Chapter 6
The next morning, Ryuzaki was motionless underneath his blanket, save for the steady rise and fall of his shoulders as he slept. Light found himself standing in the doorway, eyes lingering on him for the briefest moment before he went off to class.
He couldn’t get his roommate out of his mind. He had no idea Ryuzaki suffered from migraines. He had even less of an idea why he cared so much. It bothered him greatly.
During his three classes of the day, Light occasionally felt the urge to text his roommate, but two thoughts stayed his hand. First, he might still be asleep, and it wouldn’t do to bother him with something so trivial as asking how he was. Second, it was none of Light’s business, really.
It was causing him a great deal of stress, caring about his roommate. He did not like it.
He managed to push it out of his mind long enough to pay attention in his classes.
When he went back to his dorm to change for work, he found Ryuzaki gone. There was no evidence left to indicate where he would have gone, and Light knew his routine well enough by now to know that he wasn’t in class at this particular hour. Had he gone to the university infirmary, perhaps? Light should have suggested that yesterday afternoon, in hindsight. Maybe they’d have been able to help him.
During his walk to work, he did some research into the physiological causes of migraines. He wasn’t overly familiar with biology, but he could understand enough to gather that it wasn’t entirely understood, even by experts. Migraines could potentially be triggered by stress or by stimuli. Light wondered if Ryuzaki knew what triggered his.
He looked into options to assuage the migraine symptoms. He read plenty of different tips – take a relaxing bath, take acetaminophen, take ibuprofen, drink caffeine (though never in conjunction with ibuprofen, as that somehow leads to vomiting?), go to sleep, use a cold or warm compress. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be one solid solution, though he could have hardly expected to find one.
His mind wandered the first few hours of work until he gave into the temptation to find Ryuzaki’s number in his message history and ask, Hey, Ryuzaki. Are you okay?
He pocketed his phone as he got to work kneading some dough for bread rolls, leaving them to proof near the oven, and mixing some icing for a special cake order that Rem was going to fulfill in the next hour or so. After a few minutes, he feels his phone buzz in his pocket and checks the notification.
Ryuzaki: Yes, I am fine.
Light was glad to hear that Ryuzaki was alive and well, but the brief response just made him more curious. Did he just recover after sleeping? Where had he gone? When would he be back?
However, he could tell that Ryuzaki’s response did not leave much room for further questioning, so Light decided not to risk incessant questions and being ignored. He put all of his energy into his work, ignoring Misa, conversing politely with Rem, and amusing Ryuk in his spare time.
On his way home, his phone rang. He answered it without checking the caller ID. “Hello?”
“Hey, Light! What’s up?”
“Oh, um,” he looked around, trying to find something in his environment to distract himself from the panic that struck. He found nothing but shady sidewalks and boring people. “I had a talk with Dad earlier today.”
“Oh.” She knew where this was going. “What did he say?”
“You need to mail me all the rest of that shit in my room,” he said spitefully. “Otherwise, I have to pay him to use the room as storage, apparently.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Oh, Light.”
“I just – how did I make such a mistake? Did they really think I just wanted to… leave? Never come home again? Is that why they thought I wanted to come to America?”
“I don’t know,” Sayu said quietly. “I really don’t think Mom had much of a say in what dad said. She wouldn’t have let him do that to you. I’m not gonna ship off your stuff, you’re not gonna be banned from coming home anymore. I promise, okay? I’ll talk to Mom and have her talk to Dad. They’ll sort it out.”
He shook his head. “No, no, Sayu, don’t get yourself involved in this, please.” He didn’t need his baby sister to stick up for him – never mind that he definitely wasn’t going to be doing it himself, certainly not to his dad.
“I’m not going to let Dad kick you out of the family just because you don’t want to become an officer like he is. It’s not fair. And I’m sick of him acting like you have to do exactly what he wants you to. And I certainly I won’t let him stop me from seeing you over breaks and holidays.”
