WEEK #7 - HIGUCHI
Title: The Unforgivable Sins
Rating: T - language, sexuality
Pairings/Characters: Rem/Higuchi, Misa
Summary: The Shinigami Rem and Kyosuke Higuchi both want something that steers them on the path to their own damnations. But the things that they desire could not be more different.
Rem, she doesn't breathe - at least, she doesn't have to. Shinigami have evolved beyond the vital functions that creatures such as these humans find necessary; maybe she's able to do it because she is living off of that very human life anyhow. The technicalities of her existence have never been a great concern. Rem knows what she is and she knows what she does and she knows what she doesn't do. So she doesn't breathe here at the penthouse of the human that she is haunting.
She doesn't breathe because that human has had the curtains pulled over closed windows for weeks. Higuchi Kyosuke keeps the room locked and hidden as though the silky black drapes will hide him from his sins and salvation will come to him if no one sees. But curtains don't protect this mortal from the eyes of a God. Rem's eyes are precise and meticulous and she sees as he jots names in her Death Note while he gets drunk every night, smoking cigars until the room is foul, everything in it is a rotten foul mess and Rem, she can't be blamed for not breathing.
"Don't gimme that condescending look." Higuchi sees Rem staring and he snaps as he pours himself another full glass of wine. The bottle is half gone and Rem has learned quite quickly what that means for the man. "You're a Shinigami. What do you care if I kill a few rival corporates?"
"I never said I cared who you killed," Rem answers smoothly without moving. She looms like a shadow at the side of his thick desk.
Higuchi scoffs, flashing his yellowed teeth in an ironic grin. "The hell kind of God are you supposed to be, anyway? It's even more weird that you say that."
"What are you expecting me to say?"
"That I'll answer for my crimes in Hell, or some other mumbo-jumbo bullshit." He taps his ballpoint pen against his desk in contemplation, but the look on his face is not fear nor is it irritation, it is simply a mild curiosity as if he is trying to piece together the puzzle that eludes him. "That I'll be punished. That I have everything to fear for when my golden day finally ends."
She pauses, and though she was quick to tell a Shinigami's wisdom to her last possessor, she finds no desire to offer Higuchi the same connection. "Another Shinigami once told me that when a human uses a Death Note, he is destined to an unhappy life."
"An unhappy life?" Higuchi raises his eyebrows and peers at her from narrow eyes, and he tilts his head back so that they rest on the broadness of his cheekbones. "Having something with this kind of power is supposed to make us unhappy?"
The scornful disbelief that confronts Rem might have surprised her at the beginning, but she could only expect such an answer from this detestable creature. "I do not know for certain if it is true, because no human has ever used my Death Note before."
He brings his wine to his lips, swallowing in loud gulps and glancing habitually at his television, which buzzes softly across from his desk. Then he curls a hand under his chin and rests the elbow on the armrest of his chair, swirling it to Rem again. "You've had the Death Note all your life, right, Rem? Are you unhappy?"
This question does surprise her, and she does not respond right away. She closes her mouth, gnashing her fangs together, and she doesn't know how to evaluate her own happiness to him. Certainly not in a way that this human - maybe any human - could possibly comprehend. Human mouths, well, Misa's mouth, it is so capable of sliding into a smile. Human eyes aren't glazed and stony, they are bright, and Misa's sparkle like her sun above her. But the Shinigami world doesn't have a sun, and Shinigami aren't meant to radiate.
Rem would like to be happy, she thinks silently. Even Higuchi looks happy, despite the tales that the Death Gods tell about humans while they gather in circles to gamble because there is nothing better to do. He's happy as he basks in his slime and stench, he's happy as he keeps one eye on the news station to check for a new criminal to kill so he can have all appearances of being Kira. He's happy for no reason, it seems, other than he can. And Rem's the one who can't comprehend.
"Of course you're happy," Higuchi concludes when Rem says nothing. "You're a god! You live forever, you can kill whoever the hell you want, and you can even walk through walls!" The proclamation makes him shake his head and mutter a curse of admiration. "Fuckin' shit..."
"Humans and Shinigami are not the same," Rem says tersely. She wants him to know that these things don't make her happy, after all, why would they? What did immortality have to do with happiness? All that killing does is extend her immortality. Her invisibility that gives her the capability to walk through walls only went hand-in-hand with the fact that on this realm, no human could even see her unless they touched her notebook.
She may be a God, she thinks, but the truth is that she is closer to Nothingness than Higuchi is today, even as Rem can read off his ticking lifespan.
