Chapter 7
It was a slow day at the bakery, being only a Wednesday afternoon, which was apparently the day of the week the fewest people had a hankering for sweets.
Light was slicing fruit. Misa was singing some silly song in her high-pitched voice in the front. He believed Rem was in the storerooms taking inventory, and Ryuk was behind him across the kitchen, dancing to whatever tune Misa sang. The water was running as he washed dishes, so Light had no idea how he even heard her from how far away he was.
After finishing slicing all of the strawberries, Light took the cutting board and scraped off the leafy tops into the trash bin near the sink. Ryuk turned when he heard the sound of the knife against the board, singing along with Misa’s tune, and dancing as he pointed a bony, long-nailed finger at Light. “I’m ready, yes I’m ready, and I hope that, baby, you’re ready too-o-o-.”
The action of flamboyantly pointing toward him tossed a generous amount of warm, soapy water in Light’s direction. He held up his hands, which still held the knife and cutting board, instinctively up to his face to shield his eyes from the soap. It soaked his sleeves.
“Ah, man, what’s the deal?” Light huffed. “Just for that, here, you’ve got more dishes.” He dumped the knife and board into the sink, glaring at the tall, gangly man.
Ryuk laughed, splashing more water on him. “You stink, man, why do you have to use all that product in your hair? Hyuk!”
“Oh, shut it, you’re just mad ‘cause I actually wash it!” Light reached into the sink, submerged his hand in the soapy water, and splashed as much as he could onto Ryuk, aiming for his hair. “You could do with a shower every now and then.”
Ryuk grimaced and shook his head furiously. It reminded Light of how a dog shakes after a bath. “You little shit!”
The older man paused in his efforts to dump a handful of suds on Light’s head when he suddenly grabbed Light’s wrist.
Because he was handling food and wearing gloves, Light hadn’t been wearing his wrist braces. Further, he found that doubling up on the gloves made him lose a lot of his dexterity and skill with his hands, so he’d just settled for keeping his sleeves down and wearing only one glove on each hand. With the water from the sink soaking through his sleeves and hands, the clear vinyl had become plastered to his skin.
Ryuk could clearly see the bold letters. Against Light’s best efforts, he pulled his wrist up to his eyes and examined them.
“Oh, man! You’ve got yourself a… Lindsay Lohan!” he laughed to himself. “Met your soulmate yet?”
Light jerked his wrist back to himself and cradled it in his hand as if it was injured. “That’s – that’s none of your business, Ryuk!”
“But come on, Light, I’m interested!”
“No, it’s private!” He pulled the gloves off, tossed them into the trash, and did his best to cover his wrist with his sleeves before triple-layering gloves onto his hand.
“O-o-oh, Light’s testy,” Ryuk went back to his dishes as Light stormed out of the kitchen.
There wasn’t any more prep work to be done, so Light decided to take a break and sit in the front of the shop with Misa. At least she was less irritating to him than Ryuk at the moment.
There was a customer in the front chatting with Misa, pointing out different pastries and confections in the glass.
“Hmm, I’m not sure, I’m stuck between the strawberry and the blueberry. Which one would you think I like more?” the man was smiling brightly at Misa, obviously trying his best to seem charming and charismatic. Light could see the nervousness in his posture. He was trying, and failing, to flirt.
“Oh, well, that depends on whether you like strawberry or blueberry better,” Misa responded flippantly. She twisted a lock of hair absently through her fingers, catching sight of Light standing off to the side and giving him a bright smile. She was about to say something when the customer piped up again.
“Well, yeah,” he laughed uncomfortably. “I guess I’m just to indecisive. One of each?”
Misa shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said, grabbing one of each and placing it into the bag. “Anything else for you?”
“Um, no, that should be fine.” He seemed quite dejected at Misa’s lack of interest. Light watched on in amusement.
Misa took the order to the register and began the check-out process. “Okay. Can I have a name for your order?”
“Uh, Byron.”
“Brian?” Misa did her best to look hard of hearing.
“No, Byron.”
“Ohh, my bad. I’ve got it now. Ryan.”
“No, no, my name’s Byron,” he repeated slowly, getting frustrated. Light stifled a smile.
Misa looked enlightened. “Ah! Bryant. Right, I’m sorry, I’m not the best with names.” She wrote it down on the bag, ignoring his protests at her having gotten his name wrong yet again. “Have a nice day!”
