A/N: You guys have no idea how much I appreciate your favourites, alerts and reviews so my most gracious thanks to you all! I'm sorry the chapter is extremely late, but someone in my family has taken ill and so I've been preoccupied. I also thank annoynymouuuusss for their review here because, as their name suggests, they are anonymous! I hope you'll bear with me through the next few updates, because they will be slow and possibly less proof read. I'll do my best :P
Break You
Chapter 4
All the objects in her apartment looked like colourful splotches and noises she had never paid attention to were bouncing off the walls of her skull. Disorientation, splotchy vision and a heightened sense of hearing were the worst combination of superpowers ever, she thought miserably.
Unsurprisingly, Kimi could barely remember last night, but she could probably guess. She went to a club, drank more than advisable, and danced suggestively before, judging by her bruised knuckles, punching a pervert. Somehow she'd managed to get back to her own apartment. Probably one of the guys had given her a lift.
A whisper from her subconscious tried to warn her that she was spiralling. That next time, she wouldn't be so lucky. That next time she'd wake up tied up in the back of some psycho's van. That her addiction to the twilight buzz would unravel her.
CLAP CLAP CLAP
Kimi lifted her head off the kitchen counter groggily.
"You look like you had a rough night," said Nene, leaning on the breakfast island.
Kimi didn't have the energy to come up with a snappy comeback and resigned herself to grunting.
"Drank too much again?" asked Nene, sounding a little tense.
Grabbing a glass of water in which she'd had the foresight to dissolve a few tablets of Alka-seltzer, Kimi tossed it back, wincing at the ashy taste it left behind.
"You've been going out a lot at night these days," said Nene. "I haven't seen much of you."
"Probably because you're too tied up in that scumbag," said Kimi.
"Are you upset?"
"Don't be an idiot," said Kimi. "I've just had a lot of things going on."
Nodding, Nene slid into the seat Next to Kimi.
"I probably should have told you this earlier," said Kimi, "but we have to move out-"
"I heard the message."
"I thought I deleted it," Kimi muttered more to herself.
"The messages get saved to my mobile too, in case you delete an important one of mine," Nene explained. "Like last time, when my grandmother was in the hospital."
"Right."
"Why is your dad so mad at you?" asked Nene.
"I don't know," snapped Kimi.
"Well I've applied to a few places, mostly for cleaning and admin."
Kimi did not mention how she had yet to look at any job listings let alone apply to anything.
"Sounds good. Guess we'll have to start packing our things into boxes."
"I'll ask Izumi-san if she has any."
Nene slipped off the high chair and walked out.
"Get someone to help you with those boxes. And watch your hand!" Kimi yelled after her.
After who knows how long, Izaya had finally received permission to enter Nene's room. It was only to help her pack away her things, but it was still a step up from being threatened with the police. When he considered how quickly other girls had agreed to much more, he found himself staring at the back of Nene's head as she led him inside.
The walls, he'd noted on his last unsolicited visit, were covered from top to bottom with posters and memorabilia from a past he'd yet to learn of. It was as though all of life's clutter had found a home in the comparatively small space of her bedroom, that everything she ever was followed her around like the tin cans strung on at the back of a 'Just Married' car. This sentimental side of Nene had come as a surprise to him, another one of her many unpredictable traits that clashed horribly with the ugly, dull persona she liked to traipse out for the masses.
Hanging off the corner of her desk was a broken unpolished bronze bracelet, stuck in place by a thumbtack, and as Izaya walked passed, he quickly yanked it out and slid it into his pocket.
"Want something to eat—drink?" she asked, picking up a pile of clothes off her bed and chucking them into a box.
He waved her off, eyes flitting around the room in search of more interesting artefacts. They finally landed on a novelty frame with a picture of a younger Nene and a woman he recognised but couldn't place, inside it. They were both grinning widely, cheeks pressed together and both looking enormously happy.
"Who's this, Nene-chan?" he asked, bending over to peer closer at it.
"My mum," she said.
"Where is she now?"
There was an odd sense of victory emanating from him, which Nene chose to ignore.
"Italy somewhere, probably."
"You don't know?"
Nene snorted. "We don't talk much."
"Why?"
His underclassman fell face first into her bed. "Don't really want to talk about it."
Izaya lay down on his side and rubbed her shoulder consolingly. She shrugged him off. So he began poking her instead.
"Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me-"
"Shut up," she groaned, her uninjured arm shooting out to grab his throat. He caught her wrist easily.
"Tell me."
Face still in cotton sheets she told him.
"She wanted to move to England or France so she could finally follow her dream of becoming a world-renowned photographer and I didn't want to go... so I ran away from home. When she found me, she didn't speak to me for a week and then she just sent me to stay with Kimi and her family. I've been with them since... we e-mail each other sometimes."
Izaya chuckled.
"What's so funny?"
"Nene-chan throwing a hissy-fit."
"I didn't throw a hissy-fit," she grumbled.
"If that's what you say."
"I want to meet your family."
Izaya stared at her blankly.
"All you ever say about them is how much you hate your sisters. Well, I want to meet them. I want to see the environment that gave birth to... this."
She gestured to him.
"I'm not some sort of lab experiment," said Izaya, a tired expression on his face.
"Ah, but how would I know. I mean you say they're normal, but your definition of normal probably isn't like everyone else's. That's why I need to see for myself. "
"Not everyone gets what they want."
"I'll tell you something juicy I've observed about Anzu," she said, a triumphant grin on her face.
"If it's that she's sleeping with most of the senior boys... I already know."
Nene's stomach clenched.
"That wasn't what I was going to say," she said. What she'd been about to tell him was that she thought first year Anzu had a boyfriend. "Did you...?"
Izaya smiled as he watched the horror unfold in her eyes. "Did I what?"
Nene was about to jump off the bed and make an excuse to go to the toilet when his hand latched onto her wrist. She hoped he couldn't see the dip going along her throat as she swallowed. It made her feel so strange, to think that he'd... with her…
"Did I what?"
"Did you have sex with her?"
"If I did?"
But she was silent.
Bursting out laughing, Izaya fell back onto her bed. Nene watched, unimpressed.
"So you didn't."
"Why, you should know I'm saving my precious flower for you."
His laughter only got louder as the blush rose in her cheeks.
"You think you're derailing me from our earlier conversation but I still want to meet-."
"We have to pack up all your junk in these shitty boxes still and you have so much junk its unreal. There's definitely no time for idle chitchat about love-making," he said, adding, "at least not today."
"I want to meet your family Izaya."
His eyes turned to slits. "I don't want you to meet my family."
"Why?"
Sighing heavily, he attempted to wrap his arms around her waist. Her hands batting his grabby fingers made this extremely difficult and he settled for repeatedly poking her.
"Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine-"
"Stop it!"
"-Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine."
Shinra finished the suture in record time, chucking the bloody needle and thread into a metal pan and wiping his hands off on a towel.
"Hey Shizuo-kun," he said as he packed away the other medical supplies. "This is the third time this week you've been stabbed in a vital spot. I'm curious... how is it that you're still alive?"
Shizuo buttoned up his bloodied shirt.
"Because I'm not gonna die before I kill those bastards," he said flatly.
"You didn't kill them? Shame on yo- ow, ow, ow, ow!"
Shinra's arm had been twisted behind his back by a deceptively calm looking Shizuo.
"My humblest apologies. Please let go of my arm, you're going to break it off."
Feeling merciful after the pseudo doctor had patched him up, Shizuo released him.
"Ah, that's better," said Shinra, smiling, as he rubbed the purple bruise that had already formed.
Shizuo shrugged on his jacket and made for the door. On top of just having been assaulted by a random gang, spending half an hour in Shinra's presence was enough to drive him crazy and he desperately needed a cigarette.
"Leaving so soon," said Shinra, rushing out behind him. "You know that lesion of yours could become infected, maybe you should let me take a blood sample-"
"No."
"Ahh, come on, I've been so lonely lately. My precious Celty has gone on a trip and won't be back for a while and even though my heart breaks thinking about her and all those men she might meet and fall in love with on the way, I promised myself I'd make the best of it and turn myself into a man she'll surely-"
Though Shizuo's back was facing him as he waited for the elevator, Shinra could sense the killing intent and decided to change the topic.
"But of course, Shizuo-kun understands romance these days and I don't have to explain it to him."
"What?" said Shizuo, cocking his head back, eyes narrowed.
"Hmm?"
"What about romance?"
"You know, Akiyama-san."
"That Nene girl. What about her?"
The lift arrived and Shizuo walked in, followed closely by Shinra.
"I mean I was surprised that anyone would agree to go out with you, no offense but-"
"What the hell," said Shizuo. "She's not my girlfriend."
