Cold Fervency
-:-
Her mouth tasted foul as she gulped down a lump of mucus that had gathered at the back of her throat. The fresh air hadn't done anything to console her mood. In fact, the vast view of the city from the highest building in a twenty mile radius only made the ocular dams decide to spill over again. Misa hated crying. She hated how red spider's legs slowly spread in the whites of her eyes, how her nose ran and dripped its bacterial contents onto her delicate upper lip, how the salt that was supposed to heal any invisible punctures on the surfaces of her corneas only stung and blinded her further.
Her forehead was sweaty as well. Why, she wondered, when it was so freezing.
It made her feel ugly.
To feel ugly was to be ugly.
A mirror was a most unwelcome object. And they were everywhere in her suite. On the cabinet in the bathroom, the full body in her bedroom, and four in the sitting room. They glinted and mocked her with her own reflection. Few times existed when she would turn away from herself. Up until just recently, actually, she loved herself. Loved her own voice, loved her personality, loved her appearance especially. She would often run her fingers through her dyed sunshine colored hair just to marvel at its artificial softness. It didn't matter that there were people out there who called her fake; a phony little blond princess who held her own brain in her hand and refused to put it back in her head. None of it mattered; she was wonderful.
She thought she was wonderful.
It was chilly up on the roof. The wind caressed her skin with good intentions, trying to cool down her overheated body. A sickness was raging through her body, and she didn't consider that it was the flu or a cold virus, but knew better. Oh so much better.
The heat surged every time the imagery of a sandy haired young man flashed behind her blazing red eyelids. His plastic smile was so beautiful. His false gazes of imitation love were so beautiful. Everything he did was so beautiful.
All he had to do was open his mouth and she would oblige any ghost of a whisper that he gave. He held her life in her hands, really. She didn't think that, she knew it. And it was making her sick. Deep down underneath all of those layers, her higher self, the one that was free of the plastic morgue that she had built for herself, was crying in shame for this dispersal of worth and personal power. All for a boy who had promised many, many things. Dates. Love. Affection. Peace. A cure for all the loneliness that her forced-to-become-real happiness fought to accept.
To be used. An intriguing and even arousing thought in theory. Seen everywhere in books. In movies. In an imagination that makes a risk to indulge, bringing the thinker one step closer to a healthy insanity.
The truth of it made her sick. Literally. She was used. She was thrown to the side. And she came back for more like an attention-craving puppy tricked into believing that the abuse would somehow morph into something truly divine.
The stress was killing her from the inside out. She was living her life day by day on his fake smiles and brief touches, always accidental. It looked like a whimsical fancy to the world, but little did they know her devotion was real. So real that it brought down everything around her. In secret, she hated judgment. Whenever she was alone and hurting, she thought about the judgment. Kira permanently sentenced the individual who had slain her parents, and she was thankful. It was not lost on her that this was indeed selfish, however natural and understandable it was that she felt that way. She loved thinking of that man writhing in hell as his skin was being peeled off by blue glowing flames. And how that would continue forever, and ever, and ever. Until it ceased. Which would be never, ever, ever.
The world could judge all it wanted. It could judge her until she was picked clean like a carcass by buzzards. They could. Let them.
It was Light's judgment that she couldn't handle.
He stood on a golden pew, far from her reach. He looked down upon her like he would a cockroach, and her pigtails were her jagged antennae navigating through the darkness because she wasn't fit for the light of day.
After she met the Yagami boy, she no longer felt wonderful.
Perhaps this was a good thing. She adored illusions, personally. But if Light's intent was to break her of this adoration, then it must be for the best. If he wanted to expose her for the leech that she was, then he would have his wish. She would do anything for Light. Anything.
Suffering not even deemed an exception.
Her bare toes were bright red as they curled, trying to protect themselves from the biting wind. Fall was normally so pleasant, and yet today the air whipped around her in constant circles. And she sweated and sweated. And thought and thought. And God forbid that anyone would find her up there like that, sicker than she ever remembered being, in nothing but a flowery vomit stained tank top and a mismatching black skirt, disheveled blond hair, stress breakouts dotting her normally flawless back like disgusting swollen red freckles, and bloodshot whites that clashed with her forget-me-not colored irises.
It gave her no peace, any of this. But no amount of frostbite or other physical affliction could convince her to go back inside. Not right now. Not when there were more seconds to spare from going back in there and being withered to black and yellow dust by sharp honey eyes.
The roof had shiny panes of stone. Marble, maybe. The construction of the vicinity was not wasted, but she couldn't help but think it was overcompensating for something. Perhaps it was like her, always acting out flamboyantly to hide some other obvious but deterrent flaw of hers. Misa looked down at the shiny marble, seeing a blurred version of herself staring back at her. It was so distorted she appeared to have black eyes. Black, empty eyes. She turned away from it. It was too accurate for her to look upon it for too long. Reminded her of someone she detested.
God forbid.
God forbid anyone seeing her like this-
"Amane."
Giving a turn that certainly had the potential to cause whiplash and made her fevered head throb, Misa narrowed her eyes at the sight of the famous analytical gargoyle that wore clothes and shoes and pretended to be human. The guise made her sick; more than her own did. Although he was not the last person she wanted to see, that wasn't saying much. She wanted to be the only person in the world at the moment; then she'd only have to take pain from herself. At least she was merciful. And it didn't help that she looked and felt like this in front of the second most arbitrating person in the world, after Light.
