Disclaimer! All fictional entities featured/ mentioned in this segment belong to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, as actors, if you will, in a semi-reenactment of the old fairy tale, "The Frog Prince." I say semi-reenactment because this version deviates considerably from the original…maybe more than just considerably. Sources of allusions in this piece are not mine, either. You'll know them when you see them.

This one's for you especially, Huajun Chen (or Michelle C.H. Zhu, as of recent)! I heard about your situation in college and your "boyfriend" and all, and…well, if you see this, I hope you get all you can out of it, and more. Hope your birthday will be/ is/ was a happy one, and thank you!

Ooh, I've got a fun game: grab your favorite drink and sip for every adjective and adverb you see in this story. Be warned: there are lots of them.

THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG

Once in an alternate universe, there lived a princess in golden locks and dressings of frilly black lace named Misa—or Misa-Misa, as she often answered to. Her satin brown eyes (which sometimes were blue, as she loved wearing contact lenses) shimmered with life, as brightly as the silver crucifix jewelry that dangled from her ears and neck, for she was indeed a young and sprightly princess, contrary to her attire.

Why wouldn't she be? Such was the nature of most princesses, particularly when they were in love. Even more so when the apple of her eye finally, after a far-too-long time blinded by a fog of cool ignorance, responded to her affections, as was Princess Misa's case.

Prince Light was not only the richest, sharpest and most powerful figure in this alternate universe, but he also held the record of the most marriages. Exceeding even King Henry VIII, he had wedded twelve noblewomen…all of whom suffered mysterious deaths after the honeymoon—either by disease or accident—as their fortunes were added to Light's ever-expanding vault.

Now Prince Light was searching for Mrs. Light the Thirteenth. You'd think that having had twelve consecutive marriages end by death would brand him untouchable, but this was far from the case. With his brilliant looks and radiant charisma, he conquered the hearts of women all around. Comeliness and charisma tended to win over caution and common-sense, see.

Misa had adored Light for years, but had never gotten a response to the gifts and love letters she always sent him. Spurred on by her hope and faith in true love, she ran her messenger Rem ragged until the day a grinning stranger descended into the courtyard and perched upon the stone wall, a letter clutched in his scrawny paw.

So we finally get on to the plot…

Misa recognized him right away as Ryuk, chief messenger of Prince Light. Anticipation made her fleet on her feet, and she ran to him. "Ryuk! What brings you here?"

"Heh, what'd'ya think? Got a message for you from Light," snickered Ryuk, stretching an arm down to drop the creamy parchment into her hands. Breathless, Misa wasted no time in tearing it open and feasting on the words she had waited for far too long to read:

Dearest Misa,

I have something to ask of you, but I must ask you face-to-face. Please meet with me at my palace tonight at dusk, for dinner. An immediate correspondence is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely yours,

Light Yagami

Prince Light always was one of words few and dry, but if you read between the lines like Misa did, he might as well have written her a beautiful sonnet that sounded dangerously close to a marriage proposal. By the time she had reached his closing, emotion set the pit of her stomach on fire, the flames licking all the way up to the cockles of her heart; like indigestion, only much better.

Misa looked up from the letter. "He can bet the last strand of hair on his pretty head, Misa is coming! Oh, Ryuk, thank you so much for bringing Misa this letter!" In just thirty seconds, Misa whipped out a parchment of her own and drew up her correspondence. The tip of her quill pen was still smoking when she said, "Please take this to Light; tell him that I will be there!"

Ryuk cleared his throat.

"Huh? Something wrong, Ryuk?"

The shinigami messenger held out his paw and wiggled his fingers. "Actually, yeah. I don't do this for free, you know."

"Oh, right!" As soon as she realized what he was talking about, Misa reached into her bag to hand out the payment for his services: one shiny red apple.

"I'm going to need two apples," said Ryuk, "one for bringing you that letter, and one for taking your reply to Light. It's only fair."

"So it is," said Misa, who was too happy to haggle about apples. She dropped a second one into Ryuk's other paw, and he made quick, crunchy oblivion out of both as he took to the skies without so much as a farewell.

In the meantime, Misa began to fret. What on earth should she wear? Did she smell pleasant? Should she bring him a gift? It only seemed reasonable to. But what could she give him that she hadn't already given him?

