A/N: Have I ever mentioned how I don't like this site's interface? Really, it's nice for reading but a real pain for publishing, especially when I have to edit in author notes for each chapter at the top of it and I can't change them without deleting and re-uploading the entire thing again. Also, the formatting automatically removes all my lovely paragraph breaks and makes it a lot harder to format.

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Chapter 5: Izaya the Book Killer and Namie the Bitch Slapper

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Izaya is still a little jittery from his encounter with Shizuo. He feels elevated, almost excited even, as if he'd been injected with a shot full of energy. Is it maybe just the sugar rush? Izaya isn't one for sweets usually, so perhaps it was the pocky that made him feel like a hyperactive child. He ends up coming home late and after finishing up his nightly routine, slips himself under the covers of his bed.

While it is true that he dreads falling asleep in fear of experiencing the same bone crushing nightmares again, there is also a part of him that thinks perhaps today will be different. If he falls asleep now, surely, he won't have to relive the horrifying experience. He hasn't been taking the sleeping pills for over a week now, or any other pills for that matter.

Surely…surely this time…

-.-.-.-.-

For once, Izaya is back in his own beautiful body and not an observant watching from the perspective of a child's eyes. He's at home, alone, staring out of his sky high windows and overlooking the city below.

Beautiful.

Beautiful, that's what it is.

Simply beautiful.

All the little humans walking around like little, tiny ants while Izaya towers above them, watching, observing, enjoying their reactions like an omniscient God.

There goes that woman with her husband by her side, pretending to be oblivious as she bumps into the man she's having an affair with. And the young boy stuck in a love triangle with two girls, even though he never asked for it and is only trying to seem cool to his friends despite being gay. Or even that one boy who claims to be in love with his big breasted classmate but is secretly sexually involved with the guy whose brother beat up his best friend's girlfriend. That last one is particularly convoluted, and Izaya revels in the complexity of their situations.

Yes, humans truly are entertaining creatures, to say the least.

Suddenly, the glass of the window disappears and offers him the world below, beckoning Izaya to take that one little step over the edge. The overwhelming urge to let go and throw himself from the tall height versus the unavoidable human instinct to survive as long as possible; those are the two opposing forces currently at battle in his own mind. But this is a dream, after all. Izaya has nothing to fear, for even if he so chooses to accept his fate, the death he feels in his dream will only be a simulation. And he's experienced the pain of having his body broken and twisted in every which way. To him, such a death at his very own hands is merciful.

Izaya takes the leap of faith, spreading out his arms like a majestic eagle as he falls. Down, down, to the ground.

He doesn't hit the concrete, as he'd been expecting. Instead, he lands one a soft and fluffy cloud. Except it's not exactly a cloud. It's too solid and its oval shape too sculpted to be just a random mass of water droplets. Of course, if it was said mass of water particles he would have surely continued falling. Instead, as he looks down, he notices what it is exactly he's laying on.

It's rice. A single grain of rice millions of times its usual size. A humongous grain of rice the size of a submarine. And at the very end of the rice, Izaya can see something…something pink? Is that? It couldn't be. A giant strip of fatty tuna in the shape of a slide, a long spiral that keeps descending and descending into complete darkness. He claps his hands together joyously. What could be waiting for him at the bottom?

Curiosity overtakes him as he throws himself down on his stomach and slides down, all the way to the very bottom. He gets his answer, for who is there to greet him? Why, it's all his lovely humans with their arms outstretched, welcoming him in. He laughs as their chants echo around him.

"Izaya-sama, Izaya-sama,"

Their cries are music to Izaya's ears. Oh how good it feels to be acknowledged, to be loved, to have all these people gather around him. He makes his way through the crowd, accepting each bit of praise he can get, from one end of the room to the other.

Being their God, he has to see to it that he meets each and every one of his subjects personally. He swims through the sea of people and passes by a few familiar faces. Namie, Dotachin and his crew, his favorite highschooler he loves to mess with… but there's one face that hasn't appeared yet, no matter how hard Izaya looks.

He whips his head around desperately, searching for his tall frame amidst the crowd, but he can't find him. He thinks that he's so close, so close, but when he turns his head once again, the only person standing in front of him is definitely not who he'd been searching for.

Shinra.

He opens his mouth to speak.

"What did you expect, Orihara-kun? The one you are looking for is not human."

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While Izaya acknowledges that the dream he had after seeing Shizuo was weird, it still hardly counted as a nightmare considering the fact that it included all this favorite things: namely, ootoro and humans. The dreams that follow the next few nights are equally as mild and don't leave him jolting awake in the middle of the night, shivering and gasping for air. For once, he feels as if he can actually get some proper work done and he manages to accomplish more in the first three days after encountering Shizuo than he had in the entirety of the week being stuck with those nightmares.

