NOTE: After the concrit you guys gave me, a LOT of changes have been made to the previous chapter. If you want to read the upgraded version, I would recommend it.
Enjoy!
The Heart Between Us - Ch. 3
Izaya twirls it in his hands, holds it up to the sunlight and watches the rays diffract through it, forming a rainbow on his face. He tosses it once up in the air, and then just keeps turning it over and over in his hands, eyes roving over it, fascinated at the disgustingly sweet warmth that emanates from it, and the purity within it, clear and fresh like morning air in the mountains.
He cackles at the catch he's found, and when he's bored, tucks it away within his own chest and hops off the top of the tree he's been napping in, the air cradling his fall so that he lands with a soft touch on the mossy ground.
He doesn't think twice about the boy he gathered this curiosity from, pleased instead at his rhetoric skills and immersed in a glutinous self-satisfaction at having succeeded. He is forever testing the limits of his prowess, and though he's long suspected himself capable of this particular task, this was his first opportunity to test it. He needs consent from his victims, after all, and when dealing with matters of the heart… well, that can be the hardest, as well as the easiest thing to accomplish.
He lets a wicked smile cross his face as he saunters off, whistling a commoner's ditty picked at random.
"Now, where's the next despairing soul for me to take advantage of?"
o-o
"Brother?"
Kasuka may only speak in one-word sentences sometimes, but Shizuo has never had trouble understanding him. The concern in his eyes at the hardened, despondent look in Shizuo's eyes is enough for him know what Kasuka is really asking.
"I'm just tired."
Shizuo has never lied before. He's always wished he could, because he's seen how it used to get the other village boys out of trouble. He's always been a bit impulsive, and with his one-track mind it is easy for him to lose track of unimportant things like time and chores, getting caught up observing the clouds, or a leaf stuck in a whirlpool. Being able to say something as simple as 'I was helping a passer-by find some food' or 'Satou's goat ran away again and I was helping catch it', all legitimate excuses in their village, would have excused him a stern lecture and punishment in more than one occasion.
But Shizuo always felt too guilty about lying to be able to do it.
That is not the case anymore. He lets Kasuka believe that his clipped words and sullen manner are due to mere exhaustion, and feels no remorse for the emptiness of his words.
o-o
Something cold touches his arm, and Shizuo jumps, gaze breaking away from where it had been focused on the top of his knees, as if he can somehow visualize the slow ache that permeates through them and all his other joints as well.
It is Kasuka, holding a piece of melon that has been kept chilled in the cold stream. Shizuo takes it, mumbling a thank you as Kasuka sits down beside him. He still takes all chances given to sit as close as possible to Shizuo, sides pressed in one warm line that dissipates all space between them. Normally, Shizuo would lean into the touch as well, basking in the gentle warmth of the affection he has for Kasuka. Now, with nothing seeping into his heart save for irritation at his inability to feel what he remembers feeling so strongly before, the pose only makes him angry and uncomfortable. But he doesn't want to feel angry at Kasuka, and though he realizes with a bitter start that he would not feel guilty anymore if he were to push him away, something keeps him from doing so. He's not sure whether it's mere logic—the knowledge that he should not do that to Kasuka— or a different sort of feeling: disappointment and hatred at himself, for doing something that he knows he would have never done before.
He bites into his melon to distract himself, welcoming the sweet juices that burst in his mouth. A beetle crawls onto his leg, and Shizuo uses the movement of reaching down to flick it off to put distance between him and Kasuka.
o-o
The women have been arguing for a while. There is Michiko, the wife of their village's medicine man, and Keiko, their neighbor, with her month-old infant cradled in her arms, and a few other women that Shizuo often saw his mother conversing with, but never bothered to learn their names.
They debate whether they should go back to their village to find any survivors, while others say to simply try to find the nearest village, because they won't last long in the wolf-ridden wilderness.
Shizuo sits cross-legged next to Kasuka and one of the suriving toddlers, making pictures with sticks and stones, largely trying to ignore their conversation. Now that he has Kasuka, he does not care about his next steop. Most likely they will just follow the adults and head to wherever they decide– he has no parents or relatives left, after all, so the next best thing is just following their friends and neighbors.
"We don't even know if there's anything left to go back to, do you remember what it looked like when we—"
"We don't know that for certain. We can't not go back—"
Shizuo blinks and looks up when Michiko gets up and kneels in front of him, tucking her tattered kimono neatly underneath her, a lady even in the middle of the tree-stumps and moss-covered stones.
