Hello everyone! This is my first ever DRRR fanfiction. I write predominantly for Hetalia, but right now I'm in a bit of a writer's block and decided to try something new ^_^;;;. And where I am, it's snowing very thickly, so I just had to write something about it. Maybe I'll try my hand in writing something with Shizuo in it someday…. Blatant!parallelism is blatant and quasi-formed evaluations of Izaya's mind are quasi-formed :'D. Thank you so much for giving this story a chance!
If he hadn't woken up in the middle of the night, he might have never seen it.
But he had on that quiet night in late December. Somewhere in the middle of his faded dreams, something made him jolt awake, his heart beating wildly and his lungs craving air. When he came to his senses, squinting in the darkness of his penthouse, he wracked his brains to try to remember what it was that woke him up with such a start. However, his memory refused to conjure up that faraway dream even though it occurred what seemed like seconds ago. He lied on the couch motionless, trying to remember, but the dream was gone, vanished, nonexistent. It may as well have never happened.
He sat up, rubbing his eyes, wondering why he was sleeping on the couch in the first place. He thought he was working in his desk, but somewhere during the late hours of the waning day he must have managed to drag himself to the closest form of comfort possible and dropped dead asleep on it. He groaned and checked the time on his cell phone, his vision still hazy with fatigue.
Just as he was about to return to his desk and continue whatever work he left unfinished, his sight grazed over the large windows that stretched across the wall behind him.
He blinked. And blinked again.
Was it real?
He warily walked up to the window, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. Surely it was some sort of prank, or a mistake, or even the trick of the supernatural. He would sooner believe it was a hoax from Celty's alien fears rather than what he saw. He pressed one hand against the glass, his light breath brushing fog onto the windowpane.
Was it really snowing?
Delicate crystals drifted softly and silently from the clouds to the streets leagues below him. Even though he was so high above the ground, so close to the night sky, he couldn't see where the snowflakes began, where they flaked off the downy clouds and departed for their journey to the earth. They could have come from outer space, from the moon, for all he knew.
The snow fell thickly onto the city streets. To his surprise, it was collecting quite a bit on the ground, perhaps a good fifteen centimeters. It did not patter sharply on the windows or rap its fingers on the roof like a bothersome rainfall, but softly floated like velvety feathers.
Tokyo was so, so silent.
His eyes, stinging with drowsiness, could not get enough of it. Even though his body wanted nothing more than to collapse and fall asleep for another twelve hours, he could not tear himself away.
Without a second's hesitation, he grabbed his jacket from the coat hanger, hastily pulled it on him, and raced out of his penthouse. He wasn't exactly sure why he was deigning to go all the way outside at two in the morning just to stand out in the open cold, but by the time he questioned his motives, he was already descending down the levels of the apartment building on the elevator, between floor nineteen and floor twenty. Well, he was not one to backslide out of any of his decisions, so he consented to his unknown desires.
When he stepped outside into the snow, the cold welcomed him too heartily. He shivered, zipping up his jacket and shoving his hands in his pockets. He muttered a curse under his breath, his knees shaking from the cold. He had half the mind to go back inside to his toasty apartment, backsliding be damned.
Even so, he walked farther out until he was in the middle of the snowy street. He was ankle deep in snow, the hem of his pants now cold and soaking. He was the only one out in the streets, greeting the first snow that Tokyo had in years. There were no lights shining from any windows at this hour, only the faithful streetlights that painted the white snow with honey gold. Besides the single trail of footprints leading out into the middle of the street, the snow was untouched and unmarred—a perfect slate just begging to be written on.
He was in his own planet, where no one else but he could experience the snow. He was in a separate universe, where no one existed except himself. He was trapped in a snow globe that was shaken constantly, making the snow swirl and dance in the air.
He shivered. He could feel the snow melting on his shoes and seeping into his socks. He wondered if snow would be all that great if he closed his eyes and shoved away its crystalline image, only feeling each snowflake's nip on his pale skin.
He couldn't help but be mesmerized by the snowflakes that clung to his long eyelashes.
They said each snowflake was unique—different from the rest. No snowflake was ever the same.
He slowly uncurled his numb fingers and let single snowflake fall into his hands.
Just like his precious humans.
He suddenly clenched his fists, squeezing the existence out of the delicate flakes until even the water they melted into dried into nothingness. He smiled serenely; yes, he loved the snow, but what did a few, unnamed flakes matter?
He loved it.
Loved it, loved it, loved it.
He stretched out his arms and threw back his head, welcoming the falling snow in a great embrace. He spun on the spot, snow billowing in the air as his feet moved and spun. He practically danced alone—no, not alone. With the snow as they twirled in midair.
No one else was here to claim the snow as their own. He alone received it as it was born. He alone loved it and appreciated it while everyone else curled into a ball underneath their blankets and cursed it. They would shovel it away, plow it aside, sprinkle salt onto it and cheer as it melted and died away. But he shan't.
It was all his to take.
Every one of it was his.
He laughed out loud, his voice ringing in the silent streets.
Even when it became even colder than before, as the snow threatened to bury him and freeze him to death, he remained outside, catching the flakes in his hand and watching them melt on his white skin instead of letting them fly free and reunite with its brethren.
The snow was falling, falling, falling.
And he was falling.
Falling.
Falling.
He took a gasp of air, and it felt as if it was the first breath he had ever taken.
Suddenly, the snow was too cold for him. He was lying on his back in the middle of the thickly covered road, and his limbs felt too heavy to move. The snow was going to bury him, hide him from sight until it froze him into ice.
Here he was alone.
Alone with the pale snow that now threatened to kill him.
And suddenly it repulsed him.
It was ugly, it was vile, it was worthless. He was losing himself in a whitewashed nightmare that made him disappear from sight so that no one would find him, or everyone forget him. He would soon be nothing, and no one would remember, and no one would care.
He pushed himself off the ground, making the surface of the snow crack from the disturbance. His heart beat wildly, as frantically as he did when he was shaken awake from that lost dream.
He ran.
He didn't know where he was going, or why he was going, or even if his legs underneath him were even functioning. He didn't know if he was running away, or running to somewhere. All he wanted was for the snow underneath his feet to be marred, to be torn apart and destroyed. He left a trail of ruin behind him and he didn't care. He wanted it. He relished it. Snow was not meant to lie on the ground for eternity. Sooner or later, if he did not already destroy it first, it would melt away and be nothing, and no one would remember or care.
No one remembered perfection unless it was utterly shattered.
So he mutilated the snow all around him, overturning the flawless diamonds, kicking them, clawing them, smashing them, completely deaf and aloof to their silent screams of pain. A smile darkened his features as he drank in the demolition.
It was his to love. It was his to destroy.
He spun around.
And he stopped in his tracks.
His red eyes traced over the path he carved out of the snow. It was like an ugly scar on pale, smooth skin. The snow beneath his feet whimpered before recoiling into slush.
He should have been remorseful.
Instead, he laughed.
Perfection should never exist. It was weak and fragile, unfit for this world. It was utterly useless unless crushed and beaten, so it could either freeze into jagged ice or surrender weakly into death.
Just like his…
As he trudged back home, following the crooked path he sliced through the snow, Izaya began to wonder how much prettier snow would look if it was blood red.