"Damn straight we aren't the same," Higuchi growls. "What I wouldn't give to be you, Rem. God, you could rule the world if you wanted to!"
There is nothing that she wants to say to this and she retreats, stepping away from the smell of alcohol - it seems that she has been breathing without realizing it, and the taste burns in her tongue with bitterness.
"Maybe you just don't realize it, Rem!" he calls as she steps away. "I mean, look here a second!"
Despite herself, Rem turns, and Higuchi points at his television with a crooked finger.
"That's a news reporter talking now. Her name is Watanabe Mari." He lowers his pen to the open page of the Death Note. "Look, I hate her dress. It makes her look fat. Not that I really give a rat's ass about that sort of thing, but look what I can do for no reason other than I feel like it. A couple kanji..."
And she's dead in forty seconds. Rem knows this already.
Higuchi settles back into his chair proudly, stretching his arms above his mane of brown hair and yawns loudly, releasing another puff of stained breath.
Rem watches this revolting piece of human trash, he is despicable and she herself selected him to be a pawn in Light's game. Light, she thinks, may not love Misa, but he's got it right. There are humans who are better off in Nothingness. There are humans whose names should have a page in the Death Note. There are humans who Rem might enjoy putting to death, she might enjoy their still bodies that can't breathe out ugly air anymore, she might be happy that they won't stink up Misa's world.
Never had she thought such a thing before and Rem knows that her mind is treading on very dangerous ground.
"So power is all that you care about," she says humorlessly as Watanabe Mari's name and lifespan disappear from the screen and the broadcast is cut. The television hums in a gray fuzz, empty and dead and perhaps it is sad, too.
Higuchi looks at her sharply, not quite offended but he wants to make something very clear. "You're not going to find a human who doesn't want power, hell, blame it on the survival instincts that maybe your kind doesn't have. Once you have power, all the other important things can come after, can't they? And you'll have a much easier time getting them if you're powerful, too."
"Like love?"
He blinks, taken aback, and then lowers his arms until they are crossed at his chest. Rem wonders for a moment if she spoke in the correct human language because he seems to not understand, but then he nods. "Sure, like love. Everyone loves the powerful guy. How can they not?"
"And for you?" Rem presses. "Will you love them back?"
"Yeah, Rem. One day, I think I'll get married." He reaches for the remote control device that switches his television channels and he presses the button, zapping the screen. It's a commercial, and Rem realizes with a heavy weight in her chest, it's a commercial for cosmetics that stars her Misa. Misa is posing on the screen and Higuchi is rubbing the stubble under his chin as he comments, "I'd love a girl like that! I'd love her every night of the week."
"Only the night?" Rem asks in confusion, watching as Misa throws back her hair in a stream of gold, rubbing the red stick of paint against her lips to darken them.
"You don't get me?" Higuchi laughs crudely. "Maybe there are some downsides to being a Shinigami after all."
"Yes," Rem agrees. As she agrees, she realizes that if - not that she wants to be, but only if - she was a human, if she was even Higuchi Kyosuke, she would stay by Misa's side. No, if only she were Light Yagami, she might also purge this world of the vile ones, and Misa might love her then. And unlike the real Light Yagami, she would return her love, perhaps, she would touch and embrace and let her plant kisses on her soft, mortal cheeks.
Rem, she has evolved beyond a true feeling of touch. A God of Death has no need for such things, and no species on this world or her own is meant to have what it doesn't require.
"Would you touch her?" Rem inquires, turning intently to Higuchi. "Would you love her?"
"The girl from the commercial?" Higuchi smirks, looking up from the paper work he had been claiming he would start all evening. "Damn straight I would! I'd touch her plenty."
"Do you touch other humans that you love?"
"Of course I do!" He flares up at that for a reason unknown to Rem, she can tell because his face colors a shade of crimson. "I've touched plenty of women and never got a single complaint."
"How do you touch them?"
Rem pays little attention to the man's eyes as they bug out, startled, and instead all she can think about is Misa, Misa Amane. The girl that Jelous was actually willing to defy the laws of the Shinigami to protect and he became dust for it. The girl who radiates with gold, who speaks with passion and laughs in a way that Rem wishes she might also laugh, as though they might share laughter together in a way that only humans - wretched things - were allowed to.
Misa, who right now is being held captive by L. Who begged for her death when L restrained her body, begged Rem to kill her. But Rem didn't want to do that, it shouldn't have mattered but it did, at least, she wanted it to matter. She wanted to know why Jelous chose mortality. She wanted to know what it meant to not be a God, and so she reached out her hand and stroked Misa's tear streaked face. She might have even felt it if only Shinigami could feel warmth, but at least her hand might touch it.
