AN: This is me taking a break from Mathmouth ("But you never even update it!" cries the jury) and coming to terms with the fact Izaya Orihara exists. Thirty-four pages later of forced exploratory shipping and the man can still make me cry.
Synopsis: Izaya tries to get his girlfriend to have dinner. Told as a series of continuous, related vignettes.
Pairing: Reader-insert. Replace yourself for the character "Reader." ("_" and "[name]"s wig me out.)
Hate reader-insert? THEN IT'S AN OC STORY!
I have opted out of ending the piece "AND SUDDENLY THEY DIED," in spite of the title and contrary to my mother's recommendations.
So this was life. There were times when Reader wanted to make him break and sometimes he her; the two of them in a foul mood made for the picture of misery.
She would go to the Daiso with a 5000-yen bill and buy card packs in bulk; throw out the kings and jacks, three queens and all the aces and every number in between; and she'd staple all the jokers onto his desk. Joker Joker Joker - you're the clown - occasionally arranged in the shape of a heart with that last queen in the center.
When they were in his apartment and he went out to pick up something, she'd hide in the closet, tucked behind the vacuum cleaner, the rows of old coats, and the stacks of spare bed sheets, just to hear him come home and call her name and revel in the distress of some imagined loneliness. This was best when he went to get dinner, because Izaya always brought home sushi for two, so lot of extra servings ended up in the fridge which he'd soon throw away because he could never bring himself to eat them. It made her wonder how he still managed to trust, or why.
It made her wonder if he didn't realize she was there, and just never bothered to retrieve her.
But Reader's favorite bit was pretending not to recognize him. She bought the closest jacket to his she could find in a store. They would run into each other at an intersection and she would look at him dumbly, wearing his coat, as if the name wouldn't come to her, before unfolding her umbrella and crossing the street with smug satisfaction. Certainly he acted his part of offense with the usual cattiness, but there was a trace of something odd in his features that gave her a real grim sort of glee.
"Well, if it isn't Reader-chan," Izaya said pleasantly. He was leaning in the shade of a ragged brick wall, against a bright backjump that said I SPELL HER NAME in orange letters. Reader was standing across the alleyway.
"Sorry?" she said, looking at her watch.
"You and I haven't spoken in a while, right?"
She looked up with a face that stank of rehearsed indifference, really repressing laughter. "Look, I've got stuff to do, catch you later, guy. Stupid shortcuts, huh." Her leather boots made a hollow thump on the pavement as she walked away, looking towards the entrance where the overcast path again joined Ikebukuro's crowded main streets.
She was thrown against a wall into the dark of the afternoon, and an unfriendly blade met her throat.
Izaya gave an off-hand, lopsided grin, seeing her exasperated look.
"This game of yours is so uninspired. And wearing my coat?" He waggled a finger. "Soon I'm going to get bored and walk away."
"You're getting warmer." She showed all her teeth at him like a horse.
He let her go, putting his hands up dismissively. "Aaand I'm bored now," he said, making a dramatic pivot and walking away. "I wonder if Namie wants to grab lunch?" Izaya fished for his cell but, when he turned around and faced her, Reader was happily toddling off in the other direction.
"I know a sweet spot on the corner," she sang to him from the other side of the way. It echoed all along the alley and up to the clotheslines two stories high. "The two of you would love it there."
"Sounds wonderful. I'd treat her to a feast only the princes know."
Reader twirled around, lurching towards the bricks with love-struck ecstasy and huddling to them. "Namie said she likes her coffee with cream. And-! Suama. Lots and lots."
Izaya laughed hysterically. "If she eats so many sweets she'll get fat and then nobody will love her," he countered.
"Nobody loves her now!" she cried.
"I know a man."
"A blind man?"
"A gorgeous man. I'll have to introduce you to him sometime."
Licking her lips, she sauntered towards him. "And I'll introduce him to my many sweet spots."
"Be careful with that promiscuity, Reader-chan. I know how to make Ikebukuro think something nasty."
Her face lit up. "Carry out and eat it at home by candlelight."
"That's diabolical!"
"I know! I'll text you the address. Don't keep her waiting or she'll get all mad." They had been closing in on each other and stood at arm's length, shoulders to the wall. "You know how she gets," Reader said.
"Better than anyone," he grinned.
They parted. Izaya was skipping. She stalled for an hour despite her own hunger, but eventually found Shizuo and, without saying why, asked him out to the sushi place where they made a big deal of themselves because she knew Simon would tell.
He and she were both wrong about something: a minor miscalculation – an error with a false eye, the word for which wasn't love but wasn't libido either; the word for this thing was probably some version of the name of a world-renowned psychologist. Like a lot of matters in this town, the thing shed all labels of design; he was and she was and they were, and everybody passed each other by like geese at the same gray pond, but the fact remained that the man was not invincible.
For all their trysts together, Reader's evening attendance was fleeting, so he had the idea to ambush her coming out of the shower. Reader was wearing lounge-around-the-house clothes and had just blow-dried the hell out of her do, after checking her weight on this nifty industrial scale he had
(she wanted to make sure she wasn't fat. He calls her fat sometimes but she doesn't agree.)
when a length of rope wound its way around one wrist and then the other, then bound her chest and wrapped behind her where he secured it with a knot that was half Boy Scout and half impromptu. This put her in something of a quandary.
"Ok," she stuttered. "Um. How many lessons of hojojutsu did you take?"
"You've been keeping yourself from me too much," he said sternly. "I've told you before how I don't like to share my humans. Tonight you aren't leaving." He beckoned with a finger and she waddled after him down the stairs.
"Ever heard of anti-social personality disorder? That's my new theory. I've been trying to read up on it whenever I get a spare minute and I think I've got it figured out. Anti-social for sure."
His response was sitting her on the couch and fitting a wreath of barbed wire around her head.
"A tiara for my princess," he narrated.
Where the thorns tore in she began to bleed. Kanra stood and walked to his desk, and she heard the soft cush of the chair as he set to work at his computer. She didn't really move because this (sorta!) turned her on.
"How long have you been preparing this?"
He noticed her staring. "A while… You know I think about you so much, desu~ even more than your allotted time as one of the beloved sheep beneath my shepherd's crook. You're just selfish, y'know?"
Was that a weird, responsibility-shirking come-on? Decisions were hard. Reader flopped onto her back on that iron-gray couch, lazily bicycling her legs back and forth. She couldn't scratch at the thorns around her scalp and instead followed a red trail with her eyes, down the inside of her nose and over her rosy lips.
"Izaya," she hissed.
"Hm?"
"Seriously. What the hell are we doing?"
"What are we doing?" he reflected, about as useful as a drill on Don't-Have-a-Drill Day.
She rolled her neck. "Like, did you want to do something, or did you just like, tie me up?"
"I just want to make sure you can't go running out and have all your little rendezvous with Shizu-chan. Plus, you can't keep dodging me forever. We are having dinner."
"At least Shizuo's a nice guy," she growled. "I mean, sorta. What are you doing right now?"
"I'm arranging my own secret meeting with my own secret people. Two can play at your game, Reader-chan. It's not very inventive."
