Work Text:
she asked me how to be lovely
but it's not something i could reach
what seemed so black in the sunlight
by night was a pale dream
Cameras were usually so kind to Misa Amane, perfectly capturing the beauty that was so eagerly pasted across thousands of magazines. In the dim haze of the headquarters at night, though, L's feed did her no favors. He liked her better that way, just a slip of a girl wandering the sterile hallways with a bare, pinched face and a ratty t-shirt. It wasn't any notion about standards of attractiveness, or a leering hunger at the expanse of pale skin. There was just something more honest about a person right after they clawed their way out of sleep.
It would have been curious to peer at Light as he awoke, watching for any hint of Kira–any hint of honesty behind those too-placid amber eyes before the shutters slammed closed. Alas. L glanced at his wrist, more skeletal when contrasted with the darkness pressing in behind him and the flaring white of his monitors. The stark lack of the proposed chain was disappointing, but only fleetingly.
It was more convenient, anyway, being able to work as late as he wanted without having to be forced to bed whenever Light wanted to rest.
The flickering movement on his screen tore his attention back to the present. Misa had paused at the curve of a corridor, and even with the odd vantage point the camera afforded him, L could see the way her eyes flickered between the crossroads. She was allowed to wander from her assigned floor, yes. But with her restrictions, it was rare that any door other than her own would open at her request, and therefore equally rare for L to even see her outside her rooms, unless attached like a limpet to her boyfriend's arm. Perhaps he would have left her to it, content with the security of her limitations, if there hadn't been such a lost expression on her face.
One slender hand, neat and manicured, was pressed against the wall L idly glanced down at his own fingers, posed over the keyboard, several with splintered hangnails. But his were relaxed, while Misa's fingers were bent, like a claw prepared to tear into the metal where it tensed. Hm.
For a minute, he glanced away, leaning to the side to pick a chocolate strawberry out of the box that Watari had laid beside his computer hours ago. When he looked back, her hand had curled into a fist. Chocolate snapped beneath his teeth, the rush of sugar as pleasing as ever. But where he might have reached back into the box to pluck out another strawberry on any other night, L found his attention focused solely on the girl a floor or two above him. Watery-eyed fear and that same pinched upset warred for control on her face, and as a finger reached out to press the button for the intercom, he told himself it was because he was curious.
It wasn't just that. L pitied her, with a vague regard that often left him unsettled, and he was honest enough with himself to know it was why he let the intercom crackle to life. He had no qualms admitting that pity to himself, of course, or that he spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about her for it to be mere pity. Though what other emotion it was that accompanied it he left undefined. It was best to be truthful in the silence of one's own head, but that didn't mean he had to scrutinize it.
Still, he knew that Misa Amane would bristle at any hint of that pity's existence, and so told himself it was merely curiosity in order to prevent her from prying the truth out of him with lacquered nails. He would never mean to give it up; he didn't even think she understood what she looked for, or knew when she found it. But her wide eyes could be uncomfortably sharp, and it was good to be proactive.
“Misa-san,” he said, and knew that his voice was transmitting by the way her shoulders jumped slightly. “If you are looking for Light-kun…”
He could have kept speaking; directed her immediately to the left corridor that would lead her to the elevator to Light's floor. The fluorescence illuminated her glassy eyes, or at least made them seem that way. Yes, perhaps L might even allow her entrance into the other man's rooms. It wasn't encouraged, naturally. But the pair were only half-prisoners. They amounted to what were essentially detained cooperators, so he wouldn't have faced resistance from the investigation team if he had allowed Misa to visit her boyfriend. Though–Light would have been annoyed by the interruption. The thought wasn't enough to make him smile, or even want to, but the sense lingered briefly nonetheless.
Misa's head fell back, glaring up at the ceiling–to her credit, only an inch or two off from the actual camera embedded above her. “Ryuuzaki!” she yelped. “Eugh, you're so creepy. How long have you been watching Misa?”
Mm. L let his eyes flicker to the tiny clock in the corner of his screen. He could tell her, honestly, that he didn't know; that it might have been the better part of a half hour–but he suspected her insistence of his eeriness would only worsen. Except she might be upset if he shrugged and dismissed it, because she liked attention like a starving dog liked food. And he knew she snapped at him to his face, but preened under his gaze as long as he pretended he couldn't help the way his eyes strayed. A curious dichotomy. Was she aware of it, their little game? Sometimes he wondered. In her profession, perhaps she could never be unaware of the weight of a gaze…ah, but he was retreating too far into his thoughts, and Misa still awaited his response.
Instead of answering, he said flatly, “Misa-san is aware this facility is under constant surveillance, usually by me.” He took his finger off the button, and then, watching how her cheeks puffed out like she would protest, hastily pressed it once more and spoke again before she could. “If you are looking for Light-kun, he is beyond the corridor to your left. Please try not to wander at night.”
He expected it to end there, some part of his attention already detaching to stare at the box of chocolate strawberries, deciding between dark or white. But her voice cracked through the room, grainy through the speaker. It was–curious, how quickly his eyes snapped back to the monitor.
“I know that,” she said indignantly. “I'm his girlfriend, of course Misa knows where Light's rooms are! Rude!” L leaned slightly forward in his chair, the rough denim of his jeans brushing his chin thanks to his drawn-up knees.
It was not that he didn't interact with Misa Amane. Perhaps only that he interacted with her for the sake of the case, or with Light beside her. This version of her, suddenly so human in the dim light, sharper with him than she'd been in a while, not just background noise as she fawned against Light–it was interesting. She interested him. It ought to have disconcerted him, but it didn't, and that was all right. After all, it was only reasonable to be intrigued by the Second Kira.
For a long minute, her fierce stare burned through the screens and distance separating them so well, L was half-convinced she stood above his chair, glaring down at him. The silence stretched, and it only occurred to him that she was waiting for a response when she stomped a foot, childishly. Her bare feet and nearly nervous mouth diminished some of the effect.
“Ryuuzaki!” she whined, appearing to suddenly lose her patience. Free of her usual pigtails, a thick lock of mussed blonde hair slipped over the curve of her shoulder as she cocked her head. He watched it and wondered at how it looked faintly like silk. “Well?”
“Well?” L repeated, the intercom emanating a crackling zzt as he hit the button.
“Aren't you going to ask me what I'm doing up?” Misa demanded, and placed a small hand on her hip, neck still craned backwards. “Why Misa is wandering around when she's not supposed to?”
It didn't take a genius to guess. L, who was quite pleased with his own intellect, had only needed a glance. The tension in her shoulders was seeping away, and her mouth was no longer so pinched, but there was a restless sheen in her eye that reminded him of an animal prone to bolting. An instinctual terror, the type that might forcefully wake someone.
“It is not that you're not supposed to,” he murmured, reaching blindly to the side and picking another strawberry. His next words were slightly muffled by the bite of the fruit tucked into his cheek, though still audible. “Only that it's a little pointless, yes–?”
There was no place for her to go. Except, apparently, these long hallways. But the only company to be found there was him, and L knew that meant it was barely any company at all. Still, despite her beloved Light residing only a few paces and an elevator ride away, she didn't move.
Misa huffed, and he thought that he saw her nose wrinkle, though it smoothed out a second later. “Of course Ryuuzaki would think so,” she said, “Ryuuzaki doesn't know anything about women! Nothing we do is pointless! Especially not Misa-Misa.” And perhaps there was an edge of viciousness in the words that wasn't as charitable as her theatrical indignation might have been trying to portray. But she seemed agitated still, and huddled slightly against the wall, and he had never been one to rise to her little barbs. So it was all right.
“Apologies,” L said dully, and briefly cycled through the rest of the cameras around headquarters and their feeds with a clicking rhythm of the same key. “Then I don't know what you're doing up.”
Yes, there was Light, for all the world asleep, handcuffs still around his wrist and keeping him secure to his bedpost. Satisfied, he returned to the display where Misa stood, and was startled to see her make dead eye contact with the lens trained on her. So then she had already known where the cameras were and only feigned uncertainty; she had even somehow sensed that he was not completely focused on her. Fascinating.
“Ask Misa!” There was a stubborn slant to the soft curve of her jaw, the loud command popping briefly with static.
It was little more than a huff of air, hardly even a deep exhale, but L sighed. “Ah–”
“Ask!”
“What is Misa-san doing up?” he parroted obediently, resting his chin in his palm. “What is she doing wandering around when she's not supposed to?”
Always curious, how quickly the pleased pink flush spread across her cheeks whenever she got her way. The little smile that played about her mouth was not unpretty: it would have to be, for a model.
“I had a nightmare,” she confided, wrapping her arms around herself. The tone she spoke in was breathy, nearly suggestive, like she'd instinctually meant to follow it up with a sly request for ‘comfort.' But either she remembered who she was talking to and balked–yes, he'd heard her opinion on pale, hunching Ryuuzaki enough–or the memory of the fear that woke her was genuine.
He thought it was likely the latter. Her brow was tight, and she looked faintly peaky, eyelashes fluttering as she gnawed briefly on her bottom lip. “A nightmare,” she repeated, softer, and then seemed to shake herself forcefully out of it. “And Misa couldn't go back to sleep, so she thought she would go find Light and he would keep me safe and help me rest!” She batted her eyes, and from anyone else, it would have looked absurd.
L hummed in acknowledgement, the low sound interrupted only by the zzt as he released the intercom. After a moment of consideration, tongue idly tracing his teeth and catching the lingering taste of strawberry, he pressed the button again. “I suppose I could unlock his door for you,” he offered. “Since you meant to go to him.”
Odd. The idea of Misa slipping into the darkness of Light's rooms, and probably his bed, wasn't outright infuriating, but it was…irritating. Hadn't he been trying to encourage Light to try to gain more of her affection in order to gather information? This would be an excellent opportunity to do so. His discontent was ridiculous.
“Ooh!” Misa cheered, clapping her hands together and baring pearly teeth up at the camera. She looked like any breath would be the one to propel her into a series of tiny jumps. “I always misunderstand you, even now. Ryuuzaki, you're so sweet to Misa!”
“I won't make it a habit,” he said, a little dry, and peered down at the keyboard for the button that would unlock the doors, expecting her to skitter down the hall any second.
Undeterred, Misa continued, her voice pitched and cheerful. Some of the strain had melted away from her, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet. “You really do get me,” she sighed, dreamily, and if L hadn't recognized the serrated edge in her voice as teasing, he might have worried for the state of her mind. Still, it was…pleasant, to hear her coo, “You must love me so much! So, so much! Well, don't worry, Misa-Misa loves all of her fans, too!”
“Misa-san's heart is boundless,” he said idly, but couldn't deny that there was a slight warmth in his voice that was not usually there, and it mirrored the warmth sitting lightly over his chest, like a laugh caught in his throat.
Sobering, to recognize that perhaps some of the game played by Ryuuzaki was not entirely faked by L.
Ah, well. It was late at night. There were allowances L could give himself in the darkness, and it was eased knowing Misa would be on her way in moments, likely with nothing more than an absent, over-the-shoulder wave that would signal the silence to rush back in and let L drown himself in work again.
Only, as her bubbly giggles faded, the heavy brow returned, and the hands she'd clasped together in reverence clenched tighter like it was anxiety now that urged her. Despite that, she didn't turn to run down the corridor that would bring her to Light, and the only movement she made was to shuffle closer to the wall.
The divot between her brows had deepened, a little pocket of shadow in the dim hallway. L hardly noticed that he'd brought his thumb up to brush over his lips until the movement irritated the chapped skin there. The habit and the sight of Misa's frowning face collided suddenly: for an absurd moment, he wondered if he might fit the pad of his thumb in the hollow of her pinched brows and smooth it away.
Disoriented, and disliking that a stray thought had momentarily reduced his brainpower by ten percent, it took a moment to register Misa's voice, high and shrill, like the peal of a tiny bell. It had never grated on him the way it did on Light, though by all accounts, it should have. He'd catalogued that discrepancy before, but still reeling slightly from the way his mind was conjuring the soft, imagined give of Misa’s skin beneath his hand, it had never disquieted him as it did now.
“Ryuu-zaki,” Misa snapped, her voice leaping from the speaker with a crack. L wouldn't admit it, but if anyone had been watching, maybe the way his thumb stuttered over his mouth might have been a flinch. “Aren't you paying attention to me? I've said the same thing two times, and Ryuuzaki hasn't heard a single thing! I can tell!”
A finger snuck out to hold down the button, and he cleared his throat lightly. “If Misa-san would repeat herself.” Then, because the pout hadn't left her mouth, he added, “I'm sorry,” not only because it was expected, but because it seemed like electrical sparks still skittered down the length of his spine when he unwittingly thought of her skin. Didn't she always call him a pervert? For the first time, he considered the word with some solemnity.
One of Misa's eyebrows jumped, the arch carefully shaped and darker than the bleached blonde of her hair. “Oh. That's alright,” she said, and he thought she sounded nearly surprised. Was his courtesy so unusual? He'd attempted to extend the usual social niceties acceptable by any standards of society to her and Light both. But she seemed unaccustomed to apologies altogether. Against the wall, her hand flexed.
“I–Misa only wanted to know where the other hallway goes.” Here, she gestured to the right fork. “It's not that she didn't know. Don't think that. Just that she–forgot. This is a big place.”
How curious. No, it wasn't that she'd forgotten the control room or where it was. The taskforce convened there daily, especially as their plans to infiltrate the Yotsuba group solidified. So Misa spent a good hour of her morning there, solely because Light was. L would never accuse her of wholly faking her distress, of course. Everyone knew the best lies had elements of truth in them, and Misa had looked unhappy ever since she wandered out of her bed. But there was very little reason for her to play this little game with him, pulling on a facade of cluelessness and watery-eyed piteousness when he knew how it made her bristle. And indeed, right there–a spark of impatience that crossed her face at his silence.
“Ah,” he said. The tip of his finger ached a bit, just the dull exhaustion that came from depressing the button so long. “It's only to the main room, Misa-san.”
“Oh, yes,” Misa said brightly. “I remember now. Where all the computers are. How silly of me! Why, say, Ryuuzaki, do you watch the cameras all the time?”
The curiosity in her voice seemed nearly guileless, a plain question, if he hadn't seen her hiding her impatience and the nervous glances at the camera, like she really was waiting for an answer. And they'd had this conversation hundreds of times by now. Was that why she was prying? Trying to find a new loophole about privacy that bent the rules to her liking? The way the neckline of her t-shirt slipped over her shoulder, bare and smooth under the faint light, suddenly seemed manufactured.
“If not me, then Watari,” L said, and felt abruptly tired of the conversation, watching her stand at the crossroads between the control room and Light's. “And even if I am not in this room, I can access the feeds. I'm afraid that any–intimacy with Light-kun is not exempt. You know this. Now, will you go to his room or will you not? I won't keep it unlocked for much longer, and I won't have you wandering the halls at night.”
Strange, how something like curiosity—no, even enjoyment—had started to build in his chest, only to collapse under the weight of that one, inevitable constant: Light. That it came back to him, again. That it reduced Misa once more to the human equivalent of a persistent barnacle or a remora.
