Twenty Things - Death Note

Light Yagami

1) He's always hated sweets. All his life. Really. It's not just because L constantly ate sweets; though, that is what had contributed to the fact that Light can no longer look at sweets without feeling the urge to throw up.

2) Despite what other people may say, the person he loves most is not himself. It's actually his beloved sister. He couldn't imagine life without annoyingly cute Sayu who has him wrapped around her little finger. That brat. He'd do anything for her and she knows it.

3) She exploits it too. His most embarrassing moment was the large amount of running through Harajuku after he slapped the actor Hisagi Yumichika on Sayu's behalf, after the popular actor had insulted her. He'd never felt more humiliated, but the hugs and the screeching from Sayu later was completely worth it.

4) Light never actually wanted to be a detective. He prefers the cold experimentation of science and the interesting things therein. It's just, Light knew that the only way that he'd ever be able to get his father to pay attention to him, was if Light worked with him. It's why he revels in being Kira and joining the taskforce to catch himself, because his father's attention was constantly upon Light.

5) Even though the respect that he strives for is his father's, the person that Light respects the most in his family is his mother. Her entire life is centred around her family, and she never once seems resentful about the fact that her Oxford degree in English was going to waste. In fact, Light could count the amount of times he'd seen his mother unhappy about anything, on his hands. So, it was his mother's endless patience and love which fueled Light's fake smiles around his followers and friends. After all, if she could do it, so could he.

6) He thinks that school was perhaps the single most boring experience of his life. He wishes that he could have been homeschooled some days, then he realizes that L was probably homeschooled, and look where that had brought L. He was a reclusive detective that looked like a homeless panda with the social skills of a tree. Light feels a lot more grateful to his mother for sending him to school, after that.

7) He's not actually gay. Just because he has no interest in girls, it doesn't mean that he's gay. To be honest, Light doesn't think romantically about anything, at all. If he had to reproduce, he'd prefer it to be asexually. He's never voiced this aloud, of course. He gets enough teasing comments about his ego from Sayu; the last thing he needs is his sister crowing about how narcissistic Light is.

8) Contrary to popular belief, Light doesn't hate Misa. He doesn't particularly like her either, but he doesn't hate her. She's pretty pleasing on the eye and how someone who was constantly willing to please him in any way, be unsatisfactory? Okay, so he would like it if she didn't try to seduce him every five minutes, and he wishes that she wouldn't whine his name in such an obnoxious high-pitched voice. But he does appreciate the fact that she's there. She's good for grunt work.

9) Between Takada and Misa…. He'd rather not choose. He's got this principle, you see. Don't get trapped between choosing an unstoppable force or an immobile mountain. Run away, as far as you can.

10) He really, really dislikes Matsuda. The man is incompetent, foolish and overly friendly. He's more like one of Light's high school friends than a police officer, but Light can't help but use him. He's the only sympathetic member on the task force towards Kira. He's also the person that it would be most logical for Light to be friendly with, after L's death. After all, he's supposedly got the same emotional maturity as Light does. Light personally thinks that he himself, possesses more maturity than Matsuda ever will.

11) He really appreciates Aizawa, though. He might not fully trust Light as much as Light would like, but Aizawa's a hard worker and honest too. It's hard to find people like that, even if they don't support his values. He kind of wishes that Aizawa had been his lackey instead of Mikami.

12) Mikami… Light is actually kind of annoyed by his existence. Perhaps, it's because he's reminded that he needs to rely on others, or perhaps it's because he can see a path that he might have taken, had he never found the Death Note, but Light doesn't like him. He does however appreciate the fact that Mikami is smart.

13) He thinks that his best friend might be Ryuk. It's kind of sad that his best friend is a shinigami, but best friends are supposed to be the ones that understand you most, right? Light knows that the shinigami is the only one that understands the soul-sucking boredom of the real world. Which is probably why there are always apples around Light, when he can help it, and Light always makes sure to leave videogame time or chatting time with the wayward shinigami, somewhere in his schedule.

14) …On the topic of Ryuk, Light always makes sure that his plans have a flair for the dramatic. Because, Light's also kind of afraid of the shinigami. Ryuk has a Death Note too, and while Light can't kill off Ryuk any time soon, Ryuk can kill Light at his pleasure. Light doesn't want to know what happens to his life when Ryuk gets bored. So he makes sure to keep things interesting, all the time. Never a dull moment around Yagami Light. It makes Light very tired, but it keeps Light alive, just that little bit longer.

