[AN] if you are reading this, thank you for coming this far! I'm a bit tied up at the moment and can't respond to reviews, but I'll do that during the next update~ and as a treat, the twentieth reviewer will get a gift fic written by me! I'm curious to see how long it will take to reach that milestone.

Chapter 4: Holy Ghost

The cherry blossoms have begun their preordained descent. First they fall, then they whither, decay, until finally giving their life to something new.

A rogue petal floats back to the earth from which it's energy source was rooted. It all begins in the earth and lives in the sky, before returning to the earth once again.

Shizuo holds out his hands for the petal, and it takes residence in his warm, calloused palms. He stares at it for a few moments before tearing it in half with his fingers and letting the pieces flutter away with the wind blowing through the open bus window, to decay in a city that requires more sustenance than a single cherry blossom petal can give.

The bus is mostly occupied, which Shizuo is somewhat annoyed because of. It doesn't really matter though. Pretty soon, he'll be just another face without a name, another legend lost in the dust.

It's been a while since Shizuo left Tokyo, or even Ikebukuro for that matter. His business is here, his home is here, so what reason would he have for going anywhere else? He doesn't really care about seeing the rest of the world. He can easily just Google every landmark to get the gist of all the hype that tourists talk about. Ikebukuro itself is a tourist's oasis, but most of the landmarks here are its characters. Shizuo's one of them. Landmarks don't move from their points of interest.

Maybe that's why he's leaving for a while. He doesn't want to be a landmark, an indestructible tower of stone or a legendary monster that everyone wants to get a quick glance at before turning on their heels out of fear. He forgets what it's like to be a person and not a name.

And he sees her face everywhere here. He sees her eyes when he looks up at the sky, so he supposes that he'll travel to a wooded area, or somewhere that's always overcast. He sees her face in the reflection of windows so vividly that he often catches himself looking over his shoulder to see if she's there. He sees her weaving between buildings, balancing on guardrails and skipping down crosswalks, always moving. She never sat still. She was a leaf in the wind, flowing with the current, never changing but always maneuvering.

Suddenly the bus comes to a screeching halt at one of its many predestined stops. The doors open, but the bus doesn't bounce in the slightest like it usually does when someone boards. Shizuo glances around at the seats to find all of them besides his full, with some people even standing up to make more room. Normally, the seats in front, behind, and adjacent to him are unoccupied because people are too afraid to sit near him, and if there's no room other than those seats then most would rather get off the bus and wait for another one, but surprisingly ever spot is filled. Of course, no one dared sit beside him, but still.

A pair of walking casts now occupy Shizuo's vision, which is casted at the floor of the aisle. He waits a moment, wondering if the wearer will summon the courage to ask if the seat beside him was taken, but not a sound comes from their lips. He sighs. The person is handicapped and from the shape of their legs must be a woman, so he decides to take the initiative like a gentleman would. However, he's not too good at acting valiant, so his tone comes out gruff and his words harsh.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm getting up." He'll just stand until a seat is completely unoccupied, but who knows how long that will take? Probably until they're out of the city and into the country. Shizuo pats the wallet in the pocket of his slacks, hoping he has enough money to get him around. Maybe he'll just keep going until he has not a single yen left, then just push his roots back into whatever unoccupied earth he's stranded on or head home by foot.

Shizuo gets up from his seat, not even bothering to look at the face of this woman who he's offering it to, and is about to move into the aisle when a hand touches his shoulder and gently pushes him back down.

He knows that hand. There's no mistaking the long, calloused fingers, unpainted nails, small palm, and definitely not the glowing warmth emanating from it like the heat waves from a small camp fire. If he looks up, he'll find the source of that heat, the two blue flames held prisoner in white fields of snow.

"Shizuo."

There may as well be three passengers occupying this seat now. One is Shizuo, the other the elusive Mizuki, and the last being one of her many treasured acoustic guitars protected by a black case covered in stickers of her favorite bands and a few obscene phrases. It was her only form of luggage, though she said that she'd be staying at her destination overnight.

