Introducing some more of your favourite DRRR! characters! You have Erika to look forward to from here on out. She's certainly going to spice things up!
Shizuo
The door behind me shut softly. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, letting my nerve fibers relax. Entering the room, I grabbed my bags and tossed them on one of the beds, starting to sort through clothes.
I guess now's the best time to unpack than any.
"So what is it with you two?" Kadota said breaking my concentration.
"Isn't it obvious?" I asked, hanging up some shirts, holding back the bite in my words. "His life goal is to piss me off as much as he can before I die. I hate him."
"Any idea why he wants to room with you so badly?"
"Tch, probably to attempt murder and frame it as a suicide," I grumbled at the thought of it.
"I don't think he'd go that far," the brunette chuckled.
"Yeah well...I'm sure he'd do anything to make these three weeks hell for me," I replied.
Kadota chuckled. "You're probably right… Still though he seems pretty certain he'll change rooms to be with you, don't you think? Kind of suspicious…"
"I won't let that happen," I said firmly. "He can play all the sick games he wants, but I won't let him win. Not this time."
After getting settled in, the remainder of the night was spent mostly in the room, only going out to briefly explore downstairs to find the small sushi bar for takeout. Kadota brought his gaming system so the night was spent battling each other and different bosses.
Surprisingly we hadn't heard from Shinra nor Izaya, which was the best news I had not received all day. We were all tired from the trip over here anyway, it was for the greater good that Izaya hadn't made another appearance.
At around 11 o'clock, we decided enough was enough if we wanted to be awake the next day. It felt good to lay down, even though we had been lounging around for hours.
I closed my eyes, tired from staring at the TV screen. My body was sinking into the tempur-pedic cushion, and I hadn't realized how tired I must have really been to fall asleep almost as soon as I hit the pillow.
...A sweet smell filled my head as a gentle, warm breeze brushed against my face. I felt unusually heavy though, like my body was paralyzed, or I was too weak to lift my own arms. It was completely dark so I couldn't see what was pinning me down.
I inhaled that wonderful scent against again, opening my mouth slightly welcoming the taste. It smelled like some type of luxurious tea brewed from a forbidden fruit, but I sensed a hint of mint masked behind the aroma of citrus.
Suddenly, breaking my train of thought, I felt a soft brush against my barely separated lips. It paused for a moment, then came back with a little more force. I tried to move, but my arms wouldn't let me. I tried to open my eyes, but to no avail.
What seemed like cold, slender fingers began to circle around my collar bones.
When had my shirt come off?
I started to turn away, but a hand gently grabbed my hair turning my head back. My heart started to beat out of my chest as soft lips were crushed against mine. I felt myself break into a cold sweat before all the sudden, it stopped. Everything stopped.
I opened my eyes slowly, one at a time, letting them focus in dim lighting around me. A dark figure loomed above me with a wicked grin on its face.
It hadn't been the first time I've dreamt of being kissed, nor will it be the last. But the thing that separated this one from the rest were the pair of glowing red eyes staring back at me...
Waking with a start, my eyes flew open to see nothing but your average dark hotel room as I struggled to catch my breath. No creepy shadows lurking in the corners, nothing.
Yanking the hot covers sticking to my skin off, I rolled over fumbling a hand for my phone on the table at the bedside. The bright light of the screen blinded me for a few seconds before the numbers "4:28 a.m." came into focus.
I sat up hanging my legs off the side of the bed, capturing my breath again, as my heart still pounded in my ears. Using the palm of my hand, I wiped away some of the beads of sweat on my forehead.
I got up and made my way to the bathroom, splashing my face with cold water in the sink. My gaze focused on the tired reflection in the mirror. Bringing a hand up to my lips, I could still feel them being pressed against his...
I shook my head, turning off the light and returning back to bed. It took a while before I finally fell back into a restless sleep.
