Death Note one shots and short stories

Trap Door

AN: For this story, I'm pretending that Misa never becomes the Second Kira. She doesn't have a notebook, and never meets Light. She just lives out her life as she should have.



I was packing up the last of my belongings in my family home. My parents were on vacation, but they knew that I was moving out.

I was moving the last of my boxes to my car when I tripped on the rug. I shook my head, amused. We had this rug for as long as I could remember, and even as a child I was always tripping on it.

The rug curled up and I noticed something that had been hidden beneath the rug.

It was a trapdoor, one that had made me curious. In all the years I've lived here, nobody ever mentioned there was anything underneath the rug.

I went out to the car to grab a flashlight that I always kept in the dash before returning to the house and opening the trapdoor.

It led to a small hidden room with an antique desk and an old chair. On the desk sat a purple notebook that had unfamiliar handwriting.

'The Truth About Shinigami' was written in the cover.

Curious, I flipped it open to read. The inside had the name of the writer, my great great grandmother.

I didn't really know much about her, other than stories from my great grandfather about how everyone thought she was crazy because she talked about seeing large creatures with black notebooks and red eyes.

I felt oddly compelled to read a little bit of this book, but after a few minutes I shut the journal, my heart racing.

I checked to see if there was anything else in the room and noticed an envelope yellowed with age. I grabbed it just in case it was important.

There was nothing else in the room, so I went back up to the sitting room and closed the trapdoor, making sure to cover it back up.

I put the journal and envelope into my last box before heading out for the last time, locking the door behind me.

I drove to the hotel my new boyfriend L was staying at while we worked on the Kira Case, my mind whirling as I thought about the trapdoor in my childhood home.

I made it to the hotel and saw that L was the only person in the main suite. He explained the men were either at the station today or helping Watari put in the surveillance cameras. Watari is doing the Yagami house, and Aizawa is working the Kitamura house.

I told him about the trapdoor and the journal that was written by my great great grandmother when she wrote in 1917 when she was about 22.

"I don't really know much about her. My family doesn't really talk about her much. My great grandfather told me once that people thought she was crazy. I guess there had been talk about sending her away for treatment, but her husband didn't like the stories he heard about places like that, so he just kept her in the house. She's a bit of a taboo subject in my family." I explained as I handed him her journal so he can read it.

"Gods of Death, or otherwise known as Shinigami, are large floating creatures with red eyes and skeletal wings. Normally invisible to humans, they follow you and kill you with a heart attack by writing your name in their notebook." He read out loud, before turning to me with a surprised expression on his face. I nodded, knowing he was connecting this journal to our current case.

"To see a Shinigami, you must touch their Death Note or a piece of paper from their Death Note. My Shinigami is named Ryuk and if you ever meet him just give him some apples. He says their juicy. To see him, I have a piece of paper from his notebook in the envelope in the room beneath the sitting room."

I opened up the envelope, finding three sheets of paper inside. I touched all three, since I didn't know which piece I would need, then handed the pieces to L, who copied me. Now we'll see if anything happens when we have everything set up.

L told that he was having Watari bug Light's clothing with high power wiretaps that should register a Shinigami's voice in case that is what we're dealing with. I will be receiving all of the audio for when he is outside.

Later that afternoon, it began. I heard a door close, and two distinct voices. One was Light Yagami, whom I had seen once or twice at the police station when he would assist his father on cases. The other voice was one I didn't recognize.

"Where exactly are we goin''? Light, don't ignore me when I'm talking to you, or I'll get mad." The unknown voice started.

"Listen to me. There's a very strong possibility that there are wiretaps and maybe surveillance cameras hidden throughout my house." Light explained.

"Really? But that piece of paper was still in your door, wasn't it?" The voice asked.

"That's true, but I left the paper in the door in a way that would be obvious to anyone entering the room. The real test is the handle."

"It is?"

"When that door's closed, the door handle automatically returns to a horizontal position and it won't go any higher than that. But whenever I close the door, I adjust it slightly. Instead of letting it sit horizontally, I lower it by about 5 mm. When I get home and try to open the door, if the handle is all the way up, I can be fairly certain that someone was in my room. That method alone doesn't tell me if my door was actually opened. So I put a mechanical pencil lead in place as well."

"So, what do you do with it?"

"It goes on the hinge. After I close the door, I take the pencil lead and rest it on the hinge in such a way that would break if the door happens to be opened by anyone. Normally I take it out myself when I get back home. When I got home from school today, I noticed that the pencil lead was broken."

