'Break-In' (first of a five part series called Better Shinigami) Death Note Rem/Misa
b>Title: Break-In
Fandom: Death Note
Pairing: Rem/Misa
Prompt: Table One/Silver (Prompt 1) from 5_Prompts
Words: 2,545
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None, rating for talk of murder/death.
Summary: Misa was content just watching Kira and idolising him, until a black notebook appeared in her living room.
When Misa had heard the news, something had made her feel pleasantly warm. The man that everyone from the detectives to the courts had failed to bring to justice was finally rotting in his grave like those he’d killed. Perhaps she wouldn’t have cared about Kira at all had that not happened. If her parents were still alive and well and she was visiting them at weekends, and they were taking her to lunch after her modelling sessions and she was still carefully choosing birthday presents for them, well…she might not have noticed Kira much at all.
Misa-Misa did not do murder. Murder was not pretty or happy. Misa-Misa was always pretty and happy. Everyone said so. But ugly and sad things happened to Misa-Misa, which meant that she couldn’t be pretty and happy all the time, because the world was not pretty and happy all of the time. But maybe Kira could make it so. Maybe Kira could make it so more girls could still be spending Christmas with their parents, shopping with their mothers and having coffee with their fathers over breakfast.
So Misa supported him. She saved cut-outs of articles from magazines and newspapers, and stuck them onto purple craft paper so it matched the décor of her room. She lit candles for him and avidly watched television when he was on. It felt good, but she was fine with no active part in it. She had her modelling, and hopefully, soon, her acting. She would be twenty soon and the last thing she wanted was to be getting progressively less teen work and have that be the only work that she was getting. She wasn’t going to be joining any rallies and she really had no idea how he did what he did. Only that he did it.
Then, one evening, she’d come home from a particularly hard day’s work and collapsed on the sofa before removing her painfully new platform mary-janes. Among the bright covers of her magazines, she had noticed something different. It was a notebook and completely black which was unlikely for Misa. She liked black, but usually it would be trimmed with pink or silver or something to make it pretty. ‘Death Note’ was written on the front cover in katakana.
Misa dropped it, her blood running cold. Somebody had slipped into her apartment and had left it as a message. Another stalker. Had to be. The fear blanched through Misa as she fumbled for her phone. Her hands shook, making it hard for her long-nailed index finger to accurately dial for the police. Her eyes were filling with tears but the best she could do was phone the police and get out of the house. She didn’t want to be at knife-point again.
She got through, finally, her voice quavering as she reported the intruder. Somebody had left something on her table and she was the only one with a key and how did they get in. How did they get in? The voice on the other end was reassuring but distant. Everyone else was so far away, all over again. They might still be in her apartment. Come, please come, now, she pleaded down the phone. The woman’s voice on the other end continued to assure her. Empty reassurance, getting emptier by the second. It was okay, though, somebody was coming.
Misa hung up and let the phone drop from her hand, and sat with her knees against her chest. She listened, intently, and then readied herself. Still shaking, she got to her feet and padded towards the kitchen. There was a knife on the side that she’d used to slice vegetables for her lunchtime salad. It still glistened with the juice and a slight tangy smell still wafted as she grabbed, offering an odd sort of grounding comfort.
Still unsteady on her stockinged feet, she crept back into the living room and waited for a knock at the door or for somebody to come up behind her. The police would be there, soon. She glanced at the table, as if somehow the notebook would have disappeared. It was the strangest threat she’d ever received. This did not make it any less frightening.
“Do not be afraid, Amane Misa,” boomed a voice, suddenly. Misa screamed, and lunged with the knife. She ended up embedding it in an exposed bone which, despite being a leg bone, reached her shoulder. Misa knew she was little but it was rare that people had pelvises in her eye-line.
She looked up. It took a while for her mind to process the fact that she was staring at a ten foot tall skeleton. The scream that had been building up over the last half an hour finally erupted from her throat. She shut her eyes tight and waited for the fatal blow, and prayed that the police would get there in the next four seconds. Nothing happened and she opened her eyes.
