She must finish some things before her end (she can feel the voice in her head, telling her to do it now) but she can't quite bring herself to.

Besides, she knows that Izaya is away on a business trip, so she will be alone in the apartment for god knows how long.

(she knows of his infidelity, of course, it's not a big secret. she also knows that his previous brides all committed suicide)

Her fingers wrap gently around the cold metal handle of the gun. She likes the feel of it in her hand. It fits perfectly.

Underneath, she knows that Izaya is still a human; despite his strength and speed, he will still react the same to a bullet in his heart.

(out of her studies, 2 out of 10 men in this disgusting, forsaken city have covert relationships with the girls who go to the local high school)

Maybe she knows she's always been the best, maybe she knows that nobody could ever beat her.

(it's time now to tie up loose ends with seiji. this is the part she was dreading)

She takes a deep breath, and sets her mind to it. She takes out her new phone, and slowly, painstakingly dials his number.

She waits as it rings, waits for him to pick up.

He does so.

"Hello?"

His voice, so infuriatingly cheerful, so beautiful to her when she was younger and naive, is now like the dull drone of everybody else.

Another few years of her life wasted on such a terrible person. She didn't have very good judgment, did she?

"Seiji. It's me."

He takes a few seconds to grasp that it is Namie, his sister.

"Hey. What's up?"

Behind the casual facade, she hears a bit of panic. She does know about his theft of the head from her laboratory, and all of the other crimes he's committed. She could bring his entire life crashing down.

"I hate you. You're a selfish jerk."

She hangs up on him before he can respond, and instead of feeling satisfaction, just feels hollow inside. The emptiness of her heart is like how her chest used to ache when she wished for Seiji.

(killing him is out of the question, but she will give him what he deserves in her will. those whose sins she is not willing to forgive will not live)

She looks at her calendar, paisley, light pink and spring green. In her delicate handwriting, today she's marked, "my birthday."

Izaya reads her calendar, so she could hardly have written what she really wanted to.

She leaves a note for him on the calendar.

Then, she goes into the kitchen, and starts making coffee.

Absentmindedly, she spills the granules onto the floor. The area around her is gritty. Reaching for the broom leaning against the wall, she sweeps it all up.

Sometimes she's tired of being the housewife. Sometimes she wishes that she could go out and work again.

They have a daughter. Kimiko is the light of her world now, but she's not yet three years old. She's incredibly intelligent. At the moment she's at a friend's house down the street, playing. It makes her feel so small, inside the large house.

(she suspects she'd feel as lonely, perhaps even lonelier, if she had more children, but after one girl she put her foot down)

They've been married for three years now. The garden is still immaculate. She still goes to all the tea parties hosted by the neighbors, and plans her own in return.

The refrigerator is stocked with food that she's made, and fresh vegetables. The kitchen is immaculate, in a soft blue color. Satiny cream curtains hang against the window, blocking the street from view.

Sighing, she sits down at the glass kitchen table, and stares at her hands.

They're pale, and soft, since she takes rather good care of them. But they still look old and tired, just like she is right now.

The world around her continues moving, even if she decides to do it.

They don't care about her.

Not anybody.

She's all alone in the world.

They'll get a divorce soon, if she stays, no doubt.

That would be a disgrace to her family. She doubts that his would even care.

Maybe somewhere inside of her she does wish for Izaya's love, which is being given to that young girl he's with right now.

She's even from that local high school she mentioned earlier.

She's not nearly as pretty as Namie is, but she's something else, and that's what he cares about.

Nobody, really, has ever overshadowed Namie. It's just not done.

Well, it is now.

She walks over to the couch mechanically, and collapses.

That's when the tears start.

She darts glances around the living room through her tears, and thinks maybe she didn't do that badly for those three years that she suffered, in a house without a husband who ever came home.

Maybe she's raised Kimiko well.

Because behind her mask, she really does care about her daughter.

She cares about her more than Izaya, to be honest.

She must do it now.

She must.

Kimiko will come home soon.

She changes into her bathing suit in her bedroom hastily. It hardly matters, but she picks the white and gold two-piece.

Fashion won't be a key piece when her dead body is lowered into the ground.

She'll drown herself, so she doesn't make the neighbors talk.

About a wife who Izaya made so unhappy, who he was so unfaithful to, she killed herself.

Yes, she'll drown herself.

She walks down to the pool, and slowly submerges herself.

She forces herself to stay under water, despite the natural instinct to go back up for air.

She's getting light-headed.

It's hard to see now.

Finally, the world fades into darkness, and Orihara Namie is no longer.

Orihara Izaya knows that he is a sinner.

He knows that what he did to Namie is totally wrong.

He knows that no matter what he does he'll probably never make it right.

He knows that he and his wife have driven off Kimiko.

He knows that she won't love him.

He knows that after the first year of marriage, the only reason he sought her out was because he was bored of Namie one week.

He knows he should've been able to end things.

But he couldn't.

He couldn't because he knows that he is a demon, the very definition of despicable. He couldn't because he sees the way that Shinra and Celty and even Shizuo look at him after they lower Namie into the ground. They look at him like he will never be loved, and that they regret loving him in the first place. Shinra's look is the worst, though. He's always known that Izaya was like this.

He just didn't think that he'd be terrible enough to let his desires kill.

Shinra doesn't talk to him in more than ten years.

Neither does Celty.

Neither does Shizuo.

Neither does Mikado.

Neither does Masaomi.

Neither does anybody that he's ever met, really.

Mairu and Kururi do not come to his house ever again to greet their brother.

Instead, they become newscasters.

They're very popular.

They refuse to use his name, only calling him the most vile and offensive things they can think of.

(he hates all of the hate that he gets from his precious humans)

(most of all he hates how even Kimiko hates him, his daughter)

Kimiko does well in school.

But she hates her father, hates him so much that she gets angry even being in the same room as him.

She drove her mother to kill herself.

The neighbors have all forgiven him, saying it was Namie's own fault, that she was an unstable maniac.

She vows that somebody, she will make him pay for her sins.

She vows that his new bride will pay as well.

(she's even younger than Mama, and a lot less intelligent)

She grows up to look like the spitting image of Namie.

As soon as she can, she moves out.

She moves far away, and never comes back once.

Except for the day her father is shot and killed at an important meeting.

She attends his funeral, clad in a black dress with a matching lacy umbrella (it was her mother's)

The preacher says the words.

She smiles under her veil.

Two days later, snow falls on the tombstone of Orihara Izaya.

Next to all the flowers is a lacy umbrella.

If one looked close enough, the sharp part had dried blood on it.