6. Forever Twenty-One
.
.
Some time during his teenage years, his sisters found strands of white hair nestled among his black ones. It was an uncommon thing since his parents' hair doesn't show signs of graying just yet, despite them being somewhere in their late 40's, and Mairu and Kururi are too young. He wonders if it could be something like a recessive gene, since he knows there are some people of his age that have gray hair growing alongside amongst their black ones, like pepper and salt mixed together in one big pile. He'd love to ask his parents if it was really genetic somewhere in their line, but they're so often away, the thought to question about it fades away when he has finally accepted the irregularity of his hair color.
So he buys hair dye, and leaves it at that, and everybody else can think of what they want to think (he buys it for his mother, or sometimes his older sister, he would tell the lady at the counter of the store he would buy it in). But when more white strands start sprouting up again, like during the winter when the falling snow is starting to pick up in volume and has covered almost all of the ground, he goes back and buys more hair dye until it's become a familiar ritual for him to dye his hair every now and then. Sometimes, he thinks it would be more practical to just buy a wig, but it won't do to suddenly have it fall off mid flip during those times when he's being chased by the blond beast.
(Once, when he went on a three month long "vacation", holing himself up in another city where he's sure no one would recognize him, he let his hair grow out it's natural color. He thinks, after cutting away the ends still dyed with black, that having a whole head of pure white hair wouldn't be a bad disguise, should he ever need to disappear for a while or experiment whether Shizuo really does identify him with his smell. But the thought of disappearing only made him feel uneasy; not unlike that feeling of worry when he wasn't sure if he did lock the door to his apartment but somehow much worse in ways he can't define, don't want to define, and don't want to think about ever again.
It worries him how one simple thought can manage to unsettle him so deeply. So, having decided that he has satisfied his curiosity enough, he instantly set on dying his hair once again, donning his signature black parka over him and getting the next earliest train he can catch back to Shinjuku.)
Despite what one may imagine, his white hair does not make him look like an old man, dressing up like one of the young ones. In fact, add it with his smooth pale skin, and his bright red eyes, always with a mischievous, and slightly sinister, glint make him look all the more younger, if a little bit some kind of weird out of school delinquent. People would almost always suspect he is somewhere still in his early-twenties, or just beginning to enter into it, despite him just becoming 25 recently. Still, he looked younger than any of his associates, being fortunate enough to escape those old age indicators unlike the people he knows: the crow's feet near the corner of Shiki's eyes, Shinra's darkening eyebags he hides beneath his glasses, Kadota's graying hair he hides beneath his hat, and Namie's wrinkles, appearing when she burrows her eyebrows too much in annoyance or when she doesn't bother putting her make up on.
Maybe it's his genes, his wonderful lifestyle, or he is just plain lucky, but Izaya's glad to find that he doesn't look like he aged since he was 21.
.
.
.
.
AN: Thank you for greenpen for the correction, and erin-flight for the criticism. I've always wanted to do those drabble-chapter kind of fic, but I'll try to make it longer and incorporate a plot somewhere as well.
Sorry, college's been getting to me and my writing drive. And I must confess, I'm sorta not in to APH and DRRR anymore, as I used to be, but I'll try to finish this!
Edit: Sorry, I didn't catch most of the mistakes in my haste to post this. Fixed now. Thanks for erin-flight for pointing it out!