(no subject)
The morning rituals are done and there's no place left to hide.
Light has had his coffee and cereal; has brushed his teeth and washed his face and combed his hair. Anton has been sent off to his morning classes with a perfunctory squeeze to the shoulder. He has done his stretches, has meditated for ten minutes with his face to the sun; has checked his e-mail, made the bed, has stood there studying the wall as if it could tell him what to do. There's a headache lingering on the edges of his temples like stormclouds on the horizon: he woke up with it pressing against the inside of his skull, the burgeoning knowledge of what he has to do. Of what he can't put off any longer.
A bit past ten fifteen, now, he sits on the edge of the bed. It'll be shortly past lunch over in Providence, then, which means that she will be doing the dishes. He'll be interrupting. Maybe he should wait.
He knows what he's doing, and with a little nasty twist of his face he grabs his cellphone from the bedside table. This has to end now. He wants to rip his own skin off for how much he can't stand being this person. He flips the phone open, fingers alighting so gently on the display.
Pressing buttons shouldn't be so ridiculously difficult.
It's just a phone call, just some numbers punched into a lump of plastic. If he could just be a bit stupider, a bit more oblivious to himself - if he could just be unaware that those thoughts are contrived self-talk. But he knows that in saying it's no big deal he's trying to rewrite the truth instead of acknowledging it, and so even as he tries to convince himself to just do it, his reluctance mounts. This, this is not just a phone call - it's the end of two years of silence, it's throwing himself headfirst into the most vulnerable position imaginable, and there's a voice saying: don't do it, just let it be, this will cause more trouble than it's worth.
Taking a deep breath, he seeks out the familiar pattern of buttons, then hits CALL too quickly to stop and reconsider. This is not who he is. He needs to know that this is not who he is. He's ready for this.
It takes a while for the receiver on the other end to be picked up, but he was expecting this. In his head, he imagines her hastily shutting off the water, taking off her rubber gloves and rushing across the kitchen to the nook to the phone. She has no idea who's calling. She'll have no warning of how he's about to shake her.
"Yagami family home." And yes, it's Sachiko, the voice so familiar - one he's known as close to his whole life as it gets - and Light takes a deep breath. How many times has he heard those exact words, in that exact same tone, said by that exact same is she still the same person? He had thought he was ready for this. Four seconds in, he's not so sure.
With effort, he manages: "Hello. I"
"... yes?" prompts Sachiko after a suitable silence in which to ascertain that he isn't going to continue.
I have to do this. I have to. "It's Light." It feels like the most difficult thing he's ever said, and it strikes him just how much those will-o'-the-wisp syllables mean. A name she didn't choose, an identity which will never be the one she wanted.
The ensuing silence seems to permeate Light's pores, choking him up until he barely dares to breathe for fear of disturbing the Arctic-snow-thick quietude. He has no right. He had no right. It occurs to him, what if she hung up?, and the thought is unbearable. He wants to say something, wants to ask if she's still there, but can't bring himself to because he's so terrified. If she did hang up, he doesn't know if he's going to be able to handle it. He doesn't know what he's going to do with the cold rejection, worthy of a stray dog shut out after midnight. He doesn't want to know. He can't bear this.
When at last he hears her voice again, his entire body slumps a little bit, the reaction so intense it sweeps through the whole of him. "What do you want?" she says.
In a way, the words are almost - almost - as bad as hanging up. Light opens his mouth, closes it again, trying to figure out what to say. I want to come home? As if. He'd hate himself if he were to utter those words right now, hate himself for their insensitive naivete. Like he would ever think he could just say I want to come home. "I don't know," he hears himself saying instead. "I don't want it to be like this."
"Don't you think," says Sachiko, "it's a little bit late to decide that?" Her tone is measured and tightly, tightly controlled, and Light can tell that she's just barely holding back tears.
"Since when has it been too late?" he asks. "A year after I left? A month? A week? The minute I set foot out that door? That's what I've been telling myself, that last one, all this time. I've picked up the phone and just put it down again so often because it's 'too late'. It's just - stupid. I don't want to, to not even try just because..."
Now, he can hear the quiet sound of her crying. Light's fist is clenched so tight in the sheets that his knuckles creak, and he takes a deep breath. "Mother," he whispers. She cries harder.
"Why now?" she manages brokenly.
"Because - because life's short and I've wasted too much time on petty anger already? Because I look back now at what happened and I think, it was all so stupid and I could have done things so much better? Because I" His voice breaks. "Because I miss you." He bites his index finger, clamping down hard on it with his teeth because this is difficult. This is so difficult.