The man left with his head hung low and his tail between his legs.
“That was mean,” Light said, allowing himself to smile at the girl.
“But it was funny,” she said.
“True.”
“What are you doing up here? You don’t usually come to the front if you can avoid it.”
“Oh, well, Ryuk was being really irritating,” he excused. “I needed a break.”
He realized that Misa might get the wrong idea from him coming out to spend time with her. How were you supposed to make sure somebody knew you had no interest in them, while still being cordial? Misa’s method of being disrespectfully obtuse wouldn’t work – there’s only so many ways you can mishear Misa, after all, and further, Light had known her for about two weeks by now.
The rest of the shift passed without much of note.
~
Rem and Ryuk were closing the shop that evening, the other two employees having finished their shifts half an hour before. Ryuk was mopping the floor as Rem made sure everything was put away in the refrigerators and freezers.
“Light’s a riot,” Ryuk was saying. “I’m glad Naomi hired him and not that Poindexter she interviewed first.”
Rem hummed noncommittally.
“You don’t think so, huh?” Ryuk picked up on Rem’s hesitance. They had known each other for a very long time.
“I’m concerned about Misa.”
Ryuk laughed. He stood the mop up and leaned against it. “Ah, I see. Think he’s horning in on your girl?” They had known each other long enough, in fact, that Ryuk knew that she was deeply in love with Misa.
Rem nearly growled. “Misa’s horning in on him,” she said lowly. “And you know how persuasive she can be."
Laughing, he shook his head. “Nah, man. Light’s not that type of guy.”
“You also think he’s gay?”
That caused another laugh. “Hah! Maybe. But no, the reason I said that was because I’ve seen his soulmark,” he finished in a sing-song voice.
Rem narrowed her eyes in interest. “Is that so?”
“Yeah. It’s LL. Dunno who the hell that could be, but it’s not Misa, right? Unless she’s got a hidden name I don’t know about.”
Rem moved on from the refrigeration and began to put away the dry dishes. “No, she does not.”
“Then it’s all good, ain’t it? So long as Misa doesn’t have Light’s name on hers, they’re not going to be an issue.” It was uncommon but not unheard of to have a one-sided soulmark.
Shaking her head, she responded, “Misa doesn’t have a soulmark,” she revealed. This was confidential information and Ryuk did have a bit of a big mouth, but she knew he wasn’t going to tell anybody. “So she might not care. She’s a bit of a free spirit in that respect, if you haven’t noticed. Hell, I’m surprised she didn’t tell you that she’s markless yet.”
“Haven’t talked to her much,” he dismissed with a shrug. “Either way, even if Misa doesn’t care, Light certainly does. He’s all, ‘hey, that’s private!’ about the mark. You know, he usually wears braces over his wrists, cause that’s where it’s written.”
Rem thought quietly and did not respond.
“You know, we could always figure out who this ‘LL’ is,” Ryuk points out.
“And what good would that do? Not to be too blunt,” she said bluntly, “but I really don’t care about him or his soulmate.”
“No, think about it. Misa’s stubborn, but you don’t think she’s a homewrecker, do you?”
Rem shook her head. “Hmm, no. I’m sure she’d have more decency than that.”
“Exactly. We find this soulmate for Light, they get together and live happily ever after, and Misa will know he’s off limits.”
She eyed Ryuk approvingly. He might just have had the first good idea in his life.
~
Light was alone in the dorm one afternoon catching up on some much-needed sleep. He had bought earplugs, but after a while, his ears adjusted to the overall dampened sound and everything seemed just as loud as before. Perhaps the clicking of the keys was slightly less crisp, but they resounded in his skull enough to keep him tossing and turning.
Now that there was no Ryuzaki to keep him awake, Light slumbered peacefully. So immersed was he in his dreams that he did not wake when a sharp rap came from the door not once, not twice, but three times, each sounding more impatient than the last.
He did not wake when the door handle jiggled back and forth experimentally, or when a grumble of acceptance came from behind the door. He did not wake when the sound of metal on metal clackered through the dorm and the lock sprung loose.
Light only woke when a harsh, rasping voice called out, from amazingly close to him, “Light-o!”
He sat up with a start, his heart hammering erratically in his chest.
Ryuk stared at him with wide, excited eyes.
Light rubbed his, half convinced he was dreaming. “Um… what?”
