Chapter Text
Loss. That is what Light felt most acutely. Like something had been stolen from him, ripped away. Like a chasm had been carved into his chest, or an arm yanked from his body, leaving only a grotesque stump of weeping red behind. But he felt none of the emptiness that should follow. No completeness of nothingness. There was something inside of him - something Light was sure was new, that he was not born with, for it felt grown into. Like the wound of him had been filled in with salt, or that a severed limb had been replaced with a paltry facsimile. Not a proper prosthetic but something that was meant to function the same way, like a wooden carving or one forged from metal. It was enough to get by, but not enough to erase the fact that he had been damaged. In fact, it's haphazard design made that painful, irrefutable fact all the more obvious.
His arm dragged heavier under the weight of the chain. Which was ridiculous, purely psychological, as realistically, this chain was rather light. Not cheaply made, Light was sure, but it wasn’t overly cumbersome; it didn’t hinder him in any real way. It was a nuisance. A bother. A constant reminder of just how far he had fallen. It seemed to keep pulling him deeper under, someplace far past hell.
Silently, Light followed Ryuzaki up to their shared bedroom. What he assumed would be their shared bedroom. There wouldn’t be any other way to live unless Ryuzaki wanted to feed the chain through some hole in the wall and have them pressed up against it all night long, robbed of mobility. Light highly doubted it. He was free to move as he pleased, so long as he stayed within Ryuzaki’s orbit, all six feet of it. Light resented it; he had accepted it, but that did not mean he could not resent. This pretense of freedom couldn’t even be swallowed by the others, least of all him. And even though Light understood without question where Ryuzaki was coming from and would have suggested the same were he the one playing the part of detective, it didn’t mean Light didn’t also recognize Ryuzaki was killing two birds with one stone. This was a statement. A pathetic power play that didn't feel so pathetic from the other side.
This was the victory Ryuzaki was dying for: for Light to be Ryuzaki’s, some prize, a spoil fo war. Light currently belonged to Ryuzaki and would until his innocence came in person to prove its existence, as of now, it existed only as a hypothetical, a dream, faith in a higher being. But tonight, and every night for the foreseeable future, this was the end of the story that Ryuzaki thought to be inevitable, already written in the stars. While they were both chained make no mistake, Ryuzaki was the one leading. Ryuzaki was the one in control.
Light felt like a damn dog, leashed by his owner for his unruliness. Unable to be trusted or left on his own for fear he’d rip up the room and piss on the rug. Like he was seconds away from going rabid, Ryuzaki’s hawk-like eyes just waiting for the first hint of froth to appear at his mouth so he could be vindicated for clicking off the safety and putting him down.
It was salt in the wound that Ryuzaki leading him. Light would have tried to get ahead, or even maintain pace, but he didn’t know where the room was, didn’t know where anything in this behemoth of a building was. He was a lost soul, blindly being led through these long, twisting halls. Helpless, utterly helpless. This was surely another part of Ryuzaki’s grand design. Ryuzaki was a dog with a bone. A bloodhound on a mission, his nose eager for the stench of copper. Light's was the only kind he was interested in scenting, and so it was simple, he must wait for Light to bleed, or make him. It almost felt as if he had been bleeding for a long time, but there was no blood. There was a wound, but he could not remember how it had been made.
But this was all ultimately temporary, Light had to remind himself of this. He knew he was not Kira. He could not be Kira. Ryuzaki had made it quite clear that Light was not to leave his side until he was sure of the same, and though Light had a feeling that it would be a long time, there was nothing to be done about it. No use crying over spilled milk, hell, at least it wasn't spilled blood.
As he was the only one certain of his innocence, no one else could see what he saw - only his eyes, as desaturated and light-starved as they were, could see the truth, the bare bones of it. His conscience was blameless, as spotless as snow. No one had ever understood that. No human could be perfect, but then again, no one had ever tried before. Yet even though even though he had never been understood, there had always been a decent enough perception of him, the idea of Yagami Light as close to the truth as one could get. No one had ever thought him capable of such a hideous, heinous thing as murder, the worst thing another person could do.
Kira would be caught, eventually. He was not a god, nor a monster, just a misguided man, fallible as they all were. Soon, there would be a new scent, a new trail of blood to follow.
Light was not Kira, after all. He knew this. He must always remember this. He must never forget this.
The air between them was thick with tension, almost suffocating. Light had to remind himself to breathe. Neither of them dared to shatter the silence with sound, it spoke all on its own. Given the tension that could not help but translate ominous, Light half expected the floor to creak under him. But this building was a new construction, so all that was heard were muffled footsteps and soft breathing, and the quietness borne of only deep thought. They were both thinking, both calculating. But only one of their lives was held by a thread.
