Damn…he's got me… Light thought.

"There's no possible way you can win, Light Yagami," L said coolly.

Light bit his lip. There's got to be a way out. I'm smarter than him! I can finish on top! I always can!

Light let out an over-dramatic cry of anguish as "Fatality" flashed onto the screen. L tossed the game controller to the side.

"I told you I would win, Light-kun," L said, his voice monotonous, as usual. "By the way, your incessant over-acting will never get you a job, and your determination to win has raised the likelihood of you being Kira by two percent."

"Shut up or I strangle you, Ryuuzaki," Light snapped.

"I'd like to see you try, Light-kun." L jumped up from his typical crouched position, tensed and ready to fight.

The door flew open, and before either of the two could do anything, they heard a familiar trilling voice.

"Liiiiiiiiiiight-kuuuuun!!"

Both men closed their eyes and groaned softly as Misa came bounding in. She threw her arms around Light's neck and began showering his face with quick pecks. Light forced a smile.

"Hey, Misa," he said weakly. Damn you, Ryuuzaki, making me do this. At first I was mad because you made me use her, but THIS…this is what hell must be.

Similarly, L was thinking, Poor Light Yagami. I actually feel a little bad for making him do this. Plus…Misa Amane tends to give me headaches…I'm going to have to ask Watari to buy some more ibuprofen…

Misa finally stopped kissing Light's face and looked over at L, who was still tensed for battle. She glared at him.

"What were you planning to do to Light-kun?" she asked, her high voice slightly shrill in anger.

L relaxed into his normal slouch. "I was going to do nothing, Misa Amane. Light-kun and I were simply getting competitive over a game."

"Yeah, Misa. Totally normal," Light assured. Misa huffed angrily.

"Well, you don't see me getting into fights over video games, do you? Misa doesn't play video games period! They're stupid and addictive and they don't help you at all. I don't believe that stuff on hand-eye coordination. Oh, but Light! Did you hear? Someone saw the movie I was just in and told me I was great in it! And why didn't you call me? I've been waiting all day and not a word! I was afraid Ryuuzaki was holding you hostage! And, anyway…"

Misa continued to talk away animatedly. Light closed his eyes.

Here we go…she's going to keep talking for three hours about things I don't care about. It's amazing that she finds the time to breathe…

L chewed on his thumb nail as he watched Misa chatter on and on and on. She suddenly glared at him.

"Ryuuzaki, couldn't you give us a moment alone? I mean, really! You're such a pervert, I swear! You wouldn't know the meaning of privacy if it was shoved in your face! You really need to get yourself a girlfriend. Oh! I know this girl who would totally love to go out with you! Maybe…"

L's eyes steadily unfocused until he was almost cross-eyed. Misa Amane could be quite annoying at times.

Well, as long as she doesn't commence the "Misa-Misa-friendship-circle-of-joy-and-love" again, we should be fine, he thought.

"And your thumbnail must be hideous! You chew on it all the time! That's bad for your teeth, you know! I don't know how they're so perfect, because you eat so much candy! Seriously, it's a wonder you're so skinny! People must think you're anorexic…"

Misa…please…just shut up…Light thought, closing his eyes.

Misa Amane makes Light Yagami seem like a quiet, reserved person…even when playing Mortal Kombat… L stopped biting his nail and said, "Misa Amane, why are you here?"

Misa stopped talking for a moment. "Can't I just have one moment with my boyfriend?! Or are you trying to keep him all to yourself?"

L's hand clenched into a tight fist, then relaxed. "Misa Amane, it was just a simple question as to why you are here. I feel that any jabs about how you believe I am homosexual are both childish and unnecessary."

Misa pouted up to Light. "Light-kun! Ryuuzaki's being mean again!"

Light looked up at L and quickly mouthed, "Was that mean?"

L shook his head. Light wasn't sure, but he thought he saw L roll his eyes. That was odd. L never rolled his eyes.

"Explain what I meant," L mouthed to Light.

Light nodded, then said, "Um…Misa?"

"Yes, Light-kun?" Misa asked, a trace of a pout still on her face.

"Um…Ryuuzaki said that he just wanted to know if you had a specific purpose on coming here…" Light looked back up at L, whose head jerked forward, urging him to go on. "And…he doesn't like it when you call him gay." L nodded in approval.

"Well, if he didn't keep you locked up to him all the time…" Misa took a hold of the handcuff's chain and shook it. "…then Misa wouldn't think that he was!"

"And you believe," L said, shuffling over to her, "that I would honestly have feelings for the man I believe is Kira?"

"Don't start with the Kira thing, Ryuuzaki!" Light snapped.

