After a solid week of absolutely nothing and Shizuo resorting to scrolling through pages on the internet of riddles, purely to prepare and not because he wants to hear them or anything, Kasuka finally speaks up.
"Shizuo." Kasuka says, making Shizuo jump in his seat and reflexively minimize the new page of riddles he was scrolling through as if it was something to hide. "Any new clues?"
"Uh, not yet…" Shizuo mumbles, shaking his leg out of nervous habit.
Kasuka ignores the way the entire desk Shizuo is sitting at shakes with his brother's leg.
"Why haven't you investigated the closet more thoroughly? Surely there is important information in his lair?" Kasuka presses on, watching his brother's face intently.
The entire desk starts bouncing, getting a good three centimeters of air.
"Just… haven't really had the time and I haven't been sent there yet and it's uh… it's locked so…" Shizuo runs his hand through his hair, making the excuse more to himself than to Kasuka for the millionth time.
Kasuka says nothing, only stares harder.
Shizuo's palms break out into a sweat, both of his legs shaking now.
It's not an excuse. He tells himself. Those are perfectly good reasons. You're not avoiding it. You have no reason to be avoiding it.
The armrests of the chair crumble in his clammy grip.
"Okay fine, I'll go tomorrow!" Shizuo finally snaps, hands flying into his lap to reveal the crushed plastic of the office chair shaped perfectly to his fingers.
Kasuka nods and decides get up early to slip a caramel pudding cup into his brother's school bag tomorrow morning.
So far Izaya's plan to completely avoid Shizuo has been a great success.
Unfortunately the plan to forget about Shizuo hasn't worked out quite as well. He blames it on the fact that he hasn't been able to find a new specimen yet. No one has caught his interest. What is wrong with the people here? Why do they all have to be so boring?
It might also be because Izaya still has all his notes dedicated to his Shizu-chan. Izaya has tried more than once to throw them out, but every time he takes the notebook out with the intention of getting rid of it he ends up opening it instead - getting sucked into the pages of his own writing as he relives every one-sided experience with Shizu-chan in renewed vividness and damn it why can't he just burn the damn thing!
And by the end of the week Izaya decides there's no point in avoiding the library all together. It won't make the memories any more difficult than his notebook. Probably.
He just has to go when he's sure that Shizuo will not be there. After speaking to Nakura, the slimy boy who works the desk in the counselor's office with perhaps more force than necessary, he gets his hands on a copy of Shizuo's work schedule. Of course, it's likely to change, but Izaya feels a lot better with this information anyway.
This information was supposed to be kept private but Izaya had no problems convincing Nakura. Sure, he probably didn't need to tie him to a chair, blindfold him, brace his mouth open and threaten to let a big, hairy spider crawl inside it right from the get-go, but Izaya really wasn't in the mood to beat around the bush. It's not like Izaya actually had a big spider anyway. That would just be crazy.
Not to say he wouldn't do that to Nakura. Izaya's never liked him. Too sweaty and only worth watching when he's about to wet himself.
He decides to go a few hours after the school day ends, figuring that three hours should be enough to ensure that he is in the clear.
The days are getting shorter and colder, so just before the sun starts setting Izaya suits up for the cold with a red sweater his sisters gave him for Christmas last year that they lovingly covered in poorly-made black cat silhouettes made from an old cotton shirt, completely contrasting with the clean knitting of the store-bought sweater that's never fit quite right. It's a little shorter than he likes on the torso, landing just at the waistline of his black jeans, but the neck is all stretched out. Almost like two toddlers tried to wear it at the same time before they wrapped it up for him.
Still, it's warm and no one has to see it as long as he wears a coat.
After making sure the girls have dinner in the fridge and plenty of cartoons queued up he grabs his bag, stuffing a book on Russian into it as an afterthought in case he gets bored, and sets out into the windy evening.
Shizuo stays extra late in the library that day after school to make sure he has plenty of time to investigate uninterrupted. He even waits, tucked into the back of the non-fiction maze like a certain little sphinx, until everyone has left and the librarian has locked herself in her office to watch some drama until her shift ends. It's only an hour before closing when Shizuo makes his move.
He creeps out of the shelves and walks up to the front of the library, head on a swivel for any activity. The coast could not be any more clear as he walks behind the front desk and opens the second drawer. The librarian always keeps the keys to the storage closet in it rather than on her key-ring. The place isn't exactly maximum security seeing as there isn't anything worth stealing.
