chapter two ; and when she spins they can't look away
"Excuse me."
It is about the time he comes down from the rooftop, shortly after Megumi leaves with her love doctor – as he so humorously dubs the man – that someone stops him in the middle of the hallway. It is a homely, freckle-faced girl who appears to be just a few years older than he is. He grants her an appraising look, as though measuring her value. "Hm?"
She hesitates. "You were on the rooftop with Megumi-chan a couple of minutes ago, weren't you?"
Apparently it is one of Megumi's relatives, considering the casual attire. Perhaps a friend. More like, judging by the similarity in appearance, though Megumi certainly looks much more attractive, they are siblings. "Ah, you must be her sister."
"Did she say that?" The woman lifts her brows in surprise.
"Hm, maybe not," Izaya answers vaguely.
Instead of pressing him to answer, she disregards it. "Is this your first time meeting her? I know we're strangers and I'm sorry to stop you. You probably have somewhere more important to be, but I just wanted to know..."
"First time meeting? No. But we're not friends, either." He smiles pleasantly, although this more or less just seems a good situation to press for some information on Megumi. Still, Izaya does not go out of his way to question the woman. She seems more than willing to offer up information, however subtle and unknowing as she does so.
"That's good." The woman sighs in relief and her shoulders slump at ease. "I just thought I should warn you in advance. Megumi-chan isn't a bad person, but you should stay away from her. For your own good. Ah – I should be going. Please have a good day." Without offering up her own name or any further explanation, the woman bows and sets off.
What she leaves Izaya with is nothing short of an even greater, nagging curiosity. Better for him if he stays away from her? He cannot be more intrigued by this. And while he leaves without trying to pry more information, Izaya has no intention of following the advice of Megumi's sister.
When he returns late to the office that evening, he is greeted once again by a bitter Namie – this time without the coffee for him to attribute her disgusted expression. "Something eating at you?" he asks with biting sarcasm.
"Where have you been going that you spend so much time?" Namie asks the question as though she really wants to know, but she is more or less emphasizing the fact that he has hardly been at the office at all lately. "Trolling around Ikebukuro again?" It seems like she is fond of calling his information gathering "trolling," because for whatever reason, she thinks that he does not have other people's best interest at heart. That, for some reason, she thinks he delights in the misery of others.
"I won't deny that I was in Ikebukuro," he tells her honestly as he strides over to his computer, plopping down in his chair. That grin of his stretches almost from ear to ear. "I was actually in the hospital. A charitable donation of my time."
She grunts skeptically as she takes a sheaf of papers over to his desk and slams them down in front of him. "I sorted all this while you were gone. Since I finished early, I'm going to be leaving. And you should stay away from the hospital. The sick and injured should at least have some reprieve from the likes of you." There is a frown on her face as she turns on her heel to pack her things.
"And what makes you think I have bad intentions while I'm there, Namie-san? Don't you think I could potentially be the one at a disadvantage in such a place?"
Namie does not even humor those questions with a response. She packs up her things and leaves hastily, promptly slamming the door as soon as she exits. Perhaps it is because, as a doctor herself, she does not approve of his newfound interest in the hospital. Not that Namie is at all aware of what it is there that has managed to intrigue him.
For the next several days, he preoccupies himself with work, barely allowing a single thought to linger on Megumi. As interesting as she proves herself to be, he also has his own goals to work toward. A scheme that she does not fit into. Being a patient does not make her a viable piece for his plans. So he does not visit the hospital again for a little over half a week.
When next he deems it worth his time to go toward the hospital, it is a dreary day. The raining is pouring ceaselessly and Izaya can only be gleeful that he has managed to procure an umbrella from an unwilling Namie. In his usual way, he skips down the sidewalk with a devious smirk on his face. A brief encounter with Shizuo, which involves the usual tossing of vending machines and being chased with a traffic sign, leads Izaya to taking a roundabout way to the hospital. All of the detours cause him to arrive late – late enough that visiting hours are well over. And he assumes that it will probably be impossible to even see Megumi, who only seems to leave her room during aforementioned hours.
Yet, strangely, in the water scattering itself across Ikebukuro, she stands at the hospital entrance in her gown. She is drenched and several people who pass her by grant her curious and disproving glances. Megumi, strangely, looks forlorn as she stands there. A solitary figure with a sadness in those granite eyes of hers that can only be conveyed by the tears that are pouring down her cheeks.
Are they tears or just rain water? Even Izaya does not know. He approaches her tentatively, if only because he is curious as to what she is doing there. Part of him wants to observe her, but the other part of him – of which his intentions he is unsure of – ends up winning, because he wanders close enough to hold his umbrella over her head.
