Durarara! Fan Fiction!

Drama! Romance!

(Title)

"Life is not a Shoujo Manga"

DISCLAIMER: I do not own 'Durarara!' or any of the characters!

WARNING! RATED M! Language. Violence

Chapter Twenty-One: "The Reason"

"The beauty of love is, you can fall into it with the most unexpected person at the most unexpected time."

Date: April, 2002

(8 Years Ago)

It's hard sometimes, predicting someone's reaction to something. Depending on what's being said and who it is being said to, there are an impossible amount of reactions to account for. But now, if you narrow it down to someone that you know it would stand to reason that things become a tad clearer and easier to predict, right?

Not really, as it turns out. See, even if you think that you understand the character of the person down to knowing their preferred way to eat their eggs, they can still wind up surprising you in the most unexpected ways. So, what does one do when faced with an unexpected reaction?

Do you just... roll with it?

Katsuko let out a quiet sigh, straightening up from her diligent note taking and brushing her braid back over her shoulder. With a few final words of welcome to the new years and apology for the absence of the Student Body President during the meeting, Vice President Himeko Ogawa left a good first impression on Katsuko. She was reserved and polite, but not to an unapproachable degree! It gave Katsuko hope they might become friends over this semester! She gathered up her notebook and pen and meekly made her way out of the student council room by her lonesome. Her male counterpart of Class 1-D had been a no show, much to Katsuko's annoyance. Though she supposed she shouldn't have expected much more considering the position was only filled after a handful of the boys had drawn lots and the loser had to do it. Shimure-san was not been pleased when he'd drawn the short stick.

She let out another little sigh.

"There you are!" a voice exclaimed, causing Katsuko's head to snap up at attention. She looked down the hall to see none other than her dark-haired seatmate taking casual strides towards her. Even as he came to a stop in front of her, she blinked those teal eyes at him blankly as if she was still doubting his presence.

"What's that look for, Katsuko-chan?" he asked, smiling aloofly.

"O-Oh! I was just wondering why you were still in school so late! Everyone else from class left hours ago!" she rushed to explain, averting her eyes from simply staring at him. Much to Izaya's amusement. "The only people left should be teaching staff, student council and class representatives! Unless, did you join a club yet? I still haven't decided on what clubs I should join. I mean, of course there's the Kendo Club and the Judo Club but I thought it might've been too on the nose—"

It happened almost too fast for Katsuko to see.

In the middle of her nervous babbling, Izaya's eyes had shifted to something over her shoulder and they widened. He had moved, slipping his arm around her waist and pulled her into his chest as he ducked to the side of the hall. Katsuko's heart leapt into her throat, the corner of her eye catching the sight of a familiar head of messy blonde hair.

She watched as Shizuo's fist went flying through where Izaya had just been standing.

Before Katsuko had time to even breathe there was a jerk on her arm and then she was being pulled down the hallway by Izaya, his hand wrapped firmly around her wrist as he ran. Behind them, she heard Shizu shout furiously before the sound of his footsteps began to charge after them and Izaya pulled her faster along. Her mind was spinning as they ran down corridors, past startled students and teachers alike. He took them through a shortcut in the gym to the front of the school and through the front gate, running them down the street towards the evening crowds. She didn't understand what was happening. Some bystanders shouted as Izaya burst past them without warning. 'Why was Shizu so mad?' He shouldn't be so mad without a reason for it!

'Have I done something wrong?' she wondered dazedly.

Something pinched inside her chest when she thought that, causing her to react by digging her heels into the cement much to Izaya's surprise and dismay. They both came to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk and Kat turned around to face the livid superhuman charging at them at full speed—fifteen feet to impact—Izaya let go of her wrist—ten feet—Katsuko took a deep breath—five feet—Shizuo's fist reared back—

"Shizuo! STOP!"

His body jerked and twisted at the last second, sending his fist cratering into the ground behind her. Around them, normal human beings shouted in alarm and retreated away from the girl and the blonde. Izaya was one of these that had moved to a safer distance, but something held him from slipping into the crowd. An unexpected reaction.

