Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/4479581.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Durarara!!
  Relationship:
      Orihara_Izaya/Reader, Shiki/Reader
  Character:
      Reader, Orihara_Izaya, Shiki
  Additional Tags:
      Angst, Complicated_Relationships, Romance, Parkour, Poor_Life_Choices,
      Emotional_Manipulation, Izaya_Being_Izaya, Proverbs, Emotional/
      Psychological_Abuse, Unhealthy_Relationships, Mental_Health_Issues,
      Crimes_&_Criminals, Yakuza, Voyeurism, Bullying, Psychopathology_&
      Sociopathy, Violence, Age_Difference
  Series:
      Part 4 of Playing_Favorites
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-08-02 Completed: 2016-09-19 Chapters: 14/14 Words: 34587
****** Turn of Phrase ******
by Poppelganger
Summary
     You and Izaya have a bit of a history. That's probably what went
     wrong.
     A story about your inability to form emotional attachments and the
     problems that follow.
Notes
     I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.
     This is a bit of an experimental piece that won't be told in strictly
     chronological order.
***** Blossoms Fall and Leaves Scatter I *****
If you were so inclined as to stop for a minute and look back from this moment-
-leaping across rooftops in Nakasu with a briefcase clutched tightly to your
chest, someone’s blood coating your fingertips--you might find yourself
confused.  You know how you got here, of course, and as convoluted as the
circumstances may have been, they make some sort of sense in hindsight.  But
before all of that--before high school, before your involvement with the
Awakusu-kai, before the neverending chain of poor decisionmaking that followed-
-your life had been so very, extremely, painfully normal that it seems odd to
compare those years to the present.
You think of yourself as one of those kinds of people whose lives are loosely
adapted into “based on a true story” horror movies, the exceptional case listed
in psychology textbooks about parents who do everything right and yet it all
somehow goes terribly wrong.
A temple monk will chant sutras without ever being taught them.
One’s environment shapes them--or is it that one mindlessly imitates what’s
around them without truly coming into their own?
There’s a commotion behind you, a dozen footsteps like a rainstorm chasing you,
but you aren’t afraid.  You like to run, like to feel the wind kiss your neck
and tickle the backs of your legs.  You like the feeling you get when you see
the edge of the roof straight ahead, when you’re suddenly aware of every muscle
in your body, when you fly and the solid ground of the next rooftop rushes up
to meet you.  You see headlights up ahead and unmistakable tinted windows on
the street below and take the fire escape staircase down the side of the
building three steps at a time, leaping into the passenger side door that’s
waiting open for you.
The driver, Shiki, whom you refer to as “boss” even though you both answer to
more dangerous men, looks over at you expectantly as he begins to drive.  “Any
of it yours?” he asks, eyes wandering to your red hands.
You shake your head.
“Good.  Took a little longer than usual.”
“I took the scenic route,” you explain.  Leaving the suitcase in the front
seat, you climb into the back, throwing off your jacket and shirt to change
into the clean clothes waiting for you there.  You pretend not to notice the
way Shiki’s gaze wanders to the rear view mirror from time to time, and he
pretends to be preoccupied with watching for anybody following him.
A few years ago, he would be chewing you out for taking unnecessary risks, but
as your handler, he knows you and all of your eccentricities by heart; he also
knows you’ll just do it again anyway.  “We’re making a quick stop at the local
branch office,” he says, eyes back on the road, “Debrief, then head out again.
 Got a meeting with an informant in Ikebukuro.”
“All the way back home,” you muse, “Bullet train or plane?”
“Plane,” he says, reaching into the glove compartment and handing back a folder
with papers sticking haphazardly out of the sides.  “Your ticket’s already been
purchased.”
You take the papers wordlessly and glance down at them without really reading
anything.  “I see.”
Shiki glances at you through the mirror somewhat apologetically.  “Sorry about
the short notice,” he says, “But there’s a lot of weird shit going on back
there and I’m short-handed.”
“It’s fine,” you tell him, “I’ve spent long enough out here anyway.  It’ll be
just like old times, moving back there.”  You intend for the words to come out
with some fondness, but you don’t even smile.  You know it didn’t have the
desired effect because Shiki’s gaze goes back to the road; you aren’t praised
for properly expressing a feeling of attachment to your hometown.
The high-rise in the heart of Nakasu is owned by the Meido group, and the
Awakusu-kai, as a subsidiary, also uses it as a post far away from conquered
territory.  You’re no stranger to it by now, after living in Fukuoka for the
last couple of years--you head up to the highest floor for a hot shower and
then back down with Shiki to a meeting room and give details of how the last
job went.  It’s a bit like a second home now--not for attachment, but for
familiarity.
You don’t have any attachment to anything, of course, which is how you ended up
here in the first place.  It’s not something you lament over, but you give it a
little thought now and then, wondering how your life would have been if you’d
grown up able to connect emotionally to people and places.  Better, maybe; but
you’ll never know for sure.
An hour later, you’re all cleaned up and reporting to your superiors while
Shiki sits beside you, smiling to himself and nodding.  He takes credit for you
every chance he gets; “It was the way she moved.  People who move like that
belong in this line of work.  They were born for it.”  He means the track meet,
a chance meeting years ago where your lives happened to intersect, but even
people who don’t know that just nod politely because Shiki is so much more
bearable to work with when he’s in a good mood.
Your report consists of little more than being asked if you killed the target
and obtained the briefcase, you answering that yes, you did, producing said
briefcase, and then being given a metaphorical pat on the head and being
forgotten about for the rest of the meeting.  This is fine with you, because
you could really care less about the smuggling trade and whose been encroaching
on whose territory.  They’re paying you to infiltrate and shoot a gun, not
learn the intricacies of yakuza politics.  Their behavior only encourages your
way of thinking, which may or may not be a good thing, because it reminds you
that they think of you as a hired gun and little else.
Inhuman.  Not more or less than human, just not human.  
A beggar told of his riches finds himself surrounded by gold.
If you’re told something enough times, you’ll eventually believe it.
*
The flight takes a little over an hour, and you’re met at the airport by an
escort made up of Shiki’s men, who drive you straight to the informant’s.  It’s
been some time since you’ve been back to Ikebukuro.  Driving through downtown
brings back a few memories as you see shops you remember from childhood and
look for ones that aren’t there anymore. You remember going to school in
Ikebukuro, spending afternoons with people who called themselves your friends
and you called classmates or acquaintances under a sunset-filled sky.  You
wonder where they are now, if they became successful, if they’re happy.
If any of them ended up the way you did.
The car stops and you follow Shiki up the steps of an apartment complex.
 You’ve never actually met any of the informants before--disinterest, mostly--
so you peer around Shiki’s shoulder curiously as the door you’re waiting in
front of swings open.
The sight of the person in the doorway makes you freeze.
“Shiki,” he greets your handler with a small smirk, “Always good to see you.”
 He receives little more than a grunt in response, but nonetheless steps out of
the doorway to let you all inside.  You’re still standing in the hallway after
Shiki and his men have already gone in, and he’s just turning around to ask you
what you’re doing when the informant notices you and recognition lights up his
eyes.  Shiki’s eyes move between the two of you several times, but you don’t
really notice, gaze fixed on the informant, who you are absolutely certain you
know; dark-haired with a sharp and discerning eye, a deceivingly slender build
that doesn’t betray the feats he’s capable of.
You suddenly remember why you’ve never made a personal visit back to Ikebukuro.
Shiki barks an order at you to come inside, and you obey, keeping your head
bowed as you pass the informant into the apartment and follow your boss to the
couch.  You remain standing behind him between two of his men, hoping to stay
relatively unnoticed as he and the informant begin discussing the business
climate in Ikebukuro and Shinjuku.
In hindsight, you suppose it does make sense for him to have become an
informant.  You didn’t keep much in the way of company for a point of
reference, but even you knew that he was a little odd.  Apparently, you think,
watching as he talks about the humans of Ikebukuro with great enthusiasm, he’s
changed very little.
The meeting draws to a close quickly and you just catch them negotiating
payment when the informant looks directly at you and Shiki’s gaze follows.
 “You two know each other?” he asks, sounding suspicious.
The informant laughs.  “You didn’t know?  I guess I’m not as memorable as I
thought.”  His eyes narrow.  “Or maybe it’s not that you forgot, but that you
chose not to say anything.”
You choose to look at Shiki, because the informant has a very small, very
familiar smile on his face that you’ve seen before.  “We both went to Raijin,”
you supply, and Shiki only raises a brow at that.
“This is neither the time nor the place for a reunion,” the informant says,
“But if you’ll be in town a while, why don’t we meet up again soon?  It has
been a while.”
You look to Shiki for permission reflexively, and he just shrugs, wanting
nothing to do with the situation, before you look back and nod.
Nobody says a word as you leave, but you can feel the informant’s eyes on your
back every step of the way.
Yes, you suppose you do have some unfinished business with the information
broker of Ikebukuro.  You don’t necessarily want to see him again, but you know
you need to if you’re going to make right the wrongs from all those years ago.
He owes you his back so you can put a knife in it.
***** Blossoms Fall and Leaves Scatter II *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The uninformed observer tends to believe that Shiki thinks of himself as a
father figure of some sort, filling in for the family that he’s responsible for
taking you away from, but if anyone actually said such a thing, he’d probably
laugh; Shiki is a lot of things, but he isn’t so bold as to tell such a stupid
lie.
He does not and has never thought of himself as your father.  It’s one of the
many reasons you ended up leaving Ikebukuro in the first place; you’d moved in
with him, and you woke up next to each other in bed one too many times for him
to feel like he could comfortably look at himself in the mirror without feeling
something like shame, which is saying something for someone with a yakuza
background.  You haven’t really thought about it lately, but you’re reminded of
the way you used to dance around each other and pretend nothing was happening
when there was so much going on and none of it was normal because he always
tried too hard and you never could maintain any feeling for him other than
momentary lust.
He must remember, too, because he drops you off at a hotel rather than bringing
you to his place.  “Just until you and Izaya work out,” his scowl deepens,
“Whatever it is you have going on.”
“I have something going on?” you say airily.
Shiki shoots you a glare and begins walking out, already reaching for the pack
of cigarettes he keeps in his jacket pocket.  “Just take care of it,” he
mutters.
You think he might be jealous, which only confuses you further.  He should know
better than to assume that you have feelings for someone.
Without any jobs waiting for you right away, you sleep in the next day, do a
crossword puzzle, check your e-mail, and generally avoid leaving for as long as
possible, because no matter how much you know you need to talk to Izaya, you
don’t really want to.  It’s nearly noon when your phone goes off on the table
beside you, a message from a number you don’t recognize reading, “So, coffee?”
 
It’s from Izaya Orihara.  You know this because nobody ever texts you; your
superiors in the Awakusu-Kai are all above the age threshold for being
comfortable with text messages.  It doesn’t matter that you never gave Izaya
your number; it’s his business to know what it is, and you aren’t surprised in
the least that he found it so quickly.  Still, you choose to ignore the
message, putting your phone in your pocket and throwing on a jacket and some
sneakers to go for a run.
The most basic of all functions that human beings possess is the ability to
form emotional ties with another human.  Izaya told you that once.  He’d said,
with that eerie smile as you both stood at the crosswalk and watched the people
on the other side, that everyone is capable of forming these attachments,
whether they’re those of companionship, affection, disgust, or rivalry.
 Positive or negative, all humans can have these feelings for their fellow
humans.  
“It’s only a severely damaged human that struggles with this,” he’d said that
day, turning his smile at you pointedly.
“So I’m severely damaged?” you asked.
Izaya shook his head.  “No, even damaged humans can still hate someone,” he
said.  His smile widened.  “So you’re not even human.”
You don’t know where the memory comes from, but bits and pieces of that
afternoon come back to you as you go up to the hotel’s roof and survey
Ikebukuro from a bird’s eye view.  Flashes of that week, and then that summer,
and then that year return to you.  It’s been a long time since you’ve thought
about it.  You remember insisting that you were human and trying to prove him
wrong, but whenever you tried to come up with an example--someone you were fond
of, someone you hated, someone you felt the slightest bit of attachment to--you
came up empty.  
You glance down from the building’s edge, checking to see how far apart the
buildings are.  Then you step back, and sprint for it, pushing off of the roof
and landing on the next building, but you don’t stop, sprinting across town as
you try to think of other things.  You had tried, you had both tried so hard to
make you feel something, to develop some kind of attachment, to prove that you
qualified as a human.  You want to believe that you succeeded; you feel
something when you think about Izaya, something raw and violent, but you can’t
put a name to it.  You couldn’t if you tried.  
“Is it hatred?” he’d asked eagerly, “Do you hate me now?”
You stared at him blankly.  “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“It’s like,” you struggled to find the right way to explain it, “I don’t know
what it’s like.”
“Imagine me getting into a car accident.”  He paused.  “How do you feel now?”
You shrugged helplessly.  “The same.”
Thinking about it now makes you run faster and jump harder, your landings
starting to hurt your feet, the cold wind you whip up around you chilling your
body.  It’s time to stop before you do something careless.  Reluctantly, you
slow your pace and start looking for a way down, going between balcony ledges
until you’re back at street-level and find yourself somewhere downtown.  
“I almost lost you there for a minute,” you hear, and you recognize the voice
immediately.  Izaya Orihara comes down the same way you just did, apparently
having followed you.  
“Almost lost me?” you repeat, turning to face him.  You know better than to
give him anything less than your full attention.  “You must be out of
practice.”
He isn’t; he’s not red-faced and he isn’t even breathing heavily.  “I don’t do
a whole lot of running around these days,” he says with a smile, “You’re one of
just two people who necessitates that.”
“I’m honored.”
“You wish you were,” he laughs.
You shrug.  Izaya has never let a single conversation go by without reminding
you that he doesn’t think of you as a human being.  “Why were you following
me?”
“You never answered my text,” he says, almost pouting, “It’s not very nice to
ignore people.  I found out where you were staying and what your number was,
but I couldn’t track you through it.”
“A bad workman always blames his tools,” you say.  
Izaya raises a brow.  “You’re using a burner phone, aren’t you?”
“That’s all I use anymore.”
“Well, I had to come find you.  Didn’t take long; you’re the only person on the
rooftops.”  He gestures behind himself with one thumb towards town.  “So about
that coffee?”
“Why do you want coffee with me?”
“Why are you stalling when you have nothing better to do?”  Izaya grins at your
apprehension.  “I already talked to your keeper, and he’s cutting you loose for
a couple of days.  I’m sure you want to use them to catch up with your dear
friend from high school?”
“I’m surprised he talked to you,” you say, “He doesn’t like you.”
Izaya waves a hand dismissively.  “Shiki and I are adults, and we know how to
be professional.  I find how possessive he is of you to be somewhat endearing,
if not pitiful.”
He is possessive; you know he is because he takes credit for you every chance
he gets.  He was the one who found you, after all, the one who trained you and
honed your legs until they could be of use to the Awakusu-kai.  Aside from
feelings of unrequited lust, you know he’s always disliked anything that might
get in the way or distract you.  Distraction and obstruction are just two of
the endless amount of words that can be used to describe Izaya Orihara, so of
course he isn’t fond of him, never mind how difficult he must be to work with
as an informant.
“If not coffee,” Izaya says, voice lowering, “Then perhaps you’d like to
resolve that bet we made?”  He places a hand on your shoulder brazenly.  You
don’t respond to it one way or the other.  “I already won,” you tell him.
Izaya shakes his head.  “You came back to Ikebukuro,” he says, coming a little
closer, uncaring of the stares the two of you are getting, “So it’s still on.”
That’s right, now you remember.  That’s the reason why you were so eager to
leave, the real reason buried under all of the other excuses.  Izaya was a sore
loser, and as long as you remained in Ikebukuro, he was determined to settle a
matter from long ago, a foolish bet made back in high school.  
He pulled the ribbon of your uniform loose and tied it your wrists together.
 “I’ll build you up,” he whispered, "And then I’ll break you down.  And by the
time we’re done, you’ll hate me.”
“What do you think?” he asks, bringing you back to the present, “Have you given
up on trying to feel something?  Or do you still want to try to be human?”
You gave up a long time ago.  But you really don’t have anything better to do,
and Shiki did tell you to “work things out.”  You meet Izaya’s eyes.  “You’re
welcome to try,” you tell him, and his eyes burn at the promise of a challenge.
Chapter End Notes
     This story is about to get a lot worse hahaha. Will add tags
     accordingly.
***** Blossoms Fall and Leaves Scatter III *****
Izaya considers himself a necessary evil; he’s told you this a few times
before.
“Humans are volatile,” he says as you settle onto the couch that Shiki sat on a
couple days earlier, glancing around at the loft.  Izaya has a bookshelf set
into the back wall and all manner of sociology and psychology texts, a few
medical journals and assorted memoirs and autobiographies of politicians or
academics, distinguished members of Japanese society.  He’s been obsessed with
the human condition as long as you’ve known him, though someone who didn’t know
him very well back in your high school days could probably have mistaken it for
scholarly interest and assumed he’d go into the social sciences.
You suppose information brokering is a sort of social science, so maybe they
weren’t wrong.
“So volatile, in fact,” he goes on, bringing a tray of freshly-brewed tea over
from the kitchen and setting it down on the table in front of you, “That
interesting things happen even without outside intervention.”  He sits close
but not too close, two cushions over on the half of the sectional running
perpendicular to your half, and leans forward to pour himself a cup of tea.
 “They act, and are acted upon.  Individuals pursue individual goals that
intersect with the desires of society as a whole, and the world moves forward.”
 
You’ve had this conversation before, you know you have.  It may even have used
the exact same words; you can’t quite recall.  But you don’t bother telling him
this.  
Izaya sips at the tea and pauses, contemplative.  “But it moves so painfully
slowly,” he says with a frown, “Ambling forward towards a general ideal without
thinking deeply about how to reach it.  And there are missteps, steps
backwards, steps in the wrong direction.  Sometimes, a guiding hand is
necessary.”  He looks to you, smiling.  “I don’t like to tell people what to
do,” he says, “But I think a nudge in the right direction can be beneficial.”
“You make yourself sound so noble,” you say.
Izaya laughs.  “Isn’t what I’m doing noble?” he asks, “Watching over and gently
cultivating the development of mankind?”
“That’s not what you’re doing.”  
“Then what am I doing?”
You eye Izaya across the table, the complete nonchalance of his demeanor, a
teasing smile.  Really, he looks the same as he did in high school, and his way
of thinking certainly hasn’t changed, either.  “If I had to guess,” you say,
“Probably amusing yourself.”
He gives an exaggerated pout.  “What a mean thing to say.  You still don’t know
anything about being nice to others.”
“It’s not about being nice.  You lied, and I called you on it.”
Izaya’s eyes widen a bit as though surprised, and then he laughs heartily,
setting his cup of tea down as though afraid to spill it.  “I forgot how honest
you are,” he says, “You were never good at lying either.”
“I don’t see the point.”
“Only children and fools tell the truth,” Izaya recites, wagging a finger at
you, “Don’t you remember that one?”
You can’t help but smile fondly at the memory.  “Vaguely,” you say, “Don’t tell
me you still have that book?”
“But of course.  Why wouldn’t I still have it?”  His smile widens as he stands
up, and when he goes to his bookshelf, you pour some tea for yourself.  Izaya
returns to his spot at the couch holding a thick book in his hands, the corners
of the hardcover rounded and frayed with age.  The words, “A Comprehensive List
of Modern Proverbs,” are embossed on the front.  It had been modern a little
more than a decade ago when Izaya received it as a birthday present from his
parents, and by the time the two of you met, it was just gathering dust on a
shelf in his bedroom.  “See?” Izaya says with a smile, “I don’t lie about
everything.”
“Just most things,” you nod, reaching for the book, but he turns away so it’s
out of your reach.  “Izaya, let me see it.”
“Hm.  I don’t think so,” he says, absently flipping through the pages, “It
really seems that you like this book more than you like me.”
“I really don’t like you, so that’s not surprising.”
“But you really like this book,” Izaya insists.  You scoot closer, trying to
get your hands on it over his shoulders, but he swats one of your reaching
hands away without even looking.  “I’d dare say you’re attached to it, which is
remarkable, considering you’ve never been attached to a person before.”
“I don’t think it’s all that remarkable,” you say, “It’s probably just that
things are easier to like than people.”
Izaya sighs deeply.  “No, no, it’s not about liking something.  You have a
deep, emotional connection to this book.  I remember high school.”  He pauses,
stopping on a certain page.  You try to get closer and crane your neck to look
over his shoulder, but he shoves you back with his free hand.  “Straightening
the horns of a bull will kill it,” he reads aloud, “Do you remember that one?”
“Yes,” you huff, settling on the couch and waiting for him to get bored of the
book.
“What does it mean?”
“Changing the way something is naturally does more harm than good.”
Izaya is quiet for a moment, and you know him well enough to be worried.
 Finally, he turns to face you again, book still open on his lap, smiling
peacefully.  “Have you ever thought about that?” he asks.
