January 21, 2004
Beyond Birthday's laugh is something out of a nightmare.
Dark and unholy and twisted, she can picture children crying to that laugh. His eyes, she finds, appear to be a dark coal color - she sees right through the contacts to see the deep carmine color hiding underneath. Oh.
Oh, she thinks, that's pretty.
Unknown to her, he sees her eyes flash with a similar red color when she looks at the name standing above his head in the way no ordinary man would. Beyond Birthday smirks.
(one dead girl walking, two dead mortals walking)
That's when Misa realizes that the Shinigami who were previously by her sides are gone - or maybe just out of her eyesight? Whichever it is, it makes her stomach drop. Leave the poor defenseless girl alone with the psycho why don't you.
"Help me you say? I think you might be able to, yes," there's no accent shining through his flawless Japanese, one would never guess him a foreigner from the looks of it - with that dark hair and plain features if not quite like those common in Japan, they're not so different that one would notice.
"Oh? Do tell, what do little boys who give themselves names need my help for?" She switches to English effortlessly, her native (one of two?) tongue unfamiliar even to her own ears.
If he's bothered or shocked by her comment, he doesn't show it - quite the opposite actually if that excited gleam in his eyes or that incessant laughter of his, is anything to go by.
"Oh, oh, oh you're an interesting one," a sharp canine digs into the flesh of his thumb. "So am I, I've been told."
"Really?" she goes back to Japanese when he does, eyes not willing to part with his form, from where he is still sitting crossed-leg on her bed, even as she wants to search the area for Gelus. "That's nice, what do you want?" Honey and spite drip from her tone.
He doesn't answer her question, instead, he asks one of his own.
"Do you know you have more than one name?" Shit, there's her taser and a knife in her nightstand, she's not sure she reach and open the drawer before he can reach her. "It's almost unnoticeable, almost gone and so blurred behind the first one I can't read it."
She smiles, cute and innocent and fake, "Really? How stran-" she drops the pretense when he stands up and raises an arm as if reaching for her. "Don't, stay back."
It's a warning, the only one she will give. Unarmed or not.
(she'll tear off his skin, she'll watch him bleed)
(she will do it because she can)
Chapped lips quirk up, vermillion eyes blown-wide with excitement, "You're right, sometimes I get too curious for my own good y'know? I should've just asked, what is it? Your name."
Misa sneers, "Mary, mother of Jesus."
"I grew up with liars you know, I don't like those very much." He's weirdly stable for someone so clinically insane, Misa however is seeing layer after layer being ripped away from her only to leave the terrible mess hidden underneath. "It would be such a shame, we've been getting along so well too..."
The world isn't ready for what's hidden, for the mess of flesh and twisted veins and marrow-deep insanity that is Misa Amane.
"Have we? Maybe I would agree if you told me what the fuck it is that you want," the young woman is everything sweet and pleasant to look at, she is not crude and her voice is not a low hiss that threatens retribution if she does not get what she wants.
Maybe, Misa thinks, it's time to be both.
"You're so pretty, I think L would like you - with those eyes and that sharp tongue. So sad, that I got to you first isn't it?" She wants to tell him that L does not scare her and that he does not either.
(they're the ones who should be scared, this little fucker needs to stop trying to intimidate her)
She lets him think that the way she takes a step back is out pf fear and not just a way to angle herself better towards her nightstand, she hums, "Very sad, almost as sad as little boys who let jealousy - " her breath catches in her throat, feeling fingers splay over her shoulder, so very close to her neck. He's so close, an arm's length's away at most.
"Don't speak of what you don't know," there's a flash of teeth, almost manic anger shining through his expression. Gotcha.
(she's still little red riding hood, he is still the wolf to her story)
She licks her lips as they turn upwards at the corners, much like a predator would.
"I'm sorry, did that hurt your feelings?" long fingers drift closer to a pale, swan-like neck, the one that belongs to her, "I won't speak about what I don't know," she's eerily calm then, comforting even and she gently puts a hand on the lean arm leading to the fingers brushing her jugular.