"It's been a while since we spoke, so don't beat yourself up about it," she explains, staring out the window and at the scenery like she's been doing ever since she boarded the highway bus. Shizuo hadn't really labeled himself as a wanderer despite not having a destination himself, but Mizuki offered him to join her on her pilgrimage, so now he actually has a place to go. It's ironic how his own pilgrimage had been to escape Mizuki's visage, yet here he was, riding right beside her, exchanging words and silence like nothing's changed.

"Still, I should have at least made an attempt to visit or talk to you after what happened," he mumbled, staring at his fists that lay on his lap. The only contact the two exchange are their arms brushing against one another, but it's all that Shizuo needs for now. He has been starving for so long that his heart has shrunk, and he fears that he can only take so much without imploding.

"I know you did it to protect me."

In the distance is Mt. Fuji, the sleeping volcano of Japan. Shizuo wonders when it will finally erupt again. When he will finally erupt again. It's only sleeping, not exactly extinct. It's a ticking time bomb that can explode at any moment. It's snow covered peak haunts the cerulean sky, just as Shizuo haunts Mizuki. She doesn't mind. It wouldn't matter to her if Shizuo finally erupted, spilling the ashes of his hatred and rage into her sky, veiling and corroding her like she's the ozone. It'd be a lot better than being destroyed by the careless, selfish humans of the earth. Nature brings chaos to nature. That is how it should be.

"When did it happen?" he asked, not even thinking about how sensitive a subject this was for her. Again, Mizuki doesn't mind. She likes Shizuo because of how blunt he is. He doesn't beat around the bush or go easy on her.

"Right after I got out of the hospital three years ago." Mizuki is also blunt and doesn't beat around the bush.

Shizuo swallows and follows her gaze outside. This bus, unlike the one they were on in Tokyo, is mostly unoccupied save a few denizens that dot these worn out seats.

"What happened?"

Mizuki shrugs, reading every sign that whizzes by as the bus continues down the empty stretch of highway. The landscape is beautiful, silent, with only this shallow cut inflicted by human's hands maiming it unlike the various wounds in places like Ikebukuro.

"She had cancer, but neither of them ever told me until it was too late. To be frank, it fucking sucked to have all of this weight placed on my shoulders all at once. I was given no time to adjust, no time to condition myself or grow stronger. It was like one bad thing after another. Maybe I'm just being selfish..." her voice trailed off as her thoughts became an even greater maelstrom, and she leaves his question almost unexplained.

"It isn't selfish to want to be happy."

"No, but it's selfish to complain about the problems of others."

"'The ones who have left us behind pass their burdens onto the ones who follow.'"

It's the first time in what feels like forever that their eyes meet. In Shizuo, Mizuki finds her earth, the ground she needs to dig her own roots into to keep herself from floating away. In Mizuki, Shizuo finds his sky, the heavens that he reaches for whenever he feels like abandoning himself.

"You remember," she murmurs, smiling at him with a radiance that rivals the sun at her back. She had requested to take the window seat so that she could take in all of the sights beyond the glass, and of course Shizuo fulfilled that request every time they boarded a new bus. A bit of that warmth reaches Shizuo's cheeks, and Mizuki laughs lightly as pink stains his cheeks. Of course he remembered. Mizuki's always had a silver tongue, and the ink of her words are permanently written in his mind.

"I really missed you."

He doesn't say he missed her back. He doesn't have to.

"What kind of cancer did she have? And how long did she have it for?" he asks suddenly.

"She had lung cancer. My mom smoked a lot, kind of like you and me do," she chuckles dryly. "It was only seven months after it was diagnosed before it killed her. It was just so advanced that there was nothing they could do," Mizuki recounts as though reading from a book or explaining the tribulations that happened to characters in a movie. Her tone make it sound like these events are distant from her and happened to someone else entirely. It's a common coping mechanism.

Without knowing what to say, Shizuo places his hand over Mizuki's, which she has on her lap. He really shouldn't be doing this. A part of him is afraid that she'll crumble to pieces in his touch, but she remains intact. "That's why I'm going to Kyoto. It's the anniversary of her death, and I'm going to visit her grave."

