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“Say Dotachin, what do we do?”
"You think… You think he’s dead?”
“...”
“...”
“Don’t you see he's breathing?! Don't make me panic for nothing, you moron!”
“Dead or not, we should be really careful with this guy…”
“Yeah, this could either be a blessing in disguise or a curse in plain clothing…”
“Is this really the time for stupid wordplay?!"
“Oh, I know! Like I’m when I’m dressed with everyday clothes, and when I cosplay?”
“Or when a magical girl transforms? Or even better, the enemy of the magical girl transforms? Oh no, this is all wrong... I should have known better than to mix the 2D world with the 3D.”
“Don’t worry Yumacchi, it happens to the best of us.”
“Oi, you two don’t ignore me!”
As his partners continued bickering, Kadota placed a hand on his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was neither a curse, nor a blessing.
It was a pain in the ass.
Suspiciously huddled together in that narrow alley, the four of them were hovering over none other than the infamous informant of Ikebukuro, lying face down in what looked like a puddle of his own blood. And with all probability it was, as he kept lying completely motionless, even amidst their loud whispering.
He let the same hand on his face slip under his beanie, rubbing at his forehead.
By chance the van passed in front of that very alley, Kadota's eyes coincidentally catching a collapsed figure, lying alone and seemingly helpless on the dirty gravel. Years in the streets should have taught him to know better than to instantly jump to help. Yet he still made Togusa pull over, jumping out of the van as soon as he stopped, the others sharing puzzled looks before following him.
Only when he got closer, he realized he should have been wiser after all, a sinking feeling delving deep in his chest as soon as he caught a glimpse of that unmistakable fur lining, making him stop dead in his tracks. An immediate panic took hold of him, he spun around frantically looking from the inevitable dangers that usually accompanied Orihara Izaya.
Only after that first panic subdued, Kadota was able to notice the consistent lack of flying vending machines.
Or uprooted poles.
Or angry shouts.
Or general property damage.
It was relieving, to say the least. But that also meant that the people that did this to him were clever enough not to try to dump the blame on Heiwajima. Now that he thought about it, there weren’t any traces of struggle anywhere. Whoever had been, must have had much more finesse than the small time goons the Awakusu-kai employed for their hits. Not to mention they accomplished the most impossible task, that is catching him off guard, quickly fleeing the scene and leaving him to his destiny. Kadota would’ve liked to call this kind of people cowards. Then again, it wasn’t like Izaya himself wasn’t dangerous himself. Everybody from the dark side of the city knew the inherent threat posed by the informant, and his attackers must have too. And yet, something still didn’t add up, the situation in itself striking just too odd to him.
“Kadota…"
Togusa's voice startled him from his thoughts. Putting a hand to cover his lips, he made a furtive gesture to come closer to him with the other. Kadota just leant silently towards him.
"Don’t get me wrong, I know how it looks and all, but you and I…" Togusa threw another glance over his shoulder, making sure the other two were still quarreling on their anime stuff, before speaking again, this time even lower than a whisper. “We both know how this guy is… There's just no way he's not up to something, so I say we-"
He never finished talking, a body suddenly colliding against them both.
“What are you two secretly chatting about here, mhh?" Erika pushed her face forcefully in between theirs, her arms squeezing them against her with an unusual force.
"None of your business! Let go now!" Togusa cried out, trying to wiggle away.
She ignored him, her cheek dragging against Kadota's as she turned towards him, “Dotachin, were you talking bad things?”
Before Kadota could even open his mouth, Togusa started laughing nervously, "What?! You really think that…? Nah, you’re just way over your head, I tell you..."
“I can’t believe this!"
She squeezed them both harder, making Kadota gasp for breath. "Dotachin, we can't do this to him! And also Shizu-chan is going to murder if we won't help his boyfriend!”
Kadota couldn't help, but shudder instinctively. “C’mon, I told you not to talk about them like this…”
“You can’t deny their burning love, you just can’t!”
