Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.
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It was printed in an interview with Misa-Misa last week that she had always, always, always loved to play dress-up.
This was true.
When Amane Misa was a little girl, she would put on her mother's high heels and toddle around, her older sister standing behind her to make sure she didn't fall and hurt herself. She wanted to be pretty like the princesses in all her stories, because only the princesses got the princes and little Misa had decided it wasn't worth the effort to be someone mediocre, to get someone mediocre, but she wasn't going to be a nobody. She was determined to be a star from the moment she understood what it meant to say that.
When Amane Misa was young girl, the awkward age in between childhood dreams and any chance for realization, she would go to the mall with her friends and take any chance she could to escape and go to the stores she really liked, the ones with short dresses that were designed just right to make her feel like she could be wanted and still within reach of tiaras and true love. She'd hear her phone ring and answer as quickly as she could, it'd be her friends, and she'd hurriedly think up excuses, lies to tell them so they wouldn't know where she was. She was a good girl. She was pretty, she was sweet. She liked being known as that, made it easy, and she shouldn't go endangering that ease just to indulge pieces of dreams.
When Amane Misa was at her best, she played dress-up for a living and she was a star like she'd promised she would be. She was still pretty, still sweet, but she when she went to the mall with her new friends she would sneak away the same way she had before and go to the stores where her old friends had shopped, play pretend like she could be a normal girl. She always wondered what it'd be like, and then she would remember the days she was so afraid and wonder if she still counts as the same person. She feels another hairline fracture run down her soul, but she doesn't care.
When Amane Misa is a young woman, she will be kept away from the prince she found, and sometimes at night she'll pull out her favorite dress, the one that reassures her she's his princess, and put it on and fix her hair and do her makeup and she'll be happy again, if only for a minute. She'll look forward to the day she can wear it for him again, and she'll smile and check to see if anyone could notice she's almost crying. She'll wonder what happened to all the people she knew once upon a time, and she'll wonder what happened to the people she was once upon a time, but she'll know a princess only needs her prince to have a happy ending.
When Amane Misa loses her prince, she will wear that dress again. She will perform exactly the same routine she did the nights she pretended that she was preparing to see him, and then she'll go to see him. She'll go to the building she last saw him at and she'll climb to the very top floor and look down at the world one last time, and then she'll close her eyes and fall and hope when she wakes up she'll be with him at last. She wore that dress for him, after all.