if there ever comes a day —

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Rem watches her, now.

Up there before- up in the shinigami realm, when it was the only place in the world, not the sprawl of Tokyo, just flat ash-grey plains and the unbroken horizon in every direction, forever- watching the humans crawling beneath them was never a pastime that crossed her mind. Gelus would invite her over, feigning a chat while her eyes lingered over the portal, but Rem's own was fixed squarely on her. Sizing her friend up to see if she'd do it- what they should never do- when the time came. She thought she had the right answer.

Deciding to watch with a morbid curiosity to find out how exactly a human dies when a shinigami merely stares at her, passive, had proven she'd chosen wrong.

Once the dust that used to be her only friend had scattered in a breeze that never used to be there, free, like she always wanted, Rem had brushed her talons over the now-orphaned notebook's cover. She felt like the cold scales of its cover responded to her touch. It was hers now; it wasn't.

This book was the only proof Gelus has ever lived at all.

Her eye drank it in. She knew where her friend would want it given, to who, if she'd even had the forethought to give her wishes a name. If she'd knew anything in her final moments except pain, and except fear. She was sure it had to be those two. What else could she feel, knowing she was sacrificing eternity for this girl who could surely never love her? What else was there?

But Rem did watch her then, to be sure the choice was right.

Rem watches her now. She is sure of something.

Breathing. She watches her breathe. More than anything.

It is almost the first thing she notices about her. Her chest steadily rises and falls and rises and falls and rises again, and it takes Misa's exhilarated shuddering gasp after a few moments of staring between them for Rem to remember what it is that she is supposed to be doing. It was impossible to see from so far above- but now it consumes every action, every sound. Every inch of the human is covered in breath. She can't see around it even as she explains what a death note is, and how it works. She watches it hitch as she begs her new shinigami to let her give away half of her new life.

Misa goes to sleep very shortly after this, and Rem watches her in fascination.

There isn't a thing about Misa that Rem doesn't see.

The agitated huffs when she catches a knot in her hair while attacking it, teeth gritted in concentration.

The stilted, quick, stifled gasp when Rem teases it out with her talons. Despite herself, she is always gentle. Misa turns her spine to her and leans back until every strand of her hair is draping through her claws like water she is struggling to scoop up and keep in her hands, and she allows Rem to comb it through neatly and loosely braid it down her back. When they are done Rem presents her hair back to her as though it is the most precious thing in the world, and Misa accepts her work like it is.

Misa's eyes on her then say something, but that is a knot Rem cannot unpick.

Shinigami don't sleep unless by habit and so Rem is always watching her sleeping, she feels. Her eye traces the gentle slope of her nose and counts the softly fluttering eyelashes again and again. The only way to tell a sleeping human from a dead one is to check their breathing, she's learned- their lifespans stick out like a sore thumb, to Rem, but most humans don't even know those exist at all. Breathing is another thing shinigami have no use for, either. Misa calls her stillness inhuman once, and Rem exhales a laugh, and she realises that that becomes the first time she has breathed in her eternity of existence. That simple action seemed to make her human, to bring her to life in a world that for once does not belong to her. To a mortal, breathless shinigami appear dead already. Misa has their eyes. Perhaps that makes her half-dead too, Rem wonders, once, but she pushes it out. Misa is the most alive thing she has ever known. Still, she stares softly to make sure her chest still rises and falls as she sleeps, like a human should.

She catches herself breathing on instinct from then on. Little snatched breaths, here and there, cut-off and broken-up like she's scared the world will catch her indulging.

This is an indulgence, for her. Sweet like she's heard honey is, addictive like gambling on card games. Looking on her. Only taking her eye off Misa when it is safe. When there is no other option.

She didn't quite understand it, at first, but she thinks she does now. She is sure of something: she will watch her forever, if she is allowed to.

Now she understands sighing as her human stretches out, tired by the day of flashing lights and other humans that don't breathe like she does under her gaze. Rem understands a sharp, quiet inhale whenever Misa begins to unbutton her shirt, and she understands how different breathlessness is from whatever she used to know when she slips it off her pale shoulders. She understands letting a low hiss slip out unasked when Misa watches her back. And she smiles at her, lips painted red but faded, and a little smudged, and more smudged now as she presses a kiss to Rem's palm and the perfect mark stays there, untouchable by the world.

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