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Feeling dazed, Light removes his jacket and hangs it neatly in the closet. Everything looks just as it’s meant to — the light, fading thin through his balcony windows throwing soft shadows on his bookshelves, his VCRs lined up neatly in the shelf beneath his television, his bed made with hospital corners like he’d left it before school. It had rained last night, and so it still smells like petrichor; he rubber seal around his balcony door has cracked and so any scent from outside gets in, filling up his bedroom with diesel or rain or the the sweetness of camellia in the spring.

He paces a slow circle around the edge of his room, then throws himself onto his bed and folds his hands behind his head. His preference would have been to curl up in the fetal position, but if he hopes that if he forces his body to behave normally his mind will follow suit.

He tries to remember — did he really pull the handle down? It’s possible that he’d forgotten. It wouldn’t be like him, but it’s possible. Except the graphite is lying in two pieces on the ground. There’s no way around that. Could his mother have come in to clean up? He’s asked her not to, but she sometimes does it anyway. But, if so, she wouldn’t have put the slip back.

No, the conclusion is absurd and terrifying but inescapable. Someone has been in here. They’ve been touching his things and seeing everything private.

He shuts his eyes. From the street below, he can hear a car door slamming, and then a sudden burst of muffled laughter. Usually, he likes that he can hear a little bit of the outdoors from in here, but right now it just feels like another invasion.

The outside world often feels like hostile ground, but he’s worked hard to make sure his room is safe. Once he locks the door, he knows that no one will hurt him and he won’t hurt anyone else. This is where he keeps all of his things — his art books, his VCRs with recordings of all his favourite shows, the magazines he forces himself to read over and over again to prove to himself that he really is interested in girls. It isn’t always pleasant, but there’s a relief to preforming all of his rituals without judgement, even the ones that are strange or embarrassing or gross.

And he’s got his book —

Light jolts upwards.

A few weeks ago, he’d stopped by a stationary store on his way home from school and picked up a plain black notebook. Everyone says that it helps to journal, and he’d been desperate. He’s been writing out every stray thought that comes to mind, scribbled in a panicked stream-of-consciousness which feels more like an exorcism than a writing session.

His mother must have found it. Or Sayu. Or his father. That would explain why they’d put the paper back in place. They must have looked through it and seen what he’s written, everything about them and his classmates and strangers on the street, all the things he doesn’t want to do but which echo around and around in his mind until he can’t distinguish them from the things he does. They’re probably calling the police right now.

He has to kill them.

The thought comes to him, unwanted and unbidden, and lodges itself in his throat like hair in a shower drain. He doesn’t mean it, but he knows just what they would look like. He could make it look like an accident and everyone would believe him. He’s the golden son with the perfect grades and his whole life in order; it would be so easy, and then everything would be just fine, forever. He’d be safe.

He twists his hands into his hair and pulls, trying to make the image disappear. He thinks, he needs to get back to studying, so no one will suspect him when he kills his family.

Light shuts his eyes. He breathes out. Carefully, he relaxes his hands, then folds them into his lap. His scalp hurts where he’d tugged. He reminds himself, very firmly, that he does not want to kill anyone. He’s a good person. Everyone says so. He helps his sister with his homework. He does well in school. He’s going to get a perfect score on his entrance exam and that will prove how good he is, how tame. It will prove that he isn’t a danger to anyone at all. He can imagine how their blood would look, drying thick and dark in the carpet.

He exhales, then stands and walks the length of his room to his desk.

He plucks a ballpoint pen off of it, then kneels down, pulls out his drawer, and opens up the secret compartment where he keeps his notebook.

It’s exactly where he left it. Of course it is. He picks it up and flips through it, trying not to read his own words. It looks like something that belongs in a grainy scan on a true crime website.

Light returns the notebook to the drawer. Then he takes it out again, and checks one more time. He’s not entirely certain what he’s looking for but he knows he has to keep looking. Even if they had found it, he tells himself, nothing bad would happen. They’d still love him. They’d take him to get help. He should tell them. He should walk downstairs this second and phone his mother and tell her that he’s losing his mind and needs her to come back home, right now, no matter what.