Shizuo's chest heaved with effort from the sprint, he was panting as he pulled his fist back up from the crater. The blood pounding in his ears quieted enough for him to stare unblinkingly at the spot that definitely wasn't the annoying bastard's ribcage, but a new hole that he had almost made in Kat. Almost, though. Izaya, too, noticed how instead of continuing the attack like he had anticipated, Shizuo had diverted as soon as Katsuko had gotten in his way.

In this one instance, they both shared the same thought: 'What the hell was that?'

They didn't get an answer to that question before Katsuko had gotten into Shizuo's face with wide eyes as she chewed on her bottom lip, looking like was about to bite through it. Shizuo jerked back in surprise as she began babbling.

"What's wrong?!" she asked worriedly, taking another step forward for every one he took back. "You just came outta nowhere and started swinging—though you missed me but I thought that you might just be pissed and trying to surprise me—is this about the thing your Mom asked me about? I swear, I didn't tell her anything, Shizu!"

"What? Kat—"

Izaya laughed then, directing two sets of eyes towards him. One infinitely less hostile than the other. Shizuo tried to step around Katsuko but she instinctively blocked him from moving forward as she looked between the two boys, both of whom she considered as her friends, hopelessly confused. The crowd that was now surrounding them was paid no attention as she dealt with one crazy situation.

"What is happening here?!" she demanded.

Izaya couldn't keep the smile off his face even though he really had tried to. It was too funny. "I have no clue, Katsuko-chan!" he said with the sound of laughter clear in his voice. "Maybe we should ask Shizu-chan?"

Shizuo made to lunge at Izaya's face again but Kat's hands had wrapped around his wrist and elbow, redirecting his forward momentum into a spin that had him facing the shorter girl again. He growled in immense frustration. "Kat, why the hell are you getting in my way!?" he demanded, yanking his arm out of her grip. She had let him go easily but watched him attentively. "How do you even know this piece of trash!?"

"He's my classmate!" she explained. Green-blue eyes glanced over to the dark-haired boy for the briefest of seconds before she elaborated further, mumbling it to herself mostly. "...and he's the older Twin's brother. N-Now it's your turn! Why are you so mad? And why at him?"

For a moment, Shizuo's expression had screwed up into one of confusion before his hazel eyes widened and he turned a look of renewed fury towards the Orihara boy. Kat stepped in the way of his death glare and spread her arms out in a lame attempt to blockade him. They both knew that wouldn't work. Unless she got a hold on him, she would never be able to stop him if he wanted to get by. She didn't repeat her question, she only looked up at him with those big dopey eyes of hers.

Shizuo scowled. He hated when she did that. It always made him feel weird. Taking a deep—really deep—breath, he managed to clear his head enough to think semi-clearly even though he still very much felt like cracking that guy's skull open. He didn't try to attack again, but he spoke through gritted teeth as his hazel eyes narrowed into a dangerous glare aimed at the teen cowering over his friend's shoulder.

"He's the pest." he seethed.

Kat's brow furrowed immediately.

"The one that—" she stopped, seeing his angered glare and finally getting it. It felt like her breath had been caught and then stolen from her chest when she turned and saw a pair of brown eyes filled with nothing less than droll amusement. She'd seen that look before, when she had found him waiting for her after he had sent that false emergency about Kururi. He was the one who... "That was you, Uzaiya-san?" she asked quietly.

Izaya's smile withered up as a wicked grin stole across Shizuo's face. Never before had the blonde been happier for Kat's inability to get a person's name right. This was not a moment he would be forgetting for the rest of his life. Izaya, however, was far less than amused.

"My name is Izaya, Katsuko-chan. I-za-ya." he corrected with a frown.

Katsuko had blinked those big blue-green eyes at him cluelessly. Then her cheeks flushed with embarrassment once she realized she had messed up once again. "O-Ohh..." she mumbled. Then she remembered that she was actually angry with the dark-haired boy and scowled at him, pressing her fists to her sides. "But, no—You cut Shizu! Why would you do that!?"

"He tried to kill me first," he defended immediately, shrugging. "All I had said was; 'hello' and the next thing I knew, he was charging towards me like a wild beast! He completely demolished the table I'd been sitting on, like it was nothing!" Izaya pressed his hand to his heart, widening his eyes in an imitation of the cutesy manipulation his little sisters always pulled. "I only reacted because I felt my life was in danger. If I hadn't moved then I might have died, Katsuko-chan."