The idea sat sour in the back of his throat: that this night-lit version of her—still sugary and effusive, yet somehow deeper, sharper, and more—wasn’t real. That the way she acted when gazing adoringly up at Light was her truest self, and this version was just a mask. One that served only to find and retreat back to her beloved boyfriend.
It was disappointing; even something of a loss. He had hoped that if she was a type of monster, she might at least be a deeply fascinating one. But it seemed now as though she were merely a liar, as dull as that. The chances of her being the Second Kira didn’t decrease, but they shifted. It no longer seemed like the act of a girl who could be clever and callous and always got what she wanted, even at a high cost. No. Now it seemed exactly what it looked like on the surface: something she might've done simply because Light wanted her to.
But she had been silent too long, her eyes darting like a ping-pong ball between the two tunnel-like hallways. Her small mouth worked minutely, but with that same impatient disappointment running hot through his veins, he didn't allow her to speak. When he activated the intercom again, L ruthlessly stripped any of the emotion from his voice, aware suddenly of the way Ryuuzaki's register had lowered and his tone had softened while talking to Misa, if only because now each word was bitten precisely off, no excess or waste.
“Well, Amane?” he asked. “I don't plan to waste time all night waiting for you to make up your mind. Will you, or will you not? Whichever it is, do it quickly.”
Like before, though more disquieting this time, Misa sensed his waning attention, or could hear the indifference he'd injected in his voice. Either way, something sharpened in her eyes once more, and the edge of it gave L pause. The gaze she leveled him with through the cameras nearly burned through the glass and distance.
“God, you pervert,” she said. “You really are, Ryuuzaki. Misa doesn't know who you think she is, but she's not so desperate to go–running around at night and waking her sweet boyfriend just hoping for that! You're being mean, you know. Aren't we friends? I only wanted to know where you were.”
As if expecting the speaker to crackle to life and demand proof of their friendship, she extended both arms at her side and clutched the hands of imaginary dance partners, skipping in circles like the three of them had done not so long ago. Here, her defiant gaze seemed to say, blazing through the screen. Don't you remember that? The brown of her eyes was a confusing mix between syrup and a bottomless void. It backfired, slightly: now, the only thing L's mind managed to send up was the memory of the kiss she had pressed into his cheek.
His silence, to her, was apparently telling. Who knew what Misa had gleaned from the simple fact that he couldn’t find the right words? But her face brightened, a pink cheer descending over it once more—like everything was forgotten and forgiven, simply because she was satisfied by something he’d given away without meaning to. Worse, that he didn't know what. It was an eerie talent of hers, really, how easily and closely she tracked the intricacies of the human spirit. Like this—shrouded and waifish and yet so vivid—L wondered if she didn’t possess a kind of genius that both he and Light lacked.
He’d been called a savant, a prodigy, a mastermind; but never socially adept. Never someone who truly understood sentiment, or passion, or what was considered the best of humanity, simply because he’d always been distant from it. Light, of course, would never admit that Misa excelled at something he didn’t, though he might demur just enough to hide his irritation. But for all his charm and cleverness, he didn’t flay L bare with a single glance the way Misa so often did. She did it effortlessly, she did it well. And the more L contemplated that fact, the more unsettled he became.
Was that what it felt like, talking to him?
But Misa had moved on, either unaware or uncaring of his train of thought. “You said you can access the feeds anywhere?” she asked, hooking her foot around the curve of her calf. It looked idle, an absent habit equal to the way he tended to gnaw on his thumb. “You don't watch the cameras in bed, do you, Ryuuzaki? That's really–”
“Perverted?” L interjected, as dryly as he could. It wasn't difficult: it felt like his mouth had been stripped of moisture. Her abrupt and effortless return to teasing camaraderie was disorienting.
“What!” Misa gasped, hands clamping over her cheeks. The theatricality would have been obnoxious on anyone else, but like usual, it was difficult to suppress the reluctant amusement at her performance. “Misa can't believe you would even accuse her of saying something like that! She was going to say it's really unhealthy! That explains all the dark circles. You don't sleep! Don't you know they make you unattractive? Misa would never make it as a model if she had your eyes, Ryuuzaki.”
“By your own admission, I wasn't winning any contests,” L said, blinking at the monitor.
It had been long enough that the artificial light burned into the backs of his eyes, itching like grains of sand had lodged themselves under his eyelids. Still, to look away from where Misa stood seemed nearly impossible. The prior irritation, faint and borne out of an unforgivable disappointment, faded further with every angle of her smile the camera caught. Allowances, L reminded himself. In the dark, he could afford himself certain humiliating allowances.
“Oh, Ryuuzaki.” Misa pursed her lips, shoulder dropping as she leaned further into the wall. Exhaustion peered out from the curves of her soft face, sitting heavy under her eyes even if she did lack the same bruises beneath that L had. She tipped her head back, making dead eye contact with the nearest camera. L switched feeds to get a clearer line of sight. Even if she couldn't tell (and he'd no longer put it past her, for that matter), it only seemed polite. “You know Misa's only teasing. Mostly. Sort of. I mean, not really, but she is! You're not–it’s not like you're hideous.”
“Ah,” L said, and wondered at the faint levity that had injected itself in his voice again without conscious permission. Yes, she certainly had a genius he did not. Only she could smooth rustled feathers so naturally that he could forget why he'd even let the warmth fade from his words in the first place. “I would never have guessed you felt so kindly towards me. Don't say you're falling for me now, Misa-san.”
The scoff that fell from her lips was so immediate and low that he knew it was genuine. A lesser man might have taken offense: L, naturally, was aware he barely qualified as a man in most people's eyes at all. Besides, he hadn't meant it seriously, only trying to match Misa's energy. Mirroring put people at ease, which was always a benefit, but it also made him feel more in control of a situation rapidly slipping out of his hands. And yet, there was a faint pink flush that spread across the bridge of her nose, something she looked a little embarrassed about, her lips pressing thin. L was unsure why it had appeared; more than anyone, she'd take it as the joke it was, wouldn't she? Nevertheless, watching it seep over her cheeks made whatever control he might have wrested from her obsolete. Some rusty organ in his chest clenched uncomfortably.
Before she could speak–because it would have been some variation of denial, a song-and-dance he didn't need to hear to know she'd only try to hammer her devotion to Light into him–he cleared his throat. Better to just move on. It was strange that she lingered here so long, and stranger that she so willingly engaged in conversation with him. “And of course Misa-san is right. Sleep is important, and I know it's late. But it's alright because I'm in the control room doing work that is more important.”
Misa cocked her head, a strand of hair falling across her forehead. He thought that she might have glanced at the split between the corridors, taking a shuffling step forward like she meant to duck down the one leading to Light. But after a minute she stilled, reaching up to tuck the errant strand behind her ear. “That makes sense,” she murmured. “You're really there? Still? Isn't Ryuuzaki tired?
There was a plaintive note in her voice when she asked if he was really where he'd said, and he didn't know how to deal with it. Why would he lie about that? So he only shrugged, and reached with the tip of his finger to press the button again when it was clear she was waiting for a response. Was it that she–? “Do you need directions back to your room, Misa-san?”
It was a reasonable question, at least in his mind. The building was large and twisting at best, and at night it seemed nearly labyrinthine even to L, who had become used to the winding paths he watched on the cameras. Hadn't she just pretended to be lost? And she'd had a nightmare: fear made people disoriented. But she bristled, her face screwing up and distorting with displeasure, fists clenched at her side.
“Wow!” she said, and the bright tone did nothing to disguise her upset. How was it, L wondered idly, that one girl could have so many contradictions? Transparent, yet unknowable. Straightforward, yet so hidden. Confusing, yet so clear. He had offended her, somehow. “You must think I'm really dumb to not remember that!”
Ah. Like the flash of a picture, a hypothesis cracked through his mind. He could see the look Light might shoot L now, had he been sitting there next to him. Some mix of incredulous, distant disdain. A disbelieving laugh, a condescending smile. “I don't think that,” he said quietly. He could barely hear himself speak, and for a moment couldn't decide whether she had heard him. Or if he'd be relieved if she hadn't.
Briefly–so briefly that he thought his mind wasn't as faultless as he'd believed–Misa’s face crumbled. In that instant, even through the screen, the raw emotion that flashed across her face made him look away. The near-pain of it, hollow and suspicious and lost, was branded so deeply into the backs of his eyelids that even that didn't help. In a bid for distraction, he turned in his chair, reaching to the side to pull the abandoned box of strawberries closer. They were warm to the touch and slightly melted, but they were sugar. But just as L had lifted one to his mouth, teeth set in the tacky chocolate, Misa cleared her throat loudly. He bit the tip off, distracted, and turned once more to the monitor.
There was an expression of determination solidified in her pretty features. Except to say that she was pretty was not very objective of him. As an investigator, it was vital to be objective. Though…by most standards, she was beautiful, and if that was recognized enough to grant her renown as a model, then it was to be expected that even someone like him would notice. Then it was allowed.
And he was getting distracted again, in completely the wrong direction. And because it had been twice now that it had been over Misa Amane, it left him jittery and unhappy.
What was this? For the first time in nearly half an hour, since he'd first engaged her through the intercom, she was marching down the corridor. Decisive, quick; hounds of hell could have been snapping at her heels, but at least she made it seem each step was entirely her choice. Even as she so clearly set her sights on the right hallway, where the elevator waited to take her to the control room, L expected her to swivel and dart to the one that would leave her outside of Light's door.
“If the doors are locked,” she announced, ostensibly to no one, if she hadn't eyed the cameras as she passed, “then unlock them for Misa! She wants to visit her good friend.”
Her hair bounced as she skipped down the hallways, her fingers fiddling with the hem of her t-shirt. L watched her deftly make her way through the corridors, sliding around the turns and cheerfully mashing the button to the elevator.
It wasn't until she hopped over the threshold and pressed the number that would take her to the control room that he registered that Misa Amane would rapidly become flesh and bone in front of him rather than an image on a screen. He was more used to her as the latter version: and though it wasn't as if he'd never been in a room with her, there was a difference between what he was beginning to distinguish as Light's Misa and the girl rocking back and forth on her heels, using the mirrored elevator to preen.
In the sudden silence of the room–Misa having fallen silent except for the occasional, thready crackle of her hum–the creak of L's chair as he adjusted his position was deafening. When she stepped out of the elevator, bare feet padding across the shiny tile, he silently unlocked the door for her. And then she disappeared from his monitor, just the corner of her blonde head visible from where she stood, and L swiveled around to watch as Misa jumped from the screen to the world around them, and poked her head through the frame.
She looked smaller and more doll-like, hands wrapped around the edge of the door. The camera's lens had been harsh and stripped her of any softness, every pore and imperfection branded on the screen, but now she looked unblemished and hazy around the edges. Some dream of a Victorian ghost, if it were one smeared with sparkling lipgloss who wore an overly-large T-shirt. The blonde of her hair was simultaneously less and more vivid, and the contours of her face too expressive to watch close up. Like a bright light. But her eyes remained the same: depthless and infinite, captured in the most mundane shade of rusty brown.
L wondered what she saw, looking at him like that—just the faintest curve of those dark eyes visible through the crack of the door. He knew what he must look like. Hunched over, skin drawn too tight, sickly pale in the unforgiving shine of the monitors. Less plausibly Ryuuzaki the man, and only L the detective, spindly, sleep-starved, and with an expression of impassive detachment that had long since settled into permanence. It never got harder to play the part, but more difficult to force people to accept the mask when the animal instinct sensed it was not the honest face. And he did not mean to scare Misa off Ryuuzaki. He'd been told his gaze punched through people; turned them off, made them hostile and wary. Before, it had always only been an inconvenience if it meant the investigation would be hindered.
Now, surrounded by the chill dark, L had the absurd urge to close his eyes, like it would keep Misa from bolting. But no–she was watching him, and what would she think? Eccentricity was one trait to cultivate, but lunacy was another.
Though he suspected that, even then, he wouldn’t be able to tell what Misa was thinking at a glance. He turned that revelation over in his mind like tonguing a loose tooth. L had never had trouble before, guessing every thought that flitted through her head, printed out in neat cursive on the heart on her sleeve. A fascinating evolution; almost pleasant. But that didn't matter. Whatever she thought about as she stared: he had already resigned himself to it, placidly and silently.
There should be little as unimpressive to Light Yagami’s girlfriend as his honest self–or Ryuuzaki's honest self, at least. Which made her presence at the door difficult to reconcile.
They stared at each other in silence for several heartbeats. Would Misa not come in? The door was unlocked and would stay that way; he wasn't going to escort her out now that he'd invited her in. But she hovered, something startled in the curve of her mouth, like she still wasn't sure if this was a trick. Did she regret not skittering away to Light's room when she had the chance? She looked at L like his presence was unaccountable, like the fact that he had told her where he was and allowed her to come to him without barriers was bewildering.
“Hi,” she finally said, the words little more than an exhale. To L's surprise, he thought she looked nearly shy.
“Hello,” he said, cocking his head; waiting. But her hands remained clenched around the edge of the door. The caution came flooding back. Did he look–unwelcoming, in the dark? His face was half-illuminated by the cold light of the monitor, so he offered her a thin smile. Maybe it didn't look exactly natural, but he didn't have a face for smiling, and for all his practice, it was the best he had. It seemed to ease her, at least, her shoulders slumping. The neckline of her shirt slipped lower, and L looked away.
The silence was broken rather abruptly. The non-sequitur took a moment to register. “Would he…care?”
L blinked at her, eyebrows drawing together. He raised his thumb to his lips again, tracing the edge of dry skin with a fingernail, and contemplated tearing it away. But he wasn't fond of the tang of blood. “Who, Misa-san?”
Yet even as he asked, he understood the answer, and she knew it. The look on her face reminded him of a kicked dog, one so full of love and devotion that it didn't mind the blow to the ribs so long as they got to cringe closer, if only for a minute. And for that minute, every inch of her shrunk and glittered and focused solely on the light of her life.
“Do you think he would care, Ryuuzaki?” Misa pressed. The gleam of her lacquered nails shifted as her knuckles clutched stronger. The edge of anxiety that had caught L's attention when he first noticed her wandering on the cameras had returned. “If Misa went and cuddled with him. Or if she just went and lay down in the bed. Or even got to just speak to him for a moment. It doesn't have to be about her nightmare or–anything silly like that. Just to see him. Would he be angry at Misa?”
The finger smoothing over his lips stuttered. She did a good job of disguising her fear, he would give her that. He had nearly forgotten that her own professed reason for roaming the halls was a bad dream.
There was a desperate rasp to Misa's voice that didn't often arise, and had only ever done so over her boyfriend. Unbidden, L's neatly organized mind opened the box of memories he associated with that tone and offered up the last time he'd heard that nearly whining plea: Misa, asking Light to take her on a date.
In the end he settled on the closest thing to diplomacy he thought might soothe her. “Light-kun values his sleep very much,” he said impassively. “He’s very invested in this case and might take issue if his performance were…impacted in any way.”
Yes, that was a good way to say it. But Misa's mouth still crumpled, eyes crescent half-moons as she screwed her face up and sniffled violently. The threat of tears was genuinely alarming, and his heart kicked into overdrive for all three seconds it took for Misa to calm.
