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Now, Light wasn’t a stranger to skin.
It came in contact with him and split him open. He was used to the sensation pooling around and in between his fingers. He felt oddly at peace when it happened—the slide of a hand over his shoulder, up to his neck, around the skin there—it could loop into a bruise, a noose he chose.
It wasn’t the same as camaraderie found amongst his peers at school. Claps on the back and whispered words and shy smiles, those kinds of things. He wasn’t easily forgettable like that. When it all was said and done, he could follow the glimmer of normalcy tucked away in people’s eyes. They wanted him to act a certain way, so he did. He bent to the will of others because he needed to be normal, pressurized into dust the way they were. Strict expectations. He had to be like them, even though he was better than them. Even though he shouldn’t be like them. Even though they were meant to be equal.
(Equal.)
But Light could hold himself steady, twist between a hand he wanted and a hand he didn’t. There were moments where he appreciated the ginger touches of his Dad, brief but never distant—not really—and moments where he desired the affection that his Mom smothered him with. He held himself still when it happened, kissed on both cheeks. Because Light had limited means. Unspoken of.
The sensation that pooled at his hands. The sensation that climbed up his spine, settled in uncomfortably at his nape. The back of his skull; splattered—and he saw it, the same way he saw his own hands or a stranger’s hands—and he shook his head when others asked if he was okay. Yes, I’m quite alright, he would say. And it got stuck in his throat no matter who asked, or when he replied. A filtered reaction from between his teeth.
But, in a sense, it made him a stranger.
He became a stranger to the normality that others had. Light had to be the perfect son. (He already was. He already was.) And that perfection came at a price—no mistakes, no mumbling, no worrying, no questioning. He approached things with caution without sacrificing his confidence, because that image was required.
He wasn’t meant to be a stranger.
(Friendly, confident, smart, and willing to assist. He was the kind of guy you went to for help and advice. You would expect him to speak up about wrongdoing. You would expect him to be there.)
He was meant to be Light Yagami. The police chief’s son. The son who would become a detective of his own merit, most likely. Light Yagami. To everyone. That was who they were supposed to see and know. Light Yagami. Not anyone else, not any other version.
(Not Kira.)
And the sensation he retrieved from his family was needed. He couldn’t go without it. He couldn’t go without it for too long—to be alone, even though it was a necessity—people couldn’t look at him and see how hard-wired he was, how tangled he became at a lack of stimulation, of affection he normally brushed off.
(A hand on the shoulder. A hand on his hand. A body to match his body. A mind to match his mind.)
Light didn’t know why he was like that.
He wasn’t sure if it had always been an innate part of himself, the need versus the dismissal. If it had always been real—the way he was real—or the way his image was real—if anything combined in a reasonable manner, or if all of it was a grand act he upheld because it was a major part of the whole Yagami Family Appeal.
(Important, emphasized. The Appeal. Like he also emphsiazed The Accident.)
Good father. Good mother. Good daughter. Good son.
Light felt like a fucking mess even though no one said a goddamn word about it. He felt like every word he said was laced with rat poison, and he wasn’t even the one being fed the fucking poison. He felt as if the lack of touch would kill him, but every moment that went by where he was smothered—too much time—made him want to die.
He had felt like this since time became a pressurized concept in his head. The sensation. The prickle. The twist that had him shaking at night, unable to rest his eyes.
He didn’t even see names and numbers. He didn’t see any of it. He didn’t.
Light wanted to.
(Don’t tell Ryuk, the better part of him snarled. Don’t tell anyone.)
Because who would get it, anyway?
So, Light stayed quiet, and stayed perfect, and stayed what others would consider reasonable and great and whatever the hell else they said about people like him. He didn’t know the half of it. (He should listen in.) But he didn’t, and his skin crawled, and he stayed quiet and fine and smiled at all the right intervals. Wandering between that and the lines he drew with his own hands—ink splattered on pages he couldn’t share—names battling it out in his head alongside words and ideas and hopes and egotistical dreams. Really. The noose he made with someone’s affection became a moment’s hesitation. If they just turned into if they don’t turned into him losing his mind when either ending happened. To be touched or to be ignored.