The first and only thing that came into mind was the golden ball that she had cherished since she was a little girl. When she bounced it high into the air on a bright day, it glistened as though she had the sun, all of the light in the world, in her hands. While it seemed like a childish thing to give her beloved Light, it also seemed like the perfect gift, to end all gifts. It would show him exactly how much he meant to her: all of the light in the world—no pun intended.

So Misa visited her toy chest to pluck her ball from the top of the stack, and with a little polishing, it looked as radiant as it did in her childhood days when she held it up to the glassy-clear day. She was suddenly overcome with the urge to bounce it, if only for one more time. No, two…no, three more times.

The first time she bounced it in the courtyard, it sailed over the rose-adorned arch before rolling towards the base of the fountain. Captivated, Misa chased after it, forgetting for a moment that sweat was not good for make-up.

The second time, the ball rocketed higher than before, over the fountain's spout and the shrubbery maze; it seemed to kiss the sun hanging in the center of the sky before it landed at the base of the bell-tower. Misa had no trouble passing the maze to get to it; most usually didn't when they went around rather than through it.

"Misa, Your Majesty, you should probably be careful where you throw your ball," said Rem from out of the blue. "You could lose it over the wall."

"Misa won't lose it, Rem; it's not like I can afford to," said Misa, so high on her happiness that she hadn't put much meaning into her words. When she threw it the third and final time with all the might in her soft white arms, she bounced it at an angle. It soared the highest of all the times she had ever bounced it, so high that it bopped the bell at the peak of the tower and made it ring as loud and proud as it would on any given hour of the day! (Imagine how many folk in the alternate universe mistook the time to be four when in actuality, it was only five past three!)

But alas! Just as Rem had warned, the ball ricocheted off the bell and disappeared like a bolt of light over the eastern wall, all the way on the other side of the yard.

Poor Misa fell to pieces when she lost sight of the ball. It felt as though she had lost all of the light in the world over that wall…which meant that in a few more hours, she would lose it again, and that second time would be the death of her!

Blinking back tears, she cried, "Rem, did you see where Misa's ball landed?"

"I see it. It didn't go terribly far, but—"

"But what, Rem? Where is it? Don't kill me with the suspense! Losing that ball's killing Misa enough!"

Rem, with the most tact and sensitivity that a shinigami is capable of, answered, "Your ball has fallen into the old well."

At once, Misa's pretty face contorted into a grimace. "Oh, no, that old well? That gross, mossy old well? Please tell Misa you're joking!"

But Rem was not joking. For one, joking was not in her character, even in this alternate universe, and for two, Misa's ball had indeed sunken into the bottom of an abandoned well on the outskirts of the castle property. Nowadays, the only denizens who used it were the frog folk who had moved in there.

Misa and Rem ventured outside the dignity of her property to look for her ball. Peeking over the edge and the crab grass, she squinted tight enough to see a faint shimmer in the center of the murky depths.

She threw her arms in the air in disgust and despair. "Aw, that's just great! How're we supposed to get it back? There's no way I could go down there, obviously!"

"I could try to go down there," offered Rem, who hated seeing Princess Misa in any kind of distress.

Misa shook her head. "Misa's not sure if you could, Rem. You'd have to do that thing where you go ghost to get to the bottom, and you can't pick up my ball when you're a ghost, can you?" She tapped on her chin thoughtfully. "Unless you became a poltergeist, or something…"

Suddenly, before Rem could open her mouth, the stagnant waters began to bubble, as though something were emerging to the surface. In fact, something was coming to the surface: a deus ex machina!

Well, actually it was Misa's ball breaking the murky waters.

Misa and Rem gasped. "It floated back up!"

"But how?"

"It didn't," said a new voice that sounded watery, croakish and mildly British at the same time. "I find it contradictory that a ball composed of solid gold can be manipulated like a normal rubber ball, and yet when it sinks into a body of water, it is expected to have buoyant qualities that allow it to float back up…"

Misa blinked in bemusement. "Who said that? Who's there?" While she and Rem looked in every compass direction for the source of the new voice, an anthromorphic frog in a plain white shirt and baggy jeans splashed up from under the ball. He assumed a crouch on the edge of the well and briskly shook himself dry, with a bony, webbed finger to his lips. His grime-black hair was plastered over his bulging coal eyes, and the bags under them seemed to droop down to his cheekbones.

