The walk back had been silent. All for the sound of my footsteps as we made our way back to my apartment. The two girls had gone home soon after realizing the sun had set, I still don't understand how the two could manage to smile back at me as they said goodbye.
When the twins had latched onto my arms, I could feel Izaya's glare bear into me. I could feel his looming eyes flicker, alit with an expression I couldn't force myself to face. I couldn't even touch the two, with some sort of comfortable pat as they sniffled, all because the irony drenched bitter on my tongue.
I had no right to be there, to be treated like that. They had forgiven me so easily- trusted me enough to actually hug me. They trusted me enough that they latched onto the very arms that had caused their brother's death!
My keys jostled, clicking into place as I opened my apartment door. The familiar creak of wood was a welcome distraction from the blearing silence the trip back had become. I took a moment to blink around the place, the apartment looking the same as always as I watched Izaya walk past me.
At least I had managed to prove my point.
It was a relief to see that in the end, I had been right, I had managed to show that some people actually cared for Izaya's passing. When Izaya had been so flippant about his death, I felt this strange anger crawl up my throat and curl in my fingers the longer I dwelled on it. I couldn't help defending the people who mourned him after he had dismissed them so easily...
But there was also something else there. The twitching need to prove my point with a blind bubbling yearning when I saw that Izaya full-heartedly didn't believe anybody missed him.
It had pissed me off so much-
And when Mairu acted like she didn't care. Fuck-
I took a deep breath and glanced towards Izaya, who was already sitting on the couch with his back rigidly facing me.
I'd been mortified at that moment, thinking that the proof I was so keen to believe in would only prove Izaya right. The idea that his own sisters didn't even miss him...
My shoulders slouched, a small sense of release rushing over me as my muscles un-tensed. I had been right in the end, and was even able to clear up a bit between me and the twins...Even if I didn't deserve it in the slightest.
"See?" I murmured, "People do care, Izaya."
There was a quiet click when I shut the door behind me.
Izaya's head barely tilted to the side, a sidelong glare from a single eye pointing towards me. His eyes squinted for a second, almost as if in suspicion as his visible blood-tinted eye kept locked on me.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Izaya sneered.
My head craned back as I frowned back at him, "Huh?" His iris flickered as he moved his body to completely face me, who was still standing near the entry door.
"What do you mean 'huh?' Shizu-chan, I know you're an idiot but this is beyond ridiculous." The flea's brows furrowed with obvious annoyance-
I frowned the same.
"What-? You mean dragging your ass to show you your sisters?" My jaw was stretched tight, words passing through clenched teeth. What the hell was he trying to get at? Sure I could understand why he's annoyed- sort of -but damn shouldn't he be at least a little happy to know that people actually cared?
"Not just my sisters- All of this! Do you think you'll get some stupid gold star for acting pathetic?" Izaya rose to his feet. "That if you act like some god-forsaken soul after what you did all would be fine? Sure! Let's pretend you are some perfect 'human' who hasn't promised to kill their enemy for years and as soon as you accomplished it- you shrivel up and drowned in your own self-pity to make yourself feel sane!?"
Izaya's hands twitched as he spoke, voice getting louder with every word. I had never seen Izaya like this- He was angry. Not in his usual, spiteful, and calculative way he held when we used to fight- No...he was actually angry, actively showing an emotion I'd never seen before.
It was strange- and even as I snarled at the insult I couldn't help but make sure to memorize his expression, adding it to the many new sides of Izaya I was learning about.
Izaya's chest was heaving and the smoke curling off his form had become foggier- thicker, curling around his neck like a noose as his eyes blazed.
"Self-pity? I killed you Izaya! I think that warrants a little more than thinking all I'd feel is self-pity!" I tried to keep my voice calm, but I could feel the quips of a growl rolling off my tongue as Izaya's expression turned sharp.
"What- are you going to say your guilty? Like you, sitting in your room staring at your ceiling was because you felt bad for killing the person you hate most!?" Izaya's voice slurred with mockery.
