A/N:
the yearly timeline for this story is taken from the date of birth on Izaya's driving licence, according to which he was born in 1990. Therefore, the first year of high school for him would start on April 2006, when he is fifteen (school year in Japan starts in April)
please note that however I try to keep my characters as close to canon as possible, this is an AU, and ooc-ness might happen
rating might go up further on
Thank you so much for commenting on this fic, everyone! Thanks to you, I keep writing more, and have incredible fun writing this.
Chapter 1
All your life, all you were taken for was a monster.
The strength you hate.
The temper you cannot control.
The chaos you evoke.
It all made you - and everyone around you - think of yourself as a mindless beast.
None of these idiots knew. You didn't know it yourself; but I did, I watched you, always watched, and I saw you were not a monster. No, quite the contrary. You would care, you would cry over the destruction you caused, you would jump to aid of anyone who needed help, you would let rain fall over you so that someone else could have a shelter.
You're no monster.
Every hero needs a villain, Shizu-chan. Without them, they are just a weird anomaly.
Monsters .
But Shizu-chan's no monster. He's a hero. My hero. People just can't see it; they only see you as a beast, and refuse you the love and adoration you crave and deserve.
So all I have to do is make them see.
Don't worry, Shizu-chan. I will become your villain.
I will make everyone hate me; will hurt everyone in my way, or even away from it; I will make the whole world despise me, and most of all you - and then, you will fight me and defeat me, and everyone will be grateful to you.
Don't worry, Shizu-chan.
I will do anything to make you happy.
Shinjuku, March 2015
"Is everything ready?"
Izaya looked from his computer screen at the little gathering in front of his desk. He was doing it again; losing focus, letting his thoughts wander. Now, he couldn't have that. If it becomes a common occurrence, he will end up losing clients, along with what little faith his few followers still had in him.
Ah, maybe followers wasn't the right words. More like leeches , wanting to suck something out for themselves from his shady business. But, alas, these kinds of friends were the only friends a villain could have.
He smirked his usual smirk and replied with fake hurt in his voice.
"Don't you trust my skills, Midorikawa-san? Everything is ready for the - ha - transfer . The merchandise you requested information on is ready for you to pick up on the site you agreed on with my other… clients . Now, if you would kindly give me my salary… thank you very much."
The suitcase placed before the raven-haired informant was pleasantly heavy as he turned and opened it, skimming his elegant fingers over neat rows of banknotes. He then closed the suitcase once again with a satisfying click and smiled brightly at the man before him.
"Everything in order, Midorikawa-san. Thank you very much for your patronage."
Ten minutes after the man left along with two gorilla-like bodyguards, Izaya sighed and leaned back on his chair, rubbing his temples gently. The only other man in the room, a young, bespectacled man with white lab coat on, looked at him and frowned.
"...I normally don't care what you do, Izaya-kun, but don't you think human trafficking is a bit of a stretch? I don't personally mind, but Celty seems to hate it…"
A soft laugh from the informant interrupted him.
"Now, Shinra, don't be like that. All I did was buying and selling information; see, this gentleman here sold me a bit of an info that a foreign girl or two would be needed at a certain place at a certain date. Another client bought this information from me, and then I sold the information of the other client to the first one."
"And got a whole lot of money from it."
"What can I say. Humans seem to love paying me to talk."
"I know quite a few who would pay you to stop talking."
"You're so mean, Shinra. Besides, you can tell your precious Celty not to worry, and not to run for rescue. I'm on it, too."
How many years has it been, Izaya thought. How many years, spent being either holed up in this unnecessarily spacious apartment or running around, making deal after deal with the most despicable people to set foot in Ikebukuro and beyond. Day after day, filled with seeding hate, spreading gossip, slipping a bit of an information here and there, letting it all boil and rot in its own stench, and then throwing a lit match in the middle of it all, watch it burn.
It was never him who hurt and destroyed; but it was always his doing, and everyone knew it. When the dust from the fight went down, and everyone was laying, bleeding, on the floor, in the background, hidden in the shadows, you could see Orihara Izaya laughing and pulling by the strings. He was the quiet puppeteer of the city, never personally involved, but always there , always helping his little humans and dancing on the top of all the chaos he caused.
Everyone hated him, but everyone needed him to hate each other, too; and so the informant prevailed, always meddling, always playing his games with no winner other than himself.
Izaya sighed, and rubbed his forehead tiredly. He had pretty much enough by now - but he couldn't stop now. He needed just one more chaos, one more war for his plan to finally work. If he gives up now, his whole hard work will end up being in vain.
"What do you mean? You aren't really someone to just go off saving people for nothing." Shinra said from his seat on the couch, tilting his head at the raven. Izaya smiled, and straightened his fingers, opening a black site with a singular logo in the middle, and punching in a password.
"Of course not; saving people is not for a villain like me. It's a hero's job. Did you know, Shinra? This new group forming in Ikebukuro... Dollars... they recruited a new member recently. And he seems to like using it to find and help people like our two little ladies in distress..."
Ikebukuro, April 2006
Sakura petals were falling everywhere like snowflakes.