(her hood is made of the fur of more dangerous beasts than he, dripping with blood)
Lean but far from weak, she feels the strength hidden there, the hard lines of muscles, and the pale scars on his arm.
Was this man ever really in prison?
His face is different than what she imagines L's might be like, "I'll talk about what I do know. Like how your numbers are running out and how you do not scare me, Backup. I'll talk about dead little girls you murdered and dead little letters I'm not sure you did kill."
She uses his forearm as leverage, rising on her tiptoes for her lips to brush the skin next to his ear. He stays still, incredibly so, it's impressive really.
He could try and wring her neck, she knows he wants to. "I don't care if you did kill him," she takes a leap and assumes another one of Whammy's finest is, shocked gasp, male. "But you didn't, did you? No, you blame L for it - I am curious, how did he die Beyond? Did you see?"
There are fingers wrapped around her neck, tightening ever so slightly as they tug her away from him roughly. Despite the fire burning in his dark-red eyes, he's still capable of self-restraint. Wow, he really is nothing like how I imagined. Misa almost laughs and it must show because he snarls.
This time she does laugh, gleeful and unrestrained. She is flames licking at his skin, bright and drop dead gorgeous - you almost don't see the burn, the pain, until it hits you.
Right, she thinks as an afterthought, the unhinged are usually frowned upon.
She doesn't doubt that 'nothing like one would imagine' also applies to her, you're supposed to be dead, she wants to say, wants to scream it at his face and tear at the skin there.
Why isn't he dead though? Beyond birthday was killed at the start of 2004 - she's sure of it, she's even written it down somewhere, he was killed by Kira and despite her earlier words, his lifespan is in fact quite long. Why is that?
(oh, it's so simple isn't it?)
He wasn't killed by Kira at all, a heart attack so she had assumed that was it but - anyone with a death note could have done it.
She'll overrule the possibility of a natural heart attack because of his young age, although all of that jam could have set up conditions for a bad state of health and she wouldn't pass it up for someone wanting for Kira to take the blame for something that only looked like a heart attack, she remembers a particular pharmaceutical that could basically simulate one -
(no, she needs to stop, conspiration theories aren't sexy)
"Was your name ever released in the media?" the fingers around her throat stop squeezing and she does not bother with her face going back to its previous cream coloration instead of the red bordering on purple it had become.
A curious brow is raised, "No, L didn't want anyone tying me back to him or Wammy's. With his new plaything, this Kira, he made sure of it. Both him and that old man can be quite nostalgic at times."
Greenish eyes blink with renewed wonder, "You escaped a while ago, didn't you? That's...oh that explains it."
He disagrees and yet lets her slip out of his grasp, eyes wild and hair just a bit tousled from the rough treatment from earlier. No name released, no Light Yagami. Canon!Misa did not have the Shinigami eyes yet, not even a death note.
Someone had to see his name.
Assuming one does not consider exterior meddling or freak incidents that would only leave Shinigami, wouldn't it be so very funny for such a thing to happen?
Now what she wants to know is whether it was a mean's to an end, a Shinigami adding to its lifespan, or if it was more?
(wouldn't the first one be just delicious, poetic even?)
She thinks of a boy who burns like the one who got too close to the sun, who plummeted down to the sea with no longer solid bronze wings. The one who spoke of genetics and dropping eyeballs to the human world like notebooks - how crazy they must all seem like, them who are written in this twisted fairytale.
(a mean's to an end - nothing in the grand scheme of things)
"Ever going to tell me what's your endgame? Oh, no wait, don't," Beyond Birthday's dark eyebrow twitches at the girl's easygoing attitude. "I'd rather we do it over coffee, my parents will be back soon."
"Asking me on a date pretty girl?" The twist of his lips testifies of dark amusement and something like intellectual curiosity. "How scandalous."
If madness had a face, she decides, it would be his.
From the way, his eyes darted from left to right as to inspect every little detail of her room, to said eyes almost constantly being as wide as dollar coins. How he would laugh without any inhibitions when she did something to amuse him or how his eyes would roll to the back of his head in pure pleasure when he stuffed his face with pastries dripping with jam.
