What If...?
Rating: T for a minor sexual scene.
Word Count: 1,699
A/N: This is my fourth submission for Write the Wrong. Beta'd by youroctober.
Well, she lives in a fairytale
Somewhere too far for us to find
Forgotten the taste and smell
Of the world that she's left behind
So one day he found her crying
Coiled up on the dirty ground
Her prince finally came to save her
And the rest you can figure out
Keep your feet on the ground
When your head's in the clouds
Well, go get your shovel
And we'll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle, bury the castle
- Brick by Boring Brick, Paramore
Midnight—the witching hour.
It was the night of the new moon and all was dark outside. The few stars in the sky failed to shed any real light on the land below. It was a time for dark deeds and secrets, hidden from the prying eyes of day.
The gentle thud, thud of dirt hitting the ground filled the air. Shrouded in shadow three figures were barely discernible in a small clearing. Thud, thud the sounds continued, accompanied by the clink of metal hitting compacted earth, as one of the figures dug a deep hole in the ground. A small flashlight clicked into life, illuminating the area they encompassed. The dark-haired male stood in a rapidly growing hole, quietly grunting. Standing further back was a petite blonde female and a shinigami floating inches off the ground.
There was a sense of finality in the moment, as if something momentous was about to happen. Apart from the thud of the earth, the clink of the shovel and the grunts of the male, it was deathly quiet out, adding to the eerie quality of the night.
"Are you sure about this?"
Misa Amane was one of Japan's top idols. Model/ singer/ actress with a movie deal in the States, she was a bona fide superstar. Life was perfect for her. She was at the top of her game, destined for bigger and better things. She should have been happy.
But she wasn't.
Light Yagami was her everything. Saviour/ lover/ prince, he was her purpose in life. Light had killed her parents' murderer and for that she was eternally grateful, declaring her undying love to him. Tall with beautiful auburn locks and intelligent to boot, he was her ideal man in every way.
But he never loved her.
The death note was a gift. Its purpose was to help create a utopia for the human race. A place, where the darkness in people had been purged, and where the villains had no place. A fairytale for all to be free...or so he said.
But the dream was worse than the reality.
It was easy with the death note. One could pretend that they weren't really hurting people, killing them. It was like watching a movie, or playing a video game. It wasn't real.
Besides, these people were bad, they deserved to die.
But she knew she was simply deluding herself.
She wasn't stupid. Misa saw the way Light looked at her, like she was evil, like she was them. But to be honest, looking at her was too much like looking at a mirror. Misa knew that to Light, she resembled all his flaws...but Kira was supposed to be flawless. Love held no place in their relationship, though Misa tried to pretend otherwise.
It was easy really: this was her fairytale, Light was her prince and the death note was their castle.
Everything should have been perfect.
But it wasn't.
She had seen the cracks in her fantasy long ago, noticed how they crept just out of sight but always lingering in the back of her mind. She should have done something earlier; however, she chose to ignore it and continued living the lie she called her life.
But it wasn't real and at one point it was bound to all fall down.
That expression would always haunt her. The way his eyes rolled up into his head and his mouth opened in a soundless scream. The way he crumpled to the ground as he struggled to take that final breath. It was nothing graphic; no blood was involved, but the finality of the moment scared her more than any horror movie ever had. And that she was responsible chilled her to the bone. The capabilities of the death note terrified her, and a heart attack viewed in real life was just as bad as a violent knife assault. Without realising, she had become the thing she despised. A murderer.
And in one breath, her world of magic crumpled all around her.
It became that much more difficult to pretend.
She found herself trying to fake the smiles that had once come so naturally. In interviews, she had to hold back the tears that threatened to spill as Kira's name was mentioned. She avoided looking at Light whenever they met up to discuss—usually him ordering her—what to do next.
And then one night it became all too much.
She'd had a long, hard shoot that day and was looking forward to some well-earned rest. Entering the apartment she shared with Light—though he spent most of his time at the NPA juggling his dual roles as Kira/ L, or rendezvousing with Takada—she found herself sincerely hoping he wasn't there. However, that night he was in as she strode quickly past his office and to the bedroom, though he didn't acknowledge her presence. So it came as a shock when he opened the bedroom door and quietly approached her.
