Work Text:
The day is young, and so is Misa.
Well. In a sense.
Misa stretches her pudgy little arms and wiggles up from her position in the crib she’s slightly too big for. The walls of her room are pink, and there’s a baby monitor next to her feet.
She’s three years old.
She remembers.
Misa climbs out of her crib quietly and wanders to the kitchen, rubbing at her eyes. She pushes a chair to the pantry and grabs bread and a jar of peanut butter her dad likes.
Fifteen minutes later, her parents find her on the ground, messy bedhead, pink nightgown twisted around her, bitten sandwich in hand, unresponsive.
When she wakes in the hospital, alive and well, she sobs.
-•-
She moves on.
She goes to school, and spends her time skipping rope with the other girls and getting her pigtails pulled by boys who can’t handle the dichotomy of having a crush on a girl while still believing she has cooties.
She sticks holes in erasers to make cute faces. She adds scraps of her mom’s sewing fabric to her dolls’ dresses. She gets sweets for pulling out the grown ups’ chairs for them.
She’s even happy, sometimes.
She never sees her dad eating peanut butter, anymore. She feels bad about that.
She won’t scare them like that again.
-•-
The night is dark, and Misa wanders.
At sixteen, she’s just shy of five feet tall. She knows she won’t grow any taller. She dyes her hair and wears dark clothes and big stompy boots and listens to music her parents don’t like. Puberty’s been kind to her. She’s just gotten into modeling.
People are kind to her, too.
Misa knows how people react to her. She knows it every time she gets some helpless, blushing classmate to do her homework for her, simply because she can’t be bothered to do it herself.
She knows it when she walks home alone at night.
She’s done this all before.
Misa turns down an alley, the same one she takes every night, and when she hears someone calling for her, she turns and watches.
She recognizes him.
She waits.
He collapses.
His knife skitters across the pavement and stops at her feet.
She watches his face until the light leaves his eyes, then turns back around and keeps walking.
-•-
The morning is bright, and Misa is an orphan at eighteen.
She thinks about the man who left her parents cold and red and messy for her to find, along with a note with her name on it.
She thinks about the man that let that man go free.
She watches them lower her parents into the ground, and wonders at it hurting just as much the second time.
-•-
That night, she tries to make it stop.
That night, she meets Rem.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” Misa tells her, on the ground, dripping tears and snot and blood.
Rem cups her face in one hand, wipes at it with the other, intrigued. “I don’t know how you would have,” she says, detached, holding her wet hand at eye level. “Humans are such messy creatures.”
-•-
Then comes Kira.
The drama she’s watching is interrupted by an emergency broadcast. Someone’s killing criminals with heart attacks.
The Kanto region of Japan watches Lind L. Tailor die.
Misa hums, and turns off the tv.
“Misa? What are you doing?” Rem asks, watching her pack.
Misa hums, again. “Taking a vacation.”
-•-
The man who killed her parents dies in regret, broken and bleeding after a bank robbery gone wrong, screaming at God for mercy.
Misa smiles.
She waits.
Rem puts a hand on her shoulder, and they watch the news break.
-•-
The first time, Misa was desperate.
She’d had to meet him. She’d had to thank him for what he’d done for her, and for everyone like her whom the so-called justice system had failed.
Then she’d seen him, and he was just so perfect. Prince Charming to her Cinderella, making the villains in her story dance to their deaths on hot coals.
She’d done everything for him.
She’s not sure she can do it again.
-•-
Misa smiles brightly when Sachiko Yagami opens the door. “Hi! I’m Light’s classmate, Misa Amane. I think he took my notebook home by mistake?”
-•-
He doesn’t remember.
She shows him her notebook, and he’s afraid.
She wonders if this is what power feels like.
-•-
“You could be my Queen,” he tells her. “We could be Gods, together. We could save all of humanity, with what we’ve been given.”
Misa can’t stop looking at him, six years younger than the last time she’d seen him.
“You’re just a kid,” she hears herself say.
Something ugly happens to his expression before he smoothes it out.
There he is.
“So are you,” he says, pleading, reaching for her hands, and for the first time in both lives, completely and unambiguously wrong. “Don’t you want to be more? Do more?”
“No,” Rem says, biting, though he can’t hear her. “She’s enough as she is.”
Light’s eyes flicker to the side, and Misa knows Ryuk must be laughing.
