Among the endless monotone days of prison life an occurrence like a visit was a rare treat. Especially when Izaya's last one had been three years ago. Not that it was something special not to have visitors anymore in one's fifteenth year in prison. There was only so much time anyone outside was willing to wait.
There had been a point in Izaya's prison life about five years ago when he'd garnered quite a lot of interest and had a book written about him by a journalist whom he'd fed countless lies, amusing himself as much as he could. It turned out this amusement had to do for years.
Izaya took his seat behind the bulletproof glass partition and nodded in acknowledgment at the kid sitting on the other side.
"Mitora-kun." The name rolled off his tongue with a bitter memory of Iskusitelĭ making a fool out of him.
It was the first time he was meeting his son in person even though he was fairly well informed about him thanks to Shizuo's regular reports. Shortly after Izaya had gotten in online contact with him ten years ago, Shizuo had sent in the documents to the judicial system proving he was Izaya's son's adopted parent which had allowed them to communicate regularly. Much to Izaya's dismay though, this communication was all business and pleasantries, no mutual hate, unstoppable rage or anything of the sort of things he used to associate with Shizuo.
Had he quieted down somehow throughout the years? It was one question Izaya would have liked to know the answer to.
"I'm Orihara Izaya. I'm your biological father but that's really so insignificant at this point you should just call me Izaya."
The boy looked up from staring intently down at his own hands and nodded. Izaya smiled at the realization how strikingly similar the kid's face was to his own looks back his age. He wondered what that must have been doing to Shizuo.
"Nice hair." Izaya said. "Does Shizu-chan... no, your uncle Shizuo, like it too?" He asked, thinking how the dyed red hair was the only thing that differentiated Mitora from being a carbon copy of the high school him as far as his face went. His overall build was different though as he was both taller and more powerfully built.
"He says it makes me look less like you."
Izaya didn't like the way the boy spoke, with a certain drawl he'd come to associate with Shizuo, even though it was characteristic of most of badly educated young men actually. It seemed it was a testament to whom Mitora had even learned to talk from.
It was nice to know his looks were still bothering Shizuo somewhere out there.
"Has he brought you here from Tokyo?" Izaya inquired.
"I came here alone."
Considering Izaya was incarcerated in Fukuoka, the boy had to undertake quite a trip to even get here from Ikebukuro. Izaya wondered briefly what kind of questionable parenting that was what with sending a fifteen year old on cross country trips all alone and letting him face a convicted terrorist one-on-one.
"Was he against you seeing me?" Izaya pried.
At the very least he and his son had time. It was the magical reunion with the biological parent after all. A very important, formative experience for the boy on the other side of the glass partition. He was probably the last person left outside who cared, too. It wasn't making Izaya feel bad. It was a mere observation.
"He said there was nothing much to see."
Izaya smiled.
"Where's the Valkyrie?" He asked after a while of silence.
Mitora looked at him as if he hadn't expected him to know about her. Hadn't Shizuo ever explained to him how he'd gained his guardian angel?
"She should be on the roof. She's following me around but I prefer her to keep her distance."
"I'm sorry. It was quite rude of me to start off with asking you things." Izaya apologized, leaning back in his seat. "You probably traveled all the way here to ask me something after all."
"Not really. I just wanted to see you."
Two pair of red eyes met, boring in the other one. Izaya was mildly intrigued by the self-assurance his son displayed. Despite his initial uneasiness, he didn't seem to be a timid boy. But that was to be expected really. The Valkyrie was making him virtually invincible. Shizuo's reputation must have had a similar effect. There was nothing for him to fear. It must have been quite an interesting perspective to look upon the world when it held no risks.
Izaya wondered what was there to this boy besides what was written in Shizuo's reports of his school achievements and sports successes and small roles in poor movies Kasuka had helped him get. Things Shizuo didn't know about or didn't want to talk about. Fights, deals, gangs, yakuza, information dealing, blowjobs in shady clubs, suicidal girls, the myriad forbidden things Izaya had done himself during his teenage years. He wondered if Mitora had a secret life of his own.