She was bored. She picked up an end pillow with her feet and threw it. "So you had all that stuff ready to tie me up and now you're just working?"
He flipped his phone shut and started for the couch. Izaya hovered over her and she met his gaze upside down.
"Hello, Izaya."
"Well now… what else did you want me to do to you, Reader-chan?" he smirked.
"Things!" she blurted. Her hands moved to cover her mouth but they were still restrained. "Well no, I mean, not things, but – well yeah, but! Nevermind."
"Great! In that case, I can squeeze somebody in for a chat. They'll be less than five. Can't have you in plain sight or we might get in trouble." He winked. "And then we'll eat."
Her jaw dropped. "You've got to be kidding."
"Let's go, you." He leaned in, lifting her up with a grunt and slinging her over his shoulder. "Woosh! Look out world, it's the flying girl!" Cue lip-blubbering for homemade sound effects.
"I'll scream!" she threatened, even from her view knowing he was headed towards the closet.
"Then I'll cut your tongue out and that'd be a shame because we couldn't ever kiss again." He turned the knob with his free hand and set her down inside, crouching in front of her and brushing her shoulders of imaginary dust. He grinned before rising and reclining on the doorframe. "Have fun now."
"What'd you just say?" was her response.
"I'm sorry, Reader-chan, but you're really heavy. I might break my arms trying to carry you! Poor, darling arms!"
"Not that—the other… I mean, god you wouldn't- miss it, would you?" Her face flushed with color. The afternoon rays of sun caught the locks of his hair, as he stood on that outside, and cast him an orange hue. Izaya looked at her with reproach.
"What do you want for dinner?" Then there was the knock on the door, which gave him an excuse to shift his attention. "Ah, yes, there's our man."
"You know you can talk to me, right?"
He shut the door without looking at her.
So who was she?
Some poor pawn of this guy's many designs to get a reaction out of people? Reader didn't think so. If she was, it was a lot of effort he was putting in to keep her interested. If anything, it had been the other way. She was some nobody, an acoustic bass player in an indie jazz band, never entrenched herself in the rich, throbbing crime world that soaked up at the edges of the city like a wine stain on a napkin, but she'd heard of a man, some rat, who had gotten a friend of hers in deep shit with the police. She'd investigate, sure, that's what friends are for, after all, but god – whoever he was, the snitch was gorgeous. She saw his picture once and fell from the sky.
She'd ask around. Of course the wonderful, terrible thing about this shadow is that everybody knew him and he knew everybody; they all said he got into things, big things, dangerous things, gang things, so sure why not, she could do it too; know the Dollars? Everyone knows the Dollars, Yellow Scarves too, even, Dead Dragon.
Now, anyone with a particular penchant for melody could join a new troupe on the streets called the Regals. Their leader was some spunky chick with a big string instrument and their motive was a Venus fly trap for a rat or a snitch or a shadow. Nobody knew this real meaning to it, so nobody spoke of anything, and you'd see a bunch of lousy entertainers around town pledging allegiance to this gang because folks should be a part of something and oh damn it worked, news spread like wild fire that the Big Ten Izaya Orihara had latched on eventually to get a piece of the action and the moment he did so she latched onto him.
They met in an alleyway, the mysterious kingpin behind the Regals gang revealing herself to one nosy information broker. Lands, he was even better than that grainy picture. She remembered he said
"You're a lot more precious than I'd imagined,"
when she'd tried to appear sweet and bubbly but independent like boys prefer in women these days.
(Just what were they talking about outside? She wanted to slam against the door in protest but it was locked and she had no arms and she knew he'd take that tongue threat seriously and probably wear it around his neck like a Vietcong souvenir.)
Reader sensed she messed up when she wrote her number for him on a scrap of paper; she erred again when she asked him out to lunch, again when she did it the second time, then the third, the fourth, the fifth the tenth; it was at the lowest point in her fortunes when she sat on his lap and fed him popcorn or patiently remained on the phone with him in the middle of the department store, asking for his opinion on underwear (black with lace was fine).
They didn't meet at the middle in places and sometimes she cried, never in front of him though Izaya had a hawk's eye for that and always picked up when her face was just slightly rawer and pinker than usual and he'd make fun of her for it and take her out to sushi. To think about it made her stomach hurt.
She thought about that for a long time. Then the door swung on its stainless apartment hinges and the snitch stood there in a spell of light.
"You still alive? Aw, look at you, you survived. That's my little flying girl."
Her hair fanned around her, her feet against the wall, her bound hands folded patiently at her breast, which rose and fell with each dreamy breath, Reader stared at the ceiling without a care.
"I'm sick," she said. Her voice came out collected and peaceful.
"Oh yeah?" He shrugged. "Well, that's karma for you. Had we sat down for a meal some other time I could have already shared with you my elixir of immortality. But! That'll be fixed today."
"Yeah."
She hardly moved. His expression softened.
"You don't feel so good, huh. Cut the ropes?"
"Yes, please."
The bed was tragic. Hers at home had always been small and cozy, and college dorms' even worse, so his queen-sized seemed barren; Reader scrunched into herself in the corner and clutched her stomach on that canvas of big, white sheets. Izaya sat at the edge and stroked her hair with boyish interest.
"So," he said quietly, "What'll you have, my charming VIP? Water, cold compress, acupressure?" His shadow fell over her and he rested his lips by her ear. "Dare I ask, a massage?"
"Bed rest," she said, closing her eyes.
Izaya sprung up and let out a guffaw. "And here I thought for sure I'd be able to force you to have dinner. What can I say? You've outsmarted me."
She mumbled, too nauseous to move. He went on about something unimportant and his voice was lost in the bottom of a well as she drifted out of consciousness. Things stopped making sense.
Outside was a splash of rain. She watched it idly, the evening a wash of dull royal blue, when she noticed Izaya sharing her blanket, sitting up against the headboard with his phone.
"Feeling better?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the screen.
Reader rolled over and faced the window. "Maybe we both should go to the hospital. For a long time."
"What? What's wrong with me?"
"That's true; it's nothing a doctor can fix. Certainly'd give them a lot to study, though."
Izaya reached over and flicked her on the cheek, then kissed the spot. "You're in glowing health, as annoying as ever."
"I'm going back to sleep."
"Ahh, no, stay with me! There's nothing going on here, all my other humans are so dull and all my stories are at a dead end." He snuggled against her and stroked her hip up and down. "Plus you've got to eat something."
"I won't."
"Aw, Reader-chan, do you hate me?"
She closed her eyes. "My birthday's coming up. We could do it then."
His hand stopped.
"Seriously? Yeah… Yeah, it's next Thursday."
She exhaled and brought the sheets up to her face. "It's raining. Can I sleep now?" and he rubbed her affectionately.
Does Izaya cry? He'd been missing for a week, but does Izaya cry?
After so many years being jimmied, the lock practically opened itself. Reader pushed open the door and stood on the lush rug of the apartment. The lights were off and the place was remarkably quiet for this time of night.
"Izaya," she called, to no reply, "I'm coming in."
She threw her purse on the couch.