"It seems that you didn't apply very much imagination to my appearance."

Huh, what? Oh, well, to be honest, no, I didn't. You already look like a frog; all I had to do was shrink you down to six, seven inches and color you green, which looks kind of nice on you, by the way. Not as nice as blue would, but you know…

"But amphibians aren't supposed to sport hair; that is a characteristic exclusive to mammals. For that matter, the only animals that don clothes are usually of the domesticated variety, like lap-sized dogs, for instance."

I know, I know, but you don't look like you without either. And this can't be an alternate universe if you don't still look a little like you. Now, come on, quit messing around with the fourth wall and play along. Misa's getting along, all right.

"Hmm, I wouldn't expect anything less. Misa Amane is an actress…albeit a cheesy one."

As soon as Misa noticed the frog, she leaned in for a closer look. "Oh, wow! Look, Rem, a weird-looking frog! Did you bring up my ball for me, Mr. Frog?"

"To be precise, Watari did." Sure enough, a large, old toad in spectacles and wispy white hair poked his head out from under the ball to smile at them. He held up the golden ball while the frog continued:

"After your tactlessly fired ball landed in our well, it plummeted to the bottom and settled right on top of our shoofly pie. That's the trouble with shoofly pie, I suppose: if the flies aren't able to destroy it, invasive golden balls will."

Misa twirled a pigtail around her finger. This frog was truly strange, indeed. What kind of frog wouldn't want flies buzzing around? In fact, she asked him this. "What kind of frog wouldn't want flies buzzing around?" She had a startling revelation, right then and there, and covered her mouth. "Are you an enchanted frog? Would you turn into a handsome prince if I kissed you?"

The frog switched from his index finger to his thumb—or whatever digit on a frog's paw that could be like a thumb—and started nibbling on it. "Actually, I'm a poorly amphibianized version of my character from the anime and manga series called Death Note. Call me Ryuzaki."

Hey, what did I just say!

Misa and Rem exchanged looks. "Er…I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Fro—Ryuzaki—but I'm really sorry. Even if you were a prince, I couldn't kiss you. I'm already spoken for. Isn't that right, Rem?"

"Yes," nodded Rem. "Prince Light has asked her to his home for dinner."

The frog "Ryuzaki" pulled his paw away from his lips. "Prince Light…as in, Light Yagami, the one who has been widowed twelve consecutive times?"

"Uh-huh! And he's asking me to be his loving bride, forever! Well, he hasn't exactly asked, yet, but he said he would over dinner! Anyhow, thank you for retrieving my ball, Ryuzaki, Watari! But I'll need it back, so I can go freshen up."

She reached out to take her ball, when for some reason, the toad Watari swam towards the other end of the well, taking the ball with him.

"Huh? Hey, what's the idea?" the princess demanded. "I'm sorry that it fell in your well and all, but it's still my ball!" Rem tried to glide over to the other side, only to have Watari splash out of her reach.

"We will release your ball to you," said Ryuzaki, "if you are willing to negotiate a deal with us."

Misa glared at the little frog, who started to look awful shady, creepy, even. She noticed how his lump for a throat distended from his neck every few seconds or so, in that unsightly but naturally froggish way. "What do you mean, a deal? That's not very Samaritan of you! Look, if it's a kiss you want, I can't give you one! Light's already my sweet prince, don't you get it?"

Ryuzaki locked her in an unrelenting stare. "It's not a kiss that I'm after, I can assure you."

"Then what do you want?" asked Rem.

He answered as though he was just taking another breath, but the answer he gave them was, at the very least, a shocker: "Princess Misa, I wish to be friends with you."

Misa was so surprised that she did not answer right away. She stood there dumbfounded, while Ryuzaki elaborated: "As a friend, I wish to accompany you to your dinner with Light. If you will agree, you may have your ball back." Cheeky little thing, wasn't he?

As soon as she found her voice, Misa sputtered, "No way! It can't be a romantic dinner with a slimy creep of a frog watching our every move! Why would you want to come along, anyhow?"

"From what I gather, friends are supposed to be present for others on special occasions. It'll be as though I weren't there at all," he promised, with a peculiar look that seemed both stone-determined and yet almost—dare she notice—endearing, in a freakish kind of way.

