Good morrow ladies and gents. Ah? What's this? Oh, it's just a story I began—oh that's right—over ELEVEN months ago. Them's the breaks kiddo, I may be a procrastinating slacker who completely forgets about things for almost a YEAR, but hey, I finished it today. Yippee.

I may expand it as a chaptered story, but as for now, it stands well enough alone as a oneshot.

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"No, Misa; I don't want to kiss you," Light repeated, holding out his arm to keep the blonde out of his personal bubble.

The girl pouted and whined, "Why not?!"

"Because I don't like you," Light groaned.

Misa wilted onto one of the stairs they had been standing on.

"But then why are you dating me?" she asked in a weak voice, eyes watering with rejection.

Light looked at his wrist; the scarring from months of being handcuffed to a certain insane detective was still highly visible. It would probably last forever.

But he liked it.

"Light-kun," Misa trembled out, trying not to cry.

Light sighed and admitted, "Because Ryuuzaki told me to."

The girl bit her lip and held her arms protectively. She finally asked something, but her question was too quiet to hear.

"What was that?" Light asked.

She wiped her eyes quickly with the back of one hand, careful not to smudge her mascara. She repeated the question, but still too softly.

"I can't answer your question if I can't hear you; speak up," Light critiqued, getting tired of the girl's constant neediness. He wanted to hurry back the investigation, though he knew that there was nothing left for them to find now that he'd killed Higuchi.

Misa took a moment to gather up her power, then she sucked in a deep breath, stood up, and practically shouted, "IS IT RYUUZAKI THAT YOU WANT TO KISS?! HUH?! IS IT?!"

Light jumped backwards, startled at the sudden outburst and shocked by the question. His breath hitched in his throat.

Misa stepped forward offensively, "IS THAT WHY YOU FOLLOW HIM AROUND LIKE A LOVESICK PUPPY?!"

Light's eyes were wide, his face bright red. He stuttered something that sounded similar to "uh" before Misa continued, "IS THAT WHY YOU ALWAYS DO WHAT HE TELLS YOU?! IS THAT WHY YOU TOYED WITH MY EMOTIONS THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE INVESTIGATION?!"

Light flinched, backing into the wall of the stairwell.

"ANSWER ME!" Misa yelled at him.

He forced his eyes open to see the girl standing a foot in front of him with her fists on her hips, fuming.

"I-I-I," he stuttered out, looking Misa in the eyes. He looked away, his face burning bright and his legs feeling weak. He swallowed in nervousness.

He closed his eyes, preparing to get hit, while he whispered out, ". . . yes."

He expected her to hit him. He wanted her to hit him—he knew that he deserved it. He hadn't liked her from the start, but he'd used her the whole time. Even when he didn't have his memories he didn't like her; he only pretended to be her boyfriend because L had said that it would help the investigation. Misa was a fine person overall, but she was never someone he was romantically attracted to. . . L, however, was someone he was immediately attracted to. He had tried to ignore it, but the more he had to pretend to be in love with this girl and the more he had to kiss her bubblegum flavored lip gloss covered lips, the stronger he yearned for the man on the other side of the chain.

But the more he thought about loving L and the more he thought about kissing L's presumably sugar coated lips, the worse he felt about himself and the feelings he was harboring. He felt bad about himself and he even felt empathy for Misa; he had imagined how he would feel if their positions were all flipped around: if L told Light that he loved him, if L kissed him, if L allowed him to repeatedly express his love for the detective . . . and all because L was ordered to. If L did this because he wanted to please Misa . . . because he was in love with Misa . . . Light knew he would feel so torn that he'd be beyond repair. The broken trust would be the worst—not that he and Misa had ever developed the trust that he'd gained with L. But still, if Misa actually did love him, he knew that the pain she would feel would be real. He couldn't do this anymore.

But he hadn't wanted to confess about L. He could only too clearly imagine how it would feel to be rejected after however long it had been and—as if that wasn't bad enough—to also find out that your supposed lover was in love with someone you both knew. But it was too late; it was in the open. Maybe it was women's intuition, or maybe that was the only thing she could think of, but either way, he knew he deserved whatever she threw at him.

