Disclaimer: Me no own.


"But Kat-chan would look cute in the black one!"

"Misa, for the last time, I don't wear skirts."

"But you were wearing one at Toudai!! Misa saw you!"

I'm going to fucking kill that panda… Katherine thought, feeling a muscle in her cheek twitch in reflexive irritation. L, you are so dead.

After an hour in the same room with Misa, she had already started on Katherine about her band t-shirt and jeans. Katherine had put up with Misa doing her hair into the same type of pigtails that Misa wore, and she had put up with the red eye shadow and rose-colored lipstick. However, she was working on the Kira investigation team. She refused to dress in a freaking Gothic Lolita outfit while working on a serious case. Absolutely refused.

"But Kat-chan, Misa-Misa will be sad if Kat-chan doesn't just try on the skirt…" Misa pouted. "Pleeeaase?"

"Fine…" she said. Just that simple word made her flinch. "But I'm only trying it on and–"

"Yay!! Now Misa just has to find a good pair of stockings and some nice jewelry and a matching shirt! Kat-chan's boots are already good, so they should go, but Misa might have to redo Kat-chans make-up after she changes and and…"

Katherine tuned the rest of Misa's ranting out, taking the ruffled skirt from Misa and nodding occasionally. She knew that if she didn't agree, Misa would just tie her to a chair or something until she did. Misa was her friend and everything, yeah. Katherine just wasn't sure why Misa was her friend.

This was going to be a very, very long surveillance period.

An hour later, after a complete refinish on her make-up and her hair, as well as a few black streaks added into her hair with washable dye, Misa pushed Katherine in front of a full length mirror.

"See see see?? Misa-Misa told Kat-chan it would be cute!!"

Katherine looked at the frilly red and black corset top she had been forced to wear. She attempted to pull it up over her cleavage a little more, but it was no use. It was meant to be that low cut. The skirt was far too short for her taste, not to even mention the fact that she did not wear skirts. Then there were those fishnet stockings with the flowery-looking designs that made her want to cringe, along with the matching arm warmers that trailed all the way up her arms and to her shoulders with the leather, elbow length ones over top of them. The only thing about this outfit that she liked was her boots. Her own boots. She particularly detested the choker necklace she was made to wear. She didn't like having any necklaces around her neck, particularly not chokers.

That muscle in her cheek started ticking again. She wanted to carve that muscle out of her cheek. She knew that Misa was going to use her as a life size Barbie doll when she was told she would be staying with Misa. She just knew it. Katherine hated the regular sized Barbies enough. She used to chop their heads off as a young girl, which she often got in trouble for at her orphanage.

"Okay," Katherine said in a choked voice in response to Misa, looking in absolute terror at her own reflection in the mirror. She let out a small, involuntary whimper. "Please let me change back into my clothes now."

"No!! It's cute, why doesn't Kat-chan just wear it for today??"

She sighed resignedly. "Alright…" she said. "Looks like I'm not working with the investigation team today."

"Why not?" Misa asked, tilting her head sideways. "It's cute. I think it really suits you." She nodded.

No it's not you look like a fecking hooker change NOW you bleedin' idiot!!

Katherine managed to ignore the various voices in her head that were screaming at her at the top of their metaphorical lungs. One of them pressed that button that made that one muscle in her cheek jump again.

"I can't focus on a serious investigation when I'm dressed like this, Misa," she said. "I just can't."

"Awwww, you're no fuuun…" Misa pursed her lips and stomped one of her feet on the ground in the manner of an upset child. "Misa thinks Kat-chan needs more opinions so Kat-chan isn't so self-conscious about it!"

"No!" Katherine yelped. "N – no… Kat-chan doesn't need any more opinions, Misa. Trust me. She doesn't."

"Yes she does! I'm calling them and telling them to unlock the door!"

Misa ran over to the phone in their room before Katherine could stop her. Katherine groaned, backing herself into the wall and sitting there with her arms wrapped around her knees as she listened to Misa talk to whoever had picked up the phone over there.

"Misa-Misa and Kat-chan want to come into the other room. Could Matsuda-san please open our door? Thank you, Matsuda-san!"

Katherine let out a fake sob as Misa ran back over to her. Misa crossed her arms and looked down at Katherine.

"Come on!" she said. "Kat-chan has to get up! Please??"

"Kat-chan is going to die of embarrassment," Katherine said, tilting her forehead onto her arms. She felt both of Misa's hands seize her arm and start pulling on it.

"Come on, Kat-chan!" she whined. Katherine heard the lock click and the door open. She groaned again. "Kat-chan needs to help the investigation team!"

"Mattie!" she said loudly, her voice muffled by her arms encircling her head. "I need to borrow your gun!"

"Wh… why?" came a confused voice in return.

"So I can kill myself before I have to die!"

"Wha– oh." She heard an amused laugh. The muscle in her cheek went off again. If this kept up, that muscle twitch was going to be a permanent handicap. "Playing dress-up?"

"Yes!" Misa said. Katherine sighed in relief when she felt Misa's hands leave her arm. "And Misa-Misa keeps telling Kat-chan she looks cute but Kat-chan's being self-conscious!"