The thing was standing there still as anything. Misa still felt a chill settle into her bones, but it really didn’t seem like the thing was ready to attack. The doorbell rang, and startled her. It was the police. Misa answered, and opened the door wide. If they could see the monster, she wouldn’t have to explain.
“It just arrived in my flat,” she said, eyes wide and voice quavering. The policeman blushed, but looked non-plussed.
“What did, Miss?” he asked, his voice slow and steady, as if he was talking to somebody who wasn’t quite sane.
“He can’t see me,” said the skeleton, its voice like rattling bones and wind rushing through dead branches.
“Oh...” Misa tried to think quickly, the expression of the policeman was that of a good-natured person who was prepared to subdue a crazy if need be. “Never mind. It was, um, a mouse, but it seems to have gone now.”
Before he could reply, she smiled briefly and sweetly and shut the door. She stood still for a minute. Was she going crazy? Was the stress from her career getting to her? She turned around at last. The thing was…even if it wasn’t going to attack her, it was still creepy. It felt a little like it shouldn’t be there, like its presence in this world, in her living room, was wrong. On the floor by its feet was the knife.
“I turned intangible,” said the skeleton. “You cannot hurt me that way.”
It must have been twice as tall as her, and seemed to be made entirely of bone without skin or muscle. When she had first seen it, she’d thought she’d seen a human skeleton. On closer inspection, it didn’t look like any depiction of a human skeleton that she’d seen. Its face was thin and white, almost skeletal but with visible lips and one yellow eye, the other hidden under a bandage.
“W-what are you?” she managed to say, at long last.
“I am a shinigami,” it had sharp little teeth. Misa grimaced. It did not seem to notice. “My appearance to you means that you have touched the death note. My name is Rem.”
Misa turned back to look where the book lay on the table among her colourful magazines. She walked over to pick it up.
“Yeah…what is that?” she said, opening it. “What does it mean, ‘those whose names are written in here will die’?”
“That is the first rule of the death note,” it continued, its eye trained on her in a way that made Misa feel awkward. Misa stared at the off-white pages, running the line through her head, until something occurred to her.
“Is this what Kira uses?” she said, forcing herself to meet the creature’s yellow eye. It stared back, reptilian.
“Yes, that human has one like it,” it said, after a pause. “Another shinigami dropped a death note and this human picked it up.”
Misa scratched her nails lightly across the surface of the book. It was a little rough to the touch, like it was old, but to look at, it was totally smooth. It was what he had, the weapon that was making the world a better place. Misa felt that same warmth of contentment. This was what was making everything alright again.
“It can use it to meet him,” she said, quietly. “If I do it right, I can use it to meet him.”
Rem was silent. There was something continually unnerving about the fact that it did not seem to breathe, even if she was getting used to the way it looked.
“To find out a person’s name,” said Rem, as if reciting something on prompt without energy. “There are the shinigami eyes.”
“The shinigami eyes?”
“These allow you to know the name and lifespan of any human, as long as you can see their face. The payment for them is half your existing lifespan. This cannot be returned to you, even if you give up your death note.”
Misa took in this information; obviously, cutting her life in half would mean that she would lose a lot. She was nineteen and her career was building. She was only a teen model, working young fashion and magazine covers, but she was working towards becoming an actress. Years of accolades should come with that. Perhaps she would get married and have children at some point soon. If she died, she might leave them behind. But then again, those children deserved to live in the place that Kira would create. If she died young then she probably didn’t have that much life left, anyway. And now that she had the means to help Kira, she definitely should. She’d think about it.
“Do you have lifespans?” she asked, then. It might force her to make the deal; she should probably try and distract it.
“Not like you do,” it replied. “We use the death notes to prolong our life spans by using yours. The death note will cut through your lifespans and whatever is left will be added to ours.”
Something instinctive curled in Misa’s gut at that.
“You pick bad people for that, right?” she asked, hopefully.