She dragged her wrist under her nose, blonde hair displaced and swaying after the rough movement. Every hint of negative emotion had been abruptly scrubbed, nothing but a vapid, shining smile left behind.
“Oh, well,” she said, bubbly and clear. “That makes sense. That's probably for the best, actually. I know he's so stressed, and I know how much work he puts in. So I don't wanna ruin his sleep, he probably doesn't get enough!”
L let his eyes flicker to his leftmost monitor, where the feed of Light's room was usually displayed. The only reason it wasn't now was because he'd clicked off of it to access another angle of Misa's face when she stood in the hallway. He contemplated telling her of how quickly her boyfriend fell asleep and how sound that rest was, but something small and foreign held him back. It would be cruel. He didn’t like being cruel when it wasn’t necessary.
Misa had taken advantage of his silence to slip further into the room, shutting the door behind her with a quiet snk. But she didn't advance more than a couple, mincing steps.
“It makes sense! He's a genius, you know,” she told him, a cheerful repetition. L nodded, unconcerned, because it was true. “Their brains are too important to be worrying about things like that. Especially not over a dumb nightmare.”
L let his forearm rest on top of his drawn-up knees, chin dropping to lean on it. The fabric of his long-sleeved shirt was soft, but not when pressed so steadily against the underside of his jaw. “Like what, Misa-san,” he asked, watching her so unblinkingly that his eyes began to dry up.
For the first time in nearly thirty minutes, she sent him a hard look, something brittle settling in the corners of her rosebud mouth. Delighted, L raised his head to be able to peer closer. Unlike all the times before, when he'd clambered closer on the couch or leaned too close to her, Misa didn't recoil.
But the cold set of her expression melted as it became clear that L was simply waiting for her to speak. He might have been disappointed at the way Misa-Misa swallowed up those sharper emotions with a pop-perfect smile if there hadn't been such a bald grief that took its place instead. Not that she meant it to be obvious, probably. But he could still read her well enough for that.
“Like…silly things,’” Misa muttered, and twisted her fingers in what seemed like an idle distraction. Her eyes, when she turned her attention on him, were glassy, piercing through him to some distant place he couldn't follow her to. “Holding my hand. Saying ‘I’m sorry' or ‘That must have been scary' or ‘It's okay, I'm here now.’ I–Misa knows that even if her Mom used to do that for her, nobody else has to. It's stupid anyways, and I don't need it.”
Mm. Her parents. No wonder she seemed so seeped with grief. Shifting slightly in his chair, L narrowed his eyes and looked her over once, twice–quick enough she couldn't take offense and call him names if she'd noticed. It must have been what her nightmare was about, if she brought her mother up so casually. He'd never heard her speak a word about them before; anything he knew about their death was because of the case files he'd idly perused when it became clear Misa Amane would be a player in the Kira investigation.
For all her glittering amiability and easy sociality, she seemed content to let all interactions and relationships pass her by on a surface level. Even L, who might have been closer to her than–ah, Matsuda, perhaps–was only so by pure virtue of his proximity to Light. And still, then, she swallowed most of herself to be nothing more than a perfect compliment. He knew very little of her. Perhaps then he might have anticipated that their first honest meeting would have caught him in a chokehold.
“Especially when they have bigger issues,” Misa continued, and L blinked back to the present. “Like–well, you'd know how hard he's working on the Kira case! My Light is so dedicated.” And she batted her eyelashes and clasped her hands together under her chin with a sickening sincerity, still glowing with the love she never hesitated to show, but the gleam in her eye seemed dull.
Maybe something of his censure was obvious, though he hadn't thought he was making a face, because she abruptly scowled. Most of the time he had to put in quite a lot of effort remembering to twist his features in the right emotions, actually. Then again, by now he shouldn't be surprised that Misa could identify microexpressions so easily. Or–no lingering surprise that she could, only that she was so proficient when it came to him.
The pout carved deep lines around her mouth, lips trembling a little too convincingly. “Don't make that face, Ryuuzaki,” she said huffily, which only confirmed the idea that he hadn't done any such thing and she'd simply sensed something from him. “I just don't wanna be a distraction, is all.”
That was to assume Light could be distracted by her at all. L had certainly never observed any indication. But to say so wouldn't just have been cruel, it would have been deliberate, and for all his faults, L didn't enjoy kicking someone who was already down. Especially when the sticky edge of fear remained clinging like cobwebs around her tense brow and eyes. But he wasn't a perfect man, and his response might have been too dry.
“Oh, yes,” he said, and flexed his hands where they lay over his drawn-up knees. The stretch on his joints was pleasant and the denim underneath his palms were worn soft with time. “Understandably, Light-kun’s greatest trial in life is comforting his lovely girlfriend after her nightmare. Empathy for one's significant other should be the norm for relationships, Misa-san.”
For a moment, she hesitated, lips twitching faintly like she was repeating his words in her head. Then her expression shuttered and sharpened, her attention like a splinter. “Don't–talk about us like that,” she said meanly; buried beneath the anger was the lost anxiety of a child. Like he was allowed to notice their faults but not supposed to remark on them. He peered at her without apology, one eyebrow slightly raised. It only seemed to make her more snappish.
“What would you even know about that sort of thing?” Misa said, nails digging into her palm. Sometime during their conversation, she had advanced further into the room, and now stood only a few feet away from where he crouched on his chair. It was a perfectly polite distance. But the sudden observation of her proximity was an unwelcome one, because it meant L lost his concentration for a half-second.
“What would you know about–Misa or Light or other people or relationships at all?” She stomped closer, blonde hair slipping over her shoulder as she leveled a glare at him. “Nobody would touch you on pain of death! Or with a pole! Or anything! You don't get it.”
It occurred to L that she was trying to wound him; teeth bared, ready to carve flesh from bone as long as she could get close enough to it, casting lines with the hope that something might catch. But what was there to be offended about? Everything she said was mostly true. He didn't know much about relationships outside of the technical, and no one had ever been overcome to the point of physicality by him the way Misa was with her boyfriend. Though he would disagree about not understanding his suspects, at least. He would have been a very poor detective to let them draw so near without the slightest idea of their inner workings–or what they thought their workings were, that is.
And of course, L was anything but a poor detective.
But his placid silence seemed only to further enrage her, and her anger left him rueful. She had a tendency to get truly worked up, and that wasn't beneficial to anyone. But how to dispel that cornered look from her eye, wet with what looked like unshed tears? The set of her jaw was sharp enough that L suspected any attempt at pacification or empty comfort wouldn't be received happily. That was just as well. He wasn't good at offering them.
Perhaps the choice he landed on lay slightly too far in the “childish and hates to lose” category than it ought to have been. But apparently something Misa had hurled at him had struck a nerve, though he only understood it as he began to move. He shifted forward, torso stretching as he extended a hand, the palm open and fingers wiggling slightly in a wordless beckon. Under the cold light, his skin looked sallow and more pale than usual.
Several reasons swam around in his head as L held his hand out to her and waited patiently to see what she would do. Namely: that she had said no one would touch him and that she had the chance now; what would she do? Was her desire for comfort strong enough to override whatever dislike she felt for him? Not only that, but it was a moral high-ground over Light, who wouldn't have done it at all. And L was, in the end, only a man, one who could fall prey to spite and petty enjoyment.
He wasn't sure what she'd do. For a good minute, she merely stood there in the middle of the room, fists clenched at her side. It put a slight strain on his shoulder to keep his hand outstretched so motionlessly, but not significantly, so L dismissed it in favor of watching Misa.
She ignored the weight of his gaze with staunch determination as she stomped forward. The anger hadn't wavered, her eyes narrowed and nearly red in the gleam of the reflecting light. Her cheeks were slightly puffed up, but the softness of them seemed to turn angular and contorted her into something unapproachable. Perhaps if L had been a lesser man he would have retreated or retracted the silent challenge, afraid of the steel in her gaze. But he was not, and so he leaned further over his knees to reach her the nearer she came.
For a second, he thought she might slap him and run away, everything they'd said melting away with the resounding whack of her fingers against his cheek. It fit with what he knew of Misa, or the girl he'd thought he knew, and she had certainly never liked his questions or the way he acted. So it might have been easier than what she did.
Her hand was warmer than his. Skin softer, clean and smooth like she'd rubbed lotion over her palms at some point that night. Her fingers were shorter, but with the fullness that spoke of a healthy body. They slipped, feather-light, over his wrist to lace between his own, which were a stark contrast; long and bony and always too cold. A sincere panic seized L's heart for a moment: her touch burned and soothed in equal measure, something that drew his attention perpetually to where they were joined. If she spoke, he wouldn't have heard it through the rushing in his ears. If she moved, he wouldn't have been able to peel his eyes away from her smaller, grasping hand. This was a mistake, the worst he had ever made; the worst he ever would.
But he forced the emotion down. L was in control because he had initiated it. His abnormal reaction was because he had little to no opportunity for casual touch. The rush of endorphins was because he did not find her unattractive. The chill down his spine was because she was warm and the room was not. Because, because, because.
With effort that was not insignificant, L blinked up at her, anchoring his mind in the present by watching how she fidgeted from foot to foot as she hovered by his chair. There had been a cause for this. He could not abandon it now. He opened his mouth, but the way Misa abruptly zeroed in on him was startling. She looked–tense. Anticipatory yet embarrassed at the same time. As if she was waiting for him to drop her hand like a hot coal and sneer at her willingness, so that she might rage at him and run back to the familiar haven of Light.
Well. L would have to disappoint. Unconsciously, his fingers tightened around her own, pulling her slightly closer. Her chin dipped, and she looked up at him through her eyelashes. The desire to one-up Light faded and mellowed into something kinder. And when he spoke, his voice was uncharacteristically quiet, even to his own ears.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “That must have been scary. It’s okay. I’m here now.”
The sympathies felt clumsy on his lips and L couldn't see the appeal of simply parroting her own words back at her. But Misa sniffed, watery and harsh, and some resistance seemed to seep out of her. The hand she'd slipped in his tightened its grip, her nails biting into the dry skin of his knuckles.
The spark of heat that had begun to roast in his chest only got worse with each moment their skin stayed pressed together. He was not exceedingly fond of the sensation, but some baser instinct luxuriated in it. This was disconcerting, naturally. He was not one who had such instincts. Considering this thought more deeply than he would have liked, it took a moment for L to determine Misa was calm enough that a disapproving word or two about her boyfriend wouldn't send her spiraling.
“Don’t consider comfort abnormal,” L told her, blinking slowly. “You seem to appreciate it. So it ought to be available to you when you need it.”
Alas. Her gaze sharpened nonetheless, catching the edge of satisfaction at his pointed censure he had thought he'd erased. Her fingers dug further into his hand, a warning now, and L briefly mourned the chocolate strawberries that had been the same shade of red as her nails. He half considered turning around to poke at them, and see if they were salvageable, but he would have to let Misa go and maneuver around her. It seemed inconvenient.
Misa shuffled closer, still with that faintly intense look in her eye. He would have liked it if she took a step back, because the air became infused with the faint scent of vanilla and something clean. Compared to the sterile, crisp air that had surrounded him until now, it was almost distracting.
“Ugh! I told you not to make that face, Ryuuzaki,” she said, a flash of pink slipping through her lips as she playfully stuck her tongue out at him. But there was an odd, troubled look on her face that pulled the gesture thin. “And I said to not judge Light! I would never be mad at him for being a bit busy. So you shouldn't blame him, you know… He puts a lot on himself, especially helping your stupid case! He's a good person!”
She nodded once, decisively. With their–odd situation, she stood above him, slightly taller thanks to his poor posture and how his free hand gripped at his knee, pulling his torso down further. Their clasped hands were nearly clammy now, but neither let go. L looked up at her, a few dark, feathery sections of hair sliding over his forehead and getting in his eyes.
Whatever appeal for Light she thought she was making, it didn't mean much.
He would never, even with a razor to his throat, call Kira a good person. Neither, however, would he call Light an evil one. Or at least, not this version of Light. Though the cause and mechanism were unclear, there had unmistakably been a change in the boy. Some soul-deep transformation that had, however briefly, stripped away the murderer to reveal what must have been his first victim: himself.
Lacking fangs and with a mouth full of dull milk teeth, this Light was a nearly uncomfortable representation. Whether it was due to a miscalculation on L’s part (unlikely), or whether this was what might have been—had the Light Yagami who had unquestionably been Kira not swelled and overtaken the boy with a bright future—remained to be seen.
While occasionally callous, single-minded, and far too charming for his own good, this Light was, nevertheless, not cruel. He seemed to possess a sincere desire to help, and there were perhaps even moments of real compassion. Exactly what Misa so badly wanted L to believe and agree with.
But that certainly did not mean Light was a good person.
“You should be careful, Misa-san,” he told her, his monotone poorly matching the nearly conspiratorial whisper her voice had fallen into. “Those beliefs are dangerous. Don't you know good people can do no wrong?”
She just looked at him, something embarrassed and small playing at the corners of her gloss-sticky lips. In the faint crease of her eyes, that same emotion seemed to gain a more bitter sheen. “...I don't know what you mean,” she said quietly, the fingers interlaced with his tense and clenching. He wondered if she even knew she was doing it.
L shrugged, little more than a twitch, and opened his mouth, content to explain. It wasn't any effort on his part. Watari might even dryly suggest he liked the sound of his own voice. But his lips had barely parted before Misa stopped him, nothing more than a huff punched out of her to signal her displeasure. But in the silence it was very loud, and the furrow between her brow reappeared. His thumb spasmed, and he frowned down at it.
“Don't bother,” Misa sighed. She shifted her weight from leg to leg, drawing nearer to him as consequence. Had she meant to? There didn't seem to be a purpose behind it, and she looked entirely unaware, so he settled. There was next to no space between them, only the arm of his chair separating them now. “Light would have understood right away. You can't explain it now, just rubbing it in my face that I'm…”
She trailed off, her free hand rising to cut through the air, each aimless gesture sharp and abrupt. It was clear the words she wanted were lacking–or, L suspected, just ones she was unwilling to admit–but her grievance was obvious. There was a chasm she scrabbled the walls of; was miming the shape of now: that she wasn't like Light and was even less like L.
The frustration that settled over her like a fine layer of ash seemed a plausible prelude to some worse mood or paroxysm. L had a vested interest in heading that off before its fruition; he'd discovered, unfortunately, that his ability to reassure (already poor) took a decided hit when it came to Misa.
Yet there was nothing to distract her with. The curve of her irises, already glassy, seemed to grow wetter. What a mercurial woman. If she hadn't been so interesting, it might have even been aggravating. But she was. So it wasn't–except for how displeasing it was to be left wrong-footed around her once more.
“Ah–why don't you sit down,” L said slowly. His was the only chair in the room, however, nothing else but a barren stretch of linoleum surrounding them. It was rare he had to offer seats to anyone. Misa blinked rapidly, long lashes fluttering, and seemed to come to the same conclusion.
“Sit where,” she said, bottom lip trembling in its pout. Partly exaggerated, partly genuine, he suspected.