In a few months the Valkyrie was going to start following his commands. It was part of the reason why Izaya had agreed to meet him only now even though he'd heard he'd been wanting to see him already a few years ago. Izaya figured one meeting was probably all he was going to get before the teen would lose his interest in him therefore he needed it to take place at just the right time.
There was one request he wanted to make but he needed to judge Mitora's character first to see if there was any chance he was going to be up for it.
"I've read all there was to read about you since I've gotten to know you were my father but there are so many contradictions in all the books and articles about you that at the end of the day, I still know nothing."
"I guess that's just how I wanted things to be." Izaya admitted with a smile. "And anyway, whatever I said to all those journalists who made it here, they twisted it around. It's just something they do."
"I figured out a few things though. Things nobody seems to know. Like how it was the Valkyrie who killed these two Russians, right?"
The boy was sharper than Izaya had expected.
"There's only one question I really want to ask you. Why?" Mitora looked at him expectantly. "Not why you have given me up for adoption as if I didn't matter at all because maybe I didn't for you or my mother. But why have you done that and then given up on the Valkyrie for me even though she might have saved you from this?"
"I lost my mind." Izaya replied simply because there was really no other way to explain not only why he'd given up on the Valkyrie's abilities in this world but more importantly, on the eternal life she could have granted him. Though Mitora probably didn't know about that ability of hers.
The boy hesitated before saying anything.
"Ok, that seems like a handy excuse."
"You don't understand. But I don't expect you to. If it is really all you wanted to know..." Izaya made a move as if he meant to get up and leave.
"No! Please, don't go."
Mitora took a deep steadying breath. He should have expected as much. He was in a high-security prison after all, visiting a terrorist who had caused the death of a few dozen people for unclear reasons that ranged from religion to politics to personal grudge in his own confessions. This man probably was insane indeed.
"I've known that you were my father for a long time." Mitora spoke up. "Uncle Shizuo never hid it from me that I wasn't his child by blood. He told me once it would have been too bothersome to think up some story about what had happened to my mother then. Of course, he waited until I was old enough before telling me it was you specifically because of what you did. He doesn't really know anything about my mother though..."
"Has she ever contacted you?" Izaya asked with mild interest.
"Uncle Shizuo can't even remember her name."
"It might be a bit cruel to tell you that but the first thing she did when she got to know she was pregnant with my child was to go away to have an abortion."
"Obviously, she didn't have it."
"I wouldn't read too deeply into that. I'd suggest you stop prying that far back into your past entirely, Mitora-kun. Me and your mother, we were merely associates and both quite despicable people at that. We hated each other, all things considered. And you were a mistake. But I guess some part of me really wanted you to be okay despite that. That's why I made sure you wouldn't have much to do with either of us, too."
"Then why Uncle Shizuo of all people?"
"Because he was strong. And I had enemies who wouldn't have hesitated to target my child. Because of what I did for a living."
"You were selling information."
"I was selling information indeed. Not to respectable businesses, though.""
"Uncle Shizuo was your friend since high school, right?"
Friend? That was a first.
"Is that what he tells you?" Izaya inquired.
"Sometimes I wonder... Well, Uncle Shinra and Uncle Kadota don't want to tell me..."
Go figure these two were still around.
"...but sometimes I think you two were more than friends."
"Are you always this straightforward?" Izaya sighed. "Or is it because there's a glass partition between us? Then again with the Valkyrie and being the son of such a strong man you're shielded like that from everyone."
"You've accidentally called him Shizu-chan a while ago." Mitora pointed out. "But that's too little to assume anything."
"Then why do you assume anything?" Izaya was genuinely interested.
Years ago, he'd kissed Shizu-chan once but it had been right in the middle of his bout of insanity when humans had been enemies and Shizuo... well, Izaya at the time had been convinced he had loved him for the simple reason he wasn't quite human. If Mitora was intent enough on unearthing some little bit of love at the roots of his existence this was probably his best bet anyway.
