Seventeen Twice Broken

The last thing Izaya Shoutou knew before he took his customary fifty-year nap was that the hunters' organization was in disarray following the wake of Sara Shirabuki's death and the continuation of the murdering rampage Kaname Kuran had started. He had been on the death list too, and he had organized a soiree to help Yuuki Kuran to entrap her then-fiancé, and Kaname had asked him if he could use his life to turn his precious girl human. Izaya had agreed then, glad as he was to have an opportunity to go down without taking down almost everyone, which was the penchant of most purebloods even before he had been born.

But somehow the agreement he'd had with Kaname did not come to pass, and things spiralled out of control, and well, ending up with no alternative, Izaya decided to go to sleep and weather the unfortunate turn of events as he always had. He was sure that he was out of whatever death list Kaname Kuran had come up with, but if the ancestor decided to kill him anyway, Izaya would be past beyond caring. He would be asleep, and if he got killed asleep, then that was fine, at least he had peace and left in peace. This was a luxurious end for many purebloods, not so easily afforded.

And so, Izaya Shoutou withdrew into the coffin, leaving the Kurans with their war against the hunters, against the world, and finally against each other.

He woke up after a hundred years, and for him, that was a rather decadent lie-in. His maid Suri was the first thing he laid eyes on as always, and she helped him out of his sarcophagus and attached several IVs connected to a few bags of blood down his arms. It was winter, and Izaya could smell the snow outside. Suri had him settled by his favorite armchair near the fireplace, IV drips and all, and left him to shake off the last few vestiges of drowsiness from his system.

Izaya's mind was blank for the first few hours, until he cracked his eyes open and stared into the red orange flames. He gradually allowed his senses to activate, and let himself exhale as he relaxed into the feeling of consciousness. Nothing had changed, at least, in his quiet household.

After a while Suri came round with tea, and Izaya watched her in silence as she poured him tea and buttered him some crumpets.

That will be all, thank you, Izaya murmured, and the maid bowed and left him to his own devices.

With waking came the slow ebb of memory, and Izaya Shoutou wondered whatever did become of the Kurans and their star-crossed lovers' tangle. There was a twinge of disappointment there too; disappointment in the fact that Kaname Kuran did drop his murderous intent and desisted from killing the remaining purebloods. He wondered what did become of the hunters too, and decided that his waking this time was quite interesting than the few centuries' past, as he had something to actually look forward to, even if it was just gossip.

Instead of drinking Suri's blood to update himself with the world, Izaya decided to take the car, go out, and ask for news from the noble families in the form of a courtesy house to house call. It was unheard of, a pureblood like himself doing the visiting, but Izaya did not care much for etiquette anyway, and his legs needed a proper stretching. Suri had offered to accompany him but he'd declined, saying that she had better tend to the family companies and prepare them for his takeover at the soonest possible time.

So Izaya Shoutou took his car keys and drove out to the streets in a charcoal gray BMW. The snow fell in light flakes from the gray sky, and from within the vehicle Izaya took to looking around at how much his surroundings had changed. The buildings were more modern, higher than what he could remember; and the humans looked especially thriving. Civilians were out by the streets wearing coats, and many were busy with handheld gadgets if they weren't talking with each other or otherwise preoccupied.

The traffic light turned red, and Izaya, who had been busy trying to look at a magnificent skyscraper that looked like a bamboo, stepped on his brakes too late. There was a loud screech of tires, followed by the sudden flash of a motorcycle from the adjacent street, followed by the sound of horns and a crash.

All Izaya managed was a small gasp, and a blink. The motorcycle bumped into his driver's door, and the helmeted woman – woman, because she wore a denim jacket and a floral pink dress under it coupled with ankle-length boots – promptly got off her ride with a clever manoeuvre of her skirts and proceeded to pound her gloved fists on his window.

He could feel a headache coming up. How was he to explain that he was toting around a license that had been expired for a hundred years? Nonetheless, Izaya Shoutou stepped out of his car obligingly and turned to the lady, who hadn't removed her helmet and who he discovered was a head shorter than he was.

You jerk! The girl yelled, her voice muffled. Don't you know how to drive? You could've killed me! What the hell were you doing in your car?

He'd raised his hands as if to pacify her, and out of the corner of his vision Izaya could see a police car pull over. It was at that moment that his senses chose to inform him that he wasn't dealing with a human; he doubled back and stared at the helmeted girl, who had paused in her tirade and was now eyeing him as well.