"Light," she chokes out. "Light. Oh, Li are you all right?"
He nearly collapses in upon himself simply from the fact that she could even ask that. That she could even begin to still care. "I'm okay," he says hoarsely. "I've been doing okay. I go to class and I work and I play music, and I spend holidays at a friend's house and I haven't gotten into anything remotely dangerous. You" And the by-now familiar dread hits him, except this time it's heightened about ten times by the adrenaline, because the pending reality of the answer is pounding through his mind. "You're all okay, right? Nothing has happen"
"No," says Sachiko. He can hear her taking a few deep breaths. "No, we're all... we've all been..." Her voice almost dissolves into weeping again, but then she continues. In his mind's eye, Light can easily imagine her standing there, clasping a countertop edge or doorframe, forcing herself not to fall apart. "We've managed. Nothing bad has happened."
Swallowing hard, Light closes his eyes and tilts his head back, almost as if he's praying. "I worried," he says. "So much."
There's a burst of laughter from Sachiko, with the sharpness of an involuntary reaction born out of pain rather than humour. "You think you worried?"
"I" starts Light. He opens his eyes, and looks out the window. Somehow, despite how drastically his life has shifted in these moments, the view hasn't changed: the same stretching lawn, a distant road and grove of trees on the horizon, the paths sparsely-populated by the bare handful of students going about Sunday business. "I have my last exams, this week. After that, can I" God, he can barely bring himself to ask this. "Can I come..." Home, he wants to say. "Visit? We need to - I need to see you. Face-to-face. We can't do all of this over the phone."
And the words lie there on the line between them: 'all of this', a stark reminder of just how much there is yet to be said and done. All the obstacles still to overcome. Because this isn't forgiveness yet: no magic wand has been waved to carry every problem away. There's still all the ugliness, the bits which don't pan out like a lifetime movie. The recriminations and betrayals and bitter words of two years ago aren't courteous: they won't simply remove their presence because it would be easier. They can't be washed away even by the flood which sweeps over Light now, the flood so unexpected and beautiful it steals the air from his lungs - the fact that he and Sachiko, they do still love each other.
They do. He can know this. He can be as sure of it as he can ever be sure of anything. But no. No, it's not forgiveness, yet. It's just a chance at it.
So Sachiko's answer doesn't come immediately, because - and Light knows this - they're both busy thinking these things. In the hesitation lies everything which is yet to trouble them, like clouds heavy with monsoon rain. But Light can live with this, because after the thunder-portent silence she does speak. She says: "Yes. I need to... I need to see you." She says this and it means something he barely dared to dream of.
"It's going to be difficult," Light says, voice hushed as that of someone at the side of a deathbed. "And I need you to - to promise me that"
"Light, I don't..."
"Promise me that it won't end like last time, at least. Promise me we won't make those mistakes again."
"Promise me you'll try."
"I promise. I can't... I don't know if it will be enough for you." And, god, just saying those words punches through the heart of him like a wrecking ball through wet paper. There's an unbearably painful tightness behind his eyes and around his throat and he doesn't know how much longer he can go without crying.
"We won't make those mistakes again," Sachiko's voice says into his ear. How he wishes he could just see her. It all feels so removed and surreal, with everything happening through a piece of plastic held to the side of his head. He needs to touch her. He needs to feel her arms wrapped tight around his back, her forehead resting on his shoulder, her breath on his neck. He needs to smell the smell of her - a fresh, clean smell of soap mixed with the faint odour of the kitchen. A smell - and the physical closeness it indicated, by necessity of the odour's detectability - a smell which never quite spelled home and safety but which was the closest thing he ever let himself have. "Maybe we'll make different ones. But I'll try..." Her voice fades away for a second, as if it dried up, and then she says: "Light, are you still"
It only takes him a split second to understand what she's getting at. "Gay?"
There's silence and he can only guess that it's an affirmation. "Yes," he says. "I am." It sounds so stilted and insufficient, but what more can he say? This one thing he cannot make easier for her.
"I just," Sachiko sighs, voice catching. "I just wanted better for you."
Light struggles with the words which tangle on the tip of his tongue, trying to puzzle out how to convey this. "I know," he says finally. It tastes like anesthetic and his mouth feels heavy and numb. He stares at the wall and does not see it. "Have you told Sayu?"
"About?" Her willingness to let the other subject rest is a tactful, but not accepting, blind eye which he knows now he'll have to live with forever.
"That I was adopted."
There's a brief pause. "No," she says. Light looks up at the ceiling.
