Chapter Text
As Teru leads me to an outside table at this very luxurious Italian restaurant in Tokyo, I immediately get a terrible feeling. Don’t get me wrong; I like the finer things in life, within reason, and Teru knows this, although he’s naturally a more modest type of person. It isn’t the restaurant which bothers me, because I deserve to be somewhere this beautiful and expensive. It’s why Teru would spontaneously decide to take me somewhere this nice with no particular occasion that bothers me. Usually he would say this kind of thing is excessive, gluttonous, greedy, that it’s a road to us becoming a couple of Elon Musks and fucking up Twitter.
As he helps me into my seat because his manners are second to none, I offer him a charming smile and admire the scenery. There are white curtains falling between each table; we’re in a patio of sorts with a roof above our heads, and little stairs leading up to us covered in lanterns. There are trees all around, and potted plants. It is atmospheric. I belong in places like these; they compliment my elegance. I’m avoiding looking at Teru as he sits down.
“Do you like it?” he asks me. He’s wearing a very nice suit. He always looks handsome but tonight an extra effort has been put in, I can tell. I think I might be feeling sick. I’m hoping to send appropriate signals that stop the terrible event from happening.
“It’s beautiful,” I answer, gently fingering the side of my menu. I just had a manicure, and my hands look perfect in this light; just like the rest of me I imagine. Oh my God, I think I look too good. I should have tried less hard but I didn’t realise what was happening until I’d already dressed and then caught sight of him looking like a very muscular Tom Ford catwalk model. I’m sending signals I don’t want to send by way of my resplendent beauty.
“Just like you,” he says, smiling. I knew it. He’s such a sap, he’s always been that way, I’ve always put up with it. We make sense together but I don’t want to go too far with it.
“I know how I look, Teru,” I say with a deep breath, and begin to read the menu. I am going to need alcohol. Wine feels appropriate but would also only worsen this situation. As I read the menu I really wine is definitely where this is headed.
“We’ll get the seven courses with wine,” Teru says like he’s in charge in this relationship. Yes. We will get that because it’s one of the few options on offer. I hate how delicious it all sounds. Oh, crayfish. I don’t get to have that often. I can’t believe I’m letting this happen. I should fake a sudden illness and run. “We’ll ask the sommelier what wine he suggests and go for it.”
“OK,” I say. He’s not even popped the question yet but this has turned into one of those situations where you marry a man and then he thinks he can tell you what to do. I think I have better taste in wine than the sommelier. I know my own tastes. Why are we asking the sommelier? What’s wrong with me tonight?
“What dessert would you like?” Teru asks. “I can guess; we’ve been together three years, I should know what you like, shouldn’t I? I’ll guess crème brulee.”
Damn him. I would have chosen the crème brulee. I offer him one of my most stunning smiles and decide that I will now guess his. What does he like? I should know. I skim over the minimal choices.
“The chocolate, ice cream and tobacco?” I suggest. The ice cream is coffee flavoured, he likes coffee, he likes tobacco. He’s always saying he loves the smell of tobacco. Or is that because it reminds him of me? I smoke tobacco. He didn’t start saying he liked it until he’d gotten used to me smoking.
Teru looks very pleased that I know and care what he likes. “Of course.”
The waiter comes over and Teru explains our orders and inquires about the wine. I’m interested to try whatever we get because I really feel like we’re just recklessly spinning the wheel here. It’s very expensive. I don’t think I’m paying, or I shouldn’t be, because I wasn’t warned that we were going here. I’m not used to these types of prices, although I’d like to be, and Teru’s salary can’t expect Mr to pay. He’s a very successful attorney considering he’s so strict about who he represents. He makes a lot of money. I’m in my final year of law school, and I don’t have a part-time job. I’ve never needed one. My parents supported me until I moved in with Teru.
As we sit and talk I consider my situation. We’re very compatible people. We have similar ideals, and they’re important to us. We’re both very attractive. We’re both very intelligent. I do think that I still beat him out on both of those counts but he’s above average certainly, and realistically he’s the most anybody could ever want. He makes a lot of money, too, and when we’re in bed I don’t completely hate it. What reason do I really have to say no if he asks? He bores me? He’s too predictable? He lives like he’s been cursed to live the same day over and over, his routine is perfected to the second. I like routine, but I also like excitement, and he offers me absolutely none.