Deeply sunk in the disturbing silence that mixed with the musk of the room, she walked to the broad bay window and looked out at a twinkling Shinjuku. On the desk there was his computer with its blinking cursor in an open chat window, and she moved to type something silly in Kanra's name but stumbled on something on the carpet, catching her balance on his chair. Reader groaned and looked down and saw a black chess knight discarded on the floor. She picked it up with concern and felt its broken glass ear.
"You haven't answered my calls," she cried into the dark. "Or my texts. Or anything." Izaya hadn't been anywhere. No one had seen him out. Ikebukuro was a dewy calm in the absence of its dreaded hellraiser. "Kanra?" She put the piece on the desk and moved to the foot the stairs.
Her voice trailed up to the second floor when she called his name again, where it swirled into the dust and faded. She caught a sniff of something loud and something rotten.
"Izaya, I know you're home." She mounted the steps. "Izaya!" She followed the smell to the looming door of the bathroom. The was an undeniably harsh, sweet, metallic stink. "Izaya, what did you do," Reader whispered. Her hands were cold when she grasped for the metal handle, and pale, but she threw it open to quell the urgency rising in her throat.
"Oh god, what the hell."
It was a lot of white and a lot of red. There was the man in the bathtub, her man, naked, whose face was much the same because he was vain but body covered in wet lacey wounds, and the tub overflowed with warm water swirling with blood onto the stone tile which wet the clattering of a knife.
Reader stood a moment, fighting down bile, when his dark eyes met hers sleepily.
"Good news, my love," he croaked. "I'm even better with a switchblade then I thought." He shuddered. "I'm goddamn amazing!"
Kneeling before the tub, she brayed and plunged her hands into the dirty water. "Oh my god, oh my god, Izaya, Jesus fucking shit. Shit. What the hell did you do?! Where's Namie been?!"
"I sent her home."
"Oh my god, Izaya. Fuck."
First out of some primal fear she kicked the weapon towards the door. It nicked her heel. Then she felt, with her thumbs, over his arms, his chest, his stomach, all the tiny cuts where he tried to carve shapes with the blade, which made him wince; yet he smirked at her all this time, a wanton smile that seemed to hurt him more than the effort was worth. His lips were pale and dry.
"Of course you'd come looking for me," he said, as she tugged the drain at his feet and the bathtub began to empty. She stood and almost slipped in the bloodwater and felt around the cabinets for clean towels. "I thought my ignoring you was enough." His voice grew weak. She found a pile and stacked them in her arms. She threw some on the floor and spread them out with her foot, soaking up the spill. "I guess I should have taken some measures to ensure you couldn't get in, because yet here you came." The bath was empty except the body. The white towels would all have to be stained. "My love.
"Of course I knew you'd come all along. You see, I wanted to see what you'd do when-"
"Shut up." It wasn't quite an order, but the whickering of a lioness; she glared at him but also radiated, which made him laugh. She went to look for gauze, then sat down and took one towel after another from the pile, patting him down, watching dark red blossoms appear.
"Oh, dear, I hope you don't expect me to buy new towels," came his reply. Each wet one was thrown in the discarded heap. She looked at him when he was at last dried, at the way the lines on his skin were flowing.
When she unraveled the gauze and began to wrap his wounds, she didn't think to stop the wetness on her cheeks from flowing down. First came each forecep, leaving his body last. He asked why she cried. He told her people with his good looks don't die, can't die, not in a manner so muted; they go out with the fireworks befitting a god.
"You're not a god," she sobbed, then: "Can you sit up?"
With an arm behind his back she was able to get him in some sitting position, though he grimaced with the effort. She ignored his erection and made sure the bandages were tight, and he wouldn't stop looking at her.
"I'm going to walk you to the bedroom now, okay?" she said softly. She was on her knees on the edge of the tub and looked down at him.
"My, isn't someone ambitious," he grunted, very slowly leaning on her for support. It took them a great deal of time and energy to get Izaya standing before the two of them, by her lead, made their way with tiny steps over the slippery floor.
When humans find fellow humans, towards whom they share some kind of affinity, in a certain distress, there is a strange compassion which emerges from within, along with the ability pay little attention to things that are naked. In this capacity, she laid him down on the tidy bed so that his arms stretched out like an angel. As she rummaged through the dressers for clothes, he turned his head to the side as if he meant to fall suddenly asleep.
Loose, black shirt and pants. Simple, effective. And a pair of boxers. His entire wardrobe was black or pitch-black or off-black. There wasn't any sign of that favorite fur coat. He turned his head and studied her with a quiet interest when she sat on the edge of the bed to dress him, piling the clothes beside her.
"So, when Nakura wants to disappear, who's the one that pushes him over the edge?" she asked, her voice damp with tears, helping him into his undergarments.
"Who says I'm suicidal?" he told her, pushing on his elbows to lift himself so she could fit them over his buttocks. Izaya let himself fall back down with a huff. "Gods don't get suicidal. It's our raw ambition that gets misinterpreted."
She brushed a strand out of his eyes and traced a line down his cheek. He smiled into her hand, a warm flash of rare sincerity that quickly faded into the usual warm mischief. Reader turned and pulled the shirt off the stack. "Arms up," she said, and he complied and sat up against the pillows. She pulled the shirt over his head and tousled his crop of messy black hair before sighing into the pillows next to him. Now that she really looked at the room for the first time, it was dreary, deliberately clean yet uninhabited and uninviting, its palette the distinguished cold gray of fireproof glass. The tears had dried against Reader's face and she smeared at them uselessly.
"Do you think we should go see Shinra?" she murmured.
"No pants? An interesting choice. Very interesting."
"Is it something I did? "
He laced his fingers with hers and squeezed her hand.
"It's embarrassing being in front of you without any pants, Reader-chan," sang Izaya. "What will people say? They'll get the impression you're in love with me. Could you handle that? Desu~"
"Izaya, what if next time you die?!" She hunched forward with her knees up and her face in her arms. "What'll I do if you die? Izayaaa." She bleated like a lovelorn deer.
The weight of the bed shifted. "This conversation is dull," she heard him say.
He was leaning against the wall, attempting to walk, holding his stomach. His brows were knitted in concentration.
"What's wrong?"
"If you must know, I'm trying to make my dramatic escape and leave you, yet I'm too dizzy to move." She studied his lean form, feeling first anger, then arousal, then regret. Her nurturing resolve vanished. She relaxed onto her back, rolled off the bed, and fell on the floor.
"Is it dizziness from blood? Or from affection?" he added in his ambiguous way. "What's the difference, right? Either way - the native hue of resolution is sicklied over with the pale cast of thought."
She stood with an effort. "Hush. You haven't read a book since you were like twelve."
"That's because I've been dedicated to real science."
"Voyeurism is not a science."
She passed him without a glance, headed for the door. "Anyway, leave if you want," she said sourly. "But you still don't have any pants." Then she went out and down the stairs.
Izaya laughed out loud. "How unusually heartless of you, Reader!" he shouted from the bedroom. Reader swiped her bag from the couch and padded into the kitchen. She set the purse on the counter and went to fill a kettle with tap water. "Just another one of your many surprises and, of course, your many faults."
