Chapter Text
It unfolds on an ordinary afternoon.
It's spring and raining outside as Shinra cleans up the apartment. Celty's out on business and won't be back for another hour yet. He checks another item off his to-do list and moves on to the next one.
He's halfway through cleaning the kitchen when his phone rings.
"That better not be Shiki," he mutters to himself as he hurries to the living room to answer it. "I hate going out in the rain." He examines the number that's calling. It's not a Tokyo area code which is unusual. He accepts it somewhat reluctantly.
"Is this Kishitani Shinra?" comes the voice on the other end of the line.
Shinra hesitates before answering. "Speaking. Who is this?"
"This is the Koriyama Police Department," replies the man. "Can I borrow a moment of your time?"
It's been a long time since he's received a call from the police. In fact, he can remember the last time it happened—an occurrence infrequent enough to stand out in his mind. That odd day trip with Celty to the countryside, interrupted by two undercover police offers enquiring about his 'integrity'. He almost laughs at the memory.
But whatever the reason for this call, it can't be good.
"What seems to be the problem?" he asks.
There's a brief shuffling of papers on the other end. "You're listed as one Orihara Izaya's emergency contact. In the case of—"
There is a lot about that one sentence that Shinra has trouble wrapping his head around. First of all is the fact that Izaya left Tokyo more than two years ago and yet for some reason never removed Shinra as his emergency contact. Not that Shinra was aware that he had been Izaya's emergency contact in the first place.
Then there's the reason for the police department's call. A chill spreads slowly along Shinra's skin.
"What happened to Izaya?" he interrupts.
There's a pause before the other man replies. "We're very sorry to inform you that his body was discovered in a hotel room this morning by room service."
Shinra nods to himself, as though it will relieve some of the pain that has suddenly taken root in his chest. "Did he—Was it a suicide?"
"We haven't ruled it out yet, but the cause of death was a stab wound to the abdomen. From the looks of this, our detectives suspect murder or some kind of foul play." The man pauses. "Forgive me for asking but this could aid in our work. Did Orihara-san have any suicidal tendencies?"
Shinra wets his lips. Did he? He knows—knew?—a lot about Izaya. More than anyone else ever did. But that was something that they had never addressed, something that had always been marked as off-limits.
"I… That's difficult to answer," Shinra replies at last.
"I see," says the officer. "Would it be possible for you to come up to our police department in Koriyama and answer a few questions? It appears that Orihara-san didn't have man acquaintances in the area and he listed your address as being in Tokyo."
"Yes," says Shinra numbly. "I can come. I'll be there as soon as I can."
"We appreciate it," says the officer.
Shinra hangs up the phone and sits down heavily on the couch. Izaya was dead. Some tiny part of him, even more awful than the rest of him, thinks, you can't pretend that you never saw this coming. Izaya had a lot of enemies. Far more enemies than he had friends. It isn't by any means a stretch of the imagination to picture Izaya pissing the wrong person off and having them enact their revenge on him.
After all, it had happened before. Nakura, in the biology club. Yodogiri Jinnai, who stabbed him in the street. And, of course, Heiwajima Shizuo.
On some level, Shinra has always known that he would outlive Izaya. He had just never anticipated how that would actually feel.
When Celty arrives home, he isn't sure what to tell her. On one hand, she and Izaya never quite saw eye to eye—Celty is too compassionate to have ever gotten along with someone like him, and Izaya had always resented her for having what he was never able to. On the other, he was one of her main clients and rarely antagonised her directly. If it were anyone else, she would want to know.
Within seconds of arriving, she can tell that something is wrong. Today, he doesn't greet her at the door like he usually does; instead, he chooses to remain on the couch. If she can work out that something isn't quite right for herself then he reasons that it takes the burden of explaining off of him.
[Shinra? What's wrong?] She holds out the phone in front of him.
"I…" he begins, and then stops. The words are far more difficult than he anticipated them to be. "I got a phone call earlier from the police in Fukushima."
Celty takes a seat next to him on the couch. [Fukushima?! Why?!]
"They were calling because—They said they found Izaya dead in his hotel room." He takes a breath. Ripping it off like that is supposed to make it hurt less, not more.
[Oh, Shinra…]
"They want me to go up there and answer a few questions about him," he says.
[But you haven't spoken to him in two years… How could you possibly know what happened?] she asks.