Misa didn't stand a chance. If anything, she did want her ball back. She shot Rem an anxious look, as though looking to her for an alternative solution. When Rem could provide none, she turned back to the frog and toad and sighed in defeat—no, defeat was an ugly word. Let's call it compromise.

"All right, Ryuzaki. You can be Misa's friend, and Misa will be yours. But please don't make a pest of yourself! Pretty please with strawberries on top!" She extended a hand to take Ryuzaki's paw—pulling it out of his mouth in the process—and the deal was struck.

Watari arose from the well and gave the golden ball a swift polishing. Just then, three tiny tadpoles—Mello, Near and Matt—poked through the surface.

"Wait! Take us with you, Ryuzaki!" said Mello, the tadpole with girly blonde hair (never mind the fact that tadpoles couldn't have hair).

Misa felt sick at the prospect of carrying an entire well ecosystem back to her castle, but luckily, Ryuzaki told them to stay put, for a variety of reasons too ambiguous for Princess Misa to understand, but the most important one being that, in their current stage of development, it was physically impossible for them to leave the well.

"I'm growing a finger; surely that must count for something!" said tadpole Mello. Tadpole Near twirled a lock of his cottonball hair with his tail, as spaced out as can be, while tadpole Matt knocked himself out on the flashing buttons of a Simon Says game ("Matt says Simon can kiss my mucky ass!")

…

To say the least, Ryuzaki was not a terribly good friend. For a frog as skinny as a reed, his appetite was like that of a locust storm's. Bearing the mightiest sweet tooth Misa had ever seen in a toothless being, or even a being with teeth, he helped himself to all of the sugar cubes—sugar cubes, for Pete's sake!—and whatever sweets sat around, guarded or unguarded; it did not matter to him. When one had blink-fast reflexes in both the paws and the tongue, he usually lacked the consideration for such things. Did I mention that he was also very noisy when he ate? Misa could hear his slurping from across a room, and having had no experience to such poor etiquette, it made her wince.

Another pesky habit of his was how he seemed to show up in the most embarrassing places. Why, just before Misa stepped into the shower, she threw back the curtain to find Ryuzaki crouched on top of the soap. Right when she was going to drop the towel, too!

"EEEEEK! YOU PERVERT, GET OUTTA HERE!" Pinching him by the collar of his shirt, she tossed him out the door across the room, and he landed—splat!—on the wall like a green blob of magic putty.

As soon as he slid to the floor, he quickly recovered, staring at her cherry-red face through the crack in the door in a crooked and unblinking kind of way. "That hurt," he croaked, though he didn't sound like he was hurt.

"Well, sorry, but friends don't sit around in the bathroom when somebody else is trying to take a shower, you pervert!" barked Princess Misa as she slammed the door.

"…Pervert…?" Ryuzaki said with a finger in his mouth, as though the word was alien to his already vast vocabulary.

She caught him again a while later, in her walk-in closet that dominated a whole side of her room. She was picking out the most beautiful dress to wear to her rendezvous with Light, when suddenly she saw a familiar frog-head poking out of the collar.

"WAAAH! THAT'S IT, GO WAIT OUTSIDE UNTIL MISA IS DECENT, YOU LITTLE GREEN PERVERT! GOD!" And she plopped him out in the hallway like a cat going out for the night. As you can probably see, their newly-established friendship was anything but friendly. Ryuzaki didn't mind being outside, though; he had himself a grand little time in the tea room while he waited, sipping on sugar with tea, rather than the other way around.

"If I may interject, your pacing is rather slow for my preferences. Please advance to the scene of Light Yagami and Misa Amane's dinner rendezvous."

Figures you'd say that; your series is so neck-breakingly fast-paced that some guys can't figure out what the heck's going on half the time. I know fairy tales are supposed to be rushed and lack good character development, but dang it, I can't help it. Now for the last time, L, quit screwing with the fourth wall, and I'll make the transition.

"For all intents and purposes, you are to address me as Ryuzaki."

Right, sorry.

…

So Princess Misa set out in her carriage to Prince Light's palace, with her froggy companion hiding in her purse. You wouldn't believe how sore she felt by then, but she tried so very hard to powder out the pickle-sour look on her face. No one looked pretty when they were sour, and she refused to let a creepy little technicality like Ryuzaki spoil what she deemed as one of the best and most romantic nights of her life.

