You're on the roof again, standing in front of that grating. No matter how long you've tried—and you've tried—going from side to side along it, exploring the whole scope of the closer part of the roof, looking into the dim walled-off areas where the helicopters rest on their pads—this grating has been your stopping point. You've tried, but every time you do so much as step foot onto the metal, your panic, no matter how subsumed, resurfaces. And even though, at this point, the rest of the roof is open to you, you can't go up to the edge. Across it, the satellite dish is pointed toward the clouded sky; beyond that, there is just the lip of the roof, and then the drop—sheer, into the free-fall potential of the city. You've tried everything you can think of. Edging just the very tip of your shoes across it. And then a little more. It doesn't work. You've tried glancing back toward the main building and stepping oh-so-casually out, as though not even paying attention. It all ends in terror. And you can't stand it. Your anger is an unbearable force, as great as your fear, and with every setback it leaves you full of undirected power, churning as though trapped in a cistern. You drop down to your knees and stare at your greatest foe. One reach forward and your hand is hovering over the space; pressing down, the metal bites dully like a pattern into your skin. You hook your fingers against it like holding on will keep you from being swept away, while a blinding nausea forces itself up your throat.
"Light-kun," Ryuzaki says, "that's enough for today." It's Sunday, and anyone else might think, oh good, the weekend. I don't have to work anymore. But as for you…
"I have to," you say, forcing the words between your gritted teeth. "I'm going to get across it—" But you can barely breathe. Even the space around you actually retracts, the edges of your vision going entirely grey as, dizzy, you almost collapse. If I can't see it, it's not there, you think with frightful accuracy; it seems perfectly logical in the moment—at the very least enough to go on—and you pull yourself forward, crawling with both hands, with your fingers in the gaps between the metal. You don't even notice the bloom of pain—don't notice anything, really, until Ryuzaki is pulling you back, and you're struggling against him. "I had it, I almost had it!" you're shouting, as you push forward, but he's holding you close against him and…
"Light-kun, you broke your fingernail," he says.
You're dragging in breath after breath. Waiting, until something like reason finally manages to make it into the great, deep void that is the rest of space. At last, with your face pressed into his chest, you manage to say a muffled, "what?"
"You broke your fingernail on the grating."
"Oh."
You glance down. The forefinger of your right hand is covered in poppy-bright red, and the nail is mangled at the corner, pulled with a fissure though it.
"But I almost had it," you add, sullenly.
"And what would you have done, if you got to the other side and passed out?" Ryuzaki askd.
"I wasn't going to pass out," you say. But you don't try again. At least not right now. You press the palm of your hand flat against the ground and try to control the shivers racking your body, and when Ryuzaki takes your hand gently in his own you watch as he studies the wound.
"It's not that bad," you say.
"I'm just making sure," Ryuzaki says. "But I agree. It isn't that bad. The blood makes it look worse." After a moment, he leans down and opens his lips against it, pressing the bloodied nail into his mouth and licking at the tip carefully with the slick pad of his tongue. It stings, but softly.
"What the hell are you doing?" you say.
He slips his mouth away from your finger for a moment. "Cleaning it," he says, with a look that can only be described as, 'duh.'
"No," you say. "Rubbing alcohol is 'cleaning it.' This is disgusting."
"Disgusting cleaning?" Ryuzaki says.
"No, just disgusting."
"I think," Ryuzaki says musingly, "that perhaps Light-kun likes the fact that I am disgusting."
"No I don't."
"Then why aren't you pulling away from this disgusting thing?"
"Uh…" you pull your hand away and give him a haughty look, standing up. "Come on, Ryuzaki, let's go inside."
/
"I've never really thought about the future," Ryuzaki admits, as you do cooldown stretches. You've found that running on the treadmill helps after going on the roof; it takes that horrible dissonance and grounds it in the feeling of your body; puts your frantic beating heart into a new perspective, re-strings the connection within yourself. After running, it is easier to expand; to find openness where at first you'd seen only edges. You let yourself relax into the burn of your muscles, your eyes closed as you find yourself in a quieter, more settled place, your thoughts almost silent.
"Mm."
"I suppose it's just that I never had occasion to," he says, and as you change position, reaching one hand—the finger cleaned and bandaged—toward your toes—you open your eyes slightly to glance over at him. He's sitting in a butterfly pose, bent over with his head almost resting on the floor, tracing absent circles across the floor with his hands. "I would just keep doing what I always do until one day I die."