Shinra's eyes widened and he backed up against the elevator wall.
"A-ah, my mistake, my mistake, forgive me."
However, Shizuo wasn't interested in his apologies.
"Why'd you think she was?" he asked, scowling as Shinra prostrated in front of him.
"Haha, well, I saw you two at lunch together and I was going to walk over and say hi when I saw you blushing and-"
"Understood."
After the word blushing came up, Shizuo was eager to put a stop to the conversation. It wasn't every day his stupid friend linked him to a stupid behaviour that, taken out of context, made him appear equally stupid. Then he remembered what she'd said and felt his face grow hot all over again
"It makes sense now anyway. I could never see you dating someone who was so close to Izaya," Shinra continued. "You know, maybe it's those two who are dating. When I mentioned the rumours to them, Akiyama-san got so angry that she stormed off. It looked like a real lover's quarrel-"
"They're not dating," Shizuo said firmly, fingers twitching.
"How do you know?"
Shizuo's mouth opened, but then he realised he didn't know for sure. Though she'd made it clear that she wasn't one of his mindless followers, there was still a chance, if small that they were a couple. And Shizuo wasn't aware of how vehemently she'd denied the rumours in the past because he never indulged in gossip. Maybe this was a blessing, because even if he'd used that as a reason, Shinra with his disturbing, runaway imagination would have manipulated it to make sense.
She was shy because she was in love.
They wanted to keep it a secret because her parents were strict.
They were brother and sister...
"Whatever," muttered Shizuo. If she was stupid enough to fall for earth's smallest and most deadly plague, it wasn't his problem.
That's when something he would have most definitely deemed not his problem, came stumbling and screaming out of an alleyway and landed smack bang against his chest.
A train ride later and a short walk into a suburban area found a grinning Nene and a grumpy Izaya outside his house.
Taking a step forward, Nene was about to ring the doorbell when Izaya swept in front of her, jingling his keys in front of her.
"I do live here you know."
The next few minutes played like Nene had zapped into a parallel universe. Warmth, the kind that didn't stifle but blanketed snugly, emanated from the blossom white walls of the corridor. There were coats thrown over the banister of a wide stairway and smack bang in the middle of an intersection where all the downstairs rooms converged, was a glass table supporting on top of which sat a vase full of orchids.
Normal.
"You live here... "
Nene viewed the quaint scene with bewilderment. She half expected a drunken man to come staggering out from one of the rooms and take a swing at Izaya so the world would make sense again.
"You look surprised," Izaya said as he took her coat and his and flung them over the banister.
He led her round the glass table and into the dining room where his family had sat down for a late breakfast.
"I'm home," he announced.
Four heads scrutinised the pair standing in the doorway. Izaya stood with his hands in his pockets while Nene had visibly flinched when all eyes zoned in on her and bowed suddenly as if remembering herself.
"I apologise for our interruption," said Nene.
"Are you Iza-nii's girlfriend?" asked one of Izaya's sisters.
Before Nene could say anything, Izaya swooped in and saved the day. He threw his arm over her shoulder and pulled her against his chest.
"Yep," he said. His unsettling grin, it seemed, would not be hidden even from the people that had unwittingly conceived him.
His mother leapt off her seat, a bright smile on her face. He looked like her. Pretty.
"Good morning, good morning!" she exclaimed. "I didn't realise. I'm Iza-chan's-"
Nene smothered a snort.
"-mother, please call me Kyouko and this is Iza-chan's father Shirou."
Shirou nodded at Nene, gaze flitting curiously between the two teenagers as if he sensed that something was afoot.
Nene bowed again.
"Nice to meet you Kyouko-san, Shirou-san."
"Okaa-san," exclaimed the same sister.. "Introduce us to Iza-nii's girlfriend! We want to be introduced to Iza-nii's girlfriend."
"Yeah, yeah," said Izaya. "The loud one is Mairu the quiet one is Kururi."
The loud one, Mairu shot her brother a sweet smile before turning back to Nene.
"What's your name Iza-nii's girlfriend?" she asked.
Her sharp gaze reminded Nene of Izaya so much that for a moment she forgot how to answer the question.
"Akiyama Nene," Izaya said offhandedly.
"Sit down and have breakfast with us Nene-chan," said the mother, clearly excited that her son had finally made a friend.