Something in Misa’s chest shifts. “Wanting,” she says, “has never gotten me anything.”
Light steps closer, face inches from hers, determined and desperate and still beautiful. “Wanting could get us the whole world.”
She’d been kidnapped for him. She’d been tortured for him. She’d wiped her own memories for him, given up half her life twice for him.
“Misa,” Rem says, next to her ear. “Do you want to leave?”
“No,” she says, ignoring Light’s shocked expression. “It’s fine, Rem.”
“Rem?” Light says. “Your shinigami?”
Misa feels herself tilt her head, smile pretty. “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.”
She’s right. Ryuk is laughing.
Rem stands behind her, protective. “I am hers, and she is mine. If any harm comes to her before her time, I will know it was you. I will kill you myself.”
Ryuk laughs harder.
Two gods fell in love with her without her even having to try. She could have everyone in the world wrapped around her little finger if she wanted.
But it’s so dark, and Misa is so tired.
This was always what was going to happen.
-•-
Misa is nineteen years old, and she’s trapped in this cell, again.
She doesn’t give up her memories.
She didn’t send the tapes this time.
She doesn’t know what’s going to happen, now.
-•-
“Misa,” Rem says, next to her ear. “Do you want me to get you out of here?”
Misa shakes her head like she’s getting hair out of her face.
“Misa,” Rem whispers. “Please tell me what to do.”
Misa leans forward as far as she can, until she can feel Rem’s hand cup her face.
The intercom clicks on, and there’s that fucking voice again. “Misa Amane.”
Misa doesn’t answer.
“You’re awfully calm,” it says. “That’s unlike you.”
Misa leans back, but says nothing.
The voice speaks again. “Are you ready to confess to being the Second Kira?”
Misa can’t help it.
She laughs.
“I don’t see what’s funny.”
Misa laughs harder.
“Misa?” Rem asks.
Misa trails off into giggles.
“Misa?” Rem says.
“Misa Amane,” says the intercom.
Misa sighs. “I didn’t even know there was a second Kira.”
The intercom crackles, then turns off.
Misa leans back further. “No, come back, this is interesting. Don’t be a tease. What second Kira?”
The intercom comes back on. “Name-calling is quite immature, Misa Amane.”
Misa smiles without humor. “So’s torture.”
The intercom doesn’t respond.
Misa continues. “You arrest me on suspicion of being this fake Kira I didn’t even know existed, keep me in here deprived of half my senses for days, starve me, watch me pee, all because, why?”
“Evidence.”
Misa snorts, flexing her whole body until she feels Rem touching her again, then relaxing. “Evidence would’ve gotten me a court date. If you had anything concrete, you wouldn’t be trying to torture a confession out of me. Which, in these conditions, wouldn’t even be usable, like, legally, so what the hell’s the point of this, exactly? Because as far as I can see, you’re just a pervert.”
“You can’t see very far, currently, so that’s not particularly concerning.”
Misa rolls her eyes, biting. “If this is you looking for an in with the entertainment industry, I recommend you don’t quit your day job.”
“Noted.” Papers shuffling. “Your boyfriend, Light Yagami, is the current prime suspect in the Kira case. You’re the closest person to him, and you fit the profile for the second.”
Misa thumps her head back. “So you have nothing, and I’m here for no reason, besides dating a boy you don’t like. Real great detective work, for realsies, you’re a regular Sherlock Holmes.”
Silence.
“You know, I can sue you for this, right?” Misa continues, tired. “I’m sure you’re not just one weird guy, okay, you left the intercom on once by accident. I have witnesses.”
“Your hair was found on the packaging of the tapes sent to the World News Channel, and matching stationary tape was found in your apartment.”
What.
She stills. “What the fuck?”
“If you’re not going to—”
“You think I watch the World News Channel?”
“Misa Amane—”
“You think I have the time to make tapes and send them to the World News Channel?”
The intercom stays quiet.
Misa does not. “I’m a model, an idol, and I do commercials. I get my hair done on the regular. I have wardrobe fittings. I do meet-and-greets. I’ve left hair in European showers.” She struggles. “I watch Sakura TV!”
Rem speaks again. “Misa, stop, you’ll hurt yourself.”
Misa ignores her. “And, what, you think I have the time to— to film and package and— and commission custom scotch tape? Are you stupid?!”