(And Higuchi says that he should like to walk through walls.)
Higuchi is looking at her now, his lips slightly parted in uneasiness as she stands directly in front of him, towering overhead because he is still sitting in his swivel chair. He is a worm, Rem knows, he is a dirty worm of a human, but maybe there is a part of him that loves and touches. Maybe there is a part of him that is Misa.
After all, they are both human if nothing else.
Rem raises her hand to Higuchi's face. The man is petrified and doesn't move, so Rem takes her other hand. She cups them both against his cheeks, tightening her grip as though to force the warmth of his skin into her unliving hands - but she is gentle, she tries to be anyway because she knows that she indeed has the power to crush this human's skull without exerting any effort at all.
A Shinigami must kill humans, not love them. The former is a necessity, the latter is an unforgivable sin that is punishable by a death sentence. How ironic that in the human world, the opposite is - should be - true.
"With lips like these, prepare for kisses!" Misa cheerfully advertises on the television commercial, holding up her tube of lipstick. She winks as though she hasn't a care in the world. "Let him know you love him!"
Kisses to let them know you love them. Kisses for Misa Amane, kisses for Light Yagami. It is a strange thing, Rem thinks, and she never would have believed that humans do it if she hadn't seen it for herself. When Light Yagami kissed Misa Amane, pressing his lips against her own, the sunlight was glowing on Misa's cheeks even though it was night time. When Rem asked her why she was smiling all the way back to her house, she said it was love, love of course. Kisses to let her know that he was willing to pretend he loved her.
Rem's lips are cold and dry, but she means it tenderly when she presses them against Higuchi. His skin is soft and Rem pretends that it's warm like sunshine, and she also pretends that she knows what such a thing feels like. A warmth in exchange for mortality. A moment of love to become dust for.
Happiness, and then Nothingness.
But it's not isn't the same. Rem knows it isn't the same and her own words still ring through her head. Humans and Shinigami are not the same. And the foolish, disgusting, filthy humans don't know how fortunate they are for it.
Higuchi's spell has broken and he shoves back, stuttering. "G-g-get the hell away from me!"
Rem, knowing he is repugnant anyway, darkens and releases him. She tries again to stop breathing as she looms once again to be invisible in the shadows.
Rating: T - language, sexuality
Pairings/Characters: Rem/Higuchi, Misa
Summary: The Shinigami Rem and Kyosuke Higuchi both want something that steers them on the path to their own damnations. But the things that they desire could not be more different.
Rem, she doesn't breathe - at least, she doesn't have to. Shinigami have evolved beyond the vital functions that creatures such as these humans find necessary; maybe she's able to do it because she is living off of that very human life anyhow. The technicalities of her existence have never been a great concern. Rem knows what she is and she knows what she does and she knows what she doesn't do. So she doesn't breathe here at the penthouse of the human that she is haunting.
She doesn't breathe because that human has had the curtains pulled over closed windows for weeks. Higuchi Kyosuke keeps the room locked and hidden as though the silky black drapes will hide him from his sins and salvation will come to him if no one sees. But curtains don't protect this mortal from the eyes of a God. Rem's eyes are precise and meticulous and she sees as he jots names in her Death Note while he gets drunk every night, smoking cigars until the room is foul, everything in it is a rotten foul mess and Rem, she can't be blamed for not breathing.
"Don't gimme that condescending look." Higuchi sees Rem staring and he snaps as he pours himself another full glass of wine. The bottle is half gone and Rem has learned quite quickly what that means for the man. "You're a Shinigami. What do you care if I kill a few rival corporates?"
"I never said I cared who you killed," Rem answers smoothly without moving. She looms like a shadow at the side of his thick desk.
Higuchi scoffs, flashing his yellowed teeth in an ironic grin. "The hell kind of God are you supposed to be, anyway? It's even more weird that you say that."
"What are you expecting me to say?"
"That I'll answer for my crimes in Hell, or some other mumbo-jumbo bullshit." He taps his ballpoint pen against his desk in contemplation, but the look on his face is not fear nor is it irritation, it is simply a mild curiosity as if he is trying to piece together the puzzle that eludes him. "That I'll be punished. That I have everything to fear for when my golden day finally ends."
She pauses, and though she was quick to tell a Shinigami's wisdom to her last possessor, she finds no desire to offer Higuchi the same connection. "Another Shinigami once told me that when a human uses a Death Note, he is destined to an unhappy life."
