As promised, this chapter is going to be good. Very good. Better than good, actually. Promise.

A heads up to all readers: the chapter begins with a scene involving nudity and sexual references. Okay, admittedly not much in the way of either, but there you go. My warning is complete.

So, not to beat around the bush, here it is. The actual 2-digit mark chapter. I'm quite proud, actually.

One beach special coming right up!

DISCLAIMER: Light, Misa and Death Note are not mine. Light is OBVIOUSLY Misa's, Misa is legal property of her agent, and Death Note is somebody else's entirely.

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Chapter Ten: Lotion

"Nngh…"

"Mmm…"

"Erm…"

"Tee-hee…"

Light glanced nervously over the towel. "Misa. You aren't peeking, are you?"

"Whatever do you mean, Light?" Misa giggled, blushing furiously. "Misa wouldn't dream of peeking… if Light doesn't want her to, that is."

"Well, in this circumstance, I think it would be best if you didn't. This is awkward enough as it is," he grimaced.

Somehow, against his better judgement, Light had been talked into getting changed behind a towel: a towel, moreover, held in place in front of him by Misa. So, not only was he attempting to get changed into an outfit that would almost certainly cut off all circulation in his legs; he was also getting completely naked in front of a woman who was almost certainly looking at parts of him he didn't want her to see.

He glanced down at his now naked form, lifted his swimming trunks in front of himself, and noted with disdain that they looked as though they would fit perfectly… on someone about seven years old. He put his feet through the leg holes, and tried to ignore the muffled gasps from behind the towel.

Slowly, he pulled the Speedos up to his waist.

His eyes watered just a little.

"So, do you like them?" Misa grinned, dropping the towel without any prior warning. "Are they comfy?"

She studied his expression.

"Are you… crying? Light isn't sad, is he?"

"Erm… No, no, it's not that," he replied, his voice an octave higher than usual. "Light isn't sad, it's just…"

"Oh. Oh!" Misa flung her arms around Light. "I get it! Light must be crying tears of happiness! Light must like his new clothes so much! Misa is so HAPPY!! But… erm… don't cry too much, okay? Misa knows you are happy, but we don't want your make-up to run, do we?"

"… Shouldn't you be putting on your own swimming costume, Misa?" he coughed, and tried to readjust his pants as subtly as humanly possible.

Unfortunately, Misa seemed to notice this, and raised an eyebrow. "Ooh, Light… ! Yes, Misa will get changed now if you want her to…" Instinctively, her hands fell to the top of her skirt, and grasped at the waistband.

"… I'll get the towel for you," Light said hurriedly, grabbing it from the floor and lifting it up in front of her.

"Aw… Okay then…" she pouted, now thankfully out of view. A few minutes, several position changes of the handcuffs (from wrist to ankle, ankle to wrist, and so on), and the discarding of numerous items of clothing later, Misa popped out from behind the towel. "Ta-dah! How do I look?"

Light could not sufficient words to describe exactly how tiny her outfit looked. He had imagined that, considering her already diminutive size, she wouldn't look quite as naked as her bikini suggested. Evidently, his reasoning ability had not accounted for Misa's taste in ridiculously small swimwear. She may as well have worn dental floss.

"You look… very striking, Misa."

"I'm so happy you think so! Misa wants to be 'striking' just for Light…"

He frowned. "… Let's just get moving, okay?"

"Okay!" she smiled. "We can do something fun now, like…"

"Like… what?"

"Oh. We still have something else we need to do before we do anything else, Light," said Misa, wandering over to a nearby shopping bag. She placed her hand inside, searched for a few moments, and brought out a large orange bottle. "I bought sun cream! So we can be safe."

Light judged the look in Misa's eyes, and could imagine the next thing that would come out of her mouth.

"Li-ight… can you help me –"

"– put this sun cream on?" he said aloud, rolling his eyes as he did so.

Misa put her hands to her mouth. "How could you guess what I was going to say? I need someone to help me get all the hard to reach areas," she said, trying to look as innocent as possible. Light assumed that 'hard to reach areas' probably meant 'everywhere', give or take a few less sensual places.

"Are you sure you actually need me to help you? You are old enough to apply that stuff yourself – I imagine you've done it before," he said. He had a sneaking suspicion that, like with most things over the past 24 hours, nothing he said would have much of an effect on the outcome – but tried anyway, just in case.

"Yes, I did do that a few times before… but most of the time there are bits that I can't reach, and sometimes I got sunburned. Light wouldn't want Misa to be all icky and red and sunburned, would he?"

Indeed, Light was a little apprehensive to let Misa get sunburned. Having a small annoying model attached to him was bad enough, but a small annoying model that was whinging constantly about her back stinging or her legs being all blotchy was another matter entirely. "No, Misa, I wouldn't. Just tell me when you've applied it everywhere you can."

"Hmm…" Misa narrowed her eyes at him, obviously a little upset that he hadn't offered to do everywhere for her. "Okay then." She squirted out a little bit of sun cream into her palm, and dabbed it onto her face. Then, she applied a little to her neck, and her arms. After a long pause, as she stared hopefully at Light, she put some on her torso, down to just below her belly button.

She stood there for a few moments, looking pleased with herself. "You can do the rest, Light."

"You can do more than that, Misa."

"Nope! I can't see my back, so I might not put it on evenly – and then I wouldn't have an even tan, so I can't do that. And if I bent to put some on my legs, all the sun cream on my tummy might get messed up, so I can't do that either," Misa handed Light the bottle. "So… you should put the rest on me."

