evolve.jp

If there were any other choice, Rio wouldn’t be here. In fact, she’d rather be anywhere else. There’s dread coiled in her belly, cold and heavy. Her chest is tight. It’s silly. It’s so silly, because he’s just a man. He’s not some monster under her bed. He’s flesh and blood and human.

Even if he is… wrong.

There’s something uncanny about him, that’s for sure. She doesn’t understand him. He’s the kind of man to giggle with a gun to his head. She knows. She was there. She’d begged for his life. After everything, after all the things he’s done -- which she’s certain she’s only seen the tip of that iceberg -- she’d been desperate to not watch him die.

Maybe she’s wrong, too.

“Eiko. Eiko Tomatsu. She’s been gone for weeks. The police are…” She presses her lips together, stopping herself from saying ‘useless’. “If anyone can find something, it’s you, right? I know you aren’t… a detective, but maybe you could at least find who she’s been talking to? Or… anything?”

She sounds pitiful. Her voice is high and nervous. She wishes she could read the look on his face, but she can’t. She can’t read him at all. Their history says he’ll probably toy with her. That’s fine. She can entertain him if she must, as long as he helps her. Though his helping her, if she’s being honest, is painfully unlikely. Maybe he’ll surprise her?

He’s not exactly predictable.

It has been quite some time since Izaya last laid eyes on Rio. He kept tabs on her for a while, but she committed so wholeheartedly to normalcy in the aftermath of their little adventure that the boredom soon settled into his bones and he redirected his attention elsewhere. She made her choice, or so it seemed, to dedicate her life to bland acceptance of the mundane. To see her now is a pleasant surprise, a welcome jolt of the unexpected.

But perhaps he should have expected this: once you get a taste of the underbelly, it sticks to the back of your throat, even if you ‘go straight.’ And the underbelly most certainly remembers the taste of you. Again: everybody, without fail, comes to his office eventually; everybody, without fail, will one day need something only he can give. And because there is so much love in his heart, he will always give it.

His stands behind his desk, palms pressed and splayed on its surface, in an insufferably smug display of power. His grin is wide and as bright as the summer sun—and likely just as painful to look at. Izaya is pleased. Something interesting is happening. The air vibrates with possibility. 

her voice is soft and unassuming, without accusation. she hardly remembered the girl's existence, much less her name. her eyes are fixed to the damp splotches on the floor where she did her best to dispose of the evidence. it's the interruption of their particular momentum that has her so shaken. they have, however attenuated, a routine; a vaguely predictable give-and-take to sustain her right at the edge of madness. he's taken a great deal from her this time, and she didn't come prepared to bare what was left to a stranger.

“what would she make you beg for?”

          “We both married icy blondes. Her name’s Tem.”          He says it with all the cool detachment one would expect.          “Shinra’s dad wanted me to look out for her. She’s Nebula property.” 

There’s an unpleasant scent lingering beneath the disinfectant, bitter and organic, fetid. Vomit? 

　　Tem lowers her head further, leaning forward to rest it against the door. The heat is starting to get to her now, sitting out here in it, next to a running car. Some of the ac flows out, but it's not enough to help. Maybe it's the concoction Emilia gave her, or maybe it's how disconnected she feels from her own self right now, but she can't even think to use her own abilities to cool herself down.

　　It takes a bit, and a few tries, but at last, Tem shakes her and manage to croak out,

　　“I... I thought he was coming to save me. But―but I... When I thought he was there, I should've... When I thought it was him, I should've been happy... But I... I was scared.”　She lifts her head, and looks up at Izaya; distant, pained, panicked. And like she's going to cry. Her hand digs into the fur lining of the coat.

I was so relieved when it was you. His heart hammers in his chest, a victory drum. He takes her face in his hands and kisses her. Then he retrieves the bottled water from the car, uncapping it and holding it to her lips. 

          “And it’s still me. I’ll take care of you. There’s nothing to be afraid of now.”          

He isn’t so naive as to think that he’s conquered the ghost once and for all, but this is quite the landmark battle to have won. Enjoy this, he tells himself, peering into Tem’s watery eyes. Soak it in, remember every detail.

the  only  indication  minsu  is  surprised  at  all  is  the  small  quirk  of  his  eyebrows,  the  gentle  fluttering  of  his  lashes.  that’s  an  awful  lot  of  money,  and  were  minsu  a  better  person  he  might  feel  a  little  bad.  on  second  thought,  maybe  he  does  —  there  is  a  sinking,  pulling  feeling  in  his  gut,  a  feeling  he  is  very  quick  to  ignore.  he  doesn’t  want  to  feel  shame.  he  didn’t  do  anything  wrong,  not  this  time.

shame  is  such  a  bitter  flavor  on  his  tongue.  he  hates  the  way  it  sours  his  perception.  minsu  opts  to  take  a  sip  of  his  coffee.

