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It was cold, cold enough to make Izaya’s skin ache like it had been stretched too far, like it didn’t fit over his bones anymore. He felt like a leaking faucet, drip, dripping away. It was a flawed metaphor, however, in that he would be faced with much worse than a high utilities bill if he couldn’t make it stop. There was a tugging sensation too, like all the blood was string and he an old doll, being emptied of his stuffing. And maybe that was appropriate. This body was a mere container, and one with a seemingly-unavoidable expiration date; it would only have lasted so long, would have begun to rot eventually.
He hadn’t thought it’d be so soon.
There was something terribly frustrating about all of this, beyond the obvious fact that he was almost certainly dying. He thought it had something to do with the fact that his death would be almost hilariously mundane. He didn’t know where he was, but it looked like an empty warehouse: dirty floor, metal walls, gaping, open, silent save for the echoes of his ragged breathing. His breath billowed out in front of him like a cloud of smoke. Maybe that was emptying out of him too.
Everything hurt in such a way that nothing did. It was too cold anyway, and he wasn’t moving around enough to exacerbate his injuries, wouldn’t be able to prod them into acting like they really mattered even if he wanted to. In any case, what was a bit of bruising with all this endless red, red, so much red, pooling around him as if wanted to finish the job itself and drown him.
He thought that might be ironic enough for him to not mind going out that way: suffocating in the very substance that kept one alive.
Realistically, he was focusing on the physical aspects of the situation because they were much easier to deal with than the torrent swirling around in his mind. The ache inside him was making him want to beat his head against the ground if only to get it over with. It was making his eyes burn, making his hands shake, his breathing stutter. This was it then? This was all he got? Dirty, dark, cold, unmemorable, fading away because there was nothing better to do.
No one would look for him. There were other information brokers who could take his place. People would just assume he’d moved on or been consumed by the city like so many others. He was always the one watching, the one paying attention, he was always the one who’d cared, not the other way around. Distance kept him buoyed above, kept him separate in a way that granted him a freedom he’d so desperately clung to, but what did that amount to now?
How long would it take them to forget? How quickly would his name lose its meaning? Judging by what he knew about humans it would be hardly any time at all. Their attention spans were some of the measliest things he’d ever happened upon. And that’d been all well and good when he was observing them, watching them move on from one job to the next, never satisfied, looking for their so called “place,” their whole life spent—wasted, thrown away more like—in pursuit of a meaningless construct. It was more fun when they moved on from another person, particularly a lover, under the illusion that there was someone destined for them out there and that they would find them if only they kept looking, as if they mattered at all, as if things were really predestined, as if they warranted particular attention from the universe. Ridiculous.
Most people settled, deluded themselves into thinking that it was necessary or maybe that they’d actually succeeded at a game they’d made up in their heads. Only he had seen past it, known that the only useful love was a general love. It was the only way not to become shortsighted, not to be gated in, limited by the weight of someone else’s existence upon one’s shoulders.
And maybe that was where he’d stumbled too. He was dying now anyway, coughing up crimson. There was no point in denying it any longer.
For all his grand plans, for all his objectivity, there was always one chain attached to his foot that he couldn’t quite seem to shake, and that had been his downfall.
Well, it wasn’t that simple, but that summed it up nicely enough, he thought.
His vision was darkening around the edges like a curtain twitching as an eager stagehand got ready to pull it closed. Show’s over, it’s closing night. The throb in his chest was worsening, like there was a split down the middle and someone was digging their hands in and prying it open to see what they could find. He glanced around the empty warehouse and wondered how he’d ever thought it would be different than this. What had he expected, a crowd of mourners?
No.
Truthfully, he’d never thought about it in such gritty, boring detail. Even in a story, this wouldn’t pass for anything special. This wasn’t the death of an important general, wasn’t the death of even a strategist who remained shrouded in shadow for the most part but who was no less essential to the plot for it. This was the death of a foot soldier who’d been left behind, canon-fodder at best, collateral damage, nameless, worthless, necessary only for the sake of making the tale more realistic.
