You've done everything right. You've said the correct things, and more than that, you've performed the correct actions to prove to Ryuzaki that you really mean this. So why do you wake up on Saturday with the sneaking suspicion that he still isn't convinced?
It's nothing. You've just woken up on the wrong side of the bed, that's all. There's no point on which anyone could say you didn't act as you should have. Ryuzaki's Light would definitely have behaved as you did last night; to let him see you weak is an act of vulnerability which draws people together. Last night you'd been filled with satisfaction and confidence. And if what you'd said and done had been genuine, then… all the better, right? The reconciliation of your waking self with the recklessness of the evening still jars you, and you can feel a steady resentment building. It would be too easy to hate Ryuzaki again. Too easy to fall back into that useless pattern. But still, the fact that you had given him anything willingly… you can't say, anymore "I had no choice" or "I was forced into this." But it leaves you open to attack, knowing you've taken any true part of yourself and allowed him to have it, no, begged him to have it without reservation. If he wanted to, he could turn against you and—
And what? Kill you? He could've done that from the very start. Everything you've done has only been to decrease those odds. Even if it feels more dangerous to be in the spot you are now, in reality, nothing has changed. He has no more power over you now than he did before, and more motivation to trust you.
"Light-kun…" Ryuzaki murmurs. You open your eyes and glance over at him. You've moved closer to your side of the bed during the night, but not by much, and when he reaches over to absently tug at your collar he doesn't need to move to do so, still within an arms-length.
"What are you trying to do Ryuzaki, strangle me?" you ask, vaguely annoyed as you bat his hand away.
"I wanted to get your attention," Ryuzaki says, all wide-eyed innocence.
"Well, you've got it. What now?"
"Will Light-kun please explain to me what he means about 'not caring about morals?'"
"Save the interrogation for after breakfast, all right?" you say.
"It's just that I wondered, since manipulation is apparently against his ideals," Ryuzaki adds.
"Do you want me to push you off the bed? Is that it?" you ask. "Because I'd be happy to oblige. I really, really would."
Ryuzaki pouts. "The thought has been tormenting me all night," he announces.
"I'm sure it has," you say, getting up and stretching. Ryuzaki sits up too, with his hair sticking up at all angles, making him look something like a startled owl. Absently, you brush your fingers through it, making him at least halfway presentable.
"I'm bored," Ryuzaki says.
"Well, in that case."
You shove him, he shoves you back, and you spend a few fruitless moments tussling before you manage to entirely twist him up in blankets. Ryuzaki kicks out at you half-heartedly, which you avoid with a triumphant grin, and finally he flops down, sends a vast look toward the ceiling, and announces, "Now I'm stuck."
"And, who's fault is that?" you say, climbing over him and getting off of the bed, walking away quickly enough, pulling the chain, that he begins to slide toward the edge. Ryuzaki kicks himself out of the blankets and turns an undignified fall into a decent landing using one of his martial-arts moves, and bounces to his feet looking unusually chipper all of a sudden.
You have to admit, you feel better too; all the worries and plans of the past few days easily slipping away for the moment. It's the weekend. The task force won't expect you down, Misa won't be able to hound you, and life is good.
/
On Sunday your frustration boils over. It's a simple thing, really: looking into the bathroom mirror and noticing again how much you've had to brush your hair out of your eyes. It's one thing to wear your bangs long, another not to have gotten a haircut for three months. "Ryuzaki, do you have the scissors?" you ask.
Ryuzaki reaches into a drawer and pulls it out. "What are you planning to cut, Light-kun?" he asks, with the implement dangling pathetically from his hand, as though he can't be bothered to hold onto it. You grab it from him easily; Ryuzaki only gives you a soft look of annoyance.
"You know, I'm pretty good at that," he offers, as you take one small snip at the front of your bangs—leaning far too close for comfort. You're less afraid you'll poke his eyes out, more afraid you'll accidentally chop off far more of your hair than you'd meant to.
"Sure you are."
"I cut my own hair," he says. As though that would be a point in his favor.
You send him a half-amused glance. As ever, his hair is a choppy, haphazard mess that is only saved from complete disarray by an odd sense of purposefulness, as if to say, 'I may be ugly, but that's exactly the effect I meant to have.' "Yeah, that's exactly why I don't trust you with the scissors."
"You wound me," Ryuzaki says.
"Not yet I haven't." You swipe the scissors at him and he leans back, after a moment hopping up to sit on the edge of the counter, his legs dangling. You focus in the mirror again and make another tiny snip. You don't want to create the effect of a ruler-sharp cut across the front, you just need some of the length off. And, honestly, you've never cut your hair yourself before, and you aren't confident in your abilities.
