The World Only The Devil Knows

I Solemnly Swear

Chapter 2

I Solemnly Swear

Hatori stares at her food in silence.

It's her favorite. Dumplings with meat fillings are piled on her plate, soft and steaming and perfect for the last meal of the day, but she hasn't eaten a single bite.

Instead, she pushes the food around, a frown stuck to her face.

"Hatori, dear? What's wrong? You love dumplings," her mother tuts.

"She's just feeling a little under the weather. I think it might be something that's going around. Right, Hatori?" Light nudges her with his shoulder, and she drags her gaze away from her plate to meet his eyes.

He looks completely fine.

She spent the last night in shambles. She barely slept a half hour, and woke up feeling even worse, and somehow, his perfectly unbothered face is staring right at her- feigning confusion. He knows exactly why she's so shaken, and the truth is, he should be just as disturbed.

So why wasn't he?

A sharp pain pulls her out of her thoughts as Light pinches her. She shoves her knee into his leg, glowering at him. "I'm absolutely fine, thank you. I've just got an upset stomach, mom. May I excuse myself?" She turns to their mom, giving her best attempt at a sickly, exhausted look.

Apparently, it's quite convincing.

"Of course you can. I'll clean up the dishes so just leave them there. If it gets worse- I'll drive you to the hospital." Her mother's brow furrows, and Hatori feels a sliver of guilt at her worried expression. Yesterday must've hit her harder than she thought if her mother was this concerned.

"I'm fine, seriously. Just a little under the weather." She shoots her mom a weak smile before getting up and heading upstairs.

Hiding under the blankets sounded like a wonderful idea.

Yesterday, after Sumida Aoi died of a heart attack. Hatori spent an hour sobbing in Light's bed, rambling about the damnation of their souls, the inane inhumanity of murder, and the evil that lurked in the very conceptual idea of a Death Note. It was somewhat poetic, somewhat crazed. It took Light at least fifteen different arguments for why Aoi's death was a good thing and five more for why Hatori was still a good person to calm her down.

And then she started crying again.

In one fell swoop, Light, the unflawed, quick-witted genius that he was, had both proven the validity of the Death Note and implicated Hatori in its murderous orbit. A fact she realized curled under her duvet in the dark, just as she remembered that Sumida Aoi wasn't the only criminal to die yesterday from a sudden heart attack.

Aoi's death wasn't at all odd to an outsider looking in. It was a high stress situation. Stress is a catalyst for those kinds of things, especially for men his age.

Sumida was the perfect candidate for an unpredictable medical emergency like a heart attack or a stroke. The interesting thing about the other guy though, Yuta, Yukai? Something with a Y, was that he was in his twenties.

It was all over the news this morning.

He was an inmate at some high security prison, arrested for multiple counts of first degree murder.

And he died yesterday, of a miraculous heart attack.

Hatori shoots up, throwing her blanket off of her.

What the fuck?

When Light gets to his room and flicks on the light, Hatori is already there, sitting on his bed. Legs crossed, face red in fury with the Death Note clutched in her hand.