Laughing hurt, but everything hurt, so he did it anyway.
Darkness was pushing in on him, filling him up where the red was pouring out, taking up its space in turn. It felt heavy, but also possessed a suffocating lack of any substance. That eternal nothingness that made him shudder was there at last, unchanged for all his efforts. Ultimately, there was only this, it seemed.
An inconceivable absence.
Dark.
Cold.
Empty.
Lonely.
Terrifying.
Disappointing.
Even thinking it all through was growing exhausting. He felt like he might sink down through the floor at any second, as if he was already falling. The pull was getting more distant. He couldn’t feel his legs, hadn’t been able to for some time. His eyes wouldn’t stop burning. Everything else was frozen over, but they remained ablaze, and he was powerless to stop it.
He was powerless, in the end.
Isn’t this when my life flashes before my eyes? he thought vaguely to himself. Since all the other boring realities of death were turning out to be true, it seemed odd that that one was nowhere to be found.
He heard heavy footsteps approaching then. Ah, here we go. His mind was slipping away due to blood loss, dying in the same way his body was. He couldn’t focus his eyes any longer, which was just as well. He didn’t have the energy to offer any final delusions that might stumble through. They’d have to go on their way without any final comment or display from him, and it looked like such an issue had been anticipated already as the form approached of its own volition, unperturbed by his prone state.
Black, and white, and gold, and achingly familiar.
“Izaya.”
It knows my name, he thought. The figure before him seemed impossibly tall and bent sideways, but that was probably only because he couldn’t hold his head up any longer. How cute.
“Izaya.”
He didn’t understand the purpose of its frantic tone when everything else was slowing down. Couldn’t it see he was tired? There was something else there too that sounded suspiciously like worry and it occurred to him that his mind was pitying him of all things, projecting forth some specter to hold his hand, keep him company while he passed. He thought if he could feel anything his stomach would roll. He willed the thing to leave him, to have decency not to offer him its needless comfort, but it stayed where it was.
His sigh came out more like a heavy cough. The least the thing could do was tone it down with the brightness. His eyes hurt enough as it was.
“Hey!” the figured demanded, kneeling down. “You can’t die yet. I’m not finished with you.”
Izaya wished he could spit in its face. Like he had a choice anymore. Like he’d ever had a choice.
That was when he realized just how cruel his mind had chosen to be, who it’d decided to will before him by way of some kind of fever dream. Well, I never did like to make it easy, did I?
Shizuo seemed to decide that he was paying enough attention. He looked the same as Izaya had seen him last, clothes torn, skin dirtied, cut deep enough to bleed only in a way that didn’t mean anything. He wasn’t being emptied out like Izaya was; he wasn’t fading away. If anything, he was more distinct than ever, like Izaya had focused his eyes in a way that made everything else blurry save for the man in front of him. His enemy. The man who’d done this to him.
Realization flashed through Izaya momentarily like someone had stuck electrodes to his temples and connected them to a live current. Maybe this wasn’t a dream. Maybe he’d actually come to finish him off after all.
Izaya thought he wouldn’t mind. Better it be him. It would be appropriate. He tried to move the muscles of his face in a way that he knew would form a smile, but he didn’t know if it worked out.
In a way, he hated that he was giving in to this so easily. Hated that he’d rather be broken and bloodied at this man’s feet than alone. Hated that something deep inside him ached helplessly, scrambling to the forefront to get one last long look at him. Hated how it dared to hope—
No.
No.
He’d much rather die alone, forgotten, meaningless, nameless, wallowing in the results of a failed attempt of a life lived in pursuit of nothing than give in to that line of thought. He’d go down kicking and screaming before he let himself indulge in such a weak-willed fantasy. He hoped Shizuo would end it quickly, get it over with. He’d lasted this long enough, this fruitless desperation, this revolting urge he’d hid behind sharp words and easy things like hate. He’d rather kill this man with his bare hands than let him take what was left of Izaya’s pride. That sentiment remained unchanged within him.