“Guys…" Yumasaki's voice suddenly interrupted them, "I think this one isn’t the real Izaya…”
The three turned all together towards him, while Erika still held them in that too close for comfort formation, their feet all stumbling into each other's all the while.
“And who you think would be?” Kadota muttered, his voice all mushy for how tight his face was still being squished against Erika's.
"Oh, I know I know! It’s that fat guy that posed as Shizuo! I thought we gave him a good beating last time, though…”
“Man, if he’s that guy again he did one hell of a diet!”
Yumasaki shook his head, a glint flashing in his eyes as he smiled. “That would be the interesting return of a filler character... But nope, you got it wrong!”
“This person right here…" He pointed a dramatic index towards Izaya's body, "Is obviously a doppelganger!”
"Erm… That's…" Togusa stumbled on his words, before sighing, "Honestly, I don't even know what I was exp…"
Erika instead perked up. “Doppelgangers?”
As soon as the word was out, she instantly threw the other two aside uncaringly, and trotted away towards Yumasaki, her interest sharply shifting to the new development. Fortunately Kadota caught himself in time, at least not falling as ungraciously as Togusa did, dusting himself, only mildly annoyed.
"Say say, Yumapon, you think there's more or just this one?" She seemed to barely contain her excitement, her voice just shaking with it as her hands flailed in front of her, "And do they have different personalities? Like a sweet Iza-Iza that likes pink, or one meaner and crazier, and one that…”
“Four words: total lack of drama,” Yumasaki exclaimed, marking each word with a finger, “With a predictable setting like this you just know that the most shrewd among them is the one who takes over!”
"Takes over for what, exactly?” muttered Erika, crossing her arms on her chest, a menacing frown setting on her face, "It could be a love triangle and that’s not predictable at all!”
“And who would be the heroine?”
“Who said anything about a heroine? And for that matter Shizu-chan can be!"
Yumasaki just turned his back to her, "What is a love triangle story without a heroine?"
“A good BL story, you doofus!”
“O-oi guys…” Togusa started, but was cut off by Kadota's hand on him. He sighed, “Yeah, you're right…”
“Still…” He then nudged his head in Izaya’s direction. “What we doing?”
The gravity of their situation hit him in the face like a truck. Before he could stop himself, Kadota shot to look at Izaya again. Even with all that commotion he still hadn't moved an inch. And again he fell in the same indecision from before.
There was something strange about the whole thing, alright. Only it sure didn't have anything to do with doppelgangers or bizarre love triangles. Not like stranger things didn't happen in Ikebukuro… Still, he was confident that wasn’t the case.
On some level, though, Yumasaki actually had just given them a good insight. This was not like Izaya at all. However little Kadota could say about the guy, Izaya didn't come across as the type to make even a simple misstep. Let alone allow someone to come so near to him as to bash him unconscious without breaking a sweat, and leave him (possibly) half-dead in a dirty backstreet.
Ironically, the total absence of total destruction wasn’t something he found to like very much. Put Heiwajima and the Awakusu out of the picture, and then it really could have been virtually anyone in Ikebukuro, seeing the guy's hobby of making the most enemies out of an entire city. From a pissed off salaryman divorcing because of him to a mob boss giving him a friendly reminder not to overstep boundaries, all it took was a careless step.
Then again it wasn’t his style, and outside conjectures there weren’t many people who could do something like that to him… And be so sure or so foolish to think they would get away with it, since they left him alive. The cogs in his head were spinning out of control. Was it a hit? A robbery? Maybe a new group he yet had to hear of? Was it their way to assert dominance over the Awakusu-kai? But why hit an informant, even one as feared as Izaya? Kadota didn’t have any way to know, but if it really was the case, he really didn’t like it. Not one bit.
Even knowing who did it and why it had happened could seem of marginal importance in the short term, whether they helped him or not right that moment… That choice could very possibly and irreversibly turn on them either way.
In short, they were screwed.