The man had insisted they buy the one you find in groceries since she didn't have some at home and bring it into the coffee shop where they had taken residence.
Her eyebrow twitched when she felt numerous pairs of eyes on the two of them, God what had she been thinking, wanting to go in a public space with him?
The fact that I'm more worried about appearances than my safety when in the company of a serial killer says a lot about the kind of person I am, she thinks in a rare moment of self-reflection.
"Aren't you with that other girl today, hun?" The pretty waitress she had become familiar with in the last few months smiles down at her as she pours the girl her second cup of coffee, sending a suspicious look to her companion who licked jam from his fingers without any shame.
Misa could've died.
She likes this one, the woman's whose name didn't match her nametag, and the feeling deepened at the genuine concern.
The blonde shook her head, "Not today, we'll probably swing by later this week though, there's this concert nearby we'll be going to and I always need a pick me up after those."
The woman in her late thirties' face lit up and it was like she had lost ten years of lines on her face, "Oh I heard about that, my daughter adores the group's singer."
Misa grinned, making small conversation with the woman and mouthing I'm fine, don't worry in the middle of it. Nana, whose name is not actually Nana, takes her leave soon after, impatient men sitting at a nearby table motioning her over.
"What do you think is her story?" She raises a brow as Beyond Birthday puts down his beloved jam to stare at the woman's retreating back. "I'm betting she arrived in Japan with her daughter to escape a warring country, the jury's still out on whether or not her papers are valid, and by the jury I mean me."
The one with the Nana nametag has skin darker than what is common in Japan and the colorful beads braided into her hair catch quite a few eyes. "Plenty of people don't have their real names on that, it keeps away creeps."
She knows she did, the manager at her old job encouraged it even - Sarah always took great care of her girls. I should come by tomorrow, it's been so long, if someone had told her she would be missing the job she had to quit towards the end of the second semester to make more time for her studies, Misa wouldn't have believed it.
Newland's had grown on her, despite the coffee stains everywhere on her uniform and asshole customers.
He laughs, unnaturally sharp canines catching the light coming from the huge window right next to their table, "You have no imagination whatsoever. Come on, give me something."
A pale brow shot to her hairline, "Okay, I say she's hiding from...a psychotic ex-husband, some control freak who's trying to find her and their daughter."
"Good one," he nods and jerks his chin in direction of an elderly man with a seemingly everlasting lifespan despite his fossil-like appearance. "Him?"
"He was a...detective, left the farm that belonged to his parents for the city sixty-something years ago." the two go at it for a while, cooking up wild theories.
He is just telling her about some teenager being a second cousin twice removed of the queen's when she cuts him.
She puts a hand on his arm, he's surprised at the contact and she watches as muscles ripple underneath skin - as if he was ready to reach over the table and wring her neck. (she wants him to try, wants to see what he looks like when he does so)
Much like Gelus or Rem, this man looks like poorly contained force, like a storm in a bottle - one full of cracks and ready to fall apart completely.
He is devastation and hate (so much of it) and death, all of it wrapped into human flesh.
Perhaps, Misa lips twitch into a small and almost hesitant smile, that's what is so terrifying.
With her two Shinigami friends, it's otherworldly. They demand attention by looks alone, they have a (somewhat) logical explanation to the presence they have, the one they impose.
Beyond Birthday is...human, painfully so, he is also calamity.
Mortal, but with a shadow casting over the world even once truly dead and buried.
Crazy, yet she has never seen a man so clear of mind. Then again, the world had gone mad long before the likes of BB and herself walked upon it.
(contradictions, one has to appreciate their irony)
"You still with me?"
Her grin matches that of a pop idol, of girls wearing short skirts on huge panels in the busy streets of Tokyo, pearly white rows of teeth on display. "Always."
"That's a dangerous thing to promise, doll." Oh, she's not sure she likes that nickname - her temper almost rears it's ugly head. Misa is never ever even remotely ugly and so she cocks a brow, fingers ghosting her pursed lips.
