Author's note: Hey, everybody! Izaya-sama was reborn, weee~ I just stopped here to bring you a short story from highschool times, I hope you'll have fun reading. This is something like prologue, the continuation of the story will be posted on Izaya's birthday. You can look forward some Shizaya fluff next time~
Title: The Matrix.
Rating: T
Pairing: Shizuo x Izaya (highschool Shizaya - author's headcanon is that Izaya has crush on Shizuo from highschool days)
Disclaimer: Durarara or any of its characters aren't intellectual nor tangible property of mine.
Psyche has logged into the room ExamsT_T.
LOVEdoctor: Izaya! So you're finally here ^_^
Psyche: Shinra, the chance something very unfortunate will occur to you in the near future grows up proportionally with the amount of annoying messages cumulating in my mailbox.
LOVEdoctor: But we really need you... Really!
Tsugaru: Speak for yourself, Shinra.
LOVEdoctor: Shizuo, especially you need tutoring from English, so whether you like it or not, you also need his help.
Tsugaru: Pche.
Monta: C'mon, Izaya, you're our only hope.
LOVEdoctor: Izaya T_T
Psyche: Well, well, well. Since you are so desperate, I'll be noble-hearted. I'll give you a crash course, if Shizu-chan says "pretty please, Izaya-sama" (*＾∀ﾟ)ъ
Tsugaru: ***
Psyche: If you want to know how do you say this in English, Shizu-chan, it's f*ck you~
Tsugaru: I swear I'll kill you tomorrow in school.
Psyche: I love you too, Shizu-chan ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ
Monta: Stop goofing around and let's take a look at the language. I want to be over this soon. English is really dreadful.
Psyche: Dreadful is only your nick here, Dota-chin~
Monta left the room.
LOVEdoctor: Eh? Where did he go?
Dota-chin has logged into the room ExamsT_T
Dota-chin left the room.
Dota-chin has logged into the room ExamsT_T
LOVEdoctor: ?
Tsugaru: Are you ok, Kadota?
Dota-chin: Izaya! HOW THE HELL DID YOU CHANGE MY NICK? And why can't I change it back?
Psyche: Cool down, Dota-chin, it looks much better this way. Btw, hacking your firewall is as easy as taking a kid the toy, you should do something about it.
Dota-chin: ...
Tsugaru: If you ever try to do something similar to my comp, flea, you're dead.
Psyche: Don't be absurd, Shizu-chan. If I tried to get into your prehistoric system, my laptop could break or something.
Psyche: Moreover, it's no fun to repeat the same joke. Maybe I should do something more creative in your case. Should we take a look at what kind of porn is popular among neanderthals~?
Tsugaru: You sick psycho, don't you dare to touch my history!
LOVEdoctor: Ehm...can we go back to English?
Dota-chin: Yeah, I don't feel like spending all day by watching a completely pointless conversation...
Psyche: So you're not interested in fact that Shizu-chan likes watching BDSM lesbians?
Dota-chin: Too much of info...
LOVEdoctor: Wow, for real?
Tsugaru: No! IZAYA! YOU *** ***!
Psyche: Ara, ara, Shizu-chan. If you continue this way, some admin will kick you out of here soon and who will then help you with your pitiful English? ( *¯ ³¯*)
Tsugaru: Shinra? Kadota?
LOVEdoctor: Sorry, Shizuo, you know I only do well in chemistry and biology... I need a help with English and I won't have any time to teach you later...
Dota-chin: You know my English is as bad as yours, Shizuo...Sorry.
Psyche: Looks like that you're dependent on me after all, Shizu-chan~
Tsugaru: Fine... You can start, flea.
Psyche: Ts, ts, ts. You don't get something for nothing.
LOVEdoctor: Brb.
Tsugaru: What do you want?
Dota-chin: I'll buy you ootoro.
Psyche: Waaa, that's a bargain, Dota-chin~ Shinra, we have a deal, you know what I mean. And you, Shizu-chan... Since you didn't want to plead, hmm... You have to tell what kind of porn you like ＼（＠￣∇￣＠）／
Tsugaru: Why do you want such information? Sick perv.
