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There was something breaking inside Izaya. He didn’t know what and he didn’t really care, but it was breaking.
It was okay though. The world was beautiful, people were as interesting as they could be, he could play with everything he wanted, create all the chaos he ever desired. It was okay.
“Izaya,” Shinra said a bit disapprovingly, mainly neutral because why bother with this guy. “Aren’t you happy? Everything is going as you planned.” It made Izaya tear his eyes out of the building he was looking down off.
He smirked at his oldest friend. “Of course, why wouldn’t I be happy?” He crooned. They looked at each other, silent, unwilling to let anything slip through their polished smiles, until Shinra rolled his eyes and packed his first aid kit, tired and ready to go home. When the door shut, Izaya went back to his window, unseeing the landscape laid out in front of him like a blind king upon his kingdom. His chin was throbbing dully. He pressed the bruise till it really blinded him with pain.
There was a certain weariness in his bones that wasn’t here before. He didn’t work as much as he used to. He wasn’t even wasting away all of his free time scheming big plans like he used to. Sleep didn’t evade him. Taking care of himself didn’t feel like a chore. However, there was a tiredness that wasn’t there before. Even the thrill of his job, of running with the Yakuzas, of bathing in the chaotic Ikebukuro district couldn’t chase it off. He really had come a long way to think the Yakuzas were boring.
Izaya sighed more in Shiki’s car after his meeting with the executive than he ever did last month.
It’s a perpetual shattering, he thought without being able to pinpoint the exact cause to this exact localized problem.
Izaya put his head onto the window, the city passing under his eyes, and sighed again.
Simon crossed his arms. “You fight, shipment all messed up, no to-go box, no delivery now.”
“It’s okay,” Izaya said, eyeing the table where Shizuo was seated. He smirked when the blond snarled at him. “I will come back another day.”
He started to turn around but Simon gently pushed him towards the only free table (not that free as Shizuo was occupying it). He shook his head.
“Too late. Food already being prepared. Sit,” and like an afterthought. “No throwing things and no fighting,” he added with a pointed look to Shizuo and then Izaya respectively. Izaya sat.
The meal was pleasantly stilled. They didn’t say anything at all. What would they say when the only thing they ever did was hurling mockeries and insults at each other? Izaya wasn’t complaining, the quiet was agreable in its calmness. They never managed that since their fateful meeting in high school.
They ate. They parted ways.
Life unfurled and so did changes. Little by little until it threw Izaya out of the loop without realizing it. Later, he would look back and think: what happened?
Fights were no longer fights, the broker discovered one day when he tried to dodge a vending machine that wasn’t coming. He mocked and insulted, laughing, laughing but there were no chases. They stood still, just staring. Fleeing, evading. Avoiding fights. Where was the fire burning everything since their teenage years?
Every now and then Izaya could feel Shizuo’s eyes boring holes in the back of his head each time they crossed paths at Russian Sushi. Yet, he blond never made any move to chase him out of the district, or the restaurant for that matter. The stillness, all of it. It didn’t sit well with Izaya. Both of them were made for rough confrontations, it was their fate.
Izaya was enough of a hacker to enter one's phone and know exactly when two persons were talking to each other. And so, one day, without gaining any useful information except to entertain himself, he listened in to Shizuo and Shinra’s conversation. Two of his oldest acquaintances.
Of course, in the meantime, he continued to type some reports for the Awakusu-kai. Information was information but time was money and he was in a crunch after all. Moreover, how much interesting stuff could they share with each other? Weirdly enough, their lives were fairly uneventful for such big names in Ikebukuro.
They talked and talked, mostly idle chit-chat–Shizuo always prefered Celty’s company to the doctor’s after all. Until:
“Don’t get me wrong, he still pisses me off especially when he keeps doing shit to make everyone’s life miserable. But I looked at him and I understand now. It’s just sad. He’s a miserable person. It wasn’t fun before but it’s even less now- I kinda pity him. Uh, I never thought I could say this kind of thing about this guy.”
And the conversation continued on to another topic altogether, the switch abrupt, about some kind of outing or party, whatever the info broker was not privy to.
Izaya heard it all from afar and willed himself to continue writing, writing, writing because time was money and he had so little time to work. He couldn’t afford to spend it on something so meaningless like Ikebukuro’s summer weather, their opinion on Izaya or some gathering they would all organize for whoever’s birthday it was (it was Vorona, Shizu-chan’s coworker). Time was money and he had to finish things. He still had a job to do. He didn’t care about all of this. It was okay.
“Shizu-chan”, he said, running away. “Shizu-chan”, he shouted from above the streets. “Shizu-chan”, he squeaked after dodging at the last second a vending machine. “Shizu-chan, Shizu-chan, Shizu-chan–”
But Shizu-chan wasn’t looking at him. It felt like a knife to the chest, a betrayal. Because they were immovable things: Shinra‘s obsession with Celty, Shizuo’s monstrosity, Izaya’s meddlings, the inevitable fights between those two when they met. And yet. And yet.
There were no fights, only cold indifference. Izaya frowned.
It was crumbling down all around him, he couldn't exactly pinpoint where it hurt.
There was something shattering inside him, it felt like shards of glass digging his chest, bleeding, bleeding.