The Alias

Seven

It was Monday morning, the morning of the national examinations. I walked into the testing classroom and plopped down in the furthest seat in the back. I hugged my right leg to my chest and placed my forehead on my knee, letting my hair fall around my face to shelter me from wandering eyes. I was in no mood to deal with the constant staring I had grown so accustomed to.

I spent several minutes listening to the footsteps of students piling into the room before I heard the chair next to me move. I didn't dare look up in fear of it being one of Light's imbecile friends, instead, I peered at the floor in front of the seat, hoping to be able to tell who it was by looking at their feet. Two incredibly worn shoes plopped down under the desk. No feet, just shoes. Ryu.

A hand brushed my hair back from my face and I looked up to find Ryu crouched in his chair like usual. Our eyes met and my mood instantly lightened. "So you do own shoes," I teased, pointing at his sneakers.

Ryu smiled and retaliated, "and you own clothes that aren't black."

"Only if you can count a uniform as clothes."

As Ryu and I engaged in idle chatter, the proctors and teachers fanned out through the desks and handed each student a test packet and answer sheet, keeping a careful watch on the clock at the front of the room. I looked down at the upside-down test packet in front of me and sighed, wishing I was anywhere but here.

All tests were administered and the minute hand hovered slightly to the left of the twelve, seemingly taking hours to skip forward. "You may now begin," the lead teacher announced. And so the orchestra of scribbling pencils began their song, creating an inconsistent melody against the tables with the occasional accent of an eraser scraping across a paper.

***

"Students 161 and 162 please sit in your seats normally," a proctor ordered kindly. I looked sideways at Ryu and raised an eyebrow. He shrugged his shoulders in response but didn't move a bit so neither did I. Twenty minutes later I placed my pencil down, finished, and a few seconds later Ryu did the same.

Bored beyond belief, Ryu and I started writing each other notes on the desk to pass the time. We'd write, erase, answer, erase, and so on.

'Do you suppose Kira is just some smart student that enjoys a nice dose of homicide like you enjoy sweets?' I wrote trying to leave in the clue that he could be Light since he's a student.

'And why would you suddenly think that?' he wrote back.

'I'm not entirely sure, but come on, what if he does? I mean he could be a sicko like that.'

'You are a very odd specimen, Hito.'

I laughed inaudibly and messily scribbled back, 'I try.'

Time flew by and, before I knew it, they announced that the testing was over and students were piling out of the class to get to lunch. I sighed, stood up, bid Ryu farewell, and exited the class to go to the dumpsters for lunch.

"Hey look it's Akihicko. I wouldn't be surprised if she was Kira," a voice taunted. Push.

"I feel bad for her brother Light," another voice added. Shove. I was getting dangerously close to the lockers.

"Imagine having to share a house with her," a girl giggled disgustedly. Jab.

"I'd probably go insane," a boy cackled in response and I was finally slammed into the lockers. The hall erupted into laughter, but I paid no mind to it and kept walking towards my destination.

I slid down the familiar wall I'd grown fond of over the past 3 years and opened my brown lunch bag. A couple of seconds later, Ryu came and sat down next to me. I pulled a bag of apple slices from my brown lunch bag and picked out the seeds before throwing the rest in the dumpster.