"What the fuck do you want me to do Izaya-!? Act like some heartless bastard and just laugh off a murder!?"
"YES!" His fists curled up at his sides. "You're so stuck up you think you'll become human if you do the 'poor little me' routine- like what you did was something you haven't wanted to do since the moment we met-"
"Izaya-"
"And now that I reappeared you're trying to ignore that nothing even happened- then you drag me across the city so you can- what-? Flaunt!? Show off that my sisters forgave you without a second word?"
My throat felt tight, raw with words I was aching to scream out but I couldn't even tell what they were. There was a side of me that completely agreed with Izaya- he had every right to be furious with me, but there was just this kindled, oh-so-familiar rage building up inside with every insult he threw.
"Flaunt-? FLAUNT? I never wanted them to forgive me Izaya- 'Matter of fact I didn't even want to kill you! I never wanted to actually kill anybody-" My hands tightened with a need to release some of my rage- to punch something! Throw something! Anything that would help let this boiling strain in my blood cool down.
"Well guess what Shizuo? You did-! So stop crying about it, It's insulting." His voice settled into something cold, head held high with his nose furled in disgust.
There was a moment of dead-lock stare between us.
"But I never meant to- Fuck!" I swung my body around, fist barreling towards my front door within seconds, wood splinters exploding with the ease of my hand creating a vacant hole in it. I hissed out a breath, wrenching out my hand as I saw Izaya arch a brow, mouth slanted downwards in a titled frown.
I took another breath.
"Izaya, I never meant to kill you. You've always dodged- and I was being stupid- and the pillar-" I brushed my hand throw my hair, my fingers still decorated with a few sparse, fairly large splinters. "And your sisters... I dragged you there so I could show you that people do care! When you laughed off what I said earlier- It pissed me off so much that I had to show you to prove it to you..."
I half expected Izaya to cut me off, sneer something vicious that was perfectly formed to tear me down on the worst level but he stood quiet. He stood, arms crossed as he actually gave me a chance to speak.
He was listening. Actually listening.
I gulped, realizing that this was my one chance. He was allowing me to speak...
Don't fuck this up Shizuo. Cause even though we were enemies and I am technically his murderer- I'd rather not have a vengeful, pissed-off Izaya-ghost at every turn.
And... with everything I've started learning about Izaya- things haven't hasn't exactly been terrible.
I fiddled with the pockets of my pants, fighting the urge to seek out the comforting smoke of a cigarette as I was held under Izaya's gaze. Fuck this felt like I'd just been caught by the principal doing something bad and I was on death's row and this was my last chance to defend myself.
I swallowed, "Whether you like it or not you affected people when you were alive. And I can't just stand here and pretend like nothing happened- like I'm overjoyed with your death..." My head sunk down, ashamed as I flickered my gaze to the ground, Izaya's own being too much to bear as I sucked in my pride. "And as strange and difficult as it is to say, you affected mine- God! I saw you almost every day, it was the same routine, and it'd become a constant! And-" My voice strained, "Fuck- I can't just laugh off your death because a part of me misses it! The chases, the anger, it'd become a routine... Even after everything, every insult or attack, every fucking gang you sent after me...I had no right to take your life."
I risked a peek up from my bowed head, catching how Izaya's eyes seemed to widen just a bit, the sharp corners of his mouth softening if only a little as he stared back. Though his face was back to a cold slate within the second, his mouth stretched flat and thin.
With a flick of his head, his black hair fanned out, and he turned away from me. Sitting back on the couch without saying a word.
My shoulders sagged, I felt a single bead of blood curl down my finger, along with the faint prick of wood rubbing against flesh. Something- a feeling- settled in the air. It felt tense but not quite threatening, something thick with tension that I decided not to challenge.
I felt a cold draft creep down the back of my neck.
Fuck. I sighed.
I guess I better find something to cover the hole in my door. I pinched and pulled a jagged piece of the door from my knuckle as I stared at the blatant, costly, issue I just created.
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I stared out the window, the outside world had long since gone dark, the lights from the busier streets seeped along the cracks as they tried to reach the back road the window view offered.
