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“Light!! Light, I have a surprise for us!!” Misa’s voice rang out from the doorway of their apartment. Light sighed.
Misa always returned from her photoshoots with a manic energy and a jubilant ‘Honey, I’m home!’ that made Light’s stomach churn. Luckily, Light’s late-night shifts with the task force usually prevented them from being home and awake at the same time.
Tonight, however, was he and Misa’s anniversary, and Matsuda, the absolute idiot, had insisted that he take the night off. As usual, he didn’t have a clue about anything. They hadn’t celebrated their anniversary properly (read: together) in years, though Light usually bought Misa a bouquet and left it in her bedroom so she wouldn’t complain. It probably looked odd that they never went out to dinner or anything, but it was easy to blame their opposing work schedules. Unfortunately, that exact excuse is what had earned Light this horrific night home with his girlfriend.
In the bright light of their foyer, Misa was gingerly toeing out of her flats, moving with uncharacteristic subtlety. Her hands were keeping her fur coat securely wrapped around her stomach for some reason, and Light’s stomach lurched with the idea that she could be pregnant.
Not that it could be by him, of course. Damn it, Misa. He tried to calm himself. No, not even Misa was dumb enough to sleep around. She knew that a bastard child could ruin Kira’s mission and Light’s reputation. Plus, she wouldn’t greet him as if she had some exciting news if the news was that she was pregnant with someone else’s child--this was something she didn’t think Light would be angry about. Somehow, he still doubted that he wouldn’t be angry.
She giggled. “Okay, I can’t keep it hidden anymore!” She reached into the front of her coat with one hand and gently lifted out--the horror--a fluffy black cat. “He’s only a year old! My coworker’s cat had kittens and she couldn’t manage to get this one adopted, so I offered to take it! Isn’t he so cute? Aren’t you?”
She began cooing to the cat and booping its nose, holding it in her arms like a baby. Light fought a sneer. He could already see many problems with this.
“Misa, as cute as the cat may be…” he started, trying to gauge whether she was actually listening as she scratched behind the cat’s ears. Misa loved all things cutesy, and the cat was weirdly tolerant of all her poking and prodding. “As cute as it may be, we don’t really live the kind of lifestyle that’s suited to having a pet. I mean, both of us are barely home as it is,” and we have a mission, he wanted to add. He wanted to add and we live with a shinigami already, but it seemed odd to act like Ryuk was a pet. He wanted to add there’s no way you’re going to clean its litterbox, which was true. But Misa was pouting at him and he was tired and he could sense Ryuk about to show up and laugh at him and it was--
“Liiiight, it’s our anniversary!” It was their anniversary.
“Okay,” Light said, resigned to his fate.
“Yay!!!!!” She yanked him down by the neck to kiss him on the cheek, which was not the “thank you” that she fancied it was. At least with a cat in her arms she couldn’t leap onto him like she was so fond of doing.
“But you’re cleaning the litterbox.” Light was going to be the one cleaning the litterbox, but it was worth a shot.
“Litterbox?” Misa replied. Light scowled. She didn’t even know the first thing about cats.
“Does it even have a name?”
“Oh, of course he does, don’t you?” She said half to Light and half to the cat. She held it up under its arms to face Light. The cat had wide, saucer-like eyes that seemed deeply unimpressed with this display. “Light, meet Hideki Ryuga!”
Light felt a distinct chill run down his spine. “Misa, that’s not funny.”
“Oh no, no it’s not like that! They called him that at the shelter, probably after that actor, because they’re both so cute,” Misa plowed on. “And I just couldn’t change it, not after looking into his cute little eyes!! Could I? Could I? Isn’t that right, Hide-chan?”
She turned back to the cat again, completely absorbed in scratching behind its ears and booping its nose. This was definitely a problem.
---
The cat--Light was not calling it by its name no matter what Misa said--was self-centered and vindictive. It ate obscenely loudly, and Misa definitely fed it too often. When it didn’t receive attention, it was prone to following either Light or Misa around and staring blankly. When Light refused to acknowledge its presence for its first week of living with them, including generously assuming that Misa was taking care of the litterbox, it had promptly peed on Light’s old beige school uniform suit. Light was disturbed by this, mostly because it meant the cat had somehow wrenched open his closet door and located this ensemble at the very back of his closet, dragged it down from the hanger using its claws, did the deed, and then darted out of the room as fast as it had arrived.
When Light found the suit soiled on the floor of his closet, the red tie that went with it pooled over the lapels like blood, he gagged. First from the smell, then from some deeper feeling of uncleanliness that seeped well into his soul until all he could do was sit catatonic on the floor of his room in front of a growing puddle of cat piss and the barely salvageable uniform of his childhood.