L opened his mouth, then closed it. There had been a solution, an easy one; he had no qualms in suggesting a woman sit on the floor. Yet the minute he'd gone to tell her, she'd thrown him a look that put him on edge. They stared at each other, something nearly curious in those expressive eyes of hers as they flickered to his lap, where his knees remained drawn up to his chest. It lingered long enough that he wondered if he'd been meant to see it. Was he meant to read into it? Assume the obvious? That couldn't be right. Not from Misa, not towards him.
But then she blinked, gaze sliding away from him and melting into something more familiar and performative.
“Oh, honestly,” she huffed, but squinted down at the floor. The frown she twisted her mouth into looked mostly habitual, rather than actually indignant. For all her complaints, there was no hesitation as she bent down and dusted away a place to sit, knees already folding beneath her. So L's courtesy was extended and any further social niceties no longer beholden to her. There was no logical reason for the choice he made next.
It was intrigue, again. A stronger bolt than before, darting through his chest like a wildfire, burning away inhibitions; the thrill of a dangerous game; of trespassing. The part that had dug gleeful claws into Kira, the part of him that was too similar for comfort to Light. That had seen the boy's intelligence, that cold pragmatism, and knew with calm certainty that he could meet and exceed it. Here, now, how far could he push? How willing was she, to experiment and to tempt and to betray? He had seen that look. It was a foolish idea, but he had seen her look. Audacious curiosity would be a mutual downfall, then.
All these thoughts shot across his mind in less than a second. She hadn't let go of his hand yet, still gingerly lowering herself to the floor. Before she could fully settle herself, he acted.
Wordlessly, L unfurled from his slouch, shoulders pinching slightly. It felt–not unnatural, but odd, to shift and place his feet flat on the floor. The chair creaked loudly as he moved, adjusting himself so that he leaned firmly against his seat. Some of the tension seeped away as his spine settled itself comfortably against the padded back. Misa peered up at him, awkwardly crouched halfway to sitting. Her fingers spasmed nearly imperceptibly in his grip, and the rustling of his movement faded away to near absolute silence. It was undercut only by the sound of their breathing. He would not suggest it, nor ask; could pass it off easily if she baulked.
But for the first time, L sat normally in his chair, and where his knees were usually curled up now was only his lap. It was a neat, empty space, and he blinked placidly down at her.
Slowly, knees popping as she stood, Misa rose to her full height once more. She didn't look away from him once, something cool and steady and entirely unlike her settling across her shoulders like a well-worn jacket. It occurred to him, as she leaned closer and her hair slipped soundlessly over the curve of her neck, that he was not guaranteed to come out unscathed from this game. She was not someone who would falter from issuing challenges, or twisting her sharp nails into what had been placed before her and making it her own. Her mouth split into a sharp smile, though something suspicious lurked in the corners of her eyes.
“Oh? Really? Why, Ryuuzaki,” she cooed, fluttering her eyelashes. “You're so silly. Poor Ryuuzaki. You know, Misa doesn't actually think you should try to get her to do this.”
There would be no acknowledgement of what ‘this’ was, of course. He wouldn't indulge her in that; and she had always been blunt. Almost blunter than him and Light both. Still, she hesitated, the coy mask unable to hide her apprehension. Or perhaps he was being too generous to himself and it was simply that she was taking the time and effort to try to impose Light's face over his own. Whatever it was, it was holding her back, and he sensed that he would lose her. That was no good.
He shrugged, a deliberately lazy twitch, pretending to be focused mostly on watching the light of the computer play off of her skin rather than if she'd bite. "I wouldn’t have guessed Light-kun’s girlfriend to be so boring,” he mused.
She narrowed her eyes, her mouth twisted, panic freezing the expression. He could practically hear the crack of her voice now, an unhappy you're so mean, Ryuuzaki.
The proximity was almost too sharp, L's mind fuzzing slightly around the edges, reduced brainpower unhelped by the fact that his legs were no longer pressed close against his chest. Her warm breath brushed feather light against his cheeks, but then–he had just invited something significantly more.
“Your funeral,” Misa snapped. There was nothing but conviction in her voice.
At last, she pulled her hand away, her skin dragging like silk across his own. His hand felt almost too cold without her fingers covering the gaps between his. But there was hardly time to notice it before she braced her hands on his shoulders, a burning brand through the thin cotton of his shirt, and boosted herself up to sling her legs around his narrow hips. It threw him for a loop–badly–his now-freed hand clenching momentarily around the armrest. They had crossed a line, yes. They had crossed it a while ago, knowingly, unwisely, curiously tip-toeing around a fence that would electrocute them without hesitation. But…
He had assumed, in his inexperience, that she would perch gingerly across his thighs and dart away the moment her point was made. Not for the first time, her knees digging into his side, L acknowledged he had made a mistake. He wasn't surprised by it, but he was startled, perhaps–that it had gone on for so long, that she was willing to continue it, that she didn't shy away from him as before. That he had chosen it. It seemed that no matter the face worn, whether there was truth to it or not, Kira had caught L’s attention too completely to slip away.
Misa gave everything her all, every inch of her a performance that had been practiced to the bone with a fierce dedication. This was no different.
She sank against him bonelessly, like coming in from the cold and melting at the hearth of a roaring fire. She was smaller than she looked, doubly so against him, a collection of bones and limbs that felt like nothing so much as a newborn baby bird.
So close, little details stood out that L had never seen before, like how there was a pattern of moles under the curve of her jaw, that her hair smelled like a floral shampoo, and that the tip of her nose was ice-cold as she tucked her face in the crook of his neck and nuzzled at the soft skin below his ear. Her arms snaked easily underneath his own, palms coming up to clutch the knobby curve of his shoulder, her soft torso pressing gently against his ribs. Like a koala, curled up and grasping at any inch of him she could reach. Each tiny adjustment was to burrow closer, sapping away his negligible warmth, her breath tickling his throat.
Could Misa feel his heartbeat, where the curve of her cheek rested against his pulse? Yes, she had been right. L ought not have goaded her. In the business of the physical, she was victor and ruler. No matter how starved and greedily his body reacted, he could only think again, grimacing, that he had made a mistake. What an unusual experience for him, and one so compounded throughout this night.
A trembling breath wheezed through him, tripping its way through his teeth. He contemplated it with a sense of bewilderment. He had not meant for it to escape him, or realized it was clawing up from his gut. In the following silence, the only thing he could focus on was Misa's grin, hidden and pressed against his skin.
“Poor Ryuuzaki,” she murmured again, a little taunt. He blinked, little more than a twitching eyelid, and let her have her fun.
For a long moment, nothing stirred. The clock in the corner of the computer ticked down the minutes slowly, and L watched it with distant interest. It made it easier to–cope with Misa's weight atop him. He was no longer certain how long this would last, but hubris had brought him and stubbornness kept him. Misa's grip around him was like steel, fingers idly drawing circles at his collarbone, and he did not have to wonder if it was a battle of wills between them because he knew it was.
At some point, without his conscious input, their breathing had synched and fallen into a matching lull. Each press of her chest against his was enough to throw off his concentration, and the resulting disorientation, the lack of his familiar sitting position, and the faint brush of her lips as she exhaled against him was enough to make it feel like live wires danced under his skin.
Misa shifted, retreating from the crook of his neck to rest the point of her chin on the hollow of his sternum. It was a strain to tilt his own to meet her eyes, so L didn't, staring straight over her head. His skin felt cold and dead without the heat of her breath directly against it.
“Whatcha thinking about, Ryuuzaki?” Misa asked. Though the words were playful, her voice was quiet and slow, oozing like molasses over her lips. L's gaze fell briefly to her own before the angle stung too sharp to bear. What was there to say? He stayed silent.
Misa pouted, her cheek smushing against his clavicle as she lowered her head. It felt simultaneously relieving and tedious without her wide-eyed stare boring through his skull. “Hmm. Are you thinking about Misa?” she pressed. “You should tell her what you're thinking about specifically. Everyone should. I'm just the best thing there is to think about!”
L rolled answers around like well-worn stones, firstly in the theater of his mind, and then in the pocket of his cheek. It was not often he considered whether to wield the truth or not–in most cases, the truth was the truth and there was no hiding it. He did not prefer to. Then again, she had a habit of using it against him, in creative and irritating ways. But he must have been thinking too long, because Misa's pout only deepened.
Arms retracting from underneath his, where they had attached on his shoulders, she used her palms against his chest to push herself up straight. “Well? Are you thinking of her?” she demanded. “C’mon, tell Misa-Misa! Ryuu-zaki…”
The indignant bounce she did would have been a stomped foot, if she was standing. The tension stringing her muscles tight was proof of that, and it was a mostly empty, theatrical gesture. The issue, of course, was that she was not standing.
It felt as if L had had the wind knocked out of him with brass knuckles. His vision went slightly fuzzy, some white-hot bolt spearing his mind. Another unwitting noise punched out of his throat, a miserable hiss of air, and the sense that the understanding and grip over the world that he'd held for twenty-five years was slipping only grew stronger.
The hands that had been lying still and steady on the armrests flew up against his will, and before he had time to regret it, his fingers dug shakily into the soft give of Misa's waist. She stilled immediately, some spark igniting in her dark eyes.
“Don't do that,” L said.
“O-oh.”
There was no apology forthcoming. Carefully and with utmost focus, L forced his hand to unclench, fingers slowly peeling away from the burning warmth to settle, once more, to either side of him. And because it was a game, no matter that it was a charged game with only one clear winner, no matter that the terms of the victory were uncertain and muddled more by the second–neither of them said anything more on the matter.
And yet, because it was a game, L had to concede something to her quickly. Misa had politely shuffled further back on his thighs, the curve of her kneecaps digging into his legs rather than his hips. But she would never be one to waste an advantage that would give her the edge, and L knew that.
“Yes. I was thinking of you,” he said. An unusual hoarseness lingered in his voice that he cleared his throat against.
“I knew it,” Misa hummed. It felt like a buzzing insect trapped between their chests, her voice reverberating into his ribcage. “And? You have to tell me why. Was it because Misa is so charming? Or so pretty? Or so cute? Or because–”
L let her ramble and turned inward to examine the question. They both knew there was nothing else to do but think about her–stretched across his body, nails grazing skin. But she wanted the words from his lips, and he would not give her the satisfaction. As if he couldn't just drown out the sensations of his own body. He settled on the truth.
“I like you,” he said. For a moment he considered letting the words drag rougher, letting his eyes fall heavy and dark just to watch her flush. It was not a card he often needed or wanted to play, but he thought she would have a funny reaction to it. The promise of new data was nearly enough to convince him–except it would hardly matter. She’d doubt him either way. Nothing would work as effectively as the simple truth.
Indeed, the blonde scowled up at him, her nose turned up. “Don't lie,” she huffed. “Misa-Misa is–annoying, or loud, or stupid. People don't like that. That's not what they think is likeable.”
He observed her levelly. It still hurt his neck, to crane his head down at such an awkward angle. It would be ten times more comfortable, and let him pull his legs up on the seat again, if he just pushed her off his lap. “Do you really think I'm a liar, Misa-san?” he remarked, and didn't shrug her head off his shoulder as it thunked down again.
It was a place-holder sort of thing to say, placations that one might tell a grieving mother, or a father in pain. Don't disbelieve what I tell you, the tone soothed. You don't have to think I'm lying. Things like that. He was well used to twisting things his way. It wasn't even untruthful. L lied very easily, but he was not, by nature, a liar. And in her case, he was being honest. He liked her–no matter that it was a foggy, wary feeling that had crept up on him against his will.
Her scoff huffed against his bicep, warming the white cotton covering it. “You act just like Light,” she said. “No wonder you get along so well. I guess you're not exactly a liar but I don't know why you'd bother telling me the truth if you've never done it before. I'm just a suspect.”
She went briefly silent. L wondered idly if she felt the press of his body against hers more keenly in that moment, something firmly illicit and illegal by more than just their status and connection to Light. But she didn't move, her pinky sliding down to curl under his sleeve. They were neither of them paragons, and far from moral creatures. What was chosen was more vital than what was ‘right.’
“And not even the interesting one,” she said. All L could see was the top of her head. There was no bitterness in her voice. There was nothing there at all.
L released his grip on the armrest to reach to the side, and didn't reply. The strawberries that had lain forgotten on his desk were sticky, a mess of condensation atop lukewarm fruit and melted chocolate, but with sweets he wasn't picky. Who knew how many calories he'd burned without replenishing. The taste of the chocolate mixed oddly with the sense-smell of Misa's shampoo as he inhaled. Swallowing became briefly difficult, the bite sticking in his throat. Atop him, Misa's breathing had gone slow and deep, like she was focusing very hard.
“You like me,” she said, after a minute. There was a faint, dry disbelief in her voice, like she was playing along but couldn't convince herself. “As I am. Really.”
L likewise didn't bother responding to that. He wasn't one to repeat himself needlessly.
“Because sometimes Misa thinks it would be better if she was–different.” The nail of the finger pulling at his sleeve raked briefly across his wrist before Misa retracted it. The sensation that ran down his spine was slightly unpleasant in its intensity. “Prettier or more famous. Or better at being friendly. Or…if she was a man. It would be different then.”
She sat up abruptly. His skin felt cold in her absence. Face to face for the first time in what seemed like hours, L stared down at her, wondering if she’d once more pull her own meaning from his vacant expression. She'd been chewing on a corner of her lip, skin peeling and red.
“I'd be the perfect idol,” Misa said, a little dreamily. One palm came up to brace itself on his chest, fingers pressing against his collarbone. She didn't seem to notice. “Everybody likes the pretty men on TV. Nobody ever says anything bad about them. Even this whole Kira thingy. They'd think I was the second Kira because I'm smart and strong. Not just an–accomplice.”
She blinked, and her gaze fell to where she rested a hand against L. They had crossed more lines than that, at this point. But for the first time, she seemed embarrassed. Though she casually let her hands fall to her lap, clenching them together, her ears flushed red. L said nothing.
“Would I be better as a man, Ryuuzaki?” she asked quietly.
L thought about this imagined male Misa in some alternate world, glittering and sharp and surely unlike the woman before him. Could one be the same when all parts have been replaced and made new? There was no interest in the idea. Of course not. One had, after all, been made new. It was the Misa of this life that interested him, not anyone else, all her edges and masks and performances; what they might reveal; how she might snap. He didn't like to waste brainpower on a useless hypothetical.
”No,” he said. Nothing else.
He was continually surprised by the lengths she would go to find comfort. There was nothing inherently kind in the statement, nothing he intended to explain. But her shoulders dropped, loose and hunched, a hint of relief softening the furrow of her tight brow. Once more he was confronted with the idea that he had unwittingly given something away—something only Misa could see.
But the frown persisted. “...Would Light have liked me better if I was a man?”
Yes. There was no doubt. It was not, L believed, necessarily some misogynistic hatred that made Light so coolly solicitous towards the woman who adored him. It was who she was at her core–loyal and willing to close her eyes against pain, or suspicion, and be useful. In a better world, she might not have to be. In a better world, she could be a man who would not have to demand respect, desire, and interest by performing for it. For an indifferent audience, usually.