All right, what's the trouble? The traffic officer asked, but neither Izaya nor the helmeted woman paid him any heed.

Then she reached up with her gloved hands and pulled her helmet off, and down cascaded auburn locks to hang just past her shoulders. She looked up at him with huge, maroon eyes that he remembered well. She had not changed, she was still eternally seventeen years old.

Izaya-san? Yuuki Kuran spoke, quite unable to believe it.

Izaya, too surprised with the turn of events, only managed an odd gurgle out of his throat.

Being a gentleman and the older one made Izaya admit his fault, and it took him and Yuuki Kuran only ten minutes to reach an amicable settlement, and the traffic soon moved unhindered. Yuuki assured him that her motorcycle did not suffer any damage, and he absolutely refused once she offered to share the expenses for the repair of his dented door. After a few minutes of polite haggling, they decided to go to lunch together, and thus found themselves in the nearest tonkatsu restaurant within reach.

Yuuki ordered a complete tonkatsu bento for the two of them, and chose to settle by the farthest end of the place. Izaya pulled her chair for her and she smiled prettily at him as she sat down. Once they were seated, she immediately gushed as to how it was such a good timing to see him again, how was he doing, did his nap go well, and other niceties. For his part Izaya wondered what she was doing alone, and on a motorcycle to boot – what he remembered of the girl was that she was a bit tomboyish but the motorcycle looked quite out of place.

Thinking that circumstances had not changed in the hundred-or-so years he had been asleep, Izaya naturally asked after Kaname Kuran and Zero Kiryuu.

Yuuki did not answer well until the bento arrived and she stuffed her face with it. Izaya knew at once that he'd touched on a sensitive topic, so he broke his chopsticks in half and proceeded to eat the rice, but not really tasting the food. They could not do with silence, however, so Izaya changed the topic.

That motorcycle is new, I presume?

The Kuran girl smiled at him and nodded. I got it three months ago, and I've been taking it for a ride everywhere! It's not like I don't have a car, and I know how to drive, but I think motorcycles just give you this sort of freedom, you know? It's a Ducati 1199 Panigale, and…

Izaya did not know she had this line of interests. He listened politely as he slowly finished off his rice, not wanting to put out the girl's enthusiasm. When the bill came, however, Yuuki beat him to it, quick as she was in pulling out her purse. That embarrassed him, and he tried to give her his share in the meal but she refused it point-blank, pushing his hands gently away as she curled his fist around his own coin.

The Touya family's hosting a party in two evening's time, so, let's meet there instead, Izaya-san, and you can treat me to a drink then, Yuuki had said with a laugh. It's so good to see you! She added as she pushed herself on tiptoes, gave him a hug and walked off.

And that was how Izaya ended up going to a BMW repair house instead of his intended house to house call.

For the record, he did go to the party, Yuuki's advance word about him ensuring that he did not need a formal invite. The gathering was for the younger vampires; the dress was casual and he suddenly looked and felt horribly overdressed for the nightclub venue. The nobles made way for him and bowed and nobody questioned his dress, but Izaya felt ashamed anyway, and had half a mind to slightly reprimand Yuuki for forgetting to tell him about the manner of clothing for tonight.

Oh my god, Izaya-san, I'm so sorry!

She found him when he'd seated himself by the bar, and she'd approached, looking resplendent in a black-and-blue straight cut dress. She clutched his arm and ducked her head over and over. Izaya felt his annoyance disappear as he assured her it was all right, and Yuuki slid herself on the barstool beside him and promptly asked for a daiquiri with three blended tablets.

There was something different with the girl, he was sure of it. When he met her years back, she had mostly been unsure of herself, trying to find her purpose, like a hatchling newly taken flight. The hundred years he spent asleep saw to the girl and made her into a woman, that was what he was seeing now, and she exuded confidence and purpose that she did not have all those years ago.

She was aware of his scrutiny, for she put her glass down and tilted her head at him. Under the dark lights of the club, he could make out that she was wearing peach-colored, glittery lipgloss.

You have taken to partying now, also? He inquired with a smile.

Not soirees, I still hate those, she laughed pleasantly. I like hanging out with this crowd, she gestured at the dancing nobles around them, less formality and politics. Politics bores me.

He wondered what Kaname thought of that. And maybe if he brought up the topic again, she would answer this time.

