Chapter 2
Fortunately, Light moved in nearly a week before classes were set to begin. Wundt University was not a large campus by American standards, but having come from a very populous region of Japan, it was enormous to him. The buildings were so spread out and sprawling. After sleeping off his jet lag, Light spent hours familiarizing himself with the campus.
He also took the first opportunity to register his name with a P.O. box on campus. It would take a couple of weeks for the rest of his belongings to arrive once Sayu sent them off, so he wanted to get that done as soon as possible.
As it was, he was sleeping on a plain mattress with a thin blanket and a travel pillow. He had gone down to the closest store first thing to buy a mattress cover because he’d heard horrid tales of bed bugs and did NOT want to risk any exposure to that, so he had tossed and turned all night on the crinkling plastic trying to get comfortable.
He tried his best to convince himself, while he sat alone in the darkness of his dorm or while he explored the sidewalks and buildings around him, that he was not homesick. He was not scared to be away from his family.
He tried but failed. Having spend his whole life in Japan, moving to America proved to be quite severe culture shock. He found himself avoiding the campus cafeteria because of the raucous crowds and noise, constantly walked on the wrong side of the sidewalk, and got quite a few unpleasant stares when on the phone with Sayu, because of course they didn’t speak English to one another.
He spent most of his time sleeping, reviewing his class syllabi, or reading ahead in his textbooks. He also filled out as many online job applications as he could.
Finally, the Tuesday before classes were due to begin, he got a response back from one of the establishments he had applied to. Light Yagami, we are pleased to inform you that you have been selected to progress to the interview stage of your application to Naomi’s Bakery! Please confirm which of the following times you are available…
~
The next morning, bright and early, Light rose to prepare himself for his job interview. This would be a first for him; he had taken coaching classes in interview back in school but had never been in the situation to sit and be examined by a potential employer before.
At first, he put on his nicest clothes and regarded himself in the bathroom mirror. It was much too formal. He was applying to a small private bakery, after all, so he doubted showing up in a tie would be the proper impression. He wanted to seem put together but down to earth.
He changed into slightly-less-stiff button-down shirt and khaki slacks. An ironed shirt would make him seem too averse to change, so he sacrificed some professionalism to give the right impression. He put on a light sweater over the shirt, because the morning air had a bit of a bite to it, but he didn’t want to seem too uptight in his long jacket.
He fixed his hair impeccably, though. As he brushed it, he cursed the hard water making it seem coarser than it was, but enough attention made it suitable for his wishes.
The walk from his dorm to the bakery took thirty minutes, during which time the breeze messed up his hair, so before stepping inside, he pulled out his comb and preened himself in his reflection in the mirror of the adjacent shop, hopefully out of sight of anybody who would be looking on.
“Welcome to Naomi’s! How can I help you today?” a short, cheery blonde girl, who Light noticed was also Asian, smiled at him from behind the counter.
“Good morning,” he greeted amicably. He didn’t know who would be interviewing him, so he wanted to give everyone the best impression he could. “I’m Yagami Light. I have an interview at 9:30?”
The girl’s eyes widened in slight surprise, which Light thought was a bit dramatic, but this girl seemed overly expressive in general. “Oooo! Rem mentioned something about a new hire. You said the appointment was at 9:30?”
“Yes,” he replied, trying not to be annoyed at having to repeat himself. “With Ms. Misora?”
The girl nodded emphatically. “She’s in the back. I’ll go get her!” she scurried quickly into the back of house.
Light looked around as he waited for somebody to fetch him. It was a quaint little place, decorated in pastel blues and golds, very tasteful for a bakery, though not exactly his style. The sweet smell of pastries filled his nose.
After a few moments, a woman strode through the closed doors in the back and smiled gently at him. “Light Yagami?” the little blonde girl followed after her and took her place back at the counter.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, smiling his most polite smile.
“Come with me and we’ll get started, how does that sound?”
He followed her back.
After her boss and the potential new hire left the room, Misa giggled to herself. He’s so cute! Light…
~
“So, Mr. Yagami, how are you today?”
So, they were beginning with small talk. Light could manage small talk, for a little while. “I’m doing pretty well. It’s lovely weather this morning.”
Naomi Misora wrapped her cardigan a bit tighter around herself and laughed. “Well, I’m glad you enjoy it,” she said. “Now, tell me a bit about yourself. What makes you want to work at my bakery?”
This was more of what Light was prepared for. “Well, I’m starting school here at Wundt University. I was hoping to get a job to help pay for tuition.”
“I see,” she said, writing some notes down on a pad of paper. As informal as this place was, Light was sure it was just to intimidate him, or to appear more serious. “What will you study?”
“Forensics,” he replied. “Double major with psychology.”
She nodded. “So why choose to apply to a bakery?”
He smiled. “Well, ma’am, I love to bake. I’ve baked for my family for years and years – my little sister has quite the sweet tooth.”
“Ah! Your application said you had baking experience. Now, the job posting is for front of house, but Rem is feeling a bit short-staffed in the kitchen as well, so it would be ideal if our new hire could fill either role, or both.”