Possibility of Light Yagami being Kira: up by three percent, L thought. He glanced at Misa. Possibility of Misa Amane being the second Kira…well, I believe it's in the negative numbers right now…

"Misa Amane…" L began.

"What?" Misa asked, proceeding to latch herself onto Light.

"Don't you have a recording today?" L asked.

"What?! No, I don't!" Misa said. L looked up at Light, his dark eyes pleading for Light to play along.

"Misa, you don't remember?" Light asked. "You were so excited about it!"

"Huh?" Misa asked.

"Matsuda-san set it up for you," L said, shuffling toward the couch.

"Yeah. You were going to get a recording deal and release an album," Light said, his face bright with fake excitement. "Don't keep them waiting! Everyone wants to hear your beautiful voice!"

"Well…okay! But I'll miss you every second!" Misa quickly kissed Light's cheek, then ran from the room, slamming the door behind her.

Light sighed and walked over to the couch, where L was already perched. He flopped onto it and sighed.

"Damn you, Ryuuzaki…" he muttered.

"You have my utmost sympathy, Light-kun."

"If you were really sympathetic, then you wouldn't make me do this."

"True. But I do feel bad."

"You'd better be."

L unwrapped a piece of chocolate and bit into it, thinking.

"Light Yagami…"

"Yes, Ryuuzaki?"

"I do not like you."

"I knew that."

"And you do not like me."

"Obviously."

"But we both do not like Misa Amane."

Light sat up. "What do you mean?"

L shoved the remainder of the chocolate into his mouth. "Nothing. Just stating facts." He swallowed. "By the way, have you ever seen Misa Amane angry?"

Light arched an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"What annoys Misa Amane besides myself?"

Light shrugged. "I don't know. She flipped out once because she couldn't wear her makeup. Why do you want to know?"

"Evidence," L said quickly. Light snorted.

"Don't tell me you still think she's the second Kira," he said, laughing. L shrugged and began to bite his thumb nail.

"One can never be too careful," he said as he began forming a plan in his head. He stopped chewing on his nail and looked up at Light. "Light-kun?"

"Yeah?"

"You don't think I'm anorexic, right?"

Light snorted again. "With the amount of sweets you inhale? Of course I don't. Why?"

L hunched over and began chewing his nail again. "Just wondering."

Later that night, after Light was asleep, L dialed Watari's number. The phone rang, and L paced impatiently until he heard Watari's voice say, "Yes, Ryuuzaki?"

"Watari, could you please check the camera in Misa Amane's room?" he asked.

There was a pause on the other end, then he heard Watari say, "The camera is up."

"Is Misa Amane in her room?"

"Yes."

L began to chew his thumb nail. Drat…this will be more difficult than I thought… he thought, then said, "Thank you, Watari. That's all I needed to know." He hung up and began to think.

Hmm…there must be some way to get her out…if I think hard enough I could probably find a way… His eyes lit up as he formed a plan. Did she hear the voice I used when I called Matsuda? Probably not…still…I could change it a little…There's only a 2.8 percent possibility that she would know it was me…

Quickly, he dialed the phone number for Misa's room. It rang, and again he waited impatiently until he heard Misa's voice ask, "Hello?"

"Is this Misa Amane?" L asked, substituting his low monotone for a tenor, heavily-accented voice. He cringed. He sounded like an English Matsuda.

"Yes, who's this?" Misa asked.

"You're Misa Misa!" L exclaimed, his right eye twitching as he shouted excitedly into the phone. "I'm Peter Evans, leader of the Misa Misa fanclub in England! I took two years of Japanese just so I could talk to you!"

"Oh!" Misa was obviously flattered. "Are you calling from England?"

"No, I'm in Tokyo right now. I've saved up for years just to see you in person!" Kira…please, if you were ever going to kill me, now would be the best time…

"Awww! That's so sweet of you!"

"Um…Misa Misa, I was wondering…" L's voice became awkward and shy. "Could I…maybe…take you on a date? Tonight? If you're not busy, that is…"

"Misa loves to spend time with a fan!" Misa chirped.

"Great! The Ah-yah-may Café? Does that sound okay?" L cringed again at his horrible pronunciation of "Ayame". He was certain the spirit of his Japanese grandmother was going to come and strike him down at any moment.

"Of course!"

"Would you like me to pick you up?" L asked, fully knowing the answer to that question.

"Actually, my publicist doesn't want me to give out the name of the hotel I'm staying at. But I know where it is. I'll get him to drive me there."

"Okay! I can't wait to meet you!"

"Me, neither, Petah-san!"

L's lips twitched. Her accent would have been very cute if she weren't so annoying.

"So I'll meet you there?" L asked.

"Yeah! See you in a bit!"

