Summary: Your name is Izaya Orihara, and all you can do is smile as you watch Shizuo Heiwajima run away, leaving you standing alone in front of your makeshift altar. Shizaya. OOC.
OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE
Chapter One
Your name is Izaya Orihara, you are twenty-four years old, and not much has changed.
It's October, and you have since returned to the way you've always been. Working, meetings, gathering information – nights spent alone with pen, paper, and computer. And maybe living this life is fine, or at least you're trying it that way. You have long accepted the fact that the world was pulled from under you in slow motion and you could do nothing but watch everything you had put on that precarious surface fell and broke, and your entire world thrown into chaos.
So yes, there is nagging gravity, pulling you towards your center, where your whole – skin, innards, nerves – crash in a thud, shattering into little pieces of shame. Yes, you're drifting towards the corners where you can feel him. Yes, there is the emptiness in empty spaces, gnawed by what you once shared with him. And yes, there are shadows, a blob of darkness and heavy patch of depth, that hovers about your woken state.
But you have become resilient, without you even realizing it. Of course you are still wondering – where is he, what is he doing, and did he find someone else? – but that's that. There is nothing else you can do but to let these stubborn thoughts fade yet again. And you would like to think that you are doing a great job of keeping this under wraps and keeping everything as it ought to be.
Then again, if that is the case, why are you still falling into pieces, tragic as those pieces may be?
And these bring you back to fucking square one. You wonder if this is what numbness is. It is not happiness for sure – you've not had the prolonged form that so many have been graced with, but you've had it briefly and you know that this isn't it. But at the same time you know what tragedy feels; you know the aching and splitting of nerves and flesh that you face in your emptiest of time. This is not that either.
It's a lifeless feeling – the mechanical turning of gears as each limb pops into place, time and time again, repeating the day-in and day-out comes with any job, no matter how amusing or interesting the setting. All that happens these days – for nine months now – is the clicking metal on metal and the same conversations. The same phone calls and the same just-firm-enough business handshakes. The same halfhearted drinking at night with the same aching back from sleeping on the couch – because you can still smell his scent on your pillows.
There aren't tears or silent screams – you gave yourself a day to do all of that and no more – but your face is plaster and your fingers are caking into statues.
You utter a sigh, you should really be doing reports Shiki-san is asking and not mourning on your pathetic love life.
Things will not change, and despite your issues and heartbreaks, there is nothing you could do. What you could do is to let go of these stupid thoughts and try to accomplish some work. And you are monotonously doing this for a few minutes until your phone is ringing forcing your too tired body to stretch a little to retrieve it.
"Izaya Orihara speaking."
"He's back."
It's Shinra and you cannot breathe and you're feeling somewhat light-headed from the intensity of the spectrum of emotions caused by those words. You slowly collected yourself letting go of all your effort, sacrifices, and pain by letting your mask slip.
Despite all that, you manage to squeak out an eloquent "Yeah?", thinking of explanations about what is going on. You can feel your eyes watering up as you think – what the fuck – but you cannot stop letting out a chuckle either because the news is so beautiful it fucking hurts.
"I saw him in Ikebukuro today…"
As a defense mechanism for your sanity, you are only paying half of your attention as the underground doctor blabber on and on about the sporadic comeback. You dig your nails into your palms, keeping a barely there calm. You have to tune out the rest, trying to think anything except the way Shizuo ran away from you (his eyes were wide and you don't fucking know what you did to scare him away).
"Are you listening, Izaya?"
"…Yeah."
"I see."
Shinra doesn't say anything afterward, feigning ignorance as he quietly stayed on the line. But you don't mind because you are falling apart in more ways than one. You can feel your stomach churn because you realized that you still had some small shred of hope in the back of your mind that maybe things would turn around, and maybe you could win Shizuo back. Never minding the fact that he ran away from you.
But you quickly realized that that is not possible. Because if it is, he should have been in your doorstep explaining why he left at the first place.
"I need to go now, Izaya. Good night."
Then the line went dead, along with yout motivation to keep up your work – replaced by a fist colliding with the wall and curses growling from the your throat.
TBC