Ryuzaki may believe he had to guard his life against Light, perhaps, that is what Light should take this posturing as. Ironic, though Light wouldn't say so. But he could still feel the reverberations of bullet that had not met its mark, pulsing like a hemorrhaging wound within his skull he could not reach.
How funny in the way horrible things weren’t. Light swears he feels an aching, unrelenting pain where the bullet would have hit. As if there were a single black hole in the middle of his forehead and grey matter was squirming out, running in dull, pink tears down his face. Every time a hand came up to rub at his forehead out of this misguided fear, Light sighed at himself. His skin was fine, whole and undamaged, if not horribly pale. He could not say the same for his mind, fighting against a fever of sick dread. His eyes burned with that fever, gritty with exhaustion besides. Blessedly, utterly dry. Light refused to cry. He did not cry, and he especially would not cry over something like this. Nothing had even happened.
Though the temptation to sink back into that terror lurked ever-present in the shadows of his vision. How could he begin to understand it, the fear, the paralyzing desperation to escape that fear, though there was nowhere to run? Had he ever known such fear? Light didn’t begrudge his father. He couldn’t. This was all Ryuzaki’s fault. His father was a good man, and he’d been pushed to his limits, robbed of sleep and peace of mind at the mere suggestion his son could be a monster in disguise. He loved Light. His father had been forced to that same desperate, fearful place, willing to do anything to set his own flesh and blood free.
Had there been another way? Well, dwelling on it wouldn't change anything, even if there must have been.
How had his father played the part so convincingly? It had almost seemed real, that hatred and disgusted sorrow in his eyes. It had been real, in that moment. In the moments after, too.
If Light really were Kira, would there have been a real bullet waiting in that chamber?
No. It didn’t bear thinking about. Anyway, the most ruthless part of himself whispered that it made sense. It was a brilliant ploy. Light had no doubt a killer as remorseless and inhuman as Kira would have fallen for it. Would Kira have deserved to die knowing his own father pulled the trigger? Hm. This train of thought led to a dead end, or rather, an unfathomable abyss in which answers were ambiguous and too big to grasp. Kira was a murderer, and though killing him would save so many lives, the one who pulled the trigger would still have blood on their hands. The only lives they would be saving were the lives of criminals, which were barely even lives anymore. Was it ever just, to take the grim reaper’s scythe into your own hands? But who could ever hold such a potent, poisonous power?
Ryuzaki? Ryuzaki wasn’t a good guy. Ryuzaki happened to be on the right side of justice, but it did not make him a paragon of morality. He had seen firsthand how far Ryuzaki would go to win. Not just willingly, but eagerly. In those shadowed, sleepless eyes, Light was a collateral damage at best. A strange, unknown entity to be dissected without anesthesia. Let's start operating first and see if he feels pain, and then see if we believe him that he does. Light either was Kira or he wasn’t, and if by some slim chance he wasn’t, Ryuzaki was certain he knew Kira who was, was involved on some level. All paths that led to Kira started at Light’s feet, or, so Ryuzaki thought.
Light had told his father Ryuzaki wouldn’t recklessly execute him, not without sufficient evidence. However, what Light hadn’t said was he knew Ryuzaki would not kill him, not without the unwavering certainty that his death would mean something. So long as Kira remained an elusive, faceless monster, Light would be allowed to breathe. Ryuzaki would not kill Light unless he knew his blood would mix with Kira’s. The fact that light's life tonight had been spared was not a merciful decision, but the only one that could be made. It was simply a decisive move in their cruel chess game, a game Light had never consented to playing. He would remember. He would know the rules. Light lived, but not by virtue of his innocence.
It was like Ryuzaki knew something he didn’t. But Ryuzaki couldn't know everything. He thought he did, Light thought, on autopilot, but he would prove the great detective L who had never been wrong before, was wrong about him. That is what he had to believe.
“What is Light-kun thinking about?”
The sound of Ryuzaki’s voice tore Light from his thoughts, and though outwardly he was a serene, undisturbed pond, he couldn’t ignore the way his heart jumped in his chest.
Light looked up, catching Ryuzaki’s inquisitive stare, which seemed to carve through him as easily as a scalpel would flesh. The glare from the fluorescents cut his irises like sharp, dark shards of glass. “I’m too tired to think.” Of course, Ryuzaki would be greedy enough to want to excavate Light’s mind, the last place kept safe, and held the most sacred. Well, Ryuzaki could dissect him, could strip the flesh from his bones, but Light was clever, and careful. The eyes were the windows to the soul but no one ever said curtains couldn’t be hung. Not that he had anything to hide. He was justifiably wary that anything he said could be twisted and distorted to fit the truth.
