Disclaimer: My name is King, I am not smarter than a fifth-grader and I do not own Death Note.

Devil's Trill

I: The Problem of Evil

CH1

Sightseeing

As usual, Yagami Light won.

As to what it was that he actually won though, Light hadn't a faintest clue. Because really, his very off coordination and the suspiciously not-full bottle in his hand all the while venturing out of the strictly clubbing district of Kanto were in no way suggestive to just what it was he was up to this late Saturday night a day before the exams.

But he definitely knew he won something... maybe a golfing match since he was in the clubbing area..? If there were clubs, there definitely were golf clubs. So maybe he won a golf club?

Looking himself over and finding no golf club on him, he decided that some more pondering on the matter was in order so he took a large sip of the bitter alcohol.

Ah, nuts.

As if forgetting that mud was a generally non-solid object, the young and full-of-promise college student kicked it, marring his (already marred by the surrounding mud) shoes.

Who was he kidding? His life was a sore disaster; that's why he was out in this unholy hour with this lovely bottle of cheep booze as a hearty companion. Booze that tasted more like ethanol then anything else because it was that cheap. Couldn't afford any better, see.

So what if he screwed up?

Ran off with a model-(now)-ex-girlfriend to be rich and famous, big deal.

Too stubborn to admit he was being a fucking moron so he could move back in with his family, whoops.

Genius that he was, life actually did require skills: skills he had no chance to acquire whilst living under the protective wing of proud papa up until around five months ago. Brains feed when you're of legal age to work, see. Heavy collage scholarship is one thing, but living on your own at 17 is a peculiar thing of an entirely different caliber, IQ of two hundred-something or not. Thank god for fake IDs that got him his crappy job in the first place, otherwise he'd be living in a box because hell would rain sugar before he faced his father and admitted his own stupidity.

Hell no, that would be a loss, and Yagami Light always won.

Yagami Light took a generous swig oh his now half-empty liquor and swayed a little towards the sidewalk, but since sidewalks were for losers, curtly kept parading in the middle of the thankfully empty road like the winner that he was.

Light was sad, like an emo. So what did emo people do exactly?

They killed themselves of course, that's why there were so fucking many of them.

And that was where Light Yagami decided that he should just kill himself because his life wouldn't take him any further anyway, and the least cowardly way to do is without a gun that he didn't have would be to drown.

He'll probably regret killing himself in the morning, but... gulp gulp... well, to hell with it.

He went to look for a body of water, preferably one with a bridge.

Well, this should do, Light though bitterly as he stared down at the rippling surface of the pond somewhat skeptically, this is it then.

It was now nearing four in the morning of Sunday; almost two hours of searching for a plausible place to drown and another bottle of Ice Vodka later, he had found a place that somewhat followed both criteria of perfect suicide site. Kanto having no actual river within available range per se, Light bravely decided that something as symbolic as a suicide should be done close to home, or at least have some sort of statement behind it.

...Thus, standing over the rippling surface of Koi Pond on the miniature bridge on the library property, Light definitely thought there was something wrong with the picture, though he couldn't quite place a finger on it.

Water: check, bridge: check... pretty fish in the water: check. Hmm, everything seemed in order.

Stupid booze, discrediting his Koi Pond like that.

Shakespeare had a cool way of killing of his characters, so Light figured to die in a cool way, he needed to do an epiphany. Oh, how great it would have been if his life had adventures to offer. Light always wanted to be a detective; a figure righteousness and justice, famous, recognized, celebrated. Selfishly he never really wanted anything else, and his obsessive-compulsive desire to always win didn't exactly help in that area.

Though his mind wasn't properly functioning at the moment and there was absolutely no chance that he could die by throwing himself into a two-feed deep puddle inhabited by bright fish and plastic plants, emotionally, this suicide he was about to attempt was just as real to him as if he'd been soberly standing on a highway bridge with raging icy waters below him.

He could plot his path to fame and get what he wanted with fake smiles brilliant lies and good looks, but he was spoiled and required attention and when it came down to it, life gave him a hard lesson; one he no longer had desire to study. Ha! Double entendre.