So after a long day of stirring up trouble, Izaya finds comfort in laying in his bed, curled up under his blanket and enjoying the things he used to. In this case, it's a cup of tea on his bedside table and an interesting book just under his fingertips: 人間失格, or simply No longer Human by Dazai, Osamu.

However, as interesting as the prospect of a double suicide mentioned in the book is to him, before long, Izaya finds his eyes coming to a close as he drifts off into his dreamland. This time, he believes that those past nightmares of overpowered children and broken bones are long gone.

But boy, how wrong he is.

He's a kid again, in the same body as before. This time, his arm is already in a cast, meaning he is still recovering from a previous injury. He walks next to another child, just a few years younger than him. It's the pudding thief again. His brother.

They're walking from school that day and he happens to catch the sweet smell of freshly baked bread. He turns his head towards the delicious aroma and sees a woman, much older than he is with dark brown hair and warm brown eyes. She calls out to them with two bottles of milk in her hands. She's pretty, and her voice is kind.

"For your bones, so that you can get stronger"… she says something along those lines as she offers them the bottles of milk. He takes one, his fingers lightly brushing against hers. A light flush dusts his cherubic cheeks and his chest starts to feel warm, light. She's not scared of him. On the contrary, her smile is the brightest anyone had even given him.

Every day, he walks the same way, anticipating his encounter with that woman. And every day, her radiant smile lights up his world as she hands him a fresh bottle of milk.

Until one day, everything changes.

He's walking home in the same way, the sun already setting in the horizon. He's eating a lollipop and enjoying the sweet taste of strawberry on his tongue. His eyes settle on the bakery again, ready to see the same woman with her cheerful attitude greeting him as always.

Except the scene unfolding in front of him is different. The sounds of the railway crossing echo in the distance as he stares, eyes wide open and gaze fixated on the woman he holds in such high regard.

Three men are next to her, pulling and tugging at her arm and shouting inaudible words he can't quite pick up on. Rather, he can barely register anything except the vibrant ringing in his ears. The lollipop stick in his hand snaps and falls to the ground.

And he, too, snaps.

Before he's fully aware of what had transpired, he's standing in the middle of the now devastated bakery, debris all around him and the three men laying unconscious on the ground. As for the woman, the woman he admired oh so deeply… She, too, lays there, body completely still with a pile of rubble atop of her. He's the only one still standing, clenching his tiny fists tightly with tears running down his cheeks and wondering why… just why?

Why is it that the strength he possesses is only good for hurting others, as opposed to saving those he cherishes?

-.-.-.-.-.-

Izaya wakes up almost all too quickly, feeling instantly irritated. Wonderful, simply great. Just when he'd thought he'd been freed from the nightmares, here they come, surfacing again. His annoyance quickly turns to a full blown fury as rage boils in the pit of his stomach; a rage that mirrors the wrath he feels in his dreams all too perfectly. Surely, there must be a reason for it.

Surely… he thinks as he looks down and sees the book he'd fallen asleep with while reading. He narrows his eyes.

It's the book's fault, he thinks. It has to be the fucking book that caused all this.

He picks up the book in disdain, holding it at a distance in between his index finger and thumb as if it were a washed up, rotten, smelly old shoe.

His once loved possession suddenly churns his stomach with an ugly, sick feeling.

The anger. The fucking anger is back again, making his whole body feel hot, as if he's on fire. It's like he isn't even aware of his own actions because in the next moment he's huffing on the bed with the pages from the book crumbled up in his clenched fists. And then, he throws what remains of the book as hard as he can, sending the object flying across his bedroom only to crash into the wall with a small thud.

Boy, is he fucking angry. Angry that the book didn't make a hole in the wall and fly out of existence.

It's the damn books, he thinks as he throws the suffocating covers off himself and marches downstairs in his sleeping attire, not even bothering to change.

All the damn books.

He stomps over to his bookshelf with his hands crossed across his chest.

All the damn fucking books.

Unfolding his hands, he picks out one random book and rips it right out of its cozy place in between the others, before spinning around and hurtling it across the room. He then picks up another, and another, and proceeds to throw them in various directions. Some of them he lingers on, and goes as far as to rip the pages out before throwing them up in the air like confetti.

But it's not enough.

Goddammit, it's not enough.

No, he needs to think bigger, bolder. He grabs onto the bookshelf with all his might and starts pulling. His grip is a bit loose since he can't exactly curl his pinky around the dark wood, but that doesn't stop him from trying. He puts all of his body into it, attempting to lift the bookshelf up. It's an unrealistic expectation, but now, more than anything, he wants to throw the entire damned thing across the room and out his windows. Obviously, he's too weak to do that. But it doesn't stop him from trying.

He's so focused on destroying all the books that he hardly even acknowledges Namie walking in through his front door. She enters, only to see him huffing and puffing and attempting to lift a bookshelf in only a t-shirt and his underwear. She drops her bag to the ground, her mouth hanging agape.