"I'LL FIX THAT RIGHT NOW, YOU BASTARD!" Shizuo roared, moving around a dumbstruck Katsuko. She was quick to stumble in front of her friend to stop him from starting over again, spreading her arms to block him from moving past. He wasn't going to run off and get hit by another vehicle on her watch!

Seeing no immediate danger with the auburn-haired girl in the way, Izaya allowed himself to relax enough to observe how Shizuo snarled and stomped around like a true wild beast. Every time he saw him, Izaya would swear that he acted less and less like a human being. And to think that silly Miss Babysitter persisted in considering him to be a so-called 'friend' of hers even now when he was acting like some kind of rabid animal! Didn't she realize that he could very easily tear her in half if the mood struck him? That earlier miss aside, there wasn't a doubt in Izaya's mind that given the right incentive, Shizuo wouldn't hesitate to happily break naïve Miss Babysitter to little pieces without remorse. The thought of this Monster breaking one of his Humans before he was finished having his fun left a bad taste in his mouth.

"You really are nothing but mindless instinct, aren't you?" Izaya commented with a humorless smirk. Shizuo looked up at him, nostrils flaring like a bull. "Leaving nothing but destruction and ruin as you go. Just, breaking everything in your path without a care, huh? Haha... it's sad to watch, honestly. Katsuko-chan is trying sooo hard but I've got to wonder how long it is until you just—"

He snapped his fingers together, the sound echoing across the near-empty campus and in Shizuo's ears. Shizuo had stopped moving, every muscle in his body becoming exceedingly rigid as he met Izaya's taunting gaze.

"Snap?" he asked, voice deceptively light and airy. "Tell me, Shizu-chan, just how much will be left over of poor Katsuko-chan when you finally lose it?"

"SHUT UUUUP!" Shizuo roared, digging his fingers into the palms of his hands. 'What the hell did this shitty flea know?!' A white-hot anger filled his veins as he watched the smug smirk stretch across that bastard's face. Shizuo decided that he really was going to kill him. He was going to kill that annoyingloudirritating little PEST until he was dead. Maybe then he'd learn not to shoot off his mouth about things he had no goddamned idea about! Like Shizuo would ever—

—He reached up and yanked her hands away from his face, pushing them back into her chest. She stumbled a few steps back from the force, the back of her heel hitting the porch step, and Shizuo's heart lurched in his chest as she fell backwards—

Hurt... Kat. A chill shuddered through his bones and unconsciously Shizuo's eyes darted towards his friend, whose attention was now solely focused on Izaya.

She said he was the first person to make her feel like she wasn't alone anymore.

Hazel eyes strayed down to her bandaged palm and he tried to ignore what happened next. Springing up inside his chest, he tried to ignore that feeling. Even as his expression twisted into a look of obvious guilt, Shizuo tried to ignore the feeling of that tight, painful knot wedging itself back into his chest again.

She told him that he made her happy by just being him, right? That being himself was enough for her? Even with everything that was wrong with him?

Seeing the guilty look spread across the other boy's face before it was washed away with a mask of fearsome anger, Izaya's smirk widened in satisfaction. His gaze had followed the blonde's down to the bandage and he came to his own conclusions. Slipping his hand into the pocket of his black jacket, he palmed the switchblade and got ready to bolt the moment the beast blew his top. 'Shouldn't be too long now,' he thought to himself. 'He's like a bomb waiting to go off. All it takes is finding the right button to push annnnnd... boom~'

"Ohh-ho? What's that on Katsuko-chan's palm?" he whistled, looking back up at the blonde ogre. "Have you already started, then? Or could it be... that it's not the first time you've hurt her?"

That knot in Shizuo's chest twisted.

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!" he roared, even as his mind began to spin.

It was true. Everything he touched, he wrecked and left in pieces behind him. That was a fact that he'd learned the hard way. Whatever Kat saw in him to make her think he was worth befriending was just her seeing what she wanted to see. He wasn't anything more than this cursed strength of his. He knew that and she would know that too if she stopped being so damn blind to it. He hated how helpless he felt when he couldn't control himself more than anything. Unwillingly, he looked at the faces of the crowd around them, seeing their expressions of fear and unease as they watched for what he'd attack next. Who he'd attack next.