"Well, I'm listed as his emergency contact so they think I might know something about what happened, or be able to put the pieces together for them." Truthfully, he would rather not go. To sit there and answer questions about Izaya from someone who never knew him, someone who is not interested in the inner workings of Izaya's mind… He struggles to see the point.
[When do we have to leave?] she asks. She doesn't say sorry, which he's grateful for. After all, he and Izaya hadn't been close since high school. They spoke only when Izaya needed something—most often, medical care—and even when he was stabbed by Yodogiri, Shinra had all but ignored him. They hadn't been close since high school, and yet Shinra feels like a gaping hole has cracked open in his life. It's as though Izaya is a phantom limb: aching and invisible.
"As soon as possible," he says.
[I'll go get ready.]
The city, if it can even really be called that, is very small. Smaller even than Ikebukuro, and it sprawls until apartment buildings give way and spill into the dirt roads of the countryside. Even though the centre of the city has been constructed in the fashion of a modern city, it still feels leagues away from Tokyo.
When they arrive at the police station, Shinra goes in alone. He introduces himself to the receptionist, sits in the lackluster waiting room for ten minutes, and then the officer he spoke to on the phone appears and guides him into a small, poorly-lit room. Despite his occupation, he's never actually seen the inside of one of these interrogation rooms until now.
It's cramped, and the air smells like something stale mixed with old coffee. The officer takes the seat opposite him and smiles in what Shinra guesses is supposed to be a kindly manner.
"We're sorry to call you here on such unpleasant business," the officer says.
Shinra shakes his head politely.
"Let's get to business, shall we." It's not a question. He skims a finger over the papers in front of him. "Did Orihara have any enemies? Anyone that might want to hurt him?"
Shinra can barely hold back his laugh. At least, he thinks morbidly, Izaya still has the power of making him giggle from beyond the grave. "Yes. He was a person who made a lot of enemies. Naturally."
"Why naturally?" asks the officer, suspicion creeping into his tone. "Orihara was a financial planner, was he not?"
"Well, you know," says Shinra airily, finding it much easier to suppress his emotions now that the man is asking such stupid questions. "Sometimes people didn't want to hear the solutions he would give. Money is a sensitive topic, after all. I suppose some of his clients might even have gotten angry at him. Then there was the nature of his personality too…"
"Right," he says. "And your occupation is—what, exactly? Did you work with Orihara?"
"Oh, no, definitely not," says Shinra, waving his hands. "I'm a doctor."
"At a hospital?"
He smiles brightly. "At my father's practice."
The police officer glances back down at his notes. "And how did you know Orihara?"
"We went to school together," he answers smoothly.
"What was the nature of your relationship with him?"
Shinra opens his mouth to reply and then unconsciously, he hesitates.
The officer looks back up, eyebrows raised. "Kishitani? What was your relationship with him?"
"That's…" Shinra shakes his head. "We were—friends. Old friends."
The officer surveys him with even more doubt in his eyes than before. "I see. And had you spoken to Orihara recently?"
"I'm sorry," says Shinra with razor-sharp politeness. "Are you trying to gather more information about the circumstances of Izaya's death or am I being questioned as a suspect?"
"It's just a routine background check on Orihara," says the officer. "Nothing more."
Shinra considers him carefully. "No. I hadn't spoken to Izaya in around two years. Before he moved away from Tokyo, I suppose."
"I thought you two were friends," says the officer. "Why didn't you keep in touch after he moved away?"
"Personal circumstances," Shinra answers in a guarded tone. Because Izaya had left after the events of that final night and never even bothered to let Shinra know that he was alive. It wasn't until Kine had the decency to inform him that he knew Izaya wasn't dead.
"Were you aware of his condition?" the officer asks.
"Condition?"
"Orihara was paralysed from the waist down," he replies, glancing down at his notes as if for confirmation. As if he can't quite remember something as terrible as that. "The paramedics on-site believed it to be the result of an accident. Perhaps a car crash?"
Again, Shinra finds himself close to laughter, but this time it tastes like bile squirming in his throat. "I was aware there were some lasting injuries. I wasn't privy to the details, though. Izaya kept to himself, even when I knew him."
"Do you know if he acquired them before he left Tokyo, as you said?"
Shinra remains silent for a moment. Acquired. As though the injuries were medals. Badges of honour. Although maybe even Izaya himself had viewed them that way. "I believe he had some kind of accident around the time he left Tokyo. But I never saw him while he was injured."