The information that Mizuki refrains from sharing is how she got the money for this trip. For the past two years, she and her father would take the Shinkansen all the way to Kyoto together, but of course that would be impossible this year now that she's practically a run away. Predictably, Izaya had already briefed himself on Mizuki's entire past, and several days before today he had approached her offering to pay for the bus fare to and from Kyoto, and a hotel for her to stay the night. At first she was wary to accept his offer, but he reassured her that she "had no choice in the matter." She didn't bother asking why he didn't pay for a ticket on the Shinkansen, which would be swifter, because the likelihood of her bumping into her father on the train. Despite the risk of running into Otou-san at the grave site, she still needs to pay her respects to Oka-san.

Maybe she wanted to see her father there, to show him that she was alright, though she's sure that Shizuo will pass on the information. He already gave her an entire lecture about how much she's making Hiroshi worry, and that she ought to come home right away. He would've called the man on his phone (he now had his number on his contacts) but Mizuki begged him not to. He agreed to not get involved as long as she calls Hiroshi on her own accord by tomorrow.

"You don't mind if I go with you?" he asks, looking down at her. She shakes her head and smiles softly, her eyes closed and her head tilted in that obnoxious way that makes Shizuo's heart ache.

"Of course not. She wouldn't have minded either."

Then, Mizuki rests the side of her head on his arm, and falls asleep within minutes.

By 16:00, the pair have reached their destination. The bus comes to one of the stops in Kyoto, and Mizuki struggles to maneuver her clunky guitar through the aisle before Shizuo relieves her of it, putting it on his shoulder far out of the way of the seats.

"I got it," he mutters, annoyed by how long it was taking her to get off the bus because of the guitar being in the way.

Mizuki smiles sheepishly, scratching the back of her head. "I can see that," she chuckles uneasily. Sensing his impatience, she walks down the aisle and gets off the bus with him following close behind.

Once off, Shizuo first rests his gaze on the mountain about northeast from them. The bus breezes by as Mizuki points up at the peak after noticing where Shizuo's gaze was.

"That's Mt. Hiei.* It's 848 meters high and is the location of the monastery Enryaku-ji,*" she briefly explains. Shizuo just nods slowly, still staring at it, trying to imagine a monastery full of monks praying and meditating in a haven surrounded by trees yet almost touching the sky. Again, Mizuki smiles sheepishly. "I know a lot about Japanese culture because of my Oka-chan. She's French, but Otou-san often said that she was Japanese at heart." She gazes up at the mountain with a warm smile in recognition of the fond memories she shared with her mother. "That's why she wanted to be buried at Kyoto, a city rich in culture."

As usual, their conversation is one sided, but Shizuo pays close attention to what she says, and that is all that matters to her.

As Shizuo follows Mizuki through the city, which she seems to be very familiar with, he notices that hardly anyone gives him more than a single glance before going on their way, and even if they do it's probably just because of his attire. No one walks around in a bartending suit in the middle of the day, so the odd looks here and there are understandable. Still, the occasional stare does aggravate him, and as usual Mizuki picks up on his unease and quickly deciphers the meaning behind it. She steps out of the flow of people, confident that Shizuo will follow her, and goes to the nearest ash tray, where she opens up her guitar case.

"You gonna play that or something?" Shizuo asks, confused as he ruffles his tousled blond hair. She shakes her head, reaching her small, skinny hand into the sound hole of her guitar, somehow fitting her hand between the strings. When she frees it, in her hand is a wad of yen notes held together by a hair tie, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter.

"Nah, this is just where I put my shit when I don't feel like carrying it. I'm not a purse-wearing kind of girl, ya know?" She takes out a five thousand yen note, stuffs the rest back into the sound hole, and begins to explain herself. "I noticed how annoyed you get when people stare at you. It's probably because of how you're dressed. Personally, you could wear an orange jumpsuit and fuzzy slippers and I wouldn't care, but if it bothers you so much I'll buy you something." She knows very well that Shizuo won't accept her favor without some persuasion, so she waits for his response as she stuffs the note into the front pocket of her torn jeans and lights up a cigarette, returning the pack and lighter to its previous hiding place and clasping the case shut.