“Really?” Ryuzaki asked, because Ryuzaki never believed anything Light said. “I wouldn’t have thought that.”
Light didn’t ask what Ryuzaki was thinking. It would be an insinuation, an accusation, yet another provocation and Light truly was tired, he didn’t want to have to form some thorny retort he’d cut his own tongue on in the process. He’d save his teeth for the battlefield. For when Ryuzaki questioned his story, his soul, over and over again, until it felt like the words had formed into claws sunk deep into his skull, ever-so-slowly crushing.
Okay, admittedly, from an outsider’s perspective, even Light could agree he looked suspicious. He had agreed once, which he still could not quite reconcile. Light knew he never killed anyone; no fugue state or temporary lapse of sanity could erase a cold-blooded kill, there was simply no possible way Light could have forgotten thousands of murders, despite what he had said at the beginning of his confinement. Light wasn’t even sure why he had said that now. Why he had even allowed a shred of himself to be convinced that Ryuzaki knew more about him than he himself did. Ryuzaki was smart, but he wasn’t omnipresent. He didn’t know everything. He didn’t know Light at all.
It was a mere coincidence that Light lived in the Kanto region when Lind L. Tailor had died. If you wanted to blame Light for the crime of living in a city where a murder was committed, every single person on this planet would be condemned. Sure, he had watched the broadcast, but Light hadn’t done anything that would have led to his death, had he? No, that was impossible. Murder was a purposeful act. Passionate, no matter how you looked at it. Light still wasn’t even sure how Kira killed his victims without being present.
It was another coincidence that the FBI agent who had been following him had died. Eleven other agents who weren’t following him had died as well. Kira could be one of those suspects, why didn’t Ryuzaki even consider that? Light hadn’t even known he was being followed; he wasn’t omnipresent either. Sure, maybe he had felt a shadow trailing behind him that was not his own. Seen, just out of his peripheral, a dark silhouette ducking just out of sight. Maybe he had heard footsteps that followed at a pace too measured to be natural, an echo beneath his own. But Light had too many stories of girls who took their flirtations a bit too far, high school affections tipping over the border into something darker. Secret admirer and stalker were a bit too synonymous for his tastes. It was relatively harmless, only really irritating. Light never thought much of it, never had entertained he could be in actual danger.
And to that point….
Misa was the final nail in his coffin. The thorn in his side. His association with Misa did look quite bad, since it was her DNA that had been found on tapes sent by the second Kira. It made complete sense that Ryuzaki suspected her. But that didn’t mean Light was her cohort. The only thing he was guilty of was not clarifying the exact perimeters of their relationship. Sure, yes, shame on him, admittedly, Light had a bad habit of people pleasing, dating girls until they grew bored of his lack of interest. It was dishonest, but not a crime. Light hadn’t been raised to make girls cry. Light had been casually dating Misa solely because she was so damn insistent. He was ‘dating’ half of the girls in his university, he could scarcely keep track of them all. He hadn’t even known that Misa liked or supported Kira, and she probably hadn’t brought it up because she knew Light would denounce her ‘god’.’ Light dearly wished she had, he would have broken up with her weeks ago. Or at least, brought her to a basic criminology lecture.
The only logical conclusion Light could draw was that he had been framed. Though that didn’t matter if he was the only one who believed this. Insisting upon this theory only made him sound paranoid, or worse, even guiltier. But Ryuzaki was a detective. He was a faithless man, believing only what he could touch, what he could see, so if presented with tangible evidence, he’d have no choice but to concede. Light knew Ryuzaki would not believe anything he did not see with his own two eyes. He just had to make him see what he saw, just as soon as he knew what it was he was looking at.
Could Misa be framing him? It did seem very likely that Misa was the second Kira. Maybe Misa knew who the first Kira was and was doing this to protect them. Maybe they had simply selected Light as a scapegoat, knowing it would be easy to pin the suspicious events on him, a case of being in the wrong places at all the wrong times. Bad luck was what this was. It was also possible Misa was being framed herself. She certainly didn’t seem smart enough to be able to pull off such an elaborate scheme on her own. But who would want to frame both of them? Light didn’t exactly have an abundance of enemies.
Was someone framing Misa, and he was simply collateral damage? But why frame an idol? An idol who was in support of your so-called ‘holy’ mission? Could Misa be caught up in some inane pop star rivalry? That seemed too ridiculous to be true and would be tragic if it was.