He waited.

But the strike never came.

He peeked his eye open only to find Misa standing still in front of him, her hands on her hips and her face smug.

When he looked at her fully, she finally hissed out, "I freaking knew it! You absolute meany!"

He wanted to apologize; he truly did feel sorry for all the trouble he had caused her, but the words were caught in his throat and he just stared at her.

"You are such a wimp," she scoffed, locking out her hip.

He blushed again.

"No I'm no—" he began.

"Yes you are," she interrupted. "You've liked him this whole time and you still faked love for me? What is WRONG with you? That is so weak, Light-kun."

His face turned a deeper shade of red.

"Ugh," she groaned, wiping her eye again, "I shouldn't have ignored it. Light-kun, it hurts to be used."

He nodded empathetically. He'd have felt better if she'd hit him or if she'd bawled on the stairs, because being lectured over something he already knew was wrong felt worse that being hit. Was she so upset that she was calm? He had to admit, he didn't know how he would react to L's rejection/confession in their figmented alternate selves.

She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and said, "So you must be in pain then, since Ryuuzaki has been using you like this."

He looked at her again, noting that her eyes were still watery. Was she feeling sorry for him? Was she really trying to console him?

"He hasn't been using me," he denied, looking away.

Misa pouted her lip, pitying Light's denial.

"Light-kun," she began, composed, "It is Ryuuzaki that you want to kiss . . . it is Ryuuzaki that you follow around as if you're still chained to him . . . it is Ryuuzaki that you obey."

Light looked away and spoke almost silently, choking out, "So?"

Misa shook her head and stated, "Don't you think he'd figured that out from the beginning?"

From the beginning, echoed in his mind. Light added another dimension to his flipped scenario that he constantly guiled over: If he found out that Misa ordered L to fake love for Light while she knew full well that L wanted her . . . Light tensed up. Now he knew why Misa was pitying him; if she really did like him, then she wouldn't want him to feel the heartache she felt, especially if she knew she'd at least be tempted to do the same thing Light did had their positions been flipped. She certainly would have pretended to be dating L had Light told her to.

What was wrong with them all?

Then his heart wrenched as he put himself back into his own hypothetical shoes: if L had known about Light's feelings and still had him pretend to date Misa . . . Light would feel crushed and prematurely rejected. Had he been rejected without even confessing?

"Light-kun, if you need to cry, it's okay."

"I don't need to cry," Light immediately rejected, further embarrassed by having a girl tell him he could cry over being rejected. But it wasn't for certain that L had already rejected him; Light would have to do something he never had intended to do—confess to L how he felt.

"You know," Misa began, still trying to help, "Ryuuzaki's not very good with emotions."

"Yeah," Light responded weakly, biting his lip, "I know that."

Misa felt the anguish in his tone and she clarified, "No, Light-kun, I mean that it's possible that he might not have understood your feelings for him. He might not have realized why you obey him and follow him and…" she breathed in and looked away, mumbling, "…and stared at him when you were supposed to be staring at me."

"Why are you doing this?" Light asked, looking her in the eyes; she was still crying slightly, like the tears just wouldn't give up. She shouldn't be the one consoling him and pushing for him, she should be the one angry and sad and yelling at him.

She looked at him, her brow furrowing. She gathered air in her cheeks as if she didn't want to say anything, but after a moment of that, she finally yelled, "Because Misa-Misa wants you to be happy! IS THAT NOT NORMAL?!"

She pounded on his chest with her fists while yelling, "ISN'T IT NORMAL TO WANT SOMEONE IMPORTANT TO YOU TO BE HAPPY?!"

Light flinched back against a stair and fell directly on his butt with and umph. Misa smacked his knee one final time before ending her weak attempt at assault before flatly asking, "So are you going to grab for happiness or just flinch away like the coward you've been?"

Light moved to stand, but gave up and covered the red that was returning to his face. He groaned out from behind his hands.

"Speak up," Misa mimicked his earlier words.

