A/N: I am very behind on responding to reviews, for which I am very sorry, but I would like to say I have read each and every one of them and when things seem bleak in terms of writing, I tend to re-read them for motivation. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, read, favourited and alerted, and also those who have been patient. Tentative themes will be explored in the next few chapters, please PM me if this bothers any of you :)

Break You

Chapter 25

Shizuo leaned against the wall and tried not to think while a small mountain of cigarettes grew at his feet. The fire exit opened and someone came out, but he didn't need to look up to know who was there. Shizuo was sensitive to smells.

"You alright, man?" Tom said, scratching his head.

"Ah, Tom-san, do you have a cigarette?" Shizuo asked, tossing his empty packet aside.

Taking one for himself, Tom passed a cigarette to Shizuo. They smoked in silence.

"I keep asking myself," said Shizuo, "if the peaceful life I want is just a fool's dream."

Tom watched him from the corner of his eye.

"It's too late now anyway," said Shizuo. He flicked the cigarette onto the mound where it stuck at the summit like a flag made of smoke. "Whatever she is now, I can't recognise her."

"Jeez," he said. "I wanna say kids these days are so melodramatic, but we're from the same generation so that would be an insult to myself."

Sighing, Tom laid a hand on Shizuo's wrist before he could light another one. Shizuo regarded him with confusion, the dreamlike haze that had fallen over him starting to lift.

"Don't hit me for saying this," said Tom, "but you really annoy me sometimes, Shizuo."

"…Sorry."

Tom waved him off.

"Look, I'm gonna give you some advice here, it's up to you to take it or not. People like Izaya are always going to exist, people like you are always going to hate them, and people like Nene are always going to get caught in the crossfire. Sorry to break it to you, kid, but if you want a peaceful life then you have to accept that nothing about life is peaceful."

And with that, Tom left for karaoke with his friends. Miyuki came out and asked Shizuo if he was okay, and seeing the lost look on his face, offered to cover the rest of his shift, which he gratefully accepted. He took out his phone and scrolled through the contact list until he reached Nene's name, and then he paused, remembering that he had crushed it.

A taxicab sped down the highway. Light flashed intermittently across the faces of its two passengers. Kimi's head was lolling back and forth as she slipped in and out of consciousness. Her briefcase had been propped open on her lap in case she needed to puke. Nene's eyes were also beginning to close.

"He's a monster. He doesn't operate on logic or reason and he will never ever recognise your love. He'll only feel indebted to it and grow to resent you for clinging to him."

Kimi's phone vibrated and Nene's eyes snapped open. Before she could take a look at the caller ID, a hand slipped over the screen.

"That was a total disaster."

Nene looked at Kimi, who was glaring at her with the kind of disappointment only a Toyoshima could generate as she tucked the phone under her bum.

"What was?" asked Nene.

"Your little heart to heart with Shizuo," Kimi said, shutting her briefcase. Her words were still slurring. "Total disaster."

"Is that drool on your shirt?"

Kimi pulled her shirt away from her chest to look at it. "Vodka. And yeah, I'm a shitty mess right now, but I'm drunk. What's your excuse?"

"How much did you hear?"

"Breaking up with Heiwajima over a kiss seems a bit over the top? No wait, don't tell me you slept with that piece of shit," said Kimi, opening the briefcase again suddenly feeling the urge to vomit.

"I didn't."

"Then why the hell did you break up with Heiwajima?" snapped Kimi. "Shizuo would have forgiven you-"

"Izaya didn't kiss me at my party," said Nene.

Back when Kimi was trying to kick a cocaine habit and come back down to reality, she had been too stuck up her own arse to notice her best friend unravelling, but that didn't mean she still wasn't the best authority on Akiyama Nene. Kimi was starting to realise why Nene had been avoiding her. A few days with her, and Kimi would have gotten it out of her, the thing crawling beneath Nene's skin.

"Then when?"

"That night, after the fight at the factory, Izaya turned up at Shinra's apartment."

"And?"

"Everyone had gone to sleep. I went to get a glass of water and there he was. He was standing in the shadows like a ghoul," Nene said, recounting the events as though she were reading them off of a police officer's notepad. "He said some stuff-"

"What stuff?" Kimi asked sharply.