The intercom is quiet for a while more, which unfortunately gives Misa time to worry about who the fuck decided it was a good idea to—
No.
The intercom comes back. “You’re suggesting you were framed.”
Misa realizes she’s shaking. “I’m ‘suggesting’ maybe this fake Kira knew I’m into occult stuff and decided to do something, like,” she gasps, distressed, “really, really messed up!”
The intercom is silent for a time.
Misa feels like screaming. “Come back!”
The intercom comes back. “Interesting theory. I wonder at your reason as to why one would do this to you, specifically.”
Misa makes a face, still panicking. “Do you know who I am?”
“Misa Amane.”
“You probably wouldn’t know this,” Misa says impatiently, grasping at anything until she can confirm what she’s very much not thinking about, “but modeling is a very competitive field.”
Silence.
Misa grits her teeth. “One time another model wrote me a note on my dressing room mirror in her own period blood.”
More silence.
Misa lets them digest that.
“You never reported that to the police.”
Misa rolls her eyes with her whole head, thinking thinking thinking. “Because things like that just happen to me! Aren’t you listening?”
“And yet you stayed in the industry.”
Her voice goes mocking. “What, you haven’t figured that one out?” she bites out. “Did fake Kira not write a little note with my name on it? Did he not use my heart stamps, or the teddy bears with the little crosses over the eyes? Did your precious fake Kira not sign it with a kiss in my lipgloss?” She feels the tears drip down past the blindfold, and bites her cheek until she tastes blood. “I like attention. If I was him, I wouldn’t be in here, I would be on TV being worshipped!”
She feels Rem rest her head against her ankles, wrap her arms around her legs.
The intercom stays silent for a long moment.
After a while, she realizes no one’s going to respond. She thunks her head back against the thing she’s tied to and pretends the tears burning her face and neck are from that pain.
-•-
She wakes up some time (minutes? hours?) later to someone entering the room.
She stiffens. “Hello?”
They start untying her bonds, silent.
“It’s okay,” Rem says, quiet. “Your time is the same.”
Misa twitches a little and then stays very still.
The person helps her down and catches her when her legs buckle. They haven’t removed the blindfold.
Misa feels herself shake.
She’s led to a room where she’s sat down and handcuffed to a cushioned chair. She hears ceramic on ceramic, smells tea and sweets and something like burnt caramel, and under that, the smell of a hotel room.
Her stomach lurches.
Someone pours tea, then footsteps get farther away until a door closes.
There’s still someone in here, and whatever they’re doing is making soft clinking sounds.
Misa sits and waits, hands locked around the arm of the chair.
This didn’t happen, last time.
An obnoxious slurping noise, before a swallow and a low “mm”, and then more clinking.
After an eternity, the person speaks, low and monotone and familiar. “Misa Amane.”
Misa flinches, kicking the table accidentally. “Ow! What the fuck, Ryuga?” she asks, disbelieving. “What, touching my butt in public wasn’t enough? Take this fucking blindfold off me.”
Silence.
Then, shuffling, a chair creaking. “I suppose there’s no point keeping it on, at this point,” he says, closer, smelling like sugar and cotton and evil raccoon bastard. “Though I admit, I didn’t expect you to recognize my voice so easily.”
She feels him fumbling with the blindfold and leans toward him to make it easier. “You’re memorable,” she says, bitter.
He hums, and then the blindfold’s off and she slams her eyes closed from the onslaught of light and color she’s no longer used to.
“Ah, my mistake,” L says, as if he didn’t do this on purpose.
She hears Rem scoff, then L wandering around the room and dimming the lamps, presumably.
When she’s able, Misa squints her eyes open and slowly lets her eyes adjust.
She squints around at the blurs of gold and brown, the dim lamps, the tea service on the table. “Didn’t expect your design choices to be so similar to Buckingham Palace.”
“Interesting that you picked up on that.”
“It’s not like you’re subtle about it,” Misa says, finally looking at the frog-shaped L blur across from her, wearing the same clothes as the last time she’d seen him. Ugh. At least she has an excuse. “I hope you wash those clothes.”
“I have duplicates.”
“Ah,” Misa nods, blinking her eyes clear. She looks at his face and laughs tiredly. “Ryuga, I already know what you look like. Why are you wearing that?”