“Don’t get in trouble,” he warned. He was close to tears, just thinking about his father’s disapproval of him. He knew Soichiro preferred Sayu anyway, but he wouldn’t be able to handle it if Sayu had to go through the same thing. He wasn’t an overly empathetic person – or at all empathetic, really – but the one person he truly, truly cared about was Sayu. He wouldn’t stand to see her get hurt. “You can talk to them, if you think you have to. But stop before he gets mad at you, too. Please?”
“If you insist,” she sighed. “I’m gonna go talk to Mom right now, actually. She’ll probably call you later.”
“Alright.” He said. He was nearing the dorms now. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
~
Watari’s hotel room was a twenty-minute drive from campus. L had called for a car to take him there once he woke up that morning; really, it was early afternoon, but who was counting? He felt much better after sleeping for several hours – nearly ten, if his estimation was correct, which was the longest he had ever slept in his life.
He ascended the elevator to Watari’s floor and it occurred to him that he should probably give his mentor a heads-up before his arrival. He dialed his quick access number on his cell phone.
“L?” came the immediate answer. “I haven’t heard from you since yesterday morning. Is everything alright?”
“Yes, Watari, I was wondering,” L said, trying to sound as casual as possible, so as not to worry him. “Are you currently in your hotel room? I would like to come over.”
“Yes, of course,” Watari answered. L hung up without another word, used his key card to scan into the room, and entered.
“Ryuzaki! Thank you for calling first,” Watari said with a chuckle. Then, he took in L’s face – slightly flushed, eyelids drooping, redness about his glassy eyes. “Oh, dear. You had another migraine.”
“Unfortunately so,” L shoved his hands into his pockets and sat gingerly on the sofa in the suite’s den area. “I apologize for being unable to inform you before or during. I did not feel it coming on until it was too late.”
Watari shook his head, going to his refrigerator and producing a small personal tub of chocolate ice cream. He handed it to L with a spoon, who graciously accepted the offering, and did his best to smile, though oddly, his facial muscles were sore. He figured it must have been from grimacing in pain the previous night. “Don’t worry yourself over that, son. Tell me about it.”
L complied, recounting his stressful day yesterday and the mess he had come home to. He spoke with a great amount of spite in his voice, seething in irritation at his roommate. His soulmate. He wanted to burn off the writing on his arm.
He allowed himself to wonder if Light had L’s initials on his arm. He had heard of cases where one person’s soulmate did not share the bond. Personally, he hoped that was the case between them. If only one of the pair had the markings, it was easier to ignore the issue. However, if Light had LL somewhere written on his body, that could lead to potential consequences.
As long as L made sure Light never discovered that he was, in fact, the famous detective, he should be safe. Even then, if by chance Light uncovers the truth (which was incredibly unlikely at a seven percent probability), he would have to then discover that L’s full name was L Lawliet, which was never going to happen, L would make sure of that. Further, there are bound to be others in the world with the initials LL – he would be able to convince Light, in his highly unlikely scenario, that he has no markings of the same nature, and that his soulmark must refer to somebody else. There was never a situation L could think of where Light would see any skin on his arm above his wrist.
All in all, L calculated, the likelihood of L being Light’s soulmate, in conjunction with Light being L’s, and then Light’s subsequent discovery of this was less than one percent. He was safe.
“Are you going to request a roommate transfer?”
L thought about it. “I don’t think I will,” he mused aloud. “It would be too much like losing.”
“Well, then,” Watari insisted, “you must at least set some ground rules. He cannot go kicking your things around, or slamming doors while you’re having a migraine, which I pray you won’t have again, but we must prepare for the worst. You will also keep these pills on hand.” He handed L a bottle of prescription-strength headache medicine. “It is the strongest stuff I could procure. Take one with water and you should be able to sleep it off without any pain or unpleasant dreams.”
“There is no way I could avoid the pain without sleeping?” L asked, inspecting the bottle’s warning that this medicine may cause drowsiness and that operating motor vehicles was inadvisable.
Watari gave him a pointed look. “You should sleep regularly.” He knew L wasn’t going to be doing that, but he would never give up on trying to get him into healthy sleeping habits.
L spent much of the day with Watari, leisurely going though cases and eating frozen sweets. Watari allowed this only because of his recent migraine; otherwise, he had to insist that L attend classes. He was beginning to wonder if his theory that taking a break and going to school would ease L’s stress was misguided, but he gave no mention of this suspicion, because it was only two weeks into the semester. There was still time yet for the break to take effect.