L heard a click, then hung up the phone. He paused for a moment, then sank into a chair, fighting the sudden wave of nausea he had. "That had to be the single most sickening performance I've ever done," he muttered, his voice back to the low monotone.

A few minutes later, after watching Matsuda's car drive away from headquarters, L fished the key to the handcuffs from his pocket and unlocked the one from his wrist. After rolling his previously-trapped wrist around, he snapped the cuff around a bedpost.

"So you don't run away, Kira," L said to Light, who was still asleep. Just before getting walking out the door of the suite, he opened a drawer by the door and pulled out a lock-picking set, then, quiet as a cat, he snuck out of the room and down the hall. He smiled as he stuck the lock-pick into his pocket. "It would be terribly ironic if Misa was cautious enough to lock her door, but still foolish enough to go out with someone she's never met before."

And that soon proved to be the case, because, a few minutes later, L was busy picking the lock. He sighed.

"I'm far too smart for my own good…" he muttered to himself. "I ask Watari to create a high-security lock system, and then I decide I want to break in. I can't actually ask Watari to unlock the door, because then he'll wonder why I wanted to break into Misa Amane's room. Of course, he can probably see me on the cameras. Maybe it would be better if I called him…and stopped talking to myself."

L stopped picking the lock and took out his phone. He flipped it open, dialed Watari's number again, then held the phone to his ear. He sighed. This would be the last call; he had decided that he had made more than enough phone calls for one night. He heard a click, then Watari ask, "Yes, Ryuuzaki?"

"Just wondering…are you watching Light Yagami still?"

"Yes, Ryuuzaki. You gave me orders to watch him unless you said otherwise."

"Ah. Yes. Thank you, Watari."

"Are you feeling all right, Ryuuzaki?"

"Absolutely fine. Don't worry."

"You looked sick when you were in the room."

L cringed, recalling his phone call to Misa. "I suppose I may have actually eaten too many sweets. I'm feeling better right now."

"By the way, Ryuuzaki…where are you?"

L began to chew on his thumb nail. "The next room. Light Yagami talks in his sleep, and I find it annoying." This was true; L heard Light say at least one sentence every night, most of them including L himself. L could only deduce that Light was planning the detective's murder in his sleep.

"Of course, Ryuuzaki." Watari did not buy it. He was probably watching L trying to break into Misa's room right now.

"Thank you, Watari," L said, then shut his phone and sighed. He debated on calling Watari again, to explain what he was doing, but he would probably be chided for engaging in something so childish. But, without the explanation, L probably looked like a pervert. L shook his head. Watari wouldn't think he was a pervert; he would think that L was simply investigating. Then again…if he thought L was investigating, wouldn't he have offered to open the door? Maybe L was completely wrong. Watari was probably just watching Light, as he had been ordered to.

L nodded, his conscience at rest with this conclusion. He began to pick the lock again, but stopped.

What if he was wrong? What if Watari was watching him struggle with the lock? What if the older man derived joy from watching L attempt to pick a state-of-the-art lock?

No, that couldn't be it. L shook his head. He was being paranoid.

But what if he was right? On a ninety percent average, he was right with his first hunch, which meant that Watari was probably watching him.

No, no, there was still that ten percent, and Watari was always a special case. He was harder to read, so L's second assumption had an eighty percent probability of being right.

But there was still that twenty percent. And, as was stated earlier, Watari was hard to read, so he was probably watching L, because it wasn't like him.

But it wasn't like him to watch L, therefore, L should not worry.

But…

"Oh, the hell with it!" L cried loudly in English. Luckily, all the floors were sound-proof, so he wouldn't wake anyone up. He crouched down and continued to pick the lock, firmly telling himself not to care if Watari was watching or not.

Finally, after half an hour, L was able to figure out how to break into the room.

"Wedy…you are indeed a wonder…" L muttered as he opened the door. "To prove yourself to the Task Force, I think I'll have you break into the building. It certainly is a difficult task."

L peered around the room. Misa had left her lights on; evidently, she didn't care about the conservation of electricity. Quickly and quietly, he went to her bathroom.

"Watari's probably having a field day…" he muttered to himself. Feeling very awkward about the situation, he quickly grabbed a bag next to the sink and ran out of the room, leaving everything else exactly the same. He locked the door and closed it behind him. Mission Accomplished. He smiled and victoriously hummed a few bars of "God Save the Queen". (He always felt oddly patriotic when he had accomplished something, no matter if it were finding the answer to a riddle, solving a very difficult case, or breaking-and-entering.)

His rejoicing was cut short, though, when he heard the elevator ding behind him. He spun around in horror as the door began to open. For once, L panicked. This was bad. He did not want to be found out with this. As fast as he could (and L was very fast), he threw open the window and chucked the bag out. Not even bothering to watch it fall, he scrambled over to the stairway, running up the stairs three at a time.