"Hey, Mr. Psychiatrist," she hollered back, "if you think you know so much, help me out with something." She set the full teapot on the electric stove and turned it on.
"Avail yourself of my wisdom."
Reader grabbed a white plastic pill bottle from her bag and poured out two. She searched the drawers for a spoon and smashed them into powder.
"What mental disorder do I have that I haven't thrown your body in a ditch yet?"
"Do you really need my input for that?"
"I'm not afraid to say I'm in love, I-za-ya O-ri-ha-ra. I just wanted a second opinion."
"In that case, your condition is one of my favorites - the worst disease of all. Even the nadir of suffering couldn't hold a candle to that which they call love. You dedicate yourself tirelessly to solving my problems because you so desperately crave my attention and praise... as I yours. How selfish of the both of us."
The kettle screamed as steam poured from its mouth.
"On my end, it's nothing personal, of course. I love all my humans just the same. You're no one special. Just some deluded earthly girl chasing after a man to whom she is nothing more than some chance encounter, a friend, if that's what you call it. I call it a chance encounter because I appreciate any and all worship I get. But who are you, seriously? Just some nobody who fancies herself a dragon."
She tore open a box of chamomile teabags and threw one in each of two glass mugs before submerging them in the scalding water. Each swirled a sickly amber; to Izaya's she paid particular attention with the spoon, pushing the bag so that it steeped from the middle and grew dark; her own sat and brewed lazily, a lighter hue.
"I want you to stay away from Shizuo for a while," she said, heading back to the room. She left her purse spilling over the counter on the pretext that it was safe from Izaya's vague boredom and nausea. "Don't think I didn't see those godawful bruises."
"Yes, Mother," he brooded. She blew on the tea, which he accepted with his free arm, smirking.
The bed was lonely. She claimed that opposite side of it and set her own mug on the nightstand, grabbing some filing folder left nearby and peering inside it with a feigned interest, laying her long legs out in front of her, crossed at the ankle, in what she hoped was a seductive pose.
"You may join me," she announced authoritatively.
He shrugged in defeat. "Alright, you win, my angel." Freeing his arm from the wall, he wobbled, taking a few slow, large, dancer steps with hesitation, until he could sit down on the bed and clambered over to her side, trembling, and placed his drink next to Reader's. Using both arms now, Izaya suspended himself over her, looking down with concern.
"You're reading my documents," he said. "That's not very nice. You might find out someone's personal info, and as their loving god, I'm obligated to maintain client confidentiality. How terrible of you, Reader-chan!" Izaya's eyes lit up. "You're positively wicked."
"O Mighty God," - Reader threw it off the bed without a care - "you are the worst kind of person." She touched his cheeks with her fingertips, still warm from the heat of the mug, not sure if he was trying to start something or pretending he was trying to start something. In both cases, she felt trapped.
"Impertinent," he chuckled to himself.
Then he leaned down and kissed her, lowering onto her so that she felt his eagerness there, too, and his hands roamed her sides, tracing little circles with the thumbs at the small of her back. She snaked her arms about his neck to bring him closer in. He sought entrance to her mouth and intruded, so that their tongues mingled, and this made her let out small noises of deprived pleasure: not quite moans, but the call of children catching butterflies, and it made her kiss back hard. When they parted for air, a thin wire of saliva still connected between them and, breaking that, he left a trail of small kisses along her jaw before his lips at last disappeared and he looked at her, his eyes dark, smirking.
It hadn't felt as empty as usual. She thought perhaps the prince had been at last deposed, or that he had lost too much blood, or both. Still leering, he removed himself from her and wiped his mouth. Izaya sat back on his knees and grabbed a cup from the side table, sniffing it before retreating to his side of the bed and taking a long sip.
"Perfect," he remarked dryly, settling into the cushions beside her. "Flavorless and bland. Not steeped nearly long enough. How did you know that was my favorite kind? That's some impressive clairvoyance you've got there."
She lobbed a pillow at him, which he deflected with a shielding arm. "If it's bitter, it's because I didn't put any sugar in," she added, crossing her arms. It was somewhat retrograde to leave him without sugar, she realized, provided the incident, but being always innately mad at him, she also thought it was reasonable.
"I didn't say that," he remarked.
She grabbed the remaining tea from the stand and drank it. It was murky and strong. The two of them sat in silence, listening to the dull roar of late-night city traffic. Izaya hunched over with his drink in both hands, grinning down into the cup. He sounded as though he were purring or quietly laughing to himself at an inside joke, as per usual.
"Alright, your turn for inspection."
He hummed into his tea.
"New theory. You've gotta be a psychopath. You have to be."
Izaya reached behind himself to pinch her cheek affectionately. He told her she was very cute.
"I'm serious, Izaya." She made her face like a puffer fish. "There's something wrong with you, and I want to understand."
"I know you're jealous, but I'm happy to say there's no treatment for my creative genius."
"I'll figure it out, okay."
They stayed like that for some time, as peaceful as neurotic people are contented to be. He started off on some morbid account of his most recent meddling, to which Reader idly listened but mostly tossed around in her own mind the idea of finally asking him.
"Why'd you do it?" she blurted, having the grace to avoid his eyes.
Izaya dropped his own story immediately. She saw him swivel towards her and sit cross-legged. "Ooh! That's even better!" he said. "Which command did I violate this time? Maybe all of them, right?" he asked, cocking his head to the side with a broad smile.
"Don't be an ass." Reader sloshed the water in her cup around absent-mindedly.
Izaya leaned over, parroting her voice. "Why'd you try to hurt yourself, Izzy-kun? What if you went too far? How weary I'd be~; I would that I were dead, Izaya, the light of my life, the handsomest, cleverest, most loving information broker in Ikebukuro! That's what you say. And then I'm supposed to say, in my incredibly alluring voice, oh, Reader-chan, I never meant to hurt you - But I did, you see, which is the irony." He fluttered his eyelashes and glowed with drama. "- It's just that… Oh, I'd die to tell you! No, tell, me! Well, alright, but only because you're my favorite human. Don't go telling all the ladies you go to those functions with.
"It's just that… oh, Reader, this world doesn't appreciate all the selfless endearment I put out towards it. Why, I love humans! You know that! I LOVE THEM!" He almost spilled his drink with enthusiasm. "I am a sheer exemplar of agape. I love all of them, every! single! one!, with the exception of Shizuo and you're not listening so-this-is-getting-tedious."
He rolled his eyes. She was studying her glass and covered her mouth to yawn sweetly.
"Sorry, am I boring you? I know I cut out the sex scene but we're pressed for time."
A beat.
"I was stressed," he admitted.
Her eyelids drooped. "You switched… our glasses."
"Exactly, Reader! What's lesson seven of the Orihara household?
"nebr 'cept drnksfrmtherpple."
"Look at you, look at you! You're ADORABLE WHEN YOU'RE TIRED! I'm tempted to do naughty things to you!"
She set the glass aside and laid down in a ball.
"I just wanted you to sleep. You never sleep." Reader let out a deep sigh and closed her eyes. "You're going to die."