He can smell copper. He can feel it on his fingers, oily, drying in flakes.

Light slams the drawer shut, then paces a circle around his room. He tries to focus on the scent of rain or the distant sound of cars from the streets below, but he can’t do it — his entire world has narrowed to the pinhole of his mind, to the strangling certainty that he will hurt and kill, that he is dangerous, that he is a murder waiting to happen.

This is insane. He is insane. But he didn’t make it up. Someone has been in here.

He has to get rid of the book.

-----

“What,” L says, not particularly expecting Soichiro to have an answer, “is your son doing?”

“I —“ Soichiro’s voice is hoarse. L flicks his eyes over, but that appears to be the end of his sentence.

True to his word, L has restricted monitoring of the Yagami household to Soichiro and himself. The rest of the task force has been shuffled off to a separate hotel room, where they are presumably watching the Kitamuras.

This room feels just like every hotel room he’s ever stayed in. Flat fluorescent light, the residual scent of bleach hanging around the sheets, a dull and disposable glamour that’s starting to feel faintly panic-inducing. He hasn’t been outside in months, and his whole body feels like a live wire. By contrast, the sleekness of the Yagami’s household looks quite pleasant, even in pixilated monochrome. There are apples on the counter, and photographs of distant family tucked into the corners. It’s a place where people live, and he has to tamp down an inconsolate and entirely inappropriate sense of jealousy.

Up until about forty seconds ago, the whole affair had been remarkably boring. Now, though, they’re watching his prime suspect disassemble what looks very much like a homemade bomb.

He gestures towards the television set. “I find that little odd,” he informs Soichiro.

“It — yes. He’s — he’s always been interested in crafts.”

L does not feel that requires a response. He plucks a mochi rabbit off his plate, in order to have something to chew on while he collects his thoughts.

“Frankly,” he says, once he’s swallowed, “the fact that he’s hidden the notebook doesn’t concern me. That’s normal enough. It’s the lengths to which he’s gone to hide it that I’m interested in. It’s a shame the resolution isn’t high enough to see what he’s written. I would have liked to read the contents.”

“We —“ Soichiro makes what L is sure is a very valiant, if not entirely successful, attempt at sounding professional. “We can send Mogi back in tomorrow to retrieve it.”

“I don’t think so,” L says. He points at the screen, where Light is dragging a metal wastebasket out from under his desk. Light tosses the notebook into it, then punctures the bag of fluid with a pair of craft scissors and pours it into the bin.

Soichiro seems to realize what he’s doing a second before it happens. With a strangled noise, he stands.

Light strikes a match, and drops it in.

The effect is immediate. The book shoots up in flames — a sudden tower, so bright that the cameras are momentarily blinded. The screen goes a sharp flat white. It hurts. L blinks, and then it’s settled, and Light is standing in front of a pillar of flames.

“He’s going to burn down the house,” Soichiro says. He reaches into his pocket and fumbles for his phone.

L holds out his hand. “It’s safe,” he says. “The fire is contained.” He’s not at all sure that’s actually true, but there’s nothing they can do without effectively announcing to Light that they’re monitoring him, and it’s suddenly very important to him that this does not happen.

Soichiro makes a strange, choked noise. L ignores it. He won’t do anything without his permission, not while the gamble of his son’s innocence is on the line.

It’s a small chance. Barely worth remarking upon. Five percent at best. If this were any other case, he’d notch it as another thing to follow up on, one blandly useful piece of evidence which might some day add up to something important. But this isn’t any other case. It’s this one, which is like nothing L has ever experienced before, and which has not yet had anything remotely resembling an actionable lead. He’s been chasing shadows with his hands.

Five percent is so much better than zero. Five percent will be enough.

He leans forwards. He can feel electricity running through him. This is how a case is meant to feel. It’s how it’s always felt before.

On the screen, Light is very still. He stares, unmoving, into the flames. A pyre, L thinks, wildly. That, or an offering to some profane being, the sort of monster that could kill hundreds without a whisper of mercy.

He makes a mental note to inform Watari the moment Soichiro is out of the room: as of today, Light Yagami will take priority.