Ryuuzaki blinked once, soaking in the truth and reality of the situation like a fast-acting sponge. It never took him long to assess anything.
"You appear to be quite sick. I don't think it's wise for you to be up here like this."
Smudged cherry red lips sneered. The beginning of a lecture. This…she didn't need this. She needed to be alone. To heal herself. No more belittlement, no more devotion.
"What the hell is Ryuuzaki doing up here, then?" She asked, harshness in the inquiry not lost, even in the wind.
"I come up here on my free time."
"You don't have free time." She said resentfully, wondering shortly after why she said it in the first place. Probably a subconscious scoff at her lack of time with Light. All thanks to Ryuuzaki.
"Not much, I'll admit."
They stood, five feet apart, braving the gusts. Misa risked a glance at the detective, almost hoping to catch his gaze and deliver a deadly stare in quiet retaliation of him disturbing her bittersweet solitude. He appeared to be paying no attention to her, though. His 's' shaped posture stood surprisingly sturdy against the wind, and his curved neck strained to look upwards at the overcast sky.
"Misa would like you to go away, Ryuuzaki." She muttered.
He turned and looked at her with the same blank look that instilled more anger in her than a bad photo shoot and a skipped date with Light ever could.
"It would be more reasonable if you left instead. You're in no shape to be out in this weather, and I have long since claimed this area as my own. Although I for one have no qualms sharing it."
And the cleverly childish air was enough to make her retch.
Misa could've sworn she heard buttons of machinery as the gears turned inside of his head. His pupils dilated, as if focusing on command like a cat.
"You look positively awful."
For a moment, she couldn't scream at him; she couldn't even mouth off to him. He was making her so livid that all she could do was hug her torso, shake vehemently, try to ignore the emotional disease that was making her blood boil, and curse her own bodily actions as fresh trickles of tears leaked out onto her dead porcelain cheeks.
"What about you, huh?! You look like a fucking freak twenty four hours seven days a week!"
Such a pointless insult. She knew it wouldn't even pierce his shell, if he even had a shell. Perhaps everything about him, all ambiguity aside, was truly on the surface. Maybe he really didn't give a damn to the greatest extent what people thought about him. How she envied that kind of conviction. A pained moan escaped her mouth from the sudden exertion and she put her arm up to her face, soaking from tears and a runny nose.
"Ryuuzaki has no right to judge Misa on her looks…I couldn't care less if you called me the Second Kira until the day I died…don't insult my looks." She mumbled from behind the supple skin of her forearm.
They were all she had, sometimes. The surface was a divine connection to the outside, and very superficial, world. Otherwise her air headedness would have probably allowed her to float away, taking a Light who somehow cared about her hand in hand.
Bemused as ever, he took a step closer to her.
And another.
Instinctively she leaned the opposite way of his approach, but her feet didn't move. Not when he faced her completely, not when his hand reached out to palm one of her shoulder blades, and not when the contact made her eyes and nose gush again. A sad day, she thought, when a pervert like him touched her like that and she didn't do a thing to stop him. And it made her angry. So unbelievably angry, that his true intentions countered what she wanted to believe about him.
He ran his hand unhesitatingly over her zit-covered back, like it didn't even faze him how disgusting it truly was. Just another recount that he wasn't like anyone else. She meant what she said about him being a freak; and she wished that he wasn't up there, touching her, being innocent and understanding and weird and different and unique. Through a crack in the curtain that was her frazzled blond hair, she glanced to the side and was met with a neutral pair of unblinking eyes, not moving a fraction even when the drafts fluttered his eyelashes.
"You are extremely sick." He reiterated.
Sick.
Yes…she supposed he was right.
Her skin sweated, her veins were coated with a stark fever, and her brain felt like it would slide right out of her head through her nostrils from being boiled to slush.
And she worshiped a cold hunk of flesh, more or less. Flesh that grew amazing touchable hair, toned muscles, and sharp amber eyes in taut young sockets. But cold. To be hugged by Light was like the very wind attempting to embrace her. Licked by sheer ice. That was pretty sick.
Ryuuzaki's hand was warm.
With private regret and reluctance she pulled away from the deft appendage. It was all so spooky; to know that there was nothing hidden from someone like him. He knew why she moved away, why she was up here trying to freeze her burning skin off. Why she was sick in the first place.
And he didn't reveal any of it. For the sake of natural precaution deceit or the more unlikely reason of sparing her more embarrassment. She liked to flaunt herself, to try and fool the world into thinking that she was out of his and everyone else's league in every single way, but who was she trying to kid? He was the one who was out of her league, and the fact that he was even acting like this just made her feel all the more pathetic.
Pitiable. Sorrowful.
Grossly calmed.
No, no. Tuck those thoughts away.
She coughed, her lungs heaving a wet jagged breath, and looked in the direction of the doors that lead inside. He was right. Her skin, wet with perspiration, was fire against her palms. The cold air hurt her chest, and so did that possibly poignant expression diluting his normally focused stare. That wouldn't do, not at all, to have him looking at her like that.
Without saying a word she left him on the roof, and found that she was the only one who decided to look behind her shoulder at the other.
He didn't move an inch; just stood there, legs spread crookedly as they supported his awful posture. And that hand that briefly tortured her shoulder blade lay tucked away in a jean pocket where it could never confuse someone with its cursed contact again.
She was the only one who looked back.
It made sense. Ryuuzaki wasn't the type who needed someone's undivided acknowledgement to know the existence of his radiance.