"That's a pretty depressing way to look at it," you say. "Don't you like your job?"
"Yes, I do," Ryuzaki says. "In fact, it's the only thing I like."
"I don't think that's true, Ryuzaki. I think you like lots of things. That's what being curious is, right? Finding stuff to like about the world?"
"Maybe you're right," he says. "Or maybe it's just… a way we keep reminding ourselves."
"Of?"
"What's out there… besides yourself." For a second he's silent, and then he says, "what do you like most, Light-kun?"
"I don't know."
"Surely you have something that makes life worth living."
"Well, that's a different question than what I like."
"Is it?"
"What makes life worth living is that I know I'll be able to make a difference."
"To what?"
"To the world, I guess."
"The world will keep going, differences or no differences."
"Exactly. And it should. We'd be a complete failure as a species if we ended up destroying either our own chances of evolving, or the rest of the world's."
"And yet human nature stays the same," he says. "We have the same weaknesses, ignorances, and fears that we always have, and the more the technology of the world evolves and interconnects, the easier it is for powerful people to take advantage of that."
"I guess so. But that means that powerful people with good intentions can also take advantage."
"Intentions aren't the key," Ryuzaki says. "Anyone can have good intentions, and still cause irreparable harm to others."
"Are you speaking from experience?"
"From what I've observed."
"And from how you've acted?"
Ryuzaki huffs a soft breath, his mouth twisted. "That would require me to have good intentions."
"Well." You think about it for a moment as you change into another stretch. "Why feel bad about it then? If you don't have good intentions, and nothing good comes of your actions, then it's not like you've failed."
"Sometimes… there are so many reverberations, so many effects and contradictory outcomes, good and bad, that it's no longer possible to say with certainty, 'I failed' or 'I succeeded.' That's the difference between life and games. The former never plays by the rules."
/
Ryuzaki stretches out in the bath, the water overtaking him like the sea, eating up the islands of his knees. "You never answered my question," he says, as he leans back up to his ears, and you soak in the warmth of the water, your legs almost touching his own.
"Which question?"
"What you liked most."
"Oh." You think for a minute, as Ryuzaki sinks up to his nose, and then ducks under the water completely. When he surfaces, he moves closer to you, resting against your shoulder and tracing thin lines across your collarbone with the edge of his nails.
"You, I guess."
He laughs, and you smirk at him.
"Flattery, Light-kun?"
"Only if you don't believe me."
"Please provide me with a real answer."
"Why?"
He pauses. Makes a soft, pouting look in your direction. "Because I want to know?"
"I really don't know, Ryuzaki. I told you I've never thought about it all that much. I've always enjoyed solving cases, so… maybe that?"
"Light-kun forgets about his hobbies. Perhaps astronomy?"
"That was kid stuff."
"Astronomy is kid stuff? Galileo would be deeply saddened."
"No—I didn't mean—for me it was. It's not like it was something I ever considered going into."
"Oh, I see. Light-kun only ever enjoyed what would further his career."
"It sounds stupid when you say it," you complain.
"That's because it is stupid," Ryuzaki says.
"Come on. You can't seriously tell me you don't understand what it's like to try to live up to expectations. You're a genius. Someone, somewhere had to push you towards this path and away from others. I mean, why didn't you become a poet instead, or a philosopher?"
"Poets and philosophers don't make money," Ryuzaki says. "And I would make a terrible college professor."
"You're such a hypocrite," you say.
"It's a talent," Ryuzaki agrees.
You reach for the shampoo, drizzle it onto your palm, and smooth your hand across his hair. "I've always thought about the future," you admit. "I don't remember a time when it wasn't at the forefront of my mind. Even when I was a kid I remember staying up late studying because if I failed I'd lose my chance at getting into college." You grin. "Isn't that funny?"
"Is it?"
"Until the Kira case, I spent my whole life preparing for a future I never even got."
/
This time picking up the towel is easier. What it might mean—to touch Ryuzaki gently, to spend this moment doing nothing but tracing along the sculptured form—it doesn't need to matter. What Yagami Light would certainly find humiliating cannot, must not apply to a creature that is Ryuzaki's plaything. This is the impression you must create. Though the motives of your previous self—one more thing tying us together; make sure L doesn't want to kill me; become the only thing inside his scope of justice—still exist, they float as disconnected particles in the air. The rules of the new game don't allow for any of that.
The new game? Or the old? Is it all, in fact, one?
Ryuzaki's plaything. Created in chains. An isolated system of limitless potential.
Begin.
.
.
.