His coworker laughed. “I was bored.”
“So you… broke into my dorm?”
“You didn’t answer the door!”
“I was sleeping! How did you even get my address, anyway?” He scrambled into a proper seated position, glad that he had fallen asleep before changing into any of his proper sleeping clothes.
“It’s on your employment form,” he said, as if that were obvious. “Naomi keeps them all locked in her desk.”
He narrowed his eyes. “That’s the important word, locked. It’s not exactly supposed to be public information.” Ryuk shrugged. “Hey, if you saw my address, you saw my phone number too. Why didn’t you just call me and ask to hang out?”
“Oh, well,” Ryuk said, trying to think up some excuse. He evidently found none, because he simply answered, “this is more fun.”
“Right.”
Ryuk surveyed Light’s dorm. Since he had finally gotten his shipment of things from his room, his side of the room was more homely. He had his comfortable minimalist bedding, a few of his most re-readable books, plenty of clothes, and a rug on the floor to keep his feet warm in the mornings, even though he always wore socks. Thinking of the rug, Light told Ryuk, “Go put your shoes by the door, I don’t want you tracking dirt everywhere.” Ryuk grumbled and complied.
“Damn,” he said, crossing back over to the other side of the room and settling himself in Light’s desk chair. “You don’t even take that arm thing off when you sleep?”
“I have a roommate, man,” Light scoffed, “one I don’t particularly like very much. Plus, it’s a good thing I don’t take it off, if you’re apparently going to be barging in at random times while I’m napping.”
Ryuk stared at his wrist a bit too long.
He continues, “Anyway, since you’re so curious, what about you? You have a soulmate yet?” He figured it was time to make Ryuk as uncomfortable as he was.
But his scrawny coworker did not seem uncomfortable in the slightest. Instead, he merely shrugged. “I don’t have one.”
“Really?”
“Nah. I do have this weird apple-shaped birthmark on my back - wanna see it?” He made a move as if he were about to turn around and remove his shirt.
“No, no, I do not want to see it,” Light insisted, holding his hands up.
Ryuk turned the topic of conversation back to Light. “So, you gonna tell me about your soulmark, then?”
“Why would I?” Light self-consciously rubbed his wrist braces. He felt overly-exposed.
“Because you know I saw it at work the other day.” Ryuk raised his eyebrows and smirked. “I saw that it was letters. Did you come to America to find your soulmate?”
Light was surprised by the sound reasoning on Ryuk’s part. He felt uncomfortable at being so seen. “No…” he argued unconvincingly. “Well, maybe. I mean, I came here for school. I wanted to get away from my parents, see a bit more of the world. It just so happens that I probably wouldn’t have found any ‘LL’ in Japan.”
It was refreshing, Light found, to talk about something so private in such an open way. It helped that Ryuk had no reservations about discussing soulmates, unlike everybody back in Japan. Light was surprised that he was slowly becoming more comfortable being so transparent. Was much of his anxiety about social propriety going away now that he wasn’t in the same culture? America being much more progressive must have been having an effect on him.
Their conversation devolved from soulmates rather quickly. They began to discuss their coworkers, the best recipes at the bakery. After that was exhausted, Ryuk’s face lit up in realization. “Oh!” he said. “I forgot, I brought my Switch. Wanna play some Mario Bros?”
Light, having never been the sort to play video games, hesitantly agreed. They hooked up the Switch to his laptop so the screen was large enough for them both to see it, detached the controllers, and queued up some childish racing game. Ryuk stressed the importance of choosing a good character to play as, but since Light had no reference for what was good and what wasn’t, he just chose the least obnoxious one, a small frog-like thing.
Light proceeded to lose every round of the race, growing more and more frustrated.
After about an hour, the doorknob jiggled and Ryuzaki entered. He had his head down, eyes glued to his phone, until he had closed the door and dropped his bag on the floor. Then, he noticed Ryuk. “Who’s this?”
Light was glad for the break from video games. This was probably the first time he was glad to see Ryuzaki. “Ah, hey, Ryuzaki. This is my coworker, Ryuk. Ryuk, this is my roommate.” He motioned back and forth between the two of them in introduction.
Ryuk grinned. “Hiya, Ryuzaki. Can I call you Zaki? Zak?”
