Author's Note: Hey everyone! Sorry it's been so long. I just finished midterms...So hopefully I'll be a little more consistent from here on out. Please enjoy this chapter!
Disclaimer: I don't own Durarara or any of its characters (I love them all, but they're not mine). I own Miyako Kumasaki and my own little plot thingy here.
In the last chapter: Celty recommends a new therapist to Shizuo! He sure as hell isn't too happy about that...but he claims he'll give it a shot. Meanwhile, Izaya attends another one of his suicide-group meetings, only to discover that one of his little humans isn't cooperating with him so well. What's up her sleeve?
Please enjoy! Review if you have the chance!
The young man regarded the office building before him with some level of distaste. Well, he thought, looks like I can't turn back now. Nestled in the heart of Ikebukuro, the structure was tall and modern, composed of mostly glass and silvery metal plates that formed clean, sharp edges. The man liked modern architecture - it wasn't something he told people about - and this building was no exception. Nevertheless, he could not bring himself to feel at ease as he stepped into the lobby; perhaps this had less to do with the design of the building than with what awaited him inside.
He boarded the elevator, just as the receptionist had instructed, and stared blankly at the sliding doors as he ascended to the fifth floor of the building. Room 515 was around the corner and to the right, as he'd been told. So now, here he was, standing in front of a door behind which would be some scary old shrink who'd undoubtedly try to anatomize the inner workings of his unstable mind. What on earth was he thinking, coming here?
Before he had the chance to change his mind about knocking, a voice came from within the room. "Please come in," it rang, and the man was left without a choice but to comply.
No shriveled crone was there to appraise him when he entered the room; instead, he found himself face-to-face with a young woman. She immediately smiled upon seeing him and promptly removed her reading glasses, which she then folded and set daintily atop a stack of documents on her desk before standing to greet him properly. "Hello, is there anything I can help you with?" she asked, her mellow voice easing his nerves.
"I...yes," he stuttered, momentarily unable to register how completely wrong his preconception of her had been. She was not at all the hag-like sage he'd expected to encounter, but perhaps it was something about her too-soothing voice - something about those striking eyes - that prompted him to put his guard up. "You're, uh, Dr. Kumasaki...?" He quickly cleared his throat, trying desperately to conceal the suspicion in his voice.
"I get that reaction a lot. Maybe it's because I'm not old," she chuckled. "Most people expect psychologists to be stodgy, pretentious old geezers. But to answer your question, I am Dr. Kumasaki." She extended her hand out to him.
He glanced at her hand warily before shaking it. "Shizuo Heiwajima," he said gruffly.
Her eyes lit up instantaneously. "My, my," she said, "I've heard quite a lot about you around town. To what do I owe the honor of meeting you?"
"A friend of mine referred me to you," he said decisively, albeit a bit reluctantly. He directed his attention to the carpeted floor beneath his feet and inhaled deeply. "I'm here for counseling."
"I see. Please, have a seat," she urged. Shizuo cautiously sat down and settled into the cushioned chair opposite hers, setting one arm on each armrest. "So what are you hoping to get out of meeting me, Mr. Heiwajima?" she asked, reaching for her glasses and putting them back on. She wanted to chuckle at the sight of him: here was this rangy man with bleached blonde hair, a bartender suit, and shades, awkwardly sprawled in her office chair. It was almost comical.
Shizuo shifted in his seat uncomfortably. His eyes fell upon the bowl of caramels on her desk, presumably there for clients to take. But the doctor hadn't offered him one, so he didn't ask. He sighed. "My boss is mad at me. He wants me to learn to control my temper."
"And what part of it do you think he most wants you to control?" she asked, her fingers nimbly rifling through the stack of books and papers on her desk for a notepad.
"I dunno," he grumbled, mulling it over. After a moment of silence, he shrugged. "I throw things."
"So I've heard," Dr. Kumasaki said, jotting notes down in her notepad. "What kinds of things?"
Shizuo scowled at the doctor. What did it matter to her what kind of things he threw when he got mad? He just threw whatever was in his reach. "I dunno. Electrical appliances. Cars. People."
She snickered in amusement at his terse response. "Basically anything you can get your hands on," she concluded. "But before we can really figure out how to 'control' that, we need to know why it is you get angry so easily." She crossed her legs and leaned back in the office chair, tapping her cheek with her pen as she thought. "What normally prompts you to throw things in the first place?"
"Izaya," Shizuo muttered, the word having formed in his mouth before he could stop it. Thankfully, he stopped himself from elaborating any further and cleared his throat. "Uh...bullies. Unnecessary trouble. Sometimes people say stupid things that piss me off."
Dr. Kumasaki raised her eyebrows at the mention of Izaya, but chose not to press Shizuo on the matter. I'll find out eventually, she decided, whether he wants me to or not. For the time being, she had to do something about that laconic nature of his. "It sounds like you're a very violent person, Heiwajima-san," she remarked contemptuously.