I remember what people told me of your first soiree, Izaya spoke. You did a good job back then, so I was told. But I guess politics isn't for everyone, even a pureblood.

Yuuki Kuran smiled at him then, and raised her drink to him as a toast.

For boring politics, and the purebloods who can't stand it, she said.

Izaya asked for his own drink by that time – a martini – and raised his own shotglass and touched it with hers. And for purebloods who never had patience for it to begin with.

He had been in the family library that afternoon when Suri brought him the microfilm of significant vampire newspapers she could find pertaining to events for the last one hundred years. He set up the projector himself, having a mind to get the latest model, and then proceeded to leaf through each image with the patience of an immortal.

What struck him was the headline, about fifty years old, about divorce between the remaining members of the Kuran family. The image had no pictures, but the letters of the word was splashed on the page, like a signpost of death. D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Izaya's eyes scanned down the page and found the names for confirmation: Kaname and Yuuki.

He looked for the rest of the article, but the news was sparse, as to be expected. Kuran family members Kaname and Yuuki filed for divorce. Representative refuses to divulge further details, except for the fact that there has been a swift and precise settlement. The lord and lady Kuran did not have children.

Izaya leafed through other microfilms, but the scandal was cleverly wrapped up – only two other articles mentioned it in equally short manners, and after that, the issue disappeared from the news entirely. The articles said that the vast Kuran fortune was originally intended to be split neatly in half, but the counsel for Kaname moved for a 60-40 settlement, which was unopposed by the counsel for Yuuki, and it was there that the matter ended, and the news moved on to other things.

Izaya remembered how the girl first came to him, naïve and innocent, offering him a way out of his unending life. And then he recalled the second time she came to him, with a silver-haired hunter in tow, her hair cut short, asking him to help her entrap Kaname to try put a stop to his murderous plan. And finally, he remembered how they had met for a third time, the girl on her motorcycle, slamming into his car's driver's door, shouting and calling him a jerk.

She came to his attention a year later, during a particularly vibrant summer, by the means of a letter written on her own hand upon a Kuran family stationery, asking if he wanted to invest into the restaurant business she was planning to put up. She indicated the prices of the shares of the company she'd set up, and informed him she would be thrilled to have him in on the venture. The letter struck Izaya as unusual; what impression he still had of her was the naïve girl with the retracted scythe in her bag – he never imagined she would be interested in other things, and would actually try her hand on business.

The letter also indicated a proposed meeting; she was going camping up somewhere in the mountains with a river where salmon came to breed, and asked if he should be interested in going with her. If not, they could meet at a proper café downtown, might she suggest that one called Po's Place, because it served excellent parfait and she loved parfait.

Izaya took up his pen and wrote a reply too in his own hand; he was glad she did not try to reach him digitally – he never had patience for the human gadgetry; for him, letters and ink had a flair that no technology could replace. So he wrote, and told her the camping was perfect, as in his now 2,100-year life, he had never camped before, ever.

The trip to the mountain involved a commute on the world train for a four-hour trip with their mountain packs. Izaya had never bothered with the nuisances of public transportation, but Yuuki had insisted and promised she would assist him and that trains were fun. She arranged for first class tickets, which meant they had separate compartments each for their relative comfort. These things were new for Izaya; he had taken delight in buying his camping gear a week before the trip, and when they met by the train station she'd smiled at him and inspected the things he brought, and told him he had good taste regarding the tent.

Fog surrounded Yuuki's mountains during the early mornings, and they reached the campsite at around lunch, but the weather was comfortably chilly. Other campers were there too, a merry lot of humans, and Izaya silently marvelled at how Yuuki seemed at home with them, not a lock of hair out of place.

She still smelled like the sun, very much like her mother, but her scent now, as Izaya discovered, carried a tinge of rose.

I usually take Renji and Inase with me for yearly camping out here, she told him as she helped him pitch his very first tent. But family business is keeping them busy, so I thought, why not invite you so you can have some outdoors?

Akatsuki Renji and Aidou Inase, a noble boy and girl respectively, had taken over their families' businesses and were Yuuki Kuran's longest companions, aside from Senri Shiki and Rima Touya.

I am honoured you considered me, Izaya replied. This is something I have never done before.