Izaya looked around as he entered the - quiet yet - schoolyard of what will for the next three years be his high school. He wasn't particularly thrilled - Raijin Academy was high-standard and promised good education, but it wasn't very different from countless other high schools he passed every day while commuting in Tokyo. There was just nothing really interesting here for the raven-haired boy.
Not even his fellow students to observe and kill some time while doing so.
Granted, Izaya has come to school about an hour early. It was his sisters' fault; they put it in their little heads that they are personally responsible for their big brother to wake up on time for the first day of high school, and so they woke him up at 4 o'clock in the morning, jumping into his bed and tickling him until he woke up and, very grumpily, got up to make breakfast for all three of them.
Their parents were, of course, away on business trip, so it wasn't like he had any chance in pacifying his two little sisters in any other way than to comply.
And so, here he was, standing in the middle of an empty courtyard. His school year didn't really seem to be starting off the best it could.
Izaya made his way quietly to the cloakroom and changed his shoes for slippers, and then walked aimlessly through the corridors, checking out where all the places of interest were - the classes, the bathrooms, the cafeteria, library, stairs leading to the open roof… A few teachers noticed him, and judging by some of the reactions, his incident from middle school, when he claimed to stab Shinra, has been known, and his name familiar.
It wasn't like he cared much. For now, he wasn't going to cause much trouble here , so their fear and awareness won't be of any use for now.
By the time the raven-haired boy was done walking around the school, other students begun to gather. First to spot him was Shinra - of course, the loud, annoying boy just had to land in the same school as he did; which was a pity, considering that now Izaya had to listen to Shinra's everlasting love for Celty.
He really pitied her, whoever the girl was.
But one thing actually good about Shinra was that he kept you company and rambled without really caring whether you listened or not. And so Izaya could stand by the big window on the second floor of the building and watch people come in, see their uniforms, so different from his middle school one, see their faces, expressions, how they behaved. See their fear, their nervousness, their anticipation and excitement, see smiles as they noticed their friends and grimaces when they noticed someone they didn't like. A crowd of students about to start a new school year in their first year of high school was colourful and fascinating , and the raven-haired boy could feel excitement filling his veins as he looked down at it.
And then… then he spotted him .
Out of all the black- and brown-haired people, there was one person standing out. With his hair dyed blond, tall, his uniform somewhat disheveled even though it was just the first day… this guy tugged people's eyes to himself, and so he did Izaya's own.
And then, out of the countless people he looked at that went on, unaware they were being observed, this guy stood still and then looked up, looking him straight in the eye.
Izaya didn't anticipate that; and the sudden look made a shiver of excitement run down his spine, like an electric shock. His eyes widened softly, his lips stretched in a smirk at the sight of the blond's glare.
More . He wanted to know more about this guy.
"...Shinra?" He interrupted his - out of no better word to use here - friend's ramblings and tugged him towards the window, gesturing at the blond currently making his way to the cloakroom.
"Do you know that guy?"
"Hm? Isn't that Shizuo-kun? Yeah, I went to primary school with him."
"... Shizuo-kun ?"
"Mhm, Shizuo, Heiwajima Shizuo. Though, he's anything but quiet or peaceful …"
And then, Izaya said something that will, in perspective, change his whole life; the one, little sentence, that he will, years later, point out as the one that destroyed - and remade - his whole world.
"...can you tell me about him?"
Chatroom, March 2015
– There is nobody in the chatroom –
– Tsugaru logged in –
– Psyche logged in –
Psyche: Hello~~ Ah, is it only you here, Tsugaru-san?
Tsugaru: yo psyche
Psyche: Tsugaru-san is never answering my questions (;^;)
Tsugaru: you can see its just me here cant you
Psyche: uuuuuuuuh
Psyche: Anyway, how is Tsugaru-san today? Did you have a nice day?
Psyche: ...Tsugaru-san?
Psyche: heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey
Tsugaru: sorry i had to do something
Tsugaru: i had an alright day how about you psyche
Psyche: Ah, I've been busy today!
Tsugaru: thats right youre working hard arent you
Tsugaru: you almost always say youre at work when we talk
Psyche: Because I work from home, Tsugaru-san (w)
Psyche: Anyway, anyway! That reminds me! I was looking over the dashboard today, and there were reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally scary news here today, you know?
Tsugaru: whatnews?
Psyche: Wow, Tsugaru-san used a question mark!
Tsugaru: psyche
Psyche: Fine, fine. So, apparently there were some strange kidnappings in Ikebukuro yesterday and today! And someone saw some people inviting foreign girls to some strange van! But they walked in on their own, so I don't know how much of this is true, apparently…
Tsugaru: huh foreign girls?
Psyche: Mhm! And someone saw this van in front of the old apartment building by Yamanote-sen! You know, the one with Toyota advertisement on, the empty one. Maybe someone should call the police there…
Psyche: What do you think, Tsugaru-san?
Psyche: Exciting, isn't it?
Psyche: Tsugaru-san?
Psyche: Tsugaru..?
– Tsugaru logged out –
Psyche: Ah… of course.
– Psyche logged out –
– There is nobody in the chatroom –
– There is nobody in the chatroom –
– There is nobody in the chatroom –