, too? I mean, in the broadcast, L accused Kira of being evil, basically implied he was just an ordinary serial killer, and obviously that didn't sit well with Kira…"

"Since he tried to kill me after I said it," Ryuzaki says drily.

"Yeah." You shrug. "He goes after criminals and serial killers, he's justice driven. He probably wanted to distance himself from the idea that he had anything to do with common criminals."

"So, purposefully doing the opposite of what a serial killer would do, as far as his pattern…" Ryuzaki says. "Possibly even to prove that he's not compelled to kill, or obsessed, shoring up his ego after the spectacular lack of foresight the Lind L. Tailor broadcast showed."

You frown. "Yeah," you say. "Possibly."

February 28, 2004. Shiho and Emi won't stop giggling.

"Oh, Light-kun, you're so cute!"

"You've really never done it before?"

"Well, like I said," you say with a smile, "I wanted to wait till my 18th birthday. Call it a present to myself."

They're your age, and without any disqualifying features. Both are pretty, with soft hair and sparkling eyes. They bore you entirely.

But they're experienced, everyone in high school knew that, and that's the important bit. If anyone's going to teach you the best way to have sex, it's these two of your former classmates. Even better, there's no reason to keep in touch afterwards, as you're going to a completely different university.

You narrow your eyes in concentration as you begin to take off your shirt. All right, you think. I can't let any moment here go to waste.

« As expected, Ryuk spends the whole time ogling what's going on, pretty interested for a supposedly sexless creature.

But then, you've never found a thing humans do with or to each other that he hasn't thought was kind of fun. At least when you're the one doing it.

I wonder why there's that rule in the Death Note about humans not having sex with shinigami, you think. Is it because some people—and some shinigami—actually want to?

Considering that as far as you know, Ryuk isn't even biologically equipped for that sort of thing, you're a little scared to wonder how that might go down…

And now this is the second time you're thinking about Ryuk while having sex. It's becoming an unfortunate habit. Though understandable, considering he haunts you at every time of day and night, and in fact at this very moment is lounging on a bed that barely holds three humans, let alone three humans and a death god. If only Shiho and Emi knew the terrifying creature that was watching them right now…

That might be kind of funny, actually.

You watch Ryuk as Emi bounces up and down, her hair partially obscuring the fang-toothed grin haloing her head. It's something to imagine, at least, to make this all a little more interesting. »

April 14, 2004. You've always hated group discussion. In college, everyone had assured you, things would be different. You would find people on your level; you'd stop being bored all the time. It's true that some of the people in Todai are actually capable of high-level thinking, but it balances back to net zero with the annoying realization that your peers are no more mature than they were last fall: partying, making bad financial decisions, and fully convinced that the way to change the world is to destroy everyone who opposes them.

That, at least, is an understandable position to have. But it's just not possible. Even Kira knows that.

"Kira's killing criminals," Tanaka says. "And he's getting results. See, there's no point standing on a moral high ground here—all the old men who talk about conflict resolution are just cowards."

Your chairs are pulled together into a three-pointed circle: you, Ryuga, and this kid. In college, at least in philosophy class, discussion of these things is completely allowed; and you die a little knowing that your optimistic assumptions about the world keeping their idiocy to themselves in public has been overestimated.

"What do you think of that, Light-kun?" Ryuga murmurs. "Tanaka-san seems to have a point."

Although he's ostensibly been complimented, Tanaka gives Ryuga a cold look. "Yes, Yagami-san," he says. "What do you think?" Up till now, your classmate has been free to expound his deranged notions with no opposition, since Ryuga finds it more amusing to loudly play with a plastic candy wrapper, the hard candy it had come from an unsightly bulge in the side of his cheek. He's sucking on the candy obnoxiously as he crumples the wrapper in his hand. Uncrumples the wrapper, smoothing it onto his desk. Crumples it again.

"Kira's not killing criminals because criminals are his 'enemies'," you say, exasperated. "We're talking about creating large-scale societal change. You can't just knock off politicians—"

"Why not? Look, all I'm saying is that from what we're seeing, the tactic works."

"But you're misunderstanding the tactic," you bite out. "Kira is not killing everyone who opposes him. If that were the case, we wouldn't have a police force left."

"What about the FBI agents?" Ryuga says idly. He sucks loudly at the candy in his cheek and you recall very suddenly that Ryuga is the one who had first, offhandedly, mentioned Kira, derailing this entire discussion. What a bastard.

"That's just what I've been saying," Tanaka says. "Kira knows that you can't talk with these kinds of people. Force is the only language they understand."

"Yes, that may be true, but—" you clamp your jaw shut. You can't talk about what you really think Kira is doing. Not here. Not when Ryuga is taking careful note of everything you say; when it would be so easy to spin what you're talking about into sounding like you support him. But it's so damn clear that you want to scream. Kira isn't playing politics. Why would he need to? He has powers that are beyond human. He's playing religion. Setting himself up as a god. Gain enough belief, and he can really be a force that will deter crime of many stripes: premeditated or organized or done out of malice. Anyone who has enough mental capacity to fear an all-powerful but very real force of vengeance has enough mental capacity to be deterred by that fear. Humans have always feared gods for the simple reasons that gods are inhuman: they are more. Yes, of course it's possible to create a societal system where people fear the humans in power to the extent they fear gods, where they understand that retribution from their overlords is just as swift and punishment as absolute. But that's a totalitarian regime—a disaster in the making—hasn't anyone learned from history?