“About what?”
“About what would happen if you formed an attachment to a person.  Do you think
you’d die?”
Your brows furrow in confusion.  “No?”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“I don’t see how it would matter.”
“Your inability to form attachments to human beings is one of your fundamental
qualities,” Izaya explains, “Surely, if I succeeded in changing your nature,
you would die.”
“I don’t think--!”
You’re interrupted by a noise, the loud tearing of paper, and your eyes widen
as Izaya rips the page he was on out of the book, sloppily, leaving a jagged
scrap still attached to the binding.  You think your heart stops for a second.
“What are you doing?” you ask, and you don’t even realize that your voice
wavered.
Izaya’s smile widens just a bit.  “I think it would,” he says, ripping the
uneven page into small pieces and scattering them on the table.
 “Metaphorically, of course.  I suppose you could go into sudden cardiac
arrest, but I think it’s more likely that part of you would die.”  You hold
your breath, eyes following his hand as it he takes the top of the next page
between his fingers and pulls towards himself, ripping it free with an ugly
sound that makes you flinch.  He starts tearing pages out faster, three or four
at a time, and tearing them up haphazardly.
“I’m not a murderer,” Izaya says calmly, “I don’t kill humans.  But monsters….”
 He holds the book up, grabbing a fistfull of pages and tugging at the top,
testing the worn binding.  “Monsters are not humans.”
He goes to yank out a fistful of pages, but never quite makes it.
You throw yourself at him, pulling the book free from his grasp and throwing it
somewhere behind you, pinning him down on the couch and holding his wrists over
his head, your nails digging into his skin.  Izaya stares up at you without a
hint of surprise, still smiling, completely silent.  You know he’s watching
you, gauging your reaction.  Your hands are trembling and your gaze goes from
his face back to the table and the pile of torn papers.  Your rage subsides,
cooling into grief, and slowly, you sit up, letting him go, and you slide off
the couch and kneel beside the coffee table, turning over the paper scraps and
trying to see if you can tape them back together.  
You hear Izaya sit up behind you, letting out a short sigh.  He sounds
disappointed.  “But what a pathetic monster you are,” he says.  You ignore him,
shaking fingers trying to piece words together, scraps of paper sticking to
your sweaty skin.  A few of them clump together and the ink is blurred by water
falling on them, and you don’t realize you’re crying  until you touch your own
face and find tears rolling down your cheeks.  
Izaya gets up from the couch to sit beside you on the floor, and he cups your
face in his hands, forcing you to look up at him.  “Do you hate me now?” he
asks.
Your body convulses with silent sobs, and you squint through your tear-filled
vision at Izaya Orihara, the man who claimed once long ago that he could make
you human, and you believed him then because you didn’t know what kind of
person he was yet.  You were angry for a few moments, but when you realized the
state the book was in, the pages you could never repair, the words that had
been lost, you lost that connection.
“No,” you say hoarsely, even though you desperately wish you did.
Izaya’s smile is gone, replaced by a solemn expression you don’t often see,
disappointment mixed with something you can’t quite put a name to.  “That’s a
shame,” he mutters, and lets you go, the warmth of his hands disappearing as he
stands and leaves you there on the floor.  You hear him pull out the chair at
his desk and sit down.  “You can leave now,” he dismisses you.
You get to your feet slowly, unable to make yourself move any further until you
remember the book lying forgotten against the wall.  As you go to retrieve it,
you hear Izaya stop typing and turn to find him watching you.  “Leave that
here,” he says.
You sprint out the door with the book held tightly to your chest, ignoring one
last futile call from Izaya--“I’m just going to come get it”--darting down the
hall to the staircase and taking them two at a time to the roof.  You start
running, trying to navigate a path back to the hotel, rolling through someone’s
balcony and across a business patio.  The sky is dyed red with evening, and
there’s a cold chill that creeps up your clothes and sends goosebumps rising
all the way up your arms, but it’s an enjoyable feeling, somewhat nostalgic.
 You realize you’ve done this before; stolen this exact book from Izaya and run
off before he could stop you.  He never did chase you down, likely thinking it
was too much trouble, but he did always end up coming to take it back, and you
never understood why he bothered; he never wanted it, not in those days, and
certainly not now.
When you make it back to the hotel, you climb back down to street level, and
once you get off the elevator for your floor, you find Shiki waiting in front
of your room with his arms crossed over his chest, narrowing his eyes at you in
a nonverbal scolding.
“Finally back?” he asks, “You never told me you were going anywhere.”
A couple years ago, you’d have been offended, but you know he’s just being
practical.  If he has a job for you, he has to know where you are.  “Sorry,”
you say shortly, taking out your room key.  “I didn’t think you would come by
at all.”
“You had this weird look on your face when I left you here,” he says, “Thought
I’d make sure nothing was going on.”
He came to check on you; he just doesn’t want to use those exact words.  “I’m
fine,” you say, opening the door, and Shiki comes in behind you.  
“That book looks familiar,” he says, trying to sound nonchalant, though the
suspicion creeps into his voice.
You shrug, going towards the bathroom and opening the sliding door, but Shiki
comes up behind you and slams it shut.  You turn to look at him, frowning a
bit, but you know better than to think you’ll be able to win this one.  Izaya
is right; you’re honest to a fault, and the closest thing you can do to lying
is not saying anything at all.
“You’ve seen it before,” you say, “It’s the same one from high school that I
kept stealing from one of my upperclassmen.”
“Oh, that phrasebook.”
“Proverbs,” you correct.
“That upperclassman was Orihara, wasn’t it?”
You hesitate, which is really all the answer Shiki needs.
“Guess I should’ve known that already.  He was the only person your own age you
ever spent any time with.”
“Partially out of spite,” you say, “I knew you didn’t like him.”
Shiki lets out a sharp laugh.  “At best, he was a distraction, and you couldn’t
afford to have those.  If I’d known then what he’d grow up to be, I might have
had you take him out.”
“That’s not why you didn’t like him.”
Your handler frowns.  “We aren’t going to talk about this.”
“We don’t have to talk,” you agree, and come a little closer, pressing yourself
into Shiki’s chest.
You don’t expect him to push you away.  “If you two are playing this fucking
game again, I want no part of it,” he growls, “Don’t look at me like that, I
know what you’re doing.  You’ve tried sleeping with me to upset him before,
remember how well that went?”
You shrug, a little embarrassed that you were caught.  “It was your idea.”
Shiki turns away, but you catch just a hint of shame on his face before he
does.  “We’re leaving Ikebukuro in a couple days,” he says stiffly, heading for
the door, “I hope you have yourself together by then.”
You upset him; you’ve known Shiki long enough that, by now, you can tell when
his stony demeanor is breaking and the rawness underneath starts to show.  You
think you should probably be feeling guilty.  “I’ll try,” you say, and you
really mean it.  You and Izaya have unfinished business, and you intend to see
it through to the end this time, for a sense of closure if nothing else.  You
have a few more days to play the game, as Shiki put it, to act and be acted
upon in a volatile manner, just like the humans Izaya loves so much.
You feel the stirring of a storm inside of you, vague feelings you can’t name.
 You think you must be attached in some way to Izaya.  If only the attachment
were strong enough that you could see it clearly, understand it, call it
something definitive.  You think you must be human, underneath everything.  You
still want to claim that you are.
You clutch the book of proverbs in your hands and think about straightening the
horns of a bull.  There must be a method, you think, where the beast is put
through all-encompassing, soul-crushing pain, but still survives.
***** Blossoms Fall and Leaves Scatter IV *****
Chapter Notes
     "I'll be right back to continue this!" --me, multiple times in the
     last four months
The days slip by so quietly you hardly notice.
Before you know it, you’ve only got one more left in Ikebukuro.  Shiki drops by
your hotel room in the morning just as you’re getting ready to go on a run.  He
drops himself down on the couch and motions for you to come and sit next to
him, and you do so with a brow raised in curiosity.  
“We leave tomorrow,” he tells you.
You nod.  “I know.”
“So you done yet?”
“Done with…?”  You frown.  “No.  It doesn’t matter, though.  I’m ready to
leave.”
“Didn’t go well, huh?”  Shiki leans back with a tired sigh and looks away,
feigning disinterest, but you see the worry on his face.  “Wouldn’t worry about
it, if I were you.  Orihara’s a fucking sociopath, you’re better off without
him.”
He’s trying to comfort you, in his own clumsy way, the way a father might
awkwardly try to reassure his crying daughter that the boy who dumped her just
didn’t appreciate her.  For some reason, it annoys you more than anything.
“A sociopath,” you repeat slowly, testing the word.  A lot of people have tried
to diagnose Izaya’s behavior as far back as high school and come to a number of
different, and generally unflattering, conclusions, but you’ve never been able
to tell if he actually has a problem or if he just wants people to think that.
 
What does that make me, then? you wonder.
Shiki must sense your uncertainty, because he glances over and slowly puts an
arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer to him.  Shiki is warm with a
particular musky scent that mingles with tobacco.  It reminds you of when you
were younger and things were less complicated.
You didn’t know Izaya then, and you still thought that it was other people who
were the problem, not you.
“I’m sorry I can’t love you,” you tell him.
Shiki keeps his gaze straight ahead, staring at nothing, but you think he’s
remembering the same things you are.  “You don’t mean that,” he says.
You stare at his profile searching for something you can associate a feeling
with; affection or adoration or respect.  You come up empty.  You’re with the
Awakusu-Kai—with Shiki—because it’d be inconvenient to leave now.  
“Maybe you are sorry,” Shiki says.  “But you’re sorry for yourself, not for
me.”  He ruffles your hair like you’re a child, ignoring the glare you shoot
him and dodging your half-hearted swipe at his hand before he puts it back on
your shoulder.  “It’s better this way.  Things are less complicated if there
aren’t any feelings involved.  You’re more useful to us.”  He closes his eyes
and takes a deep breath, then smiles bitterly.  “Shit.  I say that, but I don’t
really believe it.  You think you’re some kind of monster, but I’m no saint,
you know.”  Shiki turns to look at you now, the hand on your shoulder draping
over your back to pull you closer and his free hand grabbing your chin.  “I
always thought it was good you were like this,” he says hoarsely, “You couldn’t
love me, but then you couldn’t love anyone else, either.”  
You couldn’t love Izaya.  He doesn’t say that, but you see the words in his
half-lidded eyes, clouded with lust and despair and dreams of a future that
will never come to pass.  
“That’s really selfish, isn’t it?  I’m terrible.”
Shiki leans in to kiss you, but you hold him at bay with one hand on his chest.
 “You’re really not that bad,” you assure him.  
“I’m not sure if that means anything, coming from you,” he mutters.  When he
leans in again, you slip out of his arms and stand from the couch.  He glances
up at you, expression irritable.  
“I need to get out for a while,” you tell him, “Clear my head.  Don’t wait up.”
His eyes narrow; he knows where you’re really going, even without you saying a
word.  But rather than get angry, he stands to leave, too, reaching for the
cigarettes in his pocket.  “Fine,” he says shortly, and you imagine he’s going
to step out for a smoke and then come back in, staying until you come back,
even if you’re gone for for an hour, or five, or for the rest of the day.  
He’ll be there when you come back, just like in the good old days.
You want to love him for that.  You think you should.  At the very least, you
should feel a little guilty for the way you keep playing with him, going back
whenever you feel like it despite knowing he feels a lot more strongly about
this than you do--that he feelsabout you at all.
You still can’t muster anything, which is precisely why you have to go.
*
Izaya is wearing a victorious smile when he answers the door, probably having
expected you to show your face again.  He’s dressed in the same black v-neck
and dark jeans he always is; frankly, you’re not sure that he owns many other
clothes.  “Look who came crawling back.  Here to return the book you stole?”
“I’m keeping it,” you tell him as you brush past him into the apartment,
“You’ll never see it again, not that you care.”
“Oh, but I do care,” he insists, and you hear the door shut and lock behind
you.  “It’s the only thing in the world you’ve ever been attached to, so I care
about it a great deal.  I’ll burn it the first chance I get.”
“That’s awfully dramatic.”
“I like making a spectacle of things.”  He puts one hand in his pocket, leaning
his weight casually to one side.  “Now are you going to tell me what you came
for, or do I have to guess?”
You close the distance between the two of you, walking the few steps it takes
to reach him and fisting your hands in his shirt, staring him in the eye.  “Fix
me,” you say quietly.
Izaya’s eyes widen for a moment in surprise, and then his smile widens.  “Aw,
did you and Shiki have a fight?”
“No.”
“I think you did,” he teases.  He takes your wrists, but instead of pulling
your hands off of him, he yanks you closer, cupping your face and looking down
at you, eyes shining with interest.  “Not that I’m complaining, of course.  We
still have a bet to settle, but it sounds like you’re actually hoping I win.
 Are you sure that’s what you want?”  His hands slide down to your shoulders
and then your arms, stopping at your sides.  “You want me to take your horns,”
he whispers against your lips, “And straighten them out?”
You blink up at him innocently.  “If you think you can.”
Izaya chuckles.  “I know I can,” he says, “I’m just not sure you’ll be able to
handle it.”
*
You can’t move your hands.
This is the way you usually did it back then, too.  The first time Izaya tied
you up was in high school, shortly after you first made this foolish bet.  He’d
been so sure that he could make you form an emotional attachment to him,
whether out of hatred or affection, and he’d started with the former because
you both thought that would be easier.  
“I’m going to make you regret coming back here,” Izaya murmurs against your
ear, tightening the rope binding your hands behind your back.  “Have you ever
even felt that before?  Have you really ever regretted something?”
“Yes,” you scoff.
“Really?  I didn’t know that.  You know, I don’t think you even realize just
how abnormal you are.  Maybe you’ve felt regret, but how about guilt?”
You don’t answer.  He chuckles, moving away from your back and leaving you
cold.
You’re kneeling on the floor of his living room, naked, save for the ropes on
your wrists.  The curtains are drawn and the lights are dimmed, and Izaya paces
around you, arms crossed over his chest, expression obscured by shadows.
 “You’ve never felt guilt before,” he says, “Not really, anyway.  Not for
hurting people, and you’ve hurt so many.”  He stops to kneel in front of you,
hooking his fingers beneath your chin to force you to look at him.  “Especially
Shiki.”
Something deep inside of you reacts to that, but not strongly enough that you
do anything but frown.
“Poor Shiki,” Izaya sighs, releasing you to walk out of your line of sight
again, “He’s loved you for a long time, and you just used him in your little
game to make me jealous.”  He leans in, and you feel his breath against your
throat.  “It didn’t work, by the way.”
“I seem to recall that it did.”
You feel him at your back, pressing into your naked form while fully clothed.
 “Your memory isn’t the best, then.”  He licks along the outer shell of your
ear and you don’t fight the shudder that runs down your spine.  “The way I
remember it,” he says, and you feel him grabbing at you, fingers pulling and
pinching as he pulls you into his lap without any gentleness, “You had him
wrapped around your finger for weeks.  He couldn’t believe you actually wanted
him.  He was crushed when he found out you really didn’t.”
His fingertips skim across your chest, teasingly light touches around your
breasts that have you arching your back.  “You didn’t want me, either, not in
any meaningful, normal way, but that’s how he understood it,” he goes on,
“Shiki and I have our professional differences, but every now and then, I think
we’ll be able to set it all aside and really get along.  But I see it in his
eyes when he remembers you.  I doubt he’ll ever forgive me.”
He rests one hand on your hip and turns your head with the other, pressing his
lips against yours in a open-mouthed kiss.  Izaya is distant as usual,
emotionally removed despite his physical proximity as he tries to gauge your
reactions and adjust his response appropriately.  You kiss him desperately,
angrily, wanting to tempt him into further involvement, but he’s infuriatingly
calm and collected despite the erection you feel pressing into you through his
jeans.  You think he gets off on being in control, or rather, being given
control willingly.  
Suddenly, he twists you around and pushes you down, back hitting the hard
floor, and you whine when he starts to stretch you open with one finger.
 “Hurry up,” you demand, and he chuckles.
“Someone’s in a bad mood.”
“This is what I came here for, not to listen to you talk.”
“That’s a shame.  It’s part of the package.”  He leans in, slowly thrusting in
another finger and watching your face scrunch up with discomfort.  “What gets
you off, anyway?  After all these years, I’m still not sure I know.  Sometimes,
I’d barely touch you and you came, and other times you just couldn’t finish no
matter what we did.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m sure you don’t, you’re the least self-aware person I know.”  He unbuckles
his belt with one hand and unzips his fly, exposing the prominent bulge in his
underwear.  “Is it Shiki?” he teases, fingers slowly pushing deep inside and
hitting a sensitive spot, making you inhale sharply.  “Not as a person, I mean,
I’m not giving you that much credit.  But maybe you get off on knowing how much
he likes you, how he’d do anything for you, how much it hurts him to see you
come to me.”  He swipes your clit with his thumb.  “Does that make you wet?”
You don’t say anything, trying to thrust your hips again his hand.  Izaya
frowns.
“Hm.  Guess I’m wrong.  That got the opposite reaction I was hoping for,” he
says thoughtfully, “You don’t really like hurting him, do you?”
“Can you please just fuck me now?” you say impatiently.
He doesn’t look nearly as pleased with himself now.  He pulls his fingers out
of your entrance and tugs his underwear down enough to free his erection,
lining himself up.  “It’s a real shame,” he says, voice quieter than before, “I
have some fond memories of high school because of you, you know.  I’m sure you
remember all the same things, but you don’t really think about them one way or
another.  They’re not special to you.”
Before you can complain, he’s pushing in, hands on your knees to pull your legs
open a little wider and you throw your head back, content at the feeling of
fullness when his hips smack against yours.  Your arms are aching behind your
back, but you hardly notice the pain.  “They’re just things that happened a
while ago,” he mutters, “Unremarkable.  Forgettable.”  His thrusts are harsh
and you’re still adjusting to his size but the pain is as welcome as the
pleasure, anything at all that makes you feelrather than think.  You’re just
starting to lose yourself, moving your lower body to meet his thrusts, when he
reaches down and pinches you hard at your collarbone, and you cry out in
surprise.
“What the hell was that for?”
“I want to send you home with lots of marks,” he says, “So Shiki will look at
you and get upset.  It’ll be easy to talk him into fucking you after that.”  He
places a deceptively gentle peck on your lips before he suddenly bends you in
half, smothering his body with your own, and sets a quick and merciless rhythm,
the sound of your bodies meeting loud in the empty apartment.
“More,” you beg, and you can feel sweat gathering on your brow and along your
back, “Deeper, please, Izaya, I need--!”
“Turn around,” he says breathlessly, and you moan because you can feel
everything and it’s overwhelming, how his grip is tight enough to leave bruises
in the shape of his fingers, how heavily he’s breathing, how hard he’s fucking
you, and you struggle to do as he says because you want even more.  He grabs
your arms, bound at the wrists, and holds you upright as he picks up the pace
again, the loud slapping of flesh almost as loud as your breathing.  You feel
him licking and biting you, sucking at spots on your shoulders and your back
and your neck, littering your skin with red blotches just like he said he
would.
“Izaya,” you pant, “Izaya, I’m,” and you don’t get any more words out as you
clench around him with a particularly harsh bite on your right shoulder.  You
let out a long moan as you try to catch your breath, but he isn’t done yet,
speed and intensity increasing as he clutches your shoulder over where he bit
you.  You whine his name, trying to tell him to slow down, but he only folds
his body over you, hips pistoning before his pelvis locks into place against
yours and he gives several last, hard thrusts.  You feel him come inside, warm
and wet, and you whimper.
He doesn’t move for a minute.  You feel your heartbeat evening out and try to
relax, but you shift uncomfortably with his weight on top of you.  “What are
you thinking about right now?” Izaya asks quietly.
You close your eyes.  “How good that felt.”
“What else?”
“How I’m gonna look for the next few days.”
“You weren’t complaining.”
“I’m still not.”
Izaya pauses.  “You liked that?”
“Yeah.”
“You liked it when I bit you?  Left all those marks on you?”
“I guess so.”
“Why?”
You hesitate a second.  “I don’t know.  Is that attachment?  Is this what
attachment is like?”
Izaya doesn’t answer for a while.  He shifts slightly, and you shiver when he
pulls out; you feel his cum dripping out of you.  “‘Attachment’ isn’t the word
a regular human would use,” he says, and you hear him walk away and return a
moment later.  You feel tissues against your skin, soaking up some of the
liquid as he cleans you up.  “You should say affection or love.”
“But it’s not,” you say, “It’s not either of those things.  I don’t hate you
either.”
Izaya unties your hands and gives you your clothes.  “You should go,” he says,
“I’m sure your keeper is waiting for you.”  He’s still smiling, but you know
him well enough by now that you don’t miss the irritated edge to his voice.  
“I leave tomorrow, you know,” you tell him, “This is your last chance to win
that bet.”