"I knew you had a few too many loose screws in your head, but this is pushing the limit. Just what in the hell are you doing this time?" she breathes out as her eyes shift from Izaya to the pile of papers and books on the floor, and back to Izaya.

"Isn't it obvious, Namie-san? I'm trying to kill all these books," he wheezes out in response as he strains against the bookshelf. With an irritated grunt, Namie marches over to him and slides her arms around his waist, holding him tightly as she pulls on his thin body, attempting to rip him away from the bookshelf before he seriously injures himself.

"The only thing you're going to kill is yourself if you keep acting like this. Besides, I don't want to have to clean up after yet another one of your messes!" Despite her protests, Izaya isn't about to relent in his pursuit to destroy all of his literature.

"No! I'm going to kill all of these books, and I'll kill you too if you don't. Let. Me. Go!" he screams like a child throwing a tantrum just as Namie manages to pluck him off the bookshelf. Now having lost his grip, Izaya resorts to swatting at her arms and trying to dig his fingernails through the fabric of her white coat.

"Izaya, NO!" she screams as his movements become more erratic, like a rabid cat on a rampage. All too suddenly, Izaya's fingernails do pierce the exposed skin of Namie's hand, drawing a small amount of blood. At this point, Namie has had enough. She drags him to the couch despite his wailing and throws him down rather violently onto the sleek, black cushions. It's rather easy to do, since he doesn't weigh all that much. She then proceeds to sit on his stomach and force his arms down, keeping them in place under her calves.

"Get. It. Together," she grows through gritted teeth, just as she brings her hand up high, before she bringing it back down with all her might against Izaya's face. A sickening smack echoes through the room as her palm connects with his cheek, forcing his head to turn with the force of her slap.

Deep down she probably realizes that she shouldn't have done this, but Izaya's actions have been far too baffling and irrational lately. She's tired of his antics, if he is doing this on purpose. And if he's not? Well, hopefully this will snap him out of it. It seems that the latter is true, because not long after, he turns to her with a look of pure confusion splayed across his facial features.

"Namie-san, what are you doing? Is this some new form of sexual harassment?" he asks. He's calm now and doesn't struggle against her tight hold anymore. She immediately gets off of him and proceeds to straighten her skirt, releasing her hold and allowing him to rub his now reddening cheek.

"If anyone is harassing anyone here, it's you harassing me with your weird behaviors," she sniffs as she crosses her arms and looks at him in disdain. Yet Izaya is perplexed by her actions. His mind feels slightly fuzzy. He shakes his head before bringing his hand up from his cheek to his forehead, trying to rub the aches away.

"I don't-… What?" he starts. Her expression softens and for a moment, Izaya gets the impression from her that she's genuinely concerned.

"Just now… you were trying to throw the bookshelf? You even scratched me?" She explains as she shows him her injury, the bleeding having now stopped. He stares at the red line spanning from the base of her thumb to the start of her wrist, dumbfounded at the fact that he had unknowingly caused harm to her. Even when he did tease her, he never went far enough as to injure her in any way.

"Ah… I'm…sorry. I didn't intend to hurt you," he says, his voice somewhat quiet and a little shy. This whole ordeal is ridiculous. At first he's freaking out, then he's fine, then he's disassociating, then he's fine again, and then it all collapses around him. Like a rollercoaster, going up and down and up and down, but each down is just another dip in Izaya's own sanity.

"Do you…need help with that?" he finally asks her, and she looks genuinely taken about by his kind gesture.

"No, it's fine. I'll take care of it," she mutters her reply.

"Moreover, what's happening with you?"

Izaya scowls, turning away from her. He could very well lie, but what good would that do?

"I- I don't know," he answers as he brings his legs up and holds his knees against his chest. His eyebrows come together as he tries to process the situation. He hates not knowing. He needs answers, and he thinks he might be able to find those answers with just enough digging. He turns his attention back to Namie.

"Could you get me some tea? I have a call to make," he says. He can't take it anymore. He truly can't. The sleepless nights, the nightmares, the temper tantrums coming out of nowhere. It all inhibits his ability to live his best, self serving life.

All this shit started when Shinra gave him those pills. The first burst of anger being the only exception, but other than that, the nightmares appeared right after Izaya had taken the pills. And although he'd no longer been taking them, Izaya thinks that maybe, just maybe, if all this shit started with Shinra, then it should just as well end with Shinra. It's all the shitty doctor's fault, it must be. It's something in those pills making him experience all these misfortunes.

Sighing, he takes out his phone and dials Shinra's number. He hopes this time the asshole will actually answer.

"Tea with two spoons of sugar, by the way," Izaya adds quickly for Namie to hear, just as Shinra answers the phone.