Kids, Ch. 19

[sunmoonandspoon]

This chapter is a bit longer than what I usually produce. Some of you did ask for longer chapters, so there you go. It's kind of inevitable once things start to get more dramatic, I suppose. There's a lot of confrontation in this chapter, and a lot of things leading up to other confrontations. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Infinite thanks to my wonderful beta Iron Chief, and to Rara and Serria for helping me out with word choice over AIM. Oh, and of course to all of you readers. On with the show!

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Kids
Chapter Nineteen - Lemon Haichu

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Somehow, Light has stayed asleep through the whole roaring argument. L is almost offended by his stable grasp on slumber, but the relief he feels overshadows that. If Light had heard, it would be a disaster. L may be a skilled liar, but that doesn't mean he can stand up to Light. Light matches him in intelligence, and he's used to being under suspicion, whereas L is not. No one has ever accused L of anything, not to his face. He's heard rumors stating that he's incompetent and ridiculous, and his reputation has been shattered by those who support Kira. But, when you stay in the shadows, people can't accuse you to your face.

And so he sits atop his throne-like chair, shivers due to a cold day and an open window. He stares at Watari, and wonders if he too will accuse him. If he knows what crimes L has committed, and if he will forgive him for committing them. Light will not, and L will not apologize to him. But Watari is different. Watari is L's conscience when his own flees from sight. "Ryuzaki," he whispers, "I think we need to have a little conversation. Were you being entirely honest with Chief Yagami just now?"

L knows how to lie to everyone except Watari. Despite the obvious impossibility of this, he cannot help but feel that if he lies to him, he'll know. And he does not want to wreck the only honesty he has. "No," he mutters, gnawing his finger so hard he draws blood. "I wasn't."

Watari sighs loudly, says he figured as much. "I knew something out of the ordinary was going on. You have seemed both happier and more miserable than I've ever seen you before, and Chief Yagami's explanation for that is as good as any. I wonder, though, why you didn't tell me. I thought you knew that you could trust me with anything."

"Yes, I know that, it's not that I thought you were going to tell anyone." L takes his finger from his mouth, heeding Watari's silent request that he stop. He hasn't said a thing, or even moved, but L can feel his disapproval all the same. "It's just that some things are rather difficult to discuss. And I didn't want you to think less of me because of it."

"Ryuzaki, I've had my share of affairs," Watari says, chuckling slightly. "Admittedly, mine have not been so potentially dangerous as yours is, but I can hardly judge you. I don't think this was a good idea on your part, and I do wish you had confided in me sooner, but I certainly don't think less of you."

With that, he places a gnarled, liver-spotted hand on L's shoulder, and L lets out a sigh of relief. "Thank you," he says, staring up at the motionless ceiling fan. "I'm not going to be able to keep this up much longer. Chief Yagami is going to find out, and once that happens I doubt we'll be able to continue working on this case together. He has been nothing but professional in dealing with his son as a suspect, but that alone is enough to make him hate me. He's stretched to his limit. This will break him. In fact, I believe that he might try to kill me."

"He will not succeed on my watch," Watari says, tightening his grip on L's shoulder. "And I doubt that Chief Yagami would do such a thing. He's a good man. You have wronged him, yes, and I don't think he will be pleased when he finds out, but murder is a little extreme."

L shrugs him off, fixates grimly on a wrinkled lemon Haichu wrapper that has made its way onto the floor. "You should know what people are capable of," he tells him flatly. "You're old enough not to be so naïve."

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Sachiko and Soichiro sit huddled on opposite sides of the living room couch, ignoring each other as best as they can after her revelation. It doesn't take long for this brief burst of quiet to die. The veins are jumping in Soichiro's head and his hands, and soon he lunges for her, nearly hits her in the face. She is expecting this, and so she dodges him and stares him down, folds his hand back into itself. His knuckles crack under her hands, and he mumbles a rushed apology. "I'm sorry," he sputters, bewildered. "I wasn't really going to hit you. You know I would never do that. Then again, we all do things that no one would ever believe we were capable of. I guess if you could have an affair with somebody half your age, I could hit you, couldn't I?"

"I don't think you could, no," Sachiko says, wondering if the soft smile that she's trying for has actually appeared on her face. She has a feeling that all she's got are hard lines and obvious rage. "You're a good man, and you could never have gone through with hitting me. I know that. I know you."

"Clearly, I don't know you," Soichiro growls, edging away from her and wrenching his hand from her grip. "You're certainly not the woman I thought you were, Sachiko."