"An unhappy life?" Higuchi raises his eyebrows and peers at her from narrow eyes, and he tilts his head back so that they rest on the broadness of his cheekbones. "Having something with this kind of power is supposed to make us unhappy?"
The scornful disbelief that confronts Rem might have surprised her at the beginning, but she could only expect such an answer from this detestable creature. "I do not know for certain if it is true, because no human has ever used my Death Note before."
He brings his wine to his lips, swallowing in loud gulps and glancing habitually at his television, which buzzes softly across from his desk. Then he curls a hand under his chin and rests the elbow on the armrest of his chair, swirling it to Rem again. "You've had the Death Note all your life, right, Rem? Are you unhappy?"
This question does surprise her, and she does not respond right away. She closes her mouth, gnashing her fangs together, and she doesn't know how to evaluate her own happiness to him. Certainly not in a way that this human - maybe any human - could possibly comprehend. Human mouths, well, Misa's mouth, it is so capable of sliding into a smile. Human eyes aren't glazed and stony, they are bright, and Misa's sparkle like her sun above her. But the Shinigami world doesn't have a sun, and Shinigami aren't meant to radiate.
Rem would like to be happy, she thinks silently. Even Higuchi looks happy, despite the tales that the Death Gods tell about humans while they gather in circles to gamble because there is nothing better to do. He's happy as he basks in his slime and stench, he's happy as he keeps one eye on the news station to check for a new criminal to kill so he can have all appearances of being Kira. He's happy for no reason, it seems, other than he can. And Rem's the one who can't comprehend.
"Of course you're happy," Higuchi concludes when Rem says nothing. "You're a god! You live forever, you can kill whoever the hell you want, and you can even walk through walls!" The proclamation makes him shake his head and mutter a curse of admiration. "Fuckin' shit..."
"Humans and Shinigami are not the same," Rem says tersely. She wants him to know that these things don't make her happy, after all, why would they? What did immortality have to do with happiness? All that killing does is extend her immortality. Her invisibility that gives her the capability to walk through walls only went hand-in-hand with the fact that on this realm, no human could even see her unless they touched her notebook.
She may be a God, she thinks, but the truth is that she is closer to Nothingness than Higuchi is today, even as Rem can read off his ticking lifespan.
"Damn straight we aren't the same," Higuchi growls. "What I wouldn't give to be you, Rem. God, you could rule the world if you wanted to!"
There is nothing that she wants to say to this and she retreats, stepping away from the smell of alcohol - it seems that she has been breathing without realizing it, and the taste burns in her tongue with bitterness.
"Maybe you just don't realize it, Rem!" he calls as she steps away. "I mean, look here a second!"
Despite herself, Rem turns, and Higuchi points at his television with a crooked finger.
"That's a news reporter talking now. Her name is Watanabe Mari." He lowers his pen to the open page of the Death Note. "Look, I hate her dress. It makes her look fat. Not that I really give a rat's ass about that sort of thing, but look what I can do for no reason other than I feel like it. A couple kanji..."
And she's dead in forty seconds. Rem knows this already.
Higuchi settles back into his chair proudly, stretching his arms above his mane of brown hair and yawns loudly, releasing another puff of stained breath.
Rem watches this revolting piece of human trash, he is despicable and she herself selected him to be a pawn in Light's game. Light, she thinks, may not love Misa, but he's got it right. There are humans who are better off in Nothingness. There are humans whose names should have a page in the Death Note. There are humans who Rem might enjoy putting to death, she might enjoy their still bodies that can't breathe out ugly air anymore, she might be happy that they won't stink up Misa's world.
Never had she thought such a thing before and Rem knows that her mind is treading on very dangerous ground.
"So power is all that you care about," she says humorlessly as Watanabe Mari's name and lifespan disappear from the screen and the broadcast is cut. The television hums in a gray fuzz, empty and dead and perhaps it is sad, too.
Higuchi looks at her sharply, not quite offended but he wants to make something very clear. "You're not going to find a human who doesn't want power, hell, blame it on the survival instincts that maybe your kind doesn't have. Once you have power, all the other important things can come after, can't they? And you'll have a much easier time getting them if you're powerful, too."
"Like love?"
He blinks, taken aback, and then lowers his arms until they are crossed at his chest. Rem wonders for a moment if she spoke in the correct human language because he seems to not understand, but then he nods. "Sure, like love. Everyone loves the powerful guy. How can they not?"
"And for you?" Rem presses. "Will you love them back?"