It fixed her coldly with its eye. “We pick anyone. Shinigami do not have much concept of wrongs and rights as you humans do.”
The thing curling inside Misa intensified, and she felt a little nauseous.
“…But, that’s awful…,” she stammered.
“Do you not eat meat? Do you make sure that the animals that you eat have done something wrong?” it said, its tone almost accusing.
“Those are animals. Humans are more important and sacrifices need to be made, anyway,” she reasoned. “…Kira - and me- we’ll use our death notes to only kill those who deserve it.”
The thing stared at her, thoughtfully. Misa knew she was right. Animals needed to be killed and eaten so humans could survive. The bad people and criminals needed to be killed, too, and they were no better than animals, anyway. She and Kira were better than them.
“Kira and I are going to be better shinigami,” added Misa.
* * *
Later, Misa tried to sleep but her body felt too restless. Usually, she was so tired after an intensive shoot like the one she’d had that day that she fell asleep soon after getting into bed. Perhaps it was the fear of a possible attack. Perhaps it was finding out how Kira really killed. Perhaps it was finding out that the way Kira killed was also how a race of death gods kept themselves alive by killing humans. Perhaps it was the fact that one of those death gods was watching her as she lay there, its one eye inhuman and almost glowing.
“Don’t you sleep?” she said.
It stared back, blankly. “We don’t sleep,” it said. “Although some shinigami like to do it as a hobby.”
“Well, can’t you try?” in Misa’s sleepless state, she felt the irritation growing. It would be good if this thing could just shut its eye or something. “It’s been a long, stressful day, and I am a model so I need my beauty sleep.”
“I don’t know how to sleep. As I said, it’s quite like a hobby for shinigami, like playing a sport or painting. Things you need to learn in order to be able to do. I’ve never learnt how to do it.”
Misa sighed and rolled over, feeling its eye on her back. “I’ll have to teach you, then.”
It said nothing.
“It’s just weird. I’m Misa-Misa, an innocent young girl. All the magazines say so. I’m not supposed to have a creepy guy staring at me whilst I sleep; even if it is a big skeleton thing that no-one else can see.”
“What makes you think I am male?”
“…Oh,” Misa flipped herself back over. “I hadn’t thought of that. I guess all species must have females so that they can breed. Even ones that aren’t cute.”
It -she- seemed to glower, then, although its - her - expression seemed to change, there was something in her eye that flickered somewhat, something that you needed to pay attention to. Or it might have been Misa’s imagination. But Misa knew that no girl liked to be told that she’s not cute.
“We don’t breed, either. We can’t. We do not have the reproductive organs to do so. We are immortal and some of us have been alive since before humanity. Not all of us even look as human as I do.”
Misa was about to tell Rem that she didn’t look human, anyway, but then something made it just not come out. It was a strange to be having a conversation with something that clearly didn’t feel the same way that a human being did. If Misa was feeling particularly bitchy, and said something sly to one of her model friends, then there would be something like a strained smile and a slight narrowing of the eyes, before a thinly veiled come-back. Rem didn’t seem like she’d have much reaction like that at all. It seemed almost pointless.
And now that Misa really looked at her, she did look quite feminine. Mostly in the face; although Rem was made of bone, she did not have a feminine delicacy, at all. But there was something in the angles of her face and the shape of her mouth that suggested her being female. It was only something you’d notice once you knew, but it was there. Perhaps in the shadows it was more obvious because lighting makes all the difference, as any model knows. In the front room in broad daylight, Rem had looked somewhere between bone-white and tomb-stone grey, but at the moment, she looked almost silver.
Misa felt tiredness begin to sink in at last, looking at the shinigami as her eyelids became heavy. Rem seemed more like some sort of magical creature, then, bestowing upon here the means to help Kira and save the world.
“Rem,” she said, her voice becoming drowsy. “I want the eyes.”
“Okay, then,” Misa wasn’t sure if she didn’t hear a hint of uncertainty in that ominous voice. “You can have them.”
