Silence. Absolute maddening silence. It was the only thing that greeted me on the other side, or at least, that's where I'd hoped I was. Who knows what lengths an infatuated scientist would go to, if only to eliminate his only hindrance. I wish I had cared, but I was past that. I could only feel indifference in relation to my current situation. Everything that was thrown at me, every bullshit card I was dealt was hurled at me for a reason. Simply put, this was karma. Izaya Orihara was finally getting what he deserved. 

I couldn't move, arms and legs feeling like heavy weights that dragged me down, but yet at the same time felt as if they were floating. Was this the afterlife? Or was this just my subconscious making a mockery of my atheistic beliefs? Nonetheless, wherever I was, I was content. If this was hell, so be it. Let me suffer in this gruesome silence, let my thoughts consume me, torturing me for all eternity. It was where I belonged.

Somewhere deep inside of me, I'd always known this was how I was going to end up. Dead at 24, floating in a conscious space of nothingness. It's all there was after all, there was no God, no golden gates, and especially no angels. Just a void, a place where wayward souls such as myself were left to contemplate our mistakes, wishing for a second death of the mind, so that the last semblance of our existence was peaceful. Too bad karma was a bitch and the idea of peace was a social construct. None of us would ever learn, humans were just too fickle.

"You're so dumb Izaya," he said, sitting next to me cross-legged. His small frame was surprising to see again, his features not at all twisted in agony anymore, but instead mocking me, as if I was the true child. His raven hair fell over his eyes, the crimson color almost gone behind the obsidian veil. He was ten years old, but the air around him was twice that, his intelligence almost a handicap on his function. He was too aware of the world, too aware of the evil and malicious nature of the humans he loved so much. Why did it have to be this way?

"Hey," he flicked my forehead, pulling me out of my thoughts. Glancing at him, he flicked me again, making me frown in annoyance, "I'm talking to you stupid. Do you plan on laying here forever?" I tried to shrug despite my heavy limbs. I didn't plan on anything if I was telling the truth. I had a moment of weakness, and in following the path to the easy way out, I wound up here. Turns out, asking an underground doctor for drugs just ends up being a pain in the ass, pun intended. 

"That's not an answer idiot. You really think everyone hates you so much, huh? You think you've got it so hard, but have you ever wondered how hard you're making it for everyone else?" His words stung me, completely shocking me that this was coming from the mind of an early adolescent. What would I care what how my actions affected those around me? Who had ever done the same for me? My own mother wouldn't dare waste time on the informalities, so how could I expect mere friends and acquaintances to do what she couldn't?

Knowing all too well what I thought deep inside, he furrowed his brows, giving me a pout only a child his age could pull off, "Do you believe he loves you Izaya?" I shook my head no, aware that nobody could love a creature so revolting, "Do you believe he hates you?" Another shake. After the kindness he had shown me over the last few days, hate would've been the opposite adjective to describe his actions.

Laughing at the indecisiveness that plagued my brain, he grabbed my hand, helping me to my feet finally, "Then you really need to figure out what you do think before you go back to him. Humans can only take so much until they break, I'm sure you know that better than I do," Balancing myself finally, I looked down at him, trying to take in his patronizing words. I didn't need to figure out a thing. I was a toxic substance, a poison for Shizuo's brain. I couldn't bear to wear him away with my dangerous being. He wasn't safe loving me, it could never work.

"You're wrong," He said, knowing my thoughts had found their way back to this familiar topic, "You think that you're bad for him? You really are a dummy. You already know you're trying to convince yourself of that just as much as you're trying to convince him, so why do you keep trying?" His words wounded me, nailing me to my proverbial cross, "We both know the real reason you decide to push everyone away is because mommy didn't love us and neither did the first boy we fell in love with, so now all we do is lay in our bed and sulk while the sun sets and rises over and over again, mocking our pathetic lifestyle-"

I grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him mercilessly, "Shut up!" I screamed, unable to face the truth. I couldn't stand it, he knew every intimate detail about me, mocking me until I just couldn't take it anymore. 

He pushed me off of him, sending my body backwards towards the ground despite his small stature. Sitting on my chest, he had a kitchen knife to my throat, ready to impale me at any second. I couldn't move, fear overriding my brain and sending panicked signals to my limbs. It was over. I was going to lose my life a second time, and to my younger self of all people. Closing my eyes, I'd just hoped it would be quick and painless.