Light sighed quietly underbreath. In the end, this was all conjecture. It was depressing him, and amounted to nothing more than a migraine pulsing hot and savage beneath his temples.
Ryuzaki unlocked a door, bleached white and utterly nondescript. Light hesitated. He really didn’t want to be alone in a room with this man. One who had convinced his father to point a gun at his head. A man who had lied to him for weeks, leading him to the very edge of hopeless despair. Light had no idea what Ryuzaki was capable of. He was snared by the side of who was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger. Maybe once, Light had thought he understood Ryuzaki, somewhat. Now he knew he did not understand the man at all.
Ryuzaki noticed Light’s hesitation, because he was always watching him it seemed, and glared. He then tugged on the chain, harshly, which almost caused him to stumble.
Scowling, he glared up at Ryuzaki’s pale, watchful face. “I’m not a dog, you know.” Light snapped.
“Light-kun was making no indication that he would be moving at all,” Ryuzaki drawled. “I would very much like to get back to working if you don’t mind.”
Light stalked into the room without a backward glance. He would not admit Ryuzaki’s outward cruelty was somewhat soothing; something he could categorize and understand.
“If you don’t like waiting for me, you shouldn’t have chained yourself to me,” Light muttered, glancing around disinterestedly at the room. It was drab in a very ostensibly rich person way, in the sense that it seems decorated for photos, pretty to look at, but entirely foreign to live in. But no one lives here, Light supposes, not really. This is a transitory place.
It’s raining outside. Light can hear it, fierce and unrelenting against the window panes, yet unseen, shielded by the thick, dark-red curtains drawn across. Hotel-quality. Probably made out of some abhorrent material like polyester. The walls were bone-white, asylum white. Maybe Ryuzaki really was trying to drive him mad. And - Light’s stomach twisted at the confirmation - there was only one bed. It was king-sized, at least. That would have to be enough.
“I would not have had to resort to such extreme measures if Light-kun were not such a masterful liar,” Ryuzaki said, eyes glinting in the low light. Light gazed at the beige carpet in contempt. Why did it have to be beige? “If you only confessed, you could save everyone the trouble.”
“I’m not confessing to something I didn’t do."
“I never asked that of you,” Ryuzaki replied, the snide shit. Haha, word games, how hysterical.
“Then why am I here?”
Ryuzaki glanced at him through his lashes. “You are here to prove my theory correct." Then he flicked on a light, and Light winced against the sudden bright glow. “Or, to prove yours correct. Whichever comes first, I suppose.”
“I’m guilty until proven innocent?” Light couldn’t help but ask, the question purely rhetorical. But Ryuzaki never could stand to leave a question unanswered, and he could stand even less to let one of Light’s challenges go unmet.
“Not in the eyes of the law.”
“You are the law.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Oh, yeah? Because if you had the final say, I’d be dead.” Not a question.
Ryuzaki didn’t bother to deny it.
“I am sorry,” Ryuzaki said, suddenly. “If I frightened you today.”
It took Light a moment to grasp the true meaning of Ryuzaki’s words. When he did, the weight of them sunk deep into the marrow of his bones, ice cold. The fury that filled him was incandescent, it could burn him to ash if he let it. He couldn't let it. But, Ryuzaki was sorry? He was sorry?
“I don’t need an apology.” Light’s voice was as cold and dark as a winter’s night, stiff like a corpse’s curled fingers. He couldn’t absolve Ryuzaki, couldn’t throw out any paltry, superficial words, it’s fine, I understand. Ryuzaki would know he was lying. Ryuzaki would call him out on it.
“I didn’t think so,” Ryuzaki said. “Still, I thought the sentiment might be nice.”
“Do you care about nice?” Light couldn’t help but ask. He really didn’t think Ryuzaki did. “The investigation is all that matters. I understand that. That’s why I’m here.”
Ryuzaki’s eyes map the room, bored and pitch-black. Light wonders if he had any say on the decor, if he’s even seen it before now - he guesses no.
“You said you’d do whatever it took to catch Kira?” Ryuzaki asks.
“I meant it,” Light said.
“I don’t doubt that,” Ryuzaki laughed, and the sound nearly startled Light. The sound was derisive, yet strangely joyful. Ryuzaki was having fun, pulling off Light’s wings. Looking at him strangely, so strangely, like he was an abomination of nature who never should have been born.
Then Ryuzaki said, leaning closer, too close, breath hot against Light’s neck.
“Light-kun needn’t lie when it is just the two of us. I know who you are.”
Light nearly flinched away. Hadn't Ryuzaki ever been taught about personal space? Ryuzaki caught the almost flinch, something like victory sparkling in his eyes that were like silver, a silver bullet, the cutting edge of a silver blade.