"Yeah, Rem. One day, I think I'll get married." He reaches for the remote control device that switches his television channels and he presses the button, zapping the screen. It's a commercial, and Rem realizes with a heavy weight in her chest, it's a commercial for cosmetics that stars her Misa. Misa is posing on the screen and Higuchi is rubbing the stubble under his chin as he comments, "I'd love a girl like that! I'd love her every night of the week."
"Only the night?" Rem asks in confusion, watching as Misa throws back her hair in a stream of gold, rubbing the red stick of paint against her lips to darken them.
"You don't get me?" Higuchi laughs crudely. "Maybe there are some downsides to being a Shinigami after all."
"Yes," Rem agrees. As she agrees, she realizes that if - not that she wants to be, but only if - she was a human, if she was even Higuchi Kyosuke, she would stay by Misa's side. No, if only she were Light Yagami, she might also purge this world of the vile ones, and Misa might love her then. And unlike the real Light Yagami, she would return her love, perhaps, she would touch and embrace and let her plant kisses on her soft, mortal cheeks.
Rem, she has evolved beyond a true feeling of touch. A God of Death has no need for such things, and no species on this world or her own is meant to have what it doesn't require.
"Would you touch her?" Rem inquires, turning intently to Higuchi. "Would you love her?"
"The girl from the commercial?" Higuchi smirks, looking up from the paper work he had been claiming he would start all evening. "Damn straight I would! I'd touch her plenty."
"Do you touch other humans that you love?"
"Of course I do!" He flares up at that for a reason unknown to Rem, she can tell because his face colors a shade of crimson. "I've touched plenty of women and never got a single complaint."
"How do you touch them?"
Rem pays little attention to the man's eyes as they bug out, startled, and instead all she can think about is Misa, Misa Amane. The girl that Jelous was actually willing to defy the laws of the Shinigami to protect and he became dust for it. The girl who radiates with gold, who speaks with passion and laughs in a way that Rem wishes she might also laugh, as though they might share laughter together in a way that only humans - wretched things - were allowed to.
Misa, who right now is being held captive by L. Who begged for her death when L restrained her body, begged Rem to kill her. But Rem didn't want to do that, it shouldn't have mattered but it did, at least, she wanted it to matter. She wanted to know why Jelous chose mortality. She wanted to know what it meant to not be a God, and so she reached out her hand and stroked Misa's tear streaked face. She might have even felt it if only Shinigami could feel warmth, but at least her hand might touch it.
(And Higuchi says that he should like to walk through walls.)
Higuchi is looking at her now, his lips slightly parted in uneasiness as she stands directly in front of him, towering overhead because he is still sitting in his swivel chair. He is a worm, Rem knows, he is a dirty worm of a human, but maybe there is a part of him that loves and touches. Maybe there is a part of him that is Misa.
After all, they are both human if nothing else.
Rem raises her hand to Higuchi's face. The man is petrified and doesn't move, so Rem takes her other hand. She cups them both against his cheeks, tightening her grip as though to force the warmth of his skin into her unliving hands - but she is gentle, she tries to be anyway because she knows that she indeed has the power to crush this human's skull without exerting any effort at all.
A Shinigami must kill humans, not love them. The former is a necessity, the latter is an unforgivable sin that is punishable by a death sentence. How ironic that in the human world, the opposite is - should be - true.
"With lips like these, prepare for kisses!" Misa cheerfully advertises on the television commercial, holding up her tube of lipstick. She winks as though she hasn't a care in the world. "Let him know you love him!"
Kisses to let them know you love them. Kisses for Misa Amane, kisses for Light Yagami. It is a strange thing, Rem thinks, and she never would have believed that humans do it if she hadn't seen it for herself. When Light Yagami kissed Misa Amane, pressing his lips against her own, the sunlight was glowing on Misa's cheeks even though it was night time. When Rem asked her why she was smiling all the way back to her house, she said it was love, love of course. Kisses to let her know that he was willing to pretend he loved her.
Rem's lips are cold and dry, but she means it tenderly when she presses them against Higuchi. His skin is soft and Rem pretends that it's warm like sunshine, and she also pretends that she knows what such a thing feels like. A warmth in exchange for mortality. A moment of love to become dust for.
Happiness, and then Nothingness.
But it's not isn't the same. Rem knows it isn't the same and her own words still ring through her head. Humans and Shinigami are not the same. And the foolish, disgusting, filthy humans don't know how fortunate they are for it.
Higuchi's spell has broken and he shoves back, stuttering. "G-g-get the hell away from me!"
Rem, knowing he is repugnant anyway, darkens and releases him. She tries again to stop breathing as she looms once again to be invisible in the shadows.