He followed suit, draping an arm over her and sneering marvelously. "But alas, subtlety is just not one of your strengths, my love, my disappointment."
She opened her eyes slowly and looked into his. "Don't go away," she whimpered.
He kissed her forehead and lingered there, his hot breath against her skin. "Careful! You never know what I might do with your weaknesses."
Sleepiness drew and threatened to overcome her. She asked him to stay and to promise he wouldn't be gone when she woke up. He put a finger to her lips gently and smirked.
"Sweet dreams," he said, as she plunged into darkness. All night she dreamt of drowning in cold water spotted with blood, and when she woke up gasping the covers were missing and the sunlight was harsh and her purse had vanished and he was gone. She stained the white sheets with her period. "Best birthday," she said. "Happy fuckin' birthday."
So he begged to be in charge of dessert, though she didn't trust him in the least. Reader said she'd make dinner, which was fine, but she'd had to go shopping. She waited at the door wearing an innocent sleeveless turtleneck with a portrait brooch in the center – cream - a pleated black skirt, a swath of eye shadow, and her hair up in a loose French twist.
He opened the door. He had a suit and tie. "I'm terribly sorry. You must have meant to visit the mob boss down the street, little swan. I am but the humble Orihara Izaya, and we don't get many pretty girls here. Unless, of course, you wanted to borrow a cup of sugar?"
She shoved past him through the door, pushing the paper bags into his arms, which he caught with ease.
"Oh, Reader-chaan! I didn't know it was you! Did you get hit by a cosmetics truck on the way over? Happy birthday."
"Izaya, go fuck yourself." She went briskly to the kitchen and began pulling out drawers for knives and bowls and the hot pot as he set the groceries on the table to sort out. "I need some of that stuff, can you put it on the counter?"
"That's not a very nice way to ask your best friend," he said, bringing over an armful of ingredients. Izaya surveyed the display. "A hot pot."
"Nabeyaki udon. You'd better like it, because it's the only recipe I'm good at and because I have a knife." She set a saucepan full of water on the stove to boil.
"You have my knife," he said, revealing his own switchblade to match her chef's. "Oh! And by the way." He wandered back to the table and leaned back against it. "I found out a big secret of yours the other day."
Reader made a sound of acknowledgement, unwrapping bunches of fresh vegetables and a package of narutomaki.
"Somebody told me – and don't take this as a threat, of course – the Regals thing. Get this. This is crazy. You set it up as a way to meet me. It was all a devious lie. What can I say? I'm flattered, but…"
Reader dropped the scallions and one fell into the sink. "Who told you that?"
"Nobody, it was just a theory of mine." He waved her away and then barked out laughter. "But now that I know that it's true, honestly, Reader-chan, that's just pathetic! Anyway, I was just wondering."
"You could have just asked," she said, picking up the knife. She didn't want to look at him, or the suit. Why had they both dressed up? "What can I say? I loved you. I saw your picture." Her face grew red. "It was nice." She chopped the greens.
"That's because I'm astonishingly beautiful on a level mere mortals can't comprehend!" He took a breath between paroxysms of laughter. "Did you really?"
"You're making me regret it." Her arm slipped inside the paper bag for a package of prawns, which she opened and pulled out two juicy-eyed fresh shrimp from. "And stop smiling at me. I can feel it… on my back." She clawed at the husks of the shrimp and tore off the legs before smashing them into straight shapes. When she glanced over her shoulder, he was still grinning. "No really. Stop."
"I'm just thinking… Wonderful things." He gestured to her body. "Isn't it great? All of that is mine."
"Not all of it," she said, tossing tempura flower into a wet bowl and sloshing it around.
"Well now... What's that supposed to mean?"
"Not the heart."
"I can accept that arrangement." he said, while she filled a skillet with frying oil. She coated and salted the prawns. "I can do without the heart if I get every other organ. You know why?"
Reader watched the oil bubble and sniffed. "Humor me."
"Because! I've figured it out!" He retreated to his office throne. "I've figured out exactly what I'm going to do!"
"What's that?" Reader hollered. The flaky shrimp were tossed in the pan, where they hissed at her. She pecked at bits of floating batter with a pair of chopsticks.
"I'm going to…" He made this molding motion with his hands. "…destroy you. From the inside out. I have this fantasy!" Around and around in the chair he went. "Of wrecking everything you are. I would tear away everything you loved, everything you are, and crush it on the ground!" He stomped the floor with his sock. "I would smash it!"
"You'd have to kill yourself," she said dryly.
"Ha ha ha, I would make a chalice of your despair and I would drink from it and I would live the longest life." His eyes shone like Broadway stars. "And then - the best part - the one I've been dreaming about the longest - I will take whatever's left of you and shape it into this beautiful, hideous, thing, this human goddess, this monument, this world! And that's it, that's it! That's all they'll have to remember you by. Just this horrible thing, this bug! That I made. And then they'll love me, they'll all love me, every last human, because I took this girl of theirs, this precious, perfect girl, and I quashed her! It was me! I squeezed the life from her expectant eye and held the color in my hand until there was nothing there but the pitch blackness of the husk. I am a god! I will own every part of you, I will control you, which is why…"
Hisssss.
"No matter what, I won't let anybody so much as look at you. And yes, you may try to escape, as hawks may bate, but I'll always know where you are, and." A glimmer. "If anyone, anyone, anyone tries to stop us, I'll take it into my hands personally to unravel them to the point where they're nothing more than cosmic dust. Because… I have to kill you, my love." Izaya Orihara propped his feet up on the desk and wiggled his toes. "You're a threat to my empire. So, very sorry about your life plans, and your family and whatever else you have to worry about, but none of them could ever understand a mighty god has His agenda to attend to. But thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. You've helped me realize that, my life, my human, my angel!" His laughter shook the room. He rattled the glass with it. There would be several complaints to the landlord about noise level.
The shrimp were placed on a rack. She cracked open the wrapped udon noodles and dunked them in the rolling, bubbling water, whisking them about with her chopsticks so they separated. Then she pulled them out with a strainer and rinsed them with ice. Then she set them down in a bowl. "I hope you've got eggs," she muttered, tip-toeing over to the fridge and peering inside. She found two in a carton and set them on the counter.
His shoulders were falling up and down with his exhilarated breathing. "Don't you get it?" he said so softly, as though she weren't meant to hear. "Reader, Reader, Reader-chan, if only you understood."
Sinking a knife into the fish cake, she separated it from its wooden plank. She cut it into slices half an inch long. As he continued to breathe, she filled water into the hot pot and, unscrewing the cap on a jar of instant dashi, tapped a teaspoon's worth of powder into it. Then soy sauce. Then she spooned in noodles and a handful of vegetable bits and kamaboko and and a great big nugget of raw chicken meat, before turning the pot's portable burner on and letting it simmer.
Then she sighed, poking her head out of the kitchen to look at him.
"Izaya…" She had never seen such redness in his eyes and she studied them intensely.
"Hm?"
She took in an anxious breath. "Do you, like… Do you…" Reader stomped her feet together in a huff and looked at the floor. "Do you want to make love?"
He raised his eyebrows.
"That was… awkward, sorry."