“You don’t know anything about me, Ryuzaki.” Light tried his hardest not to snap, but it came out sharp, anyhow. “Not any more than I’ve told you. Not any more than anyone else knows.”
“We both know that isn’t true,” Ryuzaki said, seemingly finished arguing - or at least, giving the pretense that he was - before wandering into the bathroom. Light was helpless but to follow.
“You think I’m capable of murder,” Light reminded him. “You don’t know me at all.”
“Oh, Light-kun. Everyone is capable of murder.”
“That sounds like a justification a serial killer would make. Sure, everyone might be capable of physically holding a knife. A gun. But not everyone has the stomach for taking a life. Not everyone would kill if given the choice.”
“That’s rather optimistic,” Ryuzaki said lightly. The way his tongue handled that word, optimistic, made it more than clear it was a flimsy placeholder for foolish.
“It’s a fact. The world isn’t full of murderers.”
“No, perhaps not.” Ryuzaki looked up at him through the mirror. Even though this building was brand new, the lights seemed to flicker for a moment, casting his face in dark lines of shadow. “Or perhaps they simply haven’t been awakened.”
Light could argue his point further. Could point out that not everyone was a ticking time bomb. Not everyone was rotten. But honestly, why bother? Every inch of his body was screaming with exhaustion. Listless eyes took in the pathetic state of the bathroom counter. Light was bereft of most of his toiletries. But he really couldn't believe there wasn't at least toothpaste. This had to violate some part of the Geneva Convention.
“Ryuzaki…?” Light sighed loud enough that he felt it in his teeth. “Don’t you have any face wash? Moisturizer? I need toothpaste, at the very least.”
Ryuzaki opened up a drawer and handed Light a plain, beige toothbrush, still wrapped in plastic at least. “Here.”
Light waited for more, and Ryuzaki, acting as if it was some great burden, ever so benevolently handed Light a tube of toothpaste. “There’s face wash below the sink,” Ryuzaki said, a voice of long-suffering. “I know which kind Light-kun likes. You’re welcome.”
“Wow. Thank you,” Light said, not bothering to disguise the sarcasm. “However could you have gotten that information? From illegally spying on me, maybe?”
Ryuzaki’s only response was impenetrable silence, which unsettled Light and led him to quickly brush his teeth. He decided to take out his aggression on his gums, and by the end of the task, he was bleeding. Blood dripped down his teeth onto his chin, sanguine against bone white, unsettling him worse. He looked absolutely deranged.
“Light-kun’s gums are bleeding.” Ryuzaki, the genius, stated the obvious.
“Aren’t you going to brush your teeth?” Light asked after he rinsed, ignoring him. At least now his mouth was clean.
“I left my toothbrush in my last hotel suite. I’ll have Watari bring me a new one tomorrow,” Ryuzaki said, and then had the nerve to look offended when Light’s expression turned incredulous. “I do brush my teeth, Light-kun.”
How very convincing.
"Your mouth is going to taste disgusting in the morning."
"If I never go to sleep, there will be no 'morning.' The clock will simply turn forward another hour." Ryuzaki said, like this was all very reasonable and Light was the stupid one for having failed to grasp it. Light had no conceivable rebuttal to this.
Their nighttime routine commenced in silence. The little Light could do was clean his face. It was meant to be cleansing, but Light felt anything but clean. He felt like he could strip the flesh from his bones and still feel as if he were covered in some invisible sin. He was a ghastly sight to behold in the mirror. He couldn't look, not simply for vanity’s sake, but because it twisted his stomach to see a face that was so like his own but so devitalized, sickly, staring back with eyes like stained glass windows.
He’d be back to normal. Eventually. He’d reclaim his face someday.
Ryuzaki was a shadow behind him, his footsteps whisper-soft, nearly soundless. Light wondered if he was being unnerving on purpose, or if this was his natural state of being. He stopped at the foot of the king-sized bed. Dread turned his stomach for what he knew would come next.
Ryuzaki stalked up to him like a jungle cat on the prowl. Light refused to take a step back. “There are no cameras in this room, you know. Whatever is said here will be kept in complete secrecy.”
Ryuzaki must have thought he was stupid. Must have thought he was the stupidest person in the world. But no, Ryuzaki didn’t think Light was stupid; Light knew that, that was the point.
