warning: character death :'c

13 Years Ago

Shizuo POV

We walk through the snow, follow our trail out to the traplines by the willows I lead, sleepy. Bitter air. Sharp in the lungs. Izaya walks in my tracks. The sun is coming.

I break through the crust with each step. Too cold last night. Izaya tries to be quiet, but his feet sound heavy.

Izaya and me, we are the same age. We have lived twelve winters.

The trees moan and crack. The sound is like dying.

"Do you think we have snared anything?" Izaya asks.

I stop, look back at him. "Stay quiet."

Tracks everywhere around us here. Footprints in the snow. Shallow prints. Scoops of shadow in the white.

Up ahead, the dark line of it hangs in the air. My heart beats faster.

"Have we caught something, Shizu-chan?"

A marten has sprung our willow trap. It dangles above the snow as if floating. Up close I see the rawhide noose around its neck. Its fur is thick. Tom will be proud.

Izaya pushes past me, reaches for the marten, grasps the long body in his mittens. He turns to me and smiles. The marten begins to twist and snarl. Izaya lets go, shocked. We didn't realize it was still alive.

We stand back and stare as the marten struggles in the air. The black eyes focus on me. It does not want to die.

"What do we do, Shizu-chan?"

"You have to club it."

Izaya finds a stick and approaches the animal. He looks back at me.

"Do it."

He hesitates, then swings the stick. The animal screams out. The sound scared me.

"Harder!"

Izaya swings again, and again the marten squeals. My stomach feels sick. I pick up a heavier piece of wood, step up and give it a sharp blow to its head, looking away.

The hide noose snaps and the marten drops to the ground. It doesn't move. I club its head once more.

Izaya stares at me.

"We had to do it," I say.

"We had to," he repeats. "Our first night out alone and we have already taken an animal. Tom will be impressed."

I nod and smile.

I untie the noose from the marten's neck, take out my knife and begin to skin it. I make sure to be careful, to not damage the fur, to keep the body intact. I want Tom to see that I do not waste.

Izaya watches. His eyes miss nothing. He takes off one mitten and bends down to touch the marten's naked body. "We're great hunters, aren't we, Shizu-chan?"

"Yes, Izaya," I nodded.

"We are great hunters and best friends, ne?" he says again with a smile on his face.

"Yeah," I said smiling back at him.

Present

Shizuo POV

Immediately the world is a dull buzz again.

I crawl toward Izaya. Once I'm beside him, I lie back and stare at the sky. Izaya lies on his stomach still, peers through his scope. Without looking up, he reaches inside his coat. I tense. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes and hands me two, still staring through the scope. The numbness has left my arm now. It feels on fire.

Light them and give me one, he says. You always were the better shot.

I look over to him to make sure he said what I think I heard.

The metal case of my lighter clinks open, and just as it does the earth ahead of us lights up in a great flash. I hear the shrill whistle of the shell streak overhead and explode nearby. The world erupts around us once more. Izaya continues to stare through his scope.

"We have to get out of here," I shout. "This bombardment's too heavy."

Izaya finally takes his eye away from his scope, looks at me, a sad smile on his bloody face. He says something to me, something I can't make out in the noise.

We both can't ... he mouths, and then a shell lands close enough to blow and suck a hot wind across us.

"What?" I shout, my eyes fixed on his lips.

Leave, he mouths, still smiling, his teeth glinting.

Izaya sits up and reaches as if to hug me. When his hands touch me, a cold shock runs the length of my body. I push him back, my wounded arm heavy. Izaya stuggles up and reaches to wrap his arms around me again. He's no longer smiling. His mouth is twisted in an angry grimance.

No thinking any more. I fight against Izaya until I am on top of him. His face is calm, his mouth now set in a thin line. Izaya tries to reach with one hand into his own coat, his other hand pushing up against the weight of my chest. My hands wrap around Izaya's throat. I don't know what else to do. I straddle Izaya's waist and squeeze him with a strong hold. My hands are slippery with his blood.

Izaya's eyes go wide for a moment, then narrow to slits. He begins swinging at me with his arms, hitting my head, my nose, my sides, my wounded arm. I scream and squeeze harder. Izaya's tongue sticks out. His face turns dark.

"Iie," Izaya gasps. "Iie."