It was only a matter of time before he snapped again.

"Really, now, Shizu-chan. That doesn't seem very friendly to me! I know that I would never harm my best friend. Are you sure you're capable of interacting with normal human beings without resorting to excessive acts of violence?" he asked, mocking the term that Miss Babysitter herself had used. Izaya was smiling unkindly, his dark brown eyes were burning with a contempt that he rarely ever expressed as he looked at the blonde beast in front of him.

A cold, tingling feeling shot through Shizuo's chest and spread all the way out to his fingertips. Yeah... he had a good point there. Shizuo knew that Kat would never do anything to hurt him, even unintentionally. She just wasn't capable of it. But him? He could hurt her at anytime.

"Yeah, you're probably right..." he said calmly, drawing surprise from Izaya and alarming Katsuko. Her eyes darted up to his face to see his eyes were shadowed by his hair, showing only a glimpse of cold hazel. He continued, so eerily calm that Izaya's smile had faltered. "Kat's weird and sees the best in people, even when there isn't any. She'd be ten times better off hanging out with anybody other than a violent guy like me."

His teeth grit together tightly and his lips pulled back into a horrifyingly enthusiastic grin, one that promised immense pain and suffering towards the victim it was intended for. As he locked eyes with Izaya, the vein in Shizuo's forehead bulged and he let go of all reason.

"Well... anybody else but you."

The warm hand Kat had thoughtlessly placed on his arm fell away, his name faintly slipping past her lips as he left her side and walked towards one of the cherry blossom trees that grew on the side of the street. The faceless crowd scrambled to get out of his path as they watched on with baited breath. Pink petals swayed and danced around his dyed-blonde hair on their way downwards as he dug his fingers into the bark, one growl of effort leaving his chest before he tore the tree from its rightful place. Gasps of shock and exclamations of awe flooded the crowd. The poor tree groaned as it was lifted over his head, clumps of dirt and grass falling from the gnarled roots to the ground at his feet.

When he'd turned back around, the pest already had his blade out. He was smiling in some smugannoyingshitty way that had the blood pounding in Shizuo's ears. His vision was the first thing to go as he stalked forward. Narrowing back into a pinpoint focus on Izaya, and Izaya alone as he was intent on smashing the bug like he should've done last time. Izaya's mouth was moving but the rushing of his blood began to ring loudly in his ears, making it harder to hear what the pest was saying now. Didn't matter. He wouldn't be saying anything any more in a moment.

His chest heaved with his breath as his muscles wound taut, ready to bring the tree down on the pest's head. Izaya's knife flashed, his lips parted and—his head jerked back as something small and white collided with his face. Izaya stumbled backwards and clutched his throbbing nose in shock before looking down at the object he had been assaulted with. A white, size 8 shoe sat innocently at his feet.

"What the hell?" he muttered, glaring at it over his fingers. He glanced up to see Shizuo turning his head in the same direction the shoe had—THWACK!—Izaya choked on a laugh when an identical shoe smacked into the blonde's face, as well. The shoe had bounced off his head, spinning in the air before it joined it's twin on the ground. Shizuo's face was now purple with rage as they both turned to see Katsuko with her hands planted firmly on her hips as she scowled at the two of them.

She began marching up to them in her socks.

"Kat," Shizuo hissed, two seconds away from throwing the tree at her. Did she seriously just throw her shoe—he bared his teeth in a threatening snarl as she came to stand in between him and the flea again. "What. The. HELL—"

She jabbed her finger into the center of the superhuman's chest, the impact causing the fragile petals clinging to the tree to flutter down on their heads and land in their hair. "I'll get to you in a second, Mister!" she snapped.

Shizuo sputtered in shock at her sharp tone, also causing a smile to quirk Izaya's lips. His curiosity was piqued by Miss Babysitter's waspish rebuke towards the brute. He wasn't happy with how she'd hit him with her shoe, but he found it a bit more bearable after Shizu-chan got hit, too. The look on his face was one Izaya would not be forgetting soon. Though with the way she looked like she was about hit him with another shoe, he couldn't help but wonder what could be going through her mind at this moment...?

