Chapter 11
Posted: 13/12/2020
Status: Ongoing
Author's note: As an apology for not updating in a while, this one's a bit longer.
Izaya was used to waking up in a silent, empty house as soon as dawn broke. He had always been used to the quiet since his early childhood, though it had gotten significantly less quiet these past few years.
Case in point: the annoying giggling he could hear suspiciously close to his ears.
He grabbed a small wrist without even bothering to open his eyes.
“What do you think you’re doing?” He asked, opening a single red eye to look at the little devil to his left.
Said devil only looked at him with a bright smile.
“Waking you up!”
“I have no need for you to wake me up. Much less with a glass of water to the face.” He kept hold of the wrist and used his other hand to retrieve the offending glass and place it on his nightstand. “Now go be productive by waking up your sleepyhead of a sister.”
“I want pancakes!” The little girl exclaimed, then ran out of her brother’s room and into her own.
He sighed, passing a hand through short hair before finally escaping the warm comfort of his bed sheets to get ready for the day.
”…Guess I’m making pancakes, huh.”
“Iza-nii, my tummy hurts!” His left hand was insistently tugged on by a tiny force. He didn’t move his gaze from the road.
“That’s because you scarfed down all those pancakes like a starving animal, Mairu. You barely left any for your sister.”
Said sister, to his right, kept completely silent, obediently following her brother to their new school.
It still weirded him out quite a bit.
Just a few days before, the twins had rolled dice and determined new personalities for themselves, all over something Izaya had said in passing to tease them. And now here they were: an excessively bubbly Mairu and a mostly stoic Kururi. They had even altered their appearances, Kururi requesting a haircut, while Mairu demanded that her brother braid her hair.
He had said there was no meaning to them being twins since they’d never be their own individuals, and this was their answer. It was ridiculous, if you asked him, but whatever, if it amused them. They’d get tired of that eventually and return to being themselves, and that’d be it. Until then, Izaya would indulge them in their little game of charades.
Today was their first day in elementary school, yet neither sister seemed nervous at the idea. Izaya himself wasn’t too worried, those little monsters were a handful, but they were social butterflies through and through.
He was a bit curious about how the other children and teachers would react to their…slightly extreme new selves, but he doubted he would be allowed to stay with them at their school to do some people-watching.
And he still had school to attend as well, anyway.
“Just don’t overdo it and you’ll be fine, but if you’re still feeling sick, go tell the teacher…here we are.”
They arrived at the school entrance. Children and their parents were passing through the school gates. Some stayed together until the very last moment, while others quickly parted ways with a pat on the head and a ‘See you later’.
Others had…some more trouble.
Kururi had released his hand and looked at the courtyard with bright eyes, momentarily forgetting to keep her indifferent persona on, clearly excited at the prospect of making new friends.
Mairu, on the other hand…well, she still had yet to release his hand.
“I don’t have all day, Mairu.” He told her, squeezing her hand to shake her out of her stupor. She was trying to be brave, but it was obvious she was close to tears.
She said nothing, and Kururi looked back at her curiously.
For the second time that day, Izaya sighed. Then, he got to his knees to be at eye level with Mairu. Around him, he could hear mothers gushing about the little scene they were making.
Before their little dice roll idea, Mairu had always been the crybaby of the pair that the twins made, and her sister had been more of a troublemaker. Of course, after so little time Izaya wasn’t surprised she still had trouble keeping the bubbly act up when in an unknown place full of unknown people.
“Just cry, Mairu, let it out, you’ll feel better.”
“I-I’m n-not gonna cry!” She said, eyes full of tears.
“You’re already doing it, might as well just let it go.” He said in an indifferent tone.
Even so, she didn’t allow herself to cry out, letting tears roll down her cheeks in silence. Alright, another tactic it was going to be then.
“Didn’t you two agree that you’d be the social one?”
She nodded, still crying.
“Then why are you being such a baby about it? If you’re going to be making friends for the both of you, then you’re losing precious time here, don’t you think?”
He knew exactly why she was making such a fuss. Separation anxiety was quite common for children her age who started school for the first time, and although he wasn’t their father and never acted as such, he was the only older person taking care of them most of the time. It made sense that she would have trouble suddenly spending time away from him.
But he couldn’t just stay there, he also had school to attend, and it would do her no favor if he were to indulge her and stay with her. She wouldn’t become independent if he just hovered around her all the time.
He beckoned Kururi over, then took her hand. He released Mairu’s, earning himself a tearful gasp, but quickly brought their hands together so they were holding each other instead of him.
“You two want to be the perfect human being? Then act as one. If you can’t do something, then let Kururi do it instead, and if she can’t do something, then it’s up to you to take over. That’s what you agreed on, didn’t you?”
The twins observed their brother, then each other. They didn’t say anything, but their faces showed they had come to some sort of mutual agreement.
They nodded, then Kururi piped up.
“Brave. (Today, I’ll be the brave one.)”
“T-that’s right! I can’t do it t-today, so Kuru-nee will do it!”
Izaya smiled and pat both their heads.
“Good, now go to class and don’t terrorize your classmates too much. Well, unless they’re mean to you then by all means, go all out, just don’t get caught. I’ll come pick you up later.”