L keeps on the novelty disguise glasses. “It’s a precaution.”
Misa giggles, pained and exhausted. “Don’t make me laugh, my stomach already hurts.”
L sips his tea under the mustache. “I don’t see what’s funny,” he says, because he’s a bitch.
Misa keeps laughing and whimpers a little.
L sighs, and takes the glasses off. “Eat.”
Misa looks at him and then at her cuffed hands, and then back at him.
Ryuga offers her a macaron from his big weird hand.
Misa glares. “I’m not a dog, Ryuga.”
“That’s true,” he says, unblinking. “Dogs don’t eat macarons, or commit mass murder.”
Misa tilts her head. “If you unlock one of my hands so I can eat, I’ll show you my boobs.”
“Unless you have a tattoo on them that says ‘I am the second Kira,’ I am not interested in seeing your boobs.”
Misa blinks, tilting her head. “You’re the second Kira?”
“Misa Amane.”
“If I promise to get a boob tattoo that says ’Ryuga is the second Kira,’ can I eat?”
L looks somehow less impressed than his default Misa expression. “I offered you food.”
“You touched my butt, blindfolded me, tortured me, starved me, watched me pee, accused me of killing a bunch of people, then tried to feed me out of your hand,” Misa lists. “I’m not a dog. I’m not a horse. I’m not letting your pervert hands anywhere near my mouth.”
“I’m not a pervert.”
Misa widens her eyes. “And I’m, like, suuuper ugly.”
L puts a thumb to his mouth. “Ah, I see. You are attempting to get me to feel what you feel, by leveling accusations at me in retaliation.”
“Nope,” Misa says, tiredly. “I really think you’re a pervert. I don’t want you to feel what I feel.”
“It isn’t as if you could make me.”
“Even if I could,” Misa says. “Like, even if it were in my power to do what you did to me, to you, I wouldn’t do it, because I really think you’d like it.”
L is silent.
“In a boner way,” Misa adds, to make sure he gets it.
L gets up, and Misa leans away when he unlocks her cuffs.
“How does Misa feel about television reruns?” he asks, randomly.
Misa shrugs, distracted. “Hate ‘em,” she says, reaching for a sandwich. “Once should be enough.”
She shoves it in her face, groaning.
“90%,” L says, nonsensically.
“Ooo, I’m Hideki Ryuga, and I know numbers,” she says, and keeps eating.
-•-
Turns out Light gave up all his memories, anyway.
Turns out he’s in a cell.
Turns out it’s a much nicer cell than hers was.
Misa stares at L’s back as he leads her down the hallway from the elevator by her chain.
Pervert.
“So, I got suspended from the ceiling,” she starts, loudly, “on the vague suspicion of being a faker I didn’t even know about. And the guy you think is the original gets a bed and, like, a bouncy ball? And his dad?
“Soichiro Yagami is in a separate cell per his own request.”
Misa jingles her hand dismissively. “Yeah, whatever. But that’s, like, fair to you?”
L doesn’t answer. “From now until I can clear you, you will not leave my sight. You will live in this building.”
“Really not helping your pervert case, buster.”
“You will not leave, unless I allow you to.” he finishes, ignoring her. “If you do leave, you will have a chaperone, and that will not be any time soon. Any questions?”
“Yeahh,” Misa says. “What about my jobs?”
“You’re on hiatus. Anything you need will be taken care of here.”
First Light, now L, Misa can not keep up with these hot and cold types. “So, you’re my sugar daddy, now?” she asks, wrinkling her nose. “Ewww!”
L turns to her, unimpressed. “Is this what you’re like on a full stomach?”
Misa squints at him, sleepy. “I’m a model, Ryuga, how would I know that?”
L sighs, ignores her, unlocks her handcuffs and opens a door with a lock on the outside. “You have a bed, now. Also, refer to me as Ryuzaki from now on.”
“Knew your name wasn’t Hideki Ryuga,” Misa says, absently, looking around. “I’ve met him, y’know. He’s really annoying.”
“If you need anything, just say it. Someone will hear.”
Misa hums, turning back towards the room. “Kay.”
“Would you consider yourself settled in?”
Misa squints at him absentmindedly, thinking of nothing but showering. “Sure?”
“Wonderful,” L says, and turns and walks away. “If you try to escape, you will not succeed.”