Who the hell lost their mind over this?
Who the hell dreamt about this so often? Who the hell else would dig their nails into their palms, ribs, thighs, and even their eyes?
Not the eyes, lately, please. Light was so tired of it. He was tired of it, and he wasn’t supposed to be, and when life gave you lemons you were supposed to make lemonade. He fed the lemons to a Shinigami who immediately fed him delusions instead—laughter, devious—nonconforming. There was no lemonade for anyone involved. (Sour.) Ryuk was a creature that could not care less about the plights Light found himself in.
Really, it was fucking bullshit. It was fucking with him.
And his skin crawled. And he could dead between the lines, without the damned eyes that Ryuk could grant him. He could read between the lines, see it cleraly in his head—all the things he didn’t like, all the things that kept him up at night or otherwise made it impossible to think he was fine.
He was not fine. He knew—
Parts of him knew—
Shut up, half his brain said.
Stop whining, said the other half, in a way, in a sense, in a particular rhythm. All you do is whine and whine and whine.
And he listened, and he dug his nails in, and he got his teeth and stared at his computer screen or gave up on every endeavor he had ever faced. He wanted rat poison. He wanted bitter tea. (Actual bitter tea, not just something poorly steeped.) He wanted a perfect score on every exam. He wanted to run faster. He wanted to pick up better hobbies, be a better person—gods weren’t supposed to—laugh—what the hell was—everything and—Light was meant to stream through clouds and—what was—perfection if perfection had charm and—his heart slammed into his chest and he was real, with or without the compliance of an entire nation, or his family or of a task force, if his skin crawled, if Kira won and no one else did—splatter—if his skin prickled and he couldn’t help but want to cut his tongue out, cut it out.
“What are you thinking about?” Ryuk asked, leaning closer.
The bed creaked.
It was such a terrible sound. Light wanted to burn the bed frame and mattress just for existing and creating such a noise.
He didn’t say anything.
Instead, Light stared at the wall and didn’t answer. He smoothed his thumb over the bone of his left wrist. Once, twice, three times. His skin was crawling and everything was wrong. How can I, he thought, and then corrected himself. How can you? But he didn’t know what the question was referencing, or who, and so it faded into the background like white noise. He should be writing names down in the Death Note. He should be figuring out how to make the New World a Real World, not an idle dream.
“Nothing,” He finally mumbled. “What are you looking for?”
“What? I’m not looking for anything,” Ryuk snuffed, and his smile was unmoving. Light wondered, partially—in a worthless fashion—if gods of death could stop smiling at all.
Light thought about it.
He traced his wrist again. Very briefly, he imagined taking his pencil and stabbing himself in the squishy underside of the joint, the bare part, where his veins showed and the bone did not jut. (All that blood.) He blinked. (You would die, God, you would die.) He blinked and the image was gone.
“Apples?” He asked, like it was something to muse about.
Ryuk, instantly, cheered and cajoled Light.
In return, Light reached up and covered his eyes with both his hands and then slowly dragged his palms down his face. “Okay,” he repeated, to himself. Apples. Apples. Apples. He didn’t know why he offered. This whole situation was irrefutably and irreparably fucked. He was laying down on his bed, freaking out over nothing, over everything, and he was talking out loud like a maniac. “Apples,” he said again. “Okay.”
He dropped his hands away from his face and got up.
He closed his bedroom door carefully when he left.
(Cry about it, God.)
When he went to the grocery store, he took the package of red delicious apples and paid in cash. He dreamed of rot. He came home, Ryuk in tow while slobbering on apples—even the core, the seeds, the stem—and only stopped once Light closed the bag when he was a minute away from his house. The street light flickered, and Light had half a brain to stick to the side of the street that was illuminated perfectly. He didn’t. He walked along the dark, Ryuk flapping after, complaining and bemoaning about apple withdrawals.
“I’ll go crazy! Light, come on!” Ryuk bemoaned, loudly. Not that anyone else would ever hear him. Only Light would.
(Only Kira.)
“You just had six,” Light mumbled, and then shut up completely.