He glanced once again at Izaya. In all this time he didn’t even so much as twitch, his shallow breath making the smallest ripples in the puddle of his blood, his pale face hidden completely by the hood of his parka. He didn’t look like he had much more time.
Only in that moment, a thought struck his mind like a thunder, a much more plausible reason for all the unexplainable oddities. Which was, the whole thing was just a setup, an elaborate ruse the guy liked to play on people. As far-fetched as it sounded, in his mind it still seemed more likely than Izaya Orihara making a mistake.
Kadota shifted on his legs, squeezing again the bridge of his nose. Be that as it may, it would be real lousy to just leave him, wouldn’t it?
He cleared his throat, his voice wavering still when he spoke.
“Let’s help him.”
Togusa’s loud whisper boomed from wall to wall. “You joking, right?! I thought you at least were on my side!”
“We can't just leave him here,” Kadota exhaled over Erika’s excited squeals. He looked again at Izaya and grimaced, “It's become our responsibility, now."
“And the most important thing,” Erika exclaimed while whirling around with Yumasaki, seemingly having made peace, "He'll be forever in our debt!"
“How is someone like him being in our debt a positive thing?!”
When all was said and done, getting Izaya in the van proved extremely easy. The guy was so light that Kadota managed to carry him by himself to the van.
When he turned him on his back to check on him, Kadota noticed only a cut on his head, which alone did not explain the alarming amount of blood. Other than that, he didn’t seem to have any significant injuries, not even a cracked rib or a knife edged up somewhere in his side. But even as he hoisted him up, he didn’t even make so much as a sigh, drooping all over him, all weak. The hit they gave him must have knocked him pretty badly… Head injuries like those weren’t really the stuff to brush off. On instinct, his hand hovered tentatively over the pocket of his jacket where he kept his phone, only to return it at the last minute under Izaya. He didn’t want to even begin to imagine what would happen if he called an ambulance on him.
That and also there was no way the four of them were going to pass as nice, upstanding citizens helping the very rich-looking guy out of the goodness of their hearts.
After they made space among the manga piles, their torture backpacks, and the cutout that Yumasaki had bought before that morning, Kadota carefully placed Izaya in the middle of the back seats, Yumasaki and Erika seating at each of his sides, for once silent.
Kadota sat instead at his usual front seat next to Togusa, and shut the door.
“Where to, boss?”
Ah.
“I didn’t think this far, honestly…” he hesitated, rubbing under his chin in thought. “He used to live in ‘Bukuro, but that was his parents' place, who knows if they still own it…”
“Oh, KuruMai live around here," Erika chimed in, leaning over their backrests, nodding, "They’ll sure appreciate a visit from their brother!”
Togusa scoffed. “Yeah, maybe better leave schoolgirls out of this, shall we?”
“Aww, Togusacchi," Erika shifted to now lean only behind Togusa, "Don’t tell me you’re still sore at them because they met Ruri at that concert and you didn’t…”
“I was just starting to forget about that!” He slumped on the wheel, his forehead thudding against the back of his hands. “They rubbed it in for weeks, those two devils…”
“Played like that by schoolgirls…” Yumasaki too leant next to Erika, jeering, “You truly have no shame, huh?”
It took barely a second for Togusa to completely change expressions, his face looking on the verge of an explosion as he snapped backwards, "You piece…"
"Wait," Kadota cut him off with a hand on his chest. “Isn’t today a school day?”
“Oh, yeah," said Togusa, cooling off completely.
Everybody flopped back on their seat with a sigh. They were back to square one.
For a while there was only the hum of concentration, as the four of them all cocked their head trying to come up with something. Kadota wracked his brain to try and make the most sensible choice, at the same time trying not to get into much trouble for helping him. Then why was this so difficult? The only thing he could come up with was the least liked one among all the possible choices, yet, the more he tried to push it away, the more his thoughts came back to it as the only way. There was nothing he liked about the situation, not before, even less now.
