Cheating Gods of Death (Sequel to L: Find A GirLfriend)

Apples

Mom loved cats too, cherishing Kim.

One of the saddest parts of Dad waking was the first week when he tried to call Kim like he always had. He figured out how to sound out “Kimmy” correctly, and she never came. He looked all over for her until Mom came home and told him that she died... I didn't have the heart to. And, this was when he was weak still, and he rolled around the house until he would tire. He held a relationship with the cat-rat as much as anyone did.

Naked, glistening, Kim the cat.

“What are you doing?”

Father inquired into air, still rolling down the highway.

“What have you guys been talking to? Mom?”

And, I inquired, too.

Mom glanced back, pursed her lips, and... offered an inquiry. Of course.

“The... Oh, is it time?”

She was speaking to Father, who paused the pursuit of ice cream to respond.

“Yes, this evening.”

“That's your answer George.”

The answer was masquerading.

“B-”

Erica.

“Erica, you will know, also.”

Father silenced her, resuming his happy eating.

The house looked the same, and smelled the same, but felt twice as good as houses do at the end of a road trip. An hour passed before we were called downstairs to the table, a folder in the middle of the table.

“George, Erica...”

He began the moment we were both present.

“What I am about to show you... This thing... it is not a divine tool.”

“That's right. I raised you both to be Christian in otherworldly beliefs. And, demons and such higher powers are real.”

Mother put in her two cents. It was true, she did teach us to love God. And, I don't have any beef with the big man.

“As I was saying... this is not anything I want you two to touch or use in any way. No tearing pages, no curiosity, nothing at all to deal with it. I am afraid... George, I am afraid of what may happen again had either of you choose to harness the immoral avarice it enables in people. I have seen damnable things through this notebook... but not through a related being your Mother and I have been consulting. He- Oh, just...”

He pulled a thin black notebook from the envelope, and upon placing it face up in the center of the table, it read “Death Note” in an unusual script.

“Touch it.”

“Daddy... is it really that bad? Why should I touch it?”

“Erica, sweetheart, just touch it. It's only bad if... we'll get to it, okay?”

Mom put her fingers along the edge, her eyes beckoning us to do the same.

I held Erica's hand as we put our fingers on it together.

A skeletal figure with a... oh, a grotesque face clad in some sort of black clothing appeared over the shoulders of Mom and Dad. His mouth was stuck into a grin that stains my memory. At his shoulders were some sort of collection of feathers, his hair a skyward mess, and his lined eyes were unblinking yellow orbs, the irises a bloody red.

Erica and I yelped back in shock, Mother leaning forward and smiling in her comforting manner she uses with patients.

“No, shhh, he's alright. His name is Ryuuk, he is a death-god who owns the notebook. You can see him because you touched it. Nothing bad will happen.”

Father's eyes grew wide and he interrupted the single syllable that slipped out my mouth.

“Don't make the eye deal! Whatever you do... do not do it. That is all.”

He moused back into his chair, and the being spoke.

“Eh? Well then, you had a little brood! I've been hearing about you- I have to say, I didn't expect your father to be a man of bodily pleasure.”

There was nothing to say to it.

Mom began to speak again.

“H-He likes apples, more than anything. Okay?”

“We don't have apples in the Shinigami- as your mother said, I am a God of death-, realm. Or, at least, not these delicious things you know them to be.”

Dinner was very quiet that evening.