Ryuzaki narrowed his eyes at the guest and shrunk in on himself as he sat on his bed. “You may not,” he said simply before turning his attention to Light. “I wish you had let me know we would have… company over.”
Light bristled at Ryuzaki’s short tone. “It’s my room, too,” he said defensively. “I don’t need permission to have friends over.”
Ryuzaki stared at him. “I would have appreciated a warning, though.”
It was reasonable enough, but Light was already irritated, first from constantly losing rounds in the game, and next by being spoken to so rudely. “Whatever,” he dismissed, turning back to Ryuk and ignoring his roommate.
~
L sat as far in his corner of the room as he could, huddled against his pillow on his bed and curling around his laptop.
He was quickly becoming nauseated. The smell of weed wafted over from the other side of the room; it gave him a headache and churned his stomach. He was glad he hadn’t had a chance yet to gorge himself on any of his sweets, because he was afraid that he might be hurling by now if he did.
He would have to talk to Light about maybe opening a window when Ryuk was over.
He tried not to focus too much on their conversation, but Ryuk had a very loud tone and it was hard to ignore what he was saying.
“Lindsay Lohan,” he said, to which Light tried in vain to hush him. “Lex Luther. Logan Lerman. Lucy Lawless. Lois Lane!”
“Lois Lane isn’t even real!” Light protested. “And anyways, shut up!”
L observed them quietly. It did not take much deduction to realize what they were talking about: Light’s soulmate. Though he hadn’t been especially concerned about it, L now had confirmation that he was Light’s soulmate, in addition to Light being his. Not that it mattered, of course, since Light was an asshole and there was no love lost between the two of them.
Just as L tried to focus on his current case, Ryuk addressed him. “What about you, Zak? Do you have a soulmate?” L made the mistake of looking up. He wondered briefly and in vain whether he could have pretended not to hear if he had kept his eyes down. “Any mark?”
L narrowed his eyes, keeping his expression clear. “I will never have a soulmate,” he said simply. Technically, it wasn’t a lie - he truly did believe he would never ‘have’ a soulmate - he would never ‘have’ Light Yagami as anything but an annoying roommate. “I have no interest in relationships.” That part was just flat truth.
Ryuk grumbled in disappointment and L went back to tuning them out.
After about another forty minutes, Ryuk finally left. Though he made no outward move, L felt that he relaxed once they were in private again.
“I didn’t know he was going to be here,” Light said after they had sat together in silence for a few moments.
“You let him in, didn’t you?” L was short and as nonchalant as he could be.
“No, actually; he picked the lock while I was asleep.”
L made a noncommittal noise. That wasn’t a great thing.
“Well,” Light sounded defensive, “why’s it such a big deal anyway?”
Feeling some discomfort grow again, L began to explain (because he still had hope that Light would begin to respect his wishes), “I, well, am not the best, around people, you know. And around… unexpected changes of plans.” He fidgeted with his feet. “I like to know what’s going to happen.”
“Well, uh, okay,” Light seemed understanding, to a point. “You know I’m gonna have a friend over now and then, right? You can’t say nobody can come to the dorm.”
“I wasn’t going to,” L explained. “And I apologize if I gave that impression. I just need to prepare myself for being around somebody. And if there is a situation like… the other night, I would really appreciate if you didn’t have a quest.” He was uncomfortable at the mention of his vulnerability the other night during his migraine.
“That’s reasonable,” Light conceded. After a pause, he asked, “What do you mean, prepare yourself?”
“Socializing takes a lot of my energy,” L said as if it should be obvious. “If I don’t properly plan to allocate energy beforehand, I become very quickly exhausted and irritable.”
“More irritable than normal, you mean?”
“Why, yes.”
“What about me?”
L looked at him. “What about you?”
“Don’t you need to ‘prepare yourself mentally’ to be around me, if socializing is so taxing?”
L considered this for a moment. “You are different,” he said simply.
“How? We’re not even friends.” Light seemed to regret the bluntness the moment he said it.
Trying not to flinch at the tone, L admitted, “You are the closest thing I have ever had to a friend.” He averted his eyes again. “You are rude and particular and prideful but I feel as comfortable around you as I think I can around a person.”
Light looked taken aback. “Oh. Um, well. I didn’t hurt your feelings when I said we weren't friends, did I?” He had the grace to look abashed.
“I have come to expect it from you.” L turns back to his laptop, effectively ending the conversation.