“I think...” He coughed a little, raising a sheepish hand to scratch behind his head, “I mean, I happen to know where he lives… We should bring him to his place in Shinjuku…”
“Shinjuku?!” boomed Togusa in disbelief, sharply pointing a finger towards the general direction of the place. “Seriously Shinjuku?!”
"Seriously Shinjuku, yeah."
“There’s no way we won’t get stuck in traffic at this hour, you know that right?!”
Another reason as to why Kadota wasn’t thrilled with the idea. “Yeah…”
“And you want to get stuck in traffic..." Togusa shifted to point at Izaya now, "With that psychotic ticking bomb lounging about in the back of my van?!"
“Now that's just a rude thing to say, Togusacchi!”
Togusa couldn’t look more in disbelief. "Wha… What? There's no rude with this guy! He's an ass!"
"I think we should stop thinking about this for a second, and the second after we should ditch him somewhere, boss!" He turned to look first at Kadota and then the others, a desperate request for support glinting in his eyes each time. "Or… Or If you don’t like this, let's just drop him off at a random hospital! Or even better, just dump him on the Black Rider and leave it to her to deliver his sorry ass anywhere he wants and most importantly far away from us!”
The three shared a look, and then nodded, an unspoken agreement taken in the space of those brief glances. Turning again to Togusa, Kadota crossed his arms, “And for saying this you also have the money for the Rider’s fare, right?”
“C’mon Togusacchi," Erika closed in on him again from behind his backrest, “Let’s see the many Fukuzawa Yukisacchi that roll out from your empty wallet…”
“We'll count them for you,” added Yumasaki, grinning.
“And most importantly, I think I said that he’s our responsibility,” Kadota grimaced, “We can’t get other people involved.”
Togusa blinked a couple times at them, before he shook his head, raising his hands in defeat, with an exasperated huff. “Ok, ok! I got it, jeez… No need to gang up on me!”
Inserting the keys, he started up the engine with a gruff, and in no time they were out onto the main road. With only the noise of the van running, Erika and Yumasaki’s excited chatter soon filled the interior. Despite himself, Kadota started grasping bits and pieces until he caught up. Incredibly enough, they were still going about the doppelgangers’ love triangle as if they were never interrupted, Izaya still out cold in the middle while they faced each other seated with their legs crossed, stacking books and manga on his legs. He would’ve liked to say he felt sorry for the guy, but actually for all the headaches he was already giving him for this little stunt of his, there was just no space to feel sorry too.
“Yeah, but if it’s a love triangle why in the world would they try to kill each other?!”
“Because it’s fun?”
With his head propped up on his hand, Kadota raised his eyes to look at Yumasaki's sceptical look in the rearview mirror. Also, between them he could see Izaya’s limp body slowly sliding on the seat and onto Erika with every bump of the van. He was on the verge of saying something, before she just threw his body away nonchalantly, and pushing him again in the middle seat, all the while still talking.
“Sure, sure, but don’t you think there should be a more compelling reason than just ‘there can’t be two of us’?” She marked those last words faking a deep and menacing voice.
“What more compelling reason than the ultimate satisfaction of having triumphed over your enemy in a battle to the death!”
“It’s weak and you know it!” Erika took Izaya’s limp hand and pointed it accusingly to Yumasaki, making their books fall everywhere, “Everybody knows that a weak reason such as hate makes a story crumble on itself!”
“A weak reason? What are you talking about?”
“What they’re fighting about anyway?" She interrupted him, flailing Izaya’s hand in front of his face, making him slide back against the door to avoid being punched by that flopping hand. "And just because they ‘can’t stand each other’? This is not hate, this is love in its rawest form!”
“Now,” she lowered her voice, and smiled, “If there were to be a battle between them to win over one particular person…” She took Izaya’s other hand and tried to make a heart with his slack fingers, failing miserably. “They do have a real reason for their rivalry, and their motives are more believable!”
To this Yumasaki put his own hand under his chin, as if he were mulling it over. “So in this scenario a final battle would be more natural, you say…”
"Oh no, the natural thing would be like for it to end in a steamy threesome, but a final battle is fine too!”
