AN: Sorry it took so long, guys, I forgot. Oops. Anyway, for those who entered the Halloween contest I set up, I'm going to announce the winner on my other story, Acnologia is Not Your Father, and my profile, but I will send a note to the winner if they only reviewed this story. I actually haven't decided yet, but I will hopefully have the answer by chapter five of this story. Also, I feel like I should apologize. One reviewer said they were excited to hear Izaya's backstory, but I don't intend to go into that too much. One, some of it is revealed in the light novels. Two, I don't want to turn this story into an Izaya sob story, because that's boring. Three, I decided to leave details up to your imagination. Thus, I will simply mention a few things that were revealed in the ninth novel, and you can fill in your own blanks. For anyone interested, this story will have six chapters, with no extremely explicit detail other than what's strongly implied (and/or all but flat-out said) in chapters five and six. However, I am willing to write a seventh chapter to… detail what exactly occurs in chapter six for anyone interested. Lastly, should I make these contests a monthly thing? If so, any ideas?

We Are the Night

Summary: It isn't love, and it never will be, but sometimes she wonders if, maybe, all of them are just too broken to see the difference anyway. Shizuo x Izaya x Namie

Chapter Four: Flotsam

He tells her a week later. All about himself, his family, and why he realized he needed to leave. He tells her about how he met Shinra, how he met Kadota, how he met Shizuo, and even how he learned to use a knife. He won't tell her about Saki, though. He says it's her business.

"I hate it when people pity me," he says suddenly. She looks up from her desk, and he takes a deep breath. "People think I am the way I am because I was abused or something. I wasn't. I'm just– I am who I am, and I can't change that, no matter how much other people want me to. I can pretend to be someone else, but I don't want to have to do that. I want to be able to do what I want without people saying, 'his parents must have been horrible', or 'he must have had no friends as a child'. That's not true."

"You said your parents were – ah, are – good people." Namie recalls. He nods.

"Yeah. They're great. I had friends, too. Shinra and Dotachin. Shizu-chan too, in a way." At this she raises an eyebrow.

"I thought you two hated each other," she says.

"Oh, we do," he assures her. "In a sense, though, it's sort of like friendship. I mean, Shizu-chan won't kill me, because he needs me."

"He… needs you?" she asks, incredulous. She knew he had delusional tendencies, but this was a bit much.

"Sure." Izaya shrugs. "Imagine how many people would get hurt if he didn't have me to take his anger out on. And I need the distraction. It's… kind of like symbiotic hatred. We absolutely hate each other, but, well…"

"You need each other." She finishes. He looks thoughtful.

"I guess. The point is I had friends. I wasn't alone. I don't act the way I do to get attention." At this, she snorts openly. "Okay, so I do, sometimes. What I mean is, I don't try to get attention because I was deprived of it. Actually, I think I would have appreciated a little less attention as a kid. We genii like to be left alone, you know."

"You're a genie now?" Kida asks, walking into the room. Saki smiles at him.

"Genii is the plural of 'genius' too, Masaomi." She explains. He blinks.

"Huh. I always thought it was 'geniuses'."

"That too," Namie tells him. "He's using 'genii' because he wants to look smarter." Kida rolls his eyes.

"Attention whore," he grumbles. Izaya shoos them away, telling them to go on their lunch break. He turns to her quizzically.

"Go on," she says simply. "You can tell me." He nods and sits back down.

"Right. Before I tell you anything else, I should tell you that I do love my sisters. But…"

"But you love them the way you love everyone else," she clarifies. He nods.

"I always thought what I felt when I looked at my family was love, but then I realized that it felt the same no matter who I was looking at. So, I assumed I loved everybody." He hesitates. "As far as I know, I do. There are only two exceptions."

"Oh?" Now she's curious.

"There are only two human beings who make me feel something other than the love I feel for humans." He repeats.

"Is one of them Heiwajima-san?" she asks. He shakes his head.

"I don't see Shizu-chan as a human," he says. "The first is Shinra. I'm a bit jealous of him, actually."

"Why?"

"Because he can understand humans in a way that I can't. He can understand why they do what they do, and he doesn't give a damn. All he cares about is Celty."

"And the other?"

"You, of course." She blinks. "Surprised?" he asks. "You shouldn't be. You're the only person able to keep up with me in a battle of wits. You can beat me at my own game. One would think that it would take a chess master to defeat another chess master, but you… you're different. I like that." He gets up, trots over to her, and leans over to whisper in her ear. "But you already knew that last part."

"Honestly," she says, shaking her head. "And here I thought you were going to tell me why you ran away from home, not flirt with me shamelessly."

"Can't I multitask?"

"No."

"Darn." He grins. "Oh well. As you know, my sisters are… a bit messed up in the head." She nods.

"Oh god, you're not telling me that was your fault, are you?" she demands. As an older sibling, she values treating younger siblings well. He flinches.

"…A little bit." He admits. "When they were little, they acted so similarly that I sometimes, uh, told them that one of them should kill themselves so that we could tell the difference, as an experiment." Her hand cracks across his face.