She entered the house of Light Yagami with as much dignity as she could, and the air of Misa-Misa charm that only she was capable of stirring. Her beloved prince was in the foyer waiting for her, in the corniest anime princely outfit you could imagine, but in Misa's eyes, he made the archangel Gabriel look like a hunchback.

"Ah, Princess Misa, thank you so much for accepting my invitation." Light took her hand into his and placed a butterfly kiss on her knuckles. Misa's heart nearly burst out of delight!

"What, you think I'd turn down a chance to have dinner with my sweet prince? Insane!" Ryuk snickered in the backdrop. He seemed to have an annoying tic about that, but Misa thought nothing more of it.

In the folds of Misa's purse, Ryuzaki eyed them both, thinking to himself: How cheesy. And there's at least a ninety percent chance it will only get cheesier.

Cheesy, it was, so much that one would need a laxative after seeing it. With arm locked in arm, the royal pair strolled into the candle-lit dining hall and sat side by side, the way it was meant to be for happily ever after (so Misa thought). As his servant Mikami poured rose red wine into their glasses, Light raised his with a smile as radiant as his name.

"I propose a toast: to us."

"Agreed," piped Misa, her cheeks rosy with happiness and the intoxicating aroma of the wine. She loved drinking, you see, and had a tendency to drink a tad more than was appropriate. Coupled with the drunken feeling she got from Light's presence, her mind pretty much leaked out of her ears after the first four drinks. And Light did nothing to stop her; in fact, he obliged her by having Mikami keep the wine a-flowing.

"I have a gift for you, Light," Misa giggled, fishing out her golden ball and plopped it into Prince Light's lap. "Misa-Misa's had this baby since she was a baby, too…and I want you to have it. Because you're Misa-Misa's golden ball, heh-heh-heh…hic!"

Light stared at the ball with a funny look on his face. "Erm…thank you, Misa." Not in the mood to have a golden ball sitting on his lap, he placed it by Misa's feet, by her purse.

Aside from Misa's increasingly nonsensical gushing, the dinner went quite well until dessert rolled around. When Light chipped himself a piece of the shortcake—

Thwok!

He wound up helping himself to fork, just fork. Light tried shoveling another forkful.

Thwok!

He raised a suspicious eyebrow. He didn't even get a third forkful—thwok!—for the entire cake disappeared from the silver platter.

"What witchcraft is this?" cried Mikami, who was sensitive to things that appeared to look like witchcraft; if it wasn't godly, then it was witchcraft. Light silently shooed him off.

"Wow! You eat so fast, it didn't even go in your mouth!" Misa marveled, who in her state of inebriation, forgot all about the frog in her purse.

As was the nature of most fairy tales involving princes and princesses, Light immediately decided to skip the shenanigans and pop that very important question he had for Misa. In one smooth movement, he arose from his seat, propped himself on one knee, and pried Misa's hand off of the bottle she'd been sucking down.

"My dearest Misa," he said, as suave as the hair care brand. "I've been alone for far too long, praying for God to send me an angel to save me from my despair, to share my world with me…and here you are, as my answer. The way you look tonight, under the moon and the candlelight, I just can't put it off anymore…"

His bronze eyes locked Misa in a trance. "Misa, will you marry me? Tonight, right now?"

Well, Princess Misa just about fell off her chair and into Light's arms. "What took you so long? Hell yeah, I'll marry ya!" she squealed, ecstatic and slightly unprincess-like.

"Just as planned."

Suddenly, a great curtain at the back of the hall gave away, revealing an arch adorned with lilies and roses and petals scattered all about the floor. Mikami stood underneath the arch with a black book in his hands, changed out of his servant's dress and into a priest's robes.

"Chee-sy," whispered Ryuzaki. The time for action was drawing nigh.

Misa could hardly stand up on her own without tripping up over herself, so Light had the honor of leading her by the arm to the altar, adjusting the tiara dangling on the side of her head as Ryuk sat by as a snickering witness. "Oh, this is gonna be rich," he cackled.