He gives dismissive wave and going to sit at his desk.  “I wasn’t seriously
trying to win,” he says with a shrug, “I’m not too proud to admit when I’ve
lost.  You’re a lost cause as far as I’m concerned.”
You frown.  “Then what was this?”
“This was nothing.”  He glances over his computer monitor.  “How would you feel
if I was just messing with you?”
“A little frustrated,” you say.  
“That’s all?”
“Yeah.”
He returns his attention to the computer.  “Hm.  Oh well.”
You don’t want to leave it like this.  You don’t know why you came--maybe for
some peace of mind, some closure, that’s what you tell yourself, anyway--but
this isn’t what you wanted.  You feel the same as when you came, just as empty
as when you walked in, and the world is just as gray and meaningless as it was
before.
Izaya doesn’t say anything to you as you leave, and you take the stairs up to
the roof and run all the way back, taking dangerous leaps that are farther than
what you really should be trying and landing hard, the pain shooting up your
legs.  You come back into the hotel room through the window, hair blown in all
directions.  Shiki is still awake, sitting patiently on the couch where you
left him, TV on mute and lights dancing across his face.  You shut the window
behind you and run a hand over your hair, trying to smooth it out of your face.
 
“Long night?” he asks.
You shrug, unzipping your jacket.  Shiki’s eyes are drawn reflexively to your
neck, and you can tell he’s looking at the hickeys and bite marks Izaya left.
 He uncrosses his legs and leans back, motioning silently with one hand for you
to come closer.  You drop your jacket on the floor and cross the room, crawling
into his lap.  Shiki runs his calloused hands over the red marks on your flesh,
eyes glazing over with desire.  
“He’s too rough with you,” he mutters.
You wrap your arms around him, clasping your hands together behind his neck.
 “I don’t mind rough,” you whisper.
You help him tug your shirt off and sigh when he runs his tongue over Izaya’s
teeth marks on your shoulder, and yelp when he bites down.
He pulls back and you see your blood on his lips.  A shiver runs down your
spine.  “Be careful what you wish for.”
“Rough is fine, Shiki,” you insist, grabbing fistfuls of his suit to pull him
in for a kiss.
He pushes you back with one hand on your chest, just as you did to him before.
 “You’re crying,” he says.
“What?”  
He gently brushes your cheek with his index finger and pulls back to show you
your own tears glistening on his skin.  You touch your own face self-
consciously.  “We’ll leave tomorrow,” he says reassuringly, and moves as though
to lift you off of him.  You hold on tight, refusing to move.
“I want it,” you tell him.
He shakes his head.  “You should get some sleep.”
“No, Shiki, I need this, I need you.”  It’s a cruel thing to do, but you don’t
stop yourself from saying it, and you don’t feel guilty afterwards.  “Please,”
you beg, smoothing his white suit jacket off of his shoulders, “Please, Shiki.”
“I spoiled you,” he groans, but in the end, he gives in, and you end up in the
hotel bed with your head resting on his chest and his arm holding you close.
You find yourself thinking again, wondering how you got here, in a hotel room
in Ikebukuro, naked next to your handler, unable to appreciate just how much he
cares about you.  You like to think your life wasn’t particularly remarkable,
that nothing really stands out, but that isn’t quite true.  You can pinpoint
the exact moments when things changed forever, points of no return that signify
the end of any normalcy you might have been able to hold onto.
The first was in your last year of junior high at a track meet.  
The second was in your first year of high school when you first heard the name
Izaya Orihara.
***** A Tiger at the Front Gate, a Wolf at the Back I *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The you of nearly a decade ago stands beneath a fiery evening sky, school bag
in hand and eyes turned up at the stranger who approached you after track
practice and walked almost all the way back home with you.
“You run well,” he tells you.  He’s tall, haloed by the setting sun behind him.
 He wears a black suit because he’s just another underling who has yet to make
a name for himself, somebody’s nephew who has a lot to prove.  You’re fifteen
but you’re not naive; you see the swagger in his movements that sets him apart
from an ordinary company worker.  You see the swirl of ukiyoe-style clouds
peeking out from his suit collar.  You know what you’re looking at, but you
don’t turn and run because you’re curious and this is the most interesting
thing that has ever happened to you.
“Not that well,” you say modestly, just as your parents taught you.
The bough that bears the most weight hangs the lowest.
To your surprise, he does not accept your deflection.  “No, I mean it. You
really run well.”  He smiles and it’s a little crooked, maybe even charming.
 You don’t know it yet, but that look in his eyes is hope and a little
desperation.  He’s been waiting to make his big break, to secure his future,
and he sees it when he looks at you.  “You want to be a long distance runner?”
(You tell him later that betting so much on you was a stupid thing to do.  He
tells you that sticking around and listening to him was a stupid thing to do.
 You both change the subject.)
You shrug.  “Not really.  It’s just something I do for fun.”
“That’s a shame.  You shouldn’t waste that kind of talent.”
People walking past you give you both sidelong glances but nobody stops or says
anything.  They just leave you there with him, and in hindsight, that makes you
a little less fond of humanity.
He makes the pitch, and it’s something harmless like, “You know, there’s a
school in Ikebukuro with some great sports programs,” and you’re interested but
skeptical.  
“Ikebukuro’s a long way from here,” you tell him, “If it’s a really nice
school, my family probably couldn’t afford it, anyway.”
He smiles again, wider this time, as though he’s been waiting for this since he
first approached you.  “Then you’re in luck,” he says smoothly, producing a
business card from his suit pocket and handing it to you, “My organization
helps families place high-achieving children in the best schools possible by
offering financial aid and housing.”
The name of the company printed on the card is long and old-fashioned, and you
don’t know how to read some of the characters, but the name below it is Hiro
Yamada.  
(You ask later if he got to come up with his own alias or if somebody else
assigned him one.  He looks uncomfortable that you even remember all that.)
“If you’re interested,” the man whose name is probably not Yamada says, “I can
talk to your parents and we can find a placement program for you right away.”
He’s under the impression that you believe him still by the confidence in his
voice, and you allow that illusion to continue, curious to see just how far
this will go.  You think this can’t possibly be about you; he must be here for
your parents.  They must have taken out a loan from the wrong people, or gotten
involved in some sort of scam already.  You should run away at this point--he’s
a little older and you smell cigarettes on him, and really, what’ve you both
been standing around talking about all this time?--but you don’t.  You don’t
because you see your future in Shiki, too, even if you never do tell him that.
 
Really, you only see it there because you’ve looked everywhere else and turned
up empty, and now you’ll take whatever’s handed it to you.  
You think that’s why, at the time, you shrugged and led “Mr. Yamada” home.
*
He introduces himself to your parents with the same fake name and business
cards, stating the same claims and telling them all about your remarkable
performance in track and how that could help you get into a great high school,
and who knows what’ll happen from there?  Maybe you’ll even get into Tokyo
University!  They’re so ecstatic that they must miss all of the things you
noticed or his pushiness in making the sale, insisting that they sign you up
immediately since someone else will surely take your place in the program if
they don’t, but you don’t say anything, silently watching the exchange from the
next room.  
Your parents are completely average.  Your father is a middle-level salaryman
who works hard but isn’t particularly innovative, and your mother is a
housewife.  They aren’t rich nor are they poor, they aren’t idiots but they
aren’t geniuses, and everything about them and the house and their lives is
perfectly normal.
Except for you.
It isn’t their fault, either.  One would imagine that, given your environment,
you would have grown to be just like them, but some things are more deeply
rooted in nature than nurture.  
(In elementary school, you had a classmate over for a playdate and she went
home drenched and crying, telling her parents that you’d pushed her into the
stream by your house.  Your parents confronted you about it later, and you
weren’t very apologetic.  You said something like, “I didn’t think she’d
actually fall in,” as an excuse, because you knew what you were doing, you just
didn’t understand why you were being scolded.
“Didn’t you think she might be upset if you did that?” your mother scolded you.
You didn’t think that because you hadn’t considered her feelings at all.  You
were told you’d been “mean” but you didn’t really understand it.  
It was harder to find people who wanted to come over after that.)
“This sounds wonderful,” your mother says, “But I’m a little worried about how
she’ll do so far from home.”
You look away when your father turns to you from the kitchen, expression
concerned.  “She has some...trouble making friends.”
He means to say “behavioral issues” or “antisocial tendencies,” but like your
mother, he tends to only see what he wants to see.  There can’t be anything
really wrong with you, after all, it’s just a phase, or a rough spot, or a
quirk.  You’re a perfectly normal young woman, or so they insist at parent-
teacher conferences.
“Each of the dormitories has a counselor on hand during the day,” not-Mr.
Yamada assures them, “We’ve never had to expel a student from the program.”
Your parents are a bit reluctant, perhaps worried that you’ll be the first, but
they’re eventually swayed by his smooth-talking and begin signing paperwork.  
“Aren’t you excited?” your mother calls, beaming, “There’s an opening at
Raijin!  You’ll be able to get into a great university.”
The yakuza thug standing in your kitchen behind them looks relieved as he
gathers up the contracts they’ve just signed--and honestly, wasn’t that
reckless of them?  They could have sold you into sexual slavery and had no
idea--and you glance at him, trying to figure him out.  This is something you
would do repeatedly over the course of the next few years, as “Mr. Yamada”
would prove to be endlessly interesting, if a bit pitiable, and in turn, he
would try to figure you out, too.
Unsurprisingly, only one of you would succeed, and it was not the person who
thought they’d just gotten their big break.
*
“So what’s your real name?”
The man in the black suit comes back to your house only one other time, and
it’s to pick you up and “deliver you to the local agency branch office,” where
you’ll be relocated to Ikebukuro with other students in the same program.
 Instead, he gets on the interstate, and you gaze out the window, watching your
hometown fly by.  
He doesn’t say anything for a minute.  You think he’s starting to get nervous.
 “I told you my name,” he says carefully, glancing at you through the rearview
mirror.
You meet his gaze without hesitation.  “I’m not quite as gullible as my
parents,” you say, “I could tell you were lying the first time you talked to
me.”  You get caught in the flow of evening traffic and he taps his fingers on
the steering wheel nervously.  It seems he obviously didn’t plan on you
figuring him out.  “So what’s your real name?”
“It’s Shiki,” he says quietly.
“Just Shiki?”
“You don’t need my first name.”
“Who do you work for?”  He doesn’t answer.  “Where are we going?”
“If you need to know something, I’ll tell you,” he snaps, clearly agitated.
You settle back in your seat, rolling your eyes.  “You didn’t plan this out
very well,” you say, “Traffic’s at a standstill.  I could jump out right now if
I wanted.  You also let me keep my cell phone, so I could call the cops.”  He
seems to be ignoring you now, so you change tactics.  “You said I run well.
 Does that mean I get to be a messenger or something?”
“Why are you still here?” he asks finally, letting out a defeated sigh.  “You
said yourself you could jump out, so why don’t you?  Save us both the trouble
later.”
“I don’t want to go back.”  Your answer comes with a bit more bite than you
intended, and you let the words hang there a moment before continuing.  “I’m
not like my parents, or my classmates.  I can’t make friends, and I don’t
really want to.  I can’t be the way they want me to be.”  You look at the back
of Shiki’s head, his neatly-combed black hair just barely sticking out over the
headrest.  “You’re yakuza.  I thought I’d see if I was more like you.”
“And what if you aren’t?”
You don’t consider that; you can’t.  If you don’t fit into general society,
then you have to fit into the underbelly.  You have to fit somewhere.
Despite your silence, something is conveyed to Shiki unintentionally, and for
the first time, you have a moment of understanding.  “You know where we’re
going?” he asks, sounding a bit gruffer than usual as he drops the pretense of
being a gifted child placement program agent.  
“No.”
“We’re going back to my place.  You’ll drop off your stuff, and then we’re
gonna go see my boss and arrange for someone to train you.  You’ll be a runner,
an infiltrator, a retrieval specialist or whatever we need you to be.  You’re
not getting out of school, though; you need at least a high school diploma so I
know I can trust you with basic things.”  It sounds almost like he’s giving you
one last chance to back out, one last window of opportunity to change your
mind.  You wonder how such a hopelessly nice guy ended up a yakuza member.
“So do I still get to go to Raijin?”
“That part wasn’t a lie.  We hold a lot of sway in Ikebukuro, so that’ll be
easiest.”  He waits a beat.  “There aren’t any dorms, or other students.
 You’ll be staying with your trainer.”
“Okay,” you say without hesitation.
He pauses and looks back at you once more.  “Okay?” he repeats.
“Yeah.  That sounds good.”  You don’t elaborate or tell him just how lost you
feel, how you’ve been thinking about your future in terms of just being able to
survive, because even now, even before you were made to confront the truth, you
know on some level that you’re a crooked stake, nothing like your peers who
march on endlessly into office positions, make friends, and start families.
 You don’t think you could do any of that if you tried, but you still want to
have a place in the world.
You assume it’s here, in the backseat of a yakuza thug’s car, silent as you
watch everything you’ve ever known pass by without a hint of nostalgia.
(The you of even earlier sits in a doctor’s office between your parents,
staring at the painting on the wall curiously.  
“She’s still very young so it’s difficult to say with certainty, but I don’t
believe these behavioral issues should be ignored,” the doctor says solemnly,
“I urge you to consider setting up an appointment with a child psychologist to
have her evaluated.”
Your father says he’ll consider it and your mother gives you a reassuring hug.
 She tells you on the way out that you’re fine, you don’t need anything like
that, you’re just a child, that’s all, still learning right from wrong.
There are still little feathers stuck to the front of your shirt from when
you’d caught a bird by accident while looking for butterflies.  Your parents
found it dead in the yard and brought you inside for a talk, but you don’t know
what you did wrong.
“Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should,” your mother had
tried to explain.
She sent you to your room without a snack and you cried, because you still
didn't know what you did wrong.)
Chapter End Notes
     I promise Izaya will be back in the next chapter.
***** A Tiger at the Front Gate, a Wolf at the Back II *****
A blind man may sometimes hit the hare.
That’s the sort of thing your mother might have said when you were young.  She
was fond of those sorts of expressions, and so were you.  That one in
particular is the first to come to the mind of the you from nearly a decade
ago, one year after that fateful encounter with a member of the Awakusu-Kai.
 Shiki hasn’t changed much; he’s still a lowly underling in the organization,
the sort who shows loyalty by serving jail time for the crimes of his superiors
and isn’t trusted with anything important yet.  He’s counting on you to be his
ticket to a promotion, which strikes you as an incredible leap of faith, though
you’ve been cooperative thus far if only because you’re counting on him to give
you something to do with yourself.
He hit the first obstacle on the path to bigger and better things almost
immediately when, surprise, nobody wanted to train some random kid he picked up
from the schoolyard to be a yakuza runner.  Undeterred, he decided he’d train
you himself.
Your parents think you’re living in a dormitory with other students whose
families are far away from Ikebukuro.  The illusion is upheld with forged
documents and Shiki occasionally arranging for you to go home and visit them so
they don’t feel the need to come visit you.  You imagine they’d be less than
pleased to learn that you’re living with him instead.
It’s a modest apartment not too far from your new school, the kind of place
where you have to learn to smile politely at the neighbors who leave at the
same time as you and help the older lady who lives down the hall take out her
garbage.  You know they’ve all seen you and Shiki come in and leave, but nobody
says anything, so you imagine they must think he’s your father.  Neither of you
are inclined to correct them.
The last days of your break between junior high and high school pass quickly as
you adjust to sharing a roof with a man who acts like he’d rather pawn you off
to somebody else half the time, and like he can’t live without you the other
half.  Your first impression of Shiki is of someone at the end of their
proverbial rope with more going on than you really care to know about.
“You think you’re done?” he snaps at you.  You’re at the city park, panting
with your hands on your knees as you try to catch your breath.  He had you do
wind sprints earlier, and then sent you jogging laps when you started to slow
down.  “You think that kind of running is going to cut it in the field?”  This
is how it goes most nights; he chews you out for slacking off or messing
around, and you tend to just let him talk until he’s done, because after that,
he gets really quiet.
It takes five minutes, tops.  By the time you’ve walked back to his
apartment—which you have made an effort to refer to as “home” ever since you
slipped and called it “Shiki’s apartment” to one of the neighbors and they
looked a little concerned that you didn't just call him "dad"—he’s usually done
a complete 180.
“Shit,” he sighs, “I don’t know what I’m doing.  I’m not good with kids.  Why
did I say I would do this?”
This is the part where you talk him back down.  The first time it happened, you
just let him go and he actually started to cry, talking about how much of a
fuck up he was, how joining the Awakusu-Kai hadn’t made any difference and
nothing would.
You don’t know how old Shiki is—you’ve never asked, and you never will—but you
think this is called a midlife crisis.
“You’re going to train me so I’m the best runner the Awakusu-Kai has ever had,”
you tell him, “They’re going to feel stupid for not putting more faith in you.”
“No.  This is ridiculous,” Shiki mutters, walking past you like you aren’t
there and dropping onto the sofa in the middle of his living room.  “I’m just
wasting more time.  I should just cut my losses, loan you out to a soapland or
something.”
“You’d really do that?  Even after I put my trust in you?”
He doesn’t answer.  You see him put his head in his hands.
Shiki is mostly transparent, but you do wonder a bit at the immense guilt he
apparently holds for bringing you into the yakuza.  The quickest way to shut
him down is to remind him that you’re his responsibility, and then he gets this
look on his face like his family just disowned him.  You don’t like doing it,
but you don’t really like listening to him complain all night, either.
It’s funny; Shiki must think he’s a terrible person, but here you are,
manipulating his feelings so you have somewhere to stay and something to do.
Maybe, just maybe, you are his hare and this is his lucky day.
You think it’s much more likely that this arrangement won’t work out well for
anyone.
*
Shiki doesn’t actually realize that he’s hitting the second obstacle in your
training until it’s much too late, but it happens after your first few
uneventful weeks at Raijin.  You’ve learned by now how to grin and bear it, how
to trick your peers and teachers into thinking you’re not anything unusual by
mimicking their behaviors, so you successfully avoid drawing attention to
yourself.  
But there’s someone else who hasn’t learned that yet; or, more likely, simply
doesn’t care to do so.
You hear Izaya Orihara’s name long before you ever see him, whispered in the
halls and muttered by the teachers at lunch.  Whether in disdain or admiration,
everyone seems to talk about him.  He’s a year ahead of you so you don’t really
have any opportunity to meet him under ordinary circumstances, so the first
time you actually see him is one afternoon in the girl’s locker room.
You like to go for a run even when the track club isn’t meeting, and usually
run a few laps before calling it a day and heading in to shower.  You hear
something when you first come in, something like giggling and whispering.  You
ignore it at first and open your locker, but then you hear a gasp, and your
curiosity gets the best of you.  You peer around the next row of lockers and
find a girl you recognize as one of the volleyball club members pressed against
the wall and half-dressed, her hands grasping at the uniform of the boy in
front of her.  Quickly, you duck back behind the row of lockers, heart pounding
in your chest.  It’s the first time you’ve ever seen anything like it, and it
both shocks and interests you.
“I swear I heard someone come in,” you hear her mumble.
“Does that make you excited?  You’re soaked all of the sudden.”  
You hear something wet and obscene-sounding, and then she moans, “Orihara!”
You should probably leave them alone; the thought certainly crosses your mind.
 But you peer back around the lockers at them, lingering longer than you really
should out of curiosity.  Looking carefully at people is something you’ve
always done, so you look at him, still fully clothed in his uniform, movements
steady and certain, and you look at her, flushed and panting and throwing her
head back against the wall with a sigh when his fingers sink into her heat, and
you’re just starting to come up with some assumptions when he glances very
casually over his shoulder to meet your eyes, like he knew you were there the
whole time.  
He smiles at you, and you feel a shiver run down your spine.  You slip away
when he turns his attention back to her and decide you’ll change at home.
*
Shiki is already home when you get back, filling out more forged paperwork for
something and looking incredibly bored.  “You wore your gym clothes home?” he
asks.
“Yeah.  The locker room was busy, so I thought I’d just come home.”  
He shrugs and goes back to what he was doing, and you stop before you reach the
bathroom and turn to look at him.  His suit and tie are laying over the back of
a chair in the corner, and he’s wearing a white dress shirt with the top two
buttons undone.  You see the curving spine of a dragon on his bare skin below
his collar, black scales and a red belly.  You wonder what the rest looks like.
 
“What are you staring at?”
You don’t realize just how long you’ve been standing there until he snaps at
you, and your eyes flick up to his face.  He looks irritated, but also a little
curious.
“Nothing,” you say quickly and dart into the bathroom, slamming the door shut
behind you and carelessly drop your gym bag with your clothes on the floor.
 You start the water as you undress, glancing at your reflection in the mirror.
 You’re blushing, just like that girl was.  Your face feels hot.  You remember
the way she was pressed against the wall, one leg wrapped around the boy’s
waist, arms looped around his neck.  You remember the way he touched her.