"Shirts shredding, smooth skin showing, sweaty toned bodies clashing in a fierce battle to gain the love of…" She squealed, blushing, and started clapping Izaya’s hands, “And so I’m happy! You’re happy! Iza-Iza’s too, and he’s always unhappy!”
“I wouldn’t shake that guy too much, he could barf all over you,” said Kadota, shooting a glance at her over the rearview mirror. She just let go of him abruptly with a face, a smile spreading on her lips immediately after. That couldn’t be good.
Kadota just shook his head, turning to Togusa, “Now, you should make a left,” he pointed at the intersection. “That one, see?”
Togusa just hummed, steering the wheel to make the turn.
“Dotachin.”
She slid behind his seat, pushing Izaya on Yumasaki to get closer, the same smile still taunting him from the rearview mirror. Wordlessly, she twisted her head to look at him, her fingernails sinking into the soft padding of his headrest, and took a shaky breath in.
That was nothing good.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, nothing…”
Kadota was almost sighing with relief, until “It’s only…”
She got closer to him, her nails making squeaking sounds on the fake leather of the headrest when she moved, “You sure seem to know an awful lot about our… How did you call him? Responsibility, don’t you?”
His answer came out a little bit automatic, damn it. “Not really.”
“Aw, c’mon!” She mockingly whined, her smile still in place, “Knowing where he used to live, where he lives… All the while being all dodgy on the details…”
“There must be a story there somewhere…" He could feel her excitement… No scratch that, he literally felt her breath coming in short bursts onto his ears. Thank goodness he was wearing his beanie over them. “Is there some dark, unspeakable secret between you two that you feel like sharing?”
If Erika alone wasn't enough to deal with, out of the corner of his eye he saw Togusa perking up next to him, the traitor bending his ear towards them, inch by inch in a bad attempt to conceal his interest.
“Hardly…” he muttered, “And just what kind of driver listens to gossip?!”
"One hell of a driver I tell you!” Togusa snapped back. “She brought up convincing arguments, y’know!”
“C'mon, Dotachin, it's two against one! Spill these unspeakable beans!” She poked at his shoulder with one inquiring index, “Aren't we partners? We should tell each other everything, it’s a matter of trust!”
“Yeah! Fess up, boss!”
Pinned into a corner, Kadota glanced again in the rearview mirror out of desperation. But even Yumasaki seemed hooked in, his eyes wide with curiosity just like Erika's smile was with… He really didn’t want to acknowledge the sentiment behind her smile. But hell, whatever it was, it was contagious, so much it seemed that even Izaya's lips had turned up a bit. Or maybe it was his wracked brain that was playing games on him.
In the end he had no choice but to give up.
“We both went to Rajin, erm… Raira now… But as I said, that's hardly a secret,” he stated, sheepishly for a reason inexplicable even to himself.
At first there was a suspended silence, before all of them roared in disbelief, the van interior booming with their shouted incredulity.
“You were frickin’ classmates?!”
“How could I have missed this?! He was the only who told me to call you Dotachin! I’m a fool!"
“We missed all the foreshadowing, that’s why!”
"He was the one to do what?!" exclaimed Kadota, before taking a deep breath, “Okay, first of all, we just went to the same school, but weren’t even classmates…”
He crossed his arms, cocking his head, "I mean I never even talked to the guy, I only knew him because of his fights with Shizuo and…”
If their eyes were to bulge out more, they would have fallen off their sockets. In an instant, the two in the back were again all over him, both figuratively and literally as they bent all awkwardly over Kadota’s seat, their overlapping voices mashing into an almost unintelligible garble.
“Are you really telling me they have been doing their thing since highschool?! Why is this the first time I hear of this?! How could you keep this juicy inside info like this to yourself?! Shame on you Dotachin!”
“Did you feel like a secondary character in a battle shounen? And were you more like the useless character commenting their moves on the sidelines or the weak one that is only a brief filler arc?”
