Humans make mistakes.

They do it all the time. That's why forgiveness exists. Otherwise we'd all be holding grudges.

You couldn't understand why Light didn't see that. Where was the forgiveness when it came to him? Did he just not know how to empathize, to sympathize, with anyone?

Once upon a time, you'd been free enough in your own life to at least feel like you could make your decisions and not worry too much about them. That was before Light came along and turned you into some sort of ballerina, tiptoeing around eggshells on a daily basis.

At first things were fine. Isn't that always the case? He treated you kindly, acted like a genuine boyfriend, if a little bit distant at times. Back then, when things were still starting out, you'd felt no intensity from him when you chose to go out to the arcade with your friends, or to spend some extra time in clubs after class. Light had his own commitments, and so did you. Not everything could cross over, could it?

Then he started taking notes.

Initially it wasn't so obvious to you. He was always busy writing things down and studying and such, it seemed natural that he would often have a pen in his hand. Eventually though...it started to seem a little bit odd. Light began carrying his notebook everywhere when you were out together, and it seemed that after any action you took he'd flip it open like some sort of detective, jotting something down before slipping it back into his pocket again.

In a way...you were too scared to say anything. Not because you feared him, not then anyway. Because you didn't want to turn him away from you. Every day you dated him you felt so undeniably lucky. Most people could only dream of having Light for a boyfriend, he was a very desirable guy.

You didn't want to sabotage this precious thing you had.

Yet one day, you did take a risk...

“I'm just going to go downstairs to get some chips. Do you want anything? Some tea?” Light offered, getting up out of his desk chair. You looked up from the one you had pulled over to sit beside him, but shook your head.

“I'm fine thanks.”

“Alright.” Light smiled, and placed a chaste kiss on your forehead before walking out of the bedroom door. His bedroom door, specifically. You liked coming to his room, because he was always more relaxed about showing his affections here. In many ways...

Out in public he seemed more stiff, maintaining his pristine image.

Oh well, one step at a time, right?

You hummed to yourself, tapping your foot and placing your arms behind your head as you leaned back. Looking around his room, you noticed it was pretty simply decorated. No posters were up, not even blu-tack residue. Some may have considered him boring, but he was far from it. The guy was intriguing.

As if instinctively, your eyes flickered over to his desk drawer, which seemed to beckon you. You remembered that annoying notebook he carried, some kind of simple diary sort of thing...which was probably turning into the next War and Peace at this stage with how often he wrote in it.

“...”

You couldn't help yourself. He was busy downstairs in the kitchen, so it was your best shot at finally seeing the truth. Some truths couldn't be unseen, granted, but how bad would it really be?

Grabbing the handle, you pulled the drawer open and leaned over it, peering inside curiously. Textbooks were neatly stacked next to spare pens, and there was only one CD in there- The Very Best of Bach. How surprising.

It just looked like 'Light's bedroom drawer', nothing more. You were about to close it, but as the drawer shifted inwards, you heard a rattle. Looking closer and frowning, you then noticed that the base of the drawer seemed strangely loose...

You swore you'd seen something like this before. Getting out of the chair and onto your knees, you peeked up at the bottom of the drawer, then grabbed one of the pens from inside it and pushed up against it.

Frowning when it didn't work, you then noticed a small hole, and decided instead to take just the ink reservoir from the pen, pushing it up into the gap.

Something shifted. Shooting up straight again, you gasped as the false bottom was revealed to be just that, and beneath the layer of wood that you'd lifted up was that dumb little notebook.

Eagerly you grabbed it, quickly replacing the bottom and tossing the pen back inside after putting it together again, stuffing the evidence into your sweater pocket and sitting yourself down just in time for Light coming back. You made sure to shut the drawer too of course.

“Hope you don't mind sharing, there are too many in here for one person-” Light carried a bag of salted chips over, blissfully unaware. He sat down beside you, gazing over with handsome brown eyes, and you could only smile nervously in response.

“Shall we carry on? I'll explain this equation better to you.” Light flipped through the textbook already on the desk, and you secretly tried to calm your heartbeat.

You needed to read this in private. You needed to return it before he noticed the rectangular thing currently threatening to jut out of your pocket. For a few minutes you pretended to be engaged in his mathematics lesson, but eventually you had to excuse yourself:

“I just need the bathroom, I'll only be a minute-”

Once you were in there you let out all the pent up breath you had been holding, trembling a little bit. Light was still working away as far as you were aware, and it also seemed that he hadn't realized anything was amiss. Relieved about that at least, you pulled out the notebook and finally got a proper look at it.