"I'm still the same as I've always been!" she snaps, knowing as she does that she should keep herself in check. She is the one who has sinned, here. No flawed marriage, no workaholic husband/lonely wife scenario can excuse what she has done. "I'm not a different person because I did something that isn't like me. It was in me all along, it must have been…I'm still Sachiko. I'm still your wife."

"Legally," Soichiro snaps, and then he takes that back, sighs bitterly. He stares pointedly at Sachiko's house slippers, and continues. "I don't know. Maybe this is something that we can work through. After all, we've been together for over twenty years; we've raised children. And you don't have a job or any money, so divorce wouldn't be good for you, or for Sayu. I'd provide for her of course, but…I'm really jumping the gun here, aren't I? We should talk about this."

Sachiko nods, gnaws her bottom lip and drums her fingers on the couch. "Of course," she croaks, "of course we should. We might be able to fix things and…and understand each other. I don't think that you understand why I did what I did."

"No, I don't," Soichiro says, slumping forward like a half-empty bag of rice. "I can't think of a single reason why you would do something so immoral. No matter how terrible I was as a husband, or how much you think you love Ryuzaki, there is nothing that can justify what you've done. I would still like to hear why you thought it was alright, though."

"Don't be so judgmental! You know already that you don't understand, so just try to, alright?" She stops, blinks back her brewing tears and swallows, says, "I'm not saying I did the right thing. I didn't. And you weren't a terrible husband, you did the absolute best that you could but it just…it wasn't enough. I should have known at the start that it wouldn't be. I knew what I was getting into, marrying you. I knew I was always going to take a backseat to your job, that our children would take a backseat. But, Soichiro, I loved you so much that I just didn't care."

"How can you say that?!" shouts Soichiro, leaping to his feet to tower over her. She tilts her head back, pushes her hair from her face and watches his eyes as they too fill with tears. Like her, he does not allow those tears to fall. "How can you say that you love--excuse me--loved me, after what you've done? Do you think that's going to make me forgive you, Sachiko? The fact that you've wrecked something that used to be love makes it worse!"

"Calm down," she murmurs. "Sit, you're going to give yourself a heart attack." And he does sit, and Sachiko knows that it's not to preserve his own health. He is calming down, for her, because despite all his blustering, he does love her. He wouldn't be so upset if he did not. That thought is oddly comforting to Sachiko, and it gives her strength to go on. "Darling," she whispers, moving in to press her cheek to his chest, and trying to ignore how he stiffens. For the past two decades she has done this, during every difficult discussion. They've been through everything together; they can get through her betrayal, too. "I do love you. I still do. Nothing is ever going to change that. I'll admit, I love you differently than I did in the beginning. We aren't as close as we were. You've seen terrible things that I haven't, and I've seen things in this house that you…well, that's just it." She stops, takes a deep breath and waits to see if Soichiro has anything to say. He stays silent, stone-faced, and he does not take his hands from their bleach-knuckled grip on the couch.

Sachiko sighs, keeps going as she moves away from him. "You were never here to see anything in this house. And that was something that we were supposed to share. We were supposed to raise children together; we were supposed to spend time together. But work was more important to you than anything else. I understand that it's important. I understand that you help people in need, and that you bring home the paycheck that keeps everything going here, but that…that's not the same as having you here. And I think that you've known that for a long time."

"Yes," croaks Soichiro, the tears in his voice if not his eyes. "I've known. Of course I've known. Sayu was talking for weeks before I found that she could do that. Light broke his wrist and I didn't know until it healed. You had an affair with a great detective and I never had any idea."

"You were suspicious," she snaps, unable to stay completely warm, because there's more to this than Sachiko being sorry. What she's telling her husband has defined every day of her life until now, and Sachiko will not forgive him easily. Not if he can't forgive her. "You were," she says, "and your accusations drove me to this. If you had just trusted me, I probably wouldn't have even thought of it. But people tend do what's expected of them. You need to remember that, from now on."

"Sachiko, we've been married for twenty years now, I ought to be able to tell you what I'm thinking. The only reason I brought it up is so that you could tell me it wasn't happening and we could be done with it. I don't need to be worrying about my marriage while I'm trying to do my job." He sighs, grips his knees with his hands and stares at the carpet. Sniffles, and swipes at his nose. Sachiko does not know if this is due to choked back tears, or her failure to clean up the carpet. "It isn't my fault," he insists. "You could have talked to me about how you were feeling. We could have worked it out, but you chose not to."

