Disclaimer! All fictional entities featured/ mentioned in this segment belong to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata.
Takes place approximately one year after Light's death, prior to Misa's suicide.
LAST CHRISTMAS
Out of all the three hundred sixty-five days of the year, no day made—used to make—Misa happier than Christmas. The holiday and everything that came with it enchanted her to no end: the strings of ethereal multicolored lights, the caroling, the snowflakes on eyelashes, the presents in shiny wrapping paper, the mistletoe (especially the mistletoe)…the list could go on and on, longer than the list of the bearded man in the fur-trimmed suit.
And for the star on top, Christmas happened to be her birthday.
"Which means twice as many presents for Misa-Misa!" whispered the disembodied voice of her mother into her ear.
"Merry Misa-Mas!" chimed her father. There was something sharp, nasty about the way her parents spoke to her, this time, as though they were mocking her. Taunting her lack of such presents, most of all the presents that gave true life to Christmas or a birthday, two days that meant nothing even when they were together.
Family. Friends. Faith. Love.
In all honesty, it had never been much of a happy occasion, not since her parents had left this life—
No. They didn't leave. They were taken away, ripped out of her grasp by the corrosive evil that stalked the night and day like a burglar, heedless to the seasons, however sacred.
And she should've fought back to keep them, fought harder. Had she known that that would be the last Christmas she'd see them alive, she would've accepted that wrong pair of boots far more gracefully, because all in all, they were cute in their own right, though not nearly as much as the ones she'd been eyeing. But more than that, she would've held them both tighter, longer, never let them go.
A lone present was buried under the shadow of the tree's bristly pines. Not for her, but for Light. It may have been her birthday, but as far as she was concerned, every day might as well have been Light's. The gift was wrapped in the same angel-adorned paper and red ribbon she had used the year before to present it to him in...had he come home to take it. In his line of work, he was hardly ever home in the five or six years they'd been together, especially during the holidays. Whatever acknowledgement he gave on the occasion was nonchalant, bordering on cold.
But that wasn't his fault, reasoned Misa. He poured so much energy into hunting down Kira, of course he'd be too exhausted to spare some feeling for her. She had enough heart for the both of them.
And thus, that gift remained unwrapped, having had long lost its fresh, festive colors to the rot of time. Because he would come back to open it. He had to.
...
If Misa had known that last Christmas would be Light's last, she would've gone out of her way to see him, even if that meant intruding on his work. She would've been there in her best seasonal dress, with mistletoe and cookies and the gift she had so foolishly neglected to give him. She certainly wouldn't have squandered it on a horrid dinner with that pretentious bitch Takada!
Misa had always secretly worried about getting too old, about eventually losing her good looks. But that care felt thousands of miles away, now. Misa had been beautiful because she had those who made her feel beautiful: those precious ones who were stolen away from her, leaving her to the mercy—or lack thereof—of a world who had long since forgotten her. And that, she believed, was far worse than mere age.
She knelt in front of the Christmas tree she had painstakingly put together herself. Its gnarled strings of multicolored lights dimly illuminated the apartment like the stain-glass windows of a church. A makeshift sanctuary from the dark, cold world lurking outside her windowpane, for what else did she have left?
It may have just been the tears stinging her eyes, but as Misa looked up, she thought she could see Light's face radiating from the tree, his eyes glowing as red as the ornaments that dangled from the prickly limbs. Her mother and father stood to his left and right, theirs as washed out with sadness as the fluorescent white bulbs.
She reached for them, all of them. This year, all she wanted was to hold them, cradle their faces in her hands, once more. Her heart shut out every other desire.
When her fingertips brushed against icy glass, Misa flinched. The visions disintegrated into the shadows like the tentative flurry of snow. They were gone. For good.
Her grip on the glass ornament clenched, as the ice in her blood nipped at her insides.
Kira...Kira, you bastard. It wasn't enough for you to abandon me. You had to take him with you, didn't you? What kind of righteous god are you to leave me with nothing—
Crunch.
Misa withdrew her hand, staring down at the slivers of glass lodged in her bleeding palm with darkened eyes and a void in her soul. Too cold to feel any pain as she plucked the pieces out, one by one, and dropped them to the floor. The lights obscured the blood stains on the carpet into little more than spots of liquid shadow.
That night, Misa curled up shivering under the tree and basked in the feeble, artificial warmth of the lights: the closest she would ever get to the warmth of arms she craved for. With a tear-stained cheek pressed against the dusty package, she clung limply to it as she fell into a dreamless slumber.
That night, she decided, would be the last Christmas she would spend alone.
END