“Bye.”
“Bye-bye, Iza-nii!”
He stood back up and waved at the now smiling twins (though Mairu still had tears all over her face), then finally left the elementary school.
What a handful, those two were, really.
School was uneventful, almost boring really. Shinra had talked his head off about that (ironically) headless so-called ‘girlfriend’ of his, and classes had gone agonizingly slowly, made only slower by the fact Izaya…already knew most of what they had taught. He got to do some people-watching, at the very least.
He couldn’t help but feel like something was missing, though. The day was too calm.
…
Once more, Shizuo opened his eyes only to be greeted by a white ceiling and all kinds of wires attached to his body.
At least he wasn’t strapped down this time, and someone had been gracious enough to dress him up in some simple hospital robes.
He wished they had given him underwear, though.
“So, Sleeping Beauty wakes. Although you would qualify more as the Beast from another fairy tale.” A bored female voice caught his attention. He slowly moved his gaze from the ceiling to the woman sitting to his right, who appeared more interested in whatever she was reading than the man who had just awoken.
”…W-wh…” He tried to croak out a question, but only ended up having a coughing fit.
“I would not suggest trying to speak. Your body, as resilient as it is, is still weak from the absolutely idiotic thing you did a few days ago.” She still didn’t look up from her papers. “Honestly, who even tears off wires from their own head? You’re lucky you only gave yourself a three-day long coma instead of permanent and surely lethal brain damage.”
She finally put down whatever she was reading and turned her indifferent gaze to her patient(?).
“I will have to admit, though, that you are surprisingly resilient, I can certainly understand why that man would be so obsessed with you, Heiwajima-san.”
Shizuo squinted at her. So, she knew his name. It made sense if she was his doctor or something, though she honestly looked more like a crazy and possibly evil scientist.
And he still couldn’t shake off the feeling that he had already seen her somewhere…Wait.
Wasn’t she the Flea’s secretary or something? He vaguely remembered an ice-cold woman occasionally opening the door when he’d come to that louse’s apartment in order to kill him.
So Izaya was behind his current state, then. He growled. As soon as he got his strength back, he’d go find and kill that fucking bastard!
Monster.
He gasped.
He barely feels the weight of lithe body he throws right through some building’s window.
He clung to the sheets with all his might, his body stiffening with tension.
Do it.
He felt a sharp pain in his head. The woman glanced at him curiously.
Everybody’s gone.
The same day. Over and over again.
The terrible sound of bones being crushed under a powerful fist.
Red, emotionless eyes.
The Flea is standing, arms limp.
“Had things been different, could we have been friends?” He asks his friend. He would have simply used him, she says.
The Flea in a wheelchair.
Not a person is left. Or rather, nobody was even here in the first place.
A never-ending corridor. Reality falling apart.
Two kids that remind him a lot of the both of them. They’re best friends.
A flash, then the bastard is gone, never to be seen again.
The city doesn’t change, and neither does he. Yet he can’t help but feel like something is missing.
“I…za…” Another cough. He hears a sigh near him.
“Of course, you’d be just as obsessed as him.” She muttered then went behind him. She messed with some wires, attaching some to the bed and straight up removing others (properly this time). Finally, he felt the bed he was lying on be pushed around.
They exited the room he was in and found themselves in a hallway similar to the one he had explored earlier with…
…Who was it again?
Lost in thought, he didn’t realize they had gone to another section of the building until he found himself being pushed into another room, vastly different from the one he woke up in but still somewhat familiar.
He heard the woman speak in English to the other people in the room, and they left the room. She moved his bed right next to the one that was already present in the room, then fiddled with the settings until he was slightly propped up.
When he turned his head to his left where the other bed was, he paused at what he saw.
There was a person asleep there, but that wasn’t the most surprising thing. Various cables were attached to their head, as well as their other limbs. Some of the cables were connected to a machine Shizuo was unfortunately very familiar with from his childhood: a heart rate monitor. It reported a slow but steady heartbeat.
His focus wasn’t on the various wires and beeping machines however, but on the face of the person lying down.
His hair was longer, and he was paler than the last time he had seen him, but there was no mistaking this person’s identity.
”…Izaya.”
…
He went about his day as usual. Pretending to listen in classes, ignoring Shinra’s rambling, messing with random students to gauge their reactions…
How boring.
When he went to pick up the twins later that day, they had seemed to be more comfortable in their new roles than this morning. Mairu wasn’t crying anymore, and Kururi stayed quiet while she chatted various people’s ears off. They were still holding hands, he noticed.
Well, for kids their age, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Siblings who got along certainly were easier to deal with than those who were constantly squabbling.
The three of them came back to an empty house, as was usual, and Izaya cooked dinner to feed the little black holes before putting them to bed (an easy task for Kururi, not so much for the energetic Mairu).
Back in his own room, he quickly did the ridiculously easy homework and spent some time on the computer, looking for all kinds of rumors and chatting using various personas.
“So even back then you couldn’t help but mess with people, huh.”
Izaya quickly spun around, letting his chair fall to the ground and swung a knife in the direction he heard the voice, but it was easily dodged.
In front of him stood an unarmed and vaguely amused man with messy brown hair, golden eyes, and wearing hospital clothes.