"I see." The officer shuffles the papers in front of him. "Since the last time we spoke, the detectives have made some advancements in the case. They've ruled it as a potential murder case. Due to the positioning and angle that the knife went in, it seems unlikely to be suicide."
Shinra feels faintly nauseous. "Do you have any leads?"
"At the moment, no," replies the officer. "But if we find anything, I'll be in touch. Does Orihara have any immediate family members in the area? We couldn't find any personal details in his apartment or in his wallet."
A stab of anger runs through him at the thought of these people ransacking through Izaya's no doubt pristinely arranged apartment. "Parents. Two younger sisters. I have the contact details of his sisters, if you require them."
He writes down the numbers on the officer's form and gets to his feet. "Is that all you require from me?"
The officer nods and stands up as well, pushing the chair back underneath the desk. Shinra winces at the jarring scraping sound that it makes. "If we find out any more information, we'll be in touch. Thanks for coming all the way up here.
"No problem," Shinra murmurs, and exits the room ahead of him. He closes the door gently behind him and heads straight to the bathroom he passed on his way in. Once inside the privacy of the cubicle, he closes his eyes and tries to force down the emotion that threatens to overwhelm him.
Izaya is dead and Shinra just had to answer questions about his life as if Izaya had actually let him be privy to the details. He's going to have to make the call to his sisters who are still just kids, not even out of high school yet. How is he supposed to tell them that their brother was murdered?
He never expected it to feel like this.
What the hell did Izaya get himself mixed up in this time? Putting himself in the line of fire was never his style. He only operated that way around Shizuo. Yet this is not Shizuo's work, so clearly Izaya has pissed off someone bigger and more powerful than himself once again.
Shinra clenches his fists. How could he be so stupid? Didn't he learn anything on the night that he left Tokyo? He thought that if Izaya was actually forced to confront his mortality then he would give up all of the games and charades.
It seems like he was wrong about him once again.
When he blinks again, he's standing in the biology room of his junior high school. Everything is exactly as it was back then, including, seemingly, his height. He stretches his hands out in front of him and examines them, finding them to be smaller than they should be.
He looks around the room in a daze. If this is a dream, it's startlingly accurate. The smell of chemicals lingers heavy in the air and the setting sun glints off the glass cabinets, setting them alight in an array of orange. The day must be ending soon. He takes a dreamy step towards the window to watch the sunset and pauses when the plant perched precariously on the windowsill catches his eye.
The Venus flytrap. He reaches his fingers out to touch its base. He almost forgot about it, shutting it away with the rest of his childhood memories. The plant wriggles at the sudden contact, the stalk shuddering beneath his finger.
"Hey, Shinra."
He whirls around in shock at the voice. Sure enough, Izaya entered the room while his back was turned. His mouth curves up into a loose grin.
"You should stop playing with that. It's unkind." Izaya's smirk tells Shinra that he thinks the exact opposite. He takes a step closer and frowns. "Shinra?"
It's then that Shinra realises he's been staring. "Izaya. You're—" he starts, but then swallows, mouth suddenly dry. Izaya's eyes widen. This dream really is cruel. Izaya is exactly the same as he had been in middle school—his expression is more open than Shinra has seen it in years and his eyes still have that mischievous glint.
There's that odd, sad little pain again: of loss, of regret preserved and kept fresh throughout the years like pressed flowers. The Venus flytrap, devoured by time.
"It's been a long time since I had a dream like this," he admits.
"What?" says Izaya, moving past him and perching himself onto the stool. He crosses his legs. This Izaya has no problems with movement. How has his mind conjured up such a perfect mirror to the past? "You're weirder than usual today. Did that woman reject you again?"
"Woman?" Shinra repeats, before it comes to him a second later. Izaya didn't know everything about Celty's true nature back then. Shinra hadn't even told him Celty's name. "Oh. No, she didn't."
Izaya gives him another long look. "Are you feeling okay? You look really strange right now. More than usual, I mean."
"That's offensive," he replies half-heartedly. "I'm fine." He casts another glance down at Izaya's legs before he snaps his fingers and directs Shinra's attention back to his face.
"Why do you keep looking at my legs?" he asks suspiciously.
"I'm not," Shinra denies as he glances to the side. Unconsciously, he touches the hard counter with his fingers. It feels uncannily real. He can't remember the last time he had a dream where he was able to replicate touch and smell. What had he been thinking about before he went to bed?