Psyche: It's completely useless, but it seems like it makes you feel embarrassed and I find it rather amusing. So, spill out the truth, or do you want to repeat this year, Shizu-chan? I didn't know you love school so much (~￣▽￣)~
Tsugaru: *** ***
Tsugaru left the room.
LOVEdoctor: Back~ Where is Shizuo?
Dota-chin: I think he broke the comp.
Psyche: Shizu-chan is so shy, like a little girl. Cute, ne? I'll vomit.
Tsugaru has logged into the room ExamT_T.
LOVEdoctor: Weba ^_^
Dota-chin: Oh. So it's not broken. I think you're getting better in self-control, Shizuo.
Psyche: I'm honestly shocked, Shizu-chan.
Tsugaru: Shut up, flea. You owe me a new computer. I use my brother's now.
Psyche: LOL
Dota-chin: Oh, so my assumption was right.
LOVEdoctor: People, English? How about we return back to the topic?
Psyche: Give me a sec, the fit of laughter is not over yet (*≧▽≦)ﾉｼ))
Tsugaru: I'm really gonna kill you.
LOVEdoctor: I don't have so much time for you, I want to watch the movie with my beloved one.
Dota-chin: My god, hurry, before Shinra starts to ramble about his love life again.
LOVEdoctor: Hey!
Tsugaru is sending a file to Psyche.
1%...33%...68%...92%... Sent.
Psyche: Your internet is pitifully slow, Shizu-chan. But your preferences are quite interesting. Who could guess~
LOVEdoctor: Eh? Eh? I want to see too!
Dota-chin: Don't count me in.
Tsugaru: You've got what you wanted, so shut up and start with the damn English lesson.
Psyche: Hai haaai~
LOVEdoctor: C'mon, don't ignore me, I wanna see it too...
Tsugaru: You don't want to piss me off, Shinra. Believe me.
LOVEdoctor: ^_^;
Dota-chin: So, where will we start?
Psyche: Sorry, people, but something's come up. I don't have time for you now.
LOVEdoctor: O_O
Dota-chin: You're kidding me...
Tsugaru: Izaaaaayaaa! ***!
Psyche: Keep calm, I'll make a short summary for you that even a gorilla would understand. If you learn it, you'll pass the test for sure. I'll send it to you in the evening.
Dota-chin: Ok. That'll do. Thanks.
LOVEdoctor: Thank you, Izaya ^_^
Tsugaru: Pche.
Psyche: Now we'll see whether Shizu-chan is at least on level of gorilla. If he won't make it through the test, I'll officially start to call him protozoan~
Tsugaru: ***
Psyche: I know you love me, Shizu-chan.
Psyche: Bye-bee, check your mailbox in the evening (｀･ω･´)ﾉ
Psyche left the room.
Number of new messages: 1
Shizuo raised a brow when he saw a mail from Izaya. He didn't have a clue how the leech got his email address, but he would lie if he said he's surprised by that. Izaya often bragged how he's the best info-broker far and wide, whatever it meant. Instead of English notes Shizuo found only some link inside the message. He pondered whether he should click on it, Izaya just probably wanted to get some virus into his comp. But since it was his last chance how to don't fail in English, after a moment he clicked on it and moved to unknown website.
Picture of two hands popped out on the screen, there was a blue pill on one and red pill on the other. Under that there was written:
After this, there is no turning back.
You take the blue pill - you go straight to the test that will be on the exam, your success is warranted.
You take the red pill - you go to the notes that I prepared for you.
Which one will you pick, Shizu-chan?
Shizuo rolled his eyes. Flea and his mental games.
"So now you want to play the Matrix, eh?"
Considering the possibilities, Shizuo didn't have any doubts that Izaya really somehow obtained the test from English and thus it would be really easy to pass the exam, if he chose the blue pill. But Shizuo was not one of those who cheats. The opposite, he hated lies and scams. That's why, without a long thinking, he clicked on the red pill.
