Ikebukuro was caught between seasons. The cherry blossoms weren't far from blooming, but frost still clung to the streets on early mornings and the wind hadn't lost its wintertime chill. Still, every so often there came a day when the clouds would part and the sun shone brightly, assuring that warmer days were on their way. With these whispers of spring, the city felt on the verge of something new.

However on this particular day, it was still far too cold for Shizuo and Tom to enjoy their lunch break outside, and they took comfort in the warmth of a fast food restaurant. They sat in a corner booth, and Shizuo watched people pass by the window while Tom reviewed the list of clients they still needed to visit before their day's work was over.

Tom folded the paper with a sigh. "Still seven more, we're getting slower."

Shizuo took a bite of his burger and spoke through a mouthful of food, "-t's the weather." He swallowed, "Actually, you've been distracted."

Tom flushed. "I-I can't imagine what makes you say that."

"Today you mixed up two different clients and yesterday you sent us to the wrong apartment," Shizuo's shoulders sank slightly, "I broke down an innocent man's door."

Tom's eyes darted around the room as he searched desperately for some sort of escape. Finding none, he tapped his fingers on the table and looked guiltily up as Shizuo. "I'm doing something tonight, it's a bit peculiar and well...I'm a little nervous."

Shizuo cocked his head to the side, silently inviting him to continue.

"There's a speed dating event tonight at the convention center." Tom twisted a napkin in his hands. "And I'm going."

Shizuo frowned. "How does that work?"

"Seriously?" Tom raised his eyebrows and immediately launched into an explanation. "Well it first requires an even number of men and women, all seated across from each other. Each date lasts three minutes and then all the men stand up and shift one table to the left and-"

"No-No, I know how it works," Shizuo sipped thoughtfully from his glass of milk, "but it doesn't make much sense. Like, what if you meet her on the first go-around? Then you gotta cycle through the next twenty or thirty or however many before you get to talk to her again."

Tom scratched his head. "Well it's not really for that."

"It's not?"

"Have you ever heard of someone meeting their soulmate at a speed dating event?"

Shizuo hadn't. "Well then why go in the first place? It seems like a waste of time."

Tom chewed his lip. "There are a lot of reasons people do it. Some want to gain experience before the real thing comes along, but plenty others are just bored and want to have fun meeting new people." He looked embarrassed, and tried to justify the practice. "It's becoming quite common."

If that was true, Shizuo had never before felt so removed from the milieu of "average" human behavior. He chewed his food with his brow furrowed, because nothing had ever made less sense to him.

Tom was still red in the face, but his embarrassment seemed to have faded away into a heavy sadness. He bowed his head. "It just...gets lonely waiting, you know?"

Shizuo didn't know. He stood up, "I'm going out for a smoke."

Out on the sidewalk, Shizuo leaned back against the restaurant wall. Despite the weather, the city was busy that day, like most days, and waves of people crisscrossed in front of him, crowding all public and private areas. Ikebukuro was as peaceful as it had been in years–was as peaceful as a city its size ever could be–but Shizuo felt disappointed nevertheless.

Celty had spent the last six months touring the Japanese countryside with Shinra, and it was times like this when Shizuo missed her deeply. Her presence had been one of the few things that bettered him, and he felt wholly worse off in her absence.

He had asked her once, idly, if she could see colors. He had been surprised, shocked even, when she began to type rapidly; usually considered a highly private topic, whether or not one held the ability to see colors was not something people generally went around asking one another.

[Because I don't see the same way humans do, I don't know exactly what people mean when they say 'see in color'. I am able to distinguish between colors, and I know what pigments are considered to be "red" and "yellow" and so on, but they may not appear to me the same way they appear to humans. It's also possible that l see in a variety of colors humans are unable to see. I just don't know.]

At the time, that had only confused Shizuo, as it still did now. He had then, intrusively, asked if Shinra could see color. She began to type once more, and this time he had fully expected her to tell him it was none of his business, but when she turned her PDA towards him, it only expressed her fears.

[We think that because I'm not human, the rule doesn't apply to him.] Her shoulders slumped slightly. [At least, I hope it doesn't.] And then she was off, typing frantically, [Shinra might not be able to see in color because his soulmate isn't human…or simply be because I am not his soulmate. Some woman could come along one day and show him a completely new world.]

