This is Shinra's POV and since he is more of an observer, his chapter contains a mesh of everyone in their love life (what a peep!) XD And as usual, even if this chapter turned out longer than I expected, I still don't own anything. ;)
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Late Spring
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He was Ikebukuro's moderator.
He stood between Shizuo and Izaya, and prevented their world from colliding too close to home. While Tom coaxed Shizuo back into the realm without the rage, Kadota would clamp a hand to Izaya's mouth and lock Izaya's wrists in his grip to prevent him from agitating the other again.
But this was all in the hopeful visions that he conjured up in the midst of his daydreams.
The sun had him caught in a daze.
He could hear Shizuo taking large gulps of milk from beside him. His visions unravelled into memories while the sun continued to beat down on him.
The first time he met Heiwajima Shizuo, his fascination overpowered all of his human instincts to survive. Instead of running, he was rooted to the spot, eyes wide as he watched the young Shizuo pull a road sign from the ground. If he hadn't already met the love of his life, he might have fallen head over heels for that inhuman strength.
Shizuo took a bite of his lunch, a cafeteria bought sandwich and mumbled thoughtfully between his chewing. "It reeks."
Shinra gnawed at his straw but the juice only tasted of artificial sugar, none of the tropical fruits that the boxed container promised, he responded. "…Does it?"
"It reeks of…"
The door was pushed open and black sauntered into the corner of his vision. And then Shizuo finished his sentence with narrowing eyes.
"A certain pest."
Shinra didn't need to see to know that it was the other boy. Even without Shizuo, the human-Izaya-detector, Izaya's presence in itself was enough to alert his self-preservation. Glancing up at the sky for one last taste of his dissipating daydream, he came back from cloud nine with a long sigh just as the spring breeze brushed against them.
Nothing seemed to faze him anymore and he spoke up against the loud clatter of metal doors and concrete walls. "What took so long, Izaya?"
He waltzed over to them and sat down next to Shizuo. Blinking heavily, he replied, voice one pitch lower than normal. "Dotachin and I were busy."
The suggestive tone he adapted was ignored when a hand came to grip at the top of his head. Izaya's neck was arched into seeing the sky but rather than the blue and the white, he saw Kadota's stern face instead. "Don't say things that aren't true, Izaya."
There was silence as Kadota sat down, and then Shinra let out a frustrated groan from deep within his throat.
All three turned to look at him, wondering whether he had finally snapped.
"… When will my love life with Celty blossom…?"
His wail beneath the sun left his friends in an awkward silence, nobody knew what to say to comfort him. Sighing in despair, he turned back to his daydreams. He bit into his bendy straw as he strayed with his thoughts. The only thing that occupied his mind was whether one day, the beautiful roommate he had would cook him a meal made of love.
His lovesick sigh made the other three stare in disgust.
000
Izaya was his link to Kadota Kyouhei. The first time he met Kadota-kun, they had never been aware of each other's presence.
"I want to introduce you to someone."
Izaya was grinning, Shizuo made to stand up, Shinra placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him, lightly, back to his seat on the ground. He was the man in the middle of their war and he hoped they both liked him enough to keep him alive.
"Are they in the yakuza?"
"He is too upright for that kind of things."
"Then is he really your friend?" Shinra asked with real skeptcism in his question because anyone who knew a bit of Izaya's personal life had to know that he was the farthest thing from being mildly decent. "Or is he just some poor soul you pulled off the street?"
Izaya rolled his eyes at Shinra before turning around to stare into the stairwell. Shinra couldn't see the mystery person but he could see Izaya's annoyance coiling into a sly grin, his reply fell straight into expectations because Orihara Izaya had always been a construct of his own words.
"You make me sound like one of the worst kinds of people around."
"You're the worst kind of men out there." Shizuo intercepted their conversation with a soft snort. If he couldn't physically abuse Izaya, then he would make it up with verbal jabs.
"I hardly make the cut for 'man,' Shizu-chan. I haven't even graduate yet." He smirked with a shrug to his narrow shoulders before quirking his head back to pull at the mystery man's uniform sleeve.
Izaya's introduction flowed off of his tongue like sweet honey, his eyes were glimmering in different depths of dark red.
"This is Dotachin."
And then he emerged from the stairwell, in the midst of their verbal game of hot potatoes.
He had deep brown hair and dark eyes. He was dressed in Raira's uniform but he looked far too mature to fool around with high school teenagers without an upright reason. Izaya was right, he was too much of a hero to be around any of the indecencies each of them were all too familiar with.
Izaya pushed him forward.
There were four of them exposed in the sun now.
Slowly, Dotachin nodded his head at Izaya's friend-count of two. One was the infamous Heiwajima Shizuo and the other was someone who looked too proper for his moderator position in the violence.