It's a library storage closet in a high school, not a bank.
So why is Shizuo's blood pumping like he's breaking into one?
Little brass key in hand, Shizuo walks back towards the closet, wondering if it was always this far away or if the library started stretching.
But all-too-soon he's found himself standing at the door to the villain's secret lair. He takes a deep breath, counts to three, then shoves the key into the lock before he can talk himself out of it.
Shizuo pushes the door open, unable to hear the creak of the hinges around the blood rushing in his ears, steps into the closet, and shuts the door behind him.
Safely inside Shizuo leans against the door behind him and takes a deep, calming breath he didn't know he was holding. Except the breath isn't all that calming.
The smell is fainter than last time, confirming Shizuo's theory that the other boy hasn't been here in awhile, and its subtlety just leaves Shizuo itching for more.
Focus . He chastises himself. You're on a mission for… something.
Shizuo decides to comb the place top-to-bottom, starting with the top shelves naturally. He spends a good five minutes sorting through the boxes and things he's put up there before realizing that his villain is way too short to have stashed anything up here. He stifles a chuckle at the thought of a little criminal mastermind bouncing on his toes to hide his evil plans on the top shelf the to avail.
Searching lower, but yielding no results has Shizuo feeling discouraged. Maybe he waited to long to check the place out and the other boy already removed all the evidence? That would make sense...
He's just about ready to give up his search as he starts sorting through piles of junk on the floor, slowly making his way further back in the closet when a flash of pink catches his eye. His breathing hitches and he lunges for it before he can think about the consequences of his actions.
With a good yank Shizuo pulls free the pink, knitted blanket with the white fuzzy lining from between some beat-up, old boxes. His long fingers sink into the soft fabric of what is apparently the only solid clue of the other boy's existence as he falls back into the wall of the closet, dragging the blanket into his lap and suddenly feeling exhausted.
Then, Shizuo realizes his mistake.
The smell of bitter almonds is a bit stale and laced with dust, but it still permeates the soft knit of the fabric. Just like he thought it might last time. And now it's on top of him.
The walk to school goes by in a cold blur of tense muscles and breath clouding up the glasses he decided were okay to wear in what will be an empty building. He slips into the back as the sun sets and camps out in one of the bathrooms until ten minutes after the library's closing time. He really doesn't want to see anybody today.
Sneaking past the custodian is easy and breaking into the back door of the library is even easier.
All the lights are off and the room is completely still, allowing Izaya to feel like he can breath easy for the first time in weeks. He relaxes into the solitude and lets his coat fall from his shoulders and onto that rickety chair he watched Shizu-chan read in, far too warm to wear in combination with the sweater indoors if he's going to snuggle up with his favorite blanket this evening. He decides he'll start with the Russian, it's a tricky language and his best bet to keep his mind off the delinquent.
Izaya makes quick work of picking the lock on the door to his little storage closet and walks in, glad to be back in his favorite place.
But then, the world stops.
Sitting against the wall with his face buried into the pink knit of his favorite blanket, brown roots showing at the base of his blonde hair, is the very person he's been working so hard to escape.
Izaya can't breath, his heart has stopped, and for a moment everything is completely still. Through the screaming in his mind one clear, rational thought can be understood.
Maybe he's asleep. You can still get away if you run now!
Then the world starts again, far too fast for Izaya to keep up with.
He drops back on one foot and turns, body already committed to running as fast and as far as it can when an unbreakable, steel grip latches onto his wrist.
"Wait!"
All of Izaya's forward momentum is suddenly thrown back with all the power of a tidal wave, fingers digging into his wrist so tightly that he can already feel deep bruises forming - sending electricity up his arm from the point of contact and throughout his whole body.
Without balance and his entire world being narrowed to the big, warm hand nearly crushing his wrist Izaya falls back into the hard body behind him.
Golden eyes bore down on him, wide and looking as shocked as Izaya feels. Izaya is trapped, terrified, and can't think - laying across Shizuo's lap on top of his blanket.
Shizuo recovers faster than he does.
"I… are you…?" Shizuo swallows hard, eyes darting around Izaya's face in an effort to take in every feature at once.
Finally his eyes settle on Izaya's, and his lips part just enough to whisper.
"A diamond plate, a glowing grate, a place you never leave. Where am I?"
Izaya doesn't know what he's feeling, but there's a lot of it.