At any rate you're fairly certain trusting Ryuzaki with the matter would be worse.
You open the scissors again, place the end of the blades around a piece of hair. Too much? Is the angle quite right? No, it looks fine… You're in the middle of slicing down when Ryuzaki "absently" catches his foot in the chain, yanking your hand. Your left hand—not the one holding the scissors, fortunately, but the momentary unbalance is still enough to turn the careful cut into a jagged, awkward slice that looks like it's done by a kindergartner.
Something steely and determined races through you, and you're grabbing his hair with one hand, tugging his face toward yours. One snip later, a huge chunk of dark black hair is falling in curled strands onto the counter, your wrist and clothes, the tile at your feet. "An eye for an eye, right Ryuzaki?" you say calmly, staring at him. "Try something like that again and I'll take more off."
Ryuzaki looks at the strands on his white shirt, and absently picks them off, holding them between thumb and forefinger before letting it fall like a maple leaf, twirling down to the ground.
"It would be better if I did it," he offers.
"The answer's no."
Ryuzaki sighs. But, at least, there are no more petty maneuvers, and you're able to even out that jagged cut into something approaching decency; which at least allows you to see without constantly having your hair in your eyes. But as for the rest of it… you do what you can. Taking only the smallest pieces off here and there for everything you can see in the mirror. But at the back of your neck, it's useless. There's no way to even tell what you're cutting or what it will look like; and you stare ahead in frustration.
"You wanted to be helpful, right, Ryuzaki?" you ask.
He perks up. "Is Light-kun giving me the scissors?"
"No. Grab that small mirror, would you? And hold it up—no, like that—yeah. I just need to see what I'm doing." Ryuzaki stands behind you, turning the mirror this way and that until you're satisfied. With the double reflection, you feel at least like you won't be groping around in the dark, even if the angle is awkward; and you stare into the mirror, ignoring the increasingly ridiculous faces he's pulling; crossing his arms, sticking his tongue out onto his nose and all in all behaving like a complete nuisance.
Everything you dare to do over with, you take stock: it isn't the worst haircut. That prize goes to Ryuzaki, who is still standing behind you to serve as a helpful comparison. The sad truth is, though, that it would take very little to look better than Ryuzaki, and so you can't exactly feel glad about passing such a low bar.
It really isn't the worst. In a few weeks, you're sure it will even out a bit and look all right. …Probably.
"Are you finished?" Ryuzaki asks.
"Yeah, I'm finished."
He puts the small mirror down and looks over at you doubtfully.
"Really?" you ask. "You're looking at me like that?"
"I didn't say I didn't like it."
"Yeah, you didn't have to."
"I was just surprised."
"M-hm."
"Light-kun looks different with his hair gone."
"I barely cut off a centimeter!"
"But it was the most definitive centimeter."
"Whatever." You throw the scissors back into the drawer and walk out of the bathroom without bothering to clean up. It's rude to depend on Watari to take care of it, but you're feeling rude. And, in the mood he's in, Ryuzaki wouldn't help but would only stand around, offering "helpful suggestions" as you crawled around on the floor.
You're feeling lazy today, so breakfast is leftovers from the fridge, half of which you push toward Ryuzaki in the vague hope that it will do something for his mood.
He's making a pyramid out of sugar cubes and flicking another one across the table, trying to knock the structure over. When it just bumps against the side, he's unfazed, trying again until he gets it to fall.
"Is this about what I said to you?" you say.
"Yes. I was very disappointed Light-kun wouldn't give me the scissors."
You roll your eyes. "I think you're a commitment-phobe," you say.
"Many others would agree with you," Ryuzaki says.
"And you want me to be angry with you."
"No."
"Yes, you do. You're being a purposeful nuisance to try to rile me up."
"Is it working?"
You gape. "No, it is not working!"
"It sounds like it might be working," Ryuzaki says.
You grab one of his sugar cubes and launch it straight at his forehead. He ducks, and the cube goes flying forcefully into the far wall, breaking on impact into a shower of sugary particles.
"This isn't going to distract me," you warn.
Ryuzaki grabs another sugar cube, and aims at you. You barely manage to evade the missile and you reach for the sugar bowl, overturning it onto the table and grabbing as many as you can as Ryuzaki dives in and tries to do the same. One quick struggle later, you've come up with an almost even amount of ammo and you start a quick assault with both hands, pelting sugar cubes in Ryuzaki's direction as he does the same to you. Dodging is pretty important, since to get hit with one of the cubes is not dissimilar to getting struck with a tiny rock. But there's not very far to go, considering the table and the chain, and soon you're both covered in sugar and cubes and cubes-in-the-process-of-becoming-sugar.