First he laughed a little bit. It was just a snicker.
Then he giggled like a school girl, rocking the chair back and forth, and she saw the glint of his crisp white teeth. Then it was a roar, as though he wanted to swallow the whole Earth.
He laughed and laughed and laughed all the way to her. He picked her up and whirled her around, stopping to plant kisses all across her face, pushing her against the kitchen wall, still laughing, each a tiny brush of mirth on her skin.
"Look at us!" he cried. "Aren't we goddamn idiots? It's amazing! If this is a weakness, I gladly submit to it! Because there's this human girl and she knows what I've been trying to tell her! And I think she's felt - as much love as I've felt! I love humans! I love this human!"
"You're crazy today," she smiled. "You sound like Shinra."
His hands slowed.
"You know, I have something of a cult following. You're awfully lucky you get to be loved by the urban Messiah."
"No… No, no-no-no, wait! I meant that as a good thing! I didn't… I liked that. I like when you're happy. It was… nice."
He patted her head. "Reader-chan, I'm always happy."
"That's not fair and that's not true. Is… Shinra a name not allowed in this house?"
"I just like you better, Reader. There's no reason to talk about anyone else. That's stupid!"
"Right," she said dejectedly, going over to her steaming soup with a solemn look. "Can you get out two bowls and a glass?"
Izaya glided into the kitchenette to pick out a stack of dishes from the cabinet. He skimmed his fingers across her behind. "Happy, happy birthday~," he cooed.
"I wouldn't do that to a person with boiling water on hand. Just saying."
"My boiling water, you mean. Besides!" he cried, spinning towards the dining table, setting his bowl down and sliding hers to the opposite end like a glass of liquor. "You know you could never hurt me. You just said it. Right?" He sat down in front of the bowl and steepled his hands, peering forward with intense concentration.
She whacked the eggs one at a time on the rim of the pot and spilled the yolks on top of the soup. "Izaya," she said, "that wasn't just… an act, was it?" She wondered how she could still trust.
"I'm not telling!"
"Ah, it all makes sense now. Theory three comes to fruition: you're a clinical narcissist," she said, all a glimmer of ghoulishness.
He retorted with the first thing that came to mind. "Mmm, the soup smells terrible."
"Those sisters of yours are dirty whores," she said, matching his speed.
"You're rambunctious and no one likes you."
Reader gasped. "Orange is a stupid color with connotations of radiation and vomit. For me, at least."
"All your life's ambitions are vacuous and futile."
She smelled the broth. It was alright. She turned off the heat and laid the two crispy shrimp on top of it. "Oooh… nice one, big guy. Hey that reminds me, what's up with your pretending to be a girl all the time?"
"I'm playing the part of the woman for the both of us. Seeing as you have the body of a 90-year-old man."
"How would you know?" she asked, schlepping the hot pot and its stove over to the middle of the table. "You're too busy jerking off to your own creepy politics."
"And I should change why? I mean you're a flat-chested, nagging harpy, an obsessive stalker who makes fake gangs to swat at flies..."
She made her voice gravelly and shrill. "I'll have you know I was spry when I was your age!"
"And that wasn't an insult, dear Reader. Does that mean you surrender?" he sang, eyes narrowing with anticipation.
"You know I'm no good at coming up with this shit." Reader walked over and took his dish with a flourish before planting a kiss on his forehead. "Congrats, you're the bigger asshole." She curtsied and walked over to the bubbling hot pot to spoon the noodles into his bowl.
("You're eating all of this.")
Izaya tipped his chair back, folding his hands behind his head and tilting his chin up to the ceiling. "Another victory for me. How sweet! Where does that bring us now, five-one?"
"Five-zero."
"Five-zero!" The piping hot broth appeared in front of him. He pitched himself forward and clapped his hands together. "Someone better show you the ropes of asshole affairs. The class race versus the ass race, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Itadakimasu." He picked up his chopsticks and started to eat.
She took the chair opposite him with a bottle of wine in hand and popped the cork out. "It's weird, because you'd think I have the best teacher in the world."
He pointed at her with one chopstick while using the other to catch a ream of noodles. "Now you're getting it."
The wine swirled a rosy red in its glass. She swirled it around, looking agitated. Then she tore at her hair and pulled out the pins that kept it in place and shook her head so it floated down.
"I give up, I can't do fancy," she said, taking a swig of the drink. "I mean you can, it looks really nice on you, but me? Ugh, I get enough of this at work. Ha ha."
Izaya licked his lips. "This is actually really good."
She stared into her empty bowl. "Great."
"You look sullen. Eat. It's not a good look on you."
She shook her head, letting her bangs fall.
"I just - call me dumb, or whatever, but - I just thought that my birthday would bring something special. Good luck, I guess."
"Ah, and right now we're not having something special?"
"'My love, my disappointment.'"
He folded his arms. "Oh, I get it! You're upset about the not having sex. Well now, that's simply sinful, Reader. What would your parents say if you made me have sex with you?"
Abruptly, she left the table, going for her purse, slinging it around her shoulder and storming out of the apartment.
"By the way, you're pretty with your hair down."
"Piss off."
He said, "Goodnight, Reader," but she had already slammed the door.
Another few days passed and this time, she was the one to vanish. It felt nice, not having any sort of obligation or itch to scratch, though it was lonely. The champagne was a narrow glass of simmering gold which she downed impressively in seconds after making a toast to herself.
("Since when does a "girls' night out" mean sitting in a hotel room post-gig watching Reader drink even more alcohol than usual?" another girl said with concern.
"Give her a break, she's got guy issues," replied some friend.
"Boyfriends come and go. Just ditch him.")
Reader slammed the glass down on the cocktail table. "He is not my boyfriend. I hate men. I need a hospital."
"Who are you even dating? If there'd been any cute guys at one of our shows I'd be the first to know." The friend sprawled out on the bed of the suite. "I know those things."
"Gimme some that." The Other poured herself a glass.
"Help yourself," said Reader.
"You've never seen anybody outside the band because she's with somebody inside the band." The Other took a sip and made a motion with her fingers. "Duhhh, Makoto-chan? Hello, case solved."
(Makoto was the brush drummer. He was alright, she thought, not boyfriendable.)
"I am not dating anyone!"
A third chimed up from where she was sitting by the phone, thumbing through a room service menu. "Maybe it's secretly one of us. Oooh, scary! Like a Friday night serial!"
"I am not dating anyone!"
"You watch too many TV shows," said the Friend.
The Other refilled her half-full glass to the top, just to watch it fizzle. "If it's not a dating problem, then what the hell is wrong with you?"
"I never said it was a dating problem, I just said it was a problem, okay? And I don't need to talk about it. You guys do whatever, okay? Rent a movie or something."
The Friend dangled off the side of the bed and said, "But you're sulkiiiing!"
Reader gave a shaky breath. "It's fine." Her cohorts were not so convinced.
"Aha, oh man. No shit, you guys are gonna flip," said the third. The Third had Reader's purse on her lap and was fixated on her phone screen. Her expression was dead. "Look who she's been calling!"
Reader dived to snatch it from her but was too late, and Friend fell off the bed onto the floor in a heap, saying "Who, who, who?!"