What Light had to remember is that Ryuzaki wanted his confession, and he would go to any lengths to get it. Light couldn’t believe a word he said, though his word was all he had. In the end, it was a pointless sentiment. A Schrodinger’s cat. Whether or not there were cameras, it didn’t matter much either way. Either there were hidden cameras in this room, or they were absent for a far more nefarious purpose. Light wasn’t safe; that was the only truth he currently had. That, and he wasn’t Kira. He couldn’t be.
“No cameras? So you could, hypothetically, kill me and say it was in self-defense?” It was half a joke, more a question that echoed ever since a gun had been pointed at his head.
Ryuzaki cocked his head, mirth in his eyes. Slowly, yet quicker than Light could finch, he brought up a hand to cup Light’s jaw and forced Light to look him directly in his sleep-deprived eyes. “Light-kun is projecting, I see. I would never kill you.”
Light clenched his jaw to the point of pain. He couldn’t help it, red clouded the corners of his vision. “Then what would it make you if I were shot?”
Ryuzaki’s smile disappeared in a blink, as if it had never been there at all. “You weren’t. You were never in any danger.”
But his racing heart, his faltering breaths and mindless, animal panic had been all too real, knowing nothing as more real than the bullet that was seconds away from burying itself inside his skull.
How does one forget the taste of death?
“But if I had been,” Light wouldn’t let this go. “If you had convinced my father to shoot me, guilty or not, what would that make you?”
Ryuzaki didn’t look at him, climbing into bed, but rather than arrange his long limbs into his bizarre signature pose, he simply crawled beneath the covers and laid against the headboard, opening up his laptop and scowling as it presumably loaded. “You think you’re clever, don’t you?”
“You’re deflecting."
“If you had been shot, Kira would’ve been effectively stopped.” Ryuzaki smiled, before it faded once more upon seeing whatever hateful look Light must have worn. “Too soon?”
“I love how you can lob any accusation you’d like at me, but you can’t even answer a hypothetical question.”
“Because you already know the answer,” Ryuzaki sighed. He waved a lazy hand, eyes darting down to his screen. “It would be murder, no matter for the sake of justice or in the name of the law. I would be charged as a co-conspirator to first-degree murder. But the Japanese police wouldn’t care. Interpol wouldn’t care.” Light bit his tongue. Ryuzaki propped a pillow against the headboard, making a thoughtful sound. “Though I would be terribly dissatisfied with taking the easy way out and leaving a mystery forever unsolved. Perhaps that would be the worst kind of punishment for the likes of me.”
Light swallowed the taste of bile that had crept up his throat. “You have a strange definition of ‘punishment.”
There was a smile in Ryuzaki's voice when he spoke again, a vindictive, cruel thing. “I do have to say, I really don’t believe I could ever convince Yagami-san to shoot his son. He’d want it done by the books.”
"Hm." Something else Ryuzaki didn’t seem to know.
It made sense. His father had been turned away from the camera. Only Light had seen the hate, the horror, the guilt that had already formed.
“I know you are Kira, Light,” Ryuzaki said. He sounded so sure about this that not even a token protest could crawl to Light’s tongue. “I just don’t know how you came to earn his name.”
Light had nothing to say to that. Though he had something to say, to ask, rather - and how humiliating that he had been reduced to this, a thing full of pleas and unanswered needs. He had the worst feeling that he wouldn’t like Ryuzaki’s answer either way. “Ryuzaki?”
Dark eyes looked up at him from even darker lashes. “You can call me L when we’re alone.”
Light wouldn’t. That posed the threat of familiarity, of friendship, which was a farce Light didn’t know why he’d ever gone along with, even if only to be polite. Ryuzaki wasn’t his friend, and L most certainly wasn't. He was his jailer. His yearning executioner. “How am I supposed to get dressed?”
Ryuzaki looked up from his laptop screen properly, only to cock his head in bemusement. “Surely, at your grown age, this isn’t something I need to explain to you.”
Light willed himself to feel nothing but cool indifference. Pretend to be dead once more. “How do I take my shirt off when I’m handcuffed to you?”
“Oh, that. Can’t you sleep in what you’re wearing?”
“....No?” Light looked down at his button-up, his grey woolen trousers. Ryuzaki was truly insufferable. “I’m not wearing my day clothes to bed. And I can’t sleep in these pants, they’ll wrinkle.”
“Heaven forbid,” Ryuzaki murmured, earning a glare from Light he didn’t notice or didn’t care to notice. His eyes returned to the brightly lit screen. “Well, Light is one of the foremost students of Japan, a bright young man. I have full confidence in him that he will figure it out.”
“Are you serious?” Light asked, fully fed up. “You can’t throw me a bone?”
“Light is a dog now?”