He watched her, eyes wide and unblinking before they began to dry. Too blunt and she might run sobbing, and then all the enjoyment of their game was over too quickly. More than that, perhaps, it was unneeded to hammer home the fact that Light looked through her on a soul-deep level, something she couldn't change. “Light-kun is fine with you the way you are.”
Yes, that was good. It had been enough to soothe her before, just the mere suggestion of being perfect. Interesting, to see that she rankled against it now, her lips curling into a small sneer. Had she hidden the same reaction in the past, when he fawned over her dedication to her boyfriend? Or was it that she expected something else from L now, in this liminal silence that was heavy with their bad decisions? It might have been either one, and he wasn't fully sure which. How novel.
“You think so?” she scoffed. “Because I think he'd like me better if I was a man.” A clawed finger stabbed itself against his shoulder, and L didn't refute it, nor did he push the appendage away, because, well–he agreed. “I think he'd like me better if I were you.”
The tip of her nail pressed slightly too deep into the muscle of his arm. Gingerly, like picking up a sugar cube or a snail, L lifted his arm to pinch the knuckle of her index between his fingertips. Her skin was still as smooth and warm as it had been when she'd clasped her hand in his. She let him pull her finger away, yanking herself fully out of his grasp to throw her hands up.
“The way he speaks about you, Ryuuzaki. God, you make me sick.” Some of the anger crumbled away, nothing but a crumpled expression of hopelessness left behind, spreading insidiously across her face like a shadow. She looked better smiling. “You with your genius minds and your personalities and your sense of–of understanding. That connection. God.”
The sniffle that came from her a second later, cutting through her heavy breathing, sounded raw and wet in her throat. “Well. At least I know it. I'm a good girlfriend. Nobody else would have stuck with him. I would. I always did. I'm loyal, and I love him, and maybe one day, we can have some sort of–agreement or understanding too. Maybe I can understand him like you two understand each other. Just so long as he doesn't leave me alone-e-e…”
And this last word warbled out of her mouth, drawn out and miserable, and suddenly Misa was crying.
All that effort to distract her, to bait her, to avoid a situation like this; all rendered newly meaningless. The tears that welled up at her waterline looked like melting crystal beads, smearing down her face as she furiously dug the meat of her palms into her eyes. L consciously forced himself to relax, sinking stiffly into the backing of the chair. She swayed towards him, following the motion of his body nearly instinctively, and before he could blink she was tucking herself close again.
There was nothing for it. Her sobs wrenched out of her chest with enough force to jolt against him, her cold–and now damp–nose pressing into the curve of his neck again. L was nearly used to it now. What comfort was it again, that she had wanted badly enough to wander the corridors so late? Mm. He could improvise.
Her wailing, muffled as it was by his shirt, was quickly becoming hysterical. Sighing soundlessly, L raised his hand once more and chose the easier option. Her back was heaving and unstable; her head was tucked below his chin. With two fingers, he gently patted the top of it, the rhythmic tapping slowly transforming into a jerky line swept across her hair. It was very soft.
“There, there,” he droned.
For a second, her breathing hitched and the sound of her tears seemed to freeze, like she was just as taken aback to hear the reassurance as he was to scrounge it up. Only briefly, however. Within an instant, she was back to being senseless. A buildup, likely, rather than a fit. It was healthy to mourn, he'd learned. But not like this.
“There, there,” he said again, quieter.
“Ryuuzaki–” Misa's voice was thick, sniffling against his shirt. Was she calming? He pulled away from her head, but she tensed. Perhaps she hadn't even noticed that she did. Well, his wrist was tired. He compromised and let his palm rest motionless atop her hair, spanning the curve of her skull. It settled her, he thought. Oh, she was speaking again.
“Ryuuzaki,” she said again, “if he comes to you–he's so pretty I won't blame you, I would never–but please…please just send him back to me at the end of it. I can't bear to be alone. And–and I know you like him better so you don't have to do it for poor Misa, but please…”
It was hardly the work of a moment to understand what she meant. L cocked his head, musing. She seemed so certain Light would find his way to L’s bed. How unusual, to have someone imagine that of him—and almost funny. Nothing between Light and himself would be simple; never quick, and certainly never gentle. There would be teeth in it, if it ever existed at all.
“I wouldn't do that to you,” he said. An oversimplification, but all that needed to be said.
A fist, loosely curled, slammed against his ribs. It didn't hurt, just another performative gesture, but Misa's hand fell away the moment it connected. Instinct, maybe, warring with the memory of what had happened last time she thoughtlessly moved against him. “Who could help it?” she cried. “My Light is so beautiful and amazing. You would do it, you would!”
“I'm in no place to speak of Light-kun's view of me,” he said mildly. “And it is late enough that it is unwise to think of such things. Calm yourself, Misa. You've nothing to fear from me.”
The tears stopped like screwing a faucet shut. She shoved back from where she sprawled, wiggling away to stare incredulously up at his face. He dug his nails into the padded seat of the chair, biting back a strange noise, and wished she would get off his lap. “Wha–! You can't be serious,” she said incredulously, either ignorant or unaware of his dismay. “But Light is so attractive! And smart! You're not even tempted? Not even a little?”
He grit his teeth and swallowed. “Perhaps the shell is attractive,” he said, more tersely than he might on any other day. “But it is just a shell.”
Misa's brow furrowed slightly. He had a suspicion that she did understand his point, but only with vague interest. Like rubbing fog away from glass to squint through better. She'd not be looking for an explanation, though. He remembered how she'd acted before, that wall of thorns springing up around her at even the hint of her intelligence being questioned. Most importantly, however, she was calming.
Anything was better than crying.
“Besides,” he continued, tilting his chin to watch the way her irises sparkled with the ebbing tears. It was the first time they'd made direct eye contact in…a while. Hm. “Light and I do certainly have an understanding. Maybe I've finally met my match. But that similarity doesn't have to mean I–like him. In fact, in many ways, we are exactly a kind. It is not easy to be so clearly reflected back to yourself.”
She just looked at him, something small and pitiful and nonetheless tense compressing her lips together. Waiting, he supposed, for affirmation and pacification again. Pretty words he had proven indifferent of giving to her. L cocked his head. “No, make no mistake,” he said, and was content that it was an absurd truth he did not understand, and that she would not accept from him. “I like you very much.”
Almost detached from the movement of his hand, he saw his thumb rise to hover briefly over the curve of her cheek. It was the same digit that often slipped between his teeth, or lay stuttering against his parted lips. Barely a whisper of touch, he pressed it to the delicate skin under her eye, tender and dark from exhaustion. Misa could take it as proof, or manipulation, or whatever she'd like. He was merely curious.
Her lip trembled. He could feel the fluttering brush of her eyelashes against his nail as she blinked furiously.
"Why are you still trying to make me believe you?" she asked. It was nothing short of helpless.
“I'm a detective,” he replied, arching a sardonic brow down at her and letting his thumb fall away. “Don't you think I value the truth, Misa-san? Why would I lie? I have you in custody. I have you cooperating. There is no need to butter you up or coerce you.”
She said nothing. He cracked his neck idly, the tendons snapping loudly in the silence as he twisted. What an interesting night. What an interesting game. What…an interesting woman, against all expectations. He hated losing, but when it introduced and prolonged an enjoyment, he could tolerate being wrong. No, he should never have dismissed her to Light's purview.
He tilted his head, leaning closer and keeping steady eye contact with her despite the fringe of dark hair that slid into his field of vision. “What is it,” L wondered aloud, “that you think I want from you?”
——
Ugh, typical Ryuuzaki.
Vague and pushy. Not that anyone would believe Misa if she described him that way, but he was. Like all the dumb geniuses in the world. Even Light sometimes could be a little high-and-mighty, she could admit that. But he had good reason to—honest! Her boyfriend was perfect. It must have been difficult dealing with people like her, who just couldn't relate as well. Ryuuzaki didn’t have an excuse, though. She bit down on the urge to scowl up at him, because then he'd know she was ignoring him for a second and also because he had a weird, expectant look on his face like he actually wanted to hear her answer.
Still, that lie… it was nicer than she would have thought he could be, like, ever. He liked her? They were called mad geniuses for a reason, she guessed. It was funny, though. Maybe he really convinced himself he believed it. Men like that could trick themselves easily. Brilliant, quick, never-ceasing, always looking down their nose even if they wouldn't admit it. It was why they were so good at tricking everyone else, too.
Men like him never wanted company for long, or even truly liked the people around them. There wasn't any fun in people like that. Honestly. If she wasn't the first choice—the only choice—what was the point? Misa Amane was no silver medal. So he'd told her what she wanted to hear so badly for some other reason, and she didn't have to be super-duper smart to guess why.
Ryuuzaki didn’t seem to dislike tears so much as just not know what to do with them. As if she couldn't tell how badly he wanted the noise to stop! Then again… he hadn't lied about everything. He was pretty smart. He'd–gotten a couple of things right. She sniffled, nose still runny and irritating.
S'ppose that was good enough for tonight. She blinked the lingering damp from her eyelashes and looked up at him through them, soft and inviting–a smothering blanket over the jagged edges trying to poke through.
“I don't know,” she finally said. “But nobody is nice unless they want something.”
“Mm.” Ryuuzaki had a kind of–funny voice. Well, not funny-funny, but it made her stomach swoop a little. It was monotone and dry at the best of times, but it was also low and smooth, in a way that could have been pretty if it wasn't coming from him. “That’s true.”
Oh, he was agreeing with her? She straightened up triumphant, and turned the full force of her smile up at him. God, he was a little creepy sometimes. His eyes were so wide and black, rimmed even darker. And right now they were pinning her in place, unblinking.
“Well–exactly,” Misa said, faltering slightly. She cleared her throat, clutching the bluster close, and folded her arms across her chest. “Right. So I'm right.”
Except, then he twitched, shoulders curving in as he loomed even closer. She clamped down on the instinctive urge to scramble away. She didn't really feel any particular way about it, but that was what they always did. It was how they were. Still, to be begrudgingly fair to him, she didn't think he realized he kept leaning in.
“I haven't asked you for anything yet,” he pointed out, which was very reasonable.
It was kind of a nice thought, really. Of course Ryuuzaki knew how things like this worked, what made the world turn ‘round. And throughout this whole weird night, even when he knew he could rightfully demand, he didn't ask her for anything, and he had been–kind, anyway. In his own way. Not without a reason, though. She knew that wasn't how he was built. She just…didn't know the exact reason yet.
So it was comforting but also not, because that just meant there was something bigger and more important that he was waiting on. Maybe. And Misa certainly wasn't interested in finding out what, not when she could curb this here and now and pay the debt first.
The answer was clearer then. There was only one thing that people were interested in buying from Misa-Misa, and she had gotten very good at selling it on her terms. Well, she'd suspected. It was good she was already sitting on him. That was on her, because yes, all right, she had taken his bait.
…But it was worth it to see that at least in one area, he was kind of incompetent. And it was funny to see him avoid her eyes and grip uselessly at his chair. And, okay, sure. For all her griping and his exasperation, she knew he wasn't the type to try to get his hands on her.
But, well. What else could he want?
Just ‘cause Misa didn't know didn't mean she was gonna sit around and wait for the shoe to drop. She was an idol, a celebrity, a model, a star–and it absolutely was not because she just let things happen to her. She grabbed life by the throat and she wouldn't stop now.
Although, her mind was screaming pretty loudly at her. Throwing a whole fit. She'd have grimaced and snapped at the stupid thoughts out loud, because that worked best, if Ryuuzaki hadn't been right there, staring at her placidly. She must look silly, sitting frozen and probably with a weird look on her face.
What are you doing, her mind howled. Oh my god, are you insane? What about Light? Do you love him or not? You haven't come this far just to fuck up now, oh my god. Oh my god, you're so, so, so stupid. He's gonna hate you, and then you're going to be alone all over again just like with your parents, and all the effort you put in won't mean shit, like usual. Do you wanna end up alone and unloved? And over him? You're risking it over him? Just get up! Get up and leave! You know he'd still open Light's door. Get up, you idiot, get up…
You know. Silly complaints like that. Haha! Her head could be messy sometimes—okay, the concerns were kind of relevant—but there wasn’t time for that now. Besides, it wasn't like Light had to know. And–and! She wasn't stupid. She remembered that girl from his university, the pretty tall one with the sleek black hair. He hadn't been very respectful to Misa when he was being all charming to her. Hmph. It was getting even, then. It wasn't his business. She'd be fine.
And...it couldn't be that unpleasant. Kissing Ryuuzaki, that was.
For the first time, she let herself fully take in their position; actually absorb in Ryuuzaki in his entirety, closer to him than she'd ever been before. He was so unnaturally still, which had been the first thing she'd noticed when she dropped down in his lap. Considering the way he always sat, or fiddled with objects, or shuffled his feet, Misa had expected that he'd be vibrating out of his seat with barely contained energy. No. He barely breathed beneath her.
He was really thin, too. Unhealthily so. She'd known he had muscle, after that stupid stunt with Light where they'd brawled like middle-schoolers. He gave as good as he got; deceptively strong. But it was different knowing versus feeling. For all the sugar he ate, it was like there was no fat that managed to stick to him. With him, it went skin, muscle, and bone, all in thin layers that were lean and slightly uncomfortable to rest against. When she'd been leaning against his chest (and god, why had she done that?), she could have counted each of his ribs. His collarbone was pointy, too, and his hands were so bony. He was just a bunch of skinny angles hidden underneath that ugly white shirt.
He was warm, weirdly. Whenever she ate badly or fell back into bad habits–unacceptable–she always got cold and shivery. Suppose his routine worked for him, even though it should be impossible to survive on all the sweets he did. It was nice, though. She hadn't grabbed socks and her T-shirt was a sleeping shirt, not a “wandering around a cold building” shirt.
Most importantly, though, his body liked her.
Oh, sure. Ryuuzaki-the-man could be lying, or could merely tolerate her. His lips could say things he didn't really mean and make it sound sweet. And maybe he didn't like her as much as he was claiming, maybe it was a ploy–whatever. But if she ignored his overly large brain, it was obvious how badly Ryuuzaki-the-body wanted to be touched. That in itself wasn't a surprise, but it was when it came from him.
He swayed towards her like a magnet, or a tree in a strong wind. Wherever her fingers drifted, he'd end up leaning into them. Those startled eyes, pupils blowing big and dark. The way his lips trembled faintly as he spoke, or the way his throat bobbed when he swallowed hard. When she was curled up against him, even if his hands hadn't come near her, his whole body curled inward. His head had dropped, his legs had splayed to make room for her. Like a flower seeking the sun.
Not that he realized, obviously. Misa was like, ninety-nine percent sure of that. If he'd known what he was giving away, he wouldn't have hesitated to dump her on the floor and then shut the door behind her.
It was nice to be wanted, even if it was Ryuuzaki.
…Maybe because it was Ryuuzaki.
That was a dangerous thought, though. Misa forcefully pulled herself away from that line of thinking and let her smile stretch wider: cute, glittery, and just toeing the edge of suggestive. She had perfected it.
“I should repay you anyway,” she offered. “For being so nice. Misa thinks that would make sense. She's very polite like that.” She let her hand drift to rest gingerly at his waist, feeling his abdomen tense and relax in a ripple of lean muscle. See, there it was again. Ryuuzaki swayed into the touch, but then only stared impassively down at her like he could care less.