Ryuk, probably bored and feeling neglected, because he really was another pet, found him there and startled him out of his skin by saying, “Eugh. I did not sign up for this.”
Ryuk’s sudden appearance had jarred Light enough to stop his desperate gasping until he could breathe enough to form words.
“It didn’t pee on your clothes.”
“Cats are a lot like Shinigami, you know. They’re lazy by nature, and they mess up things for humans for entertainment. They love food. Hey, Light-o, mayb---AHH!” Ryuk let out a high-pitched shriek and jumped 10 feet in the air, phasing through the ceiling until only his pointy feet stuck down into the bedroom. On the floor where Ryuk had been was the cat, unruffled. It briefly occurred to Light that the cat probably couldn’t even see Ryuk, which was definitely for the best.
“I know what you did, you know.”
The cat just stared at Light with its stupid round bug eyes.
Light stared back.
The cat stalked towards Light. Light held his ground. Its head hung in such an odd way when it walked, shoulders hunched awkwardly. Its strides were cool and leisurely.
Ryuga--no, that was definitely bad. Hide-chan--this was almost tolerable, that was what Misa called it, that wasn’t something anyone had ever called the actor and certainly not….---tilted its head towards Light’s hand where it was clenched into a fist as if to rub itself against it. Light felt generous and brought his hand up for Hide-chan to use to its heart's content.
The cat brought its nose up to Light’s hand…only to scrunch its nose in disgust at the smell of its own piss. In an instant it was back at the far end of the room, ears pinned back. What an asshole.
“The smell is your fault, you---” Light tried to calm himself. Hide-chan’s eyes were squinting with mirth now and it settled itself on his rug with its legs sticking out in front like a weirdo. Light blinked a couple times. His brain wasn’t working right.
“Haha, it is stinky, right?” He tried. The cat continued to stare impassively. Its eyes gleamed with an eerie awareness.
Light prepared himself to lose a mental battle to a cat. After a moment of breathing in the scent of cat piss, he gathered the soiled suit, careful to touch it as little as possible, and got up to take it to the dry cleaners.
---
So, the thing was, Light didn’t sleep most nights. He suspected that Misa didn’t, either; sometimes she would crawl wordlessly into his bed and lay her head on his chest and grip at his wrists until her slow breathing gave way to an annoying snore. Her weight always made him choke on his breath, pressing him into the mattress like it was his grave.
Sometimes, when she did that, he would lie awake all night, keeping himself focused on the unpleasantness of her snoring, the tickle of her hair on his chin, her occasional murmurs in her sleep. He let her bruise his ribs. He watched her.
If he let his guard down, he would fall asleep with Misa in his bed. He would be woken up by her fingers patting his face gently. On those nights, he slept deeper than he had in years. It terrified him.
Tonight, he lay in his bed with his eyes closed. It was one of those rare nights where he could feel that maybe he’d drift off all on his own. His body was almost tense with anticipation of sleep, which was antithetical to its mission. He began the arduous process of commanding his muscles to relax one by one.
Falling asleep was both a relief and a thrill, because when he slept he dreamt, and when he dreamt, he dreamt of—
Light was jolted awake by two points of pressure on his chest. He hesitated to look. Burned into his eyelids still were those melancholic eyes, asking him the one question he wouldn’t answer. He was so tired. He wanted to sink into that black gaze.
He opened his eyes. Staring back at him were two black pools so like his usual dream that for an absurd moment he almost wept with relief. The part of his brain that hadn’t fallen asleep reminded him sharply where he was, and more importantly, with whom.
“Get. Out.” He grit his teeth. The cat sniffed his nose. It was kneading its two front paws smugly now, purring.
“Hide-chan, no,” Light tried. It was worse than Misa. She must have anti-trained the thing, because it only stepped fully onto his chest, its two back paws digging into his ribcage.
Hide-chan rubbed its face happily against Light’s jaw, and promptly plopped itself down on his chest, paws sticking out at odd angles. It was still staring directly at him.
Light got tired of holding his head up to stare the cat down and laid back on the pillow. Even staring at the ceiling, he could feel its gaze on him, intense and scrutinizing. For a cat.
It didn’t weigh as much as Misa, obviously, but the weight on his chest pinned him in place. Its rhythmic purring shook Light’s bones, making him feel fragile, which he wasn’t.
He let his eyes fall shut again. The situation was so familiar that it comforted him; weight on his chest, eyes on his sleeping face. He told himself it was just a cat, that it couldn’t glean anything from his sleeping face. Even if it could, it didn’t matter.
A sick part of him wished that it did.
He slept dreamlessly.