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Izaya finds Shinra at school one day in summer with a red rose in hand.
“Oh, good morning, Orihara-kun!” Shinra chirps, voice and eyes as bright as the sun and as warm as the weather, “You look like shit, as always!”
The raven – lacking in sleep, ignoring the brunette’s comment, sharply glares back, “What are you doing?”
“Oh?” Shinra raises as eyebrow as he twirls the rose around, fingers twisting to just avoid the thorns, and the red staining the rose becomes a small blur in his hands, then stops, and Shinra brings it up to his nose, “I’m smelling a rose!” He exclaims, as if he wasn’t stating the obvious, “Celty gave it to me!”
Izaya snorts, then mumbles, “I wish I was that rose.”
(The object of your affections.)
“Did you say something, Orihara-kun?”
“I said you’re gross,” Izaya turns away, with the full intent to head to his first class and face red as the scarlet petals.
-.-.-
He’s holding two, one in each hand, the next day.
“O-ri-ha-ra-kun!” Shinra drags out the syllables of Izaya’s surname, rolling them out and around his tongue, and Izaya twitches, “You’re always so introverted and look like you’re in denial, I wonder why, huh?”
“Go away, Shinra.”
“Are you always like this? What about at home, around your sisters, or,” The bespectacled boy pauses like he’s about to make a big point, “If it’s only around me.”
There’s nothing but a tense silence between the two for a few seconds.
Izaya snaps his book shut, then rears his head to shoot Shinra the most beaming smile he could muster, with the dark look in his eyes of ‘it’s none of your business.’
“Well, wouldn’t you like to know?” Izaya says, more of a statement than a question, and Shinra only brushes him off, “Of course.”
“Hah..” Izaya stands up and dusts himself off, “I’m going. Lunch is almost over.”
“Hey.”
Izaya begrudgingly turns around, and finds himself with a red, red rose pushed into his palms, the hard thorns still intact and digging into the pale skin, “Take it,” Shinra grins, “I’ve got one more than enough.”
It’s when Izaya finally gets home that he realizes the rose is fake.
-.-.-
“Dota-chin,” Izaya finally finds Kyohei in the school library, engrossed in a history textbook, “Here you are~”
Kyohei sighs and regards Izaya neutrally – like he always has, “What do you want, Izaya?”
“Is it really all too hard to assume that I just want company?”
“You never come to me for company.”
“But Shiki-san’s in a meeting so he can’t text me, Shizu-chan’s trying to keep a lid on his anger and it isn’t fun poking at him anymore and..” He trails off slightly but regains ground before Kyohei can notice, “Shinra’s staying home because he fell down the stairs.”
The other looks genuinely surprised at the last statement, “Kishitani did? I didn’t know.”
“Ah? Didn’t you know? I guess he did only tell me. Well,” Izaya laughs breathily, “Now you do.”
(Kyohei knows all too well that Izaya is a liar.)
-.-.-
“Tape,” Shinra wheezes, “The duct tape..”
He’s lying on the cold, hard biology room floor, bleeding from a stab wound to the gut from Nakura, and Izaya has never felt more human before than now.
-.-.-
“Shinra!” Izaya grins, too much teeth and not enough gratitude, like a chesire cat, as he pulls on his fur-trim coat with practiced ease – one wouldn’t even be able to tell that he had a fractured rib, “Thanks for patching me up, I’ll send the payment to your account later.”
“Honestly, though, Orihara-kun, you shouldn’t be that rough with Shizuo, you might get yourself killed someday, mark my words.”
“Well, it’s nice to know that you still care about me,” Izaya states dramatically, and Shinra rolls his eyes amusedly, “You were so nosey with me back in high school as well, and now you still try to understand me. How many years has it been already?”
(Many.)
“Actually, I think you’ve been misinterpreting me, Orihara-kun,” The brunette laughs, as he tidies up the antiseptic and bandages, “How could anyone ever comprehend someone like you? I’m probably the closest one, though, y’know.”