"Whatever, they can deal with it," he grumbles, which is his way of saying he doesn't want to accept her favor. Still, he really should know by now how persistent Mizuki is.

"Just look at it this way; you're staying with me overnight at the hotel, so you might as well get some new clothes so you're not wearing the same ones two days straight," she counters, placing a hand on her hip. She holds out her stick of death to him for added measure. "Wanna deuce?"

The offer was too good to pass up. Nicotine, an indirect kiss. He hasn't felt her lips on his in so long, so he guesses he'll just have to settle for their shadows left on a half smoked cigarette. He reaches out for it, but she quickly pulls her hand away, takes a drag, and grins maniacally. "Not so fast. First you have to agree to my condition. Let me buy you clothes."

Anyone would be a fool to pass that up. Free clothes and an indirect kiss from Mizuki? He couldn't say no.

"Whatever," he mutters again, still holding out his hand. She hands over the cigarette, their fingers brushing one another as it passes between them.

He takes a drag and all is right. He tastes her berry flavored chap stick on the filter, the same chap stick that she's been using for years. He knows the taste well.

"You want kills?" she asks, picking up her guitar case and waiting for Shizuo to finish. He says nothing, simply smoking the butt down to the filter in one long, grateful drag. "Onward, young man! The Teramachi Shopping Arcade* awaits!" Mizuki abruptly replaces the cigarette in Shizuo's hand with her own and pulls him along, the warmth of her hand burning its memory into his skin.

"Oh, stop being so picky. I'm the one with the cash."

"But I'll look like a priss."

"Fine, try this on instead," Mizuki mutters, taking the gray tee featuring an image of Jesus riding a raptor and handing him a simple black v-neck shirt and a pair of jeans that are a bit less torn than her own. "Oh! And this, too." The final thing she hands him is a gray shirt with a drawing of a fox. Immediately Shizuo makes up his mind. He gives the v-neck back to her and takes the fox shirt.

"I'll get this. And I'm buying food for both of us later," he says gruffly, shuffling towards the dressing room. Mizuki folds the shirt and puts it back where it was before sauntering off to the shoes section, wondering what size he is. Before long, Shizuo returns to her, the articles of clothing draped haphazardly over his arm.

"They fit," he says, to which Mizuki tilts her head. "And don't run off like that. I don't want to have to look everywhere for you."

"Are you going to change into them once I pay?" she asks innocently.

"No, I'll just put them on tomorrow so that I have something clean to wear," he mutters, still unsure how he feels about spending the night in a hotel room with Mizuki. He doesn't know which would be worse; having only one bed to share or having two of them to sleep in separately.

"Liar," she grumbles, glaring at him for daring to hide information from her. She's partially right. Although it would be more practical to just wear the new clothes tomorrow, the main reason he's keeping his bartending suit on is because he wants to look at least a little bit presentable when he visits Alison -Mizuki's mother's- grave. "Just pick out a pair of shoes and uh, some clean socks and... stuff. Dress shoes don't go well with jeans unless you're trying to be ironic."

"And stuff?"

"Y-Yeah, like boxers or whatever," she mutters, pink staining her cheeks. Suddenly, she feels Shizuo's warm hand on her head, ruffling her hair like he used to many years ago, when things were simpler and unbroken. She looks up to see him smiling down on her like the sun, warm but distant.

"Whatever you say, pipsqueak." He grabs a random box and tosses it at her, which she catches with ease. She opens the box to see what he chose and finds a pair of black and red skate shoes. Maybe she'll teach him how to skate sometime.

"I don't suppose you want to come underwear shopping with me?" he throws casually over his shoulder as he starts to walk away.

Mizuki rolls her eyes and starts heading for the cashier. "Just shut up and meet me at the register."

It's like the first time he's ever met her, like every preconceived notion he's had of her before this moment was all a figment of his imagination. He casted onto her the image that he wanted to see, ultimately failing to lift the shrouded veil between them. She was a silhouette with bright eyes and a bright smile, but only now are his eyes trained enough for every color she bleeds to grace them. She's not just an effervescent shade of blue, an infinite shade of black, or an achromatic shade of white. She's the whole damn kaleidoscope.