It was covered by a plain tan sleeve, reading 'Diary' on the front. Probably mostly for scheduling more than personal accounts, given how he always had it with him.

You opened it at the very first page, and stared as you were greeted with a list of rules written in creepy white font. Not what you expected.

'The human whose name is written in this note shall die.'

Well...was this supposed to be some sort of 'edgy' diary? It looked so plain though...

You read through the other rules, which were just as ominously morbid, but struggled to see them as anything more than pointless jargon.

That was, until you started leafing through the rest of the notebook itself.

The first page you landed on was very telling.

'Onaga Takiji'

...That name. You knew it from somewhere.

Ah! It was the barista who served you and Light on your first date together. He made some comment about Light being a 'lucky guy'...

But...why would Light bother to write his name in this note--

'...whose name...shall die...'

Did he really believe that this would work that way? It was just a collection of paper, a flimsy thing someone could easily rip apart or burn, right?

Beneath Onaga's name, a time was specified. '7:00PM, 15th of September'

That was...tonight?

You read more, and in turn discovered even more names as well. Names which you also recognized.

Amari Keiji. Classmate who you were somewhat close with.

Nishinoya Tooru. One of your team members in volleyball.

Inai Masafumi. You two...used to date.

This was weird. This was really weird. Any guy you'd had any contact with, he'd be written down in here. Some of these people, in fact many of them, you were sure that Light had never even met, so how...

How did he...?

You kept thinking back to that first page, those creepy rules, and noticed that all the names had the same time written underneath.

'7:00PM, 15th of September'.

A sick feeling rose within yourself, as you pulled away the tan colored book sleeve, and saw the words 'Death Note' written on the pitch black cover.

What if it was real?

Suddenly you wanted to get far away from all of this. Far away from this awful notebook, far away from the Yagami household, far away from Light himself. This all felt far too dangerous.

So upon exiting the bathroom, you hurried back through into Light's bedroom. Opening the door again, you intended to give him an excuse to go downstairs, maybe take him up on that tea offer. You'd put the book back, then make up some sort of reason to leave early. Hopefully that would all work.

Yet as you stepped into his room, you were startled to see that he wasn't at his desk anymore. Approaching slowly, you were in the process of wondering if he had gone downstairs already, if this was your chance, when suddenly the door shut and you squealed. Whipping around, your eyes went wide as you noticed Light stepping in front of it, reaching out with one hand and turning the lock around.

Click!

A chill. That was all you could feel.

“Forgive me [Y/N], for thinking you were the type who wouldn't go snooping through my personal things.” Light tilted his head, while you swallowed and tried to play innocent,

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“Hand it over.”

He reached out simply with his hand. You almost tried to keep lying, but it was obvious he knew. Shaking, you produced the Death Note from your pocket and just held it out. Not wanting to step any closer to him, you let him walk towards you instead. Taking the book calmly, Light flicked through it a few times, then looked up at you from the pages.

“You spent long enough in the bathroom that I'm guessing you saw most of those names. And what did you think, [Y/N]? What was the first thing running through your mind when you realized?”

Psycho.

Shuddering, you backed up by a step, bumping the desk chair and quickly looking down at the drawer again. Light laughed.

“Haha! Ahh...what are you thinking now? Plan on stabbing me with one of those pens? Or torturing me with a 500 hour loop of Bach music? You probably take me for some sort of criminal, but it's the opposite [Y/N]...”

Light reached into his pocket and you tensed. Could he possibly be hiding something worse in there?

“Those others are the real criminals. Scum of society who think they're entitled to anything. Well, they're not entitled to you, that's for certain...” Light pulled something out, “I'm the only one who is. Can't you see why?”

He looked at you straight, corners of his lips curled up. He was loving every second of this,

“You're lucky to have me. I was even merciful enough to let them die of heart attacks. I could have written far worse...”

Light took a step.

“I picked the perfect moment for it to happen. The perfect time.”

Another step.

“You and I have both been waiting for this, haven't we? So I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone...”

He drew closer still.

“Propose to you, at the very moment the ones who thought they could have you instead take their last breaths. Isn't that just pure perfection?”