“  why  in  the  world  would  i  want  him  to  think  i’m  dead?  he  can  know  exactly  where  i’m  located,  for  all  i  care.  would  you  like  my  new  phone  number  so  that  you  can  wring  more  out  of  him?  ”

there  is  a  very  small,  quiet  part  of  minsu  that  feels  oddly  touched  by  the  gesture.  so  starved  of  connection,  he  finds  it  a  little  flattering  he  is  so  sought  after.  he  still  has  kangho’s  number,  maybe  he  will  be  the  one  to  open  communication  again…

“  he  did  this  to  himself.  all  i  ever  did  was  sell  to  him,  i  can’t  be  responsible  for  his  misplaced  affection.  but  i’ll  happily  profit  off  of  it.  ”

Ultimately he won’t give Kangho such easy access. The phone number will be withheld, kept instead for his own use; the idiot will have to put in the extra effort to contact Minsu himself. Izaya has done his part by finding him alive, and he will report back with the necessary information for next steps, but there’s no need to make it easy for the kid. If he’s committed to this self-destructive crush then he has to prove it. Put in the work.

Izaya leans back in his seat, folding his arms over his chest. Narrowed eyes glimmer with dancing lights: curiosity, appraisal, amusement. He’s grinning all the while.          “You must be fun at parties.”

Not a psychopath. There is too much seething vulnerability in his detachment. No, he’s more like that Anri girl-thing, and in some ways Delilah. The necessity of his vacancy is desperate. Izaya has been watching him enough; he’s seen the scars. But he genuinely doesn’t seem to mind doing this, and maybe even finds some pleasure in it—so where does that leave him? A self-loathing sadist with a not-quite-right air about him, like he forgot to turn a switch on inside himself. What a fucking weirdo. He likes him.

Until two years ago, you were a legendary hacker. Your internet alias was "Falcon." When we discovered that you were only a junior high student, we were really surprised. We want Falcon to help us. We want you to hack into their computer. You mean you want me to commit a crime? If you think that way, you already committed a crime two years ago. Since your ability could save people, why don't you use it?

In fact, as soon as he sets foot outside the building, he resigns himself to practical torture for the sake of the game, the mystery -- the delight of two entire marshmallows from good ol' Walter.

He spends the rest of the day idling about Ikebukuro, by all accounts aimless, but taking notes, collecting a cursory understanding of the fabled city that can only be experienced on the ground floor. He's careful to leave no further mark of himself, though. Speaks to no one beyond idle chatter, bumps no shoulders, leaves no scuff of his shoe. This isn't his city, after all, no matter how remarkable it proves to be -- and nor is the one he returns to at the end of the day.

When he arrives, late at night, at the apartment signed to Seth, he takes a bath and washes off everything. And when he sleeps, finally, it's not in Ikebukuro nor Funabashi, but in Kashiwa. His town. His world. The place where things that matter actually live.

And he spends the rest of the week there, living his real life, ignoring the ghosts and playthings of the made-up worlds of Funabashi and Ikebukuro. He refuses to return besides to attend humdrum acts of normalcy, to maintain the illusion of Seth's existence ; meetings, grocery runs, saying hello to neighbors, and then abandoning the shell of a human once again.

He lives in Kashiwa. Everything lives in Kashiwa. He wonders if Izaya will find his way there.

He really can't stop wondering it.

The anticipation of the week's end twists like a knife in his stomach.

It isn’t that Seth is a complete ghost. He doesn’t appear to be in hiding. There’s documentation of him, though the information is minimal, surface-level. Hardly more than simple confirmations of his existence, really. For all intents and purposes, he’s just another nondescript body in Tokyo. A few of Izaya’s contacts did come through with a handful of first-person accounts of what it’s like to work with him, but the reports were skeletal at best: he appears when you need him, suddenly and eerily, then disappears just as quickly. Occasionally he’s been seen lingering on the outskirts of goings-on, watching, “a lot like you actually, Orihara, come to think of it.” 

The vagueness of it all is maddening—especially because these obstacles are less dead ends than they are noncommittal shrugs. Seth is an information broker who appears to value mystique and privacy, and that’s all there is to it. Except that isn’t all there is to it. It can’t be.

Several times, he took Seth’s card from his desk drawer, staring at it intently, memorizing the number. He was tempted to call, but didn’t. In a way it felt like that would be admitting defeat.

The day of their next meeting arrives and he’s relieved. Elated, even. He practically floats to the coffeehouse. Of course, he does hover some distance away, lurking, until he sees the familiar silhouette enter first; then he waits another five minutes so as to be tastefully late. 