"This is about the fact that I said this is what I wanted," you say, grabbing another sugar cube and pelting him with it; Ryuzaki deflects with his forearm and the cube goes ricocheting into some far corner of the room.
"No it isn't."
"What is it about, then? Huh?" you duck another shower of cubes and then gather up the scattered pieces and add them to your own pile.
"Nothing."
"You're such a liar, Ryuzaki." You hurl another piece of sugar at him, and it bounces off his chin, leaving scattered grains across his skin; he ducks again, sends a quick volley in response but stops to lick a bit of the sugar from the edge of his lip.
"I just had a terrible feeling, and you weren't helping," Ryuzaki defends.
"Just because you have a terrible feeling doesn't mean you should take it out on me!" you say, sending a quick burst of sugar cubes one hand after the other so he has to hunker down to avoid the continual barrage.
"But the terrible feeling was about you," Ryuzaki says.
"Well, I have terrible feelings about you all the time, and you don't see me behaving like this!"
"You have terrible feelings about me?" Ryuzaki asks with over-the-top dramatics, feigning a love-struck swoon.
"Yeah, terrible feelings about murdering you." You throw another sugar cube at his thick skull.
"Ow."
You smirk. Then duck as he throws an entire handful of sugar cubes at you all at once. Not very well aimed but still potentially deadly.
"So, is that a confession?" he continues.
"I don't know, Ryuzaki," you say. "Does it sound like a confession?"
You lean over to steal a sugar cube from the chair next to you, conveniently missing the next cube that would've otherwise gotten your shoulder.
"I suppose not," Ryuzaki says.
"So, what was the terrible feeling about, besides me in general?"
"You in general."
You throw a sugar cube at him. Then another, for good measure.
"Actually, it was a worry," Ryuzaki says.
"That your life would become boring with no more enemies to torment you?"
Ryuzaki shrugs uneasily. He doesn't have to say yes; his shifty response is more than enough. You stand up, scoop up your entire stash of sugar cubes at once and step over to dump them on top of him, and he holds his hands over his face protectively as the cascade bounces down across him like miniature hailstones.
"Well? Is that tormented enough, or would you like me to tie you up too?"
He peeks out from between his fingers.
"That's tormented enough," he says. You yank the chain, pulling his hand away from his face, and take a good look at him.
…He's a mess.
He'll probably be covered in bruises by tomorrow.
Which isn't at all an unpleasant thought.
You grab his wrists. They're such tiny, delicate things for a person who could already have you pinned to the ground if he wanted to. But instead he only looks up as you hold them above his head, against the back of his chair; your thumb against his pulse-point catches the thundering of his blood, and there is absolutely nothing breakable about him. He's as steady as a mountain; with scrapes and little trickles of blood across his exposed skin. Every breath that moves through his throat and into his chest is like a pump, unwavering in its mechanics; reliable. He is waxen and disgusting and eerie and you're glad; fiercely, brilliantly.
You're staring at him and he's looking back; wide, dark, lens-like eyes showing your reflection in their pupils. Your haircut is, indeed, bad.
"Light-kun," he says.
"Yes?"
"You're covered in sugar."
"What a surprise," you say. "So are you."
He leans forward, licks across the edge of your neck and then settles back in his seat, a mischievous glint in his eye.
"Gross, Ryuzaki," you say. "Totally gross. Who do you think you are?"
"Just a sad prisoner," he says pitifully. "Without any sugar."
You reach your right hand over to the table, feel around for a sugar cube, and bring it over to him, holding it between your fingers. "See?" you say. "I can be generous." You push the cube between his lips and he swirls it into his mouth, the tips of your fingers wet against his tongue. Then you lean back, letting go of his hands and stepping a pace away, and Ryuzaki shakes himself like a dog, sending sugar flying into the air. You feel sticky and sandy, but Ryuzaki really takes the cake, with a sudden expression of woe.
"Light-kun, it won't come off."
"That's what showers are for."
"I want one."
"Okay, Ryuzaki," you say, as though humoring him. (Of course, if he hadn't brought it up first, you would've done so soon enough.) He follows you back into the bathroom with a miserable expression, and doesn't even wait to go through the whole handcuff routine before shrugging out of his pants and stepping into the shower, tugging you along behind him. You take off your watch, set it on the edge of the empty tub and are dragged under the water in your clothes.
Which, of course, are ruined anyway; so it's no great loss.
.
.
.