The hand hit 7:00. He popped open the ring box. Your knees buckled and you dropped.

On the floor, you could only grasp your mouth and let out a choked sob. Light looked down at you with faux sympathy.

“Aww, [Y/N]. Don't cry for them. It's relatively painless, they won't even know what happened. So they say at least...”

Light lowered himself to a crouching position before you, holding out the box with one hand and stroking your hair with the other. You flinched.

“Take the ring now [Y/N], and let's make this official.”

You lashed out with a cry, slapping the box from his hand and sending it careening across the floor.

“NO!”

“...” Light remained calm, standing up again and towering over you. “...Is that really your answer? 'No'?”

You nodded vigorously. You didn't know if you had ever felt so sorrowfully angry before in your life.

“I'll give you one more chance to change your mind.”

“NO! NO NO NO!!” you screeched at him, gripping both your temples like you wanted to tear all of your hair out.

“...I see.”

He brushed back some brunette locks and then approached his desk again, picking up the Death Note. His drawer was opened, and from it he pulled out one of his pens, flicking the lid off and opening up to a new page.

“Let's see then...[F/N] [L/N]...effective immediately of course...anaphylactic shock? No...too simple...maybe a seizure? Or how about...mugged and stabbed as soon as you leave my house? So many options...”

You looked up at him in a panic, and he just chuckled at your terrified expression.

“Oh don't worry [Y/N]-” he waggled the pen in the air, “-I haven't written anything yet. Still trying to decide how I want to kill you.”

Lips trembling, you could barely part them to speak:

“L...Light...”

“What?” he tilted his head again. “Changed your mind? I'm not interested in begging with no reward for my efforts, [Y/N]. Waste of time if I killed those people for nothing.”

“...Th...they'll find me...” you whimpered.

“Who?” Light grinned, “Oh, my family, or yours? Well my family left here at 6:30PM, they're going out to have dinner together. Gives me enough time to get rid of your body. As for your own, well...we both know you're not on speaking terms. Don't be silly, sweetheart.”

More tears welled, and you sniffed, quivering more and more as he lowered the pen point to the page and started pressing down upon it.

“I've certainly got your image in my mind. I'll always remember the way you're looking at me right now. It's wonderful...” Light exhaled as if he was getting some kind of pleasure from this, knowing he held your life in the balance, literally.

He knew Ryuk was watching too. This was maybe even too wonderfully fucked up for that demon.

“WAIT!!”

Your sudden cry made him stop before he could even neatly write a letter. Light glanced at you again, and watched as you crawled over to where he stood, grasping onto his leg and tugging at the ironed fabric,

“P-please...the answer is yes...”

“...Really?” Light raised a brow, but didn't stop writing. “Then hurry up and put the ring on before I finish your name.”

Hiccuping, you panicked, and quickly scrambled across the floor to go get it. Silently cursing yourself for batting it away as far as you did, you prayed that it would be intact in the box. Thankfully it was alright, and you shoved it onto your finger before holding up your hand and crying:

“Okay! Okay I did it!”

Light looked up again, then smirked and shook his head, still penning,

“Wrong finger, honey.”

Gasping, you looked down at your hand. Shit! You put it on the middle one by mistake. You practically tore the jewelry off your digit, thankful he had picked a perfect fit, and then hurriedly placed it on the right one. Alerting Light again, he finally pulled back the pen and gestured for you to get up and come over. Struggling to your feet, you stumbled over to where he stood.

“Lucky save. I was almost finished writing your surname. Anyway...there's only one other thing we need to do now, to make this official.”

Light took your hands in his own after finally setting down that accursed notebook, and drew you close to his chest.

“...Tell me you'll marry me.”

“I-I'll marry you!”

“Tell me you love me.”

“I love you...!”

“Now kiss me.”

Gulping, you really didn't want to. Not now. Not now that this handsome guy you'd once trusted had shown who he really was. Not now that you knew he'd been writing down names this whole time, dooming the lives of innocent people who only ever shared a word with you.

Yet you forced yourself to do it.

As he kissed you, you shut your eyes, swearing you could feel eyes watching from the corner of the room. Your fate was sealed, and tears rolled down your cheeks as he ran his hands through your hair, swirling his tongue feverishly in your mouth. He got exactly what he wanted.

You. His prisoner forever.

Dropping dead might have been easier.