15) Despite general opinion, it does not take Light an hour to do his hair. It takes half an hour, thank you very much! Being serious though, Light spends a lot of time on his appearance and it's not because of vanity, even if vanity is slightly involved too. Appearance and body language is important in the real world. To get anywhere with charming people to his side, he needs to be polite, well-dressed and approachable. Anyway, his genes had blessed him with beauty, and it would have been a crime for Light to not use that trait of his.

16) Light used to play the violin. He was around seven, he thinks, and he mastered it in a year, to the level of a professional. It was nice to play, but Light had never actually really appreciated the music. Even if it had been called a girly instrument, Light had relished in seeing the sheer emotions he could evoke from a person by simply moving his bow in the right way. It lies discarded on the top of his wardrobe shelf now, in a case, gathering dust. Light thinks that he abandoned it after he become able to evoke those same emotions from people with nary a smile and a few well-placed words.

17) Light's proudest moment was during that period when his memory of the Death Note hadn't existed and he and L had been talking, after a grueling day, hacking into Yotsuba. They'd been discussing intelligence and the validity of IQ tests. L had been a firm supporter of the idea of IQ tests until they revealed their own results. L's score had been 156. Light's score had been 174. L's argument had been firmly against IQ tests after that.

18) Those fifty days in solitary confinement have to be Light's worst memory. He doesn't think about it, of course; he has better things to be doing than reliving it, but he thinks to himself, some nights when he can't sleep, that if he'd stayed in that black dark room even an hour longer than he had, he would have gone completely insane.

19) Between Near and Mello, Light can't decide who he hates more. On the one hand, Near beat him on countless occasions, in crueler ways than L, and couldn't stop making sly remarks or subtle jokes that weren't funny to Light's team. But on the other hand, Mello kidnapped Sayu and rendered his bright sister to a vegetable. He's kind of glad that he'd never met either of them in person, because he was sure that if he had, he would have gotten shinigami eyes, just so that he could make sure they died. And that would have been defying his ideals as Kira.

20) Light actually realized that his reign as Kira wasn't the best thing for the world, sometime after he'd killed L. He'd been in his bathroom one night after a particularly violent dream involving shinigami, Sayu and L's eyes as he'd fallen from that chair. He'd realised that all of what he'd done had never been about justice, and only ever about furthering his childlike dreams to rule the world as a god. Then he'd gone back to sleep and forgotten it all by morning.

L Lawliet

1) L doesn't know how many names he's had over his life. He thinks that Watari might have an entire telephone book's worth of fake names for the both of them. Personally, he finds that quite amusing.

2) He doesn't really love cake as much as his eating habits would suggest. Or sweets in general really. But sugar makes the mind work faster and L needs to be quick in his line of work. Also, he often maps his case into the food that he's eating. It helps him think, by focusing his brain unto the topic at hand while letting the rest of him work mechanically.

3) L really dislikes children. Something about their hungry, greedy eyes and their fat faces. They're vulnerable, weak, in a way that L remembers all too well. He hates children, but most of all, he hates being seen as a child.

4) L also doesn't like the idea of successors. He never has and he never will. It gives the idea that he's mortal and likely to die sometime soon, which is ridiculous. The whole reason that L hid behind a laptop screen no matter what, was to avoid the chance of dying.

5) Still, L didn't mind his first successors, A and B. They'd been bright, interesting and unafraid of challenging him. Then, two weeks after he'd visited them for the fifth time, A committed suicide and B ran away. L stayed away from his successors after that.

6) A had once asked L, in a fit of curiousity, to walk without a hunch for a while. He'd lasted ten minutes before giving up. B had declared that L was officially a hunchback, much to all three's amusement. He'd never liked children, but he'd loved A and B like they were his own, despite only knowing them for a total of 24 accumulated hours.

7) It was why B's betrayal and turn to crime had struck L down to the core. The imitation of L and the gruesome deaths and clues had both sickened and intrigued the detective. Still, he was glad that he never had to get directly involved and that Naomi Misora had prevented B from following A to the death. He'd always be grateful for that. Losing one of his almost-children had been bad enough.

8) Yagami Soichiro had once asked him why he'd become a detective at the tender age of nine. L had frowned and told him 'Just because'. That wasn't the real reason, of course. To tell the truth, L's atoning for something that really wasn't his fault. Still he blames himself for the fact that he'd always known that his mother was a murderous criminal, and that he hadn't told the police until he was six.

9) L's always trusted his intuitive more than he's trusted logic, which he knows is odd in a detective. He knows himself and he knows when something is right. Usually, he reaches a conclusion and sees if the evidence fits. Usually, it does.

10) Watari is the only person that L has ever wholly trusted, other than his criminal mother. No one else deserved it.

