Still, I can’t deny that I was jealous of how firmly, confidently alien he was.
And now he was betraying that friend of his. A friend by the definition of the rest of the world, not Izaya’s own twisted standards.
He’ll be pissed off if he finds out I brought the head close to Celty.
He chuckled, imagining the sight of the one actual friend he had consumed by rage.
This was how he always lived. He laughed—
— and clenched his right hand into a fist, then rammed it into a telephone pole.
The sound was violent, but there was no one else in the alley to hear it.
Whatever expression he made, whatever reason he clenched his fist, whatever he was thinking—no one in the entire world could know.
“Oh, there he is! Iza! Izaaaaa!”
“Oh? What’s gotten into you two? It’s rare for you to call out first before you attack me.” When Izaya spun around at the sound of his sisters’ voices, he wore the same smile he always did.
“I think better of you after today, bro! You asked the Headless Rider to protect Kuru from harm?!”
“Oh, don’t be so naive. I was doing something I didn’t want the rider finding out about, so I utilized you to keep her out of my hair,” he said.
But to his surprise, the girls looked at each other, then broke into smiles.
“That still works for us! Thanks, Iza!”
“I swear, it’s so difficult to tell what you’re thinking.”
“That’s because you’re never honest about your emotions.”
They took sides, escorting Izaya down the road as he grimaced. On the right, Mairu looked up at her brother and commented, “Hey, Iza, you might treat us the way you would treat any other person, but we still think of you as family. So don’t forget that, okay?”
“What’s this? That’s a very sweet thing to say,” he said, glancing at his sister—she usually just attempted to jump kick him while screaming ‘die!!!’—but the girls wore the same innocent smiles they always did.
“So if Shizuo ever kills you, we’ll shed a few tears before we celebrate!”
“...I was a fool for expecting love from you.” He chuckled and strode ahead of them.
Mairu noticed his right hand. “Iza, is your hand swollen?”
He laid his left hand on Kururi’s worried head. “Yeah, I was getting chased around by Shizu. That’s when it happened.”
“Ohhhh. So you earned it.”
“You girls should stay away from that muscle-bound monster, too. You’ll end up dead.”
And thus they vanished into the night.