After a dinner of muffins and tea, L was driven back to his dorms. He paused before entering, knowing Light was likely to be back from his shift at work, and prepared himself for the boy’s glaring and snide remarks. They weren’t so bad when he was expecting them, so he made sure to steel himself against the inevitable onslaught of unpleasantry.
Light was dozing on his bed, laptop still open on his legs. He stirred with a start when the door opened. “Ryuzaki!”
“Good evening,” L said blandly, keeping a blank expression on his face despite his surprise at the greeting. He was not used to not being ignored.
“Where were you?” the boy asked, his eyes wide and curious. L narrowed his gaze onto him and tried to deduce his motivations for questioning. He was surprised enough from the text he had received earlier, but since there had been no further questioning, he pushed it to the back of his mind. He figured that, if Light cared enough, he would have asked more over text. Not so.
“Is it any concern of yours?” L took a seat in his desk chair. “If you must know, I was visiting with my grandfather.”
“Oh, that’s good. I, uh, wasn’t sure what to do about yesterday – you seemed so miserable, so as I was leaving work, I, uh, picked these up for you,” he reached down to produce a large plastic bag, walking it over to Ryuzaki. “I bought them new. They’re not the old ones like I usually bring home.”
L accepted the bag and inspected its contents curiously. There were several to-go boxes filled with a variety of sweets, which made his eyes widen with happiness that he tried to stifle. He was confused by this gesture.
Why was Light doing something like this? He had been so rude. He had been outright cruel. Why was he being… nice? Was there some caveat? Deep down, L was very glad to have been given the gift of sweets, but he dared not let this gladness show. He set the bag on the desk and stared at Light expectantly, waiting for an explanation.
He got none. Instead, Light backed away politely and cleared his throat. “So, uh, that migraine seemed pretty bad,” he said. “I have some ibuprofen in the bathroom if you ever need to take it. I’ve never seen you sleep so long, Ryuzaki, it was… kinda scary.”
“You were concerned for me?” Light looked away. “It is no matter. I have medicine. This should not happen again.”
“Oh, well, that’s good,” he replied awkwardly.
“There is no need for concern,” L continued. “There is no immediate risk of danger from the migraines. They are simply headaches, so you need not bother yourself with worrying.”
Light pursed his lips at L’s flat tone. Evidently, his gestures of kindness were not going to be appreciated. He straightened his posture. “Well, I had to be silent around my roommate all of a sudden, that’s the only reason why I’m a bit concerned.”
That, L understood. It was more in-line with the Light he knew. “I see. I do not sleep, which leads to stress and exhaustion, which culminates in a migraine that can only be vanquished by sleep.”
“Oh. Why don’t you just… sleep?”
“It is a waste of time.”
Light scoffed. “What’s so important that you cant spare time to sleep?” Light loved sleeping.
L shrugged, turned to his laptop, and ignored the question, waiting for Light to turn away so he could start enjoying the unsolicited sweets.
Thoroughly puzzled by Light’s change of character, L plunged deeply into another remarkably simple case – it was always remarkably simple cases, now, thanks to Watari – in a futile attempt to occupy his mind and purge his racing thoughts .
He could hardly believe that Light Yagami had been less than disdainful towards him. He was worried. That was incongruous with all that he had learned. It had taken L embarrassingly long to realize that Light carried contempt for him; now, something like this happens to throw that conclusion into doubt. Why was it never so simple to just know what the boy across the room was thinking? Why could L not understand his intentions?
With criminals, it was so easy. He could fathom the motives behind crimes. Greed, anger, jealousy, and even lust or love. L could understand love; he felt it for Watari and possibly his successors at the Wammy House. Love was not the same, however, as friendship.
He had tried to be Light’s friend. He had failed. What worried him most, however, was not knowing if it was his fault or Light’s – was Light truly just an asshole, inherently rude and unlikeable? Or was it L’s fault, had he messed up before anything could even begin? Was this just the way his life was meant to go?