Light was almost shaking from anger. Fuck Ryuzaki. Fuck Ryuzaki. The bastard couldn’t make anything easy for him, could he? This didn’t help his investigation in any way, this was for his own petty entertainment and to humiliate Light, who had already been thoroughly debased. Though Ryuzaki, by all appearances, was completely and utterly focused on whatever was on his laptop. Light knew better. Even when those eyes seemingly weren't on him, he was being watched. Turning around, he snapped the button of his trousers and thought about the breaking of bones. He slowly pulled them down, cool, conditioned air pricking at newly-bared skin.
“Do you have a change of clothes I can wear?” Light asked as if this was something he did every day. Think of locker rooms. Think of all the hidden cameras Ryuzaki has watched you through.
“Hm. In the dresser,” Ryuzaki replied absentmindedly. Light found it easily enough - and found that it was further than the chain would reach, if Ryuzaki were to stay in his place beside the headboard. Light wanted to scream. But he’d wanted to scream all day. And hadn’t, kept swallowing it down, even as it clawed at his throat. He had a feeling that, were he to begin now, he would never stop.
Light’s heart, already unsteady, lurched, sickeningly coming unmoored and falling from his chest, as Ryuzaki suddenly grasped his arm from behind.
“What are you doing?” Light hissed, jumping backwards and yanking his arm away with more force than was needed. Ryuzaki wasn’t holding him tightly. Still, it felt as if his arm had almost been torn from his body.
“Do you not want me to uncuff you?”
"....Don't sneak up on me next time.” Light relented, sleep’s pull too strong, his mind wrung dry after a day - long days and nights, fifty to be exact - of unending torment. Eyes raised heavenward, Light prayed to gods he wasn’t sure he believed in.
“And don’t look,” Light said, having turned his back to Ryuzaki, his button-up shrugged to the floor and the white long-sleeve beneath peeled from both his arms and hanging limply around his neck, doing ultimately nothing to protect his modesty. Ryuzaki snorted behind him.
“Shy, Light-kun?”
“Shut up,” Light’s voice was a bundle of frayed threads, worn ragged and prickling. “Maybe I just don’t want you to see the I am Kira tattoo on my ribcage.”
Then whisper-soft fingers landed on his sides, turning him around, and some choked noise of indignation got stuck in Light’s throat and came out sounding pitiful as he was manhandled - manhandled - like some sort of doll, or some hapless, crusty-eyed small dog women kept in their purses.
“Don’t touch me.” Light’s voice was low, dangerous, though not because he believed he had any threat to give, it had been reduced to a mere rasp of shock and outrage. Ryuzaki’s dark, void-like eyes roamed over his body, over every acre and plane, the lines of his ribs, the protrusion of his hipbones, the paths of muscle, the scar he had on his breastbone from Sayu stabbing him with a plastic unicorn. It had been a very sharp horn. Of course, Ryuzaki’s eyes found particular interest in that place. His eyes were claws that sank deep into Light’s heart.
His scrutiny felt like being flayed alive. It felt like being judged by god. Light’s skin prickled. His heart, he was sure, had stopped beating. Maybe this was how Kira killed his victims. Taking them in at their most vulnerable and qualifying them into mere objects that were either satisfactory or disappointing, defective and ill-formed.
Ryuzaki’s touch, though light, seared through his skin. Light was positive that, though no visible mark would be left, he now had an indelible imprint of Ryuzaki’s fingers on his bones.
“Or what?” Ryuzaki asked, eyes still affixed to his chest, fingers roaming down. “Kira-kun doesn’t like to be touched?”
“It’s basic human decency to respect a boundary.”
“I’m not a very decent person, Light-kun.”
“Obviously,” Light muttered, crossing his arms over his chest.
“And since we will be chained together for the foreseeable future, I fail to see what sort of boundaries you expect to uphold.”
Light swallowed the hopelessness that relentlessly tried to pull him into its embrace. “What are you even looking for?”
“I cannot leave any stone unturned,” Ryuzaki said gravely. “Though I wouldn’t have pegged you as the type of person to get a tattoo on his ribcage.” Was he serious?
“I forgot,” Light spat caustically, ripping himself away. “Never make a joke around an autistic cadaver.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a very funny joke.”
“Maybe you don’t have a sense of humor.” Light stormed over to the dresser, dressing quickly, robotically, feeling as if he were seconds away from shaking out of his own skin. Feeling wrongness crawl under his skin like maggots.
But it was ridiculous to think that way. Light changed in front of people all the time, back at school, in the locker rooms. This was no different. Well, it was, but only if one squinted and chose to see it that way. This was not some Stockholm syndrome, locked in a tower, BDSM fantasy. This was a nightmare. A nightmare Light just had to wake up from. Which he would. Eventually.