Misa stares after him. “I see what Light sees in you,” she says, pointing, and closes the door.
-•-
The next time she’s let out of the building, the blindfold is back and Light’s dad points a gun at them.
Misa’s mom always said not to let hate invade her heart.
Someone killed Misa’s mom twice, though, so that particular lesson never really stuck with her.
Misa holds Light until they’re separated again.
He lets her.
She needs to talk to Rem.
-•-
She ends up writing a note, under the guise of researching sleep patterns. Thanks to her many, many traumas, this isn’t as suspicious as it could be.
Thanks to her hot ditzy blondness, however, it raises some eyebrows.
“Wow,” Matsuda says, clumsily, to her during their first conversation where she isn’t actively being tortured. “You’re a lot smarter than I thought!”
Misa smiles brightly. “Thanks, Matsui! Say, can you point me to where the kitchen is? This place is so big, I keep getting lost!”
“I’m afraid you’re not allowed in the kitchen, Misa,” L cuts in, not even looking at them. “As that’s where the knives are.”
“Ryuzaki!” Light hisses reproachfully from next to him.
Misa wants to bite them both. “Wow, Ryuzaki,” she says, twinkling at him, even though the ungrateful pervert isn’t even looking. “You sure must want my attention if you’re butting in from all the way over there.”
“You know, Misa,” L says, still not looking at her. “You haven’t been paying Light very much attention, lately.”
Misa bristles. “What’s that supposed to mean? I love Light.”
L hums. “I didn’t say you didn’t. Now that you mention it, however, there is a marked difference in how you interacted with him before questioning—“
“Oh, is that what we’re calling it?”
“— and after. Even now, you’re talking about him as if he isn’t in the room.”
“No, I’m— You’re one to talk!”
“The difference there is that I am not Light’s girlfriend.”
“Coulda fooled me,” she bites out, before remembering she’s in a room full of cops, and she’s pretty sure at least 80% of them are homophobic.
Misa looks at Light, who looks deeply uncomfortable, and goes over to stroke his hair from his face. “Sorry, Light. Have I been neglecting you?”
He pats her shoulder, chain clacking from where it connects him to L, and smiles up at her. “No, Misa, don’t worry. Ryuzaki’s just being Ryuzaki, again.”
“I fail to see what the other option would be,” L says, watching them.
Misa sticks her tongue out at him, waiting for Light to ease her arms off of him so she can go back to her comfy chair across the room.
He doesn’t. “I was wondering, though. When did you and Ryuzaki meet?” he asks, eyes sweet and guileless. “I don’t remember introducing you.”
Misa freezes. She looks at L, who looks back like he’s been waiting for this.
‘How do you feel about reruns?’ he’d said, at their weird little tea party.
“It was like another life,” he says, now, dismissively, slurping obnoxiously at his liquid sugar.
Oh.
Oh, no.
Misa laughs, kisses Light’s head and lets go on her own, skipping away in a way she hopes doesn't look panicked. “You guys are so funny! I’m going to the bathroom!”
Fuck, how did she not notice? He had those stupid glasses on, how did she forget they hadn’t met before?
Days without adequate food or sleep would fucking do it.
Oh, god, she needs privacy.
Misa locks the door and thunks her head against the bathroom mirror. She doesn’t know what to do.
She could kill everyone in the task force, she could get Rem back before they even put two and two together.
What would they be able to do, then? Rot at her?
Misa pictures their spilled blood and bodies, cracked at angles no human should be able to make, wide eyes and wide mouths, and no no no they’re not who she’s mad at.
She pictures L on his knees, eyes wider than wide, her dainty little fist shoved down his fucking throat to the elbow, and relaxes.
She wipes her face, touches up her makeup in the mirror.
She can’t do that. Rem isn’t here right now, and L hasn’t done anything with this information.
What can he do? This is probably just another puzzle to him. It’s not like she hasn’t wondered why she’s back. It must be eating at him, at least a little.
She might need him. There’s a second Kira out there, and it isn’t even her.
This is fine. This could be helpful, even.
She’s going to be in a movie soon with that handsy bastard Hideki Ryuga. This will be much less annoying.
Light and L are chained together. Light has half his memories, right now, and here she and L are with double theirs.
Kira would hate this.
Misa stares blankly into her own face, before it hits her that the taskforce probably think she and L dated, now.