"You probably should."
"I don't think she has to"
"She should know. At the least, I'm not going to lie to her."
There's a longer pause. "All right," she says at last. Then repeats it, in a trembling whisper: "All right."
The elbow of the arm Light has braced on the mattress is shaking ever so slightly. "I can come - I can take any time off work. I have sick days to spare, and if I say it's family business they'll understand."
"When's your last exam?"
"Thursday."
"Come on Saturday, then. That'll be best."
"All right. I'll do that."
"How do I" says Sachiko. "How do we reach you? Before then."
Light tells her his cellphone number. It feels unbelievably mundane. Then he realizes he has no idea how to end this call. "I," he says. "Saturday, then." There are, all of a sudden, a million things he wants to ask. About Sayu, and Soichirou, and everything. Questions clamour like a riot inside his head. But there will be time for that later. There will be time: this door is open again. So instead says: "I love you."
"I love you too." Her voice is ragged - she is crying again.
"Goodbye," says Light, as gently as he can. "I'm" He stops himself from apologizing. He is saving that for later. "I'll see you soon. You, and Sayu, and father."
"Yes," whispers Sachiko. "I'm - I'm glad. That you phoned. I had thought that maybe..." He can almost hear her thoughts, hear her admonition to herself to stop rambling. "Goodbye, Light."
It's over. He waits to hear the click of the phone being set down on her end, then takes his own away from his ear and flips it shut. He sets it on the bedside table, and then looks down at his hands like a man finding himself lost. It's over. These hands are still his own, and it's over.
Light falls backward onto the bed, utterly boneless. He wonders if he's ever felt this sapped of energy before in his life. He listens to his breathing and stares at space. So much space. I love you, she had said, and he knows what that means. He knows that it means the truth, that she loves him; and he knows that it means that she loves him even though she wanted something better.
I wanted something better for you. Didn't they all? he asks himself. There's no such thing as perfection - that boy had been a lie. The early summer morning sun falls over Light through the window, warming his belly and face. Here he is, someone for whom she wanted better: and two years later, he cannot change what she wanted, nor the womb from which he came and the person he grew into. When they're gathered together again, the four of them, they won't be the same people they used to be. They cannot live in that world. They cannot turn back time.
But in this newborn future, surely they can learn to live with what they've got.
Light has had his coffee and cereal; has brushed his teeth and washed his face and combed his hair. Anton has been sent off to his morning classes with a perfunctory squeeze to the shoulder. He has done his stretches, has meditated for ten minutes with his face to the sun; has checked his e-mail, made the bed, has stood there studying the wall as if it could tell him what to do. There's a headache lingering on the edges of his temples like stormclouds on the horizon: he woke up with it pressing against the inside of his skull, the burgeoning knowledge of what he has to do. Of what he can't put off any longer.
A bit past ten fifteen, now, he sits on the edge of the bed. It'll be shortly past lunch over in Providence, then, which means that she will be doing the dishes. He'll be interrupting. Maybe he should wait.
He knows what he's doing, and with a little nasty twist of his face he grabs his cellphone from the bedside table. This has to end now. He wants to rip his own skin off for how much he can't stand being this person. He flips the phone open, fingers alighting so gently on the display.
Pressing buttons shouldn't be so ridiculously difficult.
It's just a phone call, just some numbers punched into a lump of plastic. If he could just be a bit stupider, a bit more oblivious to himself - if he could just be unaware that those thoughts are contrived self-talk. But he knows that in saying it's no big deal he's trying to rewrite the truth instead of acknowledging it, and so even as he tries to convince himself to just do it, his reluctance mounts. This, this is not just a phone call - it's the end of two years of silence, it's throwing himself headfirst into the most vulnerable position imaginable, and there's a voice saying: don't do it, just let it be, this will cause more trouble than it's worth.
Taking a deep breath, he seeks out the familiar pattern of buttons, then hits CALL too quickly to stop and reconsider. This is not who he is. He needs to know that this is not who he is. He's ready for this.
It takes a while for the receiver on the other end to be picked up, but he was expecting this. In his head, he imagines her hastily shutting off the water, taking off her rubber gloves and rushing across the kitchen to the nook to the phone. She has no idea who's calling. She'll have no warning of how he's about to shake her.
"Yagami family home." And yes, it's Sachiko, the voice so familiar - one he's known as close to his whole life as it gets - and Light takes a deep breath. How many times has he heard those exact words, in that exact same tone, said by that exact same is she still the same person? He had thought he was ready for this. Four seconds in, he's not so sure.