He was just eighteen years old for God's sake, what the hell did everyone expect from him.

Crossing his fingers and for some reason making a wish (a wish that he will not remember in the morning), Light took a deep breath and jumped.

He fell in the water, hurt his ankle, stumbled and fell to the side. Soaked and wet, he hit his head on a large boulder that framed the pond and fainted. His ear landed right against his digital wristwatch that will beep 4 AM and wake him up in ten minutes.

For the next few months, he will regret wearing the damned digital thing that night instead of his Quartz that did not have a beeper and would not have woken him; and for the rest of his life he would wonder what would have happened if he did wear the Quartz, and never spied on the horror of an oversized garbage bag being dragged across the lawn, later to produce a naked middle-aged male body that would be crucified on one of the Sakura trees and gutted.

What would have happened if he didn't get a very detailed look at the man in a white shirt and faded jeans with crazy jet-black hair as he was executing this?

Illuminated by one of numerous ground lights the library mini-park had, the man stood tall and calm over his victim. He looked much thinner and almost sickly compared to the almost-fat corpse now chained to the hypocritically lovely tree blossoming with pink flowers. His movements weren't slow but skilled and certain; no blood had ever stained his show-white shirt throughout the whole process.

This description of course will be forgotten in the morning, instead overpowered by a much more detailed one of the scene Light was now witnessing while successfully imitating a pile of rubbish in the pond.

Sick...

Light felt tears streaming down his numb face, but instincts told him to shut the fuck up and not even breathe as to not alert the man of his presence. And shut the fuck up he did -poor boy couldn't even feel the cold or pain or even shock anymore. He just numbly observed, his brain coming shallow on thoughts.

Half an hour later, the man simply packed up and was begging to leave, completely unaware of his little drunken spectator and not even sparing a second glace over at his masterpiece. But he was only begging to leave and never quite did, because at that moment they both became aware that it was precisely four-thirty in the morning: Light's watch beeped again.

They stared directly at each other for a split second, and then the man dropped his bag and bolted towards him, Light in turn jumped out as if the water was boiling and attempted to run. He made exactly two steps before frozen from spending thirty minutes in the same position in cold water, muscles gave out and his ankle exploded in pain and he fell.

He didn't even have a chance to try to get up as he was seized by the creepy psychotic killer with porcelain skin and deepest eyes Light has ever seen and pinned down to the grass. A hand gripped his throat with not enough force to quite strangle, but limited his oxygen supply with a grip that would accept thing but obsolete obedience.

"Name", a smooth, monotone voice ordered.

Like hell, Light thought and tried to kick out of the iron grip with all force he had left in him, which definitely wasn't much at the moment.

The man's flat expression did not change, but as the momento of adrenaline rush passed, it was obvious that he was repelled by the strong smell of alcohol that soaked Light's clothes and breath.

But Light didn't care.

I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, he thought as he fought and the man just stared down at him debating something in his head, his grip not faltering one bit.

Eventually, few minutes later, Light stilled.

"I don't wanna die", he whispered, fresh tears running down his cheeks. He was begging, and praying to everything holy that begging was enough.

The man sighed at this.

"You do not have to die, however you must answer one question I ask you". Light registered slight pity in smooth voice, so he looked up in hope, signaling the man to continue.

"How many", the man started, his dark, deep eyes somehow pinning Light down even harder, "fingers am I holing up?".

The hand released Light's throat and was held up in front of his face. Light looked.

"Six", he stated, confident.

The man sighed again at this, somewhat in defeat.

"Alright, up you go. I have no business with you"

Light was jerked up by his wet shirt.

"You are very lucky that you are intoxicated enough to have high chances of losing this memory, and I hope my assessment correct." Light blinked, not quite understanding. He did hear the slightly preaching tone in the part of the man's monologue and assumed he was being scolded. "However, I encourage you to refrain from such extreme practices with alcohol in the future as this situation could have been entirely avoided should you not have been here at all. I also strongly discourage you from coping with exam stress in such manner if my assumption is also correct."

Light took his last look at the psychopath-murderer-butcher-person before he drowned in the black eyes as he was swiftly hit at the back f his head and lost consciousness.