P is for Perfect(ly)
After a long silence in the empty middle-school classroom, in which both boys are supposed to be considering how they fucked up and how to not fuck up next time, they're still both pissed as hell and ready to fuck authority, fuck the rules, fuck it up, fuck each other up. Fists clench and don't loosen underneath the desks. The teacher left a few minutes ago, and that's the limit of how long they're able to hold it in.
Izaya breaks the air first, the chatty sixth-grader unable to resist. But the sentence itself is simple, almost eloquent in its shortness.
"I hate you."
An unusual amount of truth is in the sentence. Yes, later Izaya will be more curious than hateful of Shizuo. But at this moment, he hates Shizuo with a passion.
"I hate you too."
"Then we agree on something, after all. Shizu-cha"—
"Shut the fuck up."
"Or what?"
"Or I beat the shit out of you."
"My, my, Shizu-cha"—
"Again." Shizuo permits himself a nasty grin.
Izaya obliges and shuts his mouth for once. He can't really shut it all the way, since his lips are swollen beyond belief, along with the right side of his face. Normally, that would be the end of it. Even if Izaya loves teasing, he knows when to obey if it's helpful to him to do so, knows when to shut his mouth when confronted with authority. Of course he'll get them all back later, in terrible and subtle ways, but he has self-control. The conversation should end here.
But. Two problems. Shizuo doesn't give a shit, number one. And Izaya's pride has been wounded, because Shizuo has hurt him, and he's too childish yet to control himself fully, to wait and strike back and humiliate Shizuo beyond belief. So.
"Admit it, flea. I beat the shit out of you."
Shizuo's pushing it, he really is, thinks Izaya, while grinding his teeth in a merciless smile. Their motivations are transparent, their emotions so easy to read—Izaya's less so, of course, but they are only eleven years old, for God's sake.
"There's nothing to admit, Shizu-chan."
"GOD DAMN IT!" It's a roar.
"Jesus Christ, Shizu-chan." Izaya's pissing him off, again. "Lower your fucking voice a little, will you?"
"Fuck! I told you not to call me that, you tiny fucking piece-of-shit flea."
So many swear words erupt from their small, childish mouths. They would be in such trouble if the teacher were here. But she's not—yet— and aren't they already in deep shit? So the conversation continues.
"I can call you whatever the hell I want. Shizu. Chan." Izaya's eyes are narrowing, dangerously.
Shizuo attempts, one last time, to master himself. He tries to calm, tries to calm down a little. You'll only get yourself in to deeper shit than you already are. He thinks of Kasuka's disappointed face at home when he gets another suspension, tries to keep in control.
"Whatever."
"You know your problem?" Izaya whispers at Shizuo from across the room, because of course the teacher was smart enough to separate them but stupid enough to put them in the same room-school-city-country, and Izaya is beyond pissed now, thinking of his injuries, so pissed that he doesn't care that he's being as stupid as Shizuo.
"You're so easy to piss off, Shizu-chan, that no one can help doing it. I mean, you're so fucking stupid it almost makes me laugh, but then you're so pathetic I don't know whether I should laugh or cry for you. You've got no brains, and everyone in this fucking school is either scared of you or hates you."
"…" And the dam is this close to bursting, this close at the rawness of Izaya's eloquence.
"You've got no friends except for that little brother of yours, and even he's ashamed of you, because guess what? He's normal. And you are a freak. Haven't you seen it in his face? Or are you too scared to look, Shizu-chan? There is no one on your side. Sure, you can beat the crap out of everyone in this school, but you can't defeat the world. No one likes you, Heiwajima Shizuo. You will be a fucking loner the rest of your life, and you will die a piece of shit no one gives a damn about in the corner of a fucking construction site or something. Think about it, and tell me I'm not right."
When the teacher comes running back in at the sound of punches, Izaya is half-conscious on the floor, his arms pinned under Shizuo's superior leg-power, being pummeled again.
When asked why, a few hours later when Izaya is somewhere in a hospital and his blood is drying on Shizuo's hands in the principal's office, Shizuo says, "Because he pisses me off," and holds his hand out for the suspension notice.
But really, it's because Izaya's too smart for his own good. Shizuo hated that feeling, that Izaya became himself for a moment, telling himself the nightmares he does not want to think about, scraping the wounds of his life open and showing them to the sky. He hates how he could not tell Izaya that he was wrong, even while knocking a few of Izaya's loose teeth out. When it comes down to it, Izaya all-too-often understands Shizuo perfectly, and Shizuo hates that about him.