"Shizuo, child," she murmurs, as if he were about to rip another tree out of the ground, or turn tail and run. They have been all a bit hesitant around him, not sure what to make of his strength—is it god-given, or a trick of the evil spirits? Shizuo himself does not know, and thus can offer no reassurances, "Where you there after the pillagers left? What became of our village?"
Shizuo frowns, "There was nothing left."
She looks slightly taken aback, "Nothing?"
Shizuo just looks at her. She covers her mouth with a dainty hand, closing her eyes for a moment, and then she speaks softly.
"But where are your father and mother?"
Shizuo glances at Kasuka, whose eyes are now wide and his stops over the stone he'd been about to pick up. This is not how he'd meant for Kasuka to find out, but he can't find it in him to actually care, can't feel the remorse and the sympathy and the ache that he should be experiencing at the sudden dread in Kasuka's cold eyes. He looks back at Michiko.
"Like I said, there was nothing left."
The women all look dismayed, minds presumably jumping to their husbands and other children, and Shizuo turns away from them without another thought, reaching towards Kasuka and pulling him over, wrapping him in his arms. He goes through the motions mechanically, but muses that it's good that this simple bit of common sense has not left him, and allows him to respond as he should be responding.
If his arms are not tight enough, and he doesn't feel the urge to rub his brother's faintly trembling back or whisper any comforting words, he doesn't realize it.
o-o
They decide to make their way to one of their neighboring villages, in the hopes that any survivors made their way there. The trip takes two days, the distance that Shizuo had covered in less than one. They keep themselves barely fed with roots and fruits, and at night, Kasuka and Shizuo set up traps so that in the morning they are able to prepare fox and rabbit meat. Shizuo skins the animals, a task his father had tried and failed to relegate to him many times. Shizuo had always liked animals.
His father would be proud now, if he could see the brusque mechanical way in which he sets himself to work.
o-o
The village welcomes them with food and offers them a chance to bathe and rest, having heard of the massacre and thanking the gods that they were spared. They do indeed find a few of their own who managed to escape and take refuge here, and within a few hours of conversation their fates are decided. They will start anew here, settle and assimilate into this new village, and keep moving forward. Humans are a hardy race, and though the women mourn their families, they know there is no choice but to harden themselves and keep on going through the motions of life.
o-o
Shizuo tries to as well. Kasuka is obstinately attached to him, in a way that Michiko thinks is endearing and allows. She has offered to take them in now that they have no one else to turn to, and they have agreed, helping her and the other women build their simple huts on one side of the village, where the other refugees have started building already.
Shizuo would have thought at one point that it was endearing as well, but now it only makes him angry. So unbearably angry and frustrated, to look at Kasuka and only remember in knowledge that he used to love him, that he's happy to have him back. Cracks form in his composure, as if he were ice dropped in water. He finds himself snappy, fighting for control of this simmering buildup of red-hot anger.
When Kasuka attempts to hold his sleeve for the umpteenth time, Shizuo snaps and catches himself just in time to take hold of a small sapling instead of his brother, and whirl it into the distance. Kasuka claps with a straight face and then pokes Shizuo's trembling biceps.
o-o
He feels anger at himself, which doesn't exactly make sense, since it's not like he can do anything about this whole mess, but he wants to feel something and tries to make himself, and when it doesn't work he stomps off into the woods faster than Kasuka can catch up to. He stumbles and falls to his knees in a small clearing dotted with mushrooms and violet pansies, and he lies down on his side among them, consumed with fear that this is what the rest of his life is going to be like. He finds he's still capable of tears, and they leak down his face one by one.
There is no regret within him though, because he knows, though he can't feel it the same way he once did, that this is what he chose. This is what he wanted: Kasuka, no matter what the price.
o-o
By this point, Kasuka, though young, is certainly perceptive enough to realize there is something wrong with his brother. His brother, who hasn't laughed in the past two weeks, his brother, who hasn't smiled at him for as long. But every time he asks, Shizuo stares glumly at the ground, fists tightening and shaking, and mutters with gritted teeth, "Nothing."
Kasuka is too young to realize the importance of getting his brother to admit differently and get to the root of the issue, too young to challenge his idol. His eyebrows twitch in an attempt to frown, but he trusts his brother. If he says it is nothing, then it must be nothing.
o-o
He tries to be calm and patient but he can't, and at one point, he just stops trying. Why fight himself? It only leaves him tired and irritable, and makes him avoid people — Kasuka— so that he does not lash out at them.
