"You and your stupid jackets. Figures you'd have a million of them."
He closed the closet with a bang that startled him. Talking to Izaya was nothing short of insane and Shizuo smoked a cigarette to calm down. It did not quite work. A waft of apple-scented shampoo drifted from the closet and mixed with the smoke it transported him to their schooldays. Shizuo sat on a nearby chair, the jacket on his lap. For a while he remained without as much as budging. He had always chased down Izaya and in the process he chased him away as well but it was impossible to do that now, he filled too many of Shizuo's thoughts, as it was to ever catching up with him. Come what may Izaya was always just enough steps away for Shizuo's purchase to end in failure. No amount of vending machine throwing could have changed it. And no amount of reaching out would bridge the gap now.
Shizuo was immersed in such dark musings when he spotted a familiar object that could hardly be what it looked to his eyes. He felt vaguely queasy as he picked up what was indeed their yearbook. It occurred to Shizuo that this was the time to simply leave. To leave Izaya's apartment, to flee the city altogether and hide anywhere else. In a place without tall buildings and where he might outrace the lingering unexplainable cold. This was a last chance given to him. But he could feel the slight and too heavy weight of a switchblade on his pocket to know that it was not a valid option. Shizuo closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again.
The pages were pristine. Izaya had carefully applied a plastic cover to them. But the content had changed. The picture of their senior highschool year class remained intact but the rest of the book had been converted into a scrapbook of sorts. Shizuo's eyes widened as he turned the page. Under a sakura tree their teenage selves took a break from class. Shizuo was kicking a pebble while Izaya, uniform and perennial jacket on, pointed at him and laughed. In a neat handwriting a commentary had been added, 'Shizu-chan likes to kick things. At times he kicks me too.'
The next page showed them in yukatas next to a candy stall. Izaya wore a sleeveless version of the jacket and chewed on pink cotton candy. Shizuo was engaged in shooting down some targets with a toy rifle. Summer, cicadas humming their wordless litanies, the excitement of simply being alive- all of this returned to him. Underneath it read, 'Most of the times Shizu-chan hits the target. Tonight he missed a few.'
Shizuo could not remember having these pictures taken. He found himself smiling despite himself at the silly bits of information Izaya had seen fit to commit to posterity. These were almost slices of their lives preserved with care. The next page brought back a river and Shizuo sporting bathing shorts beat the water furiously with a stick, sending fishes splashing all over the place. Izaya was missing in this one and Shizuo was slightly disappointed. 'Field trip. Shizu-chan did not catch a single fish. But he did throw my jacket into the water and it was carried by the undertow. It's okay, I have backups.'
"You sure do. Around a million of them."
Somehow it was not eerie to talk to the dead anymore. Perhaps because in his own way Izaya was speaking as well, across time and despite death. In these entries of a semi-diary Izaya came across as sneaky, a bit devious but almost sunny in his upbeat and sarcastic comments. To Shizuo it was rediscovery to see him in such a light. Izaya's looks had hardly changed which gave Shizuo the impression that the past was frighteningly close. Shizuo turned another page and noticed a mood change right away. The caption on the right was of a few droplets of blood, the one in the right was of Izaya alone. Naked, covered with several cuts that crossed his whole body, lying on the floor. The picture had been taken by Izaya himself as could be seen from the skewed angle that revealed branded skin up close. A grey scale turned the moment into cold self-analysis, only Izaya's eyes retained their original red color. The subtitle was too short and laconic to do the situation any justifice: 'Today I lost my virginity. It hurt."