Katsuko's braid flew over her shoulder as she spun on her heel to face the dark-haired troublemaker, her eyes meeting Izaya's woefully amused gaze. "And you—" She leveled her finger at Izaya's nose, her lips pressed in a tight frown. "Ignore what he just said; Shizu is a big idiot sometimes!"

Izaya blinked, unsure that he'd just heard that right—Katsuko began to ramble without taking a breath, either oblivious or purposely overlooking the wide-eyed stares both boys were now giving her. "Okay, so he doesn't think things through when he's angry, but he's far from being mindless! He doesn't go on destructive sprees around the city! He loves Ikebukuro! And even though he doesn't say so, I know that he feels really bad whenever he does get mad and breaks things!"

From behind her, Shizuo's body tensed as he became more aware of how he was still elevating the cherry tree over them. Petals still fluttering down around them. A slow flush of heat crept up his neck as he had the damnedest urge to put the tree back in case Kat had been to oblivious to notice it. He glanced back to where he'd uprooted it. You never know, she actually might not have yet...

"But you know what? So what if he breaks things!? They're just things! Things can be replaced—but Shizuo can't! He is my best friend and I wouldn't want him to be anyone other than who he is! He gets into fights a lot and he can look really scary sometimes, but that isn't who he is! He is so kind and compassionate under that! He loves his little brother more than anything and he is the one who looks out for me when I get into trouble! Like this one time with the—No! Wait! That isn't important right now!" she scolded herself, slapping her hands against both sides of her face to focus. "My point is that he always has my back! He's the one that walks with me every day to school, even though it's out of his way. He's the one that cheers me up when I'm feeling down or when I get stressed about studying and he always saves the last strawberry milk for me!"

By the time that Katsuko had finished her over-sharing she was panting for breath, hardly pausing throughout the entire rant. Everyone was quiet. Izaya, Shizuo and the growing crowd of spectators did not utter a word as she collected herself again. Eventually the dark-haired teen in front of her straightened up and slid his hands into his pockets, expression relaxing into something neutral and unaffected. Izaya's eyes were cold when he looked back at her. Filled with a sort of dissatisfied emotion Katsuko recognized intimately, causing her stomach to churn uncomfortably.

A look of disappointment.

Still, Katsuko balled her fists and held her chin high. Her voice only wavered for a moment before she regained her out-spoken confidence. "So even... even if he doesn't see it himself, I know what the kind of person Shizuo is! And if you tried to see it for yourself then you'd find out that Shizuo is one of the kindest, gentlest and most thoughtful people you could ever have the chance of calling friend!"

Some of the women in the crowd 'awwed' at Katsuko's passionate declaration, most murmuring among themselves as they tried to reconcile the person she described to the tree-wielding superhuman before them now. She didn't wait to listen to Izaya's reply before she had turned on her heel again and focused her full attention back on her blonde best friend, the action causing said blonde's body to instinctively tense in defense.

"And you!" she began, voice nearly trembling with raw emotion. Shizuo's gut stirred with a feeling reminiscent to guilt as a sheen of water started up in her eyes. "It was only last night that I laid out all my feelings to you, and you still have the guts to say to my face that I should try and find another friend!? Are you taking my feelings lightly?!"

His mouth fell open wordlessly before he promptly shoved his foot into it and began tripping over his every word as Katsuko slowly grew more and more incensed.

"Kat, I didn't mean it like that—I mean, I did but—"

"So you are! Even after everything I told you!"

"I'm just trying to say that you shouldn't have to worry about me going berserk—"

"I cannot believe you! What do you want me to do to prove myself?! Shout it from the rooftops for the rest of the world!?"

"Kat, if you just shut up and listened to me for one damn minute—"

"HEEEEEYYY!" Kat threw her head back and Shizuo watched in horror as she began to shout at the top of her lungs. "HEIWAJIMA SHIZUO IS A REALLY NICE GUY AND I AM SOOOO HAPPY THAT HE IS MY BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WORLD AND I LOVE HIM!"