"I'm sorry!" she yells, her hands forming loose and shaky fists. "I'm sorry, okay, I shouldn't have done it and I'm sorry! But I'm miserable in this marriage, Soichiro! I don't think it's too much to ask for you to put me, your wife, first sometimes. I'm not asking for always, I just…I just wanted some indication that I mattered to you." She stands and starts pacing, crosses her arms and keeps her spine stick-straight. She will not stand slumped and bowed like Ryuzaki does. This conversation isn't about him.

Soichiro stares at her, mouth hanging and eyes pried wide open. "Of course you matter to me! You and Light and Sayu mean everything. You have to know that. You have to know that I did my job to make your world a safer place. To provide for you, to…Sachiko, you knew this, right?"

She shakes her head, "no," she says. "I didn't. I told myself that tale a thousand times, but it never quite rang true." And with that, he cuts her off, says that it's absolutely true, he loves her more than anything, and that's why he has to know what happened with Ryuzaki, immediately. Sachiko tries her best to forgive him his stress-induced bluntness, murmurs, "that is not what this is about. What's important is that you understand why I did it, not exactly what I did."

"I have to know!" he shouts, banging a futile fist into a nearby cushion. "There's no way I'll be able to move past it if I don't. What did you do with him? I know that you had sex, but was that it? It sounds to me like your were actually having a relationship, and you…you don't actually love him, do you? Please tell me that you don't."

"I don't…I don't know," mumbles Sachiko. She sits back down with bowed head and knitted brows, tries to wrench her feelings from inside her head. She doesn't know. She had thought she loved Ryuzaki, but those feelings are fading and anyway, she can't say that to Soichiro. He doesn't want to hear the truth; he wants to hear that Sachiko still loves him. He doesn't care if it's a lie if he can pretend to himself that it's true for a few months. They will keep on doing this forever unless Sachiko stops it. "Yes," she says, still not sure if it's the truth. "I did love him. I do. I wouldn't have had an affair with him if I didn't, I do have some self-respect."

Soichiro slumps further, grabs at his graying hair. "I thought as much," he says. "You're right, you're not the type of woman who would do it for the sex alone. I can't imagine Ryuzaki being particularly good at that, anyway. He isn't, is he?"

"That's not relevant," Sachiko says, sighing and slouching down next to him. "You know it's not, you aren't this vulgar."

"I hardly think it's vulgar to want to know why my wife is sleeping with another man!" Soichiro shouts. He gives up quickly, likely knowing that Sachiko's right, that this is a pointless line of conversation. "What do you want to do now?" he whispers, eyes shuddering closed. "You can't stay with him, you know that, right? He won't take you back, and besides…" Soichiro stops, taps his fingers and heaves a sigh. "I wouldn't let you. I'm not insisting that you stay with me, frankly I'm not sure if I want that…I don't know, I don't want to get divorced but anyway, Sachiko, you cannot stay with Ryuzaki. You may love him, but he's been using you for information."

Sachiko picks her head up. "What do you mean?" she asks, eyes narrowed and fingers kneading together. She does not like where this is going. Soichiro is sweating with repressed rage, and his expression is almost maniacal. He doesn't speak for a while, and when opens his mouth, the hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention.

"He's investigating this family," Soichiro says, straitening his back until it's scaffolding-stiff. "He suspects Light of being Kira, and he's using you to obtain information. He told me as much. Of course, he didn't say anything about sleeping with you, that would have been far more honesty than Ryuzaki is capable of."

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance, denial, and anger again. Sachiko whips through the stages of mourning at lightning speed. What she's left with is gritted teeth and a knotted gut, and all she can say is, "oh."

"I highly doubt that Ryuzaki loves you, and even if he does, do you really want to be with a person who would keep something like that from you? Don't you think that it's your right to know, as Light's mother, what he's been accused…of…" Soichiro trails off, no doubt noting his own hypocrisy. He has kept it from her, too. She does not know if she should bring this up, if she's capable of responding. Her baby…her precious Light…Kira? That's not possible; Sachiko's carefully brought-up son is not a murderer. He's working to bring Kira down. Soichiro may as well say that Sayu is a lumberjack for all that this makes sense.

Her throat has gone suddenly dry, and so her voice comes out sounding strangled. "You…" she croaks, "you've been keeping it from me, too. If that's a reason not to stay with him, then it's a reason not to stay with you, either. Is Light…is Light really working on the case, or are you holding him prisoner? Soichiro, you have to tell me what's happening to our son!"