"Were you hoping to catch a cold to garner some sympathy?" he asks her. It is supposed to be a jabbing remark but she does not seem to be amused by it. Those eyes of hers, unfocused and distant, just turn to look at him with a loneliness that almost prompts him to take a step away from her.
"Orihara-kun," she croaks out in a cracked voice. "Is the rain cold? It seems like I can't feel it..."
He lifts his brows. "So you've been standing out here for a while. How strange. No one even came to get you."
"Right. I should go back in." Her lashes flutter for a moment as she turns toward the doors. As pallid as her face looks, Izaya wonders if she'll collapse before she even makes it. But barefooted as she is, Megumi keeps up her pace with him without faltering for even a moment.
Water drips down the length of her body as they walk across the laminate tiles, leaving behind small, liquid footprints. She sways from side to side with the movement and in silence, the two of them head to where Izaya assumes her room is. Yet a sudden detour takes them to the stairs leading up to the rooftop, their usual meeting spot.
"Ah? You intend to go up there in your condition?"
Instead, she takes a seat on one of the stairs and leans against the wall. Her breathing has grown shallow as she places a hand over her chest. "That wouldn't be a good idea, would it? That's fine, Orihara-kun. We can talk here."
"Hm, are you going to offer to explain why you were out in the rain? Or shall I start guessing?"
She eyes him contemplatively. "I was... bird watching." A grin lifts at the edges of her lips. Somehow, she seems to understand that he is itching to know the truth about her – to find out just what it is that lies beneath all those layers, the walls she has built up. Megumi is a guarded person and for every inch he wants to move closer, she wants to take several steps back.
"You sneaked out?" he presumes. "Following after that love doctor of yours? Were you hoping to catch hold of him?"
As he poses these questions, her grasp on the front of her shirt tightens as he leans forward, face contorting in anguish. She seethes out in a barely audible voice, "Nurse..." But although she appears to be in pain, Izaya does not flinch.
"Ah? What was that? I couldn't hear you, Megumi-chan~"
Rather than repeat herself, she works her way back to her feet and stumbles down the secluded hallway. Izaya follows after her, holding his folded-up umbrella by his side. It leaves a water trail behind as he pursues Megumi's unsteady figure. She eventually stumbles into a nurse who is attempting to pass by. The woman is promptly knocked to the ground, along with Megumi – who lands squarely on her face.
"He...lp..." Megumi mumbles out.
The nurse hurries to her feet and yells for assistance as she helps Megumi to her feet. Neither of them bothers to cast a glance back at Izaya, who lingers at a far enough distance to avoid getting involved, yet close enough to observe the situation. Perhaps it is his own apathy that keeps him from helping, but more likely it is because he is eager to understand Megumi. And even if her life is in danger, he intends only to observe.
Eventually a stretcher comes and she is rushed away to the emergency room where he cannot follow. So Izaya wanders over to the desk to inquire – and, of course, he is met with the most predictable of questions. "Are you immediate family?"
"Yes," he lies without skipping a beat.
The woman studies him hard, but she is none the wiser about his relation to the woman who was just rushed in. "She's still waiting on a heart transplant. The doctor should have told you this, but if she doesn't get one soon..."
Ah, a terminal patient. Not that he has not suspected as much, but Izaya feels strangely uneasy hearing it. As an information broker, he naturally has no experience nor power in an environment where heart donations are so rare that most go without until the end.
He frowns to himself as he looks down at his own chest. Strange how his heart works automatically without a single problem and yet Megumi – who seems to compulsively explain all of her actions as "bird watching" – will lose her life because of a heart that refuses to function properly. It seems... unfair, when he thinks about all of those girls who so willingly throw themselves off of buildings because of their own "hardships."
And maybe he entertains the idea that Megumi is not as predictable as he originally passed her off as. Nonetheless, Izaya does not linger to hear any news about her condition. He heads straight toward the door to leave, lifting his umbrella back over his head. This time as he leaves, it is with a nagging feeling that he may never end up seeing her again. And maybe that thought bothers him more than it should.
Even as he heads back to his office in Shinjuku, Izaya feels strangely uneasy. He does not skip along as he usually does. Nor does he bother, when he spots Namie glaring at him from her seat on the couch, to take a sarcastic jab at her. Instead, he settles down at his computer and logs into his usual chat rooms. It proves to be only a meager distraction.
"What is it?" Namie snaps at him impatiently as she sets another stack of papers on his desk. "It looks like you're the one who ended up being trolled. Not that I miss your usual snide remarks, or your needless skipping through the office, or your usual twirling in your chair... Nor do I miss-"
"So you really do miss it, Namie-san." He grins at her.
"I digress. That look on your face is more annoying than usual." It seems, in her own way, she cares. Although she probably feels some measure of satisfaction at seeing him chagrined so deeply about something.