The cherry tree abruptly dropped from Shizuo's hands and landed precariously on the long sidewalk, onlookers yelping and scrambling out of the away as it tipped over on its side, landing harmlessly and causing an eruption of petals to fly into the air. Katsuko looked at it in surprise right before she was lifted off her shoeless feet into the air. She blinked only once before her world tilted and the fallen tree was moving farther away, or more precisely, she was the one being moved. It took her a moment longer than it ought've before she realized that Shizu had picked her up, placed her on his shoulder and had began walking away from the scene.

Before he faded away into the crowd, Katsuko had seen Izaya watch them go with a look of extreme dissatisfaction on his face. She didn't have time at the moment to mourn the loss of her friendship with her seatmate, or to contemplate the cruel and taunting nature she had witnessed from him today. She felt a breeze on her thighs and was reminded of the arm that was wrapped around the back of her knees to keep her from falling, her priorities shifting back into focus.

"SHIZU! PUT ME DOWN!" she screeched, fruitlessly smacking her fist against his back while the other reached around to hold her skirt down. After showing no signs of relenting, Katsuko began to wriggle around, oblivious to the gasps and looks of incredulity they received as Shizuo proceeded to march her down the busy Ikebukuro district. Continuing to ignore her protests, she attempted to twist around in her position to see her best friend's face, to no avail.

Hidden beneath a mop of messy blonde hair, Shizuo's brow was twitching like crazy and his face colored a glowing shade of red. He kept his head down as he made his way through the crowd that quickly parted after seeing his dark aura. He also was mumbling quietly to himself about how stupid she was to shout all that in front of all those people. Saying that she loved him! He'd never heard anything more ridiculous come out of her mouth before! It wasn't bad enough that she had just went on and on about all the things she considered to be good—She was just so... so embarrassing! Only she could get away with being so dumb and nice at the same time! She hadn't meant anything more by it, he knew. It was just Kat was being Kat and saying stupid things without thinking them through all the way, but... but nothing! It was nothing. It was just Katsuko being her weird self and saying a bunch of weird stuff.

Even as he trudged down the street, Shizuo's heart kinda raced in his chest when he replayed her words in his head, something funny bounced around in his gut, and then he couldn't wipe the damn smile off his face. The weirdest feeling of his racing heart countered how... at ease he felt at that moment. Kat's fists against his shoulder became half-hearted and his steps slowed to a relaxed pace as the sun disappeared behind the skyline. Looking at the time, Shizuo decided that it was probably too late to try and go back for the things they left behind at school. So it'd be pointless to go back there, but Shizuo also didn't want to leave her at her house yet. Not until after he found a way to make it up to her after what he'd said.

Seeing a flyer in the ground, an idea struck him.

"...Kat?" he spoke up.

"Whaaaaaaat..." she whined petulantly, limply hanging from his shoulder now.

"Do you still wanna go to that Sushi place?"

A beat of silence. He didn't turn to see what her expression was. She began wriggling again.

"Oh! Oh! Can we, Shizu? Can we, please?"

He rolled his eyes with a socff, heading in the direction of the restaurant.

"Tch. I'm the one that asked you!"

"I wonder what kind of food Russian Sushi is? Hey Shizu, do you think they do other country's sushi too? Oh! Do you think they have California rolls?! I used to love eating those back when—" Katsuko continued to ramble in that cheerfully distracting way as Shizuo walked. The urge to punch something (Preferably himself after everything that just transpired) was ever-constant. But, he wasn't as angry anymore. It never usually lasted very long when Kat was nearby, oddly enough.

There was still something bouncing around in his stomach, yeah. And his chest still felt a bit funny every time he heard Kat's smile in her voice, but he was sure it would go away as soon as he ate something.

Chapter Twenty-One: "The Reason"

END

A/N: This is it! I've been holding onto this for a while but then it hit me. It's Christmas! I want to share! Sorry about such a long wait since the last update but I promise that I only take so long just to make sure to give you guys only the best of my abilities! Anyways, I have some more chapters to post for some other stuff! Happy holidays and I wish you a GREAT New Years! I'll see you guys in 2020!

Special thanks to my great friend ClosetCase for helping me with the chapter! I really couldn't have gotten this chapter done without your help and advice! And a big thank you to all you wonderful readers who keep me inspired with your reviews! Thank you!

I love you all, remember that and stay warm wherever you are!

-Nanami