The Happiest of Man

Chapter 37

Shizuo waited anxiously in the waiting room, itching to smoke as he tried to control his urges. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he left the premises to greet the cold air with his tobacco breath.

He remembered feeling the uneven beating of his heart as he ran around the unfamiliar streets of Shinjuku. The lights were blinding to the point where he couldn’t see the people around him; his surroundings somehow irrelevant until he decided to stop and ask for directions. He forgot to thank the passerby under his frantic mess of insecurities: god forbid having someone die in his arms and have him believe that he didn’t try hard enough; may as well end up blaming Izaya for choking, then blame himself for not saving him in the end.

It was cold outside and he could feel his nose run, his fingers become numb as well as his toes, but the cigarettes kept him calm and warmed up his lungs with its carcinogenic contents that people were so addicted to. 

This was another way to feel alive despite dying a little inside.

Returning to the waiting room, he knew he looked like a mess. His nose red and eyes tired from the running as he settled himself back down on a chair that was just as cold as the winter air outside. 

This is all a dream, he once told himself because Izaya was the type of parasite that refused to die no matter how many objects he attempted to throw at him. Running around atop buildings and pulling parkour tricks against the walls of the alleyways, Izaya always managed to escape as Shizuo was left pissed off, smoking his anger away as the cigarette dissipated and became his dangerous thoughts that blended itself with the wind.

Once visiting hours took place, he didn’t enter Izaya’s hospital room right away. Instead, he walked around the building with his hands in his pockets, his sunglasses in his breast pocket as he smelled of the cigarettes that he previously smoked. He could already feel the patients, nurses, and doctors would walk by him cover their noses and although he felt inconsiderate and felt slightly bad for it, a part of him just didn’t want to care right now. Oddly enough, he felt dull yet his mind was filled with unnecessary ramblings that were no help to his current state.

After his walk, he stood in front of the door, read the sign that held Izaya’s name and wasn’t sure why he didn’t feel delighted that the man he hate (hated?) so much was on a hospital bed, trying to recover. But, the moment he walked inside, he knew why he couldn’t feel happy about it.

Izaya was pale: watching his chest rise and fall was unsettling; he had to look away briefly until he was comfortable again. It was like watching a dead man slowly crumble – is that what Izaya was because of his disease? Shizuo, initially didn’t plan on staying, decided to grab the nearest seat and sat beside Izaya. He remembered in high school – he really hated that face. The way those lips smiled so easily, those eyes looking down on everyone he saw, the words that mouth would spill, and those legs that continued to run from him. He hated everything about him, especially that face. Sometimes, he felt the need to vomit whenever he returned home because he spent too much time around “that flea”.