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Teru is the one to kill her, in the end.
Light — who insists Teru call him Light, even in private, because walking so closely on the streets together is suspicious enough without people overhearing a slip-of-the-tongue God — lets him do the honors. All he requested was that the death was painless: strange, but Teru is used to strange from Light by now. His deity/partner has a million tiny quirks that Teru isn’t sure he’s aware of.
Misa Amane 3:14 a.m. Dies peacefully in her sleep
Another name on the list.
He splays the page open for Light; points out the specific line when Light squints at the dense neat mass of handwriting; watches as Light breathes out slowly, relieved. Silently Teru congratulates himself on a job well done.
—
Two months later Teru is working at his desk when Light says: “My mother is asking me to have dinner with her.”
Teru pauses and looks over. Light is curled up on Teru’s couch; previously he was typing on his laptop but now it’s been set aside neatly on the coffee table that he’d picked out for Teru at Nitori (“…You don’t have any other furniture?” “Why would I?”). He’s spinning a pen over his knuckles. He does not meet Teru’s gaze.
“I see,” Teru says.
“I want you to come with me.”
This throws him. “What?”
“I’ve told her about you, after all,” Light says. He smiles, a little bit thin. “She’s dying to meet you, Teru.”
Teru stares at him, somewhat at a loss. He can’t remember the last time someone was dying to meet him. Light had told him, of course, that his family is aware he’s dating the most fashionable and eloquent prosecutor on television (Teru had flushed), but nothing more. Light prefers to not speak about them and Teru is all too happy to not ask.
Light’s eyes flick to his. He catches the pen between two fingers.
“So, will you do it?”
“Yes, of course,” Teru says instantly. His acceptance was never a question — not for himself, anyway. “When?”
“Tomorrow.” Light must read the shock on Teru’s face, because he grins, far brighter than the smile from earlier. “Sorry I didn’t say anything earlier. But you don’t have anything on your schedule, right?”
“No,” Teru admits. They have each other’s daily routines memorized. “Not anytime after five in the afternoon.”
“Good,” Light says. “She’ll like you, I think.”
“I’ll do my best,” Teru promises solemnly, which must be the right thing to say because Light props himself up on one elbow and reaches for him; Teru dusts a kiss on his knuckles, then his mouth, and glows quietly when Light whispers thanks into the breath between them before leaning back in for another.
—
Teru has not been this nervous in a long time.
The closest he’d gotten was that day when he’d heard the voice of God for the first time, but even then, tripping over his words like a pubescent schoolboy, he’d been more excited than anything. And of course he was not afraid for a single moment afterwards: God was on his side, he was God’s hands and eyes and mortal vessel, and what could possibly scare him then?
This is what he prefers to be: an attack dog, a loaded gun, a bullet. This is what he was.
But he’s something else now, too, with Light.
The way Light’s hand trembles when he lifts it to knock worries Teru. The way he is instantly possessed with the urge to take it worries him more.
The door opens.
“I’m home,” Light says.
“Welcome home,” says the woman standing in the doorframe.
She has short black hair. Her smile is kind but tired, and so are her eyes, and she looks absolutely nothing like Teru’s mother. The thought occurs to him before he realizes he was comparing them.
“It’s so nice to see you,” Sachiko Yagami says. “Sayu’s missed you, Light.”
Light glances around. “Where is Sayu?”
“Oh, she — ah.” Sachiko’s eyes land on Teru at last. He tries not to flinch. “Mikami-san, I’ve heard so much about you! Come in, come in.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Teru says, doing a graceful half-bow as he shuffles inside. The Yagami house is beautiful, all natural wood paneling and rustic decor, exactly what you would expect from a residence in the countryside. In his peripheral vision he notices Light looking around almost as much as Teru is. “I’ve heard a lot about you as well.”
This is technically true and also a blatant lie. Light had laid out what was essentially a biography of his mother’s life yesterday as though reciting facts from a history textbook.
“You’ve done a lot with the place,” Light comments.
“Well, the doctors said it would be good for… Oh, never mind that. It’s dinner time!” She claps her hands together. “You boys go ahead and sit, I’ll go get Sayu.”
Once she’s gone, Teru turns to Light. Light is already looking back at him.
“What do you think?” Light asks.
“…It could be worse,” Teru says.
Light snorts. “She likes you a lot more than Misa already.”
“Even though we’re both men.”
Light’s expression does something complicated. Then: “I think she already knew. Now come on.”
For a second neither of them move. Before he can second-guess himself, Teru grabs Light’s hand.
Light exhales, a little shuddery. Squeezes his eyes shut.
—
Light’s sister has only made eye contact with Teru once — when Sachiko had led her out of the hallway she’d glanced at him, sitting next to Light at the dining table, and nearly stumbled. There was a kind of confused joy in her eyes that lasted a few seconds before she blinked, then slipped back into darkness.