Shizuo had only been able to blink dumbly at her. He remembered being stunned by the amount thought she had given the subject, having given it very little himself. To be fair, he supposed he had ample reason not to do so.

At the time he had comforted her and told her lot to worry. He had also promised to dramatically maim Shinra on the off chance he did leave her for another woman, and finished bitterly, "Personally, I think the whole system is screwed up anyway."

Celty's shoulders bounced with laughter and she flashed him another message. [That's very like you.] She paused for a moment and Shizuo could tell she was analyzing him. [I don't think I agree with you though, I don't know a lot about color, but it sounds like a nice thing to be able to give someone.]

Back in the present, Shizuo tossed his cigarette to ground and stomped it out. He always had a feeling that Celty knew, even though he had never told her.

Izaya's absence had gone marginally unnoticed by most. Certainly it went unnoticed by the city; the city remained as strange as ever, collecting an odd brand of people seemingly unique to Ikebukuro. In the two years Izaya had been gone, a new wave of inhabitants had migrated to the city, many of whom had never even heard of the infamous informant. Shizuo thought they were lucky.

His eyes fell on a particularly striking young man making his way leisurely down the sidewalk.

The door chimed as Tom stepped out of the restaurant. "Ready?" Shizuo didn't answer, and Tom followed his gaze.

The man was short and dressed in all black, but his most prominent attribute was the dramatic coat he wore. It was a coat with large amounts of fur lining the hood and hem. He was bespectacled and a little too young to be truly reminiscent of the missing informant, but his image still served as a strong reminder to them both.

They watched until he was out of sight, and then Tom began to back away slowly. He opened his mouth and proceeded with extreme caution. "Do you...do you think he's still alive?"

"He is."

Surprised, Tom tilted his head to the side. "How do you know?"

Shizuo looked up at the murky blue sky. "No real reason."

A heavy gust of wind blew over them, ruffling passersby and rattling the restaurant door. The wind's biggest offense however, were the papers it tore out of Tom's hands. He swore loudly as they spilled across the sidewalk. Several blew into the road and were swept away by passing cars, and they had recovered barely half of documents before it began to rain.

"Great. Just great." Tom tossed the soaking papers into a nearby trashcan. Without them, they didn't know the names or addresses of their clients, or the amounts owed by each of them. "We'll have to go back to the office to reprint." The rain was heavy, and Tom glared up at the sky. "Let's take the train."

Most people appeared to have similar misgivings about the rain, because the train was extremely crowded. Tom and Shizuo were squeezed side by side, neither of them speaking. Tom kept checking his watch, and Shizuo suspected he was now worried about missing his event that evening.

Shizuo frowned, and for the first time thought seriously about his place of employment. Like the speed dating event, he couldn't understand why, in a world where everyone could recognize their soulmate immediately, there would be any need for seedy online dating sites. Following that logic, he saw no reason for people to run up high debts on such websites, which in turn meant that he did not know why he was standing here on a train, the muscle behind a debt collection agency.

That either meant that people were inherently both ungrateful and greedy, or it meant that the system was not as accurate as everyone pretended. He supposed he had reason to believe both.

It would be naive to say that it had happened early for Shizuo. While it was true that most people met their soulmate in their mid-twenties, there were childhood friends who saw their first colors at barely the age of five, just as there senior citizens still viewing the world in black and white.

Even so, while Shizuo knew it was not unusual to meet your soulmate at fifteen, that did not mean he had been expecting it. Then again, he had never exactly considered it a meeting; for most people, the face of their soulmate was the first thing they saw in color, but of course that was only the conventional procedure, and he and Izaya had never once been conventional. At that distance, Shizuo could barely discern Izaya's face at all. If someone were to ask him, he would say the first thing he really saw in color was the sky–but that wasn't quite true. If someone were reallyto ask him, he would probably tell them it was none of their business and then punch them in the face.

