The weekly dose of DN fanfiction
May. 1st, 2008 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tallulahgsI'm pleased with myself now; I'd thought I'd have to give up on the theme this week. *preens*
Title: Youth Culture
Fandom: Death Note
Rating: G
Pairings/Characters: Mikami and his mother
Warnings: None
Word Count: 844
Notes/Summary: Mikami arrives home from his first day of high school. Written for and crossposted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
dn_contest, prompt "culture clash".
When Teru got home the sun was still shining, just like it had all day. He didn't go in immediately, but stood outside the door with the light warm on his back and his eyes half-closed, and listened. On the other side of the door, the apartment seemed silent. Surely that meant she would still be at work. Which meant he could go inside and clean the grit and dirt and blood off his arms and face and soak his new school shirt in cold water to try and get the marks out, and not have to worry about explaining how the lens had popped out of his glasses because he was going to try and fix it with some wire or something.
He didn't want her to worry. That was it.
Inside the apartment it was still silent. He could hear someone else's music and someone else's television and someone else's argument but here there was nothing and it was just as it had been when he had left, down to the plates stacked on the draining board and the book he'd been reading at breakfast closed and lying neatly on the table. His breathing was slowing down, back to normal; the house was wrapping around him and in here nothing had changed.
He was standing in here smeared with blood.
And suddenly he was shaking all over and he was tearing off the grubby shirt - one of the buttons had been ripped away already, he felt another snap off and heard it rattle as it hit the floor. Got to - can't - but he'd tried and - just spoiling everything - couldn't cry. Not in here, people would listen and maybe they would make supercilious remarks next time his mother stepped out of the door (because he didn't want her to worry, wasn't that right?) and - swallowing, hard, the stony lump in his throat shifting a little. He took his glasses off, opened his eyes properly now he didn't have the one lens confusing his vision. The world slid back into blurriness. It was like crying, and so it helped.
Silence and cold water and the blood weakening and fading as he washed it off. The shirt would always be marked, but that didn't matter (it didn't) it would hardly be noticeable (he would notice it) and if she asked he could say he'd... fallen over playing football or something.
She wouldn't believe him. He'd never liked team games much.
She would notice. And they would notice. Even if they never touched him again (not that he was frightened, not that he cared, you do the right thing and stand up for people and it doesn't matter what happens next, it doesn't) he would have to carry the marks and he'd be able to feel them. (And it wasn't fair.) (Someone should -)
(Someone -)
And silence and cold water sparkling in the sun and the marks staying and staying -
"Teru? What happened to your glasses?"
He hadn't hear her come through the front door; he'd stopped listening for her. And he had left his glasses on the kitchen table.
(Perhaps he had wanted her to find out. Perhaps he had hoped that -)
"The screw fell out."
(- that she would understand him)
"It just fell out?" she said.
He didn't answer.
When he finally hung the shirt up by the window and walked back into the kitchen his mother was sitting at the table, cupping a mug of tea in her hands. She had made one for him and he sat down, mimicked her, even though he didn't really like consuming things when he hadn't seen them made.
"High school is very different," she said at last.
She wasn't going to understand.
"There's no shame in keeping your head down," she said. "Get to know a place. Learn how things work."
"It shouldn't be like that!"
"Teru, I know you have very firm ideas on how things should be done, but it's only your first day. You know nothing about the - the culture of high school."
"I don't care. I don't want to." He scowled at her, glad that the myopia meant he couldn't see her face properly. (Just a blur. Just a blur saying things that weren't true.) "I don't want to be part of some stupid culture like that. They were - they -"
For a moment he thought he might cry, and she reached out as if she wanted that. So he stood up, pushing away the undrunk tea (she should have known he wouldn't want it, she never understood anything) picked up his glasses, and walked out of the room.
It was nothing to do with not making her worry. It was because he'd known she'd say something like this.
Title: Youth Culture
Fandom: Death Note
Rating: G
Pairings/Characters: Mikami and his mother
Warnings: None
Word Count: 844
Notes/Summary: Mikami arrives home from his first day of high school. Written for and crossposted to
dn_contest, prompt "culture clash".When Teru got home the sun was still shining, just like it had all day. He didn't go in immediately, but stood outside the door with the light warm on his back and his eyes half-closed, and listened. On the other side of the door, the apartment seemed silent. Surely that meant she would still be at work. Which meant he could go inside and clean the grit and dirt and blood off his arms and face and soak his new school shirt in cold water to try and get the marks out, and not have to worry about explaining how the lens had popped out of his glasses because he was going to try and fix it with some wire or something.
He didn't want her to worry. That was it.
Inside the apartment it was still silent. He could hear someone else's music and someone else's television and someone else's argument but here there was nothing and it was just as it had been when he had left, down to the plates stacked on the draining board and the book he'd been reading at breakfast closed and lying neatly on the table. His breathing was slowing down, back to normal; the house was wrapping around him and in here nothing had changed.
He was standing in here smeared with blood.
And suddenly he was shaking all over and he was tearing off the grubby shirt - one of the buttons had been ripped away already, he felt another snap off and heard it rattle as it hit the floor. Got to - can't - but he'd tried and - just spoiling everything - couldn't cry. Not in here, people would listen and maybe they would make supercilious remarks next time his mother stepped out of the door (because he didn't want her to worry, wasn't that right?) and - swallowing, hard, the stony lump in his throat shifting a little. He took his glasses off, opened his eyes properly now he didn't have the one lens confusing his vision. The world slid back into blurriness. It was like crying, and so it helped.
Silence and cold water and the blood weakening and fading as he washed it off. The shirt would always be marked, but that didn't matter (it didn't) it would hardly be noticeable (he would notice it) and if she asked he could say he'd... fallen over playing football or something.
She wouldn't believe him. He'd never liked team games much.
She would notice. And they would notice. Even if they never touched him again (not that he was frightened, not that he cared, you do the right thing and stand up for people and it doesn't matter what happens next, it doesn't) he would have to carry the marks and he'd be able to feel them. (And it wasn't fair.) (Someone should -)
(Someone -)
And silence and cold water sparkling in the sun and the marks staying and staying -
"Teru? What happened to your glasses?"
He hadn't hear her come through the front door; he'd stopped listening for her. And he had left his glasses on the kitchen table.
(Perhaps he had wanted her to find out. Perhaps he had hoped that -)
"The screw fell out."
(- that she would understand him)
"It just fell out?" she said.
He didn't answer.
When he finally hung the shirt up by the window and walked back into the kitchen his mother was sitting at the table, cupping a mug of tea in her hands. She had made one for him and he sat down, mimicked her, even though he didn't really like consuming things when he hadn't seen them made.
"High school is very different," she said at last.
She wasn't going to understand.
"There's no shame in keeping your head down," she said. "Get to know a place. Learn how things work."
"It shouldn't be like that!"
"Teru, I know you have very firm ideas on how things should be done, but it's only your first day. You know nothing about the - the culture of high school."
"I don't care. I don't want to." He scowled at her, glad that the myopia meant he couldn't see her face properly. (Just a blur. Just a blur saying things that weren't true.) "I don't want to be part of some stupid culture like that. They were - they -"
For a moment he thought he might cry, and she reached out as if she wanted that. So he stood up, pushing away the undrunk tea (she should have known he wouldn't want it, she never understood anything) picked up his glasses, and walked out of the room.
It was nothing to do with not making her worry. It was because he'd known she'd say something like this.