"Dearly beloved," said Mikami, pushing his glasses high on his face, "we are gathered here tonight to bind these two hearts in the holy state of matrimony. While there's a tiny part of me that wishes I could've been the one, this time," he murmured quietly. When Light shot him a stern look, Mikami quickly cleared his throat.

"Anyway, do you, Prince Light Yagami, take Princess Misa to be your lawfully wedded wife for better or worse, in sickness and health, poverty and wealth, to have and to hold until death do you part…or 'til death do one of you part?"

"I do," said Light.

Mikami wrote something down in his book, slicing the air with his quill pen as he made long, swift strokes. "And do you, Princess Misa Amane, take Prince Light to be your lawfully wedded husband for better or worse, in sickness and health, poverty and wealth, to have and to hold until death do you part?"

Misa did not answer right away; not because she didn't want to, but because her brain seemed to have lost contact with her mouth, or her mouth lost contact with her brain, whichever came first. Seconds before contact was re-established and Misa could scream "Misa does!" to the world…

Thwok!

The pen in Mikami's hand disappeared! "Witchcraft!"

But it wasn't witchcraft. It was Ryuzaki, who was carefully unraveling the pen from his tongue. "Pardon me, but shouldn't the bride be physically and mentally competent in order to give consent to be wedded?"

Misa turned her head, wondering who the hell was this frog to interrupt the most blissful day of her life. Then, somehow, her stupor cleared, not enough to know why he would do such a thing, but just enough to remember his identity.

"Ry-Ryuzaki? What're you do-doing? I thought I begged you not to be a—hic!—a pest!" She might've lunged at him if she hadn't wound up leaning on a vexed Prince Light instead. "I even added strawberries on top!"

The frog made a great leap across the gap from the dining table to the top of Prince Light's sparkly crown, where he balanced himself on his broad, webbed feet. Pinching the quill pen in his paw, he pointed it accusingly at the prince's nose, his throat puffing out in anticipation for a long, dramatic and elaborate string of detective dialogue.

"The Prince has been accumulating his vast fortune by marrying the richest and most influential noblewomen in the kingdom. All twelve of his marriages were dissolved by death to his brides, each within approximately twenty-three days after the wedding, either by disease or accident. Mere misfortunate coincidence? I beg to differ…"

A fierce flicker of indignity flashed in his dark eyes as he croaked, "All twelve of Light Yagami's brides were murdered."

"Filthy vermin! Off my crown, this instant!" Light let poor Misa tumble to the ground as he reached for a fork with the intention of mangling Ryuzaki into frog legs. But he was only almost a match for Ryuzaki's amphibian reflexes, and he jumped off his head—knocking off his crown in the process—and landed on Mikami's, who practically had a panic attack because he seemed so ungodly. He tried to squash him with the book in his hands, and wouldn't you know? He wound up on the floor with a mild concussion as Ryuzaki plucked said book from his grasp like it were a flaky turnover.

"Mikami, you idiot," the prince hissed.

You're probably wondering how Princess Misa must've felt about all of this. Truth be told, she was paralyzed, by both the alcohol in her system, and utter shock as she watched her sweet prince become bitter with rage before her eyes. Ryuzaki leapt onto the top of the flowery arch, dangling the book open for the world to gaze upon in horror…or at least, for everyone present in the dining hall to gaze upon in horror.

For within the lined pages of the otherwise blank book, words were scrawled by a blank that appeared to be designated for a name.

…Dies in 23 days under the apple tree in the courtyard when a branch falls on her head.

"The prince has been using a Death Note to kill every one of his brides. And Teru Mikami has been playing the role of accomplice, pretending to fill out a marriage certificate when in actuality, has been writing down the premeditated cause of death, followed by the bride's name."

He gestured to the lining of torn paper in the spine of the book. "Afterwards, he ripped out the pages to burn in the stove, to erase the evidence. As part of my investigation on the prince, I negotiated a deal with Princess Misa Amane to become a 'friend' of hers, as soon as I had gathered confirmation about her plans to meet with Light. It was a means to get closer to His Majesty and catch him in the act."

"Misa, don't listen to him! He's a frog, damn it!"

Misa didn't know who to believe. Perhaps she should've expected Ryuzaki to manipulate her like he did. But Light, her Light, a cold-blooded gold-digging killer? And she would be his next victim? No…no way! That wasn't how it was meant to be! What about their first kiss, their seal of eternal love? What about the slow, romantic waltz she had spent months practicing for? What about the future pitter-patter of little feet? What about their happy ending?

