Worth the Wait (Death Note Fan Fiction-Aizawa x Matsuda)

Chapter 1: An Unexpected Guest

*Note: I have previously posted short stories about Aizawa and Matsuda on here. This, however, will be the longer form of their story, filling in all that happened before, in-between, and after the shorts I already posted. I will leave the individual short stories up, but they will also be future chapters of this work.*

Chapter Summary: After a fight with his wife, Aizawa comes to see Matsuda. Much to Matsuda's surprise...and delight. 

Aizawa was the last person that Matsuda expected to see when he answered a knock on his front door. Yet when he opened it, he found Aizawa standing there. As if this were not surprising enough, Matsuda also noticed how Aizawa did not seem like himself; he looked depressed and dejected.

"Aizawa," Matsuda said. "What's wrong?"

"Eriko's leaving me," he said quietly. "She kicked me out of the house and said she wants a divorce."

Matsuda could not believe it. He knew that Aizawa's wife had been having trouble with his long hours at work, but he had never realized that it could lead to this.

"Come in and sit down," Matsuda said.

Aizawa took a seat on the couch as Matsuda went to his refrigerator. He pulled out a couple of beers, opened them, and handed one to Aizawa. Matsuda took a seat on the edge of the coffee table across from him.

"Aizawa, what happened?" Matsuda asked him.

"Just what I said," Aizawa replied, taking a rather large swig from his beer bottle. "Eriko said that she can't take it anymore. My long hours, the nights when I don't come home until midnight because I'm working. And the nights where I don't come home at all."

Matsuda took a sip of his own beer as he thought this over. Why had Aizawa come to him to talk about this? Matsuda didn't mind at all, but it seemed odd to him that Aizawa had sought him out.

"Maybe Eriko just needs some time to calm down. To think things over," Matsuda said, trying to offer some level of comfort for his friend. "I take it she was angry when she said all of that, right? We say all kinds of things that we don't mean when we're mad. Things we later regret saying. Give her a day or two and then try to talk to her again. She might even call you."

Aizawa shook his head. "Not very likely. Not at all likely, in fact."

"Aizawa, have you considered maybe leaving the Task Force?" Matsuda said. "We don't want you to leave of course, and you're an important member of the team. But if it could possibly save your marriage, maybe it's worth thinking about."

"My marriage was on the rocks before I joined the Kira investigation," Aizawa said. "Leaving now won't solve anything. And I don't want to leave anyhow."

"Can I ask you something?" Matsuda said.

"Go ahead."

"I'm a little surprised you came to me for this," Matsuda told him. "Don't get me wrong, I mean I don't mind. It just seems like you would have gone to Ide, Mogi, or even the Chief about this sort of thing. Why did you come to me?"

"As you know, Ide and I have a long history together," Aizawa said. "We're the same age, we've worked together for years, and he's a great friend. But he's always been a little skeptical about Eriko. He doesn't really care for her and he never did trust her either. If I can, I'd still like to work things out with Eriko, but Ide's been saying that I should get a divorce for months now. And that's just not something I want to deal with at the moment."

"I see," Matsuda said.

"And Mogi's the opposite," Aizawa said. "I'm sure he would listen to what happened, but he wouldn't offer much in the way of words or advice. And the Chief has his own family. The last thing I want to do is disrupt them."