Nene shook her head. "The usual. And then he grabbed me and he kissed me. It never happened again."

"Did you kiss him back?"

"It wasn't that kind of a kiss," said Nene, smiling. "Even if I wanted to kiss him back-"

"Did you?"

A gentle quiet filled the vehicle, the sound of the engine purring enfolding the two girls as they stared at each other.

"Wow," said Kimi, grinning with irony, "your life really is a cluster fuck."

Nene snorted.

When they arrived at Nene's halls, Kimi kicked her heels off, leaving Nene to collect them off the pavement, and stumbled inside. Trudging along behind her, Nene was reminded of her first week at university. Kimi had turned up at her room already pissed, a bottle of rum tucked not very inconspicuously under her arm and declared it national piss-up week, a holiday she had created on the spot. Nene's memory of that night was largely made up of fragmented images, flashes of conversation and awkward moments that just wouldn't die resurfacing in coffee shop queues. But the general feeling had been happiness. For a week, Kimi had made Nene forget everything. Shizuo and Izaya, her father's deepening involvement with the Yakuza, her mother's continued absence… it all melted away. It helped that some of her brain cells had never recovered.

"Oi, you know," said Kimi, grinning down at Nene from the upper storey, her legs dangling through the railings, "we should just run away. You, me and Hajime."

Nene sighed. "Where would we even go?"

"America, duh. Hajime's been saving up to study overseas, you know. He wants to get into family law and save the world one child at a time, and he wants me to come with him," said Kimi. There was a sad smile on her face. "I think he wants to marry me."

Nene recalled all those nights that she and Kimi had spent planning their futures. For her there was never any certainty, her indecisiveness moving her from a big house in the countryside one night to an apartment in every major city the next. But Kimi had always known. Ever since they were six years old, Kimi had known with a prophetic clarity that she would marry a good man, a good, kind man with a heart so big her small one wouldn't matter so much. They would live in a mansion and there would be a room for Nene, a wing even with all the money she was going to inherit from her father, and Kimi and her wonderful, handsome husband would have a thousand babies. As she and Nene got older, the number reduced to eight, and then to five, and then two years ago as she stared at her flat belly in the cracked mirror of their shitty red-light district apartment, she told Nene that two was more sensible. Two girls. Two best friends. One named Kimiko and one named Nene.

Kimi had found her good man. Kimi had moved in with him the first chance she got. Kimi had pressed her face up against every bridal store she had seen in the last year. Wondering where the best friend would fit in to this new, practical dream, Nene felt a pang of dread.

"But I told him I wouldn't go without you," said Kimi. "So you have to come. We'll run away and never look back at this shitty town and its shitty people!"

Scoffing, Nene turned away to hide the relief on her face. "Where would we go? We have no money."

"Don't underestimate me. I have savings."

The thought was tempting. "From the work you do with Izaya?"

"You can't judge me about that anymore," said Kimi, raising an eyebrow. "You kissed him. Orihara Izaya's saliva was in your mouth."

A shocked bark of laughter came from Nene and she had to grab the railing to keep from falling over.

"I never said it was an open-mouth kiss," Nene said once she'd recovered.

"Well, was it?" asked Kimi.

"…"

"Hah! So what, was he like a good kisser?"

"It was a pretty traumatic moment for me, Kimi-chan. How can you treat it so callously?"

"Pssssht," said Kimi, spraying spittle all over Nene's face as she walked onto the second floor landing. Nene flicked it away with her index finger. "You kidding? You kissed Orihara Izaya-"

"He kissed me-"

"Don't care," said Kimi, bounding to her feet as Nene led the way to her room. "I hope you got a tetanus shot afterwards?"

Nene paused in the hallway, an awkward look on her face.

Kimi collapsed onto her knees shrieking with laughter until Yasuo flung his door open, of course shirtless, and grumpily told them to shut the fuck up. Nene hauled her drunk friend off her bum and helped her inside. Inari had told Nene that she would be spending the night at 'Nakura's' again, so she steered Kimi to her roommate's bed and let her flop down, unbothered by the possibility that she might puke on the sheets, discretely hoping that she would.

"Don't you think its weird Izaya sleeping with your roommate when he's supposed to be in love with you?" Kimi asked as Nene helped her out of her tights.