Light glanced at the bottle. He looked up at Misa.

Misa smiled.

"Fine," he grumbled.

"Wow! Yay! Light is going to… erm, help Misa!" she giggled and rushed forward, then hesitated. "Oh… I guess Misa shouldn't hug you right now, with all this cream stuff on me, huh?"

Well, at least that was a relief.

"Can you do Misa's back first? I want you to make sure you get EVERYWHERE!!"

Warily, Light squeezed the bottle and dabbed a little sun cream onto his fingers. Misa eagerly turned away from him. He placed his hand onto one of her shoulder blades.

"Ooh!" she squealed, wriggling under his palm.

This, he thought, is going to take some time.

In actual fact, it only took a few minutes – though Misa's overblown reaction to every single time he touched her skin, and her absolute insistence that he cover every square centimetre of her made those minutes last hours, if not days in Light's mind. As time seemed to drag on, she seemed to become all the more persistent in embarrassing him; eventually, even the slightest tap could trigger a moan that made other beach-goers look very suspiciously in their direction.

Finally, as he reached her toes and the groans turned to giggles, he sighed in relief. Now, at least, he could put his own sun cream on, and then they could go and do something that wasn't quite so… intimate. He closed the cap of the bottle, and got to his feet.

Misa snatched the bottle, and grinned at him. "Now, because Light did such a goo-oo-ood job, Misa will repay the favour!!"

Ah. He really should have foreseen that one. After all, Misa Amane certainly wasn't the sort of person who would pass up a chance of slathering Light Yagami in anything, especially if he was wearing practically nothing. Before he could even muster the effort to tell her that he was perfectly capable of applying the stuff on his own, she had already started; somewhat predictably, she was massaging sun cream into his chest and giggling maniacally to herself.

Trying to tune himself out of the predicament, Light Yagami considered the positives of the situation. They were at a beach: a place usually overflowing with all manner of mindless scantily-clad men and women – and today, it appeared as he took a sweeping glance, was no different. Perhaps his plan could be put into action sooner than expected, if he were to merely suggest to Misa that one of those vacuous young women sunning themselves by the sea could be perfect for L (he smirked to himself as he thought this)… And even if that worked, at least the fact that he had been so cooperative today would work in his favour later on. Misa would certai…

"MISA!!"

"What's wrong, Light?"

Light batted her hands away, took a deep breath, and composed himself. "… I think my inner thighs are already well covered, thank you." Noticing her hurt expression, he added, "You're doing a very good job."

"Thank you! I haven't even started on your back half yet," she beamed.

Light prepared himself for the inevitable mauling, and returned to his thoughts.

Now, where was he?

Oh. Yes.

Misa would certainly be more than willing to do anything for him if he could keep up this 'eager boyfriend' routine, which would mean that everything would be going according to plan. This was, of course, probably the most difficult part to make sure went right: it wasn't the fact that he didn't feel he was capable of humouring her, and it certainly wasn't that he was worried that she wouldn't fall for it – it was merely the inescapable fact that he would have to keep up these high spirits twenty-four hours a day, for as long as it took for him to finally get these handcuffs off. He had to admit that L hadn't helped matters by taking his phone – one of the few ways in which he could duck out of Misa's infuriatingly 'teen romance' pastimes, other than university, household chores and, perhaps, the current case that L had taken. Not that L would include him in that any further than was absolutely necessary, now that Misa was chained to h…

"Misa."

"Yes, Light?"

"Did you just squeeze where I think you did?"

Misa got to her feet, and nodded happily. "Well, Misa has finished. Misa needed a reward for all that hard work. Do you want me to do it again?"

Light wondered exactly when rubbing your hands over an attractive member of the opposite sex had become 'hard work'. "I don't think the other cheek will feel too left out if you leave it."

"Aw."

"Anyway, didn't you take me to the beach so you could cheer me up?" he said. "Why don't we do something fun?"

"Light could have squeezed Misa anywhere too! Misa doesn't mind…"

"Let's do something fun, Misa," he repeated. "We can do anything you want: we can go paddling, or just sunbathe… or anything."

Misa thought for a moment. "Hmm… Well..."

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Author's Note: Another cliffhanger. Oh dear. Anyway, I really enjoyed this chapter. It was just so fun – and surprisingly easy to write (the whole thing, concept and all, took about an afternoon). Though not much actually happened in terms of narrative progression, I hope everyone appreciates the scenario. I imagine Misa enjoyed it too.

Whilst writing this, the weather outside is terrible. It has rained all day. I wish I could be at the beach Light and Misa are on.

Oh – a question to all those who read this: I would like to know exactly which character is the reason you began reading this fic, and whether they are still the reason you keep reading. If not, then why do you keep reading? (Which isn't to say I don't want anyone to read this story… Please keep reading).

As always, much kudos to my readers and the obligatory support for reviews and suggestions. I probably can't express how much the mere act of reading this means to me.

On a passing note, I would like to casually drop in that I am going to the MCM expo in Telford soon, and have decided to cosplay for the first time in my life. I am going, rather ironically, as Light Yagami. If anybody reading this happens to also be a Britisher, and is also going, I'll be the grumpy looking git who's chained to a slightly less grumpy looking L-a-like.

That's enough for now. I'll update soon.

Stay tuned.