Misa wrinkles her nose, then laughs.
As if.
She still looks like she’s been crying, but in a pretty way.
She can work with this.
-•-
“Misa Amane,” L says, not looking away from his computer, six feet of chain between himself and Light, and the entire taskforce working in the same room to find the same new Kira.
Misa’s just come back from a commercial shoot, handing Matsuda her coat with a smile.
She walks over, grabs a strawberry from his plate for the inconvenience of speaking to him, and leans against Light’s chair. “What’s up, Ryuzaki?”
L watches her, finger to his mouth. “If you want strawberries, Watari can get some for you.”
Misa eats, leaning further back so Light is forced to turn and hold her steady.
There’s juice dripping from her lips and her hand, and she feels a strange sort of satisfaction at being just a little bit messy.
Watari offers her a handkerchief, so she wipes her hand off.
“Sweeter off of your plate,” she answers L, belated.
Light breathes deep behind her.
L keeps watching her. “How does Misa feel about television reruns?”
Misa raises her eyebrows, smiling. “Boring. Remakes are much more fun.”
“Huh,” he says. “I wonder what you mean by that. This doesn’t usually happen.”
Misa rolls her eyes. “If you could stop calling me stupid—”
“Not stupid,” L says, fork in his mouth. “Easy.”
The room goes silent.
Misa leans forward, gently pulls the fork from his mouth, sets it down, and slaps him across the face.
He looks at her with wide eyes, hand cupping his red cheek. “Oh. It seems I have misstepped.”
She feels Light stand and touch Misa’s shoulder, comforting. “Ryuzaki, I would prefer it if you didn’t call my girlfriend ‘easy’.”
Misa’s eye twitches. “If I were easy, I’d have more gigs.”
L looks between them, before his mouth opens in realization. “Oh, I see. My apologies, Misa, what I meant was ‘straightforward’.”
Misa huffs, grabs Light’s arm, and yanks the chain towards her, pulling L closer until he’s forced to step out of the chair and stand in front of them.
“Ryuzaki, I accept your apology,” she says, and then tugs him down by the front of his shirt and smacks a kiss onto his cheek, aggressively, then pushes him back with forced gentleness.
“Sorry for hitting,” she says. “I’m still a little mad about the torture.”
She turns her back and kisses Light’s cheek, too, for balance, though he just looks bewildered by this entire situation.
He leans down to her ear and whispers, “Did you two actually date?”
Misa laughs, once, remembering the stupid three-way dates from last time. “If that’s what you wanna call it.”
Light lets go of her, looking scandalized.
Misa blinks at him, then gasps, horrified, hands over her mouth. “That’s not what I meant!”
Light pats her shoulder, gingerly. “Misa, I think I’m okay with not knowing this one, actually.”
When she turns back with a laughing cry, L is watching them both, cuffed hand held to his cheek, again.
“What?” Light and Misa ask, in unison.
“It’s just,” he starts, quiet. “I think I could actually fall for you.”
Light’s eyes widen.
Misa raises her eyebrows.
L just keeps looking.
“I like reruns,” Matsuda interrupts, a blessed reminder that the entire Taskforce including Light’s dad have just been in the room this whole time. “Sometimes I miss stuff the first time, or don’t have time to record stuff, or my DVR’s full.”
Misa breathes out, then smiles at Matsuda, disentangling herself from Light and L and their eyes and their chain and their whole deal. “You’re so funny, Matsui!”
“Aha, thanks, Misa-Misa! Careful though, or Light might get jealous!” he says, incredibly unsubtly.
Misa smiles again, and Light mutters something under his breath behind her that she doesn’t catch and isn’t sure she wants to.
L hums to himself, then turns back to his computer. “Yes, careful, Misa-Misa. Who knows how Light might react.”
Light huffs and glares at L. “I know it’s your favorite hobby, Ryuzaki, but could you stop talking about me to my girlfriend like I’m not in the room?”
“No,” L says. “It’s my favorite hobby.”
“Aw,” says Misa, hands clasped under her chin.
“That’s real mature, Ryuzaki,” Light says, glaring.
“Well, I could find a new one, but then you would be sad.”
“Why would I—? I would not!”
“Light Yagami loves attention. Doesn’t he, Misa?”
“Depends, I guess.”
