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(Later Ryuk will laugh at him around a mouthful of sweet white flesh, the god's cool breath reeking of rot and apples. “Light Yagami,” he will rumble in that terrible velvet voice, cruel and gleeful as any toddler, “You are never dull, I'll give you that.” And his laughter, deep and inevitable as the grave, will unfurl around them once again like a pair of dusty wings. “That poor fool didn't know what he'd let himself in for, letting you join his investigations. You really did a number on him, didn't you?”)
But he doesn't remember Ryuk right now. He won't remember Ryuk until his fingers meet the skin of the notebook once again, and then everything will come flooding back in an instant that will be both terrible and ecstatic. At present, however, Light Yagami sincerely believes that he is innocent of all the crimes Ryuzaki has accused him of committing; and so, in a sense, he IS innocent. Or at least ignorant, which is very nearly the same thing. At present, Light Yagami simply relishes the challenge of solving the Kira murders and proving to Ryuzaki that in this his calculations are wrong.
He doesn't know that he himself is Kira. He doesn't know that he is here to kill Ryuzaki.
Ryuzaki.
L.
There's something vaguely pathetic about him, something subtly wrong – or unsubtly, really. His too-pale skin, his staring eyes, the slouching gait and the way he folds his angular body up like some clumsy origami figure, clutching his knees as he perches in his chair. Ryuzaki is a freak. An oddity. A friendless loser who doesn't even try to pass for normal – who barely seems to notice what normal is.
Except of course he notices everything. Registers everything. Questions everything. Ryuzaki is more perfectly, unselfconsciously himself than anyone that Light Yagami has ever met in his life. Whereas Light has always gone to pains to fit in, to play the ordained role of good son, good student, good brother, Ryuzaki has rebuilt the world to accommodate himself, has created his own role. He is, unquestionably, the most intelligent, challenging, frustrating, unpredictable and downright exhilarating person Light has ever met. They aren't friends, exactly – hard to be friends, when someone insists that you are a mass murderer – but they are something better than that. Ryuzaki may have never had a friend before in his life, but Light has always had plenty of friends, has always been popular and admired, and he doesn't think much of them. He has always known how to push their buttons, has always been able to run rings around them effortlessly whether in sport, academia or dating, and he has always shown them what they want to see. What he wants them to see.
But with Ryuzaki the rules are different, and Light still can't decide which of them has the upper hand. The balance of power seems to shift from moment to moment. It's infuriating, but also oddly thrilling.
He has never, he realises, had a peer before. So perhaps, in truth, he has never really had a friend either. Perhaps this is what other people mean, when they talk about friendship? But surely not, because this is more of a competition than anything else. Never mind that L is several years his senior. Never mind that L is the world's greatest detective. Light Yagami's whole being is bent upon beating Ryuzaki at his own game, come what may. He will vindicate himself. He will prove his own worth before the great L, before his father, before the world. Finally his life has a purpose, finally he has something to be passionate about, something that will stretch his abilities to their furthest limits. This is intoxicating.
(Later, he will acknowledge to himself that, given all of this, he should perhaps have seen it coming. Should have catalogued his reactions better, predicted how things would turn out. But in this, perhaps only in this, Light Yagami fails to do the correct math, and so he will be surprised as hell by the way that this relationship unfolds.)
He doesn't really mind the handcuffs. Truthfully, he'd more than half expected them. At least they guarantee that he can stay at the centre of the investigation, able to make the right connections, find the proof that will identify Kira. He knew that Ryuzaki wouldn't let Light out of his sight, and he was braced for this indignity. After fifty days in solitary confinement, monitored day and night, this form of imprisonment seemed like a walk in the park.
Still, there is a difference between knowing something and living it. There is a difference between expecting Ryuzaki to keep him close at hand...and having Ryuzaki always within arm's reach, every minute of every hour of every day and every night. Light has always been a private person, and this strange, enforced intimacy disturbs him. It requires considerable ingenuity and flexibility to get dressed or undressed while handcuffed to another person; Light had assumed that surely Ryuzaki will uncuff them for this, but he does not. Instead he sends their clothes out to be subtly altered to make the process simpler. And so it continues. Light has to stand outside the bathroom while Ryuzaki uses the toilet, the door slightly ajar to accommodate the bright links of their chain, and vice versa. He learns to slow his pace to match L's unhurried lope whenever they walk, and to yank a chair close enough to L's to be able to sit down and not be jolted out of place by a sudden gesticulation. Gradually he grows used to the faint smell of Ryuzaki on his pillow – soap and clean sweat and a trace of sugar – and to Ryuzaki's licked fingertip swiping absently over his plate to catch the last traces of cookie crumbs. At first it is jarring, but soon he becomes accustomed to the constant fiddling and tapping and twiddling that accompanies Ryuzaki's thought processes, building towers from teacups or brightly coloured jellies. In time it stops being a distraction, and becomes almost soothing.
He does not, however, really grow accustomed to sharing Ryuzaki's bed. Or at least – he does not become relaxed about waking up with an elbow in his face or an arm slung across his chest. Waking up shivering, with all the covers gone and only a few inky strands of Ryuzaki's unruly hair sticking out from a great mound of stolen blankets on the other side of the bed. Waking up with a nose pressed into his collarbone, eyelashes soft as spiders' legs tickling his skin while a thin trail of saliva slides warmly from a half-open mouth and Ryuzaki snores against his shoulder, cuddling him like a kid with a teddy bear.