Izaya frowns and gets to his feet. Striding forward, he comes to a halt in front of Shinra and places his hand on his forehead. "Seriously, maybe you should go home. You don't look good."
The shock of Izaya touching him comes crashing through him seconds later. Izaya hadn't touched him in years—since high school, maybe before. He recoils in surprise.
Hurt flashes across Izaya's features for a split second and then it's gone.
"Orihara!" comes a second voice from the doorway.
Shinra's stomach drops. He knows that voice, too. All at once, he knows exactly what day today is. The day everything between them changed.
"Give it back," says Nakura, his voice trembling the same way it had fifteen years ago. Shinra stares. Even Nakura has reverted back to the way he originally looked before Shinra had carried out countless plastic reconstruction surgeries on his face.
"The money," Nakura says. It looks as though he's about to cry. "I stole it from my dad's wallet—I need to put it back before he finds out. Give it back. Please." When Izaya doesn't move, Nakura reaches into his pocket and pulls out the knife. Shinra thinks idly to himself that it would be a lot more effective if his hand wasn't shaking like a leaf.
Behind him, Izaya moves smoothly to the side and picks up one of the stools, holding it out in front of him in defense. "Are you serious, Nakura?"
"Give it back!" Nakura charges forward and Shinra sucks in a deep breath. So this is what the situation had looked like when viewed with a clearer mind. He freezes as Izaya steps forward with the stool brandished like a weapon. Izaya lunges forward in an attempt to knock the knife out of Nakura's hands, but Nakura is faster.
Shinra lurches backwards in horror, his back hitting the low desk. This is where he's supposed to—
But it's too late. Izaya stumbles and the knife goes in and out easily.
Silence falls on the biology room. Shinra can hear nothing but the thrumming of his own heartbeat and an odd, unsettling ringing in his ears, and he can't shake the unmistakable feeling that something is wrong. History isn't supposed to happen this way.
Izaya's knees give out and he hits the ground with a wet gasp.
Eventually, somebody speaks.
"It—It wasn't my f-fault—" Nakura stutters. The knife slips from his fingers and clangs off the floor. "Not me—It wasn't me—I—" He turns and flees from the room.
"Sh—" Izaya gasps, still doubled over on the floor. "Shin—"
"Don't move!" Shinra instructs, his voice coming louder than he anticipated. He bends down next to Izaya and moves him as gently as possible onto his back so that he can get a better look at the wound. Nausea floods through him as he realises that it isn't the same injury he received fifteen years ago. This is worse. The angle is different. The positioning is different. He breathes in. There's no way Izaya's vital organs haven't been pierced. His chances are diminishing every minute. There's no way an ambulance will arrive in time. There's—so much blood—
"It's okay," he says as Izaya makes a pained noise. Duct tape. That's right. That's what he had Izaya do fifteen years ago. He stumbles to his feet and grabs some from where he remembers it being kept in the drawer. "Hold on." He crouches down next to Izaya. "I have to stop the bleeding, alright? This is going to hurt a little."
Izaya makes some noise of affirmation in the back of his throat. As he focuses on binding the wound with Izaya's blood spilling out across his hands, his white school shirt, the green linoleum floor—he imagines that day again.
It should have been him being patched up. His blood on Izaya's hands. Izaya who called the ambulance and panicked by his side. Izaya who took the fall for the stabbing, all so that he could ruin Nakura's life personally without any interference from the legal system.
"Shinra," says Izaya, his voice stronger than it had been before. Goosebumps shoot up across Shinra's skin. "Shinra, listen."
"You're going to be fine," he says, hoping that his voice doesn't betray the truth. "It's not even that bad, idiot."
Izaya shakes his head. "Shinra." He takes a breath. "Shut up. Listen. My sisters—you have to—"
"Of course," says Shinra, his voice wavering at last. "Don't be stupid. Of course I will."
Izaya laughs and it sounds like he's choking on it. "Didn't want it to be like this," he says. It's evident from the scratching of his voice that every word is costing him effort. "But I'm glad—"
"I'm calling the ambulance now," Shinra interrupts. The tears from earlier threaten to come again.
"You're sad," he says weakly. "M'sorry. Didn't really think anyone—" He coughs again. "—Would be sad."
Shinra's heart might just be capable of breaking once more. "Stupid. Of course I would be sad. No matter where. No matter when."