Finally, he reached his and Light's room. He sighed as he leaned against the door, tired. Suddenly, his phone beeped at him. L automatically answered.

"Hello?" he asked breathlessly. Though he was in very good shape, he had just finished running up three stories, with each story having two flights of exactly thirty-two stairs, equaling one hundred and ninety-two stairs in all, in less than 5 minutes, all after being very frightened that he would get caught, so L was feeling a little worn out. Plus, on top of all this, he hadn't had any sugar in 4.382 hours.

"Ryuuzaki, I was just wondering why you were running up the stairs so suddenly. If you had called, I could have stopped the elevator and…"

L snapped the phone shut, cutting off Watari. "Damn it," he hissed. "I knew he had been watching." Suddenly very tired, L threw himself onto the couch. He was in dire need of some well-deserved rest.

"Ryuuzaki, why was I chained to the bed?" Light asked the next morning. "And why were you asleep on the couch? You never sleep."

"That is because you talk in your sleep, Light-kun," L said calmly, snapping his cuff back onto his wrist. "How do I get to sleep if I hear you babbling all night long?"

Light stared at the detective. "I sleep-talk?"

"Excessively." L walked over to the window, sitting in his swivel chair and unwrapping a strawberry lollipop.

Light was about to respond when there was a knock on the door. He started toward the door, but was stopped by L, not moving from his seat. "Come on, Ryuuzaki. We need to answer it."

"There's a 93.7 percent chance that it is Misa Amane," L replied, sucking on his lollipop.

"Misa? She doesn't normally come over until…"

"8:03 a.m." L took his lollipop out of his mouth for a moment. "However, if we wait just a mom—…"

"Liiiiiight-kuuuun!!" Misa wailed on the other side of the door. L stuck his lollipop back into his mouth.

"I rest my case," he muttered. "Still, I don't doubt her ability to break the door down, or have Matsuda-san do it for her." He got to his feet. "Open the door, Light-kun."

Light did as L said, and the door had barely opened a crack when it was thrown open and Misa Amane had her arms around Light's neck.

"Light-kun, Misa was robbed!" Misa moaned.

"What?!" Light gasped. He turned to L, who was calmly walking back to his swivel chair. Light untangled himself from Misa and ran over to L.

"Ryuuzaki, did you hear that?" he asked.

L sat down, not facing either of them. "Misa Amane, what did they take?" he asked calmly, looking out the window as he sucked on his lollipop.

"They took Misa's make-up," Misa said miserably.

L turned his head slightly to take a look at Misa. Her face was still pretty, but her eyelashes were not as long or dark as they normally appeared to be, her lips were thinner than usual, and not blood-red, either, she had a very slight outbreak of acne on her forehead, and the eyes behind stylish, rectangular black glasses were brown, not blue. L looked back out the window, sucking on his lollipop thoughtfully.

"I suppose there's a .34 percent possibility that someone could actually break into your room," he said. "But as to why they would steal your make-up, I don't know."

"It's because Misa's famous." Misa gasped. "Oh, my god! What if Misa has a stalker?!"

"No, I can assure you that no one has been in your room. If you do not believe me, call for Watari. He can call you and tell you if anyone was there," L said.

"Maybe you just misplaced it," Light suggested. "Tell you what, a little later, me and Ryuuzaki can go and help you look, okay?"

Misa pouted. "Okay…but I really don't think that I mis—Ryuuzaki, are you singing?!" she cried.

L spun around, his eyes wider than normal as he stared at Misa. "Misa Amane, do you really believe I would sing at a dire time like this?" he asked.

"Don't be sarcastic, Ryuuzaki," Light scolded.

"Who said I was being sarcastic?" L asked. "I am entirely serious."

Light rolled his eyes, then turned back to Misa. "We'll come check later. Just go back to your room and calm down, Misa."

"Okay, Light-kun…" Misa sighed, then went back out the door, which had never been closed. As Light closed the door, he could hear Matsuda as he walked Misa down the hall.

"Don't worry, Misa Misa! You're still really pretty, and Ryuuzaki'll catch whoever stole your make-up!"

Light rolled his eyes. "Matsuda really is an idiot." He heard a quiet melody, like someone singing very softly in a different language. Light looked over at L, who was still looking out the window.

"Hey…Ryuuzaki?

L did not respond. He twirled the stick of his lollipop between his long, thin fingers, smiling as he saw random pedestrians stop and stare at the expensive make-up splattered all over the sidewalk. Panicking had actually helped.

"Send her victorious

Happy and glorious

Long to reign over us:

God save the Queen."