Ryuzaki seems surprisingly unembarrassed by this intimacy, seems to regard it as an inevitable consequence of his decision to have them handcuffed together, no worse than having an audience when he uses the lavatory, no worse than being a third wheel on Light's dates with Misa. Since he is pretty certain that Ryuzaki has never shared a bed with another person before in his life, Light had expected the other man to be rather more sheepish, and is irritated to find him so matter-of-fact about it all.
It leaves Light off balance, waking up each morning to find Ryuzaki's fingers laced with his, or their legs tangled together, but he doesn't realise for some time quite how much their dynamic has shifted.
When the penny finally drops, he is naked, and covered in soap.
Light has never been turned on by sexual fantasies about other people. When he gets off, his attention is always focused on the sensation of his own hand upon his own skin, rather than wasting time with thinking about what he could do to Misa or Takata or some airbrushed lovely from a magazine. For fifty days he has refrained from indulging himself, conscious of the cameras, telling himself that although he cannot keep his bathing or his bowel movements private, he can at least refuse to put on a live sex show for his father's men. But now that he has the comparative privacy of handcuffs, Light allows himself to jerk off in the shower. Because he is, when it comes right down to it, a teenage boy, and although he is far from ordinary, still these impulses are the same as those of any other teenager.
It isn't easy, jerking off a few yards away from Ryuzaki, hoping that the frosted glass and the rush of falling water will provide an adequate disguise for his momentary weakness, but Light thinks that he has earned these moments of muffled pleasure. Besides, there is something oddly exciting about getting away with this right under Ryuzaki's nose.
On the other side of the glass, Ryuzaki – who has just had his own shower and has been busy towelling himself dry and stepping into his pyjamas while Light runs silent fingers over his own heated skin in the privacy of the shower cubicle – is now brushing his teeth. Light can make out the pads of his fingers splayed out wide, five small dark circles high up on the frosted glass. They have slung the chain over the top of the door, allowing Light enough movement with his left hand to be able to wash his hair properly, and the steel links clatter as he moves. This is another part of their new routine.
Light's free hand slides quick and sure over his soap-slicked skin and he bites his lip, listening to ragged rhythm of Ryuzaki's toothbrush, knowing that Ryuzaki, with his weakness for sugar, is meticulous in this as in all things and will take his time, will do a thorough job. And it's then, as his mind presents him with the image of Ryuzaki bending over the sink, his mouth wet and the white foam of toothpaste spilling down over his bottom lip, that the world buckles. Because suddenly Light's attention is snagged, and suddenly he can see with perfect, shocking clarity how Ryuzaki's mouth would look stretched tight around his cock. He gasps. It is one of those strange instants when Light is acutely conscious of how one small decision could push the future onto a different course – that he could open the door right now, and tug Ryuzaki – his rival, his peer, his friend Ryuzaki, who has never, unless Light is very much mistaken, had a girlfriend or a boyfriend in his life - into the shower with him. And he is almost certain that Ryuzaki would not protest, can imagine the startled, half-shy look that he has seen before on Ryuzaki's face. That unguarded expression of tentative and unaccustomed delight. Light has to bite down hard on his bottom lip now, because it is so easy to imagine Ryuzaki on his knees before him in the shower, the blue and white striped cotton of his pyjamas plastered to his skinny frame, his eyes enormous and accepting, even flattered, and his long tongue darting over Light's skin, curious and eager. Light shudders, and braces his left hand, his bound hand, against the frosted glass. The chain clinks. He closes his eyes, seeing both his hands buried in the sopping mess of Ryuzaki's dark hair as he fucks the man's too-clever mouth. He would not be gentle. Ryuzaki is surprisingly athletic, surprisingly strong, and he could defend himself easily enough - but Light does not think he would fight this.
Not even though he thinks Light Yagami is Kira.
Perhaps especially though he thinks Light Yagami is Kira.
He must have betrayed himself with some stifled, desperate noise, because the sound of the toothbrush pauses, and then he hears the sound of Ryuzaki spitting into the sink.
“Light-Kun?” he asks softly, a familiar interrogative note, and that's it, that's all it takes, and Light is coming harder than he can ever remember coming in his life.
“Fine,” he gasps, when he can speak. He is trembling. “I'm fine. It just – too hot. The water was too hot. But it's fine now. Sorry. Nearly done.”
When he steps out of the shower a few moments later, wrapping his towel around his hips, Light cannot meet Ryuzaki's eyes. He feels the familiar, curious gaze weighing him up, but just this once he can't return it. The air around him is suddenly freighted with possibility. And this is not who he thought he was at all, not what he thought he was capable of – but perhaps he does not know himself as well as he thought.
(Later - much later, when he has discarded his innocence like an apple core, when he has gambled and won, and when he has manipulated an immortal shinigami into dying to further his own ends - Light will look down into Ryuzaki's upturned face with a small, secret smile of victory, and watch a dozen emotions pass through Ryuzaki's eyes as his heart stutters out its final few beats.)
“Are you coming to bed?” asks Ryuzaki, looking at him oddly, and Light's cock twitches under the towel.
He swallows hard, and tries not to betray himself by sounding too eager. “Of course.” Tries not to think what might happen if a dreaming Ryuzaki invades his personal space again in the middle of the night. When a dreaming Ryuzaki invades his personal space again in the middle of the night. As he follows Ryuzaki into their bedroom and picks up his neatly-folded pyjamas, Light Yagami knows that he is on the brink of something momentous - and for some reason, for just an instant he is almost afraid. But he knows that he wants it too, more than he can remember wanting anything, and he can feel a fierce sense of triumph building in his belly.
Light Yagami always gets what he wants, eventually.