Her happy ending…

While she sat there on the floor in a wretched stupor, the two "gentlemen" engaged in a fight that was anything but gentlemanly. Prince Light, no longer looking quite so princely, snatched up a candlestick and set the flowery arch ablaze!

Ryuzaki seemed to spin like a pinwheel as he went on to give him the old five capoeira piggies three times: in the nose, in the gut, and in the jewels. That last blow sent him flying backward into the dining hall, and in a clang and cascade of exotic dishes, the room became as tattered and greasy as the land of Chewandswallow!

But the final blow was dealt when Light, in a fit of desperation, fired the fork he had tried to mutilate his froggish foe with. This time, he made his mark. The instant Ryuzaki was pinned to the wall, he fell limp without so much as a pained croak, his butt-crack peeking from the waistband of his pants.

Just when Prince Light couldn't get any more unprincely, he tossed his mane and let out a bone-chilling cackle that befitted a witch better than a prince. "Nice try, pitiful frog! But there's no way Misa would believe you! For one, she hates your guts, and two, she's as dim as a wet match in a dark cave. She's so infatuated with me, I wouldn't be surprised if she's been sitting on the floor the whole time—"

Did I say that that was the final blow? Actually, it wasn't. The final final blow was dealt, just before Light could further vent his true feelings about the princess.

And it came in the form of a golden ball—THOK!—in the center of the back of his head. By said princess herself, knees wobbling like jell-o as her mascara trickled down her cheeks in a pitiful and terribly unprincess-like way. A spell later, she was down on her knees in a heaving sob.

Ryuk, who had been watching the helter-skelter from the safety of the sidelines, pointed a claw at the collapsed prince on the floor. "Ooh, that's gonna leave some damage," he snickered, his toothy jaws stuffed to the gums with apples.

…

Ryuk was right about impending damage. Misa's ball had left more than just a mark on Prince Light's cerebellum and occipital lobe; (unhappily) ever after, his movements became jerky and awfully unprincely, much like his true nature, and he could hardly see five inches in front of him. Tried as he did, he often looked in the wrong direction, and thus looked like a moron, though his intelligence otherwise remained intact. He lost credibility as a handsome prince, because truth be told, radiant looks aren't worth much without proper display.

Not that he could go look for a new princess if this wasn't so, because after that night, Ryuzaki—who actually suffered no true damage from the fork and pulled himself off the wall, did I forget to mention?—had him arrested and imprisoned after serving him a heaping plate of hell at his trial. One damning piece of evidence was a sheet of paper that the toad Watari had rescued early in the investigation, with the name of a previous victim of Light's and the precise conditions of their death. (Did I forget to mention that, too?)

To be put away by a freaky little frog…humiliating!

Mikami was also put away, in solitary confinement for (unhappily) ever after. That self-inflicted blow to his head turned out to have shot his frontal and parietal lobes, setting up the stage for a lunatic who claimed himself to be the "lover" of God (not in the context a decent mind would assume), and ran around herky-jerk crying "Witchcraft!" to even the smallest things, like the vines that cracked through the castle walls.

After Prince Light's trial, the Death Note was incinerated; what else was one to do with such an evil notebook? Then Light's fortune was distributed to various charities, such as the Apple-A-Day Fund, which Ryuk gladly took over. He always hated messenging, anyhow.

Mello grew two fingers, which he was ecstatic about for a spell until Near shattered his self-esteem with the whole paw that he had grown, which he found to be more effective in curling his hair than his tail. Matt conquered Simon, then promptly discarded him for something worth his gaming prowess: Tetris.

There, that ought to be fast-paced enough…

"No, that was rushed. That does not properly tie up all of the loose ends you so senselessly left hanging around the plot."

There's just no pleasing you, is there? Tell you what: come back to me with a story of your own sometime, we'll see if you can do better. But for now, how's about tying up the most important end? Ahem.

What became of our heroine, poor Princess Misa?