Shinra smiled and Shizuo stared blankly in response. Izaya was smiling, his eyes were half-lidded and he was latched on to Dotachin's arm like a lovesick teenage girl. And then came the declaration, he sounded so proud.
"We're dating."
It wasn't right.
They could hear the soft calls of birds between the trees down in the streets and the sounds of traffic across the asphalt roads. Izaya's lips stretched wide, he waited for his fun like he was waiting on their surprise.
His intentions weren't kind.
Dotachin pulled away from Izaya's grip and coughed lightly, his voice intercepted the awkward moment that had settled around them. "I'm Kadota Kyouhei."
He did not deny a thing and that's what struck Shinra the most. Had it really worked? He couldn't help but bite his lips in shock-turned-anticipation and he was about to break the silence too when Shizuo decidedly voiced out his own opinion.
"Is this some kind of sick brainwashing schemes you came up with, flea?" He looked like he couldn't decide between the emotions of anger or disgust, both directed straight at the boy with the glittering red eyes.
Shinra didn't wait for a reply, he knew Izaya would only pick another fight with the blonde and so he placed his drained can of pop to the ground and leaned forward, glasses shining with admiration at Izaya. "How'd you do it?"
Shinra had known Izaya from when he was young. Before his head was screwed on right (or wrong) and way before his ideals turned into an action-plan, Izaya had definitely sold his soul to the devil and ate him up from within. But nonetheless, Shinra sincerely believed that if it was Izaya, then even brain control was possible.
"I'm telling the truth." Izaya insisted with a pout but that only made it seem so much more like a lie. At his friends (one he didn't really like, one he hated from the bottom of his heart)' blank stares, Izaya could only scowl and brushed the two off. "I'm eating my lunch."
They sat in an awkward square with Izaya and Shizuo at opposite corners.
Chewing sounds filled the air, large gulps, and rustling of packaging. They were each eating at their own pace but the atmosphere was eating away at each of them. Shinra felt a responsibility resting in his lap, he swallowed and looked up from his food.
"Kadota-kun?"
"Call him Dotachin." Izaya spoke up only to have Shinra brush him off with barely a spare glance. "My name is Kishitani Shinra."
Kadota looked up with a stoic nod. "Nice to meet you."
The moment felt right, they were just short of exchanging their nonexistent business card along with a firm shake of their hands.
"And this here is Shizu-chan!~" Izaya's smile was too wide as he pointed straight at the blonde with his head tilted at the sky. He was drinking another bottle of milk just as the flea had called out his name turned insult. His fingers clenched.
The glass bottle shattered into shards.
White ran down his arm just as red followed.
Shizuo stood up, Izaya followed suit.
"The name is Heiwajima Shizuo!"
Shinra pulled Kadota to the sides and the self-introductions were cut short. Izaya flashed out his blade and the silver shined like a dare to come closer in the sun. There was a short three feet of distance between the two dangers and they were drawing in each other with each passing second.
Shinra stared up at the sky, tossing away the trouble that Izaya would stir and the messes Shizuo's hair-trigger temper would create. He only wished that Kadota-kun would be another member to his current one man clean up team for the two disasters during their growth spurt.
The glass crunched beneath Shizuo's shoes, he had made a mess of pale pink. Shinra saw the cuts in his friend's palm and the blood that was still running slick. Shizuo landed a blow. Shinra could envision the bruise that would surface across Izaya's stomach.
Kadota stood in silence, eyes darting back and forth between the three.
This triangle held strong.
000
They were in their second year already.
All of them knew what to expect because they had already laid down the foundation during their first year at Raira.
Shinra walked down the hallway, looking for Shizuo who had disappeared as soon as the bell had rung. Turning the corner, he saw dark brown locks brushed back against the scalp and he immediately recognized the boy for who he was, one in the three of his friend-counts. It was Kadota-kun.
Shinra opened his mouth to call out his friend's name, and then he saw an existence of pure black. It was Izaya and he slowed his pace at the sight.
Izaya was shorter than Kadota, he had his hands on the other's upper arms, fingers fisting the matching black fabric of another version of Raira's uniform. Kadota served as a stepping-stone for Izaya while he leaned in, mouth hovering closer and closer. Shinra stopped in his steps all together at the blatant display of affection.
Kadota's righteous character made up for Izaya's rotten personality. Like a simple mathematical equation, maybe they really were in love.
Students passed them by. No one but Shinra seemed to notice and the two of them were a breath away.
It was the last moment to back out and Kadota turned his head away.
He didn't particular like dealing with math but he was good at it. Yet, Shinra's perception had failed him and mild understanding was an understatement. He was accustomed to Izaya's abnormality, only this time it wasn't Izaya who broke the ordinary cycle, it was Kadota Kyouhei and Shinra found that incredibly hard to believe.