Misa huffed, craning her neck to lean up and breathe teasingly over his mouth. He didn't even blink, chin barely tipping down. Ugh. He could stand to be a little more enthusiastic. It wasn't every day just anybody had Misa-Misa flush against them offering up a kiss, strings-free. Honestly, this sort of disinterest could give a girl a complex.
But…if he…really didn't want her, she wasn't gonna push. She just wouldn't be sure where to go from there. The longer she stayed pressed against him, though, letting her fingers skitter gently up and down his side with no reaction, the less hopeful she became. Misa ruthlessly crushed the sour mix of disappointment, vindication, and contempt.
She prepared to pull away, already steeling herself against embarrassment, teeth threatening to bare. Nobody made a fool out of Misa Amane. But in the last instant before she bit, Ryuuzaki finally moved. Like some–some creaky old robot, falling forward with a stuttering jolt. His eyes were sort of hidden by his hair, the way he was hunched.
So she couldn't really tell what his expression was when he asked her, “Are you looking for proof, Misa-san?” Feather-light, barely noticeable, his knuckle brushed against the curve of her thigh. “Would it reassure you?”
He sounded actually curious, like if she said no, he'd shrug and forget about it in less than a minute–or like if she said yes, it was no skin off his back to let her kiss him. Which, again. Not quite as excited as men usually were, but with all this back-and-forth, she was worn out enough she didn't really give a shit.
What, he couldn't put his money where his mouth was? That's why it was stupid to spout all those pretty–lies. If you said you liked someone enough to tolerate their company even though it was the middle of the night and usually you were mildly annoyed by them (yes, all right, Misa knew that much. Ryuuzaki didn't really bother to hide how he felt, funnily enough), then you'd better be ready to…to kiss them about it. As proof you weren't a lying liar who lied.
Duh.
“Maybe it would,” she said, a little too defensively.
“I see. Well, if it would make you feel better,” Ryuuzaki said, slow and thoughtful. There was a very faint hum that lingered in his voice, like he was stifling the urge to draw it out into something skeptical. “Oh, but I hate to impose.”
Huh. Misa wasn't actually sure when, but one of his hands had crept up to span the slope of her waist. She glanced at it out of the corner of her eye, trying not to squint myopically down at it. He had–sort of nice hands. Long and slender and big enough that his thumb was sweeping against the jut of her hipbone. Against her black shirt, his blindingly pale skin was a stark contrast. Her mouth went vaguely dry, and she clenched her jaw against the way the size difference went to her head. A bad time to learn things about herself, and worse that it was because of him.
“Wha–impose how,” she spat, more than a little distracted. She was getting irritated, actually, that he was drawing this out and getting so close to her face. Like he knew he was making her wobbly and her gut clench weirdly, and was taunting her.
“I'd hate to hurt poor Light-kun's feelings,” Ryuuzaki murmured. His nails dug slightly into her skin, sharp even through cotton. “Or cause you any trouble.”
Ugh, she had been deliberately trying not to think about Light. Of course Ryuuzaki would bring him up, that infuriating bastard. Not that it wasn't pretty much the same thing she'd been grappling with in her own head, but–it was the principal of the thing! Couldn't Misa-Misa make some crazy decisions of her own, sometimes? It wasn't something limited to just geniuses, or the taskforce.
Besides, they both knew this was more of a…pity kiss. Or something. It didn't really have any actual feelings behind it, not like how kissing Light would be like. For a minute she was tempted to sink dreamily into that great thought, but then Ryuuzaki shifted slightly below her, his jeans rubbing against the soft inner skin of her thighs, and she was thrown back to the present.
“A girl has to practice somehow,” she snapped, trying to bluster her way through it. “And anyway, I have to impress Light! I have to be perfect.”
His face was still lowered, hidden behind the bangs that had fallen across his eyes. It made her antsy, not being able to try to pick out what he was thinking. So, because they were close enough now–she was swallowed up by his body, looming over her with a firm grip on her waist–she made a snap decision.
Reaching up, she snaked her hand around his shoulders, fingers dancing briefly against his nape. It was supposed to be a sweet little gesture that would distract him, and from the way his jaw ticked, she thought it had worked. For a minute, she nearly got distracted herself, because his dark hair was unexpectedly soft and feathery when she dug her fingers in it. But then the irritation came rushing back and she remembered what she was doing. Misa fisted a hand in his hair, nails scraping against the back of his skull, and yanked his head back meanly.
With how quickly and roughly she'd done that, it definitely hurt. It put Ryuuzaki's neck at a bad angle, the pale line of his throat suddenly forced up towards the ceiling. He went stiff as a board below her, his fingers spasming, and his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. Misa resisted the urge to shake his head in her grip. Like picking a cat up by its scruff. It was fun! No other man would let her just push him around, or they'd be weird about it.
Balance was restored, and more importantly, she was satisfied. Carefully, because the chair was only so padded and her knees tended to ache on good days, she maneuvered herself so that she was essentially sitting on her haunches. It gave her a little more leverage, her free hand coming to steady herself on his shoulder, and she lifted herself up so she was the one staring down at Ryuuzaki, instead of the other way around.
“And don't try to distract me!” she pouted, trying to get comfortable when her calves were straining. Finally, she lifted her gaze to his face properly for the first time in a while. “Now are you going to help me or…not…”
Her heart leapt into her throat just to then sink like a stone to her gut.
Something had changed in his face; sharpening, darkening—ravenous. For a minute, all Misa could do was stare dumbly down at him. She had the bizarre urge to ask him, have you seen Ryuuzaki anywhere? I thought he was just here, but I don't know who you are. So sorry, I'll just get up and go now…
She hadn't realized he could–look like that.
Except for his chest, rising and falling with shallow breaths, he was utterly still, lips slack and parted. A hungry creature the likes of which she would never have thought to compare him with. Except she saw now he had always been an animal, hidden behind those depthless eyes. What was humanity, if not feral in its origin? Her mistake was to think Ryuuzaki was far too animal to be human, and too inhuman to be anything like a man.
Misa knew better now. She recognized this familiar–yet startling—look: a man, wanting. Staring out from behind Ryuuzaki’s starved-thin face.
Her hand slipped, fingers shaky and suddenly unresponsive.
“I'm happy to be of use to Misa-Misa,” he rasped. Every emotion and desire had been bundled up and eliminated, and gazing up at her was once more just the distant, cerebral Ryuuzaki who ate too much sugar and concerned himself more with her boyfriend than her. Except his pupils were still blown wide and dark, and his tongue darted out to wet the corner of his dry lips so quickly she thought she was imagining it. “I am always willing to learn.”
Well, hold on a minute, she had time to think, still shaken, soooo…has he not done this before–?
And then he was kissing her.
Her first thought, honestly, was an instinctual jab of ugh, what a pervert. His palm closed around her jaw, drawing her toward his mouth. At the same time the other hand slid high up her bare thigh and tightened, a sudden grip that made her breath hitch. It was kind of a weird hold, but it was working, and any complaints sort of melted out her ears because he was so–much. He was everywhere, and he was so close, and it was Ryuuzaki, oh my god. His lips were dry and chapped, and the sharp slope of his nose dug into her own until she finally remembered to move too and suddenly they fit together really well.
It wasn't like the romantic kisses she'd dreamed of when she was twelve and reading shitty fanfiction online, or even the singular kiss Light had pressed against her cheek once, quick and reluctant and dry. Ryuuzaki tasted a bit like strawberries, which was confusing until she realized it was her sticky lipgloss, smearing against his mouth. It wasn't earth-shaking, but it made her feel small and lost and warm, so genuinely soul-deeply warm, for the first time in what felt like years, that it might as well have been.
But just when Misa was really starting to enjoy it, little firecrackers of heat exploding in her stomach, Ryuuzaki pulled away.
He was panting, a reedy whine that she forced herself to drown out immediately, because it made her feel a little insane. Before she could say or do anything, before she could flirt and charm and retreat to a safe distance, his thumb lifted to lay across her lips. Like how he so often sat. "Again," he said hoarsely.
There was a lot Misa could have said. Even more she probably should have done.
"Y-yeah, okay," she blurted. They leaned forward simultaneously.
Messier, this time. A little more wet, but not in a bad way, his tongue slipping gently between her lips and tangling with her own in a dizzying rush that made her mind struggle with thoughts for a minute or two. Bold, for his first time, but he wasn't actually shy. Even if he did sort of play it up sometimes. And he certainly was a quick learner, settling her against him more firmly, his head at the right angle.
At some point, her fingers had wandered up to trace the contours of his features, brushing repetitively over the jut of his high-set cheek. His skin was so soft and cool, and strands of his hair tickled her face gently the more she softened against him. It was nice. It was really nice.
The palm she'd braced on his shoulder for balance had migrated to the delicate skin under the hinge of his jaw. It was fun to feel his pulse thundering under her touch. Vulnerable, to let her rest so close to his throat. Not what she would have expected from Ryuuzaki. He kinda had a prickly air of paranoia about him sometimes.
It was probably a repayment because she hadn't slapped his hand away from her thigh. Though–claiming it was anywhere near her leg at this point was pretty generous. So sue her for having a bit of fun! Misa liked how careful he was, so desperately restrained, and the faint callouses on the pads of his fingers made her shiver. He better not leave any bruises, though. That would be hard to cover for work. Oh, and to explain to Light. What a shame. It would be best not to risk it.
She reached behind her, whacking irritably at Ryuuzaki’s hand like she was trying to pry off a barnacle. To his credit, he detached himself from her skin easily, dragging it up her torso instead until he settled his fingers in the grooves of her ribs. That was pretty nice too, each clumsy brush of movement lighting her nerves up like flames. She went boneless and shivery against him, content.
…Couldn't get too complacent though. As far as–as practicing went, surely she was good enough for Light at this point, right? And she'd definitely more than paid Ryuuzaki back for his kindness. So she should probably…
Misa reeled back, breaking the seal of their mouths working against one another, and blinked furiously to clear the fog from her eyes. Ryuuzaki didn't make to follow her, mouth wet and flushed, something unmoored in his gaze as he watched her sit back on her heels and give them some space. Well, as much space they could get, with her in his lap.
The abrupt movement snapped the silvery strand of saliva that had stretched between their lips. The sight of it gleaming on Ryuuzaki's mouth made her stomach go tight and aching, and only worsened when his tongue darted out to lick it away. He said nothing, so she didn't either.
It stretched out, that silence, long and charged. Only the uneven sound of their ragged breathing disrupted it.
When he moved, Misa half expected him to push her off, finally. Or say something that would be just perfectly guileless and meant to rile her up so they'd end up arguing and she'd storm off. That was how they were–or had been. After this she…didn't really know. But he didn't do any of that.
“Hey! Ryuu-zaki, what are you–” she sputtered through pursed lips, startled. Delicately, between his thumb and forefinger like he was picking up a sugarcube, or a spoon, he had squished her cheeks together. Ew, fish lips were so unattractive! His face was blank and motionless as it usually was, but she thought there might have been a spark of amusement in the line of his mouth. Of course he found her outrage funny. Ugh.
They hadn't really moved apart aside from Misa shoving away from him. Their faces were still close enough that they were sharing the same breath, so the hand that was idly squeezing her lips open-close, blub-blub-blub like an actual fish, had to wiggle its way in the thin space between them. Ryuuzaki's own mouth was brushing against the back of his skin as he moved.
It was why it was so easy to draw closer. He easily let his hand slip away, and before Misa could regain her bearings, he was viciously attacking her. Faint and fast, like the whisper of butterfly wings, he stamped tiny kisses all over her face. Several pecks in quick succession, nearly ticklish. One to her forehead, one to the tip of her nose, one each to the eyelids she scrunched closed, and one at the corner of her mouth.
She couldn't help the giggles that bubbled up from her chest, spilling over like champagne. Her real laugh, not the practiced media one that had almost overtaken it out of sheer habit. It was a little bit like cleaning a window, all squeaky, but it was nice to just laugh. It was just so ridiculous, and her face was really sensitive. Ryuuzaki might have even had a little quirk pulling at the corner of his mouth too.
“You're so weird,” she hiccuped, half-heartedly batting at his cheek. Theatrical, like she preferred; over-exaggerating enough she knew he understood. “Sto-o-op it, Ryuuzaki, I can't breathe!”
He paused in his assault, observing her seriously. His brow knit together, cocking his head. “Oh? I could get weirder, Misa-san,” he assured her.
Before she could even begin to theorize about what that might mean, he swooped in to show her. Up came his hand once more, smushing her lips together into those horrible fish lips, only this time he pressed gently enough that they fell fully open. She must look so stupid right now, she silently bemoaned. But without hesitation, he leaned toward her, tilting his head, and–licked into her mouth! Like some overeager dog, tongue swiping against her teeth and the soft flesh of her inner cheek before he leaned back. There was a faint but very clear air of satisfaction that hung around him.
Misa couldn't have stifled her peal of unhinged laughter on pain of death, squealing loudly and wrenching her face away. “Ew, Ryuuzaki!” she cried, rubbing dramatically at her lips. “That's so gross!”
“Why is it only ‘gross’ now, Misa-san? My tongue has already been in your mouth–”
“Shh! Shh!” she shrieked, scrunching her nose up and swallowing the remaining giggles. What a trippy sentence, made even more so by the fact that it was true. “You can't just say stuff like that!”
“Oh,” he said placidly. “Well, if you say so, Misa-Misa.”
She was pleased he let her shove her hands flat against his mouth, suffocating him and his sly agreements into silence. Peering above the barrier of her fingers, he leveled her with a look that was nearly friendly, and didn't launch into a full-blown lecture. Wow, that was probably a first for him.
Misa resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him, because considering how it had been going, she wouldn't put it past him to try to snap at it, or poke it with a fingertip. Maybe it showed on her face, the crinkling hilarity at the whole thing that she was trying to crush down, because beneath her palms, she felt Ryuuzaki's mouth twitch into a real smile. Curious, she let her hands fall away: she couldn't think of the last time she'd seen him smiling. A real smile, anyway. No matter if Light was content to take those usual, unblinking almost-smiles—the ones that never reached Ryuuzaki's eyes—for all they were worth.
This one was nothing like that.
It was a fractional tilt of his mouth, really, so miniscule it could have been a trick of the light. Some people's faces lit up when they smiled, or transformed into something prettier, or softer. Not Ryuuzaki's. It definitely was a bit of an awkward look on him, the curve of his mouth unpracticed, but it was startling how much of a difference it made. Unlike before, there was no great reveal to go along with it, just a man with a tiny smile on his face. It was the fact that it was Ryuuzaki that made it so striking, that he sat loose and relaxed against the chair, leaning warm and accepting into Misa's touch, and watched her with a keen observation that nonetheless was painless.
The effect it had on her was ridiculous. Insulting, even. It should have meant nothing.