Without waiting for a response, Kyouko steered Nene into a chair. Rolling his eyes, Izaya followed and took the seat beside her.
"Iza-nii, Iza-nii, how come you didn't tell us you had a girlfriend?" Mairu demanded, while Kururi silently tugged the hem of his shirt.
Izaya peeled her fingers away.
"Um, Izaya-kun wanted to introduce me to you personally before he said anything," Nene said quickly, before he could concoct some other lie. This seemed to placate the twins for the time being.
"What would you like to eat?" asked Kyouko, sweeping her hand above the dishes. "There's miso soup, porridge-"
"I think Nene-chan would like a slice of Okaa-san's famous apple pie," Izaya said sweetly, leaning in and tenderly kissing Nene's head, "Hmm, bay-bee-cakes?"
It took all of her willpower not to snort.
Nene had decided against telling his family she was not his girlfriend. The moment there was even a chance that Izaya had brought home a friend, no a lover, their faces had lit up like twenty year hostages discovering an escape tunnel. She figured one little white lie wouldn't hurt anyone.
"Here's a slice," said Kyouko, smiling sweetly as she placed one in her plate.
Muttering her thanks, Nene was about to dig in when Izaya batted her hand away, stuck his own fork in and tried to spoon-feed her. "Open wide," he said, a sadistic glint in his eyes.
"I can feed myself Izaya-kun," she said, scowling as she reached over to grab the spoon from his hand.
The spoon slid into Izaya's mouth and he swallowed the piece whole.
"You have to let me feed you or else I'm going to eat all of it."
SMACK.
Izaya had caught her wrist and clutched her in place. "Why, what's with that face?"
"That was humiliating," she said, trying to yank her hand away. "You stuck that fork in my eye on purpose!"
"Don't be like that. Now, I'll only let you go if you promise not to try and hit me again."
Nene scowled.
"You look so vulnerable with your arm in a sling, your only working hand in my grasp. We could make this a fun little game, hmm, bay-bee-cakes?"
"Okay, Izaya, I promise."
"What happened to Izaya-kun," he laughed, dropping her hand and belly flopping onto his bed.
Nene moved over to the expansive bookcase along his wall, the only area of his room that wasn't meticulously bare, and fingered the spines curiously.
"You've got a lot of books." Pulling out a bulky volume, she leafed through it curiously. "I didn't know you were so interested in mythology."
"Oh? Is that judgement I hear in your voice?" he asked, turning on his back and watching her.
"Well, you know, mythology is all about making sense out of things they didn't understand," she said. "It just seems a bit pointless now. Like half of these explanations for things don't make sense."
"Does everything have to make sense?"
"It literally does. The law of cause and effect."
A lazy smirk stretched over his face. "You're out there making sense of everything, and in the meantime everything passes you by. Is that anyway to live."
Nene replaced the book, walked over and sat on his bed.
"A lot of people live that way," she said, a touch defensively.
"No, no don't get me wrong Nene, it's one of the few things I like about you."
"Well, would you like to know what I like about you?" she said suddenly.
"And what's that?"
"How easy it is to talk to you," she said. "You don't think I'm too quiet, and you don't get mad at me if I zone out, you're interesting... you think I'm interesting,"
"Who said I thought you were interesting?"
Nene's smile turned tender. "I never thought I would be but I'm glad we're friends."
There was a tumbleweed moment. Izaya stared intensely at her, as if determining his preferred course of action, vivisection or mutilation. The smile on Nene's face faded.
"What?" she asked, unnerved. It reminded her of one of their first meetings, when they were walking down the street and one attentive look from him would plunge them into darkness.
"I'm just thinking."
That was never good, thought Nene, bristling.
The day so far had been nice, pleasant even and she didn't want to soil her epiphany of friendship with the dark cloud of his former mission to break her.
"Hmmm... I'm glad we're friends too," Izaya said at last, weightlessly as if the topic was barely of interest to him.
Nene's brow furrowed. "You are...?"
"Mmmhmm."
"Are you being sarcastic?"
Izaya raised an eyebrow. "Of course I am."
Before she could reply, her phone rang. Picking up her phone, curious to see an unknown number blinking across the screen, she pressed the call button.
Author's Notes: I'm sorry everyone but today I have not much to say for this chapter except woop, more character development and some awkward cliffhanger? I haven't finished responding to reviews but I'll do so immediately after I've published this. All I can say is that I hope you enjoyed reading this.