At the time, Shizuo had stared up at Izaya while Izaya smirked down at him, but Shizuo had only watched him for a moment before quickly shifting his gaze upward. It had been a clear spring morning, and that day above Raira Academy Shizuo witnessed the brightest, most brilliant blue sky he would ever see in his life. He found it calming, this strange new hue, and blue was his favorite color long before he knew it by name. Stretching across the sky with unimaginable depth, it whispered peace and promised tranquility.

He had eventually looked back at the window where Izaya stood, only to find it empty. Shizuo supposed he should have seen that as an indication of the fruitless years he would spend chasing after Izaya, but somehow, he thought nothing of it, at least initially.

What had Shizuo expected from his soulmate? Before meeting Izaya, he had considered the subject quite extensively. After meeting him...well, Shizuo preferred not to give it much thought. At fifteen, he had fondly imagined someone who could calm him when he lost control, someone who ultimately gave him the mental and emotional strength to overcome his physical strength. But more than anything, simply having a soulmate, just having one, would mean that, his strength, anger and violence aside, he was human. And that was all he truly wanted: a soulmate who could prove him human. Instead, Izaya had attacked him and called him a monster.

Shizuo had spent that entire day searching for Izaya, who he only knew then as the boy on the top floor, and he grew increasingly frustrated and terrified as the hours passed. Shizuo has only seen him once, from a considerable distance, which didn't give him a lot to go on by way of appearance. At the time had fretted endlessly, worried that if couldn't find him today, then what about tomorrow? What if he never really got to meet his soulmate? Of course, how laughable such fears seemed to him now.

And then there was that afternoon. His temper, antagonized by a few arrogant upperclassmen, coupled with his anxieties over Izaya's whereabouts, had led to the utter destruction of the soccer field.

And suddenly, there he was. Suddenly there and suddenly happy. Happy and mocking. That was his first impression of Izaya. And late. Very, very late. Nevermind the agonizing day Shizuo had spent searching for him; his soulmate, it appeared, worked on his own schedule.

Shinra was speaking, making introductions, and Shizuo felt rage swell inside him. It took hold of his body, and was rooted in an emotion he couldn't yet recognize as hurt.

Then Izaya had opened his mouth, spoke words coated with malevolence and sarcasm, and the rest, as they say, was history.

The train lurched severely, and Shizuo bumped lightly into the man in front of him.

"Oh, sorry."

The man turned to look at him, and Shizuo watched his genial expression melt into one of recognition and then terror.

"Oi Shizuo," Tom was on already on the platform, "it's our stop."

Shizuo blinked. "Oh, right."

He exited the train, and he and Tom walked back to their office in silence. The rain had lightened slightly, but not enough to make the trip pleasant.

Wherever Izaya was, Shizuo couldn't say for sure what he was seeing. If the system had worked as it was supposed to, Izaya should have been able to see in the color the moment the met as well. However, it wasn't like they had ever discussed it, and the passing years had left him with the general impression that somewhere along the lines, the universe had erred.

When Tom and Shizuo finally made it back to their crumbling office building, their boss was momentarily elated, mistaking their return for completion the day's tasks. After Tom explained their error, he began to scold them, albeit lightly. Lightly, because like everyone else, he feared Shizuo's temper.

Tom quickly began to reprint the documents, glancing at the clock every few seconds, and Shizuo went to the bathroom. It was small and dingy, with a single uncovered light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

He crossed to the sink and stared at his reflection in the mirror. He frowned at himself, and then began washing his hands.

He had washed his hands that night too. Washed them a dozen times over. Blood that had never bothered him before had tainted his clothes and coated his skin, it filled the streets and sank into his pores. It stained these places, leaving tiny, residual spots in places he knew had long since been scrubbed clean. Izaya had requested to go to a hospital outside the city, and was effectively and swiftly extracted from Shizuo's life.

After returning to his apartment that night, Shizuo had spent an eternity hunched over his kitchen sink, silently washing his hands. They emerged pink and slightly puffy, irritated from all his vicious scrubbing.

