[private] she pulls me down just as i'm trying to hide, grabs me by the hair and drags me outside

[curtainwizard]

[It's the fish room. Light is sitting on one of the floating couches, his face shadowed - well, more shadowed than usual - and still. The tiny, colourful fish are swimming in front of him and behind him, but he isn't paying attention to them

Comments

[cipherhood]

-Light enters on silent feet, not announcing his presence, coming to a halt a few steps into the room and regarding the back of his double's head.

It's a minute or so before he finally speaks.-

You know, I wanted to become a marine biologist, once, when I was seven or so.

[curtainwizard]

[He doesn't jump. He's too preoccupied with everything else to jump. Though he does turn round, to make sure it's the same alternate he thinks it is.]

Marine biology? Really?

[cipherhood]

-He shrugs.-

I was seven. Fishes and sea urchins and anemones and coral all seemed very fascinating. -He comes around the couch as he speaks, and takes a seat next to his double.- You never had any off-the-wall career ambitions when you were a child?

[curtainwizard]

[Straightening from where his head had been resting on one hand, pulling it all back into place, he watches the fish fly between the bookshelves and lamps.]

My mother brought me some fish, once. They died. As fish do.

[Sayu had eaten at least one of them, but he doesn't bring that up.]

I never went in for marine biology, but I remember wanting to be a helicopter. I think I would have been... three? Or four, perhaps. I always knew what I was supposed to do.

[Actually, he remembers wondering if he'd be a god one day from the moment he learned the meaning of his name.]

[cipherhood]

A helicopter, huh.

It's strange to think back, now, to being a child...

-He falls into a ruminating silence, but only allows him a few seconds of self-indulgent pensiveness.-

I hope you don't object to my interruption of your contemplation.

[curtainwizard]

[He's not thrilled by your presence, but on the other hand, he's been sharply reminded just how bad bad can be. And having someone else around provides a focus for his - attenuated? - attention.

He watches the multiplication tables, trailing in front of him, numbers and symbols bouncing off fish.]

It wasn't terribly productive.

[He throws a sideways question, to see if he can surprise you.]

When were you a child, anyway?

[cipherhood]

I would say until about seven years ago. -He looks over with a smile, which could almost pass as genuine.- I had a fairly normal life, really, until I turned eighteen. Depressingly normal, even. I'm sure you understand.

[curtainwizard]

[Light looks back at you: he's not smiling.]

Eighteen?

[He remembers you mentioning this before, how your timeline seems to be a year ahead of his.]

I wouldn't describe my old life as depressing. Just ... disappointing.

[cipherhood]

Eighteen. A sort of coming-of-age, shall we say.

They are vaguely synonymous, I suppose. -He leans back, locking his arms behind his head.-

... would you say that your life as Kira was, ultimately, also disappointing? -Surprisingly enough, he sounds genuinely - almost innocently, at least as close as he gets to it - curious, rather than taunting and antagonistic.-

[curtainwizard]

[Various associations with the term "coming-of-age" flit through his head: that you were two years early, for a start; wearing adulthood like formal clothes; the giving of gifts.]

Hardly synonymous. Facing reality doesn't have to lead to defeat.

[This time, he speaks it first. Now the expression breaks: ever such a quiet little smirk.]

And always we come back to this. Don't you have any new material?

[cipherhood]

Depressing does not mean defeated, either. -There's a hint of something in Light's tone, like he's making some kind of an obscure insinuation.-

-But Light shakes his head.- No, no. I honestly want to know, not out of cruelty or contempt. I want to... -He trails off in an incomplete way which suggests he's grappling with a concept which he can't, quite, articulate verbally.-

[curtainwizard]

They seem the same to me. There's no reason to be depressed, after all, until there's no way out left to take.

[He gives you that ever-so-slightly disappointed face again: oh, please.]

You want to know. Yes, I'm sure you do want to know about me. You've told me more than once, what was it? "You're everything I have to destroy?"

[cipherhood]

But there was no way out. At least, it didn't seem that way. No way out of your stupid, pointless, irrelevant life. -There's a curious intentness to the way Light is studying a double, almost an urgency.- No way out of the hateful, rotten world. -And what's the way you're taking out, here and now, then? he asks - not strong or obvious enough that his double will actually recognize it as telepathy, but just as a little echo, a faint itching suggestion of a thought.-

Ah, yes. It's true, I did say that you're everything I have to destroy.

-Light pauses, letting the silence hang for just long enough.-

And everything I have to fix.

[curtainwizard]

Ah, but I did find a way out. There's always one, if you look hard enough for it.

[His voice is soft, but not gentle - more determined, insistent, like a gale blowing from two rooms inside. But he does glance sideways, for a second, as if he's ... thinking about something.

His smirk broadens, as you carry on: he's wearing it like platemail, dazzling.]

If I ever need help, I'm sure you'll be the first one I call.

[cipherhood]

Who will you call?

[curtainwizard]

[He sits back, before replying.]

You must know the answer to that one already.