I didn't really remember much of waking up this morning, it was all kind of a blur, being half asleep. But there I was, downstairs at a table with Shinra, Izaya and Kadota in the dining area with a giant stack of pancakes in front of me. I took a sip of my coffee, burning my tongue and lips, but was too tired and numb to care.
Those lips...
"—izu-chan. Earth to Shizu-chan." The raven was snapping his fingers in front of my face.
I blinked away from my daze, coming back to my usual self and glared at him.
"What?" my eyes narrowed, and my tone wasn't nearly as venomous as I had intended.
"You've been staring at me for the last ten minutes, Shizu-chan, and as flattered as I am, it's starting to creep me out," he chuckled darkly, not sounding creeped out at all. His eyes wandered curiously over my tired self, sizing me up.
"Oh, uh..." was all I could lamely respond with.
"Did you not sleep last night Shizuo? You look like a zombie or something," Shinra said taking a closer look at me from across the table.
"I just...had a weird dream was all. Uh, what time is it?" I said rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
"9:30. What about this dream though? What was so weird about it?" Shinra inquired, straightening up in his chair, giving his full attention.
"Forget about it," I said flatly, standing up. "I'm going to get some more coffee." Even though I hadn't finished my first cup, I needed an excuse to get up.
As I was walking away, I could hear a nasally "my, my, Shizu-chan certainly is off this morning. I wonder what kind of dream that protozoan brain could accumulate," from the louse.
I got myself another mug, pouring about half the cup full of milk and adding more sugar than necessary. I went back to the table where my friends and the flea sat admiring the interior design or something that didn't concern me.
I blinked my eyes open again, feeling the cold water beat down on my face. Somewhere along the line, I had thought it was a good idea to let my sleep deprived body sit under cold water to wake me up, but I could hardly remember getting there.
Guess I've been standing here for long enough, I thought to myself, shutting off the water to the shower. I grabbed a towel from the rack and dried myself off, wiped a hand across the foggy mirror. My brows furrowed at the face staring back at me.
You're losing yourself Shizuo...
"Took you long enough. Thought I might have to come in there to see if you were still alive. D'ja fall asleep?" Kadota asked as I stepped out into the room in just a pair of sweats with a towel draped around my shoulders.
"Something like that..."
Izaya
"How do you even have all that stuff?" I heard Shinra ask as I laced up my expensive snow boots that matched perfectly with my red and black winter coat.
"Ah, these? I ordered them specially for the trip," I said casually. "I did a little research on what's 'in' right now as far as winter fashion, and got an incredible deal on proper skiing attire."
"Right...Sometimes I forget how loaded your family is..." he mumbled, zipping up his old, blue coat.
"You ready?" I asked rising to my feet.
"Yeah, just give me a minute. You should go see if those two are ready next door."
"Will do~." There was a little extra chime to my voice this morning. Seeing Shizuo in a miserable mood always added a skip to my step.
Walking across the hall, I rapped on the door a few times, waiting a few moments before knocking again...then again.
"Fuck. Stop the damn knocking, I'm coming." I heard a muffled, agitated voice behind the door.
Shizuo answered, but as soon as he saw me, he started to shut the door again. I put my foot in to stop it from closing, and he asked grumpily, "what do you want, flea?" The usual bite when he addressed me was nowhere to be found.
"Are you ladies finally ready yet? Shinra and I are waiting."
Without making eye contact, he answered, "yeah, just give us a minute," and closed the door.
That's odd, Shizu-chan usually glares right at me...
A few minutes later, the four of us were headed down the elevator into the lobby. We passed by a few of our classmates as Shinra asked the young lady at the front desk for directions to get to the outdoor attractions.
Following said directions, only making one wrong turn in the process, we finally found our way down a glass hallway, that went outside to a ski shop stocked with winter sporting supplies.
"Wow, so many options! Skiing, skating, snowboarding, tubing..." Shinra read off the list of what the resort had to offer. "What do you guys wanna do?"
"I'm feeling some snowboarding if you guys are down?" Kadota suggested.
