Summary: Shizuo and Izaya wake up to a completely deserted Tokyo, with no clue as to what happened. The two sworn enemies band together to solve the mystery of an emptied city and find out what, or who caused this…
Chapter 1
Posted: 12/09/2020
Status: Ongoing
Author's note: Had a sudden idea for a plotty fic. Never wrote one before so we'll see how that turns out hahaha
When he opened his eyes, a few things surprised Shizuo.
Firstly, not only had he woken up before his alarm (saving the poor alarm clock from certain doom), but it seemed he had also forgotten to even set said alarm. Good thing he woke up before the usual time, or he might have overslept and been late for work, and while he was sure Tom would let it slide as he usually did for most things Shizuo did, he didn’t want to let his boss down again.
He emerged from bedsheets that were halfway to the ground, feeling well-rested. After leaving the bed, he hastily folded the sheets and left his bedroom, still in his sleepwear (which comprised nothing but sweatpants) to go do his morning ritual in the bathroom, only to pause in the tiny living room-slash-kitchen.
“It’s so quiet…” Shizuo mused, voice barely louder than a whisper.
‘How nice’, he thought. Usually at this hour his neighbors would loudly start getting ready for the day, and a few cars would pass on the road near his apartment complex. Heiwajima Shizuo, as his name implied, was a man who loved peace and quiet; it was nice to wake up to pure quiet once in a while.
He grabbed his lighter and a cigarette from the pack on the coffee table and lit it as he walked to the sliding glass door, opening it to go on the small balcony. He spent a few minutes smoking there, leaning on the railing, not really thinking of anything. This would’ve been perfect with a pleasant breeze, he thought absent mindedly.
‘This is nice’, he told himself again, ‘but…’
This felt too quiet.
He frowned, leaving the now-finished cigarette in an ashtray he left on the ground of the balcony.
‘Well, whatever’, he thought as he turned around and got back inside to continue getting ready for the day. ‘I’m just not used to this much quiet, I guess.’
…
Izaya was used to waking up in a silent, empty apartment as soon as dawn broke. He had always been used to the quiet since his early childhood (though it had gotten significantly less quiet when his sisters were born), so today wasn’t any different from any other day. He woke up with the gentle light of the rising sun, having no need for any alarm thanks to his always so diligent biological clock. Handy, that thing, always on time; he wouldn’t have it any other way, or would he really be his wonderful, always timely self?
This morning, he felt surprisingly energized considering he had worked till 4 AM and had gotten at most two hours of sleep. Well, wouldn’t be the first time he pulled an all-nighter while looking for information.
He sat up in his queen-sized bed and stretched his arms and legs before getting up and out of bed. He made sure the bed was all neat and proper before heading for the bathroom connected to his bedroom.
He passed in front of the mirror without even bothering to look at himself and immediately went to the shower, removing his pajamas (black, and made of the softest, highest quality material, of course) and underwear (black as well, obviously), throwing them in the laundry basket. He then turned on the water, waiting a few seconds for it to heat up, then stepped inside and under the wonderfully warm water.
In the vast apartment, the only sound that could be heard was that of running water on the second floor, until eventually that sound too, stopped, and out stepped a squeaky-clean and freshly dried Orihara Izaya clad in a soft bathrobe and white bunny slippers, which he totally bought two matching pairs of to annoy his hard-working secretary and not because he found them adorable. Yep, totally. Yup. Uh-huh.
(He really did buy the other pair to annoy Namie though, expecting her to refuse to even look at them, but she decided to wear them anyway to spite him. That woman would never stop amusing him.)
He stepped down to the bottom floor in his kitchen and made himself some black coffee (“Like your soul” he could hear Mairu’s shrill voice comment. He huffed in amusement at the memory) then left the kitchen with the steaming cup. He walked past the couch to go behind his desk, stopping in front of the immense glass windows with a smile.
That smile quickly fell, however.
“What? No cars? Did they block off the road?” He looked around, finding the street below devoid of any of his lovely humans. “Not even an early jogger? Boring.” He said, but his frown wasn’t one borne of boredom.
The reason Izaya moved to Shinjuku in the first place (aside from distancing his business from a certain raging blond) was because the city never slept. From his place at the very top of the building, Izaya could see masses milling about at any hour of the day.
Yet there was nothing. Not a single person. Not even any stray animal. The only living things in his field of vision were the occasional tree and himself.
He put the coffee cup on the desk behind him and reached for his work phone nearby.
“Well, if nobody can entertain me down there, guess I’ll have to make Namie come in earlier to annoy her!” He said to no one in particular with faked enthusiasm, grin way too sharp and voice so excessively joyous it was obviously fake.