“I told you I barely knew him, and more importantly who the hell are you calling a filler character?!” Kadota huffed, barely heard over their overlapping voices.
“C’mon you two, I can’t see a damn thing like this!” Togusa yelled, trying to push them back again. "Stop this!"
“Hey, hey, hey, Togusa is right! Slow down a minute!” Erika brought a hand to Yumasaki’s chest, effectively stopping him from talking. They shared a look, and then turned again to Kadota with a smile.
“If you really ‘barely knew him’, why did you know now where he used to live?”
Kadota opened his mouth, but Erika shushed him.
"But most importantly, how do you 'happen' to know where he lives now?"
With a deep sigh, Kadota turned on his seat to look them directly in the eyes, and made a gesture with his finger to get them to come even closer. They all leaned over him obediently, including Togusa, straining their ears even though there was no way they would have missed even a whisper in the tense, anticipating silence of the van.
“Believe it or not…”
They all held their breaths. He smirked.
“I heard it by chance.”
There was a beat of silence, before they all flopped back again against their seats with a loud sigh.
“Your gossip sucks, man!”
“Talk about anticlimactic...”
“Yeah… That must have been the worst revelation ever revealed!”
Kadota chuckled, shaking his head, “I've told you there was no story.”
"Yeah, but there's something about heightening expectations, and you acting all mysterious sure heightened them big time!"
"That's false advertising plain and simple!"
"You guys were the ones that…" Kadota shook his head, distractly glancing out of the window. His eyes bulged out when he saw a vending machine lifting high in the air and making a curved trajectory steadily and unmistakably towards them.
"Saburo, watch out!"
With a surprised shout, Togusa swerved the van just in time, the abrupt lurch making Yumasaki and Erika tumble into each other and Izaya’s limp body, the two of them crying out in shock, while Kadota just relied as always on his abs not to skid pathetically over his seat like them.
Missing the van’s back just by a hair’s breadth, the flying machine fell loudly in the middle of the road, hitting the ground a couple times, before skidding the rest of the way on the smooth asphalt, until it finally collided against the building on the other side of the street with a loud crash. By some kind of miracle it missed all the cars that were driving along that same road, and all the people walking on the sidewalk where it crashed, gawking at the massive thing that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and just where they were standing just a few moments before, gazing open-mouthed at it like an alien artifact of some sort.
Angry honking instantly exploded around them, Kadota and Togusa staring at each other stunned in the speechless silence that had fallen over them, Yumasaki and Erika faintly moaning under the mess of their books.
“What in the actual hell?!” Togusa cried out all of a sudden, his hands trembling on the wheel, "Where the hell did that come from?!"
“It must be Shizu-chan!” Erika's muffled voice came from her crumpled up position, still entangled with Yumasaki, who was wailing to let him go. “He must have wanted to say hello to Iza-Iza!”
Immediately, Kadota looked out of the window in the direction from which the vending machine came, and sure enough there was a large group of people, all splitted around Heiwajima. Behind him he could make out the figure of his co-worker, the poor guy helplessly trying to stop him while he walked towards them with wide, unrelenting steps, pole already clenched in one hand.
Kadota squinted to see what was written on it. It was a stop sign.
“Why the hell is it always vending machines and poles…”
“Shit! I told you helping this guy was bad news! ” Togusa’s voice sounded like he was on the verge of crying, the thunk of his forehead colliding on the heel as painful as it was an expression of all his regret. “Heiwajima is going to kill us now and I’ll die never having known how soft Ruri’s hand really is…”
As if his own words were a charm to himself, he suddenly shot up from his despair, hand shooting for the keys, “There’s no way I’m dying because of that screw up!”
“No, wai…”
Before he could stop him, Togusa was already starting the van, hand on the gear shift, tires screeching as his foot floored the accelerator.