“Of course,” he agreed. “I would be more than happy for any opportunity.”
Naomi smiled at him. It seemed mostly for his benefit, like she felt as though it was what she ought to do, rather than how she felt. Light understood this because he felt the same way. “How would you feel about demonstrating some of your abilities after the interview? Do you have time?”
“Plenty,” Light supplied,
The interview progressed as he planned. He intrigued Misori with his repertoire of recipes and told her about his schooling in Japan. She was Japanese too, she told him with a smile, and asked if Light was perhaps more comfortable using honorifics. Unsure of which answer would give the best impression, he said that it would make him feel a bit more familiar and at home, though he is perfectly fine without them.
“Well,” she said, “I think I would like a little bit of a homey feel around here.”
So it was decided that he was Yagami-kun and she was Misori-san. He supplied her with his class schedule and she was happy to learn that he would be free for the morning shift every day except Tuesdays and Thursdays, so he would be coming in early to begin the baking (provided that he got the job, of course). The five morning shifts included weekends, which he was willing to work doubles over. Misori insisted that he not overload himself in his first semester of his freshman year, so the five shifts would be more than enough to get him started.
They proceeded to the practical portion of his interview next. “Let’s go to the kitchen, why don’t we?” she stood up and beckoned for him to follow her.
The kitchen was small but tidy and Light felt quite at home here. No customers, no loud noises, just the warmth of the ovens and the smell of breads and cakes. “How much time do you have?”
“I have the rest of the day free,” he told her.
“That’s perfect, Yagami-kun. Why don’t you bake me… a baguette and a coffee cake?”
He nodded in affirmation. When Misori backed away to allow him free access to the kitchen.
The first order of business was to replace his braces with gloves. He couldn’t very well knead dough or whisk with proper form if his wrists were impeded, so he located the sanitary gloves, turned away from his employer, and slipped off the braces.
The gloves were translucent, not opaque, which Light grimaced at. If someone was looking at it right, they could see the darkness of his soulmark. He pulled his sleeve down to hide it the best he could.
He got to work. He had never baked a coffee cake before, but he knew in theory how to prepare one, so he felt confident in his ability to improvise. He prepared the dough, giving it all the necessary time to rise, before starting on the cake batter. The most difficult part of the process was finding where all of the resources were, but after half an hour of searching for this and that, Light was rather familiar with the kitchen.
Misori sat on a bench off to the side. She worked on her laptop as she kept an eye on him, but said nothing, merely observing. Light was grateful for the lack of small talk.
He spent the next three hours working diligently to impress the owner and land the job.
~
The sun was bright at high noon as Light walked back to his dorm. It had been a fruitful excursion, he decided, as he readjusted the two baked goods in his arms. Not only had he earned the job, but he had gotten free lunch with the owner. She had been so impressed by the crumb on his baguette that she hired him without even tasting the coffee cake.
He was returning with half of his baguette and most of his coffee cake, both of which had been a success, and he felt a swell of pride when he thought of the look of happiness Sayu would wear on her face once he told her he would be working at a bakery.
Usually, Light took the stairs up to his dorm on the third floor, but since he was rather precariously holding a cake and a roll of bread, he decided the elevator was the more logical choice. It smelled even worse than the stairwell did, unfortunately, but he could breathe shallowly for a minute or two.
He had to balance the plastic cake tray on his arm haphazardly while he fiddled around with his keys. He finally managed to get the door unlocked, let the door swing open, and nearly fell back in surprise.
The sudden movement caused the cake to nearly topple over and splatter all over the carpet, which would have been a terrible task to clean, had two pale arms not reached forward suddenly to catch it.
“Who the hell are you?” Light demanded.
At his feat was the oddest man Light had possibly ever seen. Light vaguely registered that, when the door opened, he had been perched strangely on a desk chair. Now, he was on his knees with his arms outstretched, having caught the cake as though his life depended on it.
“It would be a shame to let such a thing go to waste,” he mused in a steady, deep voice. “I could smell it from the hallway.”
“Um…?”
“I am Ryuzaki.” He slowly righted himself so that he was sitting on his knees, the cake held reverently in his lap. It seemed to take great effort for him to tear his eyes off of the dessert and met Light’s eyes.
The black hair that framed his face stuck out in all directions in a way that took either no effort at all or hours of intense work. His black eyes, wide and unnerving, had intense bags underneath them, and his clothes were incredibly baggy and wrinkled. Light deduced that his hair must have naturally fallen in that way and that this man did nothing concerning his appearance at all.
“Ryu-Ryuzaki?” Light backed away, standing in the doorframe now. The man on the floor peered up at him ponderously.
“Were you not expecting me? You approved my roommate request.”
Light narrowed his eyes. “You – you – what are you doing here? Finally decided to show up? Thanks for the courtesy of letting me know.” His tone was rude, he knew, but he felt he was justified.
