At first the closet looks just as underwhelming as Shizuo remembers, but with the new information fresh in his mind, it's hardly the same closet at all.
Most prominently: the smell. If Shizuo thought it was noticeable just around in the back of the library this is overwhelming. Shizuo isn't sure how he feels about it. His heart speeds up and the adrenaline in his veins spikes.
Shizuo isn't sure if he likes the smell or not. All he knows is that when he can finally bring himself to step into the closet he can't seem to fill his lungs no matter how hard he breathes. All Shizuo wants to do is find the source of that smell, tear the storage closet apart if he has to, and indulge. Finally. Finally, Shizuo can say what it smells like now that it saturates the air with far more weight than anything he's ever lifted before.
It smells like bitter almonds.
Shizuo gets the distinct feeling that particular smells is supposed to be a red flag, but he can't remember why.
Shizuo can't even remember the boxes in his hands.
Eventually, Shizuo snaps out of this trance he's in and manages to get his breathing under control. He sucks in some drool that was threatening to escape, thankful that no one who may or may not be watching him could see his face, and pulls himself together enough to stash the boxes in their rightful place before he loses himself again and starts huffing that blanket in the corner for…
Wait. Blanket? Was that there last time?
Shizuo looks around for anything else he might've missed but just can't tell if that… what is that? A blanket with some kind of pink sweater knit and white, fuzzy lining?
He just can't tell if that pink sweater blanket was there before. He really wasn't paying attention last time. Shizuo supposes that it could belong to the librarian - it sure looks like an old lady thing - but the library doesn't smell like this. Shizuo is sure that if he pressed his nose to that blanket, the smell of bitter almond would invade his senses.
He isn't confident that he'd be able to leave this closet in reasonable time for his other chores if he tried it, so he takes one last look at the closet for anything suspicious and yanks himself out of it.
Shizuo slams the door behind him to try and block out the smell and clear his head to think. That smell, the smell that might just have something to do with the red-eyed boy in the bookcases, was strongest in that closet. He ran back into the bathroom, chasing the faintest bit of it and now that he's found what might just be the villain's secret lair he can't even investigate. Shizuo takes a deep breath of less polluted air and decides to walk away for now and clear his head.
What had he gotten himself into?
Cold sweat drips down his back and he can't seem to stop shaking. He has no more room inside his body for air after being filled to the brim with the sight of Shizuo looming over him - sucking in ragged, greedy breaths while Izaya couldn't breathe at all.
Izaya remains frozen in the back of the closet, curled up under the bottom shelf behind some junk he's sure no one besides himself has touched in years. His eyes are still blown-wide and dark from the unexpected encounter, hand still clasped over his mouth to keep quiet. He had heard someone coming just in time to hide, but had assumed it was the half-blind old bat and not the object of his… fascination.
Moving from his impossibly small hiding place was the last thing on his mind as he tried to process what he just saw - reliving the moment over and over again, seeing it played out faster and faster as it mixes with hundreds of intangible thoughts, leaving Izaya's head a complete train wreck.
As if Shizuo coming into Izaya's favorite little place uninvited wasn't enough of a nightmare, the stupid brute had stayed far longer than necessary. Izaya couldn't even begin to fathom what he was doing, standing stalk-still for what felt like forever just… just breathing… breathing like he couldn't get enough air.
Is there something wrong with him? Izaya wondered briefly, but tossed that idea out quickly. Shizuo has no health problems, never gets sick, and there's no way the cigarettes caught up to him already.
Then what was it?
Izaya's imagination lights up with the fuel of the fresh memory. Shizuo, towering over him. Passionate, golden eyes boring down on him. Izaya completely immobilized with the weight of the gaze, the weight of his heavy breaths from lips that are just so close, the impossible strength packed into Shizuo's long arms and big hands. Izaya's trembling body catching fire under his eyes, his breath, his hands, his li…
A desperate gasp shudders up from Izaya's aching lungs at the thought, the itch to be caught by Shizuo flaring up into an almost painful need. He tenses, pressing back into the corner he's folded himself into even farther as though he can put physical space between himself and his imagination.
You don't want that. Izaya tells himself. You don't want that, you don't, you don't, you don't, you…
But no matter how many times he tells himself, the words still sound hollow.
But no matter how many times he tries to fold up and lock these feelings away with the rest of them like he's managed to do so neatly all his life, they just don't stay away.
So Izaya stays away. Curled up in the smallest, furthest corner of the storage closet he can manage behind musty boxes until well past the library's closing time. Until he can finally slow his breathing and crumple the feelings away that he wants to throw up.
Finally, Izaya can find the strength to crawl out from the little space. He gathers his things, manages to stand on legs that are still shaking, tucks his blanket away between some forgotten junk, and checks his phone.
8:30pm. No new messages.
Shizuo's been staring blankly at the evidence wall, hoping for an answer. But nothing came.
Nothing he wants to think about.
The crisp fall air on his walk home had helped to clear his head, but the reality of what had happened in the closet didn't disappear.
He's almost certain that the red-eyed boy and the smell is connected, meaning that wherever the smell was, so was he. But there had been no one in that closet, meaning he was either there recently or spent enough time in it to basically live there. Either seemed possible to Shizuo at this point.
Still, that was ignoring the most alarming discovery of the day. Shizuo's reaction to the smell.
Shizuo had never really disliked the smell, it was just faint and odd and objectively a clue. Now it was strong and… and not just odd or a clue. It was like a drug. Or more accurately, it was like a poison.
As soon as Shizuo had gotten home he had turned on his family's computer and looked up the smell of bitter almonds, unsure if he'd find much of anything but too hung up on the bell it rung in his head to not at least try.
Bitter almonds is the most common description for the smell of cyanide.
Even knowing that, all Shizuo wants to do is run back to the library, press his face into that pink sweater blanket, and huff the smell of the small library boy like a drug addict.
He hasn't told Kasuka this. All Kasuka knows are the objective facts and theories he has written on notecards and scraps of paper tacked onto the wall in his bedroom. Shizuo isn't sure he can tell Kasuka. What if his brother starts thinking he's… weird about this mystery guy?
Because Shizuo isn't like that. It's just the smell.
Red eyes, twinkling with a swirl of excitement and mischief and focus come to mind.
Okay, maybe it's the smell and the eyes. But that doesn't mean anything.
Maybe a cigarette will help…
It doesn't.