"Sorry."

"No, I deserved that." he inhales. "At some point, they rolled dice on personality traits. That's why each of them act the way they do."

"They rolled dice?" Namie demands. "And you let them?"

"I was at school," he tells her. "They told me when I came home. I was, uh, fifteen, I think. That was about when I realized that I needed to leave."

"So it was for them." she hopes so, because she'd like to think that he isn't completely horrible.

"Partially. But it wasn't just about them. This was before I met Shizu-chan, so I didn't know how big brothers usually acted. Nowadays, I comfort myself that, while I told my sisters to kill themselves, I never actually tried to inflict bodily harm upon them." She raises an eyebrow.

"And this works?" she asks. He smirks.

"Comparing myself to Shizu-chan in a positive light always helps," he says cheerfully. The smile falls, and he's back to looking serious. She's seen that look a couple of times, but his expression is usually either smug or silly, unless he's asleep.

"You're nuts," she tells him, shaking her head.

"Maybe," he agrees. "Anyway, I first met Shinra in junior high, two years earlier, actually. He spent the first two years of school trying to get me to help him start a biology club. I eventually agreed, if only to stop him from pestering me. Don't ask him about that, though, he'll say it was the other way around."

"Was it?" she asks, knowing that Shinra is usually more trustworthy than Izaya is. Usually. He pouts.

"Are you doubting me?" he whines. She rolls her eyes, gesturing for him to continue. "Anyway, we co-founded the Biology Club, though for completely different reasons. Shinra wanted to learn as much as possible, so he just wanted more heads to use. Like a Hydra, I suppose. I, on the other hand, simply wanted to know more about people. So it was a win-win, really. Then it was time for high school, and we both ended up going to Raijin Academy."

"Raijin?" Namie asks, furrowing her brow. "That's the old name for Raira, right?" He nods.

"Bingo~" he grins again. "On the first day of high school, Shinra introduced me to an old friend of his from elementary school: Heiwajima Shizuo."

"Oh lord," she moaned. "So you're telling me that everything between you two was his fault." He shrugs.

"Not really, no. He thought we'd get along. He was wrong." Izaya scratches the side of his head before continuing. "I also met Dotachin there. Anyhow, Shinra brought me outside during lunch, and I saw some blonde guy beating the shit out of a bunch of people. He was using a football net, so I started clapping." She groans.

"Of course you did," she mumbles. "And then you fell in love and lived happily ever after, right?" He nods, looking completely serious.

"Obviously. No, then Shinra introduced us, he told me that I pissed him off, and I said something like 'and here I thought we could have some fun together'. He threw a punch, so I responded accordingly."

"You punched him back?"

"No, stupid, I pulled out my knife and stabbed the asshole." Izaya snickers. "I think it left a scar. I hope so, anyway. Shinra was a little upset, so I decided to try and patch things up the next day. Shizuo-kun – that was what I called him at first – didn't want to be friends, so I started calling him 'Shizu-chan'."

"Bet he was thrilled about that."

"Y'know, I think it grew on him. That was actually the year I… left."

"Oh?" Namie raises an eyebrow. "Were those two incidents related?"

"A bit, I think." He says. "At some point, I realized that I could get people to do what I want – whatever I want. You know who else could do that?"

"Hitler?" she means it as a joke, but he doesn't see it that way.

"Exactly." He meets her brown eyes with his red ones, and simply looks at her for a moment. "I'm not like him. We learned about him when we were kids, like everyone does nowadays, and everyone hated him. As far as I know, he wasn't that likeable a guy. And then I noticed something – I have a lot in common with him. In fact, I have a lot in common with a lot of not-so-great people. But I didn't hate people. I liked people, a lot, so I decided that I wouldn't turn into Hitler as long as I never killed anyone."

"You have killed people," she points out. He shakes his head.

"No. I've sold information that could lead to people getting killed, and I've talked a couple of people into suicide, but I've never taken a life with my own hands." He glances at his hands, before looking back up. "And I never will. So I moved out, to make it easier to get to school, and then eventually I stopped writing, and then I stopped calling, and then I stopped coming back altogether. I bumped into Mairu and Kururi five years after I left (that's three years ago, Namie-san), and I barely recognized them. Hell, they barely recognized me. They were eleven, and Mairu told me that I should come home some time. That was the first time I ever got drunk, and the last, because, if Shinra is to be trusted, I make a very silly drunk."

"I'd like to see that," she smirks at him, and he laughs.

"That could be arranged, I suppose." He grins again, before getting up and going over to his refrigerator. "Chardonnay?"

"Just this once," she allows. He smiles – a real smile – and she smiles back.

"If the prospect of alcohol is enough to get Namie-san to smile, I wonder how Namie-san would act under the influence~" he chirps. She rolls her eyes.

"You drug me, Orihara-san, and there will be consequences." He laughs.

Really, she thinks to herself, I suppose this isn't too bad.