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splinteredstarFandom: Death Note
Pairing: Eventual Misa/Light
Summary: Misa, she knew she was a silly sentimental girl, but Valentine's Day was still her favorite day of all. A series of seven one shots, over seven special days in her life. Spoilers through the whole series.
Rating: PG
Title: Blood Red Roses
Time: Early Manga
Misa is eighteen now, almost grown, and this will be her first Valentine’s day alone. The last few years have been with Alice, and before then with her parents – but she doesn’t think about them now, doesn’t want to. Even though the man that killed them is dead – she prays quietly to Kira in thanks – thinking about them still hurts. She’s alone this year, Alice hours away, and Misa is all on her own and all grown up, and Misa isn’t sure what to do. Her apartment is stuffy, suffocating and opening the windows doesn’t help, so she decides she’ll go out walking, hoping no one sees her.
Misa, she’s become famous and she’s not sure why. Misa is young and Misa is beautiful and Misa is charming, but Misa doesn’t know why that is enough for her to be blazoned on the street corners. But it is, apparently, and she’s slowly adjusting to fame. It’s not so bad, having millions of fans and getting letters of adoration, even if some of them get kind of creepy. Why does everyone think Misa is more flexible than she is? She shakes her head as she locks the door to her apartment, blond hair flying. It’s Valentine’s Day, and she is going to relax and not think about work.
She doesn’t want to be bothered tonight, not tonight of all nights, so her hair is straight and her makeup plain and she doesn’t look like herself at all. Most people only know her as Misa-Misa, blond curls and black lace, twisted together with velvet ribbon, so no one will know her in plain clothes. She has a path she knows well, and she walks down it without looking around much. It doesn’t have the best lighting, but it’s quiet and Misa wants to be left alone right now. Fame and all the attention it brings are nice but it’s exhausting.
Misa, her heels click against the street and the sound reassures her somehow, reminds her of the silence and the loneliness. She almost feels like sees being watched, still, but she always does even when she’s all alone. It’s the price of fame, she supposes, and she barely notices it now. The echoing silence reminds her that she is blessedly alone now. It’s nice, really, and she can feel her stress starting to melt away. The sounds of the night – laughter, clinking glasses and soft murmured words of adoration – slip out of open windows above her and down to her ears, making her smile even if the love isn’t for her. She doesn’t have anyone to murmur to her now, but she’s looking for him now.
Beneath the quiet sounds of romance and her own breath, Misa, she almost thinks she can hear footsteps behind her, but that has to be her imagination. No one ever walks this path but Misa, and she knows no one does, so it’ll be fine. Misa won’t be hurt, never has been, even when she should have been, even when it would have been right – but she doesn’t think about that man, dead by Kira’s hand. Misa, she believes in destiny and fate, she knows, is saving her for something important, someone important.
She knows she’s alone, so it’s an unwelcome shock when a voice calls out from behind her, young and male and unfamiliar. She turns, hesitantly to his voice, not afraid but, just maybe a little bit worried. She doesn’t know this boy, doesn’t even recognize his face, but some silly part of her mind is touched that he brought her roses. She tries to explain, like she’s explained so many times before to a hundred other boys, that it’s really sweet, but Misa-Misa can’t accept gifts from fans, and doesn’t he have some sweet girl waiting for him at home?
There’s something in his eyes that worries Misa, something that reminds her too much of a man she forced out of her memory, but Misa doesn’t run when the man steps closer, closer, too close. The roses have been tossed to the side, the red petals scattering on the ground like splattered blood, and the boy is staring in her eyes with a gaze unsettling. He’s way too close now, asking why they can’t be together forever, just the two of them. Misa, she steps back a bit and she’s starting to become afraid, because his voice is too earnest, too intense and Misa thinks she sees a knife in his hands. She doesn’t answer, just steps back a bit more, then more, and more until something in his eyes freezes her blood.
Something in his eyes shatters and he looks betrayed somehow, and he stares down at the knife in his hands as disbelieving as Misa. But then he looks up, and Misa is terrified now, because there’s destruction and desperation in those eyes. There’s the time of half a breath that Misa doesn’t take, and the man leaps at her, the knife flashing with her panicked reflection before pressing into her throat, and oh god is she really going to die? She can’t die, can’t, she still hasn’t found him, but the knife is against her throat and a gleam is in the man’s eyes as he whispers if I can’t have you no one can. Misa can feel the blade slipping into her neck and she can smell the blood mixed with his sweat and her tears. It makes her think of her parents and she wants to scream, but her throat is so tight she can’t even breathe.
The blade comes in a little bit closer, pressing deeper until her neck is just a stripe of pain, and she closes her eyes and asks god, asks Kira why, why, she’s going to die -!
The pressure is gone in an instant, and as she snaps her eyes open the man is stumbling back, clutching his chest. The knife clatters on the street and the man falls to the ground, and Misa knows, somehow, he’s dead. Misa, she finally breathes enough to scream, scream until her throat is stinging on the inside too, and only barely hears people rushing to help her as she looses sight.
She wakes up the next morning in the hospital, bandages on her throat, an I.V. line in her arm, and a slim black notebook waiting for her on the bedside table.