“Is this what you wanted?” Shizuo was speaking again. His voice rang in Izaya’s ears, made his head hurt. Shizuo glanced around, surveying the area, slowly swinging back around to Izaya’s unnaturally still form. “It is, right?”
He couldn’t make his lips move, didn’t have the breath left to force it through his vocal chords, could hardly think coherently, but he forced an insistent Of course through the haze anyway.
Shizuo seemed to understand even without vocalization, scowling at him. “You’re such a fucking liar.” He set his hand down hard, gripping Izaya’s ankle. Izaya didn’t feel anything, couldn’t shake him off even if he’d wanted to. He swallowed compulsively, tasting iron and bile. His mouth was so dry. He didn’t like what he thought he saw forming in Shizuo’s eyes.
Better a liar than a monster. It was weak, but there wasn’t anything else left. He clung to that truth, gripped onto it even though it felt like holding onto broken glass, growing ever slicker with his own blood.
Shizuo laughed, and it was hard and humorless. He shook his head and looked Izaya in the eye and there it was. Apparently he couldn’t even give Izaya the courtesy of not pitying him. He squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t see it. He couldn’t. Sympathy from the enemy was infinitely more excruciating than living and dying purposelessly could ever be. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want any of this.
Stop it, he demanded soundlessly. Don’t you dare look at me like that. That’s not how this works. You don’t get to change your mind now. You had your chance. You had so many chances. He didn’t know who he was talking to anymore. You won. Isn’t that enough?
Shizuo didn’t respond, only settled down further next to Izaya, stretching his legs out so they were parallel to his in the opposite direction, and that seemed about right. He moved his hand off of Izaya’s ankle and Izaya wished so badly that he could recoil, retract his limbs, could fight him off, could even act like he wanted him to stop—and he did; he did—but he couldn’t. Shizuo took his hand, flipped it over so it was palm up, and he’d always thought Shizuo’s skin would be warmer than that, fire-hot, burning like the sun, but it wasn’t, or at least not that Izaya could tell. It was just skin, that belonged to just a man who’d been everything and nothing to Izaya, ceaselessly present and hardly ever around, unshakeable throughout the years, impenetrable, unbendable, illogical, even now. Even until the very end. There was something to be said for the consistency of it.
Izaya felt like who ever had been digging through his chest was starting to get impatient, clawing indiscriminately, not finding whatever they were looking for and taking it out on him. Shizuo’s brow was wrinkled, his expression grim, but his eyes were softer than Izaya had ever had the awful privilege of witnessing. Fucking stop, he hissed. Don’t touch me. Don’t look at me like that. Don’t look at me like I matter to you. You call me a liar like you’re any better.
Shizuo sighed, picking at his fingers still, warming them slowly, making them tingle like he’d fallen asleep on his arm and cut off the blood flow unintentionally. “At least I’m not lying to myself. I never got that. It always pissed me off that you went around ruining shit for everyone else, but you didn’t even leave yourself out. What the fuck’s the point of that?”
You don’t know what you’re talking about, Izaya insisted. He wrenched his eyes away so he wouldn’t have to see the way Shizuo’s hand was covering his own, big and rough and encompassing. I’m impressed actually. I never thought you had it in you to be this cruel.
“You’re dying, Izaya,” Shizuo told him, and he had no idea why. “For a long time I don’t think I thought you could. You never seemed real to me, and I hated it. Guess when everything’s said and done you fooled me too. Probably wasn’t that hard.”
Izaya was looking at their hands again, but he didn’t remember moving his eyes. He’d fooled himself, too, in some ways. There was a price that came from being such a good actor. I’d never do this to you. This isn’t how this is supposed to go. I’d never come back, try to pick up the broken pieces, act like it wasn’t my fault they got that way in the first place.