A smile flits briefly across Izaya's face, his eyes lighting up with it. Then the next second they close and Shinra is left alone.
"No," he says to no one, and it cracks clean in the middle. He squeezes his eyes shut. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. It was meant—"
"—To be me," he finishes, opening his eyes to see the living room of his apartment. In horror, he stands up and spins around.
[Shinra?] Celty approaches him from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her neck and her cellphone in hand. [Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost.]
Shinra focuses on catching his breath first. "I had… a really strange dream," he says as he lowers himself apprehensively back on to the couch. He glances down at his hands and sees them to be clean, free of the blood that had coated them only seconds before.
Celty joins him on the sofa. [What did you dream about?]
He shakes his head. "It was… that day in the biology club in middle school. But it was so real. But Izaya got stabbed instead of me and I—" Again, he looks down at his hands to make sure they're really clean. "I watched him die."
Celty links her fingers with his and types with the other hand. [You haven't thought about that in a long time. What made it come to mind so suddenly?]
Shinra looks up in confusion. "Because he was found dead today in Koriyama."
[Today…??] Celty presses the question mark button with force. [What are you talking about? I thought Izaya passed away that day. I remember you told me that the ambulance didn't get there in time and there was nothing you could do.]
"What?" Shinra asks sharply. "What do you mean?"
[Are you okay, Shinra?] she asks.
"You don't remember it? The fight between him and Shizuo two years ago? You used to take jobs from him before he left. He used to send you to clean up after his games with those girls he met in the suicide forums."
[I don't know what you mean,] she replies hesitantly.
"It—" He breaks off and grabs his phone. "You don't remember any of that Look, I'll call Shizuo and he'll back me up. He hated him." He scrolls quickly through his contacts and hits Shizuo's name.
Shizuo answers almost immediately. "Yo."
"Shizuo," says Shinra, and he hopes he doesn't sound like he's on the verge of mania. "Did you hear the news about Izaya?"
"Izaya?" Shizuo repeats blankly. "Who's that? One of those yakuza guys you work for?"
Shinra's palms are clammy as he clutches his phone. "Seriously, Shizuo. Izaya. The guy you chased around the city on a regular basis threatening to murder."
"I—what?" Shizuo sounds utterly confused.
"He got you fired from multiple jobs, including your job at the bar. He framed you for various crimes and then you nearly killed each other two years ago," Shinra rattles off, wondering in the back of his mind how and when he became so well versed in Izaya's personal history.
"What are you talking about?" Shizuo asks. "I still work at the bar. No one's gotten me fired."
"You're not working with Tom?" he replies in disbelief.
"Tom?" Shizuo repeats. "Oh. Tanaka Tom? That's a weird question. We haven't spoken in years."
Shinra swallows. "Okay. Alright. Speak to you later then." He hangs up the hone and throws it on to the armchair opposite him. In frustration, he turns to Celty. "What's happening to me?"
Was Izaya, then, just a phantom that existed only to bestow years of torture on him?
But that's impossible. Celty had worked for him. Shiki had done business with him. Shinra had almost killed him two years ago.
[Shinra… Maybe you should rest,] Celty types cautiously.
Shinra can only shake his head, latent panic burning acidic behind his teeth. "Something is wrong." That couldn't have been reality that he experienced. His actions couldn't really have altered time itself and thrown him back into a different present, a present where Izaya is not there.
Did his selfishness finally backfire?
"Izaya was alive," he says uselessly. It's as though he's trying to catch water with his bare hands. He looks at Celty again and feels like a child. She must think he's truly lost it this time. "I don't want him to be dead," he admits, finally, and lets himself cry at last.
Celty wraps her arms around him and he grabs on to her tightly, closing his eyes. Then she disappears, and when he reopens his eyes he's back in the biology room. There's that cloying smell of chemicals again and the sun is low in the sky. This can't be anything but real.
Izaya is right in front of him, far too close, his hand on Shinra's forehead. "Seriously," he's saying, "maybe you should go home. You don't look so good."
"Izaya," says Shinra unconsciously. Izaya starts at the sound of his first name and Shinra realises too late that they hadn't reached that point yet. It's only middle school, after all. They're going to have years ahead of them for that.
Shinra is sure this time. He'll get it right.
There isn't going to be a world without Orihara Izaya in it in this reality.