Izaya wondered if it was really that difficult to accept that one was born out of incidental sex between two people who hated each other and then given up for adoption to a man who hated his father and took him for the precise reason he didn't want said father anywhere near an innocent kid?
"Because of the way Uncle Shizuo looks at me."
"Hasn't he made you dye your hair so you wouldn't look like me?" Izaya pointed out.
Mitora noted how while that was true, he hadn't told Izaya anything precisely to that effect.
"Because it hurts him since you're gone."
"No, Mitora-kun. As amusing as it is to have you thinking such cute nonsense, in fact we hated each other." Izaya informed. "I'm amazed that by the time you turned old enough to understand what was going on around you, the stories of him chasing me around Ikebukuro and threatening to beat me up or preferably kill me have already stopped circulating. He agreed to take you from me precisely because he thought I was a bad person. And note how that had been before I was actually convicted for anything. He was sure somehow even he, an uncultured monster who can't control itself, was a better parent material than me. And he was probably right."
Mitora stared at him, long and hard.
Izaya couldn't decipher his gaze. In his bout of insanity, he had assured this kid's safety, equipped him with inhuman power and a chance to gain immortality. In case of his death Mitora was going to inherit all his assets because when it came to that, Izaya couldn't think of anyone else's name to write down in his testament.
One could say he was devoted to him in a way, especially back then, in the months before he'd been born, but love in any way, shape or form was something he couldn't give him and it was simply not there, not now, not then, not ever.
"Uncle Shizuo has told me recently that the Valkyrie was going to start following my commands once I'll turn fifteen. It's great that she understands Japanese." Mitora noted with a small smile. "I have communicated with her with gestures since I was a toddler but Uncle Shinra talks to her a lot. It's nice knowing she can understand him." He mused. "She can get you out of here if I ask her, Izaya-san. And I think I will. For the sake of Uncle Shizuo."
Izaya laughed because he just couldn't stop himself. At the very least, his son was very amusing, especially in these circumstances that were keeping him away from other interesting humans.
"And what would I have gained by taking you up on that offer, Mitora-kun? What kind of a life could I have hoped to lead out there after escaping from prison, no matter the means? It's only three years more if I get my parole, five if I don't. I have the list of books to read ready for two years in advance. It doesn't feel like long at all."
Why was he even saying that? As if he needed to convince himself first and foremost that it wasn't that long indeed.
"It is a long time." Mitora argued. "And we would have been able to hide you somehow."
"I don't believe Shizuo can be so interested in seeing me again, though." Izaya shrugged. "He could have come here with you. It would have been expected really seeing as you're a minor. And he's not here. And you said earlier he told you there was nothing much to see. After fifteen years of me being stuck in here and all the years before that we hated each other's guts… it pains me to admit that but it's something I cannot understand. What kind of nonsense has he told you?" He asked with mild interest.
"He didn't need to say anything."
"Then you're delusional, Mitora-kun."
"It is not a delusion when your father fucks you when you're fourteen. Repeatedly, time and again." Mitora said calmly, looking Izaya in the eye in a way that would have been stuck in the mind of any regular person caring the least bit about one's kid forever. "And I don't mind, Izaya-san." Mitora was quick to add, as if to add pain to the injury. "But I know he does that because I remind him of you."
Izaya was temporarily rendered speechless. Something that happened so rarely he couldn't actually pinpoint a memory of any previous occurrence of that happening.
"I haven't come here to tell you he's a bad father because of that and that it's all your fault." Mitora proceeded to explain. "I love him very much. But I know how badly he doesn't like losing control and ending up doing atrocious things and I know what he thinks every time he realizes I'm fourteen and he's supposed to protect me from such things and not do them to me."
"It's not because of me."
Mitora smiled faintly.
"I'm serious here, Mitora-kun. There was nothing there between the two of us for him to reminisce about in such a way. And dropping me at his doorstep won't save you from him. Though if that's what you want, no matter his strength, I believe the Valkyrie can..." A part of Izaya was still very thrilled by the prospect of Shizuo's death.
"I love him, Izaya-san."
Izaya smiled at the bitter irony.
