You Only Hate Sometimes
Title: You Only Hate Sometimes
Author: speaky_bean
Claim: Sachiko Yagami, in 20_notes.
Rating: PG-13
Notes: There are spoilers here for the entire series, as well as a lot of my own interpretation of the character. I've written about her pretty extensively, and I've thought this through as well as I can, but you may not agree with me on every point. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!
1. She was one of those little girls who toted a battered doll everywhere and called it her baby. Less commonly, she was also one of those little girls who read parenting magazines to find out how to raise it, who researched baby names to find out what to name it, and who was frenzied and hysterical when she couldn’t find it. She searched the neighborhood, searched her house, searched her school, searched everywhere, but she never did see that doll again.
2. Once, she’d had pink and white striped hair that smelled like peroxide and grease. Once, she’d had a black miniskirt that showed off the lace on her red satin panties. That phase didn’t last long, but there would always be days when she thought it’d be fun go back to it.
3. They hadn’t planned on having sex before the wedding, hadn’t planned on doing anything but kiss and hold hands. But the first months of living together had heralded massive utility bills, and the only thing Sachiko could think to do to cut down on the water bill was share their showers.
4. Never an easy sleeper, Sachiko had stayed awake until dawn the night before her wedding. The blaring sound of her alarm clock had made its way into her dreams and failed to wake her up until shortly before she was meant to walk down the aisle. She arrived at her wedding disheveled and panting, and once she saw Soichiro she collapsed into his arms and laughed. Five years later when he was four hours late for their anniversary dinner, she laughed even harder.
5. During her pregnancy with Light she had every intention of eating a proper diet, and for the most part she had not strayed from her carefully lined out, medically approved nutrition plan. But she had a vicious craving for potato chips, and no matter how much she told herself not to buy them, she almost always gave in.
6. Once, when they all got together for drinks, Sachiko found herself talking animatedly to Soichiro’s brother Goh about Godzilla movies and monster truck rallies. Her husband and Goh’s wife had chalked it up to too much sake, but actually, she’d just really liked having someone to talk to.
7. At first, she thought cooking was a heinously boring task that no one would ever take on unless they absolutely had to. But the need to feed her family gave way to the need to do something fun with it-within a few months she was whipping up the most obscure recipes she could find. After she gave everybody food poisoning trying to make blood sausage, she toned it down a bit, though.
8. Light’s preschool teacher said that he was one of the brightest, friendliest children she had ever come across, and that he was an absolute pleasure to work with. This in spite of preschool rhetoric that claimed all children were equal. She had wanted to know what Sachiko did to get him reading so well and so early, and Sachiko couldn’t bring herself to say that she’d had nothing to do with it-Light learned everything on his own.
9. It was silly, but she’d never been able to give up the epileptic joy of arcade games and Print Club machines. She took the kids to the booths and had them pose in the silliest ways she could think of. Her favorite, which had Light, Sayu, and herself sitting upside down in an imaginary subway car, stayed stuck to her library card for over ten years.
10. After two weeks of not seeing her husband for more than one fleeting moment when he was in such a hurry he couldn’t even be bothered to greet her, Sachiko called him up and said that she’d dropped the baby and the baby wasn’t moving anymore. Sayu was sitting on the couch drooling over a stuffed giraffe, just fine. Two minutes later, she called him back to say she’d made the whole thing up.
11. Sachiko pretended it was only Sayu who had a big, fat, squealy crush on Ryuuga Hideki. Actually, it was Sachiko who had shown her daughter his picture in the first place.
12. When Light was thirteen he caught a really dreadful cold, and he refused to slow the pace of his studying and rest properly. He had exams coming up, so she couldn’t legitimately mandate it, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t baby him in other ways. She made sure he had a steady supply of cough drops, tissues, and tea, and she asked how he was feeling so often it probably made him want to throw his calculator at her head. But matter how much he scowled about it, Sachiko was pretty sure he liked the fact that Mommy cared.
13. A well-meaning friend once asked if she ever loved Light just a little bit more than she did Sayu, because Light was brilliant and Sayu was ordinary. When she left the friend’s house, Sachiko took her ordinary daughter out to a movie, and tried her best to never formulate an answer to that question.