"Now that you mention it, I do remember that."

"First the door handle, then the lead. I know someone was in there today."

"Maybe it was your mother."

"My family wouldn't have noticed the piece of paper. What's suspicious is that someone took the time to put it back in the door."

I hear a door jingle, which indicates they have gone into a store, so there was a pause in the conversation.

"Hi, there. Can I help you?" I hear a new voice ask the teen, a cashier perhaps?

"What's this all about? Are you buying a book about wiretaps and surveillance, so you can figure this mess out?" A bookstore?

"By the way, Ryuk. What about your apples?" Is this the Shinigami my great great grandmother wrote about? They're real?

"Apples? Ah! That's right. Surveillance cameras. Once the apple is in my mouth, no one can see it, but while I'm holding it, it looks like it's floating." The now revealed Ryuk thinks out loud. This is definitely the Shinigami she mentioned.

"I thought so. You told me that Shinigami can't die, so I guess it won't kill you to stop eating apples for a while."

"Oh, don't you think that's a bit much, come on! I never told you this, but apples are to me what cigarettes and alcohol are to humans. Do you see what I'm saying? I even get withdrawal symptoms."

"Oh yeah? What kind of symptoms?" Did you really have to ask Light?

"My body gets all twisted, I do handstands. It's not pretty."

"I don't need to see that." Agreed. Hello Nightmare fuel.

"I know."

"OK. Here's the thing. Unfortunately, I already gave L the hint that Shinigami love apples, so I just can't afford to take the risk."

"When did you?" If you gave him this Death Note power how do you not know about the message?

"If it's so important for you to eat apples, you'll have to find out where all the cameras are hidden. If you're lucky, you might find a blind spot where you can eat them without being seen. All right. Let's go."

"Yeah. The camera search. Sounds so interesting."

That was all I got that night, but my recorder started up the next morning.

"Are you sure about this, Ryuk?"

"Yeah. I'm sure nobody's following you, OK. Now hurry up already, will ya? The symptoms are getting worse."

"I really hope you're not saying what you think I'd want to hear just to get some apples."

"Hold it right there. I just flew out and checked 100-meter radius around you and there was no one there. So yeah. For the last time, I'm sure, OK?"

"All right, but on the news they said they were dispatching 1,500 investigators to Japan."

"They're bluffing. You said so yourself. If it were really happening, they wouldn't have announced their arrival. Instead, they'd come and investigate secretly."

"I suppose you're right. Well then. I'll buy you some apples."

"Nice!"

There's a pause in the conversation, likely because Light is interacting with another person.

"Light, Come on. Hurry up!" There was a few minutes of silence from the Shinigami , and I could here what was likely the exchange of money, before more footsteps. The steps stopped and then there was a ruffling of a paper bag. "You know, you really haven't been that nice to me. You had me looking all over for cameras, telling me that I can't even eat apples in the house any more. It's not right."

Well, the Shinigami at least knows where all of the cameras are.

"Make sure you eat the core as well."

"You know, I might actually write your name in my death note and kill you. Just like that." For some reason, Light found that funny.

"I wouldn't laugh if I were you."

"Right. That reminds me I've got one finishing touch left to add."

The recorder went silent after that, but at least I had something to show L when he comes to my room tonight.

The next day we remove the cameras and wiretaps, and we have the entire team at the hotel.

I began the meeting by explaining how I came across the journal my great great grandmother wrote, and I showed the entries to the men. I then pass out the papers from the envelope for each man to touch.

While I'm doing that, L explained the secret setup in my room and the men rewatch a few clips from the surveillance, with everyone now seeing the Shinigami, and then they listened to the audio from Light's clothes.

Light was apprehended, and while searching his room, Aizawa found a tiny hole in the bottom of one of his rest drawers, just big enough to fit the inkwell of a pen in. The hidden Death Note was found and bagged to be destroyed.

Light died of a heart attack before he could be convicted, and the men went back to their normal jobs, except the Chief, who chose to retire.

I resigned from the NPA to follow L around the world, helping him solve cases and eventually start a family.

Speaking of family, L met my parents. He gets along well with them, and I was able to talk to my dad about his grandmother and broke the family taboo on her insanity by explaining the case we had just solved.

Fortunately, we never got another Death Note case again, though we taught our children and the kids in the Detective Program all about Shinigami and the Death Note in case another appeared.

Our legacy shall live on for a long time.