The warm water hits your skin and you lather soap in your hands.  For some
reason, the scene in the locker room won’t leave your mind, and you try to
distract yourself, wondering what other tattoos Shiki has.  Dragons are so
stereotypical, but what you saw of his was elegant and you want to see the
rest.  You imagine waves and clouds, camellia blossoms and spider lilies, maybe
an oni or hannya mask.  Most yakuza have their whole torso done, or even their
entire body up to where their sleeves or pant legs end.  You wonder how far
Shiki’s go.
That makes your face feel even warmer.
“Why does it matter?” he’d probably say if you tried to ask him what his
tattoos were.  You just want to know, that’s all, you’re just curious.  
Suddenly, you imagine yourself as the girl in the locker room, someone’s warm
body pressing against you, their hand running down your stomach and touching
your womanhood.  “You’re so wet,” they’d say, and you imagine them with yakuza
tattoos on their chest.  But the face you imagine is one smiling the same
eerie, knowing smile you saw in the locker room, the boy you assume to be Izaya
Orihara.
You inhale sharply when your hips jerk forward without your conscious
awareness, the fingers you have pressed to your clit becoming slicker even with
your back turned to the water coming from the shower head.  
When you finally come out of the bathroom, Shiki gives you a wary look and asks
if you slipped and fell.  
You can’t meet his eyes.
***** A Tiger at the Front Gate, A Wolf at the Back III *****
Chapter Notes
     Hello, it is I, coming back slowly from another unannounced hiatus.
     Here is a long chapter as a peace offering.
You officially meet Izaya Orihara at just the perfect time.
If it had been even a week earlier, you probably wouldn’t have noticed he was
anything out of the ordinary.  As it is, you meet him not long after the
incident you witnessed in the girl’s locker room—a girl on the volleyball team
wrapped around him and moaning his name as he coldly and calculatingly took her
apart with just his fingers.  Not nearly enough time has gone by for you to
forget about what you saw, so when one of your classmates leans in from the
hall during lunch break and calls your name, saying, “Orihara wants to talk to
you,” you’re a bit flustered.  The room gets a little quieter as you stand up
and you’re surrounded by expressions of suspicion, admiration and disgust, as
though you were called to your teacher’s office instead; everyone wants to know
what you did.
He stands patiently in the hallway, hands in his pockets as he looks at you
with an off-putting smile almost identical to when he caught you watching a few
days earlier.  “It took me a little while to figure out what class you were
in,” he says, “Not only are we in different grades, but nobody seemed to know
who you were.  Guess you’re something of a mysterious transfer student, huh? 
You must not be from around here.”
You shrug.  “What do you want?”
“Not one for small talk.  You shouldn’t be so rude to your elders, you know.”
“You shouldn’t be in the girl’s locker room.”
Izaya’s smile widens.  “Ouch.  For an underclassman, you’re not cute at all.”
You feel a bit like lions circling one another, fangs bared and spines arched
in aggravation, testing each other to see who’ll back down first.  You’re
irritated but you’re also interested.  You can tell by the way he looks at
you—watches you, analyzes your expression, searches for your weak points—that
he’s not like anyone else at school, and that he knows you aren’t, either.
“I’m just curious,” he continues, “Raijin’s a pretty prestigious school, and
not just anyone gets in.  It’s especially unusual for kids from out of town to
show up here.  Either you were at the top of your class or your parents have a
lot of money.  Which is it?”
“That’s none of your business,” you tell him, but he still looks pleased.
“You sound defensive.  Is it because coming here is a huge financial drain on
your single father?”  His eyes narrow and he leans in, lowering his voice.  “I
highly doubt that, considering where you live and that you can afford to do
club activities.  Honestly, I doubt that’s your father at all.”
You don’t ask him how he knows any of that—you don’t want to give him the
satisfaction of having his hunch confirmed.  Your silence and the perturbed
frown on your face is apparently not what he wanted, because he leans back,
done trying to intimidate you, and gives a soft sigh.
“Getting to the point,” he says, “I’ve got you pretty well figured out, and I
want an in.”
You’re momentarily taken aback.  “You want a what?”
“An in,” he repeats, grinning, “The guy you’re living with is yakuza, isn’t
he?  Probably the Awakusu-kai, they’re big here.  Introduce me, I want to talk
business with him.”
You can hardly believe your ears.  As unusual as Izaya is, you highly doubt
he’s got anything to offer Shiki.  You have him pegged as a “middle-school
syndrome” type who’s out to change the world or rule it—or maybe both—despite
knowing little to nothing about how it actually works. 
That, and maybe you feel something a bit like jealousy—Shiki is your in. 
This loser can go find his own.  “I’m not doing you any favors.  I don’t even
know you,” you say, “If you want to prove you’re useful to the Awakusu-kai, do
it yourself.  I hope you like disappointment, because they’ve got pretty high
standards.”
You’re not quite sure if that’s a lie or not.  Regardless, Shiki himself is
desperate enough that you wouldn’t be surprised if he took in Izaya as a
protégé or something.  The thought irks you for some reason, and you see no
reason to tell Izaya that.
Your refusal seems to throw him off, because he stops smiling for just an
instant before he recovers.  “What, you think I’m going to turn you in?” he
asks, “I really think you and I have a lot in common.  We’d make a great team,
wouldn’t we?”
Suddenly, you aren’t sure what to make of him.  There’s more to his self-
assuredness than simple overconfidence; you entertain the notion that he might
actually know what he’s talking about, maybe even have a foot in the same
circles you’re making your way into.  He could be something like Shiki but more
cautious, more sure of himself, as he tries to carefully position himself in a
place of power.
That means he definitely can’t be trusted.
“I don’t think we’d get along,” you say simply, and turn to go back to your
classroom.  Izaya doesn’t stop you, and you assume he’s silently stewing. 
You don’t know him very well yet, or you would’ve turned back and seen him
smiling, known he already had a plan underway, and that this would definitely
not be the last you’d hear of him.
*
Shiki holds the stopwatch up to inspect, squinting at the numbers on the little
screen in what you recognize now as satisfaction.  You know before he even says
anything that he’s pleased because he has one hand in his pocket, just
resting.  “Good,” he says, “That’s a new record.” 
You’re crouching in the park on a weeknight, the children’s playground behind
you a makeshift obstacle course.  You can feel the sweat slide down your face
and wipe your forehead, trying to draw air into your lungs.  When a shadow
falls across you, you look up and find Shiki offering a hand to help you up. 
You slap it away and struggle to stand up straight on your own, and secretly,
the way admiration lights up his face makes you swell with pride.
“You’ve been practicing, haven’t you?  I can tell, your form is better when you
land.”  Shiki’s smiles—his real smiles, not the kind used to woo your parents
but the sort he gives in unguarded moments like this—are always tired-looking,
the sorts you see on people much older trapped in their dead-end jobs when
something mildly pleasant happens, and it just means the world to them.  “You
deserve a reward,” he decides, “For all of your hard work.  You’ll definitely
keep it up if you get something in return, won’t you?”  He smiles a little
more, proud of himself for coming up with the idea. 
(“Rewards,” you tell him some time later, “Are what you should have started
with.  Don’t you know anything about kids?”
He takes a drag on his cigarette and exhales, smoke rising from his lips and
trailing out the open window.  “Of fucking course I don’t.”)
“So what do you want?” he asks, and glances down at you, watching for a
reaction, “New clothes?  Concert tickets?”  He pauses for a long time,
struggling to come up with something else, and you try not to laugh.  “It
doesn’t matter if it’s expensive, anything you want is fine.”
You aren’t giving it much thought, though, distracted by thoughts of the
strange upperclassman who wanted to meet your “father,” determined that his
ideas would impress the local dominant yakuza group.  Thinking back on it, you
wonder if that was just a test of some kind, if he was reading you for a
response and if you did something you shouldn’t have.  You’re not really
worried, but you do wonder.  How had you not noticed him before?  How had you
dismissed all of the things you heard as normal school gossip and not realized
there might be someone else a little bit like you, someone just as good at
pretending they belonged there? 
Was seeing him in the girl’s locker room really just the coincidence necessary
for you to pay attention, or did he notice you far sooner than you realized?
Shiki calls your name to get your attention.  You’ve stopped walking, and he’s
just a few steps ahead, looking at you with a patient expression on his face. 
“You okay?”
You’re not okay.  Just thinking about Izaya and his smug face makes you
nervous, makes you feel sick to your stomach, makes you feel like you’re not in
control.  You open your mouth, trying to articulate a brief summary of your
feelings—while omitting the cause—but you change your mind at the last minute,
and what comes out instead is, “Shiki, what tattoos do you have?”
He doesn’t answer, eyes widening in surprise.  You gradually come closer,
nearly stepping on his shoes as you maintain just a centimeter of space between
your chests, meeting his gaze from beneath your lashes. 
“I want to see them,” you say, “All of them.  That’s what I want for my
reward.”
He’s silent, carefully studying your face for almost a minute, before he says,
a bit hoarsely, “Ask for something else.”
You knew he would refuse, and you aren’t deterred.  The uneasiness in his
voice, the sudden tenseness in his shoulders, the way his hands are shaking in
his pockets—it all makes you feel better, more in control.  You push Izaya from
your mind and focus on the man in front of you, one that reacts in ways you can
expect.  “But that’s what I want,” you say quietly, “And you said anything is
fine.”
You see him take a steadying breath and compose himself, and he steps back to
put some distance between the two of you.  “Fine,” he says gruffly, “If you’re
sure,” and you smile in reassurance. 
When you get home, Shiki watches you with something like apprehension from the
middle of the room as you slip off your shoes in the doorway and go to sit on
the couch, crossing your legs leisurely.  Neither of you speak but some sort of
understanding passes between you and he sheds his jacket and slowly loosens his
tie, letting them both fall on the floor. 
He unbuttons the dress shirt he wears underneath agonizingly slowly and your
eyes are drawn to his collar, where the dragon’s scales are exposed once
again.  Gradually, its coiling body comes into view, snaking across Shiki’s
torso and down one arm.  There are waves and ripples beneath it, a blue jewel
clutched in its claw beneath his collarbone and a chrysanthemum across from
it.  You’re surprised to see most of his chest is still unmarked, the tattoo
restricted to his shoulders and arms down to his wrists.
“I thought you had more,” you say.
He chuckles.  “I’m waiting,” he explains, “I don’t want to get any more until
I’m a higher rank.”  He comes a step closer, glancing at you.  When you don’t
move, he takes another step.  “They mean something, you know.  The dragon is my
father, former advisor to the Meido group’s boss.  The chrysanthemum is my
mother.”  He’s directly in front of you now, and he sounds a bit less
hesitant.  “They’re symbols of people who I owe so much that I can never pay it
back.”
One of Shiki’s hands comes to rest on your cheek as he looms over you, his
thumb on your lips as he tilts your head up.  He must think he’s the one
seducing you, and the thought makes it difficult for you to suppress laughter. 
“But the next ones I get done are going to be symbols of my accomplishments,”
he says with certainty.
“So you’ll get one of me, won’t you?” you ask, “Since I’m going to be your
greatest accomplishment.”
Shiki laughs, but it comes off as affectionate.  “We’ll see,” he says, and
presses his lips to yours much more softly than you were anticipating.  His
lips are rough and chapped but you’re too distracted by his demanding nips at
your lower lip and his hand fisted in your hair to care all that much.  His
tongue slips into your mouth and you let out a gasp around it when he suddenly
drops onto the couch beside you, pulling you roughly into his lap and running
his hand down your sides.  Your hear him groan when you rock your hips against
his, feeling how hard he is—and it makes you wonder how long he’s thought about
this and wanted this, how long he might have been looking at you when you
weren’t paying attention—and suddenly tear yourself out of his arms, standing
from the couch and looking down at him.
Shiki is panting, lips a little red from kissing you, looking disheveled and
desperate.  “What…?”
“I got what I wanted,” you say with a sweet smile, “I got to see your
tattoos.”  You adjust your uniform and smooth down your hair.  “But I think I
already know what I want for my next reward.”
His face goes bright red in embarrassment and he actually looks away from you,
and a spike of arousal shoots through you at the sight.  You really want to sit
down in his lap again, take his face in your hands and grind against him until
he can’t stand it anymore, but you won’t.  “That was….”  You see him fumbling,
trying to salvage the situation and regain control, “We probably shouldn’t….”
You cut him off.  “What, we can’t have sex?  According to who?  I’m sure your
boss doesn’t care.”  You glance to the side.  “Besides, if it’s not you, I’m
just going to have to find a classmate who’s up for it—!”
Shiki doesn’t interrupt, but you stop talking when you look back and find a
dark expression on his face, one you don’t recall seeing before.  Maybe it’s
something about the intimidating straightness of his posture compared to his
usual slouching, or maybe it’s something about his eyes that you can’t quite
put a name to.  “If I catch you wasting time with boys when you should be
training,” he warns, “You won’t get a reward ever again.”
You meet his gaze daringly; you don’t say that he’d never catch you, not in a
million years.  He already knows that.  “Then what am I supposed to do?”
“What I tell you to do,” he says, standing from the couch and looking down at
you.  Like before, he cups your face in one hand, but the gesture holds an
unspoken threat in it now.  “You’ll get your next reward in no time at all, if
you behave.”
You take Shiki’s thumb into your lips and lick it, holding his gaze.  He
doesn’t say anything, but you see him tremble.
He thinks he’s in control here, and he’s so, so wrong.
*
You don’t have any friends at school, but that doesn’t really bother you.
You’re not sure what you’d do with them if you had any.  You’re not interested
in any of the same things so you wouldn’t have anything to talk about, and
Shiki has explicitly forbidden you from having people over anyway just to be
safe, so it’s really more convenient for you to keep your distance.  That
doesn’t mean you can’t be pleasant or hold a conversation, and you pride
yourself on having figured out how to navigate the complex social interactions
of your peers all by yourself.  You’re just friendly enough that no one would
call you a loner, but no one can claim to really know you, either.
So when a quartet of girls corner you in the girl’s locker room at the end of
the day looking angry with you, you’re surprised because you can’t recall
making any enemies.
“You’re a first year, right?” the one you assume is the leader asks, her hair
cut just above her shoulders and styled in an imitation of a popular idol’s
haircut.  She has glitter on her fake nails and she’s slender but doesn’t look
like a threat.  You quickly size her up and then meet her eyes.
“Yeah?”
“People are talking,” she goes on, “Saying you spend a lot of time with
Orihara.”  The girls behind her all nod in agreement.  “If it’s not true, you
should say so.  Everyone might get the wrong idea if you don’t.”  Two of the
girls cross their arms over their chests trying to look intimidating.
“I haven’t heard that rumor,” you say.
The one with pigtails rolls her eyes and scoffs, “Well, we have, and we would
know.  We’re in the official Izaya Orihara fanclub, after all.”
You’re tired, beads of sweat dotting your brow from running a few laps on the
track and your gym clothes are sticking to your skin.  You just want to shower
and go home.  “Well, it’s not true.  I’ve only met him once.”
A fifth girl you didn’t notice before darts just into your line of sight and
snags your cellphone from the bench beside you and your eyes narrow in anger as
you reach for it.  She tosses it to the leader, and the others hold you back. 
“You’re lying,” she says, glaring at you as she starts going through your
phone, “I heard you liked him.”
“I heard she’s harassing him,” the pigtail girl adds, her nails digging into
your arm, “Sending him weird messages all the time.”
“Give it back,” you snap, but the girl across from you ignores you, pressing
some buttons as she searches for something.  “I said give it back!”
“Shut up,” she growls, “You don’t mess with our idol and get away with it.”
“We should make her eat a bucket of cockroaches,” one of the girls laughs.
“Or stand naked on the school roof.”
The leader grins at you.  “No way.  That’s way too mild for what she did.  She
has to really be sorry.”
“I didn’t do anything!” you insist.
She slaps you, hard, across the face.  You feel the sting of her handprint
searing into your cheek.  “You don’t talk back to me,” she says darkly. 
You feel something deep inside of you snap loose in a way it never has before.
(“Mom,” the you of years ago asks, your little hand in hers as you walk back
home between her and your father, “What was the doctor talking about?”
Your mother smiles tightly.  “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.”
“But didn’t she say I was sick, and that I should take a special test?  What
kind of test is it?”  You frown.  “Is something wrong with me?”
Her grip on your hand becomes tighter and she keeps her eyes ahead.  “Don’t
worry,” she says again, more firmly, “Everything’s fine.  You’re fine just the
way you are.  Nothing is wrong.”)
The leader stumbles back gasping, blood dripping from her crooked nose and off
of your clenched fist.  The girls who were holding you back try to grab you
again, and you spin around to face them.  One of them backs off, but the other
swings at you clumsily.  You grab her wrist and her eyes widen in fear.
(“What do you think about the program the doctor recommended?” you overhear
your father saying late at night, “I looked at some of these pamphlets, but I’m
still not really sure it’s what she needs.”
“It isn’t,” your mother insists, “She’s fine.  She’s a normal, healthy kid.”
There’s a long pause where neither of them say anything.  Then, your father
murmurs, “Is it our fault?  Did we do something wrong?  That’s what these kinds
of programs are for, right?  Parents who mess up.”
“We didn’t do anything wrong,” your mother says, voice hoarse, “She’s just
fine, you’ll see.  She’ll turn out alright.  She has to.”
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.
You think you heard her say that, if not that night, then sometime after.)
The cool, tile floor is soothing on your warm skin as you sink to the ground in
the locker room, leaning against the wall.  There’s some blood splattered
across the front of your white gym uniform shirt, a little on your hands and
across your knuckles, a bit on the floor.  There are bodies lying on the
ground, some motionless save for the gradual rise and fall of their shoulders,
some writhing.  You hear someone sobbing and gasping.  The quiet is satisfying.
You hear the door to the locker room open, a shriek, and then hurried footsteps
back outside.  Soon, you think you can hear an ambulance siren in the
distance.  A policeman takes you by the forearm and pulls you out of the locker
room, and you pass Izaya as you walk by gawking students lining the halls.  You
think he might’ve been smiling.
*
Shiki arrives at the police station with a small entourage, a group of men
you’ve never met in expensive-looking suits and sunglasses—his superiors in the
Awakusu-kai.  He puts an arm over your shoulder in a slightly protective and
slightly possessive manner as you stand outside on the sidewalk beneath the
station overhang, watching a gentle drizzle turn into a downpour, as you wait
for the others to come out. 
You don’t know if the officers are being intimidated or bribed.  You don’t
really care.
“How’d it start?” he asks.
You glance up at him.
“The fight,” he prods, “Did you start it or did they?”
You shrug.  “Wasn’t much of a fight.  They didn’t know what they were getting
into.”
He sighs.  “You broke a couple of noses, a handful of ribs and a wrist.  One of
the girls is in the emergency room.”
“Hm.”
“You get hit?”
You shake your head.  When Shiki squeezes your shoulder you flinch, nervous
that you might be in trouble.
“You don’t care, do you,” he asks, “About how they feel or what’ll happen to
them?”
You think the right answer is to say that you do care, but you don’t think you
can make the words sound convincing.  You remain silent. 
The rain comes down harder.  The door to the station opens and one of the men
comes out, tilting his head in greeting to you both.  “So far so good,” he says
to Shiki, “I’m sure we can talk the families of the victims out of taking legal
action.  Give us a few hours and she’ll be off the hook.”
“Thank you.”
“Shiki,” he says, “I think your runner is about ready to start working.”
Your handler glances at you out of the corner of his eye.  “Yeah?”
“Yeah.  I’ll talk to the branch head, we’ll have an assignment ready soon.”
The other man opens an umbrella and walks away, leaving the two of you alone
again.  Neither of you speak for a while, and Shiki ends up lighting a
cigarette.  Eventually, you can’t take the silence anymore, and you say, “It
was because of a boy.”
Shiki coughs. 
“We fought over a boy,” you repeat, “I wasn’t even interested in him.  But now
I am.”
“You’re interested,” he says, “Because you think that’ll hurt them even more.” 
You don’t look at him.
“You’re a little messed up, you know that?”
You bite your lip, looking down at your feet.  You feel Shiki ruffle your
hair. 
“That’s okay,” he says softly, “You came to the right place.”
You close your eyes and relax at the feeling of Shiki’s fingers massaging your
scalp, resting at the base of your neck, and lean into him.  The sound of the
rain drowns out everything else.
*
“Hi, mom,” you say with Shiki’s throw-away cell phone that has the number he
gave them for your “dorm.”  You’ve changed out of your gym uniform and into a
t-shirt and sweatpants, straddling Shiki on the couch, his hands pushing aside
the fabric of your shirt to run along your bare skin.  “Yeah, I’m fine.  I’m
doing well at Raijin.  I did really well on my exams so far.”
Shiki’s teeth scrape your throat and you inhale sharply as he laps at the
spot as though apologizing.  His hands find your bra and yank it out of place,
palming your breast and teasing the nipple between his fingers. 