Right on cue, Nakura's voice rings out from behind them, flimsy with the pretense of strength: "Orihara!"
Izaya turns his attention away from Shinra. Last time he had been too preoccupied to notice it but that's unmistakably a smile sliding across Izaya's face. He knows exactly why Nakura has come for him. What he doesn't realise is the outcome.
"Give it back," Nakura demands, his trembling voice betraying him.
Izaya tilts his head in response.
"The money," Nakura continues. The sensation of déjà vu shudders up Shinra's spine. "I stole it from my dad's wallet—I need to put it back before he finds out. Give it back. Please." His voice cracks embarrassingly on the last word, negated only by the fact that he pulls the knife out of his pocket.
Shinra hears Izaya move behind him and grab the stool again. "Are you serious, Nakura?"
"Give it back!" Nakura snaps, and Shinra knows that's his cue to move. The way he should have last time. The way to set everything right in the universe again.
With his motivation for his heroism finally in the right place, he cries, "Stop!", sidestepping between them and taking the knife to his side. The sharp heat-white pain lances up his side, more agonising than he remembered it to be. His knees collapse beneath him and he curls up on the ground. Somewhere above him, Nakura stutters out his denial of guilt and flees.
"Shinra!" Izaya's voice is so much younger, so much more emotional than he thought it would be. The horror of it shatters through him. He hasn't heard Izaya sound like this in fifteen years. Fifteen years had been more than long enough to forget.
"I'm calling the ambulance," Izaya says, pulling out his phone and starting to punch in the number.
"No." Shinra's voice scrapes out of his throat as he turns to look at him. "Stop the bleeding first. The duct tape…"
Understanding snaps into Izaya's gaze and he scrambles to his feet without hesitation. He grabs the tape and helps to prop Shinra against the base of the lab desks. Shinra swallows, forcing himself to remain calm, and gives Izaya instructions on how to bind it correctly to prevent more blood loss.
Just as he had back then, Izaya pulls through and seals it perfectly.
"Looks like all my vital organs are okay," Shinra says, and smiles. "I'm going to be fine. I got lucky, huh?"
"Shut up," Izaya says, but there's no emotion behind it. "You could've—"
Without thinking, Shinra reaches out and touches Izaya's hand with his own. He isn't sure why he does it—the Shinra of fifteen years ago certainly didn't. The second his fingers make contact he expects Izaya to flinch away. But he doesn't, not this time. Instead he meets Shinra's eye with an odd warmth that Shinra never thought him capable of.
"Don't do anything like that ever again," he says roughly.
In the world Shinra knows, he never did. This was the first and last time he ever protected Izaya. He wears the emblem of his bravery—his fear—on his side for years to come.
"I won't," he says – the most selfless lie he has ever told. "You should probably call that ambulance though."
Izaya nods and reaches for his phone again. Still abandoned on the floor, the edge of the knife glints crimson in the dimming light and he freezes. His gaze slides back to Shinra and he lifts up the knife.
Shinra closes his eyes and hums, knowing what question will invariably come next.
"Hey, Shinra…" Izaya says, on cue. "Would you mind if we say I stabbed you with this knife? In return I'll make Nakura regret he ever set foot in this room."
He could say no. Izaya would take whatever answer Shinra gives him as gospel. He could say no and they would never hear from Nakura again. But he has never been an altruistic person, and in another universe Izaya died by Nakura's hand, so Shinra makes his choice.
In his eyes, Nakura deserves to have his life ruined for what he did.
"Sure," he replies, as lighthearted as he can.
Izaya nods solemnly and dials the ambulance.
With the next breath he takes, the scene changes. He's in a private hospital room and there's a faint sting of pain in his side. He can tell immediately that this is the same timeline he just altered. Night has already fallen and finally, he's alone. He gives himself a moment to catch up.
This must be real. He's been given the ability to alter his own timeline in order to—what? Prevent Izaya from dying alone at twenty seven? Clearly there are right and wrong choices for him to make. If he chooses correctly, Izaya gets to live. If he chooses wrong…
Well, he doesn't want to consider that.
What he doesn't understand is why it's him who has to save Izaya. Surely someone like Shizuo would be the better choice when Shizuo is the one who almost killed him two years ago. But, he reasons with himself, Shizuo is far more stubborn than Shinra. Izaya also wouldn't listen to him. But Shinra has always held a part of Izaya within himself—and in return, he knows that Izaya carries a part of him too.