"Izaya's not in love with me," said Nene, opening her drawer and taking out an extra set of pyjamas. "Can you put these on?"

"I'm drunk, not an invalid," said Kimi, beginning clumsily to undress.

Kimi's phone vibrated and she hastily turned it off, the colour draining from her face.

"Is Izaya even capable of love?" Kimi asked, resuming the flow of their conversation with ease.

"That's a loaded question," said Nene, sitting down on the bed so that the phone was between them. "I don't know. He talks about his sisters like they're things and he never mentions his parents. I think maybe loving humans is the only way he knows how to connect to the world. Being a sociopath must be scary in its own way. All alone in the world, having to watch everyone smile and laugh like they're all in on a joke you'll never get."

Kimi gave Nene a pitying look. "You were always too understanding for your own good. That's why people like me and Shizuo take advantage of you."

"Don't get me wrong. Orihara Izaya is a person I hate," said Nene, a menacing shadow coming over her face.

"…I really can't take you seriously after you sucked his face."

"Shut up."

They talked into the night. They talked with their eyes closed, with their heads resting on the pillow, sleep entering their voices. They talked until Kimi's words trailed into her breath and she fell asleep and Nene snaked her hand under Kimi's pillow and took her phone. It was password protected, but what Kimi didn't know was that Nene had memorised the password back at Russia Sushi when she'd first seen the flask. There were five missed calls and six unread messages, all from the same number, no name. Nene read each message, the last one dating back almost six months, each one hammering a nail into the coffin she had already buried him in.

Two hours left, Gorou thought as he rocked back and forth in his chair behind the reception desk, eyes tracking the yellow asbestos stain growing out of the crack in the ceiling. Two hours until Arata arrived, his shift ended, and he could slither off into the back where several VCRs were recording tonight's 'security footage'. Not that there would be anything to look forward to, he thought mournfully, recalling all the faces and figures of all the women that had checked in so far.

Then, just as he was ready to give up all hope for his regular end of shift screenings, a loud crash startled him out of his chair. Untangling his gangly limbs from the chair, he felt himself being pulled to his feet by a pair of gloved hands.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," said the blonde woman. She looked like one of those posh career ladies who kept little rat-faced dogs in purses the size of China. It didn't even register with Gorou, who encountered a variety of types as the receptionist of a love hotel, that she was wearing black leather gloves and a pair of sunglasses that covered half of her face. "I didn't mean to startle you. Are you alright?"

"No thanks to you," snapped Gorou, yanking his arm away from her. He'd never been very good at communicating with the opposite sex, especially not blondes. They made him entirely self-conscious of the way his stomach rolled over his belt and the forty-two (he had counted) strands of hair still clinging to his head. "You could have caused a serious accident, Miss. I could've snapped my neck. But I suppose the life of a measly receptionist doesn't matter to you, huh?"

There was a pause and then the woman threw her arms around his neck, bursting into tears.

"Um," said Gorou, arms outstretched, unsure whether or not to take the opportunity. "Um."

"Oh God!" she wailed, pushing him away just as he was about to place a hand on her bum. She collapsed into his chair, her gloved hands coming up to cover her face. "I'm such a fool."

Gorou passed her a tissue box and awkwardly attempted to lean up against the reception desk, crossing his arms over his chest in what he hoped was nonchalance.

"Don't beat yourself up too much, Miss. Just be a little more careful next time," he suggested, exhausting the combined strength of every spark of wisdom that had occurred to him in all his twenty-nine years.

"No, it's not that," said the woman, pulling away her sunglasses. Gorou was struck by how much mascara had run down her cheeks, and he was immediately aroused. "It's my husband. I believe that he's having… he's having…"

She started to hyperventilate, and Gorou quickly ran and got her a glass of water.

"Thank you," she said, shooting him a weak but beatific smile that was only enhanced by her bloodshot eyes.

"He's having an affair then, is he?" asked Gorou.

Her lower lip trembled and she continued her explanation, clearly struggling to talk about it. "I've suspected for quite a while, and tonight I followed him here to this-this-this love hotel."

"Screwing some whore, huh," Gorou said with all the delicacy of a trombone. "You don't get decent sort coming to this place."

The woman mewled pitifully. "And the worst thing about it is this isn't even the first time," she exclaimed. "Countless women, I can't even keep track of how many times."