“Do you wish I took you places like this more often?” Teru asks me, and I glance over the table at him as I’m taking my first sip of the wine. It’s very smooth, the notes are quite fruity. I’m irritated that I quite like it. I’m irritated that this night is perfect, because Teru knew exactly what I would enjoy.
“It’s too expensive to do too frequently,” I say, laughing a bit, although what I’d like to say is fuck yes, can’t you see what I’m worth? I can’t allow myself to be bought by this man. “The wine is actually quite nice, isn’t it?”
“Well, sommeliers usually know what they’re talking about,” Teru answers. He is so incredibly fucking dull. I need to decide on my move. My parents love him. Sayu doesn’t.
“I’m excited to try the food. I don’t eat Italian often. It’s a bit of a cliché to say it’s the best but I understand why people think so,” I say. I like Japanese food the best. I suppose I do enjoy French.
“We’ll be the judge when dinner is over,” Teru says, meeting my gaze. The intensity of his expression holds me still, staring back at him as I try to analyse his expression. “I hope it’s the best of your life, Light.”
Courses come and go. They’re small and delicious, and I sigh as I taste them in a most seductive way before remembering that I’m not doing that. Why am I doing that? It gives me a rush to seduce him, to see his eyes change, his body shift, at the smallest sound from my lips. But I’m sending the wrong signals again. I desperately try to tell him, with my eyes, that I’m not ready, not tonight. I’m still in fucking university, I need to work my life out before I make any major decisions. But he’s not quite that smart. He can’t read my eyes.
As we wait for dessert, he reaches his hand out on the table. I cautiously take it with mine even though I despise hand-holding more than anything else and he knows this. With my spare hand I sip more of my current glass of wine, like it might give me clarity of mind and aid me in my decision.
“I love you so much,” Teru tells me, his eyes full of desire and romance. Yes, I know that, I know he loves me. I know that I don’t love him. I’ve never considered that part of the equation. Love doesn’t matter. No, it doesn’t matter. Who cares if he excites me? Is this a romance novel? No. He’s the smart choice, and I’m smart.
“I love you, Teru,” I agree, and he squeezes my hand, and his skin flushes with pleasure from hearing me say it, when I so rarely say it, because it’s not true.
When he gets down on one knee, in our private curtained-off area because he even fucking considered the fact that I would want a private proposal, I try my best to seem absolutely delighted. I say yes. He bought me a 14kt gold and diamond engagement ring.
“So, big night last night, huh, Light?”
I should catch you up. Teru and I went to a fancy hotel I didn’t know about after dinner and had weird sex. Sex with Teru is always weird, because he has some kind of kink for worshipping me. Strange things have happened in our bedroom that I needn’t go over here, but needless to say I’m not that into it. I mean, I like being worshipped, it turns me on—but when he’s trying to get me off I feel sort of like a bored deity accepting a substandard gift from a particularly loyal follower. I think about the idea of really being a God, of being in charge of Teru, of everyone, and then I orgasm, but Teru really doesn’t have much to do with it. It’s my own imagination I have to thank.
Now I’m in my car, which my parents gifted me a couple of years ago, and I am driving to their place. Most people would say that I’m alone in here but I’m not. Ryuk is with me. Ryuk is a monster of sorts that I’ve been seeing since I was very little. Everybody used to say he was my imaginary friend, and then at a certain point somebody had to tell me I was “too old” for imaginary friends. So I stopped talking to him in front of other people at that point, but he’s always been there, and he’s still here, and I don’t know why. It’s a part of my existence I’m just too used to to question. I imagine other people also experience this, but we’re all just keeping it very quiet.
“Shut up, Ryuk,” I say, sighing. I made the right decision. My future is set now; I’m marrying an attorney. I will be the envy of everybody because I have everything.
“I always thought you didn’t like this guy that much. Kinda thought you were just using him so you had somewhere comfy to stay during your studies,” Ryuk says. I know he’s not a figment of my imagination because his vocabulary isn’t something I’d ever come up with. ‘Kinda’? ‘Comfy’? Talk properly.
