Hallway, Raijin High School—in the past
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“Hey, are you ready to be up and walking around already…? Oh, why do I even ask?”
“…Oh, it’s you, Shinra. Where’s that cockroach? I’m gonna squash him like the bug he is, until he says he’s going to change schools,” growled Shizuo bitterly as he passed Shinra in the hallway.
Shinra shrugged and jokingly responded, “You got hit by a truck, and rather than worrying about your own health, your first priority is hitting others? But I guess you’ve grown as a person, since you’re not destroying the school campus itself until Izaya shows up.”
He sighed, then glanced at Shizuo’s hair. “To be honest, I was stunned when I saw you with blond hair after all that time. I thought you’d finally turned into a bad boy.”
“…Oh, shut up. I didn’t dye it blond because I wanted to.”
“Then why? You can get your way on anything with force alone. Why would you dye it blond if you didn’t want to?”
“It was an older guy in middle school who told me to do it… But whatever, that doesn’t matter. What class is that mosquito bastard in?” Shizuo demanded, his temple pulsing. He was seething with anger despite the fact that he’d just met the guy the day before.
“Are you intending to get kicked out of school? At least control yourself while in the building.” Shinra cackled.
Shizuo clicked his tongue but did as his schoolmate said, this time turning his anger upon Shinra himself. “And what the hell were you thinking, introducing me to that filthy little trash bug?”
“Oh, come on. He’s the only friend I made in middle school, so I wanted to introduce him to you, the only friend I made in elementary.”
“Let me give you a warning. Choose your friends carefully.”
“Really? You’re going to say that, Shizuo?” Shinra quipped to his old friend with a grin. “Look, at least take it easy at school. You don’t want to get expelled right at the start of the school year and cause your family a bunch of grief, do you?”
“…”
The mention of his family made Shizuo’s scowl even deeper. “Fine, fine,” he grumbled. “I guess I can wait until after school to kill him.”
“Can we at least remove ‘killing him’ from the options? What is it that has you so furious about him?”
“…I just hate guys like that, who talk around people in circles but don’t actually do anything on their own.”
“Ah, I see now.”
It was quite a bold statement for Shizuo to make about the personality of someone he’d barely met, but Shinra didn’t push back on it. He knew that Izaya was exactly the kind of person Shizuo described.
Instead of arguing, he smiled and said, “But if you’re going to go down that route, I’m also a person who’s all talk.”
“That’s true. You annoy me all the time, too,” Shizuo said with a mean glare.
Shinra backed away in a hurry. “H-hey, don’t look at me like that. Whoa, whoa—easy, easy. Let’s be cool.”
Shizuo’s brow stayed furrowed as he stared at his old friend. “The thing is, you might tell a lot of really stupid-ass jokes, but you don’t just lie for the hell of it. That, at least, makes you better than that fleabrain.”
“I think you’re confused. I’m not some pure, innocent soul, and I’ll lie if I need to.”
“…You’re dumb enough to talk about wanting to dissect people in broad daylight. Why would you even need to lie?” Shizuo said, intending it to sound like casual conversation. Shinra thought that one over.
“Hmm… Good question. I’m in love with a girl.”
“So?”
“If I needed to, I would lie in order to fulfill my love for her. I would be a villain.”
“Okay, fine. Hey, if you wanna be a villain for the sake of the woman you love, knock yourself out,” Shizuo shot back, annoyed at the sappy romantic talk.
But Shinra waved his hand in denial. “No, it wouldn’t be for her sake exactly. It would be for my sake.”
“What?”
“If I was going to lie out of malice, it would be to her.”
“What do you mean?” Shizuo’s brow furrowed even deeper. The other students were steering so clear of him, they wouldn’t even venture into the hallway.
“I mean, I really, really love her. In fact, it’s probably closer to a desire to own her than to love her. So if she was drifting away from me for some reason…I would do whatever it takes to keep her at my side, even if it meant being a villain. I might even kill a person.”
Even Shizuo had to take this admission in silence. Eventually, he said, “Nah…that’s no good. If you killed someone, she wouldn’t want anything to do with you anymore.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Which is why I’d keep it a secret from her. Or maybe I’d lie and say, ‘It’s your fault I became a murderer!’ and make her feel really guilty about it. Then maybe she’ll stay with me forever.”
“You’re kind of a piece of shit, huh?” Shizuo let out a huge sigh and looked at Shinra with pity in his eyes. “I think the reason you don’t have many friends is because you say whatever’s on your mind like that.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever hear that from you…but I won’t deny it.”
“What kind of love is it that makes life worse for the other person? If that’s love, it’s a pretty twisted strain of it.”
“Look, I’m not saying I wouldn’t rather have it a different way, right? I’d prefer to lead a normal romantic life and be able to say stuff like ‘As long as I can pledge my life to you, I don’t need anything else!’ That would be best of all,” Shinra said, nodding to himself, as proper as you please.
Shizuo gave him a disgusted look. “I feel really sorry for whatever woman you fall in love with. Just don’t be surprised if she stabs you when she finds out what you’re like.”
“I don’t know… She’s really sweet, so maybe at the end of it all, she’ll actually forgive me.”
“At least you’ve got a field of flowers in that skull of yours…,” Shizuo said, shaking his head. He was tired of the topic. “But whatever. If it comes to that, I’ll smash you up into the sky so your woman won’t have to.”
He meant it as a way to tell off Shinra, but the other boy just smiled. Whether he was serious or joking, Shinra said, “I’d appreciate it if you did. And I’d appreciate it even more if you do it softly enough that I don’t die.”