"You're a doctor, Namie-san... A person waiting on a heart transplant... They'll run out of time, won't they?" Although he asks the question, he does not look the least bit disturbed by the morbidity of it. It does not seem to faze him that he is talking about death. In fact, if anything, it seems to intrigue him.
She sighs at him as though she suddenly understands. "So you've been trolling a patient with a bad heart."
"Trolling? How mean~"
"Rather than asking me those kind of pointless questions – and yes, they will run out of time – you should stay away from the hospital from now on." She turns on her heel and goes back to her laptop, as though she is pretending that she is not the initiator of their conversation.
He tilts his head to the side. "Coincidentally, Namie-san, you are not the first person to say that. It seems pretty predictable. Stay away from the terminal patients because they are going to die soon. Isn't that too selfish?"
"I'm not saying it for your sake," she shoots back. "How do you think a person dying feels when they have to look at all they're leaving behind? It's different from those suicide victims of yours. People waiting for a transplant still have hope, they're fighting to live."
For once, Izaya is the one left without anything to say. Not that he cannot think up some sly remark to sling back, but what she says gives him some pause as he thinks about Megumi. That love doctor of hers that she is chasing after that does not reciprocate her feelings... When he first talked to her, she was worried about being remembered or not. And he is starting to think that, even if he tries, he won't be able to forget her.
Regardless, he tires of letting his thoughts linger on something pointless and unproductive. So he jets out of his seat and heads toward the door, hands stuffed into his coat. In his boredom, he decides he will participate in one of his favorite past-times; making Shizuo's life hell. Playing with that protozoan should prove to be somewhat entertaining.
"I'm headed back to 'bukuro. See you tomorrow, bright and early, Namie-san!" He gives a wave to her without looking back, then slams the door shut.
As the following days pass, he bides his time. Every time Namie sets the newspaper on his desk, his eyes seek the obituaries subconsciously. And yet, for as preoccupied as his mind seems to be with the thought that Megumi might already be dead, he does not even chance passing by the hospital. Deliberately, he avoids it.
He takes delight in his encounters with Shizuo, for once, because they waste his time. He runs gleefully away as Shizuo gives chase. Effortlessly, the brute leaps through the traffic lights and shrugs off the cars that slam into him. There are cuts and scrapes all over the blond-haired beast, but he just keeps going. All his eyes see are red – Izaya.
Their usual game of cat and mouse keeps Izaya entertained. And when he isn't doing that, he is chatting amiably with girls in the suicide chat room. Lure them in – no longer because he wants to observe them, but because he feel some bitterness toward them. A feeling that is unnatural for him, that he cannot quite identify.
Then, on the forth day after his last encounter with Megumi, he gets a text message. Without stopping to think, he opens it – it's from Saki. "A patient here has been asking after you. I haven't told her anything."
Although – he is sure – it is probably Megumi, he writes back asking for a description of the inquirer. When he gets a response from Saki, it details the features of Megumi as he remembers them perfectly. Her dark brown hair, like the mane of a proud lion, and those calculating gray eyes of hers, stony as the walls she surrounds herself with. And a small part of him wonders why she would seek him. Yet, all he tells Saki is not to say anything.
There is a strangely forlorn expression on his face as he types that message. And inwardly, he is probably debating whether or not to visit the hospital. There is a strange desire to do so but a nagging voice in the back of his head that tries to convince him otherwise.
"You haven't gone back to the hospital, have you?" Namie has also been trying to keep tabs on him, trying her damnedest to convince him to keep away from there. For every effort she expends trying to convince him not to go, he feels more eager to defy her.
And Izaya revels in the irony of his own rebellious nature. So, in the end, when she asks, he hops off his chair and starts toward the door, stuffing his phone in his pocket. "Not yet~" he tells her in a sing-song voice. "But since you were so kind to mention it, Namie-san, I'll go pay my respects. Bye-bye~"
Before he can hear her, no doubt cursing him down for his defiance, the door slams and he is down the street in a fast enough skip that even if she tries to run after him – and she won't – there is no possibility of catching up to him.
It is strangely sunny out, different from the last time he encountered Megumi. And likewise, when he strolls up to the front of the hospital, he does not see her standing outside. With long strides, he arrives inside and then he heads straight toward their usual meeting place. There is a strange smirk on his face as he goes, climbing up the stairs to the rooftop door.
As he whisks it open, sunlight pours blindingly into his face. He shields his eyes with his hand, and amidst the amber rays, he spots a silhouette. Her hair is whipping through the wind as she turns to see who it is. Like the time before, she is standing at the railing – bird watching, she will claim, like she always does.