Because something was breaking. It was shattering with every word Shizuo spoke, every second he stayed, every brush of his thumb so horribly gentle against his palm. Breaking, breaking down inside of him, and he wanted so badly for it to be over. Why wasn’t it over? This had become a fucking nightmare that wouldn’t end, and wouldn’t, he knew, until one of them broke down really and truly. Those had always been the rules. Izaya couldn’t understand why Shizuo was breaking them now, why he was breaking him like this.
“Yeah, well,” Shizuo replied, shrugging his shoulders. “Guess that’s why we never really got along.” His eyes wouldn’t change and Izaya had had enough of it.
Stop it! he shrieked, and even his mind the words echoed back to him, thin and desperate and defensive. Don’t touch me! Don’t look at me like that! Hate me. Hate me!
But Shizuo’s eyes stayed soft and so incredibly sad, confused, hurt. He looked so young and Izaya remembered back to the first day they’d met, back when they were young and stupid, and it was all fun and games, and he hadn’t understood what he was starting or how dearly he’d pay for that day on the field all these years later. Izaya felt an eternity old, like he’d been lying on this dirty floor forever, bloodless, breathless, hopeless, and Shizuo was the same boy with golden hair and eyes, lighting the world around him on fire, brimming with the promise of danger and rebellion, inviting, addictive. It wasn’t fair.
His cheeks were as wet as the gash in his side, and it hurt, it hurt so much the way he felt himself giving in, collapsing in like a dying star. He knew he couldn’t move, but he felt himself curling his fingers around Shizuo’s anyway and he felt the way Shizuo squeezed back too tight, an anchor he’d never wanted and could never get rid of.
“How’d we get like this, huh?” he muttered. “Kinda feel like you might have had something to do with it. But I probably did too.”
I never wanted this, Izaya thought, since they were stating the obvious. I never wanted it like this.
“Guess we’ll have to try better next time.”
Izaya had always hated Shizuo’s optimistic streak. I hate you. I hate how you made me like this.
The darkness was back with a vengeance. It looked like his time was finally up. Shizuo was going blurry around the edges. Izaya hated how he struggled to hang on, like Shizuo could hold him there forever by pure force of will. But the damage was already done, and Shizuo seemed, somehow, for once, to understand. He clamped down hard around Izaya’s hand and didn’t let go. He never did let go. Izaya remembered that.
“Izaya,” Shizuo was saying. Izaya could see odd flashes of light in the distance, heard a noise like the world was coming crumbling down. “Izaya.”
The fear was chilling, immobilizing. He was sinking into it, losing track of everything, being unmade. His mind caught onto what he’d earlier thought would be their last words to each other and a horrendous shudder shook his very being. Don’t go. Don’t leave me. Not like this. That’s not how this works. I never wanted it like this.
“I’m not,” Shizuo insisted, but it was all slipping away. “I’m still here.”
But he wasn’t. And neither, really, was Izaya.
It happened all at once, like plunging into ice water, no struggle, no chance at a final breath. It was profound, and it was simple.
But it wasn’t over.
*
Izaya awoke attached to more cords than he’d ever seen in his entire life. Everything hurt, especially his head. People were talking, rushing around in scrubs. Antiseptic stung his nose and his eyes. He still couldn’t feel his legs.
The crushing weight of life settled back upon him as he worked to gasp in air through his worthless lungs that didn’t seem to want to expand properly. He ached; he ached so much.
The dark was replaced by blinding fluorescent, the dirt by pervasive sterility, the loneliness by the overwhelming presence of too many people in a room at once, and the unshakeable cold, for the most part, by the easy warmth of a building still populated by so many lives. None of it mattered much to him; he hardly even noticed.
Doctors hurried about, doing the grunt work of dragging him back into the world of the living, urging his heart back into motion, restarting his brain, and the Earth, it seemed, spun on, but Izaya, for the time being, could only focus on the biting cold in his fingers, the blatant absence of another hand in his.
He clenched his fingers into his palm, dug his nails into his skin until a nurse noticed and forced him to stop. His eyes slipped closed once more and he didn’t fight it. There was nothing there for him to see.
You liar.
How unfair.