The time had to be somewhere around three at this point. Shizu-chan had gone to bed hours ago, neither of us had uttered a word after our... Spat.
I huffed out a half-baked scoff.
A part of me was embarrassed, ashamed that I'd lost my cool so easily and stuped to a screaming match against Shizuo of all people. But I didn't say anything that I'd regretted in the situation. My methods of delivering them were much to be desired though...
A feeling I couldn't ignore though- was the shock.
I'd expected Shizu-chan to throw, punch, and destroy as he'd always done when animosity between us was strung high. But the beast had only managed to punch one thing before he was able to cool himself down and admit to things that I hadn't expected to hear. At all.
I peeked over towards the front door, a shabby piece of cardboard duct-taped over the hole, which Shizuo apparently deemed good enough before he stomped off to bed.
My shoulders lifted upwards, head tucked into the fur of my hood as I leaned against the glass. There was a lot to think about and with a clear absence of bustling humans as a welcome distraction, it was hard not to barrel down into my own mind.
Just thinking back to my sisters, I still couldn't decipher how I was supposed to react to the display. I knew I hated seeing it at the time, but exactly why had it gripped such a burning hatred in me? I wasn't stupid enough to deny that since they were my sisters there wasn't at least something a little familial there.
But to see them actually cry and admit, though reluctantly, that they'd missed me... It left that feeling on my tongue, I didn't want to see them like that.
And Shizuo- God there was so much to unpack there. What Shizu-chan had said-
The monster had always tried to play the part of humans. To live by a moral code and become a good 'person.' So I understood why the beast had felt bad about killing... but to hear him admit to missing me?
It was obscene.
Never would I have predicted that Shizu-chan would admit that he missed our fights of all things! There was a strange feeling in my gut at the thought. That moment, when Shizuo stood with his head hung low... almost as if he was too afraid to look at me- it was bizarre.
He'd even said he had no right to take my life. Honestly, I fully disagree, what we'd done to each other over the years, especially on my part, was not something that would just be forgiven and forgotten. We actively sought out to ruin each other, hated the sight of the other- so if anybody, Shizuo had every right to be the one to take my life.
As much as I hate to admit it, I couldn't really blame him for it... My lips curled into an unamused pout, stubborn and annoyed with my own idea.
Shizu-chan had said it was an accident, in his rage-induced uncoordinated stutters- he said he expected me to dodge and something about a pillar...
Thinking back to that night, my memories fade out as soon as we entered the abandoned building. Perhaps Shizu-chan had smashed me with an entire pillar from the building? Or maybe he managed to hit an important support beam, and the building's foundation crumpled?
My hand lifted up to graze against the festering puffs of smoke that festered around a single area below my shoulder. Something about that spot had bothered me since the moment I noticed it. It was the point that was the strongest when it came to this...spirited form. It was also the area that pulls me along with Shizuo when I wander too far away when we're outside the confines of the apartment.
I frowned, watching as plumes of black curled around and through the air before dispersing. They reminded me of Celty's shadows, but there was a more weighty appearance to hers, her ability to control and manipulate them at will made them appear more shapen and strategic.
Mine was just a haze of black, smokey, and wild as they curled and clumped every which way. I had no control over them, so I could only assume they came as par for the course with supernatural individuals within the category of souls.
My frown deepened into something sour, forcing me to ignore a flicker of jealousy at the idea of being able to control the strange shadows. I let out a sigh, another fly-away of smoke fluttering upwards with specks of what almost looked like ash scattering.
I wrapped my jacket tighter around my body, ignoring the blatant lack of feeling any sort of welcoming warmth as I pulled myself from my thoughts. Instead, I went back to watching peeking lights flicker through the window, those small signs of nightlife lurking at the entry of the back road. There was something almost beautiful about it, past the dirtied alley and scattered trash you could see the colorful hues illuminate them all the same.
Two completely different worlds clashing, twisting, and turning into something I could only describe as a dance.
I blinked slow, lashes heavy as I sat waiting for another night to pass.