"We are at school." Kadota's voice drifted through the murmurs of the other students in blunt simple words, he stepped back and the two of them now stood at arm's length. Shinra couldn't see Izaya's expression.
For as long as they have been friends, he never had the need to feel concern for Izaya. He was someone who thrived on the misfortunes of everyone else, he fully deserved each and every single stab in the back to bring him down from his self-constructed high.
But even underneath the devil's skin suit, Shinra knew, Izaya was only human.
Shinra took a step forward.
"Heh," Izaya was looking at Dotachin with a smile on his lips. There was a strange absence of menace and sly intentions. He could even be considered to be coy and bashful. Shinra gave a shiver at the uncharacteristic behaviours just as Izaya continued with a light slap to Kadota's arm. "You're such a proper gentleman, Dotachin."
Izaya never took rejections well.
"But does that mean Dotachin will do dirty things to me in private?"
His eyes narrowed and he flicked his tongue out to swipe at his bottom lip. His voice had risen over the small crowds and everyone turned to stare at them.
Shinra turned around and slipped away with a silent apology to Kadota-kun. Despite the hesitance, he had no heart to stop Izaya because at minimal, they were friends at the end of the day.
000
It was winter of their second year but his springtime had finally arrived.
Shinra let out a soft sigh of contentment as he sat deeper into his seat.
They had just gotten back from winter break, it was still too cold to go back up to the roof. The four of them were crowded together in a classroom, four lunches sprawled over one desk, Shinra's to be concise.
Looking up from vandalizing Shizuo's notebooks Izaya caught Shinra's sole concentration on his cell phone screen. He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward before asking. "What is that?"
"Hmm…" Glancing up, he motioned happily to his cell. There was a short and simple text: That's cool. "My roommate's reply."
His gloating sounded too proud to be a seventeen years old boy with a text message in his hand.
"… Shinra, why are you grinning like you just lost your virginity?"
They watched and his eyes seemed to shine with the winter sun.
"It's the first reply I ever got back from her."
The other three didn't know how to react to that.
Each of them were accustomed to Shinra's rants of his roommate named Celty (quite foreign for anyone Japanese if any of them even cared to listen) and how beautiful everything would be if only they were headless. Up until now, they had all blamed Shinra's irrationality to his odd up bringing, (his father wore a gas-mask on a daily basis) but now, they really had to ask themselves whether befriending Shinra was right after all. The way his eyes glinted couldn't be right.
"When did you text her?" Izaya looked down at Shizuo's destroyed notebooks before glancing at his nails. Only mild curiosity fuelled him on nowadays whenever he was around Shinra.
Except, the reply hadn't been quite what anyone expected.
"Two days ago."
There was silence at first before realization settled into everyone else, and then came the opinions.
"That's pathetic."
"How sad."
Even Kadota gave a short snort.
Nasty counters waited against his tongue because Shinra lived on love and his sanity kept him afloat on a thin line. But Shizuo interrupted their pity party for him just as his eyes rested on the notebook in Izaya's lap. His eyes narrowed, his fingers curled into tight fists that dyed his knuckles a bone white. He asked, voice edging on another full-blown anger fit.
"Is that mine's?"
"Who else could it be?"
Izaya's childlike smile did not waver; he only simply handed over the notebook with its contents blackened over and gave a twirl of the marker between his fingers. Shinra swallowed his insults with an undignified scoff at the two of them because he knew that they won't hear another word.
They only had each other in their eyes.
Their bickering washed over him like another dish to a stale dinner. From behind his dark framed glasses, he watched the other three as Kadota played referee to another verbal battle Izaya and Shizuo had themselves wrapped up in.
Shinra leaned into his seat.
He had long since lost the heart to tell them that love was never the type to go easy. As much faith as he had placed on this fragile four lettered word, he knew that they were all headed for disaster. It wasn't like math, love was much more complicated.
If Izaya was the villain to the story, then Shizuo was the monster, and Kadota would be the tragic hero in disguise.
There was no happy ending for any of them.
He tapped his cell phone lightly against his nose, hiding the solemn tinge that had settled into his expression. Shinra sincerely felt for them, they were all his friends but their years in Raira were closing in like a suffocating hug aimed to kill. They didn't have much time to right the wrongs but knowing any one of them, only Kadota would try. Izaya and Shizuo had long since given into their twisted ideals and make-belief anger.
Turning back to the screen of his cell, he clicked into his most frequently used contact. His fingers pressed against the buttons and he taped out a short message for the one at the end of his unrequited love.
He hit send. Their voices did not falter at his silence and neither did he glance up.
Shinra had no part in their fairy tale because he had his own love story to deal with.
000
That night, Kishitani Shinra confessed to his roommate once more, only to be rejected for the ninety-seventh time.
XXX Kuro
Besides Celty (who might even reject his invitation), Shinra may actually have a very sad friend-count on facebook at the rate that I am writing him... OTL