          “Oh, good, you remembered!”          Izaya chirps, coming up behind him.  He starts ushering him toward the counter, arm thrown around his shoulder.         “I was worried you’d ghost me. You said you were going to spoil me this time, right?” 

she makes no effort to conceal her delight. why should she? not long ago, it seemed he'd rather die than indulge her, especially in something as seemingly frivolous as a nice dinner. but even without the drastic price of their reconciliation, the resonance of the city casts its net across wide swathes of time and terrain; he would've been beckoned here regardless.

she begins twisting the diamond-haloed garnet ring on her right thumb.

Especially since she’s started to talk about weapons. Apparently there’s more on her mind than luring Izaya to a bayou death. He listens, cogs turning, trying to figure out where exactly she’s going with this. 

rei swats his hand away from her face, though there's no real effort behind it. too tired both mentally and physically to protest. and for a few moments, rei sits there in silence debating whether she should tell the truth about her dream or make something up just to satisfy him.

"That's disgusting!" He scolds, point-blank. It's the kind of reaction that takes no time to think itself through.

Because if he did, it would go on to run the risk of proving the other's self-serving manic fantasies correct, which couldn't possibly turn out well.

And if he did, he might find that the romanticism of it -- his dedication to Celty manifesting physically, parasiting itself into his stomach, tearing him apart from within, closing his mortal life with a grand gesture of all-consuming love --------- Well. A good half of his spirit wanted to swoon and admit to that readily. Maybe more.

The worst part was that if anyone were to understand that level of blind, disgusting, dedicated romanticism, it would be Izaya. But if anyone were to bully him for it in a way that might actually bother him, it would be Izaya.

So he stuck to shutting it down and pouting about it. childlike. mean, in a different way.

Izaya would like to claim neutrality—that he doesn’t care one way or the other what happens to Shinra; that his value is equal to everyone else’s, alive or dead—but the truth of the matter is that he hasn’t the slightest idea how he would react if Shinra really were to go out that way. And he’s perfectly content never to find out. Besides, in all likelihood Celty wouldn’t let it happen in the first place: she’s a sensible monster. 

As sensible as a monster can be, anyway. 

          “Have you thought about what it’s going to be like when you get old?”          (If he gets old: it’s always a matter of if when it comes to a life of criminal activity; they all know that.)          “As far as we can tell, she doesn’t age. But we do, you have. That’s going to present some challenges someday, don’t you think?”  

It’s a wonder that it hasn’t presented any challenges already. Celty has known Shinra all his life; she can remember the way he spoke before his voice deepened, what he looked like when he was a child. Normally that would give someone pause. At least, it would give a human someone pause. If they were decent.

Izaya often wonders about how it all works, what lies they have to tell themselves and each other for their relationship to flourish the way it does—and with Shinra as a captive audience on this train, he can ask all the questions he likes. 

　　In her peripherals, she watches him trace along the leash as if this is a courting ritual of some sort, and when he asks about it directly, she releases her hands and lets it unwind and fall to the floor, the only thing remaining on her face a flat sort of skepticism.

　　“You know, the gender shit isn't all about sex. You're the one that brought it up in this situation. And if you think being a roundabout-know-it-all asshole about it is going to make me want to talk to you about it, I should probably just choke you to death with the damn thing and call it a day.”

Instead he tries to imagine what a ‘normal’ husband would do, say. But he struggles to abandon his real thoughts: unspoken, they fill him up, clogging and congesting his insides, volcanic. He can’t ignore them, even if he can’t say them; the attempted meditation on normalcy is so plainly farcical that he can’t stomach it for long. Izaya’s eyes don’t lose their clarity, but their typical sharpness is for a moment dulled; it seems almost as if he’s half-dissociated, gone somewhere far away. 

Then, all at once, he’s back, laughing the way he always does, a distancing sheen of polish between them. 

blistering calm in her voice. it could be true, for all he knows. this isn't the same creature he left to its own devices those many years ago; it isn't even the girl whom he gleefully fed to her executioners, though it's taken great pains to look like her. it smiles like she always has, like it's just stumbled upon the most delectable secret.

“i almost forgot about you, like i forget about my momma sometimes.”

she makes only the slightest movement. the blade is sharpened so finely that if he's distracted enough, he might not feel it gliding through his skin.

He might be a dead man, he might not be. It’s thrilling to be on that precipice, not knowing which way it will go. The fear squirms around inside him, tickles his guts; it’s all he can do not to keel over laughing. He has enough sense to know not to move, at least. Then it would be over all too soon.

          “‘Know better?’ Know you’re full of shit, you mean?”

She hasn’t claimed to need him in ages, which might be the point she’s trying to make. At least it’s circling the drain of her point, if she really has one at all.