“I was at first but now I suppose I’m using him permanently,” I answer. I like having Ryuk because I can be my honest self with him. It’s not like he could ever go around telling people my private thoughts. Nobody can see or hear him but me.
“You don’t seem that happy about it.”
“I’m over the moon, Ryuk. Can’t you ever be quiet?”
I know I’m not going to tell my parents today, I’m just going to invite them to a dinner where Teru and I will tell him together, as a couple. We’ll be a couple forever now. I want to throw up when I imagine myself at seventy years old, still listening to him bitterly recount how he was bullied when he was in high school, because he can’t seem to just get over it. I feel like he was a school shooter in another life. That’s a terrible thing to think about my fiancé, isn’t it?
“Are you gonna tell your family?” Ryuk asks me as I stop the car and get out. I feel like this engagement will eat up a lot of my time. We can’t get married anytime soon because I have to focus on my dissertation.
“Not today, Ryuk,” I answer, and walk up to the front door. I still have a key so I just walk in, putting my sunglasses on my head and taking off my leather driving gloves. “Mom, Dad, Sayu! I’m here!” I didn’t warn them I was coming which is unlike. I woke up, had a shower, had a long soak in the hotel bath with the door locked so Teru couldn’t bother me, then got out of the bath and announced I was visiting my family alone to avoid him. He doesn’t have work today.
“Oniichan!” Sayu calls me playfully, all but bounding down the stairs and jumping on me. I hug her back because she’s the only person in the world who I’m certain that I love. Her voice hushes to a whisper. “Dad has some important guy in the living room, we were told not to disturb them.”
“Oh,” I say. That’s unusual, what important people do policemen get to talk to? Especially in their own homes? It feels strange but there’s no point explaining that to Sayu. I head towards the kitchen to look for Mom, Sayu in tow. “How is your personal statement for university coming along?”
“Will you read it over for me? Pleaseee? I honestly have no idea whether it’s any good or not,” Sayu says, still keeping her voice quite quiet. Dad really must have drummed in the importance of not bothering him.
“Of course I will,” I say. When we walk into the kitchen, Mom's there, and smiles when she sees me. I go over to hug her and kiss her cheek. “Hi, Mom.”
“Light, it’s so lovely to see you, what a surprise!” Mom says. Her voice is quiet just like Sayu’s. “I’m afraid your father is busy.”
“So I heard,” I say, pulling away from her. She’s short, shorter than Sayu. “It’s OK, I just came over to help Sayu and invite you all to dinner at our place next Saturday.”
“Oh! You never invite us over, Light. I’m surprised,” Mom says. It’s true that Teru and I tend to come here instead because there’s just more space and Mom likes to cook, I can’t cook and neither can Teru actually, oh my God what will we feed everybody? We’ll have to order in.
“Even me?” Sayu asks, eating some grapes right out of the fruit bowl on the kitchen table.
“Especially you, Sayu,” I say, joking, and she laughs, rolling her eyes.
“I’ll clear my calendar, I guess,” she says like it’s a massive drag, but she’s grinning. I grab and grape and playfully chuck one at her. She gasps. “Oniichan how dare you!”
“Sayu, Light, quiet,” Mom says, as Sayu throws a grape back at me, and I’m thinking how nice it is having somebody in my life I can have a bit of fun with, even though I don’t like having grapes thrown at me. Before we can properly gain control of our volume, the shoji doors that lead to the living room slide open. Sayu’s laughing cuts short instantly. Standing there is our dad, looking quite pissed off, and a man around Teru's age whom I have never seen before, dressed extremely unprofessionally. He’s properly staring at us down.
Seeing Dad looking that mad is what really gets me though, so I bow in apology and Sayu copies me. I hate it when Dad is angry. We rarely see him as it is.
“Dad, we’re so sorry,” I say. “We’ll be quiet, I promise. We were just going upstairs.”
“Yagami-san,” the man I don’t know days to our father. His accent is almost perfect, but I can tell he’s foreign. British I think. “This is your eldest?”