Their morning was spent hiking around the trails of the mountains, and by lunchtime they went with some of the human campers and tried to catch fish by the nearby river. Izaya thoroughly enjoyed putting bait to his hook and casting the line, and the wait was something exciting in its own way, especially when the line finally jerked to indicate a catch. They had a good haul of a good number of freshwater fish and catfish, and Yuuki told him they were good cooked over fire, and eaten with bare hands.

She discussed her proposed venture over grilled catfish and straight-from-the-can sardines. She had three prior companies running; one took care of her perfume business, the other for her clothing line and shoe line, and this one, for the restaurant, was something she had always wanted since she considered herself a food connoisseur. She wanted to put up a Japanese fusion place, and if business went good, she would try a French one next.

All in all Izaya liked what he was hearing, and she even brought him some documents attesting to her businesses' good credit standing. The papers were rolled up and kept secured in a plastic tube in her backpack. By the time their dinner was finished, Izaya promised an investment worth fifty million, and Yuuki beamed happily at the prospect of such a good deal.

The topic steered toward the inevitable come the time the campers prepared a huge bonfire, but the two of them stayed near their tents and were content to watch.

I have read about your divorce, Izaya said as gently, as politely as he could. I am sorry.

She ran a hand through her hair and took a moment to glance at the bonfire. The shadows of the flames danced in her eyes, and Izaya understood that she was a lot different from what she had been.

Sometimes, a girl's happy ending doesn't quite come, so she has to find it, she said.

She had done the leaving, then. Izaya could not help but recall her again, the first time he met her, her hair long. He didn't speak, and he didn't expect her to continue, but she did.

He was perfect, Kaname, she spoke, and a nostalgia came over her tone. But in the end there were too many secrets, too many lies, and I was stuck in a box much too small for me by that time. I don't know how it came to be, but it happened, this day came when I couldn't stand his face, I couldn't stand it if he touched me, and I detested him, and I didn't want to be near him and I wanted out – I wanted to actually grow up not having to be in his shadow, not having to obey whatever he said about where my heart belonged, bull crap like that, I got tired. I wanted to be alone in a room, I wanted to be faraway, I wanted to be somewhere he couldn't reach, I just wanted to be myself, on my own, away from him.

Izaya contented himself with poking a marshmallow into the small fire he had started.

I cheated on him, she said, turning to face him. I cheated on him with the guy I had with me when I came to you and asked you to set up that masquerade ball for me.

He met her gaze, and he understood there was no regret in her eyes, just this deep nostalgia for days gone by.

But that guy, who was the hunters' President by that time, he could not remember me completely, I erased his memories of me. After all that I came back to him, and I guess his heart remembered me even if his mind didn't, and he fell in love with me all over again and I cheated on Kaname with him, and then I asked for divorce and he gave it to me, and then I married Zero next.

She chuckled by then as she poked her own marshmallow into the fire and hugged her knees to herself.

He loved me not in the smothering, imposing way Kaname did, he loved me despite the fact he detested purebloods, but in the end I couldn't bear what I was doing to him, and I broke him and destroyed him for the second time. My guilt choked me, I had no right, and so I relinquished him, and as far as I know now he's got a family of his own. I never got pregnant by him. One of us had the problem and I never bothered finding out who exactly. The divorce with Zero was much more terrible than the one with Kaname; he refused to give up without a fight and I remember us being in litigation over it for years, until both of us were nearly bankrupt with the legal bills. But in the end he got tired of it, and so there it is, and I disappeared from his life forever, this time.

She picked at her melted marshmallow gingerly, and she turned her gaze to him again and smiled.

I hope my sob story won't change your mind about that investment though, Izaya-san?

He smiled too and assured her as far as business was concerned they were on good terms. His marshmallow got burnt.

The next time he saw her was during the grand opening of her Japanese fusion restaurant. Humans and vampires mingled in the crowd and she stood by the glass doors of the restaurant, her hair in a ponytail, and she clutched the pair of scissors as she beamed at everyone present, including himself. Akatsuki Renji helped her cut the ribbon, and in the midst of all the applause and flash of cameras, she turned to him and mouthed her thank you.

Business with the Yuuki Kuran Group was good, and within five years, the French restaurant she had always wanted also came into existence. By now Izaya was a major stockholder in her companies, so he had a say on the management of the new restaurant along with her Board of Directors. He had been happy to help with the design of the place, content as he was to let the nobles handle the rest. He offered to draw up some designs for her, and he invited her for coffee in his place, and they spent the late afternoon outside, until a sudden downpour forced them to run for it, taking the sketches with them.