“I don’t, at all!”
“He does if it’s from me,” L says, and then turns back to tapping on his keyboard.
Misa watches Light gape at her and L like a little fish, and shrugs at him.
He looks almost hurt by her minor betrayal.
She goes over and kisses his forehead, then follows his eyes to find L looking back.
She rolls her eyes and backs away.
She’d tried so, so hard to get him to love her, and it turns out all she’d had to do the entire time was handcuff herself to him, accuse him of mass murder, and sit like a fucking frog.
-•-
Matsuda almost gets himself killed.
In come Hedy and Aiber, out goes Matsui, and in goes Misa to seduce yet another old man.
They get Higuchi.
It’s fine.
Light gets his memories back.
She looks at L, and knows they need to talk.
-•-
“You didn’t follow the plan,” Light says, eyes cold, grip tight on her arm.
“There was no plan,” Misa says, tired. “You framed me.”
His hand spasms. “What?”
Misa takes his hand off her arm and holds it, watching. “There was no plan. And you framed me. Do you remember, now?”
Light stares blankly, and then stumbles back from her, clutching his head. “How— What—?”
Misa lets him go. “Ah. There it is.”
Light grips his hair. “Why? There’s—? What?” He looks at Misa, desperate. “We’ve done this all before?”
Misa nods, then shrugs, then nods again. “I mean. Mostly. Do you want some tea?”
Light visibly shakes. “L—?”
“Yeah,” Misa says, getting tea. “Him, too. He’s gonna wanna talk to you when this is over.”
Light lunges at her, suddenly crazed. “He’s going to kill me! He’s going to kill your God!”
Misa carefully unlatches him from her arms. “No, he isn’t,” she says, gently. “And don’t do that when I’m holding hot liquids and ceramic.”
“Misa—!”
“If he wanted us dead, he would’ve done it already,” Misa says, pouring tea. “He’s not going to kill you.”
Light struggles to center himself. “Than what does he want?”
Misa strokes his hair back, putting his cup in his hands. “Stop panicking. He wants to know why we all woke up here, again.”
Light sneers. “If he thinks I’m going to work with him—”
Misa cuts him off. “Don’t act like you don’t love having someone around who can keep up with you. Don’t act like you didn’t miss him.”
Light grimaces, but doesn’t deny it . “But Kira—”
Misa loses patience. “You won your game the first time, Light Yagami,” she hisses, leaning into his space. “And your dad died from it. Your sister might as well have. You left your mom alone. You were alone.” She steps close, stabbing at him with her black painted fingernail. “Let it fucking go.”
Light just looks at her, really looks, for a long time.
Misa raises an eyebrow. “Okay?”
Light nods, slowly, and reaches up to hold her wrist loosely. “Okay.”
“Good,” Misa smiles. “Because if you hadn’t, Rem would’ve killed you, and I can’t be stuck with Ryuzaki all by myself, Light, I really can’t.”
Light laughs a little, wetly, before it turns to sobs.
Misa holds him.
He lets her.
-•-
L’s new place is secluded, expensive, and big enough for three.
Misa and Light watch the floors pass by in the elevator.
When they get to L’s floor, they’re buzzed in, and Watari takes their coats.
Misa looks around at all the gold and brown, frowning.
“It’s new,” comes L’s voice, footsteps padding in from her left. “But you were in the room I had it modeled after.”
They look over.
L stands in front of them, exactly the same as he always is.
The day after his death, and very much alive.
Light grabs him first, clutching at him almost violently and burying his face in his shoulder.
L pats his shoulder, awkward. “There, there, Kira.”
“I hate you,” Light sobs, pulling him closer, grasping harder. “I hate you.”
L cups the back of Light’s head for a second. “I don’t hate you.”
Light collapses into him, like a puppet with its strings cut.
L holds him up, looking at Misa for help.
Misa does not help.
Misa latches on. “Hey, what the fuck, you have muscles under here?!”
L doesn’t seem to know what to do with any of this. “I studied capoeira, and you know that.”
“How would I know that?” Misa asks, looking up at him innocently, one hand holding onto L’s shirt and the other holding onto Light’s. “I don’t remember that ever coming up.”
L, unimpressed, tugs on one of her pigtails. “Misa.”
Misa blinks up at him, eyes wide. “Do you believe in past lives, Ryuzaki?”