When he had finally finished, he withdrew his favorite mug from the cabinet and set it on the kitchen table. It was light blue, bought because it reminded him of the sky. He sat down directly across from it and waited. He waited for hours, praying, praying to anything, that it would stay the same pale shade blue. There was a single horrifying moment when Shizuo had lunged across the table, pulling it closer to his eyes, because the cup had definitely turned grey for several seconds. He squeezed too hard and it shattered in his hands. Blood–his own this time–covered his fingers once more. But he felt better when he saw it, because it remained a bright shade of scarlet. He fell asleep with his head on the kitchen table, whispering the same words over and over: please, don't let me be a killer, please.

In the two years Izaya had been gone, the colors had faded bit by bit, day by day, until Shizuo was only able to see the world in dull, vague hues. It was like the colors were only impressions of themselves, certainly distinguishable from one another, but lacking in vibrancy, like one of the filters found on a smartphone.

There was a knock on the bathroom door.

"Shizuo, are you done? We need to get going."

"Sure, just a second."

Shizuo splashed water on his face and dried his hands. He found comfort in those faint colors; they meant that wherever Izaya was, whatever corrupt work he was doing, he was alive. The fact that the colors had faded considerably over the years certainly worried Shizuo, but as long as they remained, weak though they may be, he was able to keep his anxiety at bay.

He exited the bathroom and he and Tom were off once more. It took several hours, and they finished just half an hour before Tom's event was set to begin. Luckily, their final call for the day was only a few blocks down from the convention center, and he could walk there without problem. He bid Shizuo a hasty goodbye and began to walk briskly down the street, but stopped after just ten steps. He suddenly turned and spoke with the air of man who knew he was about to regret speaking. "Hey, why don't you come with me?" He shrugged and looked uncomfortable. "Even if you don't approve, it may be good just for the experience."

Shizuo frowned at first, and then looked again at the sky. The light was slowly fading, but between the puffy white clouds, the sky remained a disappointing greyscale version of his favorite color.

"Sure," he said, "why not?"

.

A few hours earlier, and several hundred miles away in the Nakagyo district of Kyoto, Izaya smirked down as his computer.

Although it had been a long while since he had set foot in Ikebukuro, he had been unable to distance himself from the business of selling underground information. Unfortunately, it had been much easier to learn the ins and outs of a city he had lived in for decades. This new city–which was equally as bustling and secretive–had proven quite the challenge, and it did not help that he was now much less mobile than he had once been. These trials aside, Izaya has spent the last two years building his credibility and his client list. Or perhaps more accurately, he had spent the first year resting and recovering, doing very little work, and burning through majority of his savings. Now, for the first time in a long while, he was forced to think seriously about his finances and monthly income. He wasn't struggling exactly, but certainly now lived much more modestly than he had grown accustomed to in Ikebukuro.

It for this exact reason that he was now smiling down at his computer with such enthusiasm. He had just received an email from Kentaro Mishima, a politician with hidden ties to the yakuza. The email requested that he travel to America, more specifically, Los Angeles, for long-term reconnaissance work.

While Izaya ordinarily did not do such extensive legwork (so to speak), especially after his injury, he knew Mishima was not fond of involving outsiders with his affairs, which meant none of the politician's men had been able to gain the information he desired. This in turn meant that if successful the job could prove very lucrative for Izaya, and, if he performed well, held the promise of future employment.

Izaya carefully read the details of the assignment, and when he got the bottom of the email he frowned. He was expected on a plane to LAX that very evening. This was undoubtedly meant as a subtle insult, and he had half a mind to reply to Mishima that his time was very valuable and he was forced to politely decline the job. However, just below the departure time was the initial payment offer. The long string of zeroes, coupled with the fact that the ticket was first-class, helped soften the blow to Izaya's pride.

He shut his laptop with a snap. "Well, I suppose I better pack."

He decided on just one suitcase–traveling with his wheelchair was difficult enough. He knew it was considerably warmer in a California this time of year, and packed accordingly, folding t-shirts and light jackets into the suitcase. He did not own a pair of shorts, and instead packed several pair of black pants.

He then began to sort through all of his technology. He had a long debate with himself about how many cell phones to bring, and showed what he thought was incredible restraint by only packing his primary laptop.

Two hours later, Izaya waited in the lobby of his building for a taxi. There was a taxi stand just outside, but the front desk had called and request one that was wheelchair accessible.