"Then he probably loves you back." He figured. "In all the wrong ways, too. What does he even tell you?"
"That I'm the only person he's never thought of hurting. That I have never made him angry."
"And how do you relate that to myself? The person he hated the most? Has he married? No..." Izaya shrugged. "...I guess not. It's just the two of you and everyone outside still enraging him. I bet even while he's no longer young, he's still in excellent shape, right? And you two aren't related and you never pretended to be. So I guess, all hail to you. I'm in no way responsible for your atrocious taste in men, Mitora-kun, so I won't feel bad about it. I'm such a liberal parent, too." Izaya sighed. "That's precisely why Shizu-chan didn't want me to raise you. Tell him you have my blessing. Now that homosexual marriages are possible, I'll be happy to be there for you when you decide to tie the knot if I'm free by then." Izaya laughed as if it was the best joke he'd heard all year.
Mitora blushed.
"If you wish to do something for me though, Mitora-kun, in exchange for everything I've done for you. An honest deal, really." Izaya spoke up seriously. "There is something else than getting me out of here that I'd like you to do for me once you gain control over the Valkyrie. Hear me out at least, Mitora-kun. And consider this." Izaya continued. "Do you know who Kuronuma Aoba is? I've heard he's calling himself Izumii again now because of his name getting associated with the tank incident."
"The boy you tried to kill by slitting his throat. The one who started rebuilding the tank." Mitora was quick to answer, apparently having memorized all relevant information indeed. "He was incarcerated for terrorism and spent four years in juvenile detention until he turned twenty. At that point he managed to go to university and eventually became an attorney. For all I know, he's working for the yakuza nowadays."
"I love it how you did your homework, Mitora-kun." Izaya praised him. "I want him dead. So take the Valkyrie and kill him for me."
Mitora's brow furrowed.
"If he wasn't there, that's it, if I didn't save his life back when I cut his artery open, I would have never gone to prison. The other kids that knew something, they were not sharp enough to piece anything worthwhile together from the tidbits they had without him. I ended up here because of him. And it makes me very eager to correct my mistake. Why are looking at me like that, Mitora-kun? Are you by any chance disgusted with me? I'm not here for no reason, after all. If you imagined I'm nice or simply misunderstood or a good person or that Shizuo actually loved me, you were all wrong." Izaya smiled. "But then again I guess you are the same deep down. How did it feel to seduce Shizu-chan? You, the only person around whom he could retain some semblance of control, you decided it would have been amusing to see it crack, right? Or is this merely a lie to elicit some kind of reaction from me? Maybe you're aiming for making me guilty at having given you up to him? Are you doing this because you're angry with him because he doesn't let you spend nights out of home? Or is this something more childish? Has he told you that you can't take up Kasuka's agent on that offer of his because you need to study instead of becoming a teenage idol? Will you now go and tell the same thing to the school psychologist? What makes you tick, Mitora-kun? What do you like best in the world? Fame? Fun? Freedom? Control? Humans?"
"I'll be going, Izaya-san." Mitora stood up from his seat.
"Sure, go on. You've provided me with lots of entertainment already."
"I'm glad." Mitora bowed down politely.
There was something about his smile and about his eyes when they met Izaya's as he looked up. A mutual understanding that ran deeper than any other connection either of them had ever felt with anyone.
"I'll see you when I get out of here." Izaya said.
"I'll be looking forward to that, Uncle Izaya." Mitora's smile widened. "One more thing. I wanted to thank you for coming up with my name. Out of the myriad of its meanings, do you want to know which one I like the best?"
"Sure. Tell me."
"Sol Invictus. The Unconquered Sun."
Even as Mitora turned around to leave, Izaya realized that the boy knew already. He had already assumed that one day he was going to become immortal and he didn't think of himself as just another human.
How amusing. Izaya knew well enough himself where and how such dreams ended but humans making the same mistakes over and over again was a sight he was never going to get enough of.
"Let's place bets, Izaya." Iskusitelĭ spoke up at his side. "How long will it take him to fall? How do you think?"
A/N: Have fun parenting that, Shizuo. I guess.