Day 57: Patient Library (Fourth Shift)

[razing_phoenix]

That movie had been far more depressing than Guy had been ready for. It might not have been as bad if it hadn't all been based on real events, but knowing that people had tried so hard to escape only for so many to die was rather sobering

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[predictator]

It was with reluctance that Izaya left the game room, but it wouldn't do to spend all his time in one place since it was a free day, even with Mikado's rather distracting arrival. He would keep an eye on the boy from here on out, of course, but there were still others to play with, to observe.

He'd just been cutting through the Sun Room towards the library when a nurse approached him, handing him an envelope bearing heavy strike-outs across the front where a name and address had been removed. The only thing that remained legible on the envelope itself was 'Joshua Takahashi'... even the postmark had been obscured.

The nurse had moved on without so much as a word of explanation, and Izaya continued making his way to the library, where he found a chair in the corner to settle in. The letter addressed to him-more or less-piqued his curiosity; he could pick up a book after he'd satisfied that curiosity.

'Hey, idiot,' the first line read, and with each line that followed, Izaya grew more confused. Who was this from? It was signed 'Ivan', but he didn't know an Ivan. Was there more to 'Joshua' than he'd actually suspected? There were a few other names in the letter, but none of them were ringing any bells, either. A code, maybe? Or... Well, who would have written him a letter like this, anyway?

There was a line at the end, obviously added after the fact, mentioning a picture being included... but there was no such thing attached to the letter itself. Izaya looked in the envelope once more, and sure enough, a photograph was still inside. He pulled it out, to find a picture of himself laughing like he hadn't a care in the world, and beside him was...

........................................................

Was that Shizu-chan!?

Izaya's eyes shot back to the top of the letter. If Shizuo was this 'Ivan' and the letter was from him, that put everything in a different light, but... His stomach was starting to turn by the time he'd reached the end of the letter the second time. Who was this Elicia, and why did she want Shizuo to rescue him-and in the first place, why was Shizuo calling him a friend? In fact, the only thing in the entire letter that made any sense was Shizuo wanting to give him a punch in the face. That was normal for them. That was commonplace-though perhaps not as commonplace as Shizuo hurling a vending machine or traffic sign or the like at him.

He looked at the picture once more, setting aside his feelings of mixed disgust at the sight of himself and Shizuo... getting along. There was something dreadfully wrong about this, and it wasn't just the fact that he and the Shizuo in the picture both looked happy, with their arms slung across each others' shoulders like they really were the friends the letter had suggested. That was wrong, wrong, wrong, but that wasn't even what was so off-putting about it.

Shizuo was dumb enough that brainwashing could have gotten him to write the letter-or else someone else entirely had written it and included the picture to make it seem that Shizuo was the sender.... But there was no way this picture could have even existed. He would have remembered something like this having been taken. Was it a manipulation? A doctored image that only appeared genuine?

He frowned and peered at it more closely, looking for any sign of photographic forgery.

[Free. Also looking one part stunned and two parts unamused.]