Though she visited the head monk -Takamichi or whatever- in the Kiyomizu-dera temple, though she bought a pack of incense to burn at her family's grave, she didn't clasp her hands together in prayer as she stood before the marble stone. She just stared at it intently, her gaze shifting between the trail of smoke wafting from the burning lavender incense to the names etched into the cold stone.

"Oka-chan came over to Japan from France. Her family and friends were already either dead or had abandoned her, so all she left behind were a couple of corpses and bitter memories," Mizuki says, staring intently at her mother's name written in distinct katakana, standing out from the rest of her deceased family member's names.

"Why did she come here?" inquires Shizuo in a hushed tone as though he's doing his best not to wake up the dead with his usual gruff voice. He has a voice that carries, a voice that travels with the wind, but right now it's stagnant and uncertain.

"For work," she answers quietly. There's something in her tone that Shizuo can't detect.

"What did she do for work?" he asks ignorantly.

"She was a prostitute."

Shizuo stares at her, waiting for the punch line, and his heart sinks and his head spins when he doesn't get one. Her mother was a prostitute? Sure, he's been around a lot of them due to his line of work, though of course he never indulged in the trade of flesh, but it was just shocking to think that Mizuki's mother was involved with that kind of crowd.

"Huh," he mumbles, unsure how to to respond to that detail. Mizuki can understand why so she doesn't get offended by his brief, awkward response. Silence settles over them, so Shizuo naively asks, "So she came to Japan for that?"

Mizuki shrugs her shoulders, rather nonchalant about the whole exchange regarding her mother's dark past. It's called the past for a reason, and her mother switched her life around for the better immediately after becoming pregnant with Mizuki, and that's all that truly matters. You can make your life a living hell all you want, but don't bring an innocent child into it.

"Sort of. She stole a lot of money from her pimp. Wouldn't say how much. That and she caused a bit if 'property damage,' though Oka-chan was quite vague when she told me the story. I wish she had been a bit more clear, but I can always grill Otou-san for details later." Then she remembers. She can't inquire her father of the details of her mother's past, or anything for that matter anymore. It's like there's a hand wrapped around her heart, squeezing it hard enough to make it's presence known but without crushing her to pieces.

She misses her father, wonders if he's been okay since her disappearance. He's never really been able to fend for himself. Mizuki almost has a panic attack just thinking of how helpless he must feel right now, imagining the smoke detector blaring throughout their quaint home when Hiroshi forgets to put on the timer for the plastic bagged stir fry, or him walking out of the house to go to work without his tie because he can't knot it properly.

"Why don't you just go back?" Shizuo asks dubiously, wondering what could be so important that she was willing to leave behind her own family. Now that he thinks about it, where is she even living? Where has she been sleeping at night? And where did she get all the money to fund this trip? The blonde nearly slaps himself for his thoughtlessness.

"I have to do something first," she murmurs, gaze never meeting his though he is currently where her frazzled mind is. 'It's all for you.'

"Stop. You know I hate it when you do that. Stop beating around the bush and just tell me what's up, damn it!" Shizuo roars, directing his rage at her for the first time today. Mizuki used to always get him so worked up, whether it was worrying him, pestering him, or lying about her past and intentions. One of her deepest faults is how dishonest and secretive she can be.

Mizuki turns her own anger on him, her bottled up emotions bursting forward from all the pressure. How dare he? How dare he question her when she's doing this for them, when she's putting herself through hell just to be by his side again?

"Shut up! You don't know anything!"

"Because you won't tell me, fuckface!"

He used his 'special nickname' for her in the midst of their heated conversation. Someone else might have been insulted from being called such an offensive name, but not Mizuki. Anyone else would have been pulverized, though Shizuo's massive strength and virtual indestructibility are not the reasons why she doesn't attack him for his impudence. She continues staring at the wispy smoke as it intermingles with the air.

How can you hurt someone you love? It makes no sense to Mizuki, how someone could lay their hand on their lover and call it tough love.

What Shizuo did to her was an accident on both of their parts. What she did to Shizuo -the pain she caused him as a result of being such an incorrigible failure- was inexcusable. That is why she cares little for her body, why she views this crude, brittle shell of hers as dispensable, why she's willing to go to such lengths to ensure that she will never be the cause of Shizuo's pain again.