Come with me and I'll show you the real world.
Drop of sweat running down his forehead wasn't a good sign.
"What the hell..."
Shizuo closed his eyes and opened them.
The test from English was still there and he still didn't understand any of it, maybe just few words. The blonde grumbled in his mind. How he could be so naive and believed that Izaya will keep his promise? Of course he slipped him completely different sentences, nothing like what the test actually contained.
Shizuo wiped his face with his palm and sighed. Really, how he could believe that the bastard has at least a tiny bit of goodness in him? He had the urge to laugh at his own naivety.
Or maybe he just made the mistake when he didn't pick the blue pill? No, no matter how he looked at it, Izaya surely prepared it the way that whatever Shizuo picked, the situation would end up bad for him.
His eyes trailed to the table, where Izaya was sitting, filling in the test with ease. Surely he will finish first again and in the rest of the time he'll provocatively swing back on his chair.
Shizuo frowned and returned attention back to his test. The longer he was staring at it, the more the words danced in front of his eyes like some mysterious magic formulas. His eyes moved away, looking at the class. Nasujima watched the students like a vulture, looking for any signs of cheating. Shizuo was surprised seeing Shinra and Kadota zealously writing. So only he was here for idiot. But really, how he could count on Izaya's help. He had to be really desperate before the exam, when he's been persuaded to do something like that.
Somewhere deep inside him the anger started to bubble.
He looked at Izaya again and caught the raven glancing at him out of corner of his eye. From the movement of muscles on his cheek, Shizuo could conclude that Izaya has his gross trademark smirk on his face. As he was glaring at informant, the pen in his hand exploded under the pressure of his closed fist. The spring flew few meters and rolled to the teacher's feet. Shizuo swore in his mind. English teacher immediately reacted to noise and with few quick steps approached the blonde. "Everything's alright, Mr. Heiwajima?"
"Yes...Just my pen broke, I'm sorry." Shizuo bowed his head ashamed under the scrutinizing look of his teacher and he tried to hide the empty paper with his arm. "Can I take a new one from my bag?" Blonde had always supply of pencils and pens, too much of them was sacrificed in school when he broke them or threw them at Izaya.
Teacher nodded and carefully watched how Shizuo picked up his bag, opened it and looked for the pen. All of sudden Nasujima snatched the bag from Shizuo's arms and pulled out a sheet of paper from it. Shizuo didn't understand what's going on, he blinked in surprise when the teacher showed him test, completely identical to one lying on Shizuo's desk. "I don't know how did you get this, Mr. Heiwajima, but you should prepare for exemplary punishment. Have you showed the test to your classmates?" Nasujima hissed, his face getting red from anger.
"I...what? No...I have no idea..." The blonde stuttered, but the teacher interrupted him.
"I won't interrupt the exam just because of one cheating student. But if I see that students scored in this test unusually good, you can expect to be expelled from school, Mr. Heiwajima." The teacher folded the empty test and hid it into his blazer as evidence. "Now stand up and go into the office. When your classmates finish the exam, I'll come to discuss this affair with you. We'll go to director. We don't tolerate cheating like this in Raijin Academy." English teacher angrily whispered in attempt to not bring the attention of whole class to their conversation. But nobody was brave enough to rise his head from the test and look what's happening in the back of the classroom.
After he was finished with Shizuo, the teacher went back to his place in front of his table. His eyes were boring into Shizuo until the blonde didn't leave the room.
"That little shit..." Shizuo swore, walking down the corridor, but he didn't have their teacher in mind. There was only one person, who could put the exam into his bag. "I'll kill him, I'll kill him..." With murderous mantra on his lips, Shizuo slowly approached the teacher's room. There was nobody, so he sat down to their English teacher's table and he never stopped creating the revenge plan in his mind. Not only Izaya gave him wrong notes, which Shizuo memorized word to word, he also put a test into his bag, just to turn his life into mess once again. He's going to make that bastard pay for this. If they kick him out of school...