“Yes, yes, you are. I’ll be going now, I wouldn’t want to interrupt your alone time with Celty, hm?”
Later that night, Shinra realises that Izaya’s words are more bitter than bantering.
-.-.-
Namie surprisingly visits him in the hospital after he’s stabbed by Yodogiri.
“You look like a kicked puppy,” She states, setting her handbag down and placing her hands on her hips, eyes still as cold as ever when she looks at her employer.
“Aw, Namie,” Izaya drawls, “Don’t be like that. Since when have I looked like a ‘kicked puppy’?”
“Right now.”
“Really?”
Namie blinks. Normally, Izaya would be quick to deny straight away, but seeing him ask for confirmation, well, that’s a rare occurrence for only one occasion.
“Did Kishitani-sensei say something to you?”
No, no, she does not care, why is she asking?
“What? Shinra?” Izaya has got that look of eternal denial once again, “No, no, he hasn’t done anything.”
Namie raises a stray eyebrow, but lets the subject drop, for her own comfort, as well as Izaya’s. She’s not confidant that she can drill out the answers, effectively, anyways, and through experience, Izaya has never been known to answer anything regarding to his doctor friend.
(There’s a reason why.)
Namie shrugs, picks up her bag and leaves.
-.-.-
Orihara Izaya is afraid of affection.
Or, more precisely, he’s afraid of fracturing the all-too-delicate little balance of the love and hate with no in-between. There are certain exceptions, of course, such as Shizuo, whom he’s allowed to tip more to the latter side.
(Because he’s simply not human.)
Shinra is a classic example. For a man like him, already with an eternal love and obsession, there’s no way of telling if his eccentric personality is showing that he’s displaying love or hate, two powerful emotions, towards you.
If you were to try and find out – a gamble at its finest, and the results are lose-lose either way – you’ll either sever the bond with him, or earn his love which you don’t know what to do with.
But for some unfathomable reason, his love towards Shinra is still more powerful that his love for the others (Shizuo is a different kind of love altogether – love for power, adrenaline, thrill), and through Izaya’s blatant and persistent denial towards a blatant, persistent emotion, he decides, all the way back in high school, that he’ll love everyone the same, the same.
It still wasn’t the same as loving only Shinra, even now.
(There are things that time just won’t erase.)
Izaya doesn’t know how to show love, receive love, nor put love to the side and just leave it alone, after all, it’s such an interesting and one of the main human points – an abstraction, a concept, perhaps even a belief, he just can’t leave it alone.
Which is why, the obsession he shows towards living beings, he doesn’t call it an ‘interest’, or a ‘liking’. He calls ‘love’.
And so, in the end, if you boil it all down to the bare facts, Orihara Izaya is afraid of love.
-.-.-
Against whom, rose,
Have you assumed these thorns?
Is it your too fragile joy that has forced you,
To become this armed thing?
And from who does it protect you from,
This exaggerated defence?
How many enemies have I lifted from you,
That I do not fear at all?
On the contrary, Summer to Autumn,
You wound the affection that is given to you.
-.-.-
“Someday, you’ll learn to trust me,” He smirks, fur-trim coat fluttering as stands on the edge of the rooftop, not addressing his words to anyone in particular, but instead, to the cityscape around him. He’s fiddling with the fake rose in his hand, from years past, and the pain that blossoms from the thorns is all too welcomed.
“Trust you? Are you so deep down in denial that you’ll even substitute your words to a different meaning entirely?” Shinra opens the door with a sudden creak behind him and has a smile as warm as the sun and as clear as the summer weather once again, and Izaya turns his head slightly, a cold, dark smirk playing around the corners of his lips, no hint of surprise visible in his eyes.
The warm summer breeze blows against Izaya, pushing him slowly, but surely, towards the ledge of the rooftop and down to the cold, flat cement below.
He pays no mind to it as Shinra paces briskly towards him, Izaya’s smirk spreads like piling snow and eyes as red as roses – “Yeah.” – and he finally crashes their lips together.
Shinra’s kiss tastes like summer.