"Orihara Izaya."
The Other began choking. "Get out," she spat. Champagne dribbled on the carpet.
Reader snatched her belongings and held them to her chest. "Don't to rifling through my stuff," she said possessively. She went to where her bass sat in its wheeled case by the wall and hung the purse strap around her shoulder and began wheeling the instrument towards the door.
"Orihara Izaya!"
("Wow! Wow!" The Friend was still on the floor.)
"Fucker cost me five grand! He almost ruined my life," said the Other, rising.
"He ruins everybody's lives," Reader spat. She opened the door and hauled out. Suddenly she poked her head back into the room. "Keep the champagne, it's a gift." She winked.
The solemn elevator was tall and austere. Its inside walls were covered with mirrors, which she used to make faces at herself and at the double bass, affectionately named Tomomi. "Joker, huh." She had her phone on silent, unchecked for a while, somewhat anxiously, because in her romantic mind, the wrongdoer would make a frantic series of calls in increasing desperation, detailing his regret at all the pockmarks on the clumsy hand of human farce and begging her forgiveness. Instead, when she looked at it, there was but one text message, and it said
"You forgot your gift! ( ´∀` )"
instead of "I'm sorry."
The case made a gravelly sound as it rolled through the lobby, out the automatic doors, and out into the front sidewalk. This street was deserted at the stroke of midnight. She drove the little bass all the way to the corner where she waited patiently to hail a taxi.
One approached, dull daffodil-toned and unassuming. It was dark. The driver, a gruff man with a thick mustache, saw her struggling with Tomomi and came out and around to help load it in the trunk. She pushed the lid down and told the man her address, headed for the door, to which he responded with the prick of a tranquilizer on the back of her arm.
There was struggling, of course, onto the seat of the car, and as her senses closed on the peripheries and swallowed into a cavernous center, she focused on the point of that needle and the cold spread of whatever it was inside her, the purr of an engine, the vertigo of being whisked away to some godforsaken territory, and a goddamned man in a fur-hemmed coat whom she loved and hated; she fell unconscious and didn't reemerge until faintly summoned by the sound of a squealing motorcycle.
Why move? Her limbs were tingly. The cracked bed of a leather seat was her earth and the fuzzy ceiling her stars and sky, the dim sound of late-night radio her one quiet wish. Yes, this run-down taxicab was every city-dweller's miracle, and there was no way she would be moving now, her heart a happy anchor.
Until a wicked grimace of light fell across her face with the unlatching of the door. From her vantage point she saw a woman in black with a golden helmet staring upside-down at her with an unreadable expression.
She knew this woman. It was the Headless Rider and she was going to die.
Then the best way to live, Reader realized, was as though you were ready to die; she spoke to the daemon with grace and willing to be struck in the heart.
"Top of the evening," Reader offered.
The woman held an orange keyboard phone. She typed something out on it:
"Are you alright? I tried looking in the trunk but your cello is gone. I'm sorry."
"Been better," Reader said, somewhat consternated. "And it's a bass. Damn."
"Sorry! And…you sure?"
Reader flashed a wanton smile.
"Ok, then… Hold on. I've gotta get something. You're sure you're ok, right? I'll be back in just a sec." At Reader's nod, the woman hopped off somewhere and left her alone. Reader spent the moments staring out into this empty part of town; hey were in some abandoned lot with a chain linked fence at the end of it and bits of potted stunted shrubbery that had long given up on achieving any sort of life.
(Kind of like me, she snickered)
Not many moments later, she smelled it before she saw it; something sweet and a little melancholy accompanied by a bouquet in the Black Rider's hands, burgeoning with purple roses and Queen Anne's lace and wrapped in white paper.
"I think you're supposed to have these," explained the phone.
Reader tentatively reached out towards the unfamiliar black, misjudging the depth with her tipsy grasp and missing the flowers completely. The Rider corrected this and placed them in her waiting hand.
"Ah, fuuuck," said Reader. She placed the bundle of them on her chest, folding her hands like a corpse. "Fuck," she said peacefully. "Izaaaaayaaa. Fuck, I'm drunk and drugged up thanks to that asshole driver and he's like hey maybe you'd be cheered up by some flowers?! Fuck that guy. Fuck him to high heaven."
The Rider stared at her for a moment, an almost sad-ish gleam in her visor.
"Do you want to talk?" she typed.
Reader brought the flowers to her face, deeply inhaled the scent, and her shoulders dropped. "For all I know, these could be poisoned." She let the lavender petals droop against her forehead. "That would be nice. Fuck, I mean, the talking. That would be nice. Damn, sorry."
The daemon crouched down and sat on the concrete. Click clack. "You aren't afraid?"
"Nah, I've got insurance on the bass. It's not that valuable."
"I meant of me?"
Reader glanced downwards. "No. Not really."
"I'm Celty." - To which the girl held up a hand of acknowledgement.
"Reader."
"It's nice to meet you. Izaya can be… different." ("Yes," Reader said baldly.) "He's only mentioned you a few times, but they were all very positive reviews he's given."
That made the girl laugh. "What am I, a goddamn breakfast cereal?"
"Well no, no, that's not what I meant! Sorry!" She quickly hunched over to finish her thought on the cell phone screen, click click clack, click click clack.
"I know what you meant." Reader smiled. "Ah, man, I hate his fuckin' guts."
Celty deleted what she had.
Then she wrote, "I think he loves you. Should I extend my condolences or my congrats? Ha ha," to which Reader sighed. The woman shook her helmet.
"No, sorry, that was rude... I run these kinds of errands every so often but I've never had to deliver flowers to the victim before." Delete. "You must be special. You're very pretty. I sincerely hope you don't mean what you say and you're just drunk because I know him and he does have genuine feelings for you. Not to intrude. You all seem so sad, though."
Reader blinked at her from the car.
"Woah, fuck, sorry. I was spacing out."
"How did things get like this?"
"Oh." She propped herself on an elbow and rolled around onto her stomach. "Oh. We were having a fight I guess. Or, well, I was having a fight. He was being Izaya. Douchebag."
Celty showed the phone with two hands: "Do you always get in fights?"
"No. Well, I mean… I'm usually pretty mad because I don't think he takes things seriously. Well, not like things, I mean I can take jokes and whatever, and his general personality even though he's a douche, but I mean me. I don't think he takes me seriously which pisses me off like no end. I'm usually like really pissed at him. So… I guess we are fighting all the time." She yawned and then scrunched her brows. "Struggling sounds like a better word."
The Rider already had her screen ready. "I don't think you should be fighting all the time," it read.
She laughed ironically. "Thanks, Professor Dating Advice. Things aren't really how I'd like them to be."
"How would you like things to be?" asked Celty with concern. She rested her black hand on the girl's free one with warmth in her missing eyes. Reader strummed her fingers beneath Celty's own.
"I want to hold him," she sighed. "That's all."
Three hours later, the bass was sitting on the couch. Izaya was lying face-down on the floor, fast asleep. Reader hesitated in the doorway and looked at the two of them.
"Tomomi," she said. "You've been cheating on me."