But he had–made her laugh. And she was content to let him toy with her and lie to her and smile at her, because at least it wasn't cruel. At least Ryuuzaki was watching her. She'd been called a whore since she was thirteen, in hundreds of different ways, but it was only here that she would admit the truth to some form of it; she was a whore for attention. Eyes on her, in any form, meant that they had some reason to watch; to watch meant the space she took up was noted. If she took up space, she meant something, and things that were cared for weren't abandoned or hurt.
And maybe one day, if she took up enough space, she could patch the holes that made up Misa-Misa and maybe approach something like normal and lovable and useful and wanted, as Misa Amane had been before her parents died and the world fell apart.
No, no, no, no. It couldn't be like this. It had all been going so well, too. Everything was under control. But that damn smile...
Distantly, Misa was aware that she was spiraling again, all the pleasant feelings ruthlessly crushed. But it didn't take precedence over picking apart and weeding this strange, wobbly emotion that was swallowing her whole. It wasn't like Ryuuzaki had suddenly–changed, or something. That was the worst part, or at least half of it.
The same sallow, pale skin. The hunched shoulders, the curled posture. The spindly hands that were always moving or snatching or poking. Hair still a wild, black tangle, falling across his face in uneven lines. The same enormous, bottomless eyes, rimmed in heavy exhaustion, that were unnerving at their best and downright eerie at their second best. Still unhealthily thin, lanky and lean and shuffling.
The real despair was that she looked at him and just didn't care anymore. Barely noticed. It was like turning on a light in a dark room and waiting for your vision to adjust; then all your surroundings suddenly turned brighter. He was just Ryuuzaki, now. Not Light's Ryuuzaki, or the taskforce's, or even his own. A new iteration that was on display just for her, that forced her to turn him every which way in the light like a bauble and look at him differently.
He was a background object rendered unexpectedly meaningful. The hollows of his cheeks made him look distinctive instead of starved. His eyes were grey, not black, shining out from an intelligent face that was always cataloguing the world around it. His lashes were long, and cast tiny shadows when he blinked. The way he moved was suddenly just a habit; the way he spoke, just familiar. The set of his narrow lips and the line of his nose, all endearing in their edges. There was a sense of purpose and seriousness to him now, rather than something weird and unpleasant.
The thought should have made Misa laugh again, crueller and dismissive and ten times louder than before. After all, feeling like this? Towards Ryuuzaki? All this soft-hearted consideration of him? Never before. And yet, all she could do was sit frozen in place, confused, panicking, and thoroughly upset.
God, what was she doing? What was wrong with her? What was she thinking? Misa's stomach had made space for lightly fluttering wings; now it made room for a slow, barbed mess of nausea.
She thought queasily of Light: each stroke of his handsome face. The chivalrous man who cared about her safety and her health, even if he was still careful about everything else a boyfriend did. He had been so kind to her, kind beyond reason, kind to the point that it was not sufficient enough a word. Her perfect, perfect man, lying asleep unaware of how cruel she was being to him at this very second.
He wouldn't have minded the kissing, she was sure; he wouldn't want her to be inexperienced or bad at it, when he finally let her kiss him for real. No, no, that could be explained. And it was only fair, to flirt and crowd so near to another man when Light himself had been so soft to that–that Takada hussy. Or even so watchful and present with Ryuuzaki himself, always getting in each other's faces, always looking at him with that interest he had never once turned on her. That goddamn connection.
So this was just getting equal, and every good relationship had to be on equal footing. It could all be forgotten and forgiven. It might have even been that Light wouldn't have bat an eye, so busy and dedicated as he was to the Kira case and to making his father proud, of proving Ryuuzaki's match.
But her happiness. The cheer and the comfort. That couldn't be overlooked. That she had sat there and indulged far past just proving a point; far past just being one step ahead of the curve. That she looked at Ryuuzaki and didn't mind it anymore. That she had liked it. That she wanted it again, that she was curious–
–and that she hadn't been thinking of Light. That couldn't be ignored, and so he could never find out. She would not lose her golden boyfriend to her own stupidity. It could be a mistake–as long as she left it here.
So Misa absolutely had to get out of here. Now. She'd stayed too long as it was. Who knew what time it was?
"Well! It's sooo late," she said, baring her teeth in a smile that might have been a touch too tight. "Misa got a little distracted, haha, but she absolutely has to get good sleep or she'll end up looking just like you, Ryuuzaki."
And perhaps there was a nastier edge to her voice than had been moments before, a whisper of implied disgust at his appearance that had once come so naturally and now did so no longer. But she had to force it present, because otherwise she'd think about the fact that she didn't really mind the way he was. That she liked looking at him.
"No, I suppose we don't want that," Ryuuzaki said quietly.
She couldn't look at him, the weight of his gaze already too prickly as it moved across her face. He sounded–like he always did. She wouldn't act stupid and say maybe he hadn't noticed, because there was no doubt he had, but at least he wasn't prying. Then again, you had to care about someone to care about what made them upset. Had to like them at all, bare minimum. And for all he said, she knew it could not be an emotion sincerely extended towards her. But he acted very prettily. Almost better than her.
Her muscles finally remembered themselves.
Misa pushed off him, almost immediately colder. Without his skin to hers, even through his shirt, or the light pressure of his hands, everything felt more stark. It might have been awkward, clambering off his lap to stand on wobbly legs in front of him, if she hadn't done it so fast. She was tired, actually. Bone deep, settling over her and making itself known only now that there was nobody to draw her near and let her rest against them.
God, the floor was freezing.
Like he was giving her time to reconsider, as if they were politely negotiating a price on something and she'd haggled too low, he slowly pulled his feet up to settle on the chair, palms lying flat over his knees. Hunched and curled up like a spider once more, the shadows lingering in the corners of the room seemed to grow deeper. He was once more just–Ryuuzaki, weird and distant and not her concern. Only relevant to her in the rare moments that Light made him relevant. Except she knew what it was like to have his touch against her now; exactly how it felt to have him hold her the way he encircled his legs.
As in the Garden of Eden, curiosity had granted her divine knowledge. But she couldn't get back in once the gates shut, and now she couldn't forget either.
If this went on any longer, the two of them–or her, really, who was she trying to fool–just staring like idiots, this whole wretched cycle would happen all over again. She turned decisively on her heel, though the afterimage of Ryuuzaki, silhouetted against the shine of his monitors, wouldn't stop flashing in front of her eyelids whenever she blinked.
She made it to the door, fingers actually trembling and itching with how close the knob was. Salvation near enough to touch. Wrench it open and run and she'd never have to think about Ryuuzaki or tonight ever again.
And if she dreamed, she might even dream of Light.
But no sooner had her palm closed over the handle, metal pressing cold against her skin, did he address her. She tensed, pausing only so that it was clear she was listening but nothing else. She wouldn't look over her shoulder: his sense-memory hovered above her shoulders, brushing shivering touches across her mind and skin.
"Would you like me to keep Light-kun's door unlocked?"
For a minute, Misa almost spun around and scowled, ready to fire off a what are you even talking about, silly? And then the memory of why she'd been wandering the halls in the first place slammed into her like a truck. She'd just wanted comfort from her boyfriend. Her boyfriend, her perfect and handsome boyfriend, still asleep in his room. She could have and should have gone to Light any second of the few hours she instead spent cooing and snapping and playing with Ryuuzaki.
But the choice was still there, could still be made; she could still indulge, if she wanted comfort or company.
Maybe he was trying to rub something in, or make Light mad at her for interrupting his sleep. Maybe Ryuuzaki meant it as a jab. Maybe he thought it was polite. Maybe it was nothing, just another of his flat provocations. A question he had no stakes in to show her that nothing had to change. That they could leave…this…behind them as easily as going through Light's door.
It could be any. It could be none. Who would even know with him? Her throat was dry, her head heavy, her chest hurting with how badly she just wanted to stop thinking.
“…No.” The sound of her own voice spooked her—barely more than a whisper. “That’s all right.”
Silence swelled. The rasp of her own breathing was irritating and too loud, suddenly, and she wished more than anything she could just open that door and flounce off with no regrets. But...
She glared to her side, aware he couldn't see it. "...Hey, Ryuuzaki," she muttered, shoulders aching. Her reflection, warped in the curve of the door knob, looked drowsy and unhappy and somehow with a mouth that was still flushed from the heat of his. He didn't respond, but she could hear the slow creak of his chair as it swiveled. The weight of his attention burned into the back of her neck like a nasty sunburn.
Misa chewed the words trying to break out from her tongue, unsure. She wasn't good at speaking how Light was, or clever like Ryuuzaki. But if she didn't say something to get the lingering confusion, almost shy, out of her chest, she'd never get to sleep.
"Misa doesn't want to talk about it," she declared to the unyielding wood in front of her. "Never ever. Don't mention it to her. Don't even think about–about it, okay? And don't ever–"
For a minute her voice faltered. She meant to sound commanding, a girl who wouldn't take no for an answer and would easily jump hurdles thrown her way. What came out just sounded small and frightened. "–don't ever tell Light."
"Yes," Ryuuzaki said, quietly. She took it with a pathetic gratitude, just happy he wasn't arguing. Her mouth worked, but she managed to force the rest through her tight throat.
"But it was nice," she finally choked out. "Thank you. You were really nice." And it had to be said, because she knew he didn't have to be. It was a play, she knew that much, and he didn't care, but he had still let her whine and complain and snap. And at the end of it, he had given her something not even Light had. Something that in the depths of her blackened heart she worried he never would.
…She wished she hadn't been such an idiot. She should have just stayed in bed and cried herself to sleep.
Because he hadn't responded, and because she was terrible at denying herself things she was curious about, Misa shifted to peer over her shoulder. Enough to see him without actually facing him. It was hard to tell, with the way the shadows left his outline blurry, but she could see that his head was tilted in that peculiar, bird-like way. He worried his thumb at the corner of his mouth, eyes flat, dark pools that stared at her without blinking.
It was an adjacent look to the ones he'd sprung on her in the past, stepping on an armrest of the couch to get in her face, or leaning far down until his nose nearly brushed hers. Exaggerated and disingenuous, there was nonetheless a sharp observation behind it that often left her unhappy and exposed.
Something in the weight of his stare, a quiet taking of measure, made her want to shift her stance and stick out her tongue. Maybe if she whacked his shoulder or sneered and flounced away, it would make the prickle of his attention finally leave her alone. And the worst of it was that she couldn't understand what he was looking for. He was probably judging her. He would! Laughing at her in his head over a joke she'd never get!
Or–or maybe he was planning on telling Light anyway, because they were two pieces in a game they easily played while she played hopscotch to the side. Nobody cared or listened to her anyway, in the end. She was just a dumb blonde.
She hated that her chest hurt with the thought of being found foolish, her face burning with the possibility he was quietly marking down this whole thing—her choices, her weakness, her character—as boring. Worse, as tedious. Misa-Misa wasn't supposed to ever be either. And it was stupid to even care what he thought! This whole thing had been a bad idea from the start, and she'd known he’d take advantage of it if it suited him, that nothing good could come from drawing near to someone like him. But knowing didn’t help the sear of embarrassment and misery that branded itself across her heart.
It built and built, her mind squeezing every last drop of calm out of her until the only thing left was a childish flare of resentment. If it hid the hurt she shouldn't have been feeling, maybe she could still come out of this unscathed and unchanged. And then Ryuuzaki could just stop looking at her with that damn stupid–knowing, thanks very much.
Misa scowled, and refused to let her voice go watery. "Don't look at me like that," she snapped. "You think I didn't...you think I didn't know what I was getting into?"
Maybe if she said it harsh enough, serious enough, loud enough, it would strike him deep enough to stick and he'd never, ever watch her like that. She didn't even mind not getting to poke him and tease him again, because at least he'd never pay attention to her either. And she'd never have to guess at what bizarre emotion lurked stifled in his eyes when he did.
Barely louder than the drone of the air conditioning, Ryuuzaki said in a low voice, "I pity you for exactly that.”
Huh? Huh! Nobody pitied Misa. People envied her, or wanted her, or used her. Stuff like that. Normal stuff, things she could give and work with. Pity was a different category entirely, lower and heavier and ten times more confusing. It meant he was thinking about her, but at what cost? What did that even mean he thought about her? She probably should have hated it. But it sunk oddly deep, something raw that made her chest feel hollow.
God. Always with the last word. Any comebacks died in her throat and there was nothing left to say. Ryuuzaki was silent, unmovable in the chair.
Misa wrenched the door open and stormed through. It drifted shut automatically, so it didn't even give her the satisfaction of slamming it behind her. Outside the surveillance room felt colder and more sterile. For the second time that night, beaten only by how starkly she knew it stumbling from her bed, she felt so lonely. Except now his voice clung to her, echoing in her ears no matter how far she stumbled down the corridors, like the pull of some dark ocean waiting to drag her under.
It was not often she came out of scenarios like these feeling such defeat. It was one thing to slip up and to lose a couple times. Misa-Misa always got what she wanted in the end, even if she had to get creative. But this was the first time in years that she'd wholly, entirely failed at something. Misa had lost something to him, settled against his chest, something she couldn't even name to try to get back. She wanted nothing more than to seal up that space in her heart that made her think only about Ryuuzaki's voice, Ryuuzaki's body, Ryuuzaki's smile, Ryuuzaki, Ryuuzaki, Ryuuzaki.
But it wasn't completely useless. She had set herself up–but it wasn't useless. She had secured, if nothing else, attention. It rang more hollow than it ever had before. At least he was watching.
After all, in a facility dedicated to nothing so much as the complete and utter submission and eradication of Kira, speckled with vigilant cameras, it was Misa who was the focus. For one, bright, shining moment, even with Light (the interesting one, the smart one, the relevant one, the important one) sleeping and vulnerable–
The glassy bead of the lens, and consequently, Ryuuzaki's awareness, tracked Misa Amane the whole way to her bedroom.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
Dear Misa; by the time you read this letter, you should have remembered everything. Do you remember my friend at Toh-Oh University?...
Misa drifted blindly through the taskforce headquarters. It felt like someone had spiked her with the stuff her model friends sometimes took, to make the world hazy and bearable. Except worse, because she felt anything but relaxed, her heart beating out of her chest. Her jacket was just baggy enough to hide the Death Note under her shirt, but that wouldn't mean anything if Light intercepted her.
Each corner she turned felt like an ambush hid around it. She was flat out sprinting through the hallways, which would have been pretty suspicious if she was doing what Light had told her to do. But hopefully it meant Ryuuzaki–Ryuuga, whatever his name was–would notice on the feed. If she got to him, she would be…not safe, but out of reach. This mad gamble would have been ten times more stupid than it already was if she didn't know Rem would protect her. Or do her best, anyway. If Light found her now, she was pretty sure he would strangle her with his bare hands.
He'd probably be right to. This whole thing was–insane. If Misa hadn't committed to it already, she would have bailed halfway through. Why would she do this to herself? Didn't she care about Kira? About Light? Even in the privacy of her own head, she was surprised at how acidic her anger was. Fucking Ryuuzaki. If it weren't for him and that stupid night all those weeks ago…
Well, it wasn't worth thinking about. Thinking about it so hard was what got her into this mess in the first place.