"Mizuki." Opposite of a lullaby, Shizuo's voice drags her back to her senses. She goes willingly, because no matter how high she dreams, her imagination could never conjure up Shizuo as lucidly as reality can. Her mind doesn't have the capacity for that.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs solemnly, a sign that she has no intentions of revealing her reasoning behind her odd behavior.

If she won't give in, neither will he.

The weight of all the guilt upon Shizuo's broad shoulders collapses into a black hole, and though he fears being sucked in, he doesn't take hold of the one person that will keep him from being consumed.

"I'm leaving then," he grimly says, fists clenched again as they usually are. His voice is calm and barely above a whisper, and goosebumps raise on Mizuki's skin due to how collected he is. He's leaving her on the anniversary of her mother's death, and it's all just to teach her a lesson in trust. He's pathetic. How could she trust someone who's willing to take such cruel, drastic measures simply because they don't get the answers that they want?

Mizuki's mother's voice rings in her ears as it usually does when she starts wandering off her path. "Trust has to be earned, Okami-chan."

Shizuo wouldn't really leave her, and is a but stunned that Mizuki gave in so easily. He would have changed his mind had she objected even once, but not a single word of resistance leaves her lips. Maybe she wants him gone. In that case, he doesn't see the point in staying if he's not wanted anymore. He doesn't see the point in fighting if he's already lost three years ago.

Left alone on the anniversary of her mother's death. Shizuo pictures her alone in that hotel room. She doesn't cry. She doesn't panic. She just sits there on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and the mirrors are smashed because she doesn't want to look at her mother's reflection staring back at her, and there are shards of glass buried into her arms and hands like she's a rose that has grown her thorns a bit later than others. He knows her so well, knows her like a reader knows their favorite character in a book, but it's still not enough. It's not enough because somehow he still believes that she doesn't love him anymore.

"You'll think I'm crazy," Mizuki calls out to him, though it sounds like she's talking to herself. A clump of ash on the end of the stub of incense breaks off from the rest of the stick, shed like the dead skin of a snake is when it no longer can serve its purpose.

"I know you're crazy," counters Shizuo sarcastically, and is rewarded by a soft chuckle from Mizuki.

A playful gust of wind curls its fingers through their hair, tugs on their shirts like impatient children and whispering melodies like sirens. Perhaps these were the long forgotten voices of the ones resting below Mizuki and Shizuo's feet. Here they are, amongst all this death growing in a field of life and light, arguing about trivial matters when the stigma of eternity is all around them, reduced to piles of ashes buried in the ground.

Her mother is just another victim of eternity. The cancer didn't kill her; it just sped up the process.

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything you want to tell me."

That umbrella covers a great deal of things, but she doubts he'd want to listen to her senseless prattling, so she settles for her intentions, being careful to erase Izaya from her depiction of the tale. Shizuo wouldn't take that information too well.

The ceremony, however, is still in procession, so Mizuki puts the story on hold to finish this unorthodox rite. From her back pocket, Mizuki retrieves her pack of cigarettes, and Shizuo thinks she's about to light one up again, which might be considered disrespectful, but it's not like he gives a damn. Dead people aren't affected by secondhand smoke. He looks down at his bartending suit and questions his motives as well, frowning at his attire. There was no point in getting changed again, so he decides that his choice of clothing was purely coincidental.

Rather than put the cigarette to her lips, she kneels down on the grass, her face level with the grave, and discards the burnt out stub of incense in the field of graves. In its place she puts a single cigarette, filter in the incense holder. She lights it with a flick of her lighter, and rises once more to observe her work.

"Like I said, my mom smoked a lot," Mizuki murmurs, breathing in the tobacco smoke drifting towards the sky. The thick scent of it obscures the sweet, faint smell of bluebells.

Mizuki is the reason why Shizuo smokes. Now he wonders if her mother is the reason why she picked up the cancerous habit.

Mizuki is a cancerous habit just like the cigarettes she smokes, a habit that Shizuo has no plans on quitting anytime soon.