“No, there haven’t been any problems.  Yeah.  I even made some friends today. 
Yeah, some upperclassmen.”  You bite your lip, arching your back involuntarily,
and grind your hips against Shiki’s, taking a shuddering breath at the
friction.  “I know, I miss you, too.  But don’t worry.  Everything’s fine,” you
say.  You hang up after that, and practically rip Shiki’s shirt open with one
hand, placing your palms flat over his shoulders where his tattoos are. 
“What am I supposed to give you for your next reward if we do this now?” he
asks huskily.
You glance up at him and simply say, “More.” 
***** Steady Dripping Wears Away the Stone I *****
Chapter Notes
     I'm bad at doing things on time.
When you reflect on your high school days, you can cleanly divide them into two
uneven parts.
The first is the very beginning, those initial unpleasant weeks as you
swallowed your frustration with Shiki and tried to manipulate him into giving
you something to do with yourself, pretending you were like your peers by
holding meaningless conversations and participating in club activities.  This
phase ends on the day you beat up a few girls in the locker room.
After that, everything changes.
The uncomfortable sexual tension between you and your hopeless keeper
evaporates once you finally get Shiki into bed with you.  You gradually
transition from running laps at the park to running errands for the Awakusu-
kai.  You don’t have any problems with bullies ever again with half of the
school afraid to even meet your gaze.  At the time, you felt satisfied because
you thought it was what you wanted.
In hindsight, you’re unsettled, because it all comes down to that fateful
encounter in the locker room with those stupid girls who didn’t know what they
were getting themselves into.  The moment they fell to the ground was the
moment everything else fell into place.  It isn’t the fact that so much relied
on a happy coincidence that bothers you.
It’s that it probably wasn’t a coincidence after all.
*
You get a note in your shoe locker, neatly folded in the back, that simply
says, “Meet me behind the school after class today,” and you know who it’s from
even without a signature.  You read everyone you meet fairly quickly, predict
their motives and their behavior, learn what makes them tick so you can wind
them up and push them in the direction that suits you, but there’s one person
who you don’t quite have figured out yet.  You do consider ignoring the note
and going home, but there’s a part of you that’s too curious to just walk away.
There’s a narrow alley a block behind Raijin with a row of vending machines and
a couple small spots of graffiti lining the brick walls, cigarette butts
inevitably scattered in small piles by delinquent upperclassmen over the lunch
break.  Izaya Orihara is waiting for you there, leaning against the wall with
his hands in his pockets and confident smirk on his face. 
“Right on time,” he says, “We haven’t talked in a while.  How’ve you been?”
You frown.  “What do you care?”
“Let me rephrase that.”  His smirk widens into an excited grin.  “How’d it feel
to knock those girls around?”  You refuse to answer, staring him down and
hoping he caves in or backs down, but Izaya has never reacted in ways that you
expect; he laughs instead.  “It’s alright,” he coos, “You can be honest.  I
just want to get to know you.”
You scowl, tightening your grip on the strap of your school bag slung over your
shoulder and turn to walk away.
“It was me, you know,” you hear him say, and stop in your tracks.  “I started a
rumor that we spent a lot of time together,” he elaborates, “I knew my fans
wouldn’t be happy about it.  It seems they started coming up with their own
stories to spread somewhere along the line, though.  That’s the high school
rumor mill at its finest.”
He’s watching you now, trying to look nonchalant and almost sheepish, but you
see the same cold calculation that was there when he was fingering that girl in
the locker room.  You don’t know what kind of reaction he wants, though, so you
wait with a carefully neutral expression.  “So?” you ask.
A small, amused chuckle escapes Izaya, and then he’s hunched over and clutching
his stomach in laughter.  “So?” he repeats, mimicking your stoicism, “That’s
all you’re going to say, just ‘so?’”  You raise a brow in confusion.  He shakes
his head and acts as though he’s wiping away a tear.  “You’re something else,
you know that?  How do you even function in day-to-day-life with human beings?”
“I am human.”
“No,” Izaya says with a grin, and pushes off of the wall.  You stand your
ground as he approaches you, remaining completely still even as he gets in your
face and puts a hand on your shoulder, “No, you’re definitely inhuman.  Not
literally, of course, but in all the ways that matter, you’re not like our
adorably naïve classmates.  You’re a monster.”
You’re annoyed at his confidence and swat his hand away.  Again, you’re at a
loss as you try to read the boy in front of you.  “What do you want?” you ask
in exasperation, patience wearing thin.
Izaya beams at being given an invitation to speak.  “I want to try conducting a
little social experiment,” he says, “You’re not the first monster I’ve ever
met, you know.  I’d like to know if you can be turned back into humans.”
“Turned back?”
“Sure,” Izaya says as though it’s simple, but you don’t understand what he’s
talking about, “It’ll be fun.  Have you ever filled out a PCL-R?”
“A what?”
“A Psychopathy Checklist.  I guess it’s a little simplistic, but it’s a nice
base to—!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say flatly, “And I’m not
interested.  If you don’t want anything, I’m going home.”
But when you start to walk away, you feel Izaya grab your forearm.  You turn on
your heel, one hand closed into a fist, but you’re startled to see Izaya’s
smile is gone; he looks confused. 
“What do you mean you don’t know?” he presses, “You don’t know what the
checklist is, or you don’t know what psychopathy is?”
“I’m going home,” you say stubbornly, but Izaya doesn’t let go.
“You don’t even know that something’s wrong with you, do you?”
(There was Shiki, of course, the track meet that dramatically altered the
trajectory of your life.  There was your move to Ikebukuro and your meeting
with Izaya, and even the girls in the locker room whose bones you broke.  Those
things are all important, of course.  Those things all changed everything.
But it was on this day that everything started to go wrong.)
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” you say, parroting words you’ve heard your
mother say a thousand times.  You know it’s a lie, but no one has ever really
disagreed with you; even Shiki, who had to admit that you were “messed up,”
hadn’t brought it up again, pleased enough with your merits that he could
ignore your flaws.  “This is just my personality.”
“Do you really believe that?” Izaya presses, “When you look at yourself, and
then at our classmates, you don’t see any difference?”
“Shut up,” you tell him, and you don’t want to give him the satisfaction of a
reaction, but you feel yourself shaking, feel heat rushing to your face. 
Izaya studies your expression quietly for a moment before he starts to smile
again.  “No, you know better,” he says, “I can tell you’re not that
delusional.  But you won’t admit it, will you?  You’d rather pretend you don’t
know any better—!”
It happens in much the same way as it did in the girl’s locker room.  You twist
your body in his grip, meeting his gaze before your fist collides with his
nose, feel it give beneath your fingers and a bit of blood flies between you. 
Izaya stumbles back clutching his face and you run away, not because you’re
guilty or afraid of retaliation; you don't know why.  You have this strong,
unbearable feeling that you can't put a name to that makes you want to run and
hide, makes you want to escape those eyes that are laughing at you for your
inadequacies, accusing you of being wrong somehow.
You break into a sprint, weaving through crowds and vaulting over fences until
you finally get home, ragged and windblown, still catching your breath as you
open the door to the apartment you share with Shiki.
“…suppose you knew this already,” you hear a voice crackling with static. 
Shiki’s multitasking, filling out some kind of paperwork on the couch with the
call on speaker phone, probably a superior.  He doesn’t notice you slip behind
the couch to pass by him on your way to the restroom, planning to throw some
cold water on your face to calm yourself down.  “But we just got ahold of her
medical records today, and it seems she made a lot of trips to a child
psychologist for serious behavioral problems up until junior high.  Looks like
she was the kind of kid who kicked dogs and bullied her schoolmates.”
You freeze in the hallway and listen, hands clenched into fists at your sides,
Izaya’s blood still across your knuckles.
“Yeah?” Shiki says, sounding distracted.
“Think about that for a minute,” the man on the other end of the line says,
“That sort of thing doesn’t just stop out of the blue, especially since she
never got any counseling.  Not having any remorse is one thing, but a
personality disorder like this could make her a liability.”
“I’m not really worried about it,” you hear Shiki say.
“I guess it could still work out.  As long as she’s trained properly, it
doesn’t really matter how she interacts with people.  We just need her to
follow orders.”
The call ends not long after, but you’re still standing frozen in the hall. 
You hear Shiki get up to do something in the kitchen, and then he stops,
probably noticing your shoes in the entryway.  He calls your name, “You finally
home?  You’re a little late tonight.  We need to talk about your training.” 
You hear him coming, footsteps approaching on the wood floor, but you keep your
back to him.  “You hungry?  We can talk over dinner.  I ordered takeout a
little bit ago….”
“Shiki,” you cut him off, “Do you think something’s wrong with me?”
You hear him inhale sharply and hesitate.  He knows something’s off, but you
aren’t sure how.  It must be your voice.  You aren’t thinking clearly enough to
know what you’re doing differently—what you’re doing wrong.
“What are you….”  He stops, backtracks.  “Oh, you heard that just now?  Don’t
worry about it.  I know you’ll do fine.”
“But do you think something's wrong with me?”
He doesn’t answer.  You swallow the lump in your throat.  “Did something happen
today?” he asks carefully.
You turn to look at him.  He still has his suit on, but it’s unbuttoned and
hanging open, the plunge of his neckline exposing just a hint of the dragon
you’ve become fascinated with. 
“What’s wrong?” he asks uneasily, “What happened?  I’ve never seen you cry
before.”
You blink in confusion.  Cry?  You haven’t cried since you were little,
throwing tantrums as you tried to figure out why you kept getting in trouble,
why your parents punished you without being able to explain what you'd done
wrong.  Shiki reaches out to you and you let him brush a hand over your cheek,
pulling back to show you the glistening wetness of your tears on his
fingertips.  You stare at it in surprise.  You arecrying.  Shiki looks afraid.
“It’s fine, right?” you ask, though it sounds more like a plea.  “I’m fine. 
This is fine.  I’m a little messed up, but you don’t care, do you?  You said
this is the right place for me, so it doesn’t matter.”
“That’s right,” Shiki says, “That’s exactly right.  So don’t worry.”  He opens
his arms awkwardly, looking like he isn’t sure how to hug someone.  You don’t
move, so he tries to wrap his arms around you and pulls you into his chest. 
You stand there, confused, unable to put words to what you’re feeling, unable
to tell Shiki why you’re upset.  When you really start to cry, sniffling and
wailing, he just holds you closer, tight enough that it hurts a little, but
that makes you feel a bit better.
***** Steady Dripping Wears Away the Stone II *****
Chapter Notes
     I have to be honest with you guys, this story has spiraled out of
     control and gone places it was never supposed to. I'm in too deep to
     reverse course so I guess we'll just keep going.
There is no note in your locker the following day.  There is no one who
suddenly calls to talk to you from the hallway during lunch.  There is no
strange incident arranged to get a reaction out of you.  There isn’t even an
obnoxious and extremely full-of-himself upperclassmen waiting around behind the
school, and you find yourself feeling a little disappointed without really
knowing why.
“He stayed home today,” you hear, and whirl around in surprise.  You don’t
recognize this boy but you can tell from his uniform that he goes to Raijin. 
He looks a little older, maybe in Izaya’s year, and he wears glasses and an odd
smile.  “You were looking for Orihara, weren’t you?”
You’re hesitant to answer, and in the ensuing silence he draws a bit closer,
watching your face carefully.  “This is the first time we’re really meeting,”
he says, “But I feel like I know you already.  Izaya’s told me a little bit
about you.  I’m Shinra, by the way.” 
“You’re one of Izaya’s friends?” you ask.
His smile widens a bit.  “Something like that.”
“Is that why you’re here?  Did he tell you to blackmail me?”
Shinra blinks, silent for a moment.  “When did I say I was going to do that?”
“If not blackmail, it has to be something else,” you reason, “He must want
something.”
“What do you mean?”
“He keeps bothering me,” you insist, “Even though I already told him I wouldn’t
help him.  So he’s either unreasonably stubborn or he wants something else
now.”
Shinra’s smile falters.  “The truth is,” he says, “Orihara told me to wait here
after school in case you came by.  He wanted me to tell you he has something in
mind, some kind of bet, but he wanted to make sure you wouldn’t punch him again
if he talked to you.”
You frown in annoyance.  “What kind of bet?”
He shrugs.  “I’m not sure.  Honestly, I wasn’t interested in delivering
messages for him in the first place since I’m not nearly as fond of humans as
he is, but he said you were something much more interesting.”  He regards you
with a neutral stare.  “But I think he lied.  You seem normal to me.”
“Normal?” you echo.  The word feels strange to you.  Your family was normal,
and you can’t pretend you’re anything like them.  How can a stranger claim that
you’re normal?  Is it because he doesn’t know you at all, or because he uses a
different scale than most people?
“So?” Shinra prompts, “Are you willing to hear him out?”
You look away.  “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I’m sure he’ll accept that as an answer.”
Shinra sighs heavily.  “Isn’t it miserable living your life like that?” he
asks.
You glance at him questioningly.
“You both do that,” he goes on, “Acting like everyone in the world wants
something from you.  Maybe you should both just try talking to each other
without any expectations.”
“I act that way,” you explain, “Because that’s how the world is.”
Shinra gives a dismissive shrug, and you end up being forced to agree to
disagree.  You know that’s just the way things are; everyone wants something
from someone else, yourself included.  You interact with your parents to
maintain an illusion of normalcy.  You accepted Shiki’s advances to more easily
influence his behavior.  You talk to Izaya….
Why do you talk to Izaya?  Why did you go to see him when he left a note asking
to meet you?  To see what he wanted, you decide; but then why did you go again
today without any promise that he’d even be there?  There must be something
else, you decide, something you’re not consciously aware of.  That’s the only
thing that makes sense.
Shinra tells you to have a good evening but you don’t reply.  His words bother
you all the way home.
*
“You’re late,” Shiki says the moment you walk in the door, standing in the
living room with his arms crossed over his chest, wearing his suit like he just
got back or plans to go out again. 
“I didn’t realize I had a curfew,” you say.
“Don’t sass me.  Your first job’s tonight.” 
You hope the surprise doesn’t show on your face, but you’d almost forgotten
about it completely.  Shiki’s associate who he’d talked to the previous day had
lined up something for you, a simple infiltration mission intended to serve as
a trial run and initiation. 
His frown deepens.  “Don’t tell me you forgot?”
Just distracted, you think, thinking about a stupid boy.  “I remember,” you
say, “I got sidetracked on the way home, that’s all.”
“Try not to get ‘sidetracked’ again,” he says gruffly, walking past you to the
entryway and putting on his shoes.  “Let’s go.”
Normally, Shiki looks exhausted when you get home from school, dragging around
the apartment with dark circles under his eyes, but he’s high-strung tonight as
he drives you into town, the creases in his forehead and wrinkles along the
edges of his mouth especially prominent in the light of streetlamps you pass
beneath.
“Remind me what I’m doing?” you ask, just to break the uncomfortable silence.
Shiki doesn’t look at you when he speaks.  “Just a simple infiltration job,” he
says, “There’s going to be a meeting between the Tsunoda-kai and the Mizuno-
kai, which we have reason to believe are collaborating against us.  The boss
has been concerned for a while now but doesn’t really want to make a big move
against them—!”
“The details don’t really matter,” you cut him off, “Just tell me the important
stuff.”
If you think about it too much, you start to get nervous, so you try to focus. 
You’re just doing what you’re good at; you’re running, there and back, stopping
just long enough to find something interesting. 
“We want proof of their collaboration, if nothing else,” Shiki says, glancing
at you when you stop at a red light.  “Since the Tsunoda-kai are supposed to be
our allies against the Mizuno-kai.  Go in, steal someone’s briefcase, and get
out.  You can't be seen; if you’re spotted, even if you're empty handed, you
need to leave.”
You nod, which apparently isn’t satisfactory, because Shiki turns his body to
look at you and grabs your shoulder with one hand, grip bruising.  “Are you
listening to me?” he snaps, “If anyone sees you, you come out.  Do you
understand?”  Beneath the annoyance and the anger, you hear fear; he’s afraid
for you.  He reaches into his suit and hands you a pocket knife.  “I don’t want
you to have to use this,” he warns, turning his attention back to the road when
the light changes, “You’re too valuable to get killed on your first job, so
don’t you dare get into any trouble.  Come back to me alive.”
(Come back to me, is something you imagine Shiki has wanted to say aloud
numerous times, but you’ve only heard it once.  He must know it’s inevitable,
that you have nowhere else to go because no one else would ever take you.
You’ve wondered, of course, if Izaya might.  You think the thought has occurred
to Shiki, as well, which only makes him dislike the other man even more.)
Shiki gives you an address and description of both the target and the
rendezvous point where you’re supposed to meet up when you finish, and drops
you off a conspicuous distance away from either.  What used to be a car factory
was partially demolished and repurposed into several blocks of warehouses,
industrial silos and factories.  The unfinished building chosen as the meeting
place is nestled in the center, flanked by construction cranes and cordoned off
by yellow and black striped fences.  You pretend you’re just walking past the
complex, looking through the barbed wire fence around the edge and counting the
number of people you see on the other side.  Shiki didn’t mention guards, but
you suppose you should’ve expected it. 
You end up circling around the back and waiting until you don’t see anyone
patrolling, and then you give yourself a running start, grabbing onto two metal
poles of uneven heights where the fence breaks closest to a warehouse, pulling
yourself up carefully and trying to avoid the barbs.  It’s a struggle, but not
impossible; Shiki has had you jump higher obstacles in the last few weeks.  You
land safely on the other side and press yourself against the side of the
building, checking both ways before running towards the meeting point.
(“Why did you ask me to do that?” you ask him later, much later, because you
couldn't bring yourself to question it at the time.  “What made you think the
high school kid you picked up would be able to sneak into a yakuza meeting,
undetected by the armed guards, and get out alive?”  You expect a shrug, or a
confident, “Because I knew you could,” or something along those lines, but he’s
actually honest with you.
“If it were up to me,” he says, “I never would have sent you out there.  But I
didn’t have a choice.”  Shiki takes your hands in his and looks down at them,
turning them over, tracing the lines with his eyes.  “I had to prove to my
superiors that you could do it, because they thought I was wasting my time.”
“I bet they wanted me reassigned,” you say, “Probably to a soapland.  That’d be
more immediately profitable.”
His grip tightens and he looks into your eyes.  “I couldn’t let that happen,”
he says, "Even if you had to run, I would've gotten down on my hands and
knees and lost a finger to get you another chance."
Right before and right after any missions you’re given, Shiki always looks
afraid.  You didn’t recognize it the first time because you weren’t looking for
it, but you would come to understand that he was always overcome with fear
whenever you were going beyond his reach and protection.  At first, you found
it annoying and distracting, but you came to appreciate it.  You weren’t in
touch with your own feelings; if you ever felt fear, you didn’t quite process
it the way you should have.
Shiki was more than willing to be afraid for the both of you.)
Getting there isn’t difficult; you scrabble up to the top of the warehouse
using displaced bricks and window frames, leaping over to the building housing
the meeting.  No one’s expecting a rooftop approach, judging by the lack of
guards anywhere above ground.  You swing into a second story window, creep over
to the staircase, and peer down to where a gathering of men who look dangerous
enough to be your targets are gathered below exchanging business cards and
speaking in hushed tones.  You listen for anything important—you hear mutters
of the organization’s names and know you’re at least at the right place—and
scan the room for anything you might be able to grab on your way out.
The two men in the center of the room, bosses, you assume, by the way they’re
dressed, negotiate over a contract before one signs and the papers are tucked
into a briefcase, which another man handcuffs to his own wrist before leaving. 
You slip back out the window and onto the roof, trailing him from above as he’s
waved out the gates.  You make your way over the rooftops to avoid the barbed
wire fence, slipping down a fire escape when he turns onto a side street and
heads towards a parking garage, running up to him before he can go in and get
in sight of any cameras.
Everything happens very quickly then, but it feels like it takes a lifetime.
*
(“Do you know what I did?” you ask Shiki a few days after the fact, coming into
the living room and falling into his lap on the couch, ignoring the irritated
scowl on his face and the papers on the table he was trying to fill out.
“What?” he asks.
“What I did,” you repeat, “On that job.”
His irritation vanishes, replaced by wariness.  His hands slide down your sides
and slip beneath the bottom of your shirt, teasingly light touches across your
abdomen intended to distract you.  “You told me already,” he says, and you
had.  You’d told him every detail the night you came home, curled up into a
ball on your bed and refusing to even look at him.
“I want to tell you again,” you whisper, and even when his fingers slide past
the waistband of your pants and he starts pulling your shirt off with his other
hand, you’re determined to speak, “I want you to listen.”
“I’m sorry,” he tells you, the words muffled against your skin with his lips
pressed to your cheek, “I told you I was sorry.”
“You need to listen,” you growl, grabbing a fistful of his hair and pulling,
and he lets you, wincing as you jerk his gaze to the ceiling and lean in to
bite at his exposed throat, far more savagely than he has ever done to you. 