Unfortunately, the sudden bursts of unexplained violence have swiftly congealed into a reputation that has all of the people around him shying away, giving him a wide berth when they pass. Some have begun to deny him entrance in their homes, while others don't even speak up for fear that any provocation will result in an unmitigated explosion. Shizuo has been used to being patted on the head and smiled at, always being told he's a good boy, praised for his obedience and manners. To go from that to these frightened glares, to having mothers keep their children away from him, to hearing the village elder arguing with Michiko about making sure to keep him controlled…
Shizuo lies in his cot at night, staring at the straw packed between the wooden beams of the roof, and feels hated for the first time in his life. His very existence dwindles under the onslaught like a match struggling against a gust of wind.
o-o
The final straw comes when Shizuo and Kasuka are grinding rice to make into paste. They stand at one end of the rice field, next to the barn, hefting wooden pestles almost as long as they are tall. Shizuo has to be careful when grinding the rice. The first time, without thinking, he slammed the pestle down and broke the grinding stone, lodging the pestle nearly two feet into the ground. Now he makes sure to tap the pestle carefully against the stone, watching the rice disintegrate into fine powder. They've been at it for an hour, finally stopping to take a break. Kasuka is sitting on a piece of wood behind him, scratching his scalp where the sweat has made it itch and swinging his legs so that his toes brush the grass. Shizuo bends down to sit on his haunches, sifting his fingers through the ground rice and feeling the bits of larger grain left within the powder.
"Brother. Catch."
Shizuo lifts his head and turns it just in time to see a black small blur flying towards him, but it's too fast for him to catch it. It lands on his collarbone and suddenly there's a sharp intense burst of pain, and he howls.
Kasuka blinks as Shizuo rips out the bug, a giant, ant-like insect with a set of jaws bigger than its head, and why did Kasuka think it'd be funny to toss him one of those?
"Kasukaaaaa!" Shizuo doesn't even have control of himself anymore – it's all anger, all instinct, he reaches beside him and picks up the grinding stone, and it wobbles once under his unsteady muscles before he manages to find a precarious balance and hoist it over his head.
Kasuka just stares at him, eyes half-lidded with only faint hints of interest. He does not cower, does not flinch, just watches Shizuo with that ever-trusting gaze of his.
It is a woman's scream— what is that boy doing! — that jolts him out of his sudden trance and his maladjusted body loses its balance and drops the grinding stone. It rattles the ground, a bone-shaking thud, and Shizuo feels lightheaded, the vertigo overriding even the pain of his dislocated shoulders and making his vision black out into a shimmering wave of black pinpricks that surround him until he feels like he's floating upside down. Then gravity reasserts itself and he wobbles and stumbles to the ground, falling flat on his butt first, and then finding himself unable to even sit up, muscles trembling erratically.
He keeps butting heads against a single thought in his head, trying to get around it, but he can't, it rushes to meet him like a bull, sharp horns digging into his conscience.
He had been about to throw the stone.
o-o
He is cajoled awake by a rhythmic tapping on the back of his hand, light and airy, but his sleep must have finally reached a shallow-enough depth to be awakened by the small motion. Shizuo lifts his head, giving a sharp glare to his brother, who watches him with his eyes flat as usual and his eyebrows raised in a mockery of amusement.
"Aren't you angry?" he grunts.
Kasuka shrugs.
Shizuo frowns, cold fear beginning to seep into him, and anger, thickening and roiling with the cold like oil and water mixing futilely and making a nauseating combination, "I was about to throw a stone at you."
Kasuka shakes his head.
"You think I wouldn't have done it?"
Kasuka just looks at him, completely certain, and it is that certainty that makes Shizuo's stomach clench until he turns to the side, hand coming up to cover his mouth because he's sure he's going to throw up.
Kasuka believes in him. Kasuka was sure that Shizuo would have never truly thrown the rock. But Shizuo knows, he felt it. He had been poised for it, about to contract his muscles and send the large mass of granite flying. The only thing that stopped him was the distraction of the woman's fortuitous scream.
He hates this. He is no longer able to feel the love that kept him protecting Kasuka, and is no longer able to keep control of his anger. There is nothing to keep him from hurting Kasuka. But he can still feel the disgust and sadness at having hurt him or even thought to hurt him. The sadness permeates his every pore, penetrates his skin and sinks into his bones, leaving him disappointed and weary, because now he understands what he's lost, and more importantly, understands what it truly means to have lost it.
He realizes now that he cannot live like this.
Alright, so I got so caught up with Shizuo that Izaya hardly made an appearance, woops. Hope you enjoyed - your reviews have been incredibly helpful, really 3