“Indeed. This is my son, Light,” Dad says. His voice drips with disapproval. At least next week I can tell him I’m marrying Teru. He likes Teru. “I wasn’t aware he was visiting.”
“Stand up straight, Light-kun,” the man says, so I do. He has an aura of power I can’t describe and which I don’t like, because I hate authority figures. “You may call me Ryuuzaki. I understand you’re studying law, the top of your class at a prestigious university.”
“Yes, Ryuuzaki-san,” I confirm, employing my best manners to make up for my error. I don’t know why he cares what I do with my life. There’s something very strange about him. He’s just staring at me. Ryuk starts to laugh like a madman behind me, but I don’t react. I’m used to it like I’m used to breathing.
“I’m a private detective. I’ve been looking for an assistant,” Ryuuzaki says. “If you’re interested, let me know when you graduate.”
“Oh, I’d have to see terms first, Ryuuzaki-san,” I say, masking my surprise. How did I just get offered a job on the spot by a man who knows absolutely nothing about me and only met me twenty seconds ago?
“I will ensure you get some, Light-kun,” Ryuuzaki answers. My father looks completely blown away, which is telling. This must be a big deal. I can’t take it unless he beats the salaries on any other job offers I get, because I’m expecting plenty.
Before I can say or ask anything else, Ryuuzaki disappears back into the living room along with my father, the doors sliding closed. I just stare at them, still trying to work out what just happened and why.
“Wow, you’re so ahead of the game,” Sayu says to me in admiration. “Job offers already. I want to be just like you, Oniichan. But not in law. In, you know, advertising.”
I don’t reply for a second and Mom pats my shoulder as though to let me know she thought Ryuuzaki was a little weird, too. I shake it off and look at Sayu.
“Alright. Shall we go look at your personal statement then?”
I don’t tell Teru that I have a mysterious job offer from a suspicious looking man because I don’t respect him enough to give him that kind of information. We sit watching some kind of game show as Teru sits doing the bills. I smoke a cigarette. The window is open behind us. After every question on the show I saw the answer, almost absentmindedly, and every time I’m right. After Teru starts picking up on my impeccable knowledge he glances up from his laptop briefly to smile at me fondly, and rubs my shin for a moment before returning to what he’s doing.
“I should go and study,” I tell him after a while. He’s focused and won’t care, which I don’t like. I want him to care when I leave. I reach over, put my hand under his chin, turn his face towards him and give him a soft, lingering kiss. “Tell me when you’re done and I’ll come to bed, would you like that?”
He is mesmerised by me, his eyes starry and adoring. “I’d like that very much.”
“Mm-hmm,” I hum, kissing him briefly again, a whisper of a kiss. He’s so lucky to have me. “You’ve been so good today you deserve it.”
He hasn’t been particularly good, he’s been normal, but it doesn’t matter, it gets the job done. Now he can’t stop thinking about me and I feel sexy and alive. I get up and go into the office because I like to study there when Teru's not using it (he always does the bills and taxes in the living room for some reason), and I get my law books off the shelf and continue from where I left off, writing notes in a notepad as I go. I think of Ryuuzaki again, his commanding presence, and the job he offered me. I think of the shock on my dad’s face. If it would impress Dad that much then I’ll take it, and I know it, without even hearing the offer. It’s stupid, but who doesn’t want to impress their dad?
The week passes without incident. Teru and I fuck every night, I think because we just got engaged, he’s all over me and I have nothing better to do, and that Saturday we fuck in the morning even though it’s too early for such high adrenaline tasks. I wouldn’t have but I woke to Teru whispering “Kami” in my ear in the most lust-filled, desperate voice I’d ever heard, and who am I to deny my disciple? But he was in one of his moods, absolutely insane, so I ended up fucking him twice because he begged me. He’s usually so well put together, seeming him come so absolutely undone is always a surprise.
So after that I showered very thoroughly, alone despite Teru’s protestations, because there’s a point where you have to put a stop to it so that you can get on with your day. My family is coming over at six, and I’m a bit concerned about what Sayu will think. She says that Teru’s boring and that I can do better, that I don’t seem to really love him. She doesn’t understand that I don’t believe in love the way that she does. I don’t want to disillusion her. I want the world to seem magical to her as long as possible.
