A/N:

aiushtha: My dreams seriously are like that. Maybe I get high in my sleep? ;)

I don't own Death Note.

4. Tangle

Crunch. Crunchcrunchcrunchcrunch. GULP.

Misa watched in morbid fascination as Ryuzaki devoured his way across the table. After he had finished his little… (kind of cute, actually) panda things, he then moved on to a gigantic slice of strawberry cake.

How did he DO that? How did he not get sick?

Misa was a little jealous. She liked sweets, but could hardly indulge, due to her strict diet plan. Healthy food was good for you, it was delicious, it was… not nearly as satisfying as ice cream. Darn. Stupid Ryuzaki! He was probably eating all of those things to taunt her!

She moved her gaze to Light, who had been chained to the (lucky) detective. He was clearly rather bored with the whole affair, sighing as Ryuzaki dropped crumbs all over his lap and the floor. (And now he's making a mess in her room! He had better clean that up!)

"Ryuzaki," Light began, "we've had a fairly long break, wouldn't you say? Shouldn't we get back to the investigation?"

"I'm not done eating," came the reply, before Misa could protest. She relaxed a bit. Light rolled his eyes.

Finishing his cake, Ryuzaki moved to a bowl of cherries that had been placed in the middle of the table. Misa reached for one as well. Fruit was okay. It was pretty sweet, but whoever heard of someone getting fat from fruit? Moodily (Light hadn't spoken a word to her in the past 10 minutes), she plucked the fruit off the stem with her teeth, chewed, and delicately removed the cherry pit from her mouth, setting it down on a plate. But Ryuzaki, she noticed, had eaten the entire cherry. What the heck…?

He stuck his tongue out then. Resting on its tip was a tightly knotted cherry stem.

'PERVERT! Ugh!'

Although… she sort of wished she could do that.

"Teach me."

Ryuzaki blinked his (freakish) wide, dark eyes. "Hm?" Beside him, Light had raised an eyebrow (she couldn't do that either! But that was for another time).

"Teach me to tie a cherry stem like that." She pointed at her addressee.

"I'm not a very good teacher."

"You're smart enough," Misa pouted, folding her arms petulantly. "Figure it out." She sent a challenging stare at Ryuzaki. Light smirked.

"Very well, Amane-san. Put the stem in your mouth."

…

About half an hour later, Misa triumphantly plucked the cherry stem from her mouth. The ends were now twisted into a loose, fragile semblance of a knot. "I did it, Light!"

Light nodded. "Good job, Misa."

Glowing with Light's praise, Misa turned to Ryuzaki, who raised a questioning thumb to his lips. "Thank you, Ryuzaki!"

"You did well," he responded emotionlessly. "Keep practicing." Misa pretended not to notice Light's sigh of relief as Ryuzaki finally stood up, falling into his usual slouch. "Well then, we must get back to the investigation. Come along, Yagami-kun."

"Aww… bye, Light! Bye, Ryuzaki! Misa will practice a lot!"

"Bye, Misa."

"Goodbye, Misa-san."

Misa watched them leave the room, Ryuzaki leading the way. She smiled a bit. Sometimes, that guy was actually pretty nice.

And that's when she noticed that the crumbs were still on the floor. And the couch. And the table.

"RYUZAKIIIIIIIIII! MISA HATES YOU, YOU FILTHY SLOB!"

Watching through a monitor, Ryuzaki allowed a tiny grin to show.