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” you say, “I just want you to listen.  I
want you to understand.”  You let go, but you tell him to stop touching you and
just sit back.
“His last name was Sakai,” you say, “He had pictures of his wife and children
in his wallet.  He had two daughters, one older than me, one about my age.  He
had a receipt from a convenience store for a couple of microwavable dinners
that he bought before the meeting, because he was going to go home and have
dinner with his family.  But he never did; he never saw them again.  Why is
that?”
Shiki humors you, probably because he knows now—as if he didn’t before—that
you’re a wreck, and sometimes it’s best to just go with the flow rather than
try to salvage you.  “Because you killed him.”
“Exactly,” you say, looking into his eyes, “I killed him.  You gave me that
knife, and you told me you didn’t want me to use it, it was just for
emergencies, and all that.  But I used it.  I took him by surprise.  He had a
gun on him, you know, I found that, too, afterwards.  Never even had the chance
to get to it.” 
You clutch Shiki’s arms, digging your nails into the sleeves of his suit.  “And
it was like stepping on a spider,” you say, voice rising as your hysteria
builds, “It was like killing a bird.  It was kind of satisfying at first, but
then it was over, and I didn’t feel anything at all.  I went through his wallet
because I thought that would change things.  I thought, if I could humanize
him, I could feel bad about it.  My mom told me that hurting animals is bad,
but hurting humans is worse, so I thought it would feel awful.”
Shiki gazes up at you with pity in his eyes. 
“Why am I like this?” you ask him, “Why am I so….” 
“There’s no point in worrying about it.”
“I wanted to feel bad!” you yell, “I wanted to feel guilty.  I wanted to think
about his family and cry because I’d ruined their lives.  I wanted you be mad
at me for doing it.”
“Why did you want that?” Shiki asks.
“Because….”  You take a deep breath that devolves into a shuddering sob,
“Because everything is like that.  Everything is boring and meaningless. 
Nothing makes me happy, I always want more, and it’s miserable.  There’s you,
there’s….”  There’s him, you don’t say, but he comes to mind, sharp-eyed,
smirking, just as warped as you, maybe the only one who understands.  “There’s
nothing else.  There’s nothing else that’s, that’s interesting, that’s
meaningful or, or….”
You can’t find the words.  “Happiness” and “sadness” and things like that have
always been just out of your reach, too simple for you to appreciate yet too
complicated for you to really understand.  You don’t know what makes you happy,
just that it’s too infrequent, that your life is a string of unsatisfying
events that leave you feeling empty inside, and when something different comes
along, something like Shiki or Izaya, you hold on for dear life even if you
know you’re close to destroying it.
Shiki’s arms circle around you, pulling you close.  “Then stay here,” he tells
you, “Stay with me.  I’ll help you, I’ll look with you for something that’s
meaningful to you.”
And you don’t answer because it’s not quite what you wanted, but you stay there
like he asks, you relax into his arms and you try to focus on Shiki, what Shiki
means to you, how Shiki makes you feel.  Comfortable, you decide, maybe even
safe.  It’s not a lot, but it’s a start. 
There’s no denying it anymore, no way you can pretend; you’re not the way other
people are.  There is something wrong with you, and you don’t think it’s
possible to fix.  Instead, you’ll just have to live with it.)
*
When you meet Shiki at the rendezvous point, jumping into the passenger seat
beside him, he immediately speeds away and starts asking you questions, asking
if you’re alright and if you got hurt and whose blood you have on you, but you
don’t respond, staring straight ahead at the road lit by his headlights.  His
words slowly taper off into silence, and neither of you speak the rest of the
drive to the Awakusu-kai’s local branch headquarters, where he’ll be given a
promotion, and you, formal recognition and membership.
“Welcome to the Awakusu-kai,” Shiki’s superiors tells you, smiling broadly.
Shiki glances at you and looks as though he regrets ever meeting you.
The briefcase rests on the center of the table, bloodstained handcuff and
severed hand still attached.
***** Steady Dripping Wears Away the Stone III *****
Chapter Notes
     Sorry about missing a week. Pokemon Go has ruined my life. I'm trying
     to get back on schedule.
Swirling mist and clouds surround the figure of a black-winged tengu wielding a
feather fan on Shiki’s back.  Early in the morning just as the first rays of
sunlight trickle in through the curtains, you slip out of his arms and
reposition yourself to lie behind him, tracing the lines with your fingertips. 
He’d gone to get it done the day after your first job to celebrate and you’d
gone along to watch, sitting in front of him as he lay on his chest in the
tattoo artist’s parlor, the same man who’d done his first two.  He held your
gaze the entire time, smiling at the way your eyes kept returning to the
artist’s hands, unable to look away from needle slipping in and out of his
skin.  “You sure you don’t want one?” he’d asked, “It should be small, of
course, somewhere easy to hide for now.  You should wait until you’re out of
school for anything like mine.”
You just shook your head.  You were content without any, but you enjoyed
looking at his.
You like his new one even more, though, and both a hint of pride and a twinge
of arousal shoots through you as you stare at the art adorning his back, the
tengu’s black feathers and red mask, knowing he got it for you.  You roll on
top of Shiki, sitting on of his legs, and lean down to trace the lines with
your tongue, tasting his skin.
“You awake already?” he grumbles beneath you.
“Mm,” you murmur, and bite down playfully.
Shiki groans, and you see him crane his neck to look at the clock on his
bedside table.  “Don’t start anything now,” he mutters, “You’ve got school in a
few hours, and I’ve got work.”
“How is work now, by the way?” you ask, but you don’t get off of him just yet,
running your hands over his broad shoulders.  “Now that you’re somebody
important, you have to do boring stuff like help manage finances.  Is that all
it’s cracked up to be?”
“Don’t knock it,” he says, “You have to be trusted to be allowed anywhere near
finances.  It’s just temporary, anyway.  Boss wants me in charge of local
intel, since I’ve got a good intuition.”
“Is that what you’re calling your dumb luck?” you ask.
He takes a deep breath when you massage between his shoulder blades, relaxing
into your touch.  “You think this was all you?” he asks.
You shrug.  “Like ninety percent me.”
“Well, you’re probably not wrong.”  He chuckles.  “I’ve been busting my ass for
years trying to get here, but you definitely came at just the right time.”
You run teasingly light touches along his spine, over the form of the tengu. 
“So now what?”
“Just keep doing what you do,” Shiki says, “And we’ll be set for life.”
You yelp when he suddenly rolls over, twisting around to pin you to the bed
instead, one forearm by your head, the other hand dipping below the waistline
of your pajamas and into your underwear.  “You really like my new tattoo,” he
murmurs, and you feel his fingers run over the lips of your womanhood,
stretching them apart and coating them in your slickness. 
“It’s flattering,” you explain, biting your lip when one of his fingers slips
inside of you, “You said you’d get a tattoo if we got this far together, but to
actually see something symbolizing me on your body….”
Shiki cuts you off, swallowing your next words as he swoops in for a kiss full
of teeth and tongue.  His mouth works lazily against yours, most of his
attention on your body, his free hand rubbing your side as he begins thrusting
one finger in and out. 
When he pulls away, you pant, “I thought we had to get up soon?”
“Don’t act like you were actually going to leave without this.”
You smile, cupping his face in your hands and pulling him down for another
kiss.
*
You’re almost always one of the last stragglers on school grounds, running laps
on the track until the sky is ablaze with sunset and the last announcements on
the loudspeaker ring out in the open air, encouraging students finishing up
club activities to go home for the day.  Being on the track team has been a
largely uneventful affair for you despite how excited your peers are to have
you on board.  You’re one of the best Raijin’s track team had in years and the
ace, which allows you greater freedom than the others.  When you choose to run
extra laps rather than socialize or walk home with the others, they leave you
be, which suits you just fine.
By the time you go back into the locker room to change, throwing your dirty
clothes in your gym bag and wrapping a towel around your body with your uniform
gathered in your arms, there is no chatter or slamming of lockers, just
peaceful silence and a room all to yourself.
At least, that’s how it’s supposed to be.
One of the showers is already on when you get there, steam trailing out of the
stall and fogging up the glass door.  You frown in annoyance at the squeal of
the knob being turned and the water slows to a trickle before all you hear is
occasional dripping.  And then a giggle.
“That was nice,” you hear a girl say, an unfamiliar voice that might be an
upperclassman, “We should do this again sometime.”
“Hm.  I’ll think about it,” you hear in reply, and it makes your skin crawl and
your heart skip a beat and a chill run down your spine all at once.  You
recognize that voice.
Suddenly the shower door opens, and you meet the eyes of one of the stall’s
occupants—an upperclassman after all, and not the one from the volleyball team
you saw here before—and her face immediately reddens as she lowers her gaze and
scurries past you to grab her towel.  It isn’t until after you hear her
hurriedly dress and rush out the locker room door that the other person comes
out of the shower stall, grinning lazily.
“Long time no see,” Izaya greets, leaning against the wall with his arms
crossed over his chest.  He doesn’t seem to be in the least bit embarrassed to
be seen here again, this time completely naked.  “Shinra said you were willing
to engage me in conversation rather than punch me in the face.”
“I said maybe,” you remind him, “And I might change my mind.  I’m not in the
mood to talk to you right now.”
“Oh?  Then are you in the mood for something else?”  He dares to come closer
before you even answer, but you hold up a hand to keep him at least out of
arm’s reach. 
“You aren’t satisfied?” you ask, “You were just with someone a minute ago.”
“Oh, I’m never satisfied,” Izaya tells you, “especially after something like
that.  I was just killing time.”  His eyes wander the parts of you that aren’t
covered by the towel, lingering on your collarbones and neck before his eyes
flick back up to meet yours.  “Have you ever had sex before?”
You shrug.  “Not your business.”
He chuckles.  “That’s a yes.  You’re not as defensive as usual, either, so it
seems you’re not ashamed of it.”  Izaya’s smile widens.  “Not that you have
anything to be ashamed of.  It’s a pleasurable way to pass the time, and a tool
in any manipulator’s arsenal.”
“You’re calling me a manipulator?”  There’s a saying about pots and kettles
that doesn’t quite make it past your lips before he cuts you off.
“I’m saying it’s an effective weapon in the right hands, and I’m sure you
realize that.”  He pushes your hand aside and comes closer, pressing flush
against you and dampening your towel, and it makes you mad that he’s so
confident you won’t retaliate with violence, but also curious.  He leans in,
close enough that you can feel his breath on your lips, and whispers, “I want
to make a bet with you.”
“What kind of bet?”
“It has to do with your problem.”
Your hands tighten their grip on your towel.  Izaya glances at them carefully,
but doesn’t get any further away. 
“What if I told you that I could make you feel?”
You narrow your eyes at him.  “Feel what?”
Izaya narrows his eyes and holds your gaze as he takes hold of the edge of your
towel below your collarbone, tugging at it playfully but not hard enough to
actually take it from you.  You think he’s going to try to kiss you but he
turns at the last minute and goes for your ear instead.  “Attachment,” he
whispers, and nibbles at your earlobe.
You work hard to maintain a stoic façade, trying not to let your surprise
show.  You watch him carefully.  “Really, Izaya?” you sneer, “Do you ever do
anything outside of the girl’s locker room?”
His smile widens.  “Of course I do.  We could go for a change of scenery
sometime, but I figure, since we’re already here….”
“What kind of bet is this?” you cut him off impatiently.  “What do you really
want?”
“I told you already; I think I can make you form an emotional attachment.”  The
confidence in his voice and on his face is maddening.  “That’s the root of your
problem.  You don’t relate to other human beings and don’t feel any particular
attachment to them.  But if you could somehow come to love or hate one, don’t
you think that’d be interesting?”
Outwardly, you don’t let your expression change, but you find yourself
wondering.  What if things had been different?  What would your life have been
like?  You can’t imagine it would have been terribly interesting, since a
normal person would have run from Shiki and never gotten involved with the
Awakusu-kai, but you wonder if it might have been content.
“You’re lying,” you say, “You couldn’t do that if you tried.”
Izaya chuckles, backing off, and you feel like you can breathe again.  “I’ve
always liked that about you,” he says, “You’re so sure of yourself and think
you’ve got everything figured out.  You’re wrong, but it’s cute.”  His hands
fly up in a pacifying gesture, and you think he must’ve seen your shoulders
tense in anger.  “But let’s not resort to violence.  This is why a bet would be
perfect; if you’re so sure you’re right, then you’ve got nothing to lose.”
You narrow your eyes.  “What do I get if I win?”
“The satisfaction of proving me wrong.”  From anyone else, this would sound
like an excuse, but there’s a weight to Izaya’s words that you pick up on;
admitting defeat isn’t something he does easily, but he’s willing to in this
case, should it come to that.
“And if you win?”
He smirks at that.  “I expect the satisfaction of proving you wrong,” he says,
“but really, seeing what you turn into is a reward all by itself.”
“You’re on, then,” you say immediately, and Izaya looks pleased.
“I’m glad.  I’m sure we’ll both get something out of this.”  He reaches out,
tracing your lips with his finger and holding your gaze, eyes burning with the
promise of a challenge.  “It’ll be fun to break you.”
“We’ll see who breaks,” you scoff.
To your surprise, he lets you have the last word—for now—and saunters past you
to get the pile of clothes he left on the bench.  You don’t bother to wait
until he’s gone to drop your towel and step into the shower, but you hear the
locker room door open and close, and you assume he’s leaving you alone for now
as he tries to make a plan of attack.
You thought Izaya was smarter than this, but part of you wonders if there’s
some sort of ulterior motive.  Is this just another way for him to get into the
Awakusu-kai?  Is his final aim something else altogether?  You don’t feel like
you’ve walked into a trap yet, but you know you’ll have to stay one step ahead
of him just in case.  After all, this could be a good opportunity to turn the
tables and see just how tough he really is.
You can’t stop smiling, hot water running down your shoulders trembling with
laughter.  Your little competition can’t begin soon enough.
***** Steady Dripping Wears Away the Stone IV *****
Chapter Notes
     I don't even have an excuse this week, I've just been lazy.
     I'll do better next time!
At first, it doesn’t seem like anything at all has changed.
You go in to shower and change after track, and you find Izaya, again and
again, already there with a different girl every time who grinds against him
frantically as he calmly takes her apart.  Her hands grasp at his uniform as he
moves his lips against hers, slow and sensual, totally in control.  You don’t
know what else to do, so you just ignore it, shower like you intended, and
leave.  Sometimes that interrupts them, and sometimes the other girl is into
that; you don’t care and you don’t keep track because you’re confused, since, a
week earlier, he’d stopped you on your way home, hands in his pockets with a
crooked smile, and said,
“We should go out.”
And you’d glanced back at him, completely caught off guard.  You stared at him
for a long, silent minute, birds chirping overhead and cars passing on the road
beside you.  You took a step back from him, trying to size him up, trying to
figure out what he really wanted; he just kept smiling.  “Why?” you’d asked.
He’d chuckled, “Why not?”
So you thought for a minute and tried to come up with a good reason why you
should not, in fact, go out, but nothing could extinguish your curiosity.  It
had to be part of the bet, didn’t it?  You’d never dated anyone before, didn’t
really know how it worked beyond seeing couples on TV dramas holding hands and
gazing at the stars together and you didn’t really get it, but you were always
looking for something new to keep you entertained, so you shrugged.  “Sure, I
guess.”
Izaya’s smile widened.  “Good,” he’d said, and then you’d gone your separate
ways and that was that; you were dating.
That being said, Izaya must have had different sources for his concept of
“dating,” because it wasn’t at all like what you thought it would be.  The only
thing that had changed was that he would sometimes make sure to run into you at
the end of the day as you were about to walk home, and you’d make meaningless
small talk.  He never took you out to eat, you never went to each other’s
houses, and he never kissed you like he did those other girls.
You didn’t misconstrue that as an indicator of anything important.  You’d
watched him long enough that you’d come to believe Izaya didn’t kiss to show
affection.
(He never has, and you doubt he ever will.  Kisses for Izaya Orihara are a
display of dominance rather than a two-sided, cooperative effort, a method of
distraction as he plans his next move.  It seems more likely to you that if,
indeed, he feels affection, it’s something private that he prefers not to
express externally.
This is always at the forefront of your mind, and in the future, it would make
you angry.)
In the weeks that follow, you continue to find him with other girls, making
out, touching them, doing the kinds of things you were pretty sure people did
with the person they were dating.  You never confronted him about it, and he
never acknowledged it.  You don’t doubt he purposefully does these things only
when he knows you’ll see, but you aren’t sure why.  Izaya’s sudden proposition
wouldn’t have given you enough time to get attached to him if you were a little
more like your peers, so of course it doesn’t bother you to see him with other
girls.
Every time he notices you watching, he looks at you with a smile, his eyes
asking, How does this make you feel? and it wouldn’t make you feel anything,
and you would wonder why he didn’t understand that.
You’re still trying to figure out if the bet’s even on anymore when Izaya
snaps, impatience getting the best of him.
(That wouldn’t happen anymore.  He’s more careful than that, more guarded. 
This was when he was at his most vulnerable, even if he didn’t show it.  You
brought out the rawest, unhappiest sides of Izaya Orihara in those days, and
that’s what you really miss most about high school.)
“Hey,” he catches your arm as you walk out the front gates, his smile stiff and
unnerving, “Let’s go somewhere.”
You immediately recognize his agitation and feel a little smug.  “I don’t have
a lot of time today,” you say coyly, “Dad’s expecting me back soon.”
And that just makes him angrier, because he knows Shiki isn’t your father and
he thought you were past pretending.  “It won’t take long,” he insists, “Just
for a little bit.”  His grip slides down to your hand and he laces your fingers
together.  “Can’t I take my girlfriend out from time to time?”
You hold his gaze, smile widening.  So he’s still playing this game.  “Sorry,
Izaya,” you say, “I didn’t realize you wanted to see me so badly.”  He doesn’t
even reply, tugging you with him down the sidewalk in an unfamiliar direction. 
 
An orange sky, cicada cries, sweat running down the center of your back
underneath your uniform; you remember this well, because it was the first time
you did this.
You climb fences and duck under “NO TRESPASSING” signs, sprawl on your back on
the floor of some old, musty warehouse at the edge of town, catching your
breath.  You’re surprised to find Izaya could run almost as fast as you, having
climbed the same obstacles and swung into the window right behind you.  You
hear him chuckle as he looms over you, straddling your legs with his own,
leaning down so his bangs tickle your forehead. 
One of his hands starts to untie the ribbon of your school uniform; the other
pulls your skirt down around your hips.  You close your eyes and listen to him
breathe.  “I thought this wasn’t going to take long,” you say.
He laughs.  “It won’t.”
He doesn’t undress you with the hormonal urgency you’ve seen with your
classmate.  His fingers are nimble and steady, and his gaze is not so much
hungry as it is eager.  A soft smile plays at his lips as he unbuttons the
shirt of your uniform, face lingering close to yours.  His mouth is close
enough to kiss, but neither of you close the distance.
You open your eyes and look at him questioningly when you see him pull rope
from his school bag, but you don’t stop him from tying your wrists together
over your head, tight enough that you wince just a bit.  “I knew you wouldn’t
get jealous,” he says, “But I was hoping you might be a bit possessive.  You
think of people as things, don’t you?  Shouldn’t you be angry when something
that belongs to you is disobeying you?”
“You don’t belong to me,” you say plainly.
“No imagination,” he sighs, “What did you think, honestly, when I asked you
out?  Did you think it might be nice?  Did you expect me to act differently?” 
His smile widens.  “Or did you even know what to expect?  You don’t know what
two people who like each other do, how they express their feelings.  I’d be
happy to teach you, but,” and he takes the ribbon of your uniform, pulling it
over your eyes and tying a knot behind your head, “We don’t like each other.”
You didn’t expect to be lying half-naked in an empty warehouse, bound and
blindfolded, but you aren’t going to back down, especially when you can still
get something out of this. 
You hear him moving, feel his breath hot against your ear.  “I’ll build you
up,” he whispers, “And then I’ll break you down.  And by the time we’re done,
you’ll hate me.”
And despite the position you’re in, you can’t help but laugh.
You can’t see the look on Izaya’s face, but when his hands first descend upon
you, you know he must not be happy.
(Your over-confidence got you into trouble a lot, but this was one of the rare
moments when you realized at the time that you’d made a mistake.)
Izaya’s touch is nothing like Shiki’s.  Shiki is emotional and hasty; even his
foreplay ends up hurried and frantic in his haste to bring you both to
completion.  Izaya’s every movement is careful and calculated, trying to drag
it out as long as possible.  His fingertips run along the exposed skin of your
stomach, and when he finds a sensitive spot just above the waistline of your
underwear, he scratches it lightly with his nail and then leaves it alone. 
He’s not trying to make you feel good; he’s mapping you out, finding all of
your weak spots and committing them to memory, keeping you suspended between
annoyance and arousal.
“Are you going to touch me for real or just keep messing around?” you taunt,
“Or don’t you know how?”