There was a pinch in the back of her eyes as she nodded into sleep, uncomfortable but not painful.
Fandom: Death Note
Pairing: Rem/Misa
Prompt: Table One/Silver (Prompt 1) from 5_Prompts
Words: 2,545
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None, rating for talk of murder/death.
Summary: Misa was content just watching Kira and idolising him, until a black notebook appeared in her living room.
When Misa had heard the news, something had made her feel pleasantly warm. The man that everyone from the detectives to the courts had failed to bring to justice was finally rotting in his grave like those he’d killed. Perhaps she wouldn’t have cared about Kira at all had that not happened. If her parents were still alive and well and she was visiting them at weekends, and they were taking her to lunch after her modelling sessions and she was still carefully choosing birthday presents for them, well…she might not have noticed Kira much at all.
Misa-Misa did not do murder. Murder was not pretty or happy. Misa-Misa was always pretty and happy. Everyone said so. But ugly and sad things happened to Misa-Misa, which meant that she couldn’t be pretty and happy all the time, because the world was not pretty and happy all of the time. But maybe Kira could make it so. Maybe Kira could make it so more girls could still be spending Christmas with their parents, shopping with their mothers and having coffee with their fathers over breakfast.
So Misa supported him. She saved cut-outs of articles from magazines and newspapers, and stuck them onto purple craft paper so it matched the décor of her room. She lit candles for him and avidly watched television when he was on. It felt good, but she was fine with no active part in it. She had her modelling, and hopefully, soon, her acting. She would be twenty soon and the last thing she wanted was to be getting progressively less teen work and have that be the only work that she was getting. She wasn’t going to be joining any rallies and she really had no idea how he did what he did. Only that he did it.
Then, one evening, she’d come home from a particularly hard day’s work and collapsed on the sofa before removing her painfully new platform mary-janes. Among the bright covers of her magazines, she had noticed something different. It was a notebook and completely black which was unlikely for Misa. She liked black, but usually it would be trimmed with pink or silver or something to make it pretty. ‘Death Note’ was written on the front cover in katakana.
Misa dropped it, her blood running cold. Somebody had slipped into her apartment and had left it as a message. Another stalker. Had to be. The fear blanched through Misa as she fumbled for her phone. Her hands shook, making it hard for her long-nailed index finger to accurately dial for the police. Her eyes were filling with tears but the best she could do was phone the police and get out of the house. She didn’t want to be at knife-point again.
She got through, finally, her voice quavering as she reported the intruder. Somebody had left something on her table and she was the only one with a key and how did they get in. How did they get in? The voice on the other end was reassuring but distant. Everyone else was so far away, all over again. They might still be in her apartment. Come, please come, now, she pleaded down the phone. The woman’s voice on the other end continued to assure her. Empty reassurance, getting emptier by the second. It was okay, though, somebody was coming.
Misa hung up and let the phone drop from her hand, and sat with her knees against her chest. She listened, intently, and then readied herself. Still shaking, she got to her feet and padded towards the kitchen. There was a knife on the side that she’d used to slice vegetables for her lunchtime salad. It still glistened with the juice and a slight tangy smell still wafted as she grabbed, offering an odd sort of grounding comfort.
Still unsteady on her stockinged feet, she crept back into the living room and waited for a knock at the door or for somebody to come up behind her. The police would be there, soon. She glanced at the table, as if somehow the notebook would have disappeared. It was the strangest threat she’d ever received. This did not make it any less frightening.
“Do not be afraid, Amane Misa,” boomed a voice, suddenly. Misa screamed, and lunged with the knife. She ended up embedding it in an exposed bone which, despite being a leg bone, reached her shoulder. Misa knew she was little but it was rare that people had pelvises in her eye-line.
She looked up. It took a while for her mind to process the fact that she was staring at a ten foot tall skeleton. The scream that had been building up over the last half an hour finally erupted from her throat. She shut her eyes tight and waited for the fatal blow, and prayed that the police would get there in the next four seconds. Nothing happened and she opened her eyes.