Light huffs out a laugh against L’s neck, and L shudders, detaching himself from both of them.
“Come have tea,” he says, looking between them warily. “And I would like to request no unnecessary touching during this discussion.”
Misa tilts her head. “Define ‘unnecessary.’”
L squints. “Unless I am actively choking, and in need of the Heimlich, don’t touch me.”
Misa nods along, not listening. “Uh-huh. But, like, what if I really, really want to?”
“Good point, Misa,” Light says, tearstained, smiling sweetly in a way that almost doesn’t fit his face anymore. “What if she really, really wants to, Ryuzaki?”
L stares at them, thumb to his mouth. “…Seduction is a strange play to make, when we’re no longer on opposing sides. I admit, I don’t understand your end goal.” He starts leading them to the table. “Sit. Eat.”
Misa pouts after him, then glares at Light. “Why are you both so annoying? If Matsuda were here, he’d be naked already.”
Light flinches. “Don’t talk about him.”
Misa grimaces, apologetically. “Sorry.”
Light shrugs and tugs at her other pigtail, not very gently, until she slaps his hand away. “We’ll get him next time, Misa.”
L huffs, from where he is very much still in earshot, and starts piling sugar cubes into his tea.
-•-
According to Rem, Mikami came back, too, and decided to go to Light on his own a little after she did.
Light hadn’t told her.
Misa doesn’t particularly want to see Teru’s face again, so she makes it so he won’t have a face to look at.
Light and L burst in twelve seconds later.
“Misa,” Light gasps, glaring. “What did you do?”
“Knew he would text you,” Misa says, giggling.
“You still use the Death Note,” Light bites out. “We agreed to let it go.”
Misa stares between them, feels Rem hovering behind her.
“We did,” she says, and hands the book to Rem, who leans her forehead onto Misa’s, before going to hide it, again. “But loose ends do need tying up, sometimes.”
Light and L flinch.
Oh. She forgot to show them Rem, again.
Misa stands, walking toward them. “I’m not going to be Kira. No one’s going to be Kira. Kiyomi wouldn’t do this again, if she’s in her right mind, and I just got rid of Teru.”
“Aw, man,” Ryuk says, phasing in through the door.
Misa rolls her eyes. “Now, is anyone going to explain why the handcuffs are back?”
Light steps away quickly, but his foot gets caught on very familiar chain connecting him to L, and they fall together on the floor.
Ryuk starts laughing.
Misa crosses her arms, looking down at them. “You can’t steal my boyfriend by handcuffing yourself to him, Ryuzaki.”
“Oh, I see,” L says, he and Light still sprawled on the floor. “You would also like to be handcuffed, Kira.”
Misa rolls her eyes, crouching. “Not Kira. There’s no more Kira. I just made sure of that, honestly, it’s like you weren’t even paying attention.”
They’re looking at her like they should have the whole time.
Light looks away.
L doesn’t. “You’re different, from last time. Why?”
Misa sticks her tongue out, thinking. “I dunno, Ryuzaki. I killed the guy who killed my parents. Got a Shinigami girlfriend. Realized my boyfriend wants to see you naked enough that he lets you handcuff him to yourself, and you’ve seen my boobs more than he has.” She gestures widely at their whole situation. “Lots changed!”
Light looks back at her, stuttering. “We weren’t— we were filling out the housing insurance forms!” He pauses, squints. “You have a what?!”
Misa looks at him. “You let Ryuk and L watch you look at porn last time, you have no room to judge.”
Light scowls. “Yeah, but I’m not dating Ryuk!”
“Oh, yikes,” Ryuk says, gagging, backing out of the room through the ceiling. “And you never will, Light-o! Little freak.”
Misa presses her lips together and grins when Rem comes back into the room. “Hey, Rem, am I a little freak?”
Rem brushes her hair back, tender. “No comment.”
Misa giggles, kissing her fingers.
“Fascinating,” L says, watching. “Light, am I a—”
“Yes.”
L nods, mumbling quietly. “Romance.”
Light visibly gives up, pulls them both up off the floor. “We will need to talk about your Death Note usage, Misa.”
Misa walks over and leans on Light’s arm, fiddling with the chain. “Figured. Hey, can we play jumprope with this?”
“No.”
“Absolutely not.”
“My hotness is wasted on the two of you.”