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Izaya did not prefer to find himself in Ikebukuro anymore.
There was a time when he saw this city as his playground, his battlefield, his home-away-from-home. It’s where he grew up. It’s where he went to school. It’s where he was punched in the face for the first time. It held a special place in his heart. But, well. if you love something, you must let it go. And if it really loves you? It’ll come back.
Ikebukuro, for all its residents would deny it, apparently adored Orihara Izaya, because it seemed that in the last few years, he was barely escaping having to return on a monthly basis. He’d learned to keep a close eye on where the hell his in-person jobs were taking him, and if they seemed even a bit too close to Ikebukuro, he hired(see: blackmailed) somebody else to go in his place. He was not taking chances. Even driving past or through made every muscle in his body tense, readying for a confrontation that never happened.
Izaya did not prefer to find himself in Ikebukuro, but here he was, after years. He wasn’t even here on a job. This was a situation entirely within his control.
Well, kind of.
A week or so earlier, Izaya received a message from an old friend, inviting him back into town to catch up. Like normal people do. He refused to take any location but Ikebukuro, and, well… Izaya always had a little bit of trouble seriously denying him, he’d admit. It was a problem, probably.
So here he sat, in the back of Russia Sushi, having pulled himself into a booth, crossing his legs and waiting for company.
He did get company, though not the kind he was expecting. Simon approached his table, as if to greet just another customer, before their eyes locked. All in a few seconds, Izaya pulled in what the years had done to the giant of a man. His hair was longer, coily and sticking out from under his hat, still as grey as before. Deep smile lines set into the skin around his eyes, and when he walked, there was just the slightest limp, like an injury just recently healed over.
“I’m not here to cause trouble, my friend.” Izaya spoke in quiet Russian, careful not to frighten any customers, with their tendency to assume mafia at the slightest hint of a threat. “I’ve learned my lesson from that, haven’t I? I’m only catching up,” he finished with a smile.
Simon regarded him coldly for a moment before his face lit up in a smile. “Happy to see an old face!” he said in Japanese, speaking slowly but cheerfully. Izaya didn’t know how much he believed that, but he’d take it. Simon walked away to greet more customers.
Izaya had forgotten, really, that Ikebukuro did not exist in a bubble. It had been just over a decade since he’d left, but he’d almost expected everything to be just the same as it was.
It’s not like he didn’t change. He was graying some as well, a fact he wasn’t too happy with. It came with a high-stress life, he supposed, though he was only in his late thirties. Most men in their late thirties didn’t lead the life he did. Most men in their thirties also didn’t experience chronic pain and loss of mobility from nerve damage. Most men in their thirties didn’t experience flashbacks or dissociation when faced with hearing someone call him a certain honorific, or seeing a common uniform. Maybe they did, actually. He wouldn’t know.
The sound of someone sitting themselves down in the seat across from him snapped him out of his thoughts, pulling his attention away from the ever-growing threat of old age, if only for a moment.
Shinra was not visibly graying, the lucky bastard. His hair was just a little shorter than the last time he saw it. He had the beginnings of crows’ feet, only evident if he was smiling and you looked past his glasses, which were in slightly different frames, now. He looked older in the way he held himself, the look in his eyes, and the solid black ring on his left hand’s ring finger.
“And you didn’t invite me to the wedding? How rude,” Izaya pouted, in lieu of a hello.
“You know I did,” Shinra protested. “I sent an invite in the mail and everything, you know.”
Izaya rolled his eyes. “Let me be dramatic.” They both knew why he ignored that invitation. He doubted that they could keep their dog on a leash.
“If everyone did that, you’d think way higher of yourself than you actually deserve.”
“You wound me. Did you bring me here to insult me, or to share a meal?”
“No one said I can’t do both.”
“Whatever happened to respect? The kids these days.”
“I’m older than you.”
“Hush.”
Simon came by again, and they ordered. For a moment, the hulking presence at his side made Izaya flinch, ever so slightly, but he quickly relaxed when he realized it was still just Simon. As much as he knew Simon could snap him in half, he was far safer than others around here.