“You’ll have to try harder than that,” he purrs, “You’ve seen me, you know I
have plenty of experience.”
You shiver at the cool evening air hitting your skin when he pulls off your
skirt and then your underwear down around one ankle.  He cups your womanhood
and you gasp breathlessly, surprised at the sudden move.  “Have you done this
with your ‘father?’” he murmurs, the words accompanied by a lick at your ear,
“Let him tie you up and have his way with you?”
“Why?” you ask, “Jealous?”
He chuckles.  “Would that make you happy?”  When you don’t answer, you feel his
fingers prodding at your entrance, holding your lower lips apart and rubbing
your clit, and you struggle to keep yourself together, panting and flinching as
pleasure shoots down your spine.  “You haven’t done it like this, though, not
with him.  I bet you like to ride him, let him think he’s in control while you
pull his strings.”
When you no longer feel his breath against your ear, you relax a bit, which
proves to be a mistake when you feel his tongue slipping inside of you.  You
let out an embarrassingly loud whine, writhing, wrists straining against the
rope.  You want to hold onto something or maybe push him away; you aren’t
sure.  Izaya does not yield to your wishes like Shiki does, does not bend to
your whims or let you bully him into submission. 
Izaya opens you up on his tongue, hands on your hips to hold you still.  When
he withdraws, you let out an embarrassing whine.  “You like to be in control,”
he says, “When that’s taken away from you, it’s frightening.”  You feel him
drape his body over yours—still clothed, and despite not laying a hand on him,
you feel him hard against your thigh.  “But it’s also exciting, isn’t it?”
Your face must be flushed; you can feel heat in your cheeks.  You wait with
baited breath for something to happen, but suddenly Izaya is untying your
wrists and slipping the blindfold off of your head.  You squint, eyes adjusting
to the glaring light of the sunset, and look up at Izaya’s smiling face.  He
offers a hand to help you sit up straight, and you refuse to take it, pushing
yourself up onto your elbows and breaking eye contact.
“That’s it?” you ask, realizing only as the words leave your lips that it’s
exactly what he wanted you to say.  Your face flushes when he chuckles and you
hurriedly get dressed. 
“It’s frustrating, isn’t it?” he asks, “When people deny you what you want?”
You study his expression and frown.  “Making me frustrated isn’t the same as
making me attached to you.”
He shakes his head.  “Maybe not,” he says, “But it’s a step in the right
direction.”
*
By the time you get home, you are frustrated, furious, even, breathing heavily
and biting your lip hard enough to make it bleed, unable to get Izaya’s face
out of your mind.  The more you think about it, the worse you feel; why did you
react that way?  When he started to tie you up, you should’ve fought, shouldn’t
you have?  Shouldn’t you have held him down instead?  You remember being unable
to see anything, unable to move as you wanted and forced to wait for Izaya to
do as he pleased, and to your horror, you feel arousal heating the pit of your
stomach.
You likedit, and you don’t know why.
“You’re back a little late,” Shiki comments from the couch, brow raised.  He’s
leaning back, suit open and the top few shirt buttons undone, a thin manila
folder of important documents on the table in front of him, probably something
about finances for the Awakusu-kai.  You look at him and you don’t feel even a
hint of excitement.  “Distracted again?”
“It was nothing,” you mutter and pass him without another word to go to your
room, curling up on the bed.  You don’t understand why you’re feeling like
this, why Izaya won’t leave your mind and the way he touched you still leaves
your skin tingling.  You still don’t feel anything for him, you know that, but
you think you’ve inadvertently stumbled onto something about yourself that you
didn’t know before, something that makes you a bit uncomfortable.
You won’t tell Izaya, but you doubt you’ll have to; you think he must already
know.
***** Steady Dripping Wears Away the Stone V *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
“You’re horrible,” Izaya laughs.
You would say the same thing back if not for the cloth stuffed in your mouth. 
He has your wrists bound behind your back as you sit on the cold floor of the
locker room showers and the ribbon of your uniform tied around your eyes.  You
remarked earlier that he was going a little overboard, but he laughed, reached
between your legs and drawing a gasp out of you, and pressed his soaking
fingers to your lips, saying, “I really don’t think so.”
This has become a regular thing for the two of you now; after the rest of your
team goes home for the day, you run an extra lap or two and go in to shower,
and Izaya will slip into the locker room during or just after you get out,
leaning against the doorway with a smirk.  Sometimes he asks about Shiki, if he
knows what you’re getting up to when you should be going home like a good
little girl,
(He doesn’t, of course.
Not yet.)
sometimes you have passionless and somewhat disappointing sex as he’s more
concerned about figuring you out than pleasing you.  Sometimes he praises you
on your ability to lie to everyone around you, and sometimes he shames you for
it.  You try not to let it show, but the latter gets to you for some reason,
tugs at something raw and unhealed from a long time ago.
But this is all part of your daily ritual together, and somewhere beneath the
unpleasantness is pleasure, anticipation of what’s to come.
“You’re selfish,” he hisses against your ear, grabbing a fistful of your hair
to forcefully raise your blindfolded gaze.  You can’t see anything but the dull
brown-orange of light beyond your eyelids, a dark spot in the middle where
Izaya stands before you.  It’s true, you think, he is something of a dark spot
in your life, something that’s staining and ruining what could have been
perfection if only he’d never been there.  You don’t resent him for it, though,
because you’re almost glad he came when he did—you think you might have tired
of a life that went smoothly all the time.
“You use everyone around you, play with them like toys.  Anyone who finds out
wouldn’t want anything to do with you.”  He chuckles.  “If your “father” knew
you didn’t feel anything for him, not even a little affection or gratefulness,
do you think he’d still treat you so well?”  For this, he ungags you, expecting
an answer.
“He doesn’t care,” you say, “I’m a means to an end for him, too.”
“Liar.  You come to me with marks.”  You feel him let your hair go, fingertips
tracing an invisible path along your skin down your throat and your chest and
over your stomach, pausing at every blotch of fading red he finds.  Your wrists
strain against their bonds ineffectually and heat pools in the pit of your
stomach, tendrils of arousal climbing up from deep within you.  Izaya chuckles
and continues to do as he pleases, touches light and teasing and completely
unsatisfying.  “He likes to leave them because he feels a sense of entitlement
and ownership.  He likes to think you’re his and only his.” 
He’s taken to psychoanalyzing Shiki through you, something that mildly
irritates you when he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and you’d rather
keep Shiki out of it anyway.  Those marks are there because you told him to put
them there, encouraged him in a sweet, cajoling voice to leave proof of himself
on your skin like he had proof of you in his tattoos, something real and
tangible, and what does it matter if he went along with it with far more fervor
than you expected?  You know Shiki’s possessive and fond of you, but he can’t
be so blindly optimistic as to think that you don’t have anyone else.
This isn’t about Shiki; this is about you, and you want to see Izaya lose it.
“It’d really cause some trouble if I left marks on you, too,” Izaya says in a
leading tone, the set-up to a threat, “I bet he knows where all of his are. 
He’d recognize new ones.”
“Maybe you should try anyway,” you suggest, the words leaving your mouth
impulsively, and you’re almost as surprised as Izaya is when he suddenly stops
speaking, hands freezing on your sides.
He’s thinking, you realize, trying to figure out what those words meant
underneath it all.
“Oh,” he says finally, and the gratification in his voice makes you angry
somehow, lets you know he’s figured you out, “You want to make him mad?”
“I don’t think he’d care.”
“Of course he’d care.”  Izaya’s touch vanishes, leaving you cold.  “But if
you’re so determined to get a rise out of him, why don’t you beg a little?”
You frown.
“Come on,” he urges, sounding far too pleased with himself, “I can’t give you
what you want unless you spell it out for me.”
The cold air of the empty locker room, floor tiles still damp from your shower
earlier, makes you shiver.  You tell yourself it’s natural, that you’re just
looking for him to warm you up.  That you’re not groveling.  “Please,” you say
quietly.  You know it’s not good enough, and Izaya says nothing, waiting
patiently for you to break.  “P-please,” you stumble over the words,
unaccustomed to asking, being made to ask when you could normally just take,
“Touch me more.  Leave marks on me.  I want him to see.”
“Why do you want him to see?” Izaya asks, sounding genuinely curious.
You swallow nervously.  “I want to make him jealous.”  I want to see what
you’re like when you’re jealous.  I want to feel you try to take me back when I
was never yours. 
You can’t see his face, but you know Izaya must be smiling now.  “You want him
to do what I do to you?” 
You nod. 
“Good girl.”
The praise hits you hard, making your lips part in a soft moan that grows
louder as Izaya latches onto your throat—below where Shiki did the night
before, because you remember exactly where his marks are, too—hands wandering
and teasing your body, and you feel how hard he is through his jeans that rub
raw against your thigh, want so badly to reach for him and take him apart like
he does you, and your frustration builds when you can’t.
“Wanna touch you,” you pant, shameless.
Izaya laughs, breath warm against your skin.  “No.”
He’s true to his word, suckling on unmarked skin and biting you wherever you’re
most sensitive, fingers teasing around your clit and your entrance without
actually touching you where you want him to, refusing to give any penetration
or deeper pleasure.  But somehow, when he mutters against your neck how good
you are, how you’re not as selfish as he thought and how much he really would
like to fuck you if he had a little more time, that by itself brings you close
to completion.
*
You think you might be getting in over your head.
Izaya isn’t winning the bet, of course, because that’s impossible.  You look
forward to these meetings because you’ve come to expect pleasure from him, a
Pavlovian response that has heat rushing to your loins when you enter the
locker rooms and see his smug face.  There is no affection or feeling to it,
just fleeting entertainment, yet you can’t help but feel that this is going to
become a problem somehow, and that you might want to consider breaking it off.
Would that be admitting defeat somehow?  Would associating “Izaya Orihara” with
“danger” mean you’d formed some sort of emotional attachment, even if it is one
of bitterness?  Surely, that doesn’t count, does it?
Shiki is right in front of you when you open the door, looking down with his
hands in his pockets and his shoulders squared, head tilted back the way it is
when he’s intimidating whatever poor unfortunate business owner who hasn’t paid
back the loan they took out from the Awakusu-kai.  You’ve never seen it
directed at you before, and it makes a shiver run down your spine.
“Track should’ve been over a while ago,” he says, voice low and dangerous.
You shrug, slipping off your shoes and trying to step around him.  He gets in
your way again.
“You’ve been coming home around this time a lot lately.”
You frown, both surprised and disappointed.  You didn’t think he even noticed. 
For all your talk earlier, you’d really rather keep Shiki in the dark about
your arrangement.  It occurs to you that you shouldn’t have egged Izaya on so
much before, should really have backed down when he mentioned putting his own
marks on you, but you hadn’t been thinking clearly, too caught up in your own
little game.
You might be paying for that now.
“I’ve been busy,” you say, another attempt to sidestep him thwarted when he
grabs your wrist. 
“With what?” he demands, “Is there something you want to tell me?”  And, to
your horror, he grabs at the collar of your uniform and tugs at it until your
shoulder is exposed, showing off all of the bright new bites and kiss marks
Izaya left behind less than an hour ago.  “Something you want to admit?”
You have trouble meeting his eyes, and that bothers you.  It isn’t guilt, but
it is frustration and embarrassment, the feeling of getting caught red-handed. 
You want Shiki’s admiration and trust, you want him to lavish you with praise
and gifts and tell you how much he needs you.  You want to feel necessary. 
So despite every fiber of your being screaming to the contrary, you
begrudgingly tell the truth.  “I was with a boy,” you say, so quietly you
barely hear yourself.
“Earlier today?” Shiki presses.
You nod.
“And yesterday?  And last week?”
You nod again, biting your lip and looking at the floor.
Shiki says nothing for a horribly long moment, and then he begins tugging you
towards his bedroom.
You stumble, trying to keep up, until he shoves you onto the bed.  His hands
are on your immediately, carelessly rough as he tugs off your clothes,
unwilling to wait for you to get them off yourself, and when you’re completely
naked, he steps back and looks down at you with anger in his eyes.
Your face burns with shame.
“You’ve been bad,” he says quietly, but you hear rage somewhere in his words,
“You’ve been a horrible, selfish brat, sneaking around behind my back.” 
No.  No, no, no, this isn’t what you wanted, this isn’t at all what you wanted.
“I told you.  I told you that you’d be punished for wasting time like this.  I
told you not to mess around.”
(“I told you not to do that!” your mother screams, so long ago now that you can
hardly remember much else, “I told you to leave it alone!”
She was gone for all of five minutes when she came back onto the front porch to
find you with a dismantled butterfly in your lap, hands sticky with sap-like
and sickly green insect blood, its wings in little pieces.
“That was very bad,” she says, “That was selfish.  You didn’t even think about
the butterfly at all, did you?  You just did whatever you wanted and didn’t
stop to consider how it was feeling.”
You cry, you cry and cry and cry all the way to your room and refuse to come
out even when she says you can eat dinner, and she feels so horrible about it
that she never yells at you again.)
Suddenly, you understand, and tears begin to fall all over again.
Shiki looks surprised when you begin to whimper, curling up into a ball and
trying to hide your face in the bedsheets.  You don’t reach for him like when
you’re trying to get a lie past him, you don’t look up at him coyly and whisper
something in his ear that makes his face flush, you don’t even give an
impatient scowl as he scolds you.
You just cry, because it all makes sense now, sliding into place in a way it
never has before.
“What’s wrong?” he asks stiffly, sounding unsure of whether or not he should
still be scolding you.  You almost feel pity for this poor man who doesn’t know
how to navigate the intricacies of adolescence, much less how to balance being
your mentor and your lover at the same time. 
You can barely force out any words between your sobs.  “The…butterfly,” you
wail, “I…wasn’t…didn’t mean to….”
Shiki is immediately on the bed with you, holding you close in a tight and
comforting embrace.  You think he must be confused, must think you’re having a
breakdown of some kind, and maybe you are.  It’s never been clear like this,
never made any sense. 
“I did something bad,” you manage to choke out, “I hurt someone.  I get it
now.”
A normal person would feel guilt here, you think.  You don’t, but you
understand.  You finally see what you’ve been doing all these years, why you
would be sent to your room, why you had to go to the doctor and take tests, why
your classmates avoided you.  You recognize what was just blurry and vague
before.
“Don’t be mad at me,” you plead, “Please don’t be mad.  I won’t do it anymore.”
“It’s okay,” Shiki says.  You can hear his heartbeat through his chest, slowing
from its rapid and angry rhythm to something soothing.  “It’s okay.  I forgive
you.”
Forgiven.  You’ve never cared.  You’ve never sought forgiveness before, but
you’re glad you have it.  You cling to him.
Then he says, very quietly, “I love you,” with all of the emotional weight
you’d expect and more, and that makes you pause.  He’s never said it before,
not in the throes of passion with you riding him or carelessly blurting it out
when you tense under him and dig your nails into his back, feeling full and
whole and satisfied for just a moment.  Shiki is full of passion but he is also
conscious of his own actions, and those words have never passed his lips before
now.
You can’t return the sentiment, and as the silence stretches on, you feel a
sinking feeling, worry that he’ll let you go and look at you with
disappointment, that you’ll lose his approval all over again, but that never
happens.  He just holds you, and you relax against him, and you fight to ignore
the emptiness inside of you that feels wider than ever before, recognizing your
faults and your shortcomings with startling clarity. 
This man is not going to let you go, not if you talk back, not if you sleep
with someone else, not if you tear the wings off of butterflies and act without
any thought to his feelings, because he loves you.  He loves you, and it just
isn’t fair that you can’t love him back.
Chapter End Notes
     I'm going to be out of town again next weekend ahhhhhhhhh I'm sorry!
***** Steady Dripping Wears Away the Stone VI *****
When you tell Izaya you want to break up, he laughs in your face.
You spend a few weeks avoiding him the best you can, refusing to stick around
for your usual locker room rendezvous and trying to ignore his curious gaze
when you happen to pass each other in the hallway, unwilling to actually talk
to him because you don’t know what you would say.  It doesn’t take long before
his impatience begins to show, and soon enough, he catches your wrist as you’re
walking home and drags you towards the open mouth of an alley.
The look on his face when you twist your arm to break out of his grip and shove
him away is almost priceless.
“Your poor ‘father’ found out, didn’t he?” he asks.  “Was it worth it?”  You’re
not really sure that it was.  Izaya must notice you mulling over a response,
because he cocks his head and smirks, saying, “Is that really going to keep you
from doing what you want?  Getting in a bit of trouble?”
“That’s not it,” you say, still struggling to articulate exactly what happened,
what you realized.
“Then what?” 
You don’t know what else to do, so that’s when you blurt out the words that
forever alter the course of whatever you want to call your little arrangement. 
“I want to break up.”
For a moment, you’re satisfied by the dumbfounded look on his face and the rare
silence that follows.  He must not have expected this, because he’s completely
speechless.  “What,” he stops, as if needing to collect his thoughts, “What are
you talking about?”
“I want to break up,” you repeat, more firmly than before.
Izaya stares at you in disbelief.  Slowly, the smirk works its way back to his
face, but it’s stiff and fake-looking.  A bitter chortles turn into raucous
laughter, harsh and almost angry.  “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m completely serious.”
“Are you saying you developed a conscience overnight?” he taunts, “Suddenly
started empathizing and feeling guilty?”
“No,” you say, “Not exactly.”
“Then what point is there in breaking up?” Izaya demands, and you notice that
even with his cocky posture—hands in his pockets and head tilted back—that his
shoulders are trembling and his smile is falling.  The anger is seeping into
his voice now, and somehow that makes you mad, too. 
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” you demand, “It’s not like either of us even like
each other.”
His lips curl in disgust.  “You think you understand how other people think,
don’t you?  You think you’ve got it all figured out, and everything’s going to
fall into place for you now.”  He advances on you, holding your gaze
challengingly.  You don’t back down.  “But you’re wrong,” he says, “You’re not
like other people.  You’re a monster, and someday you’re going to fuck up bad
enough that even your keeper isn’t going to want you anymore.”
You take a fistful of the collar of his shirt, slamming him against the alley
wall and balling up your free hand into a fist.  Izaya tenses up at the initial
impact, but then he relaxes in your grip and you find yourself hesitating,
looking at his face and finding a pleased expression rather than fear. 
“Does that scare you?” he asks, “Thinking that he’ll abandon you and you’ll
have nowhere left to hide and no one to validate your existence?”
“Shut up,” you growl.
He doesn’t.  “Does that keep you up at night?  Do you fuck and then lay beside
him and wonder what you’ll do in the morning if he has second thoughts?”  His
hands close around the wrist pinning him to the wall, a simple, gentle touch
that has you swallowing nervously.  “I can keep going,” he says, “I can talk
all day about your flaws and shortcomings.  Sooner or later, you’ll hate me.” 
He urges you to move your hand higher, to close your fingers around his
throat.  Somehow, even though you’re not the one against the wall, you feel
frightened.
“What are you doing?”
Izaya smiles.  “Go on.  Squeeze.  If you hurt me, you’ll feel better.”  You let
go of him and stumble back as if he burned you.  Izaya looks confused before
annoyance crosses his face.  “We still have a bet,” he says, “I have to make
you attached to me, remember?”
“Who cares about the stupid bet?” you ask, exasperated, “You lost from the
start, you know that; it was never possible for you to win.  I don’t understand
you at all.”
Something changes then.  Izaya’s smile remains in place but the anger and the
confidence and even the momentary joy from before leaves his eyes, leaving a
hollow gaze, hands limp at his sides.  You stare at him, confused.  “Ah,” he
says quietly, “Maybe you’re right.  Maybe I did lose.”
The two of you stand there a moment longer before, without another word, he
leaves.  And even though you think you should be feeling victorious at getting
him to admit his loss, or at least getting the best of him for once, you
somehow only feel disappointment and emptiness.
*
After that, Izaya is the one who avoids you.
Avoidance might not be the right word, however; it’s just that he doesn’t seek
you out like he used to.  Occasionally you’ll cross paths in the halls or spot
him on your way home, and your trips to the locker room are quiet and
uneventful without even a different girl running past you in embarrassment. 
You tell yourself that this is what you wanted, and maybe it is, but it’s
awfully boring.
Shiki greets you each evening with a genuine smile that you feel you don’t
deserve.  Despite the relatively short amount of time you’ve actually been
together, he looks older somehow; it might be the stress of his new work
responsibilities.  Whatever it is, you think the look suits him.  You want
things to go well for Shiki, you want people to respect him. 
It occurs to you that you want the same things for him that you want for
yourself, the difference being that he is nothing like you.
“Your exams scores are better this week,” he notes when you walk in the door.
“Oh,” you say.  You hadn’t really noticed.  Not being around Izaya probably
does improve your focus.
“I’ve got another job lined up for you in a few days.”  He pulls you down onto
the couch with him, hands cupping your face for a slow kiss.  You return it
passionlessly, hands sliding to his shoulders in a detached and procedural
manner.  You hope he won’t notice, but he always notices, and he pulls away to
study your face carefully.