"I look like a hooker!" she said loudly, her voice muffled by her knees.

"Kat-chan won't leave the room and get second opinions like Misa suggested."

Katherine sniffed loudly. "I don't want people to see me like this. I look ridiculous."

"Well… you can't make her leave," Matsuda said uncertainly.

Hah. He obviously didn't know Misa very well yet. Misa could force an elephant into a refrigerator if she set her mind to it. Of course, Katherine was equally stubborn. She supposed that was part of why she and Misa were friends.

"Yes Misa can!"

"But–"

"Leave the door unlocked, Misa-Misa and Kat-chan will be out soon!"

He laughed. "Alright."

Katherine felt the vice-grips that were Misa's hands latch onto one of her arms again and attempt to wrench it away from her leg. She held on tighter. "I shall not be moved!"

"Matsuda-san," Misa said. "Will you help Misa-Misa?"

"Mattie, if you help Misa I'm going to remove your arm."

Misa looked back at Matsuda. He blinked a few times, and then backed away a couple of steps. "Sorry," he said. "I've seen her in kill mode before. It scares me."

"Misa in kill mode will scare you, too," Katherine assured him, finally looking up.

He laughed. "Make-up too?"

"Yes," she said through gritted teeth, her eyes turning to ice.

"The blush really brings out your homicidal stare, you know," he said.

"I'm not wearing any blush…" Katherine grumbled, her cheeks turning redder. She didn't even realize she had been blushing in the first place…

"Good idea!" Misa said cheerfully. "If Matsuda-san keeps saying things like that, Kat-chan will chase him out into the main room!"

"Where Mattie will then get attacked and most likely murdered!" Katherine said in a sardonically cheerful manner.

"Ah… yeah…" Matsuda said, scratching the back of his head as he backed away a few more steps. "I like being in one piece, so… yeah."

Matsuda turned and walked back out into the main room, leaving the door open as Misa had asked him to. The rest of the team looked at him oddly.

"Misa made her play dress-up," he explained. "Now Misa's trying to get her to leave the room, since she's sitting on the floor in the fetal position and contemplating suicide. Misa told me to leave the door open. I don't want to die, so I did."

"About time karma hit her," Aizawa said.

"Shut up Afro Samurai!" came Katherine's yell from the other room.

"Stop calling me that!"

"It's either afro samurai or gangster cop! Take your bloody pick!"

Matsuda started to laugh, but quickly stopped when he saw the glare Aizawa was giving him.

"Let me goooo…"

"No! Kat-chan has to go–"

"Please… I need to change clothes, I look like a bloody prostitute!"

"No Kat-chan does not! Stop saying that!"

"Yes I do!"

"Sh… shouldn't someone stop them before they get into a fight or something?" Light suggested uncertainly.

"If we get in the middle of it, we'll get killed," Matsuda said. "And I'm not exaggerating. If we take sides with one of them, then the other'll kill us."

"I'm in agreement with Matsuda-san," L said, taking a bite of the cake in front of him. The entire team couldn't help but gape a little, even Matsuda. They were all thinking the same thing: since when did L start agreeing with Matsuda? "If we separate them, they'll turn against us, which will make working on the case more complicating. They will solve this on their own."

"I don't want to!" Katherine's voice yelled from the next room.

"Eventually," L added.


It took almost two hours, but Misa managed to pry Katherine off of the floor and drag her by her now gloved arm (Misa thought that her leather elbow length arm warmers and her fishnet arm length ones would look simply adorable with the outfit!) into the main investigation room, where Katherine took a seat in the corner and glowered at Misa or anyone who would so much as glance over at her. When she remembered it wasn't Misa's fault about five minutes later, she switched the main subject of her glaring to L. He was the one who had put her in a room with Misa. That was just twisted. And evil. She was going to find some way to get him back.

The way Katherine was looking at L was beginning to scare him a small bit. He had never seen so much malice and utter evil in a pair of eyes before, not even when Light had been Kira and he had gone into a state of permanent Kira-glare while in confinement. She was obviously angry. He had expected her to be slightly angry about the arrangements, but he had never expected it to come to this. Had he let a Kira suspect (while he didn't suspect her, two members of the team did, so he did have to pretend to suspect her) roam around freely while he had chained another to himself just to keep an eye on him, there would have been either questions raised about just how he looked at her or – if he dared for even a moment to think in the same way as her – what the relationship between himself and Light truly was.

L didn't think she would actually let Misa do something so… demeaning was a word that came to his mind. She really had no reason to be ashamed, but considering her attitude, she would be anyway. And she would want revenge. That's what that glare meant. It meant that Katherine didn't blame Misa for this torture. She blamed him. He wasn't sure what idea she would come to, but it was obviously going to be mortifyingly painful and possibly traumatizing. It wasn't so much the glare itself that scared L. It was the fact that he knew the mind behind those eyes was thinking up some maddeningly frightening form of revenge to use on him. He wasn't one to care what people thought of him, but he was sure that she would be able to find some way to humiliate him as much as she felt she had been humiliated by Misa. Although, he still didn't entirely understand why she felt so mortified. He agreed with Misa – for the first and probably the last time ever – that the outfit did suit her rather well.

