"I'm right here. You're over there. If I'm your savior, then you're mine."
The wrought metal divider fell from Heiwajima Shizuo's hand, and a lost look of desperation came across his face.
"Dani!" Lemon fell over her her friend, cradling the heavy, limp form in her arms and feeling for a wisp of breath. "Can you hear me? Are you alright?" She babbled in English, but Dani Madigan was unconscious.
Heiwajima Shizuo was sure he had killed her with that blow. An innocent tourist, a girl that just got in the way. Did he run? No. He had run once before, and Heiwajima Shizuo was done with running. His hands trembled, he struggled to control his breathing, and one word fell out of his lips, onto the ground, flat and hard. "Fuck." It wasn't his fault, he wanted to scream. He tried to hold back, he tried so desperately not to hurt anyone, but he had been so caught up in his pursuit of Izaya that now…
The red haired girl, like a burst of flame, whipped her head up at him, and said very loudly, "Hospital!" She spoke clearly and crisply, with just the hint of an accent.
Shizuo, shocked, looked down at her, still trembling. There was hatred in her eyes, and under the effect of that hot glare, he steeled himself, drawing his shoulders together and becoming rigid. "Hah?" he asked.
"Please," Lemon repeated curtly. "Where is the hospital?" Her eyes searched his, and as Shizuo cast his eyes coolly away, tears began to well up in her eyes.
It was an accident. Lemon knew it was, and Shizuo knew that she knew, but it didn't change what had just occurred.
He couldn't control himself.
She was about to give up hope on the stranger when he suddenly stooped down and scooped Dani into his arms. "I'll take you," he growled.
His voice was heavy with regret.
Dani was passed like a dead, limp thing over to the nurses, who set her into a wheelchair and took her back to examine her. Shizuo and Lemon stood in stony silence in the waiting room for nearly an hour, their faces turned away from her and their bodies stiff. Neither of them moved an inch, until a buxom young nurse bustled out, a cool, reassuring smile curling her face.
"She's very bruised, and very tired, but other than a broken rib, there is no internal damage," she said soothingly. "We will keep her here overnight, and prescribe something to help with the swelling and the pain, but she will be fine."
Fine. Fine. All he needed to hear was that the girl would be fine. The tension uncoiled from Shizuo's shoulders- they fell, slack and relaxed. His hands found their ways into his pockets, where he palmed a box of cigarettes, feeling in the buzzing of his brain the overwhelming need to take a long smoke break. She was fine. He still hadn't killed anyone. He turned to leave without a word.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Shizuo paused, and peered over his shoulder, but saw nothing. He turned around to get a better look, and then, seeing the top of a red, pigtailed head, he looked down. The other girl. He had nearly forgotten she was there. "Home. What's it to you?" He sounded more guarded than he meant to, as he spoke to her in a matter-of-fact way.
"You hit my friend in the chest with a metal road barrier," Lemon said curtly. She meant to follow up with 'The least you could do is tell me your name,' but couldn't quite remember the phrase for it in Japanese, and instead, asked politely, "What's your name?"
Another soaring lightning strike of guilt shot through him. Removing a hand from a pocket, he pointed at his own face, eyebrows lifting. "Heiwajima Shizuo," he said slowly.
Lemon Emery nodded sagely. She mirrored the motion, lifting one hand and pointing directly at her nose. "Emery Lemon." Then, "It's nice to meet you, Heiwajima-san."
Lemon Emery. He wouldn't remember that name, the next time they met.
But he would remember the look on her face.
Despite the fact that Heiwajima Shizuo had nearly murdered Lemon Emery's best friend on their first day in Japan, effectively ruining her plans of making the next two to three years the best they could possibly be, Lemon was smiling at him. Her eyes darted up to his face, and then away again, but her warm and thoughtless smile remained. She dropped her hand back to her side, and went on smiling, waiting for his response.
Shizuo Heiwajima did not smile back. "Nice to meet you," He returned despondently, and then he turned and left.
When Dani Madigan woke the next morning, it was to a sharp pain in her chest, and the realization that she lay in an unfortunately sterile and unhomely room. She was surrounded by whitewashed walls and swathed in white cloth- bandages and a hospital gown. The bed beneath her was too hard and too hot. The smell of medicine and sickness made her stomach churn, and she lay there, staring blankly at the ceiling.
She thought she was alone, but in actuality, she was not. Orihara Izaya sat in the chair by her bed, inattentively sharpening a small silver switchblade. He looked up, and seeing her eyes open, stood and towered over the girl. "Oh, so you're awake." He was speaking in heavily accented English, no doubt for her benefit.
Orihara Izaya's head cocked to the side in bemusement, and he folded his arms, slipping the switchblade somewhere within the folds of his jacket. "Before you ask what happened, let me tell you.
You thought you could pull your friend to safety by jumping between Shizu-chan and me, right? Shizu-chan, trying to be equally noble and save you from himself, tried to stop the moment you stepped in front of him." He sneered. "I have to say, watching him swing that thing at such a speed and try to slow down but still end up crashing into you… it was pretty hilarious!"
Dani spoke, and her voice was a hoarse grumble. "Shizu-chan?" She repeated. "Who is that?"
"Oh, you really don't know?" Orihara Izaya said in mock surprise. Malicious joy glimmered in his eyes. "Heiwajima Shizuo, the fabled strongest man in Ikebukuro? Really, you're lucky it was only a broken rib. Encounters with that monster usually go off far worse, Dani Madigan."
Dani turned her head toward the dark haired, dark eyed man, and her stare was cold, but interested. There was no shock in her mind. "So what do you want? How do you know my name?"
The questions weren't even out of her mouth before he removed her wallet from his jacket pocket and dropped it onto her lap. "The nurses left this sitting right on your bedside table. Sorry, I couldn't help myself." He didn't sound the least bit apologetic. "I got curious. If you're upset that I checked your pockets while you were unconscious, you can take that up with me later. Right now, that's not really important."
He leaned closer, his eyes connecting with her's, that sickening grin frozen there. "What's important is, what compelled you to do something like that? What made you think 'I should step between the man who just ripped a metal barrier out of the road and the man he is pursuing'? Why not save your own skin? Are you that stupid?"
"Maybe I am," she said sarcastically, her throat dry. "Yeah, it was pretty stupid. I thought about just walking away, but who else is going to protect that midget? She thinks she's tougher than she is. She might have died."
Izaya took in a sharp breath, then chuckled cruelly. "Not only did you jump in and get yourself hurt, you don't even have a good reason for it. Letting your body rule itself without putting any thought into things… it takes some of the humanity out of you."
"Don't talk like you know me," Dani shot, unfazed.
Izaya looked at her.
He looked at her long and hard.
"I actually stuck around just so I could thank you," he finally offered, tauntingly.
"Thank me? Why?"
"After he tragically smashed you into the ground instead of me, Shizu-chan dropped you off here, and then ran off in a panic." He shrugged. "I guess you shook him up pretty badly. With any luck, he'll stay hidden away for good and die of shame."
Dani kept silent.
He paused, and looked at her again.
"A man can dream, can't he? Anyway, thank you, Madigan-chan. You've been a real help. Thanks to you, I didn't have to lift a finger this time. And just to prove how grateful I, Orihara Izaya am, I paid for your hospital bills. Someone who's just moved into this town can't afford something like that, right?"
Dani didn't say anything.
"Nothing, huh?" Izaya sneered, and then finally, slid back into speaking Japanese. "I'll let the doctor know on my way out that you're awake. May we meet again…. bye-bye!"