Death Note Fan Fiction ❯ Champagne Petals ❯ Chapter Two ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer: Not mine.

* * *
- Two -
* * *

Two minutes after writing down Lind L. Taylor's name, she's screaming invective into a pillow, and a minute after that, she looks up at Ryuk and laughs softly, breathless and wild-eyed, flushed with exertion and practically vibrating from the force of the adrenaline rush. "That was really good," she says, and her smile is luminous, all razor edges and brightness enough to sear the skies to flame. "This is gonna be really fun."

It is.

* * *

Stalker, she thinks, glancing back over her shoulder, and the thought is terrifying in an instinctive way, because she won't risk losing any years off her lifespan but she doesn't know his name and can't really see his face and her parents never gave her those self-defense lessons and book-knowledge only goes so far--

Pause. Breathe. Think. She's a Kira suspect and L is brazenly bold, and if he's watching then she's safe. That has to be it. That has to be.

She bites her lip hard as she walks home, a little stiff, a little unnatural, because everyone knows you're supposed to stay in lighted places, go where there are people, and this is why she has to change things, this is why she has to take justice in her own hands because otherwise more people will feel this way, and she's got a little sister who's going to be gorgeous when she grows up, cute and sweet and pretty, so unlike everything that she is, all soft edges to her own velvet-lined steel, and she has to protect her too, because that's what you do, you protect what's yours even if you don't know why it it is or what you're supposed to do with it, that's what her mother would do.

Her father might think he protects the family, because he's the provider, because that's what is expected of him, and she doesn't know why her mother insists on keeping it quiet that she is the one who would kill for them with her bare hands, who sat down with the two of them and quietly told them exactly where to strike if boys got too fresh, and even if she can't understand it, why she plays along with such a demeaning stereotype, she can at least understand what it means.

She doesn't quite notice when the stiff-legged march slides into a stalk, when her mouth curls down into a savage snarl, but she does cast a sharp glance up at her shinigami as he starts to laugh. She can't and shouldn't say anything out loud, so she tilts her chin up and mouths the words, resolute in the stillness of the evening.

She is going to kill this one, and she is going to make it hurt.

* * *

She borrows a too-small top from her little sister, lets her mother help her with her hair, and giggles just enough that they're giggling too, promises pictures of the so-cute and so-bright boy that she's chosen for her date, and stays perfectly still as her mother dusts her lashes with a hint of glitter, a holdover from her days of dating their father, and she and Sayu pester her with questions and squeal at the answers, and she's wearing sweet perfume and tight jeans and soft pale lipstick as she walks out the door to kill a dozen FBI agents.

A brief stop at a set of public lockers has her shrugged into an oversized hoodie with a radio in the pocket, and she makes sure to blow Ray Penber a kiss as he dies.

She leaves the train two stops later, tucks the evidence in her oversized purse, dumps the hoodie in an alley and greets Kyoshi with the softest of smiles. She spends an afternoon getting indulged in her favorite sweets and pretty jewelry with clever locks and hiding places, meant for a sweetheart's photo and destined for a scrap of the Death Note, and when he asks her to the hotel that she's been discreetly suggesting for the last hour, she smiles sweetly and says "Let me call and tell my mother I'll be out with friends tonight," and darts away into the crowd.

Both Sayu and her mother approve of the photos she's taken on her phone, but are appropriately mock-scandalized when she tells them about the hotel, and she rolls her eyes and tells Sayu that no, it doesn't matter how cute he is, she doesn't like boys who presume things, and no, she will not be calling on him again.

She makes sure to cry into her pillow a little bit, just in case.

* * *

There's a pretty dark-haired liar right in front of her, and Light eyes the appealing curve of her thighs beneath the leather and spins her lies even sweeter, because it's human instinct to trust girls more, whether because of solidarity or stupidity or both, and she doesn't think she could take this one down, not unarmed, not when she's still this young and so completely untrained.

She's never needed strength, but need and want are very different things, and so she falls back on what she knows, soft and sincere appeals and keeping her eyes a little bit wider than usual, and so it's not that hard, really, because she's layering truth with lies and the woman is clearly in mourning, clearly not thinking straight, and she thinks that a man so easy to kill was no match for this one, but then again, love makes people stupid, so she might as well let her know, just because in another world...

The look on Naomi Misora's face is slow-dawning horror, and she knows she ought to be amused, but it stings, just a little, to watch her go.

* * *

Sixty-four cameras make for what is possibly the highest compliment she's ever received. It's also completely infuriating, but mostly she's just flattered.

Ryuk just doesn't understand these things, even when she's explained them. Maybe it's a human thing, or maybe it's just because Ryuk is the closest thing that there is in his species that's like a boy.

Light pauses. Considers. Speaks.

"...Ryuk. You pervert."

* * *

Feedback?

Chapter Three
Back to Death Note Fic
Back to Fanfics
Back Home