11) Still, there are times when even Watari can get annoying, especially when he makes these hints about L retiring and getting a family. L would rather eat healthily for the rest of his life than ever get into the idea of romance. Romance has never appealed to him, though he'd experimented on the side as a teenager.

12) The closest that L ever got to romance was that awkward kiss with Misa Amane, who was really, quite pretty. Still, falling in love with a murder suspect was hardly appropriate, so L had pushed it out of his mind and focused on catching Kira.

13) L actually prefers working with criminals in comparison to working with the police. Sure, the first-timers always get shocked by his less-than-legal methods, but most of the old criminal faces, like Wedy and Aiber are a pleasure to work with. They are both efficient and unquestioning. Unlike the police. Still, police information and police consent is important to solving cases, so L deals with it.

14) L's been all over the world, but he'll always love England the most. Something about the rain and the old sense of security that seeps throughout the country; makes L feel happier there. He's been through some bad experiences there, but he's also had his best experiences there. He loves England.

15) He both hates and loves the fact that his birthday is on All Hallow's Eve. On one hand, he can pretend to be a teenager and get all of his thinking candy for free while going around the country. On the other hand, All Hallow's Eve has always been associated with the dead. L's worst nightmares come on Hallow's Eve and L never sleeps then, when he can help it.

16) Not that L actually sleeps on other occasions either. He has too much work to do anyway and his nightmares just like to lie in wait for him. They're always about his mother cackling angrily as she escapes from prison and the criminals he convicts with solid proof, walking free. When he wakes up, only one of those is true. It doesn't stop them being scary though.

17) L loves playing tennis. He's missed it, if he's honest. That liberating feeling of freedom from thought is something that L relishes, especially with an overactive brain. He knows that mostly chooses to focus on his martial arts skills when he has free time nowadays, but it hadn't stopped him from challenging Light, after seeing the Tennis Champion Awards. Still, he had been out of practice, and that was the only reason that L had lost to Light.

18) He's fairly aware that most of the world's police forces hate him, because he only gets involved on interesting cases with more than ten victims or if they offer one million dollars. Still, L knows that if he didn't specify these conditions, he'd want to try and take on all of the world's problems, no matter how small. And L was a genius. There were other detectives out there who could deal with those smaller cases. L dealt with what actually needed his help, and if that made him hated globally, he didn't mind.

19) L thinks that there's a fine line between a criminal and a detective. It's why Watari acts as his conscience and he never places himself in a position where his ego could turn him into a dictator. Any power beyond hacking was locked away and discarded. L would not become the bad guy.

20) It's why he hated the Death Note, the moment that he laid eyes upon it. The Death Note was a temptation, just waiting to be used. And L can't blame Light for using it, no matter how much he tries, because L knows that he would have done the same, if in a subtler way, had the notebook ever come near him. And he hates fate for dropping the notebook, because if Light had never touched the notebook, they could have been genuine friends one day.

Misa Amane

1) When Misa was in elementary school, she wanted to be a doctor and save lives. Some days, when she gets to slow down a little and sit back after a modeling session, she appreciates how ironic her life has become.

2) She started dressing in gothic fashion after the death of her parents. The black and the modesty had appealed to Misa as a fifteen year old. The modesty had eventually been ditched as she'd gotten older and more into the modelling industry. But she still kept a few of the modest outfits as a memory of old times.

3) She hates the fact that she's so short. Not only did it make kissing Light more difficult, but photographs, at the beginning of her modeling career, had not liked her because people preferred taller girls with longer legs. She's always wanted to be taller.

4) Misa had started speaking in the third tense for interviews, because her agent had suggested it. It had taken her three months to finally get used to it and by that point, she no longer thought that it was cute or funny. Just another mask that created bubbly, bright Misa-Misa for the cameras.

5) She really hates her job. Well, no; she loves the clothes and the posing and the attention that she gets, but she hates the people involved in the industry and the fierce competition to be the skinniest and the prettiest. She hates her directors and the fact that they're all lecherous perverts. She hates the other models and the fact that they immediately isolate out the girl who's the most popular and treat her with disdain. She…hates. It's why two weeks after the stalker incident, a bunch of models die in mysterious accidents and modelling directors just disappear from the public eyes.

6) She had been taking a music degree at a prestigious university in Osaka when the modelling career and portfolio that she'd sent off a year before, finally returned to her with an offer. She'd taken the offer immediately, ditching university without a second thought, but some days, Misa kind of wishes that she'd continued the degree and seen it through.

7) Misa's nightmares are usually filled with watching her parents die and the day that the stalker came for her. She wakes up crying every single time and has to hug her Death Note to her chest and talk quietly with her favourite teddy before she can go back to sleep. She feels that some days, it isn't the actual events she's afraid of, but that feeling of being helpless. Well, Misa's no longer helpless and will never be, not if she can help it.