“Don’t you think it’ll be weird, having a husband?” Ryuk asks me conversationally as I toss as apple to him. We’re alone in the kitchen. Teru has gone to the gym in our building because his muscles just aren’t big enough yet, apparently, even though his arms are the size of my head.
“No. It’ll be just like how it is now,” I say. People do change after they marry, I’m not in denial. Teru will probably change. That’s why people want to get married. If they thought it would just be the same as it is already they wouldn’t bother. It’s for the feeling of ownership over your partner, I think. Sign a legal document saying you’re mine, nobody else can have you. That’s the point of it, although modern thinking has attempted to romanticise it. The truth is far too medieval.
“You don’t believe that,” Ryuk says, because he knows me too well by now. He watched me grow up. Not any other soul knows me better.
“Maybe I do,” I say, shrugging. Maybe I’d rather think of it like I own Teru now, but I always did, that changes nothing. We both knew that he was the one who wanted me and I was the one who settled for him. Maybe he thinks things will be different now. But he still likes to think of me as a God; I can always manipulate him with sex.
“You don’t,” Ryuk says. I toss him another apple and he bursts out laughing. Teru thinks apples are my absolute favourite, because they go so fast; I’m indifferent to them.
That evening I’ve dressed up appropriately and so has Teru, although not to the extent of the engagement night itself, I don’t think I’ll ever get that again other than our wedding day. God, I don’t want a wedding day. I hate just thinking of the phrase.
I’ve ordered in dinner and put it in the kitchen and I’m going to put it on plates so it looks like we didn’t just order it in, although everybody will probably guess anyway. I used to make some meals for Sayu and I, but only small, basic ones. Mom is such a natural housewife that it never came up that I couldn’t cook very much.
It’s two minutes past six when they arrive. I’m sure if it was Dad by himself he would arrived at six precisely and I can imagine the two minute delay was Sayu's fault. They’ve all dressed nice enough, so they must have guessed it’s a special occasion.
“Light, you look so handsome,” Mom says admiringly when they all walk in. I’m glad somebody notices my effort so quickly.
“Thank you for coming,” I say, hugging Sayu and Mom, and shaking my dad’s hand, who holds me in place for a moment.
“Can I have a moment with you, after dinner?” he asks me. I’m surprised but I don’t let it show. I just act like my dad wants to talk to me all the time, rather than being proud from a distance.
“Of course, Dad,” I say with a polite smile. He pats my back and follows Mom and Sayu to the dining table, which is in the living room because it’s an open plan layout of sorts.
“Welcome,” Teru says, bowing to them all. Yes Teru, they’re very impressed by your manners. That’s one of the things I first appreciated about him actually. He showed me a lot of respect.
“Hello, Teru,” Mom says, surprising him by hugging him. He hesitantly hugs her back. “Thank you for the invitation.”
“We love having you,” Teru says, pulling her chair out for her. Dad is sat at the head of the table. I intend to sit opposite him and Teru will probably just let me. I walk to the kitchen to get the first course and Teru comes to help after insisting to my mother than she can just relax.
“Thank you,” I say, when Teru takes three of the plates. We bring them in and put them down, and I smile at them all as I sit. “Your starters.”
“Oh my God we’re having starters?” Sayu asks, recognising the unusualness of this. “It looks great. You ordered it in, didn’t you.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Mom says politely. No, there isn’t. Everybody likes takeaways anyway.
Teru looks at me. I look at Teru. I catch my reflection in the mirror somewhere behind him. I am obnoxiously good-looking. I put my mind back on the task.
“So,” I say, and everybody looks at me. The starters are cold so I don’t need to rush to eat and neither does anybody else. “We invited you all over here because we have some news.”
Sayu gasps. The news is predictable and I can tell they’ve all worked out what it is. They’ve probably noticed my ring. I don’t know why Sayu is pretending to be surprised but maybe she thought we were going to wait until the end of dinner, but why do later what you can do now? The wedding will make for acceptable dinner conversation.
“Teru and I got engaged last week,” I say, and I try to look really happy about it, because Teru does. Luckily everybody else starts talking immediately, putting the pressure off me.