The scenery around them wasn’t moving, though. Actually, some sort of white smoke was rising all around them, carrying a faint odor of burnt tires. With a sinking feeling, Kadota and Togusa shakily glanced in the rearview, only to see to their horror a very pissed off Shizuo snarling at them from behind the van, shouting something vaguely sounding like a name over the loud squeal of tires.
Like a cornered animal that was struggling to accept his destiny, Togusa tried to swerve the van one last time. But Shizuo wasn’t having any of it, lifting the van off the road completely with an angered growl. Then and, only then, his hands then let go of the wheel. Defeated.
“I can’t believe I’m gonna have my van smashed because of fucking Orihara Izaya…”
As soon as his words were out of his mouth, Shizuo just released the van, letting it fall again on the ground with a loud thump. The cars were still honking hysterically around them, but all the four could hear was Shizuo’s slow steps around the van, helplessly waiting for him to rip one of the back doors off of it, as easily as one would rip open a can lid. Instead, he continued walking, stopping only when he got in front of Kadota’s window.
Knocking on it, he made a sign to roll it down with his thumb.
Kadota complied.
“Hello, Shizuo-kun…” He started, but Shizuo just stuck his head inside the window without saying a word.
As much as he didn’t like to admit it, only now he really started to understand what Izaya meant when he said the guy was unpredictable.
A huff escaped from his lips, but he just kept stone-faced as Shizuo silently peered inside the van, his tinted glasses glinting in the sunlight hiding the look in his eyes. Just a few inches more, and he was going to see Izaya comfortably seated in the backseats, and there was no way they were going to be able to explain what happened, and in all honesty Kadota didn’t even know where to begin. With wide eyes Kadota watched him make a move with his hand. Any moment now, and he was going to end them.
Honestly, deep inside Kadota always knew his end would’ve been because of these two, really.
Until contrary to any expectations, Shizuo’s hand whooshed over him and went behind his hand, an unfitting sheepish look settling on his usual sharp features while he was still bending inside the van.
“Sorry,” Kadota could barely believe his eyes, let alone his ears.
“It’s… I thought I saw something.”
The spell was broken by Togusa’s scoff.
“Yeah, just what the hell you think you were doing, you…” The rest of the sentence was cut off when Erika’s hands flew on his mouth. Too late, though, as they all catched the vein in his forehead popping out.
“HA??”
“Oh, Shizu-chan! We were just saying how unusual it is for you to greet us like this!”
Kadota briefly turned back to look at them both, Erika smiling and nodding amicably, while Togusa was flailing and trying to pry her hands away, Yumasaki next to her.
And between them, a noticeable lack.
Instantly he shot them a stare, but Erika just shrugged with a puzzling smile.
Shizuo took out a cigarette, lightning it, “Wasn’t my intention, really…”
He puffed out smoke, “But why the hell this place smells like the flea?”
His phone ringed a couple times, before he picked up.
“You never were unconscious, right?”
"Nothing gets past you, really," He heard a chuckle on the other side, “And when did you find out? Before or after I fled?”
Kadota opened his mouth, before Izaya cut him off. “You know, I never would’ve thought you were able to lie, and just to save face, Dotachin…”
“Don’t make it a habit, or your character arc could suffer from it.”
“Not you too,” he scoffed. He then took a breath, shifting the phone on his other shoulder, “Why?”
There was a moment of silent static, before Izaya exploded into full blown laughter, “What kind of a foolish question is this, Dotachin? There’s never a dull moment with you, really!”
Kadota sighed again, “Don’t know, but I expected this much…”
“Yes, yes! People always complain about getting the wrong answers, but how can they if they ask the wrong questi-”
“How are you?”
“-ons… What? Sorry, I don’t think I got that last bit…”
His voice sounded far away. He just repeated himself, “How are you?”
The line was instantly cut off. Kadota looked at his phone, its blue screen just showing him no calls incoming for the longest time, until he finally snapped it close. It almost was hidden again in the dark of his pocket, before it vibrated with a message.
Immediately he flipped it open.
‘Thanks for the pick-me-up ;)’
He snorted. “The nerve of this guy…”