She got in a little closer. Nothing changed. It was just as drab and hard to see and as silent, save the steady hum of the radiator.
"And I can't believe you got to sleep with him first," she said.
Reader stepped past the scene and crept up the stairs to the bathroom, where she flicked on the lights and started at her own disheveled self in the mirror. It wasn't much better with some cold water splashed on it.
"No wonder." She patted it down with a towel. "Turns out I'm ugly."
She took off her dress. Then she padded back out into the upstairs hall and gathered an armful of blankets and pillows from the bedroom, before wobbling to the ground floor with them and hovering over the sleeping pair. (She briefly considered dropping the stack on his head but decided against it.) Reader put the linens on the coffee table and pushed it out of the way, creating a space next to the sleeping figure. Tomomi got a blanket. She draped the next one across the carpet and another over his body; she plopped one pillow where she thought she'd lie and the other she regarded momentarily, then placed on top of his head.
("Mmmf," came a sound.)
Then she stumbled into the makeshift bed and cocooned herself in the final blanket. It was alright, but terribly uncomfortable.
She heard a rustling.
"Mmm, and to think I was hoping you'd try and take advantage of me, having assumed I was asleep," he said, adjusting his pillow and facing her. She was turned away and didn't say anything.
"Are you still mad at me?" he grinned. She pulled the blanket tighter around her ears. "You can't still be mad at me. I didn't even do anything this time. Out of the ordinary, anyway. That's pretty good, right?
"Reader?"
Her voice cracked. She brought her knees up to her stomach.
"I think I'm going to the hospital."
He rolled onto his back and stirred the air with an index finger. "Not for any injuries you aren't," he said. "That could get me into trouble. And you wouldn't want to do that, right? We'll fix it. I fix things."
"Not for an injury," she sniveled, suddenly sitting upright, hugging the blanket around her like a hooded cape. "As an informal at the University Hospital." Then she began to cry. "So you win. Jack-po-p-pot. All the money. Have a nice l-life. You're the s-stronger w-willed. I'm tired… of feeling this way. So she was right and you were right and I—I-I'm okay admitting I was wrong. I'm okay. But god, make it stop."
Izaya let a long breath out while she sobbed. "That's the problem with you humans. You're so volatile." He clicked his tongue. "That won't do at all."
Reader wept another few minutes. Then ten passed. He was sincerely torn between grinning like a madman and begging for some kind of mercy, an ecstasy purchased by guilt.
"Are you really that sad, or are you just drunk?"
She cried.
"So let me guess what you think. You think that if you set up the whole waterworks, you'll win my pity eventually and I'll come over to you and renounce my philosophy seeking your forgiveness, and things will be a fairy tale ending from then on out?"
She cried.
"I couldn't do that, Reader. Your plan is faulty. Because I love humans and I'll never stop. Did you ever think that?"
She choked.
"I didn't think anything," she said, the tears making her face hot. "I just am."
"'I think therefore I am.'"
Somewhere a tiny laugh was lost in her whimpering. She giggled and clattered her teeth. "Sh-shut up. You haven't read a book since y-you were like t-t-twelve."
Izaya gave into his sympathy, pushing up and crawling over to cradle her from behind. He pulled the hood down and kissed the nape of her neck.
"Don't," she said weakly.
He chuckled into the blanket she wore, taking a breath. "You don't lie down next to me in your panties and then tell me don't, Reader-chan. You know that, right?"
"Don't," she pleaded.
"Give me your hands," he said. She hesitated, then obliged, reaching over her shoulders. He took them in his warm ones and slipped two rings on her index fingers. Reader studied her digits, now embellished with his steel jewelry.
"Why am I wearing your rings?"
"A psych ward doesn't suit you, Reader-chan." He lingered on her smell, slowly pulling the blanket off. "I hate to sound crass, but what the hell is wrong with you? Pretty little lambs don't go to places like that. They stay with their incredibly sexy boyfriends and help in beautiful informant schemes and then they aren't depressed anymore."
She was cool and exposed. His hands moved up her curves and his lips between her shoulder blades.
"You're not my boyfriend," she said.
"No?" he asked, unhooking her clasp. "Then what am I? Your fiancé?"
The bra fell.
"No," she replied. "You're Izaya. I hope to god you're not my fiancé because you're a terrible one. And get your hands off my boobs because I'm still kind of drunk and this is not c-consensual."
"But I love them," he whined. "Just as I love all the parts of you that you gave to me, Reader. Just not the heart. I love you-minus-the-heart, Reader-chan, the secular-you-inside-yourself, the tangible, dirty, ordinary you. But I am so glad I get the boobs." He was at it again.
"Wait." She turned and looked at him half-naked. "Say that again." With his fingertips he drew an invisible smile up across her cheeks.
"I love your boobs," he purred.
"Izaya."
"Isn't that all what humans want each other to say, though? I love you? What does it mean, really? What's the point?"
"Were you fibbing, though?"
Izaya pondered for a moment. "No," he smirked.
Reader didn't bother correcting his hands, this time, or his tongue, or when he pushed her gently to the floor in a tackle and kissed her all over, instead keeping her eyes in a steady, glowing gaze on the bass. "Dare I ask why you had me almost-killed?" she said, her voice hoarse. "It doesn't strike me - (hitch) - as romantic."
He licked the shell of her ear as his fingers roamed over her stomach. "It worked, didn't it? You came back. Because I knew you couldn't resist. Almost like how you're not resisting now. You're lying on the ground and meekly enduring my advances. That hurts my feelings, Reader. I thought you wanted me."
"I do, usually," she said under his weight. "Just not right now."
She felt him headbutting against her like a puppy. Then she was free from his arms and he retired onto his back, rubbing one foot down his calf.
"Then how do I put this? You're a heartless bitch and an excellent apprentice. You know exactly how to push my buttons, Reader, and that's not good." She went to him, hovering her face over his own. He touched her on the nose. "We're going to need to make some negotiations."
"You know you have my heart too," she confessed.
"Of course."
"I'll stop when you stop." Reader twirled a lock of her hair.
"Not that easy."
She gave him a skeptical look. "You know you've got a full hard-on right now." Izaya rose with a groan and held her face so that they touched foreheads.
"It's an important skill to be able to ignore one," he said, with obvious difficulty.
She kissed him on the lips and her eyes shone. "You're beautiful," she said.
"What do you want?"
"I want you to like me."
His smirk widened. "How should I answer that? Should I say whatever the man is supposed to say, Reader?" Their faces kept the distance. "That I love you, that I couldn't ever let you go, that I'll be out every night outside your window with a guitar and a mariachi band because I can't bear to let you believe for a second that somebody in this world could stand a day without you? That I want to fuck for time immemorial because you're so goddamn gorgeous? 'How dare you question my chivalry?' 'Marry me, you impeccable little doll?' Like that? What else? I'm up for anything."
Reader raised her eyebrows. "Nice try. You sent me flowers. Flowers are gaudy. You can't say all that like you're mocking it." Her gaze faltered. "You should answer that with how you really feel. What you want to say."
Izaya flashed his teeth at her. "I did."
She would not let go of him for a long time.