“Oh my God oh my God!” Sayu says. I hold my hand out to her so she can see my ring, because she’ll like it. “Oh my God a diamond.”
“Congratulations!” Mom says, half-hugging Teru, who’s she’s sat beside. “What wonderful news!”
“Yes, Light, that’s great news,” Dad agrees, smiling at me. “You’ve really got your life in order. I imagine you’ll wait until Light is secure in a job after he graduates before you get married?”
“Of course,” Teru says. “Our engagement will be at least a year. I’m sure Light will be flooded with job offers.”
It’s clear I haven’t mentioned Ryuuzaki to him and luckily nobody else brings it up. It isn’t a real offer until I’ve seen some numbers, I don’t think, not worth mentioning to Teru.
“You bet! He’s the best student in the country!” Sayu says, holding her hand out to high five me, which is insipid, but I do it, because it’s Sayu.
Dinner passes by with much conversation about the wedding, as I predicted. We discuss who I’ll invite, who Teru will invite. We say it needn’t be too grand, and it doesn’t feel grand to me. Despite how much I panicked about it happening, it now feels deeply unimportant whether I marry him. I’ll just get up early that day, say a few words, have a party, fuck and then go to sleep. It’s not a big deal, I’ve decided. It’s just the natural step for my life.
After dinner, just like he said he would, Dad asks to speak to me privately. I imagine everybody else assumes it’s somehow wedding-related so they don’t pry, and I lead Dad into the office, closing the door.
“What is it?” I ask him, going to sit on the sofa rather than at the desk, because that feels far too formal. Dad comes to sit beside me.
“The job offer you got the other day, from Ryuuzaki,” Dad begins. I knew it, I knew it must be about that. “I don’t know how much he’s going to tell you if and when the official offer comes through, but believe me when I say that he’s a very important man, Light. Very influential.”
“So you want me to just take it, then? A private detective's assistant?” I ask. I don’t even know what the job would entail. For all I know he’s hiring me to bring him coffee.
“A very important private detective, Light,” Dad says again. So I’m Dr John Watson. I don’t want to be Dr John Watson. “You don’t have to do what I say, I can only advise you. This would be a very good move for your career.”
“But I don’t understand,” I say. I don’t know what to think right now. Dad has never involved himself in my choices like this before, he’s always just trusted me. “Why does he want me? He doesn’t know me. There’s no proof that I’d be a good detective from his perspective. How does he know I want to be? I study law. Maybe I want to be a lawyer.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Stop being contrary. He wants you because you’re the best student in Japan and you’re about to graduate. It’s circumstantial,” Dad says. Behind me somewhere, Ryuk starts laughing again. I’m beginning to feel like his laughter is Ryuuzaki-related, but why would that be? I still feel like something doesn’t add up here. The way Ryuuzaki was looking at me—it was like he’d been looking for me. I want to ask my dad if that’s true, but I don’t. Dad didn’t even know I was visiting that day.
Months go by. It’s busy. I finish my dissertation, after spending about eight hours a day on it at one point, but I don’t lose sleep because I’m efficient. I graduate with honours, with top grades, and speak at my graduation. When I get home that day after a meal out with my family and Teru, there’s a letter for me in the mail.
Teru goes to take a shower before we go to bed, so I go into the office to read the letter. It looks very important, with an embossed stamp of the letter “L”. I open it and my mouth falls open with shock.
Dear Light-kun,
I am writing to let you know that my offer still stands. I would very much like you to be my assistant, and I will raise the salary to beat out any other offers you might get. In British pounds as that is my native country, I will give you a starting offer of £60,000. Please let me know if this is satisfactory.
Secondly, I would like to let you know that this role requires travel. I am an international private investigator and I go where the job takes me. I would love nothing more than for you to join me. You are very gifted, Light-kun.
With much respect,
L.
I realise who he is all at once. L. I’ve heard of him. I struggle to believe I met him, that that was really L in front of me. I would think it was a lie if it wasn’t so obvious to me that my father knows who he is.
I convert the salary into yen. As a salary straight out of graduation, it is certainly impressive.