The injury did not bother him–physically and mentally–like it used to. In the beginning the reality of his condition had been very difficult to face, but now he comforted himself with cliché little mantras; things likethe pen is mightier than the sword, and knowledge holds the true power, and other sayings of that sort. He could even stand, and walk a little, though not far. Still, he did not place himself in dangerous situations as frequently as he had before. His chair–though electric and top of the line–still made a loud whirring sound which made stealth almost impossible. It was also undeniable that, should one of his jobs go sideways, he would not be able; he understood that one day simply knowing his opponent's darkest secrets would not save him.

He checked his watch several times, and his cab finally arrived after half an hour. He stood and walked the short distance to the passenger's seat. The simple journey was much more difficult that he cared to admit, and he sat there catching his breath while the cabby loaded his chair into the back. He went physical therapy while he had been hospitalized, but it had now been over a year since he had done any type of stretch or muscle training. He wasn't opposed to getting better exactly, but he found the process embarrassing and disliked the personal invasion of a stranger, and for the most part he got on just fine with the chair.

The cabby returned and Izaya requested to be taken to the international terminal of Kansai International Airport. A train would have been much cheaper, but it was easier for Izaya to travel by taxi and Mishima had promised any extra travel fees would be reimbursed.

This splurge, unfortunately, proved to be a mistake. The taxi was clunky and slow, and the motor made a strange gurgling noise whenever the driver accelerated. The weather was abysmal and Izaya glared out the window, feeling disgruntled despite his turn of professional luck. He clicked his tongue in annoyance and the cab driver glanced sideways at him.

"Where are you headed?"

"Los Angeles." Izaya made the words cold, in hopes of preventing any further conversation, but the warning was either not noticed or ignored.

"Oh how cool, I've always wanted to travel to America. Have you been before?"

"Yes."

His irritation now fully apparent, they rode in silence for another ten minutes. They pulled up to a stoplight.

"Do you think you'll be back in time for it?"

Izaya turned to glare at him. "What?"

The cab driver pointed out the window at a large billboard, brightly colored and advertising the city's annual festival to celebrate the blooming of the cherry blossoms, held a little over a month from now.

Izaya gritted his teeth. "I have no idea."

The cab driver sighed wistfully. "I hope you are, it's always beautiful."

Izaya pressed his forehead to the cold window. "I'm not really a fan."

"Oh…" the cab driver shrugged, "good thing you're leaving Japan then."

His face still pressed against the window, Izaya smirked. Although he would never admit it, would deny it under threat of death, the first color he ever saw, ever really saw, was the vivid, pink flush of cherry blossoms.

He supposed it was ironic, given the twisted nature of his relationship with Shizuo, that the first thing he saw in color was something so painfully overused and stereotypically romantic. If there was any real proof that The Universe was a sentient thing, manufacturing soulmates like an assembly line, it was the world's little ironies. To Izaya, these were as much a god as anything else.

Standing on the top floor of Raira Academy, Shizuo's face was just a small spec of color, and the branches had spread out like a great canopy below him–he was unable to look away. If he could have foreseen the embarrassment and self-ridicule he would endure as a result this, he would have shut his eyes or looked anywhere other than those stupid, overly-romanticized petals.

Up until that day, and even after it, Izaya hadn't been all too concerned with meeting his soulmate. More than excited or hopeful, he was just mildly curious. He was interested in meeting any sort of person who would, presumably, match his intellect and share his fascination with observing humans.

Even so, he never liked the concept of soulmates because it felt like someone was telling him what to do; while most people would generally accept that The Universe was more intelligent than themselves and therefore were willing to listen to it, Izaya, of course, was not.

Still, not motivated enough to actually go search for his soulmate, he had instead skipped his first day of classes and spent the day experiencing the colors of the city–if he was honest, it had been disappointing to learn that the roads, sidewalks, and most buildings had not change in hue at all.

He returned to the Raira campus just in time to witness Shizu-chan decimating the school's soccer fields, which made him mildly hopeful. When he said he thought they could have some fun together, he had meant it. While he hadn't exactly been eager to meet his soulmate, he was intrigued by the idea of someone who would sit with him and–literally and figuratively–watch the city burn. He supposed that, to be fair to Shizuo, they hadwrecked Ikebukuro in a hundred different ways.