Light slowly walked back over, knowing he had to. His eyes chose anywhere else to look, landing on the one star shining between the curtains that hadn’t been closed all the way. The rain had ceased, and the clouds had parted to reveal this speck of light, glinting almost mockingly. It was free, high in the sky, where it could never be captured. Then Light realized with a start that the only reason he could see that star was because it was already dead. Maybe that was the only way to truly be free.
“I wouldn’t say I don’t have a sense of humor,” Ryuzaki mused, as Light wearily climbed into bed, trying desperately not to look at him, even though every instinct within him screamed not to turn his back on Ryuzaki. Out of his peripheral, he caught an abnormality sitting stark on L's face - a pair of glasses - and he nearly did a double take. Ryuzaki wore glasses? It made sense, considering how closely and how often he stared at his laptop screen. His eyes must have been fixed there nearly twenty-four hours away. It was uncanny to see the proof of it undisguised on his face. It felt like something Light shouldn't be seeing. A certain kind of weakness. Proof of humanity. “It is funny," Ryuzaki continued blithely. "That out of the two of us, you clearly despise me more than Amane, however, I am the first to share your bed.”
All Light could think to say to that, before burying himself deep in the sheets, sounded half-hearted even to his own ears. “It’s your bed.”
And the last thing he saw was Ryuzaki, his strange smile that wasn’t a smile at all on his lips. “So it is.”
Light’s eyes fell, the world descending into darkness.
And his demons came out to play.
Light was tense as he lay next to Ryuzaki, stiff as a state that not not seen the sun in a millennium - or maybe he wished he was, for that would make him impervious to being touched, leave him safe to be seen surface-level only. He turned onto his side, back facing Ryuzaki, and then the fine hairs on the back of his nape prickled. Never show your back to your enemy. He rolled onto his stomach, as if shielding his soft underbelly, making a point. He lay on the very edge of the bed. With the slightest movement, he could fall, and fall, and perhaps never stop.
Great, he doesn’t have tablets, either. More added insult to weeping, infected injury. He tries not to sigh despondently, tries not to give himself away. He thinks of asking Ryuzaki if Watari has sleeping pills, but he doesn’t. Ryuzaki would probably call him a junkie and then raise his percentage five percent.
Did his father really believe in Light’s innocence so little? Yes, Light could justify the act. He could clinically analyze the situation, all its twisted, ugly variables, and absolve his father of any blame.
Light pulls the blankets tighter around him, as if he could disappear inside of them. He misses his mother.
If his mother found out, God forbid - Light didn’t think he could handle it. Didn’t know if he could survive it. His mother’s shock. Her disappointment. Her newfound wariness that would surely come if she found out Light was a suspect.
Light felt as if he were willingly lying down with wolves. A lamb baring its neck for teeth. He felt strangely defanged, though when he ran his tongue over his teeth, he could not find the empty space. Logically, he knew no harm would come to him. Not so long as Kira remained free, and Ryuzaki could not pin his crimes on Light. But his imagination had always been a wild thing. The thought was like a parasite that wormed its way deeper and deeper into his brain. He could fall asleep and wake up with a pillow pressed to his face. A blade ripping open his throat. Hands around his neck. A needle under his tongue, a syringe filled with nothing but air.
Light attempted to meditate, to picture a wide-open field under a stretching, cloudless sky, but no matter how hard he tried, the clouds were dark like bruises and the cawing of crows disrupted whatever tranquility he hoped to find.
And there Ryuzaki was. There Ryuzaki always was.
Light bit his cheek so hard that he thought he tasted blood. Silence, though once a solace, was now an unceasing, maddening torture, a reminder of his own powerlessness, his weakness. Proof of how easily everything could be taken away from him. He had once had everything in the world, and had lost it so easily, much easier than he had ever attained it.
Not a sound was made in the desolate darkness of the room, and that only made Light’s heart race faster. He knew it was only Ryuzaki beside him, but the man had the uncanny ability to fade seamlessly into the shadows. Just like a monster.
When had Light become so paranoid? This afternoon surely hadn’t affected him this much, had it? He couldn’t lose his mind now. Ryuzaki would surely take advantage of it. And the thought that he, perfect Yagami Light, the brightest student in Japan, could be reduced to insanity? That was enough to make him wish that he was dead.
Light, attempting to ignore the sick swirl of emotions in his stomach, recited a mantra dully to himself, the words of most importance. Light couldn’t trust Ryuzaki. Not a thing he did, nor a word from his lying lips.
Only then would he have truly lost it all.