They were linked from the moment that Shinra took that knife.
There's a soft knocking at the door.
"Can I come in?" comes Izaya's voice.
He remembers this moment, although it's faint. The first time, he sent Izaya away with a laugh and told him that he shouldn't damage his already tarnished reputation any more by getting caught sneaking into a hospital after hours. Izaya had left without another word, but his frustration had been plain as day in the hard set of his shoulders as he had closed the door behind him.
If his memory served him correctly, Izaya had been shaken by the event and came to seek something from him—whether it was reassurance, or validation, or something else, Shinra doesn't know. What he does know is that he failed to give it to him, and perhaps it was a precursor for everything that came after.
What would happen if he lets Izaya in this time? He resolves to find out.
"Yes," he answers.
Izaya slips inside the room and closes the door gently behind him. Disregarding the arm chair by the window, he kneels by Shinra's bedside, his arms folded on top of the sheets. He carefully does not look at Shinra.
"I'm sorry you got hurt," he says, eyes fixed on the bed sheets. "I never meant for that to happen."
It's the first time Izaya has apologised to him, in this timeline or any one of them. Somehow, it's softer than he expected; quieter, and sadder than he thought it was possible for Izaya to sound.
His breath catches in his throat as he looks at Izaya now, his head bowed and his hands clasped like he's praying—barely a teenager, his face still rounded by childhood with no idea of what lies ahead of him. He doesn't know just how close he came to dying.
The words Izaya needs to hear are all too obvious. They're the words that Shinra never said to him, the words that Shinra had felt didn't need to be said and yet holding them in had forced Izaya to mutate into something awful.
"It's okay," he says, his voice quiet. He raises a hand and tangles it gently in Izaya's hair. In this timeline, Izaya again does not flinch away from his touch. "I don't blame you for what happened."
If he were to show Izaya now the same compassion that he should have showed him the first time round, could they both grow up a little kinder?
"Don't lie to me," Izaya says. His eyes are still on the bed sheets. "You know as well as I do that if I hadn't started the gambling ring in the first place—if I hadn't taken his money from him… or if I had just given it back when he asked, then this would never have happened. There are a million ways I could have stopped this."
"It happened," he replies. "You… can't change the past, so don't think about what might have happened. You took the money even though you knew Nakura stole it from his dad, and you didn't give it back, and I'm going to be fine in a few weeks."
Izaya is silent for what feels like an endless stretch of time. Then, so quietly that Shinra barely hears it at all, he says, "You shouldn't have stepped in."
"Izaya…"
"No, don't say anything," he says, more firm this time. "This was my mistake. I should have suffered the consequences for it. It should have been me."
Was this what Izaya had lived with all these years? Throughout the entire time that Shinra had known him, had he blamed himself and regretted what he did that day? Had he honestly believed that he alone should have taken the hit for it, despite Shinra being as responsible for Izaya's actions as Izaya was himself?
"Izaya, listen to me," he says. He wants to make this right, once and for all. "If I didn't step in, you would have died."
"You don't know that for sure."
"Maybe not." Shinra bites his lip. He's not thinking about Izaya's blood coating his fingertips, or the rattled breaths that struggled from his lungs. "But the angle he came at you from, the positioning… you had a far higher chance of being seriously injured than I did."
"That's just speculation," he replies, and looks at Shinra at last. "You couldn't have worked all of that out at that second. You took a risk, as much of a risk as it would have been to let me take it."
"Izaya," says Shinra, somewhat impatiently now. "It doesn't matter. What could have happened, what might have happened—what matters is what did happen, and that I'm going to be fine. They'll probably even let me out in a couple of days."
"It matters," he says.
"Why?" asks Shinra.
Izaya looks at him with an odd fierceness that he's never seen before. "Because no one is going to hurt anyone I care about ever again. I'm going to make sure of it."
"And what are you going to do about it?" Shinra asks warily.
He gets to his feet and looks down at Shinra. The smile on his face is sad and he looks much older than he should. Shinra wets his lips, already predicting what Izaya is going to say. He's going to leave Shinra as a means of saving him. Fear drops through his chest like a stone.
"You already know." Izaya's hand grazes Shinra's as he moves backwards. It feels like someone stabbed that area with a knife too. "I'm sorry," he says, and takes another step closer to the door. Hesitantly, with uncertainty weighing heavy on his shoulders, he says Shinra's name one last time.