The comment caught him off guard. "You're wrong," he asserted, clearly irritated. His eyebrows twitched in indignation. "I hate violence."
She only just managed to suppress her urge to smile at how decipherable he was; he was just like an open book. She couldn't resist jabbing at him a little further. "That's ludicrous! If you really hated violence, as you so claim, you wouldn't act so violently," she jibed. "Think about all the innocent people you've hurt just because you couldn't control your silly little temper."
That was all it took to set him off. "What was that?" He snarled, slowly rising to his feet. He'd been hoping to get through the day without causing a scene, but before he knew it, his limbs were tingling, his thoughts crackling in his ears as anger pumped through his veins. Oh well.
"It's wrong to hurt people just because you're mad. That's so immature of you," she chided tauntingly, her face breaking out into a grin as she observed his sudden transformation. "I can see why your boss would be upset with you. Violence is so asinine."
"SHUT UP!" he roared, easily overturning the desk before advancing on her, paper crinkling beneath his feet.
Dr. Kumasaki was frowning now. This wasn't fun; she'd just finished furnishing her office and organizing her documents the day before. Luckily, she had anticipated Shizuo's outburst in time to save her laptop from destruction. She had no such luck with her glasses, which lay on the floor by her feet. "Perfect. They're smashed," she sighed exasperatedly, crouching down to inspect the broken spectacles.
When she looked up, Shizuo was towering over her. "Just who the hell do you think you are?!" he shouted, kicking the glasses from her hands. She watched with some level of amusement as they skidded across the floor. In the next instant, she was pushed up against the bookshelf, Shizuo's firm hands closed around her throat. "Don't piss me off," he growled threateningly.
Dammit, she thought, I should have seen that coming. She knew she was at a disadvantage now that he had her pinned, but she found herself smirking nonetheless. "Oh, Heiwajima-san," she sighed, her voice tinged with mock disappointment. "See what I mean? You can't lose your temper like this." She lifted her eyes to meet his.
Just like that, his mind was in turmoil. Had she been purposely baiting him into losing his temper? Her distinctive slate-gray eyes, bold and inscrutable as the thoughts behind them, bore into him, burning themselves into his memory. Why couldn't he tear his eyes away? If he wanted to, he could have snapped her neck right then and there - what was holding him back? Her steady regard seemed to weaken his resolve entirely, and he found himself unable to move.
Dr. Kumasaki felt his grip loosen and took the opportunity to seize his wrist. "Heiwajima-san," she crooned, still staring intently into his eyes, "it looks like you're very sensitive to any false assumptions about your personality."
Shizuo let go of her immediately and freed himself from her grasp, clearly disconcerted. He looked her over. She merely peered back at him, a shadow of a smile gracing her lips. Was she seriously just trying to get me to blow up? he wondered incredulously. "So that was just some kind of a joke, then?" he muttered.
She laughed. "Not quite. It was more like a test of sorts," she explained, retrieving her glasses from the floor and putting them on. Only for a moment did she scowl at the fragmented view through the cracked lenses before recovering her coy expression. "You were being awfully secretive and unresponsive. I had to do something."
Shizuo snorted in what he hoped sounded like distaste. He could have walked out, given up on this whole "counseling" thing. He could have told Celty that the shrink she'd recommended was a nutcase, told Tom-san that he'd rather die than see this Kumasaki witch again. Instead, he pushed up his sunglasses and grumbled, "Then you'd better pay me back for this by doing a helluva job at counseling me."
A mischievous smile played on her lips. "Of course, Heiwajima-san. I'm sorry to have tricked you like that." She silently surveyed the room. "Looks like I'll be staying late to clean this up," she giggled.
Shizuo examined the room himself. Papers lay in crumpled heaps, books were strewn about, pencils and pens were scattered amongst fragments of what once was a glass vase. The caramels littered the floor by his feet. He gave a heavy sigh. "I'll help," he mumbled, stooping to collect some of the pens by his feet.
As they worked to tidy up the room, Doctor Kumasaki swiftly bent over to pick up one of the caramels and offered it to Shizuo. "You've been eyeing it this whole time," she teased.
He swiped it from her hand and stuffed it in his pocket. "Whatever."
"Just eat it. I know you want to."
"...Fine." He popped the candy into his mouth, and his expression softened a little. Maybe he could keep visiting this Dr. Kumasaki. Maybe she wasn't all that terrible after all.
Dr. Kumasaki smiled to herself as she crouched down and carefully collected shards of glass. "So," she chirped, "tell me about this 'Izaya' you mentioned."
Shizuo froze momentarily. "I...He's an old classmate," he stammered. Whatever happened between him and Izaya was personal - not something he wanted other people sticking their noses in. It certainly wasn't something he really wanted to discuss with some lady he just met.