With effort, he manages: "Hello. I"
"... yes?" prompts Sachiko after a suitable silence in which to ascertain that he isn't going to continue.
I have to do this. I have to. "It's Light." It feels like the most difficult thing he's ever said, and it strikes him just how much those will-o'-the-wisp syllables mean. A name she didn't choose, an identity which will never be the one she wanted.
The ensuing silence seems to permeate Light's pores, choking him up until he barely dares to breathe for fear of disturbing the Arctic-snow-thick quietude. He has no right. He had no right. It occurs to him, what if she hung up?, and the thought is unbearable. He wants to say something, wants to ask if she's still there, but can't bring himself to because he's so terrified. If she did hang up, he doesn't know if he's going to be able to handle it. He doesn't know what he's going to do with the cold rejection, worthy of a stray dog shut out after midnight. He doesn't want to know. He can't bear this.
When at last he hears her voice again, his entire body slumps a little bit, the reaction so intense it sweeps through the whole of him. "What do you want?" she says.
In a way, the words are almost - almost - as bad as hanging up. Light opens his mouth, closes it again, trying to figure out what to say. I want to come home? As if. He'd hate himself if he were to utter those words right now, hate himself for their insensitive naivete. Like he would ever think he could just say I want to come home. "I don't know," he hears himself saying instead. "I don't want it to be like this."
"Don't you think," says Sachiko, "it's a little bit late to decide that?" Her tone is measured and tightly, tightly controlled, and Light can tell that she's just barely holding back tears.
"Since when has it been too late?" he asks. "A year after I left? A month? A week? The minute I set foot out that door? That's what I've been telling myself, that last one, all this time. I've picked up the phone and just put it down again so often because it's 'too late'. It's just - stupid. I don't want to, to not even try just because..."
Now, he can hear the quiet sound of her crying. Light's fist is clenched so tight in the sheets that his knuckles creak, and he takes a deep breath. "Mother," he whispers. She cries harder.
"Why now?" she manages brokenly.
"Because - because life's short and I've wasted too much time on petty anger already? Because I look back now at what happened and I think, it was all so stupid and I could have done things so much better? Because I" His voice breaks. "Because I miss you." He bites his index finger, clamping down hard on it with his teeth because this is difficult. This is so difficult.
"Light," she chokes out. "Light. Oh, Li are you all right?"
He nearly collapses in upon himself simply from the fact that she could even ask that. That she could even begin to still care. "I'm okay," he says hoarsely. "I've been doing okay. I go to class and I work and I play music, and I spend holidays at a friend's house and I haven't gotten into anything remotely dangerous. You" And the by-now familiar dread hits him, except this time it's heightened about ten times by the adrenaline, because the pending reality of the answer is pounding through his mind. "You're all okay, right? Nothing has happen"
"No," says Sachiko. He can hear her taking a few deep breaths. "No, we're all... we've all been..." Her voice almost dissolves into weeping again, but then she continues. In his mind's eye, Light can easily imagine her standing there, clasping a countertop edge or doorframe, forcing herself not to fall apart. "We've managed. Nothing bad has happened."
Swallowing hard, Light closes his eyes and tilts his head back, almost as if he's praying. "I worried," he says. "So much."
There's a burst of laughter from Sachiko, with the sharpness of an involuntary reaction born out of pain rather than humour. "You think you worried?"
"I" starts Light. He opens his eyes, and looks out the window. Somehow, despite how drastically his life has shifted in these moments, the view hasn't changed: the same stretching lawn, a distant road and grove of trees on the horizon, the paths sparsely-populated by the bare handful of students going about Sunday business. "I have my last exams, this week. After that, can I" God, he can barely bring himself to ask this. "Can I come..." Home, he wants to say. "Visit? We need to - I need to see you. Face-to-face. We can't do all of this over the phone."
And the words lie there on the line between them: 'all of this', a stark reminder of just how much there is yet to be said and done. All the obstacles still to overcome. Because this isn't forgiveness yet: no magic wand has been waved to carry every problem away. There's still all the ugliness, the bits which don't pan out like a lifetime movie. The recriminations and betrayals and bitter words of two years ago aren't courteous: they won't simply remove their presence because it would be easier. They can't be washed away even by the flood which sweeps over Light now, the flood so unexpected and beautiful it steals the air from his lungs - the fact that he and Sachiko, they do still love each other.
They do. He can know this. He can be as sure of it as he can ever be sure of anything. But no. No, it's not forgiveness, yet. It's just a chance at it.
