Chapter Text
Light had never considered himself to be a sociopath. Sure, he’d had his moments, some twisted thoughts here and there, a few apathetic reactions to things that he knew he should care about, maybe telling more lies than was considered socially acceptable. But still, he’d never really thought about it as a problem until recently.
He'd never had friends, not really. He had classmates who hung around him and girls who clung to him, but he’d never truly felt anything but apathy and perhaps boredom during their interactions. Every word said to him went in one ear and out the other like white noise, although he’d sometimes humor them and engage in conversation just to be polite. It wasn’t as if he was actively looking to avoid people, but nobody matched his intellect or piqued his interest enough for him to care to know them.
So, instead of having friends, Light threw himself into schoolwork and sports. He studied repeatedly and became the best student in Japan and then the junior high tennis champion. Even so, Light eventually progressed so far above the rest of his class that even that didn’t interest him anymore. He became completely and utterly bored.
Light’s life no longer had a purpose. Yes, he still received empty praise from his parents and teachers, but he had become numb to all of it after a while, hearing the same phrases over and over again. He had multitudes of people to hang out with, and his parents allowed him to do whatever he wanted because they trusted him. Still, nothing managed to fill the all-consuming void of sheer emptiness within his body.
Eventually, feeling bored became feeling nothing at all. Light hadn’t cared very much at first, but soon, the feeling began gnawing at him constantly. It was all he could think about.
One day, however, he discovered a way to fix it. It may have been a rather unconventional way, but still, it worked.
Light woke up to the cold feeling of a tile floor underneath his body, groaning as the bright lighting of the bathroom entered his eyes.
Wait… the bathroom?
Light sobered up quickly and sighed as he looked down at the floor, a mess of blood pooling around him to form a puddle on the floor.
Fuck.
He’d cut too deep again.
When he’d first started, it’d been a way to relieve numbness, to remind himself he was alive and not 6 feet under in a grave, reliving his 7 minutes of after-death consciousness in an infinite time loop.
Now, he wasn’t exactly sure what the reason was. The word addiction had run through his head multiple times, but he’d pushed the thought out of his brain. It was not an addiction; this method of coping helped him, it didn’t harm him… Well, not irreparably, anyway.
Ever since the Kira investigation had started, though, he'd grown unsure of his own justification.
The Kira investigation had been the most interesting thing that Light had ever participated in.
For once, the constant ache of numbness had subsided and was instead, replaced by a drive for the investigation. He wanted to catch Kira more than he’d ever wanted anything in his entire life. He finally felt truly alive.
So why was he still inflicting physical harm on himself every night?
To that, he’d made excuse after excuse to himself, eventually twisting it into more of a punishment than a coping mechanism.
You deserve this. Why the hell were you so useless during today’s investigation? It’s your fault that we didn’t find any new evidence or leads. You’re supposed to be one of the smartest in Japan, yet somehow, you’re barely doing better than Matsuda, and he’s an idiot!
Were his thoughts as he’d taken his blade and slashed across his arm over and over again, wildly, instead of in his usual cautious, methodical way.
He couldn’t afford to be slow and careful with it anymore, not while being chained to L. The detective was currently asleep and would likely be for the next 12 hours (at least), but Light still didn’t want to take any chances. Lucky enough, though, the chain had been long enough to extend from L’s tipped-over chair (Light still didn’t understand what the point was but didn’t question it- L was extremely eccentric, and believe it or not, Light had found this to be one of his more tame habits,) to the bathroom, so Light could do it more comfortably without worrying that L would wake up and wonder what the hell he was doing.
However, this time, he’d forgotten to account for the minor issue of his veins . He'd typically cut precisely to where he wouldn’t hit any major arteries or anything like that, making it just enough to cause him pain but not any permanent damage.
He’d failed to consider the fact that although the cutting part was technically faster, it’d likely take him longer overall to stop the bleeding and hide the evidence anyway. He silently cursed himself as he looked toward his wrist and saw crimson gushing out from an extremely deep cut.
Shit.
He reached for a black towel and began to make somewhat of a tourniquet with it, hoping to staunch the blood flow before he either took too long and someone came in, or he bled out to the point where he needed medical attention and then got questioned by the members of the task force, Watari, or his father. He didn’t want to think about the last one; that would be the worst of all.