He threw his head back with his face still covered and confessed, "I'm scared."

"Why?"

He put his head back down, making Misa raise a brow at his theatrics. She silently let out a breath and sat next to him on the step. She put her hand on his knee and softly repeated, "Why? What scares you?"

He finally uncovered his face and looked at her, admitting, "I've never felt like this before . . . I-I've—I've," he took a breath, "I don't know how to tell him how I feel and I don't want to be rejected. I guess."

Misa stared at him. She couldn't remember why she had fallen for him other than his looks. For some reason, she had practically thought of him as her savior, even though he hadn't been around to save her family or to save her from that obsessive employee.

But just because she couldn't remember why, didn't mean the feelings left. She cared deeply for Light and his anxiousness made her heart ache with empathy. She didn't want to rush her words and accidentally ruin his life.

"Light-kun," she began. When he looked into her eyes, she felt like he was begging for her help, for her wisdom, for anything other than whatever was torturing his own mind. She settled with a simple question, "What is the worst that he could do, Light-kun?"

His frown went deeper and she interjected before he could say a thing, "He could say that he doesn't feel the same way."

She thought to herself judgmentally, 'he could probably say he doesn't feel at all and it wouldn't be a lie.' She knew better than to say that.

Out loud, she continued, "Worse so, he could feel grossed out, but based on the amount of sugar he puts on everything, I'd say nothing grosses him out."

She saw the corner of his lip twitch up for a moment and grinned inwardly at her success. She continued, "He might tell everyone. He might want you to be removed from his presence." Light frowned again, but Misa knew she had a point to make. "How does that make you feel?"

He looked defeated when he whispered, "Not great, Misa."

"But what's the worst that could happen if you don't tell him?"

He blinked at her. "Things just go on as they are," he answered with a questioning look.

He jumped when Misa bellowed out a buzzer sound. "Wrong!" she yelled and continued, "That's not even close; that's one of the better outcomes. Face it, Light-kun, you're still being a coward and just wishing for the best. You think that if you do nothing then everything will be okay: he won't notice, you'll continue working together—maybe even on future cases, he'll end up falling for your charm and he'll make a move on you."

She continued, "But really, the worst that could happen is that he knows, doesn't care, and uses you a bit more. He might not ever notice your feelings and you two never see each other again after this case and he goes and gets married to some other genius that isn't you and has five little genius adorable children."

"Is this supposed to make me feel better?"

"I'm not done," she scolded. "Now, what's the best that could happen if you simply say something along the lines of, 'hey, you, I really like you and I want to hug you and kiss you and do all the things I was supposed to do with Misa-Misa with you'?" Her trying to mimic his voice finally made him smile sadly.

He rubbed his temple and admitted, "Alright, I get it."

"So you're going to try and reach for your own happiness?" she chirped, clapping her hands together.

"I—yeah, I guess so." He put his head back into his hands and groaned out, "I still don't know what to say."

Misa smiled and patted his back. "Be blunt, be poetic, just kiss him, whatever feels right," she threw out with a smile.

After a bit of silence, Light finally stood up, fairly composed, and offered his hand to Misa. As he helped her up, he muttered out a thank you.

"What was that?" Misa asked with an amused look.

He just crossed his arms and looked away.

"I'm sorry," she stated falsely before she placed her hand behind her ear and teased, "but I couldn't quite hear you; could you repeat that?"

A blush formed on his cheeks as he gave in, "I said thank you." He looked off to the side in embarrassment; he was not used to thanking people nor for needing help at all.

Misa giggled. "Good luck, Light-kun," she bid before trotting away.

Light just watched her go, amazed by what had just transpired.

. . . but, now what?

His eyes widened at the thought: was he supposed to fess up TODAY?

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See? It's a decent oneshot that I do probably intend to make chapters out of. What thinks you? You made it this far, you may as well review a sentence or two. Can you find where I stopped writing and picked it back up? I think you can if you look hard enough.

That's all from me, folks. Have a swell rest of your day…or night, since you're probably reading before bed.

~Aia~