14. There was nothing Misa could have done to make Sachiko like her. She was never anything but friendly with her, and she had to admit that she was impressed by the girl’s celebrity. But she was dim where Light was brilliant, and no matter how much he claimed to love her, his mother wasn’t fooled.
15. She had known Soichiro was going to have a heart attack. The doctor said it was due to stress and not his diet, but she still berates herself for weeks because she never trimmed all the fat off of the meat she cooked for dinner.
16. When they brought her daughter back to her, she’d held the girl in her arms for four hours straight. If anyone had tried to interrupt her, they would have found themselves without their right arm. Sayu held on just as tightly as Sachiko had, until her strength gave out and she couldn’t do anything but cry.
17. She didn’t really know what to do about Sayu. She put her in therapy like you’re supposed to, fed her pills that kept her nearly catatonic. These things kept her from running into the kitchen to drag a knife down her leg, but they didn’t bring Sachiko’s daughter back to her. Sachiko was at a loss, and in the end all she could do was read her fairy tales with happy endings until she fell asleep mid-sentence.
18. With Soichiro gone, the Yagami family no longer had a stable source of income. His life insurance and his pension could only stretch so far, and Light’s salary was not yet high enough to help them out much. She needed a job and she wasn’t qualified to do anything, and she tortured herself for worrying about something as petty as money when her beloved husband had just been shot and killed.
19. Each afternoon she’d take a bath that lasted long into the evening. The steam clouded her head and made her sleepy, made it hard to think about everything she’d lost. Sometimes she thought she’d fall asleep in the bathtub, and never wake up again.
20. She hated Kira more than she’d ever hated anyone in her life. Before that ruthless monster stole her precious son and wrecked her daughter, she’d been able to think past her biases, she’d been able to see why a desperately idealistic person might think he was killing in the name of justice. When her husband died she’d staid her anger with the fact that no one had truly meant him any harm, because this was Kira’s war and Soichiro was a good man, not a criminal. But with Light, it hadn’t worked like that. With Light all that mattered was that he was dead, and Kira had killed him.
Damaged People - Depeche Mode
Author: speaky_bean
Claim: Sachiko Yagami, in 20_notes.
Rating: PG-13
Notes: There are spoilers here for the entire series, as well as a lot of my own interpretation of the character. I've written about her pretty extensively, and I've thought this through as well as I can, but you may not agree with me on every point. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!
1. She was one of those little girls who toted a battered doll everywhere and called it her baby. Less commonly, she was also one of those little girls who read parenting magazines to find out how to raise it, who researched baby names to find out what to name it, and who was frenzied and hysterical when she couldn’t find it. She searched the neighborhood, searched her house, searched her school, searched everywhere, but she never did see that doll again.
2. Once, she’d had pink and white striped hair that smelled like peroxide and grease. Once, she’d had a black miniskirt that showed off the lace on her red satin panties. That phase didn’t last long, but there would always be days when she thought it’d be fun go back to it.
3. They hadn’t planned on having sex before the wedding, hadn’t planned on doing anything but kiss and hold hands. But the first months of living together had heralded massive utility bills, and the only thing Sachiko could think to do to cut down on the water bill was share their showers.
4. Never an easy sleeper, Sachiko had stayed awake until dawn the night before her wedding. The blaring sound of her alarm clock had made its way into her dreams and failed to wake her up until shortly before she was meant to walk down the aisle. She arrived at her wedding disheveled and panting, and once she saw Soichiro she collapsed into his arms and laughed. Five years later when he was four hours late for their anniversary dinner, she laughed even harder.
5. During her pregnancy with Light she had every intention of eating a proper diet, and for the most part she had not strayed from her carefully lined out, medically approved nutrition plan. But she had a vicious craving for potato chips, and no matter how much she told herself not to buy them, she almost always gave in.
6. Once, when they all got together for drinks, Sachiko found herself talking animatedly to Soichiro’s brother Goh about Godzilla movies and monster truck rallies. Her husband and Goh’s wife had chalked it up to too much sake, but actually, she’d just really liked having someone to talk to.
