The Puppeteer

Planting Seeds

Light hummed with a reminiscent smile, "Of course I do, the day you came to my place for dinner right? You made me think about, for the first time, Kira's point of view as well. Honestly, you're always making me think."

He expected her to laugh with him when he said that. He thought she would give him that lovely smile, when the corners of her eyes would crinkle and she would press her fingers into her cheeks, squishing them because they hurt too much.

Instead, what Light received what a sudden change in her expression. Her eyebrow quirked, almost questioningly, as though she was surprised. 

"What?" He asked with a hesitant laugh, "I still remember it so vividly. What you were wearing, how your hair was done, what you said, I even remember how.." Light suddenly paused, his words caught in his throat, ".. how.. shocked.. I was."

Wait a minute.. why was he shocked to see her that day..?

The dinner was the first time they had met, hadn't they? Then why had he been so shocked to see her?

Kiyo spoke, interrupting his thoughts, answering the unasked question, "That wasn't the first time we met," She was still smiling, obviously unoffended by his lack of memory, she just seemed surprised that he didn't remember, "The first time we met was in the convenience store, wasn't it? At least that's what you told me.."

R-right.. Light did remember something of that sort. It was after cram school, when he went to the store for some reason.. then he stood near the magazine stand.. and.. wait- wasn't there an accident that had happened right outside? Now he remembers.

"Right! Oh, I almost forgot about that," Light chuckled, but the sound just came out strained and unnatural. The topic was changed after that and Kiyo visibly tried to cheer him up, an effort Light greatly appreciated, but his mind still remained stuck on that one question-

How had he forgotten about something like this?

-----------------------------------

It was weird, to say the least, very very weird. 

It was as though Light's brain had been wiped of that very specific part of his memory, that he probably wouldn't have regained if it weren't for Kiyo bringing up how they first met. 

What troubled Light even more though was the fact that even when he racked his brain and retraced every single memory he had, he couldn't for the life of him find any such blank spaces in said memory, and yet, for some odd reason, he simply wasn't able to ignore the gut feeling that this wasn't just an occurrence for one situation.

He simply couldn't ignore the silent screams in his brain that said he had forgotten much more than he realized. 

It was torturous.

It wasn't a feeling easy to forget or ignore, but he tried his best. Light tried his best not to space out in the middle of important discussions or to awkwardly pause mid-speech whenever he had those weird uneasy feelings suddenly bubbling up inside him, and thankfully for him, it was working.. more or less.

His usual one-on-one conversations with Kiyo had resumed, and it helped, to have something to hold on to other than those secret smiles and lingering glances they shared away from the rest of the world. Truth be told, it was like a fairy-tale that Light never wished to escape.

But all good things must come to an end, he knew that, sooner or later every beautiful thing he held near and dear to him would come to an end. However, despite all that, Light couldn't help but hope and pray that it happened later rather than sooner.

19th October 2007:

According to L, there were many things in the world that had the ability to capture your attention, to trap your attention as though it were a little box nothing can ever escape from.