She hasn’t met his gaze since then. Or anyone else’s.
Sachiko, on the other hand, is talking at speeds rivaling machine guns. “I can’t imagine how busy the life of a prosecutor is. What do you do in your spare time, Mikami-san? Any hobbies? Do you want more tea?”
“No,” Teru says automatically. “Er, about the tea.” He also doesn’t have any hobbies (unless you count reading about Winston Churchill, but he hasn’t bought new books for a while now) but Sachiko doesn’t have to know that.
“Lay off him, Mom,” Light says with an easy smile. “You’re going to make him overheat.”
That makes the overheating problem worse. Teru looks down at his meal hurriedly. “The fish is very good,” he says.
“Oh, thank you!” Sachiko beams. “It’s Light’s favorite, isn’t it, Light?”
“Yeah,” Light says, which is strange because Light always orders katsudon, but Teru keeps quiet.
“When Light was little,” Sachiko says in a confidential stage-whisper to Teru, “he had this phase where he wanted sea bream every single day—”
“That’s because Dad told him it would make him smarter,” says Sayu.
The table falls silent.
Sayu goes back to picking at dinner.
Light is the first to speak again. “Well, what do you think, Mom? Did it work?”
“Oh Light,” and Sachiko’s smile is so bittersweet that Teru is suddenly and painfully aware of how much of an intruder he is in this house: “Of course it did.”
—
Teru visits his own mother every year, on her birthday.
It’s a way to steel himself. It is the opposite of mourning. He never brings anything with him, and so when he stands before her small gravestone he feels like a ghost or possibly its antonym, no anchor to reality available except for the one within himself. He touches the characters for Tokie Mikami and remembers again and again and again:
She was not righteous.
This was for the greater good.
I don’t miss her.
—
Teru learns that Sachiko doesn’t often watch news programs, which is a relief: he had readied himself to field questions about why television’s most ardent Kira supporter would become entangled with someone so recently on the Kira Task Force, but Sachiko avoids not only the subject but also any mention of Kira at all. It’s skillful, honestly. Teru has to bite back his cross-examination instinct more than once.
Teru learns that Sachiko loves dramas. Her current favorite actress is Ami Hamasaki (“She might not look it, but she’s very good at microexpressions. And her voice!”) and she has as many speculations about the celebrity drug underworld as Teru’s colleagues do, though almost all of them are wildly off the mark.
Teru learns that Sachiko has a sweet tooth.
By the time the table is cleared, his head is swirling with a whole universe of trivia about Sachiko Yagami, Light’s earlier narration of her entire employment history, and the uneasy feeling he still knows nothing about her at all.
“We should be getting back,” Light says, standing. “Thank you for the meal, Mom.”
“Of course! And it was wonderful getting to know you, Mikami-san. The two of you can stop by any time.”
“Mom, he’s busy. And he lives in Kyoto.”
Sachiko crosses her arms. “And what about you, young man? Do you live in Kyoto too?”
As a matter of fact, Light sort of does. He has somehow finagled himself into a mostly-remote position for his police work and so he’s been taking the Shinkansen over to Teru’s apartment on most weekends.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Light says. “It’s just, with everything…”
Sachiko sighs. “Right, yes.” Then, low enough that Teru wouldn’t have caught it without his audio sensitivity, “Just don’t forget it’s Sayu’s birthday soon.”
“I know.”
Sachiko examines him. Her face shutters, just briefly. Then she turns to Teru, almost-satisfied, and puts her hands on her hips.
“Well, take care of my son for me, will you?”
“I will,” Teru promises, and means it.
—
On the train ride home Teru decides that Sachiko Yagami is probably a good person. He doesn’t know her opinion on Kira, hadn’t pressed for Light’s sake, but he’d have to be stupid to not see that she loves her children more than anything.
He wonders if Light knows how lucky he is.
Even if it turns out she loathes everything Kira stands for —
No. No. Light wouldn’t look at his family the way he does if they hated him.
Tokie Mikami had a heart condition back when she was alive, Teru reminds himself, and therefore odds are high she would not be here today anyway. Not that he wants her to be.
“Light?”
He doesn’t really mean to say it aloud. It just falls out of him, quiet, the way you don’t notice your tongue forming the shapes of words when reciting silent prayer.
“Mmn,” Light says, and lifts his head from where it was lying against Teru’s shoulder. “What?”
What is it like to hide from your own mother?
Should I have done that? Should I have lied?
Do I want to know?
My role is not to question. He reaches over and runs his fingers through Light’s hair. “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”
Light pauses for a moment, gaze flicking over his face, visibly weighing something; and then he murmurs “Alright” and sets his head back down in the crook of Teru’s neck, eyes falling shut.
Teru’s shoulder is going to hurt tomorrow. He doesn’t mind.