"He's alright," Soichiro says, finally giving in to the tears that have been threatening all night. They slip down his face in silent streams, and Sachiko only hesitates for a moment before she wraps him in her arms. And she cries, too, her tears and mucus drenching his right shoulder. "He's alright, Sachiko. And he isn't Kira. We couldn't have raised that kind of person, we know that. We just have to wait for Ryuzaki to realize that he's wrong."

They understand now; their marriage is not what matters. They cannot shove this to the side for long, but they can forget, for now, their respective betrayals. If Soichiro does not scream any longer about how she has wronged him, Sachiko will keep quiet about all the things he should have told her. She will seethe for now, and save her rage for Ryuzaki. "I have to see my son," she states, summoning the strength that she used to take to PTA meetings, to the playground with her kids. My children come first and foremost. She says, "I won't do anything to hurt the case, I swear I won't, but I must see him. Please, Soichiro, please take me to wherever he is…I don't even care about Ryuzaki anymore, I just have to see Light."

It isn't true, and both of them know it, but all the same, Soichiro promises that he will bring her to Light in the morning.

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"Ryuzaki," Watari says, coughing slightly as he sets a dish of ice cream on a nearby table. L had not wanted Watari to leave him, but he had been foolish enough to mention his earlier craving. Watari, of course, filled it immediately. It isn't the kind that he had hoped for, since they didn't have raspberry chocolate chip in the building, but ice cream is ice cream. To L, the flavor hardly matters. What matters is stuffing his face with as much slippery sugar as he possibly can. "Ryuzaki," Watari says again, "I must ask you something."

"Yes?" L says through a mouthful of ice cream. It's milk flavored, which, unlike every other flavor of ice cream he's ever had, makes him feel clean. This is so inappropriate he can hardly bring himself to take another bite. "What is it, Watari?"

"I just wanted to know if it made you happy. If you got anything out of it besides guilt and potential career damage. I know you might not want to consider these things, but you must if you intend to move forward." He blinks, takes a spoonful of ice cream for himself. "Tell me if you think it was worth it."

Of course, Watari would ask the one thing that L has tried his hardest not to think about. What he wants is to disassociate himself from the situation, not comb through it for benefits that are long since gone from him. What's the point in analyzing what he can no longer have? It's not as if he'll ever do anything like this again. L is not human, he is a detective, and from now on he's going to remember that. He will not forget his limitations again. "I don't think so," he says, shaking his head and taking another bite of ice cream. "I got carried away, and I wasn't thinking straight. If I had been, I wouldn't have taken such a huge risk. It compromises the case, and I'm overstepping my boundaries, I…I just wanted to be a different person. I don't like my life sometimes, Watari. I know it's been really amazing, and that I've accomplished all these magnificent things but I just…I just wanted to feel human for once. The way I went about it was ridiculous of course, I've ruined everything now. And I probably sound like a blithering idiot."

"No," Watari says, wrinkles crowding into his mouth as he frowns. "You don't. You are expressing your feelings, something that you do not do frequently, and are not used to. Ryuzaki, there are more ways than one to be human. You do not have to fall in love for that. One way in which you are human is that you stink. You smell like sweat and stale sugar, and you need to take a bath." He stops, steals the last of the ice cream, saves it from melting in the dish. L resents this, just a little. "If that's not enough," Watari says, "then think about what you just said to me. Would someone who was inhuman say those things?"

L shakes his head, face in his hands and fingers dragging through his hair. "I think," says Watari, "that once the Kira case is finished, you should take a vacation. Clearly, you need some time to find out who you are outside of your job."

Though L does not lift his face from his hands or his fingers from his hair, he does nod. And he does not say a word as Watari takes his arm and points him towards the bathroom. "Go bathe," he directs, "it will help."

"I'll have to wake up Light to do that," L mutters, turning his head to gawk at the door. The stirring inside makes his heart use his ribs like a punching bag. If Light wakes up now…if he was already awake and heard his confession…

The door flies open, and Light strides out, fists clenched and teeth grinding themselves down to dust. The chains of the handcuffs sliding on the floor by his feet. His anger is obvious, but somehow, that settles L's heart more than anything else could. After all, he would never have risked discussing it out in the open if there wasn't something inside him that wanted to come clean. Light will not change the fact that L has spent his life lying. Light will not absolve him of his sins. But all the same he stares him down, and waits for Light to talk to him.