Well, she suffered two hangovers: one from the wine, the other from the debilitating heartache that came from her ordeal with her sweet prince. She recovered from the first in a matter of a day, but wallowed in the second by her windowsill for weeks on end, for the emotional hangover was worse than all of the alcohol-induced hangovers in the world. The throbbing headache and vomiting was nothing compared to the weight of her shattered dreams of a happy ending resting in her lap, or the headache that came with the free-falling tears, that no amount of coddling from Rem could alleviate.

Misa leaned her head against the window pane, eyeing the fields and forests that used to belong to Light and were now dotted with Apple-A-Day apple trees, like an enormous patchwork quilt. For a spell, she'd vaguely considered jumping out the window, to just be done with it all. Sure, he'd tried to kill her, but without Light, what was the purpose of living, anyhow?

That's when Ryuzaki showed up, in that mysterious and pesky way of his, as if on cue. He hopped onto the windowsill beside Misa.

She saw him out of the corner of her eye; he was hard to ignore. "What do you want?" she mumbled, too tired to sound very angry.

"You seem ill."

"Oh, like you wouldn't know," she grumbled. "What're you doing here, anyhow? It's not exactly like we're friends, anymore. You said it yourself: you only wanted to come with me so you could bust Light."

A tension-filled silence fell between them for a while, to be broken by a faint shuffling of pockets. Misa turned her head and saw a tiny offering of cake pinched in the frog's paw.

"You gonna start pigging out, now?"

Ryuzaki nibbled on his index finger, with the oddest—perhaps endearing—look in his eyes. "Actually, this is intended for you. Here."

Misa drew away in surprise. "I-I couldn't. Cake makes you fat, and fat is so hard to get off once you put it on."

"You don't gain weight if you burn the calories by using your brain."

In normal circumstances, Misa might've grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and tossed him out the window for such a cheeky remark. But not this time. For this time, she was thinking, and not about jumping, anymore. In fact, by looking over the little frog, she had one of those spur-of-the-moment revelations.

What was a prince, anyway? Just a charming boy with a crown on his head and riches beyond the wild imagination, sometimes seated on a white steed, who would pamper his princess for happily ever after? Light fit that description well, but only in appearance.

Could a prince not be someone, without crown or steed or even good looks, who just looked out for others? In spite of everything, Ryuzaki did save her life. So perhaps, in his own ambiguous, freakish, cheeky and even perverted kind of way…he was a real prince? Maybe he wouldn't turn into the former definition of a prince if she kissed him? And maybe she would never love him the same way she loved Light (he was a frog, after all), and maybe she would never get married for happily ever after…

But that wouldn't stop her from loving him as a friend, would it? A real friend? Lovers came and went and made quite a mess on the way out, but friends were forever, helping one to pick up the pieces, one piece of cake at a time. Or...

"Ryuzaki? Could you do me a teensy favor?"

"Yes?"

Wiping her eyes dry, Misa stood up from the windowsill—the first time in weeks—and held out her hand. "Would you care to dance with Misa? Just for a spell, please?"

Ryuzaki cocked his head, as though "dancing" was another word alien to his vocabulary. "…Dancing…?"

A ghost of a smile flickered across her lips. "Aw, don't you know what dancing is? Misa will teach you, if you will allow. How about the waltz?"

"Does this mean that you are recovering? Because if you are, are you going to eat this piece of cake? It would be a shame for it to go to waste."

"Have it, eat it, Misa insists!" She blessed him with a soft, platonic peck on the top of his head, throwing the fear of getting warts to the wind. And while he didn't turn into a handsome prince after all, the puzzled gape on his lips as he rested a paw on top of his head was a good enough response for Misa.

So Ryuzaki made quick, noisy work of the cake, and before long, the two were waltzing slow and steady across the room, with Misa taking the lead as she delicately held up Ryuzaki by his paws and hummed a gentle tune from her girlhood days. She had to admit, the way his legs kicked all around because they couldn't reach the ground was, while not romantic or suave, kind of cute. In a froggish way, like the queer look on his face.

(Though something would probably need to be done in the future about those creepy voyeuristic habits of his.)

From the crack in the door, Rem watched them, both in fascination and hope for the future.

"Happily ever after" may not have applied to this story—or a real ending, for that matter, because life and the characters still go on long after it's told—but for the sake of saving breath, this is where this particular tale "ends," so to speak:

THE END

…

"Cheesy. One hundred percent cheesy."