"Orihara-kun?" His name rolls off her tongue smoothly, like a siren's voice beckoning him.
Strange how his legs seem to move forward at the sound of it. "Ah, Megumi-chan, avoiding your family again?" It is visiting hours, after all – that's why he knew she would be up here. Regardless of how mysterious she tries to be in front of him, she is still as predictable as any other human. And yet, he finds himself interested despite the monotony in her routine.
"They have been here almost every day," she says with a weary sigh. Those gray eyes of hers turn back out to peer down at the people below, little more than ants from this height. "So I came out here for some fresh air."
"Or to jump?" he prompts.
"Maybe to bird watch."
"Or to people watch," Izaya offers.
She glances at him side-long. "You can pick whatever one you think is more interesting, but I thought if I came up here you might stop by. Did asking around the hospital work? I told you I was pretty sly." There is a ghost of a smile on her lips, that have grown strangely pale. And he notices that she seems to have lost some weight – strange, since it has only been a few days since he saw her last.
"Ah, is that what you refer to as sly?" His brows lift as he settles against the railing beside her. They stand shoulder to shoulder, peering down at the people. And after Izaya's question, they are left only to an amicable silence. There seems to be a mutual understanding between the two of them.
Yet the stillness is disrupted when Megumi draws a deep breath before turning to Izaya. "Actually, that's not the extent of my cunning. There's a reason I asked around for you."
"Oh?"
There is still a smile on her lips as she elaborates. "Well, you might have figured it out a long time ago, but at the very least you should be aware by now about my heart condition. I am supposed to be waiting for a transplant. You probably understand what that means, right?"
"Ah, contemplating your death now, Megumi-chan?" He doesn't look over as he asks – it isn't a question, it is his understanding of the situation. Judging from the grim way she speaks, it is no doubt that she is treating this as the end.
"Contemplation?" She lets out a strangled laugh. "Ah, I guess that's what this is. You understand. Attacks like that have been happening more frequently. And although there's a possibility, the likelihood of a transplant coming up in the near future is too low to put faith into."
"Giving up?"
For a moment, Megumi purses her lips and she faces forward, averting her eyes from Izaya. "That's a blunt way of putting it."
"Should I embellish the truth for you to make it seem like a lovely lie?" As Izaya asks, he thinks about her own lie – bird watching. It is the same thing. The way she dangles the truth in front of him, coated so thickly in falsities that he cannot be sure what is real and what is not.
"A lovely lie? I think I would like that." Her lips crease for a moment but fall back into a straight line shortly thereafter. "I will think of my life that way. A ballerina that spins around on a stage to beautiful classical music. She looks like a swan up there and people can't take their eyes off of her. Her parents are rich but caring. That's where she got her looks from – so, naturally, she is beautiful."
"Too far from the truth to be believable," he criticizes as he grasps the railing with both hands and leans forward.
Megumi puckers her lips in thought. "Not dramatic enough, huh? Hm. I should think up a better story, then."
"How about..." Izaya leans toward her until his lips are just inches from the shell of her ear, warm breath buffeting against it. "...You tell the ugly truth instead? Or do you think it will make you feel better to decorate your life with lies so it looks beautiful on the outside?"
"No one is going to remember the girl who was born with a heart defect, who struggled through school and came out a wreck, doing drugs to escape the idea that she would not live to be twenty-five. A girl who ultimately quickened her own death through illegal substances."
"Ah, now that's more interesting."
Megumi shirks away from the feeling of his breath against her skin and her cheeks flush. "Whatever I tell you, whether it is true or not, will be forgotten eventually. So I'm not concerned about dressing up my history in front of you. Once I'm gone, you won't think about the girl on the roof of the hospital who claims to be bird watching."
He does not contest that. Although he does deem her real past far more intriguing than the ludicrous story she was trying to play up.
"The reason why I am cunning is because..." and she turns to him, those eyes of hers staring into him with the same loneliness as before, "... I want to selfishly ask you to do me a favor. To take me away from this hospital. It probably isn't something you want to get involved in, but I want you to take me somewhere else. If I'm going to die, I don't want to be surrounded by people crying and white curtains, sterile bedsheets, strangers in coats with frowning faces... None of that."
Not that he is inclined to agree to her demands, but Izaya finds himself curious nonetheless. "Ah? And then where would you want to go, Megumi-chan? Some place romantic? Some place far-off?"
"Bird watching." And she smiles as she lies to him again.
Author's Note: Thank you kindly for the reviews! Hopefully this chapter did not disappoint - development may (or may not) have been a little rushed since this is only a three chapter story. I have never really been good with short stories so this was my first respectable attempt. :) Would love some feedback, hope you enjoyed! Last chapter will be posted in a week.