Misa glanced at Light warily; it had become increasingly harder to differentiate the man from the monster. The person in the room could just as easily be Kira, as he could be Light for all she knew. But when she looked into his eyes, there was a man broken. In that moment Light was completely vulnerable and she found her frozen heart going out to him.
The tension in the room shifted and he was suddenly holding and kissing her, soft and slow, then hot and fast. Clothes were quickly discarded and all too soon he was inside her, thrusting deep as they spiralled towards release. But it was more than that; there was a sense of desperation in the air, and a hint of regret. This wasn't love, it never had been.
The thrusts were becoming more urgent, the rhythm gone as Light jerked above her, reaching his peak. As soon as he finished, Light was dressed and out of the room, as if nothing had happened. On the bed, Misa lay staring dejectedly at the ceiling, feeling unfulfilled and completely miserable. She'd prepared herself for him to cry out someone else's name when he'd climaxed, almost sure that it would have been that other woman's. She was not expecting his name.
"L."
It was too late.
The point of no return had come and gone long ago.
But it was time for Misa to finally take her life into her own hands.
The door creaked open, revealing a familiar dark head. Misa quickly covered herself up as Matsuda entered the room. It wasn't unusual for the members of the Kira taskforce to be in their apartment, and Matsuda seemed to have made it his life's mission to make sure she was happy.
"Is everything alright, Misa-Misa?"
A simple question but the sincerity in his voice sent her over the edge; the tears that had been threatening to spill for many months finally released their flood-gates. Warm arms surrounded her, pulling her into a gentle embrace full of love and friendship. Matsuda was her only friend, the only one who treated her like a human; even his use of her stage name was a term of endearment. Sometimes she wished she'd met him before Light.
Enough was enough, it was now or never.
She sought Ryuk, when Light was occupied. She knew the shinigami didn't take sides, and was simply there to observe as the humans destroyed each other. But she hoped he'd help her with this. Surprisingly, he accepted. He thought it would be funny to see how Light would take this.
It was time for her to grow up.
Fairytales just didn't exist and death notes didn't make everything better.
"Are you sure about this?" Ryuk asked.
"I have no choice," Misa replied, eyes trained on the rising pile of dirt. "I have to bury the castle."
Matsuda jumped out of the hole, dusting off his trousers as he approached the pair.
"What now?" he asked tentatively, eyes flicking from shinigami to girl.
Perhaps it would have been easier to hire a stranger to do the job, God knew she had enough money, but there was something about this moment, something that made her glad she'd picked a friend – the only one she had—to help her out with this final task.
Misa walked up to the deep hole—large enough for a man to lie in—pulling a bag of all her belongings. The purge had begun. The hole quickly filled up with all her things, memories of a time she now desperately wanted to forget, and was covered with earth once again. Soon all she had left was the black book, which had started this whole mess.
A faint rustle by her side alerted her to the shinigami's presence.
Matsuda knew what was going on, everything apart from the death note. This was her secret, a secret she would soon forget all about. It only took a moment, the transfer of power. To relinquish the death note was to relinquish her memories of it, something she took heart in and anticipated with all her soul. There were a lot of things she regretted, and this would not be one of them.
For one last time, she heard that familiar hyuk, hyuk from Shinigami Ryuk as he faded from sight.
Good riddance.
"Where'd he go?" Matsuda asked, placing a warm hand on her shoulder. Misa just smiled back at him, completely at ease for once in her short life, simply enjoying the moment.
"Well," she finally spoke, "I guess this is it."
"Are you sure about this?"
"Yeah, the arrangements have been made. So-"
They stood awkwardly in the darkness, like two strangers who'd met for the first time—which they would soon become. Taking the initiative, Misa leant forward and placed a chaste kiss on the man's lips.
"Thank you," she murmured and turned away from him.
Soon she was alone, standing in front of a grave—her grave. In the morning, a coffin would be placed there and later a headstone, marking the final resting place of a Misa Amane.
She'd buried her castle.
Misa-Misa was officially dead.
A/N: The challenge for this piece was to write a songfic—between 500 and 2000 words—but not in the traditional sense with lyrics interspersed between paragraphs. We had to take the themes and ideas of the song and write it into the story. For those who are wondering, I only put the lyrics really relevant to the story at the beginning, it would have been too much to include the whole song. Hope you guys enjoy. ;D