Precursor || Death Note [ON HOLD]

Chapter Eighteen: Kaori

Author's Note:
After this chapter I'm gonna take a short break in posting the chapters, cuz I'm leaving a steady internet connection tomorrow and going back home to an unsteady one. I will keep writing it, though; that's a guarantee. I love you all! :)
Oh, and by the way, you see what happens to Kaori's daddy in this. :( It's so sad that he's hurt...Read on to see if he's okay!
Goodbye for a little while! (But just for a bit, I promise.)
End Author's Note
***
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: {Kaori}
This plane couldn't go fast enough.
I stared bleakly out the window, and down at the endless green of the land. My stomach was tied in knots.
While I had to admit that China did look pretty from this high up, I just wished it wasn't quite so...huge.
"Come on," I murmured down to the practically empty countryside, silently wishing it to zoom past. "Hurry up. Go by faster."
It had been eight hours into the flight; only four more to go.
"But it feels like for-ever...," I moaned softly.
After my phone had broken I'd metaphorically dropped everything, and run to the airport as fast as possible (well, I'd caught a taxi, at least).
So here I was. I was impatient as hell, too.
"Can't this airplane go any faster," I muttered.
"Impatient, are we," a British woman said sourly from beside me. "We're all in the same boat here, so deal with it." She didn't appear to be enjoying the flight too much.
"Well, excuse me," I said icily, actually letting my bad mood shine through for once. "I didn't know you had a father in ICU at the hospital too." I was tired of not showing my few temper tantrums.
The woman blinked.
"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry, I didn't know-"
I sighed "Don't apologize," I said wearily. "It doesn't make my dad any better."
I looked back out the window.
It was the longest twelve hours of my life.
---
I rushed into the hospital four and a half hours later, breathless.
"Kitamura!" I gasped in strained Japanese. "I'm here to see a Mr. Koreyoshi Kitamura!"
The receptionist looked at her computer screen, slightly overwhelmed at my wide-eyed, frizzy-haired self. After all, it was fairly early: about nine AM. (I wasn't the only one rushing about, though; just the only one jet-lagged and severely lacking sleep.)
"Umm...Yeah. Room 631, six being the floor and thirty-one the room number," she informed me.
"Thanks," I panted; then I rushed off.
Gee, a month and a half speaking only English and the teensiest bit of Japanese, and I'm already rusty.
But that didn't matter.
I sprinted towards the elevators, ignoring the stares.
I hurried in an elevator at the last second, and squirmed my way into the already crowded small place.
I felt anxious (wouldn't anybody?), and tapped my foot worriedly.
The elevator seemed to take forever, and when it finally reached the sixth floor I hurried out.
"631, 631," I murmured urgently, frantically looking back and forth from one side of the hall to the next.
I finally found it, and whispered a small, "Hallelujah!"
Just as I reached for the knob, though, someone exited the hospital room.
It was Mizuki, dabbing at her puffy, red eyes and blotchy, year-stained face.
When she saw me her face lifted the smallest fraction.
"K-Kaori," she whispered in a hollow voice.
I had the sinking feeling that something was wrong.
"Is-is everything okay?" I asked in an odd, half-strangled voice.
"No," she hissed, sounding like she was in pain.
My heart felt like it was cracking slowly.
"Oh, no," I whispered, violently shaking my head. "No, no, no."
A doctor exited the room as well, looking tired and worn.
Seeing me, he quickly and sadly shook his head.
"Is he-" I stopped, unable to continue.
"I'm sorry," the doctor said softly.
My heart shattered into millions of tiny little shards. They scattered inside me and pierced through my different body parts, slowing my bodily functions and eventually stopping them.
The world became a series of shades of gray, and it almost was like I was seeing everything from someplace above my head.
But the strange thing was that I didn't cry. I just sort of...shut down.
It couldn't be real. It all didn't seem real. Please don't be real.
Let me wake up now.
But as I stood there, frozen and willing myself to wake up, I realized that I wouldn't wake up.
I couldn't.
I broke out of my reverie and raced down the hall and towards the bathrooms I'd seen on my way to room 631.
I could barely keep my sobs from starting until I entered the girls' bathroom.
The two women in there gave me odd looks, then hurried out.
"No, no," I sobbed, my cries wracking through my body. "It can't be real. It just can't. No!"
I started pounding my fists on the granite countertop. I kept pounding, aware that I was causing physical harm to my body. And yet I didn't stop until I heard something crack in my right hand, the one I used to write and draw.
Whimpering now, I crumpled down to the floor, tears of pain and loss flooding my cheeks. I pitifully clutched at my wrist.
"But it is real," I whispered softly. "It is real. It is real! Why does it have to be real?!"
I cried and cried until I couldn't feel the wetness on my face; until I no longer felt the pain in my hand.
I was numb.
But that was better than my dad. I was better off than my dad.
"Dad," I whimpered. "Daddy, Daddy-why-?"
I was numb.
But he was dead.
---
"I don't need you anymore."
I stared at Mizuki, who had just outright said something terrible.
We were in a small, empty waiting room. My hand throbbed, and we were waiting for a doctor to come look at it.
I couldn't even say anything to her; I could just stare at her, terrified.
"At first I needed you to be the heir to the Kitamura company, but," she patted her stomach with a sad fondness, "Koreyoshi managed to give me one last gift before he died. I told him about it before he died, so he died happily."
Mizuki sniffed and blew her nose.
I could tell that she was hiding how hurt she really was, but that didn't stop the mind-numbing pain that rushed at me in waves.
My mother, my birth mother, died of a heart attack when I was nine. I never knew her, but that didn't stop the longing for a true mother.
When Mizuki came along I'd hoped for a real mom, but I got the feeling that she never quite saw me as "me."
Now my dad was-was gone, all I had was her, whether she and I liked it or not.
Mizuki stood up.
"I'll be going now," she said. "I'll take care of the hospital bill and the funeral, and I'll give you money to pay for your remaining time at university."
She started to leave.
Her hand on the door, she paused and turned around.
"After the funeral, you'll never see me again. I'm sorry about your father."
Mizuki Kitamura opened the door to the waiting room and walked out, passing a hunched-over L on her way.
My stepmother, the only person I had left, walked out of my life.
My hands shook, and the shaking started to spread to the rest of my body. The small, quick movements hurt my hand.
"Ow," I whispered softly.
L stepped into the room, looking somberly at me.
My lip quivered.
Defeated, I slowly staggered over to him and, without waiting for his permission, buried myself in his arms, sobbing my poor, broken heart out.
This time he didn't stiffen, and only straightened himself, so as to make it more comfortable for me.
I let myself open up, and I cried because of my father.
For some reason, though, all I could say was, "My hand. My-my hand-!" If I mentioned my daddy it might be real. It might...It would seem more...
At some point in time L maneuvered us onto a small couch, and started awkwardly rubbing small circles into my back.
Now, as I began to calm down, he slowed and stopped, leaning back.
I wanted to tell him not to, but didn't have the guts.
Slowly and bitterly, as I looked at L, I realized that right now he was the only streak of color left in my world; everything else was drained of color. He was all I had left.
"L," I whispered softly.
"Ryuzaki," he gently reminded.
"Ryuzaki..."
"Yes?"
"I'll help. With the Kira case."
I laughed a choked up, remorseful, and sardonic laugh.
"After all, I have nowhere else to go."