A whistling begins, faint and far away at first. Another shell lands close to our crater and flings me from Izaya. I am on my back, gasping for air, my mouth and eyes filled with dirt. I rub my eyes. When I can see again, Izaya is on knees beside me, looking down at me.

Why? his lips ask.

My head feels split open from the explosion. I can't move, can only stare up at him, his mouth.

"Are we not best friends, Shizu-chan?" he asks. "Are we not best friends and great hunters?"

He is my old friend again. I see the hurt child in him now. I nod.

"You were always the better hunter," he says.

He reaches for me.

"It has gone too far, hasn't it," he says. "I have gone too far, haven't I."

His words wake my body. Izaya's hands reach for my throat. He squeezes it hard, and the words from the letter come back to me then.

Do what you have to.

I can't breathe. He's killing me. But I don't want to fight back.

My good arm grasps at the ground beside me. My fingers grab a rifle. I swing the butt of it awkwardly at Izaya. the hard wood of it cracks the side of his head. He falls over.

What am I doing...

With all the strength left in me, I roll up and onto my knees, the rifle in both hands. It is my fine German Mauser. Izaya is on his back, dazed and staring at the sky, a slight smile on his face. I straddle him once more and place the rifile across his throat. I look into Izaya's red shining eyes. Water splashes on his cheeks. I think it's rain, but then I realize that it's my tears. I push down on the rifle. He struggles, legs kicking.

"Izaya," I whisper, eyes blurring from the tears. "Izaya."

Izaya doesn't struggle any more, just stares up at me.

"You've gone mad. There's no coming back from where you've travelled." I press down harder. Izaya's eyes shine with tears. He face grows pale. He tries to whisper words to me but I know that I can't allow Izaya to speak them. I don't want to hear them or I can't let him go. I have to finish this, once and for all. I have become the monster that you said I was, Izaya.

I lean all of my weight down across the rifle. Izaya begs with his eyes. I desperately want to stop what I've started but something else controls me now. My tears fall heavier on his face. His mouth opens and closes, gasping for air. Veins bugle from his forehead.

Just when I think that he is made of unbreakable, the rifle in my hand sinks down and I feel through the stock the collapse of his windpipes under the rifle's pressures. I look away, eyes closed, and bit my bottom lip, hard. He goes still. His eyes are open, still watching me. I lean down and kiss his dead, lifeless lips for a moment of silence, tears still running down my cheeks. I love you.. Orihara Izaya. I slowly pulled away from his cold lips.

This kiss was my final goodbye to Izaya, and the words that I wanted him to hear. If we were in a different life, in a different world, we could have been happy. I would have became friends with him, and fall in love with him all over again. I would have asked him to marry me.. and stay with me forever.

But this is the life we have.

How long.

Have I stayed here, straddling Izaya, staring down as my tears leave streaks in the dirt and blood of his dead face?

Finally, I sit back and grasp my knees, rock slowly as the shells scream in and explode all around me. Izaya lies still, arms stretched out from his body as if he welcomes the sky. Finally, I turn to him and lean over him once more.

I reach around his neck and grab hold of his medicine bundle. I tug at it and the hide rope gives. I pull it from the neck, his ID wrapped about it, I place them in the inside pocket of my coat.

I reach into his other pockets and take out his few possessions. His rings, a few bullets, his metal in its nice case, his flickblade and a picture of the two of us taken long ago in Ikebukuro. He smiles at the camera while I look away, nervous. Boys. Our new haircuts. Our arms awkwardly around each other. Like brothers, so close but so far from now. I stick that in my pocket too.

As I close his lids, the bombbardment picks up again, I begin to throw handfuls of dirt across him. I cannot give him a proper resting place in the trees. But his spirit is strong. It will find its way. When I've covered him as best as I could, I lay my rifle across him, the same rifle he has wanted for so long.

I stand up in the crater and feel, more than hear, the shells continuing to explode around me. I walk up the crater's side, head toward where I came from. I stumble across the churned field, my one arm dead beside me.

Nothing matters anymore, and just as I think this I feel a thud and I'm enveloped by a bright flash and I'm in the air as high as I've ever been, looking down at the ground far below, where I could swear that Izaya stares up, smiling once more, arms outstretched to me.

My vision went dark. All I could think about at the end was ...

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The end