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Your reward for stopping by: There's Always Tomorrow - Space Twins

Comments

[speaky-bean.livejournal.com]

Delay? Do you mean that I'm taking too long to update? I'm sorry about that, it's slow-going since I'm pretty busy these days, and besides that, I have to figure out where I'm trying to go with this story. I'm not exactly sure what I want to happen, and I don't want to back myself into a corner. (Any suggestions would be excellent.)

I'm really glad you liked their argument so much! Honestly, I was really iffy about it...I had such trouble writing it, the parts with L and Watari came much more naturally. I was terrified of getting it wrong, so it's good to see that I didn't. And really, Sachiko DID do something wrong, so it's reasonable to think the way you say you do. And, you liked the part at the beginning! No one's noticed that part yet, so this makes me especially happy!

Thank you for your wonderful review, Harley! ♥

[writer-craft.livejournal.com]

What wonderful review? this one which is uber cool or the fucked-up one in FFNet damn buttons!

I'm taking a break in fanfiction by the way...I mean in Death Note fandom. I'm working on this La Corda d Oro fic since my roommate I like Jerene requested it and I'm having fun with it.

Although right now I'm exhausted.

[speaky-bean.livejournal.com]

Well, both, I mean at least the ff.net one upped my review count if nothing else. And this one here on LJ was awesome.

Oh really? That makes me sad. I mean I guess it's inevitable that you're going to move onto new fandoms, but I hope you're not finished completely. D: Well, your writing is your own, and you should do whatever makes you happy. I did see a part of the fic you're working on, when you put it on your LJ, but I just kind of scanned through it...I stopped when I figured out that I wasn't going to get what was going on without knowing the series. Is La Corda D'Oro something you'd recommend?

Also, I'm really glad things are going well with your new roommate! Seems like she's into some of the same things you are, which is always a plus.

[writer-craft.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...La Corda d Oro is about music...classical music...something like Highschool Musical but more sophisticated and less romantic. It's actually based on a game where you can pair a girl with different guys. It's like Ouran Highschool too but with less comedy and more depth. And since I play the violin, I really like how they emphasized it there. You'll like it. It's simple and yet so...addictive? Well, maybe you can read my fic as an introduction to it.

Yes, I really recommend it. I stumbled on a DVD copy and remembered that a friend my missing apprentic Danica likes it so I bought it and enjoyed it.

Basically, it's a story of a girl who was a general student (Hino Kahoko) in a music school til one day she met a fairy who bestowed her a magic violin and she joined the concourse. Along the way she had doubts because she can't really play and she feels like a hypocrite esp. now she is getting very attached to the other contestants. There's Tsuchiura who is a piano virtuoso but become a soccer player instead. Then my favorite, Tsukimori Len, a serious, no-crap, musical prodigy of the violin (I think he and Hino are the canon pairing here) then there's a bishounen narcoleptic cello player named Shimizu and then a playful trumpet player Hihara and this flute player/rich boy Yunoki (with hidden agenda.)

As you can see from my long comment, I wanted you to see it. Maybe in youtube you might catch some episodes.

[speaky-bean.livejournal.com]

Hmm, it does sound pretty interesting! A little bit like Nodame Cantible, which I've been trying to download. Right now, I'm trying to get through Jigoku Shojo (I like it a lot, but it's really slow-going because it's so repetitive, and I'm annoyed that not one person decides not to go through with the vengeance...I would think that a lot of people wouldn't go through with it.) But yes, I'll keep an eye out for this series, if I can find it, I'll watch some! How many episodes long is it?

[harleycooper.livejournal.com]

Yup! Just like Nodame Cantibile only I prefer the manga And I like Jigoku Shoujo Futakamori better since season 2 is more unpredictable and some people have realizations there and didn't go through vengeance anymore. There are many heartwarming episodes too. You should also try to watch the live TV series. The episode 2 about the dad killing himself made me cry since...well...it's just so darn sad...Jigoku Shoujo sure does have the dark themes that DN has and in fact, it was my first choice of a dark anime before DN. Season 2 is promising since there episodes have more plots that differ from each other and they provide some character insights with Ai and her three servants than in the first. The soundtrack rocks too. Kinda like old Japanese classical with all the haunting melodies to it (esp. Ai's creepy song, like creepier than Misa's song.)

[speaky-bean.livejournal.com]

Season 2 does sound a lot more interesting. I have both of them downloaded onto an external harddrive, and I was seriously considering not watching season 2, because I thought it would be more of the same...but apparently it's different, so I will definitely check it out. Thank you for all the reccs, Harley, I need to find more anime to watch! (Not that I want to let go of my DN obsession just yet, maybe in two or three years, but there's only so many times I can actually WATCH it.)