"I mean, we all know that Kira is Japanese," Tanaka says. "Why would he give a shit about the FBI? He wants to protect honest citizens, like you and me—"

A small plunk as the candy falls from Ryuga's mouth onto the floor. "Oops," he says. He gives you a sly grin. Bends down and fishes it off the floor, popping it back into his mouth. You stare at him in horror, and Ryuga's grin grows.

Tanaka glares at Ryuga. "It's people like Ryuga who should be worried."

Ryuga presses his finger to his lips. "Ah. And yet, to my knowledge, I'm not a criminal. Why should I worry?"

"Because you're obviously not actually Japanese."

"My grandparents in Osaka would be sorry to hear that," Ryuga says.

"Okay, guys, I think this has kind of gotten off topic," you say. "Ryuga, stop baiting him. And Tanaka-san, don't you think that was a little inappropriate?"

Tanaka leans back in his seat. Giving you a cool look, he says, "I don't think it was, actually. I'm just telling the truth. The guy's mixed and Kira only supports Japanese people. We all know this."

Your eyes widen. For a minute you actually can't formulate a response. Then a slicing anger fills your entire body. You grit your teeth together, think, actually, it's idiots like you that Kira wants to kill. Your hands are clenched so hard they're shaking, and you're starting to rise to your feet, nothing on your mind but the urge to punch the superiority off Tanaka's smug little face, when Ryuga says loudly, "Oh, are you afraid you'll catch cooties? Quite understandable. Here, let me help." He places his feet on the ground and leans out of his chair, pulling a travel-sized pack of baby wipes from his pocket. Pulling one of the wipes out, he begins to methodically wipe down the sides of Tanaka's desk.

Tanaka stares at him, a look of blatant disgust and discomfort plastered over his face. "What the fuck—"

"Is that better?" Ryuga asks. He moves the wet wipe onto the edge of the kid's open book and passes it efficiently across the pages. Eyes open wide, he looks at Tanaka and says, "I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable."

Tanaka grabs his book, jumping to his feet. "You're a freak," he says. "How the hell did you even get in this school?"

"Is something the matter?" the teacher's voice cuts loudly across Tanaka's words, and you notice that everyone around you is no longer participating in group discussion, but instead peering in interest at the scene going down. It's not exactly the kind of attention you usually like to draw, but you know how to turn it to your advantage as your teacher walks over to stand beside the group. "I'm sorry, Yoshida-sensei," you say, abashed. "It seems like Tanaka-san became distressed when he couldn't follow along with our discussion of Kant. It's my fault; I was so interested in Ryuga's theories that I forgot to keep the conversation at a level everyone else could understand."

Tanaka looks around the room with a sullen annoyance slowly fading to mortification, as he sees everyone's baited breath. The offending baby wipe has been slipped neatly back into Ryuga's pocket along with his half-finished candy, and he looks as innocent and dazed as the absent genius he pretends to be.

"I see," Yoshida replies. He waits, glancing over at Tanaka as though encouraging a contradiction of this story, but Tanaka says nothing. "Well, this isn't Tanaka-kun's fault, or yours, Yagami-kun. It's mine. Getting excited about a topic is no reason to be ashamed; but it also isn't appropriate to exclude classmates from the conversation. I should have better modeled the proper way to have a mutually-beneficial group discussion, especially considering the weight of the topics we discuss in class like this. College is not high school; you're all becoming adults, and knowing how to communicate is the foremost skill a teacher needs to impart at this important time."

May 21, 2004. Tomorrow you're going to accompany Matsuda to Aoyama and Shibuya to search for the fake Kira. Hopefully, you'll manage to find him before it's too late.

Mom meets you at the door. "You sure are late, Light," she says. She was probably worried something had happened to you, considering you're usually pretty punctual about getting home even now that you're in college, but you were at the task force headquarters the whole time. Though you can't tell her that.

"Yeah," you say. "I have a girlfriend now." A perfect excuse. "I'll introduce you next time." You'll definitely be able to find someone your family will approve of. Maybe that "Miss Todai."

Sayu, always a fiend for gossip, doesn't waste time in scooting toward the entrance hall, holding a bag of potato chips even though she'll get crumbs all over the floor like that. "Whoa, what?" she says. "Onichan has a girlfriend? Wow!"

"Come on, now," you say easily. "I'm an 18-year-old college student, you know." An ordinary college student, you think. One who isn't involved in murder investigations, who treats his college experience as the great big next step in life it's supposed to be. There's probably a Yagami Light who feels that way, somewhere in everything you're pretending to be.

It would be pretty boring, to have to only be him.

"Good luck to you too, Sayu," you say teasingly.

"What?" she screeches. "I don't need luck with that yet…"

You're grinning to yourself as you climb the stairs to your room.

"Are you hungry?" Mom calls up after you.

"Nah," you say, feeling buoyant, and very lucky indeed. Maybe I am a murder suspect, you think. But I don't mind at all. "I got room service at the hotel."

You can hear Sayu's sputter behind you, outraged and intrigued. "Whoa! Hotel? What's this? Scandalous!"

You close the door to your room, and lock it behind you, leaving Yagami Light, ordinary college student out there with his family.

You have more important things to focus on. You don't miss him.

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.

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