Transparent Answer 透明アンサー
I'm very much loving the Transparent Answer by Jin. The story is not beta-ed so expect mistakes! Enjoy. I might turn this one shot into an OC story, who knows?
Izaya fidget his switchblade in his hands. At the tip, there was a barely readable engraving, 'Happy Birthday Izaya!'. He would never forget the person who remembered his birthday. Her smiling face and her crying face. Her death that had unconsciously brought a guilt that he carried for years.
She always smiled at him, as much as he doesn't like to admit it, he had grown fond of her. She hadn't found his red eyes as scary, she wasn't afraid of him like most of his other classmates. Most of the times she would be daydreaming, sheepishly smiling when she couldn't answer any of the questions asked by the teacher.
Yet she was cheerful all the time, she would try to make him smile everyday. She would share her red scarf when it was winter and he wasn't wearing enough garments.
"Your scarf doesn't match your eyes." Izaya would say.
"But it matches yours." She would reply.
She would scold him gently when he wanted to simply stop living this life, to cease to exist.
"To think that is absurd." She claimed.
She was one of the few that remembered his birthday and gave him a present. Yet he had done nothing when he saw her crying alone at the classroom. His thoughts were to leave her alone and let her clear her thoughts a while.
What Izaya didn't expect was when he found her absence from the school. At first, he only felt an uneasy feeling when he found the girls in his class crying a week later. But when he saw the flowers they carried, he understood everything.
Her heart that was hurt was gone already. She had hid everything behind those curtains of smiles. She had been cheerful for his sake. If only he had confronted and comforted her that day.
He kept staring at the flowers that was placed on her table. Around her table there were paper cranes made from her test papers. He knew that she had folded them somewhat absentmindedly during class periods. He picked them up one by one and followed the trail. It led to one paper crane by the window.
It was made from his test paper that he torn into pieces last time. Traces of glue and tape was all over it. On one wing was his test mark, '100%'; On the other was her neat writing, 'good job'.
"I thought you said it was absurd to think that." he mumbled.
Izaya changed after the incident but he could still remember her flowing scarf, her deep sea eyes, her smile.
Her importance to him.