It rained cats and dogs well into the night, and she had a fire going on his fireplace, and as her back was turned to her he noticed this butterfly tattoo on her nape. He approached her then, and his lips touched her nape and the tattoo on it, then his lips trailed to her shoulder next, and she tensed against him, her hand clutching the poker tightly.

Izaya, she'd said, and the absence of the honorific from his name was refreshing.

The straps of her dress fell away from her shoulders easily, and when his lips caught hers, he discovered like himself, she had a faint whiff of blood about her, and all vampires had that scent, from the most powerful pureblood up to the lowest degraded ex-human.

He didn't know exactly what made him do it, but he decided that he liked this version of her – this older, broken woman who wore the eternal visage of a seventeen-year-old. He liked how the years shattered her naïveté, how she was disillusioned in love and broken twice over it, but most importantly, he loved how she picked herself up and grew into this lady who knew what she wanted and could get it for herself, whatever it was.

The rainwater made her skin cold against his, and she took him in without complaint, and the fact that he found her depths favouring him encouraged him, and he worked her a bit roughly, drawing her blood and creating bruises on her perfect cream skin.

Before he could come to his release she wrestled control from him, and he found himself under her and to his eyes she was much more beautiful like this, and she pushed herself down on him and tipped her head back, and Izaya reached up, up, up into the sun inside of her until they both lost themselves in each other.

Their relationship started out like that, physical, despite the fact that making love tired Yuuki easily. In the following weeks they started to share blood with each other, and after a particularly bloody feeding frenzy and lovemaking in his car, she asked him about his wife, and his only child who passed on to the grave as a human being without knowing who he was.

He told her, and to his surprise, found he could not recall the face of his wife. She turned to him worried after his sentence was cut short, and they looked at each other for a while, and he said he couldn't remember.

She caressed his cheek with her hands, and he kissed her hands and her wrists, and she moved close to him and kissed him so deeply that their fangs touched.

Izaya found that the fact that he could no longer remember his wife's face didn't bother him as he expected it to. He supposed by nature purebloods were like that; bumps in the road were just that, mere bumps, something you tripped over but you picked yourself up and walked on that never-ending road, without looking back. Yuuki had come to that realization too with her two great heartbreaks and failures, and she did what by instinct was the only thing left to do – she got up, dusted her knees and walked on, and found herself as she went along.

The two of them did go to Po's Place, and sat by one of the window seats. It was winter again, but despite the cold, Yuuki still insisted on getting the house specialty, a parfait consisting of sixty scoops of ice cream. For his part Izaya only ordered tea, and as he sipped his drink he watched the woman eat her heart out, uncaring about her manners and the blot of chocolate currently residing on the tip of her small nose.

That was good! She'd exclaimed as she licked the spoon clean.

I can see that, he replied as he watched her from the rim of his teacup.

She smiled at him and stuck her tongue out briefly, but her expression sobered, and despite himself, Izaya straightened in his seat and put his teacup down.

Well, she said as she looked at him. I can say that the problem wasn't with me. You're going to be a father again soon.

He was stunned by that, actually rendered speechless. Izaya leant forward after a few minutes, his hand reaching for hers across the table, and their fingers touched and twined.

At least let me make an honest woman out of you, he told her, his fingers feeling the old hunter charm bracelet still on her wrist. It was old now, so old, and the spell it held probably didn't work anymore, but Yuuki wore it and he never asked her to take it off; it was a part of who she was, and in his mind he would never see her without it.

She looked at their joined hands, and looked at him, and her maroon eyes were for the moment sad and afraid.

You're proposing so suddenly, she said. And I planned that I would be the only one with a surprise today.

Let me marry you, he told her, and he squeezed her hand.

I've got a phobia on weddings, she answered, and the first few teardrops leaked from her eyes then. And I hate wedding gowns, and the bouquet-throwing afterwards.

Then we won't have a wedding, said Izaya. All we'll have is a signing of the marriage contract. And then we could close the French restaurant and I'll cook for you. I'll make you all the choucroute garnie and parfait you could ever want.

Yuuki wiped her eyes with her free hand, and she smiled at him, and in her eyes he could see her fear, but most importantly her hope.

Her happy ending was yet to come. Perhaps now she had found it, and with the way her heart and that of her unborn child beat in perfect unison with each other, she could believe.