Even so, Shizuo had not been what he wanted from his soulmate, which led Izaya to the conclusion that Shizuo was not his soulmate. In his mind, it was a simple enough conclusion to draw; every rule had its exception, glitches could be found in even the most complex data, and that's exactly what they were: an error in the system. Perhaps it worked based on intensity of emotion, and The Universe had confused extreme hatred for something else. Izaya had thought on the on subject extensively over the years, in hopes of finally arriving at an answer, and this was the explanation he favored most recently.

Additionally, he doubted that Shizuo could see colors at all. While Izaya had been very careful to never mention colors to anyone close to him, he had, despite all his sources, been unable to detect a single instance of the beast ever letting one slip. Izaya thought it highly unlikely that Shizuo would be able to maintain that level of secrecy for so many years, so it was likely he couldn't see them.

Which suited Izaya just fine, of course. He gained the ability to see color through an error in the universe. Who was he to complain? He didn't particularly care if this interfered with him meeting his real soulmate, not knowing if he even had one. He wasn't sure why the colors had begun to fade since he had left Ikebukuro, but he had never been able to make sense of the situation in general, so he was not overly concerned. He doubted that Shizuo had spent the last two years slowly dying of a serious illness–he was not that lucky.

Bumping up onto the curb, the cab driver's abysmal parking job jerked Izaya from his thoughts. He waited to move until the cabby extracted his chair from the back and wheeled it right beside the door. Izaya tipped the man more than he should have and then went inside where his ticket was waiting for him at the front desk.

He was given assistance all the way through security and to his gate, where he was briefly transferred to an airport-supplied wheelchair to board the plane, while his own chair was taken and stored with the other luggage. After what felt like one of the longest mornings of his life, he settled into his first-class seat by the window.

While waiting for the airplane to take off, he flipped through the magazine in the seat-back pocket. He stopped at the large two-page spread the Los Angeles skyline. He stared at it and briefly entertained the idea of simply staying there. It would be a waste to lose all the clients and contacts he had made in Kyoto, but if he could sell information in Japan he could do it anywhere, and if may be worth it to move to a place with better weather. He considered investigating celebrities and selling their trysts to tabloids, and then chuckled because he knew that nothing would bore him more. He thought about moving to the capital, where there were endless politicians in fancy suits to entertain him. He knew that would bore him too though, eventually. During his time in Kyoto, he had known murders, mobsters, and other twisted geniuses much like himself, but there was nothing quite like Ikebukuro, nothing supernatural, nothing unexpected or terrifying. His job had been more difficult in Kyoto simply because the city had been foreign to him, but in many ways it had been easier as well, easier because it was predictable.

Eventually the captain came over the intercom and informed the passengers that they were about to take off. Izaya buckled his seat belt and closed his window shade. A flight attendant passed between the rows of seats, making last minute checks and preparations, and a few minutes later the plane way off, hurtling hundreds of miles an hour through the air.

Izaya settled back into his seat and closed his eyes. He fell asleep easily.

He awoke a few hours later, shaken from slumber by a bit of turbulence. The cabin lights had been dimmed so that passengers could sleep, and it was very dark. He lifted the window shade slightly and peeked out at the sky. His heart shot upward into his throat and he threw the shade all the way open. The captain's voice crackled through the intercom while Izaya stared in horror out at the slate-grey sky and an asphalt colored ocean.

A/N:

I've been knocking this fic around my head for like 3 years and was finally able to pull together all the scribbles I made. This chapter was a lot of history and set up but next chapter should have much more action and interaction! Incidentally ch2 is finished already so you can expect an update in about a week! (probably less than that tbh because I'm impatient)

Considering long-term plans, while I have most of the chapters plotted out this will be my "fic that i work on when I'm burnt out on my main fic" so updates will likely not be too fast OTL. That said, these chapters are a lot shorter than I'm accustomed to, so writing them will be easier on that front!

NEXT CHAPTER: Shizuo leaves several drunk voicemails and Izaya has a choice to make.