Work Text:
It's not that Ryuk loves killing. Maybe she'd get hooked if it could affect anything in this world; as it is, she does it enough to stick around and not many letters more. But it's the only kinda-interesting thing around these parts — emphasis on the kinda because even permanently erasing the life from a human's eyes gets old after a while, like if those dominoes Daril likes setting up could only be knocked down one at a time — so when anyone gets on her case about writing she tells them that she's keeping a diary, is all, and at least their mocking about how Ryuk is turning into a human girl! is a little new.
So no, she doesn't really give a damn.
Didn't.
But now she's with Light. Light: all determination and sharpness and deft fingers threading a sewing needle through her wallet. Light and the lifespan and name bobbing over her head every time she moves.
"Didn't take you for the sewing type," Ryuk remarks, leaning over her shoulder to watch.
"Hm? Oh. My sister used to get all kinds of tears in her jeans and I didn't want Mom to be too busy."
"That's actually real nice of you."
"'Actually'?" Light huffs, but she gets back to work without any apparent expectation for an answer. Ryuk watches. The needle dances in and out of view: silver, sharp. It's sort of meditative. She used to be free to roam her whole rotting world but the light (ha) of one human outshines it all, even when Light falls into her own dreamworld, even when Ryuk can never quite catch up to her.
The room is well-lit but shivers when Ryuk concentrates on Light's face; it distorts around her numbers, her name. Red like apples. Twice as bright.
She thinks about it so often, writing Light's name.
She won't. She doesn't want to, sincerely. But it can't be helped — it's instinct, like staring down through an observation hole back in her world and feeling your wings tremble with phantom wind. She never used to watch humans much other than to kill. Haunting one every hour of every day translates now into an itch in her claws, a weight at her side. How would it feel to kill Light Yagami? Maybe like eating the planet. Maybe like nothing at all. The human world would be better off and much more boring, and Ryuk knows which she cares about more.
"Done," Light announces. She smiles at Ryuk, slight and unconcerned. "Faster than I thought."
She could die at seventeen. Ryuk could so easily swallow her.
"Hey, it looks nice," she says instead, peering at the neat little stitches. Light's smile widens in her peripheral vision. Ryuk pretends not to be hungry.