"Well if you know all that, how come you're still with him?" You stupid bitch, he wanted to add, but held his tongue. It was silly women like her running after assholes that were going to doom the human race.

"That's the thing you see, if I leave him now I'm left with nothing. He made sure of that in the pre-nup. He'll get the house, the car, all of my jewellery, even my little Izaya."

"Oh, that your son, is it?"

"Chihuahua." He thought he saw the corner of her mouth twitch, but then she let out an ear-piercing wail before continuing, "If only I had some shred of proof! It would void the pre-nup and I would finally be able to leave that despicable man forever, and maybe then I'd have a chance to get it right and find a nice man who would treat me well."

The rarely used lightbulb flickered dimly in Gorou's brain.

"Well, I've got a lot of security footage on the place. Could let you take a look at them? I'm sure there's something with your husband and his mistress on there," said Gorou, picturing her flying down the courtroom steps and into his strong arms, so eternally grateful to him that she was barely able to keep her hands from tearing off his clothes -

The woman leapt up and clasped her hands around his, beaming at him. With all the makeup running down her face he could barely tell what she looked like, but he had always been weak for blondes and as a rule they were easy on the eyes so he would take his chances.

"I would be eternally gratefully," she said.

Trembling slightly, Gorou selected one of the many keys looped around his belt and unlocked the backroom. He led her over to the desk at the back where the television screens sat amongst a clutter of video stacks and switched on the security footage from the previous month.

"Let me know when you see him and I'll pause it," he said, pressing fast-forward and glancing at her. A chill ran up his spine. All the warmth and pain that had coloured her expression had vanished. She stared, entirely fixated upon the screen.

"There," she said after a while.

Gorou almost dropped the remote as he pressed the pause button.

"That them then," he asked her, glancing at the screen.

"Can you zoom in on their faces?" asked the woman.

Gorou pressed the zoom button, blowing up their faces onto the screen. He remembered them. The husband was a right shit and Gorou had always suspected that the girl with him was a whore. Sure, her clothes always seemed high-end and she even carried around one of those fancy briefcases with the initials inscribed across the front, but that could have just been a part of the roleplay. It was the deadeyes that gave her away, that told anyone that looked that she was all about business. And she fucked like a corpse.

"Do they always use that room?" asked the woman. "Room twenty-two."

"Yeah, he's in there right now," said Gorou, a little uncomfortable with the change in her tone.

"He's alone," said the woman. It was a statement, not a question. Gorou gulped.

"Yeah. The girl hasn't turned up yet. Actually, I don't think I've seen her around in a while."

"Thank you for your help," said the woman.

As she turned, she froze. Gorou felt himself go cold as he followed her line of sight to one of the stacks of videos sitting on the desk. He quickly placed his body between her and them, certain that his robust build would warn her off doing anything foolish, despite the fact that he was currently the one trembling like a leaf in a hurricane.

"Why do those video tapes have room numbers on them?" asked the woman. From the tone of her voice, it seemed she already knew the answer.

"That's none of your concern, miss," said Gorou, his voice rising in pitch. "Now this here is a private area, personnel only and I've broken a lot of rules letting you in here-"

"I'd like to see those tapes," said the woman, taking one step forward. One step was sometimes enough.

"Look, I think it's about time you left," said Gorou, squaring his shoulders in what he thought was an intimidating way. Why was his collar suddenly so tight? The top button wasn't even done up. He couldn't breathe.

"Probably," said the woman, placing her sunglasses back on her face. "Probably should have never come here."

This one step was enough to close the gap.

Nene never bothered reviewing the tape labelled room twenty-two. After she'd dragged Gorou's unconscious body into the parking lot, she doused the tapes with gasoline and set the place on fire, pulling the fire alarm on her way out. It was a good thing she and Jun had done that report on the psychology of arsonists back in their final year at Raijin, otherwise she might have ended up burning the entire building down, including room twenty-two and its sole inhabitant. And Nene wasn't done with him yet.

Standing on a roof directly opposite the love hotel, Nene looked through her camera lens at the semi-clothed tenants pouring into parking lot. Twenty-Two came sprinting out wearing a shit-coloured trench coat, matched with a shit-coloured briefcase, and headed to his car, which was, in a sudden turn of events, the colour of shit. As he drove away, Nene took pictures of the car and its number plate.