Katherine had later refused to return to her room with Misa, claiming that she was going to sleep on the floor in the main investigation room in the outfit she was in. It wasn't until after midnight that everyone fell asleep except for herself and L. This made him extremely nervous, particularly when she stood up from her corner for the first time in hours and sat next to him on the couch he had been sitting on. And glared.

"You deserve a very, very painful death," she said venomously. "Very, very painful."

He blinked a few times. "Are you going to kill me?"

She glared a bit more. "No. Because you deserve to live through the torture and let it be served as a reminder of what will come to you when you force people to live with Misa Amane."

"You mentioned that you were friends with her in the past."

"I already said this once. Light is willingly her boyfriend and even he can barely stand her!"

"Then, I wonder, why is she your friend if you dislike her so much? With what I concluded from my research, it seems that in order to be friends with a person, one must actually be able to stand being in the same room with them for a few hours."

She sighed. "You wouldn't understand…."

"What wouldn't I understand? I may have only one friend, but I believe I understand the requirements one needs to meet to be a friend."

"And forcing them to live with Misa Amane is not one of those requirements," Katherine said through gritted teeth, crossing her arms. She winced slightly, letting her arms down to massage her ribs. "This thing is about to snap me in half…" she said, looking down at the corset she was wearing. "Just have to get used to it, I suppose…"

"Why would you wear it again?"

She gave a hollow laugh, but quietly, so as not to wake anyone up. "This isn't the end. There will be more torture for me to endure. I mean seriously, if you were living with Misa, she'd probably force you to play dress-up with her."

Trying hard to get the disturbing and rather nauseating image of himself in one of Misa's Gothic Lolita outfits out of his head, he looked over at her. "I feel very bad for you."

She sighed at the sympathetic expression in his eyes and moved closer to him, picking up his arm (she had luckily sat down on his left side, where there were no chains to worry about) and laying her head against his shoulder. He rested his arm over her shoulders.

"I'm still getting back at you…" she assured him quietly, "but you're safe for the moment." She nuzzled his shoulder and closed her eyes.

"It does suit you."

Katherine's eyes wrenched quickly open and she glared up at him. "I'm being nice. Don't start that."

"S… start what?"

Her eyes narrowed in concentration, then opened. "You weren't just taunting me?"

"No."

"And you're obviously not lying… if you were lying, you'd be agreeing with anyone but Misa…"

"That is definitely correct."

"Then Misa's right."

"Yes. This time."

She was quiet for a moment. She then breathed a sigh of relief. "Alright, it seems like the world isn't going to stop spinning. I don't think hell has frozen over, there's no flying pigs, and I don't hear any rain, so it's obviously not raining malted milk balls. That means that Misa can't possibly be right and you are just agreeing with her to tease me."

She shut her eyes, quite content with her conclusion. She heard the jingling of a chain, and then felt a hand on her cheek, tilting her head up. A pair of lips brushed against hers for a moment.

"I'm not just teasing you."

She smiled wickedly as she opened her eyes. "I guess that means you think I'd make a good prostitute."

"I– I didn't mean –"

"I'm just picking at you," she said teasingly. She reached one of her hands up into his hair, seizing a fistful of the black strands as she pressed her lips against his for a moment. "Which you'll be getting a lot more of in the future."

L sighed. "I only put you in the same room as Amane to keep the investigation team for getting suspicious in the case that I didn't put a Kira suspect under surveillance."

"And to get back at me for confusing you so much."

"That just turned out to be an unexpected advantage of the ordeal."

She glared at him again. Grumbling, she elbowed him in the side and moved away from him on the couch. As far as she was concerned, this would be an unforgivable offense until she could think up a good form of punishment. Something like this required grade-A revenge. Granted, it was pretty bad that he was going to be chained to an amnesic, homicidal megalomaniac, but he had brought that upon himself. That couldn't be considered punishment. She was going to have to come up with a really good plan.

L looked over at Katherine, but decided it would be best not to test her. There was at least a fifty percent chance he would suffer a near fatal injury if he did. Grumbling that she needed to get sleep, she stood up and walked to the door leading into her and Misa's room, which Misa had insisted on leaving unlocked in case Katherine wanted to come back. She was, though she would never admit it, grateful that Misa had the sense to do this. After shutting the door and locking it behind her, she walked over to the couch in the room and fell onto it, staring up at the ceiling. She didn't need sleep. She needed unbothered focus in planning.

Unfortunately, when the light turned on in the room, she realized her focus was going to be very bothered….


Not many comments on the last chapter /

Oh well. Thanks to the nice peoples who did :D

It seems like I'm getting nearly a thousand hits on this story every time I post a new chapter XD that's freaking awesome.

And (to Sparanda) it's not so much the word cactus as it is cacti themselves. But, it has to do with an inside joke with a long story involving a cactus fight and a rather amusing hospital visit that a friend of mine still hasn't lived down.

On a related note, the new word of the day is disestablishmentarianism.

It's like antidisestablishmentarianism, except minus the anti part.

This does not effect the word of the year, though, which is now officially blarghlbitz – thanks to Volital. And if you insist, I won't ask :( lol