7. At first, she thought cooking was a heinously boring task that no one would ever take on unless they absolutely had to. But the need to feed her family gave way to the need to do something fun with it-within a few months she was whipping up the most obscure recipes she could find. After she gave everybody food poisoning trying to make blood sausage, she toned it down a bit, though.
8. Light’s preschool teacher said that he was one of the brightest, friendliest children she had ever come across, and that he was an absolute pleasure to work with. This in spite of preschool rhetoric that claimed all children were equal. She had wanted to know what Sachiko did to get him reading so well and so early, and Sachiko couldn’t bring herself to say that she’d had nothing to do with it-Light learned everything on his own.
9. It was silly, but she’d never been able to give up the epileptic joy of arcade games and Print Club machines. She took the kids to the booths and had them pose in the silliest ways she could think of. Her favorite, which had Light, Sayu, and herself sitting upside down in an imaginary subway car, stayed stuck to her library card for over ten years.
10. After two weeks of not seeing her husband for more than one fleeting moment when he was in such a hurry he couldn’t even be bothered to greet her, Sachiko called him up and said that she’d dropped the baby and the baby wasn’t moving anymore. Sayu was sitting on the couch drooling over a stuffed giraffe, just fine. Two minutes later, she called him back to say she’d made the whole thing up.
11. Sachiko pretended it was only Sayu who had a big, fat, squealy crush on Ryuuga Hideki. Actually, it was Sachiko who had shown her daughter his picture in the first place.
12. When Light was thirteen he caught a really dreadful cold, and he refused to slow the pace of his studying and rest properly. He had exams coming up, so she couldn’t legitimately mandate it, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t baby him in other ways. She made sure he had a steady supply of cough drops, tissues, and tea, and she asked how he was feeling so often it probably made him want to throw his calculator at her head. But matter how much he scowled about it, Sachiko was pretty sure he liked the fact that Mommy cared.
13. A well-meaning friend once asked if she ever loved Light just a little bit more than she did Sayu, because Light was brilliant and Sayu was ordinary. When she left the friend’s house, Sachiko took her ordinary daughter out to a movie, and tried her best to never formulate an answer to that question.
14. There was nothing Misa could have done to make Sachiko like her. She was never anything but friendly with her, and she had to admit that she was impressed by the girl’s celebrity. But she was dim where Light was brilliant, and no matter how much he claimed to love her, his mother wasn’t fooled.
15. She had known Soichiro was going to have a heart attack. The doctor said it was due to stress and not his diet, but she still berates herself for weeks because she never trimmed all the fat off of the meat she cooked for dinner.
16. When they brought her daughter back to her, she’d held the girl in her arms for four hours straight. If anyone had tried to interrupt her, they would have found themselves without their right arm. Sayu held on just as tightly as Sachiko had, until her strength gave out and she couldn’t do anything but cry.
17. She didn’t really know what to do about Sayu. She put her in therapy like you’re supposed to, fed her pills that kept her nearly catatonic. These things kept her from running into the kitchen to drag a knife down her leg, but they didn’t bring Sachiko’s daughter back to her. Sachiko was at a loss, and in the end all she could do was read her fairy tales with happy endings until she fell asleep mid-sentence.
18. With Soichiro gone, the Yagami family no longer had a stable source of income. His life insurance and his pension could only stretch so far, and Light’s salary was not yet high enough to help them out much. She needed a job and she wasn’t qualified to do anything, and she tortured herself for worrying about something as petty as money when her beloved husband had just been shot and killed.
19. Each afternoon she’d take a bath that lasted long into the evening. The steam clouded her head and made her sleepy, made it hard to think about everything she’d lost. Sometimes she thought she’d fall asleep in the bathtub, and never wake up again.
20. She hated Kira more than she’d ever hated anyone in her life. Before that ruthless monster stole her precious son and wrecked her daughter, she’d been able to think past her biases, she’d been able to see why a desperately idealistic person might think he was killing in the name of justice. When her husband died she’d staid her anger with the fact that no one had truly meant him any harm, because this was Kira’s war and Soichiro was a good man, not a criminal. But with Light, it hadn’t worked like that. With Light all that mattered was that he was dead, and Kira had killed him.
Damaged People - Depeche Mode