He shuts the door behind him and Shinra closes his eyes in resignation. At least he has time to fix it, time to change Izaya's mind. He can't rid himself of the sound of the door closing with what felt like finality. If he's to live out his life all over again, he'll make sure it isn't.
He opens his eyes and he's no longer in the hospital. Sitting bolt upright in shock, he realises that he's back in the bedroom that he shares with Celty. One glance at the date on the alarm clock tells him he's back in the present.
What present has he returned to this time?
Celty isn't next to him but when he gets out of bed and pads through to the living room, he finds her watching television. As he curls up next to her, still reeling from the past forcing itself into his present, she reaches for her cell phone and writes, [Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost.]
Without looking at her, he asks, "Do you remember Izaya?"
She holds the screen out in front of him as she types. [What? Of course… He was giving me work until last month. It'll take more than a month for me to forget him.]
Shinra straightens up. So he's alive in this timeline. He fixed it after all.
"I should go and see him."
[Shinra… you haven't spoken to him in years. What brought this on?]
"Years?" Shinra asks with caution. "We talk occasionally. You know that."
Celty hesitates. [You never mentioned it to me. Don't you remember when I asked you years ago why you two don't speak, even though you went to school together?]
"Pretend I don't remember that," he says. "What did I tell you?"
He can tell from how tense she is that she's getting more concerned by the second. [You said that something came between you two a long time ago and that you didn't want to talk about it.]
"I'm an idiot," he says loudly and gets to his feet.
Celty copies him and grabs him by the hand. [Where are you going?]
"I made a mistake," he says. "I have to go and try to fix it."
There are no trains at this time of night—the last one to Shinjuku left fifteen minutes ago, so he takes a taxi. The journey is as agonising as he expected it to be. He stares out of the window, watching the buildings pass slowly as the driver takes what must be the most complicated route from Ikebukuro to Shinjuku. When they finally draw to a halt in front of Izaya's apartment complex, Shinra all but throws the money at the driver and stumbles out of the car.
Everything is exactly as it should be. The front of the building still smells like smoke from all of the bars on the street and even the vending machine brand in the lobby is the same. He steps into the elevator and hits the button for the top floor. Even in a different timeline, he knows that Izaya would have chosen the same apartment, no matter what.
His front door is as anonymous as it always is, but somehow he knows that Izaya is here.
Taking a deep breath, he presses the doorbell.
The answer comes as quickly as he thought it would. No doubt Izaya is working late again, and when he opens his door Shinra can see from the dark circles under his eyes that his assumption is correct.
"Shinra?" Izaya says, genuine surprise colouring his voice. "What are you—"
Izaya is twenty seven, and uninjured, and standing right in front of him. It seems unreal, some fantastical world where Shizuo and Izaya's fight never happened.
If Shinra has long been the ghost that Izaya can't quite shake off, the reverse of that is also true. He has always carried Izaya around like a phantom and it's time he came clean about it.
He takes a step towards Izaya who in turn instinctively steps back, as he always has done. "How long has it been? How many years?"
"What do you mean?" he replies, and Shinra can see the shutters coming down as his jaw tenses.
"How long has it been since you last spoke to me?" His voice raises slightly.
"How should I know?" Izaya glares at him. "Moreover, what the hell are you doing here at two in the morning?"
Frustration bubbles up inside of him. "Just answer the question, Izaya!"
"I don't know."
"It's me," Shinra says confidently as he pushes the door open wider. "You know."
Izaya's eyes widen a fraction. "Fine. The last time we had a conversation was in high school. Once. And before that? Middle school. Now get out of my building. We aren't friends."
Shinra swallows. "You're so stupid. It wasn't supposed to be like this."
Izaya closes the door in his face.
He got it wrong again. He saved Izaya but not the way he wanted to. Yes, Izaya is alive in this version of events, and yes, he's healthy and uninjured but—he takes a breath—it's not enough. He has always been a creature of longing and desire and selfishness that runs so deep he isn't sure if he can ever separate himself from it. To have everything right again but not truly have it—his skin crawls with discomfort.
This isn't what I want, he thinks hopelessly, still standing in front of Izaya's front door. I can do it again, I can do it better next time.
A repressed, sad yearning climbs up the back of his throat. He wants to vomit it out, to purge himself of everything that hurts, of everything that he's kept secret for years.
When he opens his eyes again, he's back in the hospital room.