8) Some days, when she feels particularly lonely, she'll get a VERY small slice of cake and sit in front of her TV, with her legs folded under her like the detective once did. She kind of misses Ryuuzaki a little, if only because that was the only time that Light seemed to actually listen to her. Also, Ryuuzaki had been a brilliant listener too. If he hadn't been L, Misa might have considered him her best friend.

9) She considers Sayu as the little sister that she never had. She envies the loving relationship that her Light and his little sister have, because it's a kind of relationship that Misa will never have with Hiraka, her own older sister.

10) She hasn't spoken with her older sister since she was sixteen. Hiraka had run away from Osaka, as quickly as she could, after their parents' deaths. Misa knows that Hiraka's a lawyer somewhere and that Hiraka's married with kids, but not much more than that. And anyway, she doesn't really care. She and Hiraka have never been close, being complete opposites in looks and personality throughout their entire life.

11) She's had many managers over her time and they always eventually leave, this Misa knows. Some because they found better, less demanding models to look after or Misa was too popular and they weren't able to cope with the pressure. Nothing was permanent, this Misa knew, but still, she kind of wished that Matsui/Matsuda could have stayed her manager for longer. He was nice, genuinely cared about her work and was really good at paperwork.

12) She kind of wishes Light was more like Mochi-Mochi. Not in the fact that Mogi never talked unless he could help it, but in the quiet willingness to put up with her whims. After all, Light would never have sat with her after she'd failed an audition and help her fold a thousand cranes for one wish. They'd only made it up to three hundred, but she'd appreciated the quiet bodyguard a lot more after that.

13) Misa has smiled in every single picture that was ever taken of her, except for a photoshoot in Harajuku one day. She'd been posing as an angel and she'd just been told that the criminal that had killed her parents had gone free. Not a single smile had been seen from Misa at that shoot, yet it's always been the most popular shoot in her portfolio. She can't imagine why. Smiling people are always more attractive, in Misa's eyes.

14) Misa's opinions on Takada aren't even worth expressing. The woman is dirt under her feet and stupid too. Light will realize it too, soon. Soon. She hopes.

15) Misa had loved the daytime when she was a child. The day had been when she could do anything and when she could see her friends and learn things. Nowadays, Misa has come to love the night more. She loves the stars and she loves the crisp feel of the air at night, when she's walking to the store to pay her bills. But what she loves the most about the night is the moon, her tsuki, glowing peacefully in the sky, quietly supporting the bright sun. Night is when Light finally comes home after work and when he sleeps next to her, perfection wrapped up in one beautiful body. Night is when she glows the most and when all of the best parties are. Misa loves the night.

16) Misa's dream, after marrying Light, is to visit Europe. She's heard beautiful things, and models are well received in Paris, Prague and Vienna. She wants to see the green grass and feel the cold. Misa's always liked snow and misses Osaka for that.

17) Misa's makeup ritual takes her one hour in the morning and it takes another twenty to choose her clothing appropriately. She treats these things rather like putting on battle armour. She doesn't feel completely without them. It's why she wakes up at 6.00am but sleeps usually near midnigh, spending another half an hour removing her makeup. She has dark bags that are appearing under her eyes, too similar to Ryuuzaki for her liking, but between makeup and caffeine, she survives.

18) Misa thinks that Rem might just be her best friend. Rem's always willing to listen to Misa's rants and explains to Misa every single rule in the Death Note, tirelessly. She also trades Misa for the shinigami eyes, which are the best gift that Misa's ever had. Misa thinks that if Misa had ever had proper friends, Rem would have been one.

19) If she's honest, she hates Ryuk. He scares her and never stops smiling. No one was always happy, and Ryuk's smile made it difficult to see what he really felt, which could have been anything from hatred to fear. Ryuk was a poor replacement for Rem, and she hates him more than L and Takada put together.

20) She wonders some days, whether she actually loves Light. Light's cold to her, is almost never home, seems to ignore her and orders her around like a slave. Kira, on the other hand…Kira is a god who avenged her parents. And Misa will follow Kira anywhere, even to death. It takes Misa a year to figure this out and when she does finally realise that it was Kira whom she loved and not Light, she runs blindly after him, hoping that he will still want her.

AN: This was written after only finding 'Twenty Things' for Misa in the Death Note fandom. I really love the Death Note characters, and getting into their head is a lot of fun and helps in my other stories. More will be upcoming. Near, Mello and Matt are next, and then after that, I will probably take requests. All of this is a mixture of canon and my own headcanon.

Light and Misa were easy. L was not. End of.