And yet something about the way she was hunched over, meticulously plucking up pieces of glass and dropping them in the palm of her hand, made him want to trust her. She had already discovered his emotional trigger and put in the effort to figure him out. He felt a little more comfortable knowing there was someone who seemed to understand him, and Dr. Kumasaki didn't seem the type to use any of his secrets against him. Perhaps she had played a dirty trick on him to get him to open up, but surely he hadn't been a very cooperative a patient, either. Besides, she seemed to take her job very seriously.
If he told her what he told no one else, would he feel better? Would his emotions - his humanness - be confirmed?
Sensing Shizuo's hesitation, Dr. Kumasaki straightened her back and turned to face him. "Maybe we didn't get off on the right foot, but I want you to know that I will keep anything you tell me entirely confidential," she promised, smiling encouragingly. "So please, tell me more."
And so he did.
*.*.*.*.*
"You're back late," Namie remarked matter-of-factly as Izaya Orihara strode into the room and flopped down on the couch. "What were you doing? Looking for more lives to ruin?"
"Mmm...Not quite, Namie-chan," Izaya responded in his usual playful tone, though his eyes lacked their usual devious sparkle today. He lay down, casually draping his legs over the armrest as he tilted his head back to look at her. "I was looking for someone special," he teased.
Namie sighed, refusing to meet his eyes as she continued to read over some documents. "Is it that Tomo-san again?"
Izaya sat upright, crimson eyes shining. Almost as if he'd been waiting for her to ask. "Yep!" he nodded. Suddenly, his shoulders sagged a little. "No doubt that 'Tomo' isn't her real name, though," he pouted. "I can't find her anywhere."
"Maybe that's for the better," Namie returned. "You can't understand everyone, you know."
Izaya folded his arms across his chest and stared at his chessboard pensively. "I know," he muttered as he rolled a pawn around in his hand. "But this is one person who fascinates me." And it was true, too...though he would admit that he was interested in Tomo-chan mostly because she wasn't anywhere on his radar. He hadn't done a background check on her, he hadn't taken a picture of her, and he hadn't even asked for her full name - and now she had slipped through his fingers. It bothered him to no end. "I'm going to find her," he declared.
"Whatever you say," Namie shrugged.
Izaya had thought long and hard about where on his chessboard to place the pawn in his hand, but he finally gave up and chose to set it on the table. He slowly got to his feet and sauntered over to Namie's side. "What's this?" he asked, looking over her shoulder at the dense-looking documents in her binder. "More project proposals?"
"No," she said, "they're just reports on recent experiments. I'm reviewing them for inspiration."
"You want to try and get your job back?"
She put her pen down exasperatedly. "No, Izaya," she snapped. "I already told you, I have absolutely no chance at getting that job back."
"Then what is it?" he pried, not so much genuinely interested as he was in the mood for annoying his utterly humorless secretary. Seeing as she refused to respond, however, he switched the topic. "What happened to the proposals you were reading last time? Wasn't there something about a psychologist?"
"They were rejected," she responded, resuming her work. "I heard the psychologist was upset at first but ended up disappearing from the field without much of a fight. My guess is that she's running her experiments on her own little lab rats somewhere in the underbelly of Ikebukuro."
Izaya paused. Lab rats? he wondered, vaguely remembering Tomo-chan's use of the term to describe him. It was a bit of a stretch, but at least now he had something to cling to. "What was her name?"
Namie stood abruptly and closed her binder. If she had heard him, she certainly wasn't planning to respond. "I've business to attend to," she snapped, reaching over to turn off the desk lamp. "But I honestly think you'd be stupid to chase after that Tomo girl."
"Namie-chan, you think everything I do is stupid as it is," Izaya purred. "Might I ask what kind of business you must attend to at this time of night?"
"I have a brother to tend to," she barked back, reaching over and turning off the desk lamp. Even in the dim light, her wistful smile glowed as she thought of Seiji. "You should get a girlfriend, Izaya. Love might take your mind off of your twisted little games."
"Oh, but I do love, Namie-chan," Izaya responded coolly, a mischievous smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I love all humans."
"Whatever," Namie replied, before gathering her materials and marching towards the door. "I'm off. Good luck with your manhunt," she said, turning to face Izaya one last time before exiting the room. The door closed behind her with a slam.
"Luck won't be necessary," he said, knowing full well that no one was there to listen. He walked over to the window overlooking the city. So she's somewhere underground, is she? he mused, taking out his cell phone and scrolling through his contacts. I think I know just the person to ask about her. He dialed a number and held the phone up to his ear.
An undeniable smile took hold of his features as the voice on the other end greeted him. "Hello? Izaya-san?"
"Shinra-san!" He chirped. "Say, I need help with something. Care to help me out?"
A/N: I've noticed my chapters are getting longer and longer. I'm not sure if that's a good thing - let me know what you think in the reviews! And really, please please please review. I love reading your comments and feedback; all of it is helpful and encourages me to write more. Constructive criticism is also much appreciated, so please don't be afraid to speak your mind. Thanks!
Until next time!
Slouchy