Floating silently behind her, Ryuk would have been easy to forget about if the full force of his unhinged grin wasn't directed towards her. It sat like a sawblade against the back of her neck. She was so anxious she was going to throw up her own guts. He was an unwelcome reminder of how quickly Light's plan had devolved–how quickly she had devolved–but if she let him out of her sight she was still convinced he'd go find Light and expose her betrayal.
Aside from a faint headache pounding behind her eyes, getting her memories back had been easy as pie. Seeing Ryuk again had been unexpectedly cheering, his craggy face and simple joy over the apple she offered him enough to ease the eeriness of the forest. It was so...bleak and cold. All the fog was going to be so bad for her hair! But even that couldn't dispel the glow of Light's promise; if you do this for me, I will love you for the rest of my life.
She could be useful, she could secure him. His biggest obstacle removed, all thanks to her!
But then she had registered, fully, what the letter commanded. And the full weight of what Light–oh, her clever, clever Light, thinking up such an elaborate plan–was asking her to do hit her.
Misa staggered against a wall, breathing heavily and sorely despising the fact that she had to take a break. It wasn't like she was an athlete, but she had definitely been in better shape than this before she was taken in for observation. It felt like a whole different world. The rasp of her panic-quick breath was the only sound that filled the corridor for a minute. At least it wasn't the sound of footsteps.
Her lungs were still straining for air, but there was no time. The notebook pressed against her chest felt like a brand, blazing through her jacket until she'd be caught red-handed. She lurched away from the support of the wall and fell into a jog again. Just a couple more turns and she'd be at the surveillance room, where Ryuuzaki had to be. Light would hopefully be heading towards the main entrance, expecting her arrival, but it left her almost no time alone. Misa stifled the urge to scream hysterically. Her hands were shaking so bad.
She was going to fail, going to screw it up, she was making a mistake–
"I don't remember his name," she had fretted, twisting her hands. Hundreds of thousands of lifespans and words, running across her vision daily. How was she supposed to remember Ryuuzaki's? "Oh, I don't know what to do! I can't let Light down, but the memory just isn't there..."
And the answer, of course, had been clear. Simple, even, and Misa had known that for the girl she had been even a couple weeks ago, it wouldn't have taken a second thought to make the eye deal again and secure Light's victory. And yet...she had just sat there, miserably watching Ryuk lick apple juice off his chops and wishing she didn't have to acknowledge it.
The shinigami had noticed, of course. For all his cackling and lazy schadenfreude, he was clever. "Why, Misa-Misa," he had said, leering down. "What's all this moping for? You know just as well as I do there's an easy way to fix all this." His tongue had darted out, eyes bulbous and unblinking. "For a price, naturally.”
Misa huffed as she frantically jitter-pushed the elevator button. This close to success, she couldn't think about it for too long. The floors ticked by at glacial speed.
For a moment, the past and present clashed nauseatingly as Ryuk loomed over her head to crane his neck down. In her head, he looked as menacing as he had briefly in the forest an hour ago, but floating in front of her now, he just looked delighted.
Ryuk's voice was sing-songy as he said, “You'd better hurry, you know. The second he sees you're not there, Light won't be fooled for a minute. And then you'll really be in trouble. And don't count on me to do anything, I'm not Rem. I like how violent you humans get. I haven't been so entertained in ages.”
Misa held her tongue against the nasty words that were threatening to burst out of her, and almost fell in her haste to dart into the elevator and slam the button. The trip was tense and silent, and it only helped her mind get louder as it offered up more memories.
"I know, I know," Misa had muttered, and had given into the urge to wrap her arms around herself and squeeze tight. "I mean, what choice do I have? I can't let Light down."
And Ryuk had waited patiently, seemingly content in his confidence that she would snap out of it and make the deal so he could float right back to Light's side and indulge in the months, maybe even years, of death and dismay that followed in his wake. As Misa would have–did–wanted to follow in his wake. Except...
Something had seemed to tip Ryuk off to the fact that she would not wrest the eyes from him. She had probably been making a face. He had slowly drifted closer, face shifting in some approximation of shock if it hadn't been so gleeful. "Why, what's this?" he had cooed. "You too afraid to cut your life even shorter, is that it? Not even for Light? Wow, who knew you had it in ya. Ballsy."
"No, no, no," she had denied fervently, shaking her head so hard it could have flown off. "That's not it at all! I just..."
The shinigami had cocked his head.
Misa had finally found her voice, small and upset. "He's really gonna kill Ryuuzaki? I thought they were...friends." A hollow word for it, whatever cataclysmic relationship it was that rotted between them. But it had been enough to convey some of the turmoil that ate at her.
She hadn't cared about justice, or goodness, or boring things like that. She hadn't even cared about Kira’s grand mission, except to make Light happy. But it had sat sick and quiet in her gut, the image of Ryuuzaki's fidgeting hands and observant eyes lying still and dead.
The doors weren't even fully open before Misa slipped between them. The safety of a couple of storeys between her and the ground floor was a comfort, but not much of one. She knew more than anyone how capable Light was, and an angry Light moreso. Still, it was enough to fuel her through the last twists and turns, Ryuk easily keeping pace with her as she skidded through the entrance into the surveillance room.
Every head turned her way.
Usually, she'd be irritated about how crowded the room was, but now it was almost a miracle. Chief Yagami had a bewildered sort of disapproval on his face, and Matsuda’s brightened with that faint excitement even now. Voices began to swirl around her head, each a pitch and timbre of exasperation or confusion. Aizawa and Mogi were drawing nearer in her peripheral vision, but as the chair swiveled on its axis to face her, Misa's eyes were solely for Ryuuzaki. Weak-kneed with relief and doubt and fear, it was the work of a moment to let her hand slip away from where it bore down on her chest. From underneath her jacket, suddenly free, the Death Note thudded against the ground.
It went deathly silent. There was no need to explain. Ryuuzaki had probably already worked out that Kira had been using two notebooks the minute he'd seen Rem. And indeed, his pale face went sharp and drawn with the closest thing to shock she'd ever seen from him. He knew what it was. And as he stood, nearly running over in another first-time sight, Misa could have collapsed in grateful tears that he knew what it meant that she had brought it to him.
"Whether they're friends doesn't mean a lot," Ryuk had said, raising a bony eyebrow. "C'mon. Of course he's going to kill the guy! That's the fun of it! That's the point. Although, if you're not making the deal, I'm not sure how he'll get around it...oh, well. He's a smart cookie. He'll figure it out with or without you."
"But..." she had whined, aware of how crazy she would sound, "Misa doesn't–want Ryuuzaki to die."
Ryuk had burst into the most hysterical cascade of laughter she had ever heard from him. Gut-wrenching, stomach-clutching, teary-eyed howls, rolling on his back midair to kick at the sky. "That's rich!" he had shouted, and his voice had been a paroxysm of glee. "What's brought that on, huh, girlie? Such a strong desire that you're not even going along with the plan, isn't that crazy? Not that I care. You people. So much fun."
"Well, I–!" Misa had sputtered, helpless.
She couldn't–no, wouldn't explain it to Ryuk. She hadn't been able to quite articulate it to herself at the time either. But she had thought about how Ryuuzaki had looked, his mouth twisted in that awkward smile. She'd remembered the press of his mouth, taking only what she had deigned to give out, and the warmth of those stupid, little kisses he dropped over her face. The way he'd tainted her, taunted her, toyed with her; for a night, he had treated her the way he treated Light, and she had luxuriated in the slow bloom of interest in those dark eyes the more they challenged one another.
And he had been nice. God. She could admit it now, freely: he had been unreasonably nice to and patient with dumb ol' Misa-Misa. It had been years, if ever, that that had ever happened without any real motives behind it.
And she loved Light. Unbearably so, soul-deep and enduring. But she'd had time with him, and she knew how it was with him. She knew what their future would be like. Until now, she had no reason to complain, no reason to disobey. She only wanted to help. But Ryuuzaki had ruined her, because for the first time, she grew more and more curious. He couldn't die yet! She had wanted to poke him more, tease and test and spend hours messing with him. If she was good enough, he might even let her touch him again, and it could be blissful moments of her mind going wholly, utterly blank.
If he died, she'd never get that chance again.
And Ryuk had only kept laughing. Misa hadn't said a single word, and his mirth had only seemed to increase.
"Well you can't have both, you know," Ryuk had said, when he finally calmed and finished wiping the wispy tears from his bulging eyes. "Either give the book to L or go meet Light like he wants. No skin off my back. It will be complete chaos either way."
And that had been the crux of it, echoing agonizingly on and on in her head. Light or Ryuuzaki. Light or Ryuuzaki.
And when Misa had stood, unwilling to think about what she was doing, she had tucked the book under her jacket and blinked up at Ryuk with utterly human eyes.
"You can't tell him what I'm doing," Misa had said, desperately. She would have fallen to her knees and begged if she had to, fear swallowing her whole. "Please, Ryuk. I'll buy you so many apples, more than he ever would. Don't rat me out, okay? Please."
And Ryuk had only grinned, that maw of needles that she had to trust. There was nothing else to do.
"I knew I liked you. Cross my heart," he had cooed, "and hope to die.”
As Ryuuzaki's fingers closed around the Death Note, his posture even worse than usual as he dropped to a crouch, Misa's pulse froze.
She registered the flash of triumph in his eyes with a heaviness that sank her heart to her stomach like a stone tossed into black water. It was dark. It was bleak. It was entirely without gratitude or goodness.
There was nothing but victory in those depthless irises: this consuming greed for success that had finally been met and satiated. He looked like a man crawling on hands and knees through a desert of burning glass and thorns for years, only to finally collapse onto cool grass. For a moment, everything came crashing down around her.
The reality struck her like a slap. She had abandoned Light. An unforgivable sin against a merciless god. She had squandered and mocked his love for her, his dedication to a world free of evil. She had betrayed him so thoroughly that, with a clarity sharp enough to cut, Misa knew there was no chance he would ever look at her again without hatred. If he had his hands on a pen, she knew nothing in heaven or earth could stop him from writing her name down. No shinigami could protect her from it.
But then Ryuuzaki looked up at her, hand trembling faintly where it lay against the cover of the notebook. The taskforce faded away, all of their clamouring and questions nothing more than white noise.
He seemed to see all of it in a glance. Of course he would. He saw the betrayal flickering across her face, the guilt, the fear of what she feared. The truth that she was walking a tightrope into nothingness with her hand outstretched to him, knowing he might not catch her. Knowing he shouldn’t catch her. But she extended it anyway.
And that triumph in his gaze extinguished, snuffed out like the flickering stub of a candle. What remained was nothing like Light. There was no cold, radiant power behind his eyes. No righteous judge of the new world. No deity at all.
There was only Ryuuzaki. Tired. Inscrutable. Watching her with something like shock, except it was deeper than shock, less than pity, more than fascination. It was something so observant she had to look away.
“I believe,” he said, his voice quietly cutting through the dark between them, “you just saved my life.”
There was such naked candor in those words that she knew he had never been so truthful with her before, and would never be quite so truthful again.
Despite everything–despite tipping the board, revealing herself as a player in a game no one knew she was playing, revealing herself as the player, the crown piece, the queen piece; despite knowing she had signed away her own life, she felt an unexpected, unearthly peace settle over her shoulders like a shroud.
She did not believe in right or wrong, in justice or morality, except only vaguely the one Kira had served–the one she had been so sure she might protect him through, fulfill him through, become worthy through. But at that moment, pressing the notebook fully into Ryuuzaki's grip, her fingers slipping off the cool, slick leather cover like dead skin, she wondered if perhaps…this had been the only choice to make.
She saw his gaze flicker past her, to where Ryuk must be hovering with moonlit eyes and a grin stretching bone-thin and eternal. There was no hiding now. No escaping her past, her future, her involvement. Everything she was would be shadowed by this irreversible moment.
But Misa Amane was content. The knowledge settled into her chest: she had made her choice.
“Come,” Ryuuzaki said softly, turning.
There was no religion to instruct her anymore; she had renounced devotion to her god the minute she gave up Light. She was a disciple set adrift now, and here was her safety, commanding her to follow. He would bless her and keep her. He would not let her sacrifice be in vain, he would not let her suffer. Without him, she would be nothing.
The thought sat like a panic attack in her chest. So, shyly, she sidled up beside him, a skip and a hop, and tentatively laced her fingers in-between his thin ones. His palm engulfed hers, large and dry, and he shot a slant look down at her. She smiled up at him, tremulous and small, and waited for his judgement.
There was nothing to plead, nothing to explain. He understood her, as he always had; knew the desire that caught her heart in a grasp. Surely he knew. He was all she had left now. Don't let go, she begged wordlessly. Don't let me go. If he shunned her, there would be nothing for her. This was all she had to give now. This was all she wanted.
She was not so difficult a pet to care for, certainly?
Silently, Ryuuzaki's hand–was he Ryuuzaki still, or at all, or ever?–curled firmly around hers, squeezing tight. He let her burrow close, tuck her face into the solid curve of his bicep, relishing in the contact and warmth. He smelled like soap, and nothing else. It was an answer Light had never given her. And so she let him guide her out of the room, a dutiful follower.
How odd, she thought, her mind serene and empty and blindingly happy, all of a sudden. She watched the hunched line of his shoulders beneath his shirt, the ragged darkness of his hair shifting with each step.
Why, silhouetted against the glow of the computer's sterile light, he looked, as he had never before, almost angelic.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
Coda
The Death Note that Misa Amane had handed over to L was missing a page.
If he'd noticed, he had said nothing. That quiet restraint had made her chest tighten with relief. She'd smiled up at him, small and secretive, and known he would never comment on it. And in that deliberate silence, she had seen their future stretching ahead of them, long and complicated, and nonetheless something worth it. Not just rich with the satisfaction of a job well done, but maybe even in some distant world–contentment.
She could see it now: all the ways she would never let Ryuuzaki (as he'd always be to her) bring up the Death Note or the discrepancies he might notice, because she would always be ready to sob about Light or shiver with bad memories if pressed. And he would be just patient enough to let her keep her secrets, as he would always keep his own.
The mysterious detective and his out-of-his-league idol girlfriend (what a conundrum they would be!) who would never come under questioning again, all her sins forgiven because of her one great act of goodness. Who could put all this mess behind them, faced with a new and looming, unexpected life that had each other inextricably entwined together within it. She wouldn't let him go now, after all. Not after all she'd done for him. And he was willing–of course he was willing!–to play her game. That was good enough.
And perhaps in the quieter moments of the night, when Ryuuzaki relaxed quietly against her, fingers toying with her hair, and she preened gently under his attention, there would be enough time to think of what, if ever, to say.
But at the moment, she was alone in her bedroom, and her hands had finally stopped shaking. She pulled out the slip of paper she had torn out and unfolded it in the light of the match she struck. In the seconds before it began to eat away at the yellowed, lined paper, Misa took a proud moment to admire her handwriting.
It looked beautiful: of course it did. It had been too ingrained in her to be anything less than perfect. She was glad of it, the neat cursive that spelled out the last act of attachment she couldn’t abandon; the last and most of her love that Misa Amane would ever force Kira to endure:
Light Yagami turns himself into the Kira Task Force,
with full evidence and no casualties.
He goes quietly and does not fight.
He dies in prison,
at the end of his natural lifespan.