"I disagree," the half-lie slips out easily. She believes in promises of always, but there's only one person she's ever promised always. (the other two are the ones to have birthed her and it's to herself she promises it) "Always is easily solved with a knife to the gut."
She passes her tongue over her front teeth, searching for cookie crumbs, fingers easily brush over his forearm to slip between his own over the table. She's the perfect picture of innocence, of the blushing virgin falling for the bad boy with the dark past, her words quiet enough so no one notices a thing.
It startles a laugh out of him, a manic, incredibly pleased laugh.
She bats her eyelashes and contemplates on how easily this man has killed before, on how he drugged and choked men with ropes and ripped off limbs.
(it's strange, how tiny details stand out and yet...)
For the life of her she cannot remember why he did it.
No, that's not right, she does know why he built the case the way he did.
"You hate him so much," she whispers the letter so quietly even she does not hear, L. Misa can practically feel the resentment ooze out of him, "So much you do not want to kill him, you never have, you want to ruin him. So there's nothing left of him, nothing left to say."
The victims however, it tugs at the back of her head and she curses herself for not remembering, the victims she does not get. She's read about it, the Wara Ningyo Murders as they call it in L.A, how the killer had been unhinged and chosen his victims at random with only letters as a pattern.
(no...that's not right)
Whatever, she'll figure that one out another day.
It's a pity, how those around them cannot see the way burgundy eyes flash with a brief surge of...it's not quite anger, but perhaps close to it.
What's the word again?
(determination, contempt)
His lips curl down with disgust and he doesn't try and hide the expression, the loathing. She's a better actress than he is, he never tries to act or hide his quirks or his disturbing laugh. It leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.
"A case impossible to solve, one so intricate even the great L cannot manage to figure out," in other words, she thinks, defeat.
Oh, how Beyond must hate this man so, this childish man who values victory over his own life.
"Y'know...I do wonder about your previous attempt," the one that failed, the one who got him sent to prison. "Misora's talented, why hand her the clues like that? Had something to prove maybe? Now that's not nice, well I guess you did pay for underestimating her enough already."
Features harden, a marble statue as memories of his own murder case surface.
(Believe Bridesmaid's face turns a deep purple, eyes bulging out of their sockets as the rope tightens and tightens - )
(Quarter Queen falls without a sound, a puppet with her strings cut)
(Backyard Bottomslash is a failure, she dies before she can lose a second limb - )
"Oh?" He had never thought someone could surprise him more than L, and the name is spat out with disgust even in the confines of his mind, yet Amane Misa has managed to surpass the widely known detective in less than a few hours of knowing him - and granted, of him following her around for a few more hours.
What can he say? She caught his curiosity, or at least Misora's, and in a brief moment of boredom (men, fate will laugh, are all the same) he decided to remedy that curiosity.
For such an extraordinary girl, she leads such a boring life - so boring he almost gave in to the temptation of just killing her to see if that would make her more interesting. Her screams, he had been sure, would be almost as pretty as the human-shaped disguise she wore, the one he wanted to cut open.
(what would she look like, taste like, he wonders as overly sweet jam coats his tongue)
Then, she got home from a boring lecture and boring trip to the grocery store. She got home and started talking to what seemed to be an empty space.
Something in Beyond's stomach had fluttered, (love, he had theorized when he remembered Wammy's lesson on hormones and feelings - as if their caretakers cared that only about 22% of the geniuses living there would ever actually understand those basic lessons)
It took every bit of self-restraint to not crawl out of the ridiculously large wardrobe he had been hiding in, incredibly wide eyes watching the girl work on some papers as she talked to something his eyes could not see, (his eyes, not seeing! the notion sent a shiver of excitement down his spine) in the direction of her bed.
As she babbled on about one thing or the other like one does when in the company of a friend. From weekend plans to the Kira case to that one friend of hers, it was enough to get him hooked on her.
(even now, with her so close and their fingers still locked in a lovers' hold, he cannot make out the blurred name that he knows is hers)
Yes, Misa Amane had been so much more interesting than what he had first thought - it almost send Beyond into another fit of laughter.
His (redredred) eyes itch.