As Simon walked off to prepare their sushi, Shinra raised an eyebrow.
Izaya waved a hand dismissively before he could question his behavior. “Nothing to worry about. How’s Celty?” he asked, knowing Shinra would love nothing more than to talk about his spouse for hours.
“Oh, perfect as always!” Shinra beamed, his earlier confusion thankfully forgotten. “Just last month, she was paid two million yen for a job! She looked like she was going to pass out when she opened the envelope. She bought me these-” he gestured at his glasses. “-since my old ones broke.”
“Did you walk into a door?”
“No, I just got smacked in the head by-” Shinra paused, and Izaya winced. “Well, you know.”
Izaya gave a short hm, and a nod, and considered the subject dropped when Simon returned with their food. Both gave a short nod and an “I receive this food”, and ate in silence for a little bit.
“I missed this place,” Izaya said after a while. After a quick moment of consideration, he stole a piece of nigiri from Shinra’s side of the table.
“You can come up here more often, you know,” Shinra suggested.
“Just for sushi? I’m a busy man, Shinra.”
Now it was Shinra’s turn to roll his eyes. “Or to visit a friend. I really would’ve liked to see you at my wedding, you know. You could’ve given a speech and everything.”
Izaya gave a short laugh. “And say what? Ah, my dearest friend, Shinra. What to say about him. When we first met, he annoyed me relentlessly into being his friend, then he got himself stabbed. I thought he would end up in an institution, but here he is getting married. The audience is in tears. I receive a standing ovation for my openness and a touching story.”
“I seem to remember that you got me stabbed, but what do I know,” Shinra countered.
Izaya wondered for a moment if he ever told anybody else about what happened, then. He’d definitely tell Celty, but Izaya didn’t really count that. He didn’t have the strength to ask.
Shinra continued on. “But really! I know you stay away from here, I know why you do, but… it was my wedding, Orihara.”
“I know, I know,” Izaya said. His words were sincere, but he waved his chopsticks, still trying to hold that nonchalant air he always seemed to have about him. “... Sorry.” He promptly shoved a piece of one of the rolls they’d ordered into his mouth, so he didn’t have to continue speaking.
Shinra was shocked, for a second. “I don’t know that I’ve ever heard you say that.”
Izaya shrugged.
“You are growing,” he continued with a smile.
“Hush,” Izaya repeated, holding a hand in front of his mouth, despite the fact that he was no longer chewing. “You’re calling me old, now.”
“Aren’t you the one who used the kids these days line on me, grandpa?”
“You’re older than me.”
“I sure am!”
The two of them laughed for a moment.
“He’s changed, too, you know,” Shinra said, because he does not know when to leave sleeping dogs to lie.
Izaya sighed. “I know,” he said, his tone hopefully putting out the impression that he did not want to be following this line of conversation. He was never very good at tone.
Neither was Shinra. “He has! His hair’s almost all dark, now, he stopped bleaching it a couple years ago. And he barely commits property damage anymore.”
“Wonder why,” Izaya responded, but he couldn’t help a short huff of laughter.
Shinra was silent for a moment. “... I wish you two could have been friends.”
Izaya returned with more silence. Most days, he was aware that would never have happened. On worse days, he silently wished the same. “Maybe in the next life,” he decided to say(though he didn’t believe it), and he raised his glass silently. Shinra did the same, and they drank.
-
Back in his home, Izaya wheeled himself onto the balcony. He pushed himself up into a standing position, holding to the railing and looking down at everything he could see. No matter what happened, he would always love drinking in the sounds and the sights of the city.
Reaching into one pocket, he pulled out a small box, tapped it a couple times, and slid a cigarette into his other hand. His therapist had said recently that he should start to acquaint himself more with certain reminders. Dispel any negative associations, or something. He doubted that this was what they’d had in mind.
He lit the thing and brought it to his lips, taking a slow drag and letting it go.
After a short while, he snapped what was left of it between his fingers, and discarded it to the city below.