"Sounds fine to me," I replied absentmindedly still looking around the shelves.
"I think I'll try skiing today," Shinra said examining a pair of ski decks in his hands.
Shizuo grunted in agreement.
Really, just like an animal, I thought to myself.
Still, something was up, and I planned on getting to the bottom of it.
"Come on Dotachin! You're so slow!" I called behind me as I stopped and waited by the ski lift. "Shizu-chan and Shinra are probably already going down the mountain as we speak!"
"Sorry," Kadota said catching his breath, kneeling over. "It's just this cold air...it's killing my lungs."
"You have absolutely no endurance," I huffed, blowing my bangs out of my eyes. "Even Shizu-chan, who goes through a pack of cigarettes a day, can do better!"
"Yeah, yeah..."
On our way up the ski lift, we observed the snowy hilltops down below. Despite being so cold here, the sun was shining brightly, leaving a beautiful glow across the achromatic land below us, give for the specks of colour of people like a colony of ants.
"Ne, Dotachin..." I began.
"I told you not to call me that, it's degrading...Call me Kadota."
"Whatever, Dotachin. Why won't you trade rooms with me?" I asked disregarding his preferred name.
He sighed, thinking of how to reply. "Look, Izaya...you know I can't do that. You and Shizuo obviously don't get along..."
"Perhaps this opportunity would offer for that brute and I to bond, ne?"
"Izaya, I don't know what your intentions are but—"
"Fear not Dotachin, I don't intend anything," I changed my tone to promote my seriousness.
"Then why...?"
"Is it so wrong to want to observe a monster in its natural habitat?" I asked sweetly, leaning an elbow up against the frame of the ascending cart, looking into the distance.
He paused a moment before saying, "Well, I'm sorry, but I can't help you."
"Oh, that's too bad," I sighed in an unsatisfactory voice, "and here I was hoping I didn't have to do things the hard way..."
We reached the end of the lift and headed over to where we recognized a few of our other classmates were gathered. Suddenly we were stopped by a girl who I remember often hung around Kadota. Karisawa Erika was her name. She had medium length, dark brown hair that is always pulled up, minus the few strands in the front that fell freely, framing her round face. Her large brown eyes sparkled when they met ours, and if I remember correctly, she was always around that other guy-
"Wait up!" Sure enough, came the other boy, Yumasaki Walker, bouncing in the snow behind her.
"Isn't it just the coolest here, Dotchin?!" Completely implored, she spun around to gaze at the resort from across the mountainside.
I smiled inwardly that the nickname had stuck with him from someone else too.
"Yeah, it's pretty sweet. You guys do anything exciting since we got here?" he asked the girl.
"Not yet, but we plan to! We got a map of the whole resort as well as a few of the attractions in town. They have everything here! Well, except Animate. But apparently, there's a manga shop close by. Yumacchi and I want to check it out sometime. Wanna come?" she was out of breath and barely able to contain her excitement.
"I'll have to pass, I think my group has other plans," Kadota turned to me, looking at me for backup. I just nodded to spare him.
"That's too bad," the blonde continued on the matter. "They might have some really good stuff. There are several series that are supposed to update while we're here and I wonder if they receive shipment the same time Animate or Mandarake usually do." He rubbed his chin in thought.
"Yeah! You're gonna miss out you guys!" the female said, as if we were missing the chance of a lifetime.
"Erika, Yumasaki, you are the only two people probably on this entire trip who would be thinking about that at a getaway like this." Another boy was walking up behind them with shoulder-length brown hair.
"Togusa, you're so mean!" Erika said facing the guy.
"You're right though, this place does have everything," he continued. "Last night I went to check out the other side of the resort. They have several restaurants, a spa, an ice skating rink...They even have a hot spring here...I sure know where I'm going later."
That piqued my interest, and I tuned in more intently on the conversation now, as the gears in my mind began to turn as concocted a plan.
Perhaps things will be easier than I expected...