The thing was standing there still as anything. Misa still felt a chill settle into her bones, but it really didn’t seem like the thing was ready to attack. The doorbell rang, and startled her. It was the police. Misa answered, and opened the door wide. If they could see the monster, she wouldn’t have to explain.
“It just arrived in my flat,” she said, eyes wide and voice quavering. The policeman blushed, but looked non-plussed.
“What did, Miss?” he asked, his voice slow and steady, as if he was talking to somebody who wasn’t quite sane.
“He can’t see me,” said the skeleton, its voice like rattling bones and wind rushing through dead branches.
“Oh...” Misa tried to think quickly, the expression of the policeman was that of a good-natured person who was prepared to subdue a crazy if need be. “Never mind. It was, um, a mouse, but it seems to have gone now.”
Before he could reply, she smiled briefly and sweetly and shut the door. She stood still for a minute. Was she going crazy? Was the stress from her career getting to her? She turned around at last. The thing was…even if it wasn’t going to attack her, it was still creepy. It felt a little like it shouldn’t be there, like its presence in this world, in her living room, was wrong. On the floor by its feet was the knife.
“I turned intangible,” said the skeleton. “You cannot hurt me that way.”
It must have been twice as tall as her, and seemed to be made entirely of bone without skin or muscle. When she had first seen it, she’d thought she’d seen a human skeleton. On closer inspection, it didn’t look like any depiction of a human skeleton that she’d seen. Its face was thin and white, almost skeletal but with visible lips and one yellow eye, the other hidden under a bandage.
“W-what are you?” she managed to say, at long last.
“I am a shinigami,” it had sharp little teeth. Misa grimaced. It did not seem to notice. “My appearance to you means that you have touched the death note. My name is Rem.”
Misa turned back to look where the book lay on the table among her colourful magazines. She walked over to pick it up.
“Yeah…what is that?” she said, opening it. “What does it mean, ‘those whose names are written in here will die’?”
“That is the first rule of the death note,” it continued, its eye trained on her in a way that made Misa feel awkward. Misa stared at the off-white pages, running the line through her head, until something occurred to her.
“Is this what Kira uses?” she said, forcing herself to meet the creature’s yellow eye. It stared back, reptilian.
“Yes, that human has one like it,” it said, after a pause. “Another shinigami dropped a death note and this human picked it up.”
Misa scratched her nails lightly across the surface of the book. It was a little rough to the touch, like it was old, but to look at, it was totally smooth. It was what he had, the weapon that was making the world a better place. Misa felt that same warmth of contentment. This was what was making everything alright again.
“It can use it to meet him,” she said, quietly. “If I do it right, I can use it to meet him.”
Rem was silent. There was something continually unnerving about the fact that it did not seem to breathe, even if she was getting used to the way it looked.
“To find out a person’s name,” said Rem, as if reciting something on prompt without energy. “There are the shinigami eyes.”
“The shinigami eyes?”
“These allow you to know the name and lifespan of any human, as long as you can see their face. The payment for them is half your existing lifespan. This cannot be returned to you, even if you give up your death note.”
Misa took in this information; obviously, cutting her life in half would mean that she would lose a lot. She was nineteen and her career was building. She was only a teen model, working young fashion and magazine covers, but she was working towards becoming an actress. Years of accolades should come with that. Perhaps she would get married and have children at some point soon. If she died, she might leave them behind. But then again, those children deserved to live in the place that Kira would create. If she died young then she probably didn’t have that much life left, anyway. And now that she had the means to help Kira, she definitely should. She’d think about it.
“Do you have lifespans?” she asked, then. It might force her to make the deal; she should probably try and distract it.
“Not like you do,” it replied. “We use the death notes to prolong our life spans by using yours. The death note will cut through your lifespans and whatever is left will be added to ours.”
Something instinctive curled in Misa’s gut at that.
“You pick bad people for that, right?” she asked, hopefully.
It fixed her coldly with its eye. “We pick anyone. Shinigami do not have much concept of wrongs and rights as you humans do.”