So Sachiko's answer doesn't come immediately, because - and Light knows this - they're both busy thinking these things. In the hesitation lies everything which is yet to trouble them, like clouds heavy with monsoon rain. But Light can live with this, because after the thunder-portent silence she does speak. She says: "Yes. I need to... I need to see you." She says this and it means something he barely dared to dream of.
"It's going to be difficult," Light says, voice hushed as that of someone at the side of a deathbed. "And I need you to - to promise me that"
"Light, I don't..."
"Promise me that it won't end like last time, at least. Promise me we won't make those mistakes again."
"Promise me you'll try."
"I promise. I can't... I don't know if it will be enough for you." And, god, just saying those words punches through the heart of him like a wrecking ball through wet paper. There's an unbearably painful tightness behind his eyes and around his throat and he doesn't know how much longer he can go without crying.
"We won't make those mistakes again," Sachiko's voice says into his ear. How he wishes he could just see her. It all feels so removed and surreal, with everything happening through a piece of plastic held to the side of his head. He needs to touch her. He needs to feel her arms wrapped tight around his back, her forehead resting on his shoulder, her breath on his neck. He needs to smell the smell of her - a fresh, clean smell of soap mixed with the faint odour of the kitchen. A smell - and the physical closeness it indicated, by necessity of the odour's detectability - a smell which never quite spelled home and safety but which was the closest thing he ever let himself have. "Maybe we'll make different ones. But I'll try..." Her voice fades away for a second, as if it dried up, and then she says: "Light, are you still"
It only takes him a split second to understand what she's getting at. "Gay?"
There's silence and he can only guess that it's an affirmation. "Yes," he says. "I am." It sounds so stilted and insufficient, but what more can he say? This one thing he cannot make easier for her.
"I just," Sachiko sighs, voice catching. "I just wanted better for you."
Light struggles with the words which tangle on the tip of his tongue, trying to puzzle out how to convey this. "I know," he says finally. It tastes like anesthetic and his mouth feels heavy and numb. He stares at the wall and does not see it. "Have you told Sayu?"
"About?" Her willingness to let the other subject rest is a tactful, but not accepting, blind eye which he knows now he'll have to live with forever.
"That I was adopted."
There's a brief pause. "No," she says. Light looks up at the ceiling.
"You probably should."
"I don't think she has to"
"She should know. At the least, I'm not going to lie to her."
There's a longer pause. "All right," she says at last. Then repeats it, in a trembling whisper: "All right."
The elbow of the arm Light has braced on the mattress is shaking ever so slightly. "I can come - I can take any time off work. I have sick days to spare, and if I say it's family business they'll understand."
"When's your last exam?"
"Thursday."
"Come on Saturday, then. That'll be best."
"All right. I'll do that."
"How do I" says Sachiko. "How do we reach you? Before then."
Light tells her his cellphone number. It feels unbelievably mundane. Then he realizes he has no idea how to end this call. "I," he says. "Saturday, then." There are, all of a sudden, a million things he wants to ask. About Sayu, and Soichirou, and everything. Questions clamour like a riot inside his head. But there will be time for that later. There will be time: this door is open again. So instead says: "I love you."
"I love you too." Her voice is ragged - she is crying again.
"Goodbye," says Light, as gently as he can. "I'm" He stops himself from apologizing. He is saving that for later. "I'll see you soon. You, and Sayu, and father."
"Yes," whispers Sachiko. "I'm - I'm glad. That you phoned. I had thought that maybe..." He can almost hear her thoughts, hear her admonition to herself to stop rambling. "Goodbye, Light."
It's over. He waits to hear the click of the phone being set down on her end, then takes his own away from his ear and flips it shut. He sets it on the bedside table, and then looks down at his hands like a man finding himself lost. It's over. These hands are still his own, and it's over.
Light falls backward onto the bed, utterly boneless. He wonders if he's ever felt this sapped of energy before in his life. He listens to his breathing and stares at space. So much space. I love you, she had said, and he knows what that means. He knows that it means the truth, that she loves him; and he knows that it means that she loves him even though she wanted something better.
I wanted something better for you. Didn't they all? he asks himself. There's no such thing as perfection - that boy had been a lie. The early summer morning sun falls over Light through the window, warming his belly and face. Here he is, someone for whom she wanted better: and two years later, he cannot change what she wanted, nor the womb from which he came and the person he grew into. When they're gathered together again, the four of them, they won't be the same people they used to be. They cannot live in that world. They cannot turn back time.
But in this newborn future, surely they can learn to live with what they've got.