One minute turned to two, and then two to three and so on. My eyes stay closed, my body bracing for the feeling of cold metal piercing my skin, but that feeling never came. Finally opening my eyes, I was shocked to find myself not only standing upright, but poised with a knife to my own throat. With a shrewed laugh, I finally understood.

Where had all this back and forth nonsense gotten me? By running away from the truth and denying the inevitable I was only digging myself deeper into this hole. I was theoretically holding the knife to my throat at all times, self sabotaging all progress I'd tried to make. Was that to say I really did harbor feelings for Shizuo? I wouldn't know, but after all the kindness he'd shown me, it was a good fucking place to start. This entire time, the young boy who I'd been previously had been the catalyst to this entire breakdown. I was so afraid of becoming that dejected unloved child, that I'd ended pushing my humanity away in favor of living as a hollow shell. The desire to take my own life had only stemmed from the part of me that pushed away responsibility at all costs. How naive I had been. 

The floor dropping out from underneath me, I found myself spiraling downwards, until voices swam around me, almost too far out of reach to comprehend. I couldn't open my eyes, eyelids feeling like bricks of cement weighing me down. Zoning in on the chatter that buzzed around me, I could pick out two familiar voices; Shinra and Shizuo. 

"I know this might come as a shock to you Shizuo, but even though he may seem cold-blooded, he is more human, and his heart more brittle than anybody else, so much so that if you filled it with human love or betrayal, it would break easily," Shinra stopped, taking a pained breath in, "Which is why, I think, he chose from the start to avoid it all, to love humanity, you understand? Not to accept, not to face it, to avoid it. That's just who he is. He always runs away from things he can't accept," 

Shinra's examination of my personality and my reasoning was spot on as usual. He'd known me so well, as if I was a book he'd read a thousand times, yet he still treated me as if he was ignorant to my human feelings. Despite the pain he inflicted deep below my surface, I couldn't help but mentally crack a smile knowing that he knew these intimate details. Aware that he had kept those facts in some filing cabinet in his meticulous brain, I could've cried. That's all I had ever needed, just a shred of proof that he cared about me, even on a subatomic level, that was it. It was the closure that would help me begin to heal all of my Shinra sized wounds. 

"That makes no fucking sense," Shizuo murmured, "How could the way he acts and the way he thinks be so different? How the hell am I supposed to understand him and help him when half of his personality will always be a lie?" 

"Think of it like this Shizuo," Shinra sighed, knowing just as well as I did that Shizuo's protozoic brain could only take so much, "He's hiding 75% of himself because he's afraid. I told you, his heart is more fragile than any of ours. If you had a heart of glass, wouldn't you hide it too?"

With this I couldn't help but chuckle. I could feel their gazes shoot over to me, despite my eyelids remaining shut. The air in the room shifted, leaving us all in an eerie silence.

"You sure do make me sound like a little weakling, ne?" I croaked, voice hoarse from whatever drug I'd been sedated with. I opened my eyes, adjusting to the light enough so that I could look at Shizuo, "He's right though. I'm sure he's told you all my dirty little secrets, considering the little rat he is, so now you know. The Izaya Orihara that you once thought you knew never even existed. In truth, I've always been the hollow shell of a little boy whose parent's couldn't love him," It was hard to choke back my tears in my weakened state, but somehow through sheer willpower I was able to put on a mask to finish making my point. 

Instead of lecturing me like I was sure he would, tears fell down his face, breaking his body down in sobs. To say I was taken aback would've been an understatement, but I was amused nonetheless. He would never cease to exceed all of my expectations. 

Pulling me into a suffocating hug, I smiled against him, not at all minding the intoxicating smell of tobacco that dripped from his very being, "I fucking hate you sometimes Flea," he sobbed into my shoulder.

I chuckled, "Sometimes? Now we can't have that can we?"

He grabbed my face with both of his hands, pulling me even closer to him, if that was even possible at this point, "Shut up," He muttered, crashing our lips together, making my body tingle with excitement. It was quite possibly the neediest kiss he'd ever brought to my lips, as I wrapped my arms around him and begged for more. We were definitely both certified train-wrecks at this point, but I couldn't seem to want it any other way. Maybe, just maybe he was the push I needed to finally let go of the wounds that haunted my past. Maybe this heart of glass was ready to love once more, for old times sake.