He came home, carefully and quietly, and held onto the bag of apples like they meant something. (They did. Probably.) His skin crawled. The Shinigami didn’t shut up, still jittery, because apples were the only thing the poor death god had to look forward to. Light toed off his shoes, hands shaking for no apparent reason. He hadn’t felt like this in a long time, but now all these awful sensations were coming back—an eruption of grief, of absence—and he wanted to bash his head through the wall just to feel a spark of something—pain or comfort, something, something—instead, he took the apples upstairs and returned to his room.
The handle was just as he left it.
“Later,” Light mouthed, and Ryuk was unblinking but leaned close—head nearly resting on Light’s shoulder, an oddity, a Halloween spook. “Later,” Light insisted, and slid his door open, and looked at the apples.
“Later!” Ryuk repeated, and then it seemed to click in his head. “Great news, Light! You’re the most entertaining human there ever was!”
Like that was an accomplishment. “Uhuh,” he mumbled.
Light swallowed the nausea, carefully, because everything about the was wrong. It was late at night. He should be asleep. He should be asleep and smart and worth everything. Instead, he was hallucinating about shit he shouldn’t. (It wasn’t a hallucination.) He was lying. He was driving himself up a wall. (How many walls could he knock down in one hour?) He was so weirded out by his own brain, by Ryuk’s one-sided conversations. (Reply more, then.)
Light took a breath, closed his bedroom door, leaned against it for just a moment, and then walked to his bed and crouched down. Like a chipmunk hiding goods for winter, Light slid the bag of apples under his perfectly unbothered bed frame. He stared at it for a long time.
“Apples,” Ryuk echoed, longingly. “Maybe you are the best, Light.”
Light didn’t feel like the best.
He felt like a twit, and an insane creature, and not human. Maybe gods felt like that. Maybe monsters did, too. His skin crawled and crawled, and he stood back up, backed away from his bed, eyes too wide from where he stared at his own tomfoolery, sickened.
“Light?” Ryuk asked, staring at him instead of the apples. His neck was twisted at a terrible angle.
Light looked at him for just a moment. (Perfect son. Not a stranger.) This image was wrong. He wanted it to be wrong. Maybe he was supposed to be wrong, worn out and tired. Hallucinations and all. No, not a hallucination. Pick a side already, Light Yagami. He was trying. And, by all accounts, trying included a lot of silent staring contests with a god no one else but you could see.
He sucked in a breath, rattling, and backed up so he could press his back against the other wall, opposite to his bed.
Ryuk stared.
Light stared, too, and slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly slid down the wall until he could sit, leaning against it.
The Shinigami didn’t move. “Light?”
He felt pathetic and dumb. “Go away,” he whispered, at last, and the unnerving sensation surrounding him and swallowing his skin was terribly unpleasant. Light didn’t deserve that. (But maybe Kira did? Maybe Kira did?) His skin crawled and crawled. “Please,” he added, because the guilt was eating at his backbone. “Just for a minute. Please.” His eyes flickered from Ryuk to the bat of apples under the bed. “Eat those instead.”
“What? You want to be alone?” Ryuk gawked, baffled, “And hey!” He gaffed. “You say it like I was gonna eat you!”
“I’m not okay,” Light said, rather than a real response. “I want to be alone.” He swallowed again, pleading, pleading, pleading. Ryuk, shockingly, shut up—stared at him with unblinking and unmoving eyes and it was all so fucking wrong, raw, bad, awful. Light wanted to hide like a kid. He didn’t. Instead, he breathed in, then out, and then said, “Please.”
Ryuk stood there, thoroughly baffled at this change of pace, before seemingly no longer being shocked.
He laughed a bit, waggled his long and spidery like arms, and agreed. “Okay!” He crouched and grabbed eight apples from the bag—practically swallowing them whole as he stayed low to the ground, hidden and concealed, before standing back up and nearly towering over everything. “Bye, Light,” he said, crunching with sharp teeth. “I’ll see you later. Apples and all.” His smile didn’t change, but maybe it was meant to.
Light watched the death god fade out through the door, murky like something sinking into a pond.
He stayed on his bedroom floor, like a fool.