He was extremely grateful that when L had decided to handcuff himself to Light, he’d let Watari take the cameras out of the bathroom to give him a slight semblance of privacy. After all, it wasn’t as if anyone particularly enjoyed watching that camera, and if L was in trouble, he could simply tap one button, which he wore on his belt, and Watari would be there immediately. L did inform him, though, that if he did anything suspicious, then the cameras would be reinstated immediately.
After he finished the makeshift tourniquet, he took a moment to thoroughly examine the room.
This is.. not good.
It’d been bad enough the first time he’d looked, with the pool of blood surrounding him. Now, he examined the full damage and saw that somehow, along with almost the entire floor, part of the wall was also covered in blood (likely a result of the vein cut,) and so were the bathtub, toilet, and sink- which thankfully enough, wouldn't be very difficult to clean.
Light attempted to stand up but sat back down immediately, black spots clouding his vision as his body threatened to give out right then and there, resigning himself to just grabbing some paper towels and cleaning supplies from under the cabinet where they were kept and attempting to mop up the blood on the floor.
Dammit, this is going to take a while…
In his half-lucid state, it took him about an hour to finish cleaning the floor (yikes). He unwrapped the towel from his arm, checking to see if the cut had stopped bleeding yet. He’d been checking about every 15 minutes between cleaning up, and by the last time he’d checked, the bleeding had slowed down.
He sighed in relief as he uncovered the wound again and saw it had stopped bleeding.
He took some gauze and medical tape and began wrapping up his arm, not wanting the wounds to get infected and for him to have an even bigger problem to deal with.
It took him considerably longer than it should’ve, as he was delirious from blood loss and also trying to do the job with only one hand, but he finished after about 30 minutes and then began to clean up the rest of the bathroom, washing off his blade and sticking it back into the razor he’d originally taken it from.
Then, he turned off the light and walked back into the bedroom as calmly as he could. He winced as he looked at the time on the digital clock:
4:37 AM
He’d been in there for three hours, somehow. He wondered how nobody had gotten suspicious of his absence. After all, there were still security cameras in the bedroom. Did nobody see an issue with the prime suspect of an investigation disappearing for that long?
Oh, wait.
He remembered. Matsuda had volunteered to watch the security cameras during the night in a futile attempt to help the investigation. Of course, the task force had put up some resistance ("Matsuda, this may not be a good task for you..") but surprisingly (or maybe not,) L had just rolled his eyes and agreed. In all honesty, he probably just wanted Matsuda to shut up, which Light definitely couldn't blame him for; Matsuda's whining could be highly annoying. It wasn't that serious of a task anyway, not for the current moment, at least. If he did make a mistake, they could just never allow him to do it again. If he didn't, well, the rest of the task force would have more time to focus on important things, and the absence of Matsuda would undoubtedly mean fewer interruptions and fooling around and more work.
Besides, for some reason, since L and Light were handcuffed together, L had seemed slightly less suspicious and on guard around him. He wondered why, but he wasn't going to ask and get L to restart questioning him about "being Kira" every 5 minutes.
He probably fell asleep, Matsuda… you idiot.
This may have been the first time Matsuda’s stupidity had helped Light; even if it wasn’t on purpose, Light silently thanked him. He would’ve almost certainly been caught otherwise.
Wait.
He swore quietly as he realized that his shirt was most definitely drenched in blood from his recent activities.
What the fuck do I do about this..? I can’t even take off the damn shirt because we’re handcuffed. I would need him to unchain me first, and well, obviously, that’s not going to happen. I can’t cut it off either because even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to put another shirt on, and that would be even worse… he'd also definitely notice even if I did put on a new shirt and check the security cameras and that would just increase my Kira percentage again…
Normally, Light would’ve probably tried to find another solution, but after all of the blood loss and the fact that it was 4 AM, he was incapable of it.
Oh well, the shirt is black, so the blood probably won’t show. Given how long it's taken me to clean everything up, it’s probably dried or close to it anyway. Also, the bedsheets are dark anyway, so even if it isn't dry, it’ll be fine—maybe.
He shook his head at his actions,
How stupid.
He had not been thinking clearly. Normally, he would not have been this careless…
I can’t do anything about it now, though, I guess…
He climbed into the bed and fell asleep almost immediately.