Shizuo sighed. He didn't want to imagine disappointed faces of his parents. As the pictures of Izaya's devious smile and his upset parents ran through his mind, Shizuo's mood was changing from blind fury to drowning in feelings of guilt and back. As the time passed, the boy started to calm down and when some teachers entered the room, he was already just apathetically staring out of the window. Few times someone asked him what he is doing there, so he always politely replied, and waited for his punishment. But the English teacher hasn't come yet, even when it was long after end of the lesson. Shizuo looked at the clock hanging on the wall confused. What could make him be late? Other teachers started to slowly return to their work or home, because for many of them it was finally end of the classes for the day.
And Shizuo still waited.
He started to be nervous, he had no idea what's happening behind the door of the office. Where did Nasujima disappear? For a moment he pondered whether he should go to search for him, but decided against it in the end. He was told to wait here, so he didn't want to get into even bigger troubles that he was already in. He really didn't want the director call his parents, he already caused them enough of problems till now and now this happened... He watched the movement of second hand on the clock in front of him and the seconds slowly turned into minutes. He was already almost hypnotized by the regular, slow motion, when the door opened and there stood the English teacher.
"Ah. Heiwajima. Sorry that I let you wait here such a long time. And for that misunderstanding in the class."
Shizuo gawked at him, he thought he heard something else what was actually said. The teacher didn't notice his reaction, he went straight to the table and with tired sigh he plopped himself onto the chair. "I took the culprit to the director, he received admonition. Hopefully he won't behave this way in the future. Who could guess that one of the best students would break into this room to steal the exam papers beforehand..." Nasujima shook his head and Shizuo was completely lost. But he kept quiet, it seemed like thanks to some miracle this situation won't end up bad for him. In the end, he was innocent in this anyway.
Teacher continued. "That boy has such a bright future, but to screw up this badly... His results will surely drop now a little... Too bad. But what we'll do with you now, Heiwajima?" He looked thoughtfully at Shizuo, who was sitting there quietly as a mouse. "You could tell me right away that somebody did slip that test into your bag. If your classmate didn't come to me after the exam and didn't explain the situation, you would be in a really big troubles." He clicked his tongue in annoyance.
"Not that I didn't try..." Shizuo thought dryly and he couldn't stop wondering, what kind of muddled situation this is. Somebody stole the tests? And somebody did accuse this person? Who were these people?
"Well, the misunderstanding is solved now, but this is really unfortunate situation, you understand that I have to give you to write the test again, right? Obviously I can't use the same version, since you've already seen it..." The teacher reached for the drawer and pulled out some paper. "I have prepared another version, in the case some students would be sick today and didn't come to school, so I'll give you that one. You don't have any lesson now, right?"
Sizuo just nodded, everything seemed so befuddled today. And his brain literally exploded when the teacher handed him the test. "I'll ask you to do it now, so we don't have to deal with this later. You can sit there..." He waved his hand lazily towards the free table. "I'll start to correct the tests of your classmates in meanwhile." And he did as he said. He took a little pile of papers, red pen and started to work.
Shizuo moved to table like a mechanic doll, staring at the paper in his hand in disbelief. Word to word, those were the sentences that he studied last two days, memorizing them. In this puzzle was too many weird pieces for him to solve it, that much was Shizuo able to admit to himself. He decided to ponder over this mess later. Now he had in front of himself the test that he needed to finish.
When he left the teacher's room with praising words from their teacher for how well he prepared for today's exam and on the paper in his hand shone 96% written in red ink, Shizuo felt like he was transferred to some strange dream out of reality. He was so lost in his thoughts that he completely ignored the presence of a person standing next to the vending machine. Just when the person gracefully pushed himself off the wall and snatched the paper from Shizuo's hand, the blonde snapped out of the ponder.
"I bet it's the first time in your life that you got A from English, ne, Shizu-chan?" Izaya looked at the test amused. "I can't believe that even when I gave you all of the right answers, you lost some percents. You are really protozoan." His amused laugh nicely echoed in empty corridor.