The thing curling inside Misa intensified, and she felt a little nauseous.
“…But, that’s awful…,” she stammered.
“Do you not eat meat? Do you make sure that the animals that you eat have done something wrong?” it said, its tone almost accusing.
“Those are animals. Humans are more important and sacrifices need to be made, anyway,” she reasoned. “…Kira - and me- we’ll use our death notes to only kill those who deserve it.”
The thing stared at her, thoughtfully. Misa knew she was right. Animals needed to be killed and eaten so humans could survive. The bad people and criminals needed to be killed, too, and they were no better than animals, anyway. She and Kira were better than them.
“Kira and I are going to be better shinigami,” added Misa.
* * *
Later, Misa tried to sleep but her body felt too restless. Usually, she was so tired after an intensive shoot like the one she’d had that day that she fell asleep soon after getting into bed. Perhaps it was the fear of a possible attack. Perhaps it was finding out how Kira really killed. Perhaps it was finding out that the way Kira killed was also how a race of death gods kept themselves alive by killing humans. Perhaps it was the fact that one of those death gods was watching her as she lay there, its one eye inhuman and almost glowing.
“Don’t you sleep?” she said.
It stared back, blankly. “We don’t sleep,” it said. “Although some shinigami like to do it as a hobby.”
“Well, can’t you try?” in Misa’s sleepless state, she felt the irritation growing. It would be good if this thing could just shut its eye or something. “It’s been a long, stressful day, and I am a model so I need my beauty sleep.”
“I don’t know how to sleep. As I said, it’s quite like a hobby for shinigami, like playing a sport or painting. Things you need to learn in order to be able to do. I’ve never learnt how to do it.”
Misa sighed and rolled over, feeling its eye on her back. “I’ll have to teach you, then.”
It said nothing.
“It’s just weird. I’m Misa-Misa, an innocent young girl. All the magazines say so. I’m not supposed to have a creepy guy staring at me whilst I sleep; even if it is a big skeleton thing that no-one else can see.”
“What makes you think I am male?”
“…Oh,” Misa flipped herself back over. “I hadn’t thought of that. I guess all species must have females so that they can breed. Even ones that aren’t cute.”
It -she- seemed to glower, then, although its - her - expression seemed to change, there was something in her eye that flickered somewhat, something that you needed to pay attention to. Or it might have been Misa’s imagination. But Misa knew that no girl liked to be told that she’s not cute.
“We don’t breed, either. We can’t. We do not have the reproductive organs to do so. We are immortal and some of us have been alive since before humanity. Not all of us even look as human as I do.”
Misa was about to tell Rem that she didn’t look human, anyway, but then something made it just not come out. It was a strange to be having a conversation with something that clearly didn’t feel the same way that a human being did. If Misa was feeling particularly bitchy, and said something sly to one of her model friends, then there would be something like a strained smile and a slight narrowing of the eyes, before a thinly veiled come-back. Rem didn’t seem like she’d have much reaction like that at all. It seemed almost pointless.
And now that Misa really looked at her, she did look quite feminine. Mostly in the face; although Rem was made of bone, she did not have a feminine delicacy, at all. But there was something in the angles of her face and the shape of her mouth that suggested her being female. It was only something you’d notice once you knew, but it was there. Perhaps in the shadows it was more obvious because lighting makes all the difference, as any model knows. In the front room in broad daylight, Rem had looked somewhere between bone-white and tomb-stone grey, but at the moment, she looked almost silver.
Misa felt tiredness begin to sink in at last, looking at the shinigami as her eyelids became heavy. Rem seemed more like some sort of magical creature, then, bestowing upon here the means to help Kira and save the world.
“Rem,” she said, her voice becoming drowsy. “I want the eyes.”
“Okay, then,” Misa wasn’t sure if she didn’t hear a hint of uncertainty in that ominous voice. “You can have them.”
There was a pinch in the back of her eyes as she nodded into sleep, uncomfortable but not painful.