Reaching into her Chihuahua sized handbag, she pulled out a bulky walkie-talkie and pressed the button on the side. The hair-trigger traffic cop to whom it belonged to had been too busy yelling at the skateboarder that had just crashed into her inbuilt police radio system, to notice Nene walk past and unclip it from her belt.

"Three-fifteen to dispatch. Could you run some plates for me?"

There was a crackle and a voice came through. "Three-fifteen copy. Go ahead, Maki."

Using the phonetic alphabet, Nene relayed the number plate and after a few moments received a name and address. Then she climbed down the ladder on the side of the building and dropped the police-issue radio into a storm drain.

Wakahisa Izanagi, she thought to herself, not breaking stride as she walked by the traffic cop frantically searching the area for her lost radio. Wakahisa, Izanagi. She memorised the name as she turned the corner and slid a wad of cash into the hand of the young skateboarder. Waka-hisa-Iza-nagi. Bile came up her throat as she pulled off her wig and tossed it in the bin, real tears spilling down her face.

God help Wakahisa Izanagi.

That's her. That's her. That's her! Right there. Get her. Get her. Got her. Strong. Weak. Strong. Weak. Make up your mind.

A black umbrella in a sea of black umbrellas dipped low to conceal its holder's presence as the woman approached, tugging the grey hoodie over her head to protect against the rain and pulling the drawstrings so tight tendrils of dark hair poked out framing her face like a crude lion's mane. The lower part of the woman's face was covered with a scarf, leaving only the eyes visible. They reminded Anri of soot and ash, of firewood after the fire had burnt it through.

Akiyama Nene, nineteen-years-old, undergraduate student of politics at Todai by day, investigative journalist by night. These were the tiny snippets of information Anri had been able to wrangle out of the young woman during their last few encounters. The voice in her head said that it was because she wasn't strong enough yet, that she needed to cut more people, but Anri guessed rightly that it was just a case of practice makes perfect.

Following behind, almost running to keep up, Anri tried to see the woman without the curse, the woman whose gait was firm and purposeful, who moved through the crowd like a trail of steam. She felt like a dirty voyeur, but she was beginning to outgrow the shame. To survive in this world she needed to connect any way she could, and this was her first foothold. And something, maybe the psychic link, told her that Akiyama Nene was not so different from her, adrift in the sea like the debris of a broken ship, and this gave her some comfort.

As Akiyama Nene ducked into the alleyway, Anri sensed that it was about that time again and took a deep breath, slipping in behind her. Halfway down the passageway, Nene was facing Anri with a pinched expression. Over the last week, Anri had also gathered that Nene did not like children very much. This was another comfort. She did not want to be liked.

"Why are you following me?" Akiyama Nene demanded tersely. A rucksack hung off her shoulder, the contents of which Anri knew off by heart. A camera, a pair of gloves, a balaclava, a pair of opaque black glasses, a canister of pepper spray, a lock-picking kit, a notepad, about one hundred thousand yen in cash and a little black dress that when folded, could fit into her pocket. "Answer the question."

Akiyama Nene must have been having a bad day because usually she was more polite, not out of any special regard for Anri as a person, but because manners were her first line of defence in an awkward situation. It was the same for Anri.

"I'm sorry, Akiyama-san," said Anri, folding her hands in front of her and bowing her head. "But you're not going to remember this either."

Fists clenched, Akiyama Nene marched towards her. "I am not in the mood-"

Soot-coloured eyes turned red and the woman in front of her froze.

Strong. Weak. Strong. Weak. Make up your mind. I don't like this one. Cut someone else. Cut someone whole.

"Hello, Mother."

Author's Note:

I'm not sure what to say without giving anything away. Things are moving a lot faster in this section of the story, probably because character development has largely been established over the first 19 chapters. Feedback is very much appreciated as I enter darker themes. I read all my reviews and PMs and take them into due consideration so please let me know what you think :). This is probably the last we will see of Shizuo for a while. The next chapter is written up, but requires editing and proof-reading.

Izaya has officially won the poll, and as promised, I will include an 'extra' at the end of one of the future chapters taking place between the events of Chapters 19 and 20.

Ayazi would have been much more dramatic FYI.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, you awesome readers you.