Shizuo, surprisingly, didn't lose his temper. There were too many questions swirling in his mind for throwing Izaya out of the window just like that. He wanted some answers first. "What was that all about?"
"Ara, ara~ Shizu-chan's suddenly interested in some information?" Izaya's lips were adorned by foxy smile. "Well, since you were so helpful to me today, I can offer you some explanation. For free." He conspiratorially winked.
Shizuo's brows twitched, he didn't know how long will his determination to not beat Izaya to pulp last. " In you place I would hurry." He growled.
Izaya just waved his hand. "Patience, patience." He started to walk down the corridor and Shizuo followed. According to how merrily he gesticulated during his talk, he was really enjoying himself.
Shizuo just shook his head. "He's really crazy." He came to quick conclusion and listened to Izaya's monologue halfheartedly, he tried to select the basic info that he was interested in.
"You really surprised me when you picked the red pill, Shizu-chan. Every normal human in your situation would pick the blue one, the simple, warranted way. Which wasn't really all that simple because you would have to obtain raw version of the test and you would have to translate it on your own. Blue pill wouldn't change anything, because I would be satisfied with the thought that you decided to cheat just to save your skin. But you no. You had to pick the other choice. Honesty above anything, Shizu-chan? Fascinating. You gave me a chance to kill two birds with one stone that way. I had some unfinished business with Shishizaki from B-class, you know him, ne? He's always barely above me in the exam's results. So I slipped some tests from teacher's room into his locker. And I put the English test into your bad when you went to buy some drink. Everything went just as I anticipated~ People are always so beautifully predictable." Izaya laughed. "When Nasujima thre you out of the classroom, after the lesson I went to him and explained, how I saw Shishizaki hanging around you and that the nerd bragged how he managed to get the tests before the exams. I put an idea of checking Shishizaki's locker into Nasujima's head and guess what he found there. Ah, if you could see Shishizaki's expression when the teacher dragged him to see director's office." Informant was grinning in satisfaction. "I love the taste of victory."
"So you were envious of him and because of that you came up with this crazy, complicated plan, just so he won't be in front of you in results?" Shizuo raised one brow. He couldn't believe Izaya's motives this time were so simple and straightforward.
"I'm not envious of anybody. And surely not him, Shizu-chan." Izaya snorted annoyed. His smile was long away.
"Haha. Seems like I struck a chord." The blonde smirked. It was unusually sweet to nag his enemy number one, for a change.
Izaya frowned at him, but in the next moment he plastered sniffy expression over his face. "If I were you, I wouldn't strut, protozoan. Without me you would have to repeat a year, ne? I saw you haven't written even a single line into the test in the class. You're lost case when it comes to English." He provocatively poked Shizuo with his forefinger into chest and jumped away right away. "Now you owe me one, Shizu-chan. How does it feel, when someone who you want to kill, saves your ass? Are you enjoying it? Because I am." He laughed mischievously, when Shizuo just glared at him silently. Everything what Izaya said was truth, so he really didn't have any counterargument.
"I will surely ask for a little favor from you in the near future." From the way he emphasized the word 'favor', it was clear that he had nothing good in mind. He crumpled the test, which he was still holding in his hand and threw the paper ball on Shizuo. "See you, Shizu-chan." He waved and with satisfied smirk he disappeared behind the corner.
Shizuo sighed, picked up the ruined test and on his way out of the school he threw it into rubbish bin. "Shit." He knew at least that much of English, that it was perfectly describing his situation.
The reality was pretty harsh, he should rather stay in the safety of Matrix. But, naturally, there's no way back.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. This made me thought about what kind of porn would suit teenage Shizuo's tastes *laughs* Do you have any ideas about this? Maybe he's like completely innocent and clueless when it comes to this... or not~ Leave a review, I'm curious what do you think *winks*
Next time: Unusual request. Last time we found out how Shizuo got his 'protozoan' nickname, now we'll learn the story behind Izaya's rings. Stay tuned~