There’s very little you can hide from him anymore, and that’s horribly
inconvenient and a little frightening.
“You don’t want to do the job?” he guesses.  You smile peaceably and try to
kiss him again, but he holds you at bay.  “Something happened at school today,”
he tries again. 
“I’m just feeling a little out of it,” you assure him, straddling his hips and
running your hands down his chest, unbuttoning his undershirt.
“You stopped sleeping with him.”
Your fingers stop and you don’t quite meet his eyes.  How did this happen? 
Shiki’s changed, surely, become more confident and discerning as time has
passed, but there has to be more to it than that.  You must have changed, too,
somehow.  You must have some kind of bond that gives him this sort of insight
into your feelings and motivations. 
Shiki looks disappointed but he lets you stay on his lap, one hand caressing
your cheek as he holds your gaze with that same profound love in his eyes that
you feel unworthy of receiving.  There must be someone else who would actually
appreciate it, maybe even be able to return it.  “I figured it was something
like that,” he says, “Ever since you came home that night, you’ve been acting
weird.”  He smiles bitterly.  “You really like him, don’t you?”
“I don’t,” you insist, but the rest of your denial dies on your lips as Shiki
narrows his eyes and dares you to lie to him.  You’re certain that you don’t
like Izaya; he’s unpleasant and annoying and is really only talking to you
because you’re just as fucked up as he is.  But there’s something there, you
think, something not unlike what you have with Shiki, a sensation that lingers
when you’re no longer with them, that makes you comfortable in their presence.
Did Izaya win after all?
Shiki presses a kiss to your frowning lips.  “I spoiled you too much,” he
mutters, “I should forbid you from ever seeing him again.”
(Shiki never did hear Izaya’s name from you in those days; you never offered
it, and you don’t really know why.  Shiki didn’t seem so petty as to hunt down
some high school kid, and it isn’t as though the thought of Izaya getting hurt
worried you.  In your conscious mind, you said you didn’t care, but some part
of you might have tried to protect him anyway.)
“But part of me wants to see you get this out of your system,” he goes on, and
his hands begin to untie the ribbon of your uniform and tug at your clothes,
“Because in the end, you’ll come back.”
“I’ll always come back,” you tell him, and you mean it.
Shiki looks at you as though you’ve just told him you love him—and maybe
loyalty is as close as it’ll ever get.  His arms wrap around you, too tightly,
almost bruising, and you think he’d rather not ever let go.
*
Izaya graduates in a few days.
He’ll be leaving you behind for the real world, for a stable job in a good
company, for a wife and a family and a normal life.  You don’t really believe
that, of course; he may be leaving, but you know he’s not headed for a normal
job or a normal life or a normal anything.  You can openly admit now that the
two of you are not so different, and you already know where you’re headed, so
whatever he does probably won’t be too different.
His hands slowly unbutton the jacket of your uniform one at a time, from your
collar to your waist, and then he pulls at your uniform ribbon, ritualistically
slow, and lets it fall to your feet.  You shrug the jacket off of your
shoulders and step out of your skirt and underwear, completely bare before him,
but you still feel too hot.
This is not like the other times.  This is at Izaya’s, on a weekend when his
family is out.  This is in his bedroom, your feet padding over the carpet floor
as you lay back on an unfamiliar bed.  The intimacy is frightening, something
that’s always been absent from your arrangement.  But it was your idea, and you
aren’t about to back out now.
“I never took you for a romantic,” he chuckles, but you know him well enough
now that you recognize a bit of nervousness in his voice.  This scares him,
too.
“I’m not,” you assure him, watching his pants join the pile, “I just thought we
should have a change of scenery.”
“Even so.”  When he’s fully naked, he doesn’t move, standing in the middle of
the room and looking a bit uncomfortable.  “I don’t understand why you came
back to me at all.  I thought we broke up.”
You roll your eyes.  “You sleep with lots of people you aren’t dating.”
“Ah.  I did, once.”
You raise a brow at that, but he doesn’t offer an explanation.
With a surge of confidence, he comes forward, hooking his fingers beneath your
chin and forcing you to meet his eyes.  “I want to remember this,” he murmurs,
“Years from now, I want to be able to recall this exact moment.  I want you to
remember it, too.”
He urges you to lean back, and you feel the childishly benign sensation of
butterflies in your stomach when you do, able to see him, able to move your
hands as you please.  None of this is how it usually is. 
“I made a bet,” he says, “And you said I lost, but as long as you’re here,
there’s still a chance.  Someday, you’ll look back, and you’ll feel something. 
Maybe regret.  Maybe revulsion.  Maybe even hatred.  And I’ll be the only one
you’ll have that connection with.”
You think of telling him that there’s something there.  It isn’t any of the
things he mentioned, not an overwhelming feeling of disgust or malice, but you
don’t know what to call it, so you stay silent. 
(It was a promise, you think later, not a bet, but a promise.  It wasn’t just a
game to him.  His pride may have been on the line, but there was something more
there, higher stakes than that.)
You wrap your arms around his neck, breathing him as he slowly, carefully,
gently pushes his way inside, his own bruising grip at your hips.  He knows
what he’s doing—should, really, by now—and handles you like he’s been
practicing just for this moment.  He goes slow, slow enough that you’re
completely aware of everything you’re feeling but don’t get lost, slow so you
feel everything. 
“What are you feeling?” he asks breathlessly.  You can hear it every time your
hips meet.  “Do you like this?”
You nod, not trusting your own voice.  It feels good, you decide, really good,
completely different from the rougher, less emotional rutting you tend to do in
the locker room yet just as satisfying.  Izaya rocks his hips into you again,
thrusting deeper than before, and you realize just how quiet he is this time,
his eyes squeezed shut and his hands on you desperate and possessive, just like
Shiki’s.
“Izaya,” you call his name, moan it so many times that the sounds blur together
and lose meaning, and still you never quite tell him about the feelings you
think you have. 
When it’s over, you both lay silently in the afterglow.  You don’t tease or
taunt each other, he doesn’t push you and you don’t push him, and it’s so still
and quiet.  You lay in his arms with your face tucked into his chest, listening
to his heartbeat, but neither of you sleep. 
Something about this feels very final, and you wonder if he wanted to get
something out of his system, too.
*
“Straightening the horns of a bull will kill it,” you read aloud.
Izaya props himself up on his side from the bed, watching you go through his
bookcase.  You’d thumbed through his various popular science magazines and
psychology books with disinterest, and then you came across a book of proverbs
and somehow got stuck on it. 
“I haven’t heard that before.”
“Really?” Izaya asks, “It suits you pretty well, I think.” 
“What does it mean?”
He gestures for you to come back towards the bed and you frown at his laziness
but do it anyway.  He sits upright beside you to look at the page you have
open.  “It means that you shouldn’t change something from its natural state,”
he explains, “You’ll just end up destroying it.”
You stare down at the words, confused.  “Do you think that’s true?”
“Hm.  Who knows.  It’s just a saying, isn’t it?”  He smiles.  “But maybe
there’s something to it.”  You glance back down at the book, reading silently
again, and feel Izaya’s eyes on you.  “You really like that book, don’t you?”
You shrug.
“You can have it if you want.”
“Why?”  You thumb through a few pages, trying to see if it’s defective in some
way.
He laughs.  “Don’t you want it?”
“But why would you just give it to me?”
Izaya takes the book from you and you faintly hear it fall on the floor
somewhere.  Suddenly he’s got you on your back again, looming over you with an
unguarded smile.  “You know, I catch myself thinking that it’s a shame you’re a
monster,” he says, “If you were anything else, I doubt I’d find you
interesting, but I think about the ‘what ifs’ sometimes.”
“What do you mean?”
He dodges the question by kissing you, and you let him get away with it. 
Vaguely, you recall that Izaya’s kisses are a way to manipulate the situation
to his advantage, to plan his next move and stay in control.  This is the
furthest from affection as you can possibly get.
And yet, you feel almost like you’re in bed with Shiki, in hands that are
reluctant to let you go, beneath a person who would rather keep you forever.
***** For Every Meeting, There Must Be a Parting *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The you of today—a full-fledged infiltrator and runner for the Awakusu-kai,
Shiki’s ward but also his equal, an unsettled and unsatisfied mess that hides
behind a confident façade—wakes up early.
Today, you’re leaving Ikebukuro.  That should make you happy, you think, but as
you sit up and rub at your eyes, you feel a strong sense of disappointment. 
Once you’d remembered what was waiting for you in Ikebukuro—what you’d left
behind; unfinished business and loose ends taking the form of a human being who
fancies himself a god—you became fixated on returning to the past and
recapturing the excitement of those days, but your attempts had only settled
you further into the emptiness where there should have been some other feeling.
To your surprise, Shiki is already awake.  You find him sitting on the couch in
the next room, already dressed and ready to leave, legs crossed as he cocks a
brow at you.  You open your mouth to say something—and honestly you’re not sure
yet, but it’s probably an excuse—but he cuts you off.
“I knew,” he says.
You stare at him blearily, still half-asleep.  You’re wearing nothing but a
pair of underwear and a large t-shirt but this is apparently time for something
serious because his gaze doesn’t wander at all.  “What?”
“I knew the whole time.”  He gestures pointedly at the couch cushion beside him
and you go to sit down.  “I knew who you were messing around with at Raijin.”
You can’t look at him.  He’s got that same look in his eyes as he did the first
time he told you he loved you, that patience and desire and passion that makes
you a little uncomfortable.  “How’d you find out?”
“You really think I wasn’t keeping an eye on you?” he scoffs, “I was the only
one who had any hopes for you, so it wasn’t hard to convince the higher ups to
lend me someone to keep tabs on your whereabouts.”  Shiki forces you to meet
his eyes with a hand on the back of your neck, studying your expression.  “What
is it?” he asks quietly, like he’s asking himself more than you, “What does he
give you that I can’t?”
Your gaze softens.  “Shiki….”
“Do you want me to hurt you?  Do you want me to be rougher with you?”  His grip
grows harsher, holding you still as he draws closer to slip a hand beneath your
shirt, stroking your bare skin.  “Whatever it is,” he insists, “You just have
to tell me.”
“It’s not that simple,” you tell him.  His eyes narrow like he doesn’t believe
you, but after a moment, he backs off, hands leaving your body.  “We made a
bet,” you say, but you stop yourself.  “Not a bet; a promise.  But we treated
it more like a game, and it was the most fun I’d ever had.”
You can tell he doesn’t understand by the look on his face, but you don’t know
how else to explain it.  Izaya was like a toy that you hadn’t really wanted,
something that grew on you over time and provided endless entertainment once
you realized you were interested.  He’s come to represent all of your faults
and regrets, you when you were at your most vulnerable, and that makes you both
nostalgic and angry when you think about him.
You want to see him one more time.
The thought hits you hard enough to knock the breath out of you, and then
you’re hurrying back into the bedroom to get dressed.  You rush back out and
head straight for the window, determined to free run your way back to Izaya’s,
but you pause when you see Shiki’s reflection in the glass balcony doors,
watching you with pain in his eyes. 
“Go ahead,” he says, “This is your last chance.”
You hesitate.  You’re doing it again; you’re being inconsiderate and hurting
him, and you know you shouldn’t do those things, you know that’s what separates
you from an ordinary person who deserves his affection.  “Sorry,” you say, but
you don’t really mean it, “I wasn’t thinking….”
“I said go,” he tells you harshly, “What do you think I brought you back to
Ikebukuro for?”
“For…a job?”
“And when, during this whole trip, have I actually given you a job to do?”
You frown, looking at the floor as the gears in your head begin to turn.  “I
don’t understand,” you say.
“You’ve been different ever since you left this town,” he explains, “I didn’t
want to believe it was because of him, but these last couple days, you’ve been
more yourself.”  Shiki stands up and walks over to you at the balcony doors,
hands in his pockets as he tries to look casual, but you can tell from the
tenseness in his shoulders that he’s upset.  “Remember what I told you on the
first day,” he says, “Go and work out whatever game or promise or whatever you
have with him.  Figure out if it’s over or not.”
You can’t believe what you’re hearing.  Not only has Shiki known all along, but
he brought you back here for the explicit purpose of seeing Izaya again,
probably hoping you’d get some closure and move on.  And maybe he’s right;
maybe that’s what you need.  You turn to leave but he stops you with a hand on
your shoulder.
“I’m not letting you go,” he says quietly, “I don’t care if you decide you
can’t live without him.  You’re an asset to the Awakusu-kai.  No matter what
happens, you’re coming back with me.”  His voice is gentle but his grip is
harsh and his fingers are trembling.  You realize you’ve broken this man and
warped the love he had for you into obsession, the desire to keep you from
running away into the arms of someone else.
He should’ve known better; running is what drew him to you in the first place. 
“I understand,” you tell him, and he reluctantly lets you go when you pull
away, waiting on the hotel balcony and watching until he loses sight of you
across Ikebukuro’s rooftops.
You don’t feel any guilt, but you do feel something else tugging at your heart,
something that makes you feel a bit lonely suddenly.  It reminds you of that
brief, fleeting feeling that bloomed in your chest in the weeks leading up to
Izaya’s graduation.
It scares you.
*
“Why did you give up?”
Izaya is in the middle of something when you barge into his apartment—unlocked,
you noticed, like he’s been waiting—but he pushes it aside to give you his
attention.  “What a surprise,” he muses, but he doesn’t sound remotely shocked,
“I thought you’d be on your way out of town by now.” 
You drop the book of proverbs on his desk and it clatters open on its spine,
opening to the section with pages torn out. 
Izaya raises a brow, demanding an explanation.
“You stopped taking the bet seriously at some point,” you tell him, “I never
understood why.”
“Didn’t I tell you?  I was just messing around,” he says nonchalantly, “I
didn’t have an end goal in mind when I made that bet, I was just looking for
some fun, and so were you.”
“But it was more than just a bet to you.”
He narrows his eyes, smiling dangerously.  “Brave of you to say you think you
know me.”
“I do know you,” you insist, “Probably as well as you know me.”
He doesn’t reply to that.  You stare at each other from opposite sides of his
desk, at a stalemate.  Finally, he says, “How does that make you feel?”
Your fists tremble at your sides.  “Angry.”
“Would you go so far as to say you resent me for it?”
“Yes.”
“Oh?”  He smirks, leaning back in his chair.  “Then it looks like I didn’t lose
after all.  What you’re feeling right now is bitterness and animosity. 
Everything went exactly the way it was supposed to.”
You stare at him in disbelief. 
“I knew you would enjoy what we had going as much as I did,” he explains, “I
knew it would become the sole bright spot in your otherwise dull and empty
life.  I helped you reach highs you’d never known existed, and just when you
thought you had everything you wanted, I stopped trying.  And that’s eaten away
at you all this time, hasn’t it?  That’s why you brought a knife.”
You freeze, unable to keep the shock off of your face.  You didn’t even tell
Shiki that you were taking a weapon, hiding a pocket knife in your jacket
almost impulsively.  But he’s right; you are angry and you do resent him.
“So here we are,” he says, opening his arms wide, “Reunited at last, just as I
knew we would be.  You’re going to make an attempt on my life, aren’t you? 
It’d be disappointing if you just left after all of this.”
“No,” you say hoarsely, “I don’t believe you.  There’s no way you could have
planned this far ahead.”
“Why not?” 
“Because it’s….”  You bite your lip, searching for the right words.  “You just
couldn’t.”
Izaya laughs.  He comes around his desk and you take one step back for each he
takes forward, until the backs of your knees hit his coffee table and he takes
advantage of your surprise to close what distance remains between you.  “You’re
emotionally fragile right now and extremely vulnerable,” he warns, “You’d
better do something to defend yourself or I’m going to take advantage of you.”
When you don’t move, he shoves you down onto the couch, and you let him without
fully understanding why.  Izaya climbs on top of you and pulls roughly at your
clothes, tearing a few seams and pinching your skin in the zipper of your
jacket in his haste to get you undressed, and you still don’t do anything, just
let him expose your skin to the cool air and faintly hear the knife clattering
to the floor.
When you’re naked under him, you look him in the eye and press a hand to his
cheek.  Izaya stops, staring down at you with obvious confusion.
“You’d better put up at least a little bit of a fight,” he says, and he sounds
almost frantic, pinning your wrists above your head and digging his nails into
your skin, “I’m not even going to leave marks for Shiki to get mad about, I’m
just going to use you however I want.”
“Then do it.”
He goes still above you.
“Do it,” you repeat, pleading, “Touch me, hurt me, I don’t care.”
“What are you doing?” he asks quietly.
“I lost a long time ago.”  You feel tears burning at the corners of your eyes
but you don’t know why.  “I felt it before you graduated, and I’ve felt it ever
since.  I’m attached to you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about—!”
“You feel like home,” you admit, and saying it aloud makes it real somehow,
makes it even more frightening, but you can’t keep it to yourself anymore. 
“It’s not love.  It’s not even affection, I don’t think.  But when we do things
like this, I think about how much I don’t want anything to change.  I want to
stay just like this.”
Izaya doesn’t say a word.  You feel embarrassed under his stare and in the
crushing silence, blood rushing to your face as you squirm a little bit in his
grasp.  “That’s a dangerous thing to admit to me,” he says, touching your face
with surprising gentleness.
“I still have to leave,” you tell him, “Things can’t stay the same.  But I
needed to tell you.”
“Of course it’ll be the same,” he assures you with a smile, “I won, didn’t I? 
The feelings you have for me are going to keep you bound to Ikebukuro.  You’ll
never be able to completely sever your ties to this place; not as long as I’m
here.”  He lets go of your wrists but you leave them where they are as his
hands trail down your body.  “You can run, but you’ll never get away from me
now.”
He quickly undresses and begins touching you in earnest, hands running over
your shoulders and chest slowly and passionately, like he’s really seeing you
for the first time. 
Izaya leans in and leaves a trail of bites along your shoulder, collarbone and
throat, far above what the neckline of your shirt will cover.  You wrap your
legs around him to pull him closer and he chuckles.  “I’m going to miss our
little game,” he says, “Knowing I have you wrapped around my finger just
doesn’t make this as thrilling as it was.”
You know he’s lying; he’s half-hard.  “You think this is over?” you ask, “You
know how easily I get bored.  If you don’t hold my interest, it won’t matter
that you won.”
He rolls his hips, grinding against you and making you gasp.  You see his eyes
shining, his smile real and contented, like someone who has finally arrived at
their destination and achieved their dreams.  “Oh, I think I know how to hold
your interest.”
You think he may have been lying before, too, when he said that his goal was
for you resent him.
*
Just like old times, you return to Shiki covered in Izaya’s marks. 
He’s on you immediately, pulling off clothes that you just smoothed the
wrinkles out of, eyes roving over your skin to see where you’re still
untainted.  You realize, as he handles you the same way he always does in these
situations—alternating between being far too gentle and mercilessly rough—that
he isn’t really all that upset.  This has become part of the routine for him,
being there when you come back, seeing what Izaya did to you and reclaiming
what he thinks belongs to him.  Shiki, too, smiles peaceably like he’s just won
something, because at the end of the day you’re in bed with him, straddling his
hips and clutching his shoulders as he leaves newer, brighter marks on the
opposite side of Izaya’s.
“We should move back in together,” he suggests, half-joking, but you actually
consider it for a moment.  You’d be closer to Ikebukuro that way.  You’d be
closer to the only two people in the world who really understand you and who
you feel safe with.  “Then again, this would become a daily occurrence, then,
wouldn’t it?  You’d always be sneaking off to see Orihara.”  He grasps a
fistful of your hair and yanks your head back to look you in the eye.  “I’d
have to handcuff you to the bed, wouldn’t I?”
He wouldn’t.  As much as it hurts Shiki to see you leave, the excitement he
gets when you return is worth it.  Still, you feel that he deserves a bit of
reassurance, so you run your hands down his chest and tell him, “You feel like
home to me.” 
For a moment, he simply trembles.  And then he crushes your lips together in a
bruising kiss, desperate and hungry and relieved.  You smile against his lips
and eagerly return his enthusiasm.
You will never love Shiki, nor will you ever love Izaya.  You think there’s
something wrong with all three of you and the way you’ve gotten hopelessly
entangled with one another, relying on each other to complete your dynamic. 
You’ll never be able to sit still, flying from one to the other as they
purposefully step on each other’s toes with you in the middle, but you have to
admit that you’re not likely to ever feel bored or meaningless ever again.
One’s act, one’s profit.
You reap what you sow—or is it that the spoils will go exclusively to the
victor?
Regardless, you think that you got what you wanted in the end.
Chapter End Notes
     This is a story that just did what it wanted and went in directions I
     didn't initially consider, but it was a fun ride! I hope everyone
     enjoyed it! I don't currently have any ideas for the Playing
     Favorites series because I've fallen so far behind with DRRR!!, but I
     do plan on coming back sometime. Thank you so much for reading!
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!