Over the summer, he had tried to find a roommate through the university’s roommate portal. His only encounter had been successful – someone named Ryuzaki, who did not sleep and apparently liked cake, had sent him a roommate request after only a brief exchange. The subsequent radio silence Light had received, despite attempts to make contact, lead him to believe that Ryuzaki had decided not to move into the dorms, but failed to take down his name from the registry. Light had looked forward to getting a room to himself.
Further, Ryuzaki was, well, a Japanese name. And this man was not Japanese. He was white, very white. And thin, very thin. He was entirely strange.
Light skirted around him, deciding the cake was a lost cause and that it wasn’t worth trying to wrench it from his ‘roommate’s’ hands. Either his knuckles are always that white, or he had the tray in a death grip (though likely both). He set the wrapped half of baguette on his desk and grabbed his laptop bag, cringing at the thought of having left his most valuable possession (albeit unintentionally) in the room with a total stranger.
As he turned back to the door, Ryuzaki asked, “Where are you going?”
“Somewhere to have some privacy,” he said snidely, casting a side eye at the rest of the room. Light had left before nine in the morning, and he had been alone then. It was only noon, and in those few hours, the empty side of the room had exploded into a mess of books, papers, bags, boxes, and some sort of wrapper trash. He glared at the mess and spared Ryuzaki one final look before slamming the door on his way out.
“Can I eat –“ Ryuzaki had begun to ask, but Light was gone before he could finish, “- this cake?” He stared silently at the door for a moment. “Say nothing if yes,” he said to himself with a smile, and when the door did not budge, he had his answer.
~
Light stomped all the way to Thorndike Hall, where would have a couple of classes and had thus already familiarized himself with. He found an empty classroom where he could sit at a desk, plug in his laptop, and vent his frustration.
He had been looking forward to having no roommate. After his annoyance at being ignored over the summer, he decided to be happy that Ryuzaki had dropped contact. He should have known better than to be so hopeful.
He opened his laptop and found his word document. He was currently working on the outline for a short story that had been in his head for a few months. He wrote to escape reality and hone his writing skills – his dream, after all, was to become a great mystery writer one day.
Yagami Soichiro had been relieved to discover that Light took an interest in his investigative work, assuming that meant that his son was destined to follow in his footsteps and join the police force. Not so. Light was enraptured by mystery and intrigue, but he knew that real life could never be as good as the books he’d read. To his father’s great disappointment, Light wanted nothing more than to be an author.
That was why he chose to double major in forensics and psychology. He knew that, to write effectively, his knowledge had to be extensive in the subject. He also knew that if he was trained formally in writing, his style would become formulaic and bland. Best to avoid the creative writing department. But if he could uncover human nature and fully understand the human mind, he would be that much better at his art.
His mind was in a rage. This was unlike him, since he was usually very calm and collected. He chalked it up to the stress of having moved literally across the world in the past week and gave himself a pass.
Writing was his coping mechanism. Light thought up two figures, polar opposites, with vastly different intentions, both at odds with each other. He invented an argument and let the conversation flow free beneath his fingertips. It inevitably evolved to a fight, which took a life of its own. Soon, Light had no control of his thoughts and had written several pages of conflict.
From inside his pants pocket, Light felt the repeated buzzing of alerts on his phone. Sighing, he fished it out and read the messages. They were all from the roommate portal app, which he had been certain he deleted a while ago.
His lip curled in distaste to see that Ryuzaki had sent him two messages. He had to scroll up to the top of their conversation history (insomuch that it had been a conversation) to recall what he had said – after all, Light hadn’t opened the app for months.
Light: hey, i thought we should probably get to know each other before we end up moving into the dorms. here’s my number if you want to text me. ###-#### – 4:34pm May 3
Light: hello? – 10:52am May 5
Light: you still planning on rooming with me? – 3:13am June 7
Light: it’s almost time to make the room selections. do you mind which floor or building i choose? – 12:32pm July 4
Light: well, I chose for you, thanks for the input. - 10:30am July 5
Light: i’m just going to assume you’re not going to be rooming with me anymore. thanks for keeping me informed. - 1:55pm July 5
Ryuzaki: I am still going to room with you. I do not have a problem with the room you chose. - 12:15 am August 17
Incoming text message: As per your request, I have answered your questions from the previous summer. I do not like the user interface on the roommate portal app.
Incoming text message: This is Ryuzaki.
Incoming text message: When will you be back in the dorm?
Incoming text message: Where is your bedding?
Incoming text message: The cake was delicious. Where did you buy it?
Incoming text message: The cake is gone. When will you be back in the dorms?
He does not respond to these messages. Ryuzaki could put up with it for a few hours, or longer. It was a taste of his own medicine.
After several hours, Light rubbed his fatigued eyes and leaned back in his chair. His wrists, though closed in the braces, ached from the hours of fine movement.
He slipped his hands